Children of Transgender Parents
Personal Experiences
It is often claimed that being a child with a transgender or genderqueer parent is “confusing,” that children won’t understand non-gender-normative parents and this will cause them problems [1]. Thankfully, this just isn’t true: children, it turns out, really don’t care that much about people’s gender identities [1]. The gender binary and rigid gender roles are learned and, like many social constructs, children tend to not put that much stock into them [1]. When there is confusion, it is usually over a parent being misgendered; a doctor saying, for instance,“sit with you Mom” can sound pretty weird for a kid alone with their Dad.
Names can provide a bit of difficulty, sometimes—neither “mom” nor “dad” might fit the person, and family-specific situations can add complications. A child with a transitioning mother and a cisgender mother might think, “but I already have a Mom!” [1]. While these are legitimate concerns for a family to figure out, they do not seem to have caused any problems, statistically speaking, and children are creative; one, Eleanore, nicknamed her transitioning parent “Maddy,” for instance [2]. Children tend to find their parents who have transitioned to be more open, which makes sense: a gender identity is a large thing to hide from a child, and advocates for transgender parents staying in the closet are essentially asking them to become massive liars (which does pose an actual problem for a parent-child relationship) [2].
Queer Children of Transgender Parents
Alexander Thixton is a transgender man with a transgender mother [3]. Though this type of situation does occasionally happen, research has shown that transgender parents are no more likely than their cisgender counterparts to have transgender children [4]. Often, older transgender inviduals will have much different experiences than younger ones, due to generational and cultural differences [3]. Transgender parents can have lived decades with undiagnosed gender dysphoria—indeed, often from before the time when gender dysphoria was determined as a medical condition [3]. This can sometimes make it harder for a transgender adult to transition than a younger trans person, due to greater life experience as the gender assigned at birth and experience of bigotry and fear towards trans and other queer people. [3]. A transgender parent may be able to bond with their queer child over shared experiences [3].
Research
The research on transgender parenting has, understandably, been largely aimed at their relationships with their children, and any possible effects on their children [4]. In terms of childhood development, the research has so far shown no difference or negative effects from having a transgender parent as opposed to a cisgender parrent [5]. Indeed, observers have been unable to distinguish between children of transgender and cisgender fathers with better than random accuracy, showing that there is very little measurable distinction, if any [5].
Children with transitioning parents, it bears mentioning, have an experience that is obviously different from children with cisgender parents. Sometimes, this can cause familial problems [6]. A parent outing themselves as transgender may precipitate a family crisis [4]. However, the transition itself “should not be problematized” [6]. Divorce rates in the US have been high and remain high, for any number of reasons—if a marriage cannot survive a gender transition, the fault cannot be laid upon the transition itself [6]. Often, a transgender parent will simply be married to someone who isn’t attracted to their spouse’s gender, but neither can be at fault here if neither were aware of the transgender status in the first place [6].
One of the primary problems distinct to transgender parental relationships is something called “role-relational ambiguity” [7]. This refers to a simple concept: when gendered familial roles are set, a transition will usually cause them to break down; “mom” will become “dad,” for example [7]. Thought not all relationships are intact, the majority of transgender parents and children report good or excellent relationships with each other [4]. Role-relational ambiguity can usually be ameliorated or resolved with the use of therapy and discussion [7]. If children are willing to resolve the role ambiguity of the parents and both are willing to work towards that, their relationship will remain intact the vast majority of the time [7].
While children do sometimes lose their relationships with transgender parents, this is not always congruent with the wishes of either [8]. In several studies of the relationships between transgender parents and children, researchers have neglected to account for the effect of custody or visitation rights [4]. That effect, however is there: parents have repeatedly lost their rights based off anti-transgender legal bias [8]. Statistically speaking, transgender parents are no better or worse than any other parents, and though problems peculiar to their relationships with their children are often exacerbated by societal and legal structures [4].
[1] Bennett, Andrea and Kim Fu. “Beyond Mom ‘n’ Pop.” Hazlitt, September 11, 2015. https://hazlitt.net/feature/beyond-mom-n-pop.
[2] Tannehill, Ellie and Brynn Tannehill. “Here's What It's REALLY Like Having A Transgender Parent.” HuffPost Communities. HuffPost, December 6, 2016. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-it-is-really-like-having-a-transgender-parent_b_5846c5d3e4b0707e4c817242.
[3] Thixton, Alexander. “I Came out to My Mom as Trans. Then She Came out as Trans, Too.” Vox. Vox Media, March 10, 2017. https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/3/10/14871162/transgender-parent-mom-coming-out.
[4] Stotzer, Rebecca L., Jody L. Herman, and Amira Hasenbush. “Transgender Parenting: A Review of Existing Research.” UCLA School of Law Williams Institute. Williams Institute, October 2014. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Trans-Parenting-Review-Oct-2014.pdf.
[5] Condat, Agnès, Grégor Mamou, Chrystelle Lagrange, Nicolas Mendes, Joy Wielart, Fanny Poirier, François Medjkane, et al. "Transgender Fathering: Children’s Psychological and Family Outcomes." PLoS One 15, no. 11 (11, 2020). doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241214.
[6] Dierckx, Myrte, Dimitri Mortelmans, Joz Motmans, and Guy T'Sjoen. "Resilience in Families in Transition: What Happens when a Parent is Transgender?" Family Relations 66, no. 3 (07, 2017): 399-411. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/fare.12282.
[7] Tabor, Jaclyn. "Mom, Dad, Or Somewhere in between: Role-Relational Ambiguity and Children of Transgender Parents." Journal of Marriage and Family 81, no. 2 (04, 2019): 506-519. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12537.
[8] Imrie, Susan, Sophie Zadeh, Kevan Wyliem, and Susan Golombok “Children with Trans Parents: Parent–Child Relationship Quality and Psychological Well-being.” (2021), Parenting 21, no. 3 (08, 2020): 185-215. doi: 10.1080/15295192.2020.1792194.