by Janet Mock
Though I am unapologetic about the way I look—an amalgamation of my parents’ features and early access to medication that halted the effects of testosterone—my appearance has granted me an advantage in life. I have been able to navigate this world mostly unchecked, seen as my true self without being clocked or spooked, as the girls would say colloquially. When I was younger, I remember taking pride in people’s well-meaning remarks: “You’re so lucky that no one would ever know!” or “You don’t even look like a guy!” or “Wow! You’re prettier than most ‘natural’ women!” They were all backhanded compliments, acknowledging my beauty while also invalidating my identity as a woman. To this day, I’m told in subtle and obvious ways that I am not “real,” meaning that I am not, nor will I ever be, a cis woman; therefore, I am fake.
These thoughts surrounding identity, gender, bodies, and how we view, judge, and objectify all women brings me to the subject of “passing,” a term based on an assumption that trans people are passing as something that we are not. It’s rooted in the idea that we are not really who we say we are, that we are holding a secret, that we are living false lives. Examples of people “passing” in media, whether through race (Imitation of Life and Nella Larsen’s novel Passing), class (Catch Me if You Can and the reality show Joe Millionaire), or gender (Boys Don’t Cry and The Crying Game), are often portrayed as leading a life of tragic duplicity and as deceivers who will be punished harshly by society when their true identity is uncovered. This is no different for trans people who “pass” as their gender or, more accurately, are assumed to be cis or blend in as cis, as if that is the standard or norm. This pervasive thinking frames trans people as illegitimate and unnatural. If a trans woman who knows herself and operates in the world as a woman is seen, perceived, treated, and viewed as a woman, isn’t she just being herself? She isn’t passing ; she is merely being.
With the consultation behind us, my mother sat in the waiting room with Wendi as I embarked on my first hormone shot. Dr. R. fitted his rubber gloves on as I sat on the white-paper-lined exam table. Grabbing a syringe, he stuck his needle into a brown vial of Estradiol Valerate, then filled it with a translucent oil that had a slight golden color. He stuck the same needle into a brown vial of vitamin B12 , which added red to the syringe. He wiped an area of my right butt cheek with an alcohol swab and quickly stuck me with the needle.
“Thank you, Doctor,” I said as I handed him the ten-dollar fee for the half-dose shot. Dr. R operated on a cash-and-check basis and billed Mom’s insurance only for the quarterly blood tests that monitored my hormone levels and liver and kidney functions.
I blossomed under Dr. R.’s care, and the potential he saw in me slowly became a visible reality. As my body began evolving, the world treated me differently, and I learned firsthand that society privileges physical beauty. Being beautiful is a personal and a social experience, one that has an effect on how you’re treated in addition to how you feel about yourself. I was still the same person (and knew how it felt not to be perceived as desirable or good-looking), yet suddenly people were kinder, enamored by my apparent beauty.
This desirability put me in sharp focus of the male gaze. Being subjected to catcalls, whistles, and unsolicited phone numbers became a norm, and during my nights out in Waikiki with Wendi and her gaggle of trans gal pals, I quietly based my self-worth on the number of times I made a guy’s head turn. Objectification and sexism masked as desirability were a bittersweet part of my dream fulfilled.
At the same time, I began looking in judgment at the girls Wendi and I hung out with. We were in varying phases of our development as trans girls. Some of us were considered “passable,” while others were not. I glared at those whose shoulders spanned broadly, who were over five-ten, who twisted their hips as they walked, who laughed a bit too loudly or deeply. My body and appearance had been policed my entire life, so I began policing other girls. As a teen, I wanted badly to pass. Due to this investment in keeping appearances, I grew self-conscious when I hung out in large packs of trans girls because the risk of being read as trans heightened. So I began stealthily separating myself from the group.
