TWENTY years ago, several transsexual
parents didn’t even tell their children
about attempts to pass as a gender other than
their biological one, much less discuss openly
their gender identities.
Today, a 15-year-old local boy — who
agreed to be interviewed on the condition that
his identity not be disclosed — talks
openly, sometimes to groups, about his
mom’s transition.
"I have a real open relationship [with
the kids], especially with my older
son,” said Timothy McGrath, who is
completing a transition from female to male.
McGrath said he is still “mama” at
home. “I’ll always be their
mom.”
McGrath said he still embraces his
femininity, instead of tossing it aside like
many female-to-male trans people. "I tell my
wife, you’ll never find a guy in this world
who is more sensitive” to women, because
“I was raised as one.”
McGrath said his 15-year-old had a hard time
accepting the transition initially.
He once told McGrath, "I thought I just had a
cool mother who understood everything that was
going on in my head.” His youngest son
doesn’t talk as much about his feelings,
but will now say, “yes, sir,” and
“no, sir,” McGrath said.
Because he’s not quite as open about his
issues, “we don’t offer any more
information than what is asked for” to the
youngest boy, McGrath said.
The 15-year-old admitted, at first, he was
angry with his mom for putting him through such
an adjustment, yet again. He was younger when he
found out his mom, who had been married to his
father, was attracted to women.
"I had to adjust to her being gay,” he
said. He then had to adjust to his mom’s
gender reassignment. "With each adjustment came
issues like peer harassment and teasing", he
said.
His parents have always been involved with
school activities, like band boosters and
parent-teacher organizations.
People would come out and ask, “is your
mom gay,” he said, but mostly, it was the
immature people who said anything about it.
McGrath said her oldest son seems to handle
the peer teasing well.
"When football teammates would say to him,
both your parents are gay, so you must be gay,
he’d chase them around the field and try to
kiss them", McGrath said.
Another time, when someone called her oldest
son a “gay hooker,” he said,
“why? You got $5?”
Another adjustment came when McGrath began
taking testosterone, his older son said, because
McGrath became a little more aggressive.
"At first, I wanted to separate from
her,” the oldest son said, but the
family’s open dialogue brought them closer.
The older son also acknowledges his younger
brother doesn’t talk a lot about his
feelings.
McGrath said, sometimes, the youngest boy
will say, “I love you, mama, no matter what
you look like on the outside … even if you
have a beard,” or ask McGrath, “You
love me no matter what, right?”
The youngest boy also says Tim (short for
Timothy) stand for “the incredible
mommy.”
McGrath’s oldest son said he also wishes
his mom had transitioned when he was younger,
because the gender reassignment of a parent
seems to be easier on younger kids, unless the
kid is going through puberty.
Felishia Porter, local licensed professional
counselor who focuses on transgenders in
transition, agreed that younger children seem to
handle the transition of a parent better than
older children.
"Older children often feel like they’re
losing a parent", said Porter, "and younger
children seem to experience less of a loss".
McGrath said when his oldest son expressed
fears about losing his mother, he assured the
teen he hadn’t changed inside, but the
outside would “just match the inside
better.”
Porter said kids often worry about
embarrassment in peer situations and their
parents getting physically harmed because of
their decision to go through with the
transition.
"Kids are often afraid of being ridiculed or
their parent being ridiculed, especially if the
transitioning parent is male-to-female, because
any level of femininity in men is ridiculed so
much", Porter said.
"Having a transexual parent does not affect
the sexuality of a child", Porter said, "and
doesn’t affect children in any negative
ways. Children want to be loved, respected and
cared for,” she said.
McGrath’s oldest son, who identifies as
straight, also believes having a transitioning
parent does not affect the sexuality of a child,
except to make it easier for children to discuss
and come to terms with their sexuality.
McGrath also believes his oldest son is
completely straight. McGrath is in a 10-year
committed relationship with Patty, who her sons
call “lovie.”
The 15-year-old son said he would encourage
transexual parents to be open with their
children and explain what’s going on.
Susan, a 52-year-old pre-op male-to-female
transsexual hid her gender identity issues from
her children until just a couple years ago.
Her daughters, now 26 and 23 years old, are
very accepting, and her relationships with the
two are as strong as they always were.
The youngest daughter, Alexis, still comes to
visit and brings her boyfriend. Susan never was
quite as close to the oldest girl.
Susan adopted the girls twenty years ago,
when she was still living as a man, during her
second marriage.
The kids’ mother knew Susan
“cross-dressed,” but didn’t know
completely about the gender identity issues. The
children were told nothing.
“It was a huge embarrassment for
me” at the time, Susan said.
Alexis recently told Susan, "you’ve
always been my dad and pop. I loved you before,
and I love you now.”
Susan said she and the girls’ mom
fostered tolerance of all kinds of people in
their house, which is probably why the girls had
such an easy time accepting their
“poppy’s” transition.
Although she wasn’t open with them about
her own personal struggles, the amount of
dialogue concerning such issues was so much more
than when Susan was growing up.
Susan said she had very loving parents, but
was scolded when, as a little boy, she was
caught going into neighbors’ homes and
trying on dresses.
When she told her own mother she was
transitioning, they argued about it every time
they saw each other. Susan would tell her mother
that the transition had to happen, or “I
might as well stick a bullet in my
mouth.”
During one argument, after Susan’s hair
had gotten long and her breasts started to
develop, her mother began yelling at her, and
“I just sat there and took it.”
Then, she started crying.
At that moment, Susan said her mother stopped
yelling, walked over to her, put her arms around
her and said, "Susan, there will never be
anymore tears over this.”
“It was the first time my mom had ever
called me Susan,” she said. The following
Christmas, her mother bought her womens’
sweaters.
Susan is not active in any support
groups.
“My psychotherapist bitched at me for
that,” she said, but she doesn’t enjoy
sitting around with other transgenders talking
about their issues.
McGrath is active in support groups and said
issues concerning relationships with children
sometimes come up at the groups.
Porter said about 75-percent of her
transexual patients are male-to-female, and her
patients are 15-60-years-old. "Because trans
issues come up more and more in the media,
society is much more tolerant of trans people
than it was just seven years ago" when Porter
began focusing on the transexual community, she
said.
