SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
For a few years in the 1990s, Colorado became known by some as the Hate State because voters there amended the state constitution to bar cities and towns from protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination. In the decade since, the state has become a more welcoming place and the first state to elect an openly gay governor.
The latest season of the podcast The Colorado Dream from member station KUNC examined how this evolution happened. In this excerpt, reporter Leigh Patterson explores how public school policies designed to support gender identity inflamed disagreements between one student and their father and how the two worked past them.
J: How are you?
LEIGH PATTERSON, BYLINE: I'm good. How are you? Good morning.
J: Tired.
PATTERSON: This is D's dad, J. I meet him outside of his home in one of Colorado's mountain towns.
PATTERSON: Sounds like you had a night.
J: Yeah.
PATTERSON: J's a paramedic who just got off the night shift. We're using both father and child's middle initials to protect their privacy in this small town. J's spending the morning packing up his enormous RV for a family trip.
So this is going to be your home for the next few weeks.
J: This is it.
PATTERSON: It'll be J and his wife along with their two youngest kids, including D.
J: We're going to leave at, like, 6 a.m. First stop's Tetons and then a day there and a day in Yellowstone, and then we're going to Glacier.
PATTERSON: And then all the way up to Canada.
J: We've already made a lot of memories. We're hoping one last hoorah, one last good time.
PATTERSON: This family has road-tripped and ridden dirt bikes all over the country. This trip matters a lot. D and their older sister are both leaving for college in August, the last of J's four kids.
J: You spend your whole life building this family and then college.
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PATTERSON: Seventeen-year-old D is looking forward to college and to the trip. They're a little nervous about being in tight quarters and hope things go OK with their dad. It's been a tough few years in their household. We meet at a park near their home.
How are you?
D: I actually took my friend's prom photos here, literally on this bench.
PATTERSON: D loves photography and napping in the sun. They're an excellent student graduating with a 4.1 GPA.
D: I'm gender-nonconforming - is the, like, actual word for it. But I'm kind of just open to anything.
PATTERSON: Gender-nonconforming, meaning someone who doesn't look or act the way people might expect them to according to typical gender norms - growing up, D felt like a tomboy, hanging out in the shed with their dad.
D: Like, I know what a wrench is. I know my way around a shop. Like, gender wasn't really a thing in my mind when I was little 'cause it didn't have to be.
PATTERSON: D is figuring out their identity, as are other Colorado kids. In a recent statewide survey, around 2 out of every 100 Colorado high schoolers identified as nonbinary. Three out of every 100 identified as transgender. D was terrified of puberty. Around this time, they started talking about queerness with their theater friends and started going to a middle school club called PRISM. It was for gay, lesbian and transgender students.
D: I, at first, joined because I didn't really know anything about the queer community. I wasn't very educated from home.
PATTERSON: And one day, J discovered D was attending the club. D hadn't told him about it, so he went to the school and brought D home.
D: And I wasn't allowed to return, which was quite embarrassing and a little scary.
PATTERSON: D's dad remembers the incident when he showed up, angry that D had lied.
J: And showed up and said, hey, let's go. This isn't where you said you'd be. So you're not going to be here, you know?
PATTERSON: J says he wasn't really opposed, but he didn't know what the club was about.
J: There were no permission slips for my kid to go to the PRISM club.
PATTERSON: Later on, J found out that his child had been eating lunch with other students in a teacher's classroom.
J: You know, and this teacher was writing my kids letters in the summer, saying, I hope all's going well for you - you know, after she graduated middle school - I see you. I know who you really are and all this kind of stuff, you know, this adult sway and influence that definitely is not in school curriculum, definitely was overstepping her bounds.
PATTERSON: An overstepping of a boundary or an inclusive gesture from a caring adult? Back then, the district lacked policies and guidelines related to gender. One administrator said if that type of conversation between a teacher and a student happened now, a counselor would have likely been brought in to help.
