Flurry and Fall; Weird or Queer?

This morning, I arrived at my 8:00 am class early. It was almost impossible not to, as the class was two doors away from my office, where I'd spent the night.

Only five of the twenty-three students had arrived. That was all right with me; we still had time. Another walked in and exclaimed, "It's snowing!"

I peeked through the slats of the blinds that covered the classroom window. Yes, indeed: Flurries were fluttering down. On the blackboard, I wrote the following:

Snow flurries; leaves tumble.

Then I slipped over to the window and peeked through the slats again:

The sun is retreating into clouds

I continued this pattern: Look out the blinds, write a line, go back to the blinds--until it was time to start the class, and I had written the following:

Snow flurries; leaves tumble
The sun is retreating into clouds
Below them, the ground lies bare.

Morning now. None has died
From darkness, only from cold.
They are falling

And I am waking
To their dreams unfolding
Reflections in my eyes.

As I wrote, the room filled with students. By the time I stopped, we were about five minutes into the class. Imagine coming into class at 8 in the morning--especially after you've worked a night shift, as many of those students do--and seeing your professor almost entranced and writig strange things on the board.

Without my prompting, some students said they liked it. One called it "deep." It'll take me a while to know whether or not it's worth anything, or whether I can expand it, edit it or do anything else to it. I'm not even sure of what, if anything, it means.

Can you imagine one of the students going to the dean's office and saying, "Professor Justine got weird on us." And any of the deans--or the president--would probably say, "Got weird?"

Actually, if anything, I might be less weird now than I used to be. I'm thinking now of a conversation I had with Nathan, an absolute sweetheart of a young man who is cute because, well, he totally looks the part of a young English professor. Somehow we got to talking about notions of "queerness" and how they have been depicted. He made the point that, basically, a "queer" is anyone who doesn't reflect his or her society's gender norms.

I thought about that one. "So, by that definition, I was probably more "queer" when I was living as a straight man."

"You're probably right. Now, you are more or less what people expect of a straight woman of your age and in your position. But you were probably different from other straight men."

"I know. I've been able to sustain only a couple of friendships with men. That's probably because I couldn't relate very well to them as a 'guy'."

"Yeah...You're emotionally different."

"Oh, you got that right. Even when I was doing 'guy' things and getting respect for how well I did them, I still never felt like 'one of the guys'."

I never, ever tried to be the weird one. Even as a teenager, I didn't rebel, even though my mother, father and teacher thought I was. I've never, ever done or said anything for the sake of being contrarian; if anything, I tried as best I could to fit in. During my teen years, I could do that somewhat by doing relatively well in school and playing sports. But when anyone talked about my future, I couldn't envision it: It was as if they were talking about someone else. Marriage, kids, becoming a military officer (my father's idea) or any number of visions my parents, teachers and other adults had of my becoming a man.

Snow flurried and leaves fell this morning. And, even after a sleepless night, I was a wide-awake lady prof. This afternoon--That was another story! I'm ready to drop even faster than those leaves. As long as I don't fall....

Waking in Strange Places

Tonight I am at the college, where I'm reading papers, preparing lessons and surfing the web. I decided that if I went home, I wouldn't get enough sleep to make it worthwhile. Still, I wish I could see the cats.

I did an all-nighter at this college once before and managed to get a pretty fair amount of work done. That night, I met one other first-year faculty member who, like me, knows that this place could be better than it is, and wants to do something to make that happen.

Surprisingly, I was no more tired during my classes the following day than I would've been had I gone home and slept four or five hours, if that. But the following night, I turned the key to my door and the next thing I knew, I woke up around 10 o'clock the following morning. It's probably as close as I've come to having a blackout without drinking.

I can remember a few other times when I've walked into my door and could recall nothing else until I woke up the next day. It felt as if I were opening my eyes to some place as strange and distant from wherever I'd fallen asleep as any other country I've visited feels from this one.

Is that what I'll feel like when I awaken from the surgery? Or will I be too wracked with pain or benumbed with painkillers to notice that anything's different, or to notice anything at all? Will I waken to same self, different world? Or same world. different self?

Bruce likes to remind me that one has to become the change one wants. He says that's why I have the sort of relationship I have now with him, my parents, and other people: I became the person I always knew that I am, and they are responding to that. The weird thing is that sometimes I feel like they've all changed more than I've changed. I'm not sure of whether that's a good or bad thing.

So much of my past has become distant now. Aside from a few really vivid memories, so much seems as if it happened in another place, to another person. This isn't quite the same as the automatic process of denial that took over after I was molested, for example. Those sexual assaults never faded away; they muttered through my sleep like distant thunder one may hear on a seemingly-clear day. And, of course, that muttering turned into rumbling, then crashes accompanied by the lightning that struck. The more firmly I tried to hold on to those clear days when I ignored the thunder, the more fierce was the lightning strike.

But at least I feel that I am being released from the illusion that recalling everything is important. There are lots of emotional idiot-savants who never forget a slight or an insult but learn nothing from either, or from any other experience. Instead of a being a different person or in a different place, their lives are a sequence of, "Same shit, different year."

Well, the years have changed, but the past few haven't been "same shit" as the year before. Now I find myself waking up in different times and places, even when I am in my own bed.

What will it be like in that hospital bed? Or when I wake up from the operation? It's less than eight months away: an instant or an eternity? It depends, I guess, on how far I go and how far I come on my way to becoming a more complete version of Justine. Which, as far as I can tell, means waking up, whenever and wherever.

What Is a Family?

This morning Mom and I were talking about last night's segment of 20/20. In it, Barbara Walters interviewed the "man who gave birth" and his wife. Of course, the man who gave birth to that baby was a transgender who stopped taking his hormones, and the reason why he gave birth is that his wife is not capable of doing so.


Of course, Mom asked me what I thought of it. I said it's great; after all, she couldn't have the child, so why shouldn't he? Mom said she is "still thinking about it," and that "it's a new world we're living in."


"Yes," I agreed, "A lot has changed."


A silence. "Well, you know, what we call 'a family' has changed. It's not always a man, a woman and kids the woman gave birth to."


"Oh, I know," I said. "I'd say the majority of the students I've had didn't come from that kind of family."


"Still," she said, "I remember reading that kids do better with a mother and a father."


"I totally agree. As an educator, I've seen it."


"Mmm hmm..."


"But what does it mean to be a mother or a father? They're not always the people who gave birth to the child."


"True. There are adoptions, and all kinds of other situations. Things aren't what they used to be."

Another silence. Things aren't what they used to be. If she still wishes, in some way, that things could be the way they used to be (which I could understand), she isn't acting that way. She also talked about a cable TV show about the hospital to which I'm going for my surgery. Dad's been watching it, too. I know he wishes I were--no, I'll give him credit: could be--Nick, the namesake he thought he had. In a sense, he still does: I kept "Nicholas" as my middle name, though I like to think of my last name as Nicholas-Valinotti.

Well, he's promised to go with me and Mom to the hospital. Now all I have to do is hope their health is up to the task.

They're my parents, but not only because she gave birth to me and he planted the seed. I have always had a special bond with my mother, which I believe has always been more emotionally intimate than what sons normally have with their mothers--or fathers, for that matter. For all of the self-destructive things I've done, there are others--including a suicide attempt--I didn't carry through because I thought of her.

We talked some more about the surgery. She asked me whether I'm starting to get nervous about it. "No, not about getting the surgery. Maybe the operation itself, even though I'll be sedated."

"If you really wanted to, you can change your mind."

"I know. But I've thought about this, and thought it through for a long, long time. I know why I'm doing it. I have a good idea of what to expect. But there are still things I can't even imagine."

"Of course. There always are, no matter what we do."

"True. Anything we do, there's uncertainly. But that's no reason not to do it."

"Oh, I know you're going to do it. You'll be fine."

"Because of you..."

