“Well, what did you think?” When I hear this response from someone I want to choke the person saying it.
I am a gender-dysphoric woman. In more precise terms, I decided to live as a woman after many years of trying to do the ‘other’. I made the change after a long separation and divorce, when I knew that there would be no chance for marriage reconciliation. I have two younger children ages 13 and 18 who have since witnessed my change.
I used to tell people about my relationship with my two kids. There have been ups and downs. I don’t tell people anymore because I get the same inane, snide question every time: “Well, what did you think?” This response tells me that people readily think that I should, of course, not be alarmed by my children’s response to my change, that I should be treated at arm’s length, with disrespect, with anger and with contempt. According to them and their presumptive empathy with the children, the children’s response is only natural. This question also implies that they think my change should be regarded as so unusual, so unthinkable and, therefore, so un-normal, as to not be worthy of their consideration or my children’s consideration. In other words, you deserve their response. The question itself is actually insidious bigotry hidden inside a haughty comeback. It is right up there with, “How could you do this to your children,” another shaming tactic.
Beyond all of this, there is the other parent who continually derides me before my children, feeding their fears and offering nothing positive about me to my children. This parent gets away with this by saying that “this is what they think. It doesn’t come from me.” This behavior is parental alienation based on a “Well, what did you think,” philosophy. Now, when someone calls you a “freak”, a “weirdo”, “demon-possessed” and a “mealy-mouthed pea brain” in front of your children, you have to wonder what else is being said in private. God only knows. He knows.
I didn’t look for sympathy from others when I told them about my relationship with my kids. I told them because I needed to talk about it. It was heavy on my heart. But, I talk about it no more.
Maybe some day, when I find an adult, I will talk about it again.
(BTW: This change has been a reconciliation between my mind and my body. The change has been redemptive. God has blessed my ‘change’ over and over again. My change should be viewed in that light and not from the viewpoint of a perverse sexual fantasy. Most people fear and dislike what they don’t understand. I am at the receiving end of my ex’s anger and my children are learning to become bigoted as they watch and learn from adults around them – those one or two people who say hurtful things about me and the rest who say nothing in my defense. They are one and the same.
God’s purpose for my life is being worked out. God’s purpose for my children’s life will be worked out as well, without anyone’s ‘help’.)
Cindy Wity 
