Letter to My Transgender Daughter is a compelling and elaborate narrative of what it's like to learn your child is transgender and the extent one family would go through to protect their daughter. Written by a New York Times bestselling author, writing as Carolyn Hays, this book will take you on a journey no family of a transgender child ever wants to go on.
It is a story of love and acceptance, as well as of the ignorance and hatred of a community that couldn't understand what it meant for one little girl to live fully as herself.
"You had an identity. You had a clear self. You were showing that to us, asserting yourself into the world. By not seeing you, we were the ones doing the erasure. Not you" (p.44).
Carolyn Hays' daughter was three when she first began to use the word "she" to identify herself, and when she was four, a caseworker knocked on her family's door and said a call had been made about their family. The person who made the call had said they "were concerned that we were dressing our son in girls clothes, that we were forcing our child to be a homosexual" (p.84-87).
What would you do if someone reported your child or your family? What lengths would you go to to protect your child? Carolyn Hays was willing to take the blame and leave her home if it meant her daughter could stay (p.93). She and her husband made plans for who would take their daughter in if the investigator returned the next day with a cop (p.93), not knowing what would happen next but fully preparing for the worst-case scenario. They loved their daughter enough to do whatever it took.
"Love can be wild and terrified. It can also be precise and measured. It can be found in the lawyer who won't let up, who will tell you every horrifying thing you need to know to brace yourself for what might come. Love can be found in the expert who calls you immediately, firing off a series of questions to quantify your risk. Love can be found in the straight-shooter at a support group - They'll blame you. They always blame the mother" (p.113).
Eventually, the Hays family moved out of the South to New England, to a more progressive state with anti-discrimination laws that would protect their daughter and be closer to family. They landed in a community where the school principal was "actively creating an inclusive LGBTQ+ school environment" (p.134).
The remainder of the book chronicles each family member's journey through the following nine years, mainly focusing on the daughter. We learn what it's like for her to be a stealth transgender girl (a transgender individual who chooses not to disclose their transgender status to the world, often passing as cisgender), making friends, and navigating through elementary and middle school. The book ends as the family runs into a barrier with the Catholic Diocese when they wish for her to go to a private high school, and the Diocese refuses her enterance.
"Our kid will be fine, but not everybody has a mother like hers, someone who'd actually go and talk to that Catholic ethics group you mentioned. But the people you're really harming are those who don't have other options and who have to go through Catholic schools not as themselves. Those are the kids who might not make it to college. Those are the kids who might not make it at all" (p.239).
At 274 pages, A Letter to My Transgender Daughter is easy to read over a few days to a week, depending on your time and reading pace. It contains a four-page resource guide, and my softcover version includes a reader's guide.
Carolyn Hays is an award-winning, critically acclaimed, best-selling author who has chosen to publish A Letter to My Transgender Daughter under a pen name to protect her family's privacy.
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