The #Dad/Mom welcomes your questions, your stories

/ Dawn Ennis

A trust has been established by Wendy’s brother, Robert Lachs, to assist with furthering the education of the Ennis children. Anyone wishing to donate to the fund may send a check, payable to “Ennis Family Scholarship Fund Trust” to Robert Lachs, 1729 E Prairie Ave., Wheaton, IL 60137, or click here to donate via GoFundMe. 

5 thoughts on “The #Dad/Mom welcomes your questions, your stories”

  1. Hello Dawn.

    I have been following you since the first press about your transition. You seem so kind and open I feel I can reach out to you. I have so many questions.

    First, my condolences on the death of your dear Wendy. What a beautiful family you two created and what a wonderful example you have set by shepharding your children through this challenging time.

    As a person born with a xx chromosomes into a male dominated family in the 1950’s, who saw how much easier life was for males, I have always been intrigued with the idea of changing gender. However, as our culture has become more apathetic about our differences, at least in New York, I am increasingly curious about xy born men identifying as women, especially in ways I do not recognize in my esperience. Hair, make-up, clothes, nails. Like many NYC women, being a women has little to do with my wardrobe – a fairly gender neutral collection in blacks and beige that many men could wear. My ability to assert myself, a trait considered more male than female, is within my power. But would I wear a print dress or color my nails and consider those womanly traits rather than a momentary switch-up in my look? Would my xy friends and acquaintances? I am talking about mothers and wives. Straight and lesbian.

    I do not begrudge you your style. Or your identification. What I want to know as a woman is are trans women going to become allies on women’s issues such as equal pay, access to reproductive health care, affordable health care (including mammograms, pap, bone density, BRACA, etc. tests) and equal access to the to legal system (for domestic violence, sexual assault). Throughout the world, women are marginalized, repressed, raped, veiled, and stoned to death. Are trans issues different from women’s issues? I can safely say that most women don’t care if a trans person is in her public toilet. What she doesn’t want is a pervert, of any persuasion. Women struggle with decades of PMS, paying sales tax for tampons, trying to get pregnant, trying not to get pregnant and the rigors of menopause. You have helped me to see that transgender people pay their own steep trans price, but it is different from the price exacted from the gender as a whole

    Again, blessed to be a New Yorker, I can switch between traits and fashion considered masculine and feminine whenever I want or the situation warrants. My children know me as mom and their father as dad, but the traits ascribed to each role are our own invention. That is the beauty of being an adult. We can define our roles however we want.

    I do not presume to understand your struggles, as a man, as a woman, as a dad, as a mom, as a trans person. The trans community has made enormous cultural and legal strides in a relatively short amount of time. Women won one court victory in Texas that never should have been an issue and we are supposed to be grateful. I would like to know what you see as trans women’s role in working on all women’s issues.

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    • MC, I am so grateful for your deeply thoughtful incredibly wise perspective and personally very meaningful question!

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