Shaye was three years old when she knew something did not fit.
She grew up in a Mormon family in St. George, Utah, and kept that secret for decades until, in 2019, during a vacation in Laguna Beach, she confessed it to Amanda, her wife of nearly twenty years. Amanda did not hesitate. “She helped me accept my transgender identity”, Shaye told People magazine.
The hardest part would come later: telling her three children, Emmeline, Hudson, and Desmond, then 11, 9, and 6 years old, that their dad would become their mom. Shaye feared their reaction more than anything else. But the children never cared about talking about the before and after. They took it with a naturalness that disarmed the adults themselves. “They were more understanding than I was”, Shaye confessed. That acceptance sustained the entire family: they left the Mormon church, Shaye began her transition and, years later, she and Amanda renewed their wedding vows surrounded by the same children who never asked uncomfortable questions, only embraced their mom.