A Parent
Responds
By Anonymous
I
was invited to follow Dick Barbieri’s review by sharing my experience as a parent of a transgen-
der child. I read of Jodie Patterson’s journey raising Penelope early on as my child’s dysphoria
first became apparent to me. Our stories are powerful tools—I know that as a parent and edu-
cator that the stories I learn of other families help me to understand gender identity. I hope shar-
ing is a way for me to acknowledge the path of other families and to pay forward toward greater
acceptance and inclusion.
Parenting a transgender child means that my kid, unlike cisgender kids, is perceived to have a SEX-
UAL IDENTITY—in my kid’s case beginning at four years old! When people not familiar with trans-
gender communities encounter your child as trans, perhaps they begin thinking about genitalia
and orientation. The truth is transgender kids just want to play, pee in comfort and peace, and
be called by the right names and pronouns. But people have narrow opinions of what a young
kid is supposed to be. These opinions affect the way they and others may mistreat our children.
Beliefs about gender are deep and for some it feels like a quantum leap to imagine a child being
anything but a narrow version of what they were assigned at birth.
My child was assigned female at birth and had a beautiful name I chose and still love. When I un-
derstood that my child could not live life as the girl I imagined him to be, we had to sort through
reintroducing him to everyone in our lives.
The first place I felt compelled to ‘come out’ as the parent of a four-year-old gender non-con-
forming kid was at our church, as my child refused to be seen in a dress One. More. DAY! The
Continues on page 28
CSEE Connections
Summer 2019
Page 27