She is only 6 years old. Already the child who sits, legs tucked, on a canopied bed near a closet filled with princess dresses has lost her best friends.
Kids who used to ask A.J. to birthday parties stopped calling.
Parents back in preschool avoided making eye contact.
Once, at a ballet open house, A.J. and her mom ran into a family with whom they had always been close.
"They looked at us," the Kansas City mother recalls, "crossed the sidewalk and didn't say anything."
"For a while it made me hate humanity," she conceded. " 'You just proved yourselves to be the lowest human beings on the planet. You know my kid. You know my child is a happy, kind, sweet, considerate kid and nothing has changed, except ...' "
Except that A.J., born and known to all as a boy, had been determined to be transgender. The rough-and-tumble kid who once sported buzz cuts and dressed for his birthday as a pirate was growing her chestnut hair below her shoulders.
A.J. was now a girl.
