This week In the Den, Jen visits with Nigerian born pediatrician and LGBTQ+ educator Dr. Lulu about parenting queer children. They talk about a range of topics from what to do and not do when we learn about our children’s queer identities to unlearning preconceived ideas about the queer community to refining our advocacy to best serve our children.
Special Guest: Dr. Lulu
Dr. Lulu is a multiple award-winning Queer, Nigerian-born pediatrician, LGBTQ+ educator, corporate consultant, CEO of Dr. Lulu’s Coaching & Consulting Lounge, and chief host of Moms 4 Trans Kids Podcast. She is a mother of three, one of whom is a transgender young adult woman. In addition to her family-centered gender-affirming coaching & consulting practice “Dr. Lulu’s PRIDE Corner” (which helps families navigate the psychosocial aspects of raising gender-diverse youth), she also helps support employee-parents at the workplace. Her “Allies in White Coats” program trains culturally competent physician-allies to help mitigate health inequities plaguing the LGBTQ+ community. She is the author of About Your Black Transgender Child, and Invited In: How to Become the Parent Your LGBTQ Child Needs, both set to be published in 2024. Her next book Allies in White Coats: LGBTQ+ Basics for Physicians drops in 2025!
She has been featured on numerous news outlets and interviewed by Oprah Winfrey for her work on LGBTQ+ advocacy. She is a Youth Suicide Prevention Activist and former host of Suicide Pages, and The Pride Corner podcasts. Dr. Lulu’s current focus is helping communities support and affirm Black transgender kids (who are often hiding in plain sight), one family at a time.
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This week In the Den, Jen visits with Nigerian born pediatrician and LGBTQ+ educator Dr. Lulu about parenting queer children. They talk about a range of topics from what to do and not do when we learn about our children’s queer identities to unlearning preconceived ideas about the queer community to refining our advocacy to best serve our children.
Special Guest: Dr. Lulu
Dr. Lulu is a multiple award-winning Queer, Nigerian-born pediatrician, LGBTQ+ educator, corporate consultant, CEO of Dr. Lulu’s Coaching & Consulting Lounge, and chief host of Moms 4 Trans Kids Podcast. She is a mother of three, one of whom is a transgender young adult woman. In addition to her family-centered gender-affirming coaching & consulting practice “Dr. Lulu’s PRIDE Corner” (which helps families navigate the psychosocial aspects of raising gender-diverse youth), she also helps support employee-parents at the workplace. Her “Allies in White Coats” program trains culturally competent physician-allies to help mitigate health inequities plaguing the LGBTQ+ community. She is the author of About Your Black Transgender Child, and Invited In: How to Become the Parent Your LGBTQ Child Needs, both set to be published in 2024. Her next book Allies in White Coats: LGBTQ+ Basics for Physicians drops in 2025!
She has been featured on numerous news outlets and interviewed by Oprah Winfrey for her work on LGBTQ+ advocacy. She is a Youth Suicide Prevention Activist and former host of Suicide Pages, and The Pride Corner podcasts. Dr. Lulu’s current focus is helping communities support and affirm Black transgender kids (who are often hiding in plain sight), one family at a time.
Links from the Show:
In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at mamadragons.org.
Connect with Mama Dragons:
Website
Instagram
Facebook
Donate to this podcast
JEN: Hello and welcome to In The Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created to walk and talk with you through this journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. Thanks for listening. We’re glad you’re here.
This week we have invited an extra special guest to share with us her passion and skills and education. When I listen to her, I feel inspired to do more and be more. I’m not exaggerating when I say that she moves at the speed of light and she is moving mountains and creating change. Dr. Lulu is a multiple award-winning Queer, Nigerian-born pediatrician, LGBTQ+ educator, corporate consultant, author, CEO, and chief host of the Moms 4 Trans Kids Podcast. She is a mother of three, one of whom is a transgender young adult woman. Dr. Lulu’s current focus is helping communities support and affirm Black transgender kids who are often hiding in plain sight, one family at a time. And we’re excited to join her in that effort. Welcome, Dr. Lulu, in the den.
LULU: Hi, Jen. Thanks for having me.
JEN: I’ve been so excited to just talk to you. You have so much energy and passion that it is absolutely contagious. And I want to start. I want to go back. You immigrated to the United States from Nigeria. Can you talk about the transition? But more than that, I want to hear about the influence of Nigeria on you, the impact that your home country and culture had on the way you understand gender and sexuality.
