My Little Advocate Makes a Splash in Her Avery Chat Video

We knew. We knew that the time would come when AJ wanted to speak out for herself. As her parents, we were hoping it wouldn’t be for a long time. You know, the way you never want your kids to date.

We thought we had time. We thought we could be better prepared. We wanted to protect her.

But she is an amazing kid. An amazingly headstrong kid, too.

With so much coverage of trans issues in the news, from the NBC Nightly News covering two trans kids to the big Bruce Jenner interview, we stumbled across a post from Entertainment Tonight listing 9 Inspirational Stories of Transgender Kids and Their Supportive Parents.

We were one of the families. When AJ saw the post, she asked why all of the kids’ faces were being show except for hers. We told her it was for her privacy, so that people wouldn’t know exactly who she is.

Her reply?

“But I’m proud of who I am. I don’t want to hide! I want people to know me so that I can help change the world.”

——————————- Whew. Deep Breath. ——————————-

We took a baby step. We posted photos of us at the Equality House in Topeka, Kansas.

Then she asked to make a video to put on YouTube. (She’s always wanted her own YouTube channel and has been pretending she has one by making “Avery Chat” videos for a couple of years. So I helped her put one together, thinking that once she saw it, she would reconsider having it online.

But it only made her more excited. She was ready. She wanted her story told in her own voice. So with that, here is her video…

The response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive.

She was added as one of the profiles on the New York Times page for Transgender Today with an essay by my husband, Tom.

MTV picked up the story and shared it with their viewers, calling her “inspirational.”

And one of our favorite pieces was from The Next Family called 10 Reasons Why We Love Trans Girl Avery Jackson and Her Family. “Pink hair, don’t care!”

Thank you all for the support. And stayed tuned for more episodes of Avery Chat.