"No, it's not just me."

" I know. I have a lot else going for me now. Still, you're being a huge help. Thank you."


She gave birth to me. I am giving birth to myself. She and Dad want to be there for that. That'll do just fine as a definition of a family, for me.

The Fifteenth

It's rained through most of the day. The sun put in one of those appearances it makes when it's in the center of the storm, then the sky grew darker and heavier with the rain that resumed.


If this day were colder, it would have felt like the fifteenth of November. But this day nonetheless looked the part, with the sky I've mentioned and leaves that a week or two ago fluttered and swirled red and gold in the autumn breeze but were, today, brown and whipped about into brittleness by the seemingly capricious wind.

As warm as this day was--The temperature reached 69 degrees F, according to the weather report--it was unmistakably a prelude to winter. Even when the sun appeared, it did not light up the sky as it did even a few days ago. Rather, it--and all of the light of this day--seemed to be little more than a truce with darkness. And the cold.

Gertrude Stein once said of T.S. Eliot, "He looks like the Fifteenth of November." Whatever Fifteenth she was talking about must have looked like this one, for as warm as today was, it was an uncanny spiritual reflection of the poet who was forgiven (at least by me!) many sins for having written "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

I grow old...I grow old..
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

The fifteenth of November is definitely a "precipice" date. You cannot pretend that you have just entered the fall; summer is a rather distant memory. And what are memories but the fictions our minds write for us?

And that is exactly the reason why people--I include myself, through most of my life--hold on to memories for dear life, sometimes at the cost of our own lives. I often feel that is the reason why people vote for reactionary politicians--or, worse, re-elect them, as they did with George W. Bush. (I can say "they" because I didn't vote for either of his terms.) Everyone wants to return to the Garden, whether of Eden of the Finzi-Continis, whether or not it actually existed.

On September 11th, everyone wished it was the 10th, or even a date before that. I've had Fourths of July (my birthday) when I wished it was the third, and any number of other dates I wished hadn't come to pass mainly because of the uncertainty that lay before them.

And on the fifteenth of November in 2003, Mom and Dad probably were wishing that it was the fourteenth. I'm sure they felt that way for many, many days afterward. Sometimes I did, too. Sometimes I wished for days even earlier than the fourteenth of that year, or an earlier year than that one.

Five years ago today, I came out to Mom and Dad. I didn't expect it to be easy for either of them: They knew, as well as I did, that we were entering a new and unsettled season in our relationship and in our lives. None of us knew what to expect, really: All I had was the hope that whatever I would have to endure in my transition would lead me to the happiness and spiritual fulfillment that had always eluded me, no matter how many people loved me and how many good things I did.

Even in all that uncertainty, though, I could sense that in some way they--my mother, at any rate--felt a sort of relief. For her--and for my father, too, although he did not express it overtly--my life finally made sense to them. I know it did for me, for the first time. All those relationships that didn't work--because they couldn't. The alcohol and drug abuse. The self-loathing. The things I started and never followed through. Of course. My mother said as much: "You had to spend so much energy fighting yourself."

For the first few months that followed, Mom, as compassionate as she was, seemed to feel anger that she couldn't quite place: Sometimes she was upset with me; other times she was upset with herself. Once she realized that it wasn't her "fault" that I am who I am, she chided herself for not knowing more and learning more quickly than she did. "I'm really trying to understand. Really I am."

"I know you are. And I'm not going to ask anything else of you. After all, it took me 40 years to figure it out."

I don't know how many times we had that exchange. But I also can't remember the last time we had it. The funny thing is that she had no idea of just how well she understood what I'd gone through, was going through and what I always wanted. I guess it's like that with the people who help you the most: They don't always realize what they've done for you.

The thing she didn't realize then, and perhaps she realizes now, is that she really was doing the best she could do, of herself and for me. And that I wasn't going to give up on her, any more than she would give up on me.

One thing never changed: We talked to each other every weekend, sometimes for an hour or more, by phone.

During those months that followed my "coming out," Dad was more enigmatic: He would send little gifts, such as pendants. to me but we'd barely talk at all. According to Mom, he also didn't want me to come down for a visit because there were friends and neighbors of theirs who knew me as Nick, and who knew how they'd react to me now?

But about a year ago, I noticed that I was talking more with him, though not nearly as much as with Mom. Still, it was an improvement from the previous three years. In fact, I'd say that we were--and are--talking to each other more than we did when we were living in the same house. He even congratulated me when I said I was seeing Dominick.

And he even took me shopping when I was visiting them in August. I never would have predicted anything like that. Yet in some way, it seems entirely "in character" for him.

Does he still sometimes wish I could be Nick, his namesake? Does Mom wish I could have been one of those eldest sons who makes his mother proud and who would have given her a grandchild who would probably be in, or getting ready to go to, college about now? Do they wish I could have pursued the careers, the lifestyles or anything else they had envisioned for me? I'm sure they always will. But they know they can no more wish that son into existence than I could be him. Actually, now that I think of it, I think they always knew that. Of course it would have been a more certain, and easier, road for them--and probably for me, too--had I been able to be that person they thought, or hoped, they had brought into this world.

They stayed with me on the Fifteenth of November, and the days that have followed. I could not have asked for any more. Out of the uncertainty has come joy that I never knew existed. And, I hope, that for them, a flower of that changing of the season is the understanding that while I may have become something they never could have envisioned, that I also love them in ways none of us could have understood on the fourteenth. Because I was honest with them, for the first time in my life, on the fifteenth.

Reading

It's really odd sometimes to see what people notice, or don't notice. And what those same people say, and how it differs from what you had assumed.

Today was full of lessons in what I've just mentioned. I went to work a 13-hour day on three hours' sleep. Also, I haven't shaved since Saturday because I went for electrolysis treatments yesterday and the day before, and I think I'm going again tomorrow. You need to have a couple day's growth so the technician can not only find the hairs that need treatment, but also so she has something to grasp with her tweezers when she is ready to pull the hair out after zapping the follicle. And, because my hairs are deep and my skin is sensitive, I have a couple of small bruises on my neck.

Yet I can't remember another day when as many people told me I looked pretty--or even was pretty!--as paid me such compliments today. I heard them from students, colleagues, other employees of the college and people on the street.

It may have had to do with what I was wearing. It included one of my favorite tops, which is knitted in fabrics in shades of taupe, light coacao, gold, light magenta, pink and even a hint of lilac, all laced with a hint of glitter. Over it I wore a light brown cardigan with a knitted border, and from my waist draped a darkish tan courduroy skirt that ended at my knees and, from a distance, looks like suede or velvet. And I wore a pair of slingback, pointy-toed shoes woven from strands of olive, light brown, lilac and gold leather.

I've worn this ensemble a couple of times before and heard a lot of compliments. So, of course, I feel confident in wearing it. Still, I wasn't prepared for what I heard today.

And on top of those compliments, I heard others about my writing, teaching, deskside manner and on the way I carry myself. Even a librarian who conducted a session for the freshmen I have at ten o'clock in the morning and knows me only in passing, said I am an "exceptional" and "talented" person.

I have to admit that for a moment, a voice in me said, "It's all a setup." Of course, I wondered how that could be, for people who, as far as I knew, had no connection with each other were saying kind things to me. Just before I left the college, I commented on this to another professor in my department.

"Well, you know, they're telling you the truth..."

"Well..."

"Believe it. You should see yourself these days. You're incandescent. You're charismatic..."

"Sometimes I feel like I can't even talk straight."

"We all feel that way sometimes. Especially those of us who pay so much attention to language."

"Still..."

"Stop it. Take everything in and enjoy it."

I was thinking of last night, at the department's open house. A few faculty members and students read works on the theme of social justice. I chose two monologues from The Spoon River Anthology: "Butch Weldy" and "Mabel Osborne." As I started "Butch," I stumbled and took a quick glance at the book. Then, as best as I could, I spoke it and "Mabel" as if I were each of those people and simply talking to my audience.

