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Some questions for parents in the community

First off, I am still relatively new here, and I hope I don't offend anyone with any of these questions, but some things I've been wondering lately. And that I'm probably going to have to work through before too long.

Same sex/gender parents, do your children call both of you the same or different names?(mom/dad etc.)

Trans* parents, if you had children before you came out, did what they call you change? I've only been aware of one instance of this situation and the kids still called her dad.

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13 comments
  • I don't have children, but I do have a nephew, who was 8 when I transitioned. He switched from calling me "aunt deadname" to "uncle newname" straight away, and had no difficulties with doing so.

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  • Not a parent, but a child of lesbian parents. When I was a child, I think I mostly just used names but had one parent I used mom for. When talking to other people I would call them both my mom (the one who gave birth).

    That parent is no longer part of my life (she's alive as far as I know) and I only refer to her as birth-mo. When directly referring to my other mom, I still say her name tho. I also have a stepmom, who also sometimes gets called mom when talking to others and sometimes stepmom.

    My cousin has a child who refers to her parents as two different versions of mom (like mama and mom, but I forget exactly what they use) and that seems to work fine too.

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  • Two father household here. We are Dad and Pop. We’ll use it until they’re old enough to want to call us something else if they choose to. We felt it was important to establish unique names for each of us from the outset to avoid the situation of having to use our first names later on, which is a personal choice.

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  • Not a parent, but a child of lesbian parents. When I was a child, I think I mostly just used names but had one parent I used mom for. When talking to other people I would call them both my mom (the one who gave birth).

    That parent is no longer part of my life (she's alive as far as I know) and I only refer to her as birth-mo. When directly referring to my other mom, I still say her name tho. I also have a stepmom, who also sometimes gets called mom when talking to others and sometimes stepmom.

    My cousin has a child who refers to her parents as two different versions of mom (like mama and mom, but I forget exactly what they use) and that seems to work fine too.

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  • I'm a trans mum. My kiddo was 11 when I transitioned. They called me dad for a while, because I told them they could use whatever feels comfortable for them.

    However, their other mum (my ex, who I'm not on good terms with but is a genuine LGBTQ ally) pulled my kiddo aside and pointed out that calling me dad was probably making me uncomfortable.

    So my kiddo had a chat with me about it. I ruled out "mum" because that's what their other mum uses, and ultimately we just settled on my name.

    They're 18 these days

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    • I was really hoping to hear from another trans* person!

      I'm sorry to hear about your ex 😕

      At first, I thought, "no, I could never accept mom. I didn't birth them, that would feel like invading...." but later I remembered, like an idiot, "lots of moms did not give birth the their child". I noticed at some point in the Real Life Comics, if you're familiar, a while after Mae starts transitioning, their daughter still calls her dad, or daddy. I've been wondering how others feel about that.

      I assume since you talked about it, your child calling you by your name isn't weird? I suppose since it's a chosen name maybe it feels affirming?

      I'm definitely not out to my kids yet. The oldest one just started school, so 🤷‍♀️ no idea how, or when a good time is.

      Also, if it's not too much (dm is fine too), just out of curiosity, do the kids show any gnc signs? Before I realized myself, the oldest had some stuff that made me start questioning for him, now (probably around the same age) started some stuff that makes me wonder.

      I joked with my partner that we started with 3 boys 1 girl, are we going to end up with 4 girls instead? 😅

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      • My kiddo is pretty pragmatic about things, so they came to me and said "So, mum pointed out that calling you dad causes people to misgender you, and said I should talk to you about that. So would you prefer I call you mum or Ada?"

        I said mum is taken, but we can find another word that means mum, or they can just use Ada, and they went with that. It was weird at first, absolutely, but it was never dysphoria inducing like Dad. I hated being called Dad, but because I'd told my kiddo they could use whatever was comfortable, I just endured it without speaking up. So when my ex pushed my kiddo to have a conversation with me, it was a huge relief.

        I'm sorry to hear about your ex 😕

        We broke up years before I transitioned for reasons that have nothing to do with my transition.

        She hates me, but she genders me correctly when yelling slurs at me

        Also, if it’s not too much (dm is fine too), just out of curiosity, do the kids show any gnc signs?

        My kiddo is non binary (probably agender?) and uses they/them pronouns. They came out as gay not long after I came out to them, and whilst I suspected they might be gay, I didn't see any real signs of gender diversity until they came out to me.

        But they summarised their experience of gender as "what the fuck even is gender?", so I guess it's not surprising that they didn't express gender in a strong way :)

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