Being Emily

by Gold, Rachel

  I listened more intently to the questions than the answers, because of the crucial importance of knowing my classmates’ various stands on homosexuality, and by association, other variations having to do with gender.

  “Don’t you wish you’d just been born a woman?” one of the girls asked the man. I pushed my hands against my desk so I wouldn’t lean forward.

  “Not really,” he said. “I have no desire to be a woman. Being attracted to men and being a woman are two very different things.”

  My face felt like the surface of the sun. I prayed it didn’t look that red.

  “I think your teacher has been talking to you about this,” he said as he stood up and went for a piece of chalk. He wrote “sexual orientation” across the board and below it “gender identity.”

  “These are two different things and they don’t go together. Sexual orientation is what makes you straight or gay. Gender identity is what has you be a man or a woman. Since I’m a man who is attracted to men, that makes me gay. If I was a man who felt he was really a woman that would make me transgender.” He wrote “transgender” across the bottom of the board.

  I prayed to die in an abrupt fashion like a heart attack or being hit by a meteor right then. I thought I wanted to know how my classmates felt, but now that it came down to it, I didn’t. I’d take any random act of God to get me out of this class. At any moment I was sure every head in the room was going to turn and look at me, and the only thing that kept me in my seat was knowing that if I bolted for the door it would happen that much sooner.

  “What?” some guy near the front asked. “What the hell is that?”

  “Jason,” Mr. Cooper said in a warning tone.

  “It’s okay,” the gay guy said. “Transphobia is one of the last remaining prejudices that many people think is acceptable. While it’s becoming more accepted to be gay and lesbian, and therefore less cool to be homophobic, a lot of people still react badly to transgender people—probably because of their own insecurities about sex and gender. ‘Transgender’ is an umbrella term that includes everything from men who like to dress up as women from time to time to people who actually go through a sex change operation, both male to female and female to male.”

  I was in a rictus of death prayer: take me now, take me now. Across the room, Claire’s hand shot up.

  “Yes?” Mr. Cooper sounded relieved to have someone to call on who wasn’t a football guy.

  “I don’t think it’s fair to put that all in one category,” Claire said. “Do you really think someone who cross-dresses belongs in the same group as a person who is, say, a man trapped in a woman’s body?”

  “That’s a great point,” the lesbian said. “And there’s a lot of debate going on in the LGBT—that’s lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender—community about that. Some transsexuals don’t even want to be associated with lesbians and gay men because they’re heterosexual after transition and simply want to live a normal life.”

  “Whoa,” said football guy Jason. “You’re saying a guy can turn into a girl and live a normal life? That’s fucked up.”

  “It is not!” Claire said too loudly. Everyone was staring at her now and I could only think, Thank you Lord that isn’t me. “Transsexual people are just like you and me, they just have a much harder life. How would you feel if you knew you were really a girl trapped in that meathead body?”

  “Like a pussy,” he said and the class cracked up. Except for me; I couldn’t move.

  “Quiet down!” Mr. Cooper shouted. His face was really red now beyond the windburned spots and all the way up to his forehead.

  “That’s fucked up,” Jason said again into the silence. He continued, “God didn’t make gays, and he sure as hell didn’t make men to wear dresses and want to be chicks. That’s disgusting.”

  Mr. Cooper opened his mouth to shut Jason up, but before he could, a hurtling mass of bound paper smacked into the side of Jason’s head and knocked him out of his desk. He was on his feet in a second, Claire’s offending history book in his hand, lunging toward her. Three other football guys grabbed him, while the two kids closest to Claire got hold of her arms.

  She looked fantastic, all that dark hair flying around her head.

  “You unholy, unwashed, blaspheming, heathen bastard, you think you know the will of God! How dare you!” she was screaming, followed by a string of fairly unChristian words.

  My body got up without me and walked down to her. I thought I was still sitting in my seat, shaking, but the preprogrammed part that played her boyfriend day-to-day knew what to do at a time like this. My hand reached out for her shoulder. She stopped fighting and threw herself at me crying. Well, at least one of us gets to cry, I thought.

  “Both of you, principal’s office now!” Mr. Cooper shouted. He really was a lot taller than me when he stood up straight like that.

  He closed his hand around Jason’s arm and propelled him through the door into the hall. Claire followed, and I went with her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In the hall outside the classroom, Mr. Cooper glanced at me. “You can come too,” he said in a normal tone as he shifted his grip on Jason’s arm and marshaled us all toward the end of the hall.

  I ended up in the waiting area outside the principal’s office with Jason while Mr. Cooper dragged Claire in to explain why she’d chucked her book at Jason. His eye was darkening where the corner of the book hit it. Okay, I told myself, time for an Oscar-winning performance playing guy-to-guy conversation so I could make sure Claire would be okay around him and the other football lunks.

  Sprawled into the seat jock-style, I looked over at him. “Man, that’s gonna be a shiner.”

  He touched it with his fingertips. “I’ve had worse.”

  “No shit,” I said. “Sorry she went apeshit on you. She gets crazy sometimes. You know, girl stuff.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I took a deep breath. “Look, she may be a little nutty, but she’s my girl, so if you’re going to take it out on someone, come find me, okay?”

