Some kids are born in the wrong bodies. Since gender identity is fixed by the age of three, kids can and do tell their parents their real gender, which is sometimes different than their natal sex. Good parents listen.

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All of the above is what this fairly liberal, Jewish mom believed until only a few months ago. I bought into that narrative wholesale, like many other well-meaning people, thinking “what’s the harm?”... until it came into my home. One night this summer, my young teen son revealed he was “trans”. My husband and I sat down with him right away to learn more about this strange new creature that had just appeared to us. He gave the following evidence: he did not feel comfortable in his body and about a month prior had realized that this was because he was not a boy. He knew that he was trans because when he put girl clothes on his video game avatar, he felt “euphoria”. He had had crushes on girls, but he recently wasn’t so sure since he may have had a crush on a boy. He didn’t like his shoulders or his voice. He felt different.

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Six months later, I was entirely disillusioned. And I had learned why we aren’t asking these questions. All those happy rainbow stories, those glitter families - they are cover-ups.