Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

by Janet Mock

  “Kop khun krap, Miss Janet,” he thanked me in Thai, reaching for my hands. “I want to thank you for trusting me to help you in this next step of your life. It’s a blessing that I get to make people like you more happy.”

  I paused on his sentiment of “more happy.” I liked his acknowledgment that the surgery wasn’t finally making me happy; it was a necessary step toward greater contentment. Having genital reconstruction surgery did not make me better. The procedure made me no longer feel as self-conscious about my body, which made me more confident and helped me to be more completely myself. Like hormones, it enabled me to more fully inhabit my most authentic self.

  The hospital, my home for the next week, was just a few miles away. It resembled a hotel, with a doorman who grabbed my bag from Fern and escorted us to my room, marked “Miss Janet—Hawaii” on the placard. It was a single room with a full bathroom and balcony that overlooked the city, my closest neighbor a mosque. As instructed, I hadn’t taken hormones for the past two weeks, and I blamed this hormonal imbalance for my teary farewell to Jane and Fern when they bade me good night.

  As I unpacked my bags, a smiling nurse came into my room to administer an enema, which cleared my bowels for the surgery. I showered, settled into my bed wearing an oversize tank top, and called home. Mom was more than half a day behind me and was already at her office, working one of her last days before the Christmas holiday. I let her know I’d arrived safely and my surgery was scheduled for seven A.M. and I would have someone call her when I woke up. We exchanged “I love yous” and hung up as if I were down the street, spending the night at Wendi’s.

  After a restless night, I sat up on my bed at about six A.M. to the sound of the mosque’s morning call to prayer blasting through the speakers. Shortly after, Jane, in green scrubs, greeted me with a smile and a surgical gown. Slipping into the white cotton dress, I lay on my back in the rolling bed outside my door. Jane and another nurse took me in an elevator up two floors to the operation room, where Dr. C., an anesthesiologist, Jane, and the other nurse stood in matching green scrubs. They were wearing sandals, and this reminded me of home.

  “Today’s your new birthday, Miss Janet,” Dr. C. greeted me, his eyes twinkling from behind his surgical mask.

  I smiled as Jane placed an IV in my arm and the anesthesiologist rolled his chair to the head of my bed. He introduced himself and said that he’d be monitoring me during the surgery and that I had nothing to worry about.

  “Now count backward from a hundred,” he instructed.

  “Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six . . .” I counted, my last sight being the cream-colored ceiling of the operating room.

  • • •

  I woke up a bit groggy in the recovery room with my knees spread apart at a forty-five-degree angle. I immediately felt like I had to pee, though the attending nurse said I had a catheter and my urine would release itself. I was puzzled because the need-to-pee sensation didn’t leave me for that first hour. I didn’t feel any pain because I was given a Demerol drip intravenously. Discomfort from bed rest was a reality that no narcotic could ease. I wasn’t able to get up from my bed for four days because my vagina, covered with an ice pack to reduce swelling, was packed tightly with petroleum gauze to maintain its depth.

  It was a relief when Dr. C. arrived in the room to visit me. Standing at my bedside, he placed a hand on my shoulder and smiled. He then made his way to my propped legs. Examining his handiwork, he said the surgery had gone well and that the packing would be removed in four days.

  “Your job is to rest,” he said. “The nurses will take good care of you.”

  “Kop khun kha,” I thanked Dr. C, feeling sleep drape upon me.

  I was awakened every hour or so by two alternating and attentive nurses who seemed omnipresent. Neither spoke fluent English, so those first few days were full of mimed gestures, intermittent naps, blood pressure and temperature checks, sponge baths, and morning and evening calls to prayer.

  My first thoughts during those initial post-surgery immobile nights were about Dad. He was right, I told myself as the mosque’s speakers set the city abuzz for evening prayers. I thought of my father because I knew that though he would be uneasy about the surgery, he’d respect my independence. I thought about his way of doing things, how he’d taught us to ride our bikes without training wheels, and how he’d thrown me in a pool to teach me to swim. I’d screamed at first in protest out of fear that I’d fail, but he told me with such assurance and authority, “Keep paddling, man!” I moved my arms, stayed afloat and didn’t drown, and eventually moved forward.