LULU: Yeah, I mean, I was born, bread, buttered, and slightly browned in Nigeria is what I always say because it’s true. Nigeria is one of the most religious and one of the most homophobic countries in West Africa. Anyone who’s listened to the news, heard what Ghana did last week. Ghana is our next door neighbor. I went to Ghana to take all my exams before coming to the US. I went to Ghana on vacation. My family vacations in Ghana. Ghana is my friend. We play soccer with Ghana. Ghana and Nigeria are probably cousins somewhere in the distant past. But they are also exceptionally homophobic. And one thing they have in common is they’re religious, extremely religious. So, that is how I grew up. I was born Catholic. I’m probably going to die a Catholic. I’m just no longer practicing Catholicism. So, when I went to high school, I told my dad that I think I like girls, boys, and now looking back I know he only knew what he knew. So he offered, it was a phase. And I believed him because that’s what kids do. So I believed him and I went with it. Then I told my aunt who had a more intense relationship with me in the sense that in Nigeria, one of the things we do customarily is we have relatives who kind of raise you, co-raise you with your parents. So she was like, “Oh, don’t ever say that again. You’re going to go to hell.” And that’s it. And let me tell you, growing up and 11 and 12 and 13, deeply entrenched in catholicism, I did not have one doubt that I was not going to go to hell. I believed everything she said. And I literally tried my very best to – I hate using the word KILL – but that’s what I tried to do with that part of me. I was like, we’re not going to acknowledge it. It does not exist, no, never. And I just decided to grow up and be as heterosexual as I could. Of course, I failed. But one of the beautiful things about being bisexual or probably bi-plus, is you can hide as a heterosexual for the rest of your life and no one will know. And I did that. I did that for 13 years. I was married to my ex-husband, rest in peace. And I did my very, very best to not be attracted to women, which is just kind of crazy, right? How do you not be who you are? But that’s what I tried to do. Eventually, I was just like, you know what, I’m not going to do this anymore. I’m not going to pretend to be who I am not. And that’s one of the advantages of getting older. So coming to America, you know, I was very happy. I was like, I’m going to come here and just live my best life. And I was more concerned about other things like racism, which, it doesn’t exist in my country. So there are bigger things for me to worry about, being a black woman and all the things I was hearing about what happened to the America we read about in the magazines. America we saw on every magazine and [inaudible] where’s that America. So that was the bigger adjustment for me because I had already decided to not acknowledge my sexuality. So it was about being black.
JEN: How old were you when you came to America?
LULU: 24.
JEN: So did you come for college?
LULU: Well, that’s a good question. As a matter of fact, 2024, December 4th, 2024 will mark my 30th birthday – 30 years so to say – of being in America.
JEN: Awesome.
LULU: So I came here at 24 and I turned 25 the next year. So this year I’ll be 55 within 2024 will be 30 years. And so it was crazy, you know.
JEN: You were so young. And did you come alone? Did your family come with you?
LULU: Yes, I came alone. I came by myself, me, myself, and I. I think I knew two people, one of them was my best friend who passed away last year. She was one of the two people that I know. The other was a classmate. Well, I liked. Two people mainly. But I had a distant aunt who I stayed with and the rest is history. But I didn’t know hardly anyone. So one of the things I say is my whole life came full circle because this year, I moved to Atlanta where I hardly know anyone. I only know two people. So, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a beautiful thing.
JEN: So, did you go straight to Texas from Nigeria?
LULU: No. No. No. I came to Howard University for my residency.
JEN: Oh, okay.
LULU: So one of the reasons I went to Ghana multiple times was to take the exams to be able to come to the United States to practice as a physician. So I came and went straight to Washington D.C. to Howard University to do my pediatric residency that year.
JEN: Okay.
LULU: Oh, the next year, sorry, because I came in December, so it was in March of the next year that I matched in March and then I started my residency in June of 1995.
JEN: And then where in that timeline did you meet your husband?
LULU: We met while I was in residency.
JEN: Okay.
LULU: So residency for pediatrics is three years. I think we met in ’97. One of my very good friends introduced us and then we got married in ’98. Or it was, we met in ’96 and we got married in ’97 because the baby was born in ’98, so yeah.
JEN: So he was an American, or he was an immigrant also?
LULU: He was an immigrant. He’s Nigerian. He was, I keep saying he was because he just passed away, he just passed away a few months ago. He was a Nigerian and he was an immigrant as well. We met at the Nigerian Catholic church. They have a Catholic church in Washington D. C. and that’s kind of where we met.
JEN: So you had a shared culture and some understanding. And we get pregnant. And we have some hopes and dreams for our kids, right? Talk to me about that. You’re so young and newly married and you’re having babies. What were you hoping for your kids?
