Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We received an email just before Thanksgiving a few years ago. The subject said, “Important,” and in the message our daughter, at college in Wisconsin, told us that when she came home she would be wearing men’s clothing. Our child no longer wanted to be called a girl, or be described with female pronouns. Over the next few weeks we saw our child’s breasts were bound and hair buzzed off. We didn’t quite understand the difference between gender and sexuality, but learned quickly and allowed love to guide our parenting as our child transitioned from female to male. For transgender people and their families, coming out at the holidays has the added dimension of a visible change. We had to quickly adjust to a new name, new pronouns, and a child who looked quite different than we previously understood him to be. One of the hardest things I remember doing was returning the sparkly holiday sweater I’d purchased, and being asked the reason for the return. We were fortunate to find Greater Boston PFLAG’s support group for parents of transgender and gender non-conforming kids. (www.gbpflag.org.) Sharing stories with other parents who understood the issues and who were a little farther the process helped restore our hope that our child could have a happy life and enabled us to become the supportive and accepting parents we wanted to be. When kids come out, they’ve usually been thinking about it and struggling with who they are for a long time. For parents in can be like jumping on board a moving train. It took us a little while to catch up with our son, but it has been wonderful to share his journey.