Happy Mother’s Day to Trans Moms Like Me

How will we celebrate?

Sunday May 9th in the US is Mother’s Day.

How can a lesbian couple, with one partner (me) a trans woman, celebrate Mother’s Day? As a family, I am sure we will do some celebration with cards and gifts and most importantly love. My wife and I have been married for nearly 45 years (our anniversary is in June). We have two children and two grandchildren. Our own mothers passed away years ago, and while I don’t think we’ll ever stop missing them, we find great peace and joy in their memories. Those thoughts will be part of our celebration.

However, being a trans woman with children, Mother’s Day comes with some melancholy. We will celebrate my wife, our children’s birth mother. There will be mother’s, grandmother’s and auntie’s cards filled with love and thanks. I will happily contribute cards and gifts, as I’ve done for over 40 years. I’ll probably cook a meal, depending on who is available to join us, and maybe even bake a cake. Cards will range from tear-inducing sentiment to irreverently funny. Gifts will be caring tokens of affection. The conversation around the dining room table be full of fond memories and silly stories of naughty children.

This is the second Mother’s Day that I have been out as a trans woman.

I live fully and completely as the woman I’ve have always been. I came out to my wife on Halloween of 2019 and the rest of our family in the next few days. The acceptance from family and friends has been extraordinary. I feel welcome.

Last year on Mother’s Day, I asked my children and grandchildren not to do anything that could be perceived as me trying to take something from their mother or grandmother. We settled on a Sunday in June and dubbed it“other Mother’s Day”.

To be totally honest, it was okay, but not great.

It did make me wonder how other lesbian couples with children celebrate Mother’s Day. Do they just recognize the birthing mother? Both women equally? Do they share the day? So, like anyone else in 2021, I “googled it”. In a Parenting article by Patty Onderko called “How Gay Parents Celebrate Mother and Father’s Day,” I learned sharing the day is not unusual:

“So this and every Mother’s Day Emily and I will enjoy — yes — brunch with our kids and some of the other moms in our family. After all, no matter what molds we fill or break, we are both mothers. Good ones.”

From the website Them in an article by Laura Leigh Abby: “Before we became moms, Sam and I sometimes talked about what we would do for Mother’s Day. Maybe we would alternate years, or celebrate one of us on Saturday, the other on Sunday. But our reality is that Mother’s Day is more like planning for the 4th of July, or New Year’s Eve — it’s a holiday that we celebrate together.”

They share. My initial search didn’t reveal any couples like us with a trans woman parent. A revised search with explicit “how do lesbian couples where one woman is trans celebrate Mother’s Day?” did not reveal any sharing of Mother’s Day.

That was very sad, but not unexpected.

Did my internalized transphobia make me not even ask to share the day with my wife? Probably a little.

Did my deep love and respect for my wife make me not want to take anything away from her? Probably a lot.

What will we do this year? Well, the same as last year, celebrate in June the “other Mother’s Day”. It will be okay. What would mean the most to me would be to get from my wife a card on Mother’s Day celebrating her wife. Maybe some year.