Texas Dad Stands Up for Transgender Son

Ken Ballard isn’t known for talking much, and it was quite difficult for the father to come to terms with the fact that he had a transgender child — a son. But all that has passed and the father fully supports his trans son, Ashur, so much so that he spoke at the Texas Capitol in March asking for the government to protect his son’s rights to use the bathroom of his identity.

A video of this speech has since surfaced and it’s gaining a lot of support.

“I was asked to talk today because I have a son,” the father from Little Elm, Texas, said in the video. “The thing is I only knew I had a son for the past two years. Twelve years prior to that, I kept calling him my daughter. That’s what they told me at the hospital.”

“Was I going to be his bully? Was I going to try to put him back in a box that fit the rules of my world at the time?” he asked in the video. “Or only end up losing that child altogether?”

Ballard also spoke about the heartbreaking moment of finding his son’s suicide letter. After finding his son’s letter around the age of 11, Ashur began transitioning and the family hasn’t looked back.

“Prior to Ashur, I had not had a need to be heard as I was the person that could go about my day and nothing in Austin impacted much about my life,” Ballard said. “Then I found myself with a transgender son.”

And all Ballard wants to do is help his son live a happy life:

“This is what we all want for our kids, right? Does not matter if they are trans, gay, straight, smart, athletic, or anything else, unless they can be happy,” the dad said.

Check out the video below: