News.NewAmericanMedia.org – New America Media, Personal voice/photo essay, Huang Ping – as told to Rian Dundon
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Changsha, China – My mother had always wanted a girl, so even as I grew inside her stomach she hoped that I would come out female. When she finally gave birth to me and realized I was a boy she decided to raise me as a girl anyway by dressing me in female clothes. Then, when I turned 2, my parents divorced and the judge gave my mother custody of my brother and sent me to live with my father. My father later married again, and I’ve only met my mom five times since the divorce. I didn’t know my mother’s phone number for a long time, but in the last year I have gotten back in touch with her, and now we talk by phone.