“Would you care to discuss this in private?” asked Sister Maria, “Perhaps, Tricia would like to meet some of our reception class children?”

“Would you like that, Trish?” I asked.

“Okay,” said Trish probably realising what we were going to discuss. Sister Maria sent for an older girl and asked her to escort her to the reception class and stay with her until we came to get her. The older girl, took Trish’s hand and they went off together.

“It’s good for them to practice a little caring for younger children.”

“Quite,” I agreed.

“Now what is it you need to tell me, let me guess she has a wooden leg and you want to keep her off games?”

I laughed and shook my head.

“Let me see, she’s really a boy, but likes to dress as a girl?”

“Yes.” I blushed as much for my own situation as that of Trish.

“Okay, we’ve dealt with that before. It can be a complication in games lessons, but otherwise we can cope.”

I was blown away with this easy-going attitude. “I don’t know what to say. I hope you’re not joking.”

“The wooden leg was a joke, the transgender thing wasn’t.”

“But the Pope ranted against gays and transgendered people at Christmas. I assumed it would have a knock on effect upon all things Catholic.”

“The Holy Father is entitled to his opinion, I’m entitled to mine. If he met young Tricia, he’d love her. That’s all that matters. Providing she conducts herself at all times as a young lady, she’s welcome here, although you will have to speak with the local education people. Usually, it happens later than this, but for her to grow up as a young woman from such an age, will have it’s advantages. Why did she come to you?”

“According to Nora, the lady who manages the children’s home she had been fostered three or four times but the various foster parents couldn’t cope and returned her. I have another foster child, who is three who received a head injury before she came to me. I had met her previously with her mother, who dumped her on me and disappeared. She was out of hospital but couldn’t walk, I just encouraged her and believed in her and we had her walking in a few days. So when I took her back to the hospital, the consultant asked me to have a go with Trish. I did and with a bit of cunning, I got Trish walking too. She’s been with me ever since, and I’m rather fond of her.

“Mima, my other girl, discovered that Trish has an anomaly and I explained it as a birth defect which she will have sorted when she’s grown up. Mima seemed to accept that for the moment.

“Trish told me she believes herself to be female, I accept her as such and promised to treat her as such until she says otherwise. That’s it, end of story.”

“She’s very fortunate to have found such a caring foster mum, as you said, not everyone could cope with the slings and arrows which will occur from time to time.”

“I think society is becoming more acceptant of people who are a little different.”

“Except those who are sexually different, somehow that seems to threaten them.”

“Sister Maria, you said that as if it came from the heart, maybe from past experience.”

“Very insightful of you, Mrs Watts. My younger sister, Valerie, was hounded out of our small community because she fell in love with another girl.”

“Crushes amongst teenage girls are hardly rare.”

“Is that your experience, Mrs Watts?”

I blushed furiously, “Um, no, I was rather late in developing crushes on anyone, I suspect my gonads were comatose until fairly recently.”

“Until after the surgery, you mean?”

“I beg your pardon?” I blushed even more and felt quite sick.

“I know why Tricia was sent to you, and why you care so much. When you explained her transgender status, I realised where I’d seen you before. You have hardly been low profile, in the local press for catching thieves, on BBC for being engaged to an aristocrat and being transsexual, and the clip…”

“On Youtube, is there anyone who hasn’t seen that film?”

“Don’t worry, your past life isn’t a problem, I’d still like to consider you to present our prizes or come and talk to our girls about dormice.”

“I’d be happy to do that, any time.”

“I want my girls to have role models, women who are empowered, who do something with their lives, who cope with obstacles and still succeed. Mrs Watts, I am really happy to accept you and your daughter at this school.”

I felt like crying, instead I thanked her and we shook hands.

“I’ll send you the paperwork, there will be forms to sign and so on, and I’m afraid we like the term’s instalment at the beginning of each session.”

“Yes, that’s okay.”

“Shall we go and collect your daughter?”

“Before we do, if I could ask a couple more questions?”

“Including that one?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You asked a question.”

“Oh, yes, I see.” We both laughed, “No, you said you’d encountered transgendered children before?”

“Yes we have here, and no I can’t say if the girl is still here.”

“No, I didn’t expect you to, I hoped it was here not at another school.”

