On estrangement

Georges Seurat

My latest piece for Fairer Disputations:

Over the summer, I spoke to three mothers who find themselves estranged from their adult children. Their stories raise uncomfortable questions about what transition entails: not a constructive transformation of the self, but a destructive rejection of the self.

This attempt to eradicate the old and despised self puts every close relationship at risk. Friends, lovers, and spouses must go along, rewriting their own life histories in the process. “Affirming” photo-editing services turn little girls into little boys, and vice versa. Some couples stage new wedding photos to replace the old ones, as though they had wed with knowledge that came only later. Friends must pretend that certain experiences—the slapstick horrors of puberty, say—had never been shared, or else that these experiences were shared, even when they were not.

No one’s presence is more troubling to the revisionist than that of parents. No one’s presence is more troubling to a young person engaged in an act of self-destruction than the mother who will never see torn flesh as liberation.

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.