Bad Boy

  Testosterone has all sorts of bizarre, unexpected psychological effects, one of which influences trust. Higher T lowers your trust in others. In a clinical study, some women volunteered to increase their T tenfold, to average male level. Then they were shown photos of faces and asked to rate their trustworthiness. The more trusting a woman was before T, the more profound her loss of trust after. Her eyes changed, hardening. Losing empathy.

  Trust interleaves with vigilance and suspicion. Vigilance taken too far becomes paranoia. All of these things correlate with testosterone levels.

  We really do see the world differently depending on what hormones are circulating in our bodies.

  “I’m not fucking paranoid,” I said. “And I don’t have the luxury of seeing a doctor right now.”

  Ingrid looked at me a long moment, as if giving me a chance to confess. Then she sighed again and said, “I didn’t want to do this.”

  She left the room. Tam and I frowned at each other.

  Inge returned with a handful of something shiny, crumpled. Tossed it at my feet. Empty T packets.

  “You’re overdosing,” she said.

  “What the hell.” I dropped to a squat, frantically gathering them. “You dug these out of the trash.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s creepy as fuck. What is wrong with you?”

  Her eyebrows rose, slightly.

  You. You are what’s wrong with me, Sofie.

  “I care what you’re doing to your body,” she said.

  “You only cared when it stopped looking the way you liked.”

  Ingrid looked at Tamsin. “I can’t get through. You deal with this. You tell him he’s killing himself. I can’t fucking watch him self-destruct again.”

  “Ren,” Tam said worriedly.

  “Don’t. Do not gang up.” I crushed the foil packets in my fist. “Everyone else has turned against me. I can’t lose you both, too.”

  “It’s okay,” Tam said, kneeling. “We’re on your side. Aren’t we, Ingrid?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s okay, love.” Gently she pried my fist open, emptied it. “Let’s take a step back from this. We all need some time to think.”

  Tamsin thought it too dangerous for me to stay in the apartment now that we’d antagonized Crito again. I thought it too dangerous for Inge to stay here alone—Come with us, I said, but she refused.

  Clothes stuffed into a duffel bag. Laptop, phone, my dwindling supply of T. The bare bones of my life.

  Tamsin pulled the suit bag from the closet. “You’ll need this, too.”

  “Leave it.”

  She draped it over her arm. “Don’t be petulant.”

  “I can’t trust Armin, or anything that comes from him. Not clothes, not a job.”

  “You’re turning down the interview?”

  “My priorities have shifted a little fucking bit lately, Tam.”

  She got in my face, fearless. “If someone is trying to ruin your life, why help them? Why throw your future away?”

  “What fucking future is that?” Lower your volume, hothead. “It’s over. They’ve ruined my name. They’ve ruined my reputation. I can’t work with teenagers, with kids—they wouldn’t hire me in a million years.”

  “Armin can talk to them. He can—”

  “What, use his privilege to get me in the door? That’ll look great. Headline: Rich asshole gets rapist bro a job at LGBT clinic.”

  “We’ll clear your name. We’ll suss out who’s behind this.”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter, Tam. The damage is done. That stigma is permanent.”

  Her jaw set. “I’m bringing the bloody suit.”

  Ingrid hovered in the hall, listening. That always-smooth face was troubled. Before we left, she drew me aside.

  “You’re not totally out of options. You can still have a future.”

  Wearily I stretched my neck. This weight on my shoulders never let up. “What’s my option, Inge?”

  “If they ruined your reputation, let it go.” Her gaze was charged, electric. Relentless Ingrid, who never capitulated. Never backed down. “Start over.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Girls can’t be predators. So stop being him.”

  —8—

  ONE YEAR AGO

  VLOG #300: DETRANSITION

  REN: Today we’re going to talk about the Big D.

  No, not that D, children. Get your minds out of the gutter.

  Before I started testosterone, I googled the shit out of two search terms:

  “Transition regret” and “detransition.”

