1.2
===
[00:00:00] So, having talked about some of the challenging feelings and thoughts that come up for parents, I want to talk a little bit about why it's so hard.
If we assume for a moment, and I do generally, that every feeling we have is valid. That there are really good reasons why we have those feelings. Even if there's part of what we've listed or something you've identified in your own reflections that is confronting to you because it goes against what you would like to be feeling or it feels inconvenient to you or it's in conflict with your identity in some way, I want you to ask yourself,
"What is the most generous possible interpretation of why I'm struggling with this?" Because there are countless reasons why it's difficult for parents to be coming to terms with their child being gender diverse. And often trans people don't want to hear this because they're so afraid of what their parents will feel and think.
And they're working through so much internally to overcome their own struggle and their own [00:01:00] anticipation of how others will respond. But this is a space for you as parents to really be honest with yourself and your co parent, if you're doing it alongside them.
And it's, again, so important to allow space for those things so that you can make choices that are conscious, where that feeling isn't finding ways to express itself. Where you're taking care of that feeling in some way, and making conscious choices based on what is supportive and what might be helpful for them. We've come up with some really big reasons why it can be so challenging, but please think of your own as well if you do.
A really straightforward one is that there are countless myths and misunderstandings about trans people. And it's inevitable that we're all absorbing those and have absorbed those, and have to proactively seek out a better, more accurate, more helpful understanding about trans people and gender diversity broadly.
That due to those myths and misunderstandings, [00:02:00] there's stigma and transphobia, and that that stigma and transphobia is not just external to us, but we absorb it, and we take on those attitudes, and those attitudes inform the thoughts that we have and the feelings that we have. And so what we all need to do, because we're all absorbing this and we have a choice as what we do with it, is to be really real with ourselves and expressing that in spaces that are safe to do so, safe for others, I mean, about the ways that we've absorbed transphobia. And this can be through media representations that are really tragic or even quite shaming of trans people.
And a resource that I suggest watching on that is on Netflix, it's called Disclosure and it's a very captivating, interesting documentary about media representation of trans people through time. There's in addition to that, just simply a lack of positive representation.
So there's nothing to counteract it.
There's also myths, I think, about parenthood that causes us as parents to be more stressed and put greater pressure on ourselves. And [00:03:00] an example here is the idea that we should be , kind of molding them into their best self. And I think this is a really unhelpful way to understand parenthood and that a much more helpful way to understand it is that they're unfolding and we simply need to try to stay out of their way and remain curious and open to their unfolding and support them to navigate the aspects of the world broadly that might quash or hinder their natural unfolding as their authentic self.
Another reason why it's hard is that it's just very isolating. You might not know any other parents of trans people. Or if you do know them, they might have a very different experience of the whole thing than you do. I would suggest that you need a really large variety of connections with other parents of trans people.
And if you're isolated, you might be going to a best friend who knows nothing about this stuff and who is very compassionate, but not informed. And then you simply feel perhaps vindicated or, perhaps misunderstood, or you might go to someone who knows a lot about it, but who isn't very compassionate, and what you need is the combination of the both.[00:04:00]
Another reason why it's hard is that you might, and this, I won't say might, you are likely to be, and I'm assuming this is part of why you enrolled in this course, is you're likely to be worried about your child's well being and safety in the world as a trans person, or even if you're charting that they are in fact trans, worried about their well being and safety as
someone who might be heading down a path that you're not sure about. And , it's just a truly terrifying thought and it's a very vulnerable position to be a parent with someone that you love so greatly, being so external to yourself with their own free will and their own agency. , this is really what this course is about. So, I'm not going to go on about it here, but what I wanted to say here is: Please be reassured that by the end of these seven modules, you will have a much greater sense of what is significant and what is impactful in terms of your child's wellbeing and why and what you can personally do about it, the power, the influence that you have as a parent to, to make a difference in your child's life.
And if you feel that you don't have a lot of influence for one reason or another, what [00:05:00] you can do to increase your influence in their life.
The last couple of slides of this section of the module are a bit more theoretical but will help to frame, much of the rest of the course. So stick with me as we go through this next slide.
Some of you may have heard of the minority stress model. It's an incredibly useful model. It describes how stigmatized minority groups, such as trans people, experience mental health distress due to stressful social environments.
That means that the mental health distress experienced by trans people is not innate, it's not a part of being trans. But actually poor mental health is directly caused by the stressful social environments.
For many of you that is perfectly obvious and kind of goes without saying but what's really interesting and helpful I think is that the model describes three different processes by which trans people are subject to minority stress.
So the first one is called a [00:06:00] distal stressor. And distal stresses are if you think of distal as distance from the self, it's a stress that comes from the external environment. So this is, in this case, transphobia, discrimination, abuse and violence exclusion, bullying, microaggressions.
Which we'll talk about if you haven't heard of that concept. And these are things that , that you might hear about more often or think about more often when you think of why it's difficult to be a trans person in the world. And these are the things that as a parent you probably are primarily concerned about your child experiencing.
