Because prepubescent transgender children require no more physical change than a new hairstyle and clothes, the initial transition is completely reversible, Olson-Kennedy said.

At fairly routine intervals, fashion lifts fat people, prepubescent children, sexual outliers and now, with increasing frequency, old people to an exalted chic.

What gave that strategy added power was his singing: From the beginning, he had a transcendent, curious voice that verged on the prepubescent.