By early February, my skin has grown a little thicker, and the uplifting words continue to pour in. Ryland’s speech therapist, Gwen—who has a young person in her life who is gay—writes us to say, “I know this was so incredibly difficult for you and that you both want the best for Ryland. Your family is in my prayers.”
Matt and Michelle write to say, “Let’s get our boys together soon!”
Aunt Sue says, “Hillary and Jeff, what wonderful parents you are! There is nothing harder than not to be true to who you really are. Let me know what I can do to help. I can’t wait to play boy games and climb trees together. Love to all of you!”
Even my uncle, who’s Mormon, writes, “We are all God’s children made in his image and we’ll love Ryland for who he is unconditionally.”
We send out a follow-up letter thanking our loved ones for their support:
We are so touched by the support from everyone. It is such a relief to have it all out there, and we are feeling loved. Though we didn’t hear from everyone, we still understand it takes processing time. We understand it will be difficult getting used to “he/him” pronouns and Ryland is very understanding. We think he appreciates the effort more than anything. We love you and hope to see you very soon!
By all accounts, Ryland’s transition at school is going as smoothly as we could have prayed. Some of the children, in their brilliant innocence, have taken immediately to embracing Ryland as a boy. From what we can tell, it seems that most of the others just continue to think of Ryland the way they always did: as a friend. The children have amazed us with their instant acceptance. It seems that to them, a kid’s a kid—just another playmate to have fun with.
At home, there are adjustments that we continue to make, as we’re quickly learning that there’s an endless stream of to-dos for parents who have accommodated their child in making a transition and affirming their gender identity. We’re attending to legal-related matters, like deciding whether we need to change the gender on Ryland’s birth certificate—for now, we don’t. When I research it, I find that it will take quite a lot of legal effort, and it’s just a step that emotionally I’m not quite ready to take. Jeff and I pledge that we’ll deal with the birth certificate change once we get through some of the more pressing emotional, medical, and legal matters that need to be addressed immediately. We’re also very fortunate to have chosen a gender-neutral name, which has enabled us to avoid some of the horror stories I’ve heard at our support group meetings, like children’s birth names being called out at the doctor or in the classroom. I decide to put off having everything changed legally, including Ryland’s middle name.
Sometimes I feel like I have so many issues to deal with that the ones causing me the least grief in any given moment are pushed to the bottom of the list.
Though we’re facing a lot of new hurdles with Ryland’s transition, his speech has progressed to the point that we’re able to cut back on his speech therapy appointments. It’s a much-needed and welcomed relief.
A national group leader at TransYouth Family Allies has advised us to create what she calls a “safe folder.” This is a portfolio that parents compile to document proof that a child is truly transgender, should Child Protection Services ever be called to intervene. For us it would be proof that Jeff and I are not forcing our child to live a life of gender nonconformity against his will. In the folder, we would include letters from our new pediatrician, as well as Darlene Tando, the leaders of the Transforming Family support group, and other close family and friends. We are also advised to include self-portraits in which Ryland has depicted himself as a boy, snapshots of him from over the years presenting as a boy, and background checks on Jeff and me from the state Justice Department to demonstrate that we’re not criminally deviant. Truthfully, I only get so far in completing the folder, out of frustration that it even needs to be created. We find a level of absurdity to have to provide so much evidence of our child’s identity. I feel as though our parenting is in question, when a five-minute visit with our child would be enough to prove to anyone that he’s happy, healthy, and well-adjusted.
Then there are the more practical aspects of life with a child who is newly transitioned. Right after we cut Ryland’s hair, he asked that I remove any reminiscence of his past from around the home. I went around and took down all of the photos that featured him as a girl, but when I saw how blank our walls were, I decided to leave a very select few where he’s not shown with a dress on, or bows in his hair. There are also certain family members whom I want to display in photos with Ryland, but I don’t want to make Ry uncomfortable. I scour our photo albums and computer files for images of Ryland wearing plain outfits. I use a photography filter app to make them black-and-white, and Ryland is satisfied with the transformations.
