My Daughter He: Transitioning with Our Transgender Children

This memoir and guidebook from Waldron reaches out with a compassionate voice to those dealing with the emotional and practical difficulties of parenting a gender variant child. By acknowledging that the parent’s journey can be an often uncomfortable one, Waldron counters the urge to devalue our own experiences when they no longer match with our child’s current reality. Each chapter has three parts, entitled “Recollections,” “Research,” and “Reflections.” In “Recollections,” Waldron tells the story of raising her son Kai, née daughter Kendra, through his process of trying on new roles and fighting suicidal despair, before finally emerging as a happy young man during his senior year in high school. “Research” provides well-organized information on the science of sex and gender and about appropriate medical treatment for transgender young people, including a discussion of their options upon reaching puberty. “Reflections” returns to the personal, but in universal terms, offering advice on productive things parents can do for themselves, their transgender child, and their other children, and on social issues like disclosure and dating. Waldron’s style is warm without falling into either cutesy mommy tales or overwrought handwringing, tapping into the grief that many parents feel when they realize that their children are people of their own and not just an extension of the parents’ dreams for them. [em](BookLife) [/em]