In The Den with Mama Dragons

Setting and Keeping Boundaries

February 06, 2023 Episode 6
In The Den with Mama Dragons
Setting and Keeping Boundaries
Show Notes Transcript

Join Jen and guest Dr. Lisa Tensmeyer Hansen as they explore the sometimes difficult world of setting and keeping boundaries to protect and support your LGBTQ child. From school to church to relatives to friends, there will always be opportunities to practice boundary setting and keeping. Practicing boundaries can be hard, but ultimately allow truer relationships with those we love and allow our LGBTQ child to feel safe and seen and respected. 


Special Guest: Lisa Tensmeyer Hansen


Lisa Tensmeyer Hansen is the clinical director and founder of Flourish Therapy, Inc., (Flourish), a behavioral health clinic located in Provo, Utah, which she founded in February 2017 to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ and SSA individuals and their families. Lisa received a B.S. from Brigham Young University in 1990 as university valedictorian (Summa Cum Laude with Honors thesis), an M.S. in 2012 and Ph.D. in 2017, both at BYU, focusing on improving the mental health of LGBTQ+ people in conservative family and community. As part of her graduate programs at BYU, she taught a course on the family proclamation and a course in graduate research and writing. Her dissertation was a quantitative analysis of adolescent emotional self-regulation in 600 families from Seattle and Provo. Her master’s thesis on a preliminary aspect of the dissertation won the national 2013 AAMFT Masters Thesis of the Year Award.

Since 2010 Lisa Hansen has seen clients at the BYU Comprehensive Clinic, the Provo Center for Couples and Families (PCCF), and at Flourish. In 2016, she was invited to be a continuing participant in the Reconciliation and Growth Project, a dialogue group of conservative and liberal therapists and academics forging ideas to bridge divides and educate in various forums in the LGBTQ+/SSA therapeutic community. In 2018, Dr. Hansen won the Outstanding Counseling Supervisor of the Year award from the University of Utah and in 2019, she was awarded Ally of the Year award from the LGBTQ+ organization, Affirmation International.

Lisa Hansen’s interest in the well-being of LGBTQ+ and SSA people is informed by her LDS faith. She was recently released as a member of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, and she and her husband are the composers of the Primary Children’s song, Nephi’s Courage.

Dr. Hansen has given more than 100 community presentations, articles, and podcasts for universities, clinical mental health organizations, community mental health agencies, school districts and conferences. She lives with her husband in Payson, Utah, where together they made a home for 7 children (and a few extras) and now have 18 grandchildren.



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JEN: Hello and welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created out of our desire to walk and talk with you through this journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. We are so happy that you’re here with us. 

Each episode we are passing the mic to one of our community members. I feel so much love and solidarity with these parents. I hope that you can hear their hearts and how amazing they are as they vulnerably step into the public to offer support. This week I get to pass the mic to the fabulous Marion. 

MARION: Hi, I’m Marion. We have six amazing kids, two of which are part of the LGBTQ+ community. Before our son shared with us that he is gay, I didn’t think much about the need for boundaries within our family, school, community, or church. As I began to listen to my child and the stories of other LGBTQ+ people raised in our community and faith tradition, it became clear that we would need firm boundaries in several places. We learned quickly that our queer child and their siblings needed extra support and protection, particularly in religious spaces. 

One of the most beautiful and horrific gifts that we received having an LGBTQ+ child was that our blinders had been removed from our eyes and we could suddenly see harmful rhetoric and beliefs that were frankly all around our child and family. We all became acutely aware of the transphobic and homophobic things being said and taught in school, church, and even our own home. As necessary as it was, it still broke my heart when it became clear that there was no way to make our church safe for our gay son and his siblings. We had to be very clear and intentional about what we would allow our kids to participate in. 

The changes we made had to be very confusing for our lifelong friends and family. We tried to explain our seemingly sudden changes in participation to those who asked. But not many did ask. And those who did struggled to see what we saw and experienced. I will always be grateful for the handful of people who really listened and heard us. I will always feel deep gratitude for the people who stood with us and supported us and loved us as we worked to make our kids' small world as safe as possible for them. 

