When I was five, as my parents and I sat at home for supper, I told them that I was born wrong.
They silently left the room for what seemed an eternity. My folks said that I could tell them anything, but I was afraid. Could this be the line that erases their love?
Mom re-entered the room. She sat and said, as she unrolled a magazine with Christine Jorgensen on the cover, “I don’t know if there are other people like you who were born a girl and think they’re a boy. But this person was born a boy, grew up as a man, and finally became herself.” Mom continued. “If it’s okay for her now, by the time you grow up, I think it will be okay for you.”
From that point, my parents dually socialized me as a boy and a girl, just in case I became unsure. They didn’t have a handbook. They gave love. My parents did this 11 years before PFLAG’s founder, Jeanne Manford, marched in the Christopher Street Liberation Day March (New York Pride’s precursor). She was invited to march by her gay son Morty, who had been beaten for being gay. It was before young marchers asked her to create PFLAG meetings in church basements to guide their parents on raising their LGBTQ+ children, leading with love.
In these most challenging times, we need our best assets in rooms that would exclude us and in front of people who would erase us. Parents and grandparents are our most powerful assets because they most closely resemble the people we need to be educated or influenced. They have extra power because, other than their LGBTQ+ children, they most closely witness how we are helped or harmed, and they are invested in us and offer their own feelings and experiences.
Fortunately, reliable, relatable resources and communities exist, including the nation’s first and largest mom-created family asset for support, education and advocacy, PFLAG, which offers its 350+ chapters and 550,000 members and supporters in-person or virtual meetings, tools to take action, and actual community connection. Our loving families will win. Our battles are historic, and many of us have been here before. For me, this momentum is intertwined with a foundation of faith that moves me forward, and that link started in North Carolina.
My foundation blends family and faith, and it started here in North Carolina. Historically, first in Charlotte and later in Durham, The Freedom Center for Social Justice created an annual faith retreat for transgender people called Trans Faith and Action Network (TFAAN), a vision realized by Bishop Tonyia Rawls. It wove together a cloth that made every thread stronger. Weeks ago, the 13th class of trans seminarians, their faculty and other trans faith leaders celebrated in prayer, reflection, rest and rekindling ways to make the trans community more fortified, embraced and loved.
The surest efforts to reach the pinnacle of our potential involve finding and flexing our deepest sense of fulfillment. For trans and nonbinary people who are most fortunate, we might find ways to create both family and a sense of trust, of faith and of self-love.
With so much dissonance and high-volume noise intruding on the peaceful and prosperous lives we deserve, it takes tremendous determination and courage to dare to reach for and seize what our best dreams tell us should be ours.
Working at PFLAG National, I frequently experience loving families fighting for the freedoms their trans and nonbinary children deserve, seeking only what their other children are granted.
And the PFLAG network grew by 34 chapters just this year, reaching 350+ with 500,000 members and supporters nationwide.
Families can be fierce and the primary place of belonging, when we are fortunate enough to be born into, or adopted or fostered by ones who support us. Trans people are industrious and resilient. Many of us create our family if not granted one that supports us. Whether given or built, families are central and hold the key to affirming identity, finding safety and support, and helping navigate continuity of care. These are some of the challenges that families with trans kids face today.
For myself and many near me, the power of faith intermingles with the supportive force of family. Faith can give us a sense of foundational purpose. Congregations can create community, including or beyond family. Faith, whether belief in a higher power or individual spirituality, can also multiply strength to surmount adversity or struggle. I believe the most powerful strength is blending family and faith as we deliver on our promise to protect and love our trans and nonbinary youth.
I believe that the melodic harmony of family and faith can affirm a trans or nonbinary person living authentically and should be celebrated, protected and loved.