by Renee James
I thought when I finally came to think of myself as a transsexual that there would be this door-opening clarity in my life at last, a blast of bright light and certainty. But that’s not how it works. Not for me, anyway. There’s always the nagging doubt about whether I really am a transsexual, and even after you cross that bridge, there’s the question of what kind of transwoman you are. Will you go all the way with GRS, or will you be a non-op transsexual, a permanent she-male, in the unkind jargon of our times? If you are a non-op, will you be a full-time female in your presentation, or will you spend part of your time in male mode?
Over the years, I’ve found that I just prefer to dress and act like a woman, and that’s really what pushed me to transition. I don’t know if that’s a good reason or not, and neither does anyone else.
As for Strand, I hoped we had reached a sort of unwritten truce after the flowers on my doorstep. I quit following him. Message delivered. I hoped that would be the end of it. But there have been several occasions when I felt like I was being watched. On the street. In a store. At a café. I couldn’t actually see someone staring at me, but the feeling was very real. Too real to ignore. So I used spy-novel techniques to see if I could spot someone following me. I’d stop suddenly to look in a store window, or pretend to change my mind about something and walk back to a store I had just passed. Or just go into a shop, go out the alley exit, and circle around. I’m now sure there are two different men who follow me on different occasions. It figures. The work is too low and cold for Strand right now.
They are both middle-aged, white men who dress in common clothes. One wears a tan coat, blue stocking cap, blue jeans, and work boots. The other one is a squat, powerful-looking man who looks like a laborer—blue pea coat, Levis, boots, shaved head, no hat. I didn’t see either man’s face. They aren’t following me because I’m cute or because they want to go for walks in sub-zero temperatures. Which means they’re doing it for someone else. They’re doing it for Strand.
***
MY APPOINTMENT BOOK has been improving, thanks to my leafleting and my rebirth as a creative stylist who doesn’t apologize for being who she is. My comeback started with weekdays, especially around the lunch hours and in the evenings, right after work. That’s when the commuters schedule. I’ve even come in really early a few times to do a client who had an important event scheduled for the day. That special service makes for a long day, but it keeps them coming back and gives them a reason to talk about me with their friends, so it’s good business. But the big thing is how much they appreciate it.
My Saturdays have been building too, and this is the best one I’ve had since I came out as a transwoman. I had a full book this morning, from eight to noon, and everyone showed up on time.
Now I’m working on the best gig ever. A young Pakistani-American woman chose me to do her wedding updo today. I was shocked that she even let me audition for the work. She came a few weeks ago for a trial updo. I had never seen her before. She got my name from one of my clients and added me to a list of hairdressers to trial with. I had always thought Muslims had the same low opinion of trans people that fundamentalist Christians do, so I didn’t really think I had a shot. But I had plenty of time for her that day and I love doing updos, especially with beautiful hair like hers. I’d do them for free, just because the process and the end result totally and completely lights up my soul and make my senses tingle. It’s the most beautiful art there is.
She was a very sweet girl once we got past her shyness. We talked for fifteen or twenty minutes to start. I didn’t even touch her hair. I asked her about the wedding ceremony, the events of the day, and what she needed from her hair that day in practical terms—would she be outdoors much? After we got to know each other a little, I even asked if she would want to take it down before or after she and her husband consummated their marriage. She smiled and said she hadn’t thought about it. We both blushed. I explained that some updos have dozens of hairpins in them and take forever to take down, while others can be done with just a few pins. She thought fewer might be better. A girl after my own heart.
Once we got through the preliminaries we spent another ten minutes talking about updo shapes and heights. By then she was really enjoying herself. She had already decided about me: she had given me the right to ask anything of her, and in so doing, had given herself the right to say anything in response. Not that she was ever anything but ladylike, but she completely enjoyed going through a repertoire of looks with me that ranged from coquettish to gutter tramp. I doubt if she had ever before been so unreserved with a stranger about her hidden self, the self that always wonders what you’d look like in a tiny leather miniskirt, a skin-tight T-top that just covers the nipples, stiletto heels, and hair out to here.
Oh my, how I can identify with that!
I ended up doing a breathtaking one-off updo that combined lots of teasing with a simple braiding technique. Honestly, I’ve never seen such a fantastic do, even if it was my own work. It had body and height and was so sexy it smoldered. At the same time, the twists of the braid gave it an elegant, feminine touch. Most of all, it set off her features perfectly, calling attention to her beautiful dark eyes and her perfect oval-shaped face and her full, sexy lips.
As I looked at her in the mirror, part of me was thinking that she might have a place in my erotic dreams, even though there wasn’t a chance in the world that she would choose me for the wedding day do.
Surprise, surprise. She did pick me, and over her regular hairdresser at a very exclusive North Shore salon, and a Pakistani hairdresser favored by many brides in her community. I will never have the courage to ask her if this choice means Allah is okay with transsexuals, but that doesn’t matter anyway. What matters is she’s okay with me and doing her hair is the highlight of my month. Maybe my year.
