Some of you know this already but on August 2nd, my oldest child told all of the 500+ people on she is friends with Facebook that she is transgender and would like to go by Ryan from now on. From this point on, I will refer to Kathy as Ryan and as a he. I, at least, had some warning this was coming with Ryan telling me back in June that he was gender-fluid - explained as "25% of the time I identify female, 25% of the time I identify male, and 50% of the time I don't identify with either gender." Then he spent all of the summer as Ryan when he was away from home at the Careers in Medicine program in Boston, Senior High Camp at Cedar Glen, the Honors Academy at the University of Alabama, a camp counselor at Younger Elementary Camp, and during the Sierra Service Project mission trip. Some of you may have run into Ryan during these weeks and wondered if we knew and maybe what we were thinking.
For those of you who don't know what transgender is or want to read a bit to make sure you do, I suggest this link geared towards teens that describes what transgender is and a little more: http://kidshealth.org/teen/sexual_health/guys/transgender.html#cat20016
For a little more history, Ryan has been questioning his gender identity for over 6 months. He never was a girly girl and has not been happy with his appearance for many years, but I did not see this coming. He says that does not feel right looking like a girl (or experiences gender dysphoria). He feels better being called Ryan,dressing, looking like, and being treated as a boy. All of his teachers are calling him Ryan now (or trying to). He may be a boy that still has more female friends than male and enjoys show tunes more than your average guy, but he says he feels a lot better being a boy. He has had a couple of appointments with a gender specialist. The gender specialist agreed with many other items I have read recently and they all pretty much say, if your child is feeling better as the opposite gender, it is not likely to go away. I just finished reading a short book called Helping Your Transgender Teen: A Guide for Parents It was helpful to understanding where Ryan is coming from and it is quite possible that this is not a phase but the beginning of a transition to being male that could end up with physical means of changing his body.
The biggest thing to know is that Ryan is still the same highly intelligent, caring teen who has the same hopes and dreams of college as before, to go into a health-related field working with children. Please support him the best that you can. I do not expect all of you to understand or accept this now or maybe even ever, but I could no longer act like I was hiding this fact from people. We openly support our child and will be behind him in this journey where ever it leads. Right now, John and I have two sons and one daughter. Jonathan and Joanna both know and are adjusting to it the best they can. We took 3 weeks to tell Joanna, it had to take time to sink in first. Starting this past Monday (after being told on Sunday night), Joanna actually says, "Hi, Ryan!" every time she sees him. She says it helps her to remember. John and I have been calling him Ryan in our communications around him and not around him though we still slip up.
Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have. You can also respectfully approach Ryan about it as well, especially via Facebook messaging.
Blessings and love,
Jennifer
