Good luck. I have a friend whose daughter is in a similar boat, but so far she (and it is still she, for the moment) is just taking puberty blockers. She has been expressing gender dysphoria since the age of 2 and is usually mistaken for a boy. I don’t have kids, but the step of affirmative hormones seems like it would be anxiety inducing, but it sounds like you’re doing all the right things. Your kid seems assertive, so that helps.
3 Likes
Hey OP.
Just chiming in to say excellent humaning on your part.
My brother is a trans guy. He’s a hell of a lot happier now than before, and would have probably led a happier and different life if he had figured it out earlier.
Don’t sweat the hormones and the top surgery. It is weird for about 2 seconds then its not a thing anymore.
Regarding the hormones. Yeah. It has permanent impacts. So does going through puberty as the opposite gender. That’s pretty God damn permanent as well.
My bro does a lot of volunteering with trans organisations. If you ever want another line of support. Hit me up. He is pretty good at this sort of stuff.
7 Likes
Person 1. I went to the doctor today
Person 2. Oh? What did they say?
A man and his son are in a terrible accident and are rushed to the hospital in critical care. The doctor looks at the boy and exclaims “I can’t operate on this boy, he’s my son!” How could this be?
1 Like
Jokes aside, this process has really opened me up in terms of recognizing how gendered pronouns and biases are SO baked into our language and culture. I am much more sensitive to it than before. Which stands to reason.
2 Likes
Damn. This took me way longer than it should have.
Yeah, why couldn’t she operate on her son?
1 Like
I would have a hard time operating on my own son, that’s got to be hella stressful.
Ooops, my bias is showing. My solution was that it is the grandfather who is the doctor. (grandfather → man → son)
1 Like
In your shoes, I hope I wouldn’t have any difficulties with love, support, and acceptance, but I know I would struggle with the grammar! 
I wasn’t totally serious. Just yesterday one of my kids said that a friend’s dog died during an operation and their mom was the vet. Not kidding.
My god. How are they doing?
I can’t decide if I would want to operate on my own pet or child. On one hand, I’m obviously compromised. On the other hand, that’s my child.
The report was that they are bummed.
I don’t know if I could operate on my child. I get like the nauseous and in shock feeling that you might get when you’re really hurt if I see them hurt, but OTOH I’m pretty good at like dealing with their cuts, burns, splinters or w/e even the couple times they’ve been kind bad. My youngest had a big cut on her hand and I had no problem cleaning it.
If something goes wrong with my dog, I’m looking up dog surgery on YouTube instead of paying the vet bills.
1 Like
Hah ever the pragmatist
That’s a good point that you literally might not be able to operate on your kid. I was just thinking of functional but compromised performance, but yeah, I could easily see myself being so overwhelmed that there’s no way.
Just grateful for every day we don’t face that question and good wishes for if/when we do.
My folks are/were docs, and prescribe to the following…
Yeah, I was gonna say get Rugby in the mix, he’d have a lot to offer.
He was also with me in the war against ikes over young Leelah Alcorn’s suicide.
1 Like
Preaching to the choir but that’s what these kids are up against.
1 Like
My first thought was “two dads.” I suck.
I feel like Oprah in this thread. “You get a heart! You get a heart! You get a heart!”
It’s awesome to see how young people handle this stuff. My daughter is 15. Half the male members in the school play are openly gay (they did Legally Blond last year and the audience was rolling in the aisles during the courtroom “He’s Gay” number). She and all her friends subscribe to LGBTQ Youtube channels. She probably knows ~5 kids at school whose pronouns are they/them, and nobody gives any of it a second thought.
My wife, however, is Boomer adjacent and, though she claims to be just fine with anyone who is LGBTQ, she just… can’t… seem… to… grasp… the whole pronoun thing. She swears modern communication has been rendered impossible because who could ever figure out who “they” refers to in a non-plural context?
4 Likes
It didn’t occur to me that the doctor could be the mother. My assumption was the doctor is male. Woof.
There are more women than men in medical school, so this joke isn’t going to work long.
A man and his son were installing some solar panels on a roof. Someone from the ground called up to the boy, “hey son, you ready for me to hand up another panel?”