Last year I wrote a story About her son Rachel coming out as transgender. At the time he came out, I didn’t know anything about the transgender community, but I expected Rachel’s journey to include announcing to the public that she was transgender. . His room and backpack were covered in pink, blue, and white stickers and pins. And it was generally accepted by his classmates and teachers that he was transgender.
I was wrong.
Rachel has short brown hair, big brown eyes, and a sprinkling of freckles, and wears athletic shorts, a T-shirt, and blue and white high-tops. At 9 years old, he hasn’t hit puberty yet, so the only thing he knows is his name, but we can often deal with this by saying nothing or by saying, “We’re Jewish.” got it. That was his grandmother’s name. ”
But even this doesn’t satisfy some people. Because what you see and what you hear don’t match. “Rei?” is often asked.
“no. rachel”
And they usually frown before continuing the conversation. Watching people try to figure out what’s going on is both uncomfortable and funny, an almost “uncalculable” moment. “Look at the boy and ask him what the girl’s name is.”
I have been scouring every activity and camp for Rachel since 2021. This is part of mom’s instincts that manifested when she learned painfully that not all people and situations were kind to transgender children. All organizations claim to be LGBTQIA+ friendly. Sometimes it’s just window dressing. After three years, my mother bear instincts were getting tired, so I applied for a day camp without consulting the government. When I dropped him off on the first day, I prayed that everything would be fine. I hoped no one would ask about his name. “Please, be nice,” I thought as I watched him walk toward the smiling teenager in the bright yellow shirt who checked me into camp. .
That day, Rachel came home with unexpected news. I had a trans counselor in the art world who told me how she ended up having crown surgery on Friday. The counselor said she was very excited.
Rachel looked around the room and said, “I decided it was a safe place.”
“So I raised my hand and said, ‘I’m transgender too!'”
As is often the case with parents, we react differently internally and externally. I laughed and said, “That’s great,” but I didn’t want to make a big deal because I could tell he didn’t want to make a big deal. But that was the big problem: Rachel never He came out in social situations.
Those who clearly knew he was transgender, those who knew him before he came out, or those who knew him while I was scrutinizing everything he did, These were the people I was talking to to keep me safe. Rachel has gone to great lengths to make sure that the kids at school see him as a boy and know him as a boy and just a boy. It wasn’t a big ask because he was very passable.
So as I continued to prepare his post-camp snacks, I was doing a happy dance in my mind.
When the camping week ended, our family went out to dinner. Later, when I was walking around the neighborhood, I came across a strange bookstore. This store sold pins next to the cash register. Pride pins, rainbows, pins with words like “Love Is Love” and pins with trans flags were on sale. I love pins, especially rainbow pins and pride pins, so I asked Rachel if she could get me one.
“How about this?” I said, picking up the rainbow.
Rachel shook her head. “This is it,” he said. He chose a trans flag-colored pin in the shape of a heart for “that and this.” It was a pin that read “Love Is a Many-Gendered Thing.”
The little person in my head danced happily again. On the surface, I just smiled and said, “Sounds good.”
We found a place to attach it to the cross bag and Rachel adjusted the bag so the trans pin was front and center.
“That’s nice,” he said.
The following week, he attended intensive ballet lessons at his studio, ending with a parent observation day. He suddenly gave me some instructions on what I should wear on parent observation day.
“Wear jean shorts, a white T-shirt, and your hair in waves.”
“Is that all?” I found this newfound interest in my appearance amusing, as if he was trying to make me look like the mother he saw on TV and thought was cute.
“So, can you please put on your transcross bag?” and put the pin in front. But don’t do it thing”
I wore the cross bag with the pin facing forward. And I didn’t have a problem with that. But this small gesture helped me take a step back and reflect on what my journey as a parent of a transgender child has been like, what it was, what it wasn’t, and how it all turned out. It was enough to make me consider how different it was from what I expected. Looking back on the past three years, there were countless small moments, but there was only one thing I was certain of. It meant that being transgender was not wrong.
Source: BuzzFeed – LGBTQ – www.buzzfeed.com
