What its like to be a transgender dad LB Hannahs
So the other morning
I went to the grocery store
and an employee greeted me
with a “Good morning, sir,
can I help you with anything?”
I said, “No, thanks, I’m good.”
The person smiled
and we went our separate ways.
I grabbed Cheerios
and I left the grocery store.
And I went through the drive-through
of a local coffee shop.
After I placed my order,
the voice on the other end said,
“Thank you, ma’am. Drive right around.”
Now, in the span of less than an hour,
I was understood
both as a “sir” and as a “ma’am.”
But for me, neither
of these people are wrong,
but they’re also not completely right.
This cute little human
is my almost-two-year-old Elliot.
Yeah, alright.
And over the past two years,
this kid has forced me
to rethink the world
and how I participate in it.
I identify as transgender and as a parent,
that makes me a transparent.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
(Cheering)
(Applause)
As you can see, I took
this year’s theme super literal.
(Laughter)
Like any good dad joke should.
More specifically, I identify
as genderqueer.
And there are lots of ways
to experience being genderqueer,
but for me that means I don’t
really identify as a man or a woman.
I feel in between and sometimes
outside of this gender binary.
And being outside of this gender binary
means that sometimes I get
“sired” and “ma’amed”
in the span of less than an hour
when I’m out doing everyday things
like getting Cheerios.
But this in between lane
is where I’m most comfortable.
This space where I can be
both a sir and a ma’am
feels the most right
and the most authentic.
But it doesn’t mean that these
interactions aren’t uncomfortable.
Trust me, the discomfort can range
from minor annoyance
to feeling physically unsafe.
Like the time at a bar in college
when a bouncer physically
removed me by the back of the neck
and threw me out of a woman’s restroom.
But for me, authenticity
doesn’t mean “comfortable.”
It means managing and negotiating
the discomfort of everyday life,
even at times when it’s unsafe.
And it wasn’t until
my experience as a trans person
collided with my new identity as a parent
that I understood
the depth of my vulnerabilities
and how they are preventing me
from being my most authentic self.
Now, for most people,
what their child will call them
is not something
that they give much thought to
outside of culturally specific words
or variations on a gendered theme
like “mama,” “mommy,” or “daddy,” “papa.”
But for me, the possibility
is what this child,
who will grow to be a teenager
and then a real-life adult,
will call me for the rest of our lives,
was both extremely scary and exciting.
And I spent nine months wrestling
with the reality that being called “mama”
or something like it
didn’t feel like me at all.
And no matter how many times
or versions of “mom” I tried,
it always felt forced
and deeply uncomfortable.
I knew being called “mom” or “mommy”
would be easier to digest for most people.
The idea of having two moms
is not super novel,
especially where we live.
So I tried other words.
And when I played around
with “daddy,” it felt better.
Better, but not perfect.
It felt like a pair of shoes
that you really liked
but you needed to wear and break in.
And I knew the idea of being
a female-born person being called “daddy”
was going to be a harder road
with a lot more uncomfortable moments.
But, before I knew it, the time had come
and Elliot came screaming
into the world, like most babies do,
and my new identity as a parent began.
I decided on becoming a daddy,
and our new family faced the world.
Now one of the most common things
that happens when people meet us
is for people to “mom” me.
And when I get “momed”, there are
several ways the interaction can go,
and I’ve drawn this map
to help illustrate my options.
(Laughter)
So, option one is to ignore the assumption
and allow folks to continue
to refer to me as “mom,”
which is not awkward for the other party,
but is typically really awkward for us.
And it usually causes me to restrict
my interaction with those people.
Option one.
Option two is to stop and correct them
and say something like,
“Actually, I’m Elliot’s dad”
or “Elliot calls me ‘daddy.'”
And when I do this, one or two
of the following things happen.
Folks take it in stride
and say something like, “Oh, OK.”
And move on.
Or they respond by apologizing profusely
because they feel bad or awkward
or guilty or weird.
But more often, what happens
is folks get really confused
and look up with an intense look
and say something like,
“Does this mean you want to transition?
Do you want to be a man?”
Or say things like,
“How can she be a father?
Only men can be dads.”
Well, option one is oftentimes
the easier route.
