Hey there international readers!

Just a greeting to all my readers abroad. I hope you are getting the support and resources you need from your families. On the sidebar is a link to Yahoo Groups. If you enroll in a Yahoo account you can join the group and discuss issues with other parents online. You are not alone.

Transparency in parenting a transgender child

Janet, 14, keeps hoping nobody will know she's transgender. I roll my eyes but also wring my hands when she tells me this. I mean, please, she changed her name and pronouns three quarters into her year as a third grader. Almost everybody in town knows.

Freedom of expression for our kiddos

Hey families out there! Camp Aranu'tiq still has openings. Camp Aranu'tiq is a weeklong, overnight camp for transgender and gender-variant youth ages 8 through 15 based in both New England and the West Coast. It's a place where life experiences are shared and lifelong friendships are made.

When Janet's middle school classmates are less than understanding, and she claims she has no friends, I remind her of all her friends across the country who she can skype with, chat and share notes on Facebook. She does, indeed have many friends from camp. How fortunate!!

Thanks, Nick!!

My story about China

A year after Janet had been home, her little brother wrote this essay for school:

One day, I said to my mom, "I'm bored. I have no one to play with." Then my mom looked on the computer for children to adopt. We found a boy named T.R. We decided to adopt him. My mom came and my dad came, so did I. We stayed in China for two weeks. We went in a lot of hotels. In one hotel there was a buffet. About on the third day we got him. He liked girl stuff like princess stuff. It turned out that he was a girl. I was O.K. about that.

Anyway, when we were at one of the hotels, we played "jumping on the beds switch." That is when we each jump on different beds and say, "Jumping on the beds...switch!" When we say "switch" then we stop jumping on one bed and jump to the other bed and start jumping. That was a lot of fun. While we were in China, we always went to Chinese food places. When we finally got home, we showed her our LEGOs. That is my story about China.