Journey of Acceptance: A Child's Perspective on Parent's Gender Transition

In his narrative, Justin Burnell recounts his memories of his biological father changing into to a woman. There are many ways the people in this story reacts but as a whole, in his recounts, they are almost the same. The heavy atmosphere in this story tells you how this story is going to go. The author does not give the year this takes place but just the location, in Knoxville, gives the reader insight on the hate that would be prominent. In the story he repeatedly uses “my mom” or “mom” but “dad” was really only used in the beginning. When he was asked who was driving his father’s car he replied “my mom” he then goes on to say he hates her. This end of the conversation between him and Mikey is the main conflict in the story. Later in the story he goes on to describe how they are at home. “Our world was a place where we wore jeans in the summer because Dad’s legs were shaved,” he was not comfortable with his father’s new way of life. It was something that he did not want

He went his whole life knowing biological father as his father then suddenly his world is turned around with his father having gender reassignment surgery into a woman. Looking back at the memory now in life he probably regrets how has treated his mom. When this was going on in his life his mind was in a certain mentality. He was very hateful to his mom during her change: he refused to look at her, refused to acknowledge her. Towards the end is when he starts looking at his mom in another light. He even goes on to say, “They’d cough and choke calling her a queer, a he-she, and it. They couldn’t understand because they’d never live with two identities. If and when they would ask me why I wasn’t disgusted, how I could stand to be around him, what answer would I have? She was my Mom.” In the end it did not matter what other people thought in the end it was his mom and would always