Do you have to tell your daughter that her daddy's transitioning into being female? Well, no, but it's going to be damn hard to hide the fact. I mean, when daddy walks in with boobs and a higher pitched voice, don't you think your little girl's going to get it? Or was daddy just going to quietly slip out of her life? Maybe you could tell her he went to be with grandma!

Sorry to sound callous, but asking if you have to tell your daughter about her dad's decision to change his sex is the single stupidest question I've ever read in this column. I mean, if this were from the dad, and he was asking "Should I do this? Should I risk messing up my young girl more than she already is?" that would be a smart question. But that question isn't being asked. That decision has been made. Her life was thrown into confusion through the move, and then through her grandmother's death, and now through dad's sex change operation. Poor girl.

Cary brought up the "woman in a man's body" argument. I really don't believe such a thing is possible. I'm gay, I'm certainly not hostile to alternative lifestyles. I have friends who are drag queens. I have straight friends who are polyamorous. Their choices, while different than mine, make sense to me. But how one has a "female" soul or a "female" brain that has somehow wound up in a shell that's got a penis is something I've never been clear on. If someone wants to become a member of the opposite sex, that's clearly their business. But I don't really accept that, on the inside, the person has really been someone of the opposite sex all along.

And maybe this outlook comes from having known several pre-op transexuals (they all seem to be pre-op forever...you're daughter's going to be dealing with this "transition" for quite some time to come). To me, they didn't seem mentally stable. Maybe all they pre-ops I've met are unusual cases, and maybe something about being in the pre-op state causes odd behavior until the whole process is complete and a stable identity is achieved. But it makes me question if the whole sex-change issue is about getting surgery to orient a person to their "true" gender, or a manifestation of an unstable psyche.

But if your husband has decided he can't wait until his daughter grows up, he needs this now, and his needs come first, even though that means his daughter's life will change radically yet again, and even more of the stability she needs will be lost, then you'd best tell the girl about it, since otherwise she's going to get one hell of a surprise.

Thank you for that. I should investigate this. I've never had a problem with people changing their sex, it's the argument for the change. But you make a good point. I really haven't met a pre-op who I would call mentally stable, but that's totally anectdotal.

I'm also bothered by what looks like the father's "me first" attitude. Of course, I wouldn't similarly be bothered by a father accepting he was gay and telling his children. That's a bit hypocritical of me, though changing sex is a more radical alteration.

You've given me something to think about.