I keep some of my old pictures of Ryland and hide them away inside a box in a cupboard . . . and part of me feels like a traitor for doing so. But Jeff and I don’t want to destroy every single image of the memories that we all made in the first five years of his life. Ryland is Ryland, and inside he’s been the same child at every single phase since his birth. The thought strikes me: inside the home of a family, usually it’s the display of photos that shows a child’s transformation over time, but in our family, it’s the absence of photos that demonstrates Ryland’s transformation.
Our taking away the old pictures that portrayed Ryland as female proves to be very significant for Ry. It shows him that we’re willing to erase some of the past to make him feel affirmed in the present and accepted as a boy. I don’t ever want him to think I miss the prior version of him; he might mistake that for my wish that he were actually a girl.
Yet, the fact is, I can’t deny that I will always cherish those early years with my child. I want to remember my baby. I just know that I’m lucky there are only five years of photos to “hide” from Ryland. Some of the families we’ve met have more time that they have to erase and “unremember.” I think this is why some families feel like there is a death when their child transitions. You have to erase the old version you knew so well, and redirect your mind to think of them as a different person altogether. The truth is, that person is still the exact same on the inside. There is no death at all. It’s just a new “outer shell” to get used to seeing. With every change this transition calls us to make, we’re just glad we’re getting used to seeing this sooner rather than later in Ryland’s life, and in the life of our family.
But then, of course, there’s the challenge of social media. When I begin to post more photos of my kids on Facebook, we receive some interesting comments. Immediately I realize that there are a lot of people who are on my Facebook who are not close enough to us to have received the letter. I go onto Facebook less—not so much because the judgment of others scares me, but because I don’t really care to share our private life with people whom I don’t trust deep down.
When we’re out and about—say, at dinner, grocery shopping, or at the park—acquaintances who heard about the letter approach Jeff and me and applaud our unconditional love for our child. One common theme they express to us is that they don’t know how to explain Ryland’s transition to their children, and many of them come to us for help. I often refer them to the diagram that Darlene gave us, and I wish we had the time to meet individually with every single person during this time.
Some people have had the nerve to approach us and ask if or when Ryland will get a sex change, and each time, my stomach has dropped. We find it completely absurd that people have the nerve or audacity to inquire about our child’s genitalia. Frankly, it’s none of their business, and it feels as awkward as if we were to ask them about their child’s private parts. Though we understand the curiosity, we don’t feel these questions deserve a response. Jeff and I have discussed this at great length and when it comes to this sort of procedure, the answer is simple: we’re talking about Ryland’s body, and if and when the time comes to make that decision, then it’s completely up to him.
I put up a strong façade to protect everyone—including myself—but truthfully, I’m still trying not to crumble to the ground. I’m overwhelmed, stressed out, and going through my own form of grieving. I never feel relief from my worries that Ryland will be bullied or left out for being transgender, and the books I’ve read have validated my feeling that while I’ve certainly gained a happy, healthy son, I’ve lost my former little girl. I’ve buried my own visions for his future and I need time, probably a lot of time, to grow used to the fact that Ryland may never have children, as I’d imagined that my daughter would. I’d always imagined him having biological children, and I’m surprised at how very caught up I am on this detail in the transition. Part of the challenge of letting Ryland transition so young is that I don’t think he understands that he will most likely never be able to procreate biologically. One of my most meaningful roles in life is my role as a mother. A fear throbs inside me that Ryland won’t get to experience this same sense of accomplishment if he realizes one day that he wants to have children.
Knowing that I can’t break down crying in front of the kids, I take to long jogs or car rides alone. I also let the tears flow whenever I’m in the shower. I do not want anyone to know how much this entire process hurts me. It is testing my deepest strength and endurance in life.
“RYLAND, HURRY UP and get your cleats and mitt!” I yell from the kitchen. “We’re going to be late for your first day of baseball!”