  I wanted to know my options. If this didn’t work out, if the changes didn’t make me happier, I needed an escape route. Last thing I wanted was to be trapped in a body even less bearable than the one given to me at birth.

  When you contemplate something this drastic and life altering, you want to know the worst-case scenarios. You want to prepare yourself for disappointment, even regret.

  I knew this wouldn’t all go perfectly. I wouldn’t become a male model—my face would always be my face, just a little squarer, leaner. I wouldn’t grow any taller. I wouldn’t wake up with a seven-inch dick.

  But I definitely didn’t want to wake up one day and think, “This was a huge mistake.”

  Transition is a set of trade-offs. You turn in an unmodified, unbearable body for one that will feel more comfortable, more yours. You give up cis privilege—the privilege of moving safely through a world designed around you—for transphobia, discrimination, violence, hate. You lose friends and family, people you love, but you gain a community who loves you unconditionally. Well, some of them. Some of the time.

  Each person has to weigh these things themselves. Figure out if it’s worth it. If there will be any regrets.

  And I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t regret it.

  [Jump cut.]

  Most of the physical changes T causes are permanent: hair growth, hair loss, the voice, the dick—those never change back. Muscle mass and fat patterns do. You won’t stay ripped. Your booty will return.

  And the brain changes, the mental and emotional shifts: all of those will change back, too.

  In the end, I discovered it was those changes I needed most.

  I told myself I could live with the permanent effects, if I had to stop T. I could deal with being a gender chimera the rest of my life. Anything was better than this inertia, this certain doom.

  I had to at least try.

  If you google the terms I did, you’ll find a lot of scary shit. TERFs telling stories about women who temporarily thought they were men, who “ruined” their bodies with testosterone. Pics of receding hairlines and botched mastectomies.

  Like any of that shit is scarier than the inevitability of suicide.

  Before T, it did scare me. TERF propaganda is highly effective. I didn’t want to become more of a freak.

  But when that first dose hit my bloodstream and I felt the spreading calm, the sense of self-possession suffusing my body, I knew how wrong they were.

  Self-possession—that’s a strange term to a transgender person. We go years without understanding what it means, viscerally. How it feels to truly embody yourself. To love the feeling of your own skin, the breath in your lungs, the blood pumping through your heart.

  Self-possession is mental, too. It’s the confidence and assertiveness you’ve always felt should be yours. It’s the sense of rightness when someone says “sir.” It’s seeing yourself reflected accurately in the eyes of others, as the person you really are.

  I could never give these things up. This is what it means to be human.

  [Jump cut.]

  So many of you have asked me if I know anyone who’s detransitioned, and why. I do know some, and each had their own reason: family rejection, medical costs, lost their job, feared for their life.

  Not one detransitioned because they were wrong about the whole gender thing. It was society, family, and friends who failed th
em.

  The world failed them.

  If you ask what I think about all of this, I’ll tell you:

  Transition isn’t a trap.

  It’s not a life sentence. It’s a process that you can start and stop as much as you want.

  You may find, down the line, that it doesn’t work for you. You can stop taking hormones. Grow your hair out or cut it short. Shave or stop shaving. All the million little ways we signify gender to each other, to ourselves.

  But there’s one thing you can’t know until you try it, and that’s how hormones will affect you on the inside. In all the ways that you think, feel, perceive the world.

  Before T, I thought I could detransition if I had to.

  Now I know I could never do it willingly.

  I’m myself on T, in a way I’ve never been. I’m happy. I’m confident. I’m alive.

  There’s no going back for me.

  ———

  Sun streamed through the windows, soaking into the wood floor like honey. I pulled at my cuffs, cleared my throat, watched a galaxy of dust revolve in a sunbeam. This was probably hopeless, but once upon a time I’d thought transition was hopeless, too. Till I reached the point where I told myself: I will undoubtedly fail, but I have to at least try. I have to earn that failure.

  “Renard Grant?”

  I stood.

  A woman in a business suit smiled at me.

  “We’re ready for you now.”

  ———

  Meet me in the bar, I texted.

