As the journey unfolded with their transgender child, Sara and Micah Heumann of Champaign benefitted from a variety of resources, from the local Uniting Pride organization to the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
But they didn’t have a local family they could call who could uniquely identify with them. At the time, there were no families in Champaign-Urbana who publicly had identified as having a transgender child.
But now that’s changed. Sara and Micah, along with their 10-year-old son Daniel — born Naima — are able and willing to be that resource for other families who might need guidance.
“Since we had the WCIA interview,” Sara said of a piece that aired recently, “there’s been a family of a 4-year-old that reached out to us. And we want that. We want to be able to reach people and know that we can start a community together where our kids can play, and we can rely on each other as adults and share information about what’s ahead, and the resources we’ve found through Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.”
The Heumanns’ story is included as part of a PBS documentary, “Growing Up Trans,” that will air at 9 p.m. June 30 on WILL-TV. (To hear a 2013 discussion with the Heumanns from WILL-AM, click here.)
For those unfamiliar with their journey, Sara and Micah’s first child was born Naima. But by age 3, Naima was showing a clear preference for male clothing, and soon after that male hairstyles.
“We just thought we have a tomboy,” Sara said. “He was starting to express preferences (of) thinking girls were cute. And you think, ‘oh (we) have somebody who identifies as lesbian.’ And he would say things like, ‘I don’t feel right. I wish I were a boy.’ And I felt a sadness for him that he felt so strongly about that.”
Some friends recommended they watch a French film named Tomboy about a 10-year-old transgender child.
“Then it just all clicked,” she said. “This is what my child is experiencing.”
The Heumanns found the support and guidance they needed through the process.
“I was really emotional,” Sara said. “I was feeling a lot at the time. We knew we were going to support, whatever that meant, him being his authentic self because we could tell it was very significant and something he thought about all the time. Once we just kind of embraced a transition and found supportive people that gave us more resources and doing our own research to understand this more, (we found) there’s a community. … We’ve had a great deal of support.”
That doesn’t mean it was easy. But their overriding belief was in the desire to support their child unconditionally.
“Supporting your kids doesn’t always mean that it’s easy,” Micah said. “It’s not like this is the path we wanted or we chose. Of course we’re going to support our kids because we love them no matter who they are, but that doesn’t equal ‘ease.’ It still can be difficult and scary at times — the unknowns.”
Micah is now the president of Uniting Pride, a center for the LGBT community.
“I’ve worked with many kids who identify as transgender who have unsupportive families. And to see the torment that those kids and young adults go through, as a parent, I don’t want that for any child in this world,” Micah said.
“For the parents, I’d really say, ‘what is really important to you? What type of child do you want to have?’ We focus on doing good in school and being good, kind people to others, and giving back to the community. And to society, those are the things we focus on. What they wear and how they identify, those aren’t things that conflict with being a good person. So I really challenge parents to take that word ‘unconditional’ and mean it. I think it gets thrown around a lot to say we unconditionally love our kids and then the second they don’t do what we like, we start taking that and trying to keep them in the condition we want to create. That’s not unconditional. And unconditional is not always easy. But if we’re going to say that word and going to mean it, let’s do that.
“And for those who don’t have a supportive family, we’re a family that you can reach out to. We want to be reached out to. You can reach out to the United Pride Center and get it touch with us that way. You’re not alone. You’re seen for who you are.”