  Those intense months before my surgery, I kept afloat as Dad had taught me, blindly moving toward my destination. After all the work, the anger, the desperation, and the compromises and pain, I was able to pause because I had made it. After eighteen years, my body mirrored me. The weight of that dream realized was on me as the medicine let me sit with my thoughts. No longer was I numb emotionally, and I realized that there was no celebration because I was alone.

  “Out of all my kids, man,” Dad told me recently through a smile, “you’re the most like me. That’s why we butt heads. You’re just like your selfish, big-headed ass daddy.”

  I initially took offense at his statement about our mutual selfishness. I felt my decisions weren’t hurting anyone but me, whereas his hurt those who loved him most: His adultery hurt Mom, his drug addiction put Chad and me in jeopardy. Upon reflection, I saw that the people I loved most were slighted in my quest. I left home without really speaking to Mom. I missed the majority of Chad’s football and basketball games. It had been years since I last walked Jeff home from school, and now he was big enough to not even need me. Once I’d made the gradual decision to reveal myself, I began alienating myself from those I loved, a decision that made it easier for me not to be accountable to anyone. It was a solitary journey, one I’d take again to reach contentment, but the isolation I felt in that bed hurt.

  As I rested, a nurse came in, asking if I’d mind a visit from another patient in recovery. The only people to visit me were the doctor in the mornings and the nurses and the room attendant who wore a black hijab and brought me juice, water, and fruit on a mauve food tray. I nodded, and a six-foot-tall blonde made her way through the door.

  “Hello, sunshine,” she said with an Australian accent. “I hope you don’t mind me barging in here.”

  “Not at all.” I smiled, delighted by her familiarity. “I could use some company.”

  She introduced herself as Genie and took a seat in the leather armchair near my bed. Her lengthy, sturdy limbs were covered in freckles, matching the smaller constellation on her nose, which gave her a youthful look. She was striking and sun-kissed, with blue eyes that looked slightly catlike from the pull of her high ponytail.

  We exchanged niceties about our hometowns, trips, and procedures. She told me she’d undergone GRS five days before me and was accompanied by her girlfriend, who had returned to Australia earlier that morning, prompting me to ask if she’d ever seen a kangaroo. Genie was the kind of sweet that answered my cliché with a spark of newness, as if it were the first time a foreigner had asked that question.

  She was in her mid-forties, but her sunny demeanor made her appear a decade younger. Sadly, the details she shared with me about her life didn’t match her light disposition. Before transitioning, Genie worked as an engineer, was married for nearly twenty years, and had a teenage son.

  “My family was my everything,” she told me with a hint of nostalgia. “That’s why I tried so hard to hold my feelings at bay. I wanted to be the best parent and partner I could be.”

  After deciding to transition three years before, she swiftly lost all the things she loved: her career, her home, her wife, and her son, who she said was figuring things out. “People say that I’m being selfish, that I haven’t thought about what this is doing to my son,” Genie said. “But I thought about what this would do to my son every day. I put my family’s
needs first for fourteen years. I just couldn’t keep hiding anymore.”

  Sadly, living your truth has consequences. The social cost of transitioning can be astounding. Genie had been working as an accomplished engineer, but when she announced that she was trans, she was asked to step down from a job she loved, and in turn lost her only source of income. Because of stigma and discrimination, it can be difficult to get a new job, which impacts the ability to pay for health care, food, shelter, and other necessities. Luckily, Genie had savings that she could rely on, but this didn’t compensate for the rejection of those closest to her.

  Genie met new friends in trans support groups in Sydney, which was where she met her girlfriend, another trans woman. She had held Genie’s hand over the past few years, the only family she’d been able to rely on. I’m still struck by how many trans and queer people around the world are flung out of their homes, ostracized by intolerant families, and go on to reconstruct the idea of family by creating a network of kinship.

