“Did you two just take the day off to come wander around Disneyland?” my dad teases.
“We did.” Pastor Eric says, “Since our church is in Irvine, we decided to get Disney passes so we could come and wander Disneyland on our days off.”
We all laugh. Pastor Eric and his wife join us for lunch while Ryland poses for my camera with a smile full of french fries, holding her birthday souvenir:
* * *
This certificate announces that
RYLAND
Has proven to be worthy of training to become a Jedi, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. . . .
From this day forth, remember, a Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.
The force will be with you, always.
* * *
The certificate is stamped by the Jedi Training Academy, and Disneyland.
When I check the photo in my digital display, it shows Pastor Eric and Karen giggling at Ryland in the background. “Little warrior in the making,” Pastor Eric laughs.
I’m halfway tempted to tell him: You have no idea.
AFTER THE VISIT to Disneyland, my doctor orders immediate bed rest, where, he says, it’s likely that I’ll spend the entire remainder of the pregnancy. My anxiety spikes higher than ever, knowing that I’ll need to depend more on our family to help with Ryland, which means that I’m going to lose control. But I know that if I don’t take the doctor’s instructions seriously, my second child’s life could be gone.
The weeks to come grow in difficulty until they’re finally filled with terror. Peg comes over throughout the week to pick up Ryland while I rest or shop for the family’s Christmas gifts online. Peg cooperates patiently with Ryland when, at first, the male-oriented requests are pretty trivial: Ryland will only eat off blue-colored plates and drink out of blue cups. But she also begins to observe how Ryland absolutely will not wear a shirt in the house, and she takes note of the very masculine tendencies—playing with boys’ toys (Shrek drives dinosaurs around in a red pickup truck in our house), making sound effects like a boy while she’s playing . . . and even beginning to try to stand to go potty. Jeff and I have discussed the fact that the bathroom perpetually smells like it needs cleaning, until one day when I walk into the bathroom and find Ryland facing the toilet.
Again, that deer-in-the-headlights look of shame, but I’m not mad; instead, my heart sinks, and I’m just glad to finally have an answer to why the bathroom has smelled like urine.
“Honey?” I ask her gently. “What are you doing?”
“Nuffing,” she says. She hoists up her pants and turns swiftly to the sink to wash her hands.
I watch her whiz past me to exit the bathroom and wonder if it’s worthwhile just to let the incident go, feeling just as embarrassed as Ryland looked. I remember giggling as a little girl when my older brother told me that he stands up to pee, and, curious, I even tried it once or twice to see what it was like. I use this memory to try to brush off Ryland’s potty incident as best I can, chalking it up to normal toddler experimentation, but within the next few weeks, I pay attention to how often I have to clean the area around the toilet. It’s obvious that Ryland is using the toilet little-boy-style more than on the occasional test trial.
When my contractions randomly start again, Peg and Rand take Ryland to stay at their house for a couple of nights.
I pack a bag full of girl clothes, including some that Peg and Rand have given as gifts, in hopes that Ryland will cooperate with her grandparents more than she does with me, or, at the very least, that Peg will see that I really do make an attempt to dress Ryland in little girls’ clothes.
When the contractions cease, and after I’ve gotten a couple of good days of rest, Peg brings Ryland back home.
“Hillary,” she says, “I saw something that I can’t seem to get out of my mind.”
Dreading more, I ask her: “What’s that?”
“When Ryland arrived at our house, she was wearing little boys’ underwear.”
Oh no. Ryland had dressed herself and put on the Star Wars underwear.
I start to defend myself, finagling an explanation, but Peg stares at me blankly—she’s not at all amused. Struggling in vain to convince her that this is nothing, I resort to: “It’s not like you can see them. I mean, they’re under her clothes.”
Silence. Awkwardness. No response.
