Children and Transition

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.

Geralds A (2003) Children and Transition. Dallas Voice.

page updated 27 December 2010