Trans-Sister Radio

  "Brunch on Sunday?"

  "If it's real late."

  "Absolutely. I know you need your beauty rest."

  "Can I ask you another question?"

  "You can ask me a thousand questions."

  I noticed a small drop of blood near the tip of her pinkie. "Does it hurt?" I asked.

  She thought for a moment. Then: "Yes. Less now than when Dana first told me. But I'm still disappointed. And I still feel betrayed."

  I nodded as if she had answered my question. I decided not to tell her that I'd only been wondering about the surgery.

  No one likes to imagine their mom or dad making love--not with each other, not with other partners. So to keep those images at bay when I went to my room that night, I tried to concentrate upon my mom's remark that she hoped Dana would still change his mind. She doubted he would, but she said that a part of her fantasized he'd be so happy once he'd moved in with her that he'd postpone his surgery indefinitely.

  I also tried reassuring myself that my mother couldn't possibly be a lesbian. After all, she was forty-two. One would think she'd have figured out her sexual orientation before midlife.

  But then I began to wonder. I began to wonder about her, and I began to wonder about me.

  She'd said that she'd fallen in love with a person named Dana. After his surgery, she had observed, he would still have the same brain, the same soul, the same sense of right and wrong. The same sense of humor. The same understanding of exactly how much fresh mint should go into a summer pea salad. Why, she had asked me, would the things that she loved most about him have to change once he'd had his surgery? The fact is, she had said, they wouldn't.

  And so it was at least a possibility that the two of them would stay together after his operation. They'd certainly remain friends. As for the rest? She just didn't know.

  Which, in the dark of the night, made me begin to doubt myself. I didn't assume lesbianism was genetic, but that evening I did find myself questioning my own sexual orientation. Why had I been so quick to break up with Michael last spring? Why didn't I have a boyfriend at Bennington?

  I hadn't really given a whole lot of thought to exactly what lesbians did sexually, but when thoughts of a post-operative Dana and my mother crept into my head against my will, it dawned on me that most of what would go on in their bed wouldn't be dramatically different from what went on between heterosexuals.

  There was that penis, of course ... or lack of one.

  But even Michael and I had done more than simply fornicate. And he was an inexperienced high-school boy!

  I thought of the half dozen lesbians I knew at Bennington, and I decided they probably weren't lesbians the way I might be a lesbian. For them, it seemed, it was more of a political statement than a sexual orientation. I had a feeling at least two of them were actually closet heterosexuals and would probably come out once they'd outgrown the thrill of being marginalized.

  I'm not sure how long I had lain in my bed before finally falling asleep, listening to the rumble the furnace would make when it would kick on, or to the sound of the leafless hydrangea branches as they scratched against the bay window below my bedroom. I was exhausted, but it still took me forever. The last thing I remember before finally nodding off is the feeling I'd had the night Dana and I met, when he gently touched my lips with the edge of a paper cocktail napkin. I had felt, I decided, cared for and happy and warm. If he made my mom feel that way, it probably didn't matter whether or not he had a penis.

  Chapter 10.

  dana

  HOW DO YOU HIDE YOUR PENIS?

  It depends upon what you're wearing.

  I started cross-dressing that autumn in Vermont, so it's not as if I had to hide it under some risque tank suit or slinky bikini. (Reason #1,701 why I fled sunny Florida before coming out ...) And Allison and I did not exactly have a calendar jam-packed with proms and cotillions that fall, so there were no events that would have demanded that I try to pour myself into some champagne flute of a gown.

  Most of the time, a quality pair of panty hose or tights would flatten the penis out to my satisfaction.

  Of course, it's possible that my standards weren't very high or I wasn't particularly demanding. Jordan and Marisa, for instance--two girls from my support group--insisted that they couldn't possibly wear even stirrup pants without looping a little string around the tip of their penis, and then pulling the string back between their legs. They'd attach the string to a thin band they'd wear about their waist like a belt, tying it to the cord at the very base of their spine. The result? Balls and all would be tucked like a little baby between their thighs.

  Was I nervous when I first started wearing women's clothing? Lord, yes. But I also felt movie-star fabulous. I'd been dieting, I'd been on hormones, I'd grown my hair long. And, I discovered, wearing women's clothing in public because I was in transition was a very different sensation from wearing it in private because I was experimenting. You can't imagine what it's like after a lifetime in the wrong attire to finally feel the right clothing energizing your body.

  And energizing, it seems to me, is exactly the right word. Dressing the way you were meant to is very, very invigorating, the first time you do it.

  It is not, I should add, erotic. At least it wasn't for me. I'm sure there are transvestites in this world who get very turned on once they're cinched inside some sleek little ottoman rib dress--and, in all likelihood, some transsexuals as well--but this wasn't a sexual experience in my case. Not at all.

