Kimberly Shappley is as conservative and Christian as they come.

It was her child who, at just three years of age, would challenge her faith and rock her to the core.
For Shappley and her family, it all began with a hair bow.

“I want a bow like Daisy,” her then-three-year-old son Joseph Paul begged of her. Shappley knew the big red bow, ponytails and princess dresses were things almost every little girl wished for. However, these weren’t for a daughter — Shappley reminded herself these were the requests of her son.

“Please mommy,” Joseph Paul would plead with her.

His desire to dress in little girl’s clothes is a secret Shappley has kept from the outside world since Joseph was just a toddler. As an infant, she put him in blue clothes. As a toddler, she made him do what shes says is ‘typical boy stuff,’ like fishing, playing football with his siblings and throwing little boy’s birthday parties.

“We tried to make this kid be a boy,” said Shappley. Still, Joseph kept seeking out what the girls had and, by the age of three, he was telling everyone he was a girl.

A devout Christian, Shappley prayed while Joseph made shirts into skirts and begged to wear girls underwear — and asked his family to call him by the name of “Kai.”

“This hasn’t happened overnight for us. I am a Christian and I love the Lord,” Shappley said as she struggled with her son’s requests.

The gravity of her son’s pleas became almost too much to bear when she heard Kai praying to die.

“I overheard Kai praying and asking the Lord to please take Joseph home to be with Jesus and I realized Kai’s begging the Lord to let her die,” Shappley said through tears.

As a first step down the path to understanding Kai’s situation, Shappley bought girls underwear for Kai, though it took her three trips to the store to finally purchase them.

“When Kai came home that day and opened the drawer and saw princess panties, she fell down on the floor with the panties, crying and thanking me that this was the best day ever,” Shappley said.

Shappley sought out more help, turning to pastors and her faith. Her hope was that her young boy would act like one.

“So Christians are not gay, OK, that’s the mindset that I had.”

Shappley said faith leaders reassured her God doesn’t make mistakes.

“Christians are not going to have a transgender child, because as a Christian, that goes against everything that we read in scripture,” she said.

Finding Support for Parents of a Transgender Child

Feeling alone and isolated, Shappley dug into social media for help, finding a secret underground Facebook network of more than 2,000 other Christian mothers with transgender children. Shappley says she found support in the stories of other mothers who had faced criticism, some who had even been threatened by those who had vowed to take their children away or kidnap them.

“We knew that, at some point, if someone found out that our child was transgender, that you could put our safety at risk,” Shappley said.

Despite all the risks, acceptance has helped Shappley and Kai. She says her daughter is now thriving.

As for Shappley herself, the Facebook group for Christian parents of transgender youth was just the beginning of her journey to understanding and accepting Kai. Now five years old, Kai will soon enter the public school system in Pearland at the same time schools throughout the country work to meet the demands of an Obama administration directive that says transgender students are to be treated no differently than any other students.

In part two of this report, find out how Kimberly Shappley found herself in the middle of the controversial bathroom debate. Stay tuned to Eyewitness News and abc13.com for the rest of the story.

(Copyright ©2016 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.)

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She’s also transgender.

The girl, as well as her parents and school administrators, agreed to share her story to show how they are grappling with a situation that more and more schools are facing.

The U.S. Department of Education released guidelines Friday to help schools understand how federal law protects the treatment of transgender students on matters such as bathroom use.

The experience of the girl, identified using her first initial, “T,” to protect her privacy, provides a number of lessons, among them: how to train staffers and designate “safe” people on whom a student can depend. Teachers and principals will want to know how to deal with notes like the one that slipped out of T’s homework folder one day: “You’re a boy not a girl get it throu (sic) your head.”

California law reinforces the rights of transgender students to be treated as the gender they identify with, whether in bathrooms or on sports teams. A few other states, including North Carolina, are battling the federal government in an effort to restrict both transgender students’ and adults’ access to these spaces.

There is no official count of the number of transgender children in the Los Angeles Unified School District. But there is a clear sense among those who study gender issues that, nationwide, people are coming out as transgender earlier than in the past.

