Eliza Mondegreen’s latest: What Happens to Parents When Kids Come Out as Trans
The first time I listened to a parent tell the story of how her child came out as transgender, it seemed like a strange tale of a private misadventure, plagued with the kind of disproportion most commonly found in fairy tales. But then I heard another such tale. And another. And another. The stories started to sound less like warped fairy tales fed through a game of telephone and more like an epidemic: the first case you encounter is mysterious, and the symptoms make no sense. The next case is eerily similar. Keep looking, and a pattern emerges.
Or perhaps my first metaphor was the right one: one day, the Pied Piper came through town and all the children disappeared.
I’ve come to realize that when one person transitions, everyone in their life gets recast as supporting characters. They are judged along a single axis: how affirming are you of your loved one’s new identity? How quickly do you reform your speech and rewrite your memories?
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