'I just hope that he's always confident': Raising LBGTQ+ kids to be strong, successful
Oliver Honig started donning dresses and skirts at age 3. His cousin first gave him a tutu and he wanted to wear it everywhere, so he did. At age 5, he was skillfully walking up and down the steps of the family's backyard slide in his mother's high-heeled boots. And by the time he was 8, he was experimenting with makeup, often overlining his mouth with so much lipstick the results rivaled comedic clownery.
Oliver's mother, Chrissy Honig, lovingly laughs as she recalls their journey navigating a world where a skittish youngster, and now a very vocal teenager, often called by his nickname, Ollie, continues to seek the freedom to live, love – and dress – as he pleases.
Messy makeup aside (his lipstick game has progressed nicely and is now on point), there have been really bad wigs, even worse dye jobs and ill-fitted frocks over the years. His style sensibility has morphed and matured as he's become more attuned with the clothing that makes him happy and feels good on his body. Sometimes, it's the fabric and texture, or the fit of the waistline and the swoosh of the skirt. Sometimes it's just the idea of wearing a dress he loves that makes him feel confident.
He feels like himself: beautiful, gleeful
"I'm still trying to figure out who I am," Oliver told me last month as he played with his shoulder-length, thick and wavy brown hair with pink highlights.
Now, when Oliver performs in school talent shows, singing his 15-year-old heart out to "Get The Party Started" by P!nk, one of his favorite artists, and "Home" from "Beetlejuice The Musical" – while decked out in a blue sequined dress with a blazer or in a formal black and white evening gown – he feels beautiful and gleeful. He feels like himself.
Yet, both Oliver and his mother acknowledge some folks in the audience are uncomfortable.
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But comfort for this family in Westfield, Indiana, a suburb about 30 miles north of Indianapolis, doesn't lie with what other people or other parents think. Never, ever. Because it's all about Oliver being comfortable. It's about him knowing and believing that he is accepted, loved and supported by those who care about him – and that's exactly how it should be.
I asked Oliver, who was sporting joggers and a T-shirt the afternoon we sat down to talk, why he's drawn to wearing dresses many days. His answer was simple, enlightening, perfect.
"The way they look, the way they feel, the way they make me who I am," he said.
When I asked if he identified with any specific gender, Oliver answered, "I'm a boy, definitely."
I followed up with why he says that with such assurance. Oliver said he is attracted to boys and girls, and might be bisexual. But labels at this point don't seem important to him. And, like he said, he's still figuring it out.
"I just hope that he's always confident enough to just be who he is," Chrissy, 47, said of her son. "And even though he can't wear a sequined prom dress to school every day, that doesn't mean he can't express himself."
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A steady force of anti-gay hate
More American parents than ever are raising transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual, nonbinary, gender nonconforming and gender fluid young people. According to data published in 2019 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 2% of high school students identify as transgender. Applied to all youth, this means there are an estimated 1.3 million trans youth age 17 and younger.
A recent Gallup poll found that younger generations are far more likely to consider themselves to be something other than heterosexual, including about 21% of Generation Z Americans – those born from 1997 to 2003 – who identified as LGBTQ.
Parents are increasingly “reintroducing” their children to family members, teachers, neighbors and friends. It's often gender liberation for the child, but it certainly isn't an easy journey for their caregivers.
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To be sure, there is an emotional learning curve for many. But there is also real fear and concern about their children's emotional well-being, treatment and safety as hateful rhetoric, hostility, discrimination, biting legislation and violence have all been on the rise.
The Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, reports that nearly 1 out of every 5 hate crimes is now motivated by an anti-LGBTQ+ bias.
Florida and Texas passed laws banning gender-affirming medical care and barring public school teachers from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity, in what critics call "Don't Say Gay" legislation.
And more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in other state legislatures this year, including measures targeted at regulating school curricula, limiting student participation on sports teams that align with their gender identity and banning gender-affirming care, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union.
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The steady force of anti-gay and anti-trans sentiment understandably has pushed parents into uber protection mode. Yes, kids can be cruel, but socially conservative adults have taken to attacking LGBTQ children, too. It's a sad state of affairs when we can't – or won't – evolve beyond outdated dress conformity and gender stereotypes.
"When he was very, very small, he wanted to wear a dress to a public school," Chrissy told me about Oliver, who attends a private school in Carmel, Indiana but will soon enroll in a Westfield charter school. "And I said, 'OK, but just understand that some people will say mean things.' We've always been very honest about what can possibly happen – and that we hope he's strong enough to not even care."
'We love this person more than life'
With little fanfare, Michigan couple Karessa and Brian Wheeler took to Facebook in August to update friends and family about their 14-year-old child. “Now that his friends all know, I am happy to share that our youngest child is going by the name Newt and uses the pronouns he/they. We love this person more than life. Congratulations Newt!”
Newt, an animal lover who selected their name based on the salamander, stood royally in a photo, wearing a cape made from feathers and smiling broadly. The social media post was a simple and beautiful affirmation from their parents.
Newt is the second Wheeler child to come out. Their oldest, Ellie, 19, told her parents when she was in eighth grade that she was transgender and a lesbian, that she was shedding her given name and wanted to use female pronouns. Five years later, Ellie would help Newt create a PowerPoint presentation for their parents to explain, "Why I'm a boy."
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Karessa Wheeler grew up in rural Michigan; Brian Wheeler was raised in rural New Hampshire. Karessa describes their hometowns as "very conservative, very homogenous." They now live in East Lansing, Michigan, where Karessa works as an instructor at Michigan State University's School of Journalism.
