A Butterfly Under A Heat Lamp Grows A Fur Collar

I know...Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong took his--the human race's--first step on the moon. If I were a world-famous blogger (or world-famous anything else), I'd be more or less obligated to say something about that historic event. Well, now I will indulge in one of the luxuries of obscurity: I won't talk about it.

Instead, I'll talk about myself. After all, isn't that the reason you're reading this? I mean, come on: I just had my gender reassignment surgery. Did you really think I was going to talk about some ancient space odyssey?

So what will I talk about that will take your mind off Neil Armstrong and the moon? Well, my body, of course! Tell me now: My body is vastly more interesting than the moon, or some guys on a spaceship. Right?

All right. So I'm going to talk about my body--or, more specifically, something that's happening to it. Or might be happening to it.

You might say that I'm going through a third puberty. Just what everybody dreams of, right? Or maybe I'm experiencing the latest stage of my second puberty, which has been a major part of my midlife.

So what sign am I taking for this wonder? Over the last couple of days, I've noticed fine reddish-blonde hairs growing just above the clitoris Dr. Bowers created from flesh that used to surround my male organs. I knew this would happen sooner or later; I was surprised only at how quickly I could see those hairs which, like the others on my body, are light and fine.

Of course, they are a welcome sign of my progress. Even more welcome is, of course, the development of my vagina, which at the moment looks like a mylar butterfly that was left under a heat lamp and is growing a fur collar. The basic shape of my new organs are there; all I have to do is to wait for the scars to continue their healing and for the skin of those lobes to camoflague itself with the surrounding flesh. I feel the twinges and tautness one normally feels with scars that are healing and skin that's morphing into its post-scar shape and color.

I've always heard that birth involves pain, scars, healing and re-growth. I haven't had much pain, or at least less than I expected. And the scars are neither as extensive nor as deep as I'd expected. But I can certainly see the healing and re-growth--remarkably, on a day-to-day basis. I never expected anything like that, especially at such a late date in my life.

But somehow none of the changes evokes as many memories and comparisons for me as the hairs growing just above my newly-formed and newly-forming organs. I really can't compare my new labia or clitoris to my scrotum or penile shaft, even though Dr. Bowers used those male organs to create my new female organs. But I can compare, not only the appearance of my old pubic hairs to my new ones, but even more important, my experience of seeing those first ones way back when with noticing the first of my current growth.

While my new hairs are a joyous (at least to me) sign that my body is on its way to taking on the feminine forms I'd always wanted, the hairs that appeared in the same area of my body during my teen years filled me with horror and disgust. Somehow, each of those hairs were--to use one of the world's most hackneyed comparisons--nails in my coffin. Maleness was, for me, a form of dying; becoming a man was my synonym for death.

On the other hand, most boys can't wait to see those hairs on their bodies. For a boy, having to take off his clothes in a high-school locker room when the area above his penis is as bare as a baby's bum at is about as terrifying an experience as he can have in the company of peers whose crotches seem to be covered with thickets. He feels exposed; on the other boys, it seems that each of those hairs staves off another physical or verbal jab.

Unless, of course, his pubic hairs grow in a year (or more) later than those of his peers. Then, those late-blooming brushes become causes for further ridicule. I know: That is what happened to me.

Entering manhood--or what most boys think of as manhood--later and less vigorously than the other boys in his life is worse than not entering it at all. Especially if that boy is anything like I was. The anguish and self-hatred that I already felt over being forced to live as male (mainly because no one else seemed to know there was any other way) was compounded by this seeming death-blow to any hope I had of, if not becoming a woman, at least not becoming a man.

And, one day, when I was changing my clothes, my brother didn't bother to knock on the door before entering my room. He saw that blaze of hair and ran upstairs, announcing his discovery to everyone else in my family.

To be fair, he was--if I recall correctly--about eight or nine years old at that time. Still, I hated him, and would hate him for a long time afterward. Not only did he violate one of the few moments of privacy I had in those days; he seemed to announce to the world that, for me, there was no turning back--or no turning at all. There would be only a life defined by the betrayal of my body and the expectations that it--or, more precisely, my brother's announcement of it--engendered.

Whatever physical irritation I'm feeling now pales next to the burden I felt then. At least whatever I feel today is a sign that I'm developing into the woman I always knew myself to be.

