Did you see this line-up? It’s astounding how much we can learn in 3 short days, but I’m doing it all… including the yoga and meditation. I’m in. All in.

It’s funny, my daughter told someone recently that I was going to a conference and that I wrote a book. I was surprised because she prefers that we live relatively (almost completely) stealth so I probably produced a more than inquisitive look at her proud declaration. (Still working on my poker face truth be told…) Later I asked about it and she simply replied that she was happy that I was “helping people be better parents.” Whoa!!!!?? 

I wish that I could assume such a glorious job title, but alas I felt more comfortable clarifying that I ask questions and talk about things that might help parents along their journey. Simple. A take-it-or-leave-it type of thing. No pressure. But in her eyes, when she sees the cover of my book she’s constantly reminded of our talks about the parents who may not understand their child’s gender identity, or as she prefers to it as “how people feel inside”. She may ponder what life would be like if we didn’t listen to her or forced her to be someone she isn’t. That breaks my heart.

Even my son brought on the water works today. Bright and early, before 6am he chose to absolve me of my parental duties by telling me that he “forgives me for missing his graduation” and gave me an enormous hug that made me wish that this was my wake up call every morning. Mind you, he is graduating from preschool, which is huge for him and totally important. I get that. Still.

I start to tear up when I think of connecting with others this weekend. Why? Maybe because I feel the emotional weight of families who struggle with issues surrounding gender expression. I was there just a few years ago, not knowing where to turn or how to help. Life looked condensed in a way, with fear closing all the doors I wish were open. That was then.

Today we are free. Not completely transparent, but living and standing in our truth day in and day out. And I have so many people to thank for that. You know who you are – you beautiful, courageous, loving, loyal, open and supportive friends who have stood by me even when my brave disguise had worn thin. You’ve lifted me, carried me, soothed me and inspired me to do more for all of the families, like ours, that want to live genuinely, no matter what that looks like. I’m eternally grateful. And blessed.

Every moment for the past 40 years has been rapid, like I’m navigating wet stepping-stones set too far apart across an angry current, and you just know the bone crushing waterfall waits around the corner. You can feel it. Adrenaline pulsing, mind racing activity focused on sheer survival. I’ve always been able to quickly stay the course and hop back and forth across the slippery banks of pain and pleasure. But what about happiness?

When Hope transitioned almost two years ago I had to stop staring at my feet and let go of where I thought I was headed. My inwardness (my extroverted disguise) was challenged for the first time, despite acting as a mother for almost 6 years and I needed to let go. I jumped, sailed down that river and across the bend to meet that watery cliff… and off I went.

I’ve been falling these past two years, and sharing that lovely suspension with you. In that time I’ve caught my breath, used my voice and even lifted my self-imposed veil of secrecy. I’ve been the mother and the person I’d always hoped I could be. Meaningful stuff. And, like every journey, you never stay in one spot for too long.

Last week I felt the whoosh, like when you nervously dive off the highest diving board and finally ignite with the water below, and I had to make another choice. Stay in the dark bliss below the surface where you can hide or rise up to face what lies above in the light. Tempting as the coziness below feels, I am destined to ascend. To move on. Hope and Will show me that every day, their resiliency and raw courage radiating with each smile. I’ve made it. I jumped and I survived. Now what?

“Allow yourself to be needy Jen,” my Reiki Master told me this weekend, “Other people, I tell them to be less dependent on others, but you? You do just fine all by yourself.” And it’s true. I’d rather crawl into my comforting seclusion than have to work out life’s complexities with others. It feels weird. I wasn’t raised that way. I was trained to be fiercely independent, strong to a fault and so resilient it scares people, but that’s not taking me to the next level spiritually. I’m not in this world alone, and I don’t want to be. I want more. I need more.

