James Gibson pulled into the driveway, noticing his wife’s car was not there. Entering the house, he was surprised to hear Toni playing in one of the bedrooms.

“Emma?” James called out.

“In the kitchen, James.”

Entering the kitchen, “Hi, honey. How’d it go today?”

“You should have been there.”

“Emma, we talked about this last night. I had an important meeting. Today was just another Special Education evaluation. Toni has gone through a bunch of those. We already know he is Autistic and has developmental and academic delays. We weren’t going to learn anything new from this evaluation. The school has an amazing reputation for meeting the needs of kids with disabilities. I didn’t need to visit the school to decide whether to send him there. I already knew I supported him attending.”

Emma closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then went back to stirring the contents of the skillet.

James kissed his wife and went over to the fridge.

“Stay out of the fridge. I’m almost done making dinner.”

“Okay,” James closed the door and sat at the table. “How’d Toni like the school?”

“Your daughter loved Cauldron Academy,” Emma said while cooking the stir-fry on the stove.

James looked at his wife and thought for a moment before responding, “My daughter?”

“Like I said, James. You should have been there. The testing revealed something neither of us was expecting. Toni is transgender. We really have a six-year-old little girl named Amanda. I guess I finally have my Mandy.”

James glared at his wife, “Come on. No way. You pulled a good one this time, but there is no way you can keep this prank up if you’re looking at me.”

Emma turned around and looked straight at James, “Our daughter, Mandy, is in her bedroom playing. She looks really cute in her pigtails and frilly dress. If you don’t believe me, go look.”

“Yeah, right,” James said, looking his wife right in the eyes. She did look serious, but there was no way.

Emma turned back to the stove, “Go say hi to your daughter,”

James looked at his wife. After a moment of thought, he headed for the bedrooms. Outside of Toni’s room was a pile of clothes. That was unusual, but James has learned not to question such things in a house with two kids. When he turned the corner into Toni’s room, James froze.

“What in the world,” James looked around the little girl’s room. He didn’t recognize anything in the room, including the kid in pigtails and a dress. “Who are you?”

“Daddy,” Mandy got up from the floor and hugged Dad. “Isn’t my new room super duper?”

Looking down at the pigtailed girl hugging him, James had to admit it sounded like and hugged like Toni. Going down on his knees, James looked at the girl. It was Toni.

“Look, Daddy,” Mandy said, grabbing James’ hand and leading him to the doll house. “It has two stories. There’s a Mommy, Daddy, boy, and girl just like our family has.”

“Yeah . . . Munchkin. You . . . keep playing. I need to go talk to Mom.”

Mandy took the Mommy and Daddy dolls and moved them to the kitchen. With one in each hand, she said, “Blah, blah, blah.” Leaving them in the kitchen, she picked up the little girl doll. In the dollhouse’s girl's bedroom, she had the doll bouncing around, talking about how wonderful her room was.

James watched her play for a little bit before heading back to the kitchen.

“What was that?” James asked as he collapsed into a chair in the kitchen.

“Your baby girl,” Emma responded with a sly grin. “I told you. You should have been there today.”

“What happened?”

“Toni walked into a circle and was engulfed in a sphere of light designed to transform him into his true self based upon who he was in his brain. We were prepared for him to regress to his developmental level. I estimated I would see little nine-year-old Toni when the sphere disappeared. Instead, a six-year-old little girl stood there.”

“A what?”

“Our twelve-year-old Toni in his brain was a six-year-old little girl. A cute little thing. She looked a lot like I did at that age.”

“It was a trick,” James countered.

“No, it wasn’t. Admittedly, I thought the same thing. After watching the kid all day, I can assure you it was Toni, or should I say, Mandy.”

“He has never been very boyish,” James admitted. “But a girl? Transgender?”

“What was Mandy doing when you saw her in her room?”

“Playing with dolls in a dollhouse.”

“When Dr. Parker transformed that room, she only changed 50% of his clothes and toys. Mandy immediately stuffed all the remaining boy toys under the bed and was going to do the same with the clothes. I had her stack the clothes in the hall. She doesn’t want anything she views as boy things.”

“But those were his toys.”

“We let the little girl out of her cage, and she doesn’t want to go back in.”

James sat there in silence. After a few minutes, he said, “Transgender?”

“With the effects of TSS and what Cauldron Academy is going to do to Mandy every day, there is no way we will ever get her to wear boy clothes again,” Emma said as she got some plates out.

“TSS?” James' eyes went wide. “But . . . but . . .”

Emma turned and glared at James, “I believe someone said last night, ‘Don’t worry about it, Honey. There is nothing wrong with Toni showing his true self. We want our kids to grow up and be who they are, right?’ Well, don’t back away from that now, James. You signed that form without question. It is too late now to question that decision.”

James sat in silence as Emma set the table for three people.

