If your child does come out to you as trans or gender nonconforming, the first step to showing your support is to confirm that you love them. It may seem like a simple thing, but studies show that trans youth who are supported in their gender identities have better mental health outcomes.

Hearing how your kid realized their true gender identity allows them to not only share their journey with you but also allows you to understand and learn more about your child. Remember, their being trans or nonbinary isn’t about you or your parenting-it’s about who they are as a person.

You should also seek out additional information from support groups and medical professionals like your child’s pediatrician or family medicine doctor. This lets you hear from trusted individuals who have personal experience raising or treating gender-diverse children.

Aside from showing your acceptance and making an effort to learn more, you can also ask your child how they would like you to support them. Do they want you to be with them while talking to extended family about pronouns? Should you have a conversation with their school? Let your child tell you what they need, so you can figure out how to best be there for them.

Let your child participate in decision about what they will wear

Take them shopping!

Compromise when possible on outfits to formal events, church, picture day, and so on. As a parent, be a safe person who supports their exploration. They’ll get enough negativity from the rest of the world. Don’t be their first bully.

But also: Don’t be surprised if your child changes their mind or seems to want different things at different times. Some kids’ tastes just change and some kids will present themselves differently from day to day based on how vulnerable they’re feeling to the pressure to be “normal”

The important thing, no matter why your non-binary child is making the choices they are making, is to be a steady, constant source of support, and to help them make truly informed, empowered decision about their presentation.

Use the Correct Pronouns

If your child wants you to use they/them pronouns to refer to them instead of she/her or he/him, use the correct pronouns. It’s not grammatically incorrect and although it may take some getting used to, their pronouns are an important part of their identity.

Be Your Child’s Advocate

Educate your relatives, friends, parents of other children, and school officials. Children cannot always advocate for themselves. They may be too young to be able to explain what they want and need. They may not understand adult prejudice. You are your child’s greatest ally in their journey to be themselves. You have the language to explain why they need to use the “wrong” restroom. You have the authority to insist that laws designed to protect them are enforced. You will be better able to intercede with other adult family members and friends when they express ignorance or hostility toward your child’s choices. Take that power and use it for good.

Non-binary children are not monoliths. Depending on their assigned sex at birth and their gender, a non-binary child will face different challenges. Feminine children assigned male at birth will be shamed for femininity, teased and sometimes even subjected to horrifying brutality in an effort to “toughen them up.”

Children assigned female at birth who express masculine characteristics are sometimes tolerated, as long as they are the right age, the right race, them right kind of “boyish.” Often, thought, if they step outside the boundaries of acceptable “female” behavior-like being gender-non conforming and also having a non-straight sexual orientation, or continuing to exhibit “tomboy” characteristics as a teenager- the tolerance is abruptly discontinued.

Non-binary children who have an identity that is neither strictly masculine nor strictly feminine are, at best, seen as “confused” rather than exploring or understanding.