My Sister

by Selenis Leyva

  “Really?” I asked. My feet were killing me.

  Now, looking back, I see how Melissa was giving me a push to put myself out there. She was used to doing this, dressing as a woman in public. She was comfortable and confident, a big personality who always looked good. I was so nervous when we walked through my neighborhood to the train; I was scared that someone would recognize me, that someone would call me out as a man dressed in women’s clothes. But not Melissa. That day, guys were tryna holla her on the train. And there I was, the ugly duckling with some red-ass cheeks, sitting quietly while I watched her flirt with boys who didn’t know who she was.

  The closer we got to the West 4th stop, however, the more at ease I felt. And when we exited the station, the uplifting energy of the Village gave me the confidence boost I needed. Later, we went to a Kiki Ball, and when we walked in everyone was asking: “Who’s the new girl?”

  It was exciting.

  IT WAS around this time that I started seeing my first boyfriend: Nathaniel, the guy I’d met while throwing the party at El Coral. He was older than me and had a good job in engineering, so we didn’t see each other all that much. But we talked on the phone and sent each other texts all the time.

  “Hey, I miss you. I want to see you,” I’d tell him.

  And he would come and pick me up in his car, and we’d drive around or just sit in his car parked outside of my house and talk or go back to his place to watch movies and eat takeout on the couch. He had come out not too long before that party at El Coral, so he wasn’t all that comfortable being affectionate in public. On the train, he’d sit far away from me so that people wouldn’t know we were together. But I felt safe with him. Comfortable being myself. He genuinely cared about me and wanted me to make good choices, to do something good with my life. He believed that I had good things ahead of me. And he made me feel special. The way he spoke to me made me feel all giggly and warm, like I was the only person in the world. I didn’t tell him much about my friends in the community or how I was thinking about transitioning, but he made me happy. I felt like a girl who had a boyfriend for the first time.

  One night, he cooked me dinner, and I remember feeling so cared for, like he was trying to do something special for me. Later, when we said goodbye at the end of the night, he said to me: “Be careful. I love you.”

  I was flying.

  FOR THE first time in my life, I was feeling confident. I was starting to embrace who I was, if only around a few select people, and I wanted to celebrate being me.

  And because we were teenagers, celebrating me meant experimenting, trying new things—and breaking the rules. It was in the legendary Oval Park that I had my first blunt and drank my first beer. I was with Jackie and a couple of her friends. We sat down on benches not too far from my house. I was nervous that someone was going to catch us. My brothers always hung out in the park. What if they showed up to play basketball? Or what if one of their friends playing basketball saw us and said something?

  “They can see us here!” I said.

  “No way,” Jackie said. “We’re covered by the trees.”

  But I knew that was not the case. If I was sitting in my room, or in Mami and Papi’s room, looking out onto the park, this spot was visible from the window.

  “Mari, get over it! It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “No, we gotta move,” I insisted.

  They rolled their eyes but humored me, and we moved to another set of benches in an area that was more hidden.

  Jackie passed the blunt to me, and I took a hit. It burned the back of my throat, and I started coughing like crazy. Then she handed me the forty, and I took a long drink. I thought to myself, Okay, this I can handle. Pretty soon, I started to feel a little woozy. A little cute. A little less insecure or worried or self-conscious.

  On Halloween, we went to the parade, and I dressed as Marizol. I loved it all—the costumes, the colors, how everyone was celebrating and dancing and free. Afterward, we hung out at the Christopher Street Pier until four in the morning, the music blasting. We vogued and danced and cheered each other on. For us, it was a place of freedom and laughter where we could be ourselves. At school and with my family, I was still tryna lay low, to not attract so much attention. I hated feeling like I had to hide, knowing that a whole other world existed for people like me.

  BY THIS time, my sophomore year, I wasn’t really being bullied much at school. It took me a while to open up to other kids, and I was still pretty shy, but there was this one kid, Timothy, who I felt more comfortable with. He wasn’t out, but everyone got the sense that he was gay. He was a year above me and friends with all the dancers, the popular girls. I started to get to know him and the people he was friends with, and I felt a little less lonely. Soon, I felt close enough to him to open up a little, to tell him about how Melissa and I would dress up and do photo shoots. Close enough to show him Marizol’s Myspace page.

  That was a mistake.

  He put me on blast. He showed all the cool girls Marizol’s Myspace. And they showed the jocks. Soon, the football players in class were asking me, “Hey, Jose—who’s Marizol?” And once again came the teasing. The names. I had been doing well in school. I had plans of graduating, of going to college, of leaving the neighborhood and fully living my life as me—as Marizol. I wanted to go places. To be somebody. My brothers hadn’t graduated, and they were always telling me, “Finish school.” Or, “Get good grades.” I wasn’t a straight-A student or anything, but for the most part, I tried to do well in my classes. But this bullying began to wear me down. Everyone else seemed comfortable and free to be themselves, not scared of being around groups of kids.

  I didn’t tell anyone at home what was going on. I pretended that I had friends, that everything was going fine. I couldn’t go to Seli with my problems because she didn’t even know about Marizol. But it got so bad at school that I stopped going to lunch altogether.

