I had the obligation this week of attending a talk by Judy Shepard. I was, both disappointed and angry at her words and left with the obligation to write to her. It's taken me much of the week to cool down enough to write a letter that I hope might encourage her not to put other young people at risk, or in danger with her words.

Here's my letter:

Dear Judy,

What happened to your son was a terrible thing - and I deeply admire your ability to respond to that tragedy with a call for greater justice and understanding. I can not understand what it must have been like to lose a child like that, although as a parent, even beginning to contemplate that is terrifying. I am queer and trans, and have been out as other-than-straight for over 20 years, and out as trans for about a decade. I also work with young people who identify as other-than-straight, and it is from this perspective, as a queer and trans person, and as an advocate for people who are other-than-straight that I write to you. I recently attended a talk you gave in Hamilton, and I need to respond to a number of things you said. I hope you will reconsider your words, as I feel that a number of the things you said do in fact do harm to LGBTT2IQQA people.

I think you can do better, and I hope you read this as an encouragement to greater respect. These are things to which I took exception:

• Gay is not a choice, because who would choose to be rejected by their family, be left out of society, and be miserable – who would choose that?
• That gay people can never be happy until they come out, and that everyone should come out.
• That you knew your son was gay when he was 8 "mother's intuition" you said, but that you did nothing about it until he came out to you a decade later.
• People should stop trying to add letters and held up GLOW at St. Olaf's as an ideal name, and recommended LGBTQ groups re-name themselves "Gay Lesbian Or Whatever" like them.
• You talked about how you can not abide the word "queer" and that no-one should use it as it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand-up
• That we need to respect the courage of people who openly speak homophobia as they have a right to free speach.

• Gay is not a choice, because who would choose to be rejected by their family, be left out of society, and be miserable – who would choose that?

Whether or not people choose to love, have sex, or enter into relationships with people of the same-sex is not important. My rights to be safe, housed, employed, able to marry is not based on whether or not I "chose to be gay" - they are based on my humanity. We acknowledge faith based rights, and faith is certainly a choice - are you suggesting that my right to love who I love is less than my right to worship as I choose? When you talk about being gay as miserable, you make all of us victims. You make us less than you, and you deny our happiness. I want to tell you that I live a rich and fabulous life. Coming out as gay, and then queer has helped me join a culture full of love, and support, and arts, and richness. To be gay is not synonymous with being miserable, and to tell people that is to damn them.

• That gay people can never be happy until they come out, and that everyone should come out.

This is one of the more dangerous things you said. You talked a great deal about coming out. You said things like "sometimes the family you were born into is not your real family" and you mocked older gay men who live with their mothers and have not come out to them. You also said that mothers always know.

So first off, coming out is a personal choice. A young man I work with talked about how in considering coming out, you need to balance your happiness and your safety - his are wise words. For some people, the risks of coming out are too great. For some people coming out would mean loosing another part of their identity and that cost is too much. And if coming out means violence, or loosing family, or a loss of housing, or an end to financial support, or being kicked out of a community staying private about one's sexual orientation may be the best choice. You came to my community and told young people to come out. Will you be here to help heal, house and support them if they come out and it goes badly? If you are not, don't tell them unequivocally to come out. It's true that for a great many of us coming out is freeing and empowering. It's true that relieving the stress of keeping one's identity private is often a huge relief. It's true that living openly makes it easier to love a partner, but it is also true that sometimes these rewards are not enough. Everyone's life is different, and everyone's family is different, and we need to let people make their own choices. Not everyone's mother knows, and mocking people who have chosen to keep their sexual orientation private is cruel and judgmental, please do not engage in that kind of public bullying.

• That you knew your son was gay when he was 8 "mother's intuition" you said, but that you did nothing about it until he came out to you a decade later.

Please understand I'm not critiquing your actions here. You made your choices in your family context for your reasons, and I respect that. It is however clear, that children who grow-up in households where LGBTQ people and our contributions are recognized and valued are more likely to accept others and value diversity, and, come out safely if they are LGBTQ. People look up to you, and there were parents who came to your talk as part of their process towards supporting their young people. Please encourage them to create welcoming supportive homes. Encourage them to speak positively and openly about LGBTQ people and our contributions and accomplishments, encourage them to have books and resources with people who are  LGBTQ in them, encourage them to have LGBTQ people over for dinner. Please use this moment to speak to parents. Changing the culture of our families helps change the broader culture that we live in, and this work remains vital.

• People should stop trying to add letters and held up GLOW at St. Olaf's as an ideal name, and recommended LGBTQ groups re-name themselves "Gay Lesbian Or Whatever" like them.

Please don't say this. This encourages people who are gay and lesbian people to treat others (people who are bisexual, transsexual, transgendered, asexual, queer, questioning, omnisexual, pansexual and others) as less than. Campus groups can be fertile spaces for bi-phobia and trans-phobia and names like GLOW contribute to this. Multiple studies have shown that people who are bisexual have higher rates of depression, addiction and suicidality than people who are lesbian and gay, and the work suggests that a lack of community, and a discrimination in both straight settings and LGBTQ settings contributes to this. People who are trans also report that transphobia is often common within organizations who claim to be LGBTQ. We need to make places safer for more people. We need to make people feel more welcome, more often, not discounted in the organization's very name. It's true that people use different words for their identities, and that the language is changing, but I think this is a strength and a richness. If we are going to celebrate people, we need to celebrate people as they know themselves to be. Please encourage inclusive names.

