06/21/2026
My father was teaching me how to be a man long before either of us knew I was his son.
Some lessons came through words. Most came from watching him. How he treated people. How he carried responsibility. How he showed love, even when love was not always easy to put into words.
When I came out as transgender, I was not leaving behind everything he had taught me. I was finally able to understand those lessons as myself.
He taught me that manhood is not something you prove by being the toughest or loudest person in the room. It is found in how you care for people, how you respond when you are wrong, how you carry what is yours to carry, and how you make others feel safe enough to be themselves.
Being a trans man has made me think deeply about what kind of man I want to be. I have had to separate manhood from all the rules people attach to it and decide what is actually worth carrying forward.
This Father’s Day, I am thinking about the man who helped shape me and the quiet, unexpected gift of realizing that he was not only raising his child.
He was raising his son.
Happy Father’s Day to every kind of dad: cis dads and trans dads, stepdads and adoptive dads, foster dads and chosen dads, grandfathers, father figures, and those stepping into fatherhood in ways that may not have a name.
To the dads who were celebrated from the beginning, and those whose fatherhood or manhood had to be fought for, explained, or finally recognized.
There is no single way to look like a father, become a father, or be a good man. What matters is the love, care, safety, and presence you bring.
Happy Father’s Day to all of you.
