I worked tirelessly to prevent any harm from coming to my child, including removing her from the school system who chose to turn a blind eye to the repeated harassment. (My Mama Bear was out!) While I cannot know whether the bullying was due to any knowledge of gender issues, from the outside it didn’t seem to be the case. My daughter attended school stealth so that her birth gender wasn’t the focus of the Kindergarten year and education was. We only wanted a positive experience. What we got was a nightmare of epic proportions ending with my daughter waking up in the middle of the night screaming that the bullying child was hurting her.

Clearly this isn’t anyone’s idea of Kindergarten for their child. Once school was over and my child was freed from her daily stalker, we sat down and wrote a children’s book (the next one in the series) about how Hope sees a friend being bullied on the playground and acts as an ally. Cathartic experience for both of us. (Of course I needed to take that extra step so I went on to write a chapter in my novel about what parents can do before, during and after a bullying incident to protect their children. Don’t get me started on how I filed a formal complaint and had the school investigated!)

As the weeks turned to months it became crystal clear that Hope didn’t only have issues with the child, but with her teacher and the Principal who turned their heads when they knew this child would torture her every day. They failed her. They failed the other child. They didn’t protect her at all. The trust that should have been established in that classroom, her only indication of what school was all about, was irrevocably broken.

Why didn’t anyone stand up? Afterward parents would come to me and tell me that their child would tell them about how Hope was bullied every day and my response was, “Why didn’t you say something?” Deer in the headlights back at me. They didn’t have to take on the whole school system, but they could have come to me or someone in the administration sooner. Perhaps they did and no one listened? Do we really have to live in fear of the people whose jobs are to educate our children? Shouldn’t we expect that someone, anyone, will speak up and advocate if a child is harmed at school and when they do they will be heard and taken seriously? The epidemic of bullying has to be stopped.

All summer we worked on confidence building so that she could begin to trust that not all educators are that negligent. Not everyone will let her down. We talked about seeing the child who bullies as a person with serious problems who needs help to stop their destructive behavior. It’s been slow, but positive. We talk a lot about how we are allies for others, how we believe in the safety of all people and how we have a voice to use when we see something going wrong.

It’s not going to change the world right now, but it has created two little loving advocates in my children. I can’t say I appreciate the experience we had last year. It was brutal. But it did lead us to where we are right now, where we are all more compassionate for others, both for the people getting hurt and for the troubled people who hurt them.

The two baskets that cradled the photos of my kids in their very early years have literally been shoved in the closet. I could barely see them when I glanced through the out-of-season section of my closet, but I’d quickly turn away when I did. The last physical contact I had with the baskets was when I packed away the school photos of Hope before she transitioned. At her request I’d taken down her picture down from the foyer, stuffed a new one inside the frame and banished the beautiful photo to “The Baskets”.

Once it was all tucked away I melted to the floor in a heap, sobbing as if she’d just been torn from my arms, never to be seen again. My head knew this to be true. My child was safe, happier than ever and always mine; however, my heart needed more time letting go of that moment frozen in time when my child was just living like any other boy. Free from people’s judgment and ridicule. Free to see the family and friends who have since let us go. Free from the manipulations of life that some gender non-conforming children endure: searching high and low for a discreet clothes for school, swimming and ballet, growing out your hair, seeing acquaintances on the street that call you the wrong name and then stare at your new curls and dress, being called the wrong name by just about every medical professional, wondering why your grandmother or your uncle or your old best friend just doesn’t call anymore, defending yourself and your identity on a regular basis when all you want to do is just be a kid.

Sure, life was admittedly easier, but “he” wasn’t free, was he? Inside she was trapped. Lost. Silenced. Who wants that for their child? My head knows this. My heart still aches when I see pictures. It’s my Achilles heel. Knowing this, I am going to give myself a little more time to just be with the fact that it hurts me. It’s not that I don’t fully accept my child. I do. It’s not that pictures mean more to me. They don’t. This is painful for me and that just is the way it is.

Shortly after I unearthed the baskets, my sister reached out to me. She knew what this activity would do to me. Pain rippling like the tide. Always insightful, she shared a little revelation that “this little boy existed” and we have the opportunity to honor that. Not toss it away. I don’t have to run from the tender memories of holding my child in my arms, dressing him up, whispering his old name in his ear or the shear joy I felt knowing I had a beautiful, healthy son. Those memories do not have to be my enemy, unless I see them that way. Unless I fear the power of my emotion behind those memories. My emotions are love. Pure love.

