Mum flips the script on gender reveal parties with tender, heartwarming celebration of her trans daughter’s true self
(Zoe Lynn/ Facebook)
A mother threw a gender reveal party for her six-year-old trans daughter, and she deserves every award for mum of the year.
The gender reveal party has a bad reputation as a cisgender, heterosexual tradition that reinforces binary gender norms and causes explosions.
But Zoe Lynn took a different approach to the trend.
Lynn posted pictures of her six-year-old trans daughter Avery’s gender reveal party on Facebook, and wrote a post describing the family’s journey.
She said: “I’ll admit. I’ve fallen short on understanding the journey of different groups of people.
“Over the years, I’ve tried to educate myself about the LGBT+ community and the struggles they’ve faced. I like to think I’m empathetic. That I’m open minded.”
Lynn said she and her partner had always raised their child with the understanding that clothes, toys and colours are not gendered, and tried to give them as much freedom as possible for self-expression.
“At two, my child requested a princess dress and without blinking it was in the shopping cart,” she said. “Their bedroom was half cars and half baby dolls and princesses.
“They liked singing and performing so we signed them up for musical theatre and when the teacher said, ‘Oh the boy costumes are over here!’
“They didn’t flinch, pointed to a purple princess dress and said, ‘That’s OK I want that one!'”
But in September last year, Lynn received a call from her partner. He told her: “Just so you know, this morning, Colton said: ‘My life didn’t turn out the way I planned. I think I should just stab myself in the throat.'”
Lynn said she had “never felt a worse feeling” and went into a panic, calling “the paediatrician, psychologists, friends”.
When she picked up her child, who was five at the time, from school she asked: “Daddy told me something that made me sad. He said your life didn’t turn out the way you planned?
“What does that mean? What didn’t turn out the way you planned?”
Although the five-year-old was reluctant, they eventually admitted: “I was supposed to be a girl but I’m a boy. So I think I should just stab myself in the throat.”
Lynn wrote: “As open-minded and knowledgeable and empathetic as I thought I was – as much as I believed in breaking gender roles and stereotypes – I was not prepared.
“But we drove 30 minutes to the GAP and we went dress shopping. And the whole way there I told her about how she CAN be a girl. That people feel the way she does.
“That we have friends and family who were born and people thought they were one way but they always felt another.”
She said she saw “a little lightbulb of hope” in her daughter, and that same day they bought three children’s books which addressed gender identity.
She added: “A week later sitting on my bed, quietly reading one of the stories to herself she said, ‘Mom. Thanks so much for teaching me about transgender. It really made me feel like I’m not alone.'”
Lynn wrote: “Please don’t get me wrong. I’ve cried over this. I fell in love with a baby boy for years and had to let that go… I cried because I know that my child’s life is going to be so so much harder than other kids lives now.
“I cried because I know I didn’t understand before and now so many other people who didn’t understand are going to target their lack of understanding at my baby.
“But then I stopped crying. Because as much as I feel I’ve struggled, it will be so much harder for her.”
Finishing her post, she wrote: “So, as the proud mommy of a six-year-old girl, I’d like to introduce you to my daughter, Avery.”
