“When I look at her I don’t see anything other than my daughter” Australian fathers and their trans young people

Abstract

Parental gender affirmation and advocacy are central to protecting the rights and wellbeing of trans young people (TYP). However, the current academic literature provides little information about the experiences and actions of their fathers. Available academic references point largely to a distant or obstructive role, with minimal discussion and analysis of the structural factors that might be impacting on father engagement. This invites an individualistic understanding of father actions, assumes an inevitable negative response and leaves little room to imagine fathers being involved in gender affirming individual and collective processes for social change. Using semi structured individual and group interviews with eight Australian fathers committed to affirming their TYP, this study attempts to understand those factors impacting on the experiences of fathers, and to identify ways in which specialist rights based services and social movements can foster greater gender affirming father engagement. Findings revealed that fathers experiences are influenced by discursive expectations and related systemic barriers associated with cisgenderism, cisnormativity, and a hegemonic traditional masculinity/fatherhood, resulting in a tension between these forces and their affirming intent. However, the actions of participants highlights the capacity of men to resist such expectations and barriers and to act as allies to their TYP. Through a combination of public social action and the creation of supportive reflective spaces within which fathers can identify, examine and discuss themselves and the gender affirming actions of others, services and activist contexts can contribute to a greater participation of fathers in support of trans rights.