Being a Champion is Tricky Business. Being a Parent is Even Trickier.

If you’ve been following my writing, you know that I’m an open book, for better or worse. I’ve said it a million times and I will say it again: I write to connect with people. I write on divorce, motherhood, relationships, personal life events, kindness, and acceptance. Nothing new here. Nothing extremely unique. Just another voice amongst the chatter, mostly vying for a better place for my child to grow up in.

I know this platform isn’t for everyone. Not everyone understands why I put myself out there on display, and in some opinion, take my child along with me. I get that it’s not for everyone. I get it.  I respect it.

My post about the possibility of Lily being transgender was published on Scary Mommy in August of 2015. I thought long and hard about publishing it. It was a well thought out decision.

For me, love won. The love that I have for Lily won. Since, at that time, Lily had started to be called out on being different by other children and I had started to be called out on “allowing” her to be different, I not only wanted to connect with others like me but I also wanted to spread a message of kindness, acceptance and love.

It was received with mixed feedback, mostly because I don’t even believe that most people read these entire pieces when they’re published. They read a sensationalized title of, “My Daughter Might be Transgender…and I am Terrified” (a title given by Scary Mommy), and people make assumptions, draw conclusions, just from that one line. Maybe they skim it a little, maybe they do read the whole thing. Of course it’s going to be met with some mixed emotions based off of the title and content. But I felt the message was important. It was raw and it was real.

And I was right. People connected with me. I had dozens of other moms reach out to me to express they’re in the same surprising, challenging (at times) position of parenting a non-gender conforming child. It was shared thousands of times and read by over 40,000 people. I connected with beautiful people that are just as scared for their child as I am mine. That love and nurture their child, just as I do. That try to do the very best goddamn parenting job that they possibly can, just like I do.

It made me feel comforted and so not alone in this unique parenting challenge.

To my surprise thereafter, I was contacted by several other media outlets that wanted to interview me after this piece ran. Some I declined immediately, some I entertained.

I was approached by a media outlet based out of the U.K. in August of this year that wanted to do a 5 minute video interview with Lily and I. I was told it was going to be a part of their “Gender Neutral Parenting” segment on their Youtube channel. They shared some of the other videos within that category, other testimonials by parents like me. Some I loved, some I thought could have been done better, but overall, I liked the idea.

I thought about it for 4 weeks. I actually had turned down the opportunity immediately but then they revisited it with me, convincing me that this is a great way to get a message out there.  I discussed it with family members, carefully weighed the risks, discussed it at a 7 year old level with Lily, and ultimately decided I wanted to be a part of it. I saw it as another opportunity to spread acceptance and kindness. This company sold me on the idea.

When they sent the video to me for approval, I loved it. It was beautifully done. It conveyed my message well, the title was appropriate and the content was great. There were a few things left out that I would have liked added but overall, we came to, what I thought, was an agreement to run it.

Similar to my Scary Mommy piece, it was a message of losing labels, a message of kindness, acceptance, and letting kids explore themselves but also letting them just be kids.I wanted to be a champion for these kids and these parents. I wanted to be a voice of advocacy and normalizing this a bit.

Here’s the link that was sent to me for approval. This is what I want you all to see. (You will have to put a password in: bm_K1dTr4n.)

The part of the filming that I wish they would have included was the question of “How does Lily know about gender reassignment?”. I get scrutinized on this often. Here’s how: Lily has asked several times if she can become a boy. Never wanting to lie to her, I always kept my answers vague by saying “Well, babe. When you’re older, you can be lots of different things”.

And then Caitlyn Jenner came along. Lily saw her on a magazine cover, or possibly on TV, asked if it was a boy dressed as a girl, and I answered honestly”Yes. She was born a boy but decided as an adult she wanted to become a girl”. This came with many questions that I answered to the absolute best of my abilities. This is real shit, friends. These are real conversations with my child who has struggled with gender identity since she was very small.

The video was ran. It was ran with a very different title on a very different segment of this media company’s YouTube channel. The video itself is even narrated differently with things I never said. I don’t want to link it here because I’m not proud of it and the comments under it were absolutely brutal. It’s not the look I was going for.

Unbeknownst to me, our story was also sold to British tabloids and twisted into a bit of a message I didn’t want to send. Something I didn’t even imagine could happen. Rookie mistakes. I didn’t ask the right questions and obviously wasn’t working with the proper media outlet. I now feel like I put my child on display in a negative light. It was never my intention (and no, I didn’t get paid for this filming).

I’m not defending myself here, or explaining myself, for empathy or pity, or even for validation. No. I’m defending my message and my choice to speak out the way I do.

Being a champion of anything is hard work. It takes dedication, vigilance, a strong back bone. I’m learning as I go with social media, writing, and sharing my life with the masses. I’m navigating ways to do this without having a lasting effect on my child. I’m learning. It’s tricky to balance wanting to get a message out there with also doing the right thing. Some of it is absolutely trial and error. This video was an error. I don’t give any fucks if people are chatting behind my back about this. No fucks at all given. If you’re judging me on my parenting, congratulations of being a perfect parent and knowing all of the answers. If you’re judging me on my writing and my openness, I accept that.

I just want Lily to be unscathed. That is all.

So, I guess this is another message of kindness. Remember that not everything you see online is real… but there are real people with real feelings behind the keyboards. Don’t let your keyboard make you brave, hateful, or overly judgmental. The media loves to do this. They love to create a divide.

I’m still proud of my message and even more proud of Lily for simply being her. Who she wants to be. She is leading me into a path of so much learning, I cannot even begin to tell you how lucky I am.

But, my lesson has been learned. I will champion kindness through other ways. No more British media for us. But I will continue to unapologetically write what I feel suitable, share what I feel worth sharing and be a champion for kindness, tolerance, and acceptance.

Thank you for reading my rambling.