I'm a family member
Resources for Families with a Transgender Member
If someone in your family has recently shared that they're transgender, you may be feeling things you don't have words for yet — and you may be looking for reasons why. This page is here to help you understand some of what's happening, both emotionally and relationally, as you find your way forward.
Families navigating this are often on their own. Community resources are limited in many areas, and family voices on this topic — as opposed to clinical or advocacy voices — are often quiet. The Regeneration Resource Center exists to help fill that gap.
Why every family's experience looks different
Family Stress Theory helps explain why some families struggle more than others with a loved one's transition. Several factors shape that experience: how recently the transition happened, whether you live in a more urban or rural area, whether your church holds a more conservative or progressive view of gender, and how much local support — medical, mental health, or otherwise — is available to you and your family member.[¹] Because of these differences, you may recognize some of what's described below strongly, some only a little, and some not at all — and that's normal.
A grief without a clear shape
Many family members describe something researchers call ambiguous loss — a loss without closure.[²] It's not that your family member has died; it's that the relationship, roles, and future you imagined may feel different now, without a clear ending point to grieve. Some family members feel their loved one is physically present but emotionally distant, or the reverse — physically absent but still very present emotionally.
This can feel similar to what military families experience when a loved one is declared missing in action: grief with no body to bury, no funeral, no clear "next step." That lack of resolution can leave you feeling stuck.
It's worth naming something directly: some in the transgender community view a family member's grief as itself a form of rejection or transphobia.[³] Others may not recognize it as legitimate grief at all. We want to say clearly: grieving the loss of a role, a relationship as you knew it, or a future you'd imagined does not mean you don't love or support your family member. Both things can be true — your grief is real, and your love and support can also be real and ongoing.
When grief has nowhere to go
Because this kind of loss isn't always recognized by others, family members sometimes experience disenfranchised grief— grief that can't be openly expressed or publicly acknowledged.[⁴] You may feel angry, depressed, or betrayed, but unsure whether you're "allowed" to feel that way. That uncertainty is itself part of the difficulty.
Moving through stages — unevenly
Many families move through something like the stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and eventually acceptance — but rarely in a straight line.[⁵] You may cycle back through earlier stages more than once. For some families, "acceptance" simply means acknowledging what happened, not necessarily continuing the relationship exactly as it was. But most families do find a way to maintain the relationship going forward.[⁶]
Other common experiences
Beyond grief, many families also encounter:
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Communication challenges — figuring out how to support your family member while also caring for your own emotional needs[⁷]
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Ongoing stress, especially early in the process[⁸]
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Strained or distant relationships, sometimes temporarily, sometimes longer-term[⁹]
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Adjustment difficulties for children in the family, which can be shaped by their own age, understanding, and relationship with the transitioning parent or sibling[¹⁰]
You're not alone in this
Whatever you're feeling right now — grief, confusion, love, anger, hope, or some tangle of all of them — you're not the first family to feel this way, and there is support built specifically for families like yours.
Continue exploring:
*The citations on this page come from the research literature and other publications and are available upon request.
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Hill, 1949; Boss, 2002 cited in Veldorale-Griffin, 2014
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Veldorale-Griffin & Darling, 2016; White & Ettner, 2007; Whitley, 2013
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Freedman et al., 2002; Norwood, 2013b
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Sales 1995
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Boenke, 2003; Canfield-Lenfest, 2008; Faludi, 2016; Howey, 2000
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Boss, 1999; Boss, 2007; McGuire et al 2016; Norwood 2012, 2013a; Zamboni 2006; McGuire, Catalpa, Lacey, & Kuvalanka, 2016
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Hauser, 2020; For a definition of "deadnaming," see Clements, 2019
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Canfield-Lenfest, 2008; Norwood, 2012, 2013b
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Brin, 2004; Harris 2015; Mulvihill & Walsh 2014
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Doka, 2002
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Doka, 2002; p. 160
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Freedman, Tasker, & di Ceglie, 2002; Leland, 2017; Zamboni, 2006
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Kübler-Ross, 1969; Emerson & Rosenfeld, 1996
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Grant et al 2011
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Norwood, 2015
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Veldorale-Griffin, 2014
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Church, O’Shea, & Lucey, 2014
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Dierckx, Motmans, Mortelmans, & T’sjoen, 2016; Emerson & Rosenfeld, 1996; Israel, 2005; Sales, 1995; White & Ettner, 2007