Acidentally Gay

by Lucky Bradley

  At the time, I viewed myself as someone with a lot of chivalry. My role model was Lancelot from the King Arthur legends, and I didn’t want to end up like my hero, cheating on King Arthur with Guinevere. I was so concerned about doing right by Doug, that I avoided Wolsey.

  In the end I should have followed my heart. My friendship with Doug ended soon after their break-up. He started becoming more and more involved in the street scene and I had no desire for that. There was plenty of that at home with my parents if I wanted it.

  During this separation from Wolsey, she did reach out multiple times to meet with me. I was so elated, and so terrified. I still wrongly assumed she wasn’t interested in me and we would hang out like normal. I was worried I would hear about her dating a new guy.

  I think now that I was more worried she might like me. My experience with my friends is once a couple was in a relationship and they broke up, it would end any possible future romance and destroy their friendship. I had just lost Doug, and in my teenage logic, I panicked and stopped showing up to meet with Wolsey. I was a complete ass.

  Then, I got distracted by my own first relationship. I met a girl, and we hit it off. We liked each other so much we ended up moving in together. This was a nine-month long period where I learned a lot about myself, about what I would accept in a relationship and about boundaries in general. In the end I walked away more knowledgeable and not at all regretting the relationship. I did however miss Wolsey a lot, because her friendship meant a lot to me.

  By this point I had figured Wolsey had moved on. I was sad because I hadn’t heard from her in months, and I had no idea where she was. I needed a place to live, so I moved into the same flophouse where I had originally run the D&D where I had met Wolsey.

  I had jumped to my third or fourth job in four months feeling restless. I was at Kmart and I still remember the call for me on the phone. Wolsey’s voice was familiar and I realized I missed her very much. I didn’t do anything or really think anything except about her until she showed up at the end of my shift.

  I was stunned when she wanted to date me, overwhelmed that she wanted to live with me, and livid that my ex-girlfriend had intercepted all those phone calls from her. Not that I would have cheated or anything, but I had been missing my friend for over a year at that point and I resented my ex-girlfriend denying me the choice of whether or not to talk to Wolsey.

  During Wolsey and my initial courtship, I loved her deeply. I truly felt I would do anything, but I forgot the original lesson and that was she was still my best friend as well as my lover and girlfriend. I got wrapped up into what society tells us to do. I wasn’t even listening to my parents, I was a late teen/early 20-something guy who had navigated a long-term relationship that failed at the nine-month mark. I thought I had this.

  As you can guess, I was completely wrong.

  I wanted to make more money so I worked a job that was bad for me and worked too many hours. I was jealous of the hair stylist classes Wolsey was taking at the time because that meant less focus on me, and the exhaustion of the work just eroded any self-observation I might have had. It resulted in Wolsey dumping me. I can say now, unequivocally that was the best decision she could have made. She left me by myself in an apartment with my best friend, turned drug addict, and I was the only person bringing in money.

  Our getting back together was even funnier, more in the vein of a romantic comedy. Her appearance on my doorstep in a rainstorm was something out of a John Hughes movie. Her intensity was attractive, and she asked straight forward if I was dating anyone. When I said I wasn’t, she asked if I was thinking about dating anyone. My brain kept firing on empty cylinders. I kept assuming she wasn’t interested in me until she wrapped me up in her arms and told me she wanted to see if we could start over.

  I was concerned it would be the same, and especially concerned her current roommates would hate me. There were a few obstacles for me. Wolsey lived with my ex-roommate that had left with her when she moved out. Her other roommate was a young woman that had come on to me repeatedly, but loudly told everyone I was no good for Wolsey. It was awkward but I barreled through it.

  I visited Wolsey daily for a couple of weeks. I would ride my bicycle in the rain over to the house, usually listening to Eric Clapton. I would hang out uncomfortably around the other members of the flophouse, it wasn’t even just Wolsey’s two roommates, it was literally a dozen or more people that would come in and out and make themselves comfortable. Wolsey’s punk ideology meant she had a lot of people that drifted in and out to couch surf.

  After a long weekend at work, I arrived at Wolsey’s to find out the girl she lived with was moving back home. My own living situation was falling apart, and Wolsey and my ex-roommate offered to let me move in. I accepted. It was fairly obvious this was not going to work out well, and my ex-roommate rather unsurprisingly ditched both of us to move elsewhere leaving both of us as suddenly as he had bailed out on me earlier.

  This is when Wolsey cut off her Mohawk, and got a stable job. We started to see each other in earnest, and I knew we wanted to be with each other seriously.

  This all led up to Wolsey proposing to me. I had believed we would never get married. She had made it clear in after my first attempt that she didn’t want to do it. I never even considered it a possibity. I just crossed my fingers she didn’t get tired of me and enjoyed every moment I could spend with her. When she came up and asked the question on a quiet afternoon, I looked away from the Nintendo game I was playing and stared at her for a few minutes.

  I wasn’t sure what I had heard because I was pretty damn sure it wasn’t her asking to marry me. I was wrong again. She was absolutely asking me to marry her. I knew then I could never lose her, I wouldn’t be able to function and somehow, I knew this was the same connection my parents had with their 20 years of marriage. I wanted that kind of relationship.

