“JACK AND ME”
ARTWORK BY JACK SAVAGE
BY MATTHEW SAVAGE A new podcast series: about transinclusivity, unconditional love and keeping #wellbeingfirst at all times for every single student. In early 2017, I almost lost my son. Any parent knows that there can be no pain greater, and having stood at that precipice and looked into that abyss, the axis on which my world had revolved shifted forever. A few weeks ago, and, by his own admission, now “thriving”, Jack agreed to record with me a candid conversation about his transition from AFAB* (*assigned female at birth) Year 6 pupil to 20-yearold out, proud, queer young man. I have released this conversation as a podcast series of six episodes, and called it “Jack and Me”. Whilst it is very much a story of one trans man’s journey, it is also a story of identity, of courage, and of unconditional love, equally relevant for all parents and their children navigating the powerful but perilous terrain of transition in their own families, and for all international educators passionate about the wider pursuit of #deij in their schools.
For this article, I have chosen but a few of the insights he shares in the podcast, but I strongly urge you to listen to the entire series. At a time when the world is moving further and further away from equity, inclusion and justice, never have Jack’s words been more important than they are right now.
“Whenever we were asked to group into boys and girls, someone would say that I didn’t really fit into either.” Jack describes in detail the transphobic slurs he endured even as a 10-year-old child, and the insistence of so many teachers to refer to, and group, their children by a gender binary. At first, he was puzzled by such language, as it seemed to predate his conscious questioning of his own gender; but now, looking back, it was his brutal introduction to a world rife with transphobic ignorance and hate.