by Rachel Gold
“Aw, I was just about to go around diagnosing my other friends,” Claire said with a grin.
Dr. Mendel smiled back at her with genuine humor. “I did a lot of diagnosis from the sidelines when I was in school. I do want both of you to know that if gender dysphoria is present in childhood and persists into adolescence, there’s a very high chance that it will remain into adulthood unless treated.”
“Mom shouldn’t wait for me to grow out of it then,” I said.
“Neither should you.” Dr. Mendel pointed out.
I thought about that. “You’re right, there’s still a part of me that keeps thinking if I do the boy thing enough it will stick.”
“There are plenty of trans women who’ve joined the military or taken up extremely masculine professions to see if they could get maleness to stick to them and not have to come out as women,” Dr. Mendel said.
“I don’t want to do that,” I told her. A chill shuddered down my back. In junior high, for over a year I’d been convinced I wanted to go into auto mechanics when I grew up. What a disaster that would have been. Not the profession, but the fact that I’d have tried to keep acting like a guy.
“So it works?” Claire asked. “This transition thing?”
“That’s what the studies are showing. Overwhelmingly when teens and adults get to live in accordance with their gender identity—and have access to hormones and surgeries if they want those—they’re as happy with their lives as any person. No one’s life is perfect, but rates of depression and anxiety drop significantly.”
“Well yeah,” I said. “I’m scared all the time that I’m going to do something that’ll show people I’m a girl and they’ll beat me up. Of course we get anxious. And, this might not be a perfect analogy about depression, but what if you knew beyond a doubt that you could never write again for the rest of your life?” I asked Claire.
“I’d…I wouldn’t want that life. Writing is part of me. That’s why you get so sad? I never thought of being a girl as something like a calling or an art, but they do overlap, don’t they? It’s all ways of expressing in the world, and if I couldn’t write it would be like I couldn’t be myself ever again.”
“I don’t know about anybody else, but I’d say that’s why I get depressed,” I told her. “Everyone’s telling me I can never be the person I want to be.”
“Why don’t we talk about what you do want,” Dr. Mendel prompted.
The rest of the hour was great. I told Claire more of the stories from when I was little, like dressing up in Mom’s clothes and playing with the girl who lived down the street as if we were two girls.
* * *
Maybe it was all the talking and support that made me feel bold that weekend. I didn’t plan ahead. I got in my car on Saturday and drove in the opposite direction from the Cities until I reached Annandale. I pulled over in a residential area in front of a dark house, and got the duffel out of the back. It now had Claire’s makeup kit in it as well. It took me over half an hour to change in the car and do my makeup in the rearview mirror. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t very well go into either gender of bathroom as a man and come out as a woman.
The other problem was that I didn’t have any good shoes. I had some black boots that were more punk than anything, so I’d thrown those in the car with me and they’d have to do with the long skirt. They looked vaguely stylish. At least as men’s boots, they didn’t have much heel so I wouldn’t be toweringly tall.
I only had a hat for my head, no wig. The good news was that my hair had grown long enough in the back to hang down past my collar in a few thick curls. The bad news was that it still looked too short for my taste, but I couldn’t do anything about that now.
I tried to get a good look at myself in the mirror, but it’s hard to see yourself in a two-by-six-inch reflection. If I turned to the right, I looked pretty girlish, but from other angles, not so good. If I kept my eyes down, I should do pretty well. I’d shaved my face to within an inch of my life that morning and the foundation was thick enough to cover any lingering trouble there. Plus I felt like the estrogen was softening my skin already, though it was probably way too soon.
I figured I’d try a really quick trip into a store and see how I did. With my winter coat on, most people would see puffy down and a long skirt, a cute hat and little curls. If I moved delicately, it might be enough. I went to Walmart. There were enough people there that I could blend in, plus I needed to buy a purse before I went anywhere else.
I walked in and across the store without actually taking a full breath. My shoes slapped too-heavy steps on the floor. Out of my peripheral vision, I thought I saw a woman turn and stare at me, but I didn’t stop to find out. My heart was beating against my breastbone like a person pounding on a door.
In an empty aisle of purses I had to stop and fill my lungs a few times so I wouldn’t pass out. The store smelled like lemon cleaner and the dark musk of leather. I smelled like iron-edged fear.
I tried to browse individual purses, but my hand shook when I took one off the long metal rack. I put that one back, it reminded me of my mother’s, and grabbed a small, plain black purse on my way to the cash registers. Then I paused. I was supposed to buy control top pantyhose. Someone online said that was the key to “tucking” successfully. I had no idea what size or where to look, but the store had only a couple dozen people in it and so far no alarms had gone off and no one was staring at me as far as I could tell.
I followed the signs to lingerie and stared down the long aisle of pantyhose. Tiered row after row of white, gray and tan packages with colorful labels stretched into the distance. This would be a good time to ask for help, except that I hadn’t worked on my voice enough. I couldn’t say anything without giving myself away.
