Dear Family & Friends

We wanted let you know about something that has been going on in our family because you are important to us, we want to keep you in the loop. P has been living as a boy for a while now and we’ve come to realize that P is transgender, also known as, gender non conforming, or Gender Identity Disorder. I know that can be a scary word (transgender) but let’s not focus on the word, it’s just that…a word. A little word doesn’t define our P and we don’t use it often actually. We are writing to tell you the story about how this came to be and ask for your support and understanding. If you have any questions, please direct them toward me or Rusty so that we can answer your questions based on the research we have done and the information the Doctors we have seen have given us. We hope this will save me some anxiety from possible misinformation being spread. Here is our story.

Since we have never had a very ‘girly-girl’ household I think it took us a while to realize that something more serious might be going on with P. We had always allowed all of our kids to choose whatever toys they want. C used to love wearing my heels and playing in my nail polish and makeup but he also was very much in to his “boy toys” as well. We always thought P seemed to love the ‘boy’ toys most but also knew that many young kids try out opposite gender things so we didn’t think anything of it. This past summer (2014) when we went swimming for the first time P demanded swim trunks and wanted nothing to do with the swimsuit I originally brought with us, OK, I thought no big deal, wear what you want to, but that little voice of P’s most people don’t hear, only got louder. I started to get lots of questions from P sometimes even crying and being very sad demanding he wasn’t a girl and in fact was a boy. P was already wearing all of C’s old clothes at this point but we really, again, didn’t think too much of it. When P talked about wanting boy things we said that girls could play with girl and boy things and it was no big deal that lots of girls did it all the time, we always would point out strong women to help P see that all girls were not sparkly pink princesses. We talked up how great it is to grow up to be a mommy (since this is what they call grown up women). At the same time, we began to read and research gender issues in children and wonder about where things were going with P. Everything we read talked about being supportive to your child and taking their lead, not shaming them into being any particular way. We tried to steer P’s choices of boy clothing to days when it would not be too problematic with our family activities. But the demand from P to wear them all the time, became much more serious and we knew this was something more than just experimenting. So as not to be shaming we agreed and stopped fighting about clothes and shoes and bows every single day…exhausting. We asked P regularly if he just meant he wanted to be a girl who was handsome and wore boys clothes but the answer was always the same “I’m NOT a girl! I AM a boy”!

So this is how our journey truly began to take shape, this originally started 2-3 years ago, but it became more serious and clear as time went on, to the point where we couldn’t ignore it. We decided to just let it be and stop talking about it so much. We took a step back and kept watch to see what happened over the summer and heading in to school starting, following P’s lead as the advice we had read and been instructed by our Dr’s to do. In the past few months P has come out of his shell in ways we have never seen before. So spunky and silly and all around happy. We didn’t realize that there was such sadness and withdrawal until we realized how extremely happy he had become. This change of pronouns/name and confirmation of his true self has been nothing but good for all of us. P’s school has so far been very supportive and is learning along with us. We are thankful for an understanding teacher who makes P feel safe and loved there, it was quite the rough start until it all got settled. We have found a therapist whose specialty is gender variant children under the age of 10. He is wonderful and so experienced and works at the local Children’s Hospital. We have been working with him regularly since September to make sure we know how to handle things properly and make sure P has the best foundation possible. His opinion is that P does not seem to be the kind of child who will change back to being a girl. But he also says there is no way to know that for sure. Only time will tell. This is not to say this has been easy. It has been very hard for Rusty and I. We of course do not want any of our children to suffer hardship in life, or to be alienated from friends. And transgender people in today’s society still suffer so much. But they suffer more without supportive family. The statistics are scary. Many transgender people suffer great depression and attempt suicide. But among the few that have supportive family the rates of those things are much much lower. This is an important aspect of not only why we want to be supportive in P’s journey, but also why we are asking for your support as well. Just as P needs support from us, we need support from those around us.

