You will begin to resemble the men in your family.”

I showed my ex-boyfriend the informed consent pamphlet my doctor gave me before I started t.

“I feel like I’m gonna wake up one day and realize I’m dating your dad,” they said

Almost a year after I started testosterone, my therapist diagnosed me with ADHD. When we first talked about the possibility, I couldn’t see it in myself.

My first reaction was, “Huh. That sounds like my dad!”

When I told him, he was surprised as well. He said he didn’t see it in me growing up. After I read through a list of traits on the self-assessment sheet I’d filled out, he said, “Well, a lot of those could be said about me.”

“It’s genetic,” I replied. I didn’t know what else to say.

A couple weeks later, I called my Papa. I hadn’t talked to him in over 3 years, since before the pandemic. I went by a different name then. It was at my sister’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid.

The wedding was at a church. He used to be a deacon, til he got tired of it and tired of my Nana and left to play pickleball in California with his new wife.

I guess we’ve both changed.

He asked me about my schooling and my career hopes and had a million different ideas and suggestions. (He desperately wants me to design the next pickleball glove).

When the topic turned to transition, he was… surprisingly lovely about it. We laughed ruefully about how conservative Spokane was, and he told me I have nothing to prove to anyone. He was just surprised, that’s all. He didn’t know what being trans was, and didn’t expect boyhood from me.

He told me he’s glad I’m focusing on my mental health (I assumed he meant being trans) and asked me if I knew his mom killed herself when he was 10. I didn’t. He said she tried a few times before it stuck, and never went to therapy, and he’s happy there’s less stigma nowadays. I didn’t ask if he’s ever been. I didn’t ask if he knows the statistics on how many trans people attempt suicide at least once in their life.