What It Looks Like When Parents Really Show Up
What It Looks Like When Parents Really Show Up
By Laura Hoge, RSW
You may know what it feels like when a parent doesn’t quite get it. The name they hesitate over. The pronouns that don’t come easily yet. The moments where their effort is inconsistent, or where their questions land in ways that feel off. For many parents, this isn’t about a lack of love. It’s often about fear, about wanting to understand and not knowing how, about trying to adjust to something that asks them to rethink what they thought they knew about their child and about themselves.
And still, even with that understanding, it can be painful for trans, nonbinary, and queer people. Because alongside that love, there can be a quiet expectation that they will guide the process. That they will explain, reassure, and hold their parent’s emotions with care, even when their own feelings are still tender and unmet. For some, coming out becomes not just an act of self-expression, but the beginning of a kind of emotional labour they never consented to take on.
Not every parent responds this way. Some move quickly toward understanding, repair, and advocacy. But enough parents struggle, in ways that are human and understandable, that it’s important to name the impact. Many trans, nonbinary, and queer people carry a quiet grief, not because their parents don't love them, but because that love hasn’t yet found its fullest, most affirming expression.
I work with parents because I believe that movement is possible. Because I have seen parents grow, stretch, and come into a deeper, more grounded way of showing up. And because trans, nonbinary, and queer young people deserve relationships where they are not responsible for facilitating that growth.
I’m a Registered Social Worker, and I work online with parents of trans and gender-diverse youth in British Columbia and across Canada. I’m also a queer parent. I know how much can be at stake in these moments, and I know that loving a child well sometimes means doing difficult, private work so that the child doesn’t have to carry it with them.
When parents sit with me, the work is not about judging them or dismissing their experience. A parent’s process is real. It can include grief, fear, confusion, hope, and a deep desire to get it right. Those feelings deserve care and space. But they need a place to land that isn’t the child.
Part of my role is to help create that space. To support parents in working through their questions and emotions in a way that protects their child’s sense of safety and belonging. To help them build the capacity to show up with clarity, accountability, and affirmation, even while they are still learning.
Because this is the line that matters: a parent’s process deserves support, but it is not their child’s job to hold it. It is not the child’s role to be the teacher, the emotional anchor, or the place where a parent’s uncertainty gets worked out. The child’s role is to be a child, and to be met with care, respect, and love that doesn’t require them to shrink or translate themselves in order to receive it.
What leaning in looks like
There’s a difference between a parent who shows up and a parent who begins to lean in. Showing up can look like being present, expressing care, and wanting to be supportive, even if things are still new or uncertain. For many families, that’s an important starting place.
Leaning in is something that tends to grow over time. It involves a willingness to stay engaged even when things feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable. It might look like practicing a child’s name and pronouns with intention, not just in response to correction, but because of an emerging understanding of how critical that effort is. It can mean seeking out support from other adults so that questions, fears, or grief have somewhere to be held with care. It can also mean staying curious about a child’s needs, and allowing those needs to guide what support looks like, even when that asks something new of the parent.
I’ve seen parents move into this kind of deeper engagement. It usually isn’t immediate, and it rarely comes from a single conversation or resource. More often, it unfolds through ongoing, reflective work, where a parent begins to gently examine what they’ve been taught, what they’ve assumed, and what they may need to shift in order to stay connected to their child.
I've watched parents make that shift. It doesn't happen through a single conversation or a reading list or a well-timed documentary. It happens in sustained, honest work where a parent has to reckon with what they've been taught, what they assumed, and what they're willing to change. That reckoning belongs in an adult space. Not at the dinner table, not in the car on the way to school, and not in the middle of a conversation their child initiated about who they are.
The political weight right now is real
Parenting a trans child in 2026 is not happening in a neutral landscape. Policies are shifting. Public debates treat trans lives as unsettled questions. And all of that reaches families.
I notice this creating a kind of constant background fear in parents that can crowd out the relationship. A parent who is scanning for threats, managing their own anxiety about the future, or navigating a co-parent who isn't on the same page, can become so focused on protection that connection gets lost. And a trans kid who is navigating the world outside their home needs that connection to be reliable.
Part of what we work on together is helping parents stay present with their kid rather than disappearing into the overwhelm. That steadiness is not about having the right answers. It's about being someone your child can still come to, even when things are hard, because they trust that you won't make it harder.
At the same time, parents are being asked to make sense of an information landscape that is anything but neutral. There is a significant amount of coordinated messaging online about trans
youth that is not grounded in scientific consensus, but is shaped and amplified by well-funded political and religious advocacy efforts. This kind of content is often designed to feel credible, urgent, and protective, especially to a parent who is already worried. It can also quietly pull parents into a pattern of searching for information that confirms their fears, where the more they look, the more those fears appear justified.
Part of the work, then, is slowing that process down. Learning how to recognize the difference between evidence-based guidance and persuasive misinformation. And gently shifting from “looking for what might go wrong” toward staying anchored in what actually supports their child’s wellbeing, which, consistently, is connection, affirmation, and a parent who is willing to keep learning in grounded, supported ways.
Why I do this work
I do this work because I know what a parent who really shows up can mean for a trans kid. The research is clear on family acceptance as a protective factor, but I've also watched children thrive when their parents lean in. I’ve also seen the opposite - when love doesn’t translate into action, and a young person is left carrying not only their own reality, but the ongoing weight of being misnamed, misunderstood, or asked to make themselves smaller so a parent can stay comfortable.
When a young person has at least one adult in their life who gets it, who doesn't require them to manage anyone else's feelings about who they are, something shifts. They get to spend more energy on being themselves and less on surviving their family relationships and their life at home.
That is what I'm working toward with every parent I support. Not a parent who is performing allyship, but one who has genuinely done enough of their own work that their kid gets to exhale.
If you are a trans or queer person wondering whether there is support available for your family, if you are navigating being a queer parent, or if you’re a 2STGNC person who never had this kind of parent, I’m here. You can learn more about how I work with parents of trans youth, or reach out when you’re ready.
Author’s Bio: Laura Hoge (she/her) is a Registered Social Worker practising online therapy in BC and across Canada. A queer parent herself, she works with individuals and families navigating burnout, grief, identity, past relational harm, and relationships, with dedicated support for parents of trans and gender-diverse youth. She believes the most important thing a parent can do is take their own process seriously enough that their child doesn't have to carry it.