PFLAG is a peer support organization for people who find themselves parenting someone who is LGBTQ+. At our Hampton Roads chapter meetings, we have heard many parents’ stories. Despite different backgrounds and faiths, they all share a deep love for their LGBTQ+ children and a strong desire to do what is best for their kids.
In recent years, we’ve seen more parents come to PFLAG because their child has come out as transgender or gender nonconforming. Parents are afraid for their child as our society becomes more hostile to people who are transgender. Suicide is an ever-present worry. Parents mourn the future they hoped their child would have and seek reassurance that it’s possible for a transgender person to thrive.
LaKaye Mbah
Carolyn Caywood of Virginia Beach is a retired public librarian and a board member and past president of PFLAG Hampton Roads (pflaghr.com).
While some parents had wondered if their child had a different gender identity, others felt blindsided and struggled to see in their child the gender their child shared with them. Most parents struggle with their child’s need to have a new name and different pronouns. A lifetime habit isn’t easy to change, but often a transgender person is desperate to hear those affirming words.
Another worry for parents is judgmental attitudes about their parenting choices from people who have never raised a transgender child. Sadly, that has included some school officials and a few teachers who claim a free speech right to humiliate a student. Thankfully, other teachers and administrators have been a safe haven for students who are going through a crucial life transition.
Frequently we hear that a transgender student first came out to friends, or sometimes a teacher, before telling parents. This happens even when the student is fairly sure of their parents’ love and support. It makes sense when you remember that parents are the most important people in the student’s life. Before taking that biggest risk, it’s natural for them to practice how to reveal their core truth. No parent at a PFLAG meeting has ever said they wished the school had outed their child. Several have said how grateful they are that their child found some support at school until they were ready to come out at home.
Being the parent of a transgender child is as much a transition for the parent as it is for the child. You would think other adults who lack this lived experience would confine themselves to admiration and support. Instead, there are those for whom this is all hypothetical and who claim to know better than the real parents. If they have political power, these self-appointed experts pass laws and make rules which so threaten the families of transgender children that some are now homeschooling or thinking of moving to a less hostile state.
Virginia is currently not as hostile as Texas, where families are being criminally investigated for affirming their child’s gender identity. So far in Virginia, we have seen transgender resources removed from a state government website; school libraries purged of books that reflect the lives of transgender and other minority students; teachers slandered as groomers in the midst of a massive teacher shortage; and now a so-called model policy for school administrators that codifies the biases of people who lack any personal knowledge of parenting a transgender child.
The original model policy was developed in consultation with parents of transgender students and professional care providers. The replacement seems to have resulted from consultation with political strategists. While claiming to empower parents, it creates barriers for those who are parenting a transgender student. The document comes with bullying resources that will surely be needed after giving school personnel a license to mistreat students who don’t conform to educators’ prejudices.
The board of PFLAG Hampton Roads urges our local school boards to ignore this model policy revision and instead to support parents of transgender students. We welcome parents, family, friends, teachers and anyone interested in learning more at our monthly general meetings.
Carolyn Caywood of Virginia Beach is a retired public librarian and a board member and past president of PFLAG Hampton Roads (pflaghr.com). This essay is the unanimous opinion of the PFLAGHR Board.