And what were the reactions? Compliments, all of them--especially to "Butch." It's the more visceral of the two monologues, so maybe it's easier to convey. But whenever I apologized for my early miscue, the response I heard were some variation of "Forget that. You did a great job."

When I first read "Butch"--in my teen years, if I remember correctly--I imposed my own anger (which I felt over just about everything) on the sense of grief, pain and injustice the monologue conveyed. Although I understand the sources of the unfairness much better than I did in those days, I somehow less angry about it. Rather, while reading "Butch"--and "Mabel" --again, I felt a lot of empathy for, rather than mere identity with, them. And, as best I could, I conveyed their stories from that sense.

I guess I don't have to be perfect after all! ;-) And maybe it takes a woman to be "Butch."

OK. I hope you noticed everything about this posting except that last sentence.

Sitting Still

I find myself thinking now about how much time I have to spend lying down or sitting still.

Hard life, right? But that reclining and motionlessness is not as simple as it seems. You see, when I'm lying down, I'm not in my own bed, with my own pillow and flat on my back. Instead, I'm lying with my head bent backward so the electrologists can get the hairs on my lower chin and below my jawline. And, when they work on my left side, I have to turn onto my right, which is not a comfortable positon.

As for sitting: Whenever I get my nails done, I have to sit with my hands outstretched. That means I can't even read or write--or do anything else, really. At least when I'm getting my hair done, I can read at least for some of the time. But I usually talk with Anna, who does my hair these days, or whoever else happens to be in the beauty salon when I'm there. And, with mirrors all around me, it's hard not to look, especially when the point of the procedure is to look better.

And I spend more time than I used to spend in doctors' and other health professionals' offices. Some of that, of course, has to do with getting older: I need more care and am more willing to get the care I need, or even what may simply help me to feel or function better.

I also acknowledge my vulnerability--physical and emotional--more than I used to. Again, some of that has to do with age. But I think my gender transition is equally relevant: As a woman, those vulnerablities, which are sometimes a source of strength, are also more noticeable. Perhaps even more to the point is that because I can live as a woman, I am more willing to take care of myself. I care more about myself; I care more about being alive; I simply care more, I think.

It's ironic that when I was in "better" shape, I was really beating and exhausting my body rather than caring for it. I wouldn't mind being as thin as I was when I was taking those bike trips in France or during those first couple of years that I knew Tammy. But, of course, I wouldn't want to have the inner torment I had in those days. And I'm not going to take a trip, or do anything else, to run away. A little escape is not a bad thing, but when whatever you use for your escape becomes what you live for, that's practically a recipe for spiritual death.

Speaking of spiritual...Zen and some other traditions recognize the importance of being still. Of course, that's not the same as doing nothing. But doing something simply for the sake of doing something, or to escape whatever you would have to face by being still, is not spiritually healthy.

Not to say that getting one's nails done is a spiritual experience. But if it helps my body to reflect what's in my mind and spirit--as everything I've done in this transition has, and I expect the operation will--then sitting still or being still is probably a good thing.

Autumn Moon

Tonight is one of those clear, chilly fall nights with the kind of full moon that's clear and bright without the starkness it reflects in the winter. There are thin herringbone clouds in one direction, seemingly illuminated from within by refractions of that moonlight.

This will probably be the last such night we will have for a long, long time. The wind picked up around the time the sun began to set through those herringbone clouds; you could almost see the temperature drop as the sun lowered itself in the horizon. This is a sure sign that winter is rapidly approaching.

What kind of winter will it be? Last year's was mild; so was the one two years earlier. And the one in between wasn't terribly cold, either. But the one we had four years ago seemed really cold. Maybe it's because, right in the middle of it, a pipe burst in the apartment where I was living, across the street from the one in which I live now.

Now, if all of this were following the plot of the sort of novel or movie people have seen over and over again and wouldn't have any other way, this coming winter would be brutal and seem endless. After all, we've had three mild ones. But just as important, in terms of stories like the one I'm describing, there are metaphorical dark skies, namely in the economy. So, just as poverty is so often depicted by people huddling around fires in shacks with roofs pummeled by wind and pelted by sleet, economic turmoil is associated with climatic inclemency. Am I the only one who pictures long, dark, cold winters when someone mentions the Great Depression.

But for tonight, I will use the clear sky and the moon as metaphors for serenity and fulsomeness. Not terribly original, I know. And I will try to extend that metaphor for as long as I can: until the skies cloud over and rain something down, or the wind blows too cold. Also not the most creative thing anybody's ever done.

In times past, these images are all I would have had to sustain me through the winter: through darkness, through cold. They would offer me a sort of shelter, as a breeze spreads a shawl of leaves across the bare ground. And as long as that shawl held, as long as those images remained in my mind, I had at least the illusion of protection-- which isn't quite what I needed, in spite (or because) of my vulnerability.



But if this moon is not a harsh mistress (sorry, Carson Mc Cullers), it cannot help but to be full with hopes and longings. Including mine.

Today I had this terrible vision of something happening to prvent me from having my surgery. What that thing is, I don't know. Losing the money I set aside for it, maybe. I hope not. I also hope not to get seriously sick between now and then.

People tell me I worry. I guess I'd rather be wrong for being overly cautious or conservative rather than to have something turn out badly because I was misguidedly sanguine.

But for now there is the moon. How will I see it at this time next year?

At least I believe there is a next year, and I'm doing what I can to live in it when it comes after living in each moment I experience between now and then.

And this moon will be there in its own time.

To Tomorrow, However Long it Lasts

I am leaving puberty, perhaps even adolescence--and entering the last quarter, or third, of my life?

I still feel as if, in some way, my life is just beginning. Maybe that's why I've enjoyed being with my students, even the ones who have misbehaved or didn't do their assignments, so much this semester. I especially love the freshman class I teach at ten o'clock on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and the all-female business writing class I teach on Thurdsay nights. The funny thing is that even though the average age of the students in the Thursday night class is probably double that of the morning class, and the morning class is composition and the other is a junior/senior level business writing course, those two classes are more similar than any of the other three I'm teaching this semseter. In fact, I'd even say they're more similar than just about any two other courses I've ever taught.

The Thursday night class gives me a similar feeling to what I experienced with a night course I taught for Long Island University in the Fall of 1992, my second year of teaching. That class, like this semester's Thursday night class, consisted entirely of female students, the youngest of whom was about 33 or so, if I remember correctly. Another similarity is that in both classes, none of the women are white. Most of the students in that class of sixteen years ago were working full-time, as all of the students in my current night class are. The ones who weren't working in that long-ago class were on some program or another, and had gotten out of abusive relationships or other bad situations.




In those classes, as in the freshman class, I am watching--no, doing whatever I can to help--people who are starting out or starting over. Over the past few years, I've identified closely with such people, as I do with immigrants and other "outsiders" who are trying to stake their place in this world. So nobody seems to notice --or, if anyone does, I can make a joke of the fact--that I'm the only white, native-born person in the room. And, of course, that is not the only way in which I'm a "minority."

But I digress (again!). It's odd to think that at 30, 35 or 40--or 50!--those women and I are doing what the 18-year-olds in my freshman class are doing. Sometimes I find it exhiliarating: After all, who wouldn't like a second chance? On the other hand, I feel a little sad sometimes because I have less time to do the things I want and need to do than the younger students will have. I mean, if I have, say, 25 more years to live, will I be able to publish the book I've been writing, a few more and other works? To continue my education? To see all the places I want to see but haven't? Or, most important, to develop into the kind of woman I want to become?

I mean, if I am just coming out of puberty, or adolescence, that puts me on the same level of development, more or less, as the freshmen I'm teaching. Another quarter-century would make me like someone in her early or mid 40's. Except that I'll be an old, and possibly ready-to-die, woman.

