'I'm trans because that's who I am'

By Louise Kinross

Logan Wong is known for his stylish bow ties. But in this photo, he's wearing a shirt with the colours of the transgender flag: blue and pink, the traditional colours for boys and girls, and white, representing people who are intersex, transitioning or a neutral or undefined gender. Logan is a transgender man who has cerebral palsy and grew up receiving services here. He's also the co-chair of Holland Bloorview’s youth advisory, and works as a host to inpatients in our teen lounge. He’s going into his fourth year of social work at Ryerson University. We talked about his experiences and how Holland Bloorview can better support young adults like him.

BLOOM: What does it mean to be transgender?

Logan Wong: It’s when the gender you’re assigned at birth doesn’t match with what you believe to be your gender. Trans is an umbrella. It can mean you’re a guy, you’re a woman, or you’re both. There are new labels coming up every day.

BLOOM: How did you recognize you were transgender?

Logan Wong: I came out publicly last September. But I’ve known I was trans since I was seven. When I was that age I presented as a male, and I was really self-conscious about my body. I don’t think anyone—including me—recognized it as being trans at the time. I thought I liked boy stuff, and I wouldn’t leave the house in a dress.

I have two older brothers. We have a home video of my birthday party when my parents gave me a Barbie. I threw it on the floor and started playing with my brothers’ hot wheels.

My parents recognized how terrible I felt about myself, and how much of a struggle it was for me. And my mom got better at buying gender neutral clothes and clothes that weren’t pink.

BLOOM: What’s been the greatest challenge?

Logan Wong: Definitely finding accessible and trans-friendly health-care, and my name change stuff and government forms. Changing everything from my name on my insurance to my name at school are examples.

I’m lucky to have finally found a doctor that is really educated in both transgender stuff and disability—which is really rare. I go to Parkdale Community Health Centre, and I had to transfer my whole primary care over there to be able to access testosterone. Before that, when I saw my regular family doctor, they were going to refer me to a hormone specialist. But there was a year wait list.

BLOOM: What’s been the greatest joy?

Logan Wong: How much pride I have, and how much I can use my experience, both as trans and having a disability, as representation for both communities at the same time. I really appreciate that opportunity.

BLOOM: What advice would you give parents whose disabled child is questioning their gender?

Logan Wong: I would say listen to what they have to say about themselves. Don’t make assumptions about what they’re thinking. Let them express themselves the way they want to.

BLOOM: Did having a disability make it easier or harder to accept your transgender identity?

Logan Wong: In some aspects it made it easier. I’m in a wheelchair and no one expects me to stand up and pee. So I don’t have to worry about facing harassment in the bathroom. I usually use a single stall bathroom.

Growing up, my life didn’t revolve around the fact that I had a disability. My parents believed that my life shouldn’t just be about therapy. That made me willing to explore other parts of my life and identity, so it made it easier for me to recognize who I am.

BLOOM: Is there anything about having a disability that made being transgender harder?

Logan Wong: Making people realize that I’m not trans because I have a disability, or because of other things that happened in my life. I’m not trans because I’m oppressed by other things, or because I’m attention-seeking. I’m trans because that’s who I am.

BLOOM: How does the disability community view transgender people?

Logan Wong: I definitely find more community within the trans and queer community. I do associate with the disabled community, but I’ve found able-bodied friends who are trans and queer are way more accepting of my identity. I think it goes back to some people thinking that I’m trans because I want attention.

I do feel I’m more welcomed in the trans and queer community. They don’t see my disability as a thing. It’s part of my identity, of course, but they don’t emphasize it as much as it’s focused on in the disability community.

Do I necessarily tell new people with disabilities that I meet that I’m trans? Not necessarily.

BLOOM: What would you like our staff to know about how they can best work with youth who are transgender?

Logan Wong: Ask them what their name is, and what pronouns they use. It’s very simple. Recognize that the documents you get might not have the name that they prefer on it. Don’t take the paper as the most important thing. Value what they say.

BLOOM: Have you ever received health care that wasn’t respectful or affirming of who you are?

Logan Wong: I’ve only had one experience, and it was recent. My cerebral palsy specialist at an adult hospital was blatantly transphobic.

BLOOM: In what way?