Well, that depends on what email I am answering or who is calling on the phone. You see it’s not so easy when part of you lives stealth. Your life starts to divide in a weird way and some things fall on the “new” side like the new school the kids are attending, writing the book, doing gender advocacy work and some things fall on the “old” side like my past career, friends from the old school and my larger group of acquaintances before Hope’s transition. It might sound easy to reconcile both sides, but it is not.

Here’s the tricky part about stealth. Most everything that identified me before (Hope’s transition) identified me as a mom to 2 sons. I regularly said and wrote stories about “my boys” and I can’t erase that part of my history no matter how hard I try. It’s out there. Most of my career and my social groups have nothing to do with my child’s gender identity so it shouldn’t be an issue, right? Wrong. Constantly people ask how the “boys” are mentioning them by name as I cringe in my seat waiting for my panic attack to pass. Keep smiling Jen. What to say? In that moment I am left at a crossroads where in a split second I need to decide whether I address the situation honestly and discuss Hope’s transition or divert the subject never answering the question at all. I’ll be honest with you, this process still gives me the hives.

Living stealth means there are some people you tell and some you don’t. You need to decide quickly in most cases. And for me, that is a slippery slope. Who is the gossip? Who would take this information and use it against us? What if I tell someone from the “old” life and they interact with someone from my “new” life? What happens then? When should we just maintain our privacy? When is it appropriate? Who can I trust?

It’s like I have a foot in two worlds and they constantly intersect leaving me to trip and fumble as I move forward. At my support group for parents of transgender kids, I sometimes find myself so envious of the parents of older children. They can simply tell their friends about their child’s transition and move on. Take it or leave it style. If the other person has an issue, the parents can say “Talk to (my child) about it.” And there it is, a clean break, a new start. Their adult age children can fend for themselves, whereas, my little one cannot. She looks to me to make sense of this journey and sometimes I fear she finds me with my head inside the proverbial map trying to find my way.

I remind myself that it’s going to take time so I need to be patient and gentle with myself. I wish there was a guidebook so my mistakes wouldn’t threaten Hope’s safety and well being. That is all I care about. Not me or my itching, but her. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her and I struggle that this tiny little wish is completely beyond my control. Perhaps that is why I cling to this page and release the struggle. Half of me needs to get it out and the other half needs to prevent another parent from making the same mistakes I do. Still the two sides of me tug and pull like children wanting to go in two different directions.

This is how it dawned on me that we had done so much to change Hope’s appearance to match her gender identity- buy new girls clothes, get some bows and headbands for her pixie, get new shoes that we got sidetracked in a way. We forgot somehow that the room that she shares with her little brother still reflected the same boys design it always had. Sure, her name and pronoun are different, but the room she goes to bed in every night and wakes every morning still looks the same as it did before she transitioned. It even had a canvas picture with her former name. How did I forget this?

Be gentle with yourself, Jen. I keep telling myself that things don’t change overnight. (Someone tell me how many days it took to build Rome… anyone?) Right now “one foot in front of the other” can keep me sane when I start to think of the things I have yet to do. The many things that I need to do for Hope. But truly, do those things matter as much as love?

This weekend we transitioned the kids room. The canvas picture got a face-lift with some funky gender neutral fabric. After my staple gun got a hold of it- look out! It was adorable. We installed some shelves for their favorite items. Added a funky picture to tie in all the new colors. Split their clothes between two makeshift dressers. Hope got a new bedspread and Will picked out new accessories. Their names went up by their beds and voila! Things were fresh and new. Such small things made a huge difference.

Everyone was delighted including me, until I took a step back and thought about the fact I just took away my first born’s name off the wall. His name is gone. Yes, she is still here and she is the same person, but the name I cooed to him when he was little has vanished. The name my husband and I chose (despite Armenian tradition that defined the other name on his birth certificate) is now covered, packed away like all the pictures painted in preschool with his jagged name scribbled on the bottom and those silver engraved frames that you get when the baby is born.

He’s gone.

I felt the same way when Hope just transitioned and I stood in the hallway looking at her last school picture- as a boy. Such a little man- sassy short haircut, just slightly tousled in a way that many can only dream of achieving. Crisp checkered button-down shirt and those bright, gorgeous eyes. The moment I got the picture from the school I said “He will be such a handsome man” to myself. And now that has all changed. I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, this saying goodbye to the way things were.

Shortly after I talked with my sister who sent me about a phenomenal story and here it is.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.

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Our life isn’t about grief or mourning. We have so much to be grateful for and thrilled about, but there are these little moments when the reality floods over me like a sudden downpour and I am trapped. I am consumed by the fact I have to let go. I have to say goodbye to what I thought our future looked like. And open my loving arms to embrace what is.