Then again, I might live longer than that. As long as I can keep my faculties, I wouldn't mind. Though, I must say, I wouldn't mind aging like Lauren Bacall, Jeanne Moreau, Sophia Loren, Lena Horne or Cloris Leachmann. Or like Ruth Gordon, the way she looked in Harold and Maude.

Somehow I suspect they all started, or started over, in some way or another when they were in middle age or even later in their lives. One thing I know is that it is better to start over than to continue with habits that are no longer working, or may never have worked. Now I can understand why people go back to school in their 70's or 80's to complete degrees and diplomas, the pursuit of which they may have abandoned or never started in the first place in their youth. I mean, you don't know how many more years you have, right? So you may as well work toward whatever dreams you have.

Now you know why I'm having the operation, and why people even older than I am have undergone it. And I can understand the patient Dr. Bowers mentioned to me: She'd had her gender reassignment at age 62 and returned for a clitoriplasty at age 82.

I guess you just never know when you're going to start or start over, or have the opportunity to do either. So, I propose a toast to today and tomorrow, however long they may last.

Coming to Life With the Dying of Light

Thinking about Toni, again. The days are growing shorter and so there's less light. But sometimes, at this time of year, that light can be so beautiful as it becomes more and more austere. Maybe it's beautiful because there's less of it, so it becomes more precious.

I suppose that is clinging to hope, in a way. When there is no dying of light, or when light is not seen that way, there is no despair. Those who do not see in this way would say, well, treasure the light and appreciate what's left of it. Yes, that is the logical thing to do. And it is something I am better able to do. But, having been close to the sort of hopelessness Toni must have felt, I can understand why she--and Corey-- could not soak up the dimming light, much less realize that it will not always grow darker. Even darkness has to end, or at least lighten, some time. Someone as depressed as Toni was cannot see this. They can't simply "snap out of it" or "look at the glass as half-full."

I know this, because I have been there myself. Once I tried to kill myself at this time of year; another time I was ready to do so but a friend was there and simply begged me not to. The next moment, I thought about my mother and grandmother, and I knew that I couldn't follow through.

During the time I've lived as Justine, and even during that year when I was spending my weekends and going to Center functions as Justine, no image or notion of killing myself has even found its way to my head. So..living as Justine for five years, the year before: six years without any such thoughts. That's a record for me. Before, it was difficult enough for me to get through even a single day, much less a week, month or year, without plotting some way to off myself.

That alone is almost reason for me to make my gender identity transition. But I know that what I feel now is real, unlike substance-induced euphoria, because I am not merely suppressing thoughts of killing myself. Sometimes it seems that every pore of my body is a receptor for either joy or sadness, which is completely different from the depression that took decades out of my life. In other words, I have been opened to a full spectrum of emotions. I'm still learning about them, just as I'm getting used to happiness.

The End of Rain

"Sometimes I feel like the rain will never end."

An 11-year-old girl wrote that. Theresa would be about 30 now. Where is she? Does she still feel that way? Or what, if anything, does she think or feel now when she sees the kind of rain we've had today? It's one of those days that can make it seem as if the sun will never come again.

Theresa was in a yearlong series of poetry workshops I led in a Queens school for children of alcoholics and substance abusers. During that same years, and the one that followed, I was leading similar workshops for chronically ill and handicapped kids at St. Mary's Hospital in Bayside, Queens. That work was the most spiritually fulfilling, if the most intense, I've ever done for pay.

And why am I thinking about her, or those other kids, now? Well, it's hard not to, sometimes. Like today. There were plenty of times I thought the rain would never end, too. And some of the kids--including, I think, Theresa--probably knew nothing but rain. For Theresa and her classmates, it was the climate in their homes, or wherever they went after school. And, of course, their parents or other alcoholic relatives made that climate. On the other hand, the kids in the hospital were born into it, irrespective of anything they or their parents did in this, or possibly any other, life.

I last saw Theresa and her classmates in 1990 and the kids in the hospital in 1991. It occurs to me now that I was then teaching two sides of myself. Other teachers and professors have told me about seeing themselves in their students. That was never so true for me as it was when I was working with Theresa and her classmates, and the kids in the hospital. Actually, I would look at Theresa and her classmates and think about their parents and other alcoholic relatives, whom I'd never met. I knew that I'd probably committed all sorts of spriritual and emotional--and a little bit of physical--violence onto other people when I was drinking and taking drugs. Yet I knew that what I felt--namely, low self-esteem, a misplaced sense of guilt and an encompassing despair--was much like, if not identical to, what the kids expressed in their poems and stories.

On the other hand, the kinship I felt with the kids in the hospital was not as easy for most people to understand or for me to express, at least at that time. Their bodies bound some of them to beds and wheelchairs; others to needles and feeding schedules. However, their minds and spirits took them to all sorts of places their beds and wheelchairs could not take them. And their imaginations danced, jumped, swam, ran and played musical instruments, even when their limbs couldn't.

But for some there was always the rain. So it was for Toni.

She was one of the first people I met when I moved onto the block where I now live. She and Millie would become the first friends I'd make in my new life. But my friendship with Toni was strained for a time when I first began to live as Justine: She made some disdainful and even cutting remarks. But one day she asked if we could talk. It was then that she confessed her jealousy: She always wanted to be a man, she said, but it wasn't possible. For one thing, she said, with her medical problems and previous history of drug abuse, she wouldn't be able to take the hormones. "But more importantly," she said, "I'm not brave enough to do something like that."

"Oh, don't talk about yourself that way. You were..."

"I am a coward."

"No. I was the coward, when I wouldn't confront who I am."

"But you're still more courageous than I am..."

"You're entitled to your opinion."

And then a couple of November days like this one passed. On my way to work one morning, I saw Millie, in tears. I hugged her.

"Toni...died..." she choked.

"Oh, no. What happened?"

After a seemingly interminable pause, she sobbed, "She took an overdose of sleeping pills."

Although I was shocked, somehow I wasn't surprised. Of course, I was thinking of what Toni told me. But I also knew, as Millie and I would later discuss, that she was unhappy: She suffered from being bipolar, the after-effects of her drug usage and the lack of a family. And, as Millie told me later, she had just turned sixty. "And she got really depressed when the days got shorter and she saw winter coming on.

You might say that she thought the rain would never end. Of course, it does not end permanently until you die. (As if I know what happens when you die!) But it ends some time, and stays away. And when it comes again, you can go into your place, a friend's or to a cafe or some other place with someone, or with a book, and have a conversation. Sooner or later, the rain ends.

At least it does for me. Maybe it never could have for Toni. And I wonder: In what kinds of climates have those kids lived since I knew them?

Hopefully, the rain ends some time and returns when it's needed.

Getting Used to Happiness

Eight more months. They're what stand between this day and my surgery. Or between me now and the person I will be, whatever that may be.

These past few days have gone by more quickly than I imagined they would. Maybe it's because I've been in such a good mood. Mark, a colleague in the English Department, says that he hasn't seen anyone as happy as I've seemed (actually, have been) lately. He even used that "r" word--radiant--to describe me.

It's all kind of odd when I think about it. I mean, for one thing, I thought I was getting used to being at least relatively happy a good part of the time. Now, it's unequivocally so, most of the time. I mean, I'm excited about the upcoming surgery and other things. But Iwonder: Could those things alone be enough to launch anyone into an orbit of ecstasy? Well, even though I'm still kinda big around the middle, I alone don't represent a sufficient sample size. (What did I just say?!)

I used to say that Woody Allen was only happy when he was depressed. I guess I used to be like that. And that person I was still knocks at my door sometimes. Now, most of the time, that person is no more annoying than a bunch of Jehova's witnesses who've rung your bell just as you and your family were about to have dinner. But at other times, that person can be problematic. For example, let's say you always wanted something but never got it. You tried, you did the right things, but nothing fell in place, and nothing seemed as if it would. So you resign yourself to being anything from simply unfilifilled to just plain miserable, whether in personal or professional matters.

