11/03/2025
This article is a gift!
At Real Mama Bears, our leadership team believes that parents of LGBTQ+ kids — and really anyone serious about advocating for marginalized communities — must remain humble, always learning and growing.
One topic that’s sparked much discussion through the years is the idea of grief that some parents describe experiencing when their child comes out. We’ve never wanted to tell parents their feelings were wrong — because feelings aren’t wrong. Our focus has always been helping parents process their emotions in healthy, responsible ways so they can show up as the best possible support for their kids.
At the same time, we’ve always bristled at the idea of parents expressing mourning when a child comes out. We never want an LGBTQ+ person to feel like they are the source of their parents’ pain. That’s why we’ve encouraged parents to process difficult emotions privately — with trusted friends, in community, or with a therapist — rather than with or around their child.
And then came Mama Bear Lizette Trujillo, who helped us see an even better way. Her wisdom reframes how parents can talk about their feelings — not as grief, but as the process of unlearning fear and expectation.
Lizette reminds us that what parents often call “grief” is usually tied to fear of what the world might do to our children, or to the loss of old expectations — not to the child themselves. Her reframe is powerful and healing:
“Changing how we talk about the grief narrative might seem small, but it’s one of the quiet revolutions that moves culture forward. When we replace narratives of loss with ones of love, we help create a world where trans and non-binary people are met not with sorrow, but with affirmation.”
Going forward, we’ll be following Lizette’s lead — adopting her compassionate, wise language as part of how we guide parents and allies.
Here’s her powerful reflection in full:
"When Daniel first shared his gender identity with us, he was around two and a half years old. Developmentally, this makes sense as research shows that children begin to understand gender and gender categorization around thirty-six months. He showed us through the way he drew himself, through the characters he wanted to be (like Astro Boy and Aladdin) and even through the Lego figures he built in his own image. Daniel expressed who he was in so many ways, long before we were ready to truly listen.
We didn’t begin social transition until he was eight. And when we finally did, the overwhelming feeling I experienced wasn’t grief, but guilt. I had a deep sense of guilt that I had allowed my child to feel unseen, unsupported, and anxious for so many years. I realized that, had I trusted what he was showing me from the beginning, much of the worry and tension he carried might have been spared.
Part of that guilt came from a place that reached far back into my own childhood. Growing up as a little brown Chicana girl, I understood discrimination in a way that leaves a mark. I knew what it meant to move through a world that didn’t reflect you back. I knew what it meant to feel “othered,” to be unseen or misrepresented, to be the target of microaggressions so subtle and constant they shape how you see yourself. Those experiences teach you early that safety, belonging, and dignity are never guaranteed.
Because of that, I didn’t want Daniel to experience those same wounds, especially not from his own parents. I didn’t want him to carry the message that who he was would make the world smaller or crueler. And so when I heard other parents speak about grief, as though their child’s truth was something to mourn, it felt so unfair. It felt like it came from a place that centered adult discomfort rather than the child’s humanity.
That was when I realized this wasn’t just about my own parenting, but about language itself. It felt like a responsibility, especially as a parent of color, to help change the way we talk about our transgender children. Because if we continue to frame their existence through a lens of grief, we are reinforcing the very systems that taught so many of us what it feels like to be “less than.”
That experience made me realize how powerful and how harmful the grief narrative can be when it becomes the lens through which we interpret our children’s gender journey.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about this language, the grief narrative that parents are often handed, and how deeply it shapes our understanding of what it means to raise a child who exists outside of societal expectations. If we want to move toward true equality and understanding, we have to start by re-examining this harmful narrative.
The Power of Language
Reframing the way we talk about things is one of the most powerful tools we have for progress. Language doesn’t just reflect reality; it shapes it. The words we use reveal what we value, what we fear, and what we believe to be possible. If we want to build a more inclusive and compassionate world, we must constantly re-examine the language we use, the ideas we hold, and the unconscious biases that inform them.
One area where this reframing feels especially urgent is in how we talk about grief. Specifically, the idea that parents of trans and non-binary children experience a kind of mourning when their child comes out.
The Old Framework: Grief as a Response to Difference
For decades, parents (especially in previous generations) have used the grief narrative to describe the experience of raising an LGBTQIA+ child. In the 1980s, for instance, many parents of gay and le***an children spoke of mourning the loss of imagined futures like the hope of a “traditional” wedding or the expectation of biological grandchildren. Yet we now know how far from the truth that is. I personally had the honor of officiating my youngest sister’s marriage to my sister-in-law, Sandra, and three years later they are expecting twins. Alongside those outdated notions of loss were also very real fears for their children’s safety and well-being, grounded in the harsh realities of discrimination and rejection.
These fears, unfortunately, remain real. The world can still be unkind to those who live outside rigid expectations and binaries. Parents’ concerns for their children’s safety, dignity, and happiness are deeply valid.
But the issue lies not in having those feelings, but in how we name and direct them.
What Are Parents Really Grieving?
When parents speak through a grief narrative, they are rarely mourning their child themselves. More often, they are processing the loss of privilege and expectation. The sudden realization that their vision of who their child would be no longer fits within the social scripts they were taught. In its place comes worry and concern for their child’s safety, fear of future discrimination, and anxiety about how family, friends, or community might respond with judgment or rejection. Yet none of this truly centers the child or their needs in that moment. Instead, it places the parent’s own fears and discomfort at the forefront, making the experience about their “loss” rather than that of their child’s well-being. Too often, this perspective doesn’t just center the parent’s comfort, it subtly assigns blame to the child’s gender identity, implying that life would be simpler if their child weren’t trans or non-binary. But this framing causes real harm and it teaches children that being trans or non-binary is a burden, that who they are disrupts family peace, and that their existence must be negotiated rather than affirmed. The real problem isn’t the child’s gender identity, but rather societal bias, and often a parenting culture, still shaped by this bias and fear.
