Falling in Love

by Aimee Norin

  Lourdes found other links of interest on the web, with a surgical search, and mentioned a few to Jim.

  "Here, on gender.org.uk, it says she wrote, in 1979, that she is a 'transgenderist.'

  "About the hard times? Here it says she was arrested in 1960 for sending information through the mail about cross dressing. Apparently, she lived in realistic fear of going to jail for how she dressed."

  "That still happens," Jim said, "in some parts, but oppression is usually disguised as some other phony charge."

  "True. But back then? They didn't even bother pretending.

  "Here, she said, finding another site, "she distinguishes between transvestites, which literally means cross-dressing, and between transgenderism and transsexualism. For what it's worth, I think those groupings are still valid. I really feel that someone who chooses to change gender, seek hormones, acquire many secondary sex characteristics of the opposite sex, but not wanting to change sex along with it, are doing something very different from someone who is a cross-dresser. And the same for transsexuals vs. transgenderists, per issues and needs."

  "I know you don't want to hear the overlap thing again," Jim said, "But there are so many cases of overlap, that there are times you can't fit people into those hard groups."

  "Right. Well, I don't think they're 'hard' groups.' But I know what you mean."

  Lourdes searched on the internet again and found references to body shapes. "Look at this," she said. "Ectomorphs-think skinny folks. Endomorophs-think chubby folks. And Mesomorphs-think shapely ladies or muscular guys. They're groupings. Why do they matter? Why should we be aware of their differences?"

  "There is so much overlap, few people fit neatly into one or the other group," he mentioned."

  "In favor of your continuum view," she agreed. "But if we want to work with them, medically, we need to be aware of their different issues and needs because they really vary in every area from diet to diabetes, cancers, cardiac health, and so on."

  She clicked on the keys and went back to searching for information on Dr. Prince. "Here's a reference to a group of hers, the Foundation for Full Personality Expression-'Phi Pi Epsilon'-and how they discouraged curiosity seekers, gays, or transsexuals from applying for membership. Now, I didn't personally know Dr. Prince, but I knew folks who did. And I don't believe at all that was an attempt at elitist exclusion."

  Jim looked at her questioningly.

  She continued. "When I've argued, before, that she held separate from transsexuals, I've had people get in my face about how maybe she didn't like them. But I don't think she was trying to keep the group for transgenderists out of elitism; I think she simply recognized that transsexuals are a different phenomenon, into different things, and was seeking her own group's cohesion.

  "And here," Lourdes went on, "it references statements of hers in 1978 arguing that sex reassignment surgery is inappropriate for maybe 90% of those requesting it, that many transvestites get seduced by thinking that it is a solution to their problems. I have also felt that way, for many people who, I think, seem more comfortable in transgenderism, but wind up seeking genital reconstructive surgery because they erroneously feel it will help them be themselves more-which the transgender paradigm is partially responsible for, because it purports happiness in the 'gender' switch and doesn't actually disclose 99% of the time that they don't have or don't even want to have the mis-named 'gender' reassignment surgery. And I also think a lot of people have G.R.S. because they feel it will gain them social validation.

  "I feel strongly," she told Jim with her deepest sincerity, "that people who have G.R.S. for any reason other than a very strong need to actually try to be that other natal sex-and if they don't have a realistic understanding of what it actually is and is not-disappointment, devastation, or worse, could lie in their future. And by 'worse' I mean suicide. An awakening may be half a life later, but at some time, reality may come a knocking.

  Jim looked a little disgusted, reached over and turned the terminal off. "Come on," he said, taking her by the arm and leading her out onto the grounds of the university. "We can talk better out here," he said. "I don't' dispute what you're saying. And I don't want G.R.S., either. But I think some of that terminology you use is out dated. 'Transgenderism' meant one thing for Prince, but it doesn't mean that any more. The term has evolved, and so has the phenomenon."

  Lourdes shook her head no. "The term has evolved because transgenderism came out of the closet-which became the largest group of public transitioners-and swept everything else up in its wake, erroneously renaming everything as a variation of itself: 'transgender.' Which doesn't change a couple of major things for me."

  "What's that," he asked, his patience clearly waning.

  "One," she said, "it takes away my own group's separate issues and the things we go through mentally and physically, socially, legally, etc., to actually try to be that other sex. It's different from you guys. And two, it's still true-it's closeted by most who do it, but it's still true that 99% of all those who identify with the group 'transgender' are 'transgenderists,' like you, who want to be the other gender, at least in part, who want to be taken as the other sex, yet who conceal that they don't actually want to be the other sex."

  "It still hurts when you do that," he said.

  "Think about newbies who learn from more experienced transgenders. What are they learning from the paradigm about how it's okay to be themselves in the other gender when the rate of actual G.R.S. is concealed and when they don't want G.R.S. themselves. Do those newbies know that, really, probably 99% of you don't want G.R.S.? Do they know that you group us," Lourdes said, referring to herself, "with you for social validation? Does anyone care that you can't promote your own lifestyle of actually being one sex and the other gender if you conceal that as what's really going on? Almost all the time?"

  "Lourdes! Get off it!," he said, in a rare moment of losing his temper.