LULU: I think like for anybody else. As a physician, you always tell yourself you want a baby with ten fingers and ten toes. I mean, we say it, oh, we just want a healthy baby. That’s not true. In recent times I discovered in my writing – because my next book, I’m actually here to try to finish it up – but one of the things that I discovered is that we say that to make us feel better. The world is so binary. The very first thing you say is, “It’s a boy.” The very first thing the doctor says, “It’s a boy.” The very first thing your mother says when she calls, “Is it a boy or a girl?” The very first thing your best friend asked you while you’re still pregnant, “Is it a boy or a girl, because I want to know how to get my gifts?” Or whatever. So, the world is too binary for us to ignore that when we’re pregnant. So I don’t care what anyone else is saying, when you’re pregnant, you’re thinking, is it a boy or is it a girl? And I, actually with my first child, did not find out. With none of my kids did I find out their gender. I was just truly not interested. I didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl. I did have hope of two boys and a girl. That’s always been what I wanted. And I think, when I was seven months pregnant we went to New Orleans on a boat cruise and then I had my palm reading done by this lady who’s like a voodoo princess. And she’s like, “So you picked a card and it’s a prince. But it’s a very handsome prince. Almost got some girl energy in there.” And that’s exactly what she said. I’m like, “Really?” She said, “Yes. It’s a very handsome prince, so it’s probably a boy. But he’s got a very strong female energy.” And she said that. And my ex-husband, being the Nigerian, the homophobe, he actually denounced that particular palm reading. He said, “My child, if he’s a boy, he’s a boy. I’m not having no boy that’s like a girl.” I remember him saying that. And I thought to myself, “I wonder what’s going to happen.” Of course, we ended up having a child that we assigned a male gender which is what I say. We are the ones that assign the gender. The baby doesn’t come out and say, “I’m a boy” or “I’m a girl”. What the baby does do, though, is cry. So these days, I wonder, is the baby crying, “I’m not a boy, I’m not a girl.” And we’re all like, “Oh, it’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” [inaudible]. And, of course, I never did a gender reveal party. But one of the things I say now is it’s actually a genital reveal party because we’re only able to see genitalia. So it’s been a beautiful journey for me just about learning and excavating all of the wrong information and then replacing it with the correct information. Because, yes, we are the ones that assign our babies their gender. Yes, we are the ones that start raising and maybe even indoctrinating the children as a particular gender. Until they tell us who they are, we are raising them as what we think. So I wanted two boys and a girl and I was happy none-the-less because as Nigerians, one of the biggest things that you can do is have a firstborn male. As an Igbo woman, my ex-husband had arrived amongst his peers because he has a first son. So it has a deep, deep meaning for the husband. As a matter of fact, the kid was named based on their gender and based on the fact that the child at that time was the “First Male born after their father passed away.” So their grandfather, which is my father-in-law, passed away, and within a year of that passing, our kid was born. So in Igbo land, a baby that’s born that way is named specifically for that event. So the name that we chose, literally means “our father has returned.” That’s what the name means. So it’s a very significant thing. We have very strong customs and a very strong culture. And so it was huge for my ex-husband’s family because, behold, “our father is back.” And then the child is called Papa which is what they called their dad. And when the kid was going to school, everybody was like, ‘Chappa’ because it was an American school. “What is your name? “It’s Tappa.” “What does it mean?” “Oh, because my grandfather died and then I was born.” And so forever, forever we called our child “Papa” until two and a half years ago when they picked their name. So that is the significance of culture meeting religion meeting custom meeting colonization, meeting all of the things. Is a very sacred dance. We don’t play with our culture at all. We don’t play with naming kids. We don’t just name you Mary or name you Susan. You have to name the child based on events surrounding their birth. So my kid was named, Nnamdi, meaning my father lives through you, something like that.
JEN: Did that make it extra challenging when your child chose a new name?
LULU: Not really. Not really for me. Again, at one point, we went our separate ways from the father figure. And for me and the child, and so once I decided that I was going to affirm the child because at one point we thought “we’re just gay” and then “we’re nonbinary,” so while I was learning, I said I expect the name to pop up. So, for me personally, no. But it makes a good story to say, “I struggled with that.” I didn’t struggle with the name. I struggled more with the fact that my entire family rejected that unit, me and this child. So I had bigger issues. I was happier too because the name my kid picked, believe it or not, was just one letter off of the name that I had picked.
JEN: Oh, that’s nice.
LULU: So it was the exact same name but it had one letter extra. So it’s kind of crazy how the universe works. So I was never worried about that. And it started with the letter P, so kind of kept the P going. So it was, for me, personally, no. But I’m sure for their ex-dad, yes. That was a big blow in his little ego.
JEN: So you mentioned that you were divorced from your husband. So you have this first husband and you have three kids. Where in the timeline did the divorce occur, like when the kids were little? Did you single mom?
LULU: After thirteen years. My eldest was 12. So it was in the 13th year of our marriage that I got divorced. So my eldest was 12. The second was 9 or 10. And then the baby was 8. And then the baby is now 19 and the eldest is going to be 26.
JEN: Which one is your transgender daughter in order?
LULU: My eldest child is transgender. That’s why the story’s about the naming and all of that. It’s the oldest child that’s transgender. Yes. And that’s why the story about the pregnancy and then the palm reading and all the things. So it was a bigger shock. I don’t know that if the second one or the third one had been trans, my ex-husband would’ve been more affirming because Nigeria as a whole is a non-affirming state, is a non-affirming country, is a homophobic country. So I don’t know that it would’ve mattered, the birth order, but it was the first child that’s trans.
JEN: I listened to you in another podcast tell a story about your own name and your brother’s name. and I think that would be interesting to add right here to help people understand the intensity of the context that you’re describing. Do you mind sharing that story?
LULU: The story that I pretty much made up some of it and some of it is true. My name is UCHENNA whether anybody likes it or not. And Uchenna means “God’s will.” So, at that point, it’s true. What I added was the fact that I know that we’re expecting to have a son. It’s just the way of the land. We want to have a firstborn male, period. And just like I said about my own child. We were very happy. We were over the moon. I said that in my [inaudible], literally over the moon, because having a firstborn male is [inaudible], it’s what you want. That said, when I popped out, my parents were like, “I guess it’s God’s will.” And so my name is Uchina. Not that they love me less, necessarily but it’s a very patriarchal society. It’s misogynistic. So having a firstborn daughter is like, “Yeah. She’s going to get married and move on. We need someone to carry the family name. We need an heir.” You know, all of those things. So when my brother came along, literally his name is Ifanacho, Ifanacho means “The child we desire.” So, of course, me and my thoughts, I’m like, “Okay. So, I’m not the child that was desired. I see.” And it was tongue and cheek, but it is true. Now, I didn’t grow up feeling like I was unloved. I didn’t grow up feeling any kind of way. But I did have that thought, “I wonder why my brother was called that name.” But I do know because they wanted a firstborn male. It’s just the way of the land. So they were very excited about, “Oh my goodness, finally we have a boy. Oh my God, this is good.” What about me? What am I, chopped liver? So it’s an interesting story. But it is what it is.