And what do you do when things--and people--come to you without your even asking for them. You are enjoying the people's company and other things about your personal and professional life. But you did nothing to bring them those people or things to you, and they seem not to be a result of anything you did. I mean, everything from a job to a boyfriend to really good friends and the support you get from them. And, of course, my upcoming surgery.

What do you do when you're getting all those things you always wanted? Those things do, believe it or not, take some getting used to. Just like Timerman's Mediterran sunset: the one with the water that was almost tooo blue for his eyes, which were accustomed to grayer water.

Believe it or not, I'm still getting used even to having a definite date--not very far away, really-- for something I've always wanted. It's equally weird to know that people have actually helped--willingly.

What do you do when you're used to being alone and suddenly there are people who want to be part of your life--and they're the kinds of people you always wanted.

And so here I am, getting used to happiness. What will encounter as I go further down the road, these next eight months, to the operation I've always yearned for?

Eight more months...With great friends, familial support and a good job. I suppose I could get used to this.

The Election. What Else?

Over the past two days, it seems that all anybody has talked about is the election. At the college, of course, just about everyone is happy that Barack Obama won. In fact, only one of my students expressed any support for John McCain. And, no great surprise, no faculty or staff member voiced any desire to vote for Sarah Palin's running mate.

In some way, I'm glad that Barack won. It's not so much a matter of his skin color or that he's a Democrat. The student body at the college is about 80 percent black. So, interestingly enough, are the administration and the lower-tier staff members. But the faculty--yes, including me--are about as overwhelmingly white as the rest of the college is black.

And that, to me, is a microcosm of this country right now. Yes, we will have a black man at the top. And, perhaps, he will appoint some African American cabinet members. But most of the people who are really running the show, if you will, are white. Somehow I don't see that changing much, if at all.

Don't get me wrong: I think Obama may well be a great leader. And I think he's about as good a human being as we have had, or will have in such a high office. At least, I don't see how he can't be more mendacious than either Bush or Cheyney have been. But, as so many people have already noted, some monumental, if not impossible tasks face him.

Most people, when they say that, are referring to such things as the economy and disentangling this country from Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. Surely those are, and will continue to be, Sisyphean tasks. Even Obama himself said that they won't be solved in a year, or during one (He didn't say "my first.") presidential term.

But here's the real problem: This culture is spiritually broken. I am not religious, but I am entirely sure that whatever force makes life possible, much less meaningful, is something from which this country has been alienated. How else can that relationship be right now? This country got into two wars because of lies our leaders told. And decision-makers in government and businesses loaned money to people who didn't qualify for a listing in the White Pages, then hid those loans in packages of other loans and sold them.ow.

At least Obama seems to be listening to people and leveling with them. And I get the feeling that he might be, as some people have suggested, a "healer." I hope so: It's exactly what we neeed right now, not just for this country, but for the sake of the people. There won't be material prosperity or any kind of security as long as this country is spiritually sick.

Now, as to whether Barack's election will usher in a way for a transgendered person to become President....

Turning, continued

Yesterday I started to mention that a family friend molested me. The first instance of it that I recalled, just a couple of weeks before I turned thirty-four, happened when I was nine. And, as I began to talk about it, I also began to recall other incidents--with this family friend, a man whom I used to see all the time in our Brooklyn neighborhood, and, later, a priest in the church where I was an altar boy.

Now, I know what some people might think: That it had something to do with my "becoming" transgender. Well, I discussed this with two therapists and a clinical social worker. First of all, none of them thinks that anyone "turns" transgender over such incidents, any more than someone "goes gay" because of an experience with the other gender--or with an older member of one's own gender.

Furthermore, my awareness that I am actually female predates any of the sexual violations I suffered. I can say this with confidence, for I spent a lot of time discussing and working through this with the therapists and social worker. The earliest molestation I can recall happened to me when I was seven; my awareness of my gender identity came before I even knew the words "boy" and "girl." And I can recall, at age five, having an assistant principal, or some adult who wasn't a parent, teacher or the principal, tell me and my classmates to stand "boys on this line, girls on that line." And I got on that line.

So, how did I get on the subject of sexual molestation anyway?

I'll say just one more thing about it for now: When I started therapy, I had thoughts of undergoing a gender transformation, about which I knew little more than "The Operation." But, I was seeing a male therapist, and I didn't think he would be sympathetic to that. Also, I somehow had the idea that it would be more honorable and realistic, which in my vocabulary at that time meant "easier," to find a way to live as a man, preferably a heterosexual one. Who better to teach me that than another man, right?

Ironically enough, the social worker I would see during the first two years I lived and worked as Justine, and the year that preceded it, is a trans man. Of course I didn't go to him to learn how to be a man. But I think in some way, he helped me to better understand what it meant for me to "be" a man, or at least to understand--and sympathise with--men, to some degree anyway. And that was when I started to feel an incredible amount of pity for Nick. He experienced the molestations and all of the psychological and spiritual torment of being a supressed (sometimes by himself and other times by the outside world) female. Yet I am the one who was starting to live a happy, if not always easy, life. Somehow it didn't seem fair.

Then again, lots of things in this world aren't fair. Hell, what's more unfair than becoming as beautiful as one will ever be while one is dying? Do those leaves that are falling know just how unfair it all is.

Now you know why some people think I'm a troublemaker. ;-) But, hey, you can't always be well-behaved, or at least what most people think is well-behaved, when everything is turning, and you yourself are turning. At least I'm learning to accept, and even embrace it all--yes, even getting a full-time faculty position at a time and by means I didn't expect it.

So that season turned, and so is this one. And the seasons of my life. At least the biggest turning of all--the one that's going to happen for me in a little more than eight months--is one I've always wanted, one that will make me more whole. Then, I guess, something else will turn, or I'll turn in some other way.

Now, before I start singing that Byrds song (which, actually, is very, very good), I'll turn in.

Turning

The first day of November...Another turning point?

It's not that any major event happened for me today. But somehow, I feel something besides a page in the calendar has turned.

October is everything people like me love about the fall. Why do leaves have to be so beautiful when they're dying?

I think now of a Japanese story I read years ago. In it, a young boy contracts a disease that will kill him. However, nobody believes it because as he comes closer to his death, he becomes more beautiful. How can anybody look so good and be so sick?

Obviously, the author hadn't met Paris Hilton. But seriously, that boy is like a leaf in the month of October. Then--about now--that blaze of gold and red and orange turns brown as the branches they will leave bare.

You might say this is where the fall turns serious, toward winter. Although it was rather mild today, there was a hint of cold in the wind and of colder rains in the blanket of clouds that kept in the last remaining hints of fall.

It reminds me, somehow, of the time I'd gotten on the #5 train in the Bronx and took it the wrong way--not back to Brooklyn, where I was living at the time, but further up into the Bronx, where I knew no one and almost nothing.

But for some reason I though about getting off the train at Morris Park, a few stops away from where I'd started. It's in the middle of one of the last remaining Italian neighborhoods in this city. But I wasn't thinking about that. In fact, I wasn't consciously aware of why I'd wanted to go there.

In that part of the Bronx, the #5 train runs below ground level. However, it's not a tunnel: It's more like a ditch or a canal, as the top is open. That is, until you come to the station. Then it's a sort of tunnel, and the train's echo fills it: more like an Amtrak or some other long-distance train than a subway.

It had rained that entire day, which was unseasonably cold for the middle of June. The tunnel provided some respite from it. Still, when the train stopped and its doors opened, I froze in my seat. I couldn't have moved, even if I'd wanted to.

