What If Your Parents "Knew Everything" When You Were Young?

[Julie Marie]

Go back to when you were very young, say 5-10 years old.  Old enough to remember your life back then but young enough that you were still very reliant upon your parents for survival.

What would you have expected them to do if they knew you had transsexual tendencies, that you wanted to live in the gender opposite what your birth certificate stated?

I think my dad would have rushed me off to a psychiatrist.  He would have picked out one who thought the same as he.  If his first pick didn't tell him I had a problem that needed to be corrected, he would have looked for another one.  And, if after the professionals couldn't 'cure' me he probably would have sent me away to a military school.

Oh, wait!  He did send me to a military school! 

My mom would have worried incessantly about what the neighbors would think.

Julie

[Sephirah]

My father would have probably left a couple of years earlier, and my mother would have had a nervous breakdown.

[Jeatyn]

My mum probably would have completely ignored it. She's good at that

[Northern Jane]

Well I don't have to consider "what if" only what they DID do.

Nobody ever heard about such things in the 1950s so my mom figured I had to be "mentally" unbalanced when I started getting pushy about at (around age 13). She found a shrink who suggested testosterone - I said I would rather take cyanide! (End of that discussion!). In my mom's eyes, doctors were gods!

My dad had it all pretty well figured out and was as supportive and kind as he could be. When I found doctors on my own who knew of such things, my mom called them quacks.

But not all parents let their kids down. I knew a couple of girls in a nearby city who's parents were actually SUPPORTIVE! I used to love to go there whenever I could because there we could be just regular, normal teens without getting berated, beaten, or put down.

[imaz]

My parents did know and rushed me off to a child psychiatrist before the age of eight! Found out years later that he thought my mum was crazy, not me. A very decent man back in those days.

The biggest hassle was my mum explaining to my teachers about me which made my life at school hell.

Doctors back in those days were real bastards and just treated one like a pervert. Nowadays things are much better but even as recently as 1993 I suffered extreme transphobia from an A&E doctor in a London Hospital. Tried to file a complaint but it got buried in their bureaucracy.

[Miniar]

I think my parents would have shrugged and gone "okay, you don't have to wear a skirt".

Always easy to be clever in hindsight..

[Alyssa M.]

Deep denial. Maybe divorced, since they nearly did anyway. Try to get me to go to a shrink (which they did eventualy anyway, and I told him to go to hell).

The more interesting question to me is: what if I had know that you could successfully transition, and if I'd grown up in a family where I felt safe to talk about deeply personal matters? (It's not that my parents were abusive, but that they were hardcore nerds, and unable to talk about anything personal.) What if I'd grown up in a world where being transsexual was not stigmatized?

I'm sure that I would have been on hormone blockers and avoided the hell of puberty. I almost certainly would have transitioned in my teens. I might even have had a happy childhood.

[Jay]

My mum probably would have completely ignored it. She's good at that

Same here.

I am pretty sure that I used to tell my parents that I wanted to be a boy when I was around that age anyhow.

Yeah they ignored it thought it was a phase!

[Nero]

well, i was just seen as a little girl with masculine interests who always liked to pretend she was a boy. that was okay with them, except that i was forced into a skirt every morning for school and dresses for church.

if i had declared i really was a boy, i probably would've been punished severely (i was severly punished for one word out of place, so yeah).
i definitely would've been shuttled to a shrink sooner than i was. as it was, i wasn't taken to shrinks until about 14.

[Sandy]

My parents were blue collar types with only minimal education.  Very old school types.

Any kind of mental illness was considered a huge humiliation.  I *was* told on more than one occasion that it was better for someone to die rather that have to go to a shrink.

My dad would probably get drunk and try to man me up.  My mom would cry a lot and try to keep it a secret and not let the neighbors find out.

Then the two of them would fight.

Every one around me thought I was gay.  As I found out much later, so did my parents, though they never said anything.  I was introverted and had few friends and didn't date until I was a junior and then only infrequently.  My brothers were rough and tumble types and I was the geek.

My dad did try to man me up by taking me to porno movies.  If he only knew that I wanted to be the women in those movies...

I didn't start my transition until they had both passed.  It just worked out that way.  But had they still been alive when I transitioned, they would have stopped speaking to me.

They weren't bad people, just ignorant, as so many were.  I certainly didn't have any answers.

