Denise, 49, has two daughters, aged 15 and 13. Her eldest child, Zoë, is transgender.
“When I think back to memories of my child from before her coming out, I still say ‘he’ and I still use the name Tim. Zoë finds that difficult, but that’s exactly what my grief is about. It doesn’t just feel like my son has died. It feels like he has been erased. As if he never existed at all.”
Tim was a gentle child. He never showed a particular interest in stereotypically feminine things. Emotionally, he was quite closed off, partly due to a mild autism spectrum diagnosis. Even when Tim was eight and his father and I separated, he barely spoke about his feelings. When he came out as bisexual at twelve, I didn’t see it coming, but I immediately told him it didn’t matter to me at all. I’m attracted to both men and women myself and have had relationships with both. I tend to describe myself as fluid rather than bisexual. In our home, it was always normal to fall for a person, not a gender.
I asked Tim how he knew. The answer stayed vague. “It’s always been this way,” he said. Now I think he had been searching for his identity for a long time, without having the right words yet.
I later learned that Tim had been struggling with confusing feelings since the age of seven. I was angry with myself for a long time for not seeing it. What kind of mother doesn’t notice something this big? Even after Tim came out as bisexual, he wasn’t at ease. He was easily frustrated and uncomfortable in his own body, which showed itself in incontinence issues. To put it bluntly, he still wet his pants regularly. That continued even when he got a girlfriend, Lara. Lara was actually attracted to girls, but she “made an exception” for Tim. Looking back, I understand why. I think she was the only one who saw the girl in him.
One morning, about a year ago, I woke up to a long message from Tim on my phone. It came down to this: “I am a girl, and from now on my name is Zoë.” A thousand thoughts hit me at once. A sense of “this explains everything.” Pride, because of the courage it took to say it. But also fear. The image of my child, six foot three, shoe size 12, living as a girl terrified me.
I was afraid there would never be a safe place for her in the world. Afraid of hatred and violence. Every time I look at Zoë’s striking appearance, my heart tightens and I think, please let them leave her alone. But in that moment, I pushed all of that aside. I went to her room, hugged her, and told her I loved her unconditionally.
Zoë’s father, my ex, had received the same message. When I called him, he immediately said, “Okay. Fine.” I remember thinking, what? My head was exploding, and he accepted it without hesitation, as if it had always been this way. Zoë’s younger sister, Lisa, did the same. She moved effortlessly from a world with an older brother to a world with an older sister.
Only my mother initially thought it was “for attention” and that “Tim would come around.” She means well, but it’s clear she still doesn’t really understand what being transgender means. I did know one thing right away: this wasn’t a phase. When Tim makes a decision, it’s final. He was never fickle.
Because there was so much acceptance from everyone around us, I felt ashamed that I struggled. I had always seen myself as very open-minded, and I used to feel genuinely angry watching documentaries about parents who didn’t immediately accept their children. Suddenly, I understood those parents, even though I couldn’t fully explain why I found this so difficult.
I cried for three months straight. When the kids weren’t home, I stayed in bed and only got up when absolutely necessary. That, too, filled me with shame. How can your own pain paralyze you so completely that you hide from the world, while your child is facing something so enormous?
I didn’t dare talk to anyone about how I felt. I found a Facebook group for parents of transgender children, hoping to meet someone who felt the same. In one of the first posts I read, someone mentioned the term “dead name.” It refers to a transgender person’s birth name, which they no longer want to use or even hear. I hadn’t heard the term before, though I knew Zoë was relieved to leave her boy’s name behind. But this hurt deeply. A dead name? The name I had chosen with so much love? It felt as if all my care and affection were being thrown away along with it.
When I posted that I had warm, loving memories of the time when Zoë was still Tim, and that I wanted to cherish those memories too, I was met with a wave of anger online. Zoë had never been Tim, people said. Not even for a second.
Since coming out as a woman, Zoë herself has never doubted. She’s on a waiting list for hormone therapy and attends a support group with peers she can talk to about everything.
Zoë used to be a big, broad kid. She’s tall, like NikkieTutorials, and that’s why I’m grateful there are role models like her. I offered to go shopping together for a new wardrobe. Even though I sometimes feel a bra during a hug, Zoë still mostly wears Tim’s old clothes. I think I’d feel less afraid of street aggression if she were more visibly recognizable as a woman.
I now have enormous admiration for parents who proudly post photos of their trans children. I do it too, but underneath it all, this exists. The thought that Zoë might make irreversible changes to her body, like having surgery, still terrifies me. Maybe I’m not as open-minded as I thought. Or maybe other parents feel this too and just don’t say it out loud.
Recently, I was in Zoë’s room at her father’s house. On the wall hung a photo of her as a toddler. I asked if she liked having it there. “Not really,” she said. I replaced it with another picture, one where she looked more feminine. I took the old photo with me. It’s in my bedroom now. Every night I look at that little boy, who no longer exists for my child. I love my child. Unconditionally. But every time I look at that photo, I cry for a moment.
This interview was conducted two years ago for one of the largest women’s magazines in the Netherlands.