  But it was exhilarating. Downright rejuvenating. This, I was practically singing to myself in my head, is what it feels like to dress like a woman! To dress the way I was meant to!

  I felt like I was in a movie musical.

  And while I had most certainly been frightened the first time I walked into a meeting at the university, or the first time I walked down North Winooski Avenue in Burlington, it always was worth it. Even when, the first few times, I'd hear some teenager on the street calling me names.

  The moment that fall that probably gave me the worst case of the shakes was the first time Allison was to see me in a dress. I wanted to look good. I wanted to be attractive. I didn't want to, once more, scare her away. I'd done that back in mid-September, and I didn't want to do it again.

  Earlier that fall, she'd taken my confession (what a horribly unfair word!) about as well as could be expected: She'd been furious. We had walked back to my car in absolute silence, and she didn't say a single word to me as I drove her home. I had assumed we were finished, and when I got back to my apartment mid-afternoon, I just collapsed on my bed and sobbed.

  I sobbed because I had lost a woman I loved, and I sobbed for the reason I'd lost her. I sobbed because, yet again, a person hated me the moment I stopped living the big lie.

  But then she called me two days later. That Monday night I was home alone, missing her so much that I actually wished I had a stack of papers to grade or a class to prepare for. I don't think I had spoken to anyone other than my sister in Florida and a waitress in a downtown diner since we had parted on Saturday. Ah, but then she called, and in an instant I went from gloomy to giddy.

  "I want to understand more about your plans," she said. Then: "I want to see you again. If you still want to see me."

  "God, yes!"

  She told me how angry she was that I hadn't told her sooner, and I admitted it was indefensible. She told me she didn't have any idea what wanting to see me meant.

  "Maybe I just want closure," she said.

  "I could see that," I said. "But I hope that's not the case."

  "I know you do. So be warned: Maybe I'm just calling you to get your hopes up so I can dash them--the way you dashed mine."

  "That wasn't my intention. I just wanted--"

  "You just wanted a lot of things. You wanted someone to hold your hand through the next four or five months. You wanted someone to be your guide when you started to dress up. You wanted someone to teach you to be a woman. We both know that."
>
  "No, that's not it," I insisted. "I fell in love. That's all. I fell in love."

  "I believe you. But let's be honest: You fell in love with me because you needed to fall in love. I don't know who your friends are, but I haven't met any. And everything you've told me about your family suggests they're not going to be particularly supportive. So you needed someone. And, if only because I was there, you chose me."

  "It didn't work like that."

  "Maybe you didn't plan it like that--"

  "Trust me, no one ever plans it like that. No one plans to fall in love, period--at least the way I've fallen for you."

  "Perhaps not. Still ..."

  "If you really believe that, then what is it you need from me? Tell me. What did you need in July? What do you need right now?"

  She was silent for a long moment at the other end of the line. "I don't need anything," she said finally. "I only want to see you."

  We saw each other four times in late September and early October. I was dressed as a man on each occasion, though I was spending more and more time dressed as a woman. And when I showed up at a meeting of the Green Mountain Gender Benders for the first time in months, I appeared in a button-front skirt and suede zipper boots. Some members of the group were a little cold to me, since I hadn't shown up in so long, but they were still proud of me for finally coming out.

  In hindsight, I wore way too much makeup that night, but most girls go overboard when they first start experimenting with lipstick and mascara. (Of course, most girls get to make their cosmetic explorations when they're teenagers, not when they're flirting with middle age.)

  I had a sense that that meeting would be the last one I would ever attend: My surgery was barely a season away, and already I was viewing myself less as a transsexual and more as a woman. My chest was starting to bud, thanks to the hormones, and the hair on my head seemed thicker and more lustrous. I felt the muscles in my arms and my legs starting to melt, I felt my skin beginning to grow young. Truly: young. I could see it in the mirror.

  And, best of all, Allison had called. The support group met on Thursday nights, and Allison had phoned me that Monday. We had dinner together on Friday, the night after I'd donned boots and a skirt for the Benders.

  For Allison, of course, I wore blue jeans and penny loafers. The evening when I would spend literally hours throwing clothing onto my bed, and then--when I had finally found something that didn't make me look like a construction worker in drag--applying and reap-plying makeup, was still a few weeks away.

  "As far as I can tell," I told Allison Friday night, "transsexuals either go into a deep denial and overcompensate like crazy, or they just give up and start planning for surgery."

  "Women transsexuals, too?"

  "You mean boys born in a female body? I can't speak for them, but it's probably true. Still, I can only speak for girls like me."

  I'd chosen an Italian restaurant near the office parks that ringed Burlington's southeastern suburbs--the sort of place that depended upon a business lunch clientele and was virtually deserted for dinner. This way we could be assured of some privacy. Moreover, because the restaurant was far from my downtown apartment, the turf would be vaguely neutral, which seemed to make sense. I didn't want Allison to have any fear that I harbored some delusion that we'd go back to my apartment and make love.