Doctors at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles saw about 40 transgender and “gender nonconforming” youths a decade ago, says Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development. Now, she says, the center sees about 600 transgender patients between the ages of 3 and 25, T included.

T is normally a confident and chatty third-grader. But discussion of “the note” turns her pensive as she sits in the middle of her bed in a sleeveless orange dress, fiddling with “Liony,” a bright green polka-dot stuffed animal.

“I felt really mad and sad,” she says. Her voice softens. Her head drops. “I feel like a girl, not a boy.”

After T found the note, her mom told her that the student who wrote it is probably insecure, that the note was a reflection on them and not T. They laughed about the misspelling.

That night, the parents called T’s teacher.

T is the first openly transgender student in the school, and her parents and the school’s principal had already met to prepare for such problems.

The school investigated but couldn’t identify the student behind the note. So the teacher held a class discussion about bullying, cowardice and acceptance.

‘I wanted to be a girl one’

The note is one of the very few incidents that have made the girl feel singled out. Both in and out of school, T is self-assured.

She flies around the volleyball court so quickly that one team member’s father calls her “Kite.” Off the court, she’s affectionate and talkative.

But sometimes it’s hard to know what she’s thinking, her parents say, because she’s so eager to convince them she’s safe.

When T says that “everything’s great,” her mother knows to gently nudge her to continue. On occasion, the mother has found, T is actually thinking about how much she dislikes her penis because it reminds her of why people think she’s a boy.

When she was born, the box for “male” was checked because she emerged from the womb with biologically male body parts. She won’t decide whether to change her body until she’s older. She does, however, assert her femininity in other ways.

As a toddler shopping for costumes, T wanted to be a fairy or cheerleader or witch. On play dates, she hung out with girls in play kitchens. T’s mom remembers when she realized it wasn’t just a phase.

T was 4 years old, cradled in her lap. The mother had always enjoyed having her nephews around. She explained to T how excited she had been to learn she was pregnant with a boy baby.

“I wanted to be a girl one, Mama,” T said through quivering lips.

The most common question T’s parents get is why they are letting her transition so early — why not wait until she’s older?

In response, T’s mom cites statistics showing that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children without family support face a higher risk for depression and suicide attempts.

With that in mind, T’s parents started saying “Yes.”

Yes to the sparkly cupcake shirts from the girls section at Target. Yes to the Barbie Dreamhouse.

Still, it was a fine line. Initially, T’s girls’ wardrobe stayed home. Her parents allowed her to wear sparkly tops to kindergarten, but only paired with pants or tights — a rule they used to introduce the subject of bullies.

After T went to bed, her parents would spend hours online, researching what it means to be transgender. They were afraid that she would feel isolated because she didn’t see anyone else like herself.

When T was 6, her dad showed her a 2007 video of Barbara Walters interviewing Jazz Jennings, a transgender YouTube star.

“I have a girl brain and a boy body,” Jennings, then a child, tells Walters.

Jennings shows Walters a picture she drew of herself, crying because she can’t wear a dress to school.

T, her parents saw, clearly identified with Jazz.

In her journal (which T labeled with strict instructions not to read), T’s mom found a picture that T had drawn of herself wearing a purple dress, with long hair.

Her parents knew what they needed to do — which is not to say it was easy.

“You definitely go through a mourning period for the boy you thought you had,” T’s mom says. “At the same time you’re mourning, you’re excited because your kid is so happy to be themselves.”

‘I want to be a she and a her and a sister’

As the number of children who identify as transgender increases, so do the number of places where the changes occur.

Adults may begin to dress differently, act differently, present a different version of themselves at work. For children, school is usually where they show who they are to kids their own age — who, by definition, are just beginning to wrestle with ideas about what’s socially acceptable, what’s “normal.”

T’s transition at school was gradual.

As a second-grader, she came home on the night before a disco-themed after-school dance and said that she wanted to wear a dress to the party.

T often changed into skirts and dresses when she came home, and her parents had been waiting for the day she’d ask to wear one to school.