JEN: It is important for us to protect our children. We know this and do it in a wide variety of ways their whole lives. A concept that was sort of new to me is that I also needed to teach my children how to protect themselves, even from me and my expectations as they enter adulthood. When we learn that one (or more) of our children is LGBTQ, there are some possibly new ways that we need to be prepared to emotionally and physically protect them in the world, even friends and family. 

Today, we have invited Lisa to join us and share her experience and wisdom. Dr. Lisa Tensmeyer Hansen is the clinical director and founder of Flourish Therapy in Provo Utah.  Lisa received a B.S. in 1990 , an M.S. in 2012 and Ph.D. in 2017, all at BYU, focusing on improving the mental health of LGBTQ+ people in conservative family and community. Dr. Hansen has given more than 100 community presentations, articles, podcasts for universities, clinical mental health organizations, community mental health agencies, school districts and conferences. She lives with her husband in Payson, Utah, where together they made a home for 7 children – and a few extras – and now have 18 grandchildren.


Alright, Lisa! I’m so excited that you’re here. I’ve been really looking forward to this. Start us off, bring in all the best practices – let’s bring them all together to negotiate the world with our extended family. I want to start with the “coming out” process. Talk to me about what this looks like. And we want to remember that some of our kids are three and some of our kids are 47. What does it look like if all the healthy dynamics are working well together? 


LISA: Wow. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Coming out basically has two big issues. One is your child and the other is you. That is, they’re totally separate and sometimes it’s helpful to remember that there are two very different experiences happening here. 


Coming out has changed over the last 20 years or so. Young people are more and more aware of the possibilities of talking about who they’re attracted to being something that they can begin to accept whether they adopt an identity or whether they just say who they like. And it doesn’t happen to be someone of what we used to call the opposite sex. It’s an opportunity for a parent to say, “Oh, something new is happening here and what am I prepared to do about it?” Sometimes parents are prepared from the time the child is little because they have sort of an inkling that the child is not typically what we would consider straight or cisgender even. 


And sometimes parents have absolutely no idea and feel gobsmacked. More and more at an earlier age. It used to be 20 years ago that children would come out between the ages of 21 and 23 when they were finally away from home and could have a sense that they were going to be stable before they shared with parents. Now, more and more, they’re coming out at 10, 11, 12, 13 because there’s more of a presence in their lives of other people who are giving them a sense of it’s okay to actually tell other people what’s happening inside them. 


So that’s setting the stage. But when a parent gets an inkling that there’s something going on for their child, it’s helpful to remember my child is having an experience and I am having a reactive experience that is my own. Number one rule: Your child is not entitled to your reaction


JEN: I love that. Say that one more time. Just say that one, one more time. 


LISA: Your child is not entitled to your reaction. Your child doesn’t not deserve your reaction. Your child is not going to be helped by your reaction, unless your reaction is very evolved and your reaction is something like “Fantastic, what would you like for dinner? Or is there more you would like me to know about that?” If you are able to have that kind of reaction, and if you’re listening to this podcast you probably have already passed that point and you are now evolved and you could do that, I’m guessing. 


But if this is because your child has come out to you this morning and you’re trying to figure out what to do today, I want you to know your reaction is valid and important and meaningful, but your child is not the person to share your reaction. Often parents will say to me, “Well, I am doing all this for my child and having all of this empathy for them, but isn’t it time for them to also have empathy for me?”


JEN: Yeah. We hear that a lot. 


LISA: Parents get to talk to other parents under certain circumstances – we’ll talk about that in a moment. Parents should talk to another adult about their reactions. When you decided, or when you happen to have a child, it happens in many different ways, your responsibility to the universe is now the physical health of this child, the mental health of this child, the future of this child. Your own mental health takes a back seat as we learn when that child did not sleep. We couldn’t say, “Okay. I didn’t sleep last night, now you get to have this next night when I get to sleep.” The balance does not work that way. And it works the same way when a child comes out. There is no balance. It becomes about that child’s mental health. 


So we consider, “What does the child need for mental health?” They need us to make room for their experiences and their identity and for us to find a way to believe in them as a healthy human being. That’s number one. Then, we actually take care of our own mental health on the side as it were. And, if the child is old enough to have a conversation with, we converse with them. “Who are you okay with Mom, Dad, parent, sharing this information with so that I can process stuff that I need to process so that I make a healthy space for you?” And if the child says, “Well, okay. Aunt Cindy is okay but I don’t want Uncle Fred to know.” Then that’s something that’s super important for a mom or a dad or whoever to take into consideration. 