JEN: Okay. So I jumped back to your own naming. Come back with me to when your child tells you that they’re trans. They were in college, right, or graduating college?
LULU: She was in grad school. And I genuinely, after my second Ted Talk, I tried to avoid the phrase “Coming out,” so I don’t use "coming out,” I use “Invited in.” So when she invited me in, she was in grad school. However, if you go back a little bit to when she was 12, that was when I asked her if she thought she was gay. And the story is important beacsue she said, “I’m not sure.” And I want parents to understand that that is the danger of us trying to ask, “What are you? Are you gay or are you not gay?” A lot of times, the kids might be sure. Many of them are sure because I was sure when I was 11. But they don’t know what your reaction is going to be. So a lot of children will err on the side of, “I’m not sure.” And some children also are not sure. And I mentioned that in the same, second, Ted Talk that it’s enough for parents to just live in the knowing. Just know that your child is not heterosexual and don’t expect your child to explain to you because they themselves might not fully understand why they’re nonbinary, why they feel the way they feel because it’s a feeling. It’s a very personal feeling, gender identity is. So when somebody said, “I don’t know… I’m not sure.” Sometimes it’s because they’re under duress. Sometimes it’s because they just want you to leave them alone. And sometimes truly it’s because they don’t know how you’re going to take the message. So they want to start with, “I’m not sure.” And then kind of see what you say. And, of course, I was like, “What do you mean you’re not sure?” And she was like, “I’m not sure.” And, unfortunately, that kind of shut down the conversation. So I want parents, one of the things I like to say is I made all the mistakes so that my clients don’t have to make any more mistakes. So, “I’m not sure” is an answer. And we should be okay with that. But too many parents are like, “Well, what do you mean? Is you gay or is you no gay? And what do you mean you’re not sure. Then why are you acting this way.” And just more and more and more and more. And what that does is push the child deeper and deeper away from you into the closet. So I love my story and own it with all of my full chest because it happened. But smart people learn from their mistakes and smarter people learn from other people’s mistakes. So you can learn from my mistakes or you can go forward. Everybody has their will to do whatever they want to do. But from 12 to 16, a few things changed because she went to high school and then she joined the GSA of the school and actually helped to start the GSA of the school. So, of course, that answered my question. And that’s what I want parents to understand, that sometimes your children might not say the words, but their actions will show. She had no male friends. I don’t think we had a single male friend. I think maybe Josh. I think Josh is the only male friend that I remember. Everybody else were girls. And so we need to read between the lines and don’t always want to ask, ask, ask. Read the room like my baby says to me, “Mom, just read the room.” So read the room when it comes to your child. Are their friends mostly queer? Are their friends mostly maybe the opposite gender? How does your child acting? You can put [inaudible]. I will go to my grave knowing that most parents know. I know that. Most parents suspect. They might not be 100% sure, but they have an inkling. And so, when I went back, I looked at the palm reading, the way my child’s been acting. Because I told my mom when the kid was 18 months, “I think the child’s gay.” And she was like, “Oh, bring the Holy Water. Oh my God. Don’t say that in public. Don’t give the child any ideas.” And I was like, well, I mean, I can make my child gay as much as someone else can make me straight.
JEN: But, at that point, nobody knew that you were bisexual, right?
LULU: I told my dad at 16.
JEN: But he didn’t believe you.
LULU: But that doesn’t mean I didn’t tell him. And that’s the thing about parents. Just because you don’t believe doesn’t mean I didn’t tell him, doesn’t mean it’s not true.
JEN: You were married to a man and your family believes you’re straight. and they’re still telling you homophobic things. So I was going to ask, did that hurt you personally? You’re talking about your kid.
LULU: No, I didn’t. I did not because, again, I think everybody reacts how they react. I have a sister who is not straight. I have uncles who are not straight. So my family is full of queer people.
JEN: Okay.
