On March six 2017, I was told I would be getting a son. With a new child, most parents get enough notice to buy blue clothes, to choose names, to tell people their son will be arriving, but I got just two days’ notice.
My son Nate is transgender, meaning his innermost sense of self – his gender identity that speaks as a boy – didn’t match the physical body he was born with.
On the day of his birthday, I was told my 15-year-old son would walk down the stairs and be known as Nathaniel or Nate.
In the same time that I gained my son, I also lost my daughter. My dreams for my strong, intelligent, young daughter were gone.
I always had a feeling Nate might one day come out. He was always a little different growing up. He preferred to play with worm farms, while his sisters played Disney Princesses. He preferred to wear boys clothes, refused to wear dresses, and requested Superman and Batman costumes on his Christmas wish list. Nate wanted to cut his hair short from about the age of 10 and he didn't seem to mind when people gendered him as a boy.
Like anyone's first year of parenting, it's been tough. We’ve had tears and lots of sleepless nights -probably more for Nate than for me.
Nate says he still gets misgendered which he struggles with. Source: Insight
When Nate came out as trans, I was also going through a marriage separation but was forced to put that aside. I spent the next day grieving the loss of my daughter and then I swung into action. Little did I know that advocating for a trans child would be so exhausting and frustrating!
I set up Nate with support groups, assisted him to pick out a snappy new wardrobe, got him a haircut, booked him appointments at the Children's Hospital, locked in ongoing counselling (10 sessions on a mental health care plan is nowhere near enough for a transgender teenager), changed his name and gender with Medicare, got a new passport and new birth certificate (though in New South Wales you can't change your gender on a birth certificate without surgery).
We also had to deal with Nate’s Catholic school. When Nate first told us he wanted to transition, the school had no idea how to navigate a child who wanted to change their gender - never mind do it in just two days.
We were told, “Can't we wait until next term to do this?” and, “How about we just tell his close friends? The rest of the school doesn't need to know.”
We finally got to the next term and Nate turned up on the first day feeling proud in his boy’s uniform. I got a phone call from the school asking to meet with me. They wanted to know why he was wearing a boy’s uniform to school and said the school community were uncomfortable with it. We had agreed Nate would wear the new uniform, but the information was never passed to the new principal.
The dreams I had for my daughter have been replaced with new dreams for my son. And just as much as I loved my daughter, I love my son.
Nate left the Catholic system and we enrolled him into a state school - a fresh start where no one would know him as anything but Nate. I presented his new birth certificate, marked the male box on the enrolment form and handed everything in.
When the school noticed Nate’s birth certificate said female, I was called and told they couldn't enrol him as a boy in their system. Even after giving them the attorney general's guidelines on gender diversity, the school commented, "Well it says 'sex' on our forms, meaning biological sex at birth, whereas the guidelines state gender, so we need to enrol him as female.”
All of that was said while wearing their rainbow lanyards in support of the LBGTQIA+ community.
Six months later at the new school, Nate still gets mis-gendered as a girl at school and is always wondering if it’s because he’s enrolled as female.
Part of our journey has also involved Nate’s medical transition. Puberty blockers, which suppress the physical changes that come with puberty, are usually the first step in medical care for transgender kids.
My ex-husband and I decided to have Nate’s eggs stored before he went on the puberty blockers, it was in case he may want to one day have biological children - an insurance policy. So at a cost of $10,000, and with Nate’s consent, we got this done. It took about 14 days in total. My grandchildren are already costing me a fortune and they aren’t even conceived yet!
Though we have amazing friends and family who have been supportive, there are also others who have no idea what being transgender means. No, this is not “a phase.” And no, my sister, who is also transgender, did not “influence him to do this.”
I see other parents out there whose children have transitioned and have done it slowly. Nate’s approach was like ripping off a Band-Aid - quick and painful, but it's done.
My son has been living now as Nate for 14 months. There are still occasions that cause me to tear up, like seeing Facebook memories before he transitioned or hearing someone with his old name. But things have settled into a new normal for us.
I have a new, amazingly supportive partner and Nate has established a great circle of friends that support him too. He’s developed an interest for acting and even scored himself a small role in an upcoming TV series. He's started a traineeship at a law firm whilst he finishes Year 11 and 12 and is aiming to become a lawyer.
The dreams I had for my daughter have been replaced with new dreams for my son. And just as much as I loved my daughter, I love my son.