Baseball is the sport that Ryland has wanted to play more than all the others, and in the spring after his transition, he’s finally getting his chance. At registration, we requested that he would be placed in the tee-ball league since it was his first year playing, but at his first practice, we immediately realized we’d made a big mistake. Ryland was a full head taller, faster, and more mature than the four-and five-year-olds on his team. He’s six, but emotionally, he’s even beyond his years. It would have been a disservice for us to hold him back with kids so little. To see his friends and classmates all playing baseball in the Rookie League together would have devastated him. After that first week, we asked if he could be moved back up to the correct league for his age group.
That’s Ryland: every time we fear that he’s not quite ready for a new stage, he proves us wrong by a mile. When his first baseball practice rolls around, I quickly gather water, snacks, and Brynley’s baby doll and stroller, and we all rush out the door. I hate for us to be late to anything, especially when we’re still in first-impression mode.
We’re actually on time when I pull up to the little baseball field, nestled in the middle of the beautiful neighborhood of Mount Helix. It almost looks like a scene from an old American movie when you round the corner of Russell Road and drive down to the field. The trees surrounding the little field are mature and beautiful.
Ryland jogs to the dugout, where I stand by just long enough to make sure the coach is acquainted with him. On the bleachers, I position myself so I can watch Brynley and keep my eye on Ryland at the same time.
Practice begins. Brynley scales up and down the bleachers, runs around with the other little girls, and hangs on my legs, smiling up at me for attention.
It suits me to keep my socializing to my little girl . . . I’m not in my usual social mood today. When I make eye contact with the other moms, I smile cordially, but I don’t feel like putting myself in a position to share my feelings or Ryland’s story.
About twenty minutes into practice, I see a cute little guy running toward the dugout to join in. The coach looks at his watch, as if the child has any control over his mom’s errands schedule. He’s tall for his age, with short blond hair and dark-rimmed glasses. The coach points him toward the field and the little boy smiles, taking a position not too far from Ryland.
A tall, thin, blond woman walks toward me and sits down right next to me. She’s pretty—very little makeup, light freckles on her face, pearly white teeth. Normally, I would immediately strike up a conversation and become friends . . . but not today.
Another mom walks up and takes a seat on my other side. The two women strike up a conversation. I try to keep to myself, even though I’m physically positioned directly between the two of them.
Then I see Ryland running toward me out of left field. Either he has to use the bathroom or the battery on his cochlear implant has died. With his baseball mitt tucked under his arm, he whispers in my ear. “Mom, I have to pee.” The look on his face is worried.
His coach runs over to the bleachers. “I don’t think I have a key to the bathrooms here. Does he have to pee or . . .” He makes a face as if to say, Does he have to go number two?
“I have to pee,” Ryland says.
“Well, you’re a boy,” the coach chuckles. “Go use the bushes over there!”
Inside, my anxiety spikes. Bushes over where? We’re standing in the middle of a quaint little neighborhood and I have seconds before my child pees his pants. What am I going to do with no public restroom and a little boy who can’t stand up to urinate like the rest of the little boys here?!
Instantly, I grab Ryland’s hand and pretend to walk toward the bushes that border between the parking lot and the field. Instead, I hurry to the back of my SUV and inside the hatch, I set up my mini potty chair that I have carried around since Ry was a toddler. I quickly line the potty chair with the disposable plastic bag and close the hatch of my trunk as fast as possible so no one sees what we’re doing or where we are.
Brynley! I left Brynley over there in my mad dash to the car!
I race around the side of my car to locate my little girl. If she can’t find me and has a meltdown, Ryland will be busted with his pants down and we’ll all be in big trouble!
Okay—there she is, playing with another little girl not far from the bushes. I peek into my trunk to see Ryland’s progress. He’s ducking down, trying to get his baseball belt and pants up without anyone seeing him. I open the back and slide my body inside.
“Mom, stop! I’m not done yet!”
