Transcriber: Sabrina Chen Reviewer: David DeRuwe
So this is a picture of me and my baby.
It was a beautiful day
when my child was sleeping safely on my lap
as we sailed upon the ocean.
A memory that I hold dear
as I watch this child grow so quickly before my eyes.
I'm sharing this picture with you today
because I believe that it's a strong representation
of one of the biggest challenges we face while raising our children.
As parents, we’re forced to recognize
all the dangers and risks that surround our kids every day.
And yet we want so much
for them to experience all that the world has to offer.
So from the minute they're born,
we buckle their seat belts and wrap them in life preservers
and hope and pray that we can keep them happy, healthy, safe, and alive.
And then at some point, we have to accept that we can't keep them tethered forever.
We must let them go to make decisions on their own,
with the hopes that their experiences
will outweigh any of the risks that may exist.
My husband and I have three kids.
They are fantastic and fantastically horrific,
depending on the day.
We have a daughter first,
and then, two and a half years later, we had a son.
And just to add chaos, we added another daughter three years after that.
Parenting can be a rude awakening for many of us,
even when we think we're prepared for it.
I believe that all those books that we read before our babies are even born,
they give us a great sense of security, and they look really good on our shelves,
but the reality is that these babies are born through us.
They’re not born to live for us,
so any expectations or assumptions we may make or have
about who they're going to be or what they're going to do
doesn't really seem fair before we even know who they are.
My husband and I,
in our experience,
didn't really know who our kids were until they were at least five years old.
For instance, our son was about to celebrate his fourth birthday.
He decided he wanted to have a princess party.
We were totally on board, you know,
but we did try to sway him into allowing for pirates and princesses
because we figured the other boys at the party
may not be comfortable dressing in pink princess ball gowns.
As long as he could wear his, it was good.
And the party was a huge success.
Typically around age five,
you know, most of our kids end the gender exploration phase,
but, for our child, it was clear that there really was never a phase.
In fact, it was becoming painfully clear every day
that our child didn't want to just dress like a boy or a girl.
He wanted to be a girl.
So, you know, she had this dress or skirt that she wore.
It was a blue sequins skirt in pre-K.
She had to wear it every morning,
much to the dismay of the other girls in class.
I became a little bit more concerned
about this fascination that she had with dressing-up
when she started to want to wear her sister's clothes,
you know, outside of dressing up.
I tried to argue with her a little bit and say,
"You know, you can still be a boy and like girls' fashions."
He just looked at me and said,
"Uh Mom. You just don't get it."
And usually I'd laugh that off,
but this time, I had to admit my kid was right.
I really had no idea. I didn't get it,
so I started to get it when we were shopping for school clothes.
It was right before he started first grade.
We had all the kids with us.
We went into the Gap -
you know, girls on one side boys on the other.
Our daughters were busy immediately picking out their outfits,
and our son was behind us,
moaning and groaning about how he couldn't find anything he liked.
I tried to help him, but it was useless.
He looked at me and said,
"Mommy, why can't I just be a girl?"
The air went out of the room, and my head started spinning.
I was so angry at the store for being so binary,
and I didn't even know what that meant at the time.
(Laughter)
I thought I could find at least one outfit that would suit a gender-variant child,
you know, a shirt or pants that would be OK for a boy and a girl.
But in my moment of exasperation, I said it,
"Well, you know, when you're older,
there are doctors that can help you become a girl,
if that's what you really want."
And the room stopped.
"Really?
There are doctors that can make me a girl?"
You would have thought that I told him he was on his way to Disney World.
His face lit up.
And before I had a chance to answer that question,
I heard myself say,
"Why don't you go pick something out from the girls' side?"
He ran right over to a fuchsia shirt and flowered skirt
that he had obviously been eyeing,
while I was having my first of many panic attacks:
What did I just do?
Ever since I mentioned the magical doctors
that could make everything better for him,
his spirit changed.
He was at ease in his own skin,
and he could walk through his days
without the weight of the world on his shoulders.
I felt good about that; I had fixed his boo-boo.
I gave him a light at the end of his tunnel.
But now, I had to realize
that I really had no idea what options he had,
or if it was even fair for me to offer them in the first place.
Around this time, I watched an episode on "Nightline."
It was about a family, like ours, with their child that was suffering
from the same gender dysphoria that our son was experiencing.
Gender dysphoria is a condition where your gender identity,
the way that you see yourself in your mind,
doesn't connect with your assigned sex, the parts that you're born with.