And when those doors shut, I knew there was no going back. I rode that train to one end of the line, then...I'm not sure of what happened next. I hadn't been drinking or taking any drugs, so I was more or less in my right mind. All I know is that much later, in the evening, I was sitting in a park in another part of town.

The next day--a Friday-- I called some friends and my mother, who was living in New Jersey. "I'm coming over this weekend. I have to talk to you."

In a way, that was the second step to becoming who I am now. (Getting clean and sober was the first.) I was near my thirty-fourth birthday. However, I was dealing, for the first time, with something that happened to me over a period of time, and the first moment of it I recalled came when I was nine years old.

A family friend molested me. A very close family friend, in fact: He and my parents met when they were teenagers. In fact, that man introduced my mother and father to each other.

What Are You Doing On Halloween?

So what were you for Halloween?

During the past week or so, a few people--co-workers, mostly, as I've spent just about all of my waking hours at the college--asked me what I was going to "go as" for the holiday.

And how did I reply? With the easiest joke my transition has given me: "Oh, I'm going in drag!" Good for a few laughs.

What they--most of them, anyway--don't understand is that in my life as Nick, I spent every day in drag. Boy-drag, that is. Pants and shirts, not blouses and skirts. On occasion, ties instead of the necklaces and pendants I often wear now. Watches were my only jewelery, and my palette included brown, navy, beige, black and gray. I still wear those colors (beige, not so often: It washes me out.) but now I combine them with all sorts of beautiful hues: lavender, violet, lilac, thistle (When I lived as a guy, they were all "purple")rose, peony, magenta, coral (pink, the most forbidden color of all). crimson, cherry, scarlet, cranberry (red, to you guys!) and, well the list goes on. One color, I've discovered, is welcome in both genders--and, fortunately for me, one I love: burgundy

I think now of a day during my first year of living and working "as" Justine. I complimented Marianne, who was a fellow adjunct English prof at LaGuardia College, on a sweater she wore that day. "Thank you."

"That color really works on you," I said.

Shyrlee, another adjunct prof, was looking on. "What do you call that color?," she chimed in.

I thought for a moment. "Celery."

Their jaws dropped. "You really are a woman," they intoned in unison.

Ah, the joys of color. And skirts. Or pants, when I want to, not because I have to, wear them. And those nice, soft, flowing lines that elicit compliments about my appearance. Yes, my appearance. As in "you look really nice today."

I heard that a lot yesterday. I wore a suit consisting of a blazer and calf-length skirt made of wool in a purplish/burgandyish/maroonish color (And I teach English?), in a very classical cut. Under the blazer I wore a women's button-down shirt in a color Bontrager bicycles calls "Serious pink." I know that because I use that handlebar wrap, in that color, on both of my Mercians. It's about the same shade as magnolia buds, maybe a bit deeper.

With them, I wore nude pantyhose and closed-toe dress slingbacks with three-inch heels. I bought the shoes years ago, before I started living full-time. Great investment: They look good with just about anything, from that suit or others I have, to jeans.

But that suit and shirt elicited all the compliments. When I put it on, I felt good--no, radiant. Which leads me to wonder: Did I really look that good, or were people picking up on how I felt. Even with a cold that left me tired before I got to the class in which I was observed, I felt as if the Beatles could've been singing Something to me personally.

Some feminists might hate me for saying this, but I wish I could've been a pretty girl or young woman. But now I hope that, at least sometimes, I can be an attractive woman. And it won't happen because of my looks. Rather, it's a matter of style (not mere fashion), intelligence and grace. I wonder how much, if at all, I will ever have any of those qualities, especially the latter two.

Still, somehow I find myself feeling good, feeling radiant, even charismatic in some way, for much of the time. Of course, I like it when people pick up on, and affirm those qualities in me. But I just enjoy feeling that way, for its own sake. Frivolous, perhaps. But we all have to have our flaws, and at least one person who will indulge at least one of them.

Intelligent, confident, radiant, attractive, charismatic, creative--and feminine: Now there's the person I want to be for Halloween. And every day.

Academic Dynamics

Today I had a visitor to one of my classes: a professor who came to observe and evaluate me. He came to the most difficult class I have this semester: a composition class populated by seeming hangers-out (i.e., one who hang out) and other scholastic misfits who are older than the just-out-of-high-school students in the composition class I teach in the morning.

The kids I teach in the morning are great. However, it's really difficult to get the afternoon students to work. They want to nudge, slap and banter each other rather than to do assignments or study. At least one of them is a parent; it doesn't seem to have matured her. Others often come in late. I had two such stragglers today, who came in a few minutes after class started. One came in for the first time in a couple of weeks and wanted to know, as soon as she walked in, whether I had any papers to return to her.

I know that the professor who obeserved me wasn't thrilled about that. I told a couple of other people about this. They all said not to worry, I'll be fine. I guess. But I still remember someone who did hold students' actions against me: the department chair at LaGuardia College. She wrote an evaluation that was about 80 percent denigration and 20 pervent damnation by the faintest of praise. I suppose lots of people have faced similar situations. I'm just not particularly good at dealing with them.

Also, that department chair wanted to get rid of me, but she knew she couldn't do it outright. So she wrote something damning enough to besmirch my reputation as an instructor, but not bad enough to prevent me from being rehired. That she left up to one of her deputies who, like her, pretended to accept me more than she actually did when I began my gender transformation. (The first thing that deputy said when I came to work as Justine was, "Well, my sister's gay...") Some so-called educated people do that sort of thing all the time: They know they can hate me but also know how to cloak or couch it in the right terms, which are almost always as fluffy as those little sweaters on the toy dogs fashionistas tote as accessories.

I'm sure there are people at the college in which I'm working now who'd like to be rid of me just as much as that department chair at La Guardia wanted me gone. (One of my colleagues, who also taught at LaGuardia, said the following when I mentioned the chair's name: "I'm surprised you even waste the motion in your tongue to talk about that thing, much less waste your mental energy thinking about it." And they think I'm a bitch!) At least they don't have the same kind of direct authority over me that she did. Well, now that I think of it, I've always had the feeling the provost didn't like me, but then I've heard he doesn't really like anybody.

At least the prof who observed me today doesn't seem to have any animus toward me. He's not aloof, but his facial expression never seems to change, either: more or less a lot of people's idea of an intellectual professor. But, in all of the previous encounters I've had with him, he's been very respectful. And he is in charge of the department's curriculum committe, on which I now serve.

Back to that class...They all know I'm transgendered. One of the students brought it up in class. I affirmed it and mentioned it only one other time: two weeks ago, when I gave them the "How badly do you want an education?" lecture. Some of them thought, and probably still think, that I am a child of privilege. I am, in the sense that my parents are being as supportive as they are of my change and that I lived 45 of my 50 years as a white male who was heterosexual, kinda sorta. But I'd bet that they have a higher standard of living than I had when I was a student. And some of them are getting financial aid I didn't get because some of it didn't exist in my day, and for what was available, my father made about $500 more a year than what was allowed for financial aid students.

But I digress. That I'm a white, middle-aged transgender woman renders me unworthy of respect in the eyes of at least four students, who sit together and act like junior high schoolers. (One of those students is the parent I mentioned.) I've tried speaking with them in every way I know. I tried the imperative voice, because some young people will respond to nothing else. The risk of speaking that way is that some people don't hear it when it, or any other kind of assertion, when it comes from a woman. And I've also tried the appeasing tone of voice. You know, what a lot of us women use most of the time: "Oh, could you please..." or "I'm sorry to be such a bother." No go with that one, either. Not even appealing to them as someone who understands how much better you have to be, and how much harder you have to work, when you're not a white heterosexual male from older colleges with bigger networks, seems to have influenced them.

In other words, I am dealing with a ghetto mentality, which unfortunately is shared by lots of people who don't live in what we think of as ghettos. People who operate from that mentality don't trust anyone who doesn't look, talk or act like themselves, or their conceptions of themselves, or how they think people are supposed to be. And, needless to say, their notions about race and gender are rigid because they're so intertwined with their class resentments--or, in my case, resentments over what they perceive my social and economic class to be.