And if the child says, “Absolutely nobody. You can talk to absolutely nobody.” Then the parent can say, “Then I probably need to schedule an appointment with a counselor just so I can be the very best parent to you that I can be, because a counselor will be confidential and will not be in your circle.” Make sure of that. 


JEN: That’s fantastic. So, you’re ready for those things. How do you navigate the actual coming out process with your child? If they’re 47, you still have a space to tell your friends and your people. If they’re young, if they’re six, it’s largely your space. You’re kind of the voice for the child. So, kind of within that big broad spectrum, how do we navigate that coming out process with them? 


LISA: Well, a person who comes out, does not just come out once. It is a constant process and it’s a constant figuring out of who is going to know next, who is going to be safe to know next and do people already suspect, have they already heard. In other words, it is a likely source of constant anxiety whether the child is 6 or 46. And the younger they share it with you, the more – as you said so well, Jen – it is your space and you have the capacity to control a little bit of who knows and who doesn’t know. I know a number of young people who want their siblings to know, but parents are not ready which is super interesting. Parents not ready for siblings to know. There’s also, so parents are maybe taking a little too much control of what a younger person shares. We can talk a little more about that later. 


But let’s talk about where the young person has opinions about who should not know and what a parent has to do about that. Most often, it’s going to be like Grandma and Grandpa. And a child may be scared of, whether they’re 6 or 46, for Grandma and Grandpa to know. It may also be that the parents kind of worried about Grandma and Grandpa knowing. Conversation about this can be very helpful. And it’s also helpful for parents, whatever the age of the child, to run some interference with grandparents and let grandparents know, if the child is okay with this, that the young person has news about their identity. That at some point the young person might be willing to share but right now, the parent is putting other family members on notice that this identity, whatever it is, is to be respected, before and after it’s shared. 


And if the family can make room for a particular or potential identity by having conversations that are respectful of all identities, then the parent is willing to bring the child into the vicinity. And, if not, the parent and family will elect to go someplace else. That’s one really helpful way that a parent can help a child navigate their identity, is by making sure that people are not going to use language that has been used to marginalize or to diminish or to detract from a diverse identity. 


JEN: This is such an interesting concept. I never considered before it was my own kids how much anxiety there would be. I had this relationship with my own parents where I could talk to them about anything. And all the sudden there was this topic, and I found myself having dreams every night where I would practice coming out and then they would respond. And then I would have to come up with what was happening after that. So I would have a dream and they would be amazing and super inclusive and that was great. And then I would have a dream where they said something different and I would have to put up boundaries. And it was interesting to go through how much anxiety that I had surrounding that just to practice in my sleep the different ways until I was given permission to talk about it with them by my child. And I think of that all the time when people are like, “Oh, they’re 47, they’re 52, it’s different.” I’m like, “No, because I wasn’t even the queer one and I had a lot of anxiety about this and I was in my 40s.”


LISA: So interesting, Jen, you used the words before: Coming Out, because that’s exactly what it feels like to a parent talking to others. It isn’t just your child coming out, it’s coming out as a queer-affirming family or as a queer-exploring family or as a “We are figuring this out family.” It is a coming out process for the person who is not identifying that way as well. There’s no doubt about it. It’s a full-body, full-family experience. 


JEN: So, after that initial conversation, when you’re talking to people whether it’s your next door neighbors or they’re hearing about it through the grapevine. In our case, a lot of people would ask me, “I heard a rumor. Is it true?” And you’re having those initial conversations. What sort of issues come up after that, like, next layer? The initial announcement has been made, what comes after that?


LISA: Generally for the child and therefore also for the parent, it’s “Who is okay with it in the neighborhood? Who is okay with it in a church community? Who is okay with it within the family?” And trying to figure out, try to parse out who is offering up sort of microaggressions because they’re not okay with it. “So-and-so is not allowed to play with me anymore.” Or, I heard from a teen client this last week, “We used to go camping and do sleepovers together, and now the parents of my friends say not a chance. We can still do it with other people, but they can’t do it with me.” So trying to sort of catalog who is okay and who is not is a source of curiosity, anxiety, pain, disappointment, and occasionally refreshing delight that this family in the neighborhood or in the church hasn’t changed their opinion of us or of my child because of this thing. 


