13 May 2011

First Love With A Fugitive

If you follow this, or any other, blog, you know that Blogger has been down for the better part of the last couple of days.  It's good to be back!


I've been very busy, as the semester is nearing its end.  It's that time of year when pieces of paper are like the brooms in Fantasia.  And I'm like the Sorcerer's Apprentice:  Every time I turn around, those papers multiply.


It's strange:  I've been sleep-deprived, yet people have been telling me I look "really good."  Hmm...Maybe the world really likes tired women!  I know that some men, anyway, are turned on by us!


Speaking of men and the women who turn them on:  When I got home tonight, I turned on the TV and caught part of Dateline.  Tonight's segment dealt with one Dr. Mark Weinberger, who defrauded patients (one of whom died as a result of his cavalier treatment) as well as Medicaid and, after dumping his wife, fled to the Italian Alpine town of Courmayeur.  


What's amazing is that he lived as conspicuously as he did, and was as careless about such things as his dealings with his rental agent, and went for as long as he did without getting caught.  And, while there, he fell in love (if someone like him is capable of love) with a clerk in a local store named Monica who, as it turns out, is transsexual.


He used a fake name and invented a past for himself--or, beyond a certain point, simply wouldn't talk about his past anymore.  Still, the clerk was charmed by her exotic American paramour--at least until she found out that he was on the lam.  In a rather nice twist of fate, she and his ex-wife have become Facebook pals.


What particularly intrigued me about that part of the story, though, was that he was Monica's first lover in her life as a woman.  In that sense, her story parallels mine, and that of some other transwomen I know.  To anyone else, those first loves in our new lives seem almost "too good to be true":  they're richer, more handsome, smarter or in some other way more than we imagined our first loves would be.  And we're all too ready to swallow their bait whole because, for many of us, that first new love validates who we are and what we want to be.  And that love, or whatever you want to call it, gives us a sense of security at a time in which, as happy as we are about finally living the lives we envisioned for ourselves, we are still very, very vulnerable.


So, as much as Dr. Weinberger deserves to be punished for the lives he ruined (or, in one case, ended altogether) with unnecessary or botched surgery, I have a particular ire over the way he, and people like him, manipulate other people through their vulnerabilities:  Something like that happened to me, too.

10 comments:

Sophie said...

Snap. It wouldn't be so bad if one could simply think of it as betrayal. It's the notion that maybe it was easy for them because they simply thought of you as some kind of freak whose feelings obviously didn't matter.
Joys of first love...not.

Anonymous said...

It doesn't matter, people are people and everyone has times of vulnerability. The freak is the one that takes advantage of anyone that needs love and acceptance, which is everyone. We all need love and acceptance and shame on him for taking advantage of Monica's first. Monica is a beautiful person inside and out. She will find her person.

KKH said...
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Unknown said...
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Win2winnow@gmail.com said...

He's in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, South Florida. 15 minutes or so from me.

Anonymous said...

I knew Monica was a transgender and I was ecstatic that dateline didn't make that the focus of the horrific crimes of that doctor...kudos to NBC for talking to a human being that was wronged

Anonymous said...

Kudos to NBC for not focusing on Monica on dateline tonight's episode of that horrific doctor. We are all human beings, no matter our outside packaging... God made us ALL

Unknown said...

Monica you are the bravest person considering you loved that horrible person.
Continue to love yourself ! Celebrate yourself! Love yourself you are an awesome person! Wish you the best!

Unknown said...

Justine - Thank you for sharing this. Your post really resonated with me and you educated me about something I ignorantly hadn’t even considered...Vulnerability. I cannot imagine what a challenging insecure transitioning phase that must be. I only stumbled upon this landing page because I googled the episode & this was was one of the first listed. I will work at being more mindful of that vulnerability moving forward. I just so happened to have watched this Dateline episode Re: Ex Dr. Weinberger this evening. I’m a 50 something hetero cis with a wife & two preteen kids. I grew up in Berkeley/Oakland & lived in SF for 14 years & I have many friends & extended family that I love that are trans. I really appreciate you sharing your experience & better equipping guys like myself to be better friends, accomplices, & allies. I still have much to learn & I’m still constantly screwing up & sticking my foot in mouth (Him, her, they, them, etc, It’s confusing! 😂) but I’m working on it. I genuinely appreciate learning & evolving & I owe all of that to people like yourself.

Thanks again for your efforts Justine,

Jim

Unknown said...

She seemed very genuinely nice and kind