Holding Space for the Gender Journey
I was positive my kid was trans… until she wasn’t.
Journeys are rarely linear. We all know this familiar literary trope.
When my kid, who I’ll call “A,” was in elementary school, the exploration of gender identity and pronouns began. This is not a new story line for most parents these days. Many of my friends were or are still navigating this with their kids. But, as odd as it sounds, it took me a while to figure out what A was going through was in fact a journey, rather than a linear, straight-forward declaration of their gender.
It started with a text.
My then 12-year old was at her biological dad’s house, so I wasn’t surprised to see my phone light up. A texts me often, for everything from emotional support to a list of personal hygiene items to buy to sending me photos of the cats.
But this was different. It took me a while to read through and digest the first green blurb, but the bottom line seemed to be: “I am pansexual.” Okay, I thought, that’s cool, but then I wondered if I really knew what it meant so I googled it.
Here’s what I found: “not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity: I needed to explore the possibility that maybe I was pansexual.”
Ironically, A’s next text appeared with a simple, “Do you know what that is?”
“Yes, I do, and that’s cool,” I replied confidently, not disclosing my quick search to confirm. “Happy to chat more if you want.”
I put my phone down, thinking that was relatively easy. But my kid wasn’t done sharing yet. The next piece of information arrived in a series of three or four texts.
Bottom line: I’m nonbinary for sure, but I really think I’m trans.
I paused before answering this time and thought about what kind of conversation we could really have via text, and how hard I should push her for more information on what she (he? them?), was thinking and feeling.
I settled for a simple, “I’ll support you, always. Do you want to tell me more?”
And over the next three years, A did tell me more.
Our conversations about gender identity tended to happen during walks, of which we had many. We live in a popular Seattle neighborhood with a shopping district so we were often either browsing stores or walking the several blocks back to our car, or on occasion, walking around some of the nearby tourist attractions.
What I learned on those often tearful walks was that A wanted top surgery. They had never felt comfortable as a girl, A told me, and couldn’t stand how their body felt. They’d always felt like a boy. Bras felt horrible so they didn’t wear them; they were tight and itchy and made them have panic attacks.
“Yeah, same,” I thought at first, because don’t all women feel this way? Bras are basically the first thing we take off when we get home, after our coats and shoes. But I also thought I understood.
When I was 11, I told my mom I’d literally hammer down my boobs when they appeared. This was the ’80s though, a less accepting time, and with a non-maternal, non-empathetic parent, I just endured more teasing from my family about being a “tomboy.” With time, despite all my initial misgivings about being a girl, I grew comfortable with and embraced my body. I’m not sure what changed beyond that I was so focused on riding horses and working at the stable that my body became something strong and useful, rather than something to be seen. Maybe that was enough.
But I wasn’t sure where A would land. They had always been very thoughtful and self-aware from a young age. That fact, combined with my strong desire to parent differently than how I was raised, to love and respect my kid no matter what, meant that I had to prepare for… well, anything?
I listened and relayed this information tactfully to my more conservative ex-husband, who was surprisingly receptive, despite some initial skepticism. We agreed that we’d support A in getting top surgery, but not until they were 18.
This was devastating to A.
I felt like the worst parent in the world as they cried and reiterated how they felt. For the first time, I was unable to fix or talk through A’s pain.
I was causing it.
I decided to do the only thing I could do: hold space for whatever was to come.
It sounds a bit woo-woo, I know.
Or when held up to how I was parented, it would seem so to my family members. There was no concept of holding space for change and growth or wild emotions when I was growing up. Just meanness and teasing.
But holding space is a skill I started to learn in my teens from the owners of the stable where I rode. They took me in and taught me to root myself in my beliefs, in my own power, and in what I know to be true about the people around me.
What I knew of this situation was that A is very loved by all of their parents, including their step-dad, and by their friends. And that in Seattle, people are much more accepting of non-cis-non-white-non-Christian viewpoints and lifestyles. A would be fine. Unless they went to a predominately Republican city for college, but that was a worry for another time.
So I rooted myself in the belief that A had the people and tools needed to navigate this. That I had the support and tools to navigate it. This became my internal mantra.
And we carried on.
Plot twist: maybe part of it is a sensory issue?
I can’t remember exactly when things started shifting, but I do remember clearly the moment A declared that she’d finally found a sports bra that was soft and comfortable enough to wear, that didn’t drive her crazy with itchiness. Simultaneously, A became interested in Brandy Melville and Sephora and graduated from boys gym shorts.
After several months of this evolution, I checked in with her and she no longer wanted top surgery.
I was so prepared to go on the trans journey with A that the pivot took me a beat.
Sensory issues and itchiness? Well, I have those in spades with my Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. You can read about it here. And A has had reactions to grass and has dermatographia, a condition that includes the fun party trick of writing on your skin with your fingernail and it staying for there for hours, a weird, raised embroidered-skin look.
So I started asking about other symptoms and we honed in on the severe dizziness she feels when standing up, sometimes to the point where her vision goes black. To the difficulties she had after a hot shower — A would wrap herself in a towel and sit on the toilet for 10 minutes until she didn’t feel dizzy and sick anymore. A also had frequent flu-like symptoms: headache, fatigue, stomach aches.
These are pretty classic Postural Orthostatic Syndrome (POTS) symptoms, something my doctor and I suspected at the time was a third diagnosis for me. POTS and MCAS often go hand-in-hand so I scheduled an appointment for A at my functional doctor’s office, but with a doctor who specialized in teens. Dr. K did a “poor man’s tilt table” test, where you lay down for five minutes, then stand up, with your heart rate monitored the entire time. A’s heart rate increased from 60 bpm to 94 bpm, just enough to get us a referral to a specialist. The increase must be 30 bpm and sustained to qualify.
Fast forward seven months: A is diagnosed with POTS at the Neurological Institute of Washington.
I’ll save what the full testing entailed for another day, but suffice to say: A has POTS. Her heart rate went up by 40 bpm and stayed that way for over 10 minutes, her feet were purple from blood pooling. When I pointed out how purple her feet were she said: “That’s normal, right?”
Now we’re actively managing her POTS. I’m not sure I can claim causation of figuring out her POTS and MCAS issues with A deciding against top surgery, but there’s definitely a correlation.
When I ask A about it now, she says that getting rid of labels and wearing what she wants was a big part of it.
This is one of the many things I love about this generation — they are inclusive and non-conforming in ways we couldn’t even imagine at that age. We thought we were accepting and we were for that time in history, but our kids are pushing us further. Another obvious statement, I suppose, that generations build on (and push back against) those that came before, but things tend to feel more opaque in the moment.
A also points out that this story has the danger of coming across as “my kid is straight and yours can be too,” which I’ve worried about as I type. That’s not my intent at all, to be clear.
It’s just that this has been an unexpected and winding journey, and honestly is not where I expected we would end up.
But here we are.
For now.
Hi! My name is Diane and I’m a mom, writer, content marketer, and outdoor enthusiast navigating this chaotic and often ridiculous world while dealing with POTS, chronic EBV, and overactive mast cells.
If you have questions about these conditions or my experience with them, please feel free to contact me in the Comments section. It takes a village.
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It isn't always clear as a parent which way to go, but support and listening are important. My journey has been a little different, my daughter is still figuring things out, but during her journey she was diagnosed with scoliosis that requires surgery this year, which followed with a PNES diagnosis. Its in these moments reality sets in on how little control we have over situations, but we do have control of our own actions.