Staring off into nothingness, James started talking, “Three years ago, when we decided to split the boys into two rooms, Toni was nine. We had decided it was time he got a big boy bedroom. Do you remember what his response to that was?”

“No,” Emma looked at her husband.

“He wanted it painted pink, and when we said no to that, he wanted a light purple. We voted that down too. How could we not see our boy was transgender?”

Emma kissed James, “I’ve been asking myself that all day. I think we did see it but didn’t want to admit that is what we saw. Before Mandy’s room was transformed, nothing in there even hinted at a six-year-old or a girl. Luke’s room has stuffed animals all over the place. There are lots of things, besides his toys, with bright colors. He even has some of his baby toys still. Why is it okay for Luke to have all that at age nine, but we took it away from Toni when he was nine? We’re not considering doing that to Luke, so why did we do it to Toni?”

“You’re right,” James frowned. “We made excuses, saying he was autistic and just didn’t understand. Yet, it seems that we were the ones who didn’t understand. Wait a minute. What do you mean Toni will never want to wear boy clothes again because of what Cauldron Academy will do?”

“Laws in the magical society are different from ours when it comes to transgender children. Every time he steps through the portal into the school, his body will be transformed into a girl.”

“What?”

“They feel it is cruel and unusual punishment to force a transgender individual to stay in a body that does not align with their mind. Every moment she is at school, Mandy will be in the physical body of a girl. Sometimes a girl of twelve, and other times a six-year-old.”

“I thought this regression was only for the evaluation, to determine Toni’s developmental level?”

“Nope, she’ll be offered a chance to regress at least once daily until her last year there. They don’t regress them during their last year, in preparation for the transition out of the school.”

“You turned down his position at the school? Right?”

“No. Mandy will be starting there either tomorrow or Monday. I haven’t decided that yet.”

“So, I had a son this morning and a daughter tonight? I’m just immediately to accept that Toni is dead and replaced with a six-year-old girl named Mandy?”

“If that helps you get through this, then yes. I’m choosing to view it differently. I don’t feel Toni has died. To me, he never existed. It doesn’t matter what anyone says or even how I feel. Amanda was born with a birth defect, and because of that, I mistreated her for twelve years,” Emma said on the verge of tears. “I will spend the rest of my life doing whatever I can to make up for those twelve years. My job as a parent is to support my baby, no matter what. I have failed at my job, and now I must repair the damage I did.”

James got up and hugged Emma. After a few minutes together, Emma asked James to get Mandy for dinner.

“What about Luke?”

“He is at Joey’s house. I didn’t know when I was getting back, so I figured a play date would be helpful.”

When James walked into . . . Mandy’s room, he was not ready for what he saw. Mandy was lying on her stomach, playing with some Polly Pocket toys. When she scooted back, the skirt on her dress moved, exposing her underwear. To James' surprise, it wasn’t underwear. It looked like a diaper.

“Emma,” James called out. “Could you come here, please?”

“What honey,” Emma asked, entering the room?

“Is Toni . . . Mandy wearing a diaper?”

“Technically,” Emma hedged. “They’re disposable training pants, not diapers.”

“Why is he . . . she wearing them?”

Emma smiled, “You know that TSS form you signed last night?”

“What does that have to do with our twelve-year-old wearing diapers.”

“As I told you, her developmental level is six-years-old. Think about it, James. How often do we need to prompt her to use the toilet? Today when they took away all her learned skills and left only her mastered skills, she had an accident. At Cauldron Academy, that means they wear training pants for the rest of the day. With TSS, we can expect a lot more accidents until she masters toilet training. If the school has that policy, I will be implementing the same thing here at home. So, you better get used to her wearing training pants.”

“But Toni hasn’t had an accident for what, three years?”

“Yes, Mandy has gotten pretty good at getting to the potty. But, every time she does the potty dance and doesn’t immediately go running off to the bathroom, she is showing us she’s not fully trained yet. If no one prompts her to go, she still, apparently, has accidents,” Emma stated, looking down at Mandy. “She only had one accident today, even though she drank a lot throughout the day. That would indicate that we probably won’t see a lot of accidents, but we’ll get them occasionally.”

“Are training pants really necessary then,” James asked? “If we just prompt . . . her, training pants aren’t needed.”

“Every time we prompt her to use the potty when doing the potty dance, Mandy has turned the control over to us. We need her to learn about her body and what different body signals mean. Not prompting her that much is a better way to go. When she was little, it would be three days back in training pants for every accident. The school, at this point, is only having her wear them for the rest of the day. After some time to think about it, it seems reasonable.”

James looked between his wife and . . . daughter.

“Come on, Mandy,” Mom said as she approached Amanda. “Time for dinner. Mandy, are your stars still there?”

Mandy stood up and confirmed the stars were still on her training pants. Then the three headed to the kitchen for dinner.