  "What do you mean they overcompensate? They try and be super macho?"

  I nodded. "We're talking construction worker macho. I know one girl who was a Navy SEAL, for God's sake! And the doctor who will be doing my surgery has done army sergeants, an air force colonel, and a submarine commander. For a group that wants to make our penises disappear, we spend a lot of time with phallic symbols, don't we?"

  "But not you."

  "No, I just gave up early on. As a teenager, I was simply one endless train wreck--oops, there's another one of those symbols. We just can't help ourselves, can we? Still, I'm quite serious about this: You cannot imagine how unhappy I was. How miserable. There were months in my last two years of high school when I spent far too much time gazing longingly at razor blades, steak knives, and big bottles of aspirin."

  Allison was nursing her wine, sometimes resting the edge of the goblet abstractedly against her lower lip. It was clear that she wanted a second glass, but she was too far from home to risk getting potted.

  "You didn't ever really try killing yourself, did you?" she asked softly.

  "When I was a teenager? No, I never actually tried it. Thank God. It's just that I had a pretty good idea what kind of future loomed before me, and I wasn't happy. I remember one afternoon I came across nude pictures of transsexuals in some adult skin magazine. Eureka! I thought. There you are, Dana: Superfreak."

  "I'm sure they weren't transsexuals like you. Not if they were posing for an adult magazine."

  "No. Though one was really quite pretty. But they were still presented as disgusting outcasts, and they certainly didn't do a whole lot for my self-image. The pictures weren't exactly designed for men to get off on."

  "Probably not."

  "And already I was drinking way too much. I'd begun sneaking my parents' scotch in eighth grade when I started getting chest hair, while all the girls around me were getting these perfect little breasts. It was awful. Oh, God, did I hate my body--did I hate myself. It wasn't until I began to realize that surgery was a genuine possibility that things began turning around."

  "Did you have friends then?"

  "In high school? Certainly not boys. I wasn't into that compensation thing."

  "Girls have boys who are friends."

  "But those girls are still treated as girls! Or at least viewed as girls! Whenever I hung out with boys, they'd want to do boy-type things that didn't interest me. It had been that way my whole damn life. Let's play combat! Let's play race car! Let's go build a tree house! Oh, please. And it certainly doesn't get any better when you're a teenager. In fact, it gets worse."

  "At least they're not playing soldier anymore."

  "Hah! The soldier's just on leave now. He's got his four-day pass, or he's gone AWOL. But with all that testosterone coursing through him, he is still every cell the warrior. Of course, by then, even if I'd wanted to play football or drink beer or talk about some poor girl's hooters, the boys wouldn't have wanted me hanging around."

  "Too ... effeminate?"

  "I was considered quite the girly boy. Naturally."

  "Well, did you have friends who were girls?"

  "A few. And I always seemed to have a girlfriend, which at least gave me a little power in the eyes of the boys. But it was all very, very difficult. Especially when I was still trying to figure out what was going on. I'd see a beautiful girl, and I'd want her sexually, but I'd also be desperately envious of her. My sister said it's like this friend of hers, a man who can't walk, and she's absolutely right. That guy is incredibly jealous of people whose legs work, and sometimes he gets seriously pissed off at life. He was in some sort of accident when he was nine or ten, and now he's stuck in a wheelchair. It just doesn't seem fair."

  "You'd desire a woman? And be jealous of her?"

  "Still do. God, Allison, I look at your body, and I just want every part it, and I want it in every imaginable way. I wish my feet were as petite as yours, and I wish I could dab red polish on my toes while watching TV--just like you do. I wish my waist were your waist, and I wish I had hips--"

  "Trust me, you don't want my hips."

  "I do! And forgive me for confessing this, Allison, but half the time when I lick you, I'm turned on and resentful at once. After all, even when I have a vagina, it will never be as creamy as yours! I'll never be naturally moist! I'll never--"

  "I get it," she said. "Thank you."

  "I'm sure you do, but it's only because you're very intuitive and very smart. I haven't begun to tell you how shitty my years in high school really were. I haven't told you a thing about the eating disorders and the dieting and the vomiting--anything to prevent my body from bulking u
p and becoming a man's. I haven't told you about the times my mom would start crying when I would get drunk and try to tell her what I was feeling. Or the way my dad couldn't stand to be in the same room with me for more than five minutes--and, in fact, still can't. He's not mean to me: He just doesn't know how to deal with his pansy son."

  "And your sister?"

  "She's terrific. But she's five years younger than I am, so she wasn't much help two decades ago. When I was fifteen and sixteen years old, she was still in elementary school. So I would spend days and days alone in my room with absolutely no one to talk to, because, basically, I had nowhere to turn and no one to confide in."