OKEMOS, MI –The Nowlin family will be sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at their suburban Lansing home today, like millions of other families across the nation.
There’s mother Carrie, a former teacher and corporate social media manager; Michael, the dad, a proposal writer for a tech company, and their teenage sons, Miles, a student at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, and Jack, a high school junior.
It’s a close family, and a fun-loving one, who spend a lot of time at their vacation home in Escanaba, closer to where Miles, who is studying musical theatre, is going to school. This year, however, there’s a little more worry at their Thanksgiving table than before.
For Miles was born female. Until he was 13, he was a girl named Eva, and the nation has just been through a national campaign in which the winner and his supporters made no secret of their loathing for those who are transgender.
Miles’ family and communities, including both his high school and college have been fully supportive, his mom said, but he knows that “his government isn’t going to like him for who he is.”
And like all moms, she worries. “He’s not any more afraid than he was before. He ‘passes’ well — he really does look like a guy — and has never been harassed.” But she found out recently that when he walks alone by himself at night, he carries a switchblade knife.
Carrie Nowlin, who is 54, did not grow up in a liberal milieu, but in the small northern Michigan town of Owosso, best-known as the hometown of Republican Thomas E. Dewey, twice nominated for President in the 1940s. Later, she taught English in Houston before moving back to Michigan.
But when Miles told her one Xmas Eve that he was a man in a woman’s body, all his mom could think about was how to be supportive. “I knew something was going on; he was in counseling and had been having panic attacks. He didn’t want to tell me, and finally he said “I think I’m transgender.”
Actually, that came as a relief; she had worried her child might be suicidal. “I was most worried I would screw up the pronouns, or not get the name right, but there was no question that Mike or I would be fully supportive of who he is.”
That was seven years ago, and today, she said, the family, including his little brother Jack, never thinks of their oldest son as anything but Miles. (“Jack adjusted fastest of all,”) she said.
In that, the Nowlin family has been lucky; suicide rates among transgender youth are far higher than average; many have not had nearly the support Miles has had from his family.
But as a young trans person, he is far from alone. Two years ago, an extensive study by the Williams Institute at UCLA’s school of law determined that nationally, about 1.3 million adults and 300,000 teenagers identify as transgender, with the number of transgender men only slightly outnumbering transgender women.
Last year, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, while declaring October “Transgender Empowerment Month,” said 3,950 Michiganders between 13 and 17 and 32,500 adults identify as transgender, and urged their full acceptance.
That plea is likely to fall on deaf ears in Washington these days. Last week, Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced and backed a bill to prevent Sarah McBride, a trans woman just elected to Congress from Delaware, from using women’s bathrooms in the Capitol.
Earlier this month, Carrie Nowlin celebrated a wonderful birthday dinner at a favorite restaurant. The next day, the family was stunned when Donald Trump was elected President.
“What we are most worried about is whether Miles will continue to keep getting the medications he needs to help him transition,” she said. Initially, minors who identify as trans tend to be put on puberty-blocking drugs, which can always be discontinued if the child decides not to transition after some time.
Miles, however, is now on testosterone and, his mother said, is considering having surgery before the new administration attempts to restrict health insurance or rules on medical procedures.
The Nowlin family is baffled, frankly, by the outpouring of hatred and fear of those who are transgender, and sickened by politicians who attempt to exploit those fears. “I can’t say his name, it makes me want to vomit,” Carrie said of the president-elect. She has pondered moving to Canada, but her husband told her they need to stay and fight for what they believe in.
Last week, his mother proudly reposted on Facebook a video of a young man who looks very much like Miles. “They can never wipe us out, though they have tried over and over and over again,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s pretty clear that neither the Nowlins nor this issue are going anywhere either. And in one way they are different today from most families. “We will probably order in Middle Eastern. None of us are crazy about the big turkey dinner,” she laughed.
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(A version of this column appeared in the Toledo Blade)
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