Imagine my surprise when my sister called me about Private Practice, a show I’d never seen, and told me that they aired a show last night about a child trapped in the wrong body. Well, you know how fast I jumped on Hulu to check it out!

This slice of life shows parents who are struggling with their child’s identity, as many parents and extended family do, and although there are things I would have changed (it’s the editor in me) it’s a solid start. No one does this life the same way. We walk different paths, and come to our realities when it’s our time.

My heart says that the best thing we as a society can do is open our hearts and our minds. Whenever possible, we can try to lower the shield of our judgment and let someone else’s story touch us as if we are walking that mile in their shoes.

Can I identify with the angry mom in the story? I don’t want to admit it, but if I’m going to be honest I have to. Maybe not the vehement reaction or the pressure to fit my child into a typical stereotype, but the fear was surely there when Hope started talking about being given the wrong body. Fear about what was happening. Fear about being “sure” before we made any big steps. Fear that I’d make a mistake and hurt my child in some way. I get the fear part, loud and clear.

But then you wake up one morning and silently watch your child as they move about the world and you see what is right there in front of you. Love and the truth trumps fear – always. You just have to summon up the courage to move past fear, and nothing inspires a parent more than the safety, happiness and well-being of their child. Nothing.

Supporting your child, no matter what they are going through, isn’t be easy. It isn’t popular. And it might be hard as hell to explain to others, but you know your child. If you truly listen, the truth is there. Your story doesn’t have to look like this show, or anyone else’s story for that matter. Each authentic path is genuine. It’s the only thing that’s real.

Tonight I sit with gratitude just thinking of the myriad of positive stories flooding into our popular culture related to gender identity and gender diversity. Now that this show aired perhaps it impacted lives across the country. Maybe someone out there better understands why their child/ grandchild fights when asked to wear a dress, or a suit. Maybe a child better understands how they can talk with their parent or teacher or friend. Maybe people who sat in judgment can see that they are just kids, same as anyone else.

I hope for a day that we don’t have to remind people that the suicide rates are 5 times greater for gender diverse kids than the national average… because these stories are saving lives.

Does it sound vehement like “I hate when my car breaks down!” or casual like “I hate mushrooms on my pizza!” when you hear yourself saying it? Does it sound directed at something like “I hate tax time!” or someone like “I hate the neighbor who doesn’t curb their dog in my yard!” and in the end, does it really matter??

No matter what context or how you look at it the word, “hate” is contagious and it hinders our true nature to love and feel compassion like a huge concrete spiritual roadblock. When you consider the severity of violent crimes against others like Matthew Shepard and the rampant bullying in schools and playgrounds, you start to internalize the notion that there isn’t room in the world for “hate” so we need to stop saying it. Plain and simple.

When I heard Judy Shepard speak this month at the Center on Halsted about her son’s death and her life in activism afterwards it dawned on me that if things are to really change, we need to look at ourselves. Real change starts there. With us.

After the folks from the Matthew Shepard Foundation passed out purple wristbands with the call to action “Erase Hate” embossed on them, I thought to myself, I’ll wear it but I don’t really use the word “hate” at all. I wasn’t raised like that. Still, I thought it was a good reminder with the kids, their learning their friend’s bad habits from school and all so I quickly put mine on and encouraged the kids to wear theirs for at least a week as a reminder. And we did.

Little did I know how many times I’d use the word in my daily life. Although it was never casual, it didn’t matter. The word carries a negative power that seeps into one’s consciousness like darkness extinguishing the light from our hearts. I believe this.

Now when we start to say the word, we catch ourselves immediately and rephrase. Beyond using the word “dislike” as a simple replacement, we’ve pondered as a family how we can focus on and strengthen the positive instead. Why emphasize what’s wrong in the world when there’s so much good? So much beauty, grace and possibility.

Erase. Destroy. Gently let go. Whatever your style. Just remove “hate” and replace that space with compassion. Our world, and our children are better for it.

