When I was in second grade, I had a friend, who I’ll call Rorry.

Rorry was born a boy, but wanted to be a girl.

This isn’t going to be a political post. I’ll only be sharing a story about my friend.

Rorry was new in school. Rorry wore boy clothes, had a boy hair cut, and was known by all of us as a boy.

Rorry was quiet, withdrawn, and shy. Rorry was good at drawing and didn’t have friends.

(For the duration of this story, and because I am sharing from my own memories as a second-grader, I’ll refer to Rorry as a “he”. I’ll make the reasons more clear towards the end of this thread).

I forget how Rorry and I began to talk for the first time. I might have admired one of his drawings, or he might have admired one of mine (we both liked to draw).

We also both loved Pokemon. He had a much bigger collection than I did. We quickly became friends.

One day, he wanted to invite me over to his house.

I remember my mom making a big deal out of it because this was one of the first “boy friends” I’ve had. I went over to his house, knocked on the door, and Rorry's mom invited me inside.

It was clear to me that this was the first time Rorry had any friend over from this town. His mom sat me down on the sofa, grinning and looking at me too long, telling me how nice it was for Rorry to have a nice friend in this town.

It's hard to describe the energy I felt at that time, as a second grader. But something about Rorry's house felt lonely. I never met Rorry's dad, and there were no siblings. The house was beautiful, there were two adorable collie dogs, but something felt stark.

And I remember the way Rorry's mom sat me down to talk to me, looking at me as if I might discover something that would make me scared and run away. She was kind to me, but as if there was some cautiousness, nervousness, protecting something.

His mom talked to me on the sofa while Rorry got ready upstairs. It took a long time for him to get ready, and so his mom went upstairs to get him.

It became clear from the fragmented argument I overheard that Rorry wanted to wear "something else". His mother insisted against it. Rorry might have had a small tantrum.

I was never clear at the time what Rorry wanted to wear. But he came down in a regular shirt and jeans.

I didn’t question it too much, but I remember how the energy made me feel. As if I was a guest or witness intruding on a moment that was much more private.

Later, his mom asked him to show me his room—in the way that all kids do. He had a blue room, a very “boy” room. I remember admiring his pet turtle, his action figures that were slightly dusty on display. He shrugged, saying that he wished his room was different.

We did bond over Pokemon, and talked about our favorite ones. His favorite Pokemon was Ninetales, the elegant white fox Pokemon, who I also liked.

Once, when he mentioned this to school in front of the other boys, they all made fun of him since Ninetales was a “girly” Pokemon.

We went outside to play with his two collie dogs, ran around, and at a point we both collapsed into the grass to look up at the clouds. I remember the clouds were puffy and white, the sky very blue, and the dogs sat around us.

We weren't looking at one another. But around that moment, he told me that he wished he was a girl. And not only did he wish he was a girl, but he thought that deep down, he was a girl.

I remember an awkward, still silence between us as we looked up at the sky together.

This wasn’t a conversation that felt casual. I remember that I listened to his words he kept saying and felt strange, almost heavy.

I remember feeling conscious of my own girl body as he sat next to his boy body, and he wished deeply for something that I had and he didn't.

Later on, Rorry showed me a sharp knife that he kept hidden in one of his drawers. He didn’t tell me what he planned to use it for.

After that, whenever we played, he would tell me this again and again. Somehow he trusted me, and I didn't share his secret.

He told me felt like he was a girl. He hated wearing his clothes. He hated his hair. He hated feeling confined to be with the boys and do boy things. Rorry wanted to be with me, and with other girls.

Rorry was made fun of badly in school. He didn’t like to hang out with the boys, who were vicious to him—he liked to stay with me, and with some of the girls. The girls also thought he was weird, and didn’t want to hang out with a boy.

This made me feel torn. Sometimes I ran off with my girl friends, but I hated seeing Rorry alone and I would sometimes go play alone with him instead.

For my eighth birthday, I invited Rorry over to my party. Rorry was the only boy I invited.

(not sure if it’s different now, but I remember kids my age mostly having single-sex birthday parties with their school friends).

For some reason Rorry's mom felt that it was important to have him come about half an hour early—which my mom accepted. There was something about his mom that seemed extra protective and cautious, or scared.

Rorry came over and we ran up to my room while our moms talked.

I wasn’t a very girly kid, but my room I shared with my sister was girly. My wallpaper was pink and covered in colorful tulips. My mirror was hand painted and pink. We had pink twin beds, little figurines of carousel horses on the dresser, an array of dolls and stuffed animals.

