A mother's post (a friend of mine)
Yes, our daughter [Name] is proud to be a part of the LGBTQ community.
[Name] is gender non-conforming. What does this mean? One day [Name] may wake up feeling connected to a fem side but the next day feeling connected more to a masc side. But does it change who [Name] really is? NO! Not in our eyes and heart! [Name] is and will always be our baby, our child, our pride and joy!
[Name] has struggled for the past 2 years trying to find a place in this world. [Name] has been bullied, judged and shunned, has lost friends & been pushed away by others. It was all from the support of amazing family & true friends to finally be true to the heart.
That is all [Name] & I ever wanted for all our kids is for them to be happy & true to their hearts.
If after seeing the beautiful pictures and reading this post you feel you need to unfriend me then please do so, but nothing will EVER come between me and my kids! I hope [Name] is an inspiration & role model to anyone that has ever struggled with finding their true self.
Her daughter's follow up.
Thank you everybody for the wonderful support and kind words, I am, as my mom said, Gender non-conforming, she did a wonderful job of explaining what that means but I'd like to add to it. Another part of Gender non-conforming is that I don't identify as one gender, I don't conform to one specific gender. I have never felt like just a girl, at one point I used she/her/they/them pronouns to kind of experiment, then one day on social media I heard about gender-fluid, where someone will one day wake up feeling like a man and have a specific name they go by that day, and the next a female and a name for them that day. For a while I wondered if that was me, but then I realized I have no desire to fully identify as a man, then I learned about Gender non-conforming in a Health class ruing our Sex Ed course and it was like sudden clarity, I knew who I was, I now know my name, I am LJ, I am the child of [Name] and [Name], I am the middle sibling of [Name] and [Name], and I am the grandchild of [Name]. Thank you to everybody who helped me get to where I am now, to love myself like I do now, but I want to give a special thanks to my wonderful significant other, [Name] and her lovely family who helped me understand more about Gender non-conformity and how it fits who I am. (A little psa after this long message, I use all pronouns, but I have a slight preference to they/them/theirs.) If you read all of this, thank you so much.
This family is active in a Lutheran congregation. As pastors what would your response be should a member make such a public announcement?