When Children Are Ghosted by a Trans-Identified Parent
Partners for Ethical Care's Stories Series gives voice to people who have been harmed by gender ideology, and whose stories have been silenced by the very real possibility of the authors losing their jobs, their friends, and their children via the gender industry's malice and bullying. Until now.
by a Trans Widow
Children whose parent transitions to a different sex feel abandoned, ghosted. The person they knew throughout their lives, the parent that should be there throughout their lives has vanished.
When my oldest son was little, he bought his father a giant red book for Christmas, called The Dangerous Book for Boys. My son penned a sweet letter inside the cover, describing how much he looked forward to sharing the activities in the book with his father. The first activity they did together that Christmas day was make paper airplanes.
But that was the first and last time the book was opened, because shortly after Christmas my husband announced his transition to being a woman.
Everyone is told that “transgender people are rejected by their families.” What we do not hear often are the painful and tragic stories of what the family suffers.
I took on all the parenting and became the one financially responsible for the household. We experienced homelessness when their dad first left. I could never have peace due to my ex-husband’s gaslighting. My children were manipulated by their father emotionally and were afraid to hurt him by speaking up for themselves about the neglect and abuse they experienced. They were ordered into counseling sessions where the entire focus was on making their dad feel comfortable.
In counseling, they were told they can no longer call their father “Dad” and were punished by him and his lover for “misgendering.” The children had to push their feelings aside as to not hurt their father’s feelings. The manipulation they experienced at the hands of their father has left them resentful.
One of my children spent time in a mental hospital because he became a threat to himself, and suicidal ideation was common among all three children. One developed several manifestations of OCD which are still persistent and being worked on in therapy. Their self-esteem suffered as they questioned their sense identity. They wondered if they were like their father in any way, none of it positive.
In their own words, the children felt abandoned by their father.
I spent more than three of their formative years battling in the family courts just to keep them, fighting the LGBTQ activist attorneys from a firm that has led the way for “transgender rights” in the USA. My kids were used as political pawns simply because they had the misfortune to be caught in a divorce with a trans-identifying parent.
I watched my children’s performance in school suffer as their dad underwent physical changes and included his new trans-identifying (FTM) partner in their lives. He and his partner exposed my children to transgender propaganda