She leaves quietly, and I am sick to my stomach. I guess I’ve pushed the limit. But someone had to stand up for Ryland, and it had to be me. I feel like they’re blaming me for pushing Ryland toward a masculine identity, but this is real. This is all her. I know her better than anyone does. I never put her in day care and I have been extremely cautious about whom I’ve allowed to care for her. I’m with my child all the time. She was deaf, and I already feel that she needs me more than most children need their parents. I’m here to protect her . . . even if that means protecting her from the opinions of our own family. I know very well now where they all stand on boys’ underwear.
Ryland is in bed when Jeff arrives home from work. He comes into the bedroom.
“You heard?”
“Yeah.” Instead of looking at me, he clasps his hands behind his head and looks up at the ceiling, searching for an answer. “I heard.”
“So they’re upset?”
He heads into his closet and starts to undress. For a moment he’s silent . . . and then over his shoulder, he tells me: “They didn’t like it one bit.”
PREGNANT, ANGRY, FRUSTRATED, and tired of disappointing everyone—especially Jeff and Ryland—as Christmas nears, I give up and put Jeff in charge of picking out Ryland’s Christmas outfit.
“I’ll let you take over,” I tell him. “I’m always stuck between trying to make her happy and trying to make you and everyone else happy, and I’m exhausted of taking the heat for her. You’ll see what I’m dealing with every day.” We argue constantly over Ryland’s appearance and the concerns of those with whom we are constantly surrounded. I feel like everyone critiques what I’m doing wrong, but nobody helps or offers any chance of a solution. I feel resentful, like he should be taking on this challenge with me, instead of letting me face the wolves all alone.
Initially, Jeff thinks he can handle Ryland’s Christmas clothing situation easily. “No problem,” he says, and it’s all I can do not to say, Just you wait. He’s the man of the house, the enforcer, the boss—the voice that Ryland listens to the most. I know he believes that I let Ryland get away with way too much of this dressing nonsense. Now he’ll see for himself.
Jeff spends an evening searching the Internet, looking for an outfit we can agree on. Eventually we come across an image of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s family and take note that one of their children is a gender-nonconforming natal female like Ryland. Finally! We’ve found a child with a “style” that can work for Ryland: a white, long-sleeved, button-up shirt, short black vest, a tie, and black jeans. When Jeff sees this look, something finally clicks for him. “Some girls rock the vest look,” he says cheerfully, and we agree that this is a perfect compromise.
It’s so refreshing for us to see a child in the public eye who wears the tomboy look like we hope Ryland can! We want her to feel good about herself and her clothes, but also to fit in with societal expectations. We’re learning that unfortunately, you can’t always have both . . . but to see images of John Jolie-Pitt (who was called Shiloh at the time) for us, is a good start. For the first time ever on this topic, we’re all on the same page. It’s actually exciting to have an idea that we’ve all agreed on.
Feeling a renewed confidence, Jeff takes Ryland shopping for an outfit that includes a collared shirt and a vest, like Brad and Angelina’s child. From the sofa, I watch them as they head out the front door in hopes that this will be a fun day of shopping and bonding.
When they reach the store, Jeff texts me: he realizes it isn’t as easy to find these pieces as he thought it would be, especially that Ryland agrees on. Finally, h
e’s subject to what I’ve been dealing with, and when Ryland leads him to the boys’ department, the two of them manage to piece together an outfit that Ryland is more than happy to wear. From the dressing room, Jeff texts pictures to me. Ry looks super-cute in vests and Ralph Lauren Polo shirts—and, I notice, appears so happy in the photos!
After they leave the store, Jeff takes Ryland to speech therapy in Poway. It’s a long trip and an intense hour of therapy, so a four-year-old looks forward to a Happy Meal– or smoothie-worthy ride home. While they listen to music, Ryland throws one of her hair bows up front—something that she knows would not be okay with me. The bows are the one final piece of wardrobe compromise that I’ve negotiated.
“Ry,” Jeff says. “Why did you do that?”
“I don’t want to wear them anymore.”
Treading lightly and now very curious, Jeff takes the conversation where it seems to be heading next.
“Ryland,” he says, “do you just like playing with boy toys, or are you a girl who wants to be a boy?”
