I think this is a really difficult one. On one hand, it's understandable for parents to feel hurt, betrayed, or grieving by a child coming out as transgender - even if they agree with it / are otherwise supportive. It must be very painful when a child doesn't understand this even though teenagers, in particular, can't always be expected to. (Aren't surnames, when used as first names, usually considered gender-neutral anyway?) On the other, I've been on support forums and blogs for parents of trans-identified teenagers and some of them come across as being angry that their child doesn't want to live the way the parent thinks they should. If transgenderism didn't cause this reaction, it would be something else - the child wanting to dress as a Goth or date someone mum / dad doesn't approve of, for instance. I was once on a site where a regular poster was convinced that if her daughter identified as trans, that must mean her daughter was a lesbian, even though her daughter had a boyfriend (i.e. an actual boy) and was happy with him. She seemed fixated on the idea that if she could encourage her daughter to sleep with another girl, that would make her be happy as a lesbian instead of identifying as trans. Which seems quite harmful if it wasn't something the daughter wanted to do. There seems to be potential for a lot of harm to be done on both sides from parents and children both feeling hurt but not able to communicate why