Ultimately, your child is going to live into their identity one way or the other, and I hope it will be a luxuriantly long life they get to enjoy and not the kind tragically clipped short by despair. You can’t change your kid, no matter what kinds of fears you have. What you’re choosing now is whether you get to be the parent of “my folks were really supportive,” or whether you’re five years, ten at the most, away from “my parents and I don’t really talk.” Your children might turn out to be transsexual or transgender or genderqueer. Or they might be gay or lesbian or the other kind of queer or something else festive and new in the world of gender and/or sexual orientation. That part is not up to you. It wasn’t up to you before they came out and it isn’t up to you now, either. I know that’s hard news, but it’s the truth.

I also understand that it might seem like making them hide and pretend and lie is the right answer because they’ll get less static in the world. It might seem safer in the short run. It might seem like a way of protecting your kid. But really, if you don’t hear anything else, please hear this: that’s how you make a kid ashamed of themselves. That’s how kids get the message that their parents are ashamed of them and regret that they were born. A kid who gets bullied or taunted at school but feels loved and cherished at home (and gets to see positive images of other trans/gender-independent kids, of which there are many) will grow into a well and whole adult so much more often than a kid who fits in with peers at school but lives every minute feeling like they’re an awful secret. That’s also the truth. That’s also the choice you’re making right now. Please, please, choose well.