I was sitting at the dinner table on Monday evening and my wife was talking about updating the kids profile on their school site. They asked what they wanted to know. She said things like nationality, gender ..... Then one of my sons said what did you put as I don't identify my gender as a boy! My wife said that's fine, what do you identify as? After some giggling he said a lesbian teapot!
Anyway he'd mention transgender a couple of time over the last week so my mind started racing. I couldn't sleep Monday night thinking about the consequences of him being transgender. Do I tell him about my crossdressing? Does my wife blame me? How do we tell the family and his friends? What happens at school? Does he need to change school? Puberty blocker etc. Father and son trips the women's department!
So yesterday I thought I'd sit down with him in a quiet moment and ask him what he meant by not identifying as a boy. When I asked him he looked at me blankly. He said he identified as a boy and was just messing around. They'd been doing gender identity at school last week and his teacher said there were over 1000 different gender identities which he thought was funny.
I told my wife last night and she laughed. She knew he'd been joking and said that in her friends class over half the kids say they have gender and sexual identity problem. They find it all a lot easier to talk about in school these day so it's all out in the open and nobody judges.
A bit different from my day!
Katie
I wasn't so much a worry as opposed to thinking how I could support him if he decided to take a non-conforming gender role. You always want to make sure that your children are safe and happy.. It was just how could I support him in making these choices so he could lead a happy life.