Once I had a sister

The forgotten pain of siblings in the transgender identity war

Much has been written about transgender youth, children and young adults. And increasingly more is being written about their parents, who are struggling to support their kids in a vacuum of professional support. My experience in supporting these families is that a young person’s struggle with gender identity causes an explosive effect on the entire family. Lost to this struggle and seldom mentioned are grandparents, aunts and uncles, and close friends. But perhaps no other group is as overlooked as the siblings of these young people.

Much has been written about siblings of kids with special needs. It’s commonly known that siblings struggle both with their relationship with each other in these situations, and in their own lives. Parents often realize that their other children have been overlooked somewhat, as such a great amount of time and attention is taken up by the child with special needs. As described here, sibling relationships and special needs, siblings are often expected to take on a caretaker role in the family. They may be seen as the “good kids”, who don’t need as much time or energy from their parents as the ones who have been identified as needy. After all, we are all human and there are only so many hours in the day and we possess a limited amount of energy.

One mom told her story. She says:

“There was a great deal of conflict. Our daughter was out of control and highly emotional, and very angry all the time. There was a lot of shouting. One night as this was going on, her sister, who was 8 at the time, was sitting on the floor crying, as her sister was shouting and slamming things. Quietly, I heard her say, mommy, can you make it stop? I saw her tears. I felt torn and so very guilty. We were so consumed with our daughter’s issues that we didn’t realize how difficult it was for her sister. She went on to develop an eating disorder. We had to stop and take the time to tend to her needs. It was so difficult, because now they were both struggling.”

Siblings may take a “side” in the issue, which can evolve over time. Sometimes the sibling initially is confused or even horrified that their sibling is demanding a new name, new pronouns, and insisting that they are now a brother and no longer a sister. This is a huge loss for a sibling, no matter what the age. Often the siblings have been close all their lives, and it’s like losing their sibling in a way, as the gender identifying sibling is changing so rapidly and dramatically. Over time, some siblings begin to agree with and absorb the gender identity beliefs, as they are pressured and “educated” by their sibling. They are also frequently taught about gender affirmation at school, on the internet, and by their peers. It’s not uncommon for a second sibling to “come out” as trans at a later point.

“We took this family trip, every year, from the time our kids were tiny”, one mom told me. “And now, I realize that this is probably never going to happen again. I’m grieving because at this point I don’t know if we will ever be together, all in one place, again. I never imagined it would come to this.”

Adult siblings may feel a tremendous amount of pressure to choose sides, and there can be a lot of disagreement between siblings on which side to choose. This is a loss, no matter which side is chosen. Frequently this can result in not only the trans identifying child but also siblings becoming estranged from their parents. Even if there is a point in time where things improve, will this family ever recover from this? This is an entire category of loss, and when I scoured the internet looking for articles on this topic, I was able to find only one short article stating that trans identifying youth are helped in their adjustment when their sibling support them. There was nothing at all about how the siblings are doing with this. How are these kids doing? Does anyone care? Has anyone asked?

One mom told me about her son. He was very sad that his sister was suddenly insisting that she was his brother. Like most kids, he didn’t really want to talk about it. When a couple of kids at school announced that they were also transgender, this boy was so upset that he was unable to go to school. The teachers and the other kids were all very positive and seemed to be so happy about the kids that were transitioning, leaving this boy to feel that he was the only kid who didn’t think this was a good thing. There’s very little support in the youth peer culture for kids that don’t cheer about gender identity. All around them in the culture, this is a cause for celebration, with special days at school, media and entertainment companies and seemingly the entire world waving a pastel pink and blue flag. Where can they go to safely talk about their struggle?

I don’t have a lot of answers here. But I can tell you this. Gender identity is like a IED to the family. Just like in war, it explodes, and no one gets out unscathed.

Need to talk about this? Feel free to email me at GenderApostateNow@gmail.com