Understanding Gender Diversity
Your child told you they’re trans. You don’t need to understand everything tonight.
You need a place to start, and a way to keep learning.
Short on time? The 4-minute Quick Start covers what to say right now.
Start here
Take a moment to pause and centre yourself. You’ve got this. You have learned new things before, and you can do it again.
Maybe your child told you they would like to use different pronouns or a different name. Maybe they told you they are a girl, a boy, non-binary, or that they don’t feel like the gender they were raised as. Maybe your child is seven. Maybe they’re thirty-seven. The starting point is the same.
No one is more of an expert in your child’s gender than your child. Listen to them and the rest will fall into place. Let them be your guide, and you can be their unconditional love and support. That is what we sign up for as parents.
What your child may be wondering right now
Will they still call me by my old name?
Do they think I’m confused?
Are they going to tell Grandma?
Did I just make everything weird?
The answer that helps most is simple, and it’s the same for every one of these.
I believe you. I love you. We’ll learn this together.
Trans 101: what does it mean to be transgender?
Transgender, or trans, is an umbrella term for people who know deep down that they are not the gender they were assumed to be when they were born. Trans people are a different gender than the one they were raised to be.
Trans girls and women
People who were raised as boys, who know themselves to be girls or women.
Trans boys and men
People who were raised as girls, who know themselves to be boys or men.
Non-binary people
People who know themselves to be a different gender than the one they were raised, but not the “opposite” one. Non-binary is itself an umbrella for many distinct genders outside the man/woman binary.
Two-Spirit people
An Indigenous-specific umbrella term used within many Indigenous communities, encompassing sexual, gender, cultural and/or spiritual identity. Someone might be trans and Two-Spirit, or Two-Spirit alone. Two-Spirit people define it in their own ways.
An example. When someone is born, the doctor says “it’s a boy.” If that person doesn’t feel like a boy inside, doesn’t identify with being a boy, feels deeply uncomfortable being called “he,” and knows themselves to be a different gender, that person is transgender. They could be a trans girl, a Two-Spirit person (if they are Indigenous), a non-binary person, or someone who chooses no label at all.
Two umbrellas. “Trans” covers binary trans people (trans men and women) and non-binary people. “Non-binary” is its own umbrella, with many genders under it: genderfluid, agender, genderqueer, demiboy, demigirl and more. Your kid may use one of these words, several, or none.
What being trans is not
Being trans is
- Part of who your child is, like their humour or their stubbornness
- Defined by your child, not by a textbook
- One aspect of a whole person
Being trans is not
- A phase
- Something someone chooses
- Something wrong with someone
- An ideology
Different trans people have different ways of defining who they are and what being trans means to them. Over time, you’ll learn more from your kiddo about what it means to them. In the meantime, be patient, love them, and do regular family things. Not every conversation needs to be about gender. There needs to be space to just live and connect.
Gender is only one aspect of life. Your kid has many other facets that are the same as they were last week: their interests, hobbies, values, personality, strengths, and the ways they connect with you.
How common is being transgender?
About 1 in 300 Canadians over 15 is transgender or non-binary.
The 2021 Census counted 0.33% of Canadians aged 15 and over as transgender or non-binary. Among them, just over 40% were non-binary; the rest were fairly evenly split between trans men and trans women. Among young adults aged 20 to 24, it was just under 1 in 100.
These numbers matter because being trans is often talked about as something fringe or unusual. In a high school of a thousand students, that’s a handful of trans kids. In a city the size of Hamilton, it’s thousands of people. Your child is in good company.
Names and pronouns
A name is the first thing anyone ever calls us. Hearing the right one, from a parent, lands somewhere deep. Trans people describe it as being seen, or finally being spoken to instead of spoken past. Hearing the wrong one from someone who loves you lands just as deep, in the other direction. That’s why this matters so much, and why it’s worth getting right even when it’s awkward.
Practise where they can’t hear you. In the car. In the shower. Narrating to the dog. “This is my daughter, Maya. Maya’s at practice. Have you met Maya?” It feels silly for about three days, and then it doesn’t. The first fifty times are the hard ones; after that your mouth takes over.
