The Experiences of Sexual Minority Mothers with Trans* Children

Abstract

Eight nonheterosexual (i.e., bisexual, lesbian, bi/pansexual) mothers with trans* children between 6 and 11 years of age participated in semistructured interviews in which they discussed the intersections of their own sexual minority identities with their children's gender identities or expressions. Transfamily theory was utilized to understand how heteronormativity and cisnormativity operated in these families' lives. Initial lack of awareness among most of the mothers regarding trans* identities, as well as efforts by some to curb their children's gender expressions, paralleled previous reports on primarily heterosexual parents with trans* children. Having sexual minority identities and experience with LGBTQ communities was beneficial for some mothers but seemingly disadvantageous for others, in that some experienced blame for their children's trans* statuses, often due to the fact that these mothers identified as queer themselves. Findings reveal complexities in how participants were influenced by heteronormativity and cisnormativity and have implications for those looking to learn more about queer parents' experiences raising their trans* children.

Trans Families: A Review of Three Documentaries

“…The intersections of Jessie's gender expression with Jessie's mother's sexual orientation and gender expression reflect findings of some existing research on LGB‐parent families (Kuvalanka, Allen, Munroe, Goldberg, & Weiner, ; Lev, ). Jessie's mother admitted initial feelings of disappointment with Jessie's attraction to and desire for “all things pink” and other clothes and toys typically deemed to be for girls (at the time of filming, Jessie had not yet socially transitioned).…”

Family Boundary Ambiguity Among Transgender Youth

“…Counter to conceptualizing parental reactions to gender variance as acceptance or rejection (Koken, Bimbi, & Parsons, ), findings reveal that transgender youth recalled a lifetime of parents' reactions to gender variance and, over the span of gender identity development, transgender youth perceived acceptance, rejection, negativity, ambiguity, ambivalence, positivity, support, advocacy, and reconciliation. Sexual minority parents of children who identified as transgender have reported similar experiences (Kuvalanka et al, ). Counter to a master narrative that transgender youth are kicked out of or leave their family home due to parental rejection (Yadegarfard et al, ), findings show that most of the participants experienced relational and identity loss—that is, a more psychological form of loss.…”

Queering Methodologies to Understand Queer Families

“…Scholars have begun to study complexities among queer families and the ways that they are doing gender, sexuality, and family (Oswald et al, 2009). Notable examples include studies of gay fathers (Carroll, 2018;Goldberg, 2012), second-generation queers (Kuvalanka, 2013;Kuvalanka & Goldberg, 2009), parents of transgender or gender-creative children (Johnson & Benson, 2014;Kuvalanka et al, 2018;Kuvalanka, Weiner, & Mahan, 2014), children of parents who are transgender (Dierckx, Mortelmans, Motmans, & T'Sjoen, 2017), and the recent introduction of transfamily theory (McGuire, Kuvalanka, Catalpa, & Toomey, 2016). Queering traditional approaches to research allows prevailing notions of "the family" to be deconstructed and illuminates diversity among queer and all families (Allen & Demo, 1995).…”

“…Instead, we ask whether it is possible to queer historically singular methods (i.e., only quantitative or qualitative)? That is, in what ways might methods be queered or contribute to queer meanings (Russell, 2016; see also Oswald et al, 2009)? Generally, qualitative approaches lend themselves more readily to understanding and deconstructing the intersectional systems of power and privilege that situate the experience and processes of queer families (Kuvalanka et al, 2018;Oswald et al, 2005Oswald et al, , 2009Rupple et al, 2018). The benefits of qualitative approaches to the study of diverse, queer lives is well demonstrated in the work of Bowleg (2008;Bowleg, Huang, Brooks, Black, & Burkholder, 2003), where participants asserted an experience that is not independently Black, female, or lesbian but that is unique to the contemporaneous relationality of, and social inequalities related to, all three identities (see also Crenshaw, 1989).…”