Compromise

DJ wants to color her hair.  No problem-when I was her age, I wanted to experiment with my look, too.  We've already let her dabble a bit in this direction by the way of a few vibrant streaks in her hair.  But that's not enough apparently because now she wants her entire head to be a work of technicolor art.  Initially, to quote a"Glee" character (because I'm hip like that), I said, "Hell to the no."  I followed with something that I thought was even wittier, which neither she, nor Bulldog on my repeating it at a later date, found amusing, "You will look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book."

Of course, she brought it up to me first, knowing Bulldog's propensity towards inflexibility.  But, in true teenage fashion, my "hello to the no" remark only caused her to dig in her heels, nicely, mind you, 'cause that's how DJ rolls.  She won me over by agreeing to:  1) use a semi-permanent dye 2) not bleach her hair first 3) pay for it and maintain it herself.  I told her if she REALLY wanted to do this, she'd run it by Bulldog/Dad.

To his credit, HE didn't respond with a "hell to the no" but rather with, "let me think about it."  I warned her that she would have to continue to pursue the issue with him because "let me think about it" actually means, "I might agree to it after you repeatedly bring it up after I attempt to avoid the issue."

So, I brought it up to him and Bulldog raised an interesting point.  We're facing the first school year where DJ will not only be in school full time, but she will be in the regular student population for every single class, rather than spending a large portion of her day in the comparatively safe and secluded computer lab.

 Her first semester after she began her transition was spent primarily being schooled at home with online courses.  We live in a conservative, small town.  It's the kind of place where the ladies at Wal-Mart are the nicest in the world, because it's a small town, while being different can really piss off the people who were born and raised in that same small town. To our small town's credit, aside from the open ridicule from a teacher (we didn't see that coming-especially from that teacher), DJ has been treated well, on her return, the second semester.  But a significant part of her day was spent doing AP classes in the computer lab, which allowed her to mix in with the student population somewhat, in a very chaperoned manner.

This semester will be your typical semester-no seclusion in computer lab.  We (Bulldog and I) think of it as an important, and somewhat frightening, big step.  DJ thinks it's de rigeur, because she's a kid.  Bulldog is concerned that sending her to school with, albeit a comparatively subdued hue of, vibrant crayola hair could serve to make her a target.  His thought was to see how the first month of school went, and if it went as well as last year, he'd give her the green light to make her hair....well, not green, but only a few crayons over in the box from green.

She was upset.  It took some talking to get at exactly why she was upset, other than the "But I want to do it now" response many young people employ.  She was upset because she felt like we were reacting because of the fact that she's a trans girl.  Well....she's kinda right on that one.  But wouldn't we be foolhardy to not recognize the potential for fall out?  Our rationale, as we explained it to her was to let kids get to know her for her.  Most everybody has heard about her, that used to be a guy, etc., etc., but let those kids who don't know her see her for who she is: a regular girl.  People have visceral reactions to other people not being mainstream.  DJ is "lucky" that her natural appearance lends itself easily to passing as the girl she is both inside, and almost entirely, outside, as well.   Add the technicolor hair, and it just might make her "too" different, at first.

"Let people get to know you first" was our thought process.  She wasn't buying it.  We were holding her back from being herself and we were trying to keep her trans status under wraps, she said.  Ummmm, we're just trying to get you to adulthood unscathed, we said.

Being a girl in this world is scary.  One in four girls will be molested before adulthood.  One in freaking four!!!  One in four women will experience domestic violence in her life.  WTF!  Should not these mirror images of statistics scare the crap out of all women and the people who love them?  Now, on top of being a woman, or a girl, you're a trans girl, or a lesbian girl, or a "butch" girl-does that not have the potential for making you more of a target and as parents, shouldn't we proceed even more cautiously?  Well, that's our perspective.  She still ain't buyin' it, but we've convinced her that, "yes, you can dye your hair a color that resembles a fruit next month, if everything is going well at school" is a far cry from "hell to the no", and THAT, dear daughter, is called compromise.