They're not bad people, really. I just don't know what it will take to impress upon them that because they're darker and poorer, and come from different schools, than most of the people who will be interviewing them for jobs or other things they might want, they'll have to be even better than anyone else who's chasing those same things. I never would have understood that if I hadn't made my gender transition and dealt with some former professional colleagues and superiors who knew me as Nick.

The prof who observed me today didn't, but he knows about my transition. And it's never come up in any of our conversations. That's fine with me; he always gave me respect, possibly more than I deserve. After all, he is smarter, nicer and all kinds of other -er's than I am.

Now...as for the kind of evaluation I'll get...

Life Unfurling

You've heard about your life flashing in front of you? Lately, sometimes I feel like mine is unfurling like a film in very, very slow motion.

Early in my transition, I saw my early childhood. Later, after the hormones started to do their work on me and I was experiencing my "second adolescence," I also was reliving my first one, at least in my head. Now, as I've mentioned before, I find myself flashing back to my senior undergraduate year. I think it has to do with the waiting and anticipation. Then, I knew my life was going to be different in a few months, though I wasn't quite sure of how. And now, again, I am thinking ahead a few months ahead--although, I must say, this time I have a clearer and more realistic idea of what I might encounter. Still, I'm no more able to predict my life than I was in those days.

Another common thread: In a way I want these days, weeks, months to fly by. On the other hand, I don't want to miss anything, whatever that means. Back in my youth, I didn't think there was anything to miss in the place and time where I happened to be, mainly out of circumstance. The irony was that, in a lot of ways Rutgers, where I went to school, was a better fit for who I was then than York, where I now teach, is for who I am now.

A caveat: Yes, I am in a college full of religious people of one kind or another. Ironically, the Muslim students of Bengal and Paki heritage or birth are more secular and Americanized in their day-to-day lives than the US-born or Anglo-Carribean Christian fundamentalists. Even more ironically, I get along well with those students and faculty and staff members, and there are faculty and staff members with the John 3:16 verse emblazoned on their tote bags who treat me with compassion. And then there are Regina, the consummate Mom and a co-director of the Office of Disabled students, who is purely and simply the nicest person I've met in a long time. And Linda, the Women's Center director, who spoke up for me when a couple of staff members and students spread false rumors about me.

When I was Rutgers, I only interacted with other people when I had to or when I couldn't avoid it. The only close friend I had was Betsy, whom I mentioned earlier, and the only person from Rutgers days with whom I'm still in contact is Bruce, whom I met during my senior year but didn't get to know well until later.

More of that unfurling reel: Today I ran an errand at the World Financial Center. Tim, whose wife just gave birth to a boy, bought a pair of brake levers from me on eBay. He paid for the cost of the levers and my subway fare, and rounded it up a dollar.

After seeing him, I walked along the Hudson toward Battery Park and the Ferry terminal. I used to walk by the waterfront, which was much seedier in those days, and ride the Ferry to Staten Island and back. I think I set foot on the island only when passengers were ordered off the boat; otherwise I stayed on and waited for the return trip. Sometimes I'd stay on for another round trip. That would give me time to drink, get high, maybe write a bad poem or two. (Of course, I didn't think they were bad in those days.) On that boat, I could get lost in every possible way: on the water, among the lights and shadows of the Manhattan skyline and among the necklace of cables and beads of light on the Bayonne, Verrazano and Brooklyn Bridges as the sky darkened.

As I came to the terminal, I looked to my left, toward Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. It had been overcast through most of the day, but by that time the veiled sun crowned the plume of clouds with a dusky orange corona. Men and women in suits and topcoats--and sneakers or sensible shoes--rushed for the soon-to-depart ferry. They have families, houses, cars and all of the things I was avoiding in my youth at the other end of the trip, in Staten Island.

I was tempted to take a ride. But I was feeling slightly under the weather, and was skipping a reception for new faculty members and a class tonight so I could get some sleep tonight. This semester, I haven't been getting more than four hours of sleep on Wednesday nights. When I get home, it's usually midnight or later, and I can't get to sleep right away. And I have to get up at 5 am for Thursday classes, which don't end until 8:35 pm. On top of that, tomorrow I'm being observed and evaluated during the most difficult of those classes. I'm nervous, to say the least.

Will the reel continue to unfurl? The last time I had an observation with as much at stake, it wasn't good. I had applied for a full-time faculty job at LaGuardia College and the department chair herself was observing me. The year before, I "came out" to the college community: in the spring, I was Mr. Nick; in the fall, I was Ms. Justine. And the department chair and others, I think, were pretending to be more accepting of it than they actually were. I knew that at the end of that class, when she grinned the "I told you so" grin. I admit it wasn't a great class, but I got--by far--the worst evaluation I'd ever had. And she kept me dangling until the beginning of the winter session.

I hope that part doesn't repeat itself. I do want to return to York next semester for a number of reasons--including the students in that difficult class.

And that's another reel unfurling.

Midterm Week

Another crazy two days in a crazy week at the college. There are midterms and "peer evaluaton" of faculty member. So on Thursday I'm being evalasted, and today I had to evaluate someone who, frankly is a better teacher than I am. Or, at least, she's more organized.

And, I think, she engages students in ways I never could. I think part of that comes from having been a musician--she talked a little bit about that during her class. So, she's used to performing in front of people in ways that I'll never be. And I think she has a natural charisma that I simply don't have.

But those aren't the only reasons why she had a roomful of freshmen rapt with attention at 2:00 in the afternoon, which is the worst time to teach. She is, frankly, more intelligent and educated than I am. And she can relate her learning to her students, in the ways they need to hear it, in ways that I never could.

Maybe this is what I dislike--on my bad days, anyway--about being an educator. There's always something to make me feel inferior, and anything I do is done better than I could ever do it by someone else. Then again, I don't really need anyone to make me feel inferior: I simply fall short most of the time in the classroom, whether as a student or teacher. And in lots of other things, too.

I am probably the worst student ever to become a college faculty member. I'm not exaggerating: My best-kept secrets are my grades and test scores. I'll tell anyone anything--my age, my weight, what's between my legs--before I'll mention my academic record.

Do I sound like one of those stores that says its prices are "too low to advertise?"

Well, at least I'm not taking any tests this year, except for the ones in my doctor's offices. So there's no possibility for failure there.

I know I'll fail at more things. I hope they don't include being a woman or a human being. Then again, I don't think I failed at being a man so much as it could only fail me. And now I don't have to deal with that now.

Everyone tells me I'll pass. And that I pass. Now I want to do more. I hope I can.

Babies? Blame the Hormones...

Another quiet Sunday on which I slept later and got less done than I'd planned. I haven't even come close to reading all the papers from my classes, and I'm so far behind my e-mails it's laughable. And I didn't get to ride my bike until late in the afternoon, and then only for an hour.

But on my way out, I saw Millie with her next-door neighbors, all gathered around a stroller. Of course that meant Patricia's son, who is now two and a half months old and has his father's strong jawline and brown eyes--and all-around good looks. Not long ago, I would've sidestepped such a scene. But today I felt drawn to it.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that Millie and the neighbors were gathered around the baby. Then again, in times past, I didn't feel so compelled to see someone's baby, not even if he or she was born to a friend or family member. And I notice that, lately, I've talked to, cooed and touched babies of complete strangers, and no one seems to mind. Not only that, small children seem as drawn to me as cats and dogs.

All right. I'm going to upset some feminists and gender studies people I know. I can't help but to wonder: Is this another effect of the hormones and the accompanying changes? In the academic world, and in some other arenae, many people seem child-adverse and baby-intolerant. One prof said she tells her friends and acquaintances she's not child-friendly, so they shouldn't expect her to share their joy. She has openly expressed what, I suspect, what others feel. And, a male prof at the college says he doesn't like children because they represent the bourgeois idea of marriage and family: institutions of which he wants no part.

