An entry from the very next day, written in the panic that follows almost any significant disclosure, read:
This feeling cannot possibly do anything but pass away. I have lived thirty years without it. Or at least not with this current understanding of it. There are times I have been fascinated with maleness in a way I interpreted as personal or specific or romantic desire that I think I understand differently now. And yet the prospect of leaving womanhood does not feel especially urgent. I do not feel a strong desire to exit femaleness, but I do feel a profound stirring to pursue or to gravitate toward or to be pulled in by something else. Yet I cannot imagine what sort of life that would look like. What if I changed my mind? What if I looked ridiculous? What if no one understood? What if I made a half-hearted attempt to feint in the direction of a different gender and grew sick at heart and sank back once it proved too difficult? What if I lost my family? What if it did not bring me any greater joy or greater peace, and I continued to feel this strange combination of exhilaration, fear, discomfort, alienation, isolation, and stomachache?
The journal carries on, bouncing back and forth between chipper open-mindedness and histrionics over the impossibility of it all, for eight months before I told another person what I’d been contemplating. I believed that writing these ideas down would help me realize they were impossible at best and pitiable at worst, and that seeing them written on a page would break the spell they had over my mind. I knew well my own desire for distraction, and wanted to give myself no quarter, no room for prevarication when it came to identifying the source, duration, and direction of my transitioning thoughts. And while I dismissed relatively quickly the idea of my childhood as a source of guidance, I returned over and over again to the scriptures of my youth, to ground and locate myself in the stories of transformation that were already familiar to me. Not because I thought I needed religious permission to transition, and not because I thought Christian history was the best source for a trans ontology, but because that history was mine, unalterably and permanently, no matter what I decided to do with my future. God-consciousness, too, is rapid-onset and strikes without warning: “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).
The first letter to the Corinthians in the New Testament is attributed to Paul, a man whose life was changed in a single day upon encountering God on the road to Damascus. In the fifteenth chapter he addresses the question of what is to be done with bodies at the resurrection, whether flesh is a problem or an opportunity in the hands of the Lord:
But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain–perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds.
There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
—1 Cor. 15:35–49
The answer, then, for Paul, is the body-that-is exists always in anticipation of and conversation with the body-that-will-be, that all flesh is not the same flesh but that bodies please God, that death is always followed by growth, that there are many different types of glory, that dishonor may be followed by redemption, that all things spiritual originate in the goodness of the flesh, that our bodies might come to reflect both where we have been and where we are going. As my friend Julian puts it, only half winkingly: “God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation.”
“Behold, I tell you a mystery,” Paul writes later in that same chapter. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
I never did manage to sort out whether “this feeling,” this transness, this transition, is likely to pass away. I have been a mystery, and I have been changed, and I have been first natural and afterward spiritual and borne the images of more than one man. Sometimes in a moment, sometimes in the twinkling of an eye, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes where a thousand years were as a day, and sometimes where a day was as a thousand years.
CHAPTER 6 The Stages of Not Going on T
Oh, I don’t want to go on T. That’s not what this is. I can see where you got the idea, I suppose, but I’m afraid hormones simply aren’t for me. I don’t even want the ones I have! I’ll never go on testosterone, but it’s simply wonderful for you. You look great. Better than ever, honestly. If I were stuck in a room for the rest of my life and could only look at one thing for some reason, it would be you (I hope that’s not weird to say), but that’s really not the same thing. I just want you to go on hormones and for me to be able to watch you do it. And if you ever wanted to share the occasional update, like just a few day-by-day updates on how you’re doing, maybe just a daily journal about what T is doing for you, what affects you’re noticing, that sort of thing, that I could read or watch or otherwise follow along from the comfort of home, where I’m not on hormones, that would be ideal. But that’s it for me!
I’m not even sure I want hormones. I’m pretty sure I don’t want them, because I think about going on hormones all the time, and those thoughts always end on some variation of “I can’t, not ever,” and if I really wanted to try hormones obviously I wouldn’t keep thinking about how I can’t try them. I think about them all the time and have to constantly stop myself, so I must really not want them. You know how when you’re profoundly curious and sick with longing about something, it usually passes pretty quickly. It’s an idle fixation brought on by boredom, easily confused with legitimate desire. Don’t worry, lots of people confuse the two. And it doesn’t help, seeing all those attractively powerful trans people getting into their stretch limousines and then going on the news to promote hormone therapy as a universal panacea for solving all your problems. Happens all the time, and frankly I’m sick of it.
