I was born the second child to Herman and Francis Lepore in Wayne, New Jersey. If you’re unfamiliar with Wayne, picture mostly any other suburban town in northern New Jersey, place me in it, and you’re there.
Armand Lepore was my birth name. Just like my mother, I was a tiny, underweight baby, with a hip dysplasia that kept me in leg braces until I was five.
Dad was also tiny, no more than 5'-5", with a round belly and a waddle to his walk. He was a hardworking, decently paid chemical engineer, and Mom was his trophy wife.
Mom was a stunningly beautiful woman, who resembled Shirley Temple, even as an adult. Face done daily, beauty parlor once a week, roots never showing, and a closet full of elegant hats. Each hat always kept in its hatbox, and the matching shoes kept right underneath. If she could have dyed her eyes to match her hat, she would have.
Because Mom was such a perfectionist, when she started slipping, it was very noticeable. It was like a different woman stepped into her skin. A homeless woman. Her hair would go unwashed and unset and her teeth would go unbrushed. She never wore much makeup to begin with, but her beautiful ivory-white skin began to look ruddy and greasy. The hatboxes would sit untouched, and pretty, expensive day dresses—a luxury she took such pride in—would be replaced by a nightgown that quickly started to stink.
When this happened, Mom would hide away in her room, saying she was deathly ill. Joseph and I wouldn’t see her for days at a time, but at night we would hear her and Dad fighting. She’d go on another “vacation” and be gone for a few weeks, then come back peppy, hatted, and pretty again.
The neighbors were a constant source of agitation for Mom; she always thought they were out to “get” her. On one particular afternoon, they really had her worked up. As I watched television, she ran in and out of the living room, peering out the window, muttering to herself: “That bitch. I can’t believe that bitch did this.”
Mom was a sophisticated woman. “Bitch” was not in her vocabulary and hearing her say it made me feel like something horrible was about to happen.
I asked her what was wrong but she didn’t respond. Instead she unlocked the front door and flew outside, screaming into the bright day, “You bitch! Do you think I’m stupid, you fat, dirty Polack?”
Joseph poked his head out of his bedroom. “Mom’s yelling,” I said. “Should I call Dad?” He didn’t answer. He turned back into his room and shut the door.
I followed Mom outside and saw her across the street, in our neighbor’s yard. She had picked up a potted perennial and was screaming, “I know what you did! You think I can’t tell?”
“Mom!” I ran over to her. “Mom, what happened? What did she do?”
She looked at me, dirt spilling all over her nightgown, her hair in tangles, the planter held in front of her like a shield. “They stole my planters and switched our lawn furniture with theirs. They just painted it and thought I couldn’t tell the difference, but I can tell. You can see the paint chipping away. These are my flowers.”
Our poor neighbor was peeping through her blinds. Mom stared at me, waiting for a response. How could I calm her down?
IF I’M DRESSED DOWN, I’M SAD.
IF I’M REALLY DONE UP, I FEEL HAPPY AND MENTALLY WELL.
“Oh my God, Mom, you’re right!” I said. “I saw her painting out here earlier. And those are your flowers! But you know what? She is pretty stupid, because the new furniture is much nicer. It’s so expensive! She must be a real idiot!” Our furniture was right where it had always been, but that hardly seemed important at the time.
For a moment Mom looked at me, confused. She stammered over her words, trying to figure out what to say next. And then I was rewarded with a big smile. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said. “What a fucking idiot!” She put the plant down and we walked back home.
That night I asked Dad what was wrong with Mom.
He explained to me that she was a paranoid schizophrenic, and sometimes she thought everyone was out to get her.
I made a promise that night always to be there for Mom. If she needed validation, I’d give it to her. If she thought we were being spied on, I’d go along with her and make it a game. Whatever happened, I would be a friend for her.
Even though I know it’s not always the case, I associate dressing up with mental stability. If I’m dressed down, I’m sad. If I’m really done up, I feel happy and mentally well.