Logan Wong: He refused to refer to me with my now legal name, because he knew me before. I’ve chosen to not go to that person since. I called and explained that I was transferring to another specialist, because I don’t want this happening to another person.

BLOOM: What could we do at Holland Bloorview to better support youth who are gay, transgender or bisexual?

Logan Wong: I like the steps the equity, diversity and inclusion committee is taking.

BLOOM: Are you on that committee?

Logan Wong: Yes. They’ve encouraged staff to put their pronouns in their e-mail signature, which is really important, and created gender-neutral bathrooms. Instead of using mom and dad, just say parents. We have to think about it, not only in terms of children and youth, but the parents who are potentially trans.

BLOOM: What about creating some kind of peer support here for clients who are transgender?

Logan Wong: I think support groups, with the right intention, can always be a good opportunity to express the values of Holland Bloorview.

BLOOM: Why did you decide to be a youth leader?

Logan Wong: I decided to become a youth leader before I publicly transitioned. I wanted a platform to advocate for people with disabilities, and specifically youth voices. I feel we don’t hear enough from youth about their opinions on what’s happening in the disability community, or politics, or the world.

BLOOM: What are your hopes for the future?

Logan Wong: I’m hoping to be a social worker. I haven’t confirmed it yet, but I’m hoping my placement will be at the Ronald McDonald House. I’ve gained a lot of clinical experience in my work here, and I’d like to continue that in another space.

After I graduate I’m thinking about master’s programs, both social work and women and gender studies.

In Toronto, there are lots of trans-specific supports at The 519. 

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Like gender, ability is more fluid than we think

By Louise Kinross

I was at a fabulous workshop at Holland Bloorview yesterday on how to create places that include and respect people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or queer (LGBTQ).

The most important thing is “to give people space to self-identify,” said Ashley McGhee, a specialist in education and training from The 519 community centre in Toronto. That’s done by asking a person what pronouns (he/she/they) they use to describe themselves. Then, Ashley said, affirm and honour the person’s response. 

We did some great exercises to better understand the difference between your sex (male or female, based on the anatomy you were born with); the gender you identify with internally; the gender you choose to express in the world; and your sexual orientation. Instead of being rigid, many of these things are fluid and change over a person’s lifetime.

We can talk to our kids about this and check in with them on how they identify.

The 519 offers a wide variety of programs for queer and trans families and parents of gender non-conforming kids.

“We need to challenge the dominant narratives about the way people are supposed to look, feel and move,” Ashley said.

I thought there were parallels between how we create an LGBTQ-friendly place and how we create a disability-friendly place.

We could ask youth how they describe themselves: do they take pride in the word disabled, or use person-first language, or use a reclaimed word, like “crip,” or have a unique way of describing their disability experience, or not use the word disability at all? Just like gender and sexual orientation, abilities are on a spectrum. It’s not a simple binary of “abled” or “disabled.”

But the most important thing I got from Ashley's presentation was that however a person describes themselves, we affirm and value them. We don’t value one gender identity or sexual orientation over another. We don’t value one ability or disability over another. 

“Labels are meant to help people better understand themselves, not to be used by others to categorize or stigmatize or 'other' the person,” says Daniel Scott, Ronald McDonald Playroom coordinator and member of the hospital's Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee. “It's about how people self-identify, and it's about those of us who don't identify [that way] making it our responsibility to try to educate ourselves.”

Ashley suggested we might want to look, as an organization, at the personal information we collect, for example in research. “Is it really necessary to ask a person’s sex, which is asking them what anatomy they were born with?” What does it tell us if we record an F for female because of what we see, but the youth in front of us identifies as a boy?

The bottom line I got from Ashley’s talk was that identity can shift, but human value is a constant. A great message for our community.

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Two dads adopt a son with autism

Here is the first video in A Family Like Mine, a new BLOOM series covering diverse families raising children with disabilities. 

Meet Rob and Dave, two dads who adopted a son with autism. 

“We have a nephew with special needs and we’ve seen what they’ve had to go through and fight for,” Dave says. “We thought it was the right thing to do.”

Initially their son was fascinated with the movement of trains, doors, locks and washing machines, but as he’s grown comfortable with his new family, his ‘stimming’ behaviours have faded. He’s doing well at school after receiving behavioural intervention (IBI) therapy.

