His eyes narrow. “Why do you care? You’re always so weird about her.”

Kids pass in waves, cramping me in. “I don’t know.” A child jostles me. “I guess I’m jealous, kind of.”

“That makes zero sense.”

He’s genuinely confused. He trots to the auditorium, knees high, like a child.

The whole conference is in attendance. We pass a transboy with a dark wedge of hair, a minor TikTok heartthrob. In person, he’s so shockingly young that it’s upsetting to see him move through the world unattached to a parent.

I should be grateful that the world changed in time for Sunny. If I were his mother, my feeling would be pure. But as it is, I wish the shift hadn’t happened too late for me to ever be beautiful in my right body but too soon for me to die in the peace of never having known another way.

I haven’t checked the subject of the keynote, because we should be on the highway by now. The administrator introduces someone named Minsie Slater, who will share their life story. The speaker ascends the stage and leans their elbows on the lectern. They clear their throat and describe themself as a real estate agent and homeowner. Minsie is older than me, with a dense lick of silver hair, a single long earring like a twisting bar of light, and curiously pink skin. They have thin, wise eyes. Big hands cradle the printout of their speech. I can’t determine their original gender assignment, but I don’t want to. The room goes silent, agitated. There’s a quality to the way they spread their elbows on the podium, the softness of their face against its serious set, that makes you want to perk up and be good.

Minsie peers around the hall. When they open their mouth they speak like they’re sitting next to everyone, individually, in some quiet room: “One evening, early in puberty, I took a bath.” They push their glasses up higher on their face. “I laid washcloths on parts of my body that I preferred not to visit. As the cloth dried, it shrank and suctioned to my skin like plaster casts. Only then could I look at myself, at this body with each bad patch redacted. The door was closed. I’m telling you this because that evening in Rapid City, decades before you were born, was the one time I felt okay.”