This Isn't The Future You Imagined

What Is Lost When A Child's Trans Identity Displaces Everything

Darren Thompson

In March 2022, Lisa, Stella, and I held the first Wider Lens retreat for parents of trans-identified kids. At that time, nothing like it existed. Parents who didn’t feel right about simply “affirming” had no public way to gather—just quiet, secret meetings, often held behind closed doors. That first retreat was no exception. There were no tote bags or banners. Most participants told their families they were away on a meditation weekend.

But what happened there mattered. Parents sat in a room with others who had lived nearly the same story. There were tears, yes. But there was also clarity, laughter, and a deep sense of connection.

Since then, we’ve led several more retreats, and each one has left a mark. Our upcoming retreat, Anchored, this November in Austin, Texas will be our last.

As we prepare, I’ll be sharing a few short excerpts from When Kids Say They’re Trans. These are pieces from our chapter on self-care. Each one names a common emotion we see in parents: grief, guilt, anger. Facing these feelings with honesty is part of what we’ll be doing together in a few months.

To learn more about your retreat facilitators, Lisa Marchiano and myself, read our bios here.

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GRIEF

If you have a young gender-questioning child, you may feel grief over the loss of simplicity and the hoped-for fantasy of a happy, carefree childhood.

When a young teen announces a trans identity, you may feel grief over the end of childhood innocence and the loss of a conflict-free relationship. Mourning the end of this stage is entirely appropriate. Your child has chosen gender to separate from you, although you may wish he had picked some other way. Because of the threat of medicalization, professing a trans identity is unlikely to be a beneficial way to individuate, but the impulse behind the act is healthy.

Psychologist Carl Pickhardt has written that the purpose of adolescence is to break the spell of childhood. The dawning of the teen years can be a time to mourn the rewarding stage of early parenthood. Give yourself permission to grieve in whatever way feels right to you. Take an afternoon off to write in your journal, take a walk alone in nature or spend time with a close friend. Your child has his own work to do to grow toward independence, but your experience and feelings matter.

If you have an older child, you may be mourning the future you had imagined – the academic achievement, the career, the wedding, the children, future decades of closeness. One mom had a daughter who had always dreamed of going to a top university. The whole family was elated when she was admitted. Shortly afterwards, she declared a trans identity and began taking testosterone, dropped out of school and began working a series of low-wage jobs. This mom found she had many things to mourn, including her daughter’s health after several serious medical issues, and her daughter’s beauty and innocence. And she had to mourn the bright future she had imagined. These are real losses, and it is OK to grieve them, even if your child seems to be thriving in her new identity.

If you have a young adult who has medicalized, you may feel you have lost your child even though she lives with you still. You may not be allowed to refer to the daughter you once knew. Some parents are asked to remove old family photos. Many estrange themselves from their families, replacing them with a trans-identified peer group. In this case, the loss may feel even more acute. You may wonder if you will ever be reconciled.

If you were to lose a child to addiction, disease or even a cult, you would be likely to find support among other communities, whereas many parents find themselves alone in their anguish when they lose a child to a trans identification. Rituals can help us make meaning of pain. Taking a walk in the wilderness, burning a candle or planting a tree are possible ways to create a ritual of mourning and honor your complex feelings.

In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying identified five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Anger and acceptance are so important that we’ve given them their own sections below. Bargaining may have special relevance: you may feel that if you do or say exactly the right thing at the right time, you will persuade your child to reconcile with her biological sex. Parents agonize over the search for the exact combination of words that will properly communicate their concerns, as if there is a magic formula that will break the spell. But parents are unlikely to be the ones to penetrate a child’s defenses; and parents often have little sway if their child is a young adult. Staying stuck too long in the bargaining phase is exhausting, and may lead us to try things that could push the young adult away.

Losing a child is a universal experience. Even when nothing goes awry, our children still grow up and leave us. The ancient story of Demeter and Persephone speaks to the universal quality of this experience. Persephone is gathering flowers not far from her mother when Hades carries her off to the underworld. Like many mothers of young girls who announce a sudden trans identification, Demeter is frightened and enraged. She goes looking everywhere for help. Who has seen her daughter and might know where she is? Only the goddess Hecate can provide some information, for she heard the young woman’s cries. Demeter wanders for days, searching. At last, she sinks into grief. The crops cease to grow, and famine ravages the land. Eventually Persephone is returned to her mother, but only in spring and summer. She has become a great goddess in her own right, and now rules in the underworld.

There are many ways to interpret this, but it’s important to note that Persephone cannot stay with her mother forever. Demeter passes through many stages – bargaining, anger, depression and denial – before she accepts the new status of herself and her beloved daughter.

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Our final retreat, Anchored, will take place this November.

It’s a structured, in-person weekend where parents work directly with us to untangle what’s happening, restore their strength, and take clearer steps forward. If you’ve been handling this alone, or trying to explain this to people who don’t get it, you’ll feel deeply understood and more confident after this weekend.

From July 18–31, we’re offering a flash sale discount of $350 off. If you’re planning to come, register during that window to get the best price.

We won’t be running another event like this, so if you’ve ever considered joining, this is your last chance.