That's one short hair for a girl, one giant growth for....Naah, that won't end up in Bartlett's. But you get the idea.

Walking In, Walking With

Today was another sunny, warm, and dry day. I imagine I would have encountered daytime weather like this in Trinidad had I gone a few weeks earlier. The nights would have been much cooler, though: The between day and night is much greater than it is here.

I'm still walking slowly, as it is still very early in my healing process. And I'm staying within a few-block radius of my apartment, in deference to two aspects of my current condition: my decreased strength and my seemingly-reduced bladder capacity. I know that my stamina will return, eventually. I hope my bladder capacity--such as it was--does, too. I'm not hoping for what I had as a male, but I at least hope it will be what it was while I was taking hormones.

Other than my physical fatigue, I really have no complaints. This may be one of the few times in my life in which no one will expect me to rationalize the fact that I'm not doing more than I am doing! Really, all I have to do during the next five weeks is to recover.

If you asked most people, "What is Justine recovering from?," most of them would say, "The surgery, of course!" (Some might end the sentence with a ruder expression than "of course," but you get the idea.) However, I get the feeling that I am also healing from things that are much older and deeper than the scars from my surgery.

A couple of the trans people I met in Trinidad have suffered cruelties of fate and human caprice that I cannot even imagine. My story cannot compare to theirs. However, I have experienced all sorts of meanness at the hands of people who hated me for, well, simply being. Some thought I was a guy who had to "butch up" a bit more; others didn't want me to because, as I was, I served as their punching bag. And I'm not talking only in a physical sense: Some of those people could feel superior to me because, well, they weren't me.

But even worse than anything anyone did to me were the things I did to myself, all out of self-loathing. That includes, of course, the alcohol and drug abuse of my youth.

It's interesting, at least to me, that this recovery from my surgery coincides, almost to the day, with the very first days of my recovery from alcohol and drug abuse. On 14 June 1986, I spent my first day since I-couldn't-remember-when without drugs and alcohol. I very quickly realized that I wasn't recovering only from what those substances did to my mind and spirit; I was also healing--or, I should say, I was also beginning my process of healing from rapes, abusive relationships and all sorts of other things.

In that sense, this time reminds me of those early days of my sobriety. The recovery from my surgery is the bird-dropping on the tip of the iceberg of my healing. Now I am not only in recovery, I am recovering--who and what I am. I am only beginning to rescue the "beautiful" person Marilynne and others say I am from inside the wall--one that corrodes, from within, the very things it protects from outside intruders--that I constructed, day by day, brick by brick, around what turned out to be a rather flimsy bastion (Is that an oxymoron?) of maleness.

That is the reason why a simple walk to the park, as I took today, fills me with the sort of confidence and light that conquering mountains never could give me. Probably 90% of the women out there were easier on the eyes than I was: My hair was a mess, I wasn't wearing any makeup, except for lipstick, and I was wearing a rather loose sundress with a rip on the side. (So that's what all those guys were looking at? ;-) ) But I wasn't thinking about how I looked: I stepped, I moved with a confidence about who I am. I knew exactly who I am and what I'd become--female and woman--and no one, not any person (not that any tried) or any city, state or country could deny me that.

Fortunately, the ones who've tried weren't anywhere near me today. But even if they find their way back to my life, they no longer have (if they ever did) any power over me. I may be weak and flabby, but I have never felt the strength of who I am as much as I did on that two-block walk to the park today.

Sleeping With Experience, Waking To Lessons

I seem to have been alternating between sleep and hyperactivity since I got home from my surgery. As far as I can tell, this is normal: I certainly need the rest, but I'm not very good at sitting still. Some of the longest hours of my life were the ones during which I was lying in that hospital bed, waiting to get out for my first walk as a woman. That night, I got one of the longest and deepest sleeps I've ever had.

That cycle of sleep and restlessness is repeating itself now that I'm home. Perhaps this is the way of being born, if not of giving birth. No one is more curious than a newborn; no one has as much to teach, and the need to teach it, as the one who has brought that newborn into the world. Of course, the pedagogical method is not Socratic; rather, it pure intuition for both teacher and pupil. And I just happen to be both.

Although none of this surprises me, it's not quite what I expected. Somehow I expected to nourish myself with the legacy (or carcass, depending on your point of view) of someone I was "leaving behind." Perhaps, in some sense, I am abandoning or, better yet, transcending the person I once was. But now I feel as if I, the birth-giver, has been given the gifts and burdens of that person's experience, and that as I impart it, I am becoming the one to whom I impart it.