Before the dance, T changed into the outfit she’d longed to wear: A black-and-blue, almost floor-length dress, framed by bright pink spaghetti straps. Her father shot a photo. She’s beaming.

That evening, she gripped her dad’s hand tighter and tighter as they walked down the hallway to the auditorium. When she finally joined her friends, her dad backed away and stood with the other parents, proud but nervous, he recalls.

T and her friends danced under the disco ball, joyfully tossed and kicked a swarm of multicolored balloons and gathered in small groups to giggle as 8-year-olds do.

“She just wore what she wanted to wear and everyone accepted that,” T’s mom says. “That was sort of her green light.”

T started wearing dresses and skirts to school and using the nurse’s bathroom.

But she was still “he” to the school.

That May, T made a decision. “My mom asked, ‘Do you feel like a girl or a boy?'” T recalls. “And I said, ‘girl.’ ”

T’s mom recalls the child whose birth certificate read “male” telling her: “Next year in school, I want to be a she and a her and a sister.”

‘Google it’

These days, teachers and students refer to T as “she.”

When another student’s parents had a problem with her using the girls’ bathroom, the principal was able to point to district policy and California law to affirm that students have the right to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with.

Gender aside, T is a fashionista who rocks her cheetah-print vest and leggings one day, and a sparkly T-shirt covered by a growling, glittery tiger the next.

Some transgender children choose to switch schools when they transition, to avoid the comparisons people, especially 8- and 9-year-olds, might make between their past and future selves. By staying in her school, in the same classroom and with the same teacher, T retained her support system and her friends.

But she also has to address the inevitable confusion.

One friend asked T if she was a boy or a girl.

T said she was a girl.

“But you were a boy last year,” the friend said.

“I’m a transgender girl,” T replied.

The friend asked what that meant.

T’s response? “Google it.”

The next day, the friend came back and said that she and her grandmother had done just that. Now they both know what transgender means, she said.

A third-grader in transition

It’s 6:10 p.m., and T sits at the dining room table doing homework. Her blond hair is tied into a ponytail to show off the reindeer earrings she recently bought. She grips a pencil with one hand and drums her fingers — nails painted dark blue — with the other.

Volleyball practice starts at 7, and she’s in a hurry.

There’s a poster above T’s bed of the college where she wants to play, and she can recite volleyball rankings by heart. Her mother played in college, and her sister plays competitively in high school. Now it’s a part of T’s identity too.

T’s favorite color used to be pink: the color she associated with being a girl, the easiest way to assert her femininity.

As soon as the world stopped overtly challenging her sense of being a “she,” T embraced the complexities of girlhood.

T’s favorite color now is blue. She often ditches the skirts for tights or basketball shorts so she can run around at school more easily, or wrestle her brother.

Her mom calls her a tomboy.

Her dad calls her a warrior princess.

She calls herself a normal girl.

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The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education removed prohibitive language in its policy on defensive weapons this week but will continue to debate which items will be allowed on campus, reported the Salisbury Post.

One school board member said pepper spray and other chemical irritants should be allowed in case a court strikes down the state’s controversial HB2, better known as the anti-LGBT “bathroom bill.”

“Depending on how the courts rule on the bathroom issues, it may be a pretty valuable tool to have on the female students if they go to the bathroom, not knowing who may come in,” said board member Chuck Hughes.

An editorial in the Salisbury Post said the policy — and Hughes’ reasoning — were misguided.

“Actually, LGBT people — often targeted by bullies — might have more reason to carry pepper spray than most students,” the editorial board wrote.

Board members agreed to allow chemical irritant and other defensive items onto school property, rather than requiring them to remain locked in student vehicles, so students would not violate the ban if they forgot to remove the items from their purses or pockets.

“I don’t want to put the students in this weird situation when they didn’t really do anything, they just happened to forget to check their purse every single day,” said board member Travis Allen.

A local gun shop owner said he was concerned about the policy, saying he does not sell pepper spray and similar weapons to customers younger than 18 years old.