• You talked about how you can not abide the word "queer" and that no-one should use it, as it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand-up.

Please imagine what you said about "queer" but with the word "gay" said in place of the word queer. Does that feel good? Or respectful? Please be respectful of our identities, including queer. You are right, the word queer is one that some of us have reclaimed, and one that some see as beyond redemption. I would not use queer for people unless they had told me that they identify that way, but then I feel similarly about the labels of "straight", "gay" and "lesbian". As with so many issues, you do not have to like the word we have chosen, but you do need to show us the respect you extend to other people.

• That we need to respect the courage of people who openly speak homophobia as they have a right to free speech.

We live in a homophobic culture, we do not need to respect the courage of people who openly speak homophobia. It is not a courageous act to speak an opinion that is reinforced or rewarded by many institutions. We need to respect that they are people, we need to acknowledge that they have a right to their beliefs, but we do not need to respect their courage for saying hurtful things.

Thank you for reading and listening. I hope that we can come to see ourselves as comrades in creating a world that is safe for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, and I wish us success in that work.

Periodically, I get asked if there are more gender independent/ gender non-conforming/gender imaginative/ gender creative/gender variant/ transgender/ trans children and youth because there is more awareness of transpeople and trans-identities in society.

The answer is always no.

More awareness may mean more legal protections, and it may mean that there are more caring adults willing to support children and youth, but knowledge of transpeople does not make children up and decide that their own gender or sex needs to be changed. Even if it did (which it does not) I'd like to suggest that there is very little cultural material for children about transpeople. Carly, She's still My Daddy is just not showing up in many kindergarten libraries. And while there are children who read 10,000 Dresses and think "I'm just like the main character" it's not like the image it paints is so alluring that other children are going to think "hey, that's not me but I wish it was". The images of trans people that young children are exposed to are few, hard to find, and seldom positive. I dream of the day that resources like Reflection Press' Gender Now Coloring Book are more widely available, and even when they are, more awareness is not going to create more trans children.

The claim that there are more gender independent/ gender non-conforming/gender imaginative/ gender creative/gender variant/ transgender/ trans children and youth because here is more awareness of transpeople and trans-identities in society, is the polite way of saying "we recruit" and it's a slander that plays into the primal fear that "we are out to get your children". The myth that faeries would steal unbaptized children persists, and I remember being told that if I was bad, the gypsies would come take me away. The culture that I am a part of has a long history of claiming that those it wants to other will 'steal the children'. The antisemitic belief that Jews steal children to make Passover matza is a gross and disturbing example, but the idea that "we are out to get the children" has been proven over and over again as a successful way to villianize whole people. We the othered then have to spend time defending ourselves, and proving that we are not out to get your children. Often we are told that the way to do this is to act as much like the majority culture as possible and to be quiet. Talk about silencing marginalized voices.

The idea that there are more (and younger) trans people because of greater awareness of trans people also serves to distracts us from what is actually going on. Peggy Orenstein in Cinderella Ate My Daughter, documents a huge cultural shift towards an increasingly rigid gendering of childhood and children. She discusses at some length the marketing brilliance of clearly defining "boys toys" and "girls toys" and how doing so means that fewer older siblings are sharing their toys with differently gendered younger siblings and thus more toys are being sold. I frequently remind teachers that childhood now is more gendered than it was when we were children. I was born in the mid seventies and grew-up with Free to Be You and Me. While the message was that "every boy in this land grows to be his own man, every girl in this land grows to be her own women" and not "everyone gets to figure out who they are and then live that way" there was more room in the categories of "girl" and "boy". I could refuse to wear dresses, mostly play with boys, try-out and play on boys sports teams, and my behaviour was seen as "feminist" or that of a "tomboy", and inside the category of girl.

The other thing that has been happening at the same time, has been happening in the DSM. The DSM III first introduced a childhood diagnosis, Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood in 1980, and at the time it required:

Table 1 DSM-III diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood
     For females
     A. Strongly and persistently stated desire to be a boy, or insistence that she is a boy (not merely a desire for any perceived
     cultural advantages from being a boy)
     B. Persistent repudiation of female anatomic structures, as manifested by at least one of the following repeated assertions
     (1) that she will grow up to become a man (not merely in role)
     (2) that she is biologically unable to become pregnant
     (3) that she will not develop breasts
     (4) that she has no vagina
     (5) that she has, or will grow, a penis
     C. Onset of the disturbance before puberty ...

     For males
     A. Strongly and persistently stated desire to be a girl, or insistence that he is a girl.
     B. Either (1) or (2)
     (1) persistent repudiation of male anatomic structures, as manifested by at least one of the following repeated assertions
       (a) that he will grow up to become a woman (not merely in role)
       (b) that his penis and testes are disgusting or will disappear
       (c) that it would be better not to have a penis or testes
     (2) preoccupation with female stereotypical activities as manifested by a preference for either cross-dressing or simulating female
     attire, or by a compelling desire to participate in the games and pastimes of girls.
     C. Onset of the disturbance before puberty. ...

The DSM IV broadened the diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder in children, with the result that children no longer had to state a clear interest in or belief that they are the other sex. Instead it said:

1. In children, the disturbance is manifested by four (or more) of the following:
   1. repeatedly stated desire to be, or insistence that he or she is, the other sex
   2. in boys, preference for cross-dressing or simulating female
      attire; in girls, insistence on wearing only stereotypical masculine
      clothing
   3. strong and persistent preferences for cross-sex roles in make-believe play or persistent fantasies of being the other sex
   4. intense desire to participate in the stereotypical games and pastimes of the other sex
   5. strong preferences for playmates of the other sex
2. In children, the disturbance is manifested by any of the following:
   • in boys, assertion that his penis or testes are disgusting or will disappear
     or assertion that it would be better not to have a penis,
     or aversion toward rough-and-tumble play
     and rejection of male stereotypical toys, games and activities;
   • in girls, rejection of urinating in a sitting position,
     assertion that she has or will grow a penis,
     or assertion that she does not want to grow breasts or menstruate,
     or marked aversion toward normative feminine clothing.
3. The disturbance is not concurrent with a physical intersex condition.
4. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or
   impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

When in boys, an "aversion toward rough-and-tumble play and rejection of male stereotypical toys, games and activities", and in girls a "marked aversion toward normative feminine clothing." is considered a "manifestation of the disturbance" many more children can be pathologized, many more children can be considered insufficiently feminine or insufficiently masculine. It also teaches parents that their children's behaviour is wrong and not something that normal children do. I ask you, gentle readers, who's coming for the children? I

So, what "makes" gender independent/ gender non-conforming/gender imaginative/ gender creative/gender variant/ transgender/ trans children and youth? I have several answers, but I believe that key among them is the simultaneous narrowing of the cultural understandings of what it means to be a boy or girl and the broadening of the definition of Gender Identity Disorder for children. Simply put, when there are fewer ways to be a girl or boy, and more ways to be identified as having GID, more children will find that they simply can not fit into what is expected of them, and instead find themselves being pathologized.

And open letter to Tim Hudak

Dear Tim Hudak
 
Yesterday, quite a number of news sources reported on a piece of campaign literature your party distributed in the Toronto area, where I live.
 
 When asked about your own party’s campaign material yesterday, you chose to conflate the Toronto District School Board’s Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism, A K-12 Curriculum Resource with the 2010 provincial Health and Education Curriculum, Grades 1-8 that was proposed and withdrawn within weeks. On a grand scale, that’s misleading in terms of responsibility. The provincial Liberal party is responsible for a curriculum created under the direction of their government, while the local school board is responsible for a curriculum resource they created. Claiming Dalton McGuinty is responsible for the TDSB’s Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism, A K-12 Curriculum Resource is giving credit where it is just not warranted. Even more egregious is that in conflating the two documents you are conflating sex education with challenging homophobia. People who want to continue encouraging hatred towards people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two spirit, transsexual, intersex, queer or questioning often do this. Let me be clear, challenging homophobia and gender bias is not sex education – it is about ending discrimination, and valuing actual human beings. Sex education is about teaching people about their bodies and how to keep themselves and others healthy and well. They are both important, but they are not the same thing.
 
A number of well respected news resources have already written about how the quotes in your campaign material either do not exist in the document it purports to be quoting, or are greatly redacted in such a way that the meaning is altered. I expect you will apologize for this smear on the work of the TDSB and hateful fear mongering against people who are gender nonconforming and people who’s sexual orientation is other than straight.
 
What you have said about parental rights and Ontario’s Health and Education Curriculum still needs to be addressed.
 
Being as you brought it up, let’s start by clearly saying that as a parent, you absolutely have the right to have your child exempted from sex education. You said:
 
“My little girl Miller – it’s her birthday today – is just four and she has started JK,” he said. “The notion that Dalton McGuinty thinks a priority in education is sex-education curriculum starting at Grade 1 when they should be learning their ABCs and how to tie their shoes is another example of how Dalton McGuinty has lost touch with mainstream Ontario.”
 
So let’s look at the sex-education Miller would have received in grade one, had the 2010 curriculum been implemented (which again, it has not). I’ve quoted here absolutely everything the curriculum has to say about sex-education in the grade one section:
 
Human Development and Sexual Health
C1.3 identify body parts, including genitalia (e.g. penis, testicles, vagina, vulva), using correct terminology [PS]
• • • • •
Teacher prompt: “We have talked about the body parts that everyone has. What body parts do only boys have and what body parts do only girls have?”
Student: “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”
Teacher: “We talk about these body parts, like all body parts, with respect.”
 
