Dear Teachers, Staff, School Board, Strangers, and Elected Officials

I love my child.

I’ve been there for my child, I always have and I always will.

You haven’t been there. You haven’t wiped away their tears. You can’t tell if my child is sick just by looking at them. You don’t know their favorite food, what comforts them, what upsets them. You weren’t there in the middle of the night. You weren’t there when they lost a best friend. You didn’t protect them from bad people entering their life.

You didn’t play Santa and read their wish list every year when they requested toys that were typical for their gender. You didn’t make sure their cup, backpack, lunchbox, and bed sheets all had their favorite characters, which were typical for their gender. You didn’t read to them every night. You didn’t watch the same Disney movie 1,657 times which was also gender typical. You weren’t there when they had a sibling of the opposite gender and had choices of toys and activities but always chose what was typical for their gender. You aren’t here to see I don’t give a crap about gender norms. You aren’t here to see our children are loved no matter what their interest are, or what their favorite color is. Or how many times that favorite color has changed.

You weren’t there during COVID while they lied on the floor crying about doing online school. You didn’t sit with them, making sure they did homework that was not meeting their intellectual needs. You didn’t know they couldn’t focus because of ADHD and the assignments were too easy. You didn’t request that my child skip a grade because you didn’t know they could. You should have known by their assignment and test scores. You weren’t there when they were tested for autism. You didn’t watch the countless times they struggled to make friends. You didn’t watch all the times they struggled socially with kids at the park, on the bus and in stores.

You weren’t in our living room while they played online games on the family TV. You didn’t hear them laugh and talk, typical of their gender. You weren’t there when they suddenly switched friend groups and the laughing stopped and nothing was the same again.

You didn’t notice the cries for help. And when my child changed their name at school you decided it was best not to share that with me. Why? And when my child asked for a gender support plan, again, why didn’t you share that information with me?

I have attended every parent teacher conference, answered every phone call and email from the school. I came every year for birthday lunches at school. I was room mom every year. My child was clothed, feed, clean. My child’s physical, dental and vision health were always cared for. I always came and picked up my sick child when the school called. And I was there in less than 20 minutes.

You don’t know what my child has been through. You don’t know what they are running from. You don’t know what friends they have had and have now. You don’t know what they watch online. You haven’t read their text messages or heard what they say to friends as you walk past their bedroom. You weren’t in the waiting room of therapist with me, wondering why the parents aren’t part of a child’s therapy. You didn’t help me write emails to my child’s therapist giving as much information as I could so my child could be understood and helped. You didn’t see how the therapist struggled to understand my child’s answers because the therapist didn’t understand autism.

Why would you separate a parent and a child with secrets? Why would you break that very important attachment that a child needs to develop into a healthy adult? Why would you put in my child’s head that their loving, supportive family can’t be trusted for help? Why would you give my child the impression that a family is not a support system?

You weren’t there to hold, love and support my child since they have been born. You aren’t here now, and you won’t be after they walk out the school doors.

You don’t have conversations with my child. You don’t ask my child questions. You don’t even try to get to know my child. Most of you don’t even know what my child looks like or how they dress. Most of you never have met my child.

Why is changing my child’s name and pronouns so important to you? Why is nothing else about my child important to you?

You won’t be there every time someone looks at them and sees their secondary sexual characteristic and knows what gender they were born as, regardless of what they say.

You won’t be there when hormones and surgery damage their body. You won’t be there when my child looks in the mirror one day and realizes they can’t magically change sexes.

You won’t be paying for cross-sex hormone or surgery. You won’t be paying to treat the damages they cause. You won’t be there if one day, they change their mind. You won’t be there when a doctor tells them they can no longer have children. You won’t be there when they grow up.

You haven’t been there. You won’t be there. You don’t know what I know. You haven’t invested years trying to understand what my child is going through. You haven’t loved my child. You haven’t cared for my child.

So tell me how, how do you know my child is better off with a different name? How is my child better off “identifying” as the opposite sex? How did they rewrite their childhood to have memories different than mine and our family and friends? How do you know my child won’t change their mind?

How do ALL of you know that social transition is the right thing for my child? The child you know NOTHING about?

With unconditional love,

The Child’s Mother