So for the first time friends are hearing that I need them and it feels good. I guess I always thought that if I asked for what I needed that no one would listen. Back then I didn’t have enough love for myself to even try. Most friends have generously opened their arms wide to embrace me, accepting me for who I am right now – imperfect and completely honest. Others lost my phone number (and email address) when I showed my first sign of weakness. It stings a bit, but when I look around at who is left I see that I am blessed. I am loved. I am whole. And I can move forward with my heart and mind wide open.

Every time I would be ready to take the step into the light I found some way to go in the other direction. I wasn’t really ready at all. Like many parents of gender diverse children, I feared that someone would hurt my children because they do not agree with our lives. That thought paralyzes me, the power of people who simply don’t understand. It took me a year to pull myself up by the bootstraps and remind myself that nothing will get better unless we educate the community and advocate for all of our children and their families.

Once the book was published and sitting in my hot, little hands, I felt the strength to put aside my fears and practice what I preach. I needed to believe in being who I was, a mom who loves her children with every fiber of her being. Still, I wondered how I could put a barrier between the image of my public self and the reality of my private self for their sake. Kind of a disconnect for folks seeking to do us harm. I guess living stealth for this long made me question everything around me and I wondered how I could insulate my children from any negative backlash.

Glasses! There you go! Sure, I usually wear my glasses when doing things with my advocacy work and they might make me look a little different, but would that make a significant difference? Then my mother suggested I wear a wig to cover my signature short pixie. I have to tell you, I considered it for a second before I remembered how ridiculous it was. Why do I need to camouflage myself?

The fear is real. It’s what prevents parents and caregivers across the country (and the world) from allowing their child to present as their identified gender outside the home. Every time I talk about gender diversity or talk with families in similar circumstances I relate the single experience that made the biggest impact on me and my family. It was the afternoon my child (pre-transition) asked me if he could wear a dress to a concert in the park.

When he asked I could feel time slow to a crawl as he stared at me, searching for the answer to a question that he didn’t directly ask. He was really asking if I believed everything I told the kids about being true to yourself. Was it really okay for him to wear a dress to the concert if he wanted? Then I asked myself. Did I really stand behind my own words? Could we handle the transition from him presenting inside the house to him presenting outside in the real world? It’s a big jump, and we did it.

Once you make that leap to presenting in the outside world, things change. Yes, you are free for the first time. Free to express yourself out in the open. What a liberating moment! I saw the exuberance on my child’s face being able to walk outdoors with a favorite outfit on. At the same time, I started to build a layer of armour against the dirty looks and the unkind comments like “Why is that boy wearing a pink dress?” Subconsciously I piled on more emotional protection when family and friends turned their backs on us as my child moved from just presenting full-time to transitioning to living full-time as her identified gender, a girl. The pain was immense. The loss, hard to make sense of yourself, let alone explain to small children.

Slowly I began to realize that the hiding I was doing, even as insignificant as it seemed, was unnecessary. If people wanted to find me, they would. As a mom, I am in protector mode 24/7 so that will never change. I trust myself. I will always put my best foot forward with regards to their safety and well-being, my only true concern, and now I’ve slowly started to accept that the light isn’t a threat. It is a freedom.

I showed up to the television studio unsure of what I was going to say and waited patiently as everyone busily prepared around me. My hands fiddled with my glasses as I listened to my kirtan music through headphones. I nervously put them on and then I took them off as if I was testing the waters. The more Krishna Das sang in my ears, the less I tugged at my glasses. At one point I took them off, slipped them into my handbag and then I totally let them go. Even before the producer finished asking me if I was ready I was nodding my head up and down, steady in my resolve. I had successfully taken off my glasses.

Just like that afternoon when my child confidently walked outside the front door ready to go to the concert, I smiled as I sat down in my seat, raised my head proudly and looked straight into the lens.

“What if she just starts feeling like a boy again?” they inquire, usually with a look on their face that stresses that what I am about to say is critical for their piece of mind. Sometimes the questioner impatiently puts their hand to their chin and squint their eyes as if that makes whatever comes next easier to swallow. Other times they lean in with urgency or lean back with a chill and fold their arms tightly to their shoulders bracing themselves with a self-hug, as if what comes out of my mouth next is some seriously classified information. Regardless of the style, the folks that ask this question are more often than not hinged on my answer.

