An Open Letter to the Parents of a Transgender Child

It is from the heart of a parent and from the love my Poppa gives me that I write this.  I pray that Poppa, His Son, the One Who Loves Me, and the Comforter that Poppa has sent, gives His words of Love. 

You have suffered a great loss.  The child that together you conceived and bore, raised and suffered your child's hurts and celebrated your child's victories, the child for whom your hopes and dreams and prayers have been constant and unstinting, your child appears to be on a different path.  Your hopes, your dreams, your prayers seem rejected and dashed. Your vision of family twisted and unrecognizable. There is nothing but despair.

You sought guidance and counciling, for your child and yourself.  Your counselor taught that you should reject your child in the life your child now lives; that you should think of your child as dead.  The death of a child is no little thing to deal with. I would suggest that this teaching is not from Poppa.  It is not a teaching of Love. It is a teaching of Vengance, a teaching of Man.

You have done so well loving and raising your child!  Your child is a beacon among your child's peers.  Your child is a comforter and encourager to many, many children of all ages caught in this strange gift Poppa gives some of His children. Your child is someone to be proud of. I am so very proud for your child, but your child is not mine to be proud of.  Nothing good your child lives is mine to claim. Everything good in your child, everything good! is from you and you should be proud!

Your child loves you both.  Your child needs you both. Your child aches to go on Sunday walks to get an espresso and talk of life, model trains and God.  Your child has suffered grievous hurts but could not turn to you for comfort because you would not give it. You reject your child.  Your precious first-born!  You cannot call your child by name.  You call "him" Dennis.  You cannot call her Deniece.  Always you refer to Dennis, or Denmo, or, simply, Den, like a compromise of the truth is enough.  You do not see that all your hopes and dreams and prayers that really matter live on gloriously in your child!  

Your child is not perfect.  There is only one Perfect Child, the Son, the One Who Loves Us.  The Son is the only child to live up to the dreams and hopes and prayers of his Father.  All other children have flaws.  All other children are not perfect.  You, both of you, we re children once.  There are no perfect parents save for Poppa, Father to us all.  You remember your parents.  They were not perfect.  Your parents did not live up to your hopes and dreams and prayers.  But you loved them still.  Your child, who is not perfect, loves you still.  I believe Poppa and the One Who Loves Us call us to love the imperfect children in our lives as they love us even though we are not perfect. 

My prayer, small though it is, is simply that you both open your hearts to Poppa and to your daughter, Deniece.  Dennis is not coming back.