Things are evolving. In September, the district's board of education adopted a name change policy in keeping with a new state law. Students can use a name at school that aligns with their gender identity, but making it official would require a parent signature. Some of these schools now have gender-neutral bathrooms, and the district is considering the possibility of more comprehensive guidelines.
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PATTERSON: D, the high school senior who grew up in the mountains riding dirt bikes, says they've benefited from exploring their gender at their after-school club, confident none of it would get back to their dad. If school had been required to notify D's parents, they think they would have been too scared to explore their identity.
D: I think I would definitely still being - elementary school me. I think I'd be doing only sports and kind of trying to live for my parents.
PATTERSON: In 2022, D decided it was time to come out. They were tired of hiding.
D: I had the bright idea to do it on Christmas. I don't recommend doing that.
PATTERSON: Their whole family was gathered at their dad's house for the holiday.
D: And I ended up coming out to everyone, and I said it, and I was like, they/them pronouns. My name is...
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J: ...Comes out and says, hey, I'm nonbinary, and this is my name. Don't call me my old name anymore. That's all, thanks, and, like, exits - and we're like, what? What was that?
PATTERSON: Nonbinary is an umbrella term for people who don't identify as men or women.
D: And my dad's - unfortunately, his first response was, you'll always be my daughter, which is not the best thing to say.
J: And then I remember having to go into her room later and say, listen, I don't care what it is you think that you are or what you identify with or what name you want to make up. It doesn't matter. You are who you are to me. You're my daughter, you know, and I'll always love you.
PATTERSON: Soon after, J looked up the definition of nonbinary, trying to wrap his head around the meaning. He was confused. Sex, for him, is identifiable and fixed, something that humans are born with. Gender, on the other hand, is about how you see yourself or express yourself. Underneath all of this is worry. J explains why, trying to choose his words carefully.
J: And I don't mean it in a negative way toward the LGBTQ community. But - and I don't want to draw a conclusion and say it's because they're LGBTQ. But what I will say is that statistically, that community has a way higher incidence of drug use, drug abuse, suicide.
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PATTERSON: Nonbinary and trans teens do experience much higher rates of behavioral health struggles. In Colorado, nonbinary youth seriously consider suicide at more than three times the rate of their peers. Stigma, politics and rejection by family all play a role in these mental health outcomes. What J sees for his child is a more difficult path setting themselves up for a life with more struggle.
J: And now, she's trying on this new identity and hanging out with these new people and painting herself as nonbinary or trans in that way. You know, I'm afraid that she's going to take this off to college.
PATTERSON: Since D came out two years ago, a lot has changed.
How's your dad feel about you leaving?
D: You'll call me every day - right? - even if it's just for an hour? No. No, I will not.
PATTERSON: He's going to miss you.
D: He's so sad.
PATTERSON: Their dad, J, agrees.
J: Oh, it's so hard. And it's - I mean, it's a beautiful thing. Life's impermanent, and that's what you knew was going to happen all along.
PATTERSON: He knows that in the past, their fighting and his anger about D's gender identity made things worse.
J: I mean, on the one hand, you don't want to just let your kid do whatever and go, oh, yes, dear, OK. You also want to do it in a tactful, skillful way, you know? And I haven't always been the best.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PATTERSON: Their final summer road trip up north to Canada was a big deal. During the trip, J texted me photos - a selfie of him and his teen standing in front of an impossibly clear blue lake and snow-dusted mountains. J says during those weeks in the RV, they spent a lot of time together and didn't fight much.
D: Hey, sorry for missing your call. But I wanted to get you the update on how my trip went.
PATTERSON: The day they got back to Colorado, D sent me this voice memo. Things went pretty well with their dad, J.
D: Thankfully, he did use my name a lot. He still struggles with pronouns, which is OK, but it's clear that he's putting in the effort at this point, which I'm very thankful for. I'm glad we had this trip to, like, really connect. We went on some drives, just us two, to kind of go look for, like, wildlife and just talk. So that was pretty fun.
DETROW: That is an excerpt from the podcast The Colorado Dream. It was reported by Leigh Patterson of member station KUNC. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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