The Price of 'Progress', Part I

If you are now reading this note I am hoping you’ll understand, I didn’t mean for any of this, was trying to be a good man. All that I was trying to do was support my only son, Dan. It started when he was eleven, and declared to all that he was ‘trans.’ I’ve always been a progressive, and though the news struck me at first, I wanted to do right by my son, wanted to lighten the mental hurt, to be stuck in the wrong body… I did not know what would be worse. He would need help to transition, so we began a doctor search. Now we lived in small town Kansas, it’s not known for progressive ways, most doctors would not help us out, wouldn’t give us the time of day. We had to go to Topeka, where a man heard what we had to say, a doctor who would help us out, as long as we were willing to pay. We started with hormone blockers, to hold off the male puberty, that was followed by estrogen, he grew out his hair to look pretty. At first Dan seemed much better off, for several months looked quite happy, though didn’t like having to wait whole year for the surgery. But the day came, and the day went, and then Dan’s transition was complete, he now called himself Daniella to any people he might meet. Soon enough the whispers went ’round to all the people on the street, but I cared not for their ‘old’ views, Daniella they would not defeat. My parents stopped talking to me, said allowing this was insane, to cut up a child’s body who had an undeveloped brain. They said it was child abuse, his future nothing but pain, and what would happen if he grew and came to regret this drastic change? I called them out as ‘filthy transphobes,’ said they had hateful points of view. My father just gave me a sneer, and said, “Your son’s life is screwed.” Of course then I just doubled down, and said, “I have no use for you.” I haven’t talked to them since then, I so believed my words were true… For the next few years things went well, just Danielle, me, and my wife, and my son seemed to adapt well to the choice he had made in life. But about the time he turned fifteen something about him didn’t seem right, one night I found hm in his room Staring dolefully at a knife. CONTINUES IN PART II.