Somewhere in a deep-South town with no stoplights but lots of Confederate flags, in a double-wide trailer next to an evangelical family with anti-gay bumperstickers on their white van, live the Simms family: Tina, her husband Bill, their daughter Madison, their son Travis, and Tina's child from a previous relationship, an eight-year old biological boy Brandon who has always known he is a girl. Always. As a toddler, he draped towels or scarves on his head to approximate long hair. As soon as he could, he dressed in his mom's clothes, drew himself as a girl, loved Barbie and mermaids, hated his penis which he tucked under himself, and said of being born a boy, "God made a mistake."
His behavior might be familiar to anyone who saw Ma Vie en Rose, but it knocked his mother Tina for a loop. She started taking him to therapists when he was four. Eventually Tina's mother taped a Barbara Walters 20/20 segment on trans children, and, discovering Brandon was not the only child in the world with gender assignment issues, Tina bought a computer. She joined a listserv for parents of trans kids, and later, she got the whole family to a national conference for parents of young trans people. A seven year-old holding a balloon puppy approaches Brandon:
“Are you transgender?”
“What’s that?” Brandon asked.
“A boy who wants to be a girl.”
“Yeah. Can I see your balloon?”
At the conference Tina meets a host of experts, becomes friends with a lesbian mom from Seattle, and learns about a drug option for Brandon. Puberty blockers stop some of the changes that would have to be reversed with expensive surgery later in his life. Other parents discuss their children's success with the drugs. Huge decisions loom.
Did I mention Tina and Bill are both army vets? And that Bill doesn't see things the way Tina is trying to? He says, "A boy's a boy and a girl's a girl." Also: "You're ruining his f---ing life!" The evangelical neighbors do unto others by refusing to carpool with them anymore. Brandon loses his best friend, a girl.The whole family faces trade-offs between honesty and acceptance.
Hanna Rosin has written a great, comprehensive article on an overlooked subject. Make time to read it. And give the Atlantic more props, following last year's stellar piece "The Kingdom in the Closet" on gay life in Saudi Arabia.
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