Ariel’s problem, however, is that she lives in one world, under the sea, even as she yearns to be in another, on land. As she gazes at her image in a mirror beneath the waves, she feels comforted by the top half of her reflection. It’s the bottom that doesn’t make sense.
Mermaids are the go-to iconic figure that many of those born biologically male but identifying as female connect with and, thanks to the dominance of Disney in American culture, it is no surprise that Ariel from The Little Mermaid is the number mermaid among mermaids. After all, Jodi Benson’s rendition of “Part of Your World” in that animal film is a heartbreaking symbolic encapsulation of the intense feeling of desperately wanting to accepted into a culture that seems, by definition, an impossible paradox that can’t be reconciled.
But just as Ariel becomes a mermaid who can live out of the sea, so does it not beyond reason to imagine living as female even though born with male parts. That is the magic of Ariel in particular and mermaids in in the world of gender dysphoria because as far as anyone can tell, Ariel herself—any mermaid—might have male parts behind that fin. But she looks like a girl from the waist up and that is most certainly not impossible for those born with boy parts who know deep inside that this fact doesn’t necessarily make them male.
“Daddy, I hate my penis.”
Before actually becoming Nicole—well before—little Wyatt says these words to his father. He doesn’t just vocalize his desire, he makes the emotion palpable with eyes filled with tears. They are dangerous words for a child to say and that danger is compounded if said between sobs. Hard to say exactly, but leaning very hard to the conservative side of the issue, the chances are probably at least 50/50 that the response the child will receive from his father includes words like “sissy” at best. The more extreme reactions will be left to each person to imagine. What is in all probability nowhere close to being at 50/50 odds is the reaction Wyatt received from his father: scooping the devastated child into his arms and demonstrating a remarkably capacity to care about a little boy’s feelings more than his own. Whatever Wyatt’s father was thinking in that moment is utterly beside the point. It was through action that he proved himself—if only temporarily—a king among dads.
Their receptor gene for the male sex hormone testosterone was longer than in gender-conforming males and appeared to be less efficient at signaling the uptake of male hormones in utero, resulting in a more “feminized” brain.
The entire book is not devoted exclusively to the narrative center of Wyatt’s transition into Nicole. The author introduces the reader to the science of gender. These are essential elements of the book though some may see them as the equivalent of the “boring” chapters on whaling in Moby-Dick. (Which are also essential, by the way.) The information about the science behind gender dysphoria is so important because so many people simplify the issue into a case of personal choice. Although it may be too early in the research to assert at this point, developments so far have indicated that at some point in the future the evidence will be solid enough to retort that choosing one’s gender is like choosing the color of one’s eyes or whether they are left-handed.
As the author points out elsewhere, gender and sexual anatomy are not the same thing. They are both biological processes that occur independently of each other at different times in the development of the human body. It’s ironic, really. People are still racist because they believe there is such a thing a genetic division of races when in fact race was from the very beginning a social construct and not a biological one. On the other hand, most people seem to cling to the belief that transgenderism is social construct even as the evidence keeps piling up that it is a biological in origin.
