My trans-daughter, an unexpected gift

with Caroline Watson & Hannah Watson

Today we have a subject that we haven't covered before on SNJ: Having a child or adolescent who is transgender. It's not a special educational need, but it's a fact that being trans or non-binary is more much more common in neurodiverse young people.

Being trans and autistic can bring with it greater challenges the young person and their parents in supporting them. If you're interested in how to support a young person who is autistic/neurodiverse and trans, you can try "Supporting Transgender Autistic Youth and Adults: A Guide for Professionals and Families", from Finn Gratton. The NHS has parent information here. I'll add more resources at the end.

This is a subject very close to my heart, because my youngest is also trans. It can be very difficult to get the right kind of treatment with interminably long waiting lists for NHS services, for those both under 18 and in adult services. Private treatment is very costly but can end up being the only speedy way forward when gender dysphoria is causing immense distress.

I'm leaving aside treatment questions for young people; I'm not an expert. If you are a parent on this journey, I would recommend you and your young person do thorough research. Always consider, however, where the information has come from and whether it is compassionate and unbiased.

What I do know, is that we need to have more understanding of, and empathy for, what it is like for young trans people and their families. It's common for the young person to be very upset when they identify why they are feeling as they are. They most often spend a long time denying their own feelings to try to "fit in". This in itself can cause significant mental health issues.

It's also extremely challenging for parents having to adjust everything you held as basic truths about your child, including different pronouns and new identities. It's important to remember as a parent, that however you feel, it's fundamentally not about you. Your child is going to need your support more than ever.

Today's article comes from Caroline Watson and her daughter, Hannah Watson. As SNJ is a parent-led site, this story is Caroline's narrative, but Hannah's story is woven into the article. (Hannah doesn’t have an autism diagnosis, but her experiences at school will be familiar to many). Both Caroline and Hannah's aim is to help other families. Their full story first appeared in the magazine of The Beaumont Society, a national self-help body run by and for the transgender community.

Caroline Watson: My Daughter, an Unexpected Gift

I remember the day as if it was yesterday. It was the 16^th of March 2015 when my lovely 22-year-old son came into the room and said he had something to tell me. Wringing his hands, turmoil on his face, talking under his breath and clearly upset, he told me ‘I want to be a woman, I’m a woman inside and I have to do something to change the rest of my life’.

I was shocked, I didn’t know what to say and my stomach felt like I’d swallowed a bowling ball. He carried on but kept retching and could hardly get the words out and my heart went out to him. He continued, ‘I’ve been to specialists and psychiatrists and I have gender dysphoria. I’ve been like this since I started school’.

Finally, what I’d known in my heart for years my head now knew. A kind and thoughtful child, who loved having girls as friends, but there was often crying at night and sheer terror every time school holidays ended. I tried to understand what was going on, but couldn’t get through. Now it all clicked, and I felt unbelievably sad and guilty that I had not recognised the signs. I managed to ask if he was going to be dressing up as a girl, a stupid question, but I was at a loss to understand everything. He said yes, and I panicked inside, picturing him in a skirt and being laughed at and even beaten up. He said he wanted to be ‘elegant’ and I cried knowing this was to begin a journey that would change all our lives.

Caroline: I felt very alone

For days after Hannah came out, I cried a lot when no-one was looking. I'd find quiet places at work to bawl my eyes out; after all, there was nobody who would understand this. I wasn’t stable enough to even broach it with my closest friends. This was an incredibly lonely time. I didn’t even understand what gender dysphoria was.

I got some words I could look up like ‘transgender’ and ‘male to female transition’ and I explored the internet. Big, big mistake… The internet was full of hateful stories about transgender people, suicides, murders in the US, graphic images of surgery and the hell a transgender person had to face. This was not what I wanted, and I needed to believe that there was something positive out there so I did what I’m good at - I researched: properly.

I found more common sense, honest websites with contacts that could help me. My path was set.

I contacted GIRES (Gender Identity Research and Education Society) and talked to a wonderful man whose daughter had suffered horrendously during her transition. He and his wife became tireless campaigners and talked to me about being strong and reading all the information and research GIRES had to offer. Most importantly he taught me to see a future, a bright future, for my daughter in which we would share coffees and talk about hair and make-up. Although my mind was finding it difficult to see ahead, I started to see a goal we could aim towards and I told myself ‘I can do this’ and my child could become the woman she always should have been.

Caroline: Finding support for both of us

On my journey, I decided I needed help from a counsellor and, along with other support from two parents with children my daughter’s age. Many parents already had Mermaids as their support and our over 20s age group was sadly lacking.

So my daughter continued her journey, as Hannah, being feminine at home and androgynous when out and about. It was a strain keeping up the pretence. We could see it was very difficult for Hannah to be seen as someone she didn’t want to be. She so wanted to be female and we had many tears worrying about what to do next. We suffered the trauma of job hunting – do I interview male or female? Do I transition before or after? Will there be prejudice against a transgender person? She eventually decided to take time out and volunteered at a local Nature Reserve to build her confidence and although she was dressing masculine, she enjoyed the work and was making friends.

We started to go out more as Hannah grew more confident. Scared as I was for her, we coped pretty well and experienced no pointing fingers or being ‘called out’ that I thought, in my worried mind, we would encounter. We felt triumphant driving home that day and ready for the next phase in Hannah’s remarkable journey.

