Can we add a little nuance to the discussions of trans kids who aren't out to their parents?

Let me start by saying that of course kids (cis, trans, unsure, and so forth) should all have the freedom to use a name in any space and ask that this not be shared with their parents.

What I am tired of seeing is the rhetoric from well-meaning queer folks and allies of "if your kid is only out at school, this means they feel unsafe telling you they are trans, so you have failed as a parent."

As someone who has worked with literally thousands of trans and gender-expansive kids, this just doesn't follow. Yes, sometimes I have kids tell me their parents are transphobic and would react in unsupportive ways. This is a real thing that happens, and which we need to be aware of and be prepared to address.

What happens much more frequently is that kids tell me they know their parents are supportive of trans folks in general, their parents often even are queer/trans themselves, and the issue isn't about transphobic parents, but just that they are wanting to experiment and practice experiencing how less-important people respond to a new name/gender before they are ready to share with the most-important people in their lives.

I don't want to 100% liken someone's gender identity or expression to a hobby, as we often have hobbies that we pick up and quickly discard, and I don't want to feed into the transphobic "it's a phase; they'll get over it" rhetoric. However, I do think we need to make less of a big deal overall with people exploring gender. It's completely normalized for cis children to try on different names and forms of self-expression, especially during early adolescence. Why should it be extremely different for a cis middle-schooler to take on a goth expression and ask to be called Raven or Onyx than for another middle-schooler exploring identity to include a name and pronouns that differ from their birth sex? So along these lines, do people assume that a child has horrible abusive parents if they aren't planning on mentioning just yet that they wear black lipstick at school and have their friends call them Onyx? Probably not. Does this suddenly change if Onyx uses pronouns that differ from the ones their parents know? It shouldn't. For many adolescents, it's just easier to try something on with people who are less close and whose opinions matter less. It might be easier to have kids in the cafeteria tell you something doesn't really work for you than to observe and process your parents' reaction.

Let's focus more on allowing young people to live in the here and now. If they want to be called a particular name and use particular pronouns for any reason, that should always just be their choice. It doesn't need to involve parental permission, it doesn't need to be likened to any sort of "concern" or mental health issue that their parents need to be informed about, and it doesn't need to be a big deal. Let's just let people be called what they want, regardless of the reason.