My son – Let’s call him Elliot for privacy’s sake – was born in 2007. For four days the doctor tried to induce labor, to no avail. During what was to be the last exam before they stopped trying to induce labor for a few days, my water broke. Several hours later, as the nurse was checking my progress, my husband made a joke. I laughed and out came Elliot, right into the nurse’s hand, without a single push.
Elliot was a wonderful baby. He was very serious. By 3, he could converse with adults easily. By 4, he could read. At age 7, he read all 7 of the Harry Potter books in 3 months. My husband and I weren’t sure that he would read the last book without having nightmares, but, I’m a librarian by education and I quite simply am never going to tell a child they can’t read a book that they have the ability to read. He was ok. He cried, just as I did, at the ending of book 6. He rode that wave of grief all the way through book 7, and the Battle of Hogwarts. This awoke in him a steadfast advocate of justice. No injustice was too small to ignite righteous outrage in this boy.
When he got to middle school, he was accepted into the National Junior Honor Society (NJHS). He kept his grades up and performed twice the number of required hours of community service. He did everything from picking trash up off the road, cleaning the local Democratic Party office where I volunteered, and collecting peanut butter for a local food bank.
When the invitation came for the NJHS award ceremony, Elliot did not want to go. It was a formal dinner, you see. He really hated wearing dresses. He didn’t understand why he was supposed to wear one. He was a guy, and guys wear suits. The problem was, everyone saw him as a girl.
You see, my son Elliot was assigned the female gender at birth. Throughout his life, he focused on doing all of the things he loved, mostly wearing t-shirts and comfortable pants. He knew, from the time he went to pre-school and got sent to the girls bathroom, that everyone had it all wrong. But he didn’t know the words or have the courage to tell anyone.
Elliot went to that NJHS banquet wearing a suit. Parents and students alike that had known him his entire life agreed: he had never looked happier. He was glowing. He was exuberant and when the kids started to tease him, with twinkles of amusement in their eyes, he laughed deep belly laughs that echoed off the school gym walls. “You look like a Presidential Intern!” one kid said, while another picked up his trumpet and made a decent attempt at playing “Hail to the Chief.”
From that day forward, Elliot changed. He had always had a boyish taste in clothes, but it was not just that. One night, just a few weeks after wearing the suit, he asked us to sit down at the table.
“Here it comes,” I thought. “She is going to come out.”
And he did. “Ok. I’m just going to say this. My – my – my pronouns are he/him and I’m transgender.” His shoulders shook with emotion. A tear sprouted from his eye. “And I’d like to be called Elliot.”
His father and I both reached out. I placed my hand on his, and my husband placed his hand on his shoulder. “Ok,” his dad said.
“Ok, honey,” I said.
We talked for about an hour. We asked questions, he asked questions. We told him we would support him absolutely. We found a doctor that provides gender-affirming care. Many people who call gender-affirming care “child abuse” think that means surgery and hormone treatment. They’re wrong. Mostly it’s just a doctor that treats you like a human if you’re a teenage boy who happens to be going through trouble with his periods. It’s a doctor that swabs your throat for strep without any comment about gender at all. And when the time comes, it’s a doctor that helps the patient when time comes to transition and live the life they’ve always dreamed of.
I’ve lived in Texas long enough to know that half the state has decided they hate my son, and me by extension. Hell, half of my extended family proudly condemns anyone on the LGBTQ spectrum. I have done my best to shield Elliot from this, but there is only so much I can do.
The day I read about Abbott’s order, mandating doctors and teachers report to Child Protective Services the parents of any transgender children, I was full of fear and righteous outrage. The state wants to have the ability to investigate my child’s private parts to make sure that we haven’t altered them. They want to look at their medical records.
I imagine that this enforcement will lead to, somewhere in Texas, a child pulled out of their family’s home by CPS until the case can go up the appeals court. A private group for parents of transgender children in Texas rallied together to share GoFundMe’s for families that fear for their children and need to flee from the state as soon as possible. Elliot came home and told me that one of his teachers promised to never, ever report him. Imagine a child needing to hear that! At an age where every child is finding their place in the world, Texas Republicans through word and deed tell these kids they don’t have one.
Last month, Children’s Hospital in Dallas closed their Genecis clinic to new patients – the only clinic in the southwest that had a gender-affirming care clinic. Conservative Texas politicians and activists targeted the clinic, going after the hospital system’s board members with protests and accusations of child abuse.
Had they asked, they’d know that the Genecis clinic did not, at any age, provide medicine or procedures that are irreversible. Trans children are often given puberty blockers or hormones that stop being effective if they miss a dose.
There is no abuse going on. Texas doctors are doing their best to give these children the gender-affirming care they need because Transgender children have sky-high suicide rates. Simply seeing them and treating them with kindness is all the physicians need to do to uphold their oath to do no harm.
The decision to close this clinic does clear harm to children. It’s evil, and it’s cruel. How can Republicans claim to be for small government when they want to investigate a kid’s genitals?
Texans need to put a stop to this obnoxious race to be the most racist, bigoted, mean governor in the country.
My family will be ok. I can work from anywhere in the world, and we have the means to pick up and move somewhere safe. But I don’t want to. I am Texas. Elliot is Texas. We shouldn’t have to leave because the government doesn’t like the way we parent. It’s not abuse to let your kid explore who they are. It’s not abuse to let your child live life the way they were meant to, the way that makes them happy. Trans children harm no one.
I should also mention that there is a huge right-wing movement in North Texas right now to ban books. Any book that involves LGBTQ subject matter, or even just characters that happen to be LGBTQ and also do things like save the world or make a new friend. They’re trying to ban books about Black history. Books like Peaceful Fights for Equal Rights, We the Students, Supreme Court Cases for and About Students, and This Book is Anti-Racism. We can’t have kids reading this kind of liberal nonsense, now, can we!?
I implore each and every Texan that reads this to please contact your state rep, your US Rep, your local school board, city council, literally anyone in power in your local area, and condemn this ridiculous order from Abbott. Throw in opposition to banned books, please. School board meetings are open to the public and you have a right to be heard, even if they won’t let you read the books that tell you what your rights are.