As they gallivanted on the Waikiki Strip, I would stroll a few yards behind, distancing myself. The first time I got hit on by a guy, I was walking slowly with my friends on Kalakaua Avenue in a black cotton corset and light pink pants. His name was Adrian, and he was mocha-skinned, with model good looks. He was a marine stationed in Kaneohe and spoke with a slow Southern drawl, a reflection of his Alabama roots. He was tipsy and twenty-one, with striking white teeth and an unflinching stare that made me feel like I was the only girl in the world. I remember lying about my age (I said I was eighteen, two years older) and about my friends, claiming that I knew only one of the girls, the most petite of our group. Adrian and I exchanged numbers quickly so I could catch up with the girls, who kept walking up Kalakaua Avenue.
I was on cloud nine, really feeling myself. It was the first time that a guy I was attracted to had approached me with equal desire. When I caught up with the girls, a few were quick to call me out for “acting fish.”
“That bitch thinks she’s too fish for us,” one of the girls said loudly enough that I could hear. I chose to ignore it, hoping that it would just go away and Wendi would deflate the situation with a joke, the way she usually did.
“She thinks just because she’s pretty that she’s better than us,” another girl said, prompting the first girl to turn around and approach me.
“Just because you look good doesn’t make you better than anybody. Trust!”
I vividly remember the sting of the bitter truth, echoing the concept of beauty as currency and the hierarchy it creates: If she’s prettier than I am, then she is more valuable, and thus has access to having it all. Instead of fighting back, I chose to be silently defensive, denying my actions as misunderstood and refuting their claims under the guise of jealousy. It was one of the last times I chose to hang out socially with a large group of girls. Isolation made me feel safer, though the irony of separating from the pack, of separating myself from my trans sisters in an effort to be welcomed into larger society (into the gaze of a guy), is glaring to me now.
I personally know many women who choose to leave behind their pasts—their family and friends, anyone who knows they’re trans—in an effort to blend in as cis. The trans community calls this “living stealth.” For many, it is an act of survival. Many choose not to lead with the fact that they are trans, in order to avoid the stigma, prejudice, discrimination, and safety concerns that come with being visibly trans. At twenty-two, I would choose to leave family and friends behind to live my life openly as a young woman in New York City. But as a teenager on a small island where it seemed I couldn’t escape my past, I banked on my looks, which allowed me to live visibly without people harassing me or gawking at me. Usually, when I attracted attention, it was in the form of a lustful gaze from guys like Adrian, whose interest in me further validated my womanhood.
For our first date, Adrian picked me up in his red Jetta, and we ate at the Spaghetti Factory at Ward Warehouse, the same place where my family gathered every year for Grandma Pearl’s birthday. Honestly, I was paranoid, fearful that I’d see someone from school who’d call out “Charles!” in front of Adrian, whom I assumed didn’t know I was trans. Periodically, I’d look around to see if anyone I knew was in the restaurant. But as dinner progressed, my nerves subsided, and I fell into the groove of a girl on a date with a guy. We talked about our siblings, about where we grew up, and about Adrian’s fear of having to one day use the infantry skills he had learned as a new marine.
Just as I began enjoying his presence over dinner in the dimly lit restaurant, he kissed me softly and a bit off target, on the left side of my mouth. The entire date, I reasoned that we hadn’t been physical, so not telling him was fine. Things changed after that kiss. I was anxious about how and when I’d tell him: over the phone? Outside the car? In a letter?
When he dropped
me off that night, I told him I needed to talk to him. He turned the key in the ignition, silencing his engine. I could see the whites of his eyes, so bright, as he looked at me intently.
“I don’t know what you’ll think of this, but I just wanted to let you know,” I started, “that I’m a virgin and committed to not having sex until I find the right person.”
Adrian just smiled, kissing me on my forehead and saying he wasn’t in a rush. I went home thinking that statement would get me a few more innocent dates. Lying in bed that night, I felt giddy, though I knew that telling Adrian I was trans would most likely lead to the courtship’s end. The next time we got together at his friend’s apartment to watch a football game, I kept my business to myself. I held court with Adrian on a love seat, where his muscular arms were draped over my shoulders as he whispered jokes and random sentiments to me. “You are the prettiest girl in Hawaii,” he said. “Do you realize that?”