LULU: And so it’s in our family whether they want to admit it or not. At least the people that are older than me, way older than me. So I’m not the first queer person. But that's where religion comes in. And I love our story because a lot of people ask me, “So you’re Nigerian and your child is trans, how is that?” You have white folks and their kids are trans and they are just in the same boat. We have folks and the kid is trans. It’s not a Nigerian thing. It’s a people thing. And so, yes, we have colonization. We changed the face of the earth. But way before this, Africans had same sex unions. It’s all in the history. Colonization changed everything and we now pretend like that never happened. But there are people in America today, in this state of Georgia, who are not Nigerians, who are just as homophobic as my family, black and white, Hispanic, and Asian. So I’m glad to bring people back to the fact that it’s not a Nigerian thing. People just look at me like, “Oh my God, you’re Nigerian. How is that?” I’m like, “You’re from Texas, how is that?” You know, homophobia is homophobia. It has no regional predilection, you know. So I think my mother, who is one of my biggest supporters today, she knew. I mean, parents know. But many people will go to their graves vehemently denying because the world is homophobic. And when they say 12% of American adults are LGBT, I say triple that number, quadruple that number. Because too many people will never. One of the things I teach about is when we look at the graph before 2012, it was only 3.5% of the population that was officially identifying as LGBT. In 2012, based on the Gallup Polls, there’s a huge jump to 7.1% and then a bigger jump after 2016. To 12.1%. What’s accounting for that? 2012, they passed the marriage act, so more people say, “Oh, you know what, we can get married now.” 2016, Obama. So we have to look at political trends whether we like it or not. We have to look at what’s happening in the world, why things are happening that way. I don’t know who passed the Marriage Equality Act, but when it was passed, a lot of people said “Oh, we can get married now. And that means we can now come out of our closets” (for those who use the word “Come out”). And so, today’s geographical distribution, so to say, of queerness, and of gender queerness, is a reflection of the fact that, when you look on TV, you see nonbinary Janelle Monae. You see Demi Lovato. You see, I forget the black singer, Little Nas X, I think. You see people and the more you see – you want to say representation matters – it means that the more you see people like you the more you see people like you. And so if your child’s friends are all queer, and we know why we pick friends. We pick friends who are like us. Then your child doesn’t have to come out and declare “I’m queer.” You can put the math together and make it make sense to you. And that is why everybody’s like, “Oh my God. We don’t want them to take over.” It’s not taking over. Gender Identity is an eternal thing.
JEN: I want to hear how you learned that your – like you’re saying, you probably already knew – but at some point you had a conversation with your daughter where she told you, “Hey guess what? I’m your daughter.”
LULU: I think the thing we need to remember and one of the things I like to teach is the difference between gender and sexuality. So I already knew gay and I said that with my full chest. I told my mother that at 18-months. That’s not the same thing as transgender. I had no idea my child was transgender.
JEN: Oh, okay.
LULU: Not even a little inclination because gender identity is not sexuality.
JEN: Right.
LULU: All I knew there was some feminine traits and the only thing I thought about was this kid is gay. And I told my mother that when the child was 18 months. But that’s not the same thing as transgender. So it was at the graduation from Stanford, which was why I said I found out transgender in grad school. I found out nonbinary at graduation from Stanford. And that’s when the announcer was saying “They” this and “They” that. And I was like, “Wait, what’s up with that? Who are all these people? Is anyone getting their award?” And then my middle child said, “It’s because they’re nonbinary.” I said, “What does that mean? What is even that word?” Never hear the phrase nonbinary before 2020, never. Because I just didn’t know what that is. And then we had to go back and start learning about it. And that’s one of the things I teach the parents. A lot of children will tell you their one thing to gauge your reaction and then tell you something else before they tell you the real thing maybe. And then again, it could be that they are trying out what fits, what works better. So you may hear it as they themselves are learning about it. So it was nonbinary at the beginning. But it was funny, because one time, I think through the lock down, I think I had a podcast series I did that was called “Black and Gay in America.” [inaudible] series. And my kid was one of my guests in one of those episodes. And I remember she said something about, “Well, right now, nonbinary is where I am with my gender identity.” I remember she said that. But I didn’t think about it. She said, “That’s where I am right now in my journey.” Something like that. It was only after she called me on Christmas morning the next year to tell me, “Mom, I’m trans.” And I’m like, “Trans what?” And she was like, “I’m transgender.” That I now went back and looked at the fact that it was always her gender was an evolution as far as her disclosing it to me. I say that, but I also know now that I’ve spoken to hundreds of transgender people that they’ve always known. And I know as a physician that people know their gender identity at 18 months to 3 years. And so, when you add everything together, that day I asked her, “Are you gay? Are you not gay?” I don’t know, it was probably correct because gay in that sense is a sexual identity.
JEN: Right.
LULU: Maybe she truly didn’t know. So I want parents to just let go of the need to understand fully what’s happening and just go with the flow of just knowing as your child lets you in. That, to me, is the best strategy. So that morning, it was Christmas morning. And I thought she was just calling to say, “Merry Christmas.” And she said, “I’m trans.” And I was like, “Trans what?” and she said, “I’m transgender.” “Wait, I thought you were just nonbinary. What is this trans? What’s the next thing?” So I did all the wrong things. That was the worst thing I could say. But, what happened at that moment was fear and dread and guilt and shame and overwhelm. All the feelings that a lot of parents feel.
JEN: Yes.
LULU: And then their run to is fear because fear is the predominant one. And then what happens when you act out of fear? Hardly ever the right thing. So, out of fear, I was like, “Oh my God, Please don’t say, no, don’t tell me that.” Because I’m thinking, “What is my family going to say, what’s the church going to say, what’s everybody going to say?” But by doing that, I was centering myself, making it about me. And over the next several weeks, my child said, “Mom, it’s not about you.” And so the very first words in my book that’s coming out, the one called “Invited In” is “Mom, it’s not about you.” Yes. She was right. It wasn’t about me. It should never be about me. But society has actually indoctrinated us and brainwashed us to believe that the world is binary. And everything outside of that, we make it about us. “What did I do to make you this way? What did I miss? What did I eat? Who did I hang out with? How did you become this? Who did this to you?” Things like that. all the wrong things.
