Love Lives Here

by Amanda Jette Knox

  I watched as my parents—and in particular, my mother—defended their decision. My mom would not bow to pressure or accept any of the dire predictions made by doctors. She was a fierce advocate from the minute she felt Mike kick inside her, and she insisted her son be treated with as much dignity and respect as any other child.

  As someone who cared too much about what my peers thought of me, I admired her ability to ignore people’s scorn. To her, Mike deserved the same opportunities as her other children, and she would do whatever she needed to make that happen. She set up a group called Integration Action, which lobbied the government and local school boards to integrate more special-needs children into regular classrooms. She felt it was beneficial for all kids to get to know and grow up with children with developmental disabilities. This, she hoped, would break down barriers and create a more inclusive world.

  Today, thanks in large part to the work my mom did, my brother works for the federal government on Parliament Hill. He’s respected by his colleagues and adored by everyone who meets him. Mike is a testament to how love and inclusion can make a meaningful difference.

  My mother wasn’t just my first glimpse into advocacy—she was a goddamned supernova.

  Now, whimpering to her in my car outside of Alexis’s school, I felt I’d never measure up. “I’m not strong enough, Mom. I froze up in there. It was awful. I didn’t stand up for her. I couldn’t get the words out. She needs better than I can give her.”

  “Listen to me,” she said in her best mom voice. “If there’s anyone who can advocate for her child, it’s you. Remember that time Jackson was really sick and they turned you away at the hospital, saying it was nothing? What did you do?”

  “I took him back in,” I said, sniffling. At two, Jackson had fallen ill with some worrisome symptoms. I went to the ER twice—the second time with my mom in tow—before they took me seriously. He ended up being treated for a rare autoimmune issue called Kawasaki disease, and spent a week in hospital and several weeks recovering at home.

  “Right,” she said. “You wouldn’t take no for answer. Have a good cry and get back up again. Don’t let anyone push you around. You’re the mother; she’s your child. Nobody knows her better than you. You’re going to make sure they give her what she needs. That’s the attitude you have to go in with. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  Moms are amazing.

  * * *

  —

  A few days later, once I was calm again, I wrote an articulate email to that administrator, copying all the important people, to address my concerns about what had transpired. Then I stated clearly what I would like to see happen for Alexis on the school front. I made sure that everyone knew I fully understood my child’s rights in the province of Ontario. I explained that Alexis would be dictating how quickly she transitioned at school—not them, me, or anyone else. I emphasized that I would be speaking directly to the teacher about Alexis, as I did with every other issue affecting my child.

  It was March break, but I got a reply within hours. We set up a meeting with the appropriate staff to work out how to properly support Alexis in her transition. They all did a fantastic job from that moment on, including that administrator.

  That was my first foray into advocacy as the mother of a transgender child, and while it was scary and gut-wrenching, it was also empowering. No small thanks to my own mom, I was starting to feel like the parent Alexis deserved.

  Alexis’s teacher, meanwhile, was in her final year before retirement and had never, to her knowledge, had a trans student before. But she jumped on board without hesitation. Her concern for Alexis was obvious. She asked her all the right questions: When would Alexis like to tell the other students? How would she go about doing that? What would she like help with? The teacher was a shining example of an educator willing to continue learning throughout her career.

  The school had offered training on trans issues in the past, but the principal set up a new session for the staff so everyone would be up to date on the latest information. The office changed Alexis’s name in the records system to reflect how she wanted to be addressed and what should go home on her report cards. The school had no change rooms—kids did gym in the clothes they wore from home—but it did have gendered washrooms. Because she was still early in her transition, Alexis didn’t feel ready to use the girls’ washroom, for fear of harassment and ridicule. But she didn’t feel comfortable in the boys’ washroom either. Ultimately, she was offered the use of a single-stall staff washroom in the front office. On the surface, this seemed like a good idea, but she was often stopped and questioned by employees who didn’t realize she was allowed to use it. Each time, she would have to explain that she had been given permission. Eventually, she stopped using the washroom during the day as much as possible.

  Before all this, I had considered myself an aware person, liberal and open-minded. Now, I was amazed by how much I didn’t know, and how many preconceived notions were in my head about issues I had no lived experience with. For years, I’d held strong opinions with nothing to back them up. Those are the most dangerous kind.

  In 2011, a couple in the Toronto area made headlines by choosing to raise their baby without a gender. The parents and older siblings knew what anatomy the child had, but they weren’t disclosing it to anyone. When Storm was old enough to declare a gender, friends and family would find out what that was. The press picked up the story, and it provoked international comment. Suddenly, everyone had an opinion on how baby Storm was being raised.

  I wish I could go back far enough in my Facebook history to find the posts I wrote condemning that family. But to sum it up, I said something along the lines of how confusing and harmful this would be to the child. I said boys and girls are different, whether we want to acknowledge that or not. I said it’s fine to let girls do more masculine things and boys do more feminine things, but we should call them what they are.

  Basically, I said all the same things people like to say to me on social media these days.