“I know—I’m going to help you.” Quickly, I help Ry buckle his baseball pants and fasten his black belt inside the loops of his baseball pants. He hops out of the back and runs back onto the field.
I sit back down on the bleachers. The cute mom to my left says with a big smile, “Don’t you just love having boys so they can go in the bushes?!”
I feel my face go flush. With an uncomfortable laugh I reply, “Yeah, I sure do.”
Immediately I rise and go to swoop up Brynley—the most convincing way to change the subject. I’m just relieved that I pulled it all off without anyone sensing that something is up with us, but I’m not sure how much longer I can. It feels as though I cannot emotionally deal with explaining our situation one more time.
Shortly after the transition, Jeff’s parents purchase the first-ever waterproof cochlear implants so that Ryland can take swim lessons with sound for the first time in his life. Ryland is resistant, and while we try to understand why, I drop off a letter at his swim school out of anticipation that he’ll return to his lessons sometime soon.
I get no response, which doesn’t shock me, per se, because the owners of the swim school are a quiet, religious family. We were thankful when they were so willing to teach Ryland to swim using hand cues and some sign language.
Maybe they just never opened the letter, I think to myself. But . . . it’s kind of a big deal that they understand Ryland has to be addressed as “he” when he begins his lessons again.
One day when I’m chatting with another mom during one of Brynley’s “tadpole” toddler lessons, the wife from the family who owns the swim school approaches me. “I haven’t seen Ryland in a while,” she says. “How’s she doing?”
It means a lot that she wants to know about Ryland, but I feel myself drop into a mini panic attack. Has she not read the letter? Did she miss it somehow? Do I need to take her aside?
“He is doing great,” I tell her nonchalantly, worried that the mom I’ve been chatting with will wonder why the instructor has just referred to Brynley’s big brother as she. Quickly I change the subject. “How have you and your family been?”
Run-ins like this prompt me to begin to carry copies of our letter in my purse so if I run into someone who doesn’t know about the transition, I can hand it to them and invite them to read it when they have time. At Chuck E. Cheese, we run into a mom from Ryland’s earliest swimming lessons. She asks me: “Where’s Ryland? Who is that?” I reach into my purse and hand her the letter. “Great to see you!” I tell her, and Ryland and I scuttle out to the car, where Jeff is buckling Brynley into her car seat.
I’ve learned not to try to explain this to an acquaintance in person. It’s awful for both parties when someone doesn’t know what in the world to say, and I end up feeling like I’m on trial. There are times when I have to excuse myself to go hyperventilate, or I break into a sweat with a panic attack when I run into someone and try to remember whether they’ve gotten the memo. I begin to realize that maybe the letter wasn’t quite enough—for Ryland’s sake, I have to stop “scuttling” in hurried shame. I have to start walking the walk. I have to “come out” to everyone we know. As Lori Duron wrote in Raising My Rainbow, the person with a secret gives up their burden once the secret is out. If we come clean, maybe I can breathe.
Literally.
My mission becomes less about whether any given person supports us and more about showing Ryland that we’re standing with him. He’s watching every time I encounter someone who doesn’t recognize him, who wasn’t close enough to be on our email list. Instead of worrying so much about their reactions, I make polite conversation and smile as I give them the envelope. “Here,” I tell them. “Read this and get back to me when you can.”
BY NOW, BRYNLEY is impossible to keep up with, and in June 2013 Kobe has gotten ill. Our vet helps us determine that he needs to be put down, and Jeff, Ryland, and I are all devastated. “Is there anything more we could possibly pile onto our plate right now?” Jeff says, taking a break from digging a grave for Kobe in our yard while Ryland assists him. “This is turning into Hellville.”
