This creative nonfiction memoir, How to Grow Your Own Man, focuses on a personal friend of mine, Nick Johnson, who is a female-to-male transgendered person. Nick is a character unto himself, in a figurative sense, simply due to his personality. While the work does relate some of the challenges he has faced during his life with this situation, it also relates what my relationship with him as a support person has entailed. The project also addresses various other aspects of our relationship, including our decision to become parents of a beautiful daughter.

While transsexuality/transgenderism is not unheard of in today's society, there has been a disparity not only in knowledge of, but actual number of persons who have or are transitioning from female to male like Nick. The gap is slowly closing. In sharing Nick's and mine's story, I hope to shed some light on this lesser known aspect of the broader issue.

Even though transgendered/transsexual persons have received a wider range of representation in the media in recent years, my desire is to present that side of the issue which may be less seen: friend and support person. I feel no matter which term is applied, transsexual or transgender; this issue is one of the social 'battlegrounds' to be seen in this country. To that end, I feel Nick's story and my part in it are important to write about and share.

Several details have been changed within this work, especially both the current and prior names Nick uses, as well as some of the actual locations mentioned. Unfortunately, there is still far too much intolerance and stigma surrounding the issue, which creates a very real risk and danger. There are people who would feel justified in seeking to cause harm to Nick, physical and otherwise. No deceit is intended by these changes. They have been done merely out of protection.