How we (re)named our transgender child

[Shana A]

Thursday, Jan 27, 2011 15:01 ET
How we (re)named our transgender child
My husband didn't want to be involved, so my 11-year-old daughter and I went about it on our own
By Meg Whitlock

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/27/renaming_our_transgender_child_open2011/

I am smitten with names, always have been. As a girl, I read the "What Shall We Name the Baby" book over and over until it was ragged and dog-eared. One day my father approached me anxiously asking whether I was pregnant. No, I wasn't, it was the love of names, the sounds that roll off your tongue, their meaning, their rhythm.

[...]

The addition of our fourth child changed our family in ways we never could have imagined. Three years ago we brought home an 8-year-old boy from China. (Having three boys it made sense to add a fourth, what with hand-me-downs and room sharing.) It threw us all for a loop when we figured out that, while biologically a boy, she self-identifies as a girl. Despite the challenges, or perhaps because of them, our whole family loves her, accepts her and is proud of her courage.

[spacial]

While the article had some level of interest and the style was interesting in a generic sort of way, that woman must be one of the most shallow individals that has ever written such an article.

I mean to say:

Only later did I find out that we'd inadvertently named our daughter after an American Girl Doll.

And this from a woman called Meg.