I have to admit here that I do not have a poker face. If you know me, you’ll start laughing here. It’s true. After dozens of failed attempts at stifling my extremely expressive facial expressions (and throw in hand gestures for good measure) I’ve just come to accept it as a part of me. What can you do? What you see is what you get with me, for better or worse.

“Okay,” I reply and then I just stop. My friends have reported that I usually say this rather quickly, with a smile, one raised eyebrow and a slight shrug. You can imagine the responses…

“What do you MEAN okay?”

“What’s OKAY about that?”

“No, but what are you going to DO?”

It’s about this time I slip into caregiver mode, a “shhhhh… there, there dear…” vibe seeps out of me as I recognize that this person in front of me needs more. More than my okay-ness with my child’s gender identity. More than my casual attitude toward our lives shifting drastically in another direction. More than my quiet acceptance of the future. More.

That’s how some very long and very meaningful conversations begin, with well-intentioned questions, and I love it. The dialogue opens up channels of thought, for both of us. Talking always takes us to the next step. I’m not saying it resolves everything. We may get to a place where we disagree more than we did before, but it’s a jumping off point. That’s exciting stuff to me. I guess that’s why I like to do talks and open the floor up for discussion, to hear people’s thoughts. There is so much out there I’ve yet to learn and I feel ready.

“None of us know what will happen next,” is usually what I return to when I’m talking with someone who wants me to shine up my crystal ball. It’s a fact we can all agree on and relate to, even if it feels foreign at first. It’s an aspect of parenting that we all face, no matter what our family looks like. Parents cannot plan out their children’s lives, no matter how hard we try. If we work like hell to shape them into what we want, we will most often fail. Children are not under our control. I see parents as guides for life. Be ready for your camper to go off course once in a while, it’s their journey.

Inevitably life will take its course and we can hop on the ride or sit by the sidelines planning our next move for eternity. Ditch the map! Enjoy, make the most of it and if you can, share love along the way.

Body scanners. The buzz about our airport getting the x-ray machines whirled around my brain. What does that mean for Hope? Her ticket has her chosen name on it and we’ve never had any trouble traveling before, but what happens when she walks through a scanner and her anatomy doesn’t match her gender presentation and name? Would we be pulled aside? Would they separate us? Would the paperwork I carry from our therapist and pediatrician satisfy them? I’ve heard that if you decline the scanner, you automatically get a pat down by TSA. Not the option my private daughter would feel comfortable with either so what are our options?

Each scenario played out differently in my brain. Best case – maybe it wouldn’t be an issue? Perhaps she’d confidently walk through the scanner like everyone else and that’s it. Alternatively she could walk through and they could question her identity. I rehearsed my responses. I’d quickly provide her paperwork and they would accept it. Hope might be aware of it, but I could prepare her for that. Just as easily though, they could make a big deal of it. Would they? Do they? The possibilities seemed to spring from one side of my reasoning, the more logical side, to the more desperate, fearful side and then back again.

Each day brings new challenges. Yesterday it was how to find a ballet leotard that didn’t reveal too much. Today it is explaining body scanners to my kids. Tomorrow it will be something different. We can’t complain, really. Everyone has something that they have to work at or cope with. Everyone. Still, my heart feels heavy for every person who has to share their private struggles openly with the world, like my transgender daughter.

It’s not just the way people “read” her in terms of her gender, but the severe disconnect in her life, similar to other trans individuals. In many cases their birth certificate doesn’t match their chosen name. Their gender marker is wrong on their license. They have to explain their transition daily to just about everyone from the dentist’s office to the mail carrier. They have to educate family and friends about how they truly feel. Their body doesn’t match their brain. And it’s mostly public, right out there for everyone to see. Just imagine the courage it takes to pursue the life you know to be true. How much fortitude, perseverance and tenacity it takes to eliminate the disconnect. I’m continually inspired.

