How to Come Out to Children, Teens, and Adult Kids.
Dr. Z explains how to come out to your kids based on 3 age categories—adult kids (25+), teenagers (10-18), and young children (4-10).
Category 1 - Adult kids: Come out the same way you would to loved ones—sit down face to face, get them on phone/Zoom, or write a brief email. Let them know you've been dealing with gender dysphoria for majority of your life, you identify as transgender, and you're going to undergo gender transition. The older your kids are, the more likely they've been affected by societal transphobia.
Category 2 - Teenagers: Come out the same way—sit down and tell them. Teenagers today are saturated with awareness of gender diversity, so chances of them not supporting you are very slim. What Dr. Z does see: if you've been keeping the secret and there's tension in your relationship, teens are feeling it. When you come out, they may experience a sense of betrayal—"you didn't trust me enough to tell me from the beginning."
Category 3 - Young children (4-10): Kids as young as 4 understand the concept of gender identity, but they lack capacity to mentalize what you're telling them. The vocabulary and understanding of transgender doesn't contextually exist in their mind yet.
Watch to find out what to expect from each age group and what makes it difficult with younger children.
