Originally published by the Springfield News-Leader on April 25th.
I'm a conservative: I'm a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment Missourian who wants small government with lower taxes and thinks there should be less welfare and more work. Like all parents I love, support and protect my children, including my youngest, who happens to be transgender.
My daughter is like any other teenager. She loves singing in choir, plays video games, and hangs out with her friends. We go to the gun range together, and she can shoot as straight as an arrow. She wants to be a DNA specialist like she sees on CSI.
I was raised in a conservative, Baptist family. My parents taught me that if you're born a man, you need to be a man, and I took that as a simple truth. As a result, I grew up without information about what it meant to be gay or transgender.
All of that changed when my youngest child, who I thought was a boy and I was raising as a boy, turned thirteen. She told me, "I'm transgender. I am a girl. I wanted to pretend to be a boy, but I'm not. I'm a girl." No matter what I was taught growing up, and no matter what my child had heard me say over the years, she was my child. I love her and I support her, no matter what.
No child should receive warnings or suspensions at school just for being who they are, yet she has. No child should hear other students say, "maybe I should rape this b***," but she has. No child should have to fight to be accepted for who they are, but she does.
It was hard for her to believe I was going to accept her - she worried that my beliefs would be more important than my love for her. But we forged a good relationship, and my love for my daughter has made me an unexpected advocate for transgender rights.
We don't need politicians telling us how to live our lives. While Republican governors in both Indiana and Utah recently vetoed bills interfering in the lives of trans kids and their families, the politicians in Jefferson City are advancing dangerous and reckless bills that will harm my family and many others.
Suicide rates are much higher among transgender kids who are not supported by their families, or rejected in their schools, or subject to anti-transgender policies by their government. If these kids can't get fair treatment, they're going to self-medicate or take themselves out of the picture all together. These are real fears I have for my daughter.
I've never pushed against the establishment, but I never had anything worth fighting for until now. My child has opened my eyes to the mistruths, the untruths, that I was raised learning, and as a result I'm a better person. My family jokes that I've gone from redneck to rainbow warrior, but it's really much simpler: I love my daughter and would do anything to protect her. Won't you join me?
Dustan Farr