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Marc and Isabel had always explained things to their daughters as simply and honestly as they could, and that’s what they continued to do. After the decision, Marc told his daughters that the female part of who he was, was getting stronger. He wasn’t comfortable being a male anymore. He told them he was going to start living as a woman all the time.

He also said he didn’t want to tell other people about it yet.

They arranged for their older daughter Chelsea to see a therapist, so she would have someone outside the family to talk with. Her therapist said she was doing fine with the fact that her father was going through this change. What was most troubling to her was keeping it secret.

Marc decided to reschedule the surgery six months earlier so Chelsea wouldn’t have to carry this burden. Chelsea would continue to get support from her therapist. Olivia, who was excited by the prospect of having two mothers like her best friend next door, remained in good spirits.

Marc mailed more than one hundred and fifty letters explaining his decision to everyone he knew, including the parents of his daughters’ friends, the teachers at their school, his colleagues at work, and the friends they hadn’t talked with yet. He was determined to maintain his academic position as well as retain his personal and professional relationships after his transition. He trusted that if he were completely honest with the important people in his life, they would ride out this change with him. He wanted this not only for himself, but also for the sake of his daughters and his wife.

Everything seemed to be going perfectly. The vice provost of the university, who Marc contacted the next day, assured him he wouldn’t be fired. And his department chair handed him a bottle of champagne after his disclosure. Then Marc’s graduate students, who give annual awards to their favorite professors, presented him with the “Holy S*!t Award, for pushing the boundaries of gender equity.”

His openness about the process helped him tremendously. With very few exceptions, Marc’s family and friends offered their loving support. One colleague explicitly snubbed him and refused any further contact, even though they passed each other regularly in the hallways. The others continued to enjoy his company. Knowing that the university, his employer, had a written, signed policy that protected his job was also important.

Marc and Isabel planned to stay married. They had been together for nineteen years. Marc assumed their relationship would continue, despite the huge eruptions that were occurring. Isabel had been attracted to women in the past, and she figured she could adapt to an intimate relationship with a woman. They even talked with their lawyer about being a test case for same-sex marriage once Marc could live as Maggie.

But the ordeal of watching her husband become reborn as someone else was ultimately too much for Isabel. She had been in love with Marc, a man with a man’s body, someone who was seen by others as her husband. She wasn’t in love with Maggie. The trauma of the past two years had taken its toll. Her announcement to Marc that she was leaving the relationship came as a shock.

They decided to wait for another year before living apart, to help the children adjust to the changes happening to their father. Marc had never felt so in love with Isabel as in these last months. It was a terrible loss for him when Isabel moved into a separate home, but his need to be seen and accepted as female had become his single most important desire and even this sacrifice couldn’t change his mind.

They would continue to raise the children together from two households.

Maggie began taking hormones and living fulltime as a woman in late August 2004. After six months, she had her first experience of feeling physically attracted to a man. Soon after, she felt she had been plunged into the unsettling and exhilarating adolescence of a heterosexual girl. It was like going through puberty again, only this time in a new gender.

“Welcome to the other side,” was how her mother-in-law greeted her, after their initial conversation. Everyone could see that a tremendous weight had been lifted off Maggie’s shoulders, even with the challenges that would lie ahead. Although her marriage was ending, she seemed happier, lighter and, most strikingly, could express a full range of emotions without fearing she would appear unmanly.

A year later, in August 2005, she flew to Arizona with Isabel and the girls to undergo the surgery that would set things right. She woke up hungry and laughing and had a peanut butter sandwich fixed by one of her nurses as her first meal in a woman’s body.

That September, Maggie, with honey-blond hair falling to her shoulders, stood in front of her Geology of Public Parks class and introduced herself. Maggie was tall and slender, with a relaxed stance and a soft, guileless face. Her silver earrings swayed and caught the light as she stepped across the front of the classroom. She wore one of her favorite skirts, black and white embedded with an intricate pattern of leaves, its fabric cut on the bias so that it fell fluidly from her waist to her knees. A long, autumn-colored scarf highlighted her graceful posture and a sleeveless blouse showed off a fit, feminine figure.

“This is the sixth time I’ve taught this class. The last time I taught it, I was a man.”

The classroom fell silent. She acknowledged that many of her students had taken classes with her before and expected to see someone different when they enrolled in this course. She offered to stay after class to talk with anyone who had questions. When she stopped talking, the whole class burst into applause.

In Maggie’s sunny, neatly arranged office, music is playing. It’s an inviting place with a pot of tea brewing for visitors to share. Along with a playful, four-foot-high iron sculpture from her mother, bookcases lined with rock fragments from around the world,  and a colorful painting by daughter Chelsea, there is this framed poem: 5 Great Things About My Mom:

My mom is silly when she dances.

My mom is a great cook when she cooks pasta.

My mom wears too much makeup but I am ok with it.

She buys me clothes for me.

She buys me movies for me.

But the best thing about my mom is I (heart) her!

Love, Olivia.”

There is a tender feeling Maggie has about her body when she wakes up, tender and alive and full of joy. And with that joy she slips out of her covers and wraps a skirt around her hips and a light blouse. And with her slippers on, she pads downstairs to start coffee brewing and soon afterward wakes her daughters, helps them dress for school, cooks their breakfasts and packs their backpacks. And when they’re all ready, she goes upstairs to get ready for her job, in her woman’s clothes and her woman’s body. And she puts on just a touch of eye shadow over her blue-green eyes, eyes the color of two soothing tropical pools. She still misses Isabel. But she has a date tonight, with a man. And she’s learning how to dance.

SABENA STARK is a graduate student in the literary nonfiction program at the University of Oregon.  The names in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of these real people. No other details contained here have been altered.