The stories were almost identical.
This child was just a few years older than our son,
and his family was allowing him to transition into a girl.
They were referring to him as her
and allowing her to wear girls' clothes to school and even makeup.
And it seemed to be working for them.
By the end of the episode, I was sobbing
because I sat there by myself in my living room,
realizing this was going to be our fate.
I got on my computer almost immediately and researched "transgender child."
I didn't find much,
but I did come across a blog
written by a mother who was raising a transgender boy.
It was called trans-parenthood.
I emailed this woman right away through my blurry vision
and asked her for any information she could send to me.
I was scared and desperate to find out how to start this process
of allowing my child to be who he truly needed and wanted to be.
She emailed me back within minutes,
and that's how this journey really started for us.
I thank God for the Internet every day.
Without it, our family would be lost.
That trans-parenthood blogger introduced us to a doctor in Boston,
who was starting a support group
for gender-variant or parents of gender-variant children.
My husband and I
drove an hour and a half every other month to be with them.
We also started reading books
and learned terminology
and studied gender development for gender-variant children.
And then we started connecting with people on Facebook
with families like ours.
I do love Facebook.
Because of our connections, we were able to talk to our family and friends
and tell them what our son is experiencing
isn't as uncommon as we thought.
In fact, that Facebook group grew
to over 500 members within a year from all over the world.
We were more confident in ourselves and our child.
We were able to support him in exploring who he wanted to be in this world,
and he was happy again.
All of this didn't stop me from being completely terrified
the day he decided to dress as a girl for first grade.
Selfishly I knew that the minute he walked out of our door
all of our lives would change,
not just his.
He came home from school disappointed that day
because there were a few people that laughed at him
for making the decision to dress as a girl at school.
And I thought, "OK, that's it. He'll be done.
He'll wear his boy clothes again."
But that's not the case.
In fact, we had to go back to school that night for an open house.
And he marched right back into that classroom in a skirt,
not just in front of the friends that laughed at him that day,
but in front of their parents, too.
I've never been so impressed by anyone,
anyone's courage or confidence in all my life.
This was a significant moment for our family,
and I was truly humbled by my child that day.
So this is when our son started to become our daughter.
Because of the support that we have from our family and friends,
our child was able to transition on his terms and at his pace.
"He," by the end of second grade, became "she,"
socially not physically,
not that you should have to know that, but I'm clarifying.
And she changed her name.
And thanks to the families
that had to fight for all of our gender-variant children,
our school recognizes the importance of allowing our daughter
to use the bathroom of her affirmed gender identity.
But the most transformative moment for our child
was when she went
to a week-long summer camp for gender-variant and transgender youth.
Now, she has many friends at home that love and support her.
But this week at camp,
with kids just like her from all over the world,
was awesome.
She came home from camp that week, after that week, and was depressed.
She had the, you know, after-camp blues.
She'd walk around the house
and give us attitude with a "Uh, you just don't get it!"
(Laughter)
Except this time, I knew it was going to be okay
because now she has someone that gets it.
And that's when I can let her go Skype her new friends from camp.
Trust me, not a day goes by
when I'm not concerned for the future of our child.
We understand that there's any point that our support systems may close down,
and, as her body changes,
there will be exceedingly more complicated decisions
that she will have to make.
We are supportive family,
and all we can do is keep learning
and preparing and loving her unconditionally,
just like any other parent would, right?
Please understand that there are many gender-variant children
that don't get the support from the adults that they should be able to count on.
And that is hard to accept.
This journey is complicated for everyone involved,
but it's not impossible to do the right thing,
and that is simply to love and support all of our children
to be healthy, happy, safe, and alive.
The "Nightline" family, the trans-parenthood blogger,
and all the others like me,
who take risks in sharing our stories with you,
we do this because we know the risks.
Our words are worth the risk.
We know that we are changing lives
because we are sharing our acceptance and our support.
I am the mother of a gender-variant child
who, at this point, is planning on living her life as a female.
And because my husband and I took risks,
in allowing her to become someone we may not have imagined her to be,
she has taught us a very important lesson,
and that is we live our truth through our hearts and our minds,
not through the parts that we use
or the clothes that we wear.
So if you're still sitting here scratching your heads
and going, "I just don't get it,"
I challenge you to take risks in asking questions and finding answers.
Don’t be afraid to learn something new.
And once you figure this out, share it with someone else
because that is what makes this world go around.
Thank you.
(Applause)
(Cheers)