I’m a father of three, and this is a love story. Not about my wife of 36 years—though I love her deeply—but about my youngest child, Alison, who happens to be transgender.
I grew up in Utah as a conservative Lutheran. My wife, a conservative member of the LDS Church, and I moved to Colorado, settling in what we believed was a more traditionally valued community to raise our children. We thought we had everything mapped out—our kids would grow up, go to college, get married, have kids. The usual expectations of a parent. But God had other plans for us.
I first fell in love with my children by simply being present with them. I spent time playing, bonding, and imagining their futures. With my youngest (who we had always treated as a boy), I envisioned a life that fit the mold I had always known. But life—and love—doesn’t always fit our expectations.
At 16, Alison confided in my wife that she was a girl. My wife told me late that night, and my world shifted. I didn’t understand. It felt impossible. I had always believed transgender identities were a societal invention, not something real. But now, it was my child standing before me, not an abstract debate or a distant news story. And I didn’t know what to do.
I turned to my pastor, expecting perhaps judgment or a call to correction. Instead, he gave me two unexpected pieces of advice. First, he told me, “Good parenting.” At first, I resisted—how could I be a good parent if my child was transgender? But he explained that if my child trusted me enough to share something this deep and painful, I had done something right. The second thing he told me was, “Do your research.”
And so I did. The overwhelming evidence was clear: when parents support their transgender children, those children are more likely to be happy, healthy, and safe. When parents reject them, rates of addiction, homelessness, and suicide skyrocket. The statistics were undeniable. But research alone doesn’t change a heart. That required something deeper.
The hardest moment of my life came when Alison handed me a note that read: I feel like killing myself. That was the moment I realized I could lose my daughter forever. And that changed everything. No matter how much confusion I felt, I loved my child. My job wasn’t to understand everything right away—it was to keep her alive, to support her, to love her unconditionally, just as God loves us. As parents, we may not always understand or agree, we may even think transition is inherently wrong or against God. But love for your child is more important than any of that, and love means loving them as they are, not as you wish they would be. That's the kind of love God has for each of us.
I feared my church might reject me, that friends and family would question me. I worried I would have to give up the status and identity I had built. But what is more important—a title or a child? A reputation or a life? Love demands that we set aside pride and embrace what truly matters.
My faith teaches that God’s love is unconditional. If I, as a father, claim to follow Him, how could my love for my own child be anything less? Jesus never said, “Love only if you understand.” He said, “Love.” Period.
Alison is now thriving—alive, happy, and whole. And our relationship has deepened in ways I never expected. In our family, saying “I love you” was rare growing up. But now, Alison makes a point to tell me often. That is the power of love—not just acceptance, but transformation.
I once thought I had to choose between my faith and my child. Now, I know that loving my daughter is an extension of my faith, not a contradiction to it. She has taught me that LGBTQ people are not an abstract issue to be debated but are beloved, precious human beings who enrich our lives in ways we never could have imagined.
I fell in love with my child when she was born. I lost sight of that love when I let fear and misunderstanding take hold. But I found it again when I realized the truth: love, real love, is unconditional. And because of that, my daughter is still here today.
For any parent walking this path, I can only offer this—choose love. Choose your child. And trust that in doing so, you are not walking away from faith, but walking deeper into it.
This blog post represents the views and opinions of a guest author and may not be fully representative of Rocky Mountain Equality’s position.