How To Respond To Your Child Coming Out As Trans, From Dads Who've Been There

Earlier this summer, Robert DeNiro made headlines for the positive way he responded to his daughter Airyn coming out as transgender.

“I loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter,” the 82-year-old actor told Variety after Airyn revealed her gender identity in an interview with the LGBTQ+ publication Them.

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” DeNiro added. “I love all my children.”

DeNiro’s nonchalant, validating response highlights how important it is for dads to validate their kids’ decisions, said therapist Alexis Bleich ― granted his statement wasn’t without faults. (Few parents get it completely right when their kids tell them, though.)

“It would have been ideal if he hadn’t deadnamed his child [mentioning Aaron] but we we don’t need perfection here, we just need progress,” said Bleich, who works in New York City with kids, teens and adults.

That progress is especially notable, given DeNiro’s age.

“I love that he was able to represent older dads and older family members who can often be dismissed and not expected to be able to understand or love their trans kids or grandkids,” she said. “This is a big fear that I come across in my practice, that grandparents and older relatives won’t be able to understand and so can’t be told.”

Other celebrity dads have recently highlighted the profound impact of supportive fathers, too: In June, actor Liev Schreiber described his daughter’s transition as feeling natural, emphasizing that she had always expressed femininity and praised her resilience. Marlon Wayans shared his journey from denial to acceptance of his son. (And more recently, the actor-comedian called out Elon Musk for disowning his transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson: “You don’t disown your baby. Love your child!” Wayans said on a podcast.)

“Wayans’ experience especially shows that it’s OK for parents to need time to process, but it’s crucial to stay thoughtful about what gets expressed,” said Jesse Kahn, a therapist and director of the CST the Gender and Sexuality Therapy Center in New York City. “What kids need most in those moments is to feel accepted, understood and emotionally safe.”

A 2023 German study found that young adults were more likely to come out as trans to their mothers (though interestingly, moms weren’t necessarily more inclined to respond with more acceptance). A positive coming out experience with parents in general had a positive effect on the participants’ mental health, the study found,

Parental acceptance is now more important than ever. Since taking back the White House, the Trump administration has followed through on plans to roll back protections of trans and nonbinary people with harmful policies and bans denying both their personhood and identity.

The targeting is happening on a state level, too; as of July 2025, about 40% or 120,400 trans youth aged 13-17, are living in the 27 states that have passed bans on gender-affirming care, according to the Human Rights Coalition.

“As we’ve seen the cultural conversation around trans kids become so aggressively hostile, kids are very aware that this is an identity that is risky,” Bleich said.

Sensitively handled conversations with their parents can make a huge, positive difference, Bleich said.

Jesse Thorn, a podcaster in Los Angeles, has three children who are gender-nonconforming. When his oldest daughter came out, he admits adjusting wasn’t easy. It came in three parts.

“The first part was a mourning for this idea I had of who my kid was,” he told HuffPost. “This child I thought was a boy felt gone. A huge part of the sadness, as I consider it now, was just about how wrong I was about her. Your kids need so much from you it’s hard to remember they are their own person, not an extension of you.”

The second adjustment was realizing that his daughter was still the same kid she’d always been, and that actually, very little had changed.

“That was a tough process ― I don’t think it’s easy for even the most open-minded and accepting parent to realize they were so wrong,” he said. “But I’m grateful I made it through.”

Then, he had to come to terms with the harshness he knew his child was going to face from the world outside their home.

“My wife and I talked to every teacher and bus driver and neighbor and babysitter and aunt and uncle and coach,” he said. “And all this was before federal policy was threatening to supersede the relatively supportive laws in our home state.”

In his neighborhood, it wasn’t “culture war” stuff at that time ― “it was more encountering ignorance than hostility,” he said.

“Now because of the political climate, there are so many people out there who’ve been primed to hate our family, even though they don’t know us, or anyone in our situation,” he said. “That’s really scary.”

