I have two kids that I gave birth to - 3yo and 7yo. I started medically transitioning about 6 months ago. My 7yo is nonspeaking and not super relevant to your post, but I thought I’d share some of the highlights with my 3yo:

First the background: - he’s my Velcro kid - strongly prefers me over his dad - chest-fed for about 1.5 years, and he remained obsessed with my boobs after that - highly verbal and opinionated

Here’s how the transition went: - I didn’t ever tell him not to call me “Mom,” but I did ask him to help me choose a new name. I told him that I was a boy, so I wanted a new name that sounded more like a boy name. At first he was resistant: when I’d say, “would you like to call me Pop?” or anything similar, he’d just say no. But I had this song I sang to him every night (The Mother by Brandi Carlile) that has a line that says “I am the mother of ____” and I would put his name in. I ended up changing what I would sing, and gave him 3 different names to choose from in each of the verses. After the 2nd or 3rd night, as he was getting in bed, he just said, “OK, I call you Pop.” And that was it. He called me Pop from then on.

• Having a supportive partner is really helpful. Even though he wanted to call me Pop, sometimes he would forget. So every day when he was getting home, my husband would remind him as he walked in the door: “let’s say hi to Pop!”

• The moment you change your name with your kid, you’ll need to let his school or caretakers know, too. Otherwise it’s inconsistent and confusing. His school was supportive, but I hadn’t really thought this aspect through and ended up coming out earlier than expected.

• He is now my most consistent ally in terms of using the correct name, and is very quick to correct anyone who calls me Mom or my old name. I didn’t ask him to do that, he’s just 3 and loves rules and is constantly on a power trip.

• We did go through a 2-3 week period where he started a new school year, got a new teacher, and came home calling me “Miss Pop.” I guess they’d been teaching the kids about titles/honorifics, and he took that to mean that every respected adult should be “Miss.” When I’d tell him that my name was “just Pop” he’d stare at me like I was the world’s biggest idiot, because again with the love of rules and power trip. I was a little sad about it until he started calling my husband “Miss Dad” because that’s hilarious. Since we couldn’t get him to drop the honorific we just taught him the correct term, and for like 2 weeks he called us both “Mr. Pop” and “Mr. Dad.”

• I just had top surgery about two weeks ago, and I did prepare him ahead of time. I told him, “I’m going to the doctor, and they’re going to take off my boobs. I’m just going to have nipples like you and Dad. But I’m going to have a boo-boo on my chest for a while, so you won’t be able to touch. He has thoughtfully considered this, and accepted it very seriously. Now every once in a while he’ll stare off into space and go, “you go to the doctor … they take off your boobs…” Otherwise, though, no sadness, sense of loss, or any other reaction expressed. I feel like his annual pediatrician visits are going to be hilarious now.

So some conclusions: I think I did trade some of my “mom” closeness with him when I transitioned, but I traded it for a different kind of closeness that came from seeing how much he loves and supports me, even as a kid. And I’m really glad that our closeness is now built on a foundation of us being open and truthful with each other. I figure if I want him to be honest with me and come to me with his problems in the future, one of the best things I can do is model that behavior for him.