  “Hey, I wouldn’t hit a girl anyway,” he said. “I just don’t want a fucking suspension. Then I might come kick your ass.” He was grinning as he said it, so I grinned back. He made a fist and slammed it into my shoulder. It hurt enough that I knew I’d have a good bruise, but things could have been so much worse that I didn’t care.

  “We’re cool,” he said. “As long as you keep her the hell away from me.”

  I nodded, trying to figure out if I was supposed to say something else. The principal’s office door opened and Claire came out while Mr. Cooper waved Jason in.

  Claire kept walking out of the administrative office, so I followed her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What? Did you—?” My blood froze.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t tell them anything. Can you drive me home?”

  I was going to miss English again, but I’d survive. The teacher loved me, and I’d already done the homework for this month. “Yeah, what happened?”

  “I’m suspended for a week.”

  “Crap.”

  “Yeah.”

  I caught up to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “You gave him a black eye, you know.”

  She shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes again. “I’m sorry. I hate to hurt anyone, but he was such a jackass.” She tried to smile a little. “I told the principal and Mr. Cooper that I have a cousin who’s transsexual and that it’s really hard on her and we’re close. I think they might think I was talking about myself, wouldn’t that be funny.”

  “Funny,” I said, deadpan. “I told Jason you were PMSing and that he could beat me up if he had a problem with you.”

  “You did not.”

  “Guy’s honor,” I said.

  “Good Lord,” she said. “We’re too weird for this place. Take me home. I’ve got to figure out how to bribe Mom to lie about my ‘cousin’ if they call her.”

  ***
r />   I didn’t mention to my folks about Claire’s suspension, but I did send Natalie a note, and posted a long description of the incident on GenderPeace. Thursday at school was a bummer without her there, made worse by the recollection that I had to suffer through Dr. Webber again; he apparently had something going on in his personal life and his office called early in the week to move the appointment, for an hour later. Maybe we could talk about his issues for once instead of mine. I wasn’t sure I could handle it with as harsh as the week felt already. Worst case, I’d just sit in his office and cry for fifty minutes.

  At the appointed hour I sat with Mom in the dreaded waiting room, trying to come up with things I could say to kill an hour. Maybe I could pretend to have questions about being gay. Maybe we could just talk about schoolwork for an hour. Or I could talk about Claire and see if he’d give me more information about being a woman, that could be fun. Maybe I’d ask about PMS.

  The person coming down the hall to the waiting room wasn’t Dr. Webber, though. I thought she’d pass us by, but she came over to Mom and me. She looked like someone’s grandmother with her short gray-black hair and a wide face. She held her hand out to my mom.

  “Mrs. Hesse, I’m Dr. Mary Mendel. Dr. Webber has had a family emergency and I’m seeing some of his clients. Chris, would you like to talk to me today?”

  “Sure,” I said, though I didn’t really care who I had to spend that time with. I knew there wasn’t any other answer I could give in front of Mom and get away with it.

  When I stood up, she only came to my midchest, even shorter than Claire.

  Her office looked a lot like Dr. Webber’s except it was more colorful, and in one corner she had a box of toys: stuffed animals and foam bats and funny shaped pillows.

  “Do you see kids a lot?” I asked as I sat on the couch.

  “Yes, and sometimes my adult clients like to play with the toys too.” She smiled, crinkling her eyes. Her eyes were a clear blue like the January sky when it’s too cold to snow but the sun still feels really warm on your skin. I liked her hair too because it was one of those I-don’t-care-what-you-think short styles. It looked good on her because of her square face, but I got the impression that she picked it from a list of the most low maintenance styles possible.

  She sat in a chair across from me and opened a manila file, scanning down the page. “So you’ve been here a few times, how has it been for you?”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Mom thinks it’s making me happier.”

  She nodded. “You like to make the people around you happy, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What makes you happy?”

  I shrugged while I went through the long list of things I couldn’t say. “I like to read, and hang out with my girlfriend Claire, she’s cool. And she lets me play World of Warcraft on her computer, that’s fun.”

  Dr. Mendel smiled, which made the corners of her eyes crinkle more. “What characters do you have?”

  “Do you really want to know?” I asked. I didn’t have the patience to bullshit about stuff I actually cared about. “I mean, do you know what kinds there are?”

  “My grandkids taught me to play Champions of Norrathon their PlayStation,” she explained. “Sometimes we play games as a family. I like the Cleric; isn’t that funny for a therapist, so righteous?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ve got a Mage, Amalia, she’s my favorite, and a Priest. I like the magic-users.”

  “Because of the magic or the damage they can do?” she asked.

  I sat up in the chair and really looked at her. She smiled back at me. She was serious, and she’d just asked me the smartest question I’d ever heard about gaming outside of the game itself.

  “The magic,” I said.

  “I like characters that heal,” she said. “I think you can tell a lot about what’s important to someone by the kinds of characters they play. What’s your Priest’s name?”

  “Thalia. They’re both girls. Do you think that’s weird?”