And then there are those feminist/gender study theorists who simply resent the fact that babies represent the oppression of women. In a way, I can see their point: Once a woman gets pregnant, she forecloses a lot of career opportunities. And her colleagues, and the rest of the world, see her as a breeder, both in Margaret Atwood's and ACT-UP's usage of that term.

Now, I'm glad I didn't have children because, given how conflicted I was about myself, I didn't think I could be a good parent. And I certainly wasn't about to have children with Toni or Eva. It was never about how I felt about kids: After all, I worked with them and found the experience fulfilling, often enjoyable.

Dominick and I have talked about adopting a child. He wants to take one in, even if he has to raise her (He would rather have a girl, as I would.) alone. I'd like to have a child, too, but I don't think I'd want to raise her alone simply because of my age. Some would say it's not a good idea for me to start raising a baby at this point in my life because I might not live to see her become a woman. They have a point, but I also feel that every parent takes a risk, no matter how small, that he or she may not always be there for the child.

At least Dominick and I both believe, with good reason, that I would be a loving and supportive parent. Others have expressed the same confidence about me. It's not that I no longer believe that the world is full of confusion and suffering, and that a child could be an heir to them. Rather, I now believe that knowing the nature of the life my child might inherit is actually the reason to raise one.


lightning crashes, a new mother cries
her placenta falls to the floor
the angel opens her eyes
the confusion sets in
before the doctor can even close the door

lightning crashes, an old mother dies
her intentions fall to the floor
the angel closes her eyes
the confusion that was hers
belongs now, to the baby down the hall

oh now feel it comin' back again
like a rollin' thunder chasing the wind
forces pullin' from the center of the earth again
i can feel it.

lightning crashes, a new mother cries
this moment she's been waiting for
the angel opens her eyes
pale blue colored eyes, presents the circle
and puts the glory out to hide, hide


The suffering and confusion are part of the circle, which is not complete without them. I'm sure that Millie and Patricia have experienced their share, as my mother has, and my grandmother did. And they bore--and, more important, raised--children anyway.

What you just heard isn't the hormones talking. But the cooing, the baby talk...Where did they come from?

Neither Stranger Nor Native in the Nail Salon

These days, when I get my hair or nails done, or see women with toddlers or babies, I recall--oddly enough--an experience Jacobo Timerman described in Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number.



Timerman is an Argentinian Jewish writer who was imprisoned and later exiled for his criticism of the Peron regime, particulary its anti-Semitism. After years of incarceration and torture, he was stripped of his Argentinian citizenship and exiled to Israel.



Although he never denied his heritage, he was not a religious Jew. This meant that he went to shul on holidays, if ever, and that he never learned Hebrew--not even the prayers. So, when he was sent to Israel, he entered something that was the inverse of being an exile: He was in a country to which he felt, via his fellow Jews in Israel, an attachment if not a bond.

Nonetheless, it was difficult to make the transition to living there. Learning, in his late fifties, a language that bears no relation to the Spanish he had been speaking all of his life was no easy task. Nor was adjusting to the rhthyms and customs of his new/old (or old/new) country.

But it wasn't just a matter of dealing with logistics or relationships. The very light of the place itself was something to which he was not accustomed:

The balcony of my house in a suburb of Tel Aviv faces the Mediterranean. It is large, almost the size of a room, and my wife has filled it with flowers, plants and Max Ernst posters. Facing my balcony, the scarlet sun is sinking over a sea that's too blue for my eyes, which are accustomed to the southern Atlantic. It hasn't rained in Tel Aviv for nine months , and the ceremony of the sun blazing over the sea is repeated daily.

The first time I read that passage, at least twenty-five years ago, I cried. And I am now. Even in the translation I've quoted, it's possible to see how beautifully it was written. But, then, I felt somehow that Timerman, whose life has had almost nothing in common with mine, was describing not just my life, but my relationship to the world. Why I felt that way would not become clear to me until I first began living as Justine.

In some way I had always felt like an exile, no matter where I was or whom I was with. That is probably the reason why I have always identified with people who were displaced, for whatever reasons. Of all the stories in the Bible, the one that always resonated most for me was the exile of the Jews from Egypt and their wandering the desert for forty years. After that, no place where the Jews lived could ever be home: There was always the possiblity, at any moment, of being forced to leave. And they couldn't go home, so to speak.

And so it was with my gender identity. The body I inhabited always felt like a place of exile. So did locker-rooms and all of those other places where I had to congregate with males, particulary those sanctoned by their schools, workplaces and such. I could speak their language, at least after a fashion. And I knew how to dress, act and talk the part, if you will.

Now my body is turning into a version or variant of the one to which had been stored up in my spirit, my subconscious, or any other place I would visit, out of necessity, every chance I got. And I find myself in spheres to which I always belonged, at least in spirit: the ones in which women congregate. They include, of course, nail and hair salons.

I am still learning the unwritten codes of behaving and relating in those places. It seems more acceptable to talk with, and be talked to, by strangers than in most other arenae. You should also make eye contact, but not too much. People have always told me that I make a lot of eye contact; I've even spooked (unintentionally, of course) a few people with it. And more than a few people have told me that I have an "intense" or "intensive" look, although these days I hear things like "intensely sensitive."

The thing is, I've always looked at people, whether out of caution or curiosity. Even when I was living as Nick, women seemed to sense that I wasn't looking at them out of sexual impulses (at least, not most of the time, anyway). And I could compliment what they wore, or even the beauty of their eyes, and only rarely did anyone take it as anything more than that. Now, if you're a guy and you tell another guy that you like his tie, well, that's another story!

In places like nail salons and hair places, that sort of interaction almost seems mandatory, or at least expected. It may have something to do with the hair dressers and nail polishers (What do you call them, anyway?) themselves: They seem more communicative than the barbers I used to see--more like bartenders, really. And I think this sets a tone for those places.

It seems that even the light is different in those places than it is in the barbershops I used. Of course, some of that has to do with the decor: You are more likely to be swathed, at least psychologically, in shades of peach, pink, lavender(!), soft yellows or sepia than to be surrounded by the more industrial shades found in many barbershops. But more important, the light seems more diffuse yet more true (if not surgically accurate) than what one sees by in a barbershop. It's odd: The light seems softer in spite of the abundance of mirrors one finds in nail or hair salons, at least the ones I use.

It's not only that one finds more mirrors in these places: They always seem to be positioned in such a way that whoever's getting her hair or nails done next to, or across the aisle, from you is within reach, even though you can't move. I find myself having "conversations" through facial expressions and eye movements: something I don't recall experiencing in men's barber shops or any other male venue. I'm probably still not very good at it, but I enjoy it somehow: It's more or less the way I felt when I was first learning French and stumbling all over it.

One thing I must say, though, is that women who are complete strangers--some of whom surely know that I'm transgendered--have made me feel very welcome. I think in particular of Mimi, an Italian-American woman who's probably about ten years older than I am and is truly stylish rather than merely fashionable because she is who she is. (I think this is also the first time I've actually talked with someone named Mimi.) She is so warm and friendly that I don't think I could have not talked to her, even if I'd tried. Which, of course, I wouldn't have.

Perhaps I was not born to that world, as Mimi and the other women were. But, perhaps they sense that I am of it. I think now of what Isabelle used to say about my: that I was French a couer, at heart, because even though I am American and will never speak quite like a native, I was at ease with Frenchness as I was with my native culture--possibly more at ease, at least for a time in my life.

But still, I wonder: How is it possible to feel that you're exactly where you belong even though you're struggling to learn about it? Not that it's a bad position, it's just odd.

In other words, I love the world in which I'm living now. But I'm still getting used to it.