Sept. 8, 2025 - Dealing with Things

This week, our questions are about how to deal with things. What do we do when a spouse reacts differently than we expect to their kid coming out as trans? What about making sense of the way we experience the world when it seems to be a bit off? In life, we sometimes come to learn that what we thought we knew, things we thought we were certain of, aren't what we thought. When we encounter these things, it can be important to deal with them head on. Here's hoping I can support you in that!

Q: My spouse and I have suspected our teenager may be trans for quite some time, and have spent time talking about how to support them in the current times, and how we would show we loved them and things that seem fairly standard for parents.

Well the teenager came out to me, and told me to tell the spouse. I did and spouse is upset. They feel they have no control over their own life, and they need time to process what is going on. I don't think its a good idea to share this with the teenager, and plan to just move forward as if there are no hiccups. But spouse has been grumbling about it the past few days, does not want to discuss it. They apparently need more time. I don't understand this.

Is there a good way to discuss this without upsetting them more?

Thank you for supporting your kid and for stepping up! A lot of times, when a kid comes out to their parents as trans, one or both parents will have some complicated or even negative feelings emerge – and often they put it on their kid to manage and resolve their feelings and anxieties for them. So by acting as a buffer and making sure your kid doesn’t have to deal with that, you are making a big difference in what is already a scary and stressful time for them.

There could be a lot of things going on with your spouse, but it is definitely not unusual for some parents to have big emotional reactions to their kid coming out as trans, sometimes surprising even them. It may be, when you two discussed it before, your spouse was thinking about it in the abstract of “how should a parent respond to their kid coming out” rather than the concrete “how would I feel if my kid comes out.” It’s something I’ve seen with many parents of trans kids that they were generally supportive but weren’t ready for it to be their kid in reality.

At the end of the day, your spouse’s reaction is about them and not your kid, and that may be important to keep in mind. It could be that they had an image of their head of what the future for your child would be, and this feels like an entire future is being taken away suddenly. Or maybe they have their own difficulties or complex feelings in relation to gender and gender roles that this brings to the front. Any which way, they need to talk about it and take this head on, and it might mean some really difficult feelings spilling out.

Something that may really help is to find a support group for parents of trans kids. Your local LGBTQIA+ center is the best bet to check with first. This can help build a sense of community and allow you and your spouse to get a sense of what the journey ahead may look like. You may also check with your nearest PFLAG organization, which is specifically for parents of LGBTQIA+ youth. Lastly, TransFamily Support Services (https://transfamilysos.org/) offers online parent support groups that can be really helpful and they are facilitated by volunteers that I know and trust.

If there’s any other support you need in this, please feel free to reach out to me directly at forbiddenqueeries@gmail.com, as I am always happy to help support trans youth and their family on the journey.

Q: I don't really feel like a person. Is that a thing? I think I kinda get it when people talk about dysphoria because photos I see of myself feel wrong, and what I see in the mirror is like a bizarre puppet show. But it's not because the person I'm seeing is the wrong gender, or even that I'd feel more like myself in a fur suit, it's more about having any corporeal form at all. At most what I feel like is a cloud of thoughts and feelings in a vague spatial location. Is there a name for that? Is it something I should lean into or try to save myself from?

I wish you had left an email address so I could ask a few questions, but I will do my best to respond as is.

What this sounds like to me, from your description, is what is called dissociation. This is one of the ways the brain may try to cope with certain situations, especially ones involving stress, a lack of safety, or feeling not right in one’s life or body. It often shows up as feeling disconnected from your body, your self and/or your life. Some describe it as feeling like watching their life through a TV screen or like floating outside their body. It can come and go, or it can persist for long periods of time.

In my personal experience of it, I lived most of my first three decades of life with some degree of dissociation. When I look back at my memories from before transition, I have almost no sense of being in a body. It’s a lot like what you said, just “thoughts and feelings in a vague spatial location.” And the general feeling I had in relationship to my body was like it was an avatar in a video game that I was just piloting through the world.

There are at least two different things that could be going on if this is dissociation. First, if you do not (or not yet) identify as transgender, you may want to know this sounds A LOT like how many of us experienced gender dysphoria before transition. For me, I thought I was comfortable enough being a man and didn’t think I had any distress about my body. But when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t really ever see myself in my reflection and sometimes even had to remind myself that’s what I looked like. It was always like, “Oh, yeah, I guess that’s what I look like.”

Abigail Thorn, also known as the creator behind PhilosophyTube, captured this feeling in an interesting way in her own video about identity and coming out (https://youtu.be/AITRzvm0Xtg?si=0VcipeW69N5ItSoF). The video begins not with the face we were used to seeing before when she was still presenting as a man, but someone who looks similar to her and speaking like her. It’s weird and a bit disorienting...communicating that same sense of disconnect and alienation she experienced in seeing herself before transition.

If any of this resonates for you, I would suggest exploring your gender identity and expression to see if anything clicks for you. A book that I found super helpful was You and Your Gender Identity by Dara Hoffman-Fox (2017), and absolutely recommend it to everyone whether they are cis or trans. One can actually still be cis, or cis-ish, and find it helpful to explore what kind of gender expression helps them feel good and whole in themselves.

Second, if you already do identity as transgender or have otherwise explored gender stuff, there are other things that can leave one experiencing dissociation like that. Often times, this is linked to experiences of trauma and insecurity. If one is in a really difficult place in their life and living with constant stress or anxiety, the brain and body just can’t take it. So it tries to disconnect to make it manageable and not get overloaded.

In this case, I really suggest to try talking to a therapist, especially one that specializes in PTSD therapies, such as EMDR or Internal Family System therapies. It may be that you need to remove yourself first from the situation that is placing you in this state of dissociation before you can work on healing, but it is possible to build towards feeling in your body and your life.

There is also a possibility that your experience of embodiment goes beyond the typical experiences of gender. An umbrella term is “xenogender” (https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Xenogender) for these other forms of gender and embodiment related identities. For some folks, they experience things similar to dysphoria even when presenting as the gender expression that aligns with their identity because there is something more. I have friends who their sense of gender as a “cat” aspect that is not actually about presenting as a furry, but about their sense of who they are. Or others for whom a sense of artificiality or synthetic elements for their body is important. This may also be something to explore if the other things above don’t click.

Any which way, I wish you the best and would love updates if you find something that helps in your journey with this!