This is not my child, this young woman who sits before me, with her beautiful voice, her secondhand women's denim jacket, her beautiful face. It can't be! But it is. It is not my daughter but my eldest SON, sitting there before me. I should find it grotesque, this young boy turned by cross-sex hormones and time into a beautiful young woman. Everything about the way he looks, the way he talks, sounding just like any other 20-year-old woman, the way people call him "her," the synthetic-estrogen-induced gynocomastia on his chest that looks just like healthy breasts, that so many women his age choose to cut off! I should scream, want to tear my eyes out at the terrible sight before me, but I cannot. I cannot help myself; I find him the most beautiful thing in the world. I hear strangers refer to him, my male son, as a woman. And I am happy. I am happy because he is happy, because I cannot help but be happy by his happiness. Some days he's happier than I have seen him in years. Other days he is miserable. I cannot function on those days. I worry that that is preventing me from giving him the help he deserves, but I try my best when he is happy. When he is happy, I cannot help but be happy for him, even though I know it is wrong, it is really hurting him. When I see his feminine appearance, in all respects like a tall woman, not at all like the obvious men in dresses I am used to seeing, I can't help but love him. I should find it grotesque, even more so because he is so convincing in his disguise. That is what it is, after all. But I cannot. I cannot help but love my child, even when that love gets in the way of loving him.

That is what it is doing. I love my son but I refuse to affirm his "gender," I encourage him to desist as soon as possible.