Meant to be Maddie
Priest: [inaudible 00:00:03]
Mom: Her birth name was Joel.
Priest: I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. May you be filled with the spirit of-
Dad: We knew things were different from the time she could walk.
Mom: She was wearing her sister's clothes a lot and we had told her not to do that. She started saying things like, "Why did God make me a boy and make Grace a girl?" She was two and three. We didn't think much of it.
Dad: No. I thought, "Oh. It's just a phase. She just wants to be like her sister." I didn't really stress over it, but it was like, "Well, I'll be glad when this is over."
Mom: One time, I was getting her ready for bed. She was four and she told me that she wanted to cut her penis off. We didn't know how to parent that. We were afraid that she would try to hurt herself, so that's when we started counseling.
Dad: One of the biggest difficulties in this type of transition is really you go through a mourning process, mourning the loss of a son. That caused a rift between us.
Mom: I remember telling Maddie, too, at one point, "Mommy knows you're a girl. Mommy knows you're a girl and daddy's going to get there, too." Maddie had never once wavered and said, "I might be a boy. I might not be a girl." She never, never wavered.
Dad: I distinctly remember going in and the counselor saying there was no doubt in her mind that she was transgender. That was the beginning of acceptance for me. "Okay, I'm not going to fight this anymore. I'm going to try to be supportive."
Maddie: I am interesting, different, and unique.
Mom: Once we told her, "You can live as a girl," the whole child changed because she had been depressed and withdrawn.
Maddie: It made me feel like I was at home somehow, but it was like a different home. It was like home for my brain and my heart.
Mom: We sent out a letter to all our friends and family in August before school started for first grade explaining the situation.
Maddie: I was a little bit nervous, but my mom came with me on the first day of school. It just felt like I was being true to myself going to school as a girl.
Mom: To me, the hardest part is the constant worry just for her basic safety. I think Maddie has reason to be afraid in our current political climate and scarier because people feel like they have a right to say and do whatever they want now.
Maddie: Give us our daily bread. Amen.
Mom: Amen.
Maddie: If everybody was the same in the world, that would just be boring and [blegh 00:04:00].
You're going on a different path than somebody else and your road is unique because nobody else goes down that road. [inaudible 00:04:14]
Mom: We're just a regular family living in extraordinary situation and we love our kids unconditionally just like anybody else would. I would like for them to grow up in a world where they're not limited by their gender, by who they love, by anything.
Dad: I know that it's the right thing. Every day, I know that it's still the right thing.
Maddie: I am meant to be Maddie. That's my new catchphrase.
Mom: One, two. Yay! Oh. Just wonderful. Thank you. I got it. Thank you. Got it.