C1.4 identify the five senses and describe how each functions (e.g., sight: the eyes give the brain information about the world to help us see colours, shapes, and movement; touch: receptors in the skin tell us how things feel – if they are hot, cold, wet, dry, hard, soft; hearing: the ears pick up vibrations and send messages to the brain to help us hear sounds that are loud or soft, high- or lowpitched; smell and taste: the tongue is covered with thousands of taste buds and the nose has tiny
hairs and nerves that send messages to the brain about how things taste and smell) [PS]
• • • • •
Teacher prompt: “How do you use your senses as you explore outside in the natural world? If you close your eyes,”. (p.81)
 
HEALTHY LIVING
Human Development and Sexual Health
C2.5 demonstrate an understanding of and apply proper hygienic procedures for protecting their own health and preventing the transmission of disease to others (e.g., washing hands with soap using a tissue, sleeve sneezing, brushing and flossing teeth, not sharing hats or hairbrushes)
• • • • •
Teacher prompt: “Why is it important to wash your hands before you eat and after you use the washroom?”
Student: “Washing your hands helps to stop germs from spreading. We should wash with warm water and soap for as long as it takes to say the alphabet.”. (p.83)
 
The existing curriculum – the one in use in Ontario, which was implemented in 1998 under Mike Harris’ Progressive Conservative government has this to say in the grade one curriculum:
 
Growth and Development
– describe simple life cycles of plants and
animals, including humans;
– recognize that rest, food, and exercise affect
growth;
– identify the major parts of the body by
their proper names; (p.12)
 
Noting that both talk about identifying parts of the body by their proper names, and that the significant new material is about hygiene, I understand that you are saying that you believe mainstream Ontario does not want hand washing taught in grade one. Sir, I respectfully submit that it is you who is out of step both with mainstream Ontario and with public health initiatives across the province.
 
As a parent, you have an absolute right to your own beliefs. If the proposed curriculum is in fact implemented by the time Miller is in grade one, as her parent, you have an absolute right to pull her out of school when hand washing is being taught. However, if you were to become premier, the education of every child in Ontario, and not just the education of your own child would become your responsibility. Imposing your anti-hand washing values on all grade one students across the province would be foolhardy and dangerous. I urge you to make decisions based on science, public health research, and in the public interest, not based on your own anti-hand washing biases.

I did not put much time, and even less money into the campaign for equal marriage in Canada. Sure, I wrote a few letters to politicians, and I said publicly "that if the government was going to be in the business of legislating relationships, it should be available to all." but I was not "active" on the issue. I put my time and energy into other, more urgent matters. Urgent matters that remain urgent, and in some case have become more urgent. I didn't see marriage as my fight. It didn't seem like the most urgent matter facing people living in Canada, or even facing LGBTQ people living in Canada. I really did not think marriage mattered all that much. I would have told you that it was the stamp of societal approval, available only to those willing to conform to heteronormative values and not part of queer liberation.

And then (with work and effort and a supreme court ruling) marriage laws changed.

And some time later I got married. I got religiously married and legally married.

Because I was married, it was easier to sponsor my partner to come to Canada. Because I was married, we did not have to swear to the government that we were monogamous. Because we were married my application to sponsor hir was fast-tracked. Because we are married, we can jointly file taxes, which saves us money. Because we are married it was easier to both be legal parents to our child, and some protections are afforded in the event of the death of one or both of us. Because we are married, border crossing became easier as our relationship is one that border guards find easier to recognize. It's true, I have directly benefited from legally being able to get married in Canada. And even after getting married, I would have told you that marriage was a societal stamp of approval, available only to those willing to conform to heteronormative values - and certainly not the be all and end all of LGBTQ rights.

I still work with queer youth in schools who need more protections, and images of themselves, and to learn about LGBTQ individuals, histories and social movements. And sexworkers still aren't safe at work, and trans people are not specifically protected in the human rights code, or able to access medical care related to transition in an accessible respectful way, and there is still a lack of affordable housing, and the compassionate city of Toronto that I live in and love is at risk of being gutted, and... and... And I am coming around to the idea that perhaps equal marriage had some benefits for all of us after all.

In part this is due to a brief stop we made some months ago in a town I'm going to call The Valley of the Homophobes. We were driving home from the Philli Trans Health Conference, me, My Tender Beast, our Homotastic Friend and the Small Boy. We pulled off the interstate, somewhere between Philli and the border and stopped at what appeared to be a very popular ice-cream location. We were perhaps the gayest thing The Valley of the Homophobes had ever seen; we were using hair product, we were relatively well dressed, there may even have been glitter. Not incidentally, all the grown-ups would claim queer as an identity. The Small Boy calls two of us "Abba" and "Papa" and is very fond of our Homotastic Friend. The Small Boy and I headed for the children's play structure. The dad who was there gathered up his two children and corralled them into a car with a lie about their mother being home. I know it was a lie as the children protested that she was at work, where they had just dropped her off. Dad eventually got upset and made them go "Just because". When we got in line for ice-cream, a hush fell over the crowd. No one would make eye contact, and all but one physically turned away from us. The one who did not was  a young boy who's face clearly said "take me with you, you are my people", and he was turned around by his mother. We got our ice-cream and got back in the car and left. There were not pitch forks, and we were not physically at risk, but the message was clear - they did not want us there.

