Jake, 8, Centrail, Illinois
Jake, 8, Central , Illinois
My child started telling us as early as 2 years old that he was a boy. We were in the supermarket, and a couple of stock boys came past, laughing with each other. My son saw them and said, that’s what I’m going to be when I grow up. I asked, what, a stock boy in a grocery market? And he said, no, a boy.
Of course, I took much longer to realize. It was at age four that I remember confessing to a friend that I thought he would change his gender when he grew up. She asked, are you sure he’s not just a tomboy or a lesbian? I said, I hope so, but no, I don’t think so. It was another two years before he transitioned socially.
It is hard to write this but I want other parents to know the truth. I didn’t trust it at first. I didn’t want to trust it. I had no knowledge of the transgender experience, what it meant, how beautiful and unique it was. To me, it was the end of our worlds, and so I didn’t force or oppose him, but I didn’t encourage him. I was very scared and I think that he was scared, too. I think it’s normal to be scared about such a huge step, but it didn’t stop us from taking it.
By six, my son was seeing a therapist who specialized in gender issues, he presented male (meaning he had short hair, wore all boy’s clothes), and had asked us to stop correcting people when they mistook him for a boy. From conversations with his therapist, I knew he wanted to transition, but we were following his lead and he had not come to me and my husband to say, this is what I want.
He waited for parent-teacher conferences, second grade. He asked to attend and I remember thinking, what a great idea. He’ll have a chance to hear both the praise and critiques of his teachers and it will make him a stronger student and person. He sat quietly the whole time until the teacher asked him if he had anything he wanted to add. It was then that he said, I want to go by a boy’s name and I want people to start calling me he and him.
I remember feeling totally blindsided and yet, not at all surprised. The teacher looked at me for some kind of idea of how to respond, and I did the only thing I could do, I smiled and nodded and supported him 100%.
He often told us how sad he felt, being called a girl. He felt like it wasn’t right, didn’t suit him. He felt out of place and he felt incredibly isolated from his peers. There were many days he’d come home from school crying because some boys wouldn’t let him play with them, because “he was a girl” or because the teachers had divided classes up by gender again, and he had been pointed out as going to the “wrong” side when he followed the boys.
All of our family has been incredibly supportive, but I didn’t expect anything but support. They love my son and nothing has changed, he’s still the amazing child he’s always been.
I don’t think any of the major changes we’ve made were solely because of his gender, but it played a part, sometimes a major one. We chose to withdraw him from public school and homeschool. He was experiencing anxiety, possibly related to his transition or possibly related to math, but either way, I knew he needed a chance to be free of that stress. A year later and he’s anxiety-free.
We also moved towns. He transitioned in the middle of second grade, in the middle of a small town, and everyone knew. We had the full support of the school and a few friends who stood by us, but I think, for the most part, we were tolerated. He wanted a chance to be like any other boy, and not constantly called by the wrong name or pronoun, on accident. We are all much happier where we are now.
What isn’t special about my child? He’s cool, I mean, really cool. He likes Pokemon and Minecraft and making up really stupid jokes. He’s so kind and gentle and generous of spirit. He believes in helping others and protecting the weak and defending those that can’t defend themselves, and I love that about him. His gender doesn’t define him, I won’t let it and he won’t let it. And that’s what I would want the world to know. Gender should never define a person. We should treat all people as people first.
He wants to be an actor. He has no fear on the stage, at all and he sings like an angel. He wants to be a professional baseball player and a pokemon trainer. He really hopes someone discovers them soon.
He also wants to help other kids like him, kids that maybe don’t have parents who are as supportive as me. When he hears stories about children who aren’t “allowed” to express their true genders, he gets very sad about it. We often talk about ways we can help those kids, how to reach them. He’s reached an age now where he’s faced with exposing himself and his own fears of that versus how visibility would help other kids like him. Once again, he’s making the choice that benefits others.
To understand what it is to be transgndger, I’ve always liked the analogy that a friend of ours made, Hannah Simpson. She compares being transgender to handedness. How do you know you’re right-handed or left-handed? No one tells you. You’re not born with a mark on your hand telling people which you are. You just know. As you grow, as you become more verbal, you just know. And when you put something in the wrong hand, you know then too. You know it feels wrong, not right. That’s how gender is. When a trans person is walking around the world in the gender they’re not, they know it feels wrong. They just know. And when they transition, when they live authentically, it’s like picking up a pencil in the right hand. It feels good, it feels natural and organic and right.
Historically, we were not a binary world and there was a lot more room for expression in gender. Aboriginal cultures, the Greeks and Romans, there was room for trans people. And in most cases, they were revered and celebrated, because they had a unique understanding of both male and female sides. They were considered holy or sacred or above normal men and women because they spanned the gap between the two. That seems to end with the rise of Western Civilization.
There aren’t any challenges with being transgender. The challenge comes with society and being treated like a human being. I’m fortunate that my son is young, presents totally male, and we don’t go publicizing that he’s trans. But not everyone wants to pass, not everyone has the privilege of passing, not everyone can afford to pass. And not everyone should have to pass. The challenge is dealing with the vast majority of people who dehumanize someone, for not subscribing to a strict set of gender ideals. The challenge isn’t being transgender, the challenge is everyone else that can’t find it in themselves to treat everyone as a human being.