If that sounds mystical and you don't like mysticism (Frankly, I'm not much of a fan of it.), well, I'm sorry I can't do any better right now. However, if this sounds like a beautiful experience, I can assure you that it is, at least for me, even more beautiful than I've described.

Late today, I walked to the bodega and bought a pint of La Salle Dulce de Leche ice cream. (It's great with sliced or diced pears and fresh-ground nutmeg.) As I walked home, in the direction of the East River, the sun was beginning to set. The day had been warm but not humid (very unusual for New York at this time of year), and a breeze wafted off the river and rippled against my bare shoulders and my sun-dress.

I would have called what I was feeling "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," with apologies to Milan Kundera, except that it was anything but unbearable. Not to say that it was easy: I was learning, at that moment, my own spiritual weight and how to navigate with it. However, I was not learning through some dialectical, question-and-answer process. Instead, I felt more as if it were some sort of metamorphosis: The one who had been alien in a male body was becoming one who is beginning her life in the world of women. Those days of alienation are past; the days of living "as" a woman--days only recently passing-- were now turning into the early days of the life of which I'd long dreamed.

This is only the beginning of that life. For now, my main concern is recovering. From the surgery, yes, and I'm doing that more quickly than I'd expected. But the real recovery, I feel, has to do with so many of the things I experienced before the surgery--in fact, before I even admitted to myself that this is what I wanted.

Those experiences include rapes, betrayals, beatings (ones that I've committed as well as have been subjected to) and various other sorts of hurt. There are the two former friends who, perhaps, I will no longer think of as "former"--or, as some have suggested, "friends that never were." Rather, they are people who are not part of my life now, and probably never will be. Even if they were to try to make amends to me, I don't think it would be possible: I am as different from the woman they betrayed as she is from the "man" they befriended. They may be different, too, from the people who were in my life, which would make the questions of "forgiveness" and "renewing the friendship" even more irrelevant.

Simply put, they are not part of my life now. Only the lessons I have learned from my experiences with them remain. And, I am learning, lessons are far more useful than memories for moving forward in one's life. I'm not losing the experiences that begat those lessons. Instead, I am finally getting the opportunity to live by those lessons, rather than to continue in the prison of the memories--which are so unreliable--of my experiences. And there are so many new experiences to come.

I want to move ahead and discover them. But I need some rest now.

Rest and Encouragement for the Journey

I've been drifting in and out of consciousness today. I don't think any travel date has left me as tired on the following day as yesterday left me today.

It's not that it was one of those travel days from hell. To the contrary: The drive from Trinidad to Colorado Springs went without delay, and seemed even quicker than it was because I was riding and talking with Robin, who works in Dr. Bowers' office. Each of my flights landed ahead of schedule, and I opened the door to my apartment about an hour earlier than I anticipated.

Before she turned on to the highway, she dropped off someone who's having her surgery today.

I've forgotten her name, but I recall that she's from West Virginia and has beautiful light green eyes. She admitted to feeling very anxious about the surgery and, in the little time I saw her, I tried to reassure her that everything would be fine. I really felt no pain, only some irritation and soreness as well as fatigue. I reached my left hand back to her right and clasped it. "I'm feeling really good," I exclaimed. "And you're going to be in the same hands that took care of me."

That seemed to calm her, for a moment. "What you're going through now is really worse than the surgery itself," I said. "Preparation is the worst. But soon it'll be over."

Tomorrow I'll call Robin to see how that woman is doing. What I won't mention, though, is that I'd like a name to remember along with those eyes!

OK...So how many people did I fall in love with in Trinidad? Hmm....Danny, the trans man who stayed at the Morning After House. The woman I just mentioned. Dave, the anaesthesiologist. (He insisted that I call him by his first name.) And, of course, Marci. So that's what? --four people in eleven days. Two males, two females. I guess that's proof I'm bisexual, whatever that means.

Marci, Danny and Dave are all accounted for. The woman with the green eyes, I don't know. She was the first person in ten days to see me when I was looking more-or-less presentable: no catheter bags or other medical torture devices. Even with all those appendages and under the influence of anaesthesia and other medications, I looked good, according to people who saw me. Either they should be canonized or they should be used to define the word "mendacious." Either way, I love them!

