My parents had always been rather conservative. It came with living in rural Alberta, I supposed. I can tell you that it was not the best environment to grow up in, as a young trans girl trying to figure herself out. 

However, due to the wonders of the internet (and getting to read all sorts of mildly questionable gender-bender manga) I had managed to figure myself out younger than you might expect. Even if it had led to my father constantly complaining about my being a nerdy shut-in who knew none of the skills a man should. An insult I’d had to pretend stung, even if I took it as a compliment deep down.

Mostly.

Upon going to university and getting to escape to the (mildly overwhelming) big city of Calgary, I had quickly made my way to the appropriate councilors and had been able to start getting hormones and transitioning socially before the academic year was out. It had also been a thrilling thing, being able to use my real name. I was finally Madison to people in real life, not just my friends on the computer.

Sure, not everything was perfect. I still felt a bit naked whenever I wore a skirt, and I found makeup overwhelming, but… well, it took cis girls years to learn how all that worked, right?

And. Ok. Trying to date guys had been a bit awkward, but that was probably just working through deeply confused internalised homophobia issues. Even though it was now heterosexual of me, there would obviously be an adjustment period to working through all of that.

It was still the most alive I’d felt since puberty had started. I was beginning to actually need a bra. To see the girl I wanted to see in the mirror. It was all delightful.

Until the school year ended. 

Which meant I had to go back to my parents’ place for the summer. At which point I had made a serious mistake.

-

It was a three hour drive to get home from Calgary. Three hours mostly consisting of driving across some of the flattest country on earth. Three hours to struggle to mentally prepare myself to come out to my parents. As well as three hours to spend wondering if I should just turn around and accept Maya’s offer to live in her apartment all summer.

As apartments went, it was fairly nice. Two bedrooms, her roommate having graduated, and in a fairly quiet neighbourhood not too far from the C-train. 

Unfortunately, however, I needed out of the city. I wasn’t good at handling that many people. It was good for getting access to trans resources, and making friends in the community, but it was too much for my small town upbringing. A million people all in one place…

I didn’t know how people lived somewhere like that all their lives.

So, I kept driving. Kept getting closer to my home. And kept stumbling over how to actually come out.

In the end, I didn’t actually figure it out. I pulled up in the driveway, stepped out of the car hoping that I’d realise what I wanted to say before I knocked on the front door, and turned around to see my mother sitting on the veranda, watching me.

“What are you wearing?” she asked, though she also added a name I didn’t want to acknowledge.

“A sundress,” I replied. “With practical shoes, though. I am a country girl.”

She was dumbstruck. All my mother managed at first was to sit there with her mouth half open, watching me.

“Thomas!” she shouted after a minute or two of my standing there awkwardly. “Come out here and see what you son is wearing!”

I winced a little at the term she used.

My father arrived at the door before I decided whether or not to dig my suitcase out of the trunk while waiting.

“Is that a dress?” he said, stepping out onto the front step. “Did you lose a bet?”

“No, dad, I did not lose a bet. I simply chose a cute and tasteful outfit to wear for coming home.”

“This is some sort of joke, isn’t it,” he said.

“No joke. I just thought it was about time you understood you had a daughter,” I replied, now walking over to open the trunk. “I’ve been on hormones for about five months now, and I’ve known I was a girl for a couple years now.”

My parents both stared at me as I walked into the house. Past the various childhood photos that felt so very distant now.

I hadn’t been kicked out of the house, and I was counting that as a win. Having a foot in the door seemed a good first step towards winning my parents over. They just had to see how much happier I was now and they’d accept I’d made the right decision.

-

Well, that had been my expectation, but, a little over a week later, things were still tense. My father was doing his best just to ignore the entire thing. And, generally, to ignore me. He wasn’t deadnaming me, mostly because he wasn’t using a name for me at all. Just a lot of vaguely accusative ‘him’ and ‘he’ that hurt more, I was pretty sure.

Mum, on the other hand, was also trying to pretend nothing had happened, but was at least acknowledging me as a human being. My various cute outfits I wanted to show off, to hope she’d celebrate having a daughter got comments like ‘that’s certainly an outfit’ or ‘I don’t know big city fashion’. All while refusing to acknowledge my new name or pronouns.

“Don’t you like the name we picked out for you? I spent a lot of time on it,” she’d said.

“It isn’t a girl’s name, though,” I’d replied, pouting a little at the time.

It was a bit depressing to hit such a wall with both of them.

-

Ten days in, my father knocked on the frame of my bedroom door, looking stiff and awkward. It certainly felt like he thought he was intruding on a girl rather than a boy, with the way he hovered at the door.

There was no way he’d acknowledge that, though. I knew that much.

“Son,” he said, proving my suspicion, “could we go for a drive?”

“A drive?” I asked.

“To… to talk about things. Away from the house,” he muttered. “It’s easier to clear my head and figure out how to word things after a drive.”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to latch on to what seemed like a potential chance to have an actual heart to heart. But… there was also a chance it wasn’t that. That I was actually facing the possibility he wanted to be somewhere without witnesses to yell at me to his heart’s content. Or, possibly, something a bit worse. He’d not hit me growing up, but I’d also done my best to seem like a proper little cis-het son growing up.