  We often joke to others that we are two stalkers that focused on each other. It’s a way to joke about the intensity of our feelings for each other. I am grateful we found each other.

  Our marriage came quickly, but not quick enough. Just a couple of weeks later in October a judge married us and I got to start another leg of my journey with my then wife. That one decision to say yes is the only decision I have ever made and never once regretted. Not if we are fighting, not if we are broke, not under any circumstances.

  Wolsey’s Perspective Now

  I moved out of my parents’ home in my mid-teens, and dropped out of school and got a GED. It’s not because I wanted to, but because the violence I faced there gave me the unwavering impression that someday I was going to collect more than bruises, and the next time I was choked until I blacked out, I might not wake up.

  I don’t really think the crux of the issue was that I was a daughter who occasionally dated girls. I’m not even sure they knew that happened. I think my behavior was so clearly male, and my disregard for accepted gender norms made me a target, even if none of us knew what the word “transgender” meant at the time.

  I didn’t do poorly on my own. I ran with a pack of semi-homeless teens we would now call punk. At the time I would have fought you for trying to label me. It was probably the best subculture I could have landed in, because they accepted my incidental queerness, and even my own boyfriends treated me like one of the boys.

  Some of my poorly-housed friends lived in a flophouse. The woman had a son that hung out in the punk scene, and she would rent her bedrooms to the kids he knew. She charged a lot, but most of us were under the age of 18, and there weren’t a lot of options.

  This is how I met Lucky. He was best friends with one of the boys that lived there named Doug. I was dating Doug, and Lucky ran a Dungeons & Dragon’s game weekly for Doug and his friends.

  I’d never played Dungeons & Dragons before, but was a voracious reader. I was well-versed in the fantasy classics, and was excited to join. Lucky was incredibly good at storytelling, and ran a great game.

  Doug and I got t
ired of the predatory situation we were living in, and we found a slumlord willing to rent to two 17-year-olds. It was two blocks from Lucky’s house. I’m not sure my toolkit of life skills was up to it, but I gave it my all.

  I also got to meet Lucky’s parents. They took an interest in my situation, and offered a lot of good life advice on how to live. I had a phone line, so they would walk down and make calls on it. I didn’t mind. They helped keep my teenage self from some of the more dangerous mistakes, and were an invaluable help.

  Then predictably for teenagers, Doug and I broke up right after my 18th birthday. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I left him the apartment and the contents of our savings account. I packed up my belongings in the back of my camouflage-painted Toyota pick-up, and moved into a new place.

  This is where I lost touch with Lucky. He’d moved in with a girl and some of her friends, and no matter how often I called, I could not get through to him. I’d always had a crush on Lucky and was trying to find him.

  That probably would have been the end of it, if the gal he was living with hadn’t answered the phone in a syrupy sweet “professional” voice and acted like I was a bill collector. It was so infuriatingly rude, and so unlike Lucky to avoid me. I decided to track his ass down and get to the bottom of it.

  I started making phone calls. We were in a fairly small town, so I just started calling places I knew he’d worked. I lucked out and one pizza place told me he’d jumped to a new pizza place. Then I called that pizza place, and they said he’d started working at Kmart. I called Kmart, and they said he worked there and could patch me through. Bingo!

  I remember stalking into Kmart, right up to him, and eyeballing him. I didn’t hug him. I never hugged anyone. I just tried to impress upon him how important it was that he go with me to coffee, with all the earnestness of an 18-year-old on a mission.

  I learned the girl that had been so rude to me had been his girlfriend. There was heavy emphasis on “had been.” They’d broken up, and he’d moved into my old flophouse.

  I was sleeping in my truck at the time, but some nights it was too cold. Lucky left his window open for me like I was a stray cat. I remember parking several blocks away, because my camo-painted truck was pretty obvious and the flophouse landlady was not exactly happy about me coming around. I’d slip in through the window.

  I remember the day we started dating. We were lying side by side on the floor under a blanket because it was freezing. Lucky had asked if I liked anyone. I had said there was a certain boy I was interested in.

  He then started asking me about who I liked. I kept describing Lucky. At first poor Lucky didn’t get it, and I think he was concerned I’d found someone else. I remember the exact moment he realized I was talking about him, not some random boy I’d found. Lucky literally stopped breathing. That’s when I kissed him, and we started seeing each other.

  It’s not like we went straight to a happily ever after. We had some bumps in the road.

  We moved in together for a bit until he took a graveyard taxi dispatch job. It was a horror show of a job and they treated him like crap. His lack of sleep made him really grumpy to live with.

  At the same time, my friends were adamant that Lucky wasn’t right for me. He was not remotely alternative. He was a shy D&D player who didn’t care about music like the Dead Kennedy’s, GBH or The Clash, or even knew who Siouxie and the Banshees, or the Ramones.

  Lucky then proposed to me, which was not exactly something I was ready for. I didn’t want to be someone’s wife. I could not have told you why it bothered me, but in hindsight I’m sure it had to do with the feminine role I was being asked to play. I wasn’t a woman, and being a wife wasn’t my dream goal.