Hannah was told there was at least a three-year waiting list to even see a consultant at an NHS Gender Identity Clinic. This was extremely distressing for her. Seeing her living with a reflection she detested and those quiet times she sat in her bedroom was constantly worrying and too much for us to bear. If we were to go private it was not going to be cheap and if the GP would not do shared care, we would have to pay for the hormones and the blood tests too. It was a big decision and one I realised many parents in this position couldn’t do, living with the prospect of their young ones considering suicide to take them out of this agony. I was lucky enough to have a good job and the means to do it. We decided for Hannah’s sanity and ours, to go down the private route.

The visit to the private Gender Clinic in London followed soon after and, as the appointments were set up to get her towards prescribing hormones, we knew we had to allow Hannah to emerge properly and we had to be prepared. I purchased a great book called ‘Trading Places, When Our Son became A Daughter’ by an American mum called Jane Baker. This book was so inspiring, not only covering the process she and her daughter went through, but providing common-sense facts too. 

Caroline: Out to everyone and proud of my daughter!

We told most family by letter and close friends and work colleagues directly, sharing an article Hannah had written herself. Everyone was fantastic. Finally, and only because I was worried about them accepting that their grandson of 23 years was to be their grand-daughter, we told my husband’s mum and dad. They were shocked and asked lots of questions but said they loved their grandchild and would work really hard to say ‘she’ instead of ‘he’ and call her Hannah. I cried with relief on the way home, promising to get them a new photograph to replace their male photo.

A couple of weeks later, after my new photograph of Hannah was hung on the wall, Grandma and Grand-dad invited their friends in to wait for them as they put their coats on for the Sunday trip to the pub – something they had never done before. They asked who the girl was in the photograph and Grandma replied, ‘That’s my grand-daughter’. ‘But you haven’t got a grand-daughter,’ they replied and Grandma said, ‘I have now.’ How amazing is that, I could have cheered! I couldn’t have got a better response to Hannah’s evolution, even in their 80s they were showing people how it should be done.

Hannah had her own Red-Letter Day when she needed to tell the Nature Reserve where she volunteered that she was Hannah, and the day she left for work I was terrified. This could be the worst or best day of her life… 

Her employers were amazing, were supportive of her transition and would accommodate anything she needed. She was elated when she came home, like a new person, which she was in a way, finally being able to tell someone who she really was. The next day Hannah, dressed to kill, well maybe to pond-dip, went to work as her true self and this encounter was to mould Hannah’s future steps in her journey.

Now Hannah was on hormones and beginning her new life, she changed all her documents and we finally did some clothes shopping that wasn’t in charity shops or online. Shop assistants were really friendly and wanted to share Hannah’s story. We also had that coffee and talked about hair and make-up. We had come a long way and although we still had more hurdles to jump, we were in a good place. 

Now her journey changed direction. Hannah decided she would be an advocate for transgender people. With NHS Social Care students, she has made a difference to their curriculum in how to deal with transgender people in care and spoken at their conference. With various charities, she influenced policies and training and still works with Stonewall in schools to make sure policies are not just pieces of paper. Hannah now works for a wonderful local organisation that supports vulnerable people and regularly talks on local radio in support of transgender people. As parents, we are so proud of our daughter and we are able to help parents of young people as individual as ours to get them through what can be a very difficult and lonely time.

As a final note, I have been enlightened and enriched by the stories of many wonderful transgender people as we trod this path. As a parent walking with Hannah through our own individual pathways, I believe her generation doesn’t just accept gender diversity, they are gender diversity. That gives me huge optimism for the future of our young transgender people. We just need the support services, like clinics and GPs, to catch up. But that’s another story…

Tania's final note

If you are a parent whose child has told you they are transgender, there is help. There are some resources below. Just remember that no matter how scared you are, your child is more scared - especially of your reaction (and everyone else's). It's important to think before you speak, although you will inevitably make mistakes with new terminology. Remember, they are still YOUR child, the same person they always were. Your emotional support will never be more important. There will be bumps along the road and it may be scary and upsetting. Be respectful and be strong. If you're lucky, it's a journey you can share together with a stronger relationship than ever.

Resources to help

• Gene variants provide insight into brain, body incongruence in transgender
• Gender dysphoria and autism: Challenges and support
• Gendered Intelligence
• NHS GIDS (under 18s)
• GIDS: Charlotte, mum to someone on the autistic spectrum.
• Diversity Role Models
• Mermaids
• The Beaumont Society
• GIRES
• Tranzwiki
• Is There a Link Between Autism and Gender Dysphoria?

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Tania Tirraoro

Founder, Co-Director at Special Needs Jungle

Founder of Special Needs Jungle. (She/Her) Parent of two young adults with autism. New grandma. Tania, who is autistic, is a leading SEND advisor, working with the Special Education Consortium, Ofsted, and Whole School SEND. She is also an Advisory Board member of the Royal Holloway, University of London Centre of Gene and Cell Therapy and an Editorial Board member of Springer Nature Gene Therapy journal.
Tania is an experienced broadcast and print journalist & author. She also runs a PR, web & social media consultancy, SocialOro Media.
Tania is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.

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