I have been working on her for two hours. She wanted perfection and was willing to pay for it, so we are making a full afternoon of the event. Other members of her wedding party are getting their hair done by my colleagues, which is boosting my popularity in the salon quite a lot. Her friends take turns sitting in the chair next to mine to talk with her. They speak in Urdu, but the friends make frequent furtive glances at me and she frequently looks at her image in the mirror, with smiles accompanying both events, so I know her hair and probably her weird hairdresser are a main topic of conversation. And they like what they see, at least with the hair.
Me too.
Usually, we have updo customers wash and condition their own hair before coming in, otherwise the process just takes too long But for this client, I started with a shampoo and blow-dry to make sure the hair is perfect—moisturized, sealed, slow-dried, no frizz, plenty of body, optimum texture. Then hot rollers, teasing, smoothing, and braiding.
She has long, medium-coarse hair and a lot of it. It is wavy with some tendency to frizz, so it takes forever to dry. On the other hand, after a careful blow dry it’s almost perfect for what I’m doing, since it holds a curl well and has the lovely natural shine of youth. The only mild imperfection is her hairline, which, like many, has lots of squiggly little hairs sticking out and the hairline itself does not follow the oval shape of her face.
I keep the front of her ‘do’ soft and a little puffy to absorb most of the fine hairs, and to help me contour the hairline. I snip a few fine hairs and even pull a few others.
As I do the final spray and mount her tiara, her friends and most of the salon staff gather round. Applause breaks out as she stands up shyly. The applause is for her, but it is for me too. I’m glowing so hard I could melt. God, life can be so sweet!
***
ONE THING ABOUT BEING trans, you’re never far from a fall.
I was so giddy after my updo experience I decided to walk home and enjoy the moment, the cold be damned. I’m now huddled in a booth in a coffee shop about six blocks from my apartment. My coat is still on and my hands surround a steaming cup of hot chocolate.
Teens in a booth on the other sid
e of the room are laughing and pointing at me. One of them, a girl, a cheerleader type, stops at my booth on her way to the bathroom. “Are you a guy or what?” she asks, giggling. It’s a rhetorical question, a put-down, though she pauses for a moment as if waiting to hear my response. She has a pixie face, her chin cutely narrow, long healthy hair worn down and straight, grayish blue eyes, cute body. Cute, and also sexy. Queen of the prom. She laughs gaily, tosses her hair, and continues on her way.
Shortly after she returns to her booth, one of the guys comes by on the same journey. Homecoming hero good looks. Private school swagger—white kids who go to public schools in this city tend to be less arrogant. “Fucking queen,” he said.
A man of few words.
I wish I could say these taunts don’t hurt, but they do. My giddy high is gone. My feelings of warmth and joy have been shunted aside. My eyes are moist but I refuse to give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
In moments like this, I am like my trans sisters. I can’t understand why people take delight in making others feel bad. A moment ago I was a human being in a state of rejoice because I had done something nice for someone else, because I had done something artistic and creative. Now I am just a clown. A queen. An outcast.
I should leave, but I came in here to get warm. Besides, I won’t give them the satisfaction of running me off, even though they have already ruined my day.
As I sip my hot chocolate I wonder if these kids are wholesome religious types who are in the process of growing up to be sanctimonious hypocrites, like their parents probably are. Life is sacred, as long as we’re talking about someone else’s pregnant teenage daughter, as long as we don’t have to pay anything to support the unwanted child, as long as we can still depend on our professional army to kill unseen rabble we think might be a threat to our safety and our sacred right to get fat in front of television.
But this is stupid of me. Young people, even really nice ones, can be very cruel at times. I was. I clearly recall a moment in college when a friend of mine and I laughed and snickered our way through an entire group lunch just because everything a very effeminate male student said seemed funny to us. Yes, consider the irony. Not only would I become such a person myself, I was to go even further and become a woman. Or try to.
No, this incident is not about them as much as it is about me. I am weird. I don’t belong. I just have to live with that.
***
FOR THE LIFE OF ME, I don’t know why I agreed to do this.
I’m in a queue waiting to enter the Cadillac Theater. I am shivering. It’s not the cold, it’s the situation. I feel conspicuous in this milling crowd of theater-goers. Most are nicely dressed, some sumptuously so. I’ve done my best to get in the spirit. I’m wearing a sexy black suit that has a long skirt and a waist-length coat that rises in a wide V. The coat works with a layering white teddy to display some cleavage. I’m wearing black hose, two-inch heels and a tiny white, faux-fur-lined coat that falls just above my waist.
My shivering is interrupted by a man’s arm coming around my back. His hand grasps my upper arm and he pulls my body into his.
The arm belongs to Ray, the father of the transgender child, Laurie.
He called the same night I had been humiliated in the coffee shop, wanting to know if I would go to a musical with him at the Cadillac. I love the Cadillac. It is a grand old theater and one I went to in my youth when it was a movie palace with a different name. I also love theater. All kinds. Drama, musicals, you name it. But no, I told Ray, I didn’t think I could make it. Just too much going on in my life right now.