I felt close to Adrian despite knowing nothing about him. I was a sixteen-year-old virgin, and I knew that disclosure was imminent. The moment I decided to tell him was the moment when I stopped being a girl and became a woman. Carelessness was not an option for a girl like me. I had a responsibility to own who I was, despite the stigma that existed about being trans.
As we pulled up in front of my apartment building, Adrian asked, “When can I see you again?”
I smiled, aware that this would be the last time he would look at me with the glow that comes from the newness of infatuation.
“That’s sweet, but I’m not like other girls, you know?” I began.
“I like that about you,” he said cheekily. I could tell by his playful expression that he had no idea about my past, about my present, about the girl he had been wooing for the past two weeks.
“I’m being serious. I’m not like other girls,” I stammered. “I was born with the wrong parts and am waiting to have surgery to change that.” I was vague on purpose; having to say that I’d been born a boy and was years and thousands of dollars away from having any kind of surgery was a reality I couldn’t own up to yet.
He pulled away instantly. His face turned from the sweet, soft-eyed expression I had admired to one that was coarse, suited not for a girl but for men preparing for battle. I was afraid I had made a tragic mistake, telling him in his car with no one around.
“I can’t believe this,” he said, not so much to me but to himself. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Because you’d look at me the way you’re looking at me now, like some creature from a faraway land, void of human feeling, I wanted to say. I could hear his disgust in his tone, see it in his expression. I was no longer an attractive woman he was eager to see again; he perceived me as something artificial. To Adrian, I was this inauthentic woman trying to deceive him, possibly with the intention to get him into bed. In our patriarchal culture that values masculinity over femininity, my disclosure shook Adrian, challenging his heteronormative and cisnormative ideals.
“Sorry,” I said, apologizing for who I was, ashamed of who I was, too young to know the right thing to have done. “I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“I’m not like that. I’m not gay,” he said, shaking his head. “This is just too much.”
Heartbroken, I opened the car door, crying over how this would be the first of a long line of romantic rejections, how no man would ever love me because I was a different kind of girl, how unlucky I was. Now, over a decade later, I look at how lucky I was to walk out of Adrian’s car, to cry in my bed, to wake up the next day. I now know that the world can be a brutal place for a girl with a penis.
Many cis people assume that trans women, whether we “pass” as cis or not, are pretending to be someone we are not, and often expect us to disclose that we are trans to all we meet. Disclosure should be an individual personal choice based on circumstances such as safety, access, and resources. Discussions around disclosure often get heated when we discuss trans women and their romantic relationships with heterosexual cis men. When disclosure occurs for a trans woman, whether by choice or by another person, she is often accused of deception because, as the widely accepted misconception goes, trans women are not “real” women (meaning cis women); therefore, the behavior (whether rejection, verbal abuse, or severe violence) is warranted. The violence that trans women face at the hands of heterosexual cis men can go unchecked and uncharted because society blames trans women for the brutality they face. Similar to arguments around rape, the argument goes that “she brought it upon herself.” This pervasive idea that trans women deserve violence needs to be abolished. It’s a socially sanctioned practice of blaming the victim. We must begin blaming our culture, which stigmatizes, demeans, and strips trans women of their humanity.
Months later, I spotted Adrian walking toward me on the Waikiki Strip while hanging with a few girlfriends. I was immediately anxious and considered ducking into a store to avoid crossing paths. His jovial smile when he saw me threw me, and the hug and kiss he gave me surprised me. He was just as tipsy as when we first met, and he immediately asked to speak to me privately, leading me away from my friends to a bench in front of an ABC Store on Kalakaua Avenue.
“You know, I still feel bad about the way I reacted,” he said. “I just never had that happen to me. It’s the kind of shit you see in a movie, not in real life.”
