![]() ![]() In his mid-60s and having grown up in a vastly different era, Rich said he did his best to understand and accommodate his child - sometimes messing up along the way. After she came out to him on a long car ride, he remembered telling her, “Is that it? Is that what you were so worried about telling me?” Rich said he told Ren what mattered to him was that she worked hard and was kind. Rich had been taking a much different approach to Ren’s gender identity. After looking into the matter, Fingers determined that the English teacher had done nothing wrong, according to messages Ramser shared.Īt the time, in early 2021, parents had not yet started flooding public schools with demands to ban library books dealing with sexuality and gender, and Sharla’s complaint didn’t seem like a big deal to Ramser. Ren confirmed Ramser’s account and denied that the book had inspired her to buy the bus ticket. ![]() The book portrays it as being that your family will always love and support you.” “And also, if you notice at the end of the book, it says you should never run away. “I was like, ‘No, I didn’t make Ren read it,’” Ramser said. Now Sharla was alleging in her email that Ramser had made Ren read the book, and that its coming-of-age storyline had helped inspire her child to run away. Earlier that school year, Ren had checked out “The Prince and the Dressmaker” after a classmate recommended it. It was one of hundreds of titles that Ramser kept in her classroom library, a collection of books that students borrowed and read in their free time. (Universal, which is owned by the same parent company as NBC News, purchased the film rights in 2018.) When his secret is finally revealed, the prince runs away from home, only to return in the end and discover that his mother and father still love him, no matter what he wears. The graphic novel by Jen Wang tells the story of a prince who loves to wear dresses but, fearing rejection from his parents, keeps his fashion hobby hidden. It was called “The Prince and the Dressmaker,” and it had Ramser’s name written on the side. Sharla had emailed Fingers to complain about a book she’d found in Ren’s room. They’d rarely discussed anything in class beyond reading assignments or video games.īut a few days later, Ramser got a call from her principal, Alex Fingers. She still didn’t know about Ren’s homelife. Given the runaway attempt, that made sense to Ramser. That week, Sharla emailed Ramser to let her know her child would not be attending school in person for a while. Late on the evening of Ren’s disappearance, Ramser felt a weight lift off her when she got a message from another student: The teen was safe. Ramser also cherished her role teaching English as part of the district’s Aspire Academy, an accelerated program for academically gifted students. At Grapevine High, she strived to be that adult. When she was a teen, Ramser didn’t have a trusted adult at school who she could go to after a classmate shoved her to the ground and called her an anti-gay slur. “I felt like I had to do something,” Ren said. She was feeling suffocated at home and was losing motivation to keep up the facade. “She just made you feel safe.”īut even with that support, Ren said it wasn’t easy living two lives. “She just took extra care in getting to know you and making sure that you were comfortable,” Ren said. Ramser didn’t know it, because Ren was so quiet, but her class meant a lot to her. ![]() That was especially true in freshman-year English. Only when she was with her father in Oregon and at her school in Grapevine did she feel somewhat free to present herself as female. Ren says she learned to hide her identity while at her mother’s home. The real song is 2 songs put together sadly.Rich, who provided copies of his correspondence with his ex-wife, told Sharla the best thing they could do was to embrace Ren for who she was.īut to Sharla, helping Ren “get through this” meant seeking help to overcome what she’d begun calling her child’s “gender confusion.” Sharla took Ren to see a Christian counselor who, according to his website, promised to help patients become “the person they were created to be.” It's called fireflies (the song) Comment by turkeybird111 I revisited my childhood to find it was either changed or overrun by whatever is here now. As a kid I never really paid attention to detail and time. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |