Still a girl.
My name is Stephanie. I’m a teacher, a filmmaker and a mom. When I was little, I wanted plain clothes, never dresses, and boys’ sports, not girls’ ones. Some days I wished I were a boy. But I never was one. I was a girl who loved hockey, and my parents made sure I knew it.
Children are born in the right bodies. They can change their clothes, their hairstyles, their interests a hundred times over and still be exactly the boy or girl who was born to their loving parents. That truth should be simple. But right now, too many children are getting a different message: at school, in the library, in the media. Messages that tell them something is wrong with who they are.
Stephanie’s story is the opposite of those messages. It is a positive, beautiful story of self-acceptance and family love. A girl who loved hockey and skateboards and never wore dresses grew up to be a woman who loves being a woman. Her parents did not panic. No secrets were kept from them. No one at school tried to isolate her from the people who loved her most. They told her the truth, and they held on to her while she found her way.
This book is for every family that wants to affirm their child just as they are. Read it with your children. Share it with a friend. The story is real, and so many parents and children need to hear it.
Natalya Murakhver
Seven years without a dress
When I was seven, I planted my feet and announced that I would never wear a dress again. For the next six years, I kept my word.
My parents didn’t fight me on it. They bought me a skateboard and a BMX bike. They signed me up for karate and ice hockey. I loved every minute. By middle school, I was the only girl on the travel hockey team.
In gym class, I’d sneak over to the boys’ side. The girls sat waiting for instructions while the boys just started playing. Hard. That was what I wanted.
The hardest year
The hardest place was the girls’ locker room. The other girls already seemed to know things I didn’t: how to do their hair, the right bra to wear. It was like there had been a class in how to be a girl, and I’d missed the whole thing.
Then I got my first period. Some girls feel excited about that. I didn’t. I cried, and I hid it for months. Part of me still hoped that somehow I could become a boy. But no matter how much I wished for it, I was still a girl. I always would be.
They told me the truth
When I came home from school crying about being a girl, my parents did what good parents do. They hugged me. They told me how much they loved me. They reminded me I was smart, strong and theirs.
And once my tears had dried, they told me the truth: I was a girl. A girl who liked skateboards, ice hockey and plain, comfortable clothes. That can confuse people. And people are sometimes unkind about what they don’t understand. But none of it made me a boy. I was a girl, all the way through. My parents loved me exactly as I was.
Still a woman, still myself
As I got older, things got easier. I made good friends. I grew more comfortable in my own skin.
These days I actually like wearing dresses. Sometimes. Other days it’s jeans and sneakers, and I still love skateboards and hockey. All of it is me. I’m a woman, and I love being one. Being a mom is the best part of my life.
I’m glad no one told me to keep a secret
Years later, after I’d become a teacher and a mom, I read an article about the middle school I had once attended. It stopped me cold. Students were being given a survey asking whether they identified as a boy or a girl, and whether they wanted their answers kept from their parents.
I thought about seven-year-old me. What if a trusted adult had told that little girl that wanting to be a boy meant she’d been born in the wrong body? What if someone had said keeping it from her parents was for her own good? Thank goodness my parents knew what I was going through. They listened. They loved me. They helped me find my way.
The facts behind my story
I was a woman at seven in khakis, and I’m a woman now in a dress. My story is one story, but the evidence behind it is clear. An Urgent Conversation, the toolkit Restore Childhood wrote with Dr. Kris Kaliebe, lays it out.
Social transition is not neutral. It is “a form of psychosocial treatment” with “highly unpredictable effects,” and it can put a child on a path toward medical transition.
There is no expert consensus on how to respond when a child says they are the other sex.
A 2025 HHS systematic review found limited evidence for these interventions, with uncertain long-term benefits and risks that are not fully known.
Sweden concluded the risks likely outweigh the benefits of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children.
Reported harms of medical transition include infertility and lower bone density.
There is no high-quality evidence that transition reduces suicide risk. A 2024 international review found no high-quality evidence that blockers improve mental health.
Fox Varian was awarded $2 million after a double mastectomy at age 16.
About 98% of children in the UK clinic's blocker study went on to cross-sex hormones.
Read it together
- Stephanie loved hockey, skateboards and karate. What’s something you love that other people say isn’t for someone like you?
- In the locker room, Stephanie felt like she’d missed a class on “how to be a girl.” Have you ever felt like everyone else got instructions you didn’t?
- When Stephanie came home upset, her parents hugged her first and talked after. Why do you think they did it in that order?
- Stephanie says she’s glad no one told her to keep a secret from her parents. What would you do if an adult asked you to hide something important from your family?
Was your child a “tomboy,” too?
If your child likes “boy things,” or you have a story like mine, we’d love to hear it. Get in touch, or pick up the book to read together.