I don’t like to be depressed, so it’s a big thing for me always to look my best. I’m not leaving the house unless I’m happy with how I look.
Chapter 2
HOMETOWN STORY
At ten years old, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. Like many children in the late ’70s (okay, 1870s), my future was laid out for me in front of the glow of the family television.
Watching my favorite late-night talk show, I heard a term I never knew existed, and yet it knew me: Sex change.
My legs became still. My heart started to beat to a new rhythm. SEX-change-SEX-change-SEX-change. There were three women on stage, all in various states of transitioning. Two were still rather masculine, but the third one was beautiful. She had curly blonde hair and stunning cleavage that jiggled as she talked. The host asked about her breasts and she said they were natural: “I swear,” she said, “I took hormones and they grew.” I wanted to be that woman.
I ran to my parents’ bedroom and swung open the door, waking them both. “Mom! Dad! I know what I want! I know what I want more than anything in the world! Please, oh please, can I have a sex change?”
My parents, still half asleep, turned to look at each other and rolled their eyes. “You’re too young,” my mother said. “No doctor would give a ten-year-old a sex change.”
“Please, Mom, it’s all I’ve ever wanted, I just have to have a sex change!”
They told me it wasn’t going to happen and to go to bed.
“Fine,” I said. “What’s estrogen?”
Proclaiming myself a girl was not new to them. Mom had come to an understanding about it long ago, and Dad was sure it was just a phase I’d grow out of. But now everything was different to me. A sex change. Sex change. Such a thing existed! I had seen it with my own big, brown eyes, right there on the television.
That night I had my Rapunzel dream again, and this time I woke up smiling. I was a young girl in love.
I guess ten years old is pretty young to know what you want from life, but I felt like all my problems, while not yet solved, at least had solutions. I wanted to be a girl. And now I knew that I could be.
Some of you might be thinking that I displayed feminine behaviors and interpreted this to mean I was a girl. That’s not the case. I was a girl. It was a fact. It wasn’t a conscious decision.
Physically, I was basically female, aside from a tiny, underdeveloped penis. Substitute teachers would ask if I was a boy or girl. I had a boy’s name and was dressed like a boy, but they’d still be confused.
The kids I went to school with were used to me, but they would sometimes make fun of my feminine mannerisms. They would tell me to walk—“Walk! Walk! Walk for us!”—and I’d walk, and of course I walked like a girl, hands on my hips, swinging from side to side. They were making fun of me but it was easier on me just to play along. I would turn around toward them, put my hands over my chest like I was covering my tits, and press my knees together, sticking one hip out like I was being modest. “It’s like a girl coming out of the shower!” they’d yell. The boys didn’t beat me up or anything like that because they didn’t think of me as one of them.
My older brother, Joseph, found the whole thing pretty embarrassing. We were exact opposites in every way. His features were very dark, mine were porcelain fair. He was broad and athletic, while I was as thin and waiflike as our mother. The biggest difference between us was his penis; I saw him changing once and knew something was wrong with me, because mine was so much smaller.
I knew early on that I had no business having a penis, and I’d do whatever was nece
ssary to get rid of it.
As my teenage years crept up, Mom’s “vacation” charade disappeared.
She liked the manic stage of her illness, and would work hard to maintain it. Her medication only slowed her down, so she’d stop taking it and take diet pills instead. She’d also carry around a cup of iced coffee larger than she was, like a baby bottle.
It never lasted. Whenever Mom stopped taking her medication, she was inevitably checked into Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, in Morris Plains.
About an hour from our house, Greystone was a massive, beautifully designed brick building on the outside. Inside, it had all the personality of a manila enevelope. A real bait and switch.
The first time I went, Dad drove me and waited in the Cadillac while I was inside. A physically imposing but very friendly nurse showed me to a large sitting room painted dental-rot yellow and filled with sad-looking women, none of whom had their hair done or any makeup on.
“Your mom’s in there,” the nurse said. “Don’t worry, they’re all sedated.”
