When Parents Reject Their Transgender Child

[Shana A]

Joanne Herman
When Parents Reject Their Transgender Child
Posted: 06/11/11 02:15 PM ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-herman/when-parents-reject-their_b_872191.html

In my last post, I highlighted an amazing dad who supports his transgender teen daughter. Sadly, parental support is not common. Few parents have heard about transgender issues, and some react so strongly to their child's gender nonconformity that they force their child to leave home.

I've wanted to know more about what life is like for these rejected children, and so I finally cracked open my copy of Cris Beam's Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers. It's an eye-opening peek at an experience quite different from my own.

[Vicky]

I actually have the book that is mentioned here, and while I have not gotten too far into it, it is a good but disturbing read. I have worked in the street area where the book takes place, and I have personally seen many of the activities mentioned in it take place and regrettably have become somewhat numb to them when I see them on the street.  A major challenge for anyone who has had gender varience in their own life, and who now has a place that is reasonably safe and secure is going to be helping educate people around us that children do not damage their parents by being Trans, but the parent with this fear can kill their child.  The child is NOT better off dead, since we can point to the good and honorable TG people in life around us. They are here, and they are us. Our real education to the world is that it is a better place because we are here!!