Steve O’Neill, a dad from the U.K., said his daughter came out as trans when she was 17. There was a steep learning curve for him when it came to understanding gender, but he never put the onus on educating himself on his daughter. He was perfectly capable of Googling himself.

“Understanding the spectrum of gender and how that can be fluid was a revelation to me ― learning to separate sex, gender and sexuality is something so many people misunderstand,” he said. “I was determined to listen, understand and show how much I loved her.”

He didn’t flinch when his daughter changed her name, either, though he understands the inclination.

“Any attachment you have as a father to what you named your child, just let that go,” he said.

At the time, he was newly separated from his daughter’s mother, so he felt that it was even more vital to show his daughter that she was supported and that both her parents were allies.

“That said, I’d tell parents that they have to work hard to ensure the transition is not the only subject in your kids’ life,” he said. “It’s just one part of your kid’s identity.”

Some basic tips on how to respond in the moment

The dads and therapists we spoke to had some advice on how to react to your child coming out, from their lived experiences and their clients.

Know that how you make them feel in the moment is more important than what you say.

Whether they’re a kid or an adult, the moment when people come out often lives in their memory for years — not just because of what was said, but because of how it made them feel.

“Those feelings can have a lasting impact on both the person, the relationship between them, and their relationships going forward,” Kahn said.

It’s completely OK for parents and caregivers to have emotions, questions or even uncertainty. “That doesn’t make you a bad parent ― it just means you’re processing something new,” Kahn said.

“What matters most is choosing to respond with care, curiosity, and a willingness to grow,” he said. “A loving response isn’t about having all the right words; it’s a practice, and it’s something you can learn.”

When dads show up with vulnerability and openness, they’re not only affirming their child, he said, they’re also helping to redefine what strength and masculinity can look like.

It’s OK to just listen.

Know that you don’t have to have all the right responses. Your listening skills will come in clutch here almost more than anything.

“Very broadly, I think that dads often imagine themselves to be shapers
of children, deliverers of wisdom, forgers of steel,” Thorn said. “There are ways
that is wonderful ― children need guidance ― but it can also get in the way of listening.”

Thorn tried to take a page out of his wife’s book by listening instead of talking. The last thing he wanted to do was overwhelm his kids with questions or insensitive remarks he hadn’t had time to think through.

“It’s so important to make sure your kids know they are allowed to be themselves, to have their own individual, autonomous place in the world, and that if they tell you about it, you’ll listen instead of talking,” he said.

“Thank your kid for trusting you and talking to you,” he said. “Keep the words of Fred Rogers’ in mind: ‘I like you just the way you are.’”

Don’t overwhelm your kid with questions about what comes next.

Support is great, but Bleich said to maybe hold back on telling your kid about how you knew they were trans since they were 2 or make what they are sharing about you and your excitement about marching at this year’s Pride parade.

If you can, try to hold back from asking questions about things like medication or surgery or dating at this exact moment, too.

“These questions can feel invasive and pressuring and can lead to kids feeling like they need to have all the answers right away,” she said. “Remember, this is just the first conversation of many and it’s important to let your child take the lead.”

Recognize how high the stakes are for your child and don’t feel bad if you feel like you’re the last to find out.

You may feel like their in-house protector and a go-to for emotional support, but don’t beat yourself up if your child was slow to come out to you.

“For a child sharing their gender identity, even a 0.001% risk of rejection is too much, which is why I think we’re often the last to find out,” O’Neill said.

He thinks there may be a cultural reason for this.

“The father is often considered less sensitive in society, and so the risk of this rejection can feel like it’s more likely to come from dad,” O’Neill said. “Combined with strong patriarchy, there can be a perception that telling a dad about a male-to-female transition especially can add pressure, albeit usually perceived pressure.”

Remind them that you love them.

If you don’t have to say too much when this topic is broached, what should you say? Bleich said to keep it simple.

“Say, ‘I love you. Thank you for trusting me with this. What else do you want me to know? What else do you need from me?’”