  My teachers knew I was being bullied. Just like in middle school, they stood by and watched how the other kids treated me. Some of them would even say to me things like, “If you toned it down a little bit, you wouldn’t be such a target.” Back then, in the mid-two-thousands, I didn’t know of any support for LGBTQ+ youth in schools in the Bronx. There may have been city- or nationwide initiatives, but it was not something that was discussed at any of the schools I attended or any of the schools my friends attended. And now, though there might be greater tolerance, awareness, and support in schools like the ones I went to, LGBTQ+ kids are still targets. They are more than twice as likely as non-LGBTQ+ youth to experience verbal harassment and bullying,1 which leads to greater rates of self-harm. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide than heterosexual youth,2 and nearly half of transgender individuals have attempted suicide at some point in their lives.3

  I felt only one teacher of mine was understanding and cared about me—Miss Greene, my social studies teacher.

  “Look,” she said to me one day, “why don’t you just come and eat lunch in my classroom?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  And so during my lunch hour, I’d go get my food from the cafeteria, try to avoid all the stares and whispers in the lunch line, and go back to her room. She sat at her desk, doing her computer work, and I was off to the side at a student desk, eating my lunch quietly and doing my homework.

  WHEN I was out with my friends, I could forget about what was happening at school. Jackie and I started partying a lot, usually with Miranda and others from our little entourage. I started dressing as Marizol when we went out—to house parties, to El Coral, to LGBTQ+ clubs in Manhattan or Brooklyn or the Bronx. I had a stash of clothes and wigs and shoes that I kept in the basement in a spare room, where I hoped nobody would find it.

  One night I decided to get ready at home instead of at Jackie’s. It was just getting dark, which meant I had to walk out in the open as Marizol to get to Jackie’s place, where we’
d pregame until late into the night before going out. I was supposed to be home by midnight, but by this point in my life, I never followed curfew. The parties didn’t even get poppin’ until one in the morning! That evening, I put on my London Girl wig, some makeup, tight jeans. I wore pointy-toed boots and carried a big purse. When I left our house, I put my head up high, and I kept it there as I walked down the hill, past the bus stop and Mami’s nail salon and the deli I went to every day in middle school for a bacon-egg-and-cheese with salt, pepper, and ketchup. A group of people turned the corner and I realized that church had just let out and that Mami would be on her way home. And that’s when I saw her.

  I didn’t know whether I should duck into the deli and hide or turn around the block and avoid her altogether. I panicked, but I was running out of time. With every passing second, she and I were getting closer and closer to one another. Finally, I had no choice but to look straight ahead and walk past her like I was just any other person. I took a deep breath and went for it.

  And just like that, she walked past me and it was over.

  Did she not recognize me?

  I turned around to see if she was gonna do a double take. She didn’t. I couldn’t believe it!

  I was relieved she didn’t catch me, of course. But I was also happy, excited, that my own mother didn’t recognize me. Maybe I could pass for real all the time, I thought.

  EVEN THOUGH I didn’t feel like I could be fully out there with my family, I started to push the limits more and more. I wore magnetic earrings. Tight clothes that showed off my figure.

  Papi wasn’t happy about it.

  “Jose,” he said, “why do you have to be so feminine?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you can be gay, but do you have to be so flamboyant about it?”

  I rolled my eyes. Papi, you have no idea, I thought. If it had been up to me, I would’ve had my hair done, my nails done, the whole nine. I would’ve worn a bra! This was nothing.

  “This is who I am!” I said. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Take it off, Jose,” he insisted.

  “No! This is me!” I went into my room and slammed the door shut.

  I was angry. At him for wanting me to tone it down. At the world for not letting me just be myself. Even at home, I felt like I didn’t really fit in. Isa had been adopted by Mami and Papi when she was four, which meant that she could legally use the Leyva name as her own. The process of my adoption never went through, so I was stuck with my birth father’s name. I resented not officially being a part of the family like Isa was. And I was angry at Jose Sr. for not signing over his rights. On top of this, memories from that time I spent at my biological parents’ house kept coming up—memories that continue to haunt me to this day.

  I STARTED partying so hard and staying out so late that I couldn’t get up and get to class on time. It was hard being in school knowing about this whole other world where people like me were not only accepted but also celebrated. I would fantasize about what it would be like to show up one morning as Marizol and say, “I am here! This is me!”

  But ideas like these, even when they were exciting, made me panic. What would my principal say? Would I get sent home? What would the other kids do to me? My mind flooded with memories of being bullied in elementary and middle school. Of being called faggot. Of being shunned and having no friends. Of being lonely. I always pretended it didn’t bother me, like I didn’t give a fuck, but of course it hurt. Of course it made me afraid to really open up.

  I wished I could just be like everyone else. That I could go to prom, in a gown, with my boyfriend. That I could graduate. But it seemed like I had to choose between having those experiences and being myself. I was falling into a dark place. I’d think, Nobody can hear me, so I’m just gonna make noise. I knew that I couldn’t be myself and keep going to school, so I partied. And the more I kept doing things I knew I shouldn’t be doing, the more that voice inside my head said, Fuck it. Enough is enough. But I wasn’t bold enough to say it out loud, so I spoke through my actions.

