"Little children, headache; big children, heartache." ~Italian Proverb
We have supported our daughter from day one. Literally from the first second she came out to us, we have stood at her side, encouraged her and we sped her through every step of her transition as quickly as we were humanly able. Usually not as quickly as she wanted, but more often with superhuman efforts and sometimes financial difficulty.
For two years she has been on hormones, increasing slowly to the maximum oral dose of estrogen. Despite that, her development has been too slow for her liking. We can see her hips widening, her skin softening and the beginnings of breasts. But her ideal is a curvy, voluptuous figure and she's fixated. Despite conversations about body image, the billion dollar beauty industry, the media's role in the need for the "perfect body," she has never wavered. It's back to that old question: teenage issues or trans issues? More often that not, it's a complicated combination of the two.
With the help of our counselor, we got C in to see a new doctor who specializes in care for adult trans folks, even though C is not yet 18. We were thrilled when the doctor agreed to switch C to injectable estrogen, which has better results with development. Oh, happy day! For once, it wasn't just a blase response to something she seemed to think we could pull off easily and just owed her. Don't get me wrong, we don't want praise or accolades for all we've done to help her - we'd do anything for her - but it sure would be nice to see a little more excitement. New name? Cool. Name changed with the school? Done. New birth certificate. Check. New passport? Thanks. New Social Security Card? Ok. Blockers? When do I start hormones? Hormones? It's not enough. You get the picture. I think we've seen more excitement about the latest episode of Steven Universe or a great game of Overwatch. But this time, her eyes got wide and she smiled. A moment of excitement - glimpsed for just a second.
So when she showed actual excitement about the injections, I got my hopes up. I imagined getting to sit with her a talk her through the process, while celebrating the next step of her transition. I was gutted when she took all the supplies and headed up to her room. I asked her to wait for me. Nope. So I went up to be a part of the process. I was told one of her trans friends was going to talk her through it via skype and I wasn't needed. I was hurt. Really hurt. I tried to explain to her that I wanted to be a part of this exciting part of her transition and she yelled at me that I was making it all about me. *sigh*
C's been in a really bad place lately, struggling with depression, self harm and high anxiety. We both needed something positive. I'm not too proud to admit we fought. We both yelled. We both cried. I just wanted to be allowed in to something with my daughter. I had no say in her transition. I had no say in choosing her new name. I had no say in any of it. But dammit, I wanted to get to be a part of something exciting. In the end, she needed me. She couldn't remember all the steps. Her friend was confusing her with directions that varied from those she was given. After two hours of arguing, she asked me to help with her first injection, and I'm so grateful I still got to be a part of it, but the excitement was gone.
Yesterday I got to see a bit of the excitement she says she feels but never shows us. When I picked her up from school to take her to an appointment with her counselor, I told her I had got a date for the consultation for her GCS. Not surprisingly, her reaction went something like this: "Really?" Yes. "When?" March. "Cool." And that was that. But when we arrived at the counselor, one of her friends was coming out of his appointment and C blurted out, "I got my consultation date! We're going to Arizona for spring break!" She was bouncing. She was smiling from ear to ear. She was bubbly in a way I hadn't seen in ages. She IS excited. When she tells us she's excited, she means it. She's just a bloody teenager who can't let her parents in. I guess I just have to get used to that and hope that one day she understands that all we want is to share in that excitement with her.