-Sandy

[Genevieve Swann]

Julie Marie, I'm very happy to be here. You make me laugh. I've heard "cure", "fix". "Oh, well, we can cure that." Were you in military academy? Army brat, Navy brat? Your comments gave me new idea. I'll be back soon. Genevieve. Oh, nearly forgot, You're very beautiful. Hugs
Post Merge: February 27, 2009, 02:52:23 PM
I think maybe they did know but did'nt approach the issue. My mother does know and my famliy loves gossip so my crossdressing is probably a common conversation or taboo depending on who is present. Oh well we can "cure" that. You're fun. Hugs, Genevieve

[Zelane]

They knew something was odd. Hello psychiatric tests and such and later aversion therapy.

Huzza!

Cant blame them but it made things more complicated.

[Julie Marie]

Julie Marie, I'm very happy to be here. You make me laugh. I've heard "cure", "fix". "Oh, well, we can cure that." Were you in military academy? Army brat, Navy brat? Your comments gave me new idea. I'll be back soon. Genevieve. Oh, nearly forgot, You're very beautiful. Hugs

Why thank you, my dear!  A girl can never get enough compliments. 

I guess I was an Army brat, Army ROTC for all four years in high school at an all boys boarding school owned and run by the Jesuits, well known as strict disciplinarians.  "Give Campion a boy, get back a man" was the motto of the school.  My dad was obsessed with making a man out of me.

And then there was the little charcoal black mystery pills my dad had me take when I was in 8th grade.  I had no idea what they were for, only that he took me to a doctor because he was worried about my 'development' and the doctor prescribed these pills. 

Julie

[sd]

My dad would have tried to beat the girl out of me probably.

Probably mostly verbal abuse, but he probably would have tried. "Stop crying or I will give you something to cry about" was a favorite mantra of his.

My parents did know something was up, they chose to ignore it. It worked, for a while.



other gems...
"you're always so passive, you aren't like the other boys"

"Why do you insist on long hair?"
"Why do you want long hair"
"why do you cry when you get a haircut..."
I think when you are more scared of getting your hair cut than you are getting a cavity filled, there should be alarms going off somewhere.

I could probably come up with a ton of these.

[Ms.Behavin]

Hum....Well I was put in a dress at age 5 and walked around the block for playing with the girl next door toys.  Gee barbies were what I really wanted then.  It was not acceptable to say the least.  Oh if I had only had a sister, I would have been out so long ago. 

Beni

[Sephirah]

Oh if I had only had a sister, I would have been out so long ago. 

I think that might also have been true in my case.

[katherine]

When I came out to my mother a few years ago, she said in a letter something like she knew I was different and that it explained some things (just paraphrasing).  I think she had an idea but that she chose to ignore it.  Back then (50's-60's) there just wasn't very much exposure. My father wasn't home much, so I don't really know about his reactions, but I'd guess he would have tried harder to "man me up".  As it is, my mother is actually very supportive, as are my sisters.  I have no brothers.

[Monique Martinez]

At I guess my father would of made my mother deal with it and she would of insisted on something to do with medication (it is the answer to eveything right) nothing like a good bandaid to hide the truth.
I used to sleepwalk and talk when I was young around the age of 5 when I first delved into my mothers wardrobe. Last weekend we were talking about this subject and she told me I used to come in to the front room sleep walking/talking looking for 'shoes'. It clicked that it was no doubt my mothers shoes I was looking for, I was quite fond of them at the time.
By the sounds of it they never put two and two together. But in hindsight the more we talk about it the more it makes sense/adds up.
I've never been into male things and I've never acted male so to me it's obvious.. yet I never had the guts to say anything, I figured I'd get in trouble or something worst. I truely admire those that can figure it out at a young age.. and yes having sisters could help.. having someone to relate to. I had two brothers that would of beat the sh!t out of me if they found out. :-/

[Kirin]

It's hard to say, our family dynamics have changed a lot since I was younger. I guess my mom would have told me I was wrong (not brought me to therapy; in her opinion, nobody in this family needs therapy for anything ever - even my little brother who was threatening all of us with knives at the age of six) and thought that was the end of it (and thrown fits when it wasn't). My dad would have ignored it, or tried to. Luckily, our family has changed a lot...my dad's a lot more open to everything, and my mom is less certain that she controls all of us (but still thinks she SHOULD control all of us).

[FallenLeaves]

When I tried to convince my mom to let me on hormones at 14 is about when my dad sent me to an inpatient care setting in Salt Lake City. I was there for three months that summer and diagnosed with asperger's. I didn't think doctors could honestly be that ignorant in the 2000's.

My mom has pretty much always known and is still extremely supportive. I'm still not in a rush to tell my dad since I rely on him financially for college.