In the context of my work, I have more than often talked about the impact of a school clearly and openly stating that it welcomes LGBTQ people. When a school says that it will not allow homophobia, and that LGBTQ people are a valued part of the school community it sets the tone for teachers, students, parents and caregivers. When the values are visible - on the school website, posted in the building, in the student handbook, talked about, included in diversity celebrations, present in library materials incidents of homophobia go down. Policy and even publicly announcing policy is not going to make a school a welcoming space, but it is an important step in the right direction.

I find myself wondering if the same is true for countries. In Canada, the government has said that in marriage, as in housing, employment, adoption, spousal benefits and other areas, we're equal. It's a bit like getting the government stamp of approval, and while I don't personally need it, I think there are other people whose behaviour towards me has changed as a result. If the government says I'm equal, I am to them too, and they treat me accordingly. In the U.S.A. the government has said "something's wrong here", "something's not right" and "not as good" and LGBTQ people get treated that way.

Marriage is not "the most important LGBTQ issue" and the legal arrival of equal marriage does not mean we have achieved equality, but it's not true that it only benefits those who get married. Equal marriage is a clear statement of Canadian values - ones I hope we will continue to hold. If The Harper Governmenttm decide to challenge that, they'll hear more from me this time around.

I'm still pissed-off at all those people who got worked up about marriage, donated lots of money and then went home and stopped being involved with LGBTQ organizations, but I'm ready to offer them a deal. I'll admit that I was wrong about marriage not being good for us broadly. Now you get back involved; support movements for transrights, support LGBTQ youth, make homes for seniors LGBTQ welcoming, get trans people access to health care, to ensure the City of Toronto continues to fund AIDS Service Organizations and ethno-specific LGBTQ organizations and groups. We need you on these ones too, and I've a suspicion it might be good for you.

We stopped in at the Carter's outlet on Thursday. We had pajamas to return, and The Small Boy just keeps growing out of things. And I realized how sheltered I've been from mainstream shopping for childrens' clothes. We've been the grateful recipients of many hand-me-downs, we often shop on Etsy, we've been given lovely clothing, we've bought in consignment stores and other second hand locations, and for the rest, My Tender Beast does the shopping. I was unprepared for Carter's.

The store was divided by a broad path, with one side being the Land of Pink and the other being for pint size varsity athletes and construction workers. They were distinct, divided, and distant from each other. Boys' shirts read: "Mommy's Hero", "Daddy's Helper", "Dad's Number One Record Breaker" and "Hunk". Girls' shirts read: "Mommy's silly monkey", "Mom's B.F.F. Forever", "Daddy's Princess", or "Daddy's girl" with pictures of hearts. The way both children and adults are being gendered on those shirts alone was stomach churning for me. What does a 2 year old do, for his mother that makes him a "hero". Why does mom need a hero, while dad gets a helper? Why do boys get rewarded and praised with "hero", "helper" and "number one record breaker" while girls are put-down with "silly monkey"? Both "Daddy's Girl" with the hearts, and the "Hunk" shirt seemed sexualized, which is totally inappropriate for shirts for children aged 4-6. Boys help and save, girls are silly, are friends and love, and both boys and girls get shortchanged in this. I compared a boys set of pajamas and a girls set and the cuts were identical - with two-year-olds the adult argument that different cuts are needed just is not true. The amount of instructions available to children in the very clothes about what and how to be a girl or boy is amazing.

I want to be clear that it's not that I am opposed to gender, or even to gendered clothing. I'm not suggesting that we all need to wear yellow sacks without messages all the time, or even some of the time.  I am opposed to there being only two gender options, absolutely distinct pillars totally remote from each other. I imagined what a children's store might look like if there were masculine clothes and feminine clothes and several gradients in between. I imagine children's clothes arraigned by size and type (pajamas, outerwear, shirts etc) rather than into genders. Planet Kid does a great job of this in their bricks-and-mortar store, although their website is more divided, it's one of the reasons we have sometimes bought their beautiful and well constructed (if expensive) stuff. What if we did not train girls to wear pink and boys to eschew it?

I would tell you that we try to dress the Small Boy in relatively gender neutral clothing. And yet, in the Carter's world that means we are picking entirely from the boy's side of the store. When all the girls clothes are pink and have bows on them, it's clothing from the boys' side that becomes gender neutral. Clothing with animals on it, clothing with bright stripes, clothing with no messaging or images at all. Which makes me wonder, if the "gender neutral" comes only from the boy's side, does that further normalize being a boy, making girlhood the exception?

The Small Boy has a great love and appreciation for flowers at the moment and he and I wandered the Pink side looking for something with flowers on for him. Everything we found also said "girl" or "princess" on it, and we left without flowers for him. I want there to be flowered options for any child, but at Carter's on Thursday clearly only girls like flowers.