  Funny, that.

  A few months after Alexis came out, a friend who had been on the other side of that debate and spoke up in defence of the parents posted an update on the family to my Facebook feed and asked if my opinions had changed. Of course they had. I now had a living, breathing example of how rigid and wrong I had been about gender.

  In the update, the family stated they simply wanted Storm to figure things out without any expectations, so they removed those expectations entirely. I have no idea if this method is the best way, but I do know what didn’t work for one of my own kids: stuffing her into a gender box from the day she was born, based entirely on what was between her legs.

  My long-held beliefs about a lot of things started to slip away. I had once been the person arguing on parenting boards about breastfeeding, not sleep-training your baby and a host of other hotly debated topics. I was the captain of Team Righteous, and I had no problem telling others they were wrong for not doing everything the way I did. I likely hurt a lot of feelings and caused a lot of discomfort. But I didn’t think of that. I only thought about being right.

  Being right meant being a good mom. Being a good mom meant I didn’t feel like a failure in this one area of my life. Now I realized how wrong I had been about a big issue, however, and I had no choice but to own it. The evidence was right in front of me, in the form of an eleven-year-old girl I didn’t know I had.

  I had spent years trying to prop up my unstable sense of self. Everything I had built in life—my confidence, my career, my relationships, my parenting—rested upon shaky ground. I felt so insecure that I had to defend my position at all costs. I had to pick a hill and die on it if need be. Because if I wasn’t right about this one issue, perhaps I was wrong about everything. And if I was wrong about everything, maybe I—Amanda—was wrong. Unworthy of love. Complete personal failure.

  I guarded my opinions and my ego fiercely until the walls caved in on my foundation. Bruised and sheepish
, I had to dig myself out, dust myself off and do better in the future. This ability to push through, even when it feels awful, is called resiliency. It’s something I had been cultivating for a long time without even realizing it.

  It’s good thing too, because I was about to get a lesson on what happens when you’re the parent on the other side of all that judgment.

  * * *

  —

  Allison, the parent council chair I’d befriended in the schoolyard with my awesome speech about how awesome I am, became the ally I didn’t realize I needed. It turned out that the administrator who had worried about the reactions of other parents to Alexis’s transition was not entirely wrong. Parents can be a bigger problem than kids when it comes to acceptance. We’re a full generation behind in our learning and exposure to diversity.

  Some of the people in my generation were learning new things, but many were lagging—often by stubborn choice. As word of Alexis’s transition spread to people we knew at school, a few objected. One previously friendly woman who’d regularly attended parent council events with me abruptly stopped acknowledging my existence. And I don’t mean she would say a frosty hello and then move on. I mean that when I was talking to someone we both knew, Judgmental Mom would walk up to us, turn toward the other person with her back to me and start chatting as if I weren’t even there.

  Judgmental Mom did know I existed, however, because she told mutual friends that my spouse and I were damaging Alexis by allowing her to live as a girl. She felt that it went against God’s teachings, and that we were all unfortunate victims of a liberal agenda championed by the LGBTQ community. It wasn’t our fault; we were just doing what the so-called experts were telling us to do. But what we were doing was wrong because those doctors and counsellors were victims too. They were being bullied by the same activists who were leading countless families astray.

  I heard about her tirades on more than one occasion from people who’d witnessed them. Some would come to our defence, but it never changed her mind. She was convinced she was right. Gee, that sounds terribly familiar, Amanda. Maybe that’s what karma feels like.

  If not for a few wonderful women on the parent council, my family and I might have avoided school-related events entirely. But these women were determined to keep us a part of the school community, and they reminded us of upcoming events and openly demonstrated their support when we did come. They taught me what allies look like by always ensuring that we felt safe and welcomed whenever we stepped through the school doors.

  When dealing with difficult people, I often think of that long-ago encounter with Sylvia in the grocery store. In that moment, I chose kindness. But I didn’t do it for her. Hell, the girl set me on fire and showed absolutely no remorse, even years later! She didn’t deserve my kindness. No, I did it for Aerik, who was young and watching my every move. And I did it for me because I wanted to walk away from that conversation feeling like I had done the right thing. I knew I’d have to live with whatever I said or did for the rest of my life.

  I had lost some of that kindness over the following years, particularly while engaging with other parents online. When the smugness of those exchanges wore off, I always felt awful. But that moment with Sylvia reminded me that I wanted to be the mother Alexis, Aerik and Jackson deserved, especially now that we were facing increased scrutiny. It was time to go back to what felt good and lead the way with kindness.

  So I didn’t confront Judgmental Mom about her intolerance. I didn’t berate her for what she said when I wasn’t around, or for ignoring me when I was. Instead, I thought I would help her be more like Jesus, who seemed to be a guy she really looked up to. What would Jesus do? Well, if my Catholic school upbringing taught me anything, it’s that the man had no issues hanging out with people his daddy considered sinners. We could help hone that quality!

  Alexis was spending a lot of time with me back then. She knew I would be there to help correct any misgendering (using the wrong pronouns) or deadnaming (using her old name). I was still catching up in the learning department, but I had her back. I also knew that Judgmental Mom, as awful as she could be, would not openly mistreat or ignore Alexis. She did have some core values, and one of them seemed to be showing respect to kids.

  Excellent.

  Judgmental Mom and I often volunteered at school events. Movie night was coming up, and Alexis asked if she could come with me to help.

  “I’d love for you to come,” I said. “But I want you to know there’s going to be someone there who thinks supporting you in transition is the wrong thing to do. She might not hide her views very well.” This was a tough but important conversation to have. Transphobia was something Alexis would likely have to deal with to some degree for the rest of her life. Learning how to be around intolerant people was an important skill to master.

  “Is this the woman I heard you talking about on the phone? The one who thinks you’re bad parents?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. Damn kids with ears. “But she mostly just ignores me.”

  “I’ll tell her off if she does that,” Alexis said defensively.

  “I have a better idea.” I smiled.

  We arrived at movie night half an hour before the doors opened. Soon, kids would be pouring in with their parents. The volunteer team was gearing up. I saw Judgmental Mom standing by the popcorn machine.

  “Hi!” I said, walking up to her. “You look busy!”

  She half-smiled and nodded but didn’t meet my eyes.

  “Alexis, why don’t you help make popcorn?” I said.

  “Great idea!” Alexis replied cheerily, picking up some empty bags to fill.

  Judgmental Mom’s body visibly tensed, but she didn’t say anything. My daughter looked at me knowingly and grinned.

  They filled bags together for about ten minutes. With that finished, Judgmental Mom walked away and started setting up the canteen.

  “What should I do now?” Alexis called over to me.

  “The canteen always gets busy. Why don’t you help out with that?”

  “Okay,” she said and walked over. Judgmental Mom looked defeated.

  For the next two hours, they worked side by side at the busiest station. The canteen requires a lot of communication to run smoothly. In other words, Judgmental Mom had to talk to my kid. She wasn’t chatty with Alexis, but she wasn’t unfriendly either.

  I sat at the ticket booth nearby and waited. Eventually, I heard what I wanted to hear: “Alexis, can you hand that girl a water bottle?”

  Bingo. You just used my daughter’s chosen name, Judgmental Mom. I bet Jesus would be proud.

  * * *

  —

  Exposure is important. If you haven’t experienced something personally and learned about it that way, the next best thing is to learn from someone who has. The problem is, a lot of folks have no exposure to trans people in their day-to-day lives, at least that they know of.

  That’s the key thing here: that they know of. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what percentage of the population is trans, but it’s probably safe to say that we’ve all met at least a few trans people. Perhaps we don’t know they’re trans because they haven’t told us—they may not even be out to themselves yet—but that doesn’t make them less so. Just like someone doesn’t “turn gay,” they don’t “turn trans.” It’s a part of a person from birth.

  My guess was that Judgmental Mom had never met a person she knew was trans. That, coupled with a religious upbringing steeped in outdated ideas about the LGBTQ community, led her to form opinions of trans people that were based on fear, not facts. In this way, I could relate to her. I had chastised the choices made by the parents raising their gender-neutral baby for similar reasons. I thought I knew better based on the facts I had—but I didn’t have all the facts. That’s why Alexis and I had decided to give Judgmental Mom some facts upon which to build new opinions. And to do it in the nicest way possible.

  Alexis had always been a sweet kid, but we were now seeing more o
f her personality come through. She was fun to hang out with, precocious and hilarious, making great conversation with kids and adults alike. We gently corralled Judgmental Mom into having contact with her whenever we could. Alexis spent several events working alongside her. Eventually, Judgmental Mom relaxed a little. They became chatty and I think she might have almost forgotten she disapproved of Alexis’s “lifestyle.”

  I don’t know if I believe that people are put in your path for a reason, but I do know that woman taught our family a few lessons. Alexis learned she should enter any space as if she belonged there, regardless of how people treated her. She learned to expect respect, even if others aren’t willing to give it easily. As someone who would likely face discrimination throughout her life, she needed this critical lesson. I wanted her to know that her worth comes from within, and not from how others might value her. It had taken me decades to internalize that one.

  For my part, I learned how to be more assertive. I stopped letting Judgmental Mom ignore me and made myself a part of her conversations. When she approached a group of us and talked only to the other people there, I would address her directly, sometimes complimenting her on her outfit or crouching down to joke around with her kids. I made it so she couldn’t ignore me without looking like a garbage person—and who wants to look like a garbage person?

  My family belonged too. We were worthy of respect too.

  Eventually, Judgmental Mom and her family left the school for another, and I learned through mutual acquaintances that she had never really changed her mind about us. She still thought we were lousy parents to a confused child. I guess there’s a lesson even in that: people don’t change overnight. Judgmental Mom may need to be exposed to a few more trans people and their families to realize how wrong she is on this one. Or maybe she’ll never learn.