Experiences of parents and carers of young trans and gender diverse people

I'm just hoping with the—on the one hand you've got all this horrible negative stuff. But I'm hoping that as a result of that, people as well are getting more educated, I'm hoping on the flip side of it. That's my hope, anyway. This is why I think trans people and trans children, the more visibility there is, then it becomes more normal that these people exist and they're just the same as everybody else. That's what I'm hoping. But yeah, it's scary as well to see the anti trans stuff that's been published and particularly the way that Mermaids has been accused of being like some sort of political organisation that's pushing parents to turn their children trans and it's just ridiculous. I just have to do my little bit to try and educate the people.

There’s lot of people who have an opinion on gender issues who have no idea about what diversity means. To be also understanding that [sighs] that as I say there's a lot of uninformed opinions. There's a lot of people who are professionals and you think are supposed to be supportive who then undermine the support that you think's there. Sorry, I'm referring, referring to the idea that adolescents have been fast tracked through onto hormone therapy. If anything our experience has been the exact opposite.

Well it seems to be on TV now, fairly regularly, the issues of transgender kids and adults. But the quality of the programmes I don’t think is very good.

What do you think is wrong with them?

It’s all a bit tabloid. They talk about transgender kids and families and they interview parents and but I’m, I, unless you’ve got a child that’s going through it, it’s these parents don’t really ever understand. I’ve seen some negative stuff on TV. Parents who don’t have transgender kids, giving their opinions on transgender kids. What do they know? They think it’s wrong. They think it’s a, anti-religious. They think it’s whatever. They think it’s wrong. But they don’t understand what they’re talking about, some of these parents, the negative parents that express that, you know.

Public debate. I mean, some of it's, you know, some it's really, some of it's perfectly positive and I get that. But certainly in the UK it's really very negative at the moment and really worrying.

Does it affect you personally?

Yeah. Yeah, it does. It makes me feel sad and it makes me feel worried about the future and it makes me feel angry some of the things. And eventually it all starts to wear you down and you kind of, you start to try and—I try to step back from it sometimes, but other times, you know, you know I'm writing letters to people and, you know, write letters to the papers and stuff, because it yeah, a lot of it's just really unfair and wrong.

When there's any negativity in the media, he feels like he has to roll himself back up into a ball a little bit. He feels he has to come back into the house to protect himself. So he doesn't go out as much when there's been bad publicity. A lot of the programmes that have been on, on TV he worries the whole of the next week if anybody's going to say anything in school. He steers clear of certain areas, because he knows they're not as inclusive as other places. And he shouldn't have to do that at 13, 14. He shouldn't have to be wary and have to watch his back just for being who he is. But the press, they need, that needs reining in, because the amount of kids that are struggling after the bad, after the bad stories have been out.

Some things make me really cross. Some things make me really hopeful. I think that it’s good that it’s now not so you know, a hidden taboo kind of thing. I think that that will lead to more acceptance. And, you know, so I think it’s good that we’ve, that it’s started and definitely different to how it was ten years ago. I mean, I can’t, when I was at school, I’m sure there were trans kids or kids that wanted to come out as trans, but they didn’t do it at school, there is just no way. So, we have moved forward. I don’t think we’ve moved forward anywhere near enough. I think that it’s still it would be lovely to get to the point where it wasn’t an issue. The head teacher at my son’s previous school when we went to meet him about an issue he was very clear that he wouldn’t stand for this nonsense, not about being trans, about kids bullying him. And he said, ‘The only thing I’m intolerant of is intolerance.’ I get what he means. But, you know, trans kids aren’t there to be tolerated. They are just kids. So I think, I think we’re moving in the right direction. But I don’t think we are there yet. And but it’s good that there’s debate and discussion. And there is more awareness.

A lot of the media coverage, yes, some of it anti trans. But it doesn't matter, because the trans issue is getting media coverage, which means a certain amount of people are gonna read about it and get some education on it. Where keeping it all hidden and taboo – it remains hidden and taboo forevermore. It's got, it needs more exposure.

I think there is a lot to be said for the way the media handle a lot of things. And, 98% of the time it’s all fear based. Anything that comes out in the media, you know, a lot of the time, against the trans community and it’s all about fear. It’s all about sort of dividing and causing people to be fearful of something that they don’t understand. And then the other side of that is people confusing gender with sexuality, ‘Oh no, she’s just gay.’ Not the same thing. The amount of times I have to say that. But, I think what these sorts of conversations are doing now are really getting people to think and research and question their own thoughts and ideals about what they think is, because it’s society that says, ‘Well this is how things should be and this is the status quo and na, na, na, na.’ I think it’s about time its all been challenged and sort of blown wide open. I think it’s an evolution that needed to happen.