Good Lord, I was an idiot. I took a deep breath and then another.
I walked down the row until I saw “control top” and tried to read the sizing chart on the back. I had a few options, so I took one of each and made for the registers.
I picked the checkout line with a dark-skinned girl with a headscarf. For all I knew, she could’ve been second-generation Somali-American, but she had great posture and I was hoping this meant she hadn’t grown up watching a million hours of TV. I wanted to seem like just another American oddity to her.
When she said, “Good morning,” in heavily accented English, I started to relax. After ringing up my items, she said, “That’ll be twenty-eight fifty-three, miss.”
My heart soared. I unfolded two crumpled twenties from my palm and handed them to her. The change went into my new purse, the stockings into a bag, and I stepped out into the fresh, cold air.
“Miss” reverberated in my head all the way back to the car. I’d done it! For the first time I was out in public as a woman, and at least for a few minutes, I passed. That elation mixed with the caffeine from the depth charge coffee I’d sipped all the way out here and it seemed like my heavy boots floated inches above the ground. I felt goofy about being so excited, but after years of having “boy” and “son” land like shrapnel in me, being called “miss” felt amazing.
I downed the rest of the coffee and drove the next two miles to the little mall in Annandale. Now that I was out in public, I didn’t want to have to change back into my boy clothes and go home.
Okay, I told myself in the mall parking lot, this has got to be a quick exercise; I’m going to walk through and out because I can’t actually talk to anyone. I had to practice with my voice a lot more in the near future. Maybe I should take voice lessons. I wondered if Mom would go for that.
It wasn’t noon yet and the mall’s main corridors were almost empty. Two women with babies in strollers walked along one side of the main corridor. I picked the other side, to avoid them. An old woman holding onto the arm of an old man passed me but didn’t look at my face. I went from one end to the other and started to stroll back. I really needed new shoes. This mall had a DSW, which was a discount shoe warehouse that skimped on st
aff to keep their prices low so you had to pick out your own shoes and try them on without assistance. Through the windows, I contemplated a few pairs. I should be able to try on something in there without having to fend off a salesperson in pantomime.
Quickly I found the section of women’s boots, but I didn’t know much about women’s shoes and had no idea what size I was. I should’ve brought Claire with me. I put two different shoes next to my foot and guessed that I was a size eleven or twelve in women’s, but I wasn’t nearly comfortable enough to take off my boots and try one on. What if someone came up to me? Would I end up running out of the mall with my boots in my hands?
With a sigh, I gave up and headed back in the direction of the car. Claire wasn’t terribly fond of shopping, but if I threw in a movie, she’d come with me. Three junior high school kids walking in front of their parents stared at me as I passed and my heart started thrumming hard against my breastbone. Did they know? I turned away from them and walked faster. I should’ve waited until I could do a better job at this. Thank goodness no one here knew me.
Unfortunately, my racing heart along with the huge bottled coffee meant that I had to pee so badly it hurt. All the people in the mall were down at the other end where the better shops were. This end held the administrative office and the restrooms.
I paused in the hall to the restrooms and waited for a few long minutes to see if there was anyone in the women’s. No one came out. I really wanted to see what I looked like in something larger than a rearview mirror, and I was literally hopping from one foot to the other. If I went out to the car, I’d have to wait until after I changed and then go find a restroom at a crappy gas station.
I ducked into the women’s restroom and stared at myself in the mirror. The hat looked cute and so did my makeup, but my eyebrows were terrible and the whole size and ratio of my body still looked wrong. A passerby might think I was a girl, and then again might not. It all depended on what their sense of reality included; I either came across as very boyish girl, or a boy very much in drag.
My outfit was great for avoiding the loud and dramatic, but I desperately needed to work on my ability to walk and to speak. For the first time out, though, it was a huge victory.
I turned toward the stalls. There were so many of them and no urinals. This was for sure the first time in my life that a restroom made me happy.
You don’t have time, I told myself sternly. What are you going to do if someone comes in? Go.
I quickly stepped into a stall and sat down to pee. It was so clean in here. Not only the floor but the walls of the stall were almost bare. I’d never been to this mall before, but in Liberty’s two tiny malls both of the men’s bathrooms were covered with disgusting graffiti. I didn’t have anything against graffiti. It was the subject matter that disgusted me. The scrawls tended universally toward antigay sentiments, woman bashing and bragging about sexual prowess. In this stall there was a sticker about breast cancer awareness posted on one side and on the other in looping handwriting the message, “You are really beautiful.”
The restroom door opened and closed and then a heavy fist pounded on the stall door. I leaped off the toilet and pulled up my underpants so fast I nearly tore them and the skirt right off.
“All right, sir, come out of there,” a man demanded.
When I got the door open, a potato-shaped security guard was glaring at me.
“Come with me,” he said.
I did. We ended up in the mall security office, which was a large closet off that same short hallway, furnished with a desk, one chair behind it and two in front of it. I got one of the chairs in front of it.