  “No,” she said. “Do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  I’d evaded her question and we both knew it, but what was I going to say? Should I tell her it wasn’t weird for me at all and often felt more real than my real life, at least the part about being female? I was not going to sit through another hour of hearing how I wanted to grow up differently from my father.

  “Yeah, I think it’s weird,” I said. “But a lot of guys play female characters. They have nice butts.”

  She cocked her head to one side and looked at me. “And you’re just like a lot of guys, are you?”

  “No,” I said really fast and then stopped myself.

  She looked down at the folder in her hands again and traced down the page with one finger.

  “Last time with Dr. Webber you brought up transsexualism. Were you trying to get a rise out of him?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Again, she looked at me for a long time without saying anything. I tried to look back at her, but I ended up picking at the seam of my jeans inside my knee.

  Finally she asked, “‘Sure’ means ‘I’m agreeing with you in order to make you happy,’ doesn’t it?”

  I didn’t know what to say, but I gave her a little nod.

  “You weren’t trying to be antagonistic, were you?” she asked.

  She paused again and I nodded. I was so afraid and hopeful at the same time that I could feel tears pushing at the edge of my eyes. I blinked hard and let my eyes burn with the effort of not crying.

  “I’m not crazy,” I said.

  “I don’t think you are,” she agreed. “Do you want to know how you look to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You look like someone who is very tense, very guarded. You have a lot of anger and grief, and some really strong defenses. You’re also very sensitive, intelligent and caring. I’d like to see more of you come out.” Dr. Mendel closed the folder and set it on the end table next to her. “I want you to know that anything you say in this room I will not repeat to your parents. No notes, no record, just a place for you to talk, okay?”

  I wanted to tell her but I just couldn’t.

  After a moment of quiet, she went on. “I think if I had something that was very sensitive and I wanted help but was afraid to ask for it, that I might bring it up casually to see what response I got. If you had asked me what I thought about transsexualism I would tell you that I’m familiar with the standards of care detailed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and I do meet their guidelines for mental health professionals.”

  “You do?” the question jumped out of my mouth.

  She nodded.

  “Claire says when I’m…when I get to be a girl that I look happier.” Just saying the words put a lump in my throat but lifted a huge weight off my chest. “But she and Natalie are the only two people who know. Other than you.”

  She smiled. “Chris—” she started, then paused. “That’s not right is it? Do you have a name you call yourself?”

  I didn’t know if I had the guts to say it out loud in the middle of the day in the shrink’s office, but my lips moved without me telling them to. “Emily,” I whispered. “After my grandma.”

  “Emily, do you want me to transfer you into my care, so you can see me every week?”

  “Totally!”

  “Do you want to bring Claire with you next week?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good, I’ll see you both then. I need to talk to your mother now about transferring you into my practice. I promise I won’t tell her anything about what you said here today. I’m just going to tell her that I think you respond better to a woman doctor, and then I’m going to call in some favors with Webber so he won’t argue. We should be all set.”

  “Man, she is so going to think I have it in for Dad,” I said.

  “We can work on strategies for relating to your parents,” Dr. Mendel
said. “And for coming out to them, but for right now I want you to know you’re safe.”

  “Thanks,” I told her. “That’s…that’s great.”

  ***

  The visit with Dr. Mendel gave me enough hope to coast through the following week. Claire had a rough time with her mom about school and ended up grounded, which I think meant that she spent all her time in her room reading and playing World of Warcraft. She could only talk to me on the phone for five minutes at a time, to get updates from school, but we sent each other long emails.

  Her mom had tried to cut off Internet access, but Claire protested that she needed it to research the papers she was working on, which might have been true, but I think it was more to research having a higher level WoW character. I wondered if someday we could get Dr. Mendel into WoW with us when I wasn’t her patient anymore. We already had one grandmother in our guild, and she was very sweet to everyone and always called me “honey” when we chatted.

  Natalie invited me to meet her in the city on Sunday to go to a support group she had to attend, so off I went with a flimsy excuse to Dad about a pair of goggles I wanted to buy for swimming that I couldn’t find in Liberty. The team still had off-season workouts twice a week, though missing one wasn’t as big a deal as during the season. I usually went out of habit.

  We met at a little brunch place and had a bite to eat before going to a stocky brick community center building. Inside it looked like a mutated school with long corridors branching off each other, filled with thick wooden doors.

  She knew where she was going, so I followed. “This group is a little weird,” she warned. “My shrink told me I have to go once a month. But the facilitator is great. And some of the women have really interesting stories.”

  “What do you mean a little weird?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” she said. “It’s a general TG support group, so we get all kinds.”

  She wasn’t kidding. There were about fifteen people in the room when we walked in. Natalie introduced me to the facilitator while I was still getting my bearings. She was a woman about my height with a halo of blond hair and bright eyes. She had the smallest nose and I felt a pang of jealousy. Natalie said she was some kind of psychologist, and I wondered how she ended up facilitating a group of transgender people. How did regular people get interested in us? Did she know someone or were we just research to her? Or could you actually make money with a psychology practice aimed at the transgender community? Maybe in the Cities it was possible.