Recording: Parenting with PRIDE

Meetup Live celebrated Pride Month with Trystan Reese, author of How We Do Family, From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned about Love and LGBTQ Parenthood. In this installment of Meetup’s Dismantling Social Injustice Series, Trystan provided a refreshing new take on family life for the LGBTQ community and beyond.

Trystan shared how he and his partner, Biff, built a loving marriage and happy home—learning to parent on the job. Using examples of tough moments and touching memories from his own life, he showed how parenting with love is far more important than getting every single thing right. Trystan’s lessons on parenting are universal and can help parents of all backgrounds through the trials of raising children. He also shed some light on his unique story as a pregnant transgender man.

Main Takeaways on parenting:

• My partner and I thought it would be important for more people to see that there are lots of ways to be trans. The easiest, cheapest, and most straightforward way for us to grow our family was for me to have a baby. I get to be a man and have a baby—why not?
• There’s not just one experience of pregnancy or of being trans. None of that experience or those feelings around being a trans parent mean that person is or isn’t a good parent, or that they are or aren’t trans.
• A common misconception is that if you’re a trans man you’ll hate being pregnant. In reality, some people love it, and some people don’t mind it, and some feel that it triggers dysphoria, a feeling of deep discomfort with one’s body and societal expectations of gender. 
• Trans women of color have done much of the storytelling, education, and cultural change when it comes to sharing about what it means to be trans. I’m white, and people may not know I’m trans when I walk down the street, so I have those privileges. I hoped that by taking on some of that burden and sharing my story, it would lighten the load of others in the community. 
• The opposite of shame is pride, and that’s what this month is for. I encourage queer people to stop doom-scrolling—those tragedy stories you see on social media aren’t for you. Go to the joy, celebration, and pride. Your work is to feel and know that you are a wonderful and magical person and the world is blessed to have you.

Top Q&A Questions / Resources:

• Any advice on how to be a super-mom to my young trans son?
  • Just get out of the way. Think of yourself as the guardrails on the freeway, keeping them from hurting themselves. If they say their name is this one day and that another, say “Okay.” Don’t go overboard with the pride flags. Ask them if they’d like you to correct others when they use the wrong name or pronouns for them. Overall, don’t try to influence them, let them figure it out themselves, and be there for them.
• What were your biggest fears before getting pregnant, and were they as bad as you thought?
  • I didn’t know how emotionally difficult it would be to adopt. We had so many court dates, and I had such little power. They interviewed my boss and my doctor, and strangers did home inspections to see if we were “good enough” to be a family. It was so disempowering and traumatic. The things I didn’t know about or prepare for were horrible. Pregnancy was way worse than I thought. I couldn’t suck it up and work full-time like I thought I could. I should’ve had better systems in place to protect myself. However, my partner helped me manage my pregnancy and the responsibilities in the house, and we shared the work equitably.
• Is there an age that’s too young to be trans?
  • We do know some cold hard facts about trans youth. Giving people social support is life-saving. You can’t bully a kid out of being trans. You can however bully a kid into hating themselves or wanting to be dead. Similarly, you can’t support someone into being trans. Kids appreciate being able to explore their identity themselves. 
  • We know that medical support for trans youth is life-saving and completely reversible. It’s not until ages 16-18 until they’re able to do anything non-reversible. The bar for getting medical support is really high. They need to be showing a gender identity that is insistent, persistent, and consistent in all aspects of their life. The right-wing talking point that we’re giving sex changes to children is not based in reality. Maybe we’re allowing kids to get a haircut or go by a different name, but we know that it does not cause harm and we know that it can be life-saving if they actually are trans.
• Resources
  • Transfertility.co
    • Features everything you need to know about trans pregnancy, including interviews with trans folks who’ve been there and sources for advocacy. 
  • Meetup Live Recording: Equal Rights for the Transgender Community
    • Learn more about disparities that people in the transgender community face, as well as legislative and cultural actions we must take to affect change. 

Last modified on June 25, 2021