Transgender child’s mom: love your kids, period

I recognized the dress immediately. It had been his older sister’s — cast away, no doubt, in a donation bag that was never donated.

I didn’t race outside, tear the dress off and proffer admonishments. I watched, instead, as his makeshift wand of willow danced through the air — a little princess going from flower bed to flower bed casting enchantments over the marigolds.

I let our child continue playing undisturbed, but before I returned to my soup, I did what we all do when we see something adorable: I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo.

Later that night, my husband and I went to dinner with another couple we didn’t know well. As a fellow mom will do, the wife asked to see photos of our children, so I took out my phone and began swiping through recent family shots.

“Aren’t their children adorable?” she exclaimed, grabbing the phone out of my hands and showing photos to her husband.

Before I could get my phone back, they had discovered the photo from that afternoon.

I saw them exchange puzzled looks, then the wife said: “This is your son?”

‘Indulgence and permission are two different things’

Sensing their disapproval, I smiled and responded as calmly as I could, “Yes, he likes to play princess sometimes.”

“You really shouldn’t encourage that behavior,” the wife said with the grave compassion usually reserved for a potentially terminal illness. “When our son was little, he liked to play dress-up, too, but we didn’t indulge it. Not one bit. I even hired a male nanny! And now our son is completely normal! A strapping teenage boy — very popular with the girls — nothing odd about him at all!”

“You can’t indulge it,” the husband concurred. “That’s the key. It’s no different than enforcing bedtime. Children are very malleable. You can shape them, but not if you indulge their every whim.”

I politely thanked them for their (unsolicited) advice and my husband deftly changed the topic, but as I lay in bed later that night I couldn’t stop thinking about the the word “indulgent.”

My child at play.

Was it really indulgence to allow our child the freedom to express himself? It’s not as if he was shooting a BB gun at the neighbor’s pet cat, or throwing sand in another kid’s face.

Since that incident, I’ve had the word “indulgent” leveled at me many times by various detractors who disagree with the unconditional love and support my husband and I have offered our now-eight-year-old transgender daughter, as if that choice was the same as offering her an extra slice of chocolate cake even though we knew she already had seconds.

And here’s what I would say to those people: when it comes to parenting, indulgence and permission are two different things.

When we indulge a child, we let them get away with something — usually a behavior considered reprehensible by others. When we offer a child permission, we give them the reassurance that what they are doing is okay.

I like to think that the permission we gave Samuel to play as he saw fit in his early years paved the path for later emotional security.

On the eve of his sixth birthday, after a four-year battle with self-hatred and depression, he felt safe enough to transition from living as a boy to living as a girl. It was like witnessing a second birth.

And now we have a daughter who greets each day with excitement. Her name is Sadie, and she’s just as precious to us as her male counterpart was, only much, much happier.

What if we had punished Samuel instead of embracing Sadie?

I sometimes ask myself what would have happened if we had taken our dinner companion’s advice. What if we had shamed our son, or punished him? What if we had refused to let him out of his room unless he agreed to behave like a traditional boy?

In those early years of our child’s life, when my husband and I searched the Internet for information about children who claim to be the opposite gender than their anatomy indicates, we found these two statistics: Forty percent of transgender people attempt suicide each year, whereas a child who is accepted by his or her family is eight times less likely to attempt suicide later in life.

Better to be labeled as over-indulgent parents for letting our son play princess, we told ourselves, than to have a dead child.

If you worry that you, or someone you know, is indulging a young child by allowing him or her to cross-dress or do otherwise non-stereotypical activities, think again. Child development experts claim that children understand their gender identity as young as age 2.

But most children lack the vocabulary to articulate how they feel when they are so young. Their only recourse at gaining understanding may be to don a tutu as a boy, or to wear a Superman costume as a girl.

If your young child or student is a boy who likes traditional girl things, or a girl who likes traditional boy things, it doesn’t mean that he or she is transgender. It might mean nothing at all, or it might indicate that the child is what experts call “gender fluid.” It could be a phase, or it could be something more permanent.

No matter the reason, a child’s gender exploration isn’t something to punish.

Of course the nonconforming child’s behavior may be something you fear, and possibly for good reasons. You might live in a community that lacks understanding and compassion. You might be part of a religious group that doesn’t accept transgender identity as a possibility.

It doesn’t matter. Support that child anyway.

‘We’re living our lives, just like you’

Some may decry this decision, as if you are aiding and abetting a criminal. Nothing could be further from the truth. You are aiding and abetting the crucial work we all do in trying to figuring out who we are and why we’re here.