I, on the other hand, tell only the truth, especially when I'm telling people they're wonderful, beautiful, nice or smart. Or that everything's going to be all right. I told Joyce, my roommate during my last two days at the hospital, all of those things. And she looked fine when I saw her as I was leaving. Because she underwent her surgery two days after I experienced mine, I could advise her on what to expect. And when she told me about her headaches, fatigue and other minor maladies, I assured her that I'd had exactly the same expereiences.

"That's what's so good about staying at the Morning After House," my mother explained. "You all give each other support."

I was thinking the same thing. What's that about great minds?

I can't recall any other experience that made me happier to be, and gave me more pride in, being an educator. That brief conversation I had with the green-eyed woman on the eve of her surgery was, really, not so different from any number of conversations I've had with various students. Sometimes students are more ready to accomplish something than they realize they are; all I can (or need to) do is to convey my belief that they can do whatever it is they need to do. That belief is founded on the fact that they really, deep down, want to achieve their goal or simply want or need to do whatever is to be done at that moment.

That woman with the green eyes has, I'm sure, been thinking about the surgery for a long time. She wants it: She knows that the time has come for her to see with the light in her own eyes rather than the images of fears and other peoples' expectations.

Then again, if she backed out of the surgery, or simply decided not to do it today--neither of which I expect--I'm sure she knows why. There's nothing wrong with that. After all, she's still on the journey. Maybe she needs some rest.

As I do now. Everything's gone well, and everything is going to be OK. Sometimes you just get tired--especially when you're moving from one stage of your journey to the next, and it involves giving birth to your self.

Beginning in Trinidad

At the Morning After House, where I have been staying since my release from Mount San Rafael Hospital, manager Carol Cometto keeps a guestbook. Here is my entry in it:

I was born in Georgia.

I have lived most of my life in New York.

But I have come to Trinidad, to begin.

Even though I had been living as a woman for nearly six years before coming here, I feel that my life as the person I am is starting just now.

Of course, it is not the surgery itself that changes one's life. However, it is one of our rites of passage from what we were expected to be to what our souls yearn to be. And Marci Bowers is exactly the right person to "deliver" me through that passage.

Not only is she an extremely skilled surgeon and fine doctor; she has the empathy and compassion to understand what we feel and need, and the vision, artistry and commitment to make it real.

Another person who has that passion, commitment and empathy is Carol Cometto. The Morning After House--her "baby"--is a dynamic testament to those qualities.

It hasn't been around for very long, so it has its kinks. But Carol got the most important part right: You walk in and you feel loved, not just "the love."

When I came in last week, I said to Carol--only half-jokingly--"You really don't expect me to leave, do you? She placed me in the "Sabrina" room. It's beautiful, and I could spend days, months, years basking in the light of it.

But it's not just the wood tones or the sunlight and views of Trinidad mountain in the window that make the place so inviting. It, like no other room I've ever been in, was crafted by someone who knows exactly what you want and need to feel the day before and the day after one of the most important events in your life.

Most important of all, what Carol has done is to make a space in which a real community is possible.

I am fortunate in that when I return to New York, I will be seeing a doctor and gynecologist who treat other transgender women. I also have friends and colleagues who have stood by and behind me. However, even in New York, I don't where else it's possible to find a place in which everyone understands just how you feel. It's like having your own native language and finally meeting the people who speak it in the land in which it is spoken.

While my stay at the Morning After House, like those of most guests, is short-lived (two days before and four days after my stay in the hospital), I feel that it will be a kind of "moveable feast" that I will always take with me, and which will always nourish me.

I will have, not only the house and Marci and Carol; I will also have Marilynne, who so steadfastly supported her daughter in her surgery; Danny, with his humor and overall enjoyable presence; Becky, whose spouse Joyce was my roommate for my last two days at Mount San Rafael Hospital. And of course, the nurses--especially Martha Martinez--in the hospital.

Because of them, I am beginning in Trinidad.

On The Eve: Bastille Day

Tomorrow I'm going home. As nice as this place is, I'm looking forward to going home.

Danny, the very sweet (and handsome!) trans man from Alaska, left this morning. And Marilynne and her daughter are not here now, either: They had to go to a hotel because one of the secretaries in Doctor Bowers' office messed up their reservation.

