Finding support for parents and carers of trans and gender-diverse young people
Parents of trans and gender-diverse children can face many pressures. These include processing their own reactions and emotions, accessing specialist gender identity services, being on the long waiting list, making sure their children are supported at school and looking after relationships with other family members. It can also be hard to find reliable information and navigate the healthcare system to get timely mental health support. As a result, parents often feel they are alone.
Many parents and carers had mixed feelings about support they received on the NHS (for more on this see what they shared about the support from their GP and the Gender Identity Development Service). Parents and carers spoke about needing more specific support aimed at them. Of the sources of support that they did mention, the main ones were:
Friends and family;
The charity Mermaids; and
Local and online support groups
Support can mean different things to different people, but most of the parents and carers we spoke to agreed that it was very important. Ali said the support from a parents group helped them feel "less isolated, I didn't feel half as much at sea." For Mel, "just having that sharing space where people can talk was really good". Ross praised the charity Mermaids: "They have got me through the darkest of times."
Richard felt support groups gave people a sense of belonging.
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I’ve been to a couple of the meetings. They were very much run by parents just there talking about their experiences without anyone necessarily with an agenda to teach you anything or share anything specific. it’s more of an open discussion. And sometimes it’s not even talking about transgender issues. it’s just a group of people getting together having a catch-up on their lives. I think for the mums just to sort of have a, and I say mums and sometimes dads there as well, just to go to a group where everyone doesn’t feel like they stand out and to be in a situation where you feel as much like you fit in as possible is a very welcoming environment for people when they feel they are isolated or don’t really fit in in the way they may have felt before.
The availability and timing of support
In our interviews, most parents we spoke to wished that more support was available, but the timing of the support was also important. It was also key that support could be accessed as and when families needed it, not just as a 'one-off'. For example, a couple of parents and carers spoke about being offered counselling by their GP or through their work, but not taking it up at the time. However, they thought counselling could have been helpful at another point in time.
Some people we spoke to shared that they did not need support but they appreciated knowing it was there, if something changed for their family. Andrew talked about how he and his wife did not need additional support now. He said, "Well we've since learnt there are groups, Mermaids, Stonewall, there are a few agencies that we could've gotten help from if we wanted to. But we haven't needed to, we've managed to keep everything going and sort everything out, the two of us, my wife and I."
Many parents we talked to spoke about feeling alone and that the available support is very limited. Several parents felt there was no support at all for them. Oonagh said, "I dont think theres any support at the moment in the healthcare system, You would just have to make your own sort of support, seek it rather than it being available."
The lack of support was described as a huge gap. As one mother put it, the lack of support for parents is "the biggest kind of holes." Ross shared, "Its not a whole lot out there. Not that I found and I have searched." This left some, like Georgina, in a situation where "we don't feel supported".
Josie felt that Mermaids online forum and phone helpline were a great source of support for families.
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I think that’s where, that’s where something like Mermaids absolutely gets it right, because there’s, there’s this online forum so if you have a question you can just put it up there and then it’s like a conversation and lots of people will come on and talk to you about it. And the fact that you can, you can go on the web chat or you can go on the helpline. And I think for young people and for families I think that’s absolutely, you know, I think that’s absolutely brilliant. And I think that’s a fantastic approach. Whereas it’s more a case of you talking to someone. You know, whether it’s you’re talking online or talking on a phone or whatever. You know, so that you can just speak to somebody, I think that’s really, really helpful for people.
Some felt that the gap in support for parents needed to be addressed in order to improve support for young trans and gender-diverse people. As Adele said, "If you're supporting the parents then the kids are, by definition, supported too."
Friends and family
Many parents and carers we spoke to emphasised the support they got from their friends, partners and family. For example, Adele shared about her mum, "I spoke to my mum a lot about this, she was giving me a lot of support anyway and sort of helping bring up the kids and she was really on board with it. And just really supportive." For Richard, his partner and his mum were the most important sources of support; he emphasised, "I can talk to my mum or my wife about it." It is important to note that parental support and acceptance are key to the wellbeing and mental health of young trans and gender-diverse people. Denial and delaying of care causes harm.*
Oonagh talked about the role of support groups.
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Cause you just feel, you just feel lost without the information you need to help you understand what’s happening with your child and that you, there’s nothing wrong with the child. I think as well that to navigate, to navigate all the things that are being said in the media and what other people, friends or family say, all these things that people are telling you all the time about what you should or shouldnt be doing to support your child. If youve got a network of support there with other people that are having similar experiences, you can come to a better understanding about what’s happening to yourself without anybody’s sort of uniformed views coming into play all the time, which I think, I think might happen if you didnt have that support.
Mermaids
Mermaids is a charity devoted to helping trans and gender diverse children, young people and their families. The charity runs a helpline, offers online resources, arranges some local meet ups that bring families together, and runs online forums where families can connect with others in a similar situation. Most parents we talked to have engaged with Mermaids, either through online forums or via the phone helpline. Josie thought that being able to ask questions and talk to someone was very valuable for parents. She said, "I rang the helpline a few times and spoke to volunteers, and they were just, they were just brilliant."
Some parents felt that Mermaids was the only source of support for them. For Jan, Mermaids was "the entire support that we've got."
Mermaids was sometimes the first point of contact for parents.
Kate thought the meetings sometimes made her feel worse, but she liked getting information from the group.
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So, the youth club that my son goes to also runs a parent group. And I’ve been to that a couple of times and that’s great. That’s really, you know, it’s really helpful. But there’s such a mix of people there. I have only been twice. And they had a session yesterday and I didn’t go, because it’s just sometimes it makes me feel worse, because I don’t particularly have a problem, I don’t think. Maybe I do and I’m just not facing things, I don’t know. But it’s like day to day, I feel fine. And I don’t feel upset and it’s just not an issue for us. So, actually going along and talking about it makes it more upsetting somehow. Maybe I need to do that. I don’t know. And also some people, there are parents there that really struggle. And I don’t feel that I have much to offer them because so far, I haven’t found it a struggle. But there’re also people a lot different points in their journey. So, some people’s children are much older. So, they’re going through treatment or they’ve just started treatment. Or they’re not at school anymore and they are now at university or at work. So, and it’s only a small group. So, actually, you do still all have very individual experiences. So, sometimes cos we’re quite, feel like we’re the newbies. We are quite new to this. And not having some of those issues. And I’m not necessarily the greatest like group sharer. So it’s helpful and it’s helpful to know it’s there and I appreciate the sentiment and I think it’s great that it’s there. We did have a session from people that came from the Gender Identity Development Service, but for the adults. And they came to give us information and discussion and that was really helpful. So, I think where I can get information, I find it really helpful. Where it’s more about sharing experiences that hasn’t been as helpful.
VM talked about support groups and how she doesn’t do online.
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I have a friend who has, has a Facebook group and but I don’t really do online, so I don’t have Facebook and I don’t really—and I don’t really, I don’t really engage with people like that. I find it very difficult to tap things in and interact. There’s a WhatsApp group. But it’s very lightweight and sort of more heartfelt stuff you would do in the group, I’m not really that keen to do online. But I’m sure, as parents coming through and theyre younger, I’m sure the online thing would be great for them. It’s just not me, really.
For Lisa, the experience with Mermaids was mixed. She contacted Mermaids to ask for advice about how to manage a situation where her husband was not accepting (known as 'affirming') her child's gender identity. Although she felt they were helpful in giving her links and signposting, she needed "more specific nurturing support."
Face-face and online support groups
Those parents who had a local support group talked about the importance of being able to attend group meetings and events.
Not all the parents had access to support groups in their area. VM, who lived in a big city talked about how lucky she felt to have two support groups "around the corner" from where she lived and how other parents travelled 'for miles' to come to her local support groups.
The groups were a place for parents to share experiences, get information and advice, make friends, and socialise. Support groups also offered an accepting environment free of judgment. For example, Mel explained "I think they [parents] find it useful to go somewhere where they're not judged. They're accepted and there's someone there that understands what they're going through. It's really, really useful."
Some parents were able to join a local support group specifically for parents of trans and gender diverse children, whilst other parents attended more general groups for parents of LGBT children and youth. D, who attended a group for parents of LGBT children, described how parents of trans children were in the minority. He said, "There's still mainly parents of gay children predominantly in this group. I think they are getting more parents of trans children as time goes on."
Some parents had mixed feelings about support groups. Kate described herself as "not necessarily the greatest group sharer":
Local support groups often had online forums or other social media groups. For many parents, this was a useful source of support, especially if there weren't any local support groups available in their area. There were other benefits of online support groups for some people too. Ross thought the speed of communication and ability to gather different pieces of information or advice in online groups was a good thing, "I would ask and within 10 minutes, three or four people would reply, with different views... When you're getting four or five different situations from completely different people all over the UK you can glean little bits of information that are the same from all of them." However, not all parents liked taking part in groups online.
Many parents we spoke to were supportive of their child's gender identity and their social transition). Not everybody we spoke to felt the same though. Elijah, who did not affirm his child's gender identity spoke about support for non-affirming parents. He said: "There's a network. There's a very active network out there of parents who don't affirm and are very, very sceptical about the [Gender Identity Development Service] and current practices in the NHS."
Some parents, like for example Jan, talked about the ways they tried to support other parents of trans and gender-diverse children too.
* See for example:
Puckett, J. A., Matsuno, E., Dyar, C., Mustanski, B., & Newcomb, M. E. (2019). Mental health and resilience in transgender individuals: What type of support makes a difference? Journal of Family Psychology 33(8)
Simons, L., Schrager, S. M., Clark, L. F., Belzer, M., & Olson, J. (2013). Parental support and mental health among transgender adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 53(6).
Priest, M. (2019) Transgender Children and the Right to Transition: Medical Ethics When Parents Mean Well but Cause Harm, The American Journal of Bioethics, 19(2)
