This is such nonsense. Your child remains your child, however they identify.
Here's my story.
My child approached me, early teens, at night, looking very fearful and worried, saying they had something to tell me. A thousand awful scenarios went through my head before he said: "I'm trans."
Can't actually describe the relief, because I thought he was going to report abuse or something equally awful.
And I realised something important: he was terrified of my reaction. I held his whole future in my hands at that moment. I have never been more conscious of the absolute power a parent has over their child - to buoy them up or hurt them, give them protection or reject them.
Yes, a child can have certain emotional pull over their parent when they're older - but not, when they are a child depending on you for care, control. Iwas holding not only his happiness and self-worth in my hands, but his future as well.
I can't describe how scared he was in that moment - and so many trans people experience the same.
I'm a childhood abuse survivor. I know what it's like when an adult you trust removes your sense of safety and happiness. I felt that power in my hands and heart, so much that it hurt me. And I realised: I didn't want it. In fact, I hated knowing I had ir. I could have done anything to him in that moment, and it would define our relationship.
So, I hugged him. I told him that we loved him no matter who he was, and always would. I said I didn't know anything about being trans and would have to learn.
The discussions began later, the next day. Was he sure he wasn't just a masculine-presenting woman? I worried about things I'd read about fertility. So he explained about how it felt to be trans, that he preferred a feminine presentation anyway and that he wasn't sure if he wanted to have kids, he was a teenager! About surgery being banned for teens. And so much more.
I later read about trans children, and the experiences of trans people. I followed trans people on social media, and tentatively posted about it.
Dozens of accounts began to pile on mine, bots and trolls reacting to the word 'trans' and I realised that there was a huge, entirely ignorant anti-trans community who virulently hated trans people. And I began to see why he'd been so afraid.
In the weeks after, as he talked about a new name and we got used to calling him by his new pronouns, I noticed a massive and quite humbling change in him. He stopped pretending to be a girl and relaxed into his real self - and it was obvious this was who he had been all along. I watched him visibly brighten, become more confident and realised he had been hiding so much from me.
I realised the person he was, was nothing like me. He wasn't a girl. He was a trans boy. While still being exactly the same person.
Lots of other people who had known him before were fearful of how to treat him and wary of giving offence. Until they realised he's exactly the same kid, just more honest about who he is. Everyone - his grandmother, born in the 1940s, included - just adapted.
The transphobic school bullying came later, and darkened our lives. I'm not sure how he would have got through it without our support.
Any parent who centres themselves when their child comes out, is a narcissist and an abuser. Desiring to control your child above respecting them, is deeply abnormal. I'm astounded by the vanity and selfishness displayed by parents who do it. Especially those fixated on their child's body. No change my son could make to himself would alter my love for him. He's still a very ardent feminist, we still talk about misogyny and it's many effects.
The fact my son is trans is probably the least interesting thing about him. It doesn't affect his life anything like as much being autistic and deaf affects his brother's. But they have one thing in common: the angry, entitled and violent behaviour of people who don't like difference.
Because he experienced bullying from a young age, my deaf son hides who he is. He lip-reads to a very high standard and just doesn't tell many people he's deaf. Worries me to death because it means he doesn't wear his hearing aids when he walks through town - I've pulled him out of the path of a car twice. But he fears encountering ignorant bullying again.
My trans son can't hide who he is. He is socially transitioned and everyone knows this. He's visibly androgynous, and gets all kind of angry reactions - almost all from men - demanding to know "what you are". Although he has a very full life, working and studying, with many friends, he knows he is at permanent risk from those who hate trans people. There are many of them.
I think sometimes about how he survived school. How he used to refuse to attend, sometimes for weeks, for fear of being attacked or sexually assaulted again. How his teachers intervened, and gay teachers volunteered to walk the corridors with him to give protection. How there was no protection at all on the school bus.
I think about how he survived it because of our absolute and unwavering support for him. How he'd come home desperate for me to hug and reassure him after a day of exhausting hypervigilance.
But that came naturally to me. No way was I ever going to have him go through what I did, lonely and suicidal with no one to talk to at home and feeling unsafe. Any parent who rejects their child for who they are, and makes it all about them, is a monster.
I want him in my life, but more than that I'm not an abusive person. I have since learned that this isn't a common reaction, and that many trans teenagers are ostracised, rejected and often thrown out of home. I know three young trans women who were all told they needed to leave home when they went to university. None of them have parental support. I know how much that hurts them, and how permanently broke they are because of it.
I can't ever imagine treating a child like that, because who my child is doesn't define me. I wouldn't care if he detransed tomorrow (which is deeply unlikely, but whatever), that's his business. What I care about, is the unbridled anger directed at people like him. To know that it's their .parents doing it, is unspeakable.