Snakes and snails and mermaid tails: raising a gender-variant son.

This article is a first-person account of a father's journey to lovingly accept his young gender-variant son, who began to show traits and preferences more common to girls almost from birth. The dad's efforts to discover constructive parenting strategies for raising his boy are also detailed. Experiences described begin with guilt and awareness of his own difficulty in coming to terms with his son's behavior, progress toward seeking and finding support and guidance, and eventually learning to embrace his son as he is, perhaps with questions about his own liberality and apprehensions about his boy's future.