  This late, the hotel was dead. My wing tips glided silently over the plush carpet. The melodic ding of the elevator was a musical heartbeat. All the bright lights seemed to shimmer in time with my own pulse. Everything, everything orchestrated itself for this night, for us.

  She sat in the bar, overlooking the lake. Candles spilled shivering gold pools on the floor. Tamsin gazed into the snowy night, and when I saw her my body slowed, my heart accelerating.

  I had never seen her in a dress.

  Her slender arms splayed across the linen tablecloth, legs tucked elegantly beneath the chair, so poised and perfect. The black dress cut off at her shoulders, leaving her brown skin bare. At her ears, two small pearls, liquid drops of moonlight.

  She felt me looking, turned.

  Neither of us spoke. Her eyes ran over me, lingering on my shoulders, hands. The gold stromata in her irises burned like fuses.

  I unbuttoned my suit coat and sat.

  Tam raised a hand and the bartender brought our usual rum. Candlelight refracted in the rich amber, marbling it with fire.

  “You’re wearing the suit,” she finally said, excitement rising in her voice.

  “You’re wearing a dress.”

  “Where have you been all day?”

  “You know where.” I raised my glass. “Toast?”

  She lifted.

  “To being yourself,” I said. “No matter how hard the world tries to stop you.”

  Clink. We drank without taking our eyes off each other.

  “You’re killing me, Mr. Grant. How did it go?”

  “They offered me the job.”

  She broke into a smile. “I bloody knew it.”

  “I haven’t accepted yet. If Armin’s involved—”

  “Your friends haven’t turned against you.” Her fingers brushed mine on the tumbler. “They want you to be happy, too. We all do. Don’t you see that?” She pressed harder. “Don’t you see who really wants your happiness, Renard?”

  Quietly, I said, “We’re all trapped by something, right? Love is my cage.”

  Her expression turned savvy, guarded. She released.

  We drank.

  “What do you think of the dress?” she said.

  “It’s stunning. Almost a shame I’m going to tear it off.”

  “I was thinking the same about your suit.”

  The moon hanging over the lake painted one side of her body silver; the other was coppery from the candles. It was enough for the moment merely to look, to feel my lungs fill, my blood rush from sheer beauty. To feel alive when she looked at me.

  She smiled, the faintest curve of lips and dimples. That was the moment. I felt it happen, a catch coming undone in my chest, something unbearably light tumbling out.

  I want to let you in, I thought.

  Please, God, don’t hurt me.

  Tam stood and glided toward the windows, and I followed. In her wake trailed ribbons of her scent, curling, wrapping my head in a veil of her. I stopped without touching, but close enough that our body heat merged. Her spine arched toward me.

  Lake Michigan had begun to freeze, jagged ice lining the shore, jutting in wild formations like rock candy. Moonlight shattered on it, spraying metallic shards into the night. And the snow came down, relentlessly soft, over it all.

  “Touch me,” Tamsin whispered.

  I didn’t use my hands. I pressed my lips to her naked shoulder blade.

  Her head craned back.

  I laid my palms on the icy glass, bracketing her. Rubbed my rough cheek over the curve of her shoulder, touching her as softly as snow touched the city.

  Her skin was so sheer, so smooth. If I touched it too much I would not be able to stop.

  “I think of you.” Her hand slid down my thigh. “When I get myself off, I think of you. I’ve wanted you since that first night.”

  The strangest feeling: apprehension and desire, braiding together.

  “What if I don’t live up to your fantasies?” I said.

  “What if I don’t live up to yours?”

  I ran a finger along her throat. “That’s ridiculous. You are everything I want.”

  She turned around and said, “Likewise.”

  The walk to her room was a dance.

  We circled each other in a slow orbit as we moved through the candlelit bar to the chandeliered lobby. Never broke eye contact till our bodies were close. In the elevator, her toe dragged up my trouser leg. I ran a thumb down her spine. When the doors opened she darted out and twirled once, raising her dress. Showing me the dark sheen of her thighs. I didn’t rush. Steady stalk as she waited at her room, tapping the key card against her chin. By the time I caught up she was already inside.

