Trans Children & Their Parents

The shocking truth is, per capita, thirty five percent of transgender people attempt to commit suicide, the percentage is even greater among trans the youth population, why you may ask?

Roots.

A transgender child who remains in the home, protected by their parents and family will grow up to be a happy and healthy adult. These, I believe are the roots that are fundamental to human development and mental health in a person.

During the Marriage Equality Campaign, misinformed parents feared their children would be infected by trans children and their children would want to change sex too. This contagious argument, though ridiculous, was once applied to children from divorced homes, ethnic minorities, gay people, people living with AIDS, Jews, etc. We all now know this misunderstanding is just uneducated fear.

Parents of trans children who have chosen to love their children and keep them safe  at home  have come under immense scrutiny and criticism by other parents, religious groups and also spiteful writers who wish to sell newspapers. Through the internet, these same parents have found each other and can now find sanctuary in peer support. These brave parents are not over indulgent, they know their children are trans. And come from a place of love.

A trans child is not created, a trans child is born.

For at least 1,600 years Christian trans youth have been forced to leave home and seek out survival  on the margins of society as a vulnerable people. And at least 30% of them committed suicide, many others were murdered, died of accidental substance abuse, starved to death – how they died is merely a sidetrack of the shocking  fact that they were allowed by other Christians to die at all. As Christianity spread across the colonial world, more  trans people were forced to survive outside of society and on the margins because their ancient positions in cultures were taken away from them, becoming beggars and prostitutes as their only means of survival. The Hijra of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were forced off their valuable lands granted them by the Moghul Emperors and stripped of their privileges as priestesses and teachers. The Raj created anti-Hijra laws and made all them criminal tribes, under the Criminal Tribes Act. All because their gender did not comply with the British Empire’s religion. This is just one example of what befell trans people and their cultures with the rise of dominant religions through Empire. It is my belief that it is not true Christian behaviour to allow such a long term and widespread injustice to have occurred.

I believe the bishops of our world will one day stop and realise we are all children of God, and it is God’s will that we are created, otherwise the transgender population would not have existed as a naturally reoccurring  phenomena in humans in every culture since the dawn of man.

If society supports parents of trans children, society will win. The government will save millions, definitely billions of tax payers’ dollars in the long term – because the children will have roots. Their parents will force them to go to school, get a job, and tech them life skills, just like other sons and daughters in other families across the world. This will reduce the strain on social welfare, through drastic reductions in unemployment, mental health, youth homelessness and suicides, and the benefits to society will be long term. It really is a win-win situation.

This issue is important to me emotionally because I was once a trans child, and my parents thought they were cursed. I was the source of all their shame – A heavy burden for an 8 year old child.

I left home at 18 so I could transition. My roots were severed, but by sheer force of will, determination and the love of my great grand parents, my roots slowly grew back, just enough to give me the will to survive and flourish, just at the same time that many of my peers lost their will to continue.

I don’t blame my parents, it was the early 1970s and  our situation was beyond their comprehension. There was no peer support or readily available access to information for them, but there is support and information now.

As a trans adult who was once a trans child, I promise you these parents are telling the truth. If they ask for support, please support them, when they speak, please listen, if people refuse to  acknowledge them, please, give them a platform.

All children are our future. X