Mom was in the middle of the room. When she saw me, she stood up and belted out, “Here she is! Miss America!”
That was a lot of energy from a tranquilized woman. Everyone turned to look at me—Armand Lepore—with my shoulder-length hair, button-down shirt, jeans, and loafers. The nurse shot Mom a surprised glance. The other patients took a quick scan of me, then looked away, unfazed.
I spent the whole day talking to Mom, going through movie magazines and making small talk about the family. We talked about everything except her illness and the hospital. She was in a great mood, and so happy to see me. They had her on all the right medications.
A patient named Amy sat with us for a little while. Her husband was coming to visit and she was very excited. She told me over and over again. I was happy for her. When she walked away, Mom leaned in and said, “Her husband’s not coming. He died, and she can’t deal with it. That’s why she’s here.”
I looked at Amy skipping around from table to table, telling everyone her good news that would never come true, and I hoped I would never be so lonely.
Leaving was more of a relief than I’d like to admit. The whole place was so depressing, and I had a sinking feeling Dad was leaving me there too. But the big nurse came up and told me it was time to go and I feigned sadness. Mom and I hugged for a minute, then she walked me to the door of the sitting room and watched me walk down the hallway.
When I got to the door, Mom yelled out, “Hey! Miss Hollywood! Pick up the phone, there’s a producer on the line!”
Dad was waiting right out front. He didn’t ask me about Mom, or what we had talked about. I didn’t say anything either; I was trying to wrap my head around what I’d seen. Mom seemed so happy and so normal. Why couldn’t she always be like that?
On the way home Dad stopped at the toy store and bought me a Superstar Barbie. It made me feel a little better.
Joseph was totally horny and girl crazy when he was a teenager.
Often he’d bring me with him when he was chasing pussy. Hitchhiking was easier with me because he didn’t get picked up by as many “pervert queers,” and when he “borrowed” a car to get to a girl, cops took it easier on him when they saw me. The main reason he brought me with him, though, was because girls always liked me, which made them like him.
One of Joseph’s girlfriends was a high school senior named Stephanie, who had a twin sister named Sandy. Joseph would go see Stephanie, and they would fuck in the woods behind her house. It was my job to keep Sandy entertained until they were done.
“MOM! DAD! I KNOW WHAT I WANT! I KNOW WHAT I WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD! PLEASE, OH PLEASE, CAN I HAVE A SEX CHANGE?”
Getting girls was what my brother was best at, but this time his plan backfired. He would end up sitting in their living room watching television while Stephanie, Sandy, and I gossiped and joked around. Eventually Stephanie and Joseph stopped dating, but I kept going to the twins’ house after (or instead of) school every day.
The twins lived with their mother and grandmother, who were both named Louise and who both did hair in their finished basement. Both Louises loved to smoke and loved to talk about sex. The first time I met Louise Jr., she showed me how to put a condom on a banana.
At the twins’ house my gender was never a question. They taught me all the basics of female beauty and thought it was funny that I didn’t know any of it yet. I tweezed my own eyebrows and spent hours in front of their mirror with an eyelash curler. “Beautifying is part of being a woman,” Louise Sr. used to say. “It has been throughout the ages, from way back to Cleopatra. It’s just what women do.”
Louise Sr. worshipped Elizabeth Taylor, and all the big-screen beauties. Her biggest gripe with her daughter was that Louise Jr. thought Marilyn Monroe was more beautiful than Liz. The twins were evenly divided between the two greats as well. One night I was asked for my opinion on the matter.
“I’ve never seen any of their films,” I said.
“But surely you know who they are. Come on now, which do you think is the most beautiful?”
I thought about it. “Which is the blonde one?”
That night Stephanie and Sandy gave me my first makeover. My eyes were lined and multiple layers of mascara were brushed on. They evened out my skin tone very lightly and applied Revlon’s Love That Red very heavily (PS: it remains one of my favorite colors of lipstick). When they were done I looked in the mirror, touched my face, and started crying. I looked so beautiful, but I would never be able to show it to anyone outside that room. What a waste.