Rob and Dave wondered whether having gay dads would be challenging for a kid who already had autism, but he’s thrived.

You may remember this BLOOM post Rob wrote about their adoption. This video will be captioned this week. Hope you enjoy!

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Two moms, one ill baby, and the best care

My dear friend Janis Purdy is speaking today on a SickKids panel celebrating PRIDE week. Here she writes about parenting a child who was born with serious medical problems and the hospital care—often kind and empowering and sometimes challenging—she and her partner experienced as two gay moms. Thank you Janis! Louise

By Janis Purdy

I remember all the people and intensity in the room when Jonny was born. I remember him being whisked away from me and wondering if I would ever hold him.

I remember touching his hands and feet. I remember his omphalocele looking bigger than his body. I remember his curved spine, his yellowish pallor and his old-soul eyes.

I remember his isolette, his PICC line, his NG tube, the IV in his head, his wound dressings twice a day. His daily dose of medications. His failure to thrive. I remember infections and green bile and TPN.

I remember a spontaneous bowel perforation. I remember emergency surgery. I remember praying desperately. As Anne Lamott writes, all my prayers were either “Help”, “Please” or “Thank you.”

I remember six long months in the NICU.

I remember two open heart surgeries, chylothorax, chest tubes, pain in his eyes, and a hernia surgery. I remember three months in the cardiac intensive care unit. I remember the NJ tube, low tone and the discharge plan.

I remember all the good, smart and kind people. I remember the sharp looks, the insensitive comments, the mistakes.

I remember leaving Sick Kids. I remember being so happy and so scared at the same time.

I remember emergencies and admissions and back and forth and in and out for a year. I remember feeds every three hours around the clock and dressing changes and meds that got stuck in his tube and I remember being very tired.

I remember his abdominal closure surgery. I remember a nurse in the surgery recovery room bringing him a brand new Thomas the Train toy.

I remember little friends who got better and some who didn’t.

I remember how much Jonny always loved his big brother. From the moment they met. And I remember his remarkable will to live and his incredible spirit of life and love.

I remember OT and PT and speech and language and oral aversion. I remember being completely humbled by Jonny’s strength and endurance.

I also have different memories that relate to today’s topic: Insights and Ideas for Creating an LGBTQ Positive Space at SickKids.

I remember growing up being taught that lesbian and gay people were dangerous to children. And that trans people were mentally ill. I remember a lesbian who lost custody of her children when she came out. I remember hiding and covering up and feeling ashamed.

I remember a nurse in the NICU asking if Diane and I were married. I remember that opened a door to a lovely conversation.

I remember a nurse practitioner in the NICU asking me, of my older son, “Does he call you mommy or mama?” It showed a wonderful level of insight.

I remember introducing our children’s biological Dads to the staff, and their grandparents, and their aunties and uncles of all genders and being amazed at how nice they all were in trying to understand and support our unconventional family.

I remember the receptionist calling Diane, Mr. Purdy once. She was so apologetic when she realized her mistake. Like red-faced and tripping over herself. I felt sorry for her. I began to call Diane Mr. Purdy after that as a joke.

I remember an older nurse sharing that she was gay too. That was nice and it helped us feel understood and comfortable. I appreciate that she shared that confidence in us.

I remember a younger nurse discussing the finer angles of lesbian motherhood with us.

I remember a GI doctor we’d never met before. We were not having a good day and he walked into our room without knocking, as they are want to do. “I’m Doctor X” he said looking between us. Then he asked, “Who is the mother?” I responded “We both are.” He seemed irritated. “Who is the BIOLOGICAL mother?” Instant tension. My partner tried to diffuse it with a joke “It sounds amazing but we both are!” He looked at her without smiling. “Who are you and why do you need that information?” I said. Sound of horns clacking. “There are many medical reasons we need to know who the biological mother is.” That was a bad start. Hard to get over a bad start.

I remember a social worker in the cardiac ICU asking us the kindest, most thoughtful questions about our family situation. She was concerned about whether we had enough support going home. Gender was not an issue.

I remember sometimes feeling angry at the world and dark and ready for a fight.

I also remember feeling so lucky and thinking, if anyone can handle this, we can. With our age, our experience, our families, our friends, our financial security, our good health… we’re going to be able to handle this. I remember thinking, Jonny chose the right family. And feeling so grateful.

