Three Transgender Kids Share Their Stories

Over at A Cup of Jo, Joanna Goddard interviewed three kids who are transgender about their experiences. Here’s Violet, she/her, age 13:

What do you wish people knew about being trans?
The main thing is that it’s not a choice. It’s a choice to come out, but being trans is not a choice. It wasn’t like one day I woke up and felt the way the wind blew and wanted to be a girl. I ALWAYS knew I wasn’t a boy. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a girl; I WAS a girl. I just had to put that into words and explain that.

Aya, she/her, age 9:

How did you tell your parents?
There was one night when my sister was like, ‘So… Mommy’s a girl, I’m a girl, Daddy’s a boy, and you’re a boy.’ But I immediately was like, ‘No, no, I’m a girl.’ And that was the first time, but there was another time. We were driving back from Mommy’s school, and she was telling me about the different words like transgender and all different words and when she described transgender, I was like, that’s me. I was five.

And this:

Also, fun fact: When we were watching a Mo Willems episode about drawing, he told us that his child is transgender — the one from Knuffle Bunny. Trixie is now Trix!

The comments on the post are worth reading as well — CoJ has the best comments section on the internet, quite a feat for 2021.

• interviews
• Joanna Goddard
• LGBTQ
• parenting