Jayden Thai

Being a Southern, queer, trans, second-generation Vietnamese American guy born and raised in the commonwealth of Kentucky, navigating through these conflicting cultures and identities has been an emotional journey for me and it continues to be.  Like many Southeast Asians after the Vietnam War, my parents left their homes in Vietnam to immigrate to the U.S. in search of a better life for themselves and their family.  As the oldest child of immigrant parents, I had always imagined myself as a manifestation of all their hard work and sacrifices for our family.  However, when I came out to myself as a transman, I felt like I had wasted all of their sacrifices.  Months of therapy, an amazing partner, and amazing social support had buffered the hardships of coming out to myself and all of my friends, but coming out to my parents was a very different situation that required very a different approach.  At the time, just thinking about telling my parents provoked massive amounts of anxiety for me.  I was afraid of being the family shame.  I was afraid of bringing shame to my family.  I was afraid my parents would lose their friends.  I was afraid my parents would be alienated from the Vietnamese community.  I was afraid of being deemed unloveable by my own parents.  I was afraid of losing my family.

Nevertheless, I knew that if I ever wanted to begin medically transition I would have to tell them, because let’s be serious, I wouldn’t be able to hide my deepening voice and other bodily changes from them, whom I see and interact with on a daily basis.  For months I struggled to live a double life with my parents—a guy in the real world but a daughter around my parents.  Without hormones though, the constant misgendering and dysphoria slowly became unbearable and my emotional distress was getting worse.  I was slowly being backed into a corner and my only choice was to either continue hiding from my parents and continue to feel shitty every day, or come out to my parents and risk being disowned and losing them.  I felt selfish for even considering it.  The voice in my head kept criticizing me, “They made all these sacrifices for you, why can’t you make this one sacrifice for them?”  I felt so alone in my struggles.  I felt distant from my parents.  I didn’t want to talk to them, see them, or be around them.  My therapy sessions were full of tears and feelings of selfishness and shame.  One day in the midst of my tears, my therapist said, “If you come out to your parents, it’s true that you could lose them but it’s also true that they will still love you.  If you don’t come out to your parents, you will end up resenting them for the rest of your life.”  There was something about her statement that clicked inside of me.  It was at that moment I decided that I did not want to resent my parents.

I decided to write them a letter via email for a couple of strategic reasons. They would have time to read, process, reread, and process its contents however much they needed.  It would also help with the language barrier and having explanations be lost in translation.  I also really, really did not want to be there in person when they found out.  The letter was long and emotional (I cried the whole time as I was writing it), and had links to a number of resources such as websites, books, and contact information for another Asian mother of a trans son.  I decided to email it to my mom while I was out of the state… on my birthday (to buffer the blow).  I closed my eyes, held my breath, clicked “send,” and waited.

Among her reply were the words, “It doesn’t matter if you are boy or girl, you are our child.  I don’t care what other people say, I just care about your happiness and health.”  Her reaction was so much better than I had expected; she still loved me and that was what mattered to me.  She helped me come out to my dad a couple of weeks later.  It wasn’t all full of happiness and smiles, though.  There were confusion, a lot of shouting, even more tears, and too many arguments and frustration.  My parents had to go through the stages of grief over the loss of their daughter and I had to watch.  My parents struggled with a new name and new pronouns, and it would be another year until they were even remotely ready to share the news with my aunts and uncles.

It has been a little over a year since I came out to my parents and almost a year since I started on testosterone.  I am happy with myself and with my relationship with my parents.  Our relationship is closer and with more meaning and love than it had been before.  I look forward to spending time with them now.  My parents are still struggling with my name and pronouns but I can tell they are making conscious efforts to get them right.  They respect me, who I am, and this journey that I’m on.  We don’t talk about it much and no one else in our family-friend circle knows, but I know my parents are processing it in their own way and will share the news to folks in their own time.  I’ve spent 25 years processing who I am; they’ve only had a year.  I can allot them the time and space that they need—it’s the least I can do.  I’m sure my mom still cries from time to time at the loss of her daughter.  But when she does, her son is there to comfort her.

Jayden Thai, M.Ed. is a queer, trans-identified, second generation Vietnamese American, born and raised in Kentucky. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the Counseling Psychology program at the University of Louisville.