How to understand Gender Spectrum Issues

0:01 Good morning. I just got done doing an HLN segment, and they always go by so fast. And so I really wanted to take the time to talk about this very important topic that really came to light this morning with last week, Dwayne Wade having an interview with Ellen about his daughter coming out to him and talking about gender spectrum kind of issues. So there are some important points that I had planned and we didn't get to.

0:30 And I really want to share. So the first thing is, is that sometimes parents have a hard time accepting what their kid wants to do or who they are, or the fact that they don't have the same interests as you do. Because there's this process called vicariously living through your child. And vicariously living through your child really means that what, whatever your unfulfilled needs and met needs were, are going to be met now through your child.

1:00 So let's say in this case, this is my son. If there was, you know, something, let's say I was. I was a musician, but I never felt like I got to my potential. So now I place that onto him, and I want him to be this amazing musician, although that might not be his desire and his hope. And so people do this all the time. Sometimes they're small examples, and sometimes they get bigger and bigger. We oftentimes see that in sports, where we are really pushing our kids past their comfort zone and it's not about them anymore.

1:36 It starts to become about us. And there is a fine line. We do want to support our kids and we want to try to help them be the best that they can be. But in the case of more extreme kind of issues, like gender spectrum kind of stuff, it's really important to remember that maybe you had this vision that you would have the son and they would be heterosexual and they would, you know, go to college, get a good job, get married and have two kids and live in a house.

2:04 And once that image or that vision gets disrupted, sometimes parents have a really hard time adjusting to that. So I think more and more it's important to really think about what is it that you want for your kid and what is it that they want and have these kind of open discussions about it. The other point I really wanted to make was that it's really our job as parents to give our kids the best advice or guidance, but when they present something to us, we need to get educated again.

2:39 In this case, where you might have a child coming to you and saying, you know, I don't feel like myself inside, or this, I'm not living my truth. And this is what my truth really is. There's two things you have to do. You have to, one, believe them. They're telling you. This took a lot of bravery. Believe them. And number two is educate yourself. It's okay not to know everything. It's okay to say, I don't even know what that term means.

3:09 I don't even know what this means. How do you know what this means? Where did you get your education? What are your resources? It's really okay to say, let's learn this together, or you be my teacher and teach me. And so I think it's important as a parent to not feel like you always have to have the answers. And there's, of course, there might be a grief process in which you're grieving the image of who you thought you, your children were going to be or what their life was going to be like.

3:37 But you can do that, and you can do that in private. There are also so many online groups, in person groups, important websites like gender spectrum.org there are books, there are resources. So if you're in a city, if you're in a larger metropolitan area, you can get those. Probably live if you want to. And if you are in a remote area, there are many online resources. So please seek out that information that's so important. And I would say the other thing to really think about is that when it comes to any kind of LGBTQ kind of issues, by the time a child shares their truth with their family, they have not only been educating themselves for a very long time and probably actually been really struggling for a very long time, but they may have also contemplated even ending their life.

4:34 Feeling like this is too much. I don't feel like I can come out. I don't think I can change who I am. And so the statistics are alarming around how high it is around kids who struggle with these kinds of issues, just wanting to commit suicide or feel like their life is not worth living. So those are the things I really wanted to say today on this very, very important topic. This topic that I think, for the most part, most people know very, very little about.

5:07 And I can say that I've been working with kids for over 20 years, and even in my professional career, this is something that I am continuously educating myself around. This is not anything that I've gotten educated on. Obviously, in school, this wasn't a thing. And so our field of psychology has come a very, very long way over the last even hundred years on how we look at gender issues, sexual identity, issues, and that's going to continue to evolve.

5:37 And I know that I'm making the commitment to continue to educate myself as a professional and also as a parent and just a community member. And I encourage you all to do the same. Thanks so much for listening.