Trans Parenting: Supporting your trans/nonbinary child

  • Author: Dylan Wilder Quinn
  • Level: Beginner
  • Study time: what you choose
  • Video or Audio time: 10 hours, in 10 minute chunks
  • Exams: None
    Sharon McCutcheon

    My child just came out as ____.
    Now what?

    Scary, and beautiful. 
    Your child feels safe with you to take this risk. To take this risk of getting to be more fully themselves, more fully in their body.
    AND...it can be f*&!ing terrifying! For them, AND for you as a parent. 
    What if your child is discriminated against? Beaten? Traumatized? What if they lose friends? What if you lose friends? Family?
    Yes, all these things can happen. AND…
    Trans people thrive. Nonbinary people thrive. It’s critical to get that lens, that exposure to trans and nonbinary people who feel MAGNIFICENT in their bodies, ACTIVE in their communities, and deeply HAPPY in their relationships. 
    But first...what’s coming up for you?
    Often when our child comes out, one of the first things that parents think about is….how can I get my child support? Who can help them be sure?
    One of the MOST IMPORTANT ways to support your child is to GET SUPPORT yourself. I know it sounds like a cheesy self-help book, but hear me out.
    As a parent who loves and deeply cares for your child, it is impossible to support your child in this process without sometimes projecting your fears, concerns, and even your own hurts around gender onto your child. Often parents try to prevent their kid from exploring, or don’t know how to have these conversations with their child, or aren’t sure how to best advocate for their kid. Our intentions are loving, but in the long run, we may end up hurting our relationship with our child and preventing them from having the tools that they need to navigate their own body in the transphobic world that we’re in. 
    It’s CRITICAL, LIFE-SAVING, and RELATIONSHIP-SAVING between you and your child that you get support OUTSIDE of your relationship:
    To feel the grief of your child changing. Maybe you even feel like you’re losing your child, or the dreams that you had for your child’s life. 
    To process the fear of safety 
    To explore how to talk about it with your child and with others
    To share what is hard for you to talk about...maybe even the part of you that deeply wishes your child wasn’t trans or nonbinary 
    To be DEEPLY held in your process in a shame-free, blame-free environment
    If you’re not trans or nonbinary yourself, you may never get to fully understand your child’s experience of wanting to explore their gender identity, of wanting to learn to be more fully in their body...but you can be with them for the journey, and maybe even get closer to each other along the way. 

    What will you get?

    5 days a week: a new email with bite-sized content to digest and be with throughout your day. Perfect for morning routines, in-between activities, or lunchtime. 

    2 days a week: no new content - just time to catch up and integrate content from the week and to connect with your family.

    10 weeks long: emails rich with content. 
    Write your awesome label here.

    Daily Questions

    to help you more deeply explore your process. Use a journal, or meditate throughout your day on these questions, or have conversations with a partner or friend.

    Daily Video/Audio

    from a trans person helping you explore yesterday's questions. Suited to the busy parent's lifestyle, i keep these under 10 minutes and they're downloadable so you can take them on walks or in the car with you.

    Conversations

    To have with your child. Ideas to deepen in relationship with each other. 

    Activity ideas

    To help you and your child get closer, and to help them have the tools to navigate their world. 
    Meet the instructor

    Dylan Wilder Quinn

    Dylan Wilder Quinn (they/he) believes closeness is necessary to dismantle oppression. They are especially passionate about working with cisgender people to more fully hear and hold transgender people's stories, and building all people's resilience for systemic change. They support parents of trans, nonbinary, and gender-exploring children. They mentor trans people about surviving oppression and building capacity for social justice work. They founded TransLiterate in 2015 and TransIntimate in 2020 for cisgender people who want to be close to transgender people and fight for our liberation. They are a part of a team called Holistic Resistance (www.holisticresistance.com), founded by Aaron Johnson and Porsha Beed. Holistic Resistance focuses on supporting People of Color and working with white people to examine and undo the racism within ourselves through relationship and community, and to build our capacity to be anti-racist activiists. 
    Patrick Jones - Course author
    Created with