  “We became fast friends and eventually a bit more,” Genie said. “She’s been my angel.”

  When I think about Genie’s story, I can’t help but marvel at the resiliency of trans people who sacrifice so much to be seen and accepted as they are. Despite those sacrifices, trans people are still wrongly viewed as being confused. It takes determination and clear, thought-out conviction, not confusion, to give up many of the privileges that Genie did to be visibly herself, though her experiences varied from my own.

  I was a young person who grew up poor, brown, and trans. I didn’t calculate loss because I had no job or money to lose. Luckily, my family, despite their messiness, was an asset. They embraced me in a way that Genie’s family did not. This lack of social capital instilled an “I have nothing to lose” blind determination that made it easier for me to be true to myself at an early age. I was unabashedly brave, taking risks because I had no experience. Genie, on the other hand, had so much to lose. She had lived most of her life being perceived and awarded as a heterosexual white man—the epitome of power in our white patriarchal society—but when she announced that she was trans, she paid many costs. She had access to funds, though, that allowed her to seek medical intervention swiftly, whereas my lack of resources led me to risky sex work.

  I was admittedly bitter about Genie’s economic stability, about the fact that the monetary costs of this trip to Bangkok would not affect her bank account. I was broke: not a cent in my account until my scholarship checks were deposited in the New Year. In turn, I noticed that Genie made it a point several times to marvel at my appearance and the fact that I was able to transition early. I distinctly remember her telling me over spicy tom yum soup that I had a lot to be grateful for because I was a “freaking babe.”

  She looked at me in awe, marveling at how well I could “pass,” as if I had everything because the world would read me as a desirable woman: young, attractive, and cis. I knew through various experiences that when I was presumed to be a cis woman, I was still operating in the world as a young black woman, subject to pervasive sexist and racist objectification as well as invisibility in the U.S. media, which values white women’s bodies and experiences over mine.

  Genie’s persistent reference to my appearance reflects many people’s romanticized notions about trans women who transition at a young age. I’ve read articles by trans women who transitioned in their thirties and forties, who look at trans girls and women who can blend as cis with such longing, as if our ability to “pass” negates their experiences because they are more often perceived to be trans. The misconception of equating ease of life with “passing” must be dismantled in our culture. The work begins by each of us recognizing that cis people are not more valuable or legitimate and that trans people who blend as cis are not more valuable or legitimate. We must recognize, discuss, and dismantle this hierarchy that polices bodies and values certain ones over others. We must recognize that we all have different experiences of oppression and privilege, and I recognize that my ability to blend as cis is one conditional privilege that does not negate the fact that I experience the world as a trans woman (with my own fears, insecurities, and body-image issues) no matter how attractive people may think I am.

  Regardless of our differences, Genie and I grew close, and she was by my side on that fourth day when Dr. C. removed the gauze and catheter, assisting me in taking my first steps. I dangled my legs on the side of my bed and smiled at Dr. C., Jane, and Genie, who surrounded me.

  I touched my feet to the cold tile and steadied myself, waddling a bit uncomfortably to the bathroom to pee. My urine sprayed wildly, wetting my butt in a way that I wasn’t used to. Dr. C. said it was natural and that it would settle into a more controlled stream. Looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I noticed the gap between my legs. I had been reshaped, and I felt closer to whole for the first time in my life. I had an overwhelming sense of lightness, as if I had let go of a burden so heavy, a burden that I had wished and prayed would just go away, and finally that burden was gone. I felt authenticated, similar to Sula after having sex with a man, basking in a “privateness in which she met herself, welcomed herself, and joined herself in matchless harmony.” Now I felt I could go about in the world just as Janet.

