As a gender therapist, I’m used to seeing parents reach out in crisis, teachers struggle to find the right language, and young people vacillate between moments of quiet confidence and deep fear and uncertainty in the current landscape. But there’s one group that continues to surprise me in the best possible way: grandparents of trans youth.

When people imagine advocates for kids, they don’t usually picture these individuals. But week after week, these elders show up — choosing to learn, to grow, and to fight for a future they may not live to see.

TransGenerations began in 2023 as a small, educational support group that my colleague Dani Rosenkrantz and I hoped would meet a quiet need. To our surprise, it filled almost immediately. Within weeks, we had to add a second cohort, then a third, then a fourth. When our original partnership with the Union for Reform Judaism ended due to funding, the grandparents themselves urged us to keep the group going. They weren’t done learning — or loving.

While some of those original members are still with us, the group has grown into a vibrant interfaith, intergenerational community, united by one powerful desire: to show up for the young people they love. We welcome grandparents from all backgrounds and financial circumstances, thanks in part to a scholarship fund that helps make participation accessible to everyone.

In our group, grandparents speak openly about mortality — not with fear, but with clarity. They talk about the time they have left and what kind of world they want to help shape before they go. They know they can’t shield their grandkids from every injustice, but they show up anyway — determined to do everything in their power while they still can.

In a world where older generations are often written off as rigid or out of touch, these grandparents are rewriting the script. They are unlearning decades of assumptions, grappling with rapidly changing cultural norms, practicing pronouns, correcting one another gently, and even educating their adult children. They choose curiosity over certainty, growth over comfort.

There’s the 81-year-old in Florida who calls the group her “chosen family,” and another in Illinois who ends every Zoom call with, “I love you all.” A grandfather is dreaming of a cross-country documentary tour to share the grandparents’ stories of affirming trans youth. One grandmother in Los Angeles told us her teenage grandchild texted her, “Mommy said you’re in a support group for grandparents of trans kids. That made my heart grow 10 sizes.”

And then there are the harder stories — the ones that show how........

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