Louise Sr. walked in, already halfway into a speech about how I had to tighten up my tear ducts. When she saw me she froze and gasped. Her hands went up to her mouth in shock. “Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” she said. “You look just like Jean Harlow, God rest her soul!” She came over and hugged me, and drew a big mole on my chin.
The twins and I listened to Louise Sr. review all the great movies featuring all the great leading ladies. We’d discuss in detail the life and works of Jean, Mamie Van Doren, Ginger Rogers, Grace Kelly, Jayne Mansfield, and, of course, Marilyn Monroe, who, I quickly sided with Louise Jr., was the most beautiful actress of all time.
“Glamour is the best part of being a woman,” said Louise Sr. “If you’re not going to be glamorous, you might as well be a man.”
I agreed completely.
I don’t know much about astrology, but I am a Scorpio, which is supposed to be a sexy sign. Publicly I’m a Sagittarius because I always celebrate my birthday on December 5th, but my real birthday is November 21st, which is way too close to Thanksgiving and too hard to celebrate. Scorpios are ruled by their genitals, which seems fitting.
The more sexually aware I became, the more disturbed I was by my penis. It was like a hangnail that needed to be clipped. I tried my best to pretend my penis didn’t even exist.
There were a few wet dreams. I would fall asleep with a pillow on top of me, pretending a man was fucking me. When I’d wake up, the pillow would be a mess. It was so humiliating, like my own body was betraying me. I had to change my pillowcases a lot.
I knew about sex at a pretty young age. Joseph showed me a porno and pointed to the different parts. “If you want to be a girl,” he said, “then these are all the things you’ll have to do.” I thought the men were peeing in the girls’ mouths. Gross.
Boys my own age largely ignored me, but Joseph’s friends were a few years older and they knew too much about me. It made their feelings toward me a little more complicated.
One of his friends, Johnny, seemed to take extra pleasure in being mean to me. If I saw him around school, he’d call me “fag” or “queer.” I wouldn’t say anything back, but it was impossible not to internalize all that. Typically if I saw Johnny at school I would bolt toward the exit and run the four blocks back home. There was a creek behind our neighborhood and I’d run along it as fast as I could, through backyards and wooded enclaves, holding my books aga
inst my flat chest. I’d ditch school for the rest of the day.
I cut school early one day and was sitting by the creek when Johnny jumped out and wrestled me to the ground. He pinned down my arms and laughed at me when I tried to push him off.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, “so stop wiggling and don’t scream.” I stopped moving and looked up at him. He was smiling and seemed to be in a good mood, which made him look a lot cuter than I’d thought before.
He jumped off me and sat on a large rock about five feet away. “Sorry for calling you a fag,” he said. “I’m just trying to be funny.”
I told him it was fine—whatever I needed to say to keep him from jumping on top of me again. He started talking about all his problems, mostly about girls and how they weren’t having sex with him. He stood up and walked around while he was talking. Then he put his leg up on the rock, and I noticed his cock was hard and sticking straight out. He rubbed on it a little, trying to show it off to see what I would do.
I didn’t acknowledge the obvious fact that Johnny wanted me to suck his dick. Instead I prodded him further along in the conversation, to try to fully understand what he wanted and why he wanted it. I thought if I understood, then I’d be able to figure out why he acted so masculine while I was so feminine.
This happened a few more times; sometimes Johnny was by himself and sometimes he had a friend along with him. They were very sweet to me out in the woods, but if I saw them at school I knew to run in the opposite direction.
Johnny started to get impatient. He took his dick out and jerked off while we talked one day, but I pretended I didn’t see it and just kept asking him questions. One day he offered Joseph a personal radio player in exchange for a blow job from me. Joseph begged me to do it but I refused and stopped talking to Johnny after that. He started harassing me even more at school, which made other kids jump on the bandwagon and bully me as well. Soon I was spending more time skipping school than in class.
Doll Parts Page 2
