Filmmaker Sharon Shattuck appeared on HuffPost live this week in a segment titled "My New Trans Parent."
She discussed her experiences growing up with a father who came out to her as a transgender woman, Trisha, when Shattuck was in fourth grade after her younger sister found photos of their father in women's clothing. Shattuck stated that she appreciates the fact that her family learned of their father's true gender identity at such a young age.
"Little kids are surprisingly open-minded and I think that they're pretty accepting," said She said. "I grew up in a small town and the documentary project that I'm working on right now [Project Dad] is kind of about this whole topic. I dealt with it [her father's coming out] by not talking about it at all. I just thought that if I didn't talk about it, people would just accept that this is my dad and she is Trisha and it's just gonna go away. Eventually I realized that everybody already knew in my hometown so it kind of diffused the tension and I realized that we could just be who we are and be a family unit. So it kind of diffused on its own just by living in a tiny town."
Shattuck previously wrote a blog for The Huffington Post about her experiences surrounding her father coming out as transgender, as well as a New York Times op-doc in 2012 on the same topic titled "Name Change."
For more information on Shattuck's work and Project Dad, check out the filmmaker's Vimeo, Twitter, or Project Dad's website.
Also, check out the entire HuffPost Live segment here, which features transgender author and parent Lilly Mossiano of The My New Series.
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