As much as I like the other people who are staying here, I miss Marilynne and her daughter, and Danny. Then again, I look forward to seeing Marilynne and her daughter again for a "girls' weekend." They brought up the possibility of coming to New York in October or November, after her daughter and I have sufficiently recovered and while the weather is still nice in my hometown. I'd really love to spend Thanksgiving weekend with them because that's when New York starts to deck itself out for Christmas. But I don't think they'd want to leave their family, and I would probably spend that time with my family or with Millie's.

I'd really like to see Joyce and her partner, Becky, again. That might be an excuse for me to take a trip to West Texas. I've been to Texas once, and I went only to Houston, which, in some people's minds, doesn't count. I don't particularly want to go to Houston again, but it might be fun to go to Lubbock, which Joyce described as "a college town in the middle of nowhere."

And/or I could go to Alaska and see Danny. Now that's definitely not a weekend--long or otherwise--trip. Also, I wonder how his wife would feel about that.

Hmm...Is this where I start expanding my horizons--into my own country?

Is that what revolutions are all about? Well, at least the French one was about that. I mean, some guys thought that maybe didn't need monarchies and droits du seigneur and all those other things that were making French people--some of them, anyway--unhappy.

They had the right idea, although it took them a while to make it work. I think, though, that the next revolution shouldn't be within a country. I think the human race needs this one: getting rid of war and all other forms of hate and exploitation. If the human race has any hope of becoming more enlightened, I think that is what we need to do.

Someone once told me that I'm a revolutionary. I almost want to say "If only...," except that I'm not sure that I'd actually want to be one. It's like I was telling Mom tonight: I never really wanted to cause anybody any trouble, or to be difficult in any other way. Things just turn out that way sometimes. I am who I am, and that in and of itself is very difficult for some people, at least at certain times.

The thing is, I have made life difficult, if only for a moment, for everyone I've ever loved and who has ever loved me. You can only imagine what it was like for Mom to raise a kid who was feeling something almost no one knew about, much less understood. Bruce and I have fought and argued; I'm sure there must have been moments when I've made Millie cringe.

And they are the ones whom I feel ready to see again. Marilynne and her daughter are part of the experience I am bringing back, which is a resource that will enable me to continue my life in the way I want it. So are Danny and Joyce and Becky. And that couple from Montana and their kids. Carol, the manager of The Morning After House, too. And, of course, Nurse Phyllis and the staff of Dr. Bowers' office: Robin, Janet and Ann.

Of course, the bridge from the days before this experience to tomorrow is Dr. Bowers. The friends to whom I will return tomorrow, the family members I hope to see in the days and weeks after and the colleagues with whom I will work again in a few weeks know who I am. Now I'll be more able to live as that person.

Nurse Phyllis

Imagine that the magician has a woman on the table and, instead of sawing her in half, he pulls endless silk scarves out of some orifice of her body.

That's about what I experienced today. Not that it was a bad thing: It means that I am one step closer to living as an independent woman. And the person who provided the expereince could not have done it any better.

Today I had an appointment at Doctor Bowers' office with "Nurse Phyllis." She has the broad face and shoulders of some earth goddess, and the warmth and light of the sun coursing through her eyes. If you are ever going to have your insides pulled out, she's the person whom you want to do it.

What I described in that last sentence isn't as terrible as it sounds. You see, today she removed my catheter tube, which means that I'm free to pee and make a mess of a bathroom all on my own. Actually, I was a good girl in the bathroom today: I really didn't have to clean anything up after myself.

You'll never know what a privilege it is to pee without having a tube and bag attached to you, and having to empty that bag (or having to wait for someone empty it for you, as you do when you're in a hospital bed) until you have one of those tubes pulled out of you. And you'll also never realize how nice it is to sit down without having to angle your crotch or to sit on one of those inflatable donuts until you have a few yards of packing material pulled out of you, and that area feels more or less normal, if not the same as it was before it was packed. Of course, the fact that it's not the same is the whole point of the operation.

Anyway, Nurse Phyllis made the process painless. You relax, not only because she tells you to, but because she knows that, deep down, that's what you really want.

Then, she taught me what "graduates" of "The Trinidad Experience" refer to as "Vagina Boot Camp" or "Vagina 101." That mini-course included, as you might imagine, dialation as well as other care and feeding of my new organ. In other words, she teaches people like me to treat our vaginas in ways that lots of natural-born women never do. She recommends wearing cotton panties and not wearing materials that don't breathe. Now I'm really happy that I stopped wearing those stretchy shorts for cycling this year.

