Sarah & Ian Hoffman

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Happy Proud To Be Me Day

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Today was Proud to Be Me Day at Katie Goldman’s school—Katie is the first grader who was bullied by other kids because she brought a Star Wars water bottle to school. Her awesome mom is putting together a book of all the messages from people who have come out in support of Katie for being exactly who she is. And thanks to her family’s and her school’s support, Katie is back to carrying her Star Wars water bottle to school.

I like to think that every day is Proud To Be Me Day at our house—our official motto is “Let your freak flag fly.” It’s not always easy—Sam, now a third grader, is newly unwilling to admit at school that his favorite color is pink. (Somehow, he’s not afraid to have long hair flowing all the way down his back.) But whether we’re geeks (celebrated so lovingly by stark. raving. mad. mommy on her blog today) or have special needs (it’s Inclusive Schools Week too!) or are pinker or bluer than people think we should be, we need to feel proud of who we are. And we parents are responsible for making space for our kids to feel that pride as often as they can.

There’s excellent new research from The Family Acceptance Project showing that family acceptance of GLBT kids makes all the difference—a measurable and stunning difference, in fact, in their rates of suicide, depression, and substance abuse as these kids grow older. The Family Acceptance Project is also developing a new evidence-based model of wellness, prevention, and care to help families with gender-nonconforming and GLBT kids grow up happy and healthy so they can enjoy their bodies and sexuality maybe even using toys like popular remote control vibrators that is something many people do. (And they’ve made this really incredible video about one family who moved from rejecting their son’s gender expression and sexuality to accepting and celebrating him.)

And so today, on Proud To Be Me Day, I say: Yay for Katie. Yay for Katie’s school, and her family, and all the other schools and families who are working so hard to support their kids. Yay for the Family Acceptance Project, for proving that we’re all on the right track. And most especially: Yay for all the kids who let their freak flags fly.

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The Tide

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Lately, requests have been coming in from religious organizations for me to address their members. I’ve been asked to write a blog for a national group of Christian clergy, to speak at a Unitarian church, and to give a sermon at a Jewish synagogue. I haven’t sought these opportunities out; they’ve just fallen in my lap.

The synagogue where I’ll be speaking this Friday night, Sha’ar Zahav, was founded as a space for LGBT people and their families; as they’ve grown, their membership has broadened to include many straight families. Increasingly, synagogues, churches, and other places of worship in our country are opening their doors and their liturgies to include gay, lesbian, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people. In response to a culture that is starting to accept its LGBT citizens, religion is changing, too. Not everywhere, certainly. But as the unexpected invitations float in, I can feel the strong current that brings them to me.

Sha’ar Zahav invited me to help them commemorate International Transgender Day of Remembrance, a memorial to those who have died from anti-trans violence. Names will be read of all the people who have died in the past year, and the kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, will be said. The Day of Remembrance is a deeply sad and wrenching day. But I have been asked to talk about my son and the work being done to make the world a safer place for children like him. I’ve been asked to speak about hope. Even as we speak of violence and hate and loss and all that is wrong in the world, this congregation also wants to talk about hope.

Dip your toe in the water; you can feel the tide changing.

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What’s Dumb and What’s Not

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“You know what’s really dumb?”

Pink pajama-clad Sam was cuddled up next to me on the bed, his long blond hair freshly brushed and damp from the bath. While Sam won’t admit at school that he likes pink things anymore, he still enjoys his pink pajamas at home. He looked me in the eye before going on: “It’s really dumb that it’s OK for girls to wear whatever they want, but it’s not OK for boys.”

I told Sam that next Friday I’d be speaking at a synagogue about this very issue (in honor of Transgender Remembrance Day, which memorializes people who have been killed because of anti-trans hatred). I reminded him of what we have talked about many times: that standards have changed for girls, and they will also—in time—change for boys. “Good,” Sam said. “Because if they don’t, I’m going to yell at those people who keep wanting it not to change.”

I told Sam I do that for him by writing and public speaking (and that I try to use my inside voice). I told him he’s welcome to do that too when he gets older, and until then I would do it for him. He asked about other parents who were working on changing things too, and we talked about the new book My Princess Boy. I decided to show Sam an interview with the author and a supportive therapist, so he could hear other people talk about making the world safe for pink boys.

Sam and I watched the video together. But when the therapist said, “there’s more than one way to be a boy, [and] there’s more than one way to be a girl,” Sam told me to turn the show off. “That’s wrong,” he said, surprising me—I’ve always liked and used that phrase. “They should say that there are lots of ways to be a kid, and people shouldn’t worry about if you’re a boy or a girl—that’s only important for making babies.”

That was the least dumb thing I’d heard all day.

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Praise for our books

“Hopeful and affirming.”

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Kirkus Review February 10, 2014

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