Oh, said Ray. He sounded disappointed. “I got the feeling you liked me when we talked last month,” he said. “I know I like you. I was hoping we could get to know each other a little more. I promise you, I’m a gentleman. I will treat you well. I’m polite…”
I explained that I did like him, that I thought he was a very nice man with a good heart. But, I said, I had a nasty incident in a coffee shop earlier and I just don’t feel like being in public right now.
He brought up the bicycle analogy, getting back on, and all that. I wasn’t swayed. Then he said that if something happened, I wouldn’t be alone. He’d be there too.
You know what? He would be there. That’s what occurred to me at that moment. Ray was the kind of person who would be there with you, no matter what. So I agreed. I still didn’t want to go out, but he was right—even about the bicycle analogy. If I’m going to be a transwoman, I have to be one every day. Period.
So here I am in the crowded lobby of the Cadillac Theater with a man’s arm around me. He is a big man. Ray is all of 6'-4", which is why I get to wear heels. And he’s something over 250 pounds, a soft, teddy-bear look that I find quite attractive, now that I take the time to consider him socially.
You’d think two large people like us would attract a lot of attention in a crowded room like this, but we don’t. People take passing notice of us, and I draw some double takes, but no one stares or points. This is the theater, after all. Some of the congregated masses are gay. Plus, the place is crowded, the crowd is buzzing and moving. Nothing stands out but the general confusion. I relax. It feels good to have his arm around me.
We move with the crowd into the seating area and wend our way to our seats. Ray has chosen well. We are in the middle of the third row of the first balcony. We won’t stand out. We won’t have to constantly stand up to let others move by us to their seats.
It is warm in the theater thanks to the heat generated by hundreds of bodies. I am relaxed and drowsy. The syncopated rhythms of the show have a narcotic affect on me. . The milling of the crowd around us wakens me. It is intermission. I have been sleeping soundly, my head resting on Ray’s shoulder. As I sit up he looks at me, a gentle smile on his face. “Usually my dates don’t fall asleep until I start talking about myself,” he says.
I’m embarrassed and begin apologizing profusely. “No need,” he says. “I’m glad you’re comfortable enough with me to doze off. I’m flattered.” I wrap my arms around one of his and hug him. “Thank you,” I say, as we begin working our way out to the lobby.
In the endless queue for the ladies room, I listen for objections to rise from the women in front of and behind me. I hear none, though a couple of women in front have glanced back at me several times. They have made me, but don’t seem particularly concerned. Just curious.
I can handle curious.
Inside the ladies room I attract more glances, mainly when I wash my hands and check my makeup. These are just the “oh-you’re-trans” glances. There isn’t time for comments or questions. The intermission is short, the lines are long, and if you want to get to your seat before the second act curtain you have to keep moving.
Ray is waiting as I emerge from the ladies room. He hands me a plastic glass of champagne and offers me his arm. I lace mine through it and we stroll leisurely through the crowd. God, this is nice. I actually feel like a woman on a date.
I stay awake through the entire second act, wondering if I should invite Ray up when he takes me home, wondering if he would make a pass at me, wondering what I would do if he did.
We have dessert and an after-dinner drink at a café near the theater and talk. Ray talks about dealing with his new daughter, and his ex-wife, and his business. He owns a print shop and competes with the big chains by providing better service, higher quality, total reliability.
He asks me about transitioning, about what I did before, how I got into hair. . The time flies by. At midnight he says he has to call it a night, he has a full day in the shop tomorrow. So do I. On the cab ride to my place I invite him up. He declines. Same reason. I understand. He says he’s had a great time and asks if I’d be willing to do this again. I answer by putting my arms around him and kissing him. I don’t know if this turns him on as much as it does me, but I can hardly breathe when the cab stops at the curb and we unclench.
“Oh yes,” I exhale. I leave the cab before he can collect himsel
f. My legs feel rubbery and my body is on fire.
As I make my way on shaky legs to the door of my apartment I wonder if this is the real thing or if I’m just so horny from months of abstinence—with one notable and much-regretted lapse—that anyone would turn me on.
February
CAMILLE IS ON A LONG RIFF about transgender assertiveness and I’m having a hard time staying awake. The other girls are getting restive, too, though I seem to be the only one on the edge of slumber.
Camille is the facilitator of the Alliance’s monthly transsexual support group. I started coming to meetings again last summer when I started seeing Camille privately for my transition. I don’t find the meetings particularly helpful or interesting. The people who tend to dominate the conversation use the forum as a place to vent, and the frustrations they ramble on about are as familiar to me as my fingers and toes, which tonight are polished a bright red—my nails, that is. I almost never use bright red for nail polish or lipstick. I just don’t look feminine enough to pull it off. Why tonight? I guess I’m just feeling more girly than usual. I have my hair up in a messy twist with dangling curls here and there and dangling earrings that match my large black and gold necklace. I’m wearing a low-cut silk blouse with a form-fitting skirt that stops well above the knees, black hose and medium-heeled half-boots. I'm a little old for this look, but sometimes a girl just has to have fun.
My private sessions with Camille are once a month. She’s tried to get me to come in more often, but money is tight and, like I said, I'm not that sold on the therapist/patient relationship. Once a month has value because she can see changes in me and we can talk about them.
