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didn’t happen without some hardships.

In public, he always has passed as a boy. But when he entered Woodrow as Oliver instead of Olivia, using the boys’ bathroom and theater dressing room became problematic. Marjorie recalls two incidents in which an adult complained to administrators, and Oliver ended up in the principal’s office.

“To me, it was the first time I really hit a wall and felt attacked and that my child was being bullied,” she says. “I lay there on the couch at night sobbing.”

Woodrow principal Kyle Richardson says the situations quickly fizzled after he made it clear that Oliver was indeed allowed to use boys’ facilities.

“It just works itself out,” he says. “Usually what will happen is, if you have a discussion about something, everybody’s got an opinion. But if you put something into practice, people react very differently then. That’s not a big deal.”

People have a right to voice concerns, he says, but it’s unusual in the Woodrow community.

“Oliver’s being transgender is pretty far down the list of things that come to mind when I think about Oliver. I know him as a student and as an actor. Oliver’s Oliver.”

AP English teacher Keith Black says Oliver is “just a standard top-tier student at Woodrow,” and from what Black has witnessed, other students treat him like everybody else. They don’t tease or harass him.

Does that mean he’s accepted or simply tolerated?

“They just said, ‘OK’ and went on with their lives,” Black says.

AsOliver enters adulthood, a new avenue for kids like him has emerged here in Dallas. Lopez launched the GENECIS program at Children’s earlier this year, after seeing a family wracked by gender dysphoria. Their daughter identified as a boy and had just hit puberty.

“She was terrified,” Lopez says. “She was thinking about cutting off her breasts. The parents were desperate.”

Lopez trained at Boston Children’s Hospital, which established the first transgender program in the United States. She says people often confuse gender identity with sexual identity and that, in fact, about 90 percent of transgender people are hetero- sexual, like Oliver.

Little research has been done to determine the cause of gender dysphoria, Lopez says, but the brain offers some clues. Transgender adults and adolescents have undergone MRIs to compare brain activity with that of other people.

“There’s a specific part of the brain where we can differentiate between males and females,” she says, and those areas light up based on which gender the subject identifies with, even if they have a different physical anatomy.

The body and the brain are at odds, but it’s not always that simple.

Last year, Facebook announced more than 50 different gender options for its users.

“There are other patients who are in the spectrum,” Lopez says. “There’s always a possibility that a child can change their mind.”

That’s why the standard of care at GENECIS involves six months of psychological therapy before considering any physical intervention. Once the family and team of medical and mental health specialists agree the gender identity issues will likely persist, they begin treatment with puberty blockers that give the child time to adjust without added stress. Next, they might begin hormone replacement therapy.

GENECIS does not perform surgeries, but that could change in the future. Lopez says she expects The Endocrine Society’s new guidelines, expected to be released this year, to lower the recommended age for surgery from 18 to 16.

“I think there are going to be significant changes,” she says. “These guidelines are going to be more flexible.”

The need for a transgender program at Children’s came down to life and death, Lopez says. The rate of suicide attempts among children with gender dysphoria is

60 percent, according to TransPulse, an Ontario-based research group that studied youth aged 16 to 24 who did not have parental support. Even parents who reject the transgender notion have sought Lopez’s help after realizing that their child could die from this.

“Once it happens to their child, it’s a very powerful thing,” she says.

Since the program launched, Lopez has received 80 referrals — mostly local and “more than we expected,” she says.

Children’s also has received a couple of letters from religious organizations opposing GENECIS.

“I think they don’t understand what transgender means. They think this is the same as being gay. And they already have issues with that. We have a role to educate people. The world is changing.”

Oliver exemplifies that change — even though he had to fly halfway across the country a few times to get there. When Lopez evaluated him at Children’s just a few months ago, she saw “a happy guy.”

“He’s incredibly sure of himself,” she says. “He looks like a male in every way. There’s no doubt that he’s a boy. This is a good example of the new generation of transgender youth who are getting help and support from their parents.”

Oliver

doesn’t mind talking about his journey, but he’s not shouting it from the rooftops. While he admires wellknown and vocal transgender activists, he still prefers to blend in. He’s preparing to “go stealth” when he begins college in California, meaning he will not reveal outright that he’s transgender.

Although he came from a supportive community, Marjorie worries about what will happen when he leaves the nest. This year, Texas lawmakers have introduced bills that would make it a crime for transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their self-identified gender.

“That really upsets me and disappoints me to where I can’t even read about them,” Marjorie says. “You pray, and you’re scared for all your children.

“I’m more scared for Oliver, for sure. It’s a changing world out there, but I have to have faith that it’s going to be OK.”

At the end of the day, Oliver says he just wants to be a normal guy. He pictures his future with a wife and maybe a couple of kids, although he can’t have biological children.

And yet, Olivia is immortalized in the baby portrait that still hangs on the dining room wall 16 years later.

“It does bother me,” Oliver says. “If it were my decision, I honestly, obviously, wouldn’t want it to hang …”

“Tell me about that, because I’ve been wondering,” his mom interjects, walking in from the kitchen. “Would you rather it not be hung up?”

“Yeah,” Oliver answers.

“How come you’ve never said anything?”

“Because you’ve never asked.”

“Interesting …,” Marjorie says.

She revels in this moment of discovery, and then concludes: “It’s just part of who we are. I probably wouldn’t take it down.”

As much as Marjorie loves that beautiful dress, she remembers how miserable it made Oliver and how much he cried before the photographer finally got a smile out of him. She remembers this every time she looks at the picture — that the girl portrayed in it never really existed — and she realizes how far her family has come.

That’s why she’s leaving it on the wall.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to ignore,” Oliver says, “but now I’ve grown to be proud of what I’ve gone through and who I am.

“I guess it just shows how much I’ve changed. It’s a good reminder. But at the same time, I’m in a dress.”