Parents of Trans Youth had a table at a Trans Day of Visibility event in Houston this week, and toward the end of the event, someone approached our table to tell me about her company's services.

She was certain that her medical services would benefit transgender folks and wanted our families to know about her business.

She was in strong promotional mode - nothing inherently wrong with that - but in an effort to connect with me or maybe to demonstrate the value of her services, she asked some super-invasive questions about my transgender kids.

"Are they male-to-female or female-to-male?"
​"Um, actually they're both nonbinary."

"What concerns do they have about [this kind of] health?"
​"Uh, I'm not sure ...?"

"Are they on hormones?"​
"I'm not comfortable answering that question."

Sooo ... what made her questions inappropriate?

1) A general rule of thumb is that it's not OK to ask about a person’s body parts or medical information. That’s really personal and private information! AND you don’t need to answer those kinds of questions about your child. Gender identity, sexuality, and sex assigned at birth are no one’s business, and no one else is entitled to that information (except maybe your own doctor). So I didn't even need to answer her question about my kids' gender identities. I was just ... shocked that she even asked that (and completely left out nonbinary people in her query!).

2) Reader, I didn't know her from Adam! Brené Brown talks about how appropriate sharing happens in relationships that can bear the weight of our story. "Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them" (from her book Daring Greatly). I didn't know this person well enough to be vulnerable and share that very personal information (that was not even my information to share).

The moral of the story?

You never have to answer invasive or uncomfortable questions about your kids or yourself, especially not medical questions.

You can do what I should've done sooner in that conversation and shut down that line of questioning:

• "That's really private information, and I'm not going to answer that."
• "I know you're trying to be helpful, but it's not OK to ask someone if they're MTF or FTM."
• "I'm feeling uncomfortable that you're asking me about my kids."
• "It's not really appropriate to ask a transgender person or their parent a bunch of medical questions. This feels like a conversation for a patient in your office."

Have you been in this situation? What did you do?

⭐️ It's a sponsor! ⭐️

Mandy Giles​
Founder, Parents of Trans Youth​

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