Marlo Mack - How to Be a Girl: A Mothers Memoir of Raising Her Transgender Daughter

For M., who hung the moon

HOW TO BE A GIRL: A Mothers Memoir of Raising Her Transgender Daughter
Copyright 2021 by Marlo Mack
The is a continuation of this copyright page.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mack, Marlo, author.
Title: How to be a girl : a mothers memoir of raising her transgender daughter / Marlo Mack.
Description: New York : The Experiment, LLC, [2021]
Identifiers: LCCN 2021032847 (print) | LCCN 2021032848 (ebook) | ISBN
9781615197989 (paperback) | ISBN 9781615197996 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Mack, Marlo. | Parents of transgender children--Biography.
| Transgender children--Family relationships. | Mother and child. |
Gender identity in children.
Classification: LCC HQ759.9147 .M33 2021 (print) | LCC HQ759.9147 (ebook)
| DDC 306.76/8083 [B]--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032847
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032848

ISBN 978-1-61519-798-9
Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-799-6

Cover design by Beth Bugler
Cover photograph by Marlo Mack
Text design by Sarah Schneider

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing October 2021
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Authors Note

T he story Im about to share with you is about real people. Its about me and my daughter and those who have lived through this very interesting time with us. To preserve the privacy of my child and others, Ive changed nearly all of the names, including my own.

What I have not changed is the story, as I actually lived it. Ill be telling you this story from the beginning, which was ten long years ago, back in 2011. Back when I knew almost nothing about the profoundly complex and beautiful possibilities of gender; when I was the bewildered, doting mother of a precocious three-year-old who had so much to teach me.

Me: Thats a beautiful drawing.

My child (age three): Yes, it is.

Me: Can you tell me about it?

My child: Its me and you, Mama.

Me: Which one is you?

My child: Thats me. Youre a princess. And Im a fairy.

A princess and a fairy, drawn by my three-year-old

Step One

Take a deep breath.

T here are not many moments like this. Moments that split open your world, slicing a deep crevasse across your life, so that everything before the moment belongs to a foreign, unvisitable world where a language is spoken that you no longer speak, and the words and customs of the new world are suddenly all that is comprehensible to you. It might happen after a big death, or the birth of your first child. Or it might be upon hearing a particular string of words uttered at that right, rare moment when your heart is raw and open.

That is what happened to me. I knew my child was different from the other children. I knew that most three-year-old boys did not spend long afternoons playing with plastic fairy figurines. I knew they didnt beg their moms for ballet classes and princess dresses and everything that sparkled and glittered. I knew this was going to be more complicated, raising a boy who did not act like one.

The other moms assured me it would pass. At preschool pickup, they would enthusiastically compliment the surprisingly pink shoes worn by my little boy. What a fun color! a mom would say. And as my son smiled shyly and looked down to admire his beautiful feet, the mother of an older boy would tell me of the time when her own son had likewise mistaken the world of girls for his own. My son loved pink in preschool, too! she might say. Or He used to dress up in his big sisters clothes! She would laugh at her sweet story, an example of the kind of charming error small children often make, like thinking you could draw your own money, or that your parents were old enough to remember the dinosaurs.

But I wondered.

I wondered if her son had ever drawn a self-portrait with puff-sleeved gowns and Rapunzel-length hair. Or recoiled at the sound of his own name, declaring it ugly and pleading to instead be called something pretty, like Rainbow. I wondered if her son had ripped off his clothes every day after school, to replace them with the floral-print party dress coaxed out of his grandma on a trip to the thrift store, and if he had then twirled around the living room in a graceful trance, singing a tuneless song about fairies.

I wondered if this mother had dithered and delayed in response to his ever-pinker requests, hoping this unusual passion would subside with time. If she had lain awake at night wondering where she had gone wrong, asking herself how she had so utterly failed to steer her precious boy in a safer direction, and whether there was any chance left of helping him change course now.

And I wondered how she felt when it dawned on her that all of the characters in her sons favorite books, and the only children he requested for playdates, and every single one of his beloved stuffed animals... were girls.

Like me, she had probably never heard of a boy like thata boy who didnt seem to want to be one.

My childs self-portrait, age four

When the world split wide open, it was a November evening. We had just walked in the front door and were shedding the days damp coats and bags. Outside, the Seattle sky was preparing for an early bedtime, transforming the cloud ceiling from old-pillow gray to the color of wet ash.

I reached out to flip on the lights and felt my child slip his hand into mine.

Mama, he said, something went wrong in your tummy.

I heard my purse hit the floor. It did?

Yes, he said. And it made me come out as a boy instead of a girl.

The tips of his fingers dug into my palm, and I looked down at the three-year-old face tilted up at mine. The perfect brow was creased down the middle. His pale blue eyes, like circles cut from a summer sky, were flooding with tears, but did not blink. His little body, usually in constant motion, was unnaturally rigid and tall, a tiny soldier frozen at attention.

Breathe, I said to both of us. Take a deep breath.

He ignored me. Put me back, Mama, he rasped, expelling all that was left in his little lungs. Put me back, so I can come out again as a girl. He gasped for air and his body curled up into sobs. I sank to my knees and reached for him, but he pushed me away and pointed with his whole arm at my stomach. Please, Mama! my child howled. Put me back!