“So many questions, so many fears…”
“A few years back, my elder daughter came out transgender, and I found that I had so many questions, so many fears,” Valerie Lovett told Our Town Reno during a recent interview.
“I didn't know who to turn to and…there's always paid counselors that you can go see, but not everyone can afford a psychologist or $150 an hour,” Lovett said. “So I looked up the LGBTQ community center in Reno and I found Our Center on Wells avenue. And I went down there because I wanted to volunteer and I wanted to get involved with the trans community, but more importantly with other parents or caregivers of gender, non-binary and gender variant youth, just so that they had a place to come because of all the time and effort I spent fearing for my daughter and feeling alone because my husband had passed away 10 years ago and I didn't know who to talk to. I didn't know any other parents with a trans child. And I thought it would be a great idea. So I went to Our Center and I spoke with this wonderful woman named Tina who worked there and she helped me get into the Trans Parenting group…we meet once a month. It's a support group for caregivers. And it's really helped all of us a lot just to have that support.”
Fifty-year-old Valerie Lovett is a single mother of two daughters, her eldest being a trans youth. She as a volunteer with Our Center makes sure she caters to parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, friends of transgender youth. The support group gathers together on the third Thursday of every month.
Seeing her own daughter transition around the age of 17 was not easy for Lovett. She wanted to make sure that other parents of transitioning youth know about this group.
“They could be young adults that have questions about their child or their family member who've recently come out or is having a tough time on their own so that they can learn how to support them. And when your child first comes out as transgender, there's a million questions you have…where do I go to get this? How do I find support for legal issues, housing issues? And, you know, just being there with other parents is so comforting because a lot of us, when we get together, we have ideas or thoughts or answers to help each other out.”
Lovett didn’t know where to turn to initially to help herself and her daughter.
Opening Up Lines of Communication
“Not only had she lost her father at the age of 13, she had a rough time coming out, which I know it wasn't her sister or I, because I'm a very liberal person. I had a lot of gay friends or gay family members, but I think for my daughter, it was trying to come to terms with it herself…she got into drugs really bad,” Lovett remembers on the difficult journey it’s been in her family.
“And I just always knew that that wasn't her. I just knew that something was going on and it took her a really long time to come to me with it. And, honestly, she never even really did. I asked her and it was about the time that a lot of focus was being put on trans celebrities. And it just kind of popped into my head one day…‘are you having gender identity issues?’ And she said, ‘yes’. And that was a relief because then we could start working on…okay, we have this drug piece. Now we have this trans piece. We are gonna get through it… but the most important part of that was I did not want to lose her. Sadly enough whether it have been a drug overdose or suicide, transgender people have the highest rates of suicide from what I've read, it's about 44%, which is crazy high and it's mostly because they don't have family support. So that was really important to me.’”
At Our Center Lovett works towards the perceptions that people may have towards trans youth. She says there is still a lot of stigma attached to this for no reason. Initially she was worried not for herself and the reactions of people but just the fact that she did not want her daughter to get shunned by society.
“ I think the main point is I want people to know that it's not something that somebody just says one day to get attention. And I see a lot of new parents who come in and when their kids are younger, you know, probably right around puberty or something,” she says.
“And to me, that's when my daughter first started. I could tell her attitude started changing. It's biological. I 100 percent believe it's biological. I don't think that people choose this rough road, you know, because they're bored. So to me, that's the part I wanna get out the most is that it's not a, it's not a choice. It's who you are. It's like the color of your skin or your hair. And so instead of judging them or thinking something's wrong or abnormal, just imagine trying to live in a body that your brain doesn't match. I can't imagine how hard that would be. And I just want people to have compassion and sympathy for the struggle that trans people go through because it's, you know, it's not something that they wanted.”
There have been discussions about what to do with the Record Street shelter, including possibly having a wing for the unhoused trans community.
The Need for a Trans Specific Shelter
As a Northern Nevada resident Lovett has seen a lot of insensitivity around the behavior of people towards trans youth. She has often chosen to stay away from social media pertaining to the ignorant posts and comments people make. Discussions over transgender in the military which came up during the tenure of the last administration and the comments over the recent talks of need for gender inclusive bathrooms have particularly irked her, Lovett says. She has often shielded her daughter against many situations but says that she has felt threatened still. On the 21st birthday of her daughter, an older waiter at a restaurant had said something to her which had terribly upset her.
Though she works mostly around the parents and families of trans youth, she feels that the older transgender people may need more consideration as well.
“ I think for older transgender people it's harder because they weren't able to come out young and I'm so thankful that trans people are able to come out younger and younger before they start to develop too much one way or the other. And I think for older trans people, I think there's still a huge discrimination and stigma, which breaks my heart,” she says.
Lovett also feels that the city needs to have safer places for houseless trans people.
“I would love to have a place just that for that specific group, because even with the Eddy House or with the Cares Campus, I still feel that those places aren't a hundred percent safe for transgender people. I've heard some stories that, I don't know if they're true, but that there's been some assaults and I just wish we have a place specifically for those, for that group. I think it would be great. And maybe that's a pipe dream.”
Lovett wants to keep working towards sensitizing the parents of trans youth who sometimes disown their child once they come out. “ You know, there's actually a thing where parents of transgender people do grieve because when your child is born, you see the future for your son or your daughter,” she said. “And then they transition and they're like, okay, well, that's gone, but I wanna emphasize to them that it's not, it shouldn't be grief. It should be a celebration because they're like a little butterfly coming out. They can finally be who they're supposed to be. And I would much rather have parents hear that instead of their child killing themselves one day, because no one accepts them. So I wanna help the parents, but I think ultimately it's to help the transgender kids because I want to help their parents understand that there's nothing wrong with them. They are still the same person just because they go by a different name, they are still the same.”
She realizes that having her daughter the way she is has turned Lovett into a more compassionate human being “....being able to go to Our Center and just be a part of that…supporting people at pride, it's made my life so much more fulfilled… is just seeing and helping people with their struggles. And even if you can't do anything just so that they know you're there.”