Future

Pride on the Page Day #23

Each of the mini-essays I’m publishing for the month of June are part of a creative challenge to share joy during Pride. You can find out more in the link below. You can even participate, if you’d like!

Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay

✍️#PrideOnThePage (a fun, free, creative community challenge) - runs June 1-30

23. Future

“Hey, kiddo,” I said to my youngest as we sat amongst the vegetable beds in the garden, just in the shade of the hazelnut trees. “I have something I need to tell you.” Our fingers dug in the loose soil, teasing weed roots out but carefully minding the tender seedlings we had planted not long before. My kid could not see how nervous I was, how hard I worked to breathe slowly and keep my heart from bursting through my ribs.

“Okay.”

I yanked out a long root of quack grass, careful not to let it fracture. “So you know how we’ve talked about how sometimes our outsides look one way but our insides feel another?” A blank face stared back, dirty hands playing in a garden bed, interest waning. “Well I know I probably look like a girl on the outside, but inside… I’m not really a girl. I’m a boy. Maybe. I mean…” my voice faltered into a quiet whisper, “I think I’m a boy.”

“Oh, okay,” came the chirpy little voice across from me.

“And…” I kept going, still terrified of what my six-year-old thought of me, “I’d like to use he/him pronouns.” We weeded quietly for another minute. I couldn’t tell if we both just needed space to think, so I waited.

A creased brow and eyes up in the leaves overhead, that kid told me, “At school when I’m at recess with James, sometimes he calls me a boy, and it feels GREAT!!”

I don’t know how to explain the emphasis that kid used on the word GREAT other than to tell you Tony the Tiger couldn’t have added more excitement to it.

“Oh,” I answered. “Did you… did you want us to use he/him pronouns for you, too?”

A shrug, “Nah. I’m fine.”

Two weeks later he told me he did want he/him pronouns. And a different name. And to come out at school on Monday, and for everyone to use the right name and pronouns for him right away. “Will you tell Mammy when we get home?” he asked.

“Sure, no problem.” My hands gripped the steering wheel of the car as I imagined how my wife would take this news. But it turns out my worries about the future were nothing compared to the joyful force of nature my youngest son has grown to be. He socially transitioned over the course of less than a week, and I have never known him to be so happy.

Your trans friend,

Robin