BEFORE I LEAVE my house to visit my ninety-year-old great-aunt, I pause at my front door, faltering at the threshold. I glance down at the singlet I’m wearing, wondering if my great-aunt knows about my recent top surgery. I decide to turn back and exchange the singlet for a loose T-shirt, just in case. 

When I knock on her door, I’m not sure what to expect. I haven’t seen her in almost five years, since before I changed my name and well before I began my second puberty. When she opens the door, she exclaims, ‘Oh my goodness! Don’t you look incredible. Wow! You’re just radiating.’