These kids aren’t lab rats. His accusation insinuates

that we (parents and supportive physicians) are “dosing” our kids (with hormone blockers and hormones) the same sterile way a clinical researcher would administer drugs to a helpless lab animal and then sit back, take notes and see what happens. If this test fails, no problem. Move on to the next insignificant test trial, right? Wrong.

These are our lives, not experiments. Not meaningless little tests. Our parents aren’t the “Let’s inject them and see what happens!” type of folks either. Our children’s lives aren’t things we take lightly. We labor over every single decision. We lose sleep. We lose our friends and families. We listen to our kids beg not to go through the wrong puberty. We hear them crying at night in their beds after they have a nightmare about waking up as the wrong person. We die inside when we see our children struggle with having a body that doesn’t match their brain. We break our hearts (and our banks) to make sure our children can grow as healthy, safe and happy individuals. None of these decisions are made with a cold, detached motivation like an experiment. I find it incredibly insensitive to even suggest it, especially from someone who suggests they try to “help” families like ours.

Dr. Zucker intimated that some “boys” (aka assigned the male gender at birth based on sex organs) just see the color pink and think, “I’m a girl if I like pink!” when in fact he knows that it’s never that simple. It’s not just the dress, or the color, or the clothes. It’s the child’s deep identification with who they are, not what society traditionally refers to as “boy” or “girl”. In my opinion he consistently blurred the lines between gender identity and gender expression and as an “expert” he shouldn’t have as it confuses, not educates the listeners.

I wonder if any of the families who went to Dr. Zucker for help with gender identity would like to talk with me about their child’s sense of well-being afterward. What about his so-called 85% of kids who “changed their mind” and “wanted to live” in the gender assigned at birth? Did his strict and rigid reparative therapy produce happy, healthy, fully functioning individuals? How many of his patients went off the grid (and weren’t counted in his stats) because they were damaged by his methods and went on to identify in a way that didn’t fit the outcome of his own little experiment? How many of his patients killed themselves?

I envision a world with 100% healthy, safe and happy individuals. That’s not an experiment, that’s a feeling in my heart. I’m not a subculture of the population. I’m a mom. I’m not calling for a social movement. I’m encouraging everyone to have loving compassion for one another as we all stand in our truth whatever that looks like.

This is not a test. This is real life.

Also on the show is Dr. Scott Leibowitz of Children’s Hospital Boston who talks about how to improve the health and well-being of gender diverse children and Dr. Kenneth Zucker who talks about I’m-not-sure because I wasn’t given the chance to hear his contribution, but I’m guessing it’s about his famous reparative therapy theory where gender diverse children should be forced to “identify with” and present as the gender congruent with their biological sex organs. Just guessing.

As I walked away from the studio where we taped the show last week I realized that I forgot to mention the names of all the national conferences I attend and the numerous organizations that support our kids and their families. When you’re in the moment you forget sometimes I guess… and you use an incredibly low NPR-like voice, too. Live and learn for next time.

At the end of the day despite the info I forgot or the more somber tone of the discussion, I am thrilled to have had the chance to raise awareness and I’m grateful that they are discussing gender diversity in children. Another meaningful step. Was it perfect? Never going to be. But it was real. And hopefully it reaches out and touches someone out there and they walk away with a deeper understanding and a more loving, compassionate heart.

As we band together and raise awareness the list of books will grow and we’ll have stories that span the gender spectrum allowing for ALL children to see themselves and their families reflected in a book. It made the difference for my children and my family, and then we found we weren’t alone.

“No, I don’t want to put my daughter on blockers, but I will if that’s what she says she’s ready for because that’s what she needs,” I responded exhaling all the tightness I felt building in my shoulders and neck.

None of this is about what I want, nor is it about what my child wants. Does she want someone to check her genitals repeatedly so we can catch Tanner 2? No. Does she want to have medicine injected in her? No. Does she want to have nightmares that she will wake up and look like a man? No. Does she want to live her life truthfully as the person she knows herself to be? Yes.

That is what is.