  I wasn’t eighteen yet. To officially drop out, a parent had to go to the school office and sign a form. Papi was furious. One morning, when I should have been at school but instead was hungover and trying to sleep it off, he brought me some luggage and yelled, “If you’re not gonna go to school, then you can pack your things and leave.” But I couldn’t imagine going to school—a place I was always hiding—for even just one more day. I promised Mami I would get my GED instead. She finally relented and agreed to sign the form to get me out of school.

  When Mami and I got to the school, I started to question my decision. I knew that I shouldn’t do it. But at the same time, I knew that I couldn’t just keep going back, pretending to be somebody I wasn’t. In the office, the counselor slid us the papers.

  Maybe I could still stick it out, I thought. I can still graduate and make something out of myself.

  But then I asked myself: Am I going to live for myself or for everyone else?

  I signed the papers and so did Mami. I was out of school for good.

  Now, looking back, I think that if I hadn’t skipped school to meet with Jayden that day in Staten Island, if I hadn’t had to come out to my family, if I hadn’t met Miranda and known that transitioning was in fact possible—if none of those things had happened, I think I would have stuck it out and graduated. But that would have meant hiding who I was for who knows how much longer, and once I began to learn who I was, I couldn’t go back. I made the decision not to hide.

  But now I know that I was still hiding. I was hiding my true self from Mami and Papi and the rest of the family. All of the partying, which started as a celebration, quickly became a crutch. A way for me to hide from my feelings, from my inability to always and fully be the real me.

  The thing about partying is that it costs money, and I had none. My friends would be generous sometimes, sharing liquor and whatnot, but I could sense that their generosity was running out. And without them, without the partying to forget my demons, I was going to have to face them head-on. And I wasn’t ready for that.

  When I first withdrew Mami and Papi’s money from the ATM, I realized I liked being the one buying everyone drinks. Supplying the party. I felt, once again, like I was being celebrated and loved. Of course, it wasn’t a full, unconditional love—deep down, I knew my friends were using me—but during the party, it felt like acceptance nonetheless. It was only when the party was over, or when I woke up the next day, hungover and sick, that all of those emotions, all of those insecurities, all of those memories would get the better of me. And so I kept the party going for as long as I could, using Mami’s ATM card to withdraw more and more and more.

  ONE NIGHT, I came home really late, maybe around two o’clock, trashed. Mami and Papi were asleep, but Seli was there, waiting.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Jose?”

  I didn’t respond. The room was spinning. I was gonna be sick.

  “You’re only seventeen years old!” she yelled. “You have to stop this! It’s out of control!”

  I ran to the bathroom and bent over the toilet, heaving. She was right, of course. It was getting out of control, but she didn’t even know the half of it. After I was finished, I couldn’t help but cry.

  “I’m such a bad person,” I said.

  “Jose, you have to stop the partying. You think your friends are your friends, but they’re not.”

  Mami said this to me all the time—“Esos no son amigos!”—but it would take much worse for me to really understand what she meant by it.

  Chapter 12

  SELENIS

  I was disappointed to learn that Jose was dropping out of school, but I wasn’t surprised. It was easy to see that something of that nature was going to happen. He was spending more time not going to school than going to school, and though we didn’t talk about it at all, I imagined that school was difficult for him socially. I knew that bullying was somethin
g he had encountered from a very young age, and I assumed it was something that hadn’t just gone away.

  Now, we know so much more about LGBTQ+ youth being mistreated at school than we did back then. LGBTQ+ students are more at risk of being picked on or assaulted by their peers, but these are not the only factors that contribute to hostile learning environments. A recent report by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) called Educational Exclusion: Drop Out, Push Out, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline among LGBTQ Youth describes how LGBTQ+ youth may be more likely to be disciplined by school officials.4 These discriminatory practices and policies can cause LGBTQ+ students to feel unsafe or uncomfortable in school, and this lack of safety or comfort can lead to poorer academic performance, higher dropout rates, and potential involvement in the criminal justice system. These realities are even harsher for LGBTQ+ students of color, even in predominantly Black and Latinx schools. I can only imagine how difficult it was for Jose at that time; it’s no wonder that he wanted out.

  Jose had made a deal with my mother, promising that he would get his GED, but I was skeptical. Not that he wasn’t capable; it just didn’t seem like Jose was in a place in his life where he could be terribly proactive. But I was caught up in my own struggles at the time, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it other than hope that he would follow through, that he would get his GED and start working and supporting himself, because I couldn’t deal with anything else on top of the chaos in my own life.

  WHEN MY FATHER returned from the bank after filing a report about the money that had been stolen, he brought home some difficult information. The money had been withdrawn on numerous occasions with my mother’s ATM card.

  “I tried to explain to them that you never use your ATM card,” Papi said. “And they asked if maybe the card had been stolen.”

  “No, yo tengo la tarjeta,” Mami said, rushing to her bedroom.