My husband is a softie. He's not in any way your typical "manly man." He doesn't hunt, fish or play American sports. He's not in to golfing or slapping backs. He's a hugger. He runs an entertainment company where he gets to be a big kid every day. He is kind and gentle and has a weakness for nostalgia.

One of my husband's favorite pass times used to be watching old home videos. But, when his mum died of early onset Parkinson's Disease and his sweet and feisty grandmother died the next year, watching videos became hard for him. The two most influential women in his life, both long departed, would pop up unexpectedly with their distinctive laughs and funny Yorkshire sayings. Suddenly there they were on the screen and he would have to shut it off. It was just too painful.

When C came out to us, it added more to his list of reasons not to watch old videos. How would she react to seeing herself presenting male, being called J? She hasn't asked us to take any photos of her presenting male off the walls and she hasn't really made a fuss of getting rid of any evidence of J in our home, but we didn't want to upset the apple cart. Especially when things are as good as they are at the moment. But in addition to that, it was hard, particularly for my husband, to see C as a child. Simply because this is such a massive concept to wrap our heads around. It felt confusing.

We went to England for two weeks in August to visit my father-in-law, cousins, aunties, sisters and friends. While it was a hard journey for my husband in many ways: his first visit without his mum and nan, seeing his father in a nursing home, etc., I think it was also cathartic in some ways. Yesterday, for the first time in a very long time, he wanted to watch home videos. We sat down as a family, C snuggled in her chair, and her dad asked her "Are you ok with this?"

She looked at him puzzled. "Yeah. Why?" He answered, "I just didn't know if it would bother you to hear your old name or anything."

"Nah - go ahead."

So we sat, as a family, watching videos of C as a toddler. In her camo trousers and short boy hair cut. She and her dad building a tricycle, wielding hammers with cries of "Men! We're men!" Each time anyone called C by her former name on the video, we would all yell out her new name, laughing. We watched as she was repeatedly called "big brother" and "boy" and "little man," and none of it phased her. She sat in the heart of the family, smiling and laughing with the rest of us. Laughing at our accents. Smiling over the funny things our little people did, especially when 8-year-old-C proclaimed to her then 80-something great grandmother, "I can't believe you're still alive!"

It may seem such a small thing when we're dealing with hormones and legal name changes, new social security cards and passports. But it's not. It's another sign that our daughter is well adjusted. That a look into her past is not so painful that it must be avoided. That we are helping her feel as safe and accepted as we possibly can. Maybe we're doing a few things right.

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