I remember meeting moms and dads from all over Ontario, from little towns here and there and some who were very religious and some who had never met a lesbian before but it was all okay because here we were all surviving and hanging in there together. It was all about the kids and the diagnosis and the treatment and the prognosis.

I met people at SickKids, and made friends here, with people I’m not sure I would have crossed paths with in any other way. And that was good for me.

I remember a doctor here, someone I deeply respect, and will always love in a kind of hero-worship way, telling me that he thought Diane and I were great parents. I think I burst into tears, which would have been disconcerting for him, but that is how much I appreciated what he said.

When you grow up thinking you can’t or won’t be a parent, or you’re holding onto an ancient fear that other people will judge you, or dislike you before they’ve met you, or when you’re used to fighting and you’ve got your dukes up for no good reason, those little compliments and small indications of care, and empathy, well they can blow up your well-constructed walls and bring down all your defenses and really soothe your soul. Which is a really good thing for any parent of a sick child.

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'You are going to be Dads'

At a recent BLOOM event I met a new dad, Rob Foslett. Rob's face lit up when he told me that he and his partner had recently adopted a young boy with autism. Of course I wanted to see pictures, so the next day Rob e-mailed me some. "It's been a great 39 days since Owen came to live with us and he has made our lives so much better!" he wrote. Of course I wanted to know the WHOLE story, so Rob wrote it and here it is! Louise

By Rob Foslett

I have a great life.

But three years ago, at age 46, this nagging feeling that something was missing in my life and relationship took hold.

My husband David, my best friend and soul mate, and I had a plan: We’d retire early, move back to Nova Scotia where I grew up, travel and get involved in community life.

But still, I felt alone and empty. I quit my well-paying job and spent a couple of months trying to figure out why.

I made a list of 20 things I wanted to achieve in my life. Number 20 turned out to be adoption. I realized the emptiness I’d been feeling was a sense of incompleteness that we weren’t a family.

David and I had been a gay married couple since 2004. I knew David was happy with our relationship and liked our life plan, but I was about to totally turn his world upside down by contemplating parenthood.
 
I love a challenge and I love change, but was David the same? This would be a true test of our relationship.

The first time I mentioned parenthood David stared at me like I was on some illegal drug. “No, I am serious,” I said. “We would make great parents and help out a kid who really needs us.”

I think he thought we were too old to do this, but I felt we had a lot of love and support to give.

David and I started the process by reaching out to Toronto’s Children’s Aid Society. We went through the phone screen and the in-home visit without a hitch. Then David went to the Adopt Ontario website and showed me a boy with a smile that left me speechless (more to come on that later).

The adoption process is long, soul-searching and intrusive. It includes being assigned a worker, education classes, police checks and interviews. We learned so much in the classes we took. We had three great presenters and they made us think about why we were adopting and how to parent—especially how to respond to a child who had experienced neglect and how to parent the child through the loss of their birth family and foster family. I started our adoption binder.

Were David and I ready for this leap? We decided we were. And we decided to adopt a child with special needs. My nephew, who is now 17, has a disability and I couldn’t ask for a better nephew, one who’s more loving and caring and focused on retrieving a pamphlet wherever he goes. My nephew has won awards at science fairs and his big thing is collecting brochures on everything. Last count he had over 5,000, all in order and on his computer.  

David works as a civil servant so his resources were vast and he had some experience with special-needs kids, so his comfort level was high. David knew lots of people who understood children with special needs and could talk to us about parenting and how to find resources. And answer every little question we had, like "Do they need round-the-clock care?"

I couldn’t get that little boy’s smile out my head.

As we progressed towards completing our homestudy with our social worker Susan, I sent for information on that little boy with that smile that made me smile.

It turned out that Owen had autism. You would think it would scare me. It didn’t, nor David. We had been reading up on applied behaviour analysis and the familiar traits of children with autism. The more I looked at Owen’s picture the more I felt this bond developing and I needed to know more.

February 9th this year was a date I’ll never forget. We were invited by our worker to go to a presentation that was being held by the various Children’s Aid Societies in our region. In the first part we heard real families who'd adopted and were living day to day now with their new child. They gave a very insightful look at adoption from the perspective of the adopting parents and the foster parents. After the presentation we had lunch and were told we could go through some rooms to see profiles of the various children up for adoption.

