A poignant narrative of one mom's journey to support her transgender daughter--showing how any parent can forge a deeper bond with their child by truly listening

Mama, something went wrong in your tummy. And it made me come out as a boy instead of a girl.

When Marlo Mack's three-year-old utters these words, her world splits wide open. Friends and family, experts, and Marlo herself had long downplayed her "son's" requests for pretty dresses and long hair as experimentation--as a phase--but that time is over. When little "M" begs, weeping, to be reborn, Marlo knows she has to start listening to her kid.

How to Be a Girl is Mack's unflinching memoir of M's coming out--to her father, grandparents, classmates, and the world. Fearful of the prejudice that menaces M's future, Mack finds her liberal values surprisingly challenged: Why can't M just be a boy who wears skirts and loves fairies? But M doesn't give up: She's a girl!