- This is an adapted excerpt from Kate Brookes' "Transister: Raising Twins in a Gender-Bending World."
- She's an award-winning TV reporter turned producer who's interviewed Beyoncé and Barbara Walters.
I wasn't surprised that Gabriella wanted to tell more than a handful of her new friends about her "secret." I understood her desire for transparency. She wanted her new friends to know her, really know her. But I was concerned.
The problem was that she wanted to be in complete control of who knew what. In her eight-year-old framework, her school friends seemed like a very controlled group. But New York City is very small in certain circles. Some of these kids would splinter off to different middle schools or high schools and attend camps and afterschool programs with kids we didn't know — kids whose paths she would cross after puberty, when that sweet transparency might evaporate. And there would be no un-ringing this bell.
"Hon, have you told lots of kids at your new school that you used to be Gideon?" I asked her one night after dinner.
"Not a lot," she replied. "I'm only telling my closest friends."
And then she rattled off a list of girls she'd told. I knew most of them, and I'd already spoken to most of their moms. But a few caught me off guard.
"They're all your 'closest' friends?"
"Yup, why?"
"It's just that the more people you tell, love, the more people will know."
"Well, they all promised not to tell anyone," she said defensively.
"I'm not saying you did anything wrong, G. I just don't want you to be upset if more people find out."
"They won't, Mom!" she screamed. "They promised they wouldn't tell!"
"I know, Gabriella. And I bet they'll try really hard to keep it a secret. But it can be hard for eight-year-olds to keep secrets sometimes. And I don't want you to be sad if people who you haven't told find out."
The anger left her. "Okay, Mama."
I sometimes let her secret slip
I'll never really be sure who knows what, but I can guarantee more people know Gabriella is trans than she thinks know. I knew I couldn't expect the kids she entrusted with her secret not to slip on occasion, because I slipped on occasion. Just a week earlier, she and I had been at a playground with another one of her new school friends and her mom.
"Mommy, why can't you put my hair in a French braid like Zoe's?" G had asked.
"Yikes, kiddo, you know your mom sucks at hair stuff," I'd said with a laugh. "Want to watch a YouTube tutorial with me later?"
It would be like the old days, I thought. When G would watch hairstyling videos and dream of having long locks.
"I could put your hair in a French braid, Gabriella," Zoe's mom offered.
"Could you?" G asked eagerly.
"Of course! Come on over." She motioned for G to come sit in front of her.
"You know what, G," I said quickly, "why don't you and Zoe hit the swings for a few minutes, and then Jill can French braid your hair?"
"But she just said she'd do it," G whined.
"And she will," I insisted. "After you two go on the swings."
"Fine," G grumbled. "Let's go, Zoe."
"So, not sure if you knew this already, but Gabriella has extensions," I whispered to Jill after the girls ran off. "I didn't want you to freak out when you felt her hair. Not that you would, but ... "
"Ahh, no problem," Jill said, looking at Gabriella and Zoe on the swings. "I can still put her hair in a French braid, even with the extensions." And then her expression shifted, like she was trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together.
"Gabriella is transgender," I blurted out. "She was Gideon until she started school this year. We got the extensions because she thought she needed longer hair to be a girl, and she got tired of waiting for it to grow."
Momentary silence.
"Wow, the extensions are really beautiful," Jill said.
I wondered if the "wow" was really about the extensions.
"Well, the extensions turned out a bit more mullet-like than we were aiming for." I chuckled. "But Gabriella seems happy enough, so I guess that's a start."
Jill just looked at the girls and smiled. "She does seem pretty happy."
"Do you think Zoe knows?" I asked Jill. "That Gabriella is trans."
"I don't think so," Jill replied. "And I certainly didn't know. Though to be honest, I'm not sure Zoe even knows what transgender is."
"Yeah, Gabriella didn't know what it was either," I admitted. "Until she realized she was trans."
We talked a little more about G's transition before the girls ran over.
"Come here, girlfriend," Jill said to G. "Why don't I braid your hair now?"
"Definitely." Gabriella grinned. "Thank you so much!"
Having a trans daughter meant letting go of my narrative
Gabriella left the playdate happy; I left wondering if I should have told Jill about Gabriella. She and Zoe were not super close friends; neither were me and Zoe's mother. But I felt I needed to say something to protect my daughter (or at least her hair).
Or maybe I just didn't want to "get caught." Similar to the way Gabriella liked to control who knew what about her, I was realizing that I did too. I wanted to control the narrative. Her narrative, admittedly, but mine too. And it threw me off when I didn't have the opportunity to craft the story.
At a birthday party that fall, a handful of parents I'd never met before were in attendance.
"Have you considered joining the diversity committee?" some woman who I'd never laid eyes on before asked me.
"No, I hadn't really thought about it," I told her, my smile frozen.
"It's just, you might be able to offer a different perspective than most of the other parents." And then she inched closer to me and whispered, "You know, different than parents of cisgender kids." She read my face and put her hand on my arm. "I'm a therapist. I could tell from the first day of school that Gabriella was trans. You know — the hair, the long legs."
I wanted to say, "It's funny — as a therapist, I'd think you'd have more tact than to tell a mom you've never met that her transgender daughter stuck out like a sore thumb. Do patients really pay you?" But I could tell I was being overly sensitive and instead just quickly excused myself.
Then I looked around the room, wondering who knew about Gabriella and who didn't. Was it "news" that a trans kid recently joined the school? Did parents talk about my daughter? Did they talk about me?
Sometimes my child's third grade felt like my third grade all over again.