Transcriber: Nancy R Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
In 2010, my husband, Shawn, and I
welcomed the birth of our second son, Ryder.
Our oldest, Ethan, was so excited to be a big brother.
We dressed Ryder in his coming home outfit,
wrapped him in the green baby blanket that I knit for him
and brought our little guy home.
A few years later, at three and a half,
unlike his big brother, who had potty trained easily,
Ryder was still struggling with pooping in the potty consistently.
His pre-school suggested that we get him a toy that he could work towards.
The problem was
is that I felt like I had no clue what toy would motivate my son.
I felt like I had tried everything already.
Finally, I decided that I would let Ryder choose anything he wanted.
I let him in on my idea when we were at toy aisles at Target.
He looked at me sideways and asked,
“Anything I want?”
I looked down at my little three-and-a-half-year-old
and said, “Sure, anything.”
To my surprise,
he shot right past the aisles with the cars, trucks, and LEGOs
and zeroed in on the girl aisles.
As we walked down the first aisle,
Ryder’s eyes widened while taking in the multitude of dolls.
There were dolls with long brown hair and pink sparkly dresses,
baby dolls that came with their own bottles
so their mommy could feed them,
and an Ariel mermaid doll with a tail that really worked in the bathtub.
(Laughter)
Carefully, he examined each doll.
As he neared the end of the aisle,
he looked back to make sure I was still following him.
And then he turned the corner.
In the next aisle, he was mesmerized by the frilly princess dresses,
all of them decorated with an insane amount of glitter.
His little hands reached up to touch the Cinderella dress.
He noticed the high heels that would actually fit his little feet.
I could tell his heart was beating quickly
underneath the blue hand-me-down shirt from his brother.
My heart was beating quickly too,
but for a completely different reason.
I glanced around at the other parents in the aisle
wondering what they must be thinking about this obvious boy in the girl aisle.
His buzz cut, a dead giveaway to his being a boy.
I steeled myself for the onslaught of confused stares, furrowed brows,
and under-the-breath comments.
And then Ryder saw it: his heart’s desire.
It was a small pink and purple jewelry box
with a tiara, pink hand mirror, and a beaded necklace.
(Whispering) “This is what I want, my very own jewelry box.”
I knelt down next to my son, looked him in the eye and asked:
“Are you sure?”
(Laughter)
He looked back at me,
hugged the jewelry box to his chest and nodded.
And with that, my mom heart broke.
I could feel the hot tears just behind my eyes.
How could I have missed this for so long?
There had been so many signs,
and so many times Ryder had tried to tell us.
I just hadn’t been listening hard enough.
Memories from the past year came flooding back.
First, the previous summer when he begged me for a purse
and thinking he was confused, I bought him a backpack.
And then the time when I took Ethan and Ryder
to see Frozen in the movie theater.
At one point, I found Ryder lying on the aisle on his tummy,
his feet propped up behind him and his head in his hands.
I was shocked with how absorbed he was with the princesses on the screen.
A couple months after that for his third birthday,
he asked us for a dollhouse.
So we bought him a gender-neutral one,
only to find out later
that what he really wanted was a pink Barbie Dreamhouse.
Each of those actions, when taken separately,
didn’t seem to mean much to me.
But when I finally connected them all together,
I realized that it was his way of telling us who he really was inside.
And now this jewelry box,
this jewelry box was a new beginning in our journey together.
I knew I had to do something to remember that moment.
And that’s when I took this picture.
(Audience) Awww.
Thanks. (Laughs)
This picture is not just one of a little boy in love with his new toy.
This picture is my reminder to constantly show
my unconditional love and support for this little person.
(Exhales)
That day, I chose to love Ryder for who he was inside and out.
That day, I chose to follow him on this journey,
on his journey wherever it would take us.
That day, I chose to be the mommy he needs,
not the mommy I think I need to be. (Voice trembles)
(Exhales)
Growing up, I was a tomboy.
I played cops and robbers with the boys across the street,
and I wouldn’t have been caught dead in a dress.
I remember being accepted by the other kids in my neighborhood.
And now, 30 years later, my son was in a way just like me.
Tomboy. Pink boy.
What’s the difference?
(Laughter)
Why are we so quick to accept a girl who plays cops and robbers
and is into sports?
Yet we find it so difficult to accept a little boy
who plays with dolls and is into princesses.
I want you to know that my way of thinking didn’t change overnight.
In fact, a couple weeks after this day at Target,
there was another day, at Costco.
We were picking out Halloween costumes.
Ethan was easy.
He grabbed the first ninja costume he found.
Ryder, after much deliberation, picked out a Rapunzel costume.
And you know what I did?
I actually stuffed the Rapunzel costume under the seat in the cart
and threw Ethan’s ninja costume on top.
I was so nervous about what other people would think about us,
about me.
When we finally arrived home,
the boys raced to their room to try on their new costumes.
Suddenly the giggles stopped, and I heard Ryder cry out:
“This is horrible.”
I ran down the hallway and opened the door to the room that my boys shared.
There I find Ryder on a pile on the carpet, crying.
I knelt down beside him.
“What’s wrong?”
He looked up at me through his tears and said,
“My crown won’t stay put.”
(Laughter)
I pulled him into my lap, and as I wrapped my arms around him
I glanced around his room and really saw it for the first time.
It was the epitome of a boy’s room.
Blue walls, LEGOs, baseball trophies
and a closet full of boy clothes.
It was then that I realized
that his room didn’t match the person he was inside.
