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Tina Traster

Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood

A Parent Aims To Decipher A Teen’s Transgender Declaration

February 3, 2017
different

By Tina Traster

I remember the phone call from the boy’s mother. She told me my daughter and her son were dating. Didn’t I know? I didn’t. It was one of those moments when your brain cleaves in two. The stronger half said that can’t be possible. The dueling half said maybe it was, perhaps she was ready for intimacy?

With that, I began to pay closer attention. J leads a secret life. She does not share. She is not transparent in any way at all. I got on board and invited the young boy over and eagerly drove her to “dates” at his house and to spend time with his family. From what I could observe, I wasn’t seeing anything that seemed like a romantic foray. My daughter and her new “boy” friend existed in concentric circles, never showing an overt affection for one another, let alone showing an interest in each other’s interior life. They played video games. Watched movies. Went to the mall.

To my husband and I, the young man seemed gentle, effeminate, and possibly on the spectrum. Our daughter showed no sign of a hormonal teen in love. We knew we didn’t need to talk to her about experimenting sexually with this boy because it was so obvious neither once was showing the slightest inclination of sexual attraction for the other.

I figured the phase would pass. I’d deduced that she and the boy had been pushed together by their entirely-female alternative peer group. I thought it might hasten what I thought to be inevitable: that she would finally come out and declare her gayness.

Instead she told us she was transgender; she was a boy trapped inside a girl. Continue Reading…