  "Anyone can believe what they want," she said. "But I made it clear the other day: I don't do denial. I don't pretend for me, and I'm not going to pretend for you, either."

  "So I don't get to assert for myself who I am?"

  He began walking back toward the car.

  "You're a pilot," she said, following him. "What if you wanted to be taken as an astronaut and won that right in court. 'It's only a matter of degree,' you say. You could then do your paperwork in life, that way. But it wouldn't really make you one. And then what about real-life other people who wanted to become a real astronaut? They tell friends and parents, who think that means maybe they want to be phony pretenders! Or liars!"

  "And you? What makes you think you're such a real astronaut?"

  Lourdes stood by the car with her head down. Shame was written all over her face. "Have you ever heard me actually say that I was?"

  The realization of what she said to him, again, slowly worked its way across his face. It looked like shock, to Lourdes, so she was beginning to think he was hearing her.

  "Lourdes-" he said, not finishing.

  Jim stood by the Prius and looked at her over the roof. "You- You-" He placed his hand on the door handle. The sensor unlocked the door.

  They got in-Jim angrily, Lourdes slowly.

  She closed her door, sat in her seat and looked at her lap in shame.

  "Our groups are different in a lot of ways, Jim. I can't let you imply-to me or anyone else-that I don't want what I truly need to be. You need to let me be in my own, separate group."

  She looked at him.

  "There's no we or there's no us," she said flatly.

  She rubbed her face with her hands.

  Jim sat in the car with her for a while, until finally he responded in a kind, gentle tone. "You know, I've been thinking about this since the other day. People function in their daily lives with some denial, Lourdes. Honest people, trying to lead good lives. It's like pain medicine that helps with life's aches. They need some of it, to get by. Doesn't matter who they are. You don't have to
be us-like either of us as individuals-to have issues with denial. All people do. Where it can be a problem if it is severe enough, it's needed on a daily basis to help people confront other aspects of reality more positively."

  Lourdes let him speak.

  He turned toward her in the seat a little. "Like maybe someone has a different religion, and she's been degraded for it. She has to face that every day, has to face others every day-never knowing who may ridicule her-and greet them with a smile even if she knows they're being critical of her-because if she doesn't, that'll screw up their interactions even more, and then not only may they not like her religion, but they'll also think she's a sour puss.

  "Or like someone who lost a loved-one? Maybe it hurts too much to bear? So you bury part of it so you can carry on.

  "Or someone who was molested?

  "Or someone who isn't the best artist but who is better if he keeps a positive mental attitude?

  "On and on," he said. "So people use a bandage now and then? To help them live life more positively and cope? As opposed to, maybe," he looked at Lourdes directly, "Living life depressed because they can't get painful things off their mind, or becoming hyper-critical of themselves to the point of rarely being able to enjoy anything. Or worse," he speculated. "And by that I mean suicide."

  Lourdes unconsciously scooted a couple inches away from Jim, pressing herself against the door, feeling slapped.

  "It happens to us," he said, emphasizing the last word. "You wanna know what I think about myself, Lourdes? Deep inside? You think I really am as happy as I act most of the time? I'm not. Yes, I'm happy with what I am, and I'm thankful to God I'm healthy. Yes, I'd also be happy if God had made me normal, but this is what I have, and I make the best of it! The painful part, for me, is how others could think of me if they're putting me down, whether they say it or not.

  "So, no, I'm not so all fired happy, inside, all the time. So, yes, I do use a bandage over my hurts to get through life sometimes. And, no, I don't want to go around telling people my private sexual business!"

  Lourdes looked at her lap.

  "You?" he said angrily. "With all your truth? Your life is so happy?"

  Lourdes started to defend herself, but he continued over her.

  "Because of a congenital birth defect you can't biologically address- Okay!" he said, too loudly, then more quietly to her, "But still, look at where else you are: You fly, you own a plane. You're at an airshow on miles of sculpted lawns, with thousands of planes and plane buffs. You got trees. Entertainment. Great weather. You've had a new circle of friends since the moment you landed, and you've fallen in love with a man-yes a man-"

  "I didn't disagree with that part," she said quickly.

  "-who also loves you. For now! Until he comes to his senses. And yet you can't enjoy-"

  "Biological discord in the brain I can't control! It's always there-"

  "Okay again! But however much that hurts, you're making it worse because you're so damn critical of yourself in life that you diminish other things that are happy!"

  He stopped for a second in thought. "That's it, isn't it? Or part of it."

  Lourdes looked away.

  "You're not happy, deep inside."

  Lourdes looked at her lap. "How could I be?"

  "You- You don't think you're as much a real person as other people, because of your birth defect. That's why," Jim touched the whiskers on his chin, "You think other people are more valid as people than you-or you think they'll think you can't be as right as they are! So you think what you say will carry no weight! So you hurt so much when others say things, because you think your view won't be heard.

  "And that also includes why you avoided most math in college," he said.

  Lourdes thought about it.

  "Other students said it was hard, so you thought it was too hard for you. You're letting other people's opinions hit you too hard. You need to believe in your own validity more."