“All right, son,” the man said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, while frantically running through stories in my mind. My voice sounded awful because it was not only too low but also rough with fear.
“You’re damn right you are. Jesus Christ, look at you. What’s your name?”
“Jim,” I said. “Jim Harding.”
“You better not be lying to me. Let’s see some ID.”
“I didn’t bring any,” I said, honestly. I opened the purse and showed him it was empty except for the money.
“Where you from?”
“The Cities,” I said.
“They tolerate this kind of shit there?” he asked and then sat back in the chair. “What do you think you’re doing in a ladies’ restroom? You’re some kind of pervert, aren’t you? You think you’re going to see something in there? You looking at girls or just like to pretend you are one?”
I felt so far outside myself I might have been in the next county. This had gone beyond nightmarish into the bizarre and unbelievable. I knew my heart was beating unbearably fast, but I couldn’t feel it anymore. My body had turned cold and numb.
“No,” I said with some emphasis.
“I suppose you’re some kind of fag,” he suggested.
“No,” I said, equally vehemently.
“Well then what, exactly, are you doing trolling around in women’s clothing, boy?”
For a moment, I considered telling him some version of the truth, which might feel like less of a betrayal of myself than lying outright. I could tell him that I was transgender and that my doctor suggested I spend a certain amount of time living as a woman. I was certain he had no idea there were internationally accepted guidelines that health professionals used to support the wellbeing of people with gender dysphoria.
As good as it would feel to be honest, I worried that he could try to hold me here and make me call my parents. I did not want him saying anything about me being transgender to them.
My neck shook with the effort of not putting my head in my hands. If my parents had to come here and see me in a skirt…I was doomed. They’d never let me out of the house again, or they’d never let me into the house again, and Dad would certainly stop talking to me. I had to find another way out of this situation, even if I had to lie through my teeth to do it.
“I lost a bet,” I said. “I’m on the swim team, see.” I flexed my shoulders for verisimilitude, a gesture that I’m sure looked monstrous in that outfit. “And we had a race and the loser, who clearly was me, had to dress up like a girl, with makeup and everything, and go to a mall and buy something. So I tried to pick a mall where none of the guys would see me.”
“But the restroom?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I drank a lot of coffee. I couldn’t go into the guys’ like this, and it’s freezing outside.”
He shook his head in disgust. “If I ever see you in this mall again, I am hauling you to the police station, understand? And, if you want my advice, don’t lose any more bets. Get out.”
I ran for my car and drove out of that messed-up town. At a rest stop I pulled over and, when I’d stopped shaking enough to use my fingers, awkwardly changed clothes in the car. I wiped off all the makeup and got out of the car to throw the used wipes away at an outdoor trash can, not bothering with my jacket. The cold made me feel real.
I stood out there for a long time thinking about how incredibly stupid I was. What the hell made me think I would ever make it in the world as a woman? The whole scene with the guard had been miserable, but the worst part was lying, making up that whole ridiculous story about losing a bet, having to pretend I was a guy all over again. How could I make my way in the world if I couldn’t stand up for myself?
I glared at the big green trash can in front of me, wondering if I should throw away my girl clothes and give up. Except that everyone did that at least once. Then they showed up years later in places like GenderPeace and Natalie’s support group saying they wished they’d never done that. I wanted to learn from someone’s mistakes, even if I wasn’t so good at learning from my own.
And for that second when I’d considered coming out to that guy, telling him I was transgender, under all the fear and dread, it felt good. Deep down under the pounding heart and the sweat breaking out on my skin, under my burning eyes
and clenched throat, I knew who I was. Did I have the courage to be that person?
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s standards of care suggested that transgender people spend some time living as the gender they were transitioning to before surgery—if they wanted surgery. The standards also recommended working closely with a therapist. I could have recited all that to him, chapter and verse. I could’ve given him Dr. Mendel’s name and number and told him to call her. I could’ve stood up for myself. But I couldn’t risk telling him the truth. Not when my parents didn’t know, and I didn’t know how they’d react.
I turned back to the car and slammed myself into it. What was the use of knowing all this information that I couldn’t use?
When I got back to the house I was still shivering, which turned out to be the start of a fever.
Chapter Fifteen
I missed school on Monday and Tuesday, miserably situated in front of droning daytime television with a head full of snot. It almost kept me distracted from reflecting on Saturday’s horror, but every few hours that would unfold in front of me again and play itself out. I’d be left second-guessing myself over and over. I shouldn’t have used the bathroom. I should have told him the truth. I should be on real hormones, not some I got from a friend. I should tell my parents. I should leave town. I should drink more hot tea and stop acting like a morose idiot.
Claire called and checked on me every day. She knew something was wrong. I didn’t tell her what had happened. It was too stupid to bear repeating.
On Thursday, she came with me to Dr. Mendel, but I asked if she’d hang out in the waiting area this time. She agreed and opened the book she’d brought for just such an occasion.
