Utah moms stand strong for their transgender kids
By Brian Maffly
The Salt Lake Tribune
First published 3 hours ago
Updated 20 minutes ago
Regardless of what his anatomy, pink bedroom and society told him, Grayson knew for years he really wasn’t a girl. He wore his hair closely cropped since the age of 11, while his heart and his former name did not match up.
“He was thrilled when people mistook him for a boy, because he was a boy inside,” said his mother, Neca. This fall the 17-year-old returned to classes at Northern Utah Academy of Mathematics, Engineering and Science (NUAMES) as a boy, legally renamed Grayson, Neca told an audience Saturday at the third annual TransAction Gender Conference.
Neca spoke on a panel with four other Utah moms who described how they stood up to medical and educational officials, religious orthodoxy and family intransigence, and struggled themselves with their children’s inability to inhabit the gender identities society had prescribed for them.
The Utah Pride Center hosts the conference, attended this year by as many as 200 people, to heighten public awareness of a community that has struggled to gain broad acceptance. Many think of gender in black and white terms, but there is a great deal of unacknowledged diversity, said Dayne Law, the Pride Center’s transgender program director. The conference supports those who don’t fit in strict male and female categories, as well as their loved ones and the professionals who help them.
More:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52902406-78/neca-gender-grayson-utah.html.csp
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