Trans Children & Daddy Issues

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What happens when your parent says “I love you”… but their love can’t follow you across the threshold of who you’ve become?

In this episode of Whispers of Self, I tell the story I’ve avoided for a long time: the slow heartbreak of being loved in theory, but not met in practice. I’m a trans woman, fully out, fully alive, and still stuck in a kind of family limbo where my father’s “unconditional love” comes with conditions he refuses to name.

This video is about Ambiguous Loss, the grief of losing someone who is still here. It’s also about the scripts we inherit: the roles we’re trained to perform, the etiquette of invisibility, and the quiet ways families teach you to keep the peace by shrinking yourself.

You’ll hear the moments that shaped me:
• the first love I had to abandon to keep my father’s approval
• the phone call where my transition became a “betrayal”
• the email exchange where “move on” landed like a painting of water
• and the truth I’m still learning to live with: some losses don’t end. They just change shape.

If you’ve ever felt emotionally orphaned by someone who insists they love you, you are not alone. You are welcome here.

Content note: family estrangement, emotional neglect, religious and gender role pressure.

Edited by @ameliavioletprouse

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🕒 Suggested Chapters (adjust timestamps after edit)

00:00 – Intro: “Unconditional” Love That Won’t Grow
05:09 – My Father’s Point of View
10:59 – Forbidden First Love & Near Egg-Crack
18:19 – Abandoning My Role as Husband & Son
25:49 – Love Without End, Amen
38:01 – Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
39:11 – Cue: They Fear Genuine Emotion
39:43 – Cue: They Prioritize Their Comfort and Self-Image
40:34 – Cue: They See Us Through Roles and Expectations
41:26 – Cue: They Rewrite Reality to Avoid Accountability
42:22 – Cue: They Flip Between Affection and Withdrawal
43:28 – What We Wish We Could Say to Them
46:00 – What We Wish Someone Had Said to US
54:46 – Closing Remarks
Preliminary Sources and References:
Pauline Boss — Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief
Lindsay C. Gibson — Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
George Strait — “Love Without End, Amen”
Candace Simpson-Giles — How to Be a Lady
John Bridges — How to Be a Gentleman