“It’s going to be risky,” said gun shop owner Larry Hyatt.

Allen dismissed concerns about allowing items designed specifically as defensive weapons, saying he could harm someone with a spray bottle of Windex or ammonia — or even by using a laptop computer as a weapon.

Board members agreed to allow students to carry disposable razors, as well — although they maintained a ban on straight-edge razors.

After some disagreement on razors, board members agreed to specify that personal razors should be used for shaving only while at school.

Source – RawStory.com

Proponents of HB2, which asserts that people must choose which public restroom to use based on their gender assigned at birth, paint a vicious campaign of transgender individuals as scheming, voyeuristic pedophiles that endanger the safety and well-being of women and children.

Alabama is already working to follow North Carolina’s example and just last week, conservative Christian activist group American Family Association received upwards of 744,800 signatures pledging to boycott Target stores over its decision to protect transgender rights in their bathrooms.

With tension rising and information being hurled into the conversation from all angles, there is one critical element being overlooked: the safety and well-being of transgender children.

What Are Transgender Children?

To understand gender nonconformity, it is important to understand the difference between sex and gender.

“The difference between sex and gender is this: Sex is a biological fact, gender is a social construction,” says Kevin Jennings, educational specialist and Executive Director of social justice and conservation foundation Arcus. Transgender identification is the realization by an individual-even as young as two years old — that their gender, or the identity they want to present themselves as, does not match their anatomy.

“Transgender is kind of an umbrella term that really describes a person who has an internal gender identity that is different than the one they were assigned at birth,” explains Johanna Olson, MD., a pediatrician in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Another category under this umbrella term is gender nonconforming, which Olson says can be used to describe children who are “not necessarily transgender” but who are “behaving or expressing their gender in a way that would be unexpected based on their genital anatomy.” In other words, this could be a boy-bodied person who prefers toys and activities often associated with girl-bodied children, such as dolls and playing with makeup, but who may not identify as a girl. Instead, the child may just have interests that don’t align with the current cultural expectations.

Transphobia

Since the media coverage of HB2, few outlets have reported on how this push for discrimination might affect children or teens who identify as transgender.

Developmental and clinical psychologist Diane Ehrensaft, PhD., notes that transgender youth often struggle during the onset of puberty, where unwelcome physical changes can provoke feelings of entrapment in a gender that just doesn’t feel right. Now imagine feeling bullied by the government, on top of mother nature.

Ehrensaft, the Director of Mental Health of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center in San Francisco, cites transphobia as one of the biggest issues facing adolescents that don’t identify with their assigned gender.

“It is not an easy world for transgender youth once they hit middle school and high school. The level of bullying and harassment goes up remarkably,” says Ehrensaft. “In its most unfortunate circumstances we read about children taking their own lives or [becoming victims of violent crimes] purely because of their gender presentation.”

Here are some alarming statistics from the Youth Suicide Prevention Program & National Center of Transgender Equality:

• 82% of transgender youth report that they feel unsafe at school
• 67% are cyberbullied
• 64% have their property stolen or destroyed

• Over 50% transgender children will attempt suicide at least once by age 20.
• Over 30% of LGBTQ children report at least one suicide attempt within the last year

• 44% report physical abuse (ex. Being punched, shoved, etc.)
• 19% experience violence or abuse from a family member

A New Perspective

Adults and children that do not consider themselves transgender are still a major part of the equation. Talking to your child about the facts on transgender and LGBT identities promotes cultural awareness while limiting the likeliness of bullying. Explain that gender identity is something a person is born with, that sometimes does not line up perfectly with a person’s physical appearance.

“It’s an immutable characteristic in part of your core being and your gender identity is not a choice,” Olson explains. Just as you and your child wake up each day and feel a desire to identify and perform a certain gender, you could’ve just as easily and just as genuinely been born feeling like a different gender.

It comes down to acceptance, education and understanding. To know the origin of gender formation is to understand the lack of input the person had in terms of how they identify their gender. Making fun of a child for coming out as transgender, or any of the identities under the LGBT umbrella, is as nonsensical as ridiculing a child for their height or hair color.

