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.
Sounds like this lady has got herself into quite the pickle of a situation. Hard row to hoe. Sometimes people who’ve been living as men, even very conservative men, for a long time get an accelerated education in the school of hard knocks when they trans. Sometimes they manage to hold on thru the contradictions tho. I imagine many of her existing social connections will be anywhere from rejecting/hostile to patronizing/pitying. You can be a non-obnoxious person; just your typical charming self.
idk if an 8-9 year old will really find it as confusing as an adult would. crazy unexpected things are constantly happening to children because they know literally nothing about the world. it’s all new to them. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to stumble on some TV shows or books with trans charterers and then ask questions / make comments in support of them.
Since you didn’t mention it I am assuming you don’t live somewhere that it would be considered “child abuse” to be around a trans woman. The child is not going to be asked to keep some sort of secret. Ya?
I was worried about that with some of the wife’s extended family, conservative Catholics, some cops, but surprisingly the reaction has been okay so far from them. Accepting, but I wouldn’t call the reaction excited.
Yeah, kid ended up being nonchalant about it. A smidge of confusion about what would happen if she wanted to get married to a woman but we sort of side stepped that by saying she wants to be single, which is true. And yeah, not a place where we have to worry about culture warriors making our life difficult because our kid stays at “grandp’mas” (his term) after school for a few hours.