They were still asked to come to this party or they were still asked to this overnight. Or nobody said anything about their bathroom choice, that kind of thing. That’s how people start to observe and catalog and it’s a long process. And when parents say, “Why does my child seem so much more anxious about things?” this is why. Because coming out involves experiencing judgment from people around us. It’s a difficult process. And even if there’s only one person who is actively rejecting, it’s hard not to imagine that there are others that aren’t saying a thing who feel the same way. And we are creatures that are tuned in to whether we’re being rejected or not. 


The whole identity development period of time which is 13 to 19, that’s where that’s the active tasks of a young person that’s ultra-aware of who’s rejecting and who isn’t. What’s really interesting is young people who begin to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, as they begin to navigate this space, they become more and more resilient to judgment, which puts them ahead of some of the rest of us who didn’t start to think that way until we were late 20s or early 30s. They accomplished this task of pushing judgmental people away much earlier, which is a task of resilience. 


JEN: I have an example, like a question, when we’re talking about neighborhoods and things like that. And I’m sure it’s a little bit different for every situation so we’re kind of speaking in generalities. So, pretend you have a situation where your son has come out as transgender. He’s letting you know that this is who he is and who he wants to be known as. And you are starting to help present that way in the world. And the rules of relationships start to change. So, for example, somebody might say to you, “We think it’s great that you’re loving and supporting your child. But our kids can’t come play at your house anymore. The sisters can still come to our house and play, but our family can’t come to your house anymore. We’re just not comfortable with that.” Where are the appropriate boundaries where you’ve got a split dynamic in the family like that?


LISA: So, so difficult when this impacts siblings and sibling relationships with friends. It’s helpful to have a family discussion about what room our family is willing to make for each of our family members to be included. Would we go to a swimming pool that our brother couldn’t go to? You’re not invited but the rest of us will all go. Would we do that? And allow family members to process this kind of question about how would you feel if our family went to a fair or went to someone’s house but you weren’t invited, but we all went and partied. This is social justice processing, and allows family members to process it and allows them to have conversations. There may be people young enough that the family in question might say, “Well, this is what’s happening here. The youngest one, we’re still going to allow this sister to go play. But older sister is saying, ‘If my brother’s not – if they’re not going to allow them to come over here, I’m not going to do that either.’” This is something that has to come up inside of young people when a family just makes a blanket statement, “Well, if you’re not letting us over, we’re not going to let our kids go over either.” This can also create problems of tribalism and problems of we’re not going to draw a circle that includes you if you’re not going to draw a circle that includes us. 


I think this is a case-by-case basis. But I think it does raise some really important questions that have to be discussed as a family so that people know that the parents start from a place of “We are about making room for our son, that the neighbors are not making room for. And that’s our primary purpose so that our family can thrive, because if one person doesn’t thrive, our family doesn’t thrive.” And the person who is most likely to be rejected, in this case by the neighbors, is the one that we all need to circle around to the best of our ability to do that. Is that a beginning answer to your question? 


JEN: I actually loved it. Where were you when this was a reality at my house? What types of things do you notice in your practice or your life that get in the way of boundaries, that prevent us from stating them or prevent other people from accepting them and working within them? I know there’s whole books on this, just tossing out to you an easy one. 


LISA: Well, let’s start with ignorance. Well-meaning ignorance is probably the most boundary-crossing characteristic. People who think they’re being helpful by saying something like, “Well, you may identify as a boy now, but to me he’ll always be my little...” That’s a boundary crosser that people think is, “Oh, people should get this about me. It’s my own brain.” 


No, dear! “Auntie, I understand that that’s where your brain is because that’s where my brain is sometimes too. Things pop out of my brain from my old life that no longer apply to my new life. I want to be really empathetic, Auntie, about this. But I also want to let you know that when you call my son by that old name, it has an impact on him. Chances are it makes him feel a little bit sick to his stomach and he is no longer able to have a same kind of conversation with you that he would have otherwise had because his brain is trying to figure out how not to feel sick when he’s sitting with you or having a phone conversation with you or texting with you. It’s going to change things immediately. It’s important for you, Auntie, to understand the impact you’re having on my son when you talk with him. And if he withdraws from that conversation, it’s important for you to understand why.” 


So boundaries are not something we can set for other people and say you may not cross this. But, boundaries are things we can say, “Hey, when this happens, this is the action that we will take and we may not come back in that same space again until we have an indication that something might be different.” 


JEN: So you just kind of did, but I want you to go a little bit deeper, because while you were talking, I was thinking, “Oh, no, we didn’t even define the idea of what a boundary is.” Because we do hear that, right, where people are like, “I have a boundary, you can’t say that.” Which isn’t at all what a boundary is, right? So, can you just pretend we did this at the beginning where I should’ve asked, and define what a boundary is?


LISA: I like saying what a boundary is not, just like you did. That’s perfect. A boundary is not an attempt to control someone else. A boundary is saying, “Here’s what I will tolerate and here’s what I won’t. And you are still welcome to be you and do you the best that you can, and I will support and celebrate you. But I may do that far away from you if your impact on me and people that I love is harmful.” 


JEN: So throw out just a couple of random examples of boundaries that might come up for families with an LGBTQ member? 


LISA: “When you call my child by pronouns or a name that is not theirs, if you can correct it right away, and not explain but just correct it, we will feel safe with you. If that’s not something you want to do, we will probably leave early.” 


JEN: That’s a great example, leave early. We had a conversation inside the Mama Dragons group one time about how we tolerate, how much we would tolerate physical abuse of our children if we were at a family event and Uncle John kept smacking them in the face, we pretty much all know what we would do, right? But sometimes we tolerate emotional smackings for our kids in ways that we would never tolerate physically, that idea of Uncle John making homophobic slurs over and over and everyone laughs uncomfortably. But, for the people we love, it can be equally damaging. 


LISA: Yes. 


JEN: So for me, that’s a good one to remember. That’s a smack in the face. 


LISA: A smack in the face and it has an impact. We have learned that “Sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me,” is false


JEN: We were tricked.


LISA: We were tricked. There is an actual mental health impact that then also impacts physical health from being treated as a second-class citizen, being treated, being given names that actually have been used to marginalize people and treat them unfairly. 


JEN: Are there types of boundaries? Are there categories of boundaries that we need to be aware of? 


LISA: Whatever you don’t like. 


JEN: Like some of them would be emotional or some would be physical, like don’t hug me. I don’t like it. 


LISA: Yeah. Yeah. Good examples. I would say, whatever you say that “This is impacting me. I’m not able to actually function,” is a good time to suggest a boundary or come up with one or decide if one is worth the cost because boundaries usually have some kind of cost. Most of our children who have grown up feeling a little bit different in a conservative society, generally are used to erasing themselves rather than creating boundaries. That their go-to is “I’ll just erase myself. I’ll just get through this.” Which can come with, “I’ll get through this lunch with grandma” or it can come with, “I’ll just try to wait until I’m 18 before I say anything.”


I have heard that over and over and over from 13 year olds, super interesting. “I’d much rather erase myself than create a boundary that is going to cost me.” So, as a parent, standing up for your child and saying, “Hey, we can create a boundary here and I’m willing to support you.” For example, if a child decides to wear something to school that is a little bit flamboyant but still within the school’s guidelines, a parent can do this by saying, “If you get made fun of for wearing that, I’m hoping you’ll let me and your teacher know and we will have your back.” Rather than saying to the child, “Oh, maybe you shouldn’t wear that.” Which is a way of creating a boundary that the child says, I’m supposed to be raising myself here.” But creating a boundary that says, “Oh, people will have my back in this situation.” It’s up to parents to help create the boundaries that have the child’s back. 


JEN: That's an important one when it comes to parenting because we, from the very start, we’ve been talking about protecting our kids. So, if your adorable little boy wants to take a Hello Kitty backpack and wear a skirt and fingernail polish to the fourth-grade, you have all of these preconceived notions in your head about what that is going to look like. And the easiest thing to control, to avoid this bullying or harassment, right? Is to try to control your child, then put him in a hoodie with a dump truck backpack instead. But the message, talk about the difference in the messaging, what the kid’s hearing and receiving when you’re controlling them instead of standing on their team? 


LISA: It’s saying, “Erase yourself so that other people will be happy.” And that message sticks in there into the 20s, 30s and 40s. In that situation, what I would recommend doing is calling the teacher and letting the teacher know that this is what your child will be bringing to school and making sure that the teacher is on watch for having your child’s back and for having a conversation with the whole class about how Hello Kitty is appropriate for anyone. Because, what we know is that bullying takes place generally with a sense that “The teacher’s on my side,” or that whoever is on the playground is not going to take action. 


If the parent can make sure that the teacher’s on the side, then it’s safe. If the teacher is not, if for some reason it feels iffy, it’s okay to tell your child, “You know what, I’m not sure your class is a safe place yet. I wonder how we can make it a safe place? What can we do?” And then having a conversation with the principal or the school counselor or with someone who can help make the classroom a safe place for your child and their Hello Kitty personality, which may last for a day or a lifetime, we don’t know. But what we want to do is make room for that exploration so that the child knows, “Hey, what I feel right with, that’s legal, actually expands the world for everyone.” That’s what we want. That’s leadership. 


JEN: So, my brain is following you. I have all these questions racing through my head. We talked about how sometimes people choose to erase themselves to go along, those kinds of things. How much are we expected to put up with, “it’s family, that’s just how Grandma is.” How do we know when we’ve reached that place where this is something we’re not tolerating anymore? What’s the boundary or that line? 


LISA: Well, let’s start with food preferences, likes and dislikes. Sometimes we tell kids just to eat the cookie. Grandma made it. And sometimes we say, “No, you don’t need to eat that cookie, it’s okay.” There’s a wide spectrum of things that we as parents do for Grandma. But when it comes to identity, anything we tell our child, ”Just do this for Grandma,” is erasing the child in a way that can be harmful. 


So it’s behaviors that we do for Grandma and then it’s identity that we erase for Grandma, two totally different things. There’s some gray area when it comes to behaviors, although I would suggest making a child hug and kiss Grandma is personal space stuff that is also in the identity category. But when it comes to identity questions, I would not ask my child to erase anything they were prepared to share or do or be in Grandma’s space. I’ll just put a period on that. 


JEN: Okay. There’s the idea of compromise, and I love that you’re saying we can compromise on a lot of things, but we can’t compromise on our actual identity. It clarifies that, I think, a lot. What is a good way to communicate our boundaries? If we have some things, how do we communicate that to the people who need to hear it? 


LISA: Well, if we have a good relationship with them, it’s actually okay to have a conversation before our child is in the picture. If the child has given us permission to come out to Grandma or Grandpa, and often they will if they know what the parent is going to do is going to be setting the stage and running interference. If they trust a parent to do that, it’s often good to have a conversation ahead of time, “Hey, just letting you know.” In the same way that I sort of previewed in the beginning. “Just letting you know that there’s something that Sam wants to tell you or Sam wants us to know and I’m going to give Sam a place – or if Sam’s given permission – Sam is letting you know that they are transgender or nonbinary and it would be really helpful if there could be respect for their identity and for the identity of all LGBTQ people in our world, as long as we’re having conversations in Sam’s presence. Just wanted to give you a heads up and give you a chance, dear Grandparent, to react to that with me because when you’re with the child, I don’t want any conversation, don’t want any letter written to them about how they’ll always be your precious something or other. I want all communication to be respectful of what they’re sharing.” Did that answer your question? I lost myself. 


JEN: Yeah. It absolutely did. It reminds me of an early conversation that we had with a relative where I said, “When our child turns 18, you can negotiate an adult relationship. But in the meantime, the parenting belongs to me.” 


LISA: Perfect, Jen. 


JEN: “Your job is to just have a relationship of fun and joy and love and…” 


LISA: And enjoy them .


JEN: “And once they turn 18, they’re an adult and you can navigate that differently.” With our minor kids, we sometimes do have to create boundaries for relationships in their lives. And I see lots of people lamenting this. “If I need to keep my youngest away from someone because it’s damaging for them, that changes my relationship with that person also.” So, how does that look? Especially in ideas of community and religion which come into this topic a lot, how much can I participate with an individual or a community without harming my child who isn’t safe with that person or that community? 


LISA: It depends on how willing you are to be an advocate in that space. In other words, if you’re in that space and just making peace with those people and the awful things that they’re saying and doing, you are at some level contributing to harm. If you are explicit with your child that when you’re with this group or this family or this situation in this school board meeting with other people who are anti-gay in some way, you are advocating, you are using your position at the table to make a difference, that you are leaning into it, speaking into it, and taking some heat for it, this may actually be helpful to your child. 