  The door clicked shut behind me. Dark save for the bathroom light, a bright gap separating us.

  “Nowhere left to run, Ms. Baylor.”

  Tamsin kicked her heels off. I caught one, slid a finger inside along the warm leather insole.

  “Get over here,” she said, “and do that to me.”

  I crossed the room.

  For a moment we danced again, turning circles. Then I grasped her jaw in both hands. Her mouth half opened, eyes falling half-shut. That beautiful surrender when a girl gives herself to you. I brought my lips close and she breathed faster, faster, her body trembling toward me as I held her in place, drank in the burnt-sugar whiff of rum, and lifted her chin at last and kissed her.

  We’d done this before, but this time, behind the momentum was a wild abandon, a letting-go. This time we weren’t going to stop.

  The kiss was fierce, a discharge of tension, the electricity between us grounding itself in our skin. We craved more friction. Tamsin raked her teeth over my lip. Pressed her cheek against my stubble. Her hands were all over me, raising static from the wool suit, then touching my face in pops of little blue sparks. I put my tongue inside her mouth, slow and hard. Thrust into that softness like melting silk. The slower I went the more she softened, letting me fuck her mouth. My hand trailed down her dress to the hem, to see if she was wet there, too.

  Tam tilted her mouth away and said, “Can I touch you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere you want.”

  She mirrored my movement, ran a hand over my chest to my fly. My teeth clicked together. She looked into my face. Touched it with one hand while the other moved between my legs.

  I wasn’t packing. Not for this, the first time. Nothing there but my own
body.

  Either that body was enough for her, or not.

  Either I could bear someone touching me that way again, or not.

  Tamsin didn’t hesitate. She cupped my dick, squeezed. A deep moan escaped through my teeth.

  “Is this okay?” she said, but her expression was pure mischief.

  In response I slid my palm against her panties. “Is this?”

  “Oh, bloody—” she started, and I covered her mouth with mine.

  Our rhythm changed now, slowing. Savoring. Her panties were instantly slick, and as I ran a finger against them she lost her breath, broke the kiss. I kept my mouth close and said, “You’re so fucking wet. I want to taste you.”

  Her thighs spread for me. I left her dress on, and her underwear. Knelt between her legs as she combed her hands through my hair. With one finger I pulled her panties lower. Exhaled, my breath hot on her wetness. Too dark to see clearly but that only made it more sensual. All scent, heat, damp, my tongue delving in to touch her clit, her thighs tensing against my face. The way she responded drove me wild. Yielding to me, bringing herself against my mouth. Gasping at the grittiness of my face on her skin. This felt nothing like it had with Inge, years ago. This wasn’t closed eyes and make-believe. This was raw, real.

  I took my mouth away. Stood to kiss her, and when she kissed back eagerly and sucked my tongue, tasting herself, I couldn’t bear it. I pulled her toward the bed. My shirt came undone in her hands. We undressed each other, to panties and boxer briefs. This was the part I’d never known how to imagine. How to deal with the fact that my dick was hard and I was wet at the same time. No silicone cock, no devices. Just me. However she saw me.

  Tamsin pushed me to the bed beneath her. Our legs tangled, her breasts flattening against my chest. She kissed me, braced my wrists to the mattress, and I knew: my turn. She wanted to touch me the way I touched her.

  It took all the willpower I could muster to relax.

  To let her.

  Her mouth moved down the ridges of my chest. This body I’d carved from nothing, from the wrong default template. Over the tattoos Vada had inked, the boy standing against Poseidon’s rage. Along scars faded to ghostly lines, small male nipples, washboard abs, the dark trail of hair disappearing into my waistband. Tamsin looked at me across my body and I looked back. Everything between us felt balanced on the paper-thin edge of this moment. She held my gaze a beat longer, then traced the V lines leading into my underwear and slid the boxer-briefs off. Kissed the tight flat muscle of my lower belly. Pushed my legs apart. Her thick curls tickled my skin.