Book Release: Undercover Girl: Growing up Transgender

Feb. 5, 2012 - PRLog -- A lunchtime conversation begins between two friends at a Jamaican restaurant. Both are school psychologists, and both are writers. One is worried that the conversation that he is about to have could destroy a friendship, the other doesn't yet know what is about to happen. John reveals his secret - that he is transgender, and has already begun a physical transformation to become Jill. Changes have already begun to show. Over the next few months he needs to prepare his workplace for the transition.

Mary encourages Jill to blog about her experiences. Jill begins a blog, with the primary purpose to explain to Mary, and to herself, why it is that she is transgender.

Growing up transgender is difficult, especially when it's the mid 1960s and no one ever talks about people who want to be a different gender. Jill tries to make sense of her family and the events swirling around her. Her friends pull her to a degree of happiness and sanity, eventually pulling her into peer helping and then psychology. She falls in love as a man, and develops a career as a school psychologist. Until some near death experiences remind her what is important, and she embarks, at age 50, to become a woman outwardly, while continuing to work in schools.

Jill, expecting a difficult transition, is surprised by the support she receives from colleagues, parents, and students as she goes about her work in her true gender. And she learns some surprising and uncomfortable truths about why her own transition in particular has gone so well. Truths that go beyond gender.

Jill Davidson is currently a school psychologist for an urban school district in the US Pacific Northwest. She lives with her partner of 38 years, her daughter, and two cats in Poulsbo, WA