“When [transgender children] are allowed to transition and given support to affirm their gender…they match the mental health of the average teen who is also allowed just to be themselves,” says Ehrensaft.

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The 2015-2016 edition, the Philosophy of Admissions’ section of the handbook states, “Mount Saint Charles Academy is unable to make accommodations for transgender students. Therefore, MSC does not accept transgender students nor is MSC able to continue to enroll students who identify as transgender.”

Alumni of the school took to social media criticizing the policy of the school. According to the school’s website, the policy was updated in October of 2015. And, it is unclear if any students were asked to leave the school.

Mount Saint Charles teaches “in the tradition of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart” and is listed as a member school of the Providence Diocese. Leaders at Mount Saint Charles did not respond to questions. Neither President of the School Herve Richer or Principal Edwin Burke responded to questions.

According to the schools mission statement, “Each and every student is known, valued, treasured and taught in partnership with the family.”

“As a constitutional matter, the fact that the school receives some state aid is not sufficient to subject them to constitutional constraints, which generally apply only to government actions. There are, of course, separate statutes that ban discrimination in both public and private institutions, but many of those statutes have exemptions for religious institutions,” Steven Brown, Executive Director of the Rhode Island ACLU, told GoLocalProv.

In March of 2015, Pope Francis meet with a number of transgender men during a visit to a prison in Naples. “When Pope Francis pays a visit to Naples this Saturday he will have lunch with some 90 inmates at a local prison, a contingent that will reportedly include 10 from a section reserved for gay and transgendered prisoners, and those infected with the virus that causes AIDS,” reported the Religion New Service.

In 2013, when Pope Francis was asked about gay clergy being allowed in the Catholic Church, he responded, “Who am I to judge.” That statement was widely praised by gay, lesbian and transgender advocates around the world

In September of 2015, it was reported the Vatican upheld a Bishop refusal to allow transgender to be a godparent.

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If you aren’t familiar, Camp Aranu’tiq is a camp for transgender and gender-variant youth. Founded in 2009, the camp sought to fill the need for these children that might not be accepted at traditional camps. The rap was part of their yearly talent show performance to showcase the unique talents and gifts of it’s campers. From their website:

Aranu’tiq was founded in 2009 by Nick Teich, who dreamed of a safe & fun place for youth who felt like they might not fit in at other camps because of their gender and/or who wanted to be with others like them. We launched our first summer week in New England in 2010 with 41 campers. We now have our very own camp in New Hampshire! We have our flagship summer camps in NH & CA as well as leadership programs for older teens and weekend family camps, serving 400 campers over the course of one year.

We’re absolutely in love with this kid. Check out the video to see the rap or read the lyrics below.

So I had a little story I’d like to share / about something I went through that might seem pretty weird / Please try and imagine if this was you / or you might have something that you can relate it to / So I was just a little kid about 7 or 8 / and I had something to say that could no longer wait / So I went to my mom that hot day in July / with a hope in my heart and a tear in my eye / Basically I said this girl is your son / and I’ve always felt this way and it hasn’t been fun / We sat there together for a little while / I thought she was sad but then I saw her smile / She told me I was brave and that she was so proud / that I came to her so she could help me sort things out. My family and friends / were also on board / and the support that I got / just had me floored / And from that day on / I started my path / and we worked together / and even faced some wrath / Together we can weather / whatever this life brings / and we’ll continue to love / and I’ll continue to sing / And I know that there are other kids / who feel like I do / and I truly understand / what they are going through / Thank you all for sitting here / and taking the time / to let me tell my message / in the form of a rhyme / Please treat everyone / the way you expect / we all deserve freedom, love and respect.

There are only two weeks left in session for the Kansas legislature, but they are looking to go out with a bang. Two new bills, Senate Bill 513 and House Bill 2737, have been introduced that target the transgender community and specifically declare open season on transgender students. The legislature would effectively encourage students to seek out and report any transgender student that they find in the “wrong bathroom” or locker room/changing room. If they do, and report the student, they will be authorized to sue the school for $2,500 per incident.