I looked down at his sweet face, wiped the tears off his cheeks and said,
“Let’s find something to keep that crown in place.”
After I rummaged around the house a little bit,
an idea hit me, and I ran to grab some pajama bottoms from his drawer.
I placed the elastic waistband around his head
and situated his crown underneath.
Then I wrapped it with some sparkly yarn to make a nice braid for him.
When he looked at his reflection in the mirror
and saw himself with long hair for the first time, his smile returned.
For the rest of the day,
he ran around the house not wanting to take off his new costume.
Greedily, I watched him.
I wanted to wash myself in this new reality.
I watched as he danced down the hallway,
twirling in circles, his dress spinning with him.
I watched as he posed for pictures, placing his hands just so,
as though he had studied models in fashion magazines.
(Laughter)
I watched as he tried on my high heels
to see which ones would look best with his new dress.
His first dress.
Later that night,
after tucking my boys into bed under their matching blue quilts,
I locked myself in my bedroom.
I needed time, time to reflect on all that had happened that day.
There had been laughter,
but also there were times when I found it difficult,
even painful to watch, as my son presented as his true self.
That night, the pain became unbearable,
and I lay on my bed and sobbed uncontrollably.
I knew I was losing my son. (Voice trembles)
And deep down, there was a part of me that always knew Ryder would leave me.
Over the next year, my husband and I watched
as Ryder transformed into a confident gender-creative boy.
We found an incredibly supportive therapist
who helped us navigate our journey.
We also read every book we could find on the subject of gender-expansive youth.
One book, "The Transgender Child:
A Handbook for Families and Professionals,"
discusses four signs that most transgender children share
when they're trying to reveal their true identity
to the parents and caregivers.
When I read the checklist,
it was like a mental checklist popped up in my head.
First,
watch your child's bathroom behavior.
Does Ryder pee sitting down?
Nope.
The next, swimsuit aversion.
Does Ryder insist on wearing a girl’s bathing suit?
No.
The third, underwear.
Does Ryder prefer girl-cut underwear?
Yes.
And finally, toys.
Does Ryder insist on playing with girl toys?
Definitely.
We were two for four, and the relief I felt was overwhelming.
I was hoping Ryder wasn’t transgender.
At that point in my journey,
being transgender was something that I didn’t completely understand.
And I thought that to admit that he was transgender
would mean he would have a more challenging life than his brother Ethan,
and I just wasn’t ready to accept that yet.
But the more I read, the more I realized
that if Ryder truly were transgender, and we forced him to live as a boy,
it would be detrimental to his own self-acceptance.
That - sorry.
OK.
That same summer, we discovered Gender Spectrum,
a nonprofit that provides resources, support, and training
for families and other youth-serving organizations.
As part of their work, they facilitate parent support groups
of parents with gender-expansive youth.
During our first experience at Gender Spectrum,
we heard stories about all different types of kids.
Some who were older than Ryder, some who were younger,
some who were gender-creative, some who were transitioning,
and some who were gender-fluid.
Our topics of conversation
ranged from how parents knew their kids were gender-expansive
to how parents were navigating with the other kids in their family.
Shawn and I were so excited to meet families
with stories so similar to our own.
We felt understood and accepted for the first time.
That was also the night we met Nora, and our lives changed.
Nora’s son had just recently transitioned to living as a girl
and had changed her name to Emma.
Emma was only a month older than Ryder,
and it felt like their lives were on the same path.
[Nora] and I couldn’t wait to get the two of them together.
Shawn and I knew that this first playdate could be a turning point for Ryder
and his journey towards understanding his gender identity.
From the minute Emma opened the door, they were inseparable.
They were reflections of each other,
both with dresses and matching short hair.
They ran back and forth between Emma’s room and living room,
modelling all of Emma’s dress-up clothes in her closet.
And then, it happened.
Ryder peeked his head out from the hallway.
I looked over and said,
“Come on out, Ryder. Let's see what you have on.”
As he turned the corner, he said,
“Look, mommy, I’m wearing one of Emma’s bathing suits.”
It was a cute girls' two-piece swimsuit.
And it was the first time that I saw my daughter as her authentic self.
Over the next couple of months, Ryder continually spoke to me
about wanting to be a girl when he got older.
I was reassured by this.
I thought that if he truly were transgender,
he would tell me that he wanted to be a girl now, or that he was a girl.
I wasn’t resisting it out of fear like I had the previous summer.
I was resisting it
because I wanted Ryder to be the one to lead us in his transition.
I had learned that day in Target
how important it was to completely listen to my son.
And I wanted to be the mommy he needed me to be,
so I kept listening.
Then three months before his fifth birthday,
he told Shawn and I
that he was going to be a girl when he turned five.
That day we sat down and had a heart-to-heart.
Ryder told us that he truly felt like a girl inside
and that we were the ones who were confused
because we thought he was a boy.
(Laughter)
That day, Ryder asked us to be our daughter.
There were tears, but also there were hugs and kisses.
That day, we listened to Ryder completely
and we accepted her as our daughter.
Ryder’s smile brightened.
It was as though a weight had been lifted off of her.
We had come so far in the last year and a half.
We had learned to look for the clues our son had been leaving for us.
We had learned to listen to our daughter completely
and to follow her lead on her gender expression.
We also learned to love her for who she was, inside and out.
We learned that sometimes it is in the act of letting go
of the son you thought you knew
in order to open your heart to the daughter who was always there.
Thank you.
(Applause)