Category: Gender Creative Children

To David Bowie, on the One-Year Anniversary of Your Death

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David Bowie in Labyrinth (photo: Getty)

Republished at The Huffington Post

One year ago yesterday the world lost David Bowie, in the beginning of what was to be the dumpster fire we called 2016.

As a child of the ‘70s, I listened to my older sister’s old school David Bowie records. I grew up in love with the movie Labyrinth, and helped instill a similar appreciation of the movie among all three of my kids when they were not yet four years old. Ok, maybe “appreciation” is a bit of a stretch. Maybe it was because

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The Comments Section

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Republished at The Huffington Post

I’m a blogger and op-ed writer. I write essay-style, non-fiction pieces pulled from my every day life experiences and opinions. (Note that I used the words blogger and op-ed writer, not journalist, not novelist, not poet laureate.) I write opposite the editorial pages. And I write on polarizing topics like LGBTQ+ issues, gender, racism, and white privilege. You can find my work here on Huffington Post, here on Scary Mommy, and also here where someone wrote about me, here on The Good Men Project, here at Red Tricycle, and here with the NBC Today Parenting Team, to name a few.

Sometimes at night, I’ll be in bed, scrolling through my social media feeds when out of nowhere I see my own words in syndication, like this: 259

This was a piece I originally Continue reading →

‘Gender Creative’ is Not the New ‘Hipster’

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Republished at The Huffington Post

They’re everywhere. Gender non-conforming, gender diverse, gender variant people. From cisgender men wearing “man buns” to cisgender women dressing “dapper,” gender ambiguity seems to be the hipster thing now – especially among the Hollywood elite. Hipster culture via gender expression may have been living outwardly on the fringe for quite some time, but it wasn’t until about 2013 or so when gorgeous cis, hetero men my age like Jared Leto and Joaquin Phoenix became one with the love-it-or-hate-it “man bun” hairdo. Continue reading →

Proceeding With Caution in a Trump Presidency

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As we approach the end of 2016, counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds til the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, this year I will proceed with caution. I’m sure Times Square will be, as usual, bursting at the seams, and New Year’s Eve will still be full of the usual excitement for the year to come. Couples will have their celebratory kiss and we’ll sing another chorus of Auld Lang Syne.

But this year, at least for many of us, the arrival of 2017 will also come with relief in letting go of the massive dumpster fire that was 2016. Continue reading →

Fishing in a Sea of Grief

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A version of this was republished at The Huffington Post under the title: How I Chased My Gender Creative Child’s Bullies Away

I know there are people who don’t understand why, or don’t agree with the fact that my family is out & proud, advocating publicly for our youngest, gender creative child. That’s okay. They don’t need to understand or agree with us because it’s our family, and it’s what’s right for us, right now. But we know there are people who don’t understand (though they might, if they cared to simply ask us). And we know there are people who disagree (though they’re judging only what they can see on the surface, and are all too happy to tell us).

There could be many reasons. Maybe they don’t know that my son Charlie encouraged me to write more publicly about him, something beyond my little blog with 2 subscribers. I’d been keeping journals my entire life. I always loved writing, and called it my brain-purging; my therapy. My youngest child actually wanted his story told. Before I ever went public, he heard Continue reading →

Let’s Not Confuse Political Correctness With Basic Human Decency

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image via Buzzfeed, from the Duke University “You Don’t Say” Campaign

I often wonder what people really mean when they long for the days of not having to be politically correct. “I’m about to say some things that are not PC,” they might warn.  Or, “Whoops, better be careful; someone might call the PC police.” Sometimes we hear it following the discrimination of marginalized groups who speak up when their people are dehumanized. In response to their concerns, we often hear, “Oh, they’re just trying to be politically correct.” Or, “I’m so sick of all this PC nonsense. It’s ruining our country.”

I’m beginning to realize that part of the problem in our country right now is a whole lot of people are mistakenly confusing “political correctness” with “basic human decency.” Continue reading →

I Vow Not to Fill Social Media with Puppies and Kittens

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The gauntlet has been thrown down: choruses of people on social media are writing that they can’t handle the negativity following this week’s election, and are requesting that their feeds only be filled with pictures of cute puppies and kittens.

Like Trump, I want to make a contract for my fellow Americans:

1.) I vow that I will not be filling Facebook with pictures of puppies and kittens – at least not anytime soon. Likewise, I vow that I will not post kumbaya statements talking about how Trump really does have America’s best interests at heart and how everyone should now come together and unite, despite the fact that he’s been tearing us apart for well over a year. 

2.) I vow that I will not normalize abuse. Ever. Everywhere I turn it seems people are normalizing a man who has spewed hatred, intolerance, bigotry, and fear, fear that is legitimate because the man literally bragged about committing sexual assault, how he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and still get elected, and stated he would break families apart. Continue reading →