Introducing Pink Hair & Pronouns
Storytelling at the intersection of parenting and gender
Welcome to Pink Hair & Pronouns!
Pink Hair & Pronouns provides a welcoming community for parents and caregivers of gender non-conforming children to share stories, concerns, triumphs, and advice in a supportive, empathetic environment. Our goals are:
- To create a supportive, safe community for parents and caregivers to share their stories — across the full spectrum of experiences and emotions that gender transition can bring.
- To center the needs of parents and caregivers, so they can find the support, information, and advice they need to be present for their kids.
- To lead with nuance and compassion in all storytelling and comments. This subject demands that we be able to discuss hard things; we will assume positive intent even as we don’t always agree with every story.
- To elevate voices of gender non-conforming and other LGBTQ+ writers, to learn from and honor the wisdom of their experiences.
- To elevate public discourse about families with gender non-conforming kids and their right to seek the health care they need — no matter where they live.
- To shut down any “Don’t Say Gay” voices. If you express this sort of rhetoric here, you will be reported and blocked — no questions asked.
- To provide our writers with an editorial team who is respectful of them and their stories, and to provide our readers with well-written stories that engage, educate, and inspire.
- To create what is, to my knowledge, the first and only publication focused on parenting gender non-conforming kids — on Medium or anywhere else online.
Pink Hair & Pronouns: A backstory
I’m Dana, the founder of Pink Hair & Pronouns. This story begins in 2021, when my youngest child came out as genderfluid. They handed me a handwritten note, declared a new name, and requested they/them pronouns.
I wrote all about it in this article.
Despite the article’s title, I wasn’t surprised when they came out. Many of their older sibling’s friends had similar transitions around the same time. But I did feel… a lot of emotions.
- Loss, for the words I could no longer say: daughter, sisters, “the girls.”
- Worry, as my child’s announcement didn’t bring them a sense of peace, but instead came with a darkness that concerned me.
- Uncertainty, because I wasn’t sure how to guide my child through or toward or around this transition. I wasn’t even sure what preposition to use, let alone which pronouns.
I just watched as my then 11-year-old obsessively painted different queer-themed flags, switching through identities as easily as they washed the paint off their brushes. No, that’s not true — I always end up cleaning the damn brushes.
But my child moved through identities faster than the paint could dry.
Genderfluid. Neoboy. Lesbian. Bisexual. Pansexual. Trans. Non-binary. My child tried them all on in a whirlwind, leaving my mama head and heart reeling, just trying to keep up.
Thankfully, I’ve had an amazing community of parents going through the same transitions with me.
But what we’ve all lacked was a roadmap. Guidance. Parents who’d already been there, done that, who could give advice, commiserate, and share wisdom of what their journeys had been like. What we could expect.
This is what I’m hoping Pink Hair & Pronouns can be — a space for parents and caregivers of gender non-conforming kids. Storytelling at the intersection of parenting and gender. Advice. Support. Community.
We’re looking for writers!
Are you interested in contributing to Pink Hair & Pronouns? We’d love to have you join us. We welcome all authors with a relevant story to share to send articles our way — and in particular we’re looking for writers who are:
- Parents and caregivers of gender non-conforming kids
- Counselors/therapists, especially who work with gender non-conforming kids and their families
- Educators
- Gender non-conforming (or other LGBTQ+) adults
- And of course, gender non-conforming kids over 13 who have Medium accounts — we’d love to hear from you directly.
To get added as an author, simply let us know in the comments by adding your handle. (And if you aren’t sure how what your handle is, click here.)
We’ll be adding a writer’s style guide shortly — so stay tuned! For now, just send us your stories and we’ll be scrappy about getting them posted.
Love you mean it! Dana
