"It feels good to know there are other people like me in the world."

August 9, 2015 2:43 PM

A: What was it like when you finally got to talk to Laverne? M: It was real exciting; I was the first one to get a hug from her. I was the only one because she wasn’t going to hug people because she didn’t want to get sick, but I was like, ‘Laverne, I love you!’ and she was just like, ‘How could I say no, you’re so cute!’ And then she hugged me! And it was really, really super really great!...I can relate to her because she’s transgender and I like to relate to people who are like me. It feels good to know there are other people like me in the world. An interview with M. and Marlo [previously] on Amy Poehler's Smartgirls blog. Marlo's gendermom blog post and podcast on the day her 7-year-old trans daughter met Orange is the New Black's Laverne Cox.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl (5 comments total)

I feel like Marlo says some insightful things in the second half about engaging with her own gender, but almost every one of the interviewer's questions to her is cringeworthy. I'm hoping it's one of those things that sounded better in reality than it reads because it reads like the interviewer thinks she's basking in some sort of post-transphobia glow and isn't it so wonderful trans people gave her such an opportunity.
posted by hoyland at 3:21 PM on August 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think this was linked in a previous post about trans kids, but I like this short video from Marlo, the mom, which tackles the narrative that trans kids are just going through a phase. (Not captioned, unfortunately.)

How many transgender kids will change their minds? What are the real numbers for kids like mine, who told me at age three that she wasn't the boy I thought she was? I decided to do some digging into the "science" about transgender kids.
posted by desjardins at 4:39 PM on August 9, 2015

Do go read the mom's blog though. I want to hug them all.
posted by hoyland at 4:40 PM on August 9, 2015

it reads like the interviewer thinks she's basking in some sort of post-transphobia glow and isn't it so wonderful trans people gave her such an opportunity.

A beautiful, beautiful post-transphobia glow, where it's all just so beautiful, you know?

Anyway, Marlo is the bomb, and she is doing a great job blogging about raising her daughter so I am glad that got a FPP.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:41 PM on August 9, 2015

Previously. Great stuff.
posted by alms at 7:08 PM on August 9, 2015