doing research on transgender children. There was little out there; it seemed they would have to find their way largely on their own.

“She really is a girl,’’ Kelly says, “a girl born with a birth defect. That’s how she looks at it.’’

Kelly and Wayne didn’t look at it as a choice their child was making.

Nicole and her parents filed a complaint with the Maine Humans Right Commission over her right to use the girls bathroom. The commission found that she had been discriminated against and, along with the Maines family, filed a lawsuit against the Orono School District. The suit is pending in Penobscot County Superior Court, and the Maines family is represented by lawyers from the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) in Boston and byLeague of Maine backing him. The superintendent of schools then decided Nicole should use a staff bathroom.

“They said, ‘It was about time!’ ’’ Nicole says. She was elected vice president of her class and excelled academically.

When fifth grade started, Wyatt was gone. Nicole showed up for school, sometimes wearing a dress and sporting shoulder-length hair. She began using the girls’ bathroom. Nikki’s friends didn’t have a problem with the transformation; there were playdates and sleepovers.

At first, though, he couldn’t bring himself to use the new name. An Air Force veteran and former Republican, he realizes now he was grieving the loss of a son. “But once you get past that, I realize I never had a son,’’ he says.

Wayne was nervous. Could he call his son Nicole? As