As I zipped the bulging suitcase shut I repeated a little mantra that goes like this… I stand in my truth. Every word and action will be there when I need it. As long as I have my breath I can handle any situation. And I repeated it until I believed it to be true. And it is. Whatever challenge arises, I know I have what it takes to figure it out, to keep the kids safe and to be true to myself. That’s all I need.

Such a long lesson in patience my friends, but isn’t that the way life leads us where we need to go? Recently I met with a lovely reporter who interviewed me months ago about the book and commented that I seemed much more at ease now. I had to admit to her that I didn’t know how I’d feel when the book was released. Would I summon the courage necessary to charge forward and spread this powerful message? Would I feel exposed on some basic level and feel paralyzed to move forward? I didn’t know. I was still thinking.

On one hand I feel like a warrior, ready to talk, discuss and educate, even with those people who do not agree with our perspective. On the other hand I feel like it is a giant leap, especially when I try to keep our real names and identities unknown. I think most families with gender non-conforming kids, especially those that have transitioned may feel this way. Visibility vs. Invisibility. Ever since Hope’s transition and I started writing this blog I have stepped back in many aspects of my life. I needed to. I abandoned my former career, a certain level of notoriety and even some friends that made my social circle as wide open as I wanted. I went from being in the center to walking away. Gladly.

During this time I’ve done some serious soul-searching, seeking awareness, even enlightenment, as I open myself to every single thing that scares me. While keeping my children safe was my primary focus during the hiatus, I think I took the chance to get away myself, just to think. I look back at all those mornings on the beach this summer when I watched those two carefree souls frolicking and splashing. I know now that I was gearing up. I was charging the battery. Getting strong. All that together time made us closer than ever and we needed it, probably more than we’ll ever know. I needed to be quiet in my thoughts for some time to really feel through what it was that I was after. Define what I was called to do.

Now I sit on my living room couch gazing at wood in the hearth just begging for fire. I feel like that wood, ready for the spark. Ready to begin. I know what I’m after – to tell our story, to raise awareness, to make this world a better place for my children and all children. I’ve had my time to think and rest, and now I’m ready to get to work.

Have you shared your message of hope?

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.

You might be sitting there shouting at the screen, “Ummm… hate to break it to you Jen, but New Years has long gone,” and admittedly you are right. But even though January 1 seems like a memory by now, I have begun again. Started fresh. Made my resolutions to do good things and turned the page in so many ways. Doesn’t the possibility of a new year start at any time? There aren’t any hard, fast rules that I know of… and if there were, I’d break them anyway.

Today I sat in front of the laptop and finally watched and read about the documentary entitled Her Name Was Steven. Incredibly moving. It was sent to me months ago, but for some reason I was ready today. It struck me when she said that she, then he, confided in his wife that he needed to wear women’s clothes. The wife said she “played along” and dressed him up. Giggling, she said, and brought him to the living room to look in the mirror. “There she is,” he said. And his wife said she stopped laughing.

Steven said he battled that person in his life for so long and then that day he tried on the clothes she was released – born. Can you imagine someone having to hide their true feelings for decades? Running away from their truth? Tears fell from my eyes as I watched his anguish.

There was some footage about his, now her, son writing a note to her saying she was the best dad in the world and that no matter what people said or what she looked like, he would love her. The child sat smiling approvingly, but Susan was so emotional she couldn’t continue. All this time she hid from her authentic self because she thought that no one would accept her. And they do. The power of love is astonishing.

I guess we move in a personal timeframe, the path unbeknownst to us. Only divinely right. One day something happens and life is forever changed. Like a snap of your fingers. Perhaps the times when we feel off track, our true path could be around the next corner. Maybe in our running away (or in my procrastinating) we are getting closer every day. Just in our own way.