My parents were visiting this weekend to attend my son's eighth grade graduation ceremony, and my son and my nephew left this morning to spend the next four weeks of the summer with them. So yesterday my Mom and I went on an errand to get an updated prescription for my son.

While we were out, we naturally began talking about my son's challenges, for which he meets with a psychologist. She asked me if his psychologist, before he was 13 would tell me about their visits and what he spoke about. Of course the answer to that is no, not unless there was something that was a danger to himself or others.

For those of you that have read at least the beginning of my story Jason's Story, you know about how my parents found out about Kristine when I was in middle school. That story begins autobiographically and deviates only when the psychologist prescribes a practice of acceptance rather than attempting to cure Jason, as the real doctor that I met with did.

In my life, I did suppress Kristine for some time, and it was not until I was in college that I really accepted that she was a part of who I am. So as far as my parents know I was cured. I have never tried to change that, not because they would not accept me, but because they would and I know it would bother them; they don't really need to know.

Anyway, Mom said, "Because your doctors never did. I never knew what led to that and what we might have done, or not done wrong. Did it help?"

I kind of shrugged, and told her that it was nothing they did. That from everything that I have seen or read, the current theories suggest that it is biological and something that happens to the wiring of the brain in the womb. I told her about the hormonal washes, and that all fetus's start off female and those that are male are pushed by hormonal washes to reconfigure the body and brain, and that in some cases that does not happen they way it is supposed to for males.

I told her that the doctor did help me, as he definitely did, with my self esteem and my handling of relationships with others.

I told her that those feelings would always be a part of who I am.

She asked me if I had ever told my wife about it, and I said, "Yes, I have no secrets from her."

As we talked she had said something about having never seen the signs of it, and I pointed out that they were there. I said I was writing stories about gender changing in early grades, 3rd or 4th at the latest. She said but you never showed them to us, I said, "Yes, actually I even turned one in at school. One about boys begin turned into witches, instead of warlocks. Because, based on some rediculous idea I had from I think Bewitched, that Warlocks were more powerful, so the witch didn't want the boys to be more powerful then her eventually." [I know... Chauvenistic, etc. I was only in 3rd or 4th grade... don't yell at me now ;) ]

She said but we didn't recognize that, and I asked her, "How could you have?"

At one point I think she started to ask me if it was still an active part of my life, but she stopped saying, "No - I shouldn't ask that." (A remarkable display of tact from my mother, if you knew her.)

The conversation drifted away from me in particular, though I did tell her about Jazz and the other tg kids in the Barbara Walters's special. I told her that one of them had already in preschool years tried to remove her penis with a blunt children's scissors. Not that she could have succeeded but that she tried, and that the way that young kids that show signs are being treated by the medical community is very different now, then it was when I was young.

In the end, I did not positively tell her that yes, Kristine is alive and well and is actively a part of my life. Nor did I tell her that, that part of me has a name, Kristine V. Roland. I especially did not mention that the V is for Veronica which is my mother's name. Yet, I hope she got some comfort from the conversation, that she did not do anything wrong.

One thing I always knew, was that my parents loved me, and that regardless of what had happened they would accept me. They did what they thought was right to try to help, they sought out experts. Even though the doctor they found treated as a mental health issue, he was not judgmental, etc. He did try to help me, and I think did the best he could with what they knew at the time.

In the end that knowledge of unconditional love has been the foundation of my life, it provides me with the strength to deal with my own issues with TG, even though they are not aware of it. Combined with the exceptional good fortune of finding my wife who was able to accept me and to provide the outlet that I need for Kristine, I am content, and happy.