One year ago last night in the mountains of NC, on a mini vacation we’d been hoping to make for years, my husband and I sat at our cozy dinner, in silence. Above the small, roaring fireplace next to our table was a big screen TV, monitoring the 2016 election results as they rolled in. State after state turned red and projected Donald Trump as the potential winner. I looked around, contemplating asking for another table, but TVs were everywhere, and they were all broadcasting the same thing. Five years of anticipation and planning for our 3rd, private, without kids getaway in 17 years of marriage had led up to this moment, and I felt disgusted. Continue reading
Category: Gender Creative Children
Our TGNC Journey: Middle School, 6 1/2 Weeks In
Today’s post is coming from a place of deep hope, because my hope has been renewed, and therefore, I hope maybe my story can do the same for some of you parents who are struggling with gender noncomforming or trans children. For as many posts as I make public on my blog, or publish at HuffPost, Medium, Scary Mommy, and elsewhere, there are quadruple that amount of posts I’ve written that are just sitting on my desktop in my unpublished drafts — unpublished, because they’re not stories to share today, and many are Continue reading
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Privilege And Pronouns
Republished on Medium
Being the founder/facilitator of S.E.A.R.CH., and also a member of several online support groups for parents of TGNC children & youth, I hear a lot of the same concerns over and over again, which always reminds me how much more work we have ahead of us. Invariably, someone in the group always seems to mention that they have a skeptical friend or family member requesting scholarly articles regarding trans people, why they should be supportive, or what the scientific/psychological/psychiatric/medical research says. While it’s never the duty of a marginalized person to Continue reading
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My Child Is “They,” And It’s Society, Not Language, That Needs Fixing
Originally published on Medium
Before anyone asks, no, I’m not some sort of new age, millennial, hipster chic parent living in a commune, attempting to raise genderless, nameless offspring who will one day grow up and decide these things independent of their father and me. We learned all three of our kids’ sexes via ultrasound and we planned accordingly. I dressed my boys in blue, my girl in pink.
I’d always hoped to have a child of each gender. And God, in only God’s divine way, was brilliant enough to give me one of each: a cisgender male born in 2000 named Jack, a cisgender female born in 2002 named Kate, and a few years later, when my third and last child was born, well, God threw all caution to the wind and decided to confuse everyone and Continue reading
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Free Speech and Hate Speech and The First Amendment, Oh My!
Lots of arguments are going around about the First Amendment. While most people don’t generally agree with it, they will still assert that white supremacists & neo-nazis have as much of a right to the First Amendment protections as everyone else. But I’m thinking hate speech from groups like the KKK should not be protected under the category of free speech. How does that make sense in 2017? After the Charlottesville tragedy? Ultimately though, it’s the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.
Currently, the First Amendment names the following as being not protected, or beyond the scope of what’s considered Continue reading
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#ThanksObama!
Originally written on July 25th. Posted later.
This is long. Very long. But I need to get it out.
From 2010 on, did/do you have a child who was/is a young adult (approx. age 19-26 years old) who was allowed to stay on your health insurance plan? If so, you can thank The ACA (Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare”) for that. Prior to that, dependent children typically “aged out” and were booted off of their parents’ health care plans by age 19, maybe 22 if they were full-time college students. Obamacare made it so that young adults (to age 26), EVEN IF Continue reading
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Why We Need Trans People In The Military
Republished at HuffPost, Queer Voices
I like to think my husband and I are supportive parents. We let our kids be themselves but still enforce boundaries and demand respect. Our expectations are pretty high, but not over the top. Our children make us proud in a lot of ways. Continue reading
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The Credit Belongs To The Man In The Arena
Recently, Scary Mommy ran one of my stories on raising a TGNC, non-binary child. They changed the title and added a stock photo, as often happens in the hands of editors. For a few days, my piece had top billing and was prominently featured on the front pages of both their LGBT section, and LGBT Kids section – something I want to commend Scary Mommy for, because when they first published a piece of mine a while ago, there was no LGBT Kids section (at least not to my knowledge). So, major points for that addition – something that was needed for a long time, since we now know the “T’ part of LGBT includes children. It’s hard to keep up with the fast-moving research on this, but currently, it shows that for the most part, all children Continue reading
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I Just Wanted To Schedule An Appointment
Republished at Scary Mommy
Yesterday morning I had to take my daughter to the orthodontist to pick up her new retainer and make sure it was a good fit. Her original one was replaced for free as a courtesy, because our old lady dog at the time – who was usually sleeping – summoned enough energy to take up counter-surfing for the first time ever. We found out the hard way that for dogs, dental retainers are Continue reading
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Which Came First – The Violence or The Rhetoric?
Who or what do we blame? (This is a rhetorical question, by the way).
Because honestly? Blaming is a moot point. On June 14, 2017, human lives were put in unnecessary harms way, in what might have become a devastating massacre if not for The Capitol Police. We can hopefully all agree that there is nothing more devastating in life than the loss of life – especially when that loss is sudden, cut short, tragic, or at the hands of a deranged person with an assault rifle. Unfortunately, it seems one of the only things that jars our country out of a complacent lull anymore is Continue reading
Gender Creative Life 