JEN: And it’s interesting that you say that because I just in a recent interview was talking about how when my oldest came out, I had to chant to myself over and over, “This is not about you. This is not about you. This is not your life.” Because I was having some pretty intense feelings and your culture does teach us that it’s about us. So, you overcame that. You were scared.
LULU: What our culture teaches us is that parents know everything. I want to go there. That’s what the culture teaches us.
JEN: Yes.
LULU: Now, we know our kids. And that’s why my third Ted Talk addresses that. We have to become as students where children are concerned. We have to let the children lead and we need to parent as students because truly that’s what we’re doing anyway. We just don’t want to look at it that way. If your child is allergic to almonds, there’s only one way to find out. You’ve got to feed your child almonds. And then you find out that they’re allergic to it. You just learned something. You’re a student. It’s the same thing if your child has epilepsy. They’re going to have to have seizures multiple times, then you learn that your child has it. So it’s the learning for us. But what we do is we come into parenting with our bags of, “I got this.” No you don’t. No you don’t.
JEN: No you don’t. How did you make this switch in your brain? What was the process that you used to start the unlearning so that you could support your daughter in the way she needed you to?
LULU: Introspection. Introspection. I mean, I was the child. I was the same child who told my dad – and self-awareness is all that I have to offer. That’s it. So I know that my own father also missed it when I told him. And I had to let go of holding him accountable somehow because just because he missed it doesn’t mean I will miss it on my own self. And then my own child, but we do. A lot of times we parent like our parents did, right? And so I was just being like my father and doing all the wrong things. That said, I had to finally realize that what parents like me and you and everybody, what we struggle with is self-acceptance of our identity. Because when your child says they’re trans, your identity changes to become a parent of a trans kid. That is what we’re struggling with. It’s never about the child. It’s never about the child’s identity. It’s about your own identity which has now shifted and your friends might leave you. Your church might kick you out. All of that because your identity has changed overnight to the parent of a transgender child or parent of a queer child, I mean, anything. Depending on what state you live in and what church you go to, you can get kicked out of the state because your child’s identity is this. So the journey of a parent that’s affirming must go through the self-awareness, the self-appreciation, and the self-acceptance that I am a mother of a transgender child. So when people look at me, I say you just found out two or three years ago. I’m like, how long do you want me to take? My kid has been trans all their life. And I watched a movie called Rustin. And in the movie, Rustin said, “The day I was born a black man is the day I was born homosexual. She can either take all of me or none of me.” That was so powerful. My kid has been trans their whole life. I was the one that assigned them the male gender. Remember when I said at the beginning. I did that. I set up my own false expectations. I was the one that create a mirage. Me. The parent. Not the child. The child never came out saying “I’m a girl or I’m a boy.” I did. And so the self-awareness is key. And I’m a runner and I run every morning. Sometimes I do ten miles.
JEN: Wow.
LULU: That’s a lot of time to think. It’s a lot of time to come up with content. That’s a lot of time to go to self-forgiveness. That’s a lot of time to come into self-love because I have to love myself, all of me, that I might love another.
JEN: Yeah.
LULU: It’s a journey. But it doesn’t have to take forever. It can take literally five minutes. As a coach, my job is to give people permission to make decisions. You’ve been making decisions your whole life. Just decide. Today, I want to start accepting myself. And then, affirming your child is easy. And that’s what I say. It’s never about accepting your child. It’s about accepting yourself so that you can affirm and support your child. Affirmation is for the kid. Acceptance is for you. I learned that when my own child told me that affirmation is what it is. So it’s been a beautiful learning journey. I’ve learned a lot from her. And, at one point, she had to let me go or I had to let go of the need to keep learning from her and start learning for myself. And that’s why my new practice is working with families and not just the parents because families. My youngest child was the one that told me, he said, “Mom. You do know that I went from a big brother to a big sister, right?” I said yes, and she said you never talk about that, and that is true. I forgot that I’m not the only one transitioning here. The siblings are transitioning. My parents are transitioning. My own siblings are transitioning. My whole community is transitioning. It’s a family affair. And so my practice is going to touch parents of kids from when they are two, from the first time the child says, “I don’t want to wear that dress.” I want to talk about that. What is it that the child is really saying? Is it that they don’t like the dress and there’s another dress out there? Are they nonbinary? Are they androgynous? Are they bigender? Are they transgender? What are they? Are they just regular, you know, regular in the sense that cisgender and they just don’t like that dress. What are the thoughts in your head because the thoughts is where the money is. What are your thoughts about being a parent of a transgender child? What are your thoughts about the transgender community? What are your thoughts about the queer community? That is what determines how you feel. And that is what determines your actions. And so it was my hard self, because I’m a coach. So I just went and said, “This is what’s happening here. Oh my God.” But it took my own child saying, “Mom, this isn’t about you.” And I raised the child that said that, and I love that. Love that my youngest said, “Mom, read the room.” And it’s important for us to empower children to do that, to check us. We’re not without fault. We don’t know everything.
