Coming out to your family can be a difficult part of the coming out process, because there may be a lot of fear and uncertainty about how they may treat you afterwards, or you may still be in a situation that requires you to depend on your family of origin for your basic needs. If you need to test the waters before you decide to come out, you can ask them what they think about a recent news story or debate involving trans people, and you may be able to get a good idea of where they are in terms of acceptance. In many cases, you may end up being surprised at the support you receive!

If you’re a minor who wishes to access gender affirming care, most legal and medical transition tasks require parental consent (and therefore, coming out)–everyone’s living dynamic is different, so you’ll need to weigh out the pros and cons of your particular situation–some folks have to make the hard decision to stay closeted until they have their own stability. If that’s the case, please know that you can still reach out to our Ally Parents program for support from parents/caregivers of other trans youth.

Stand With Trans has a section of the library dedicated to helping parents and caregivers learn more about what it means to be transgender, how to come to acceptance, what they can do to be supportive, and more. If they don’t already know about it, we highly recommend sharing it with them!

Stand With Trans also offers several types of support groups for caregivers, if they would benefit from processing their experiences with other caregivers of trans folks.

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