The essential aim of the legislation seems to be reaching for a broader range though. The language of the bill points towards a higher goal of setting a precedent in the state to define gender and completely physical and reliant on physical criteria. The legislation specifically states, “the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s chromosomes, and is identified at birth by a person’s anatomy.”

This would set a dangerous precedent that could gain a foothold for other states and champions of limiting transgender rights. If a piece of legislation gets passed that sets a legal definition on gender would soon create a snowball effect that promises to herald an onslaught of legislation.

A “slippery slope” as some conservatives like to say.

Opponents from Within

There are opponents though, including other republicans. Republicans like Stephanie Clayton (R), who attacked the bills and insisted that Kansas should be spending less time worry about bathrooms and more time worry about the state’s financial situation and simply keeping schools open.

“Becoming Nicole”, from Random House, was written by Amy Ellis Nutt who is a Pulitzer prize-winning scientific reporter for the Washington Post. I am not familiar with her work there, but given her approach to this topic, I have no doubt she is a very talented scientific reporter. However, she stumbles very badly when trying to do justice to a narrative story.

First of all, I need to disclose that my experience was here was with the audio book, via Audible and read by the author, so that does add another element; and an element that does affect the overall rating. I have to say this because, and I mean no disrespect personally, but Ms Nutt should never be allowed to narrate a book again. Her monotone, emotionless, and mumble-mouthed reading of her own work is distracting and a huge mark against the book right out of the gate. Imagine, if you will, Droopy Dog- if Droopy were a middle-aged woman. You pretty much have her voice down. The biggest problem is that she is utterly emotionless throughout the book, treating clinically and never really driving home any of the emotion of this story.

With that out of the way, let’s talk a little about the focus of “Becoming Nicole”- the Maines. Kelly and Wayne Maines were a young couple that found themselves adopting twin boys from her teenage cousin when she found herself lacking options. In short order Wyatt began to show traits very different from his brother Jonas, and a childhood filled with gender dysphoria began.

Wyatt was certain at a very young age that he was a girl, and simply wanted to know when he would turn into a girl. With the strong support of her mother and brother, and a father that would eventually become her biggest supporter; Wyatt would realize her inner self as Nicole and live the life she knew she deserved.

It would not be easy though. Their journey would take them through bullies, hate groups, activism, antiquated ideals, school systems without answers, courtrooms, and even find themselves separated across the state from each other.

Truly, this family went through hell but came out on the other side even stronger than before, and filled with love and determination.

However Nutt does a poor job of stringing together this story on a narrative level, much less an emotional level. She finds herself mired in data, details, and minutia that do not add to the story and makes it very hard for her to build momentum as a story teller. One of the few times she manages to build real emotion is during a portion of the book that focuses on Nicole’s bullying by a young boy at the insistence of his bigoted grandfather. It is an emotional segment that underscores Nicole’s experience in grade school. That, however, gets railroaded by Nutt’s inexplicable delving into the grandfather’s military career without relating it to the story in any way whatsoever.

Where the book really falls down is in the uneven focus given to the subject. Chapters of narrative abut themselves against chapters that focus on the science, research, and medicine around transsexualism as well as chapters that focus on details of history that don’t relate to this particular story at all. It is as though Nutt tried to make this a catch-all book about transsexualism via the Maines’ story.

Had she written two books, one focusing on the facts and science of gender dysphoria and one that focused on the story of the Maines family, I would have probably given both of those books higher ratings. But together they only do a disservice to each other by doing justice to neither the science or the narrative.

Then, towards the end of the book, she begins to inexplicably gloss over topics and barely discuss them at all- giving us zero detail.

On the positives, a few occasions in “Becoming Nicole” do build some very real emotion- such as the bully incidents from above or Wayne’s growing acceptance of his daughter and their sharing a dance at a father/daughter event. And I found myself interested in the family and wanting to know more about Nicole as a person. However, I got to know more about Nicole as a collection of facts and details.