My (cis female) partner (mtf) just came out socially a few weeks ago. she has gotten a lot of support from coworkers and other folks. We have a 10 year old boy and a 6 year old girl. When we told the kids, our son took it pretty hard. There was lots of crying and him begging me to convince my partner not to do this. Our daughter took it better but still says “I don’t want dad to be girl.”
Our son is very social at school and heavily involved in travel baseball. He loves his dad a lot (partner says kids can still say “dad”) but he is embarrassed for my partner to come to school events and baseball games.
My partner is understandably hurt by this. I’m not really sure what to do. I don’t want my partner to feel like she has to hide, but I also understand that when you’re 10, your friends mean everything. As adults, it’s easy for us to say that if it bothers your friends then they aren’t your real friends. But we’re able to say that after years of life experience.
Whats the right course of action here? Have my partner stay away from certain events until my son is ready, or tell my son to deal with it?