When you slip, fix it and keep going. “She was telling me, sorry, he was telling me about the trip.” Correct, move on, done. Don’t stop for a speech about how hard you’re trying. A long apology turns your slip into your kid’s job: now they have to reassure you. A quick correction says the opposite: I noticed, I care, and it isn’t about me.
Don’t ask them to let it slide. “You know what I mean.” “It’s hard for me.” “I’ve called you that for sixteen years.” All true. All land as “I’m not going to try.” Your teen can hear the difference between someone who slips while trying and someone who’s decided not to bother.
The old name. Many trans people call it a deadname, and the word is chosen on purpose. For a lot of them, hearing it feels like being told the person you are now doesn’t count. So:
- Don’t use it to get their attention, even in a hurry.
- Don’t use it with relatives as a shortcut. “You remember Maya” is enough.
- Old photos and documents: ask. Some teens want the old pictures gone, some don’t care, some will decide later. Follow their lead, and don’t throw anything out.
- When a relative keeps using it, you be the one who corrects them. Every time. Your kid shouldn’t have to.
Who tells whom. School, the family doctor, the dentist, the coach, the grandparents. Don’t assume. Ask: “Which of these do you want changed now, and which can wait?” Then ask: “Do you want to tell them, or do you want me to?” Offer to make the calls; many teens would rather you did. Where the school needs a form, or the clinic wants a letter, find out what’s involved before you promise. A legal name change is a later conversation, and it’s theirs to start.
Pronouns you haven’t used before. “They” for one person feels strange in the mouth until it doesn’t. You’ve been doing it for years without noticing: “Someone left their umbrella, I hope they come back for it.” Neopronouns like ze or xe are rarer and take more practice, but the same rule holds: get it mostly right, correct the rest, keep going.
If you slip
“She, sorry, he was telling me about…” Correct it and keep going. Making a big deal of it puts your kid in the position of comforting you.
What transition can mean
“Transition” is one word for three different things, and parents often hear the heaviest one first. Most of what your kid is asking for right now is the lightest.
Social transition
The everyday stuff: a name, pronouns, a haircut, different clothes, maybe a new section of the store. It’s free, it’s reversible, and it’s where almost everyone starts. For many trans people, especially kids and younger teens, this is the whole of transition for a long time, sometimes for good. When your teen asks to be called a new name, that’s social transition, and it’s already underway.
Legal transition
Changing the name and gender marker on documents: school records, health card, birth certificate, passport. The rules are provincial and they change, so check the current ones for where you live. In most of Canada it’s a form and a fee, not a court case, and it’s often simpler than parents expect. It’s also not urgent. Your teen can live as themselves for years before touching a document, and many do.
Medical transition
This covers things like puberty blockers, hormones and, for adults, surgery. Three things are worth knowing before you go any further:
- Not every trans person wants medical transition. Being trans doesn’t require it.
- Nothing happens quickly, and nothing happens without a care team: a family doctor, usually a specialist, and often a counsellor, with consent at every step. For minors, parents are part of that process.
- The internet is the worst place to learn about it. Search results are dominated by people with a position to sell. Your child’s doctor, not a comment thread, is where these questions belong.
If your teen raises medical questions
“Let’s find out together, properly.” Then book the appointment.
If your child is an adult
Everything above still applies, with one change: it’s their call. You can ask questions, share worries, and say you love them. You can’t decide for them, and trying to may cost you the relationship, not the outcome. What a supportive parent of an adult child can do is be the person they come to when it’s hard, and show up for the appointments they invite you to.
Where to learn more. Trans Care BC has a plain-language section for parents and families, and it’s good reading even if you don’t live in B.C. Rainbow Health Ontario keeps a directory of affirming providers. Your pflag chapter is a good network to hear about what resources have helped families just like yours.
Questions parents ask
Did I do something wrong?
Absolutely not. In fact, you did something right. If they are talking to you about being trans, it means they trust you and want to share this part of themselves with you. That is a gift. It’s when a kid stops talking to you about who they are that you need to worry.
Just as nothing could make you transgender, nothing anyone did made your kid transgender. They simply are trans. It’s part of who they are.
Is being transgender a mental illness?
