A transgender woman learns how to navigate the expectations and joys of motherhood
This page is an archive of an interview with Rachel Hatzipanagos of the Washington Post for their “About Us” newsletter on May 10, 2019.
Erin Dees had been married for 11 years when her wife, Lynn Paget, proposed to her on Christmas Day 2017 in front of their three children.
The couple decided to have another ceremony because Dees had been questioning her gender identity for some time. This time, she’d be able to outwardly present as her true self — a woman.
“It was really affirming to get to pick out a wedding dress,” said Dees, 44. “Wearing it for the first time was amazing.”
They rented a beach house in a coastal town in Oregon and got remarried surrounded by three children — 19, 18, and 11 years old — and their families. Their children chose new titles for their parents: Dees is known as “tall mom” and Lynn as “round mom.”
Throughout her transition, Dees and her wife discussed how their parental relationship may change, with the societal expectations placed on mothers and motherhood now falling onto both parents.
Dees spoke to About US about what her journey has been like. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
When was the first time you celebrated Mother’s Day?
My first Mother’s Day as a mom was last year, 2018. I had just started my gender transition a couple of months prior. To have my family not only recognize my motherhood, but also celebrate it joyously, filled me with gratitude and emotion.
When was the first time you can remember wanting to be a mother?
When I was around 8 years old, I told my family that I wanted to be a mother. I said something like, “I wish I could be the one to carry the babies. I know that I can't, but I wish I could.” My family laughed good-naturedly at what a “sensitive boy” I was and light-heartedly teased me about it for years. Back into the closet for me!
I quickly learned that there are lots and lots of moms who don’t or can’t carry a child. But it would be a couple more decades before I finally turned that knowledge around and saw how it applied to me.
How did your children react when they heard you were transitioning? Did they ever express any feelings about losing you as a father? Was that something you thought about?
Even knowing that ours is a very LGBTQ-friendly family, I was still nervous coming out to our children. I shouldn’t have been! About a month into questioning my gender, we all watched the Bill Nye episode on gender as a spectrum. Right afterward, I told the kids, “I'm pretty sure I’m not at the boy end of the spectrum.” Without batting an eyelash, they responded, “Cool, what are your pronouns?”
The children much prefer having me as a mom. Without the weight of dysphoria pressing on me, I’m able to be fully present for them in a way that I couldn’t before. They also quip that my new curves make me softer and easier to snuggle — no more getting a paper cut hugging me!
Most importantly, the things they loved about me as a parent — playing with them, helping them with their homework, comforting them when they’re hurt — are things I still do.
Do you think society places different expectations on being a mother versus being a father, and how has that played out for you?
Yes! We expect career moms to be “supermoms,” to do everything and to do it flawlessly. I absorbed all these messages from our culture, even before I knew they were directed at me. When I started transitioning, I felt the weight of these expectations land on my shoulders all of a sudden. The result was a lot of stress. When I made a mistake, I would feel crushed that I had let someone down.
It’s still hard not to overextend myself and try to do everything, but I’m getting better at taking care of what’s important first — kids, marriage, job, household — and pushing back against commitments that I know I won't be able to do.
