Leah, 4, East Bay, California

Leah, 4, East Bay California

Leah’s mom: We got Leah a purple dress at 2 1/2 since I didn't want my kids to only have construction worker vests and fireman hats for dress-up.  She would wear it all the time - around the house, to school - not just for dress-up.  She loved it so much and was sad when it had to be laundered, so we got her more dresses and she wore them with increasing frequency.  She would sit in my lap, and announce  "I'm a girl", "I'm your daughter", and picking girl's names for herself.  After she told us a few times, "I'm a girl, call me 'she' ", we socially transitioned by changing her name to Leah and using female pronouns for her when she was three.  She was already wearing exclusively dresses by that point—we started growing out her hair.

There were several big moments for us that Leah let us know who she was, sprinkled with little moments and signs every day. The first big moment was back when she only had one dress. She woke up in the middle of the night, crying, asking for her dress, and she couldn't be consoled because it was in the laundry and she couldn't have it.  Another big sign was potty training. After months of failing to potty train her, we began to realize that part of her issue was that she didn't want to wear the underwear we gave her. We offered to get her new underwear and she asked for "princess" underwear. Once we switched to pink frilly princess underwear, she was potty-trained within a few days. That was about a month before she turned 3. Then, there was the final moment that led to her transition.  She had a hard time using the right pronouns for men and women. She would call her female teachers "he". I tried to teach her: "R__'s a girl, call her "she", and she responded, "I'm a girl, too, call me 'she' ".  We transitioned a few days after that, about a month after she turned 3. 

Leah’s dad: Given her age, and the fact that she often mixed up the genders of other people when she spoke, we couldn't in those days have certainty that her "true" gender is female. In fact, a year and a half later there is still room for doubt. It is possible that as she grows older, she could realize that she's not completely at either end of the gender spectrum. What certainty we have is that she feels female at this instant in her life and that the best thing we can do is support her.

The most powerful expression our child gives of her gender is the consistency and the conviction with which she says she's a girl. It is interesting to note that our child doesn't express her gender in every way that is stereotypically female. She prefers female clothing, long hair, and her best friends tend to be girls, but she also often plays with boys and with "boy" toys. She eschews dolls for trains and trucks. But this would probably be true for many non-transgender girls if there weren't such strong social signals guiding them to certain kinds of behaviors. In our child's peer group, I think the social signals around clothing are stronger than those around play.  

Leah’s mom: I think Leah was always living as her true gender to the extent that she realized it.  We never pushed her or steered her; we just tried to follow her lead.  Once we realized that Leah was interested in wearing dresses, we let her pick her own clothes. We would pick her up and hold her where she could reach the clothes in her dresser so that she could pick if she would wear a shirt and pants, or a dress.  We would lay out two "boy" outfits and two "girl" outfits and she could pick which one she wanted. We still have her pick out her own clothes, if only because she's so particular that she doesn't let us pick out stuff for her!  We also make sure that she knows that if she wants to be a boy one day, that would be OK too. Her daycare and all the parents of her peers are utterly supportive as well. She has always been a happy child. We know that when she gets into the "bigger" world of elementary or secondary school, she might begin to meet resistance, and we don't know how she might react to that.

BOTH: We haven't run into anything but support.  Some family members were cautious at first, but have been very open-minded. Once they learned more about it, they accepted it. Her school, our friends - everyone has been amazing.  I think that because she's so young, and it's so clear that it's coming from within her, it's easy to accept. 

BOTH: Because Leah is so young, we don't know how much to teach her about concealing her status.  In her opinion, it's completely normal for a girl to pee standing up - because she's a girl, and she can pee standing up.  We don't want to teach her that she shouldn't pee standing up, because we don't want to teach her that there is anything wrong with her body.  But we also know that there are many unsupportive (or even dangerous) people out there whom we haven't met. We are cautious about revealing her status to strangers until she has reached an age where she can decide for herself how and when to reveal.  This is awkward, and we're still figuring out how to handle it. As we move toward starting kindergarten, summer camps, and other situations where we won't always know every adult around her, it's a little frightening. And then there will be the more banal (but still serious) concerns such as how to get school documents to use the right pronouns, and how to keep teachers from "outing" Leah accidentally when they call roll from the official class list since we have to enroll her with the name on her birth certificate.

Leah is fierce! She is spunky and independent - a self-starting "I do it!" kind of girl.  She's also a cuddler - so loving and caring. She charms everyone around her, adults and children. Her gender needn't come up because she's so comfortable with who she is.

Leah’s mom: I asked Leah what she wants to be when she grows up... does she want to be a mom? She answered no - she wants to stay a kid.  Leah usually evades questions about growing up - I wonder if she knows that she's not a typical girl, and doesn't want to think about it. She's also only four

Leah’s dad: It might be helpful for others to know that we didn't always have the level of knowledge and acceptance of transgender issues that we now have, and will no doubt continue to gain. Though we have lived in an open-minded environment and were vaguely aware of increasing press around certain famous people who began announcing that they were transgender a few years ago, we did not go out of our way to support the transgender cause until it touched us so intimately. I have a certain amount of empathy for the discomfort this issue causes so many people. I hope that the more the skeptics come into personal contact with transgender people, the more this issue will fade into irrelevance.