In truth, what’s being lost is not the child, but the illusion of ease and acceptance. It’s the quiet privileges that come with aligning neatly to what society has historically defined as respectable or familiar. It’s the comfort of knowing that your family will not be questioned, that your child will move through a world designed to affirm their place in it.
But our children are not a loss. They are a revelation.
When we use the grief narrative to describe our experience in relation to our child’s gender, we inadvertently cast that identity as something tragic. We center our own discomfort rather than the child’s need to be affirmed and supported. We frame authenticity as absence, when it is, in fact, presence.
The Power of Reframing
Parents are entitled to complex emotions. Fear, confusion, sadness are natural reactions to change and uncertainty. But the grief narrative reinforces the idea that something or someone has died, when in reality, something true has come to life.
Rather than saying “I’m grieving,” perhaps we might say:
• “I’m working through my fears for my child’s safety.”
• “I’m unlearning what I was taught about gender and identity.”
• “I’m confronting my discomfort so I can better support my child.”
This shift in language is not just semantic; it’s transformative. It moves responsibility away from the child’s identity and toward the real sources of pain, which are social stigma, institutional discrimination, and cultural prejudice.
How the Grief Narrative Shapes Our Politics
The grief narrative doesn’t only harm families, it shapes the culture and politics surrounding LGBTQIA+ lives. When society accepts the idea that parents must “grieve” a child’s identity, it reinforces the notion that being LGBTQIA+ (especially being trans or non-binary) is inherently tragic. This framing has quietly fueled decades of discriminatory policies and public attitudes.
Politicians and pundits have exploited parental fear and sadness to justify restrictive legislation under the guise of “protection.” We’ve seen this in debates over school curricula, healthcare access, and youth sports. We have seen “empathy” for parents’ supposed loss used as cover for policies that deny children their dignity and autonomy.
This grief narrative allows society to center cisgender and heteros*xual comfort over trans and q***r survival. It says, implicitly, “Your pain as a parent is understandable,” while telling the child, “Your existence is a problem to be solved.”
In this way, the grief narrative becomes a political weapon. It validates emotional responses rooted in societal bias and turns them into moral justification for exclusion. It lets lawmakers and communities claim compassion while enacting cruelty.
If we want to change the political landscape our children are forced to navigate, we must first dismantle the narrative that their truth is something to mourn. The path to justice begins with language because words are the soil where laws and culture grow.
Naming the Real Source of Loss
Parents’ fears and sadness do not exist in a vacuum. They are born from the messages society sends about what is acceptable, valuable, and worthy. When a parent feels distress upon learning their child is trans or non-binary, that feeling often stems from external pressures, not internal truths.
So let’s direct that grief where it belongs:
• Toward lawmakers who legislate against trans existence.
• Toward institutions that use faith or ideology to justify exclusion.
• Toward cultural systems that mistake conformity for dignity.
Our children are not the source of our pain. The problem lies in a society that still teaches us to see transgender people as something to fear.
Doing the Inner Work
Reframing our understanding of the grief narrative is not about denying emotion. It’s about reorienting it. Doing this work requires humility and honesty. It means sitting with discomfort, questioning long-held assumptions, and recognizing how much of what we fear is actually the result of external bias rather than internal truth.
This process is not easy. But it is essential if we want to move from sympathy to solidarity…from “I’m sad my child is different” to “I’m proud my child is free.”
Parents who engage in this work become powerful allies. They help dismantle the cultural narratives that make life harder for LGBTQIA+ people. They replace pity with pride, and silence with advocacy.
Building a Better Tomorrow
Changing how we talk about the grief narrative might seem small, but it’s one of the quiet revolutions that moves culture forward. When we replace narratives of loss with ones of love, we help create a world where trans and non-binary people are met not with sorrow, but with affirmation.
Our children deserve more than our mourning, they deserve our joy, our protection, and our unwavering belief in their right to exist as they are.
Reframing the grief narrative doesn’t mean ignoring fear or pretending the world is perfect. It means refusing to place the burden of that imperfection on those who live bravely in their truth. Only then can we begin to build the world our children deserve.
A Reflection
Today, Daniel is thriving. He is joyful, creative, and fully himself. Watching him live openly has taught me more about courage, honesty, and love than I ever could have imagined. The fear and guilt I once carried have been replaced by awe. I see transition as something profoundly human. It is the act of becoming who you are meant to be.
And as a Chicana mother, this journey has been a kind of healing. The pain I once carried as a little brown girl who learned early what it meant to be unseen, or told she needs to assimilate now meets a different ending. I get to raise a child who isseen, who is empowered and empowers others around him. In nurturing Daniel’s freedom, I’ve also reclaimed parts of my own.
It’s not just Daniel’s story that’s unfolding. It’s the story of generations working to undo the harm of silence and shame. Every time we choose language that honors dignity over fear, we help write a new narrative. One rooted in justice, belonging, and love.
Our children don’t need us to mourn who they aren’t. They need us to see who they are, and to stand beside them with pride and conviction.
Thank you for reading 🤎
Thank you for taking the time to read and reflect with me. Conversations like these can be uncomfortable, but they’re also where growth begins.
I’d love to hear from parents, allies, and LGBTQIA+ readers about how you’ve experienced or reframed language around identity and parenting. What words have helped you move from fear to understanding, or from confusion to pride?
If this piece resonated with you, consider sharing it with someone who might need to hear it. The more we talk openly and thoughtfully about these shifts in language, the closer we move toward real progress.
🏳️⚧️ In solidarity and hope,
Lizette"
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If you’d like to follow more from Lizette Trujillo on language, identity, and parenting, consider subscribing to her Substack - link in the comments.
