Jesse Sullivan says his 15-year-old non-binary teen has been subjected to transphobic ‘hate’ online
The TikToker has revealed that his child has been subjected to transphobia. (@jessesulli/TikTok)
Jesse Sullivan has opened up about navigating transphobia online, revealing his 15-year-old child has even been subjected to transphobic “hate”.
Sullivan, who is transgender, has remained open online about his IVF journey with Too Hot To Handle star Francesca Farago. But before the reality star fell pregnant, Sullivan was already a parent to Arlo Sullivan, who is non-binary.
Sullivan was just 18 years old when he gave birth to Arlo and had not yet come out at that time as transgender. Sullivan is now co-parenting his child with Arlo’s second father, and with Farago as Arlo’s step-mum.
In an interview with POPSUGAR, both Sullivan and Farago reflected on what it’s like to be so candid online about their pregnancy journey as a queer family. “Sometimes it gets hard,” Farago began. “I’ll post something and get a lot of negative comments and be like, ‘why are we giving these people access to our lives?’…It’s not only us that gets hate comments. Arlo gets it as well.”
To this, Sullivan responded about some of their followers’ inappropriate comments: “You don’t need to ask these very personal questions about my 15-year-old. I’ve asked you guys not to do it a million times. And then also talking about our future kids and how we’re going to raise them… I already know what the comments are going to be.
“To be completely transparent, it does affect my mental health sometimes. I go through phrases where I’m like, this is hard. I don’t know how much more I can keep doing… But I really try to focus on the bigger picture and what I’m doing for my family, what I’m doing for young people.”
The pair have openly shared their IVF journey before they tie the knot, including their previous failed transfer. In light of the hate they have recived online, they have put some healthy boundaries in place regarding the identities of the egg and sperm cells the couple used in their transfer.
“I totally get the curiosity but we’re not going to speak about who’s eggs/ sperm we used bc it really doesn’t matter! It’s @jessesulli and my baby no matter what the DNA,” Farago commented beneath one of her posts.
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