transgender kiddo (7) in Colorado

I know this is making the right wing rounds. What's your take on transitioning at public school?

http://www.highlandsranchherald.com/site/tab9.cfm?newsid=19346255&BRD=2713&PAG=461&dept_id=559194&rfi=6

story text (quoted with writer permission):

02/29/2008 Becoming Jamie By: Robyn Lydick , Staff Writer
Editor's note: The names of members of the "Holtz" family have been changed to protect their identities.



It hasn't always been easy for Jamie Holtz to simply be herself.

For the first six years of her life, her parents thought they had a boy.

She knew better, probably around 20 months of age, and became increasingly uncomfortable as a boy. By age 4, she wanted to die, and she told her parents, Mark and Cheryl Holtz, repeatedly.

"She had self-loathing and an obsession with death and funerals," Cheryl said.

Jamie's obsession with death disappeared once her parents figured out what was going on.

Cheryl started researching online.

Until 13 months ago, she had never heard the word transgender.

She certainly didn't know that a child could be transgender, until Jamie yelled at her.

"Mommy, I'm a girl!" Jamie cried.

So after research, agonized parental discussions and time with doctors and therapists, Jamie's parents also came to the realization that gender and sex are different.

Jamie was born into a boy's body.

"But I'm a girl; I have a girl's brain," she said from her Highlands Ranch home.

She remembers knowing she was a girl as young as age 3, and her parents see all the feminine traits in Jamie in retrospect, back to 18 or 20 months of age.

"It's like all the puzzle pieces fall into place," Cheryl said. "I never had a son. I had a daughter.

"Looking back at events in our child's life, it all makes more sense," Mark said. "Like many people we didn't understand [transgender] and we had to do a great deal of research to educate ourselves."

Mark had a sudden education - he was out of town the week Jamie claimed her identity as a girl and Cheryl was researching transgender.

"I came in the door and Cheryl said, 'Jamie is a girl. It's called transgender and this is what is going on,'" he remembers.

He watched carefully. Mark is a thoughtful person who takes his time with new information and ideas.

"Transgender is not something we ever thought about before," Mark said. "We are not activists; we are a centrist couple, middle of the road politically. This entire process has been one of slow reveal over a matter of years."

That revelation was punctuated when Jamie was able to express what was going on inside.

So Jamie began dressing in girl clothes and acting like a girl at home, but still trying to be a boy to the outside world.

The summer passed with this arrangement. One week, the family went on vacation and Jamie was being a girl in public full time.

At an Independence Day outing, Jamie was running and wrestling with several boys.

Hoping they were wrong in their assessment, Mark asked her later if she thought that was male behavior.

"We were playing Star Wars and I was Princess Leia," she told her father.

"We tried to put her back in the boy box," Cheryl said. "The box exploded."

From the first day Jamie started living as a girl, the obsession with death vanished.

"We feel very clear that our child would never have made it to adulthood if we had not allowed her to transition,"
Cheryl said. "Against that background, the hateful comments and misunderstandings seem like nothing. We would rather have a girl who struggles against the prejudices of the world than a dead son."

Statistics on known transgender children and adolescents suggest 50 percent attempt suicide.

"But this is a silent community," Cheryl said. "How can anyone ever know? Maybe that boy who went underground at age 5 who was talented and capable and so handsome, and suddenly out of the blue commits suicide - maybe he was transgender. How do we count him in that statistic?"
After vacation came the fall semester.

The year before, Jamie went to school, forgetting about some red polish on her toes.

"Some boys noticed and I was really scared, so I said it was bleeding," she said. "I got some tissue and acted like it was bleeding."

Neither the school nor Jamie was ready for her affirmed self, so she homeschooled.

"She was miserable," Cheryl said. "She wanted to play with her friends at recess, go to the Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's parties."

So Jamie returned to her school, after the school district prepared the staff and put safety plans into place before her arrival.

At first, she had different explanations for her new self.
She told some students she was the sister of the classmate they remembered. Another time, she said he had died.

But she was in class with children who had known her for years, some since birth.

