Becoming Nicole

Wyatt Maines is a transgender child. He is born with a boy’s body, but he is convinced that he is actually a girl from a young age. He starts going by the name Nicole and using female pronouns when he enters fifth grade. He is clear which gender he identifies with long before that, though. His favorite toys are Barbies, his favorite characters are witches and mermaids, and his favorite clothes are pink and sparkly. He wants to wear skirts in public, but his parents won’t let him do this for many years. Those items are for at home, where he is safe from the prying eyes of strangers. Wyatt tends to befriend girls and want to be them. He expresses hatred for his penis around age 3 and tells the other kids at school that he is a “boy-girl.”

Though he realizes that it is unusual for a boy to feel like a girl, he is not ashamed about it as a young child. He is outspoken and wants to be open about how he feels. He can be stubborn, too: “Wyatt was never one to doubt his interests or himself. He knew what he liked, who he liked, and what he wanted to be” (68).