I remember the first “boy” haircut we got Jake, when he was four years old. Two years before we changed his name and changed his pronouns and started our journey. It was a couple inches long on top, definitely longer than the Mohawk he’d requested, and the back was rounded in that feminine style. But he loved it. He LOVED it.

When my husband saw the haircut, he made a move to ruffle his hair, and Jake leapt back and in a coy little voice, said, “Daddy, don’t, you’ll mess it up.”

I remember my husband turned to me and said, “If that’s not how a girl would behave, I don’t know what is. I don’t think you have to worry.”

Of course, I still worried. And of course, he was wrong. But I’ll admit, something inside of me felt validated when Jake gravitated towards My Little Ponies or agreed to wear a blue dress or put his hand on his hip and did a little wiggle walk.

Like any of those things determined his gender.

When you have a gender non-conforming child, you’re forced to confront a lot of your preconceived notions about what makes a boy “a boy” and a girl “a girl”. You have to take all of the assumptions and ideas and expectations you had and let them go. You have to stop deciding for your child what he or she or they should or shouldn’t like, and instead listen to what they tell you. Or maybe they don’t tell you, and you have to respect that too.

That’s really hard when the child you’re listening to is eight, like mine. Now I worry if he’s "boy" enough. I worry if people will know, simply by looking at him. I worry they’ll read something in the sound of his voice, so high and sweet, or in his wiggly walk that he gets from his grandmother. I worry when he tells me he doesn’t want to cut his hair and it’s getting shaggy and dangerously close to resembling that first haircut we got him when he was four.

I worry that he’s going to ask me to paint his nails blue like I did when he was younger, and like many trans youth do, as they explore their gender, and I won’t know how to respond.

No, because boys don’t paint their nails?

No, because people might mistake you for a girl?

No, because…I’m afraid people will get confused, and when people get confused, they can do some very hurtful things.

A good friend and parent of a trans child remarked that she thinks they do it to test us. I don’t know if it necessarily has anything to do with us. I think maybe they do it to test themselves. They push the rules of gender because it’s the only way they can become comfortable in themselves; it’s the only way they can learn what’s too much, what’s not enough, and where they fall in that spectrum.

Some people feel that a trans person must be incredibly binary in their presentation, for safety and for “passability”. Others feel that a trans person isn’t really trans, or trans enough, if they don’t embody every aspect of the gender they identify as. They fall into the same binary trap that had no place for trans people to begin with.

Gender is a spectrum, and there’s room for everyone. Having Jake opened my eyes to the privilege I had of presenting as and identifying as a woman. And opened my eyes to the biases that that privilege afforded me.

Having Jake has challenged my world view and changed me in the process. I like to think it’s made me a better person. Hopefully, a better ally.

I know now what makes a boy “a boy” and a girl “a girl”. When the boy or girl or person in question tells me. And not because of what they’re wearing or what sports they like or the sound of their voice or the curve of their hips, but because of what falls between their ears and how they feel inside and what they know to be true.

I know so much more now than I ever did the day my son transitioned. I worried about the wrong things. I worried about things.

If he ever does ask me to paint his nails blue, I’ll still worry, but I won’t hesitate.

I’ll ask, “Fingers or toes?”

Don't miss my video on Listen to Your Mother where I share my story of Jake's transition.

Interested in learning more about my son? Read Portrait of a Transgender Child. You can read my latest post here: Making 2016 Happen for Me



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