  I ended up breaking it off, and moving in with my friend. Once again, I figured since I was unemployed anyways, I’d leave with my belongings. However, our roommate came with me to the new house. He was adamant that Lucky had the next month’s rent, and it was fine. I’d later learn that was a lie.

  I never stopped thinking about Lucky, though. Even when I hitchhiked down to Berkeley, California to try and find an old friend, all I really thought about was Lucky. I tried dating, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  I came back to town, and got a job and a place to live. I was tired of being homeless on and off, and that hitchhiking experience was a turning point for me. I wanted an education and a job. I wanted food in my fridge and a car that didn’t break down. I was also completely sure I wanted Lucky.

  I showed up at his apartment. He was living with his ex-girlfriend, her boyfriend and their kid. I did what I did before, and stalked the hell out of Lucky until I knew where he was. I then showed up on his doorstep soaking wet, after walking across town. I’m sure it looked like I blew in with the storm.

  His ex-girlfriend was not happy to see me, but I put on my biggest smile and told her I was there for Lucky. I’m sure if I’d called, I’d have been treated to that syrupy sweet “professional” voice refusing me, so I made sure to tell her I’d wait for as long as it took. Then I took a drag off my cigarette and blew a few smoke rings. She hated cigarette smoke, and it was petty, but I couldn’t help myself.

  I don’t think I have ever been so happy to see anyone as I was when Lucky came down to the door. I just remember being so relieved that he was OK. I have never wanted to touch someone so much. I just wanted to hold him to make sure he was there again. Instead, I awkwardly followed him to his bedroom, admitted to stalking him, and we talked out a lot of what had gone wrong with our last attempt at a relationship.

  We moved in together shortly thereafter because Lucky wasn’t exactly having the time of his life living with his ex-girlfriend and her family. That’s when I proposed to him. I wasn’t sure what it meant to be a wife, but if he could accept me for who I was, then maybe it would work. I just knew it was something he wanted.

  I was just so desperate to hold on to him, I thought I could try being a wife. I thought it would be OK to be a wife, and I could not even have told you what about that word bothered me, at the time. I’ve never been so relieved and happy to hear the word “yes.” I’m really glad he agreed to marry me. However, I’m a lot happier to be his husband now.

  This led to 20 years of what most folks would think was a heterosexual marriage. Yet, there were lots of jokes about me being the husband because my general tendencies were masculine enough to be noticed. I was more likely to work on the house or fix the car. Lucky was more likely to bake cookies.

  Lucky didn’t seem to mind the deviation from gendered expectations and we settled into a very even partnership for household duties. I now know this is the way a lot of same sex couples organize household responsibilities. We just never had that expectation that I, as a wife, was going to be in charge of all the things that women generally are expected oversee.

  I was happy being with Lucky, even when it became apparent that I was not a woman and had never been one. I was so in love and so happy, I tried to push it off. Lucky was worth it to me, and I didn’t want to risk what we had for something as dumb as gender.

  That’s how we ended up in a straight marriage for two decades.

  Chapter Two:

  The Day Wolsey Came Out

  The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

  —Socrates

  From the Accidentally Gay Blog: Revelations

  Posted on September 26, 2013

  Even though it has been a few weeks, since my husband came out to me [and informed me] that he wanted to transition from being my wife to being my husband, I wanted to give a little feedback about that from my perspective.

  First, let me say it wasn’t a huge surprise that Wolsey wanted to transition. Wolsey has always been an overly masculine tomboy, per our cultural norms. Wolsey has always been the one to work on cars, talk loudly, take sex as a one-night stand situation. I also know that Wolsey has been crushed in the past because he was treated differently than other guys beca
use he had boobs.

  We are tabletop/videogame/LARP role-players. I have run games for Wolsey for over 20 years, and over that time there have been dozens of characters he has played that rode the gender line, or completely jumped across it.

  Wolsey has always talked with me about his worries. He started slow by saying he wasn’t sure if being a woman felt right. The funny thing is, I already knew that. Twenty years of marriage to my best friend leaves both sides understanding the other far better than the other thinks. I told him I loved him no matter what.

  He then came to me one Sunday night, after I had run a role-playing game session for him, and said he wanted to transition. It wasn’t a surprise, and I have always believed a person’s body is their own property. When he decided to get a tubal ligation early in our marriage, I originally agreed to it from my side purely because it was “her” body and his right. Since then I have determined I am happy without kids myself, so it was a win/win situation.

  Wolsey expressed to me that he was worried that once he started taking testosterone, I wouldn’t love him anymore. Up until this point, while I have played with both boys and girls, I have only ever sought out relationships with girls. That did give me a little bit of a pause. Not a “will I leave Wolsey” pause, but rather a “how would I handle sex with him” pause. It took about ten seconds to determine that this could be a completely new and fun exploration.

  I do want to say that I totally realize it’s one thing to say it is OK, and another after he has been taking testosterone for a year and looks like a boy. I have no doubts though, and I will just take it day by day. I think the key here is to keep communicating with each other.