{"id":25410,"date":"2018-06-13T13:33:51","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T13:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=408507"},"modified":"2018-06-13T13:33:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T13:33:51","slug":"to-help-their-daughter-a-microsoft-employee-and-a-filmmaker-became-transgender-allies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/06\/13\/to-help-their-daughter-a-microsoft-employee-and-a-filmmaker-became-transgender-allies\/","title":{"rendered":"To help their daughter, a Microsoft employee and a filmmaker became transgender allies"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Microsoft Corporate Vice President Chadd Knowlton and filmmaker Vlada Knowlton underwent a \u201cradical transformation\u201d and then made a documentary to tell stories of families like theirs<\/h3>\n

By Natalie Singer-Velush<\/p>\n

Chadd and Vlada Knowlton will never forget the day they most feared for their youngest child.<\/p>\n

They were driving to school and from the back seat of the car piped a little voice, asking where babies came from. Vlada Knowlton, a filmmaker and former Microsoft employee, explained to her 4-year-old that babies grew in moms\u2019 bellies and came out when they were ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want you to put me back in,\u201d said the trembling voice. \u201cI know I\u2019m a girl. It\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parents worried immediately that this was their preschooler\u2019s way of saying that life didn\u2019t feel worth living.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept the car straight. I tried to keep driving. But it was terrifying,\u201d Vlada Knowlton said.<\/p>\n

The Knowltons\u2019 youngest child had always been artistic, creative, curious, and intelligent\u2014but also, lately, very unhappy.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was born with the body of a boy. Everybody assumed she was a boy. [In the beginning] we never in a million years imagined anything different,\u201d Vlada Knowlton said. \u201cBut . . . from about the age of 2, she seemed frustrated, unsatisfied with her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

At home, the Knowltons, who also have an older son and daughter, had been allowing their youngest to wear dresses and play with more stereotypically girly toys, and things seemed better during those times. But in public, their preschooler was frustrated and angry when presenting as a boy, which was leading to depression and withdrawal.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe couldn\u2019t express herself the way she felt she wanted to,\u201d Vlada Knowlton said.<\/p>\n

The day in the car was the turning point for the parents. Their daughter felt she was a girl, and so she should be able to live that way, they decided.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe had to go through a radical transformation to learn, to understand, and to accept. Our daughter didn\u2019t really transition\u2014she was the same before. We transitioned as parents.\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt was a great moment of clarity,\u201d said Chadd Knowlton, a corporate vice president at Microsoft. \u201cWe were coming from a place of total unknown. Once we did the research and we understood how gender is formed in the brain, we could accept it. Gender is what it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to go through a radical transformation to learn, to understand, and to accept. Our daughter didn\u2019t really transition\u2014she was the same before. We transitioned as parents. And then we moved ahead into a new kind of personal activism that we had never had to call upon in our lives before.\u201d<\/p>\n

That activism includes making a documentary about LGBTQ+ rights and the movements that threaten them. The film, \u201cThe Most Dangerous Year<\/a>,\u201d recently had its world premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival. It tracks a wave of antitransgender legislation, including bathroom bills, and tells the story of a coalition of Washington State families who have transgender children who join together to fight it. Vlada Knowlton directed, wrote, edited, and produced the film; Chadd Knowlton served as the supervising sound editor and composed the score.<\/p>\n

As they navigated their daughter\u2019s and family\u2019s journey, the Knowltons have been supported by many of their communities, including Microsoft.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe environment is inclusive, accepting, and empowering for people to express themselves and to be allies,\u201d Chadd Knowlton said of the company\u2019s culture<\/a>. \u201cOne of the first things I thought about was hey, maybe my daughter could get a job at Microsoft one day because I know it\u2019ll be a great place for her to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their family\u2019s journey has broadened their perspective in a way that now empowers them to be advocates and allies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were new people after this, and honestly we\u2019re thankful for that,\u201d Chadd Knowlton said. \u201cGender is not binary. You could be anywhere on that spectrum. It\u2019s one of the things I think people struggle with in our society. They really want things to be easily categorized and named. But the world is all nuance\u2014and that\u2019s the beauty of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Meet more Microsoft employees who are changing hearts and minds and advancing human rights.
https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/life\/topic\/pride\/<\/a><\/h3>\n

See how Microsoft is celebrating Pride 2018 and how you can be an ally.
https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/pride\/<\/a><\/h3>\n

Learn how Microsoft and its LGBTQ+ employees push for change across borders.
https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/life\/pride\/<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft Corporate Vice President Chadd Knowlton and filmmaker Vlada Knowlton underwent a \u201cradical transformation\u201d and then made a documentary to tell stories of families like theirs By Natalie Singer-Velush Chadd and Vlada Knowlton will never forget the day they most feared for their youngest child. They were driving to school and from the back seat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[134,50],"class_list":["post-25410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-microsoft-life","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}