Ask Amy: Family is fighting over transgender child
Dear Gamma: You should open your arms and love this child without pressuring them (I’m using the gender-neutral pronoun) to be any different than they already are. While with you, let the child choose and wear any clothing they want to wear on that particular day.
Don’t ask loaded questions, don’t press this child about their clothing, hair, or anything else. Do NOT interrogate or interview them on camera. Just be grandparents, for goodness sake. No child has ever needed loving, neutral, accepting grandparents more than this child does. So take on that role and BE that.
If your grandchild’s hair falls into their eyes, offer to let them pick out a hat, a headband, a “scrunchi,” hair clips, or anything else they might want to use to hold the hair back. And if the child doesn’t want to use any of these things, that should be OK, too. Do NOT cut the child’s hair.
The child’s father should be in charge of navigating the “official” aspects of this along with his ex, including any and all responses to gender/clothing/hair issues.
Things are bad enough for your grandchild that the court has appointed a therapist to step in. All of the adults in this child’s life should meet with the therapist and follow the suggested guidelines.
Dear Amy: My wife and I have good friends whom we see relatively often.
Over the years, we’ve noticed that “John” tends to want to control “Laura.”
He will answer questions for her when she is clearly asked directly about a personal experience. He sometimes seems disrespectful when she speaks her mind.
Recently, my wife texted Laura a question and the response came in from John. We have always suspected that he reads her texts, but he actually responded for her, referring to her in the response!
We checked to make sure she had Laura’s correct number and it was not a group text. Should we respect their relationship choices to share everything? Do we say nothing?
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