Being transgender is not a mental illness. Some trans people experience gender dysphoria: a diagnosis that describes intense distress about one’s assigned sex and the gender role that came with it. It describes the distress, not the identity. The response is generally social transition and, where wanted and appropriate, medical transition.
A 2018 review of the research found that the high rates of mental health struggles in trans communities were not attributable to being trans itself, but to stigma and discrimination, and to social factors like poverty, racism and lack of support. In other words, it isn’t being trans that makes people sad. It’s how they are treated.
The good news: you have the power to change that for your kid. Family support is one of the strongest protections against suicide among trans youth. People do better and feel better when their families support them and recognize them as the gender they know themselves to be.
Source: Valentine, S. E., & Shipherd, J. C. (2018). A systematic review of social stress and mental health among transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States. Clinical Psychology Review, 66, 24–38.
Everyone seems to disagree about these terms. How am I supposed to get them right?
People spend years and multiple degrees studying gender and still don’t all agree on definitions. Nobody expects you to. What’s expected is some understanding and a willingness to learn.
You don’t have to be perfect to be supportive. We all make mistakes. What matters most is learning from them, acknowledging them, and apologizing if an apology is in order.
What if I don’t fully understand?
You don’t need to fully understand someone’s gender to love and support them. If you are a man, you’ll never fully understand what it is like to be a woman, and the same is true the other way. If you aren’t trans, you’ll never entirely understand that experience either. The good news is you don’t have to, to be a loving parent and an ally.
Is my child old enough to truly know?
Think about when you knew your own gender. Most of us can’t remember, because it was there before memory. Kids typically have a sense of their gender by three or four, and the ones who turn out to be trans often say so just as early and just as plainly as the ones who aren’t. They’re not announcing a plan. They’re telling you who they are.
What a young child needs isn’t a decision from you; it’s room. Let them wear what they want, play with what they want, and use the name they like at home. None of this is permanent, and none of it closes a door. If your five-year-old says “I’m a girl,” the most useful response is the same one you’d give to anything else they tell you about themselves: “Okay. Tell me more.”
Some kids keep saying it; some stop. Both are fine. The thing you’ll never regret is having listened.
My adult child just came out. Why didn’t they tell me sooner?
Because they weren’t sure how you’d react, and the stakes were high. That’s not an accusation. It’s how it works for almost everyone, including adults who had loving parents. Many trans people spend years figuring themselves out before they say it to anyone, and the people they love most are often the last to hear, precisely because the loss would be the greatest.
So the question isn’t why they waited. It’s what they’re telling you now: that they’re ready, and that they trust you enough to risk it. The best thing you can say is some version of “Thank you for telling me. I’m glad you did.” Avoid “I always knew” and “I wish you’d said something sooner.” The first takes away their moment; the second turns their relief into guilt.
They’re an adult, so the decisions ahead are theirs. Your job is smaller and better: be the parent they’re glad they told.
I’m grieving the daughter or son I thought I had. Is that okay?
Yes. It’s okay, it’s common, and it doesn’t make you a bad parent. Most of us carry a picture of our kid’s future that we never chose and never examined: a wedding, a name on a graduation program, a word we’d use at the family reunion. When the picture changes, it can hurt, and pretending it doesn’t just makes the hurt go somewhere else.
Two things make this grief different from the kind we usually mean. First, nobody died. The person you’re grieving is in the next room, with the same laugh and the same bad taste in music, and they need you. Second, what you’ve lost is a picture. What you have is a kid who trusted you with the truth. Over time, most parents find that the second is worth more than the first, by a lot.
Grieve the picture, then, but not in front of your child, and not for long enough that they start to wonder if they’re the loss. Take it to your partner, a friend, a counsellor, or a pflag meeting, where there will be a parent who felt exactly this two years ago and is now bragging about their son.
The words, in plain language
It can be a lot to learn new language, especially when getting it wrong risks hurting someone you love. You don’t need to know everything overnight. These are the terms that come up most.
Identity
- Gender
- A person’s self-knowledge of being a man, a woman, a non-binary person, Two-Spirit or another gender. For many people this was never a question, because it always felt right. For trans people, it wasn’t that simple.
- Transgender / trans
- An umbrella term for people who know deep down that they are not the gender they were assumed to be when they were born. The two words are used interchangeably.
