Dem lawmaker gives emotional speech about her child coming out as gender-nonconforming

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Tuesday gave an emotional speech in which she revealed her 22-year-old child recently came out as gender-nonconforming.

Speaking during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on proposed legislation on protections for sexual orientation and gender identity, Jayapal urged her colleagues to legislate with “love” and “freedom” instead of “fear.”

Jayapal, who was speaking in favor of the Equality Act, teared up while speaking about her child.

“My beautiful, now 22-year-old child told me last year that they were gender-nonconforming,” Jayapal said. “And over the last year, I have come to understand from a deeply personal mother’s perspective… their newfound freedom.

“It is the only way I can describe what has happened to my beautiful child,” she continued. “Their newfound freedom to wear a dress, to rid themselves of some conformist stereotype of who they are, to be able to express who they are at their real core.”

Gender-nonconforming, sometimes called gender expansive, nonbinary or genderqueer, means that a person does not identify with the gender binary of “man” and “woman.”

{mosads}The Washington Democrat said that while her child has always performed well academically, they were carrying “a heavy burden of conflict in their own being” that has been lifted since coming out.

Jayapal said that the “deeply impactful moment” has resulted in her waking up each day, thinking: “My child is free to be who they are.”

She added that as legislators, she and her colleagues have “a responsibility” to protect the freedom of LGBTQ Americans “to be who they are.”

Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin thanked Jayapal for sharing her child’s coming out story, calling it “a profoundly moving moment.”