In recent days we've been putting a clip in his hair. A small, unadorned metal clip, although that aesthetic, choice has more to do with the fact that we have a great number of them left over from our wedding and that babies frequently loose hair clips than a particular commitment to style. And yet, the tiny clip in his long curls makes him a girl to many people. We've been told by more than one person that if we don't cut his hair people will think he's a girl. We're not ready to cut it - it's beautiful and we are unlikely to be scared into it cutting it to preserve other people's gender assumptions.

I want to work towards a world where children feel there are gender options. In the morning, we give The Small Boy a small amount of choice in his clothing, "Do you want the red shirt or the orange shirt today?" and I am hoping we can keep to give him choices, and respect the choices he makes. Clearly this will continue to require some work.

For a few days every year we look like a community. All manner of LGBTT2IQQA people that I don't see during the rest of the year come out for Pride. We come in from the suburbs, we drive down from Northern Ontario. We take the GO train, we car-pool, we cycle in from neighbourhoods East and West. We come downtown, and we throng. We march up and down Church St. like salmon heading for the spawning grounds, except that we are often less sure where exactly we should go to spawn. Or who we should spawn with. Ahem.......

One of the opportunities Pride affords is the opportunity to catch up with people you've not seen in some time. Dear friends and exes, Exes that have become dear friends, the exes of dear friends, distant acquaintances, old students, old co-workers and people you just know "from around" are all there. It makes the marching up and down Church St. very difficult as every few paces you run into someone else you knew then, and there will be hugging, and kissing and a brief exchange of news. It also makes Pride rather like being on your own version of This is Your Life, with an updated dance sound track.

There were two particular sets of news that I have been thinking over since Pride, and both of them are about what is inside the body. Over the weekend, two sets of lesbians told me they were pregnant. They were excited (although also hot and tired), and were sharing with an air of excitement. For both couples, this is the first time they are venturing into parenthood and they told us the news like they were coming out for the first time, with enthusiasm, with a desire to control who knows, with some nervousness, and with a sense of joining a club to which I already belong. I wished them all as much success and comfort as possible, and let them know how much I am loving being a parent.

The other set of news came from a queer man. A queer man of my acquaintance, for whom I have a great deal of respect, and considerable admiration told me he had recently tested positive. He told me in a matter of fact way, and we talked about it - we talked about his virus count, his T-cells, how he's feeling, if he's getting good management, how long he thinks he might have been positive and similar. While I did not congratulate him on testing positive, I did congratulate him about his attitude, his warmth and his candor. I didn't ask how he got it, for which he expressed some relief. He says people often ask him that question, and that there is no way to go back through every sexual encounter and know for sure that it was the one. Nor is there anyway to undo it or do it differently if it was. We both talked about HIV as a chronic illness that can be managed, and we both know that with appropriate care, the impact that this will have on his life expectancy will be minimal.

And afterwards, I thought about how much things had changed. The first time I knew for sure I had a friend who was HIV positive was 1992. Even then, we talked about HIV like it was a fact of life, but then it was one that was going to kill us, one by one. The friend who came out to me as positive in 1992 died on July 20th 1996. At the time I expected to that I would loose friend after friend like that, and that I too would die you and positive. And I could not have been more wrong. Two years ago at Pride we were the ones showing off an ultrasound video, furtively and cautiously announcing that we were pregnant. This year was the second year that baby "helped" My Tender Beast host the trans stage, delighted with the cheers of the crowd. HIV no longer feels like a death sentence, something I could not have imagined in 1992.

And still, it's what's in side that counts. Two weeks later, after the streets have been cleaned and most of the glitter picked out of the baby's hair, it's the news of what's inside my friends that lingers with me. It's the news of what is in our bodies that we share at Pride with risk and hope, fear and expectation. We expect what is in our bodies and that of our lovers will shape our futures. Pregnancy and HIV still count as big news in our communities. It's what's inside that counts.

Sometime this week it occurred to me to sit down and make a list of the words Stanley knows. I decided to list the words he says spontaneously, not words he just repeats. Here's the list:

1. In creating the list, I was confronted with how much, already, I underestimate The Small Boy. I would have told you that he knows and uses about 90 words, and I would have been wrong by at least 70%. Currently the list sits at 153, 154, 155 words, but both this morning over breakfast and then this evening I realized words I had not included. For example, after breakfast in the car he asked "school?" and no, school was not included in the 153 count, and yes, we were on the way to his school. In the bath he reminded me he knows bubble, and uses it often. It feels like a reminder to pay attention to The Small Boy and not underestimate him.
   
2. Looking at the list gave me a view of the world as Stanley sees it. It's important to be able to talk about the people you love, the places you go, foods and the things in your immediate surroundings. The woordle really is "Stanley describing his world". He seems fascinated by animals, and uses 18 different words for animals - but it is also true that we both visit a farm somewhat regularly and that he has a toy farm set. It does seem true that many of the nouns he knows are toys he has. He has no trouble going from a picture of a horse, to a toy horse, to a toy seahorse, to an actual living horse and calling all of them horse but I think the word began as one describing a toy.
   
3. And then there are dragon and monster. I've no idea why he knows these two separate words for mythical creatures, but he does. It makes reading Where the Wild Things Are extra fun. He clearly identifies the creature that comes out of the water when Max first arrives as a "dragon" and all the Wild Things as "monster". He's right, and I have no idea where he learned to classify imaginary beasts. And yes, he knew both words before I read him the book for the first time.
   
