As we have said many times in Babies and more, our children should know that love is above all things and that we will always accept them, however they are, by their side to help them when necessary.
Something like that is what Jeff and Hillary Whittington did, after realizing that their daughter Ryland felt like a child. Accept what I was saying, accept your feelings and accept that she was a transsexual girl. From that moment they started treating him like a child and in this video, which in a few days has already gone viral, since it has more than three million visits, they tell us the story.
Ryland would be healthy, beautiful and happy
As the video is in English I tell you the story. In 2007, the couple learned that they were going to give birth to a girl. Months later his daughter, Ryland, would be born. His intention as parents was to get his daughter to be a healthy, beautiful and happy girl.
Near the year of life they discovered that she was deaf. It was hard news for parents, but soon, thanks to cochlear implants and a lot of hard work, the girl learned to speak. As soon as he was able to speak he shouted loudly "I am a kid!". His aversion to feminine things was gradually increasing, and that feeling seemed to be more and more settled.
Family acquaintances tried to reassure them by explaining that this was a phase, but time passed, the theoretical phases too, and Ryland was still feeling a child with the body of a girl, increasingly ashamed of her hair and her way of dressing. .
The day parents realized they had to do something
With five years, one day he told his parents that when the family died he would cut his hair to be a child. Through tears he asked them: "Why did God make me like this?" There they realized that there could be something else, that they had to start listening to their daughter. They sought professional help, began to investigate and all came to the same conclusion: "Ryland is transsexual".
Although Ryland was born a girl, her brain identifies her as a boy and she felt that way. In their investigation they found statistical data that alarmed them greatly: 41% of transsexuals have attempted suicide on occasion as a consequence of the non-acceptance of its status by society. They were not willing to risk that their daughter was one more number within a statistic and from that moment on Ryland was a boy.
They exchanged "she" for "he," they cut her hair, bought her children's clothes, changed her room and wrote a letter to her family and friends to explain the decision and the new situation. On the way they lost a few, but those who really matter, they say, stayed to support them in their decision.
They were clear that Ryland was born that way, that it was not for something they had done or failed to do and that, compared to the problems that other children suffer throughout the world, this was nothing. So they accepted his son as he was, supported him and now they have A healthy son, precious and most important of all, happy.
Why did they make the video?
In their intention to achieve a more respectful world, a world in which children do not cry for it and adolescents and adults do not try to commit suicide due to social pressure, they decided to record this video to explain Ryland's history. As they say themselves: "Our hope is that, by sharing our history, we can begin to make the world a more loving place where people can be their true selves.".
No doubt a hard story, of those that put you to the test as a father and as a mother. Many of us think we would do the same, but surely not everyone would be able. It is enough to know that some of the friends of the family disappeared from their lives knowing the decision to see that they did not accept it. But being a father is that, what I said at the beginning of the post, Offer them unconditional love and help them when necessary.
Video | Youtube