I certainly don’t need hormones. See, I’ve got all these coping strategies instead. Look at how well they’re working!
If someone were to drop a little bit of leftover testosterone on the ground, and I couldn’t find the owner and there weren’t any trans people around, and it was about to go bad, I would probably take it, in the interest of preventing waste. That would just be sensible. Stand to reason. If for some reason I were forced to take testosterone—I don’t know why someone would be forced, but it might happen—I would of course make the best of a bad situation and comply with good cheer. There’s no point in complaining when someone comes to your house and forces you to take testosterone. I’d be remarkably sanguine about the whole thing, a model of radical acceptance. These things happen sometimes, for any number of reasons. One reads about it. Yes, I�
�m quite prepared to be forced to take hormones, if it ever comes to that, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.
Oh God, hormones would ruin my life. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but hormones would ruin my life dramatically. Obviously they’re great for other people. I think everyone should get the chance to try going on hormones, except for me. I’m the only person who shouldn’t take hormones. God, can you imagine? Me? On hormones? I imagine it all the time, and I know it would be terrible. No, I’ve given it a lot of thought and I know that testosterone therapy would destroy all my personal relationships, ruin my sex life, devastate my plans for the future, render me permanently unhappy, and otherwise set off a series of unmitigated disasters that I would regret for the rest of my days. But you look great. I’m perfectly contented as I am—not needing hormones, certainly not wanting them, prepared to take them cheerfully under duress, planning ahead for said duress, secure in the knowledge that they would ruin my life and that I’ve never wanted them for even a moment.
I definitely don’t want to go on T, and I really don’t think I’ve ever even wanted to try hormones, and they would absolutely ruin my life—I know that for sure—but I do wish I’d known about this when I was seventeen. Hormones would ruin my life, but if I’d been able to try them fifteen years ago, I’d be the happiest person in the world. Hormones stood me up for senior prom, and I never really got over it, and I wouldn’t give testosterone a second chance if it rang my doorbell right now, begging my forgiveness and asking if we can start over. The fault lies with hormone replacement therapy for not making itself known to me sooner, and it’s only fair that I should punish hormone replacement therapy for ignoring me by ignoring it in return.
If I’d known about them even a day sooner, everything would be different; unfortunately I learned about hormones the day after taking hormones became impossible, and you can’t blame anyone for that. Timing is crucial. It’s simple math, really: only trans people take hormones, and I’m not trans, because trans people are on hormones, and I’m not on hormones, so if I were to go on hormones it would likely cause some sort of paradox. Many other people would be very distressed with me if I were to try testosterone, but as long as I don’t try testosterone, only I have to be distressed about it, and one is certainly fewer than many, so there’s your answer right there. It’s simple math.
Of course if I had it to do all over again, I’d take them. Who wouldn’t? It would be the best thing imaginable for me. The trick is not to imagine it and not to want anything.
INTERLUDE V Oh Lacanian Philosopher We Love You Get Up
The Lacanian Philosopher has gotten a haircut!
He walked into a barbershop
without making an appointment
and sat in the first empty chair
and said to no one and everyone,
“Cut my hair, make it look awful,
do not look me in the eyes,”
and my mother always said being a Marxist
is no excuse
for not looking your best
and what I want to know is what are you really angry at,
capitalism or scissors,
and while I’m at it I also want to know
why it is I keep mixing up Ted Hughes and Frank O’Hara
when poor Frank never did a thing to Sylvia
but that haircut is devoid of integrity
and propped up on a faltering infrastructure
and would it kill you to smile
or take a shower and get some rest
you can give primacy to the discourse-manipulating creative subject
and still use a comb, you know
because your friends are worried about you
your friends and your mother are worried about you
your friends are worried about you and your hair
your friends are worried about you and your hair and your views on subjectivity
oh Lacanian Philosopher we love you get up
and stay out of Fire Island.
CHAPTER 7 The Several Mortes D’Arthur
(Kindly do not remember the last name of Sir Thomas Malory)
How King Arthur Begged a Friend to Cast the Sword Excalibur into the Water, and How He Was Tendered Over to a Boat Full of Ladies; in Short, How He Died
There are three stages to dying. (My heart works so, to tell you this story.) The first is to lay down your arms and give your sword back to the lake that gave it to you in the first place. The next is to step into a river. Then all the women you have ever known, including the woman who hated you most in life, arrive on a boat and bear you away to an island. Where the boat goes after that, no one knows. Perhaps the women go on a cruise. They have a lot in common besides you, and quite possibly a great deal to talk about, after all.
