My son is a transboy. He started using masculine pronouns when he was 2 years old. At first I thought it was internalized misogyny, or misplaced older brother worship, but it wasn’t. He’s a boy. He lives as his preferred gender, he goes to school and ballet lessons and soccer, all as the boy he is. He’s a happy kid. He’s six years old.
His twin sister is a vegetarian. She figured out where meat comes from when she was 5, and refused to eat any more of it. I don’t try to sneak meat into what she eats, instead I make sure she has a nutritionally balanced diet without compromising her principles.
Here’s the thing I’ve realized: these small people do not belong to me, they belong to themselves. My job isn’t to smash them into a box that doesn’t fit and never will, it’s to guide them through a sometimes hostile universe toward their best selves. I'm learning how love works, and what obligations you have to it.
Ask me questions. I’m listening.
(subject line provided by their brilliant, amazing father, Sam Cha)
Dawn Gabriel
[email protected]
Cambridge, MA