My Daughter No More

My Daughter No More

You were born my daughter but my daughter you are no more

You were born so beautiful, your dad and I instantly knew that we would forever love you

As you grew older you changed,

You didn’t want to wear dresses, they became “lame”

You dressed like a tomboy we didn’t pay attention, we didn’t think it was strange.

All we ever wanted was for you to be you, no matter what we would still love you!

As you grew a little older you began to withdraw, something inside of you changed, you were not happy at all.

You started to hate school, the kids there became cruel, they just didn’t understand you.

I had no idea what you were going through.

Then one day I found out you were cutting yourself, making yourself bleed to find relief from the pain you were in.

At that point, I felt like I had failed you not knowing how to save you.

The day I came home to find you on a stretcher, non-coherent and covered in blood I had to protect and just love you.

The truth came out, you were depressed because you were no longer my daughter you were my son.

My son, trapped in a body that did not match what he felt in his head.

You told me you killed my daughter and she was now dead.

At first, I had a problem understanding this in my head.

As a family, we struggled, welcoming my son but mourning my daughter’s death, finding it hard to say he instead of she and calling you Alex instead of Kaylee.

You would get so angry at me if I slipped and in return I would get pissed, pissed that you could not understand that this was a transition for us as well, those first few months were rough as hell!

Then one day we started therapy, we talked about everything real and soon we began to heal.

I learned so many things about you and what emotional stress you were under. Now I knew what was wrong with you I no longer had to just wonder.

I became your biggest supporter, advocating for you because I unconditionally love you.

I want you to know that as long as you are happy, I will walk by your side through this journey.

I can’t wait to see you transition into the you, you have always wanted to be and for you to achieve “your happy”.

I wrote this poem as a quick summary of what my family and I went through when my son came out as transgender at the age of 15. My son who now goes by Alex was born Kaylee on January 3, 2002. The day my daughter was born was one of the best days of my life. She was born 3 weeks before my due date weighing 9 pounds and 16 ounces. She had jet black hair and fair skin, she was beautiful and I instantly fell in love with her. She was a good baby and she had the cutest and funniest little personality. Kaylee was about 5 years old the last time she ever wore a dress. I remember it was Easter and I went shopping to buy the kids their Easter outfits and Kaylee didn’t like anything in the girl section so as we were walking by the boy section Kaylee stops me and says, “mommy I want this outfit.” I looked up and it was a t-shirt and shorts set. I looked at him and I said okay. From that day on we shopped in the boy section for her clothes. I didn’t try to tell her she couldn’t wear boy clothes, I never pressured her to try to get her to wear girl clothes because I knew she wasn’t comfortable in girl clothes. I have always been a firm believer that you must let your child be who they want to be and as long as they are happy. So early on there were signs that Kaylee related more to the masculine spectrum then the female spectrum.

As Kaylee became a teenager she became more withdrawn. She started having problems at school with people picking on her. She began to hate going to school and one day she was assaulted by another student and I had to withdraw her from that school and enroll her in another school. I found out that she was cutting herself and I had a serious talk with her to try and find out why she was cutting. She didn’t say much and I was left clueless to what she was going through inside but she did promise she would stop cutting herself. One day she gave me a note that basically told me that she wanted to transition from female to male and she wanted to go by male pronouns such as he, him, his and that he would now go by his male name Alex. The note went into detail about his plans to start testosterone treatment and how he would legally change his name and eventually get top surgery. He was very prepared and I was impressed with how detailed his plan was. Alex did his research and was very informed with what transitioning meant and what steps he had to take to reach his goals of becoming Alex. At first it was hard for me to understand why he wanted to be a boy and I felt like I had lost my daughter because he told me that Kaylee died and we had to act as if she never existed. That was very difficult for me, I had raised my daughter for 15 years before she became my son and I am supposed to forget the memories I made with her or forget how beautiful she was to me? I had a hard time letting Kaylee go and that made Alex upset. I tried to make him understand that I support him but I am still mourning my daughter who no longer exists in his eyes.

