A/N: I've noticed from my story stats (which are completely anonymous) that I have a couple of readers who live in countries where being LGBT is illegal. I'm humbled that you're reading my story, and I wish you all the very best. No matter how bad Cyn's life seems to be in this tale, at least she has the freedom to improve her life. Some day, you'll have that too. It does get better.
Cyn now understood that she was transgender and that the only way she could possibly feel comfortable in her own skin would be if she underwent medical treatment to align her body to her gender. There was nothing that could be done to adjust her brain's perception of her gender so the only option was to change her body to match her brain. But there was no way on Earth she'd be able to afford the necessary medication and surgery without a job, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her mother would never agree to pay for them. She hunted around for alternative options to see if there was some way she could transition without going to major expense.
One of her new-found friends on a transgender support site suggested she contact the Gender Studies Department at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine. Apparently they'd announced an upcoming ground-breaking study into using gene therapy to grow reproductive organs for transsexual patients - and they were looking for new test subjects in exchange for scholarships to attend the University. That was perfect: Carver was only about 25km north of the Kirk farm in Riverside so she could easily get there via public transport. After several clandestine meetings with the Gender Studies team - and without telling her mother why she'd had a sudden change of heart - Cyn applied to take part in the study.
The first step was for Cyn to be assessed by a qualified Gender Therapist: a specialist psychotherapist who had been trained to help people who felt the gender of their mind didn't match the physical features of their body. The therapist met with her several times, asking her about her childhood, her dreams, how she saw herself and what she envisaged for her future. Her answers confirmed that she was transgender, so the therapist gave her a formal diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria: the medical name for that awful discomfort she'd felt for most of her life. With that diagnosis (and thanks to her outstanding school results), Cyn was accepted into the gene therapy study at Carver and was awarded a full scholarship to study the subject of her choice. She decided to major in Computer Science as she'd always found comfort in working with machines rather than people. At least machines didn't insist on treating her like a girl.
The Gender Therapist then spent several months working with Cyn to help her decide what she wanted to do with her life. It was clear that Cyn was a man who felt very uncomfortable living in a female body and being treated like a female by society. It was equally clear that the best way forward would be for Cyn to transition from female to male. After explaining all the risks and benefits, the therapist offered to prescribe testosterone to start the masculinising process, to be followed by gene therapy to adjust Cyn's reproductive organs. But before he would give her any prescriptions, he challenged Cyn to change her name and start dressing and living exclusively as a male. He called it 'drawing a line in the sand': taking formal, public steps to declare her intentions to transition as a way of proving that she was serious about doing so.
Cyn hunted high & low for an appropriate name. Baby name books, movie characters, historical figures, book characters... even computer game characters were considered, but nothing seemed to fit. But then she remembered that conversation back when she was 10 years old: Mom had once said that she'd felt that her second child would be another boy and that she'd name that son after his grandfathers. That seemed to fit beautifully. Changing her name to the one that was originally supposed to be hers if her body had matched her mind seemed like the perfect way to put right what went wrong when that poor innocent baby had been misgendered at birth. So on that night, Cyn decided to throw away any last remaining vestiges of the femininity she'd been forced to fake for so many years. She decided to change her name... and start becoming a man.
From that day forth, Cynthia Ann Kirk was no more... and James Tiberius Kirk took her place.
A/N: Any chance the University of Iowa - or any other august body - could pull their fingers out and get on with that (fictional) research I mentioned? Being able to grow a functioning set of reproductive organs would mean so much to so many people - not just transsexuals. Thanks.
Next chapter: how will Winona react to the news that she no longer has a daughter? Oh, and we drop all those pesky female pronouns. ;-)