Jennifer Lopez.Photo: GARY HERSHORN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
There’s nothing like the love of a parent.
“I love,” the mom of 13-year-old twins Emme and Max tweeted. “This touched me… a parent’s love… love changes the world…❤️❤️❤️”
During his testimony, Boulware spoke about the implications a new resolution that would ban trans athletes from participating in high school sports in Missouri unless they participate under the gender listed on their birth certificate.
“I’m a husband and father of four kids — two boys, two girls — including a wonderful and beautiful transgender daughter,” he said, before speaking about his daughter’s story. “For years, I would not let my daughter wear girl clothes. I did not let her play with girl toys. I forced my daughter to wear boy clothes and get short haircuts and play on boys' sports teams.”
Explaining that he had done so to protect her from being teased, he also admitted he “wanted to avoid those inevitable questions as to why my child does not look and act like a boy.” He said he made her feel “absolutely miserable” and that his daughter would “not smile,” until one day, “everything changed.”
“I had gotten home from work, and my daughter and her brother were in the front lawn and she had sneaked on one of her older sister’s play dresses. And they wanted to go across the street and play with the neighbor’s kids … I said no,” Boulware said.
Growing emotional, he continued: “She asked me if she went inside and put on boy clothes, could she then go across the street and play. And it was then that it hit me. My daughter was equating being good with being someone else.”
Soon after, Boulware said he stopped forcing his daughter to be someone she wasn’t. She then joined the girls' volleyball team.
“I ask you: Please don’t take that away from my daughter or the countless others like her that are out there. Let them have their childhoods. Let them be who they are. I ask you to vote against this legislation,” he said.
source: people.com
