#trans women
The bar is on the fucking floor for cis people. so many trans people think that having a parent be abusive to them, telling them to be in the closet for X family members sake is "getting lucky" because most the time they are tolerated. The amount of trans people I know who simply accepted actively transphobic abuse or were just forced to live with it because their living situation that had to take years to have their parents become decent is ridiculous. That is where the bar is at so we often say "we're one of the lucky ones" if we're at that level or just slightly better.
We deserve much better than that though. The reality is that many of us have dealt with years of abuse unknown or known with casual and uncasual ways to suppress our gender. From things like passive aggressive remarks to actual physical abuse, it runs the gambit the way parents try to control their children in general. For trans kids this often has a special manifestation in the ways they try to police gender.
I wanna talk about my situation to talk about what I think more parents need to do. On my bad end there is my mom we never had a great relationship but it was one despite my moms flaws I tried to recover. When I came out as trans though I had to go no contact which sucks because I totally lost contract with my much younger sister.
My dad on the other hand was weird about me coming out at first but he accepted it. What happened next is what I think other parents should have to do to hit the bar of being a good parent. Mind you this is an ex military man and a Latino dad. He did research on his own, met other parents of trans kids, he took the time to learn. Then he apologized to me without me prompting it, without me having to bring things up, for the times he insulted me for gender deviance and the times he sat me down about being a real man. He took me to get a Mani Pedi and sat with me and talked with me and actually listened to me.
What my dad did, that should be the bar. He wasn't always the best parent, I loved him always but he at times even got physical, in the way that's excepted by most Latnix households but shit that is none the less traumatizing. Verbally I'd get scared of him some times, he yelled a lot, he had anger issues. The man worked on himself when there was less kids living in his nest though, he got on anger meds, went to therapy, did what he needed to do to become a better man overall. He's not perfect but he is my dad, I love the guy and I actually could forgive him for everything, start healing from all the stuff that he did to me in a major way thanks to him taking the steps to actually make up for shit.
It shouldn't be enough for my mom to call me one day, say "your my daughter and I love you as my daughter", like that isn't enough. It isn't enough to say sorry, it isn't enough to buy me a dress, what I want is the root issues to be fixed and an actual apology process. That is what we all deserve even if our parents were mostly good, we deserve them putting their fucking all into supporting trans people. They could be advocating for trans people to their peers, they should be working on making a better world for their kids. Parents should be able to say they were wrong, that they made mistakes and that they are going to do better.
I think that is the bar for us to have a relationship with our parents, if we can otherwise get away with it I think if they can't reach that bar, they don't deserve you in their lives.
If you like this queer theory stuff from me, giving me cash on Patreon or Ko-fi let's me know, I should probably share more thoughts, but you could also give me money and request I shut up, I'll take that.
