Here We Are
A Mama Dragons Storytelling Project
Roughly 71% of people don't think they have ever met a transgender person. The truth is, many of them have. Transgender people are your coworkers, your neighbors, the parent next to you at pickup, the barista who remembers your order. They aren't hiding. They're just living their lives, which means they often blend right in.
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But because most people don't realize that, they meet a headline instead of a person. A debate instead of a neighbor. A stereotype instead of someone's kid.
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We know something different. We know the truth, because we live it every day, as the mothers of transgender kids.
Here's the truth: our children are not a controversy. They are artists. Athletes. Hikers. Sneaker collectors. Best friends. They chase the things that light them up. They are, simply, kids and young adults building a life, the same as anyone else's child.
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There's more to the story than the world usually tells.
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No parent starts out expecting their child to transition. But every one of us started out with something that turns out to matter more: we loved our kids, completely, from day one.
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What we've learned is that love was never supposed to come with conditions. We adjust, we learn, we grow, and our love simply continues, exactly as steady as it always was. That's just parenting, done the way we meant to do it all along.
Transgender people don't live in isolation, and neither do their families. They live in households full of dinners, carpool lines, and inside jokes. Loving a transgender child doesn't shrink a family's world. It opens it.
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And then there's the part people rarely expect: the joy. The relief of watching your child walk into a room like they finally belong there. The pride of watching them chase what lights them up, unguarded. The ordinary, wonderful Tuesdays that come after acceptance, when the biggest news of the day is just what's for dinner.
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This is the part of the story worth telling.