“Hello, Alice. I love the blouse, it suits you. Take a seat and tell me how you’ve been since I last saw you."

“Thanks, but Mum and Sarah helped me choose it. Things are going pretty well, Doctor Franks. I feel really good most of the time, a bit torn sometimes, but I didn’t expect life to be perfect, cos it isn’t for anyone, is it? I’m really grateful my family, especially Dad, are so supportive. I knew Mum would be fine, and Sarah has been great. She thinks having a sister to share things with is fantastic, cos having three brothers was a bit much sometimes. It’s maybe the best of all worlds for both of us, she’s fourteen and been a girl all her life. I’m nearly sixteen and been out as a girl for three months, so between us we’re making a bit more sense of the world than either of us could do on our own. She told all her friends about me, and said if they couldn’t be friends with her sister she couldn’t be friends with them. We were both surprised they all accepted me and we spend a lot of time together. So I have a social life for the first time, which is nice.

“We’re going ice skating Saturday after next and shopping for a costume for me next Saturday. There will be about a dozen of us, all girls from twelve to seventeen, and a few are bringing younger sisters too. Sarah’s friends are great at keeping boys in line and I’m learning how to as well. It’s all rather subtle really. To start with the girls thought I’d have an inside track from knowing how boys think, but I had to disappoint them, cos I never knew how boys thought even when I lived as one. The girls all want to know how soon the hormones are going to give me my boobs, cos they think it’s really not fair that I haven’t got any at my age. Have you any idea?”

“I’m a counsellor not a physician, so no expert, but is there any evidence of change yet, Alice, anything at all?”

“I think my nipples may be a bit bigger, but I’m not sure. I sometimes feel a little sore, like you get when running in the cold, but I’m still running so it may be due to that. There’s a half marathon next month I’m running in, so I’m training a lot for that, cos I want to be in the first twenty. I can’t feel any signs of getting bigger, though I’m sure my hips are beginning to grow, and my skin is softer like you said it would get.”

“I’m glad you decided to keep up the running because I know it means a lot to you. As for the hormones, from what you’ve just said I’m sure the process is beginning, but everyone progresses at their own pace, cis or trans. How’s school?”

“Good. It’s fun. My brothers keep the idiots in line, but there aren’t many of them. Keith who’s seventeen had a run in with some loudmouth trying to give me a hard time a while back. He told him to apologise or he’d kick it out of him and when he’d done he make sure there was just enough left so Don could do it all over again, Mum had to go in to see the head, but it was ok. He said he understood and he supported the boys being protective of their sisters, but it was a legal requirement to call her in, cos Keith threatened another pupil. He also had the idiot’s parents in and told them the only reason he hadn’t suspended their son for hate speech was because Keith had threatened him. Next time he wouldn’t be so tolerant. I don’t want you to think that sort of thing happens all the time. It doesn’t. Most of the kids just don’t care one way or the other, and I get on with all the ones in my classes just fine.”

“So both your brothers are totally supportive then?”

“Yeah. Don says, he’s nearly thirteen, it’s not a surprise, cos I always was more like Sarah than him or Keith. He also says somehow it’s easier looking after a trans sister than a sissy brother. He’s got no problems with feminine boys, sissy is just the only way he knows how to describe them. He’s into sport not words. The boys are cool about it.”

“How about your Mum?”

“I knew she’d be ok. She’s always believed you are what you are. When I told her I wanted to live like the girl I was in my head she wasn’t even surprised. She loves shopping with Sarah and me. She made it a lot less scary shopping for my first girls’ clothes. Actually her being there with Sarah and me made it fun. She suggests stuff neither of us would have the nerve to try without her there. We’d no idea she was that girly. She did my hair for me till it grew out a bit, now we all go to the hairdressers together. Sarah is working on her for the three of us to have our nails done together. Mum doesn’t know it yet but we want to do it for her as her birthday present. Mum told my grandparents and said they were ok, but I haven’t seen them yet. I’m a bit scared of what Gran will say. Granddad will be happy for me I know. Sarah says we’ll go to see them together and take the boys too for which I’m grateful.”

