Alicia, our current eldest foster child, is transitioning from male to female.
She is a great person. I'm totally behind her in her goal.
All the hot air surrounding the issue seems produced by people who have no real world knowledge of the issue of transitioning or Alicia specifically. Whatever the hot air, Alicia is morally right and anyone opposing her basic human right to be who she believes she is are wrong.
Simples.
One of the many beauties of fostering is how it opens the door on so many issues and experiences where previously one had no real knowledge.
I find that many of the problems that result in broken homes are down to nutrition - and by "nutrition" I mean more than just food.
In my time I've had to gain knowledge of things such as; how to help youngsters with poor physical development caused by over-eating, under-eating, or plain old bad eating, aka "food poverty". Then there are the effects on a child of abject social and emotional poverty. A different form of malnutrition.
If you foster it helps to develop an understanding of things you didn't used to know about so you can do your job. Blue Sky training sessions point you in the right direction. Your BS social worker is there to clarify and support. Together, we feed our knowledge and it grows.
Most of the public binge on what they see in the papers or online, or hear from "the man in the street" debating on the media. It's bad fast food for the soul. The less a person knows about something the more strident and simplistic their opinions.
Alicia puts up with turning on her news sites and being greeted by people condemning her. She gets down about it, I'm certain, but because she cares about me and our family she sucks it up, processes it and, I believe, is currently able to say to herself "They don't know me, never met me. I'm not affecting anyone. I shall go on."
It takes guts, standing up for yourself when you're a young teenager. She does it quietly and with dignity. She attends the occasional march, but only to support people who are in the same boat as her.
She gets in nobody's face.
The whole business of transitioning is fraught with obstacles. I'm helping her with endless paperwork about her new name and identity.
I've needed to negotiate with her doctors surgery which was reluctant to get involved - possibly because they were wary of trouble further down the line if legislation and opinion turned against anyone who had helped transitioners.
Alicia's pharmacy told us one day that they "no longer dispense" the medication Alicia is prescribed, but only because "It's out of stock with our supplier and we don't know when it'll be available again". Hmmmm.
Her school have been, on the whole, brilliant. Her fellow pupils applaud her courage. Mind, there's a teacher who exercises their "right" to continue using the male pronoun for her. It's not her, she says: "The Bible says…"
Alicia doesn't eat brilliantly. it's not a problem yet, but worth monitoring. She hops around her plate like a butterfly with sore feet, She is okay with pasta, but not too big a bowl, better to come back for seconds. Yet she'll go through a whole serving of popcorn if the movie is right. Me and her social worker, we talk about it a lot. We're agreed the key is making good food available, and improving her ease with eating. She has her own fruit bowl in her bedroom, and gets through bananas just fine.
It's her emotional poverty we're also focussed on feeding properly.
When she comes home from school or from hanging out with pals, I always give her a loud welcome, whereas in her real home she'd been invisible. If I find hair in the bathroom sink, I'll comment favourably about her new hair look. If a parcel arrives for her then next time I see her I'll tell her how great her new top is. If she has a couple of friends round to our house I'll stay out of the way but when they're gone I tell Alicia how fantastic her friends are.
Serving up the right food in the right portions is important.
Serving up the right care, in the right portions, is equally important.
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