The Advocate, “Conversations have to be had one on one. Going forward, I’m going to continue to have these conversations.”Marchandt, who is gender-expansive and has a trans partner and a 19-year-old queer son, is currently estranged from his family of origin.
He came out to them several times, and they didn’t take it seriously until he changed his name. They didn’t take that well. “We haven’t talked in seven years,” he notes.
His father is a devout Seventh-Day Adventist, a faith that is not accepting of LGBTQ+ identities. “I don’t think he’s ever going to really understand who I am,” Marchandt says.But there is hope where his mother is concerned. “I’ve heard through the grapevine,” he says, “that she’s rooting for me and wants me to win.”.