Hiyeee!

When I woke up this morning, I reached for my phone to initiate the morning habit I find myself in each day. As I was scrolling, I realized - it's February first.. and I have to agree with the gajillion posts out there - January felt like a whole year, not just a whole month, amirite?

So many things happened for us as a family in the month of January. After coming back from an epic family vacation in Hawaii, I took on a new role at the girls school teaching computers (alongside my current 'job' as a yard duty - aka - "school mom"), I had surgery (it was minor, but was still an event), and an article in our local newspaper was published about our family. 

When I was originally approached to be interviewed I thought to myself "Hell yes. This is a great opportunity to share our story as a family. A chance for folks to understand that we're just a normal, suburban family but with an extraordinary circumstance that makes us 'different'". 

And then the questions started from both the reporter and my husband... did we want the girls’ names in the paper? How would this change things for them? Would the naysayers and the people that don't accept kids like mine lash out? Was I putting my family in danger? 

After a panic attack or two, and a few glasses/bottles of wine, we made the decision together, collectively as a family that the pros outweighed the cons and we needed to tell our story in the most authentic way possible. We knew that hate would follow, but we were willing to take that risk in order to hopefully help change the conversation around transgender youth. To put a human element to the stigma. To show our neighbors and our community that there is nothing scary about our family, nor our transgender daughter.

And then the reporter asked a few days later if she could have a photographer come out and take pictures to go with the article.

New panic attack. New bottle of wine. New family discussion.

But here's the truth - our names are already going to be in the paper - and in this day and age, with the power of social media, you could find pictures of myself, my family and my girls by just a simple Google search.. or Facebook search.. if we were going to do this, we were going to do this all the way.

So now, I'd like to RE-introduce you to our family. 

Hi, I'm Megan, my husband is Kelly, our nine-year-old cisgender daughter is Hayden and our five-year-old transgender daughter is Harper. We're happy you're here and we appreciate your willingness to learn, understand, and keep an open mind as we navigate the gray areas.