In Becoming Ayden, we meet seventeen year-old Adina Scheim from Toronto who is becoming a boy named Ayden. Ayden is willing to go to great lengths to alter her female body to correspond with her male self image. Ayden recently began taking testosterone. Her voice has started to deepen -- an irreversible physical effect of the male sex hormone. Ayden says she would have her breasts removed if she had the money to pay for it. She is sure she wants to become a man but convincing her parents is another matter. Her father, a prominent conservative rabbi, thinks she is too young to be making such an important decision. He has even tried to bribe her, offering to pay for her breast surgery, if she would put it off for five years.

Now living on her own, she has found another family and way of life in Toronto's gay and lesbian community. She met Evan, her role model, who has already had breast reduction but doesn't identify as male. Evan identifies as "...maybe non-gendered or both genders or more than both genders." Evan must endure a weekly testosterone shot to maintain his masculine look. Ayden's physician is shocked by the number of patients, like Ayden, she has seen. "Right now we have about 180 people in this practice. I think what's important is that it's becoming more accepted in some communities and that's a good thing."

American Psychological Association, 2009