Letters: Raising a transgender child
Re “My daughter, my son,” Opinion, Oct. 7
Ann Whitford Paul’s honest account of her struggle to accept her son Finn, previously her daughter Sarah, moved me. As the parent of a transgender woman who was born my son, I could hear her difficult path toward acceptance. I offer the following thought: All parents “lose” the child they raise.
The tiny infant suckling at the breast, the adorable peach of the toddler, the lively 5-year-old, the awkward preteen — all these beings are lost and ultimately transformed into the adult children we love. The baby is gone forever, and the lisping little one is gone forever too. Do we mourn their loss? Yes. But we rejoice in the awe-inspiring, changed beings we have helped to bring into the world.
I adore my daughter and the person she has become.
Dairine Pearson
Goleta, Calif.
Paul’s profoundly personal and beautifully written article on Sarah becoming Finn was a gift to us all. When Paul feels she is totally out of the “river of anger and sorrow,” maybe she and Finn can write a book about a transgender child for middle school children.
Mary Brent Wehrli
Palm Springs
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