MATT
LOS ANGELES, CA
AGE: 35
TRANSITIONED: Age 24
NO. OF KIDS: 1 who lives with Matt. Matt's child was born after he had transitioned.

“For the most part, people don’t know that I’m trans. I’m just some single guy with a kid. And they don’t know that I’m Blake’s biological mom. and that I’m trans. And they don’t know a lot of stuff because it’s not relevant to our relationship. You know, I don’t ever lie if people ask me, but it doesn’t often come up ,cause it’s really private stuff and people in work spaces tend to not talk about the gory details of their private lives.” “One of the things about having a kid I didn’t expect was sort of this overwhelming, unconditional, positive regard that you get form people in public. That I had never experienced because I lived most of my life as a lesbian or you know in the queer community and so my interactions with the general public were not always positive. And I think that all of a sudden once I had a kid I was this perfect straight white man who had a kid and um wasn’t that sweet that he’s out – you’re so brave to be out in public with your child. I’m like brave what, who else is going to be out with my kid? I actually have had flight attendants say to me is it just the two of you, oh you’re so brave to be traveling alone, we don’t see men doing that very often. And I’m like how else are we supposed to get anywhere? I’m a single parent. I think that the other thing that’s interesting is whenever there’s a woman within 50 feet of me and I have Blake with she’s his mother and I’m the idiot pushing the stroller. Like if ever there is a woman in public with me and Blake is with me and they ask a question about Blake – oh how old is he? – they don’t ask me they ask them, whether she knows the answer or not.”“I have no doubt that people’s big problem with me having my own kid was that I had been on hormones before I quit and got pregnant. I think that there are still people who think that I was on hormones when I got pregnant, which I was not. There are people who think I took hormones during my pregnancy, which I did not. But it’s really clear to me that those are people who haven’t bothered to ask me.”