We want to try to answer some questions you may have… You might have also noticed that we have been using male pronouns in this letter. This is something we asked P about early on, and have checked in often about. P has said he is sad when people call him a girl or ‘she’. It takes some adjusting but we hope you will try to use them too. We have spoken with P and we all know it will be hard to get the hang of changing pronouns. We know you’ll slip up (and we will too!) but with practice we will all get better. In fact he heard me slip up the other day and very quickly corrected me “I’m not a girl”. He is understanding of us though and understands it will take getting used to. Just to know you are trying would be a big comfort to him. Some people have asked if P will change his name. Since we are taking his lead we hadn’t brought it up. We wanted to see how things went and were also struggling with the idea of such a large change ourselves. He recently asked about name change, and while for school we think it would be easier to wait for the new year to begin, we have decided to go ahead and use the name we have agreed on as a family for every day life. We have agreed on Peyton. We understand there will be slip-ups, but don’t worry, Peyton would be more than happy to help you remember. Some people have also pointed out that many transgender people have a hard time fitting in in society and have fears about that for P. We totally understand that because we have some of those fears as well. Luckily with today’s therapy and medical advances there are many good solutions for someone like P when those milestones come up. We are glad to have the time to become more educated about the steps to take if or when we get there. Having a team of professionals available to us to guide us through all of that will be so helpful, but right now we are doing exactly as our Dr says, which is simply “supporting P as P is today.” You may wonder why we didn’t talk about this sooner. We initially thought a lot of this was just typical gender experimentation. We wondered if something more were going on as P got more emotional and persistent about it, but still thought it would take time to unfold and see, maybe years. We were just beginning to think about it ourselves when being in school really put this process in overdrive as he realized quickly he was not like the other girls. It was hard for us to wrap our minds around all the changes ourselves, let alone think about when to share this information. There are so many things you worry about and ponder over in your life as a parent, this just seemed like one of them.. Some people have also asked, “Isn’t this just normal experimentation?” or “Isn’t she too young?” In our own experience with our other kids, experimenting with different things from both genders is very common, Research has shown that children form a gender identity as young as 18 months to three years of age. It is widely agreed that at this point that gender, including gender as it is experienced by gender variant children, is solidified early on. It is widely agreed that between five and seven are generally very “gender-solid” ages, meaning that most children will not express feeling as though they are a different gender to explore or play. This is not to say that children will not role play, it simply means that they do not tend to be unsure of whether they are a girl or boy. At this age individuals tend to have clarity as to their own gender.. But the unwavering 24/7 need to live as the opposite gender, as P seems to have, is very uncommon and not something many children experience.

In closing, we feel that P’s family and community are his best hope for leading a successful and happy life. So we really hope that Peyton and our family can count on your support. We know it will take practice, but we hope you will be able to use the correct pronouns when referring to P. We want P to feel fully accepted around our family and friends. After all life is about finding happiness and this is why we’ve made the decision to support P’s wishes. We want a happy child and P is so happy and no longer showing any conflicted feelings about these things. We know when you see us next that you will be able to see this too and hopefully that will make it easier to be supportive.

With all our love, Rusty and Megan

Resources for those who want to learn more: Websites: https://www.genderspectrum.org/ http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/about-a-girl-coy-mathis-fight-to-change-change-gender-20131028 (Popular magazine’s legthy article about another young child similar to P)

http://childrensnational.org/files/PDF/DepartmentsAndPrograms/Neuroscience/Psychiatry/GenderVariantOutreachProgram/GVParentBrochure.pdf (Brochure by Children’s National Health System. VERY informative.)

http://www.imatyfa.org/ Trans-Youth Family Allies

Books: The Transgender Child by Stephanie Brill & Rachel Pepper This comprehensive first of its kind guidebook explores the unique challenges that thousands of families face every day raising their children in every city and state.

Gender Born, Gender Made by Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D. Gender Born, Gender Made brings to our homes, schools and clinician’s offices a wealth of ideas and tools that will prove invaluable as we move towards a more empathic, just and inclusive society.

You Tube: There are many videos and documentaries on You Tube covering the experiences of families with transgender children. We have found many of them to be very informative. 20/20 – A Story of Transgender Children I am Jazz Becoming Me (Full Episode) Living a Transgender Childhood