[MUSIC] While I was pregnant with my child, my first child, everybody I knew, every aunt, uncle, cousin, people I didn't know in the airports when I was traveling. Everywhere I went people would come up to me and say, look at. Just let me touch your tummy. Your having a boy, your definitely having a boy. So I had only a list of boys names and I'll never forget at the moment I gave birth and the doctor said it's a girl. I was shocked and I actually said to the doctor are you sure? That was the first thing that came out of my mouth. [LAUGH] Check again. I'm sure it's a boy and so I sort of scrambled and tried to come up with a list of names and make a short list. I only ultimately came up with two possible female names and then chose one. But I had a long list of boys names [LAUGH] and I kept them in the baby book. And so later when this happened I said, well, lo and behold, I told them the story about how everyone thought I was going to give birth to a boy and how he's been so masculine and boyish, his whole childhood. So we went right to the baby book, opened it up and he chose the second name on the list. The first name of the list had gone to my second child. I had not heard of the category of transgender then. So I just wasn't really familiar with what it meant and I thought maybe I had kind of a gay female child. [MUSIC] >> I think the first time I heard about it and the first time I actually understood it were two very different points in time. So the first time I kind of heard about it, I might have been five. And the first time I realized I felt like a boy was when I was three or four. And I think that's when most kids kind of start identifying with an gender. [MUSIC] At the beginning of seventh grade I think I thought I was gay. And so I was watching a lot coming out videos on YouTube. I found one that I thought was just another gay person and it was actually a transgender guy so then I just started watching loads of videos like that for about two days straight and that was kind of when I think I knew I was transgender too. I actually remember one of the videos a person was talking about wearing binders, which makes your chest look flat. And then I scrounged around my room, found a bunch of stuff to make my own one. And that was very relieving, because my chest actually looked flat, and that was something that I'd always really hated, but I didn't really understand that I hated it. And so that was really nice. But it was also kind of worrisome, because I thought I wouldn't be able to tell anyone. >> He actually told me over the phone from his dad's house. He called to say, I want to have a very important conversation with you and tell you some things. And I want to come to your house to do it, because I'm actually kind of afraid that my dad's not going to accept it. And I said it's okay if you're gay, we have so many gay friends. And he said no it's not that, I am like and he named a person we knew, a family friend who had a transgender child. >> When I first told my mom, she was totally fine with it and I knew she'd be fine with it. It took her a little while to get use to it but not long. Just a couple weeks maybe. >> I felt ready to help him become his authentic self. I think that's the best thing you can do as a parent. It didn't cross my mind even once to talk him out of this identity. At the beginning, in the first week or so, we had thought I wonder if the right thing to do is just, I'll know and I'll support him in my house, but maybe at school he'll still, for one more year to finish eighth grade he'll still just be a female at school. But that thought only lasted about a week. We actually went together to a great youth counseling center that works with kids in the trans community, and then the counselor who runs the youth group said, once you have this realization and you know who you are and you've told someone you love who you are, it's really hard to go backwards. [MUSIC] It took me about two weeks to really be consistent with male pronouns, maybe even almost a month to consistent using male pronouns and using the new name. I'd slip back to the old name. It's been four or five months now, and now I'm pretty solid. I have not slipped back. But once in a while, I'll look at something like a baby book I made with the old name on it. And it brings some tears to my eyes not because I wish I had a daughter, but sometimes I look at that and I think the tears come for a set of complex reasons. For example, I remember calling my child another name and I won't use that name and it's okay. Or I remember or I feel badly about misunderstanding. I wish I had been educated. I wish someone had said to me, there's this category called transgender. Hey, your child always wears boys clothes. I wish the preschool teachers or someone had said something to me because I would have had the opportunity to give my child hormone blockers to prevent my child from going through puberty and developing those characteristics. Those physical characteristics of a female body. Now the only way to undo some of those characteristics will be for example surgery, top surgery. Had I known I could have prevented some of these things and just started this process sooner. But, that's why I'm hopeful that educational forums like this will educate other parents, so they could just know about the category of transgender. [MUSIC] >> In society, people think there are only two genders, male and female. And that would make you female and what makes you male is your biological differences. But gender is in your mind and not between your legs, and that's what a lot of people don't understand. >> He's got the kind of side to him that encompasses both ways of thinking. And as he goes to the world he'll always carry with him those first 13 years of his life. And that will bring a different perspective so he's a kind of a unique individual. I think all trans people are unique in that they have experience. We have such a gendered society, and they've experienced walking along very gendered paths. And so they know maybe what it feels like to be on both sides. That's unique. [MUSIC] I feel like I'm if I really look at it feel like I'm actually been blessed to be a parent who is allowed to travel this journey in life. And I wouldn't ask for any other child.
