As I became more accepting of my trans-ness, I nudged my body in that direction too. I never wanted to be a man, and I didn’t want male parts. The word “trans” doesn’t stand for transition or even transformation. I simply wanted my outsides to match my insides.

One morning I stood in front of the mirror and pushed my breasts down, apart, flat. I imagined what I would look like with double mastectomy scars. I didn’t want my breasts anymore. I had fed my son with them, supported them with countless underwire bras and used them to get attention.

But I didn’t like them. It seemed like they didn’t even belong to me.

I fantasized about top surgery. Or maybe I would get some kind of cancer that wouldn’t kill me but would require removing my breasts. I clicked through galleries of post-op women who decorated their surgery scars with henna and floral tattoos. I thought, “If I get cancer, I’m not saving either one.”

It was the perfect solution: no breasts and no need to explain my gender expression.

I had already come out to my family as bisexual, queer, maybe gay, and a person in recovery from addiction. Every couple of years, I made the phone call or sent the card informing my parents of my newly discovered identity.

Their response was always the same: We love you. This doesn’t change anything. We’re proud of you.

For this reason, I was hesitant to drop the transgender bomb on them. What more did I want? Why bother telling them yet another thing that was weird about me when it didn’t affect the way they loved me?

I told myself labels don’t matter. I was already too complicated and had dragged my parents through enough. Of course, I was also a coward.