"Wow, that's a new look for you," Heather Myers said when Jacob and his mother showed up at self-defense class.

"I asked mom if she'd do it," he said of the french braid. "Keeps my hair out of my face when we're kick-boxing."

"Oh, so you're not making a fashion statement?" His support group leader asked.

"Come on Heather," he replied. "What kind of fashion statement can I make in a t-shirt, sweat pants and tennis shoes?"

"Nice to know you're really opening up, there, Jade," she said as she gave him a hug. "It's a little different than the reserved, 'can't get anything out of you' Jake."

He shrugged his shoulders and went over to tapped his mom on her back. She was in deep conversation with another member in class.

"So Mom, you going to kick butt tonight?" he said with a laugh. "Shelley tells me we get to beat up on a cop tonight."

"Why sure buttercup," she laughed and faked a karate chop.

"Remember when you used to have to drag him from the car?" the woman his mother was talking to asked.

It almost took an act of Congress to get him from the house to the YMCA for class. The class was required for both support groups. And kind of frightening. He was the only boy out of about 20 women and girls ranging from preteen to teenage.

And his presence at first made some of them uncomfortable. Some attitudes toward men ranged from fear to anger.

But they came to realize he was as much a victim as any in the room.

His mother wondered if Jade's emergence had anything to do with her son possibly having similar feelings. She whispered as much to him as they were doing crunches during warmups.

He giggled. She never really heard him do so before. He remained silent and groaned out the last few remaining situps.

"You think I'm Jade because I hate men," his whispered to his mother as he reached the end of the situps. "I fear the thug who did this to us. But I don't hate men."

"That's a relief," his mother said as they stood up to do jumping jacks.

"I just don't want to become one," Jacob whispered as he put his arm around his mother.

Don't want to become one? What did he mean by that she wondered as they gathered around the policeman at the mat. He went over some moves they could try if an attacker bigger than they were tried to grab them. He then asked for volunteers.

Nearly everyone was surprised when Jacob raised his hand.

"OK, Miss, you first," the young officer said.

Jacob didn't say a word to correct. And shockingly, neither did his mother, Heather or anyone else in the group.

"Kick his butt, Jade," shouted his friend and fellow "victim," Shelley.

The young officer grabbed him. Jacob caught him by surprise by executing one of the moves perfectly and flipping the young officer to the mat.

The group applauded.

"That's my....girl?" his mother said as Jacob walked back over to her, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Jacob nodded, then curtsied.

"Yes, I'm your girl, Mom," Jacob said. "Your turn. Go kick his tail."

The young officer seemed mildly embarrassed as his mother approached him.

"My daughter, Jade, she's just now starting to learn to be aggressive," she said to him.

"She's a fast learner," he said with a laugh, then tried to put a move on his mother, catching her by surprise. But she also remembered the move Jade put on him, and flipped him to the mat.

"Way to go, Mom!" he shouted as she watched his mom pull the officer up off the mat.

Her mother came over and hugged him.

"You inspired me, Jade," she said.

*****

"I'm evolving, Mom," were the words her ever-changing child said as they walked over to Starbucks after class.

There was the evolution of appearance, although still not radically feminine. There was the evolution of attitude and to a degree, confidence.

A cell phone call while her child was in the bathroom alerted her to that next evolutionary issue: Pronouns.

She was warming to Jacob's evolutionary movement into Jade. While she was beginning to see the girl in her child, she still saw the boy as well. Jacob was making a gradual shift toward feminity. Despite the looks with the french braid, her child choose to go to the men's room.

He left his cell on the table. The phone call seemed to be a wakeup call for mom.

"No, Jade's in the bathroom," his mom told Raven.

"Can you tell her that we'll be by to pick her up at nine for The Hunger Games," Raven said over the phone. "We want to get something to eat before the show."

It was the premeire at the big movie theater in town.

"Raven called," she said when her child returned from the restroom. "She said they'll be by to pick you up at nine."

"Cool," Jade said. "That'll give me enough time to shower, change and get my makeup on."

Her son, turning daughter, noticed his mom's uneasy silence.

"You want to talk to me about something, don't you?" Jade ask.

Truth is, she had several, starting with getting a handle on Jade persona. She also wanted to ask her child about Lincoln, and the full nature of their relationship.

But first things first, the use of the English language. The use of pronouns.

"What do I call you?" she asked. "What pronouns do I use?"

Jade giggled.

"You have that look on your face because you want to know what pronouns to call me?" Jade giggled.

As had been the case over the past few weeks, her child seemed coy about giving a direct answer.

"Well, I went into the bathroom and saw the urinals on the wall," her child said as if talking in some sort of parable.
"I thought, I can't believe I used to stand when I peed. How lame is that? I sat down, did my business, and felt like I was in a strange land the whole time."

Not entirely a direct answer. But she remembered her child's words at the gym.

"I don't hate men," Jade said at the gym. "I just don't want to become one."

She watched as her child practiced her name on a piece of scrap paper.

More detail was put into the writing. It looked more girlish than her child's handwriting ever looked.

Jade Naomi Hunter were the words written on the paper with a heart dotting the i in Naomi.

"That's me," her child said. "That's want I want to be called."

"Naomi, that's for your grandmother?" she asked.

"Yup," Jade said. "She's the second strongest woman I know."

"Who is the first?" her mom.

"That's for you to figure out," Jade said.

*****

"Your ride is here!" she yelled up to her child's room.

Raven's mother was the chaperone in an SUV with soon to be seven teenagers, the usual five-member crew, Lincoln and Lincoln's sister.

"Bye Mom," Jade said as she tried to sneak out the door.

"Hold it right there, buster ... I mean buttercup," she said, catching Jade as she tried to slip out the door. "Let me get a look at you."

Jade sported the punk-girl look with the clothes they bought at the store the other day, the jeans, the black shirt, the metallic belt and the books. The way she had her hair, the makeup, hoop earrings, even the painted nails didn't really shock her.

Seeing her child with what looked like breasts did.

"What are those?" her mom asked.

"Breastforms," Jade replied stoically.

"Where did you get them?," her mom asked.

"Shelley got them for me, said she had them at her house," Jade said. "I'm sorry Mom, hope you're not mad. Please let me where them."

They weren't large. They seemed to be about the size for a girl Jade's age. She knew if Jade seriously yearned to be a girl, she'd want breasts. She didn't know what to say. She relented.

"Thanks. Mom," Jade said as she gave her mother a hug and went running out the door.

"Have a good time!" her mom shouted.

She suddenly knew the answer of the great pronoun question.

She wondered around the house, pondering the many unanswered questions about her child. She also thought about her own fears.

She walked up to her child's room and saw the computer on. There was a page still open. It was from "Jade Naomi's Journal of Her Journey."

"I saw her naked, bruised and weeping the way little boys should never see their mother. I saw her cry and scream as he made me watch. I cried. I screamed. I saw her fight when he went inside her like he did me. I saw her fight and claw to get out of the ropes when he did to me what he did to her. She never gave up. She is strong for me. She is my hero. She's always told me I can be anything I choose to be. That last night with him, I knew what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a strong woman like her."