The Great Elephant Ride

by Stephanie Timmer

  The next morning we had to be at the hospital by 6:30 a.m. It was difficult for me because it was the first time I had ever gone out in public without my wig or makeup. I did not even have pierced ears—I let the holes grow shut after I got my ears pierced in Chicago. We got to the hospital on time, only to find the surgery that came before mine had complications and the operating room was not available. I had to wait an extra three hours before I would be brought back to the pre-surgery triage. I had a bit of pink fog when I got to see my name on my wristband. I was not used to having strangers call me Stephanie.

  I don’t remember anything after the intravenous drip was started. The next thing I do remember was being gently awakened by my friend’s voice. It took me a few minutes to gain my orientation and remember where I was. I was not sure how I was going to feel emotionally after surgery once the reality of what I did sunk in. I had pertinently altered my body where people could see that my Adam’s apple was gone. Of course at this point I could not tell because of the bandages on my throat. I guess it was more than I expected because I was blinded by pink fog.

  Every day of my life when I looked into the mirror I saw an Adam’s apple. It was no more appealing to me then a great big zit the size of a half dollar on my forehead. It was a constant reminder that I was not physically a woman and now it was gone. I never had to look at it again. I am not sure if anyone ever noticed that I had it or would notice once it was gone. I noticed it and it bothered me and now it was gone permanently. I am not sure how to describe the feeling but ecstatic is the closest word I can think of. That afternoon the pink fog was thick, so very dense.

  The surgery was the turning point. I knew at this instant, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I needed to complete this journey that I had started. I was ready, and I vowed to do what was necessary to finish my transition. For some reason I just knew, and I never had any doubts from that point on. I had never been that sure of anything before in my life. It was also a running point in my marriage as well—Deb said she did not sign on for this when we got married, and that was about all she has said to me since. Thank goodness for the Pink Fog because the next twelve months were going to be the hardest of my life

  With each step I took closer to the pivotal point in my life, there was an increase in fog for a period of time and then it would thin to a constant pink hue that never really went away. A time when the fog became real thick is when I formally had my name changed. On February 19, I had to go to court and formally ask the judge for a court-ordered name change. The act of getting my name changed itself was uneventful. I went in front of the magistrate and sat in her office across the desk. I handed her the letter from my doctor saying I was in transition and that this was a requirement of the HBSOC (Harry Benjamin Standards of Care). The HBSOC is a series of steps or benchmarks a person going through transition must reach before the final surgery can take place. She asked me what my new name was and I politely said, “Stephanie Anne—Stephanie Anne Timmer.” She looked down at the court order, signed it, looked up, smiled at me, and said good luck as she handed me the notarized court-ordered name change. I was now Stephanie!

  However, at that point all my other IDs still said “Steve.” Being blind, I cannot get a driver’s license, so all I have is my New Hampshire ID and my passport. So Linda took me directly to the Department of Motor Vehicles where I stood in line for my picture. It was probably the worst picture I ever had taken, but my ID said “Stephanie Anne Timmer.” It was hard to believe I had a new name. The state of New Hampshire had ordered my name to be changed to “Stephanie Anne Timmer”—it was still surreal. About a week later I was on another business trip. When I was going through New Hampshire airport security, the TSA screener read my name, “Stephanie Anne Timmer,” aloud off the ticket. It took several seconds for it to sink in that he was talking to me. I could have given him a great big kiss: it was one thing to read your name on a piece of paper, but to have a total stranger say it for the first time was unbelievable. The pink fog rolled in at that moment.

  It took a few months for me to get used to strangers saying my name, and there were a lot of times when people said “Sir” that I impulsively compulsively turned around thinking that they where talking to me, only to find out that they were referring to someone else. The converse was true as well, and I think several people believed that I had a hearing problem because they would be looking right at me and would have to say “Ma’am” several times before I acknowledged them.

  At the time of writing this book, the pink fog still thickens a bit whenever a stranger says my name. A court order in hand, I was finally able to change the name on all my identification including my passport and social security card. I had to wait on my birth certificate until I had completed my gender reconstruction surgery, because I wanted the “M” changed to “F,” and I needed that final surgery before Michigan department of community health would be willing to do it. Old laws made by old men are hard to change.

  It was these little things that continued to keep the fog from thinning out every day. There were other things that kept the fog pretty stable on a daily basis as well. I had one employee who lived in Las Vegas, and because at the time I did not have an office for him to travel to, I went to him. I always stayed at the SunCoast hotel. While not a high-end hotel, it was close to where he lived—most of all, I liked it there. I had been working out of this hotel once a month for two years before I transitioned from Steve to Stephanie. Before the transition, I could basically go completely unnoticed. Once I transitioned, everyone knew me: I guess a six-foot one-inch, dishwater blonde man is not as memorable as a five-foot thirteen-inch, tall, curly redhead. I was not sure if I was very cute or ugly. But I was memorable.

  My employee in Las Vegas was the first employee I had come out to and the next was my CEO. My CEO was from a generation older than I and very conservative. We had also been good man-friends for quite a few years. I had come out to him and he was still adjusting, barely, when he finally got to meet Stephanie face to face in Las Vegas. The great part about coming out in Las Vegas is nobody blinked an eye when they saw someone who was transgender. For many of them, this did not even come close to the top ten unique things they see on a daily basis. The day before my CEO’s arrival, I had eaten at the TGI Fridays in the casino and had been chatting with several of the staff members. Well, when we went to TGI Fridays the next day, they all remembered me and made a special point to say hello. It felt great, especially in front of my CEO. It really helped him, but it helped me more by giving me the confidence to move forward and to finish telling the others in my company. It is those things that kept the pink fog consistent over the six months of the transition.

  If that pink fog ever had left during the transition, I am not sure I would have been able to complete the great elephant ride. I guess if it had gone away then maybe transitioning was not the right thing for me to do. Well, it never dissipated, it never thinned, and I was able to make the transition. The pink fog started out as something that was exciting, where you were not sure what was going to be revealed next. It later became an annoyance as I lived in denial of who I was: I the harder I tried to not be transgender, the pink fog drifted in and made everything blurry. The pink fog slowly became part of the landscape as I worked toward self-acceptance. I now enjoy the comfort of having it there. It still can cloud my judgment, but I have more experience and know how to work around it.

  The Day I Was a Terrorist

  This story started about eighteen months before the before I almost became a terrorist. Long before I came out to anyone, I was in what I call the discovery phase. During this phase you let yourself feel things that you had previously repressed. This can be quite a slippery slope because what you do is slowly, sometimes not so slowly, let yourself experience all these wonderful things. They seem wonderful at the time because they are new and very exciting.

  While I was in denial I did not care what I looked like. I became quite fat, nearly 300 pounds, drank a lot,
and smoked cigars. Trust me, it is very easy to be fat and lazy, and I was really good at it. I never thought I would ever be able to live my life as a woman. I figured if I could not see myself as a woman I would not want to be one – I learned very quickly that that hypothesis was not correct-fail. One day a purchased a dress from a discount store thinking I would like to just have a break once in a while and let my hair down, so to speak, once in a while.

  Well, I got the dress: it was a lovely pink, halter empress-style dress. It was a slimming woman’s 3X. I put it on but could not zip it more than an inch. I had a 44” waist and a 54” chest with a 18” neck. I looked funny in it, and I also felt ashamed. That was a turning point for me. I started a diet that instant, but I did more than that: I changed my eating habits. But I needed more. I needed exercise.

  I started to exercise by walking. I walked on a treadmill faithfully every day. Soon I was walking five miles a day at a very brisk pace. I was surprised how quickly the weight came off—I don’t get to enjoy that anymore now that I have been on hormones. Your body changes when you are on hormones and when you start taking estrogen you body tries to preserve the fat instead of burn it. In six months I had gone from 288 to 243. I had lost 45 pounds. I was excited because now I could zip the dress if I held my breath and sucked in my stomach. It was not comfortable but I could do it! Well, that just embolden me further and I started to look for other cloths. I had two other things against me in finding clothes that would fit: I was 5’13” and wore a woman’s size 13 shoe. When you are that size there is not a lot of selection to pick from. Most of the clothes I found that would fit looked like they came from the camping department in Sears. I think most of what I found could have “Sleeps three” on the label.

  Determined not to look like homer Simpson in a dress, I continued to work out and eat right. I worked out every day. On a trip to Las Vegas, I booked a reservation at the Texas Station Casino. It is one of those off-strip casinos that cater to the local clientele. There are no high rollers who ever gamble there, and as a result the Texas station customer service reflects that attitude. When I checked in I politely asked where their fitness center was—the receptionist look at me kind of puzzled and proclaimed that they had not had one since they put in the buffet. You begin to understand why Americans are overweight.

  Only one option for exercise was left: outdoors. Well, being legally blind makes it difficult for me to navigate streets and corners, so I headed out to find a safe place to run. I had not run for about 20 years, so I was also a bit self conscious. I came to a flat, open field next to the road about the size of a city block, and if you have ever been to Las Vegas, you don’t see any grass. If you come to an open field, it is usually all dirt and rocks. This field was all fenced in, and on the inside of the fence was what looked like a worn track. I walked around the outside until I came to a “No Trespassing” sign that was right next to a section of the fence that had been broken down a bit so that I could get over it. I climbed over, figuring that since nobody should be there because of sign, it seemed like a good place to run. And if anybody came to kick me out I would just tell them I was low-vision and could not read the sign.

  As I was climbing over the fence, my tee shirt sleeve got caught on the fence and tore it, cutting my arm in the process. I did not realize it at the time, but I had a far amount of blood running down my arm. Now I had not run for 20 years and I was severely out of shape and not exactly thin, either. Add in a torn shirt and a bloody arm: I looked like a homeless guy who had been beaten senseless in a mugging while running around the inside of fence looking for an exit. What made it even more interesting were the wild chickens in the field; as I was running, they didn’t have the sense to get out of the way, running in front of me so that it appeared I was chasing them. As I was running, chasing chickens along the side of the fence that is adjacent to the road, people were honking and rooting for the chickens because all they saw was a homeless guy trying to catch dinner. It was a very humbling experience because after all that the chickens could still run faster than I could.

  That was the last time I stayed at the Texas Station Casino. From that point on, every time I went to Las Vegas I stayed at the Sun Coast casino; they had a fitness center open twenty-four hours a day. It is great because I always stay on Eastern Standard Time. I stay on EST because my office hours are from 8:00 am to 5:00pm EST and customers start calling at 8:00 am regardless of where I am. So every morning I get up at 5:00 am like normal and head down to the fitness center about 6:00 am which is 3:00 am Las Vegas Time. Las Vegas probably only gets one thunderstorm a year, and it just happened to come through one morning when I was running on the treadmill. The fitness center had very large glass windows overlooking the desert—it is quite impressive to see a thunderstorm roll in over the desert when you can see the lightning for miles. Since I was the only one working out at the time, I decided to turn out the lights and watch the storm. Guess what? Casinos can lose power during thunderstorms. When you are done working out and you press the stop button, the treadmill slows to a stop, plus you know you are stopping. It is not the same when you are running at your tempo speed not expecting to stop and the casino loses power. The treadmill I was on stopped dead; I did not. If the bar had been only an inch lower, there would not have been a need for sexual reassignment surgery. When the emergency lights turned on, I was sitting on the ground next to the treadmill in severe pain. You can close the distance between you and the front of the treadmill in a very short period of time. I was starting to think that running was a contact sport.

  There was also the time that I flew into Manchester New Hampshire to do a training session for work. Instead of staying at Linda’s house, which is about an hour away, we decided to stay by the Manchester airport. There is a midsize mall located very close to the airport. I never seemed to have more than a couple outfits because I was still losing weight and every few months I had to buy a smaller size. I love shopping and I love being thin so these were welcomed changes.

  Part of the transition requirement is that before you can have the final surgery you have had to have a real life experience. And during that real life experience, you need to engage in all your normal activities. This included things like flying, eating in restaurants, grocery shopping, and for me this included exercise. Linda and I hit the stores and ended up in JC Penney’s, partly because they are not expensive and they have a great Tall section. That week they just happened to have a sale on female workout clothes, so Linda and I purchased matching sets.

  The hotel where we were staying had a small workout room with a reclining bike and two treadmills all facing the same way, towards the television. We had used it a couple of times before, and nobody had ever come in, so we thought it would be safe for me to run on the treadmill as Stephanie. This was a first for me because I would be out in public without makeup or a wig—I wore a pink ball cap instead. I had not started taking hormones yet, so I really looked like a very fit man in a woman’s running outfit. Not happy with how I look I decided to pad my running top with my silicone breast implants. The top was tight and they seemed to stay in place fairly well.

  Linda and I made it down to the workout room without meeting anyone in the hallway. I got on the treadmill to do my daily five-mile run, and Linda got on the bike. After about twenty-five minutes, I had finished about three miles and Linda came over to get on the treadmill next to me. As she did, she asked me about how much longer I would be. I cannot see very well, so I had to bend over and get close to the control panel of the treadmill.

  The air in the fitness center was hot and muggy being right next to the pool and I had started to perspire heavily. Bending over to look at the control panel put just enough slack in my running top and the perspiration made my silicone breast implants slippery. In a split second, my right breast slipped out from the bottom of my top and hit the treadmill with a smack. I was running about a seven-minute miles and the treadmill was going at a good pace. The silicone breast flung at
full speed off the back of the treadmill into the wall, with another smack leaving a wet circle on the wall where it had hit.

  Still grappling with what just happen, the running top now had more slack in it because there was only one beast. Before I could react the second breast, fell out and proceed to hit the wall as well joining the other one on the floor. There were both breasts lying on the floor with their nipples pointing skyward, glistening with perspiration.

  I hit the kill switch on the treadmill to stop it so I could recover my breasts and as I did, an older gentleman came into the fitness center. If my face was not red from the workout, it was red now from the embarrassment. I quickly picked up my breasts, and with no way of diligently putting them back, I carried one in each hand, quickly exiting the fitness center. The gentleman never said a word, and as I walked by him, I quickly uttered the word “cancer” and left.

  I have had numerous experiences like that while running, but the one that nearly killed me was when I was in Sarnia, Ontario. I was with a colleague on a training trip and we had to spend the night in Sarnia. The training was on a Monday morning, so we arrived mid afternoon on Sunday, September 16th 2007. We stayed at a quaint little hotel on the water, which did not have a fitness center, either. It was a beautiful day, and I spent most of it in the hotel room working. My colleague went out to walk the boardwalk to see if it was going to work for me to run. He came back just before dinner and said it looked safe: all I had to do was run to a building and come back. Sounded easy enough and we even walked part of the route, which was pretty much barrier free. On the way back we met an older lady out for a walk, and we started just a small conversation with her about how nice it was here and how much we appreciated it. She proceeded to tell us that a week earlier there was a murder-suicide in the park.