Only they who can describe what they bear are worthy to carry arms, or put them down again. After a long day’s fighting, and a great many wounds, the king decided to fall to the ground and perish. Then Sir Lucan of the royal household lifted his body up to bear him away. In the lifting of his king’s body did Sir Lucan of the royal household perish. In the lifting the king swooned, and in the catching Sir Lucan swooned himself, and in the swoon an old wound reopened that the guts of Sir Lucan fell out of his body and therewith his heart burst. Was it fair for such a true knight to die so? Thus when the king awoke from his swoon he saw Sir Lucan run aground, foam at his lips and his guts spilled out at his feet. Alas, the king said, that the good Sir Lucan should have his death so, and death at my feet, when he would have helped me when he had more need of help than I. So everyone around him swooned once more for good measure.
If I were dying slower, the king said, we might still weep awhile, but the time is sped, and the boat approaches, and I have still got my sword Excalibur, which is no fit tool to meet death with. Someone throw this in the lake for me—unless you too have any secret injuries you are hiding from the rest of us, that might make you expire nobly in the performance of your duties. And either Griflet or Bedivere threw it in the lake.
Is Excalibur truly gone? asked the king. Not hidden in the reeds or anything? And either Griflet or Bedivere avoided his eyes, and said, Definitely, with its long and gleaming blade and rich pommel overstudded with precious stones, back to the lake and the women who forged it there.
What saw you there? asked the king.
I saw the wind, and the waves, and the good sword Excalibur sinking beneath them, nothing more.
Then the king turned his face from them and said, Friend, you lie to me. As you love me, go back and give my sword to the water, and do not covet it, but come back and tell me what you see.
Fine, said either Griflet or Bedivere.
That was awfully fast, said the king. I fear me greatly to die with my sword near me.
I don’t know what to tell you, said either Griflet or Bedivere—it is not recorded which—I took up the sword and girded it, and hove it into the water, where it was met by a hand that emerged from the water, and brandished it thrice, before disappearing with the long and gleaming blade, and the rich pommel, and all the precious stones studded thereupon. But it all happened very quickly.
Have we tarried? the king asked them over again and over. Have we tarried overlong? I dread me we have, and tomorrow you will find me dead where I lie. Here come the ladies, here come the ladies, say good night to all the ladies, fellows. At Pentecost the Spirit visits all flesh; be prepared for it.
At the water’s edge hoved a little barge with many fair ladies in it, and among them no mean number of queens, and they all bore about their heads black hoods, and wept and shrieked at the sight of King Arthur, who was borne among them and set him down in one of the lady’s laps. And then the greatest queen among them said: Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me? Alas, this wound on your head has caught over-much cold.
And the king said, That is exactly what I told them, back on the shore.
You were right, said his sister.
&nbs
p; Thank you, the king said, and beyond that no man on shore heard what he said thereafter, for the boat sped itself speedily downriver and was soon lost to sight and speech.
So everyone took in that what comfort they could, except for Sir Lucan, who lay still on the shore with foam at his mouth and his guts at his feet. He died without the witness of women, and without water, and with his sword still strapped to his side, which can’t mean anything good for Sir Lucan.
Alternatively: How King Arthur Pleaded with His Good Friend Sir Bedivere to Help Him Die Drunk
“Leave off the arguments, please,” begged King Arthur. He tried to scoot his back up such that he could prop himself up on his elbows, failed, and gave it up as a bad job. “There isn’t time, not with a boat full of my sisters flying down the river, and this soul-wound looking to speed me fast. I’m simply asking you to listen. Agree or disagree: encountering death with one’s full faculties intact is a horrific prospect, all other things being equal.”
“Agree,” said Bedivere.
“Agree,” Arthur continued, “one cannot help being mortal. Although if a third exception in history is ever to be made, likely as not it will be made in my case.”
“Third exception? What were the first two?”
“Enoch and Elijah, ass. Ascended to Heaven without dying. Chariots of fire, and so on, cf … cf something. Book of Kings.”
“What about—what about the other one?”
“Christ doesn’t count.”
“No, the other one. With the sisters.”
“Lazarus?”
“Lazarus.”
A pause. “Doesn’t count,” Arthur concluded triumphantly. “It was only a postponement, not a commutation of sentence. Doesn’t count.”
“Has to count for something.”
Something That May Shock and Discredit You Page 6
