Mother Realizes Her 6-Year-Old Son Was Really a Daughter

choi

Laurie Frankel, 一年级时，我儿子穿上裙子变成了 '她.' 纽约时报, Sept 20, 2016
http://cn.nytstyle.com/style/201 ... identity-parenting/

, which is translated from

Laurie Frankel, From He to She in First Grade. A boy wants to wear dresses to school. His parents realize it's about more than clothes. New York Times, Sept 18, 2016 (in the Sunday column "Modern Love").

Excerpt in the window of print: Do we love our children best by protecting them at all costs or by supporting them unconditionally?

Note:
(a) The German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname Frankel is a "diminutive of Frank."
Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford Univ Press.

(b) "When our son turned 6, my husband and I bought him a puppet theater and a chest of dress-up clothes because he liked to put on plays. * * * But we didn't want his or his castmates' creative output to be curtailed by a lack of costume choices, so we also included high heels, a pink straw hat, a dazzling fairy skirt and a sparkly green halter dress. * * * he would change back to the sparkly green dress, asking me to tie the halter behind his neck and the sash around his waist."
(i) put on (vt): "PERFORM, PRODUCE <put on a play>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/put%20on
(ii) castmate (n): "a fellow member of the cast of a play, film, or television show"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/castmate

I guess this means the son's play date. (humans who come to put on plays together).
(iii) halter (disambiguation)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halter_(disambiguation)
(may also refer to "halter top")

(c) "Then we went shopping [the day before school started]. The fairy skirt and sparkly green dress [in the chest] were play clothes. He didn't have any skirts or dresses that were appropriate for school."
(i) I google "fairy skirt" and find they (images) all look different, without a common theme. There is no definition.
(ii) fairy (adj): "relating to or like a fairy <a fairy princess>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fairy

(d) "so we bought three outfits to get us through the week. Three school skirts. Three school tops. A pair of white sandals."

outfit (n): "a set of clothes worn together, typically for a particular occasion or purpose <a riding outfit>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/outfit