(Full disclosure: Chrissy Honig is a dear friend whom I first met in 2015, waiting in line for a concert because we share a passion for the Dave Matthews Band. I've had the pleasure of spending time with Oliver over the years. And I attended Michigan State University with Karessa Wheeler. Part of the reason I wanted to write this column is because I have been watching her family's brave story unfold on social media.)
The Wheelers, both former journalists, always believed they were progressive beyond their upbringing and joked that they would be great parents to gay children. But it never crossed their minds that two of their three children would be transgender.
There were difficult conversations with grandparents, Karessa told me. Even though they were supportive of Ellie, especially because she first opened the door to being transgender, the adult interaction was rough at times.
"It was different with us," Karessa said. "There were lots of questions from the older generation. 'Why are you supporting this?' 'This is just a phase, don't you think they'll grow out of it?' 'How do you know that they're really trans?' And I think they wanted, and still want, to be supportive. But privately to Brian and I there was a lot of skepticism and a lot of confusion."
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'Now I want to fix my body'
There are grandparents who want to insist a child is just being quirky, going through a phase or playing dress up. There are aunts and uncles who dismiss gender exploration or nonbinary identity as new fads.
And let's not forget about one particular billionaire social media platform owner who wastes time hatefully joking about those who want to be identified by the pronouns of their choosing.
But there is nothing trendy about a person wanting to feel comfortable in their skin. There shouldn't be anything wrong with exploring and embracing one's authentic self while questioning the culture of gender norms. There's nothing funny about a person wanting to live their truth, their identity and their pronouns proudly and out loud.
They, too, deserve a life free of discrimination and decades-long stigmas.
Ellie's grandparents assumed that when she came out she would immediately seek gender-affirming surgery. She waited a year, and as a sophomore in high school she informed her parents that she wanted to start transitioning physically. Ellie said, according to her mother, "I feel good about it. I'm dressing the way I want. People are calling me by the right name. Now I want to fix my body." She received injections that blocked her male hormones by tamping down testosterone.
"It was a super cool process to go through learning," Karessa, 50, said. "There's two bones in your wrist that if they take an X-ray and if those bones are touching, then you've finished puberty. I never knew that."
Ellie's X-rays showed that she had finished puberty, so she took the hormone blockers for three years, from age 15 to 18. When she turned 18, she started hormone replacement therapy to boost her estrogen.
Karessa said it's helped older family members to know that every part of Ellie's transition has been moving slowly and is still reversible. "There has been no talk of any further surgery," Karessa said of Ellie. "I think she has really accepted exactly who she is right now. Not to say that won't change."
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'The hardest time I have right now, at this point, is the past'
Newt, on the other hand, is very unhappy with their body right now, their mother says, sometimes wearing a binder when dressing up in a suit and vest for special occasions. The ninth grader has made it very clear that at age 18, they would like to have chest masculinization surgery, often called top surgery.
I asked Karessa how she feels about the prospect of Newt changing their body. She acknowledges that it's difficult for her to accept the permanency, but she's done enough research to know the troubling statistics of those who don't have the support to "feel right in their bodies."
"I'm not going to be a good mom if I can't do that," she said.
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The Wheelers are adamant about encouraging their children to have a strong sense of self and body autonomy. After all, parents set the tone for acceptance and function as the circle of trust for their children.
"The hardest time I have right now, at this point, is the past," Karessa told me. "Like when I have a Facebook memory of one of them. I still want to use the name that I associated with that person. Because to me that's a different person, almost. ... It's so weird looking back. At the time, I thought I had these two baby boys, and all I wanted was a baby girl. And it turned out, I had the baby girl all along, and I still have two baby boys."
Trust, sensitivity and love are key to parenting healthy children
Acceptance, particularly among parents, is becoming more normalized. But visibility and open dialogue is imperative. We should believe people when they tell us who they are, even if they aren't fully formed adults. It's our duty to offer the support these young people deserve to become well-adjusted adults – particularly when they are the most vulnerable. Oliver, Ellie and Newt – these fragile, beautiful individuals – have every right to determine their path forward as individuals.
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I find undeniable strength in these parents who are walking hand-in-hand with their children through the process. Of course we want to believe that all parents love their kids, and serve as their rock and protector. But the added layer of gender exploration and sexual orientation is intricate, particularly in today's political and social climate.
Karessa and Chrissy would both say that they're not doing anything special, that they're just loving on their children. But the level of nurturing, guidance and sensitivity they exhibit to ensure their children are happy and healthy in all ways is truly extraordinary.
Chrissy, a labor and delivery registered nurse pursuing a master's degree in nursing, said she's still learning about gender lines right along with Oliver. Instead of saying that Oliver dresses like a girl, she and her family simply say that he wears dresses because he likes to wear dresses. Instead of subscribing to things that girls are supposed to do, or things that boys are supposed to do, they focus on being generous, compassionate, courageous and honest individuals.
"There's going to be enough people in the world judging him – I will never be that person," Chrissy said of Ollie. "I would never tell my daughter that she couldn't wear a Superman costume out in the front yard. Why would I treat him as a boy any different than I would treat my daughter? That came easily to me. It just evolved naturally."
National columnist/deputy opinion editor Suzette Hackney is a member of USA TODAY’S Editorial Board. Contact her at shackney@usatoday.com or on Twitter: @suzyscribe
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LGBTQ kids need support and acceptance. Parents are stepping up.
