5 Things I Wish I'd Done Before My Daughter Came Out to Me

I'm not going to pretend I had this figured out.

My daughter is 19 now. She told me she was trans the summer before her senior year of high school, sitting on the edge of my bed at 11:47pm on a Tuesday, in a hoodie that wasn't hers.

I had known for a year. Probably longer.

I'm a mom. We notice things. We notice the way our kids look at themselves in the mirror, the friends they bring home and the ones they stop bringing home, what they listen to in the car when they think we're not paying attention. I'd been watching the puzzle pieces line up for a long time.

But I waited. I told myself I was respecting her process. The truth is I was scared. Scared of saying the wrong thing, scared of pushing her into a conversation she wasn't ready for, scared that if I brought it up first I'd make it about me.

So I waited.

And in the year I waited, my daughter was sleeping in a room that didn't tell her she was safe.

This article is for the parents who are where I was. Watching, knowing, waiting. Here are five things I wish I'd done before she came out to me. They're small. The smallest one cost me $5 in shipping.

1. Hang the flag before they tell you.

This is the single best piece of advice I have, and it's the one I missed.

I thought putting up a Pride flag in our house before my daughter had said anything would feel like I was outing her. I was wrong. A Pride flag in your house isn't about your kid. It's about you. About the kind of home you're running, the kind of parent you've decided to be.

My daughter told me, months after she came out, that she had wished I'd hung one. Not for her. For her. So she could walk into the kitchen and not have to wonder.

She said:

I knew you'd accept me. But I didn't know if you'd say it.

The flag says it. Before you do.

2. Don't ask questions on day one.

When my daughter came out to me, I asked her seventeen questions in eight minutes. (She told me later. She counted.)

I asked her how long she'd known. I asked her if she'd told her sister. I asked her what name she wanted, what pronouns, whether she'd told her dad, whether she wanted to start hormones, whether she wanted to see a doctor.

She needed me to say "I love you" and "I'm proud of you" and "Tell me what you need from me," and then sit with her in silence.

You'll have a thousand questions. Write them in your phone. Ask them across the next ten years. Not in the first ten minutes.

3. Find PFLAG before they need you to know what PFLAG is.

PFLAG is a national organization that has been doing this work since 1973. You can sit in on a meeting before your kid has ever said a word to you. You can read the parent stories. You can become the parent who already knows what to do when the moment arrives.

I'd been a mom for 17 years and had never heard of it.

Find your local chapter at pflag.org. Go to one meeting. That's it. You don't have to come back.

4. Watch the language at family gatherings.

Thanksgiving was hard.

It wasn't because anyone in our family was actively hostile. It was because no one had thought about it. Aunts asking about boyfriends. An uncle making an offhand joke. A cousin using a deadname because she didn't know yet.

Before your kid comes out, you have a window where you can lay the groundwork. You can mention in passing that a coworker's kid recently came out. You can let your sister know you've been reading about gender identity. You can plant the soft signals that say: if anything happens, this family has thought about it.

By the time your kid is the one in the spotlight, you want the ground already prepared.

5. Be the safe house for their queer friends, too.

This was the one I got right.

My daughter's best friend in high school, Maya, came out as bisexual before my daughter did. Maya started sleeping over more. Eating dinner with us more. Calling me "Mama Linda" by sophomore year.

I didn't know yet that Maya was a stand-in. That my daughter was watching how I treated another queer kid as a preview of how I'd treat her.

The kids in your life who aren't yours are watching too. Be the mom their parents aren't. Be the kitchen where they get to be themselves before they have to be themselves at home. Your own kid is taking notes.