David and I walked around and found Owen’s profile. My heart stopped. And I mean that. It felt like we were so close to hugging him, but it was just a picture. It was nerve-wracking. The non-adopting world needs to understand that this experience for adoptive parents is just as much of an emotional rollercoaster as the traditional route of trying to have kids.

Would we be accepted to the next step? Who else was interested in this child? What would the interview process be like?

All these thoughts flooded our minds.

But I didn’t care about any of that. I saw him and knew he was the one. I turned to David.

“He’s the one,” I said.

David is the most supportive guy I know. But this time I could tell he was a little scared. And so was I. We had questioned becoming parents at our age, and being two guys, many times, but Owen took hold of our lives through that one picture.

Blondish brown hair, big smile, bowler haircut and red t-shirt. I still have the picture.

We filled out 12 more pages of paperwork and gave it to Owen’s worker. This paperwork was supposed to determine our true interest in Owen, and to demonstrate that we would be fit parents who could support him now and all his life.

Our worker e-mailed to say we’d been chosen to come in for an interview by Owen’s resource team, along with another couple. My heart sank at hearing there were other prospective parents. I felt alone, but I didn’t want to tell David as we were supporting each other. We didn’t talk about the other couple but instead we prepared for the presentation. It was on May 16th at 10:30 a.m.

I bought a pair of lucky runners—Adidas Retro High Tops—and we felt good. We walked in and Owen’s resource team was waiting for us. We learned that the other couple had decided not to go forward with their application for Owen. I was still nervous yet happy.

I gave everything I had and the meeting lasted about an hour-and-a-half. We were told we would know the team’s decision within 24 hours.

We decided to go to the nearest Canadian Tire and pick up a few things. I remember standing with the cart as David shopped, getting tears in my eyes, just thinking and fearing that maybe Owen wasn’t going to join our family. We drove home and got up to the steps of the house and heard the phone ringing.

“It’s probably a telemarketer,” David said. I picked up the phone and Owen’s worker was on the other end.

“Are you sitting down?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you are going to be Dads.”

I cannot put into words what I felt at that moment: a thousand emotions all at once. David and I hugged each other and cried.

And now the rest is history. We met Owen and now have more videos and pictures then we can count.

Owen is in school and has been accepted at the Geneva Centre for Autism for further therapy. I am actually right now sitting with him on the sofa as he watches his favourite thing on his iPad—subways. Owen is totally fascinated with subways and we have a Saturday ritual where we go each Saturday on the TTC and ride them. He can tell when a new subway car is coming, and when it’s an old one. He can tell the difference in ring chimes and knows what stops are most important: like David’s work, the Eaton Centre and our stop for home.

We have been challenged by him at home. One of Owen’s autistic “focuses,” as I call them, is doors. His outlet for overload of stimuli is opening and closing the front and back doors. We have tried to redirect him, as we say in the autism realm, by allowing him three specific kitchen cabinets that he’s allowed to open. We weren’t worried about him bolting out of the house as much as we were worried that he would catch pneumonia. You see, Owen would stand on the porch with just his pull-ups on and watch the door open and close if he could.

I guess it’s a good sign that he challenges us. A child with special needs I believe needs to be understood for who he is—for his strengths, but most of all for the love he can give. And Owen gives a lot.

I love my son. I cannot explain in measurement or precise words, but when I look at him I have the biggest smile and feel true happiness. David takes Owen on Jeep rides. After riding the subway, Owen’s favourite thing is to ride in the jeep to the park and go on the swing.

My most cherished memory of the three of us happened at our local splash pad. We’re laying on our blanket, the sun is warm and shining and the trees are gently swaying. Owen’s cuddling with us and looking at pictures of us on our iPhones.

“Is that me and Dave and Rob?” he asks quietly. 

“Yes, Owen,” Dave says. “That’s us. Are you happy, Owen?”

Owen replies with the hugest smile.

“Where’s Toopy and Binoo?” he asks. Toopy and Binoo are characters on a cartoon from Montreal and he loves them to death.

I guess that’s as good as we’ll get from him, I think. 

Then, out of the blue, he says: “I’m safe.”

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