JEN: So this might be out in left field, but I am curious about it. For those of us who had kids who were exploring gender, we start looking at the research. As a physician, do you think that helped? Do you think that helped your learning curve a little bit? Or were you all about just listening to your kid?
LULU: I did not do that. So, as a physician, I did not do that because I’m also a queer person. So I’m not quite everyone. I also have lived experience as a bisexual person who was also in hiding. So I have experience with that. And I believe in my own heart today that it doesn’t matter what the doctor thinks. If your child is exploring, your child is exploring. Your job as the parent is to go with the flow. Because, at the end of the day, in the grand scheme of things, if you catch your child too prematurely you can arrest that development. And so it’s important for us to just go with the flow. If your child says, “Mom. I want to wear a dress today.” You kneel and say, “Tell me more.”
JEN: Yeah. Get curious.
LULU: And just leave it open. And, yes, stay open, stay curious. Tell me more. And it may very well be that their friend is wearing a dress. We don’t know why? We don’t have to jump to transgender. We don’t know why. But if you say, “Don’t ever say that.” You arrest it and you never get a chance. Or you might, I don't know. So leaning in and saying “Tell me more. That’s interesting. Tell me more.” Because your child, in today’s world, I don’t know any child that would choose to be queer. It’s not a lifestyle. It’s not a choice. It’s not a phase. Your child is not out to get you. There’s no agenda. And so when your child says those words, you best believe that for years before that, they’ve been thinking about that. For months before that, they’ve been thinking about that. For weeks before that, they’ve been thinking about that. And they might not even tell you, because remember, my kid didn’t tell me about the nonbinary. I found out. And so they may not tell you. My kid told me at 22. That’s old. And so I want people to understand that a lot of times, by the time your child tells you, they have been knowing. So move out of the way for your child so they can blossom. And you might even be giving the keys to be the wind beneath their wings. And then explore. And I tell people all the time, my kid's gender is 0.001 percent of who she is. we don’t even talk about that. We talk about other things. Her nails, whatever, you know, it’s a regular child, things parents talk to their kids about is what we talk about.
JEN: So, obviously, part of your passion is advocating for black trans women or families with a black trans family member. I’m kind of stumbling over my words there. But what I’m essentially saying is that we talk about the statistics. I know that parents of trans kids are wildly aware of the statistics. We know the sexual assault rate. We know the life expectancy rate. We know what the homelessness rates look like in that demographic. And we’re well aware that trans women of color kind of are at the scariest part of all of those statistics. Can you talk to us about how a mom begins to process this and also how we can all work together to change those statistics.
LULU: It’s easy for me because we’re talking about my child here. My child just happens to also be a black trans woman. My kid teaches math and music and science to college-bound students. And during a class one day, the teacher stopped the class because they found out she was transgender. So this is my kid we’re talking about here. It’s a no-brainer for me. It’s also a decision I’ve made to not necessarily spend my bandwidth on parents who are non-affirming. I truly, truly don’t have the bandwidth for that because there are too many that are affirming. And those who are affirming are the ones that ask me, “How do I move forward?” I’m like, “Great. How would you love your child anyway?” And not necessarily thinking about the transness of your child. Same thing with my physician colleagues. In my program called Allies in White Coats, I train physicians, hospitals and doctors’ offices and stuff about just treating your transgender patient like any other patient. In other words, if you’re not going to ask me a question about my gender as a cisgender woman or my genitals, then you don’t want to ask a trans person. If that question is not relevant. There are other things you should do, naturally. You should use their right names and their right pronouns, right? And everybody in the office should be in cahoots with that. However, it’s the same way you treat any other child. It’s not, oh my God, this kid is trans so. Nobody wants to be treated differently. Does that make sense? Nobody wants to be [inaudible]. I’m going to take the call. It’s a child. However, black people specifically, and we’re talking about intersectionality, then we’re thinking about the child being black, the child being the child. So there’s ageism, there’s racism. The child being trans, right, in a country that doesn’t think their lives matter. And so I feel for the mother of a trans child, or a black trans child for that matter. I feel for them in the sense that I get it. But there’s so many fires to quench. And so you start from where you feel most comfortable. As a coach, I cannot tell you want to do. You have to do what works best for you in the interest of your child. That said, the people who want to kill black transgender women are not the same people that want to affirm them. It’s a country that we live in that has taken toxic masculinity to such a level that people who don’t want to see men, especially black men, join any form of feminine softness. “You deserve to die because of that.”
JEN: Yeah. Nonsense.
