My Whole Family Abandoned Me When I Came Out As Trans — Except For My Son. "He's My Mom," He Told People.

When I finally admitted I'm a guy, my husband divorced me, but the person I gave birth to and breastfed understood completely. PLUS: How do you feel about Mother's Day?

Mother’s Day, however Hallmark coopted it has become, is my favorite day of the year. Because I sit back (sitting back being a key component - too many holidays require you to dress up or DO too many things) and get acknowledged for something that is by far my best accomplishment. It's the time I get recognition for the hardest work I've done that came with the least amount of praise, and it is based on my greatest source of joy, 22-year-old wonder Charlotte, who is worth all of it every second and so much more. So wish me a happy one, please! But enough about me.

Along with moving the apostrophe on “Mothers'" to the right, I also want to say: belated Happy Non-Binary Parents Day (the last Sunday in April), Happy Family Day, and Happy You-Have-No-Kids-But-Boy-Are-You-A-Beautiful-Maternal-Influence-On-Your-Friends/Students/Patients/Dogs Day. Celebrate yourselves and each other generously and with abandon today and always. We all who care and take care deserve it.

And whatever you do, enjoy your day. And enjoy this piece from our now-regular-contributor (yay!) Will, with a special huge thank you to his son Juma for not only being part of this story but the inspiration for it all. I love you both.

Plus, don't forget to join me in the comments after, as always.

xoxo

Love, Jane

My son (2) and me (25) on a spring hike in New England during the Great Switch to Big Boy Underwear in 2005.

By Will Cole

Why is it mostly (only?) women who write about mothers on Mother’s Day? Here I am, a man, writing about motherhood. But this isn’t about my mom. It’s about me being a mom.

I’m what you call a seahorse dad. A man who has given birth. (Though I’m not sure if I can claim the title, since I gave birth 15 years before my transition from woman to man. Is “seahorse dad” reserved for men who give birth as men, after transition?)

I would argue that I’ve always been a man. That when the doctor declared, “It’s a girl!” late one summer night, he was wrong. And that when my mom told me I could be anything I want when I grow up, and I declared, “I’m gonna be a boy when I grow up!” I was right. I was three.

When my son was almost three, his dad and I left the faith of our ancestors, six generations deep. Growing up, I was a tomboy, but the middle child of seven kids in a Mormon family in Utah. “Exploring my identity” meant shoving myself into the mold my parents modeled: stay-at-home mom, single-handedly repopulating Zion, and standing dutifully by her husband. If my dad wasn’t at work, he was serving (volunteering) at church. I did begin that pre-ordained journey, the straight and narrow path of righteousness. I married a Mormon man, graduated from the Mormon college, BYU, and gave birth, in that order. When I became a mom/dad, I was 22—the age my son is now. His name is Juma.

My son (4), and me (27) in Utah during the summer of 2007.

My little trio began the potty-training journey and the exodus from the church on the same weekend. Instead of attending the church’s semi-annual General Conference, we made a family trip to buy “big boy underwear” for all three of us. Over the following weeks, my son switched between his SpongeBob underwear and pull-ups, and I swapped my Mormon underwear for the least girly boy shorts I could find. (That I preferred to call them big boy underwear for myself should have been a clue, but alas.)

Fast forward to the summer when my son turned 15. He’d spent a few weeks visiting family and friends and had just returned home, and I had spent the past year quietly exploring my gender identity. We sat on the steps outside, catching up. Apropos of nothing, he came out to me as straight.

I was proud of him and myself, not for being straight—I had always hoped he’d be gay, actually—but because it meant I’d raised him to be LGBTQ-friendly. Straight was not the default in my house.

Since we were on the LGBTQ subject anyway, I decided it was a good time for me to come out to him. At the time, nonbinary felt like the right label for me. “Hey, bud, I’ve got something important to tell you about me.”

“No. Don’t say it. I know what you’re going to say. Don’t say it.” This was not the reaction I was expecting. I was baffled.