There are two others, that are incredibly significant and important and I would say that the other two are actually more impactful and significant, but which are increased through experiences of this first one, distal stressors. .
So the second one is Interactive Proximal Stressors, and this is about what is [00:07:00] expected. If you're anticipating what something will be like, if you're anticipating to receive transphobic behaviors,
then that would be a stressor in itself, even if the external stressor of the distal stressor of transphobia doesn't actually occur. And so it may be that in a trans person's life, they experience really significant transphobic events very infrequently, and then more minor, not minor, but microaggressive, more subliminal transphobic interactions much more frequently.
But that the kinds of transphobia that that parents tend to visualize and worry about are the external, aggressive forms of transphobia. But the thing that is honestly so much more impactful, simply because it's so much more frequent, is the anticipation of transphobia. Because this could be present potentially constantly for your child.
The third the third component of minority stress. Is internalized proximal stresses, I should say, which is internalized [00:08:00] transphobia. Which is very similar to what we were discussing before: we all absorb attitudes and beliefs based on stigma and misunderstandings.
When I say all, I really mean all, including trans people. Trans people also have absorbed these beliefs and these attitudes and these thoughts and these feelings, even disgust about trans people, other trans people, or even disgust about themselves and their own body. Internalized transphobia
and the shame that can come with that or the self-consciousness, self-consciousness that it can come with that causes anticipation of external transphobia, which is very stressful. So three causes two. One causes two as well. And one causes three. So overt external. Actually I won't say overt. It can be subliminal or microaggressions as well, such as misgendering.
But number one, external, causes anticipation of more of that, which makes sense. It also causes internalized transphobia and that's really, [00:09:00] that is really where the harm in transphobia experiences, is felt. It's through the way that it causes anticipation and it causes an internalization of shame and internalization of shame also causes number two, the anticipation to be greater.
Because of course, if you believe something about yourself, that's negative, you're going to expect other people to also believe that about you or see that in you. And one of the, one of the reasons why therapy is so incredibly helpful for trans people is because once you work through and heal the internalized transphobia, that you are suffering from, then you no longer anticipate it from others, or if you do, it doesn't have the same loading because you know that even if you do experience that external transphobia, it's not going to actually harm you in the same way because it's not touching on a part of you that really believes that to be true.
And of course that's cumulative. If you experience five different overt instances of transphobia in one week, that's going to be very different to if you experience them infrequently. [00:10:00] And it's also balanced by how much support you have in your life. So this is where you come in as a support.
We'll talk more about that much later. So this is the three things. And what we're going to do throughout the rest of the course is I want to frame everything in this way. Because I want, what I want to be super clear is that the kinds of challenges that trans people face are not primarily external.
They are external. They do face those things externally, but the things that cause poor mental health is about how those things are absorbed in terms of personal beliefs and absorbed in terms of then what is anticipated. Anticipating it's different from knowing there's a risk and taking an appropriate action to mitigate that risk
so we're going to frame things in these three ways. What's also important to say here is that you are also experiencing minority stress as a parent of a trans person. That you are likely to, at some points, to varying degrees depending on your [00:11:00] context, social circle, community, what have you, culture, to also experience
what I'll call kind of secondary transphobia in that you're experiencing the transphobia of other people
about your child. And you might be even criticized and judged for for your child being trans or for supporting your child. And that is a distal stressor. That's number one. You might also be anticipating those kinds of attitudes and comments. And you might have experienced those things and therefore be anticipating it to a greater degree, or you might have anticipated it and felt really anxious about how do you talk to your father in law?
How do you talk to your neighbor about this? How do you talk to the school? How do you talk to your church? Whatever it is, anticipating this stress and you might be pleasantly surprised with some people and then very surprised in a negative way with other people. And so, but there's a certain level of anticipation, which also causes stress.
And then in addition to that, you hold, as we've [00:12:00] spoken about, your own absorption of transphobic views and attitudes which we will I think to a large degree be able to alleviate for you, hopefully through this course. And so
so this was the final sort of theme of common parental experiences. Parents find themselves sometimes experiencing anger and blame that is directed towards their child, It might be that their child is doing some frustrating things or behaviors that are challenging.
But in terms of the anger and blame that's there, some of it might belong elsewhere some of the things that people say or feel is that " my child is the reason I'm feeling overwhelmed, confused, or isolated" or that "my child is causing our family to go through this. And so they should help us deal with it".
And to be quite clear, most parents who enroll in this course take a lot of responsibility in their own journey with this, and that's why they've enrolled. But for any of you who, where this is there, or this is a part of your experience, or this was part of your experience I really want [00:13:00] you to think about your experience of blame and anger towards your child. And just think, am I angry with my child? Like, does this anger is it telling me that they are doing something? To me, or actually, is it telling me that I'm angry with, I'm angry that this has to be so difficult in the world, is it saying it's their fault or they need to do something differently, or is it trying to say to you, I'm angry because I'm scared about what their life might be like.
And that fear is causing me so much stress that I resent them. And that's really common.