“It was, and your other question?”

“I’m a little concerned about the religious element in your syllabus, I’m a scientist and therefore at best agnostic.”

“I’m afraid it’s a condition of the place, however, what you tell her at home is up to you providing you don’t cause her great conflict between us.”

“She’s amazingly bright for her age. I’ll have her reading before she comes here. So I hope she’ll cope with our disparities.”

“Perhaps, intelligence doesn’t always equate with maturity, which is as much an emotional state.”

“Yes, I appreciate that. I’m sorry, I’m prejudicing our case now, aren’t I?”

“Not at all, we have Catholic children whose parents are worried about the religious element, some want more others want less, and some want rampant Darwinism not Creationism. I hope we explain both, although I suspect you might well know more about evolution than a non-scientist like me. We both have our faiths, Mrs Watts, mine is to God, yours your science. Who is to say either of us are wrong? Surely it’s about how we live our lives, and only what we believe in how it informs that living?”

“Thank you Sister Maria, you remind me of a woman priest I met a year or so ago, she gave me something to think about, too.”

“Now, women priests, there’s something for the Holy Father to think about.”

At this point we went to collect Trish, who was sitting in the class reading a book to the older girl. A book, I wasn’t aware she’d seen before. “Hello, Trish, having fun?”

“Oh yes, Mummy, I like school.”

“Oh good, well we have to go now, so say thank you to Sister Maria and to your friend,” I indicated the older girl.

“Thank you, Eleanor, I enjoyed the book, I’ll have to put it on my reading list.” At this, it was as much as the rest of us could do to stop ourselves rolling about laughing. Talk about, old head on young shoulders–it had nothing on Trish.

“I think your daughter is going to pose one or two challenges, Mrs Watts.”

“I think I might well agree with you, Sister Maria.” We both smiled and said goodbye.

“Did you enjoy your time in the classroom?”

“Oh yes, Mummy, it was good fun.”

“So you think you’ll like school, do you?”

“I like this school, Mummy.”

“That’s good, because that’s where you’ll be going, come Easter.”

“Did you explain everything to Sister Maria?”

“I think so, why don’t you trust me?”

“Oh yes, Mummy, but I hoped you’d get the facts right.”

“I told her you were a girl with a genital problem, like we did Mima.”

“I like that explanation, Mummy.”

“I thought you might, come on, let’s get Tom some fruit on the way to the hospital.”

“Why do you sometimes call him Tom instead of Daddy?”

“I don’t know, Trish. Perhaps because he hasn’t been my daddy for very long.”

“Who was your daddy before?”

“A man called Derek Watts, who had some difficulties with having a daughter. He didn’t like me, and although I loved him, I didn’t like him much either. He was rather mean to me when I was a bit younger.”

“Did he want a boy not a girl?”

“I’m afraid he did.”

“So did my first Mummy. I’m so glad I have you as my Mummy now.”

“Well, I did make it up with my first Daddy, but he died last year after a long illness, my Mummy died the year before. Then Tom sort of adopted me, and we agreed he could be my second Daddy. He had a daughter called Catherine, she died in a car accident.”

“Oh dear, was he sad?”

“Yes, for quite a long period. He says I make him happy because he remembers the better times with his first daughter.”

“Do I make you happy?”

“Yes, Trish you do. I can’t have babies, so you and Mima are my two babies.”

“Why can’t you have babies, you have boobies?”

“Babies grow in a different part of your body called a womb, mine didn’t grow properly, so I can’t have babies.” I know this was a white lie, sort of, arguably, a half lie. All embryos start as female and only later differentiate to become male. The proto-sex organs develop into the masculine forms from the generic female ones, the left over bits being reabsorbed. So it wasn’t entirely a lie–was it? Stop nodding.

“Will mine grow properly?”

“I’m afraid not, so you won’t be able to have babies as a woman, unless some new method is developed to create or transplant wombs.”

“Could you have babies then?”

“Possibly, the problem I have with the idea, is that the womb has to cope with enormous stresses during pregnancy and birth, that I doubt a transplant would work. So I’m still waiting to see if implants grown from cloned cells would work better, but it’s hardly a form of research which would receive lots of funding…” I glanced around at Trish, she was fast asleep in the child’s car seat.