Normally, I'd spend a bit more time browsing and getting a feel of the lay of land before posting, but my participation here is not only about me, so I figured I'd jump right on in. I'll also apologize in advance for the use of gendered terminology as I lay out my story - it is not malicious, I am simply trying to parse this out in my own head and my motivation is to help my child through their journey. My main motivation right now is to help them get to a place where they can be happy, but I'm not 100% sure how I can do that, so any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated. From here on, I'm going to use a lot of female gendered wording, only because it makes it easier to parse our history to date - again, I am not doing so maliciously, I'm working my own way through this as much as my child is.
A little over 13 years ago, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, and I honestly never thought it was possible to love anything as much as I loved the baby I held in my arms that day. I've always done my best to raise her without any expectations with regard to gender roles, and in fact was quoted as saying that the first person who told her she couldn't or shouldn't do something because she was a girl would get a slap in the face (I meant it metaphorically, as I've never really been able to pull off the toxic masculine look...), but the point is that I always treated her as a human child, not as a stereotypical girl.
Being a bit of a geek myself, I exposed her to my interests fairly early on, with video games, comics and sci-fi/fantasy stuff being a major part of our relationship over the years. By the time she was 10, we were going to watch Marvel movies in the cinema, and one of happiest moments of my life was when we went to see The Force Awakens together, and she enjoyed it just as much as I did. By this point, I knew she was very much like me in the way she interacted with other people - very introverted and analytical. She had a few close friends, but was not really keen to be in large groups and struggled in some social situations - it was almost like looking into a mirror.
Anxiety issues then started coming up. And that's the reason I'm here. The anxiety issues started to morph into dysphoria issues. She first came out to me a couple months ago, telling me that she felt she was pansexual. I wasn't really sure of the best way to respond, but I basically said that it really doesn't matter to me. If she was happy, then I was happy for her. Her mother was on the same page as me, so we both kinda left it alone. We've already gotten a referral to see someone for her anxiety, so we weren't too worried about where she was going.
Then, about six weeks ago, she started asking about dysphoria. She said she didn't feel right when she looked in the mirror. She said she wasn't comfortable presenting as a girl. She asked us to use gender neutral terms for her at home. I want to be very clear here for a second - I personally have no problem with any of her requests, and my use of female pronouns is really down to a few little hang ups I have (it feels like I'm dehumanizing my child with I drop the gendered pronouns, so I'm reluctant to do so in most contexts - but I can and will work through that). But we've just moved up from social anxiety, to questioning sexuality, to dysphoria in the space of weeks.
I understand that when something is wrong, you just know that something is wrong. And we've started the process of getting her into a gender support group near where we live. I don't really know what I need, but I guess I'm just uncertain how to navigate this. Obviously (I say that, but I know for many people, it's not so obvious...), I want to support my child through this journey, and I want them to be happy with who they are. But honestly, I'm afraid of all the self-righteous douchenozzles out there who take it upon themselves to ruin my child's day/week/month/year/life because they can't accept someone that doesn't fit their ideas of what other people should be. The social anxiety is something we share, and although I've had a lot of practice training myself to deal with it, my child is setting up to walk a much more difficult path that I ever have.
This evening she asked me about public bathrooms. Honestly, I personally hate public bathrooms, and I'm a cisgender white man. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like for my child to walk into one of those.
I'm just really feeling lost right now, and while I was offering whatever support I could, I really didn't know how to answer those questions. To my knowledge, the laws here in Canada allow for one to use the bathroom that most closely matches one's gender identity, but I'm not even 100% sure about that.
Seriously, anything that anyone could offer me at this point would be helpful. I'm simultaneously trying to be supportive while trying to hide my fear of the inherent dangers of walking that non-conforming path.
Thanks.
