N.H., a transgender boy in Corvallis

N.H. and his mom and sister spent a recent afternoon playing in the water fountain at Oregon State University. His familiy started a playgroup in the area for families with transgender children, but travel regularly to Portland for the next closest support group.

(Sophie Guerrero)

Three-year-old N.H. didn’t understand why his teachers stopped him from walking into his preschool’s bathroom with green walls with fire trucks on the wall. He liked it more than the pink girls bathroom.

Plus, N.H. told them he was a boy.

Yet, when his mom explained to the administrators of the Corvallis school, where tuition cost more than $10,000 a year, they insisted the gender listed on his birth certificate determined his bathroom. He was a girl, they said.

So his mom moved N.H. to a preschool that accepted N.H. for who he is. Now 5, N.H. is a transgender boy, which means he was assigned a gender at birth based on his body that doesn’t match how he feels.

“I’m a boy, and when people call me a girl, I get mad and I stick my tongue out,” N.H. said. Then growled.

About the story

The Corvallis family with a transgender son asked to use initials because most people in the community know N.H. as a boy only, and they don’t want to risk bullying if his peers find out.

In such circumstances, newspapers sometimes use first names only, but in this case, N.H. has no first name.

His mom wants to wait until he is older and can choose his own name because, she said, she already misnamed him once.

He sometimes uses his feminine legal name, and likes it. But sometimes he picks creative, made-up names that sound like they come from children’s books about farm equipment that come alive.

His mom also refuses to legally change his name to the superhero’s name he goes by with friends.

Name changes are expensive. “I don’t know if I can go with what a 5-year-old wants,” his mother said.

Many people think that being transgender means that someone underwent sex reassignment surgery, but that is an expensive step that not every transgender person wants, nor can afford.

In Corvallis and many places in America, it’s difficult to be transgender. Many transgender kids face extreme bullying from their peers and adults, or lose their families. N.H.’s family, though, supports him completely.

“The way I see it is I have two kids and they need to be raised and taken care of, and everything else is secondary,” his mom, A.H., said.

They are trying to bring together a community of families with transgender children in the Corvallis area to feel less alone.

He knew he was a boy

N.H. always preferred his male cousin’s hand-me-downs, rather than his older sister’s clothes covered in butterflies. When he entered preschool, he began asking his mom when his penis would start to grow.

At first, his mom thought the question was cute, but as he repeated it — growing frustrated — she investigated what he really meant.

Two of A.H.’s closest friends are transgender, so she quickly recognized what her son was telling her. Despite the doctors who called him a female at birth, he knew he was a boy.

N.H.’s family supports him unconditionally. His 10-year-old sister, A.L.C., is protective of her younger brother and is willing to stand up to adults who misidentify his gender.

Her friends who knew N.H. before he started using masculine pronouns sometimes tell her that N.H. is a girl, but A.L.C. tells them they are wrong.

“It feels weird to say, ‘she,’” A.L.C. said.

The transition from the gender identity people assume you are to the one you feel is tough for many transgender children. Loneliness and lack of support lead to a lot of problems. About 41 percent of transgender people attempt suicide, much higher than for any other population, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

A.H. never wants her son to feel that way.

Corvallis, a city of about 54,000 people, is home to Oregon State University. Because of the college influence, many residents consider themselves liberal and open-minded.

Yet the community sometimes falls short when asked to accept diverse people, A.H. said.

A.H. is trying to start her own playgroup in the area for families with transgender children. The group is new and small. A.H. hopes it will blossom over time as more people look for help.

The next closest support group is in Portland, an hour-and-a-half drive away.

TransActive is the nation’s leading service provider for transgender children and adults, said co-founder Jenn Burleton. She started the Portland-based nonprofit because few people advocated for the 1.5 to 2 percent of transgender Americans.

“In the late ’40s, medical experts knew it existed, but provided no effort, care and support,” said Burleton, who realized she was transgender as a child.

In four and a half years, TransActive tripled in size, with at least 15 regular staff members and volunteers.

N.H. and his family occasionally trek up to Portland to attend a playgroup at TransActive, where transgender children run around and act freely. There, N.H. can be a normal boy, A.H. said, and nosy people can’t question her about how she raises her son.

Parents had fewer resources in past

Organizations and the media pay more attention to transgender issues these days, but exposure used to be limited.

In 2000, Sam Lagerstrom started dropping hints he was not a girl. Leslie Lagerstrom and her husband first struggled to accept Sam. They thought that the 3-year-old child they called their daughter was just going through a tomboy phase.

Leslie Lagerstrom took him seriously, though, the day 8-year-old Sam came home from school and told his mom that he learned in school how girls have XX chromosomes and boys have XY chromosomes.

Sam said he thought there was a mistake in the system because his last letter should have been a Y.

About the reporters

This story was written by student journalists participating in The Oregonian's High School Journalism Institute, a collaborative effort with Oregon State University to promote diversity in newsrooms of the future.

To see more of the students' work, visit the

Teens blog

.

The Lagerstroms started searching for resources to help them parent a transgender child.



Sam Lagerstrom struggled with depression, and his parents found him searching suicide terms on the computer at 10 years old.

Leslie Lagerstrom couldn’t find any help nine years ago.

So, she started blogging from her home in Minnesota. She writes for her own site, Transparenthood, and Huffington Post. She heard from people around the world in similar situations.

“Blogging has been therapeutic,” Lagerstrom said. “It helped getting out my feelings because it also helped those who had the same feelings.”

The Lagerstroms also pushed to allow younger kids more choice in deciding who they are.

As Sam Lagerstrom approached puberty, he started taking Lupron, a drug that stopped his body from maturing. Puberty blockers only stop the process as long as a kid takes the drug, which allows families to buy time in case the child is unsure.

The Lagerstroms already knew Sam wouldn’t change his mind. They fought for doctors to allow him at 15 to take testosterone, which permanently changed his body.

Previously, doctors required a child to reach 17 or 18 to make that decision.

N.H. and his mom are still a few years away from choosing whether to use puberty suppressors, a daunting decision. But he knows who he is.

“The hospital made a mistake,” N.H. said, while absent-mindedly drawing a squiggly tree. “I’m a boy.”

-- Sophie Guerrero and Arturo Perez