Like me, like my husband, like hundreds of other parents who have faced their young children’s gender dysphoria, you must push past fear and replace it with curiosity. And then you need to start learning, and connecting with other families who are going through similar experiences.

And if you don’t know any gender nonconforming children, or if you think the parents who support nonconforming children are mentally ill, child-abusing monsters — all things we have been called — I would wager a bet that if you came over to visit some afternoon, you might be surprised at how similar we are to you.

You might notice my teenage daughter’s school books and SAT prep manual scattered around. You might hear the sound of my younger daughter’s squeals as our dogs chase her around the house. You might notice we have the same favorite show playing on our TV, and if you look closely enough, you might see the imprint in the sofa where my husband naps as he pretends to watch.

What you wouldn’t notice is that one of my two daughters is transgender. You wouldn’t notice because there is nothing to notice.

We’re living our lives, just like you: struggling to keep things balanced, trying to look on the bright side, trying to get enough sleep, to drink enough water, to remember to brush our hair before we leave the house, to floss before bed, to say please and thank you, to apologize when wrong.

Those of us who are raising transgender children know it is time for us to be brave; to step forward; to introduce ourselves to you and welcome you into our lives; to prove that we haven’t indulged our children but merely chosen to love them.

GOP may be working on health care plan B

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke with several House members over the weekend to discuss a path forward, a senior administration official and Republican official with knowledge of the discussions told CNN. And House Speaker Paul Ryan — despite saying Friday that “Obamacare is the law of the land” — appears ready to keep going as well.

Trump himself isn’t giving up.

“I know we’re going to make a deal on health care, that’s such an easy one,” Trump told a bipartisan group of senators and spouses at a White House reception Tuesday night.

The fact remains, however, that House Republicans aren’t in a different position than they were on Friday. The math is the same. Republican leaders are still struggling to satisfy two diametrically opposed forces: moderates who want to see to government lend more support to middle and low-income people to buy health insurance and conservatives who want to see Obamacare repealed more fully so that even popular regulations like the one requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions disappear.

“At the end of the day, I don’t know that the weekend did much to change anything. I think it was a missed opportunity. I think it was an unforced error,” said Arkansas Republican Rep. Steve Womack.

“We’re mending our wounds right now,” Rep. Chris Collins, a Republican from New York told reporters Tuesday.

But Republicans can’t go back to their voters and say they’ve given up. Moving on from repealing Obamacare would mean Republicans may have to admit defeat and face a sobering new reality, in which, they were not able to deliver on the policy goal that united them and catapulted them to victory in the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016.

“Opposition to government run health care has been a foundation of the Republican party for three or four generations now, so it is difficult to see House Republicans walk away from efforts to protect the American people from this awful law,” said Michael Steel, former spokesman for ex-House Speaker John Boehner. “At the same time, after last week, it’s difficult to see how the entire conference can find a unified position.”

“I think the divisions that have existed for some time look and feel particularly acute now that we have a Republican President,” Steel added.

White House downplaying role

Those divisions came out perhaps most dramatically when Trump got involved in the negotiations. Now, the White House is keeping its role much lower key than it did during the final push last week and insisting it is letting rank-and-file members of Congress drive discussions on health care, which are ongoing between a small group of House Freedom Caucus members and members of the moderate Tuesday Group.

The senior administration official told CNN that the White House believes its threats to move past health care have helped jolt House GOP members into action.

“All last week he was calling them. Now they’re calling him,” the official said.

White House press secretary Sean Spice publicly downplayed Tuesday any suggestion that there was a concerted effort to resurrect health care, only going as far as saying that there were continued conversations and exchanging of ideas.

“Have we had some discussions and listened to ideas? Yes,” Spicer told reporters in the briefing room. “Are we actively planning an Immediate strategy? Not at this time.”

On Tuesday, House GOP leaders also projected more optimism that something could still be done to dismantle the Affordable Care Act even as the political dynamics remained unchanged.

“I think we’re closer today to repealing Obamacare than we’ve ever been before, and are surely even closer than we were Friday,” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said Tuesday morning.

Ryan vowed members would continue working although he didn’t offer any specific timeline.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was more frank that it was time to get to other issues.

“It’s pretty obvious we were not able, in the House, to pass a replacement. Our Democratic friends ought to be pretty happy about that because we have the existing law in place, and I think we are just going to have to see how that works out,” McConnell said. “We believe it will not work out well, but we’ll see. They have an opportunity now to have the status quo, regretfully.”

McConnell complemented Trump’s and Ryan’s efforts and then concluded his remarks on the debacle with four words: “Sorry that didn’t work.”