I'm so glad I had that session with Nurse Phyllis. She has such empathy for anyone who's put her feet in those stirrups and lay prone with her legs spread apart. That's one time you want to absolutely trust whoever is standing over you. And I knew, from the moment that I met her, that I could.

That's really what's made this whole experience of getting my GRS/SRS surgery so comfortable, at least relatively speaking: I could trust everyone who stood over me as I was vulnerable. That, of course, starts with Dr. Bowers: She is the very embodiment of that quality, and she finds people to work with her whose most essential quality is just that.

That need to trust is, from what I can see so far, one of the things that makes a woman's in getting health care different from a man's. I never had to be so vulnerable, so in the hands of those providing the care, as I have been during this experience. That is not to say that I've had to be passive; in fact, when you have to make yourself prone, that's exactly when you need to take charge of yourself. And that means, at least in part, finding the ones whom you can trust when you are lying down and, for the time being, helpless.

Now I am confident that I have gained at least one more of the skills I will need for the rest of my life. Thank you, Nurse Phyllis.

The Day After

Yesterday I was released from the hospital. Joyce, my roommate during my last two days there, was about to take her first walk as a woman. I wanted to give her a good-luck kiss, but I'm not sure how much good luck my kiss would've brought her.

So now I'm back in the "Sabrina Room" of The Morning After House, in which I'd been staying during the two days before my surgery. I could stay here forever, or close to it: High-mesa light that's chimeric because it's so clear fills my windows with a nearly bird's-eye view of the mountain topped with the lighted "Trinidad" sign. To the left and right are backdrops of mountains full of the colors the high-mesa light washes out.

And this room is done in a Victorian contrast of ecru walls and dark wood window frames, closets and other furniture. In this room, the queen-sized bed is, well, really queen-sized.

Last night I made dinner for Marilynne (not her real name), whose daughter's surgery will probably be cited in medical journals for decades to come. It was successful, but it involved techniques that had never before been used--and, without them, the surgery would not have been possible.

You see, her daughter was born with a bodily configuration that maybe a handful of people in the history of the world have had. I won't get into the details, as Marilynne is guarding their privacy. Suffice it to say that her daughter's surgery took two and a half times as long as mine did.

Marilynne has given me a lot of emotional support when she had to give so much to her daughter--and members of her family were giving lots of grief and abuse to her as well as her husband and younger son. She is a saint and her daughter is a hero.

Today another one of those rare cases arrived. Lindy (also not her real name) was born male with a body that was, in essence, female in its shape. But she has the barest minimum of male genitalia, and in her words, "My body was stuck somewhere between female puberty and menopause." She's grown breasts and has some vestiges of female apparatus inside her body. But they are as non-functional as those outward vestiges of her male genitalia.

I don't know the details, but she said that this conflict within her body was destroying her liver and kidneys. And she needs the orchiotomy she will have tomorrow, not only to function as a female, but to save her life.

The most heartening and heartbreaking part of this story is that a woman married her seventeen years ago and seems to be as much in love with her today as she was then. I simply cannot imagine their lives: They have lived in poverty that I have never known, and Lindy has experienced sexual as well as other kinds of violence that make mine seem like scenes out of Lady Chatterly's Lovers.

But Lindy and her wife have two of the most beautiful children I have ever seen: a pretty blonde seven-year-old daughter who reminds me of what my niece Lauren looked like at that age, and an angelic five-year-old boy.

Lindy and her family look as if they are spending everything they ever had on that orchiotomy. Yet I have never seen any people--save, perhaps, for Marilynne and her daughter--who so exude their love for each other without flaunting it. If you cannot see how they love each other, you don't know what love is.

Sleeping Off The Past 50 Years

Last night, I fell asleep some time shortly after 7:30 pm and woke around 6:30 am.

For some people, that is not a remarkably long slumber. However, it is the longest I've had in a very long time.

I had gotten into bed after Valerie, a petite, dark-haired nurses' aide, helped me to rearrange my pads and the two tubes that were attached to me and chafing in one spot whenever I sat down. She suggested that the job would be easier if I were to lay on my side. After she finished, I started to read a chapter of Marisha Pessl's "Special Topics In Calamity Physics," a novel I've been reading for no particular reason.