Option two is always
the more authentic one.
And all of these scenarios
involve a level of discomfort,
even in the best case.
And I’ll say that over time, my ability
to navigate this complicated map
has gotten easier.
But the discomfort is still there.
Now, I won’t stand here and pretend
like I’ve mastered this,
it’s pretty far from it.
And there are days when I still allow
option one to take place
because option two
is just too hard or too risky.
There’s no way to be sure
of anyone’s reaction,
and I want to be sure
that folks have good intentions,
that people are good.
But we live in a world
where someone’s opinion of my existence
can be met with serious threats to me
or even my family’s emotional
or physical safety.
So I weigh the costs against the risks
and sometimes the safety of my family
comes before my own authenticity.
But despite this risk,
I know as Elliot gets older and grows into
her consciousness and language skills,
if I don’t correct people, she will.
I don’t want my fears and insecurities
to be placed on her,
to dampen her spirit
or make her question her own voice.
I need to model agency,
authenticity and vulnerability,
and that means leaning into those
uncomfortable moments of being “momed”
and standing up and saying,
“No, I’m a dad.
And I even have
the dad jokes to prove it.”
(Laughter)
Now, there have already been
plenty of uncomfortable moments
and even some painful ones.
But there’s also been,
in just two short years,
validating and at times transformative
moments on my journey as a dad
and my path towards authenticity.
When we got our first sonogram,
we decided we wanted to know
the sex of the baby.
The technician saw a vulva
and slapped the words “It’s a girl”
on the screen and gave us a copy
and sent us on our way.
We shared the photo
with our families like everyone does
and soon after, my mom showed up
at our house with a bag filled –
I’m not exaggerating,
it was like this high and it was filled,
overflowing with pink clothes and toys.
Now I was a little annoyed to be
confronted with a lot of pink things,
and having studied gender
and spent countless hours teaching
about it in workshops and classrooms,
I thought I was pretty well versed
on the social construction of gender
and how sexism is a devaluing
of the feminine
and how it manifests
both explicitly and implicitly.
But this situation, this aversion
to a bag full of pink stuff,
forced me to explore my rejection
of highly feminized things
in my child’s world.
I realized that I was reinforcing sexism
and the cultural norms
I teach as problematic.
No matter how much I believed
in gender neutrality in theory,
in practice, the absence of femininity
is not neutrality, it’s masculinity.
If I only dress my baby
in greens and blues and grays,
the outside world doesn’t think,
“Oh, that’s a cute gender-neutral baby.”
They think, “Oh, what a cute boy.”
So my theoretical understanding of gender
and my parenting world collided hard.
Yes, I want a diversity of colors and toys
for my child to experience.
I want a balanced
environment for her to explore
and make sense of in her own way.
We even picked a gender-neutral name
for our female-born child.
But gender neutrality is much easier
as a theoretical endeavor
than it is as a practice.
And in my attempts
to create gender neutrality,
I was inadvertently privileging
masculinity over femininity.
So, rather than toning down
or eliminating femininity in our lives,
we make a concerted effort
to celebrate it.
We have pinks among the variety of colors,
we balance out the cutes with handsomes
and the prettys with strongs and smarts
and work really hard
not to associate any words with gender.
We value femininity and masculinity
while also being highly critical of it.
And do our best to not make her feel
limited by gender roles.
And we do all this in hopes
that we model a healthy and empowered
relationship with gender for our kid.
Now this work to develop a healthy
relationship with gender for Elliot
made me rethink and evaluate
how I allowed sexism to manifest
in my own gender identity.
I began to reevaluate
how I was rejecting femininity
in order to live up to a masculinity
that was not healthy
or something I wanted to pass on.
Doing this self-work
meant I had to reject option one.
I couldn’t ignore and move on.
I had to choose option two.
I had to engage with some
of my most uncomfortable parts
to move towards my most authentic self.
And that meant I had to get real
about the discomfort I have with my body.
It’s pretty common for trans people
to feel uncomfortable in their body,
and this discomfort can range
from debilitating to annoying
and everywhere in between.
And learning my body and how
to be comfortable in it as a trans person
has been a lifelong journey.
I’ve always struggled
with the parts of my body
that can be defined as more feminine –
my chest, my hips, my voice.
And I’ve made the sometimes hard,
sometimes easy decision
to not take hormones
or have any surgeries to change it
to make myself more masculine
by society’s standards.
And while I certainly haven’t overcome
all the feelings of dissatisfaction,
I realized that by not engaging
with that discomfort
and coming to a positive
and affirming place with my body,
I was reinforcing sexism, transphobia
and modeling body shaming.
If I hate my body,
in particular, the parts
society deems feminine or female,
I potentially damage how my kid
can see the possibilities of her body
and her feminine and female parts.
If I hate or am uncomfortable
with my body,
how can I expect my kid to love hers?
Now it would be easier for me
to choose option one:
to ignore my kid when she asks me
about my body or to hide it from her.
But I have to choose option two every day.
I have to confront my own assumptions
about what a dad’s body can and should be.
So I work every day to try
and be more comfortable in this body
and in the ways I express femininity.
So I talk about it more,
I explore the depths of this discomfort
and find language
that I feel comfortable with.
And this daily discomfort helps me build
both agency and authenticity
in how I show up in my body
and in my gender.
I’m working against limiting myself.
I want to show her
that a dad can have hips,
a dad doesn’t have to have
a perfectly flat chest
or even be able to grow facial hair.
And when she’s developmentally able to,
I want to talk to her
about my journey with my body.
I want her to see my journey
towards authenticity
even when it means showing her
the messier parts.
We have a wonderful pediatrician
and have established a good relationship
with our kid’s doctor.
And as you all know,
while your doctor stays the same,
your nurses and nurse practitioners
change in and out.
And when Elliot was first born,
we took her to the pediatrician
and we met our first nurse –
we’ll call her Sarah.
Very early in in our time with Sarah,
we told her how I was
going to be called “dad”
and my partner is “mama.”
Sarah was one of those folks
that took it in stride,
and our subsequent visits
went pretty smoothly.
And about a year later,
Sarah switched shifts
and we started working
with a new nurse – we’ll call her Becky.
We didn’t get in front
of the dad conversations
and it didn’t actually come up
until Sarah, our original nurse,
walked in to say hi.
Sarah’s warm and bubbly and said hi
to Elliot and me and my wife
and when talking to Elliot
said something like,
“Is your daddy holding your toy?”
Now out of the corner of my eye,
I could see Becky
swing around in her chair
and make daggers at Sarah.
And as the conversation shifted
to our pediatrician,
I saw Sarah and Becky’s interaction
continue, and it went something like this.
Becky, shaking her head “no”
and mouthing the word “mom.”
Sarah, shaking her head “no”
and mouthing the word “no, dad.”
(Laughter)
Awkward, right?
So this went back and forth
in total silence a few more times
until we walked away.
Now, this interaction has stuck with me.
Sarah could have chosen option one,
ignored Becky, and let her
refer to me as mom.
It would have been easier for Sarah.
She could have put the responsibility
back on me or not said anything at all.
But in that moment, she chose option two.
She chose to confront the assumptions
and affirm my existence.
She insisted that a person
who looks and sounds like me
can in fact be a dad.
And in a small but meaningful way,
advocated for me,
my authenticity and my family.
Unfortunately, we live in a world
that refuses to acknowledge trans people
and the diversity
of trans people in general.
And my hope is that when confronted
with an opportunity
to stand up for someone else,
we all take action like Sarah,
even when there’s risk involved.
So some days, the risk of being
a genderqueer dad feels too much.
And deciding to be a dad
has been really hard.
And I’m sure it will continue
to be the hardest,
yet the most rewarding
experience of my life.
But despite this challenge,
every day has felt 100 percent worth it.
So each day I affirm my promise to Elliot
and that same promise to myself.
To love her and myself hard
with forgiveness and compassion,
with tough love and with generosity.
To give room for growth,
to push beyond comfort
in hopes of attaining and living
a more meaningful life.
I know in my head and in my heart
that there are hard and painful
and uncomfortable days ahead.
My head and my heart also know
that all of it will lead
to a more rich, authentic life
that I can look back on without regrets.
Thank you.
(Applause)