I can’t disagree with him—things are really rough. As usual, we receive help right when it feels like the balance in our lives might give out completely. Through our LGBT resources, we find out that in July 2013, there’s a Gender Spectrum Conference near San Francisco. The mission of the conference is to offer resources and insights to gender-nonconforming youth and their families. Jeff and I eagerly register and book a flight for him, Ryland, and me to go while Brynley stays with Peg and Rand. Jeff signs up for a dads-only breakout session (“very raw,” he says later; “Some dads were opening up for the first time, and crying . . . it was really tough”) and a workshop that covers the top ten fears among parents of gender-nonconforming children. I sign up for a workshop on writing to deal with fear and a session on surgical options. Together we attend a medical panel, a session on how to maximize support within the school system, and a lecture called “Gender & Faith.”
The experience is unreal. There are tons of other kids and parents—new friends for Ryland and a new network of support for Jeff and me. I take note that most of the kids who are around Ryland’s age are transgender girls (meaning they were assigned male at birth because of their body parts, and then later transitioned to living in their female gender identity). As one of the expert speakers and I are chatting during a break, I ask her why there are so many more transgender girls than boys. She makes a good point: society is less accepting of gender nonconforming natal males, so parents may discover their child is transgender younger due to being forced to face society’s judgments earlier and in a harsher way than Ryland or other undiscovered “tomboys.” Trans girls are often criticized for being little boys who want to wear dresses to school, whereas it’s easier for trans boys to slip under the radar as tomboys, that is, until puberty hits and their female body parts begin to develop. This often causes a trans boy to get depressed, angry, and suicidal.
Understanding this makes me feel extremely lucky that we’ve looked deeper into Ryland’s identity than labeling him as a tomboy and ignoring his dysphoria. It also makes me appreciate that Ryland adapted considerably easily to life as a boy. From what the panelists seem to say, a big reason for this is that Jeff and I embraced him that way.
I experience so many emotions on this trip. One of the psychologists encourages me to write down one positive thing I do every single day, so I that I can begin to give myself more credit for being a good mom. He encourages me to realize how hard I’ve been on myself for not allowing Ryland to transition sooner, but there’s just nothing that we can do to change that now. I remember a saying that I recently heard and found very enlightening: “What you allow to control your mind, will.” I realize that I need to start honoring my own efforts and accomplishments as a mom more, and I need to do a better job of living in the present. I spend so much time worrying about the future for Ryland—what it will be, what does it mean. Right now, there’s nothing I can do about the problems that he may face down the road. We have to take this journey one day at a time and do the best we can for Ryland, Brynley, Jeff, and me every day.
At one of the sessions, we also meet a transgender girl named Devon, whom Ryland recently watched on an episode of Katie Couric’s talk show. Devon is a celebrity to Ryland—when he meets her, his face turns red! I can tell that he cannot wait to hug her. When she speaks to him, he’s mesmerized by her beauty and confidence. Devon’s mom introduces herself to Jeff and me, and as we chat, we discover a surprising connection: her brother-in-law is a firefighter in San Diego who used to be one of Jeff’s paramedic instructors and a captain whom he’d worked for on many occasions. Devon’s mom gives us her contact information, and we all vow to stay in touch with each other.
By the end of the conference, Jeff and I decide that we’d like to bring the Gender Spectrum founder, Joel Baum, to San Diego to train the staff at Ryland’s school. By the time we exit to make our way home, dozens of parents have asked us to provide them with our letter so that they can send it to the people in their children’s lives, as well.
On Sunday evening as we fly south toward home, I rest my head back against my seat. I feel completely exhausted and emotionally drained, yet a weight has lifted from me, and I feel something new. It’s a sense of authority. A sense of empowerment. For the first time, a strong sense of certainty that we are doing the right thing for our child. Seeing so many other parents with similar stories, fears, and questions made me realize we aren’t alone. We actually have more answers and more knowledge than we thought. Ryland was the youngest transgender boy in attendance, and I begin to realize we’re pretty seamless and lucky in our journey. Some parents had some pretty awful stories of bullying, self-hate, and suicide attempts. So far, Ryland hasn’t experienced anything traumatic.
Maybe we are doing something right. Maybe we’re not just a family who’s different. Maybe we’re a family who could help change our world.