I started to notice that he was becoming more withdrawn and was spending a lot of time in his room alone. It started to get very difficult to wake him up in the mornings to go to school. I would try everything to get him out of bed but nothing worked. I tried putting my foot down one morning and told him I didn’t care what was wrong with him he had to get up and go to school and he was in tears sobbing as his dad comforted him and I was dumbfounded as to what was going on. I remember his dad looking at me and saying that I just wouldn’t understand what was going on with Alex. I was furious and yelled “how can I possibly understand if he will not talk to me at all and help me understand?” Instead I am left clueless as to why he can’t get up and go to school. After weeks of being clueless to what was going on with Alex the “incident” happened.

I decided to spend the night at my friend’s house because it had been a while since I had gone out and I felt I deserved a girl’s night. At about 4 am I received a text message from my oldest daughter that she had found Alex passed out in the bathroom covered in blood and she could not get him to wake up or respond to her. She told me she was calling the police because she didn’t know what to do. I rushed home and when I got home the ambulance had Alex on a stretcher getting him into the ambulance. I was freaking out and I asked for someone to please tell me what was going on. One of the police officers pulled me aside and explained that my daughter called 911 and told them that her brother was unconscious on the bathroom floor and was covered in blood. As they got to the scene they walked back to the bathroom and saw that there was blood all over the sink and the floor. Alex was conscious by the time they got to my house but he was pretty out of it and had no idea what was going on. I rode with Alex in the ambulance to the hospital. As we arrived they treated his cuts, which were all over his face his neck his arms and wrist area. Alex had taken a razor to himself and he cut himself in multiple places. Alex was put on suicide watch because it was obvious he was trying to cut his wrist. As we were in the emergency room the nurses started trying to get more information from Alex on what happened. He had been drinking and became intoxicated after that he could not remember what led him to the point of harming himself so bad. Because of the incident Alex was admitted to the Children’s Psychiatric Ward at UNM hospital. He had to complete treatment before he could be released to me. In treatment, he was diagnosed with depression and was put on medication. Upon his release, I had to get him into therapy. The therapy was put off because my oldest daughter became sick and was in heart failure and we had to be flown to Arizona where she eventually got a heart transplant. I was away from Alex and my other 2 children for months trying to take care of my oldest who was very sick and could possibly die. The time I had to be away from Alex was very hard, I worried about him every day and that on top of everything going on with my daughter I was very stressed and overwhelmed. I felt like I was going to have a mental breakdown. I was staying strong for my daughter but deep down inside I was in agony and I was depressed and my anxiety was becoming worse. Even though the entire situation with Alex was very stressful I never thought of not being there for him, I am his mother and it is my job to care for him and be there for him in his time of need and finding a balance in being there for all my 4 children was and still is difficult but I do it because the love I have for my children is so great that I would never give up on any of them no matter how hard it gets. I eventually came home and as soon as I did I got Alex started with his therapy at a place called Engender. Therapy allowed Alex to open up and voice what he was going through and that was something I could never do with Alex. I am so grateful for the help that Alex’s therapist gave him that helped him let me in. I learned new things about my son that helped me better understand him. The therapy gave Alex a platform to deal with the issues he was having with himself in his mind.

Alex was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, depression and social anxiety. We have made big steps towards his transition and his ability to begin testosterone treatments. I have been there with him so far scheduling and going to his doctor’s appointments and therapy appointments. I am going to get an agency that will aid him in his name change. I am here for my son and I support him because I love him. I hear so many stories from boys and girls whose parents disowned them because they were gay, transgender, lesbian and that upsets me. I am a supportive parent and it is hard for me to understand how a parent could abandon and disown their own child because they are not “straight” or not normal in their eyes. The love for a child should be a love without conditions.

This is just the beginning of Alex’s journey to becoming who he really wants to be and I hope that more kids who decide to come out have the support of their loved ones. Supporting someone you claim to love makes all the difference when they are going through something like this, it is not an easy thing to go through. Please do not disown a child who might be in crisis because they are trying to understand what is going on within them and they are trying to accept themselves. Know that the process of them getting to know who they really want to be and getting others to accept them is a scary thing and it could put someone in a lot of pain and turmoil, so don’t make it harder for them. Be there for them, help them, guide them and most of all love them. I believe in happiness and I wish with all my heart that the number of supportive parents grows out there for all the kids, teens or adults who find the courage to come out to their family.

I dedicate this to my son, please know that I will be with you every step of the way on the road to your happiness.