The truth is, I have always been dad-identified.
It?s a strange thing to say, looking back?especially for a person who was assigned female at birth; a person whom the world would have expected to be a mom. But even in the earliest days of understanding my gender, back before I knew the word ?transgender? or understood that it might be possible?in the long and uncertain future?to actually be a dad, I felt like one. And though the period between Mother?s Day and Father?s Day is a month in regular, calendarized time, it feels like an entire epoch to me, complete with a glacial abruption; the two holidays being entirely different creatures, in entirely different eras, bearing only the similarity of happening on the same rock. 
This movement, however slow, has decisively and irrevocably placed me on the Dad side of history, where I obviously belong. In fact, I actually really enjoy Father?s Day?or in my household, Fathers? Day. Yes, I love receiving a handmade card depicting me as an animal wearing sunglasses, and yes, I would like a necktie and a soap-on-a-rope. In our two-dad house, Fathers? Day usually consists of a joyful family activity and a brunch feast, which suits me perfectly. My appreciation of my new grill tools comes with a recognition that arriving here, to my Danger: Men Cooking oven mitt, includes an excavation of my own history, complete with the many sedimentary layers that built me into dadhood.  When seen through the lens of the most common transgender narr...