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Extraordinary Happenings
Whew! A lot has happened in the last three weeks, to put it mildly.
Since posting about a little video of me from the Listen To Your Mother show and crossing my fingers that it would reach a couple hundred people with transgender or gender-nonconforming kids so they would know they aren’t alone, it’s actually been viewed a lot. A lot. More than I could have envisioned, and frankly, more than I could have planned for.
After receiving a bit of hate mail and frantically worrying if we had done enough to protect our daughter’s privacy, the good mail started rolling in. Thousands of personal messages from six continents are now saved in my Inbox. Some are from adults who have never felt safe enough to transition. Some are from parents who are glad to have short, pithy responses to those dreaded myths we all here. Some are from kids — young adults, really — who are in their teens and want their parents to listen to them and know that things will be okay.
In trying to answer each message with a personal reply, I’ve neglected the new blog here at Trans-Parenting. But I’m hoping that will be a good thing for all of us in the end. You see, I didn’t make this site to be a platform for me. I made it to be a resource for all of you…the kids who are questioning themselves and who need help communicating with their parents; the parents who need some reassurance that their kids can indeed know who they are and to trust the process of their discovery; and anyone else who wants to be an ally by sharing the info here with staff at their schools, at their pediatrician’s office, or with a child advocate in court.
So please take a look around the site and give me some feedback. What do you want to see that is missing? What questions do you have that aren’t addressed? What resource are you desperate to find but haven’t been able to get your hands on? I will dig for you. I will make calls. I will find the experts who can answer those questions.
Here are a few things that I am working on right now:
- A list of books about gender for young kids
- A list of books for teens, including some great fiction
- How to put together a “Safe Folder” to protect yourself and your child
- Sample letters to send to family and friends about your child’s transition
- A collection of videos from other families that help put a personal perspective on transgender kids
- A list of documentaries suitable for schools, churches, and other groups to view to better understand gender issues
- Specific information about how puberty blockers work and when their use is in order
- Medical information about what to expect with cross-sex hormone therapy in teens
Now you tell me…what else should we cover? I look forward to hearing your thoughts, questions and ideas! (And since this is a new site, please please please share it with everyone you know so that it can grow and become the resource I’m dreaming it can be!) Thank you all of your support.
Blessings,
Debi
Transitioning as a Mormon
Religion and acceptance (or lack thereof) from churches is a big area of controversy for transgender people. The lack of acceptance from church groups and large denominations can lead some to turn away from religion altogether. But others hold onto their faith, and even hope that they or their children will be accepted someday.
One such family is featured in a short documentary which has just won the 2014 Utah Short Film of the Year Award. Utah? Yes, Utah. The home of the LDS Church. Eri Hayward and her family are Mormon. Her story is “Transmormon”.
The “good parenting” part of this story is in a quote from Eri’s dad near the end of the video.
If we were all to die and be resurrected tomorrow, and this young man comes up to me and says, ‘Look, Dad, I got resurrected as a man but I’m okay with that,’ I don’t know that I would be okay with that, because I would say ‘Where’s my daughter?’
It’s Time to Speak Out
Two years after our daughter’s transition, my husband and I were growing increasingly frustrated at the continued myths about transgender kids and their families. One day we were talking about possibly starting to speak out more. The next day, we were called and asked to participate in a local newspaper story. When it came out, I wrote a blog post on a friend’s site adding in a few things that had been cut from the article. Then a friend suggested I send that article in to the Listen To Your Mother Show to further share our story.
The rest, as they say, is history. I was selected to be in the cast of the 2014 Listen To Your Mother Show in Kansas City. My story was then published on BlogHer, the show’s sponsor, a few days later. More news story requests came in and people started contacting the reporters asking to get in touch with me.
My husband and I saw a need. Parents in our area wanted to connect. They thought they were alone in raising a gender non-conforming child. They wanted help. They wanted answers. They wanted to talk to another parent who had been in their shoes and knew that everything would be ok.
So the idea of Trans-Parenting.com was born. I went from never even whispering my daughter’s story to telling it on a stage under a spotlight. I have tried to collect all of the resources I used during those first two years of her journey in one place so that other parents will be able to answer all of their burning questions here. I’ll continue to add resources to make this the most comprehensive site for parents in the Midwest.
If you have any questions that haven’t been addressed here yet, please send me a note and let me know what you need. I will happily search out answers for you.
In the meantime, please watch my daughter’s story below.
And as we say to our daughter, don’t let anyone dull your sparkle…
Debi
