Long story short, I’ve always been supportive of the trans community and individuals, trans rights are human rights, all that good stuff. However, I’ve never had someone in my personal life transition, until now; my FIL told my wife that they’re now a MIL. So there’s two sides to this request:

First, any general advice, resources, etc., on how to be supportive/helpful for her during the transition, and advice that would be more specific to someone that’s transitioning as a senior and as a trans woman that wouldn’t respond well to overtly left wing resources on the matter. Yep, she’s a lifelong Republican, was optimistic about Trump although I have no clue how she stands on him now (as an aside though, oh boy were the rants about drag queen story times ironic in hindsight).

Which leads into the second side: while she has started on HRT, she’s still not publicly presenting as feminine, and we haven’t told our son/her grandson yet. We’ve discussed the general concept of people who are transgender with him, but that’s not the same thing as him processing grandpa becoming grandma, and he’s at an age where I have no clue how he’s going to take it. So I’m looking for any recommendations as to how to discuss what’s happening with him, maybe some books (like third/fourth grade level) that do a good job of presenting the concept for a younger mind.

  • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    I can’t speak to the trans experience, but it may be a good idea to have like a coffee and cookie sitdown with your MIL about things like politics and what’s going on. Her material conditions are changing in a way that is likely to result in some need for analysis, potentially for the first time in her life, and having a trusted family member to talk about that with is infinitely more helpful than throwing her to the wolves or just hoping she’ll figure it out with help from Susan’s Place or Twitter tranarchists.

    It’s probably also a good idea to have a mental separation between this discussion and another one about how and when she wants to discuss things with your son, possibly even have that at a second meeting