I was too young and eager for his attention to be offended by the comparison of my life as fiction, so I thanked him and hugged him. We chatted for a bit before kissing again. This time I felt freer because I was just me without the obligation to tell him anything more about me. We soon headed across the street to Waikiki Beach, where we made out heavily as the dark sea rumbled in front of us. Weeks later, I lost my virginity to Adrian in his barracks in Kaneohe, and he was sweet to me despite the awkwardness I felt with my body, covering my genitals with my hands as he slid inside me.
“It’s okay,” he said, kissing me sweetly and pulling my arms above my head. “You’re beautiful, do you know that?”
It was fun and sweet, and we had sex a few more times, usually late at night, when I was bored and he was tipsy. I felt beautiful when he was inside me, looking at my face as I gave him pleasure, but it was always bittersweet. I could make him feel good with a body that I had yet to recognize as good.
Chapter Twelve
Mom and I stood on the balcony overlooking the parking lot, watching a burly man hook her silver Honda to his tow truck. I expected her to run downstairs and plead for her car, but she just rolled her eyes as it rolled away.
“Fucking idiot,” Mom sputtered, unapologetic about her raw language, one of the bad habits she had adopted during her nearly three-year relationship with Rick, who hadn’t been to the apartment in days. Though Rick’s absence irked the hell out of my mother, she was used to it. He had landed himself back in jail a few times during part deux of their relationship so often that I can’t even recall when he was in or out. I just enjoyed his absences, whether they lasted weeks or months.
I rarely crossed paths with Rick, but my brothers spent time with him daily as he shuttled them to and from school in Kalihi. Chad, fifteen, was a freshman at Farrington, where he was a receiver on the JV football team and saw Wendi regularly in the hallways. Jeff, ten, scoffed at any kind of activity that required him to be away from the Disney Channel. I can see him clearly, lying on his stomach in front of our television with his dirty feet up in the air, glued to the antics of Lizzie McGuire, Shia LaBeouf in Even Stevens, or That’s So Raven.
Our apartment was still in Rick’s absence. I felt safest when it was just the four of us, quietly watching TV together without the interruptions of his pacing. He had been to dark places and brought a foreboding shadow into our home and his relationship with Mom. His drug-fueled presence was hard to miss. It was apparent in his eyes rejecting any spark of light, in the way his bottom lip jutted in and out unconsciously, and in the way Mom’s attention narrowed on his needs, wants, and desires. Her focu
s on Rick dug her deeper into a self-imposed isolation that distanced us from our grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
Papa was vocal about his intolerance of Rick, whom he still saw as the teen delinquent who knocked up his firstborn child, and in return, Rick was vocal about his dislike of Papa. My mother, feeling judged by most of her family, who suspected she was on drugs, slowly dodged family gatherings at my grandparents’ home. We had been away from our grandparents’ apartment for more than a year, a time period that coincided with my most transformative years. Though I missed my family, their absence eased my worries about being accountable to even more people in my life.
The only person we saw with regularity was Grandma Pearl, who remained Mom’s nonjudgmental ally. Their closeness was apparent in the way they whispered to each other on the phone. I remember Mom discreetly reaching out to Grandma with frequency in desperation as her economic instability worsened, always pleading, “Please don’t tell Dad.” My mother has said on many occasions in reflection that she would not have been able to stay afloat if it weren’t for Grandma, who stepped in when she needed her most, from raising Cheraine and babysitting each of us to the cash handouts she offered without expectations of repayment.
“Take care of your mom, yeah,” Grandma told me after breakfast at the Original Pancake House around the corner from her apartment. There was a note of defeat in her voice that shook me. She knew that she had done all she could for my mother, and she knew it wasn’t enough to pull her from Rick’s grasp.
Weeks later, Rick returned to the apartment, and an epic screaming match ensued about the car’s repossession, about the missed rent payments, about the fact that he wasn’t holding up his end of the bills. We had grown used to their fights, but nothing prepared us for the plan Rick returned with.
