personandidentity.com
2025-10-10
When it comes to estrangement, there's the assumption - sometimes spoken, sometimes left unsaid - that the punishment must fit the crime: if a child comes out as trans and then cuts out a parent, then the parent must have rejected their child or else transgressed some fateful boundary. But this assessment misses how casually estrangement is spoken of these days, especially - though by no means exclusively - in trans spaces.
When you lose a child, there are rituals. Or - in the absence of rituals - there are understandings.
If your child dies in an accident, everyone comes to the funeral: aunts and uncles, long-lost childhood friends, favorite teachers, junior-varsity coaches. There are flowers and tributes and frozen casseroles. Even if no one knows what to say - even if there is nothing that can be said - people want to find the right words.
If your child retreats into the underworld of addiction, there are support groups in church basements with folding chairs and watery coffee and other parents who feel every bit as helpless as you do.
If your child cuts all ties and disappears into a cult, no one thinks you should inscribe their new name on all your old memories - much less join the cult yourself.