GOP base doesn’t want to give up

The concept of giving up is hard for many Republican rank-and-file members to swallow. Those who would have voted yes wish they could have gotten their colleagues there too. Members of the House Freedom Caucus, meanwhile, who were opposed to the bill, are grappling now with public admonishment from their new President.

“We’re gonna get a ‘yes,’ we’re gonna get to ‘yes.’ It will be a better bill and I think everybody is going to be very happy in the end,” said Rep. David Brat, a Republican from Virginia and a member of the Freedom Caucus.

“I think we have plenty of time. We can fix this,” said Idaho Republican Rep. Raul Labrador, another House Freedom Caucus member.

Texas Republican Rep. Randy Weber, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who opposed the GOP health care bill said Tuesday he thought that the GOP conference could find a way to get a revised Obamacare bill through the House if they all got in a room and put their heads together.

“We need to stay here on the weekend and have an all-day conference,” Weber said, noting that the one-hour weekly meetings weren’t enough time to work through the sticking points.

Weber, who didn’t vote for Ryan for speaker in January, even complimented Ryan and said that he texted the speaker over the weekend when some conservative media figures pushed for him to step down and told him “don’t even think about it. You’re doing a good job. My prayers and my support are with you.”

Still hard to govern

Womack said Republicans need to keep moving and show they can govern with their majorities in the House and Senate and Trump in the White House.

“The people who were ‘yes’ on the health care bill were reminding Paul this is something we promised and we got to push in that direction,” Womack said. “It’s more a reflection of the need to show that we can do something with our governing majority, but again it comes back to numbers. If you don’t have the votes, you don’t have the votes.”

But Trump and Ryan say they want to go to tax reform next, but that’s not going to be any easier.

“How do you move forward?” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida. “If you can’t do this, can you then do tax reform? If you think this is complicated and controversial, wait ’til we get into tax reform.”

Congress kills Internet privacy protections

The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to repeal Internet privacy protections that were approved by the Federal Communications Commission in the final days of the Obama administration.

The Senate voted along party lines to undo the rules last week. The resolution now goes to Trump’s desk. The White House said Tuesday it “strongly supports” the repeal.

The rules, which had not yet gone into effect, would have required Internet service providers to get your permission before collecting and sharing your data. The providers have data on your web browsing history, app usage and geo-location.

Providers would also have been required to notify customers about the types of information collected and shared.

Related: Why Silicon Valley isn’t fighting to save the Internet (yet)

The privacy rules were intended to give consumers extra control over their personal data online at a time when everything from smartphones to refrigerators can be connected to the Internet.

Opponents of the privacy rules argued it would place an undue burden on broadband providers while leaving large Internet companies like Facebook (FB, Tech30) and Google (GOOGL, Tech30) free to collect user data without asking permission.

Representative Michael Burgess, a Republican, described the rules as “duplicative regulation” on the House floor and said the repeal would “level the playing field for an increasingly anti-competitive market.”

But rather than apply similar protections to more businesses, the Republican-controlled Congress voted to scrap the rules entirely.

Democrats and privacy advocates have argued this approach effectively hands over the customer’s personal information to the highest bidder.

“It totally wipes out privacy protections for consumers on the Internet,” Democratic Representative Anna Eshoo said on the floor. “I don’t want anyone to take my information and sell it to someone and make a ton of money off of it just because they can get their mitts on it.”

Michael Capuano, a Democratic Representative, took it one step further. “Just last week, I bought underwear on the internet,” he said. “Why should you know what size I take, or the color, or any of that information?

internet privacy

Many broadband providers already share some of their customers’ browsing behavior with advertisers. Providers typically offer the choice to opt out, but consumers may not even be aware of this data collection — let alone how to get out of it.

With Facebook and Google, weary users may choose to limit their activity on the sites or switch to rival services. But switching providers is often difficult, as is hiding your Internet activity from your Internet provider.

“Most people can’t simply walk away from their Internet service provider,” says Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at the ACLU. “They need the Internet and they may not have another option.”

A virtual private network, or VPN, is one option to protect your online activity. One service, NordVPN, says it has seen a “sharp increase” in consumer interest in the days since the Senate vote.

Related: Worried about companies spying on your browsing? Here’s what you can do

The repeal is a big win for large providers like AT&T (T, Tech30) and Verizon (VZ, Tech30). They have bet billions on content, including AT&T’s pending acquisition of Time Warner, the parent company of CNN.

This content can potentially be paired with subscriber data to build up lucrative targeted advertising businesses that compete with Google and Facebook.

“I don’t think of it as game over,” says Guliani, who predicts Republicans will face pushback from their constituents for the privacy vote. “I think of it as a setback.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published March 28, 2017: 6:06 PM ET