Part 2
... tense and anxious, as if his heart was in knots and he didn’t know how to untie them.
How can one identical twin be transgender and the other not?
(Gillian Brockell, Jorge Ribas and Monica Akhtar)
***
Humans have long thought they could control the sex of a newborn, or, at the very least, influence whether a baby would be born male or female. Ancient Romans believed if a pregnant woman carried the egg of a chicken close to her breast, she would give birth to a boy. Artistotle contended that conception on the day of a strong north wind would result in a male child, on the day of a strong south wind, a female. Hippocrates’s solution, perhaps, was the simplest, if also the most painful: binding of the right testicle for the birth of a girl; binding the left for a boy.
There is no shortage of only slightly more sophisticated theories today. But what we know for sure is that we all begin life essentially genderless, at least in terms of sexual anatomy. The last of our 23 pairs of chromosomes makes us either genetic males (XY) or genetic females (XX). But there are at least 50 genes that play a part in sexual identity development and are expressed at different levels early on.
Sexual anatomy, however, is determined in large part by hormones. All of us begin, in utero, with an opening next to the anus and a kind of genital “bud.’’ The addition of testosterone drives the fetus in the male direction. An inhibiting hormone prevents males from developing internal female reproductive organs. Without testosterone, the embryo develops in the female direction.
Sexual differentiation of the genitals happens at about six weeks, but the sexual differentiation of the brain, including gender identity and the setting of our gender behavior, is, at least partly, a distinct process. Again, hormones play the crucial role, with surges of testosterone indirectly “masculinizing” the brains of some fetuses, causing subtle but distinct differences in brain structure and functional activity.
For instance, the straight gyrus, a narrow strip that runs along the midline on the undersurface of the frontal lobe, is about 10 percent larger in women than men. The straight gyrus, scientists have found, is highly correlated with social cognition — that is, interpersonal awareness.
These same scientists, however, caution that differences in biological sex are not necessarily hard-wired or absolute. In adults, they found that regardless of biological sex, the larger the straight gyrus, the more “feminine” the behavior. For most males, the action of male hormones on the brain is crucial to the development of male gender identity. A mutation of an androgen receptor on the X chromosome can cause androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which virilization of the brain fails, and when it does, a baby will be born chromosomally male (XY) and have testes rather than ovaries but also a short vagina, and the child’s outward appearance will be female. Its gender identity is nearly always female.
In other words, our genitals and our gender identity are not the same. Sexual anatomy and gender identity are the products of two different processes, occurring at distinctly different times and along different neural pathways before we are even born. Both are functions of genes as well as hormones, and while sexual anatomy and gender identity usually match, there are dozens of biological events that can affect the outcome of the latter and cause an incongruence between the two.
In some ways, the brain and the body are two very different aspects of what it means to be human, especially when it comes to sex and gender. Who we are, male or female, is a brain process, but what we look like at birth, what we develop into at puberty, who we are attracted to and how we act — male, female or something in between — are all embedded in different groups of brain cells with different patterns of growth and activity. Ultimately gender identity is the result of biological processes and is a function of the interplay between sex hormones and the developing brain, and because it is a process that takes place over time, in utero, it can be influenced by any number of environmental effects.
***
The idea of a name change for Wyatt had been hanging over the family as the boys advanced through elementary school. If they were going to let Wyatt look like a girl and dress like a girl, then surely he deserved a girl’s name.
When they asked Wyatt what name he’d like, he said, “Raven,” a character on one of his favorite television shows.
“That’s not a real name,” Wayne complained. “That’s a TV name.”
But TV names were the ones with which Wyatt was most familiar. He considered Quinn, a character on the Nickelodeon teen comedy/drama “Zoey 101,” but he kept stumbling over the spelling. Finally, he settled on Nicole, or Nikki for short, one of Zoey’s sidekicks.
(Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Whether Nicole or Nikki, it was difficult for Wayne to get the name out, so he tried to avoid using either. Once again, still feeling ambivalent, he left it to Kelly to sort out the details. When she called the family lawyer, she quickly discovered legally changing a name wasn’t nearly as simple as filling out a form. In Maine, by law, name changes are announced in the newspaper. If the Maineses wanted to keep this out of the public eye, they’d have to petition the court to make an exception. The last thing Kelly and Wayne wanted was to make some public announcement, no matter how small, that their son was now their daughter.
Wayne and Nicole Maines at an April 2015 gala in Boston honoring Dr. Norman Spack, Nicole’s doctors, who co-founded the first clinic in the United States to treat transgender children. (Courtesy of Maines Family)
Before any petition would be granted, however, the parents had to appear in person at the county courthouse. Seated in the small courtroom on a hot summer day, Kelly and Wayne fidgeted nervously waiting for the judge. When he finally entered, their hearts sank just a bit — he was an elderly gentleman, probably over 70, with white hair, and a pair of sneakers peeking out from under his black robe.
“Why are you changing your son’s name to a girl’s name?” he asked.
Kelly’s back arched slightly. Their lawyer, or rather the real estate attorney filling in for their lawyer, answered, “Their daughter is a transgender child, Your Honor, and has been presenting as a girl for a number of years. The parents, doctors and counselors agree this is the right thing to do at this time.”
“Why are you petitioning to keep this out of the paper?”
“Due to the recent protests . . . by the Christian Civic League, they are requesting this to be kept private,” the attorney answered, referring to a local, politically active organization with vehemently anti-gay and anti-transgender views.
(Published by Random House)
“Maybe the Christian Civic League should appear in court to have their say,” the judge said.
What the hell is going on? Wayne thought. Kelly’s eyes welled and Wayne shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Wayne, who’d had such a hard time making this adjustment, knew he had to do something. He raised his hand and asked if he could say something.
Wayne explained that his son Wyatt had been expressing feelings he was a girl from the age of 2 and that his insistence he was born in the wrong body had made it difficult for him in school. They were convinced, and Wyatt’s doctors agreed, that he should be allowed to transition to being a girl.
“I see no reason to deny your request,” the judge said. “You are obviously very concerned about your child’s safety.”
For Wayne, this was the first time he’d shown any kind of public support for Wyatt being transgender. His instincts as a father had been tested without his even realizing it, and he’d responded to the challenge.
The petition was granted, and in a matter of days Wyatt Benjamin Maines would officially and legally become Nicole Amber Maines. The middle name was Kelly’s idea. She just liked the sound of it. Ultimately, the name change and petition were relatively easy. What neither Kelly nor Wayne knew as they walked out of the courtroom was that everyone’s life was about to get a lot harder.