  "Actually, I think that's true," she said. "But I've still seen denial wreck people's lives for real."

  "Yeah?" he said. "Medicine can make people sick, too, if taken wrong. So people shouldn't take some when it could help?"

  CHAPTER 26

  Back on the airfield, sitting together in a tent caf?, both of them looked whipped.

  Jim toyed with some pie, while Lourdes sat across the table from him toying with a muffin.

  "You can really lecture me a new one, you know that?" he said.

  "You, too."

  "I guess we shouldn't expect to get together without some argument. We're part of two warring tribes, you and me. And you're right: We don't know each other. I've been a fool."

  "To propose to me?"

  "I don't know," he said. "I do love you. I've just been a fool in general about you. I don't think I've ever met anyone like you."

  "Few people are aware they have, because we usually slip through life trying to avoid notice. We don't speak up because that blows it for us. It's a hard existence."

  "You mean 'we' as in you lonely people?"

  "No. I mean me 'we' as in we people-who-need-to-actually-be-the-other," she said.

  "I know. I'm just playing with you."

  Jim reached across the table to hold her hand, jerked it back. Then reached across to hold her hand again, this time actually holding it. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have withdrawn my hand. I don't want to imply I don't want to hold it. I just feel shaken. You know how many people have stripped me down like that?"

  Lourdes shook her head. "None."

  "Right."

  Lourdes felt shame for doing that to such a good and dignified man.

  "You did it to me, though, too," she said.

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's not my best quality," she said, "and I'm sorry. I'm just trying to stand up for myself and what I am, even if I hate what I am. It hurts more to-" She quit.

  "I know," he said.

  "It's your larger group," Lourdes said, "I feel like it's me against thousands. And I've never had a boyfriend who was one, before. Almost no one like me speaks up-because the act of doing so defeats the focus of the need. And the differences are so real- Look at how we argue! Doesn't that show it?"

  "You wanna hear another idea on the differences?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Okay: People like me don't usually go for people like you. We don't even hang out together, usually. If we're not in a group or on some committee."

  "I know. Another set of rejections," she said.

  "It's because, I think most of us think most of you are flakes parading."

  "On this part, you mean like F.T.Ms vs. M.T.Fs?

  "Yeah," he said.

  Lourdes responded. "It's a mess. Folks actually trying to be the other sex don't like to mix with people who just want to change gender and not sex. But the gender changers do like to have us in their midst-at least the few of us who don't argue about the false grouping. F.T.M.s of either group don't usually like to hang out with M.T.F.s of either. But M.T.F. genders do like to be with F.T.M.s of either group... On and on. And, yes, I do think it's because we're of different groups.

  "The whole unity under one umbrella thing?" she asked. "Fake. And the umbrella belongs to the largest public group: you guys. Trying to adopt us against our will. How couldn't that cause problems? Outsiders think it's a successful union, because all they hear is you people saying so. You outnumber us a thousand to one. And people don't want to hear anything that sounds more complicated-I think because they don't like the subject in the first place. They just want to think they know about it and get past the topic."

  Jim let her wind down.

  "On M.T.F.s vs. F.T.M.S? M.T.F.s can't make as good a switch, because usually once something has developed, it can't be so well undeveloped. And that's voice, bone structure, musculature, et cetera. But you guys? You can make more of a change. Sometimes you can really buff up, voice and all. And building muscle is easier than getting rid of it."

 
; "You seem really natural, though," he said.

  "I was young," she said. "It was do or die, and I mean that."

  "What was that like? Being raised in a Latin culture, in Los Angeles?"

  "Well," she said, playing with her muffin but not eating it. "My experience is they're relatively pro family, but not in my case. I there are a lot of macho aspects to it that make it harder. To my surprise, my family didn't reject me outright. Daddy had to help me do my thing probably so I wouldn't humiliate him more by messing it up. I said once to Daddy, in talking about something, I mentioned, 'I'm your daughter,' and you should have seen the look on his face. I never said that to him again. I've corrected it to, 'You're my father,' which is received better.

  "The best way I've heard of it was from this one Latin guy I met once in a gay bar-"

  "You hang out sometimes in gay bars?"

  "Not like you think. I had a friend who was lesbian, and she needed to cruise, so I went with her for a few years. Women would come and go in her life, and I'd try to be a good friend. Kind of a like a Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays person?

  "You want an experience? March with those folks in a major Pride parade. I have, for her: It's non-stop applause and cheers. Like as if you really did something! Saved humanity or cured cancer or something. And all I did was walk along with the P-FLAG contingent, holding up a sign that said, 'I love my lesbian friend.'"

  Jim nodded.

  "But there was this one Latin guy we knew from the gay bar. Good guy. Insightful. And one evening over dinner, he was talking to me, and the way he said it. He was talking about his family, and he just said, 'They look at me like I'm broken.' That's all. That's what my family feels like to me.

  "How can someone live his life," Lourdes asked, "working, paying bills, trying to love and failing as often as or more often than most people-while feeling, to his surprise, that other people think he's defective? Not honorable. Not dignified. Maybe not even trustworthy? That adds an oppressive weight to his already over-burdened shoulders. And that goes for people of all differences."