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and want them to continue in our lives, then I will tell them the truth. I must be a pretty good judge of character as I have never had a bad reaction.
    TC: What helped you most to understand and be at peace with your son’s transition? Was there a person you talked to, something you read, a meeting you attended, a morning you woke upand realized something that made you think about things differently?
    M—: The first aha moment was pretty early on (about two weeks after his first proclamation), in a heart-to-heart with S—, with him opening his soul to me as to what this meant, how he felt, sobbing from the depths of his being. I knew I had to accept this and deal with it.
    It also helped that he brought one of his good FTM friends to stay with us around that time whom I really liked. I never thought of this new person as a “girl,” and that helped me to see how it could be for S—.
    I had a few sessions of counseling early on, which helped keep me on the right track [with] my “poor me” instincts. I had also been a member of PFLAG for several years (when S— at first thought he was a lesbian since he was attracted to women). I continued to attend those monthly meetings and found it very helpful to be with other parents who were dealing with having a different child in a society that values sameness.
    A further aha moment was when my best friend reminded me of when S— was four years old, crying out, “But Mommy, I’m a boy, not a girl!” I had clearly denied the importance of this at that time, thinking it was just him being cute and wanting to be the same as his little male friends he always played with, but her reminding me of this showed how deeply rooted this was.
    TC: I’m pretty certain my folks are not overjoyed about what I turned out to be. Or, to put it nicer: they would choose somethingdifferent for me if given even the slightest chance. I don’t completely understand the disappointment thing, and sadly (for you), it is falling on your shoulders to clarify it for me. I don’t know whether you felt or feel a version of it or not, but a lot of parents of transpeople (and gays too, come to think of it), say that it takes a while to readjust to this new version of their children when they’d been envisioning something else—a poufy white wedding dress, a corner office at Goldman Sachs, or whatever the particular fantasies are. Now that I have children, I can certainly understand wanting as little pain as possible for them, but I don’t have a picture in my head about how their lives will turn out, what the specifics will be. I feel like that is for them to decide and discover on their own—and that’s the exciting thing about getting to watch them grow up.
    M—: You are right, the best parents are the ones who allow their children the freedom to become themselves. However, it’s easier said than done, because as a parent you have to take your responsibilities seriously to help guide your child, but where do you stop guiding and just go with the flow? Also, you have to remember that the sexual revolution and the study of psychology were pretty recently introduced just over the last fifty years, which is during the lifetime of most of us parents. When I was getting a degree in psychology and sociology in college in England in the late sixties, homosexuality and transgender issues were discussed under the umbrella of “Deviance in Society,” along with the study of the criminal mind. I hope you understand that I am not trying to be unkind here—of course, I shudder when I relate this myself—butthat is the reality of what the social norms were back when your parents were growing up.
    On a personal level, I don’t know why, but I didn’t have a clear vision when S— was growing up as to what he would become, so didn’t have to deal with a lot of dashed expectations. I was actually quite pleased at times that he acted more like a boy than a girl, as I was a feminist and told my friends he