Free The Answer to Everything by Elyse Friedman

cars and trucks that the other baby boys were so keen on and that Paulkept buying or building for him. If you put a toy car in his hand, he would drop it and reach for my necklace or earrings. Even before he could speak and tell me in no uncertain terms who he was and what he wanted, it was plain to see that he preferred pretty things, girly things—jewellery, dolls, anything frilly and especially anything pink. He wouldn’t even look at
Bob the Builder
when Paul put it on, but if
Angelina Ballerina
was playing, he would stare, mesmerized, at the TV. And he preferred the company of girls. Right from the beginning. In the park or with the neighbours’ kids he always gravitated to the girls. As soon as he could crawl, he’d crawl to the girls. He had no interest in the boys at all. Paul, of course, hated all of this. He accused me of “sissy-fying” our son. That’s the term he used. He said I was making Thomas gay, although the word he used was “homo.” As if you could make a toddler that way. Thomas was who he was when he was born. I wasn’t encouraging him to like the things he liked. But I wasn’t depriving him of those things, either. If he wanted to play with my necklace, I let him. If he wanted to crawl over to the girls, I didn’t stop him. Secretly I thought that’s what it was with Thomas. That he was going to grow up to be that way. But that was before he could talk. As soon as he started talking it became clear to me that something else was going on. Long before anyone else sensed or acknowledged it, it became obvious to me that God had heard my prayers and answered them. God had given me the little girl I’d asked for. But as some kind of cruel rebuke, He had put her in the body of a boy.
    Of course, Paul didn’t want to accept it. He didn’t believe me when I finally broke down and confessed to him about myprayer in the nursery that night. He said it was nonsense and that I was crazy. He said I wanted Thomas to be a mama’s boy, that I was trying to make Thomas gay. If only Thomas had been gay! Everything would’ve been so easy. So different. I’m sure that over time Paul would have come to accept a son who was that way. He loved Thomas more than anything in the world—at least his idea of Thomas. But Thomas was not gay.
    He started talking early. At six months he was saying “Dada.” At ten months, “Mama.” By the time he was sixteen months old, he had quite a lot of words and could make simple sentences. I remember that right from the beginning when I would say “Good boy!” Thomas would say “No, Mama. Good
girl
.” He insisted from the time he could speak that he was a girl, and anybody with any sense could see that it was the truth. Before he was even two years old he would get cross and sulky when we referred to him as “he.” He used to unsnap his onesies so they would look like dresses instead of pants. He would sit under the dining-room table and hold the tablecloth over his head to pretend he had long hair. He’d do that with his bath towel too. And make skirts with it.
    Of course, Paul despised this behaviour. Over and over again he would explain to Thomas the difference between boys and girls. Boys had penises; girls didn’t. Case closed. When Thomas realized that this was true, that he had “the wrong body,” he became very sad and withdrawn. Imagine waking up tomorrow with your own brain in the wrong body. That was how Thomas woke up to the world. It confused him. And it made him very unhappy. It was horrible to see. He just didn’t quite believe it. I think he really believed that it was going tochange. When I asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said he wanted Santa to take away his penis. I would find him clawing at it, trying to tear it off. It was crazy and scary. And the older he got, the worse it got. I was afraid he was going to get his hands on a knife. I couldn’t watch him every single second. But I had to. There was no more grabbing a quick shower