Withdrawing completely from spaces where our children are not accepted or understood is not necessarily the best spot. If you are part of an organization that you are not welcome to speak up in and that people are not listening and you don’t feel like you are having a chance to represent anything, it may make sense to withdraw completely. On the other hand, even in a space like a conservative church, going consistently and wearing a rainbow or transgender pin and letting your child know that you’re sitting there being a silent witness of what is not happening in that space may actually be helpful to your child. 


JEN: And depending on their age, you might be able to ask them, “Is it hurtful to you?” 


LISA: And chances are, anytime you go to a place that it seems as if you’re being somewhat complicit, your child will report that it is harmful. That doesn’t mean you have to get out completely, but it does mean that it’s important to have a conversation with your child about what it is you're doing and if it’s worth it or not. And that may change from day to day. 


JEN: So I’m going to give you another example that I’ve seen come up often where perhaps it’s a boundary the family is creating. So, Aunt Susie’s getting married and we want all of you to attend, but we’re really hoping that your number two child will dress in a way that we find gender appropriate for the wedding. We know that dresses are not the thing, but in this case we’re hoping – and this happens with funerals and weddings and all these family ritualistic things, right? – what are good places, healthy places to set boundaries for those situations? 


LISA: Well, what we wear has a great deal to do with our identity. And, if it’s asking someone to misrepresent their identity, that is often a boundary that’s harmful to someone. So if everyone at the wedding is being asked to wear purple with yellow stripes, asking your child to wear purple with yellow stripes is asking them to be part of what everyone is doing. Asking your child because they were born female to wear a dress, is an egregious boundary crossing that a parent risks harming their child to ask their child to do. 


So, if the family that’s having the wedding is saying, “Your child is welcome if they’ll wear a dress.” A parent can say, “Are we all welcome if our child does not wear a dress?” And let the family decide. Let the people having the wedding decide. They get to decide, but I hope the family as a whole makes room for their child to have their identity. It’s so interesting, in the world where most people of culture grow up in a family, that is their culture. We have a lot of people now who have grown up as a single identity within a larger culture like a black child being raised by a white family who now have specific mental health concerns and issues because of this. This is what happens when we have a transgender child in a cisgender family. They have certain issues and it's helpful for the family to say, “We’re going to handle this as a family as much as possible. And we’re going to make a family decision so that we have a family culture and not just leaving this isolated person to fend for themselves while the rest of us can go. But we’re not going to make our transgender child go because they would have to dress.” The whole family should make a social justice decision. Maybe it’s a little bit different for different siblings, but depending on how close they are to Susie, but generally, the whole family should make the decision together and make room for that. 


JEN: I love that again, because it points back to that same, it emphasized that thing you said earlier about identity. If we’re forcing people to become invisible. Heaven knows, I’ve worn some dresses as a bridesmaid that I did not love that were not my personal style. But it wasn't attacking my identity which is very different if I had been asked to cut off all my hair and wear a fake beard or something more performative and costume-y. 


LISA: Good point. 


JEN: If we jump away a little bit from the idea of children. Like my son would love to come, but he will dress like he dresses. We move away from children to adults, sometimes for parents, we live our lives for and with our kids and behalf of our kids and they become adults and it becomes a little bit hard because they set boundaries for us to protect themselves. Sometimes it’s us, like we’re the problem. We’re doing it wrong and we need to learn how to respect those boundaries. Talk about that a little bit .


LISA: Well, let’s talk about it from two different angles. There’s the kids who are parents of our grandchildren who are now saying, or the adults who are saying, “Man you just do not get it, so we’re not coming over.” It’s important for parents to say, “Do I want a relationship, or do I want to be right?” This is true from probably when the child is very young as well. But this is still aggression, “Do I want the relationship or do I want them to hear my point of view?” Relationship or for them to hear my point of view. 


And once again, your child does not deserve to always have to hear your point of view. They absorbed it, absorbed it, absorbed it whether you were explicit or implicit from the time they were born until they left your home. They are no longer having to hear it. So if you want a relationship with them, tell your point of view to people of your own peer age. Have your political conversations with people who get it in your circle or go online and listen to debates and get into and figure it out. But with your child, focus on the relationship. 


