My Transgender Child: The Backstory

I’ve been invited to speak to a wide variety of groups in the last couple of months. I thought my Listen To Your Mother speech was a good summation of everything I could say about our daughter’s transition and my family’s journey. I’m usually a short and to-the-point kind of person, so six minutes of talking naturally should cover everything, right?

Well, rather than give the same speech over and over again, I’ve started sifting through memories to pull out more stories that illustrate our daughter’s struggles and distress. I’ve also started to think about how it has changed our individual and familial perspectives on concepts we think we know, like “love,” “courage” and “trust.”

With that in mind, I spoke to a wonderful group called KC Oasis about a month ago. Rather than spend 30 minutes staring down at words set on a podium, I decided to just look into the eyes of the people around me and tell them our story. That sort of connection to people is what seems to make the biggest difference. I hope my words might help inspire other families to accept their transgender kids, and maybe start to speak out and tell their stories, too.