LULU: You have to use both sides of your brain. That’s like, HELLO. But the country is so misogynistic and there is so much patriarchy that anything soft should not come from a man. And anything soft should definitely not come from a black man. That’s wrong. And so that’s actually who we’re fighting. It’s not us. It’s them. They’re the ones that want our kids. I mean, and I remind people that Matthew Shephard was not black. We don’t have to go too far. And I posted on my social media recently. I said, “I’m actually grateful I know, probably landed weirdly for people, but I’ll say it again. I’m grateful, not that Nex Benedict is no longer living. But that Nex Benedict wasn’t black. Because you would have never heard the story. Nobody would talk about it. Today we have the human rights campaign insisting that the school board look into that. If it was a black child, we may not even have heard about it. This is why I’m talking about the black transgender child hiding in plain sight. If it was a black child, no one would care. It’s like business as usual. This is what I mean. I would never celebrate a child’s death, are you kidding me, of course, never. And especially in the hands of other kids. However, in a country like this, if it was a black child, that name would not make the history, the news. The reason Matthew Shepherd made the news was just the brutality of Matthew Shepherd’s case. But how many black people have been unalived and we never hear about them. That’s why I’m fighting for the black transgender child who just happens to be my child. So, of course I’m going to fight for them.
JEN: We would like to fight with you for them.
LULU: Thank you. And thank you for having a platform where I can go and talk about it. I think for the people who are not black, when I say a black trans child, I don’t say a black parent because I know there are people who also adopt black children. And those black children can also be transgender like my friend Sue. Sue is one of my clients. Her child is six and they are trans, they are black. Sue is as white as it gets. And so I want you to just treat the child like you would treat any other child. Then, when it comes to transness, use the name that they’ve chosen. Be okay that they might change their name because they’re trying this stuff out. Use the pronouns that they’ve chosen. Be okay that they might change their pronouns. Rather than say, “Oh my God, you changed again?” “Tell me more.”
JEN: Tell me more. The listeners can’t see you. But I wish you guys could see Dr. Lulu when she says that. Just inviting you in.
LULU: Yes. Tell me more. Your body language even changes. You’re leaning in. You’re opening up heart center, right, or heart space, rather. You’re leaning in. Your ears are coming in. I mean, it’s nonthreatening versus, “What do you mean?” Do you see the difference. “What do you mean? You change your name again? I mean, are you going to decide already.” There’s so much going into choosing their names. One of the people that we presented – the Parents Supporting Parents at the Creating Change conference is Steven Chukumba who is part of the cast of the dads. And Steven told us a beautiful story about his child and their name. They picked a name of a cartoon character or something, and Steven was like, “Oh my goodness. I cannot believe you. You’re going to pick the name of a cartoon character? What do you mean?” The child never said anything. And then maybe sometime in the future doing an interview on NBC, they reported as the child to tell me more about your name. The child said, “Oh. My mother loved that character.” Now, their mom passed away from breast cancer. See, Steven didn’t get to hear that because Steven’s attitude was, “What do you mean you picking a name?” See that? But the newscaster who doesn’t know anything about this kid said, “Tell me more about your name. That’s a cool name” or whatever. And the kid told the story. So I want parents to remember that story, remember my story, remember that it’s your child’s life, it’s in evolution. A new name and just go with the flow and become a student already and don’t think you know everything because then you stop growing. You stunt your growth if you think you know everything.
JEN: So we’re going to include in the show notes a lot of links to you. But, if somebody right now just wants to find you and find your work and everything you're doing, where should they go? How do they find you?
LULU: After today’s drama with Facebook. I don't know. I was going to say Facebook, but now. I do have a Facebook group that’s called Parents Supporting Parents. We have about 1800 people in there who are parents who just want to come and learn. It’s not very active, active. But every now and again, somebody mentions something and there will be all kinds of swooning and show them love and just loving on them. Then also, there is my LinkedIN is really where I like to hang out a lot. I have a newsletter on LinkedIN called “Rethinking the Closet” which is the name of my second Ted Talk. And so I love that because I would just like how we talked about nonbinary gender today because we had a guest on the podcast this past weekend who was nonbinary who was talking about what is nonbinary and what is all this hullabaloo about nonbinariness. And so my podcast would be maybe my second thing on a selfish level. But I think my pride and joy is my brand new practice, Dr. Lulu’s Pride Corner where you can go on my website. Just do /consulting and just grab a spot and let’s talk if you have a child who’s three or four, you’re wondering, oh my God, what did she just say? That she’s not a girl? What? What does that mean? Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it. So thank you so much for asking that question.
JEN: Yeah. And we will include just a pile of links in the show notes so people can follow all of those to explore. I want to thank you so much for coming and talking with us today. Like I mentioned before, your passion is absolutely contagious. You’re such an amazing and powerful woman. And I love the relationship you have with your kids and the stories you tell about how they talk to you and your willingness to grow is such a great example for all of us. So thank you so much for coming today.
LULU: They’re also adults now, for the record. My youngest is 19, the middle one is 23, and the oldest is 25.
JEN: Right.
LULU: So it’s been, I also raised them for 14 years by myself. There’s a lot to be said about that, being a single parent. You develop a little bit of closeness. My ex-wife, we were still raising them together. But I was still the one parent that was present, original parent. So I think some of those things rubbed off on that. Thank you so much. And I’ll tell them that you all are sending them love and happiness.
JEN: Absolutely. Thank you so much.
LULU: You’re welcome.
JEN: Thanks for joining us here In the Den. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends, and take a minute to leave a positive rating and review wherever you listen. Good reviews make us more visible and help us reach more folks who could benefit from listening. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ children, please donate at mamadragons.org or click the donate link in the show notes. For more information on Mama Dragons and the podcast, you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook or visit our website at mamadragons.org.