Anyway, I read only a couple of pages before I fell asleep. I don't recall drifting off: I went directly into an eyes-firmly-closed, unconscious slumber on no account of what I was reading.

Some time before I woke up, I had a rapid-fire series of dreams that, I believe, were connected by that logic by which dreams swim, sometimes languidly, other times with the force of one running for her life, through our internal seas of memory and conflict.

I normally don't make a great effort to remember dreams, but here is one I recall from just before I woke: I boarded a train at a station that looked like like the Queensboro Plaza stop on the N, W and 7 lines of the New York transit system. That train made its usual descent down a ramp of tracks that passed the Long Island City factories on its way to the long, deep tunnel under the East River that leads to the mosaic of the Lexington Avenue station in Manhattan.

However, the train did not go to that station. Instead, it took me--I was the only one who disembarked from the train--to another station constructed of curved girders and glass tinted very lightly of linen sunlight that, because it was so gossamer-like, seemed to be floating many stories above something. But the station platform on which I stepped stood exactly level with the ground.

And there was no gate, or any other device, to allow people to enter or exit the station. Rather, I walked directly from the platform to a lawn that skirted some large body of water: from what I could tell, it was an ocean, though not any I'd seen before.

There, a rather stooped man, somewhat older than I am, met me. All around me were women, of all ages (all ages that I've ever seen, anyway), of different sizes, races and demeanors--all of them in the starkest yet most pristine white dresses I've ever seen. At that moment, I noticed I was wearing a dress just like the ones they were wearing.

The man didn't introduce me to the women so much as he led me to them. They all seemed to know who I am, and in that dream-logic I've mentioned, I knew them, too, even though I have never seen any of them in my waking life. One of them was walking to some place; I knew (again, in the logic of that dream), that I was supposed to follow her, at least for the time being. She wended her way through one group of women, and we all seemed to be making a sort of intutitive introduction to each other that did not require names, or even eye contacts.

And then I found myself following those women--to where, I didn't know.

About the man in the dream: He is transgendered. I know him in my waking life. I did not know him when he was named Charlotte; I have known him only as Charles. (He insists that people call him that, not "Charlie.") I know of his past only because he's mentioned it, only in passing.

Somewhere in that walk with all those women, I woke up. Joyce, who had her surgery yesterday, slept in the other bed in the room where I slept. I didn't want to take the chance of waking her, so I picked up the book I was reading when I fell asleep. I read a couple of pages, until one of the characters said the following:

You wouldn't believe this, but life hinges on a couple of seconds you never see coming. And what you decide in those few seconds determines everything from then on. Some people pull the trigger and it all explodes in front of them. Other people run away. And you have no idea what you'll do until you're there. When you're moment comes, Blue, don't be afraid. Do what you need to do.

Of course, this is nothing new as wisdom. But imagine that you were struck by lightning and it caused you to let out long, cathartic tears. That is what seemed to happen to me.

I can recall now two moments in my life when I did exactly what I had to do: When I woke up from a "lost weekend" and got myself into an AA meeting, and on that day when I saw a woman crossing the street on her way home from work and realized that, if I were to live at all, I would have to occupy time and space as she--and other women--do. But even those two moments paled into what I've always thought of as my memory.

Now I am starting to live the outcome of those two moments: life as a sober woman. I have absolutely no idea of what lies ahead. It may be fifty years or fifty weeks long. Whatever it is, and however long it is, it will be the result of the only choices I could have made if I wanted to live, and to live as the woman I am.

Perhaps I needed to sleep off the past 50 years, and perhaps I did that last night.

After The Surgery: One Small Step for a Woman

So here's my first post as a woman--at least, as most people's definition of a woman.

Today I got out of bed for the first time since undergoing my surgery. I took a walk around the hallways on the floor on which my room is located. It wasn't much of a trek, but I could have just as well been Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon. As I recall, he set foot on the lunar dust forty years ago this month.

What was it about the early summer of '69? The Stonewall riot erupted, Neil Armstrong took his walk and half a million people converged on a farm in upstate New York for the Woodstock festival. And there probably were other events I'm forgetting now.

Anyway... I'd say that I took a small step for a woman, but I have size 11 WW feet. Nonetheless, I anticipate--hope--that the steps I took today are among the first of a long and fruitful journey.