“If you call me your daughter,” I said.

“What?”

“If you call me your daughter then I’ll go. Acknowledge who I actually am. Let me know I’m going with you on honest good faith.”

He grimaced, warring with competing desires, before letting out a sigh. “Fine. Daughter. Would you like to go for a drive?”

“Yes, dad. I would love to. And that wasn’t so bad, was it?” I said, smiling away as if he hadn’t acted like he was having a tooth pulled.

All he did in reply was make another face. Like the word had left an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth. I grabbed my phone, even if I was sure he’d complain if he saw me use it, and then headed after him.

Following him downstairs, I did briefly wonder if the goal was actually to get me out of the house so that mum could try to hunt for where I kept my hormones. Unfortunately for both of them, I kept those on me at all times when I was awake. The only time they had a chance to find them was when I was asleep, and I had very good hiding places I was using then.

So, I simply smiled and waved goodbye to my mother, ignoring the slightly guilty look in her eyes.

Getting into the truck, my dad was silent as we pulled out of the driveway and set off towards the countryside around the tiny community. Living in the heart of town as we did, it took two blocks for us to hit the highway and another 30 seconds or so to leave the community. Then we were off across the dry open roads of Southern Alberta, zipping past sparsely scattered farms and fields mostly used for raising cattle. On occasion we actually saw cows, but the farms were mostly so large in these parts that they were rarely anywhere near the main road.

The silence was getting to be a bit too much when we were approaching Seven Persons. It had been nearly half an hour of nothing, not even the radio playing. While I wasn’t exactly complaining about the lack of radio (it would have been country and country-adjacent rock; escaping to the city had exposed me to music far more enjoyable than Canadian country music), it was still a bit of a stifling level of silence.

“Are you starting to feel ready to talk about things?” I asked.

“I’m getting there,” my father grumbled. “It’s… just… it’s a lot, alright?”

Giving a small nod, I leaned back into my seat to watch the featureless prairie roll past. From time to time we passed near shallow lakes, rich with bird life. I’d never been great at identifying birds, but I could at least be on the lookout for anything more interesting than a gull. I knew you sometimes saw herons or other large birds.

Another fifteen or so minutes slipped past with my making a few brief and failed attempts to get the conversation moving. The highlight of the trip was proving to be a few pronghorns running alongside the country highway for a while, nearly matching our car’s speed for an always impressive amount of time. 

“If you’re really stuck we can just try again another day?” I offered. “I’m pretty sure we’re practically in Saskatchewan now and… well, no one wants to accidentally end up in Saskatchewan.”

The last bit had been a joke, to try to lighten the mood, but it did not seem to work. My father just grunted and kept driving. I realised that we were moving into the Cypress Hills. Just as that hit me we turned off the main road and onto a dirt side track. 

It was a bit bumpy, and I wondered just what my dad was planning. Then I noticed a pick up truck waiting not too far away, which we slowed to a stop about four or five metres from.

“It’s for your own good,” my father muttered.

“W—what’s for my own good?” I asked.

“Get out of the truck and go get in that one. You’ll get… help. To fix this,” he said, not looking at me. His eyes were staying focused ahead, towards the other pick up.

“I—what in the world are you talking about, dad?” I asked. “This—you want me to get in a random pick up to… ‘fix’ something? What’s even supposed to need fixing?”

“I found it online… it’s not that conversion therapy stuff. I know that’s messed up. But… it’s a bootcamp that will help you figure yourself out. They had lots of good reviews from former guests,” he said. “I clearly wasn’t a proper role model for you, when it came to masculinity, but… this should help.”

“WHAT!?” I shouted, turning to glare at him. “You’re… you’re sending me to some kind of… what, toxic masculinity bootcamp? And you think that’s going to make me not a woman anymore!?”

“Don’t turn this into a fight,” he said, his voice growing cold. 

Cold enough to send a shiver down my spine. He’d almost never used a tone like that as I’d grown up… Almost never. The few times I’d messed up enough to warrant it had remained key moments of my childhood. Like the time I’d crashed the family pick-up just after getting my driver’s licence.

Almost on autopilot, I got out of the truck, wanting to get away from him when he was in a mood like that. Then, before I could change my mind and try to get back in, he backed away. 

It was just me, the mysterious pick up truck, and an empty stretch of country that I knew was going to get cold in another few hours. Long before I could find my way to another town.

I pulled out my phone, ready to try anything but doing what my dad had wanted. Unfortunately almost no one lived in these parts, so cell coverage was trash at the best of times. Even spinning around and holding my phone up at weird angles, I wasn’t getting anything. No doubt thanks to the hills around us.

To make matters worse, my phone’s battery was almost dead. Apparently I’d forgotten to charge it last night.

Swallowing my pride (and fear) I headed towards the other truck. Now the only truck. Whatever they’d have in store for me was probably going to be utterly horrid, but… I’d grown up in a town of less than a thousand people in Southern Alberta. If my femininity could survive that in one piece, I was pretty sure I could handle whatever bootcamp I’d been signed up for.

Plus, wherever they took me probably had better odds of cell coverage, if my phone survived long enough.