New Year, New You.....

I haven't made New Year's resolutions in quite a few years and I probably won't be making them this year (I haven't so far).  But the new year does seem like a good time to make a start on something big - and we certainly did that in January 2016.

At this time last January, we were unaware of the unbelievable journey we were about to embark on with Damian.  He was still Maya back then.  Then one day, I think it was January 16, 2016 turned out to be January 28, 2016, he called a family meeting.  That was odd, because usually it's me doing that and not received with excitement.  He was very nervous and Nadia was by his side, encouraging him and saying it was going to be alright. I fully thought that he was going to come out as a lesbian that night.  I was prepared for that and completely at ease with that thought.  But when he said he's questioning his gender...I didn't know what that meant at all!  The word transgender was foreign in meaning to me.  I've heard of it before, of course.  I'd seen it in the media, read about Caitlyn Jenner, reacted to the bathroom laws in North Carolina.  But I didn't REALLY know what it all meant.  My first thought was, "What do you mean you don't know if you're a girl??" The thing is, Damian was easing us into this announcement.  In reality, he knew what was happening to him.  But he told us that he wanted help in figuring out what he was thinking.  He was trying soften the revelation that the girl we knew really didn't exist.

So we started on a journey that was lonely at first.  Especially for me, I didn't know who to talk to about the crazy feelings I was going through.  Chris seemed to have accepted it right away.  I didn't want to give any impression to Damian that I wasn't supportive of this.  I didn't want to ask "are you sure?"  But how can a parent not think that?  It seems like such a huge decision for a 15 year old (at the time) to come to this conclusion.

But oh how much I've learned since then - lots of transgender people transition when they are much much younger.  As young as 4 and 5 years old! I had no idea and that was a shocker to me.  That seemed way too young, but who am I to know what is going on inside another human being's head?

So, Damian asked for help.  He asked to see a gender therapist, stating at the time, that he didn't know what all these feelings of not wanting to present as a girl meant.  So, we started doing research.  Well, Chris and I started, because Damian had already started researching stuff about 6-9 months before he came out to us.  He had started following people on various social media outlets who had gone through or were going through transitioning.  He had started looking up what to do next and where to go.  We found a great family support group close by to us.  We went to our first meeting in February, just about 3 weeks after Damian came out to us.

I don't think that Damian made the announcement in January just because it was the beginning of the year.  It just happened to work out that way.  But if someone had told me back then that in a year I would have a son and be comfortable with that, well, I would have thought that person was crazy.  So much has changed - my attitude towards the whole thing being the biggest thing.  But we've come out to our families, to our friends, to the world.  I have done a lot of reading (though still not enough) and come to understand what transgender means.  I am using the name he chose (which was SO HARD!) and using male pronouns.  It feels weird to say "Maya" now.

Oh, what a difference a year makes!