Ryland hesitates. She’s aware of what her answer should be, and she doesn’t want to raise any more questions from Dad. “A girl who likes boy things,” she responds.
“Okay,” Jeff says, satisfied with Ryland’s answer. Still, he senses that there is a deeper truth that he as the father should dig for. “Would you want to cut your hair and look like Daddy?”
Ryland nods her head in excitement. Yes!
“So, you want short hair—you want to cut your long hair?”
“Yeah!”
I’m still resting on the couch when they arrive at home. Jeff is somewhere else . . . distracted. I can tell he’s upset.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“Oh,” he says, shaking his head. “Not much.”
“No, really,” I ask him. “What’s wrong?”
“Tell you in a little while,” he whispers. “After we put Ry to bed.”
After Ryland is asleep, we go into our office, which functions as a spare bedroom with a double bed set up for guests. We lie down together, and Jeff’s eyes fill with tears. I never see him cry. I never see him this upset. “What’s wrong, babe?”
“Ryland . . .” he says. “Ryland told me she wants to cut her hair and be like me. I am scared. I am really scared. Something is different, Hill—something is going on!”
“I know, I know.” I cradle his head into my chest. He cries like a baby as I hold him to me tightly. I’ve been walking a fine line with him because he has not been ready to accept this, but now it’s all hit him. I have longed to have the big conversation with him about Ryland. I’ve used what we learned from denying her deafness not to make the same mistake here in a way that could permanently damage our little girl’s self-perception, and I’ve been listening to what she’s been expressing to strengthen my capacity to love my child for who she is. I saw my brother suffer his whole life trying to figure out how in the world to love himself. . . . I don’t want that same life for my child.
Out of fear for Jeff’s reactions and his personal denial around this subject, I’ve done everything I can to avoid it completely. Every time it’s come up, I’ve felt his tension and have been waiting for him to bring it up first. Now, finally, the moment is here. Ryland has finally confessed to him what she’s been feeling.
I’m proud of her, and also of Jeff for not shying away from the talk . . . but I’m also very, very scared for our child. What does this all mean?
We’re afraid, confused. I’ve suspected Ryland would most likely be a member of the LGBTQ community, but I’ve simply imagined her as a lesbian. Both Jeff and I would accept and love her that way, or any way. Jeff’s brother Scott has expanded our whole family’s tolerance. Jeff’s aunt Sue is also gay, and Rand and Peg have kept her looped in on all that’s been going on with Ryland. If there’s any family, and any extended family, that could embrace a homosexual child, it’s ours. But is there something else? Something inside tells me that we may be dealing with something more.
Chapter Six
Growing Family
I feel overwhelmed—crazy, even—to be thinking of Ryland’s sexuality at age four, but Jeff and I are both very confused. I try to envision how long it’s reasonable for a little girl to pass as a tomboy, until spring 2012, when Ryland draws a preschool picture of herself as a little boy. It’s further evidence that Ryland perceives herself to be male, and while the self-portrait is adorable, we don’t really know how to explain it to anyone else. There’s something else going on inside Ryland, and I have to dig deeper than sexual orientation. Ryland is so little. This is different than an attraction to the same sex—this is Ryland telling us that she is incongruent with her physical body.
In early March 2012, my doctor finds that I’ve begun to dilate and forbids me to do anything except rest for what we anticipate will be the final month of my pregnancy. I feel helpless and very emotional as I watch Jeff, his parents, and his brothers share care of Ryland. At this point, there’s almost nothing I can do for my child . . . my child who needs me right now. Ryland seems like she is doing fine—her uncle Jay does a great job keeping her busy at the Birch Aquarium, the arcade for games and pizza and at surf lessons at the beach—but there are so many tasks that come with watching her that I fear she isn’t getting everything she needs when she’s out of my care. There are a lot of nuts and bolts that need attending to: her cochlear implants need to be cleaned and the batteries charged nightly, and in the morning there is a fifteen-minute routine to connect her ears to the FM transmitter for school. It’s a long, tedious task on top of everything else, and I know it’s a lot to ask of Jeff’s family. It makes me uneasy to know the maintenance that’s necessary with Ryland.