4. He's listening. He's really, really, listening, and likely to repeat anything we say. And he's talking. During a tense moment the other day he came to each of us in turn and asked "Abba 'set?", "Papa 'set?". That's someone who is not just engaged in expressing himself, but who is trying to understand how others see and experience the world.
   
5. Stanley never reads developmental check-lists. We were worried that at a year he did not really have any words, and he was oblivious. Now at almost 17 months he has no idea that he is well ahead of the same check-lists. Clearly we should never let him read such lists, as it might lead to concern and pride. Probably we should stop reading the lists too, for the same reasons.

While My Tender Beast was picking up The Small Boy from daycare, one of the staff there mentioned to him, kindly, that "You know, we give preferential treatment to siblings."

The same afternoon, while I was at the bank, my favorite teller asked to see pictures of The Small Boy, and after ohhing and ahhing at the ones I produced, leaning towards me across the counter, and asked "When are you going to have another?"

Suddenly it feels like all manner of people are up in our business about the size of our family. In some ways this is not new. We'd not even left the hospital with our bran new, very precious, totally mysterious little bundle of baby before people were asking us when we were going to have another. We felt very clear like we had just gone from zero to one and that we needed to get to know and celebrate this one before any such questions could be entertained.

We are a mixed marriage. One of us thinks that this one is great and that we should revel and enjoy being his parents, the other thinks that this one is great and wouldn't it be fabulous to have one more. This difference in imagining a family with one or two children existed before the Small Boy was even the Demanding Little Stranger, but we initially compromised with "Let's have one and see how it goes." When one arrived, we agreed on a one year moratorium on the conversation, and then the year passed. We have returned to tender and personal conversations about how we see ourselves and our family, and whether we imagine there being another miraculous and demanding little stranger in the mix. And the important part to me is that we have returned to the conversation. We are having the conversation because it is personal and relevant and because whatever our decision, we will live with it for the rest of our lives. I'm clear why we are having the conversation, but am struggling to understand why so many other people we barely know are too.

Two couples of friends with small people around The Small Boy's age, one younger, one older, are eagerly anticipating second children. Two more sets of friends are working on creating their second children. Another set is well into the process of adopting a second. I am excited for all of them. I have childless friends, and friends with two or more children, but I don't actually personally know anyone openly talks about planning to be a one child family. Whether that's because I don't know anyone planning to be a one child family, or because there is so much damn expectation that if you have one, you'll want two I'm not sure. It really feels like there is an expectation that if you have one, you'll have two. The more I think about it, the more I see media images of families with two children, or I hear politicians talking about "hard working families" and pictured with a heterosexual couple and their two kids. Sometimes the couple has more kids, but there are always at least two. I do not believe that in terms of children "one is the loneliest number" but it feels hard to escape the messaging that two is better.

It makes me wonder how much of my vision of a two child family has been unconsciously, created from external images. It makes me wonder how i separate what I believe would be good for The Small Boy, and My Tender Beast and me from what I've just absorbed. I grew-up with siblings, and think that having siblings enriched my childhood, and continues to enrich my adulthood, but I also understand that that that is one experience with family size and that there are many ways, not one. If we are choosing two, I want to choose two consciously, and because it is right for us.

On more than one occasion, I've been asked "How do you know if you are really ready to have kids?". I don't think you ever do. I think you could always be more ready, better housed, through school, with more stable income, or better employment, or partnered, or healthier, or whatever else you have been told you need to be to be the right kind of parent. You could always be more ready, and what you really have to decide is "are you ready enough". We are not ready to consider if we are ready enough for two, but we are deep in the considering of "why one?", "why two?" what would one or two mean? Where does the desire to stop now come from? Where does the desire for two come from? What is right for us. I think perhaps the important thing is that I am no longer looking externally for the answers. I've talked to friends and other parents, I've read books, I've poked the internet, and now, now I am quietly trying to discern what I really believe. What do I imagine are the costs and opportunities in that belief, and what do I imagine would be the costs and opportunities in setting that belief aside. It is an intense form of loving this. As My Tender Beast and I both work to imagine the other's view as our own it's about winning in the big picture, winning because we have made the right choice for us, and not because we got what we thought we wanted in the beginning.

Dear bank teller, dear day care provider, we are thinking about your question. Some days we still feel barely "ready enough" for the one we have. If we do decide we are ready enough for two, we'll let you know. Perhaps not right away, but certainly along the way. I am going to hear your question as a compliment - whether it is a compliment on the very fabulous small boy, or a compliment on the sliver of our parenting that you see, I'm not sure. I know you mean well with your question, and I hear you loudly announcing that your understanding of family includes ones like ours, with two queer trans dudes doing the parenting. I am thinking about your question, but it may be a while until I have an answer. For right now, the jury's still deliberating.

Oh, the lure of the cupcake is strong, and I find it hard to resist something both pretty and impractical.

