Outcomes

He's aware that it will not be as easy as this: to transform like a superhero with a twist and a puff of smoke, but he wishes to try. Medicine will do its work: hormones marching towards homecoming; talking therapies and SSRIs too, support groups for kids his age, support groups for his parents; each making their mark over a four year terrain (or however long it takes). His body is in learned hands, slowly coming up to speed with the truth in his mind. He has lived through pain to reach this stage of third party recognition - agonies staggered in scale - with only more to come. There is love within his family and strength to sustain him, but now his pathway has been defined, accepted and recorded on medical files, surely there's a time for magic: a sweet release from all that sits on his shoulders. The pleasure and fantasy of a swirl and a flash. He cannot explain to others the desire to be momentarily unafraid. If he spoke they would misunderstand his actions for impatience; he wants his face to roughen behind the smoke, his voice to lose its hated tremulousness. A shaved head would not be unwelcome, but he defines his acceleration in less physical terms: for him, being complete is to walk through the cloud and find that all is as it should be: he his himself. A long walk, but he believes.