In Support Of All Transgender Children
(Note: I was asked to speak recently at the annual benefit in support of the Family Equality Council. Many of the attendants asked if I could publish my words. So, here they are.)
My 8 year old daughter is obsessed with science. And I mean obsessed. This kid knows how every system in the body works: the endocrine system, the reproductive system… how a sperm fertilizes an egg…how a fetus grows in utero… how newborns instinctively know how to suckle from a mother’s nipple…
Incidentally, she calls female nipples “useful nipples,” as opposed to male nipples, which she says are “purely decorative.”
I might also mention that she is incensed to have such hateful things attached to her own body as “purely decorative nipples.” She’s equally infuriated that she doesn’t have a uterus, because she plans to grow a baby herself one day and she wants to know where and how.
Oh, yes, my little scientist, knows that she isn’t like the other girls in her second grade classroom — those lucky cis-gender girls who take their anatomy for granted.
HER CHILDHOOD
The early years of my daughter’s life were a challenge, which I’m sure you can imagine since we mistook her for a boy; since we thought she was going through a phase every time she donned a tutu; since we thought she was trying to get attention by throwing tantrums when we made her wear a suit. Back in those days, she refused to look in the mirror, or smile for a photo. She was four when she told us she wanted to burn her own face off because it wasn’t surrounded by long beautiful hair.
Our lives changed on December 19, 2014, on a Christmas vacation to Mexico. It was on that day that the chrysalis imprisoning our child split open and a true butterfly burst forth, soaring on the wings provided by a simple cotton sundress. It was on that day that my husband and I fully understood the crucial mission every parent has to listen to their child; to respect the inner wisdom every child is born with; to recognize that our children tell us who they are — not their parents, or their teachers, or their pastors, or the President.
POLITICS
Less than a year ago, I thought we had this equality thing down. The gains made under the Obama administration were profound, and seemingly a sign of great cultural progress. And yet, with the simple stroke of his pen this past february, President Trump rescinded protections that guarantee transgender students the right to use the bathrooms of their choice, thereby launching an all-out, unprovoked, discriminatory human rights violation aimed directly at transgender youth and their families.
On a mission for answers, I traveled to D.C. at the end of March to meet with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. I asked her to consider the sheer courage transgender and gender expansive students summon when they enter the bathroom of their choice. I said, “Secretary DeVos, transgender children are who they are. They aren’t girls pretending to be boys, or boys pretending to be girls.” I added, “At a time when bullying is a federally sanctioned form of conflict resolution, these kids need more protection than ever. Acceptance is protection and protection is a requirement.”
Secretary Devos was gracious; I sincerely thank her for that. She nodded politely, reconfirmed her belief in the voucher system, and (glaringly) made no commitment whatsoever to become an ally to non-gender conforming students.
FIELD REPORT FROM OUTSIDE THE LIBERAL BUBBLE
So where does this leave us?
By the sheer luck of our status — because we live in NYC with easy access to transgender support groups, therapists, and doctors; because our daughter attends a public school that considers themselves part of our team — we’re probably going to be alright — for now.
But there are families who are not alright. Right now.
I want to tell you about my friend, Sally.
Sally was born and bred in a small town in Arkansas: a tight community of devout Christians who (as Sally puts it) “are all up in each others business.” When Sally’s five year old son, Daniel, persistently proclaimed himself a girl, Sally took him to the church elders, who proceeded to “help” the child by trying to beat the demon seed out of him.
When Daniel begged to go to “Daddy Jesus” as Sally watched her child’s blood soak through the wood floorboards of the church where she, herself, was baptized, she had an epiphany. She understood that God makes no mistakes; she realized that ashes to ashes, dust to dust we are all one and the same; that her child’s anatomy was window dressing; and that her baby did not deserve to be punished for simply being her true self.
So Sally picked up her battered child and moved, with her six other kids, to a new town — away from her family and friends; away from her once beloved church, and from her job. And how was Sally rewarded for her bravery? Her husband left her; Daniela’s local public school refuses to let her use the girls bathroom; child services has begun an investigation into whether Sally is guilty of child abuse and suffering from Munchausen by Proxy; and Daniela may be moved to foster care where she will be forced to live once again as a miserable boy named Daniel.
DISCRIMINATION AFFECTS US ALL
When Sally told me all this recently, I felt terribly for her in the way that people who think of themselves as “safe” tend to offer poor, sad others — until I realized, with a shock of ice cold recognition, that privilege of my New York status can only protect my family so far. Just like long-established, civically minded and philanthropic German Jews who were hauled off to concentration camps even as they proclaimed, “There must be some mistake! I’m a German!” — if the mob comes for us, our daughter is as vulnerable as Daniela, and I am as powerless to protect my child as Sally.
Sally and I have something else in common. We’ve both been criticized for outing or children by daring to tell our family stories. And yet I ask: if not us, then who?
If that mob ever comes, I guess they’ll know how to find me. And when they do, they’ll hear me proclaim again and again: “I support, and unconditionally love, my transgender daughter. Here I stand.”
