These days, when she gets ready for school, the hair will be done. Perhaps it will be a braid of some sort, perhaps it will be curled. Earrings will be selected. A light and subtle application of age-appropriate makeup usually follows. The only constant is that she will always put on a skirt.
It didn’t used to be this way. When younger, she was quite the tomboy. There were the fights over getting her hair cut short, fights she lost not because we’re that controlling, but because short hair has to be cut more frequently and we didn’t want to add monthly visits to the stylist to the calendar. The uniform was shorts or pants and a polo for school, nicer pants and tops for dressier occasions, and athletic gear for casual moments. Jewelry was a no-go, even the pearls and things that grandmothers like to give to be worn at church.
She never suffered from dysphoria. She always knew she was a girl. It bothered her how often she was mistaken for a boy, not connecting the dots between her preferred functional form of attire and how it was virtually indistinguishable from the clothing sported by little boys. She was horrified when a classmate exhorted her to “just get the surgery.” That was reading too much into the truth, which was that she just wanted to play, to roughhouse, and to get outside. Dresses and skirts didn’t lend themselves to such things.
Once puberty arrived, the interests largely remained,