“You said you were especially grateful your dad was supportive, why especially so?”

“I didn’t know how he would react. I didn’t think I’d be rejected or anything bad like that. Not like some girls I’ve come across on the internet have experienced, but I didn’t know what to expect. Dad’s a bit reserved you know, so I was pretty scared when I first wore a dress in front of him. A pink tee shirt and jeans is one thing, but a summer dress is going a long ways past that.”

“What happened?”

“He hugged me, held me at arm’s length and said, ‘You look very pretty, Alice,’ and that was that. He kissed my cheek same as he does with Sarah, and I’ve never heard the name Thomas in the house again. We were out food shopping one day when Mum was at work and we met someone from where he works. He introduced us as his daughters, Alice and Sarah. End of. It was funny when we got home. He’s not really a sexist, but he likes to play games despite being a bit reserved. He shouted the boys down and said, ‘Males are pack ponies, so get that shopping carried out of the car and into the kitchen, and put it where your sisters tell you to. Girls, putting it away and cooking it is female stuff, so get on with it.’

“That was the day I discovered I really enjoy cooking. Sarah does too. We’re not very good at it yet, but I discovered that it’s true about the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. We cooked spaghetti bolognaise that night ready for when mum came in. I’ve never been a big eater and we thought we’d done miles too much spaghetti. It didn’t look too much when it was dried in the packet but it gets enormous when it soaks up the cooking water. The boys cleared the lot and said it was brilliant. We both got covered in kisses, and Sarah said if we ever wanted the boys to do anything for us in future all we had to do was cook, and we already knew what to cook didn’t we?”

“You said when you first sat down you felt torn sometimes, Alice. What was that about?”

“This might sound stupid, but I’ve started going on line talking to other trans girls, and it’s weird. Most of them are just normal persons, girls just like me, trying to come to terms with it all and get on with life. Like me being trans is just a part of their lives and they’ve got families, schools, weekend jobs or whatever to deal with that altogether add up to the biggest part of their lives. However, there are some who seems to define themselves purely in terms of being trans like there’s nothing else in their lives. They keep telling me about things I should be doing. The implication seems to be if I don’t I’m not really trans and don’t belong in what they refer to as the trans community.”

“I take it you don’t want to do some of those things.”

“No I don’t, and if that means I don’t belong in the trans community then I don’t want to belong there either.”

“There is no such thing as the trans girl, any more than there is the cis girl. You are you, Alice, not a copy of some stereotype. See the poem on the wall? That was written by a girl of about your age ten or twelve years ago concerning the whole LGBT+ community. Long before the term LGBT+ had been coined. It says it all rather nicely really. Everyone is a first rate copy of themselves and shouldn’t try to be a second rate copy of someone else. Here take a copy and read it now. It’s only short.”

More Than a Hundred?
She liked girls, and he liked men.
But they liked them both, and then
there were those who had each other’s
minds when, such were despised and
again, others too, too numerous to pen,
were different, unique, deemed to be lesser
mortals you ken. How many types?
Who knows, but way more than ten.

“That’s really good. May I keep this?”

“Certainly, but what sort of thing is it that you object to?”

“I was pointed in the direction of a store that sold silicone things for trans girls. I don’t have a problem with that. Well I can’t can I? As you can see till I grow my own I’m being assisted by some breast forms that Mum ordered off the internet to avoid me getting nasty comments. Mum says I shouldn’t have any problems eventually, and to look at the women in her family, cos I’ve got the same genetics. Mum and Gran and my aunties are all pretty big, and Sarah isn’t far behind them, so no doubt I’ll join them some time.

“It’s some of the other things I object too. I was told I needed to buy a, I can’t remember what it was called but it went at the front inside I presume a pair of leggings or there’d not be much point wearing it, and it gave you an outline of what was referred to as a camel toe, an expression I’d never heard before. I don’t understand why any girl, cis or trans, would want to look like that. I’ve come across things that cis girls wear to prevent looking like that when wearing leggings, sort of like tee shirt bras for down there. That I can understand, and I want to look like them because I’m a girl, not a slut.”