I'm switching from being a boy to being a girl

On Saturday, I finally told my son J. about my transition.

He's five. I had just supervised his life-jacketed form flying off the dock at my family's summer place—lucky us, I know—and now he was warming up in the sun on top of the boathouse. I had refused to swim since the thought of me in a bathing suit for either gender makes me want to puke.

Anxiety mounting inside me, I watched him. He prattled on about bugs and jumping off the dock and kids at school and whatever else, as usual; just happy to be with me after so many weeks of sporadic togetherness.

After a couple of fruitless lip-puckerings, I spat it out: "J. I have something I need to talk to you about."

He stopped chattering and looked at me expectantly.

"Umm..I'm switching from being a boy to being a girl."

"You're switching from being a boy to a girl!" He was smiling, almost laughing out loud, at the outlandishness of the news. Even at five, one's Dad coming out as transsexual is cause for raised eyebrows. “How do you do that!?”

I laughed. “Doctors will help me. I’ve already changed a lot. I’ve lost weight. I’ve grown my hair. I will change my voice.”

“How do you change your voice?”

“It takes time and practice.”

“You’re really switching from being a boy to being a girl?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Shit. It’s not like I didn’t expect him to ask, but it was still hard to know how to explain how unusual this is, but not to make it sound negative. “I had a hard time being happy as a boy. Actually, it was impossible for me to be happy being a boy. That’s very unusual; most people are happy being the sex they’re born as. So, I’ve been experimenting with being a girl—trying it out—and I think I’ll be happier as a girl. Well, actually, I know I’m happier as a girl.”

Highly amused, he smiled widely. “You’ve been experimenting? You’ve been trying it out?”

“Yes. Do you think I’m different now?”

“Ahh….yes!” he said, incredulous at my stupidity like only a five year old can be.

“Do you care?”

“No!” and he smiled again.

“Because I’ll still be your Daddy, and I’ll always be your Daddy.”

“How can you still be my Daddy if you’re going to be a girl?”

Smarty pants. “Well, I’ll always be your parent. And you can call me whatever you want to. You can still call me ‘Daddy’ if you want.”

I’m fervently hoping that he won’t want to call me Daddy forever, but I would like him to decide how and when (and if, I guess) he wants to change it.

“J., I’m going to be me-as-a-girl—not anyone else. I will look different, but this won’t change the way things are between us.”

“Are you going to get the vagina?”

I nearly choked on my juice box. “Why do you ask that?”

He grinned. Another stupid adult question. “Because girls have vaginas!”

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe,” I responded, “but we don’t need to talk about that now.” And being the lovely child that he is, he honoured that small request and backed down.

We went back to chattering about our surroundings and whatever else came to mind.

He has asked about the vagina a couple of times since, though. He has also wanted to know when I would be fully a girl, how the doctors were going to help me, whether I would still be good at building things (!), how to spell Dee (my new name), and probably several other things I’m forgetting.

We’ve spent a few hours with me in woman mode, which amounts to me wearing boobs and a skirt, but otherwise looking the same. He felt that I looked different (the boobs make ALL the difference, I suspect), but he was so natural, it was seamless.

Actually, it was like folding myself into the embrace of a cozy blanket on a clear winter’s night. He has been so cute about it. It’s so overjoying for me to get to be myself around him in an unfettered way. To finally not have to hide from him. To get a chance to feel my chest-swelling love for him with less of the taint of my maleness fouling my mood

A., his mom, has been wonderful too. She is awe-inspiring. Even though I’m resigned to losing her, she still breaks my heart.