The Story of Estrangement
Why the Parents of Trans Adults Stay Silent
Happy New Year to all of our readers! Our first Fairer Disputations original of 2025, by Featured Author Eliza Mondegreen, tells the stories of parents who likely found the holidays painful this year, due to the estrangement of their adult, transgender-identifying, children.
The Story of Estrangement: Why the Parents of Trans Adults Stay Silent
Eliza Mondegreen
Parents who have lost adult children to estrangement have been largely absent from broader conversations around gender and transition. In many cases, parents must shut themselves out of the conversation. Any hope of reconciliation with their child hinges on their silence—or on their anonymity, if they cannot keep silent.
When parents do speak, their stories may trouble even those who might otherwise be expected to understand. Many critics of youth gender transition feel uncomfortable talking about adults. Perhaps it feels more enlightened to say: Of course, adults are free to make those decisions. Then we don’t have to talk about what transition really entails, just why it’s not appropriate for children. But either transition is safe, effective, ethical medical care or it isn’t.
Either rejecting oneself is good or it isn’t.
This Week in Sex-Realist Feminism: A Pro-Woman Feminism, OnlyFans Isn't Feminist, and Rotherham
This week: Erika Bachiochi on a pro-woman feminism for the 21st Century, Josephine Bartosch on why OnlyFans isn't "feminist", and Louise Perry on why Rotherham happened. Plus: performative charity, the new fertility inequality, tradwife as a kink, isolation and parenting, and more!
From the Archives:
Featured Author Eliza Mondegreen’s previous piece on parents with transgender-identifying children pairs well with her piece today on parental estrangement due to gender-ID.
What Happens to Parents When Kids Come Out as Trans
Eliza Mondegreen
“Parents who stumble over pronouns and new names, ask for time to adjust, hesitate to consent to hormonal and surgical interventions, or express their reservations and doubts may find themselves cast out of their children’s lives entirely. As soon as I started writing about gender, I started hearing from parents. Every parent I’ve spoken to fears losing their child—to suicide, estrangement, or mutual incomprehension.”