Her Nana and Papa are spoiling her, and so are her amazing uncles, and I know she has fun with all of them . . . but before they whisk her off, she hugs me for long periods. She isn’t angry with me for not being able to be there, since she understands there is a baby inside me, and her apparent understanding of this only amplifies the guilt I feel for not doing my job as I’m usually able to do.
Doing all he can to keep me sane, Jeff manages to keep up with the laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, and bills. He also rearranges the living room for me to finish out my bed rest in as pleasing an atmosphere as possible. Ryland stands by as Jeff remounts the television to go above the fireplace and moves the couch and all the family pictures that hang on our walls. When he’s finished, the room’s been set up so that I can look out the window for these last few weeks until the second baby arrives. Jeff and Ryland—dressed in her John Jolie-Pitt–inspired vest—surround me (and my belly) when Peg snaps a photo of the three of us on my birthday, sitting inside their renovation and preparing to blow out the candles on my cake. We’re all smiling hugely: me, feeling very loved and pleased, while the two of them appear so proud of their work.
It’s in this final period of my pregnancy—when I’m forced to sit still instead of do anything to run the house—that I begin to search for resources that can enlighten me about Ryland’s situation. I order books by gender experts and psychotherapists who specialize in child development, and there are prevailing themes that begin to encourage me to think completely differently about our situation.
One is that gender identity and sexuality are not one and the same. Ryland’s inclination to live her life as a boy actually is completely apart from which gender—or genders—she may gravitate toward romantically. At first, this makes me scratch my head: could this get any more confusing? But it occurs to me that Ryland’s sexual preference isn’t something that we need to address or even fully understand for at least a few years. For now, this is a huge relief.
Another answer I find is that indeed we are just toddlers when we know who we are from a gender standpoint—that is, we’re gender identified between ages two and five. So that’s why the clothing struggles started right after the cochlear implants, I realize. It was the increased self-awareness that gaining sound gave her, al
ong with the fact that we just so happened to have the procedure done at the same point in her life that a child’s gender identification begins to form. According to what I’m reading, much of how a child expresses who he or she is is played out through their clothing choices. This is the period in our lives when we determine the way we’ll want to dress, how we’ll carry ourselves, and the person we’ll grow into as we grow older and then into adulthood. So much of a person’s long-term development takes place in this phase—cognitive, linguistic, physical, social, emotional, and more. It’s very possible that the Ryland of today is who Ryland will be for life.
To be a tomboy is just a phase, and what we’ve been dealing with is definitely more than a phase. Phases end, and this tomboy thing is not ending—instead, over time, it’s growing much stronger. My child’s masculinity is deeply embedded in who Ryland is. I read that the difference between a transgender kid and a tomboy is that tomboys are okay with their physical body—they like being girls who do boyish things. Ryland’s not like that. Instead, she is showing us more and more that she would prefer to have the body of a boy. She also follows the three criteria that I’m learning about in these books: she’s insistent, consistent, and persistent, and she’s been this way for more than three years. This masculine presentation has lingered very persistently, and it shows no signs of going away anytime soon. As I read, it dawns on me that there may be something much more to Ryland’s self-perception. Maybe Ryland is right—maybe on the inside, in her brain and in her heart, she really is a boy.
Another point I read that brings me more clarity is stark: a statistic I find states that 41 percent of people who are transgender try to take their own lives—that’s compared to approximately 1.9 percent of the general population. This figure shocks and disturbs me. I lost my brother way too early in our lives, and I refuse to lose my child, too. I also think of the transgender women I’ve met with Scott, my brother-in-law, when I’ve gone out with him to the bars in Hillcrest, an area in San Diego known for its acceptance of gender diversity. It devastates me to think of the sadness they keep private . . . and of the fact that my child could potentially relate to that sadness. Why shouldn’t everyone just be free to live as who they are?
Raising Ryland Page 9