- Cisgender / cis
- Someone who isn’t trans: their gender matches the one they were raised as.
- Non-binary
- An umbrella term for genders outside the man/woman binary. Includes many distinct genders.
- Genderfluid
- Someone whose gender shifts over time, day to day or over longer stretches.
- Agender
- Someone who does not have a gender, and doesn’t feel a strong sense of being a man, a woman or any other gender.
- Two-Spirit
- An Indigenous-specific umbrella term encompassing sexual, gender, cultural and/or spiritual identity. Defined differently by different Two-Spirit people, and not a term for non-Indigenous people to adopt.
- Trans feminine / trans femme
- Trans girls and women, plus non-binary people who were raised as boys.
- Trans masculine / trans masc
- Trans boys and men, plus non-binary people who were raised as girls.
Body and birth
- Sex assigned at birth
- The sex that was put on someone’s birth certificate when they were born. Often shortened to AFAB (assigned female) or AMAB (assigned male).
- Biological sex
- Chromosomes, genitals, hormones and other body-based characteristics, categorized as male, female or a combination.
- Intersex
- Someone born with sex characteristics (genitals, gonads, chromosome patterns) that don’t fit the male/female binary. An umbrella for a wide range of variations; the medical world says “differences of sex development,” the community generally says intersex.
Expression
- Gender expression
- How someone presents their gender: sequins or bowties, crew cut or hair to the mid-back, pants or a skirt. Some people express themselves very feminine (think Barbie), some very masculine (think Ken), and many land in the middle or off the binary entirely (think David Bowie in Labyrinth). Expression and identity aren’t the same thing: a trans man can love sequins.
A useful picture. Trans Student Educational Resources’ Gender Unicorn shows identity, expression, sex assigned at birth and attraction as separate sliders. Seeing them side by side is often the moment it clicks.
Ways to keep learning
The best learning happens sideways: in stories, not definitions. A few places to start.
- Watch
- Shows that use respectful language for trans people: Heartstopper, Sex Education, Sort Of (made in Toronto).
- Follow
- Trans, non-binary and Two-Spirit artists and thinkers: Alok, Mae Martin, Kai Cheng Thom.
- Read
- Trans elders who shaped history: Kate Bornstein, Leslie Feinberg, Janet Mock, Julia Serano. A note: many trans elders have lived through violence and don’t sugar-coat it in their writing.
- Borrow
- Many pflag chapters run a lending library of parenting titles. Check your chapter’s page.
Organizations that can help
Trans Care BC: Parents & Families
Plain-language guidance for parents of trans and gender-creative kids, by age (under 12, 13–18, 19+), plus tips for working with schools. Run by B.C.’s Provincial Health Services Authority, and worth reading wherever you live.
Jeunes identités créatives / Gender Creative Kids
Montreal-based community organization that has supported trans, non-binary and gender-fluid youth and their families since 2013, with parent groups and school support. French and English.
Rainbow Health Ontario
Directory of 2SLGBTQ+-affirming health providers, plus a resource library for families. A program of Sherbourne Health. English and French.
Trans Lifeline
Peer support by phone, run by and for trans people. Operators are available weekdays, 1–9 pm Eastern (10 am–6 pm Pacific). Outside those hours, call or text 9-8-8.
Looking for something closer to home? See the Health and Wellbeing organizations in our Resources directory.
You don’t need to understand everything to love your kid well.
You don’t have to figure this out alone
Alongside the love, you might be feeling grief, fear or confusion. Those feelings are normal, and they deserve somewhere to go. That place shouldn’t be your child.
pflag chapters across Canada hold peer support meetings for parents and families of trans and gender-diverse kids, often led by parents a few years further down the road.
Listen. Love them. Learn as you go. That’s the whole job.
Need a quick version?
Your Child Just Told You They’re Trans
Need to talk to someone now?
If you or someone you love is in crisis, free support is available any time.
- 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline Call or text, 24/7, in English and French.
- 1-800-668-6868 Kids Help Phone For young people, 24/7.
- 1-877-330-6366 Trans Lifeline Peer support run by and for trans people.
If someone is in immediate danger, call 9-1-1.