The only choice we have right now in my opinion is to stand in our truth and let that be our guide. There aren’t any road maps on this journey. I used to wish there were. In the past I wanted to navigate, define where things stood, know my course like an experienced hiker heading out for a month-long trip. I needed to see it all laid out before me. Soon I realized that when I forced that to happen my path went in circles. I’d chase my tail until I learned my lesson.

Today? I’m settling into the not-knowing portion of this trek. Am I great at it? Nope. Just getting my feet wet I suppose, but it’s getting better. You figure I was a Type A OCD organizer who needed to check off lists as badly as she craved order. Now I see that Hope and I are ditching the map and running off course, not because we want to, but because we need the truth more than anything else.

Click here for the HER Day Facebook page.

If you haven’t seen this, check it out. Look past the subtitles for an artistic, upbeat and informative piece about a gender diverse teen. She’s adorable!

*Updated the link… let’s see if this works! Thanks for your patience! If it doesn’t you can search YouTube.com under “Ik ben een meisje!”

Lately I’ve listened to this shoulder, yoga practice will do that to you, make friends with your body… and your fears. I’ve started giving more credit to my arm, allowing myself to try asanas, or poses, that I thought were impossible for me. The old reel playing in my head. The ancient whispers from the other room. My mother telling someone that my arm wasn’t going to grow and I’d never use it the same way again. She’s fragile, you know. Even after I consciously started to give my left side 50% (or more) of the work, I still made adjustments out of pure habit. My brain hardwired to protect feeling injured again.

I can almost hear the muscle slowly tearing away from the bone as I snuggle a little tighter around my daughter’s skinny frame, her eyes transfixed on Jazz.

“Tell me if it’s too much, Sweetheart,” my heart couldn’t read her thoughts from her calm eyes, but tense lips, “We can always come back to it at another time.”

“I’ll let you know Mom,” her gaze never left the image on the screen, and it dawned on me that this might be the first child she’d ever encountered saying out loud to everyone, “Hey, I’m transgender. I feel good about myself. I’m happy.” Most of her gender diverse friends don’t communicate like that, at all. This was revolutionary.

About half way through the show those deep eyes of an old soul looked up and me and gently said they needed a break. This signal I could read this loud and clear. Lost in the moment I couldn’t figure out exactly why I wasn’t able to press pause. That is until I glanced down at my newly freed arm as listless as it was after my recovery, but not lost anymore. It has a voice, and a job to do. I get that now.

Every single day we’re recovering, from everything. With every breath we are brand new. Those old tapes saying that we aren’t capable or worthy or equal are absolutely incorrect. We should take a moment to mentally smash and recycle them into gratitude.  It’s our choice.

Fiddling with the adaptors for the sound I commented to a person helping to organize the event that I hardly wore my glasses anymore when speaking. After I said it I felt an immediate sense of hiding I felt uncomfortable with back then, and now.

“What’s changed,” she asked.

“I guess I get less threats now…” I replied, and then the gravity of what I said sunk

deep into me like a coin soaring into the air before slipping into a fountain only to plunk when it hits the bottom. Less threats. I paused before adding, “When you work under a pseudonym you have a foot in two worlds, so to speak. Today I’m more integrated.” It was true, and it wasn’t, all at the same time.

When your child asks you to keep their birth gender private, you encounter a host of unique challenges. Some are just a nuisance, like cryptically explaining insurance coverage to a medical provider’s receptionist, although that could be irritating as well depending on the person. Other challenges are downright heartbreaking, like bumping into an old friend and their parent on the street. First come the confused double takes  before the parent clutches their child’s hand tightly, whisking them away from us as if we are highly contagious. For me, it means that the work I do is kept hidden from the folks she doesn’t want to discuss her gender identity with. Often it doesn’t matter. Other days I struggle with hiding what I do for a living.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not me, or my child. I’ll live the rest of my days knowing that this is the important work of my life, my work on behalf of my child and all gender diverse kids and their families, even if I have to use a pen name to do it. I am whole; I’m just not providing all the details of my life with everyone. Removing my glasses was one step to coming to terms, and when I’m ready I’ll take next.