Woman's Day broke ground recently with an article featuring a Christian mother and her transgender son.
The story, titled "The Son God Gave Me," was published in the October 2014 issue of the lifestyle magazine and focused on Gina Kentopp and her transgender son, Kyle.
Kentopp told Women's Day she reconciled her traditional Christian faith with acceptance of her child after reading the memoir of a gay Christian.
"Instead of asking God to change your child, the author suggested, why don't you ask Him to change your heart?" she said. "It was a revelation: I had never even considered that idea."
Kentopp says she ultimately formed a strong, supportive bond with her son built on a foundation of trust and found an accepting church for her family to attend.
Now that Kyle is in college and thriving, she decided to share her story with the magazine in order to help other families and challenge stereotypes about religion, she told The Huffington Post. While there were some negative comments in response to the article, Kentopp said the majority of the feedback she has received has been "beautiful" and positive.
Woman's Day seconded that response.
“We’ve wanted to touch on this subject for some time, and when we found Gina, we were so moved by her story that we knew the time was right," Editor-in-Chief Susan Spencer told HuffPost. "A devout Christian, Gina came to believe that loving your child and putting him or her first is the most important thing, regardless of one’s preconceived notions or personal beliefs."
"While we did receive some negative comments online and through letters, we were thrilled to have received mostly positive reader reaction," she added, "which reaffirmed our hope that by telling a story through the eyes of someone with whom they have much in common, our readers would be able to embrace a point of view that may not be prevalent in their communities."
Family Circle made a similar move when it featured a gay family in its November 2014 issue, the first time a same-sex couple was ever featured since the publication launched in 1932. The magazine received backlash from its readers, but Linda Fears, vice president and editor-in-chief, defended the decision as an honest depiction of the "American family life today."
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