With close child friends and family, once they have a simple answer about why Jamie looks different to them, they are satisfied and ready to go play. Usually, Jamie's statement that she has a girl brain is enough.

Only one child needed some more explanation.

The friend was concerned about Jamie becoming a woman in the future. He was satisfied when the family explained that they didn't know what the future would bring, but the doctors could help Jamie with whatever she needed, so there was no reason to worry.

The school district has worked with the Holtzes and the rest of the school community to keep Jamie safe while getting the job of educating all the students done.
Jamie's sister's class has been told about Jamie and the school's fifth-graders have taken it upon themselves to protect her.

"One girl comes up to me on the playground and makes sure no one has been picking on me," Jamie said.

Some of her friendships have picked up where they left off, and she has made new friends with no problems. Jamie has not mentioned any bullying.

"We are very grateful to the school and the efforts they made," Cheryl said. "The school focused on all the children. Not everything was handled our way, but we understand that the school is trying to do the best they can for the entire community. For our family, it would have been better if there could have been more explanation given to the families and students throughout the school. This is very hard for a child to have to explain to old friends on her own. It leaves everything to the misunderstandings that are rampant in our society."

When looking at bringing Jamie back into school, the Holtz family, like families of transgender students across the country, faced a couple of choices.

They could move and put Jamie in a new school and tell only the principal, which would have Jamie as a stealth transgender child, or return to her same school and be out in the open.

Moving and going stealth had several downsides: an older relative in the community that needs the family's support, Jamie's older sister, would have to make a new set of friends, which would not come easily to her, and the family values truth and openness.

"We are not comfortable with secrecy," Cheryl said. "We would not be comfortable with this secret. It would upset the dynamic of the family. What you have to understand is there is nothing wrong with our child. We don't want Jamie to live her life thinking something is fundamentally wrong with her, that she has to hide who she is because she is so bad."

The family also considered what would happen if Jamie did enroll in a different school with almost no one knowing her past.

What would happen if it blew up in her face? Who knows, who can she trust? Secrets have a way of coming out.
The Holtzes understand there are people who will violently disagree with their stance.

"We are not out to confront people who see this as a moral issues," Cheryl said. "We just want to provide answers. We came to the community, not national news outlets, so our community could understand."

Jamie's parents did not simply take her at her word.

"We researched from many viewpoints. We read [James] Dobson's book. We read about reparative therapy. We talked to our pediatrician," Cheryl said. "All the time, the source of our child's suffering became more and more clear."
James Dobson wrote "Bringing up Boys."

Mark and Cheryl were haunted by their own misunderstanding of what it means to be transgender.

Some of the stereotypes played across the screen of their minds.

Once they learned more and came to understand that their little girl would most likely want nothing more than to blend in society as a normal, productive female, acceptance became easier.

This wasn't about being gay, but being a girl.

Supporting Jamie has had costs.

Both Mark and Cheryl grieved for the life they had envisioned for Jamie, the loss of assumed championships in a sport, the loss of a son.

Her sister has had a difficult time losing her brother.
Friends and family have adjusted at their own paces.

"When confronted with our child's transition, each of them took the time to compassionately explain to their children what we were doing and why," Cheryl said. "None of the other children in our lives have had difficulty. Many have said they always knew she was a girl. It hasn't always been seamless. Some kids thought it was weird for a day or two. Some took a long time to adjust to the name and pronoun change; after all, they have known Jamie their entire lives, but now they play as if it was never any other way."

The Holtz family wants the same things for Jamie as any family wants for their children: compassion and simple respect.

"It won't be easy for any of us," Cheryl said. "Not for our child and not for the children and families who will be on this journey with us at our school.

"We worry about the future and we hope. We hope that somehow in this great country there will be a place for our beautiful, highly talented and charismatic daughter."

 

I don't follow, how would it be different in Boulder?

 

nope. buncha crunchy yuppies and reactionaries.
Although the guide Jamie's school is using was written in St Vrain Valley schools (next to Boulder)

 

update:
the article won a Colorado Press Association award. First place feature writing.