Amber Briggle, left, and her son Max, center with sign, at a rally in 2017. (Eric Gay/Associated Press)

The Briggles are an average Denton family that happens to have a trans teen

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com

Max Briggle plays the ukulele and enjoys playing songs his sister Lulu has written. He earned his black belt in Tae Kwon Do at the age of nine.

Now he participates in gymnastics and has competed in meets across the country. And he takes care of his rescue cats.

His mom Amber said what Max thinks is the least interesting thing about him is that he’s transgender. She said when asked about what it’s like being a transgender youth, Max has answered, “Ummm … I like cats?”

Max doesn’t really think about transitioning. He’s about five years into that. And to give others an idea what his life’s like, he joined the GenderCool Project. He’s the first trans teen from the Dallas area to post a video on the GenderCool.org site.

In his one-minute video, his message, he says, is “It’s important for me to feel strong, and I want others to feel that too.”

He says it doesn’t matter what it is that you do, but he exhibits some of his gymnastics including a triple back flip.

GenderCool, to him, means practicing good sportsmanship. “I think people should try lots of different things until they find the thing that makes them happiest,” he says in his video.

For the Briggles, who live in Denton, accepting Max for who he is was nothing special. Love, acceptance — those are just things families do.
The GenderCool Project was founded about two years ago by a family that had a similar experience when their 13-year-old daughter came out as transgender. As bathroom bills were introduced in the Texas Legislature two sessions ago, the Briggles decided to do more than just testify before legislators who weren’t really listening. Instead, they invited the attorney general to dinner. What Amber wanted to do was simply show off her normal and happy family.

She said the Paxtons came to dinner and even brought a wonderful dessert. She described the evening as a lot of fun, and the two families connected.

Of course, bathroom bills were never about doing what made sense or taking care of kids. Bathroom bills were always political, pandering to the lowest emotion of fear.

When attacking the trans community by trying to prevent them from using a bathroom backfired, trans rights opponents came up with a new tactic: The fear-mongering over bathrooms has given way to lies about hormone blockers. Bills surrounding the use of that medication have been filed in states around the country and are sure to be filed in Texas in the next session of the Legislature.

Hormone blockers simply prevent the onset of puberty. It has nothing to do with surgery. Surgery isn’t performed before the age of 18, if a trans person even decides to have surgery at all. In fact, hormone blockers have nothing to do with anything non-reversible. When a trans kid stops taking hormone blockers, puberty will begin.

The Briggles don’t talk about whether Max is on any medication or interested in any surgery. That’s personal information and has nothing to do with who Max is. What the family is interested in is keeping safe options available to trans kids.

But more important to the Briggles is for people to see them as an ordinary family that happens to have a trans kid, and to portray trans kids as regular children, teens and adolescents.

That’s the goal of GenderCool as well.

“The GenderCool Project is a youth-led movement helping to replace misinformed opinions with positive, powerful experiences meeting remarkable kids who identify as transgender and gender expansive,” the GenderCool website explains.

“Stories like Max’s — and what they’re doing at GenderCool — is lifesaving work and helps other young trans people (and the people who love them) be more courageous in coming out,” said Cathy Renna, a publicist who works with GenderCool. “Especially as a transgender athlete, to see someone succeed on a team is powerful and 100 percent relevant to the conversations we’re having across the country today.”

See Max’s GenderCool video at Vimeo.com/396057707.