TransParent: Families, Gender, and Transition
Brynn Tannehill
On December 11, 2012
http://outservemag.com/2012/12/transparent-families-gender-and-transition/Sometimes though, I still get the feeling that most people look at trans folks and their children and think, "Wow, I didn't know those people had families." And while there may have been some truth to this in the past, today, this understanding couldn't be further from reality.
Through the 1980's, the medical community's standard recommendation was for transitioning people to just disappear. Leave their families, their children and move away to become a new person and never see them again. It was judged to be less traumatic for everyone this way. Sometimes treatment would even be withheld if the transitioner didn't comply. Transsexuals were expected to "go stealth," abandoning their past, whether they wanted to or not. It usually wouldn't have mattered if they tried to stay: very few spouses or partners would choose to stay in a relationship whose dynamics were being changed so dramatically without their consent.
When I was forced to confront my gender dysphoria in 2010, Jennifer Boylan was the only well known role model for intact families with a transgender parent. While studies about LGB parents seem to be more and more common (and contentious), I have never seen a study on how the children of intact families with a transgender parent fare.