Learn something from them. You may be thinking to yourself, “How are they ever going to be resilient if they don’t take a chance to listen to me and what I have to say? They’re just being pansies or snow flakes.” If that’s your point of view, you likely will not have a very strong relationship with them. Give them a chance to let you know what they have figured out, ferreted out and what really works for them. That’s one angle of it. 


The other angle is, if you find that you have children who are not coming because you are allowing your lesbian daughter and her wife and children to come to the family reunion, and so they’re deciding that their children are not coming to the family reunion because they don’t want to be exposed to that. I think it’s wise to do what Elder Christofferson’s parents did. They had an adult meeting, a family meeting with all the adults, none of the children. They made very clear: “What our family will stand for is love and acceptance. And we want your children, whatever stripe they are, to know that nothing will take them outside of the umbrella of the circle of our family’s love. And that is the primary thing that we want them to know.” So, if you want to come and be part of that, we invite you to bring your children and come and be part of that and know that. If you choose to make a different choice, our belief as the matriarch, patriarch of the family is that they will likely begin to assume that there are things that can take them outside of what our family will include and love and that’s not the message that we want to send. So we will be inviting our daughter, her wife, and their children to our family reunion and we hope that you make a decision to come as well. 


JEN: I could talk to you for, like, five hours. But I want to be mindful of the time of our listeners. So I want to ask just one last question of you. Brand new parents, well not a brand new parent, that would be a baby. A parent who has just newly discovered, again, maybe their kid’s 50 or maybe their kid’s 4, but they’ve just discovered or learned or been invited in to the idea that their child is queer. What, right off the top, first advice do you offer this parent? 


LISA: Tell your child thank you for sharing with you because that’s tremendous trust. And unless they’re really young and not self-aware in social ways, they likely have given this days, weeks, months, and perhaps even years of consideration before telling you. So put that in your mind and say, “Thank you so much for telling me and including me. I don’t want to be left out of this important part of your life.”


Secondly: “It doesn’t change a thing about how much I love you and how I want you to have the very, very best life that you can imagine. And I no longer want to tell you what that life should look like or make assumptions about what that life should look like. And if I start making assumptions, just say, ‘Mom.’ And I’ll think. Oh, I’m making assumptions and I will back out of making assumptions about your life. I want to hear about your life and how you have conceptualized it.” And if this child is, I don’t know anywhere older than 13 likely, ask them who their favorite YouTubers or celebrities or instagram people they follow or favorite film actors or athletes are that have helped them or their mentors who’ve helped them become comfortable with their identity. 


And then, as a parent, go in and get to know what their world is like. What’s really interesting is Baby Boomers know fewer gay and trans people than Gen Z. Gen Z’s know fewer than Millennials. I mean, Gen Xers, they came first. And it goes down the line to Gen Z and our young people have way more mentors and understanding of what the world is like and what people have to contribute. And, as older people, we have to educate ourselves. But not from our children. Our children are not responsible to educate us about the world. When it’s something like, they’re interested in basket weaving or they’re interested in knitting or they’re interested in anime or ComiCon, we ask them to educate us. Tell us what you like about this? Tell us what you’re doing? When it comes to identity, it’s up to us to go online and educate ourselves about identity so that we can, when our children tell us, we don’t say, “What?” We say, “Ah, okay. Other people have that experience too. Very interesting. Tell me.” 


JEN: Google is such a gift. And I love the way that you worded this. There is sometimes a paranoia that “The social media has caused this!” and you have worded it so well that our kids are looking for mentors and examples to help them sort through feelings and experiences that they’re already having. And we don’t need to be afraid of visiting those same places and learning from those same people. I love that, how you tied that together. 


LISA: As painful as it is, our kids get courage. 


JEN: Be prepared for me to ask you to come back four million times. But thank you, thank you, thank you, for being willing to share your experience and your wisdom. You're so articulate and there’s something about your voice that just speaks calmness into a situation that is often full of anxiety. So I appreciate, greatly, you coming. Thank you, thank you, thank you! 


LISA: Thank you, Jen. 


JEN: For more information on Mama Dragons and the podcast, you can visit our website at mamadragons.org or follow us on Instagram or Facebook. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ children, donate at mamadragons.org or click the donate link below in the show notes. We’re glad you’re here.