  Later that afternoon, Jane and Genie demonstrated the most laborious part of the recovery process, dilation. Handing me two white eight-inch stents—one was two inches in diameter, the other three—Jane applied lubricant to the thinner one and helped me guide it in. She told me to hold it there for twenty minutes. It was a process I’d have to repeat twice a day for the next six months, gradually increasing the size of the dilator to ensure that I maintained the depth Dr. C. had created. The healing process took six months, with the sutures and swelling disappearing. After a year, I stopped dilating altogether.

  Still, it would take me years to feel at ease in my body. I was able to have pleasurable, comfortable sex with men, and I even learned to share my body in an intimate way, beyond transaction, with a partner for whom I cared deeply during my years in college. Unfortunately, having a successful operation did not relieve me from the universal awkwardness of first-time sex. Having the body I had always wanted helped me feel liberated in bed, but I was still wracked with insecurity about the size of my thighs, the attractiveness of my vagina, the diameter and darkness of my areolas. These insecurities are the same that any person experiences when exposing their body in intimacy.

  All showered for the first time in Bangkok, I had my final meal with Genie over noodles. We promised to stay in touch through e-mail and bade each other a fond farewell. I assured her that I knew she would rekindle her relationship with her son, and this made her teary-eyed. She checked out from the hospital that night and relocated to a local hotel, where she explored Bangkok for a few days before returning to Australia.

  Alone again with my thoughts, I reflected on happy beginnings, on starting anew, on the thought of rebirth. Unlike a new baby, I was branded by situations and people and decisions. Forgiving myself would give me the power and strength to move forward and truly have a new beginning, full of promise. It would take me years to do that work and release myself from the shame attached to the actions that had led me to Thailand.

  The next day was Christmas morning, and I called home to check in with Mom, Chad, and Jeff. I wished them a merry Christmas and told them that I was healing fine. Jeff asked me if I’d had the chance to see the golden and bronze Buddha statues we saw on the Travel Channel. I remember laughing and telling him I had seen nothing but my recovery room, deflating his visions of sightseeing. Chad and I didn’t talk long, but he told me that he missed me. It was the first time I had heard him say that since we were six and seven—the last time we were separated by an ocean, he in California, me in Hawaii. I found myself homesick and grateful that I had people to go back to. I also felt selfish for not giving them an opportunity to say they were afraid for me; for not even realizing that I was missing Christmas. As I went to sleep that nigh
t, I reflected on the gift of affirmation and love that my family had given me unconditionally, which enabled me to give myself the best gift ever: self-actualization.

  I returned home on December 28, wrapped in the airline’s blue blanket. Mom, Jeff, and Chad greeted me at the baggage claim. I noticed my mother was visibly shaken, her eyes swollen as she rushed toward me, embracing me for what felt like the first time in a long time.

  “I’m sorry, Janet,” Mom wept into my ear, her tears collecting on the side of my neck. “I should have been there with you.”

  My mother had never cried for me. I’d seen her hurt many times by men who failed her, from the night she slit her wrists as a cry for help to the time Rick hurled her onto the oily pavement of the parking lot. Her apology was the start of a more honest chapter in our relationship, one where I finally began seeing her not as my mother but as a woman with her own dreams, wishes, failed expectations, and heartaches. I had faulted Mom for not living up to the image that I had projected onto her, the image of the perfect mother I felt she should’ve been for me. No one was able to live up to that ideal because that woman did not exist.

  What I appreciate now is that my mother never projected such an image of the perfect child onto me. She never made me feel bad about being feminine, about ingesting hormones behind her back, about taking the steps I needed to reveal myself fully. She knew her limitations. She knew what she was and wasn’t able to give. In her quiet way, she stayed out of my way; she could give me that. She accepted me. She trusted me. She let me lead the way toward my own dreams of self. But my mother recently told me that she carries guilt about not having the means to pay for my surgery or at least to travel to Thailand with me. “I feel I failed you,” Mom said, “but out of all of my children, I never have to—and still don’t have to—worry about you. You always had a plan on how you would accomplish the things you have in your life.”