But You Said Not to Look Back!

For years, my kid hated to see pictures of herself from before she transitioned. It was painful for me as a parent to witness this self-erasure, but I could understand. Would you want to see images of a person everyone assumed was you but was never you? Would you want to feel the anguish of that misgendered past?

So it was a simple (if not sadness-free) matter to take down the family photo gallery when she came out, or to run ahead of her into grandma’s house to throw a school portrait into the recesses of a cupboard before she could be ambushed by it. I couldn’t help what awkwardness would be in Izzy’s social transition, but I could at least get pictures that made her miserable off the mantel.

AND NOW, suddenly, at 17, Izzy is freely scrolling photos from the time before she transitioned—and casually sharing them with us.

What the hell! Not that long ago, she said “don’t send me old photos.” Does she not hate seeing her misgendered self anymore? She doesn’t?!

I have to laugh.

One million selfies

When Izzy came out, my husband Andy and I felt grateful she trusted us. We asked her how she wanted us to support her (your acceptance is what I need, she said), then we began to educate ourselves.

We joined parent groups, researched healthcare, read trans history. I consumed essays, memoirs, art, blogs, novels, poems, everything I could get my hands on by trans people.

Many trans writers and artists describe the trauma of seeing images of themselves pre-transition, so when Izzy recoiled at pictures of her former self, I was not unprepared. I felt grief that that past I had loved so much had become a source of personal pain for my child. But I reconciled myself and began my own process of letting the past go.

Izzy was getting to live as herself. Among other things, this would involve 1 million new selfies and zero grade school Halloween photos. Photo of small Izzy dressed up as a parking meter and eating a caramel bullseye: Goodbye. I get it.

Huh?

That’s why, the other day, when she sat around laughing at that toddler Halloween photo just like any other teenager, I felt confused. And then angry.

Izzy was casually giggling at a memory I had let go of for good. I had undertaken a serious education, had built compassion, achieved wisdom: wisely I submerged my attachment to treasured images of her childhood for the health of her full, and female, self. Hadn’t I?

I went through the process of detaching from some of my favorite images of her, in the funny hooded sweater in the baby sling, dressed as a wolf in a school play. I made sense-memories disappear: the feel of her weight on my hip. And now it’s ... fine to look back?

Of course, the loss I felt was more than images. A lot of her childhood is lost to me. The pictures are stored in boxes, but the memories vanished because I made them vanish. Since they were too painful for her to recall, I banished them even from my own mind, not knowing how to think about them.

Parents of cis children don’t generally have to wrestle with all this.

I wrestled with it, though. I got the job done.

Hahahah!

Evolution

I’m realizing my mistake was thinking Izzy’s new self, when she came out, was permanent.

Partly that’s because almost no trans youth detransition—a fact I will happily share with anyone. After Izzy came out, I was focused on facts: I have a daughter. I will not be taking questions.

It’s true I have a daughter, but turns out she is not a fixed, final self any more than I am or you are.

When Andy and I said to Izzy, “we love and accept you,” it didn’t mean the “you” in that moment was going to stop changing and evolving. Come to think of it, it’s not unlike Andy and I agreeing to go into the future together when we got married—not that we knew what the future was or who we would be in it.

Izzy’s evolution has nothing to do with me (surprise). Maybe casually sharing her pre-transition photos with us is a positive sign. She could be getting more comfortable with herself and what she has been through. If she is on her way to loving her past self, or just accepting that self, I am happy.

But I don’t know! I don’t know if that’s what’s going on. She could have been in a goofy mood. Check this space in a few years. Or weeks!

Wall full of nails

I don’t feel as angry now about distancing myself from the past, even special memories. It has been a part of caring for my kid, and that’s what I agreed to do when I became a parent. My self is evolving. I think some memories will come back, or that I might be able to slowly approach them again on my own, and rediscover them.

So. If you are a parent who hurries to strip old photos from relatives’ refrigerators before your trans kid sees them, I see you. If you have a wall full of nails driven into plaster with no photos hanging on them—to me, that’s a robust family portrait. I love walking into a house of a fellow parent of a trans kid and seeing a stairwell of empty photo hooks. Nothing makes me feel cozier!

There’s one photo on a shelf at my friend Barbi’s house of her kid before they came out as trans masc nonbinary. One small picture, the only one in the house. I always stop to look at it when I’m visiting.

I wonder how her kid feels about it.

Maybe someday I can ask them.

—N.R.

Denny and Me: Guest writer J Brooke

You often hear that queer people have chosen family. But sometimes, your queer family includes the one you were born into

GENDER DEFIANTGender Defiant