Interview by Loree Cook-Daniels

To get a sense of some of the issues children of trans parents might bring to therapy, we talked to Laurie Cicotello, adult daughter of an MTF parent and her spouse. Laurie was the original co-founder of Teenage Kids of Ts – TAKOTS – and has spoken widely at conferences and to the media about children of trans parents. She currently serves on the board of Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE).

Connectivity: Did you go to therapy after your dad came out to you about being MTF?

Cicotello: Yes. I was 14 when my dad came out, and shortly afterwards my dad recommended that I see her therapist. I saw this woman, a noted gender specialist, for about six months.

Connectivity: Did you find the therapy helpful?

Cicotello: No! It made things much worse for me. She explained that my dad was going to go through puberty, and that her puberty was far more important than mine. She told me to expect my dad to start wearing my clothes and make-up.

I didn’t want my dad wearing my clothes and make-up! So I quit wearing make-up and I began to gain weight so that my clothes wouldn’t fit her. What that therapist said to me about her puberty being more important than mine was very damaging. It’s taken me a lot of years to pull out of that aspect of it.

Connectivity: Did she do anything positive for you?

Cicotello: She did give me good information about the trans community and the various types of trans people, and what changes my parent would go through. But that got pushed to the wayside because of what she said about the puberty issue. She did also help me get in touch with another daughter of a transperson who was about my age, and we started Teenage Kids of Ts – TAKOTS. It was a group that met at the Gender Identity Center of Colorado for awhile, but no one ever came. The word was that people wanted their kids to come, but the parent always had some reason why they couldn’t be there. Then my co-leader's mom decided she was going to try to distance her from her trans parent, and pulled HER out of the group. So I ended up just kind of being a resource for other kids.

Connectivity: What did you do with these other kids?

Cicotello: A couple of them had always been in trouble with the law, and I really started to figure out that the kids of trans parents a lot of times are just crying out for attention by doing crazy, weird, stupid things. I did it when I was 18, trying to get my dad’s attention. You crave attention from your mom and dad so much you’d even get into trouble. When that doesn’t get their attention, you take it a little further and a little further….

Connectivity: What can a parent do to help prevent this acting-out?

Cicotello: Kids in this community are invisible. When I go to [trans] conferences, I almost become the celebrity of the conference because no kids come. The trans parents are hurting so badly over the loss of their kids. Yet, they’ve kind of screwed it up. From the perspective of MTF parents, what I see a lot of parents doing is charging after their kids saying, “Wait, wait, read this pamphlet!” and the kids are like, “leave me alone!”

The problem is that everything revolves around the parent being trans. A lot of times there’s so much self-centeredness in all of this, so much narcissism. They can’t even see their families for what they are. All the attention that should be going to the kids is instead going to the trans parent. The parent thinks every conversation with the kid is their big opportunity to get the kid to understand their transness. I have people come up to me at conferences and say, “I sent my daughter your article. I know she’ll love it.” She probably won’t!

If you really want your kid to be your kid again, put away your issues and talk about what they’re doing. What’s going on in their lives? Do something that shows the kid that your whole life doesn’t revolve around your transgenderism.

They want us so badly to understand their issues! And it’s so sad to watch that happen, over and over. If parents would just listen to their kids, we could get so much more done.

Connectivity: Could therapists help promote this conversation?

Cicotello: It’s really difficult for therapists to break through this impasse because they don’t see this aspect of the family dynamics. It’s like when the focus of a family becomes the alcoholic. This is where the family falls apart, because so much is going on in the parent’s life they don’t have time for their kids. I just don’t think the therapists are seeing this part of the picture.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from parents is, “I took my kids to therapist G, who knew nothing about trans issues, so I ended up teaching therapist G about trans issues.” My question is, “Why aren’t you talking to your kids directly? Why are you educating a therapist to educate your kids?”

There’s always going to be some bias from the therapist. Parents need to take some initiative to make sure they really know what this person is going to talk to their kids about. Will the therapist look at where the kids are coming from? What is the outcome supposed to be? Is the goal that everyone has to be happy and ok with what everyone else is doing? If that’s the case, it may be that the parents need some help in creating a dialogue with their kids, or maybe the therapist needs to focus on why the communication in the family is such that the kids won’t talk to their mom or dad about their issues.

One thing that definitely gets overlooked many times is that there may be other problems going on. A lot of times the therapist doesn’t take into account all the other issues that are going on in the family; they just focus everything on the trans issues. If the therapist my dad took me to had been more inquisitive about me, she would have found out that I’d been sexually molested a few years before and had already developed something of an eating disorder, but those were never brought up. Then you slap this whole thing on me that my dad’s going to wear my stuff…it was all about my dad and my dad’s problems. There was no talk about communication skills or family skills. There was never family therapy with me and my mom and dad present. In fact, while I was going to the therapist, my mom didn’t even know that I knew about dad.

Connectivity: Does it help when kids of trans parents talk to other kids of trans parents?

Cicotello: The kids tend to go into hiding. It’s really difficult for me to find other kids of trans parents. I feel very connected to the parents; that’s whom I’ve mostly seen at the conferences. But I feel very disconnected from the children. I would love to find more of a community, so we can talk about the issues. So often whom I hear from is the parent: “I just told my daughter about me and she’s throwing up. Now what do I do?” or, “I have a three year-old; how do I raise him to accept my transgenderism?”

Children of Trans Parents Resources

COLAGE
3543 18th St #1
San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone: 1-415-861-KIDS (5437)
Fax: 1-415-255-8345
E-mail: colage@colage.org
Kids of Gays --- Despite its name, this group sponsored by COLAGE explicitly welcomes children of transgendered persons. They have an e-mail list, a Web site, and an office in San Francisco. To reach them by e-mail, write KidsofGays@aol.com.

Families Like Mine
1730 New Brighton Blvd., PMB 175
Minneapolis, MN 55413
612-362-3389
http://www.familieslikemine.com
General questions: info@familieslikemine.com
Abigail Garner: abigail@familieslikemine.com

Dial-up and Adult Children of Transgender Parents email groups. For more information, contact julieg@AMNIX.COM

Trans Family Children Discussion List. For children of transitioning parents, including adult children. For information, contact info@transfamily,org, or see www.transfamily.org