Rorry loved my room. He was obsessed. He touched the pink curtains, the pink bed, admiring everything almost as if he never saw a girl’s bedroom before, almost as if he might never touch one again.

He kept telling me, again and again, how lucky I was, how very lucky I was.

When we opened my closet, he ran his hands over my pastel Easter dress.

He wrapped himself in it, grinning, telling me how much he would love to wear this dress. He held it for a long time.

I remember feeling strange, uncomfortable. That this felt far beyond playing.

Part of it made me confused, uncomfortable, but part of me felt bothered.

Bothered that Rorry, who so wanted to be a girl, was a boy instead.

This was the late nineties. I was eight years old. I knew absolutely nothing about gender identity, gender dysphoria. I wouldn’t know anything about any of this until later in life.

But I still knew something felt wrong. I imagined to myself if Rorry were a girl instead, how different we would be. Rorry would still be my same friend who liked drawing and Pokemon, but Rorry would be happy. Rorry might have dresses and girl clothes and pretty hair.

Maybe part of these thoughts were selfish, because the thought of Rorry being a girl friend might have been more appealing to a second grade girl.

But I also knew, in my own way, that Rorry would be truly happier if this were the case.

This wasn't something that made logical sense to me, or something that could remotely happen. It was just a private consideration I had, sort of a happy daydream.

Towards the end of the school year, Rorry’s mom volunteered to use their house for an end-of-year-pool party. His house was very near the school, so it was a very convenient choice.

I remember feeling excited, that everyone else in class would meet Rorry’s adorable dogs, see his nice house--something I was privvy to.

But some of the boys quietly made vicious remarks on the way over and giggled as Rorry walked in the front of the line with the teacher.

I don’t remember much from the pool party itself. There were snacks inside, Rorry's dogs bounded around the yard.

But something happened, something I didn’t see, that made Rorry run away, run away from everyone, hiding in a hidden nook of his backyard where I found him in tears

He told me, shaking and in tears, that he didn’t want to be here. That he hated it here. That he just wanted to be a girl. I remember him shivering, shaking, crying, his bare chest and hair covered dripping with water from the pool.

As he cried and cried to me, I felt helpless. I didn’t know what to do or say to make him feel better. I felt almost angry. Something about the situation felt so unfair.

Soon after, Rorry’s family suddenly packed up and moved from town towards the end of the school year. My mom told me only because his mom called to tell my mom.

I didn’t get to say goodbye. I never saw or heard from Rorry again.

I sometimes still think about Rorry, now. I wonder if what he expressed to me was some sort of “phase”, some desire masking another issue, or if it was something deeper and more serious.

I wonder where Rorry is now. What Rorry looks like. If Rorry is happy. If it was truly just a phase for him. I don’t know, and any combination of scenarios in my head are just as likely—Rorry being a man, being a woman, being happy, being sad, being alive, being dead.

I don’t know if Rorry had gender dysphoria, if Rorry was just going through a phase, if Rorry was depressed. I was only in second grade.

I just knew that my friend had a deep, deep, unrelenting desire to be a girl. That he felt that he was in the wrong body, the wrong life.

And that it made him deeply miserable, vulnerable, depressed. Wishing he wasn’t here. He was eight. Children at eight get sad or cry or throw tantrums, but Rorry’s unhappiness felt so much deeper, and I had no answers for him except to sit with him and listen.

I don’t want to guess or infer more about who Rorry really was, what action might have been taken to have him feel happy, safe, and accepted. I just know that Rorry was a deeply unhappy child.

I knew that his unhappiness was unrelenting, at the bottom surface every time we played together.

Even if we sat in his room or in my room, on the playground, talked and drew or laughed, his unhappiness lingered deep and steady below the surface.

As we talk about this in a larger national political conversation, it’s easy to dismiss the issue of gender identity, an issue that privately impacts the lives of so many.

It's easier for us to cling to what we know than admit that we have barely brushed the surface.

It’s even easier to ignore it in children, because thinking of a child hating his or her own body and the sex he or she was born in makes us uncomfortable and uneasy, because there are no easy answers or straightforward solutions we can provide.

But what we can do is try to understand. To listen. To continue to look at the data that come out. As we have learned in the past few decades, sex, sexuality, and gender identity are not always black-and-white.

The truth can be more complex, beyond our current understanding.

Most of all, I ask people to talk about these issues while considering the dignity and humanity of people who suffer from a gender identity crisis, from transgender people.

Dismissing them, ignoring them, and refusing to speak about them is denying their very humanity.

I ask us to be kinder. To be reasoned. And to listen.

That as we struggle to learn more, to understand, that we can talk about this without name-calling, without rash judgment, without anger or frustration clouding our heart.