Somewhere on the vast open internet I had come across pictures of someone's baking project where they made rainbow cupcakes in jars. The stripes of colour on the side were beautiful in a very gay way. And I like gay even more than pretty and impractical. So I set out to make the cupcakes. As it turns out, I did not have nearly enough jars, so instead of being in jars, my cupcakes took a more conventional form.


What the internet had not prepared me for was how long it would take to assemble the cupcakes. Each layer has to be separately poured, and then perfectly leveled off before you add the next one. It may be wise at this point to lure someone else in to help. I lured in my husband. Turns out it is not so hard to lure in help to cupcake making - after all, you can always promise them cupcakes.



What I had failed to take into account is that cupcakes are narrower at the bottom, and wider at the top, which means that for layers of the same thickness you will need successively more for each layer. I figured this out at layer four, and had to be very careful with layers five and six to make sure that each cupcake got enough. It meant that I was left with enough red orange and yellow that I could make one more cupcake with only three stripes, and that well, the purple layer is perhaps thinner than the rest.



Gel colouring I tell you. Look at the post baking brilliance. Many of my brunch guests assumed that I had simply bought rainbow cake papers, and were totally amused to peel back the paper and discover that the cupcakes themselves were covered.




Me, I just enjoyed the gayness of them. These cupcakes, they are so gay, and I mean that in a totally delicious and brilliantly coloured way.

For months now we have been referring to the small boy and the dog collectively as "The Wordless Beings". It's not that they are non-communicative, but they have been wordless. We no longer have wordless beings around here. The household constituency of wordless beings is now one. The dog stands alone. Or, lies on the couch as she prefers.

The small boy, as it turns out, has a great deal to say. He seems to be acquiring new words at the rate of three or four a day, and his Papa and I find ourselves looking at each other and asking "When did he learn that? Did you teach him that?". He's experimenting with short sentences "Ball oh-oh." and "I want that.", and figuring out how to put words together. He currently has three verbs, in order of mastery, "eat", "want" and "read", and boy am I pleased about that last one. He's learning social engineering, and when he is not getting something fast enough he reaches towards it and beseechingly repeats "Please? Please?". It would break anyone's heart that would. And I tell myself that it is not bad if he learns that you ask for something with please.

I'm amazed by his memory. While we were in San Francisco he and I strolled along Castro and he looked up at the rainbow flags everywhere and said "Pride". Yes, our 15 month old knows what a rainbow flag means, and he knows because his fabulous Sparkle Chris marches around the living room with him waving a little flag and calling out "Happy Pride! Happy Pride!'. When young people with LGBTQ parents talk about having been raised in queer culture this is what they mean. The small boy will never have to learn about gay pride, he will have always lived it, it's just part of what is around him. Pride is his birthright.

He also remembers book titles. The other night at bed time he presented me with a book about ducks and said "Duck.". I was impressed, and still totally unready for him to present me with the next book, Sometimes I like to curl up in a ball while saying "Ball". On the last page of the story when I read that the creatures were going to bed, he said "night-night". He remembers words, and when he chooses bed-time stories, he's really choosing, not just pulling books off the shelf.

It’s fascinating to watch him explore and create categories for words. We arrived at the ferry dock in Oakland and he immediately tried to climb onto the beach, pointing and saying "boat". The only other boats he had encountered were bath toys and in picture books, but clearly his category for "boat" could include bath toys and large ferries. In Monterrey we went to the aquarium, and in the aviary I discovered that for him, a bird is an animal in the air, or on land, and that a bird swimming is a duck. Even if it is the same word. On the beach it's a bird, and in the water it's a duck. Some creatures are transformed by their actions. He has an in-depth understanding of farm animals and who says what noise, and can now sing most of Old MacDonald. He's clear on who's a dog and who's a cat, no matter how large the cat or how small the dog. He understands that some categories include very different seeming things - to him "horse" means both a horse and a seahorse, and "apple" includes both apples and pineapples.

He likes singing, and Old MacDonald, Ring-Around-The-Rosie and Row-Row-Row Your Boat can improve almost any moment. He sings to himself, he sings to us, he sings.

The words, they keep coming, and I am delighted. It's true it is harder to do things to him that he hates, like change his diaper when he says "Oh no, Oh no, no, no, No, No, NOOOOO" while you do it, but I try to calmly explain what I am doing and why. I want him to know that I understand him, and that while I will try to respect his wishes when I can, sometime I will override him, but I will try to make sure it is always for a good reason, and I'll explain. He seems to find my soft, clear explaining tone comforting, which I appreciate very much.

He's clear that the words are his to use as he pleases. He's not one to perform, and if you ask him to say something to demonstrate to someone else how broad his vocabulary and understanding are he'll grin in silence. I remind myself that a strength of character and opinions are excellent traits in an adult, and it is ours to nurture them until then. I believe parenting will help me practice this lots.

It's true, he has a lot to say, and clear opinions, but as they say in my Tender Beast's family "The nut doesn't fall far from the nut tree." and he is ours, and we are people of strong opinions with a great deal to say. It is likely we will continue to hear more and more for him for sometime to come, and I am so glad for it.