Getting out of bed also meant having my IVs removed. It's nice to have full use of my arms, and not to be bound to my bed. And my body is on its own--save for the medical care I'm getting--as a woman's body.

And today I also got to take my first look at my new organs. They're still embryonic, if you will: There's stitching to hold the skin that will be my clitoris and labia. They weren't as bruised as I expected them to be, and they weren't swollen at all.

But even in their state of healing, they are powerful for me. They are not only a symbol, but a conduit to the life I've always wanted. And you might say that my organs are the doors to my self--and, perhaps, channels to my feminine energy.

It's odd: Last night, even though I hadn't seen those new organs and hadn't gotten out of bed, I felt giddy. I asked whether it had anything to do with medicines, but such was not the case. It was just me and my new life making me happy.

And today I gave Dr. Bowers a big hug. Perhaps that's not professional behavior, but she didn't seem to care any more than I did. You see, while she performed the surgery, she did something equally important: She has served as an emotional and spiritual guide to the journey that brought me to my first walk as a woman.

The Last Day

It looks like I'm leaving the male race--and living between two genders-- with a bang and diarrhea. I hadn't planned on either.

First, I'll get the yucky part out of the way: I have to drink a concoction that I might have enjoyed had I been ambushed with a batallion of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. It tastes like Elmer's glue sprinkled with salt. Not that I've tasted that before, but it's the best analogy I can make.

Those of you who've had major surgery know about taking the bowel prep. It purges whatever's in your stomach. It's also, at this moment, purging my energy. But I don't think I could go to sleep: My stomach is an in-the-flesh Vesuvius or Mount St. Helens.

The one good thing about this is that I don't mind fasting. I can't eat anything; at least I have no appetite or desire to eat even for the sensory pleasure. Hmm...This just might be what I need to do in order to lose weight.

But, as they say, one has to suffer in order to be beautiful. Tomorrow what I've described won't even be a memory, mainly because I'll be too drugged-up to remember anything.

At least, whenever my mind comes back into focus, I'll have other memories of today, my last in my current life. And they'll much better than anything I might recall of the bowel prep.

First of all, I talked with Dr. Bowers. In the middle of our conversation, I confessed something to her: "I want to be you when I grow up."

She's even more beautiful than she appears in the photos or on her show. But better yet, she is about as warm and empathetic as anyone you could ever hope to meet. The woman understands everything. Or so it seems.

Of course, one reason why she understands how I feel is that she felt that way. She said to me, "You know, I wasn't always the person you see now. I was unhappy and hadn't accomplished much." (She only became a well-respected OB-Gyn.) To which she added, "Why should you envy me? You're accomplished and a very lovely person."

Yeah, but...There are levels of accomplishment. And beauty. I'm not talking only about physical beauty. I think that she is spiritually radiant in a way that I'll probably never be.

Then again, in the spiritual world, whether or not I reach her level doesn't really matter, does it? I learn whatever I'm ready to learn in this life. And she learns what she can. I guess what she can learn and what I can learn are different.

While I was visiting Dr. Bowers, two photographers from OUT magazine came to her office. Apparently, the magazine is doing a piece on Dr. Bowers and her practice. At least one of their photographs captures me and Dr. Bowers talking. Since the focus of the article will be on Dr. Bowers, as it should be, I will probably not appear in it.

Then again, who knows. They also came to the Morning After House, in which I'm staying and in which I will be staying for four days after I'm released from the hospital. Carol, who is Dr. Bowers' partner, runs this place, which is an expression of her own love and caring. It's beautiful without being self-conscious: It's like home, only (at least in my case) nicer. It seems that no other gender-reassignment program has anything like the Morning After House.

Anyway, while I was gulping down the toxic brew and waiting for it to do its work, I was reading while reclining on the bed. One of the photographers felt that the way I was lying on my side in the soft late-afternoon light that followed a sudden rainstorm expressed the way the house felt to him, and asked if he could photograph me. I agreed, and that led to his taking some more photos of me. In one, I'm lying on my side but my body is more curved; in another, I am lying on my stomach and my head and arms are hanging off the foot of the bed as I'm reading my book, which is on the floor.

He gave me copies of those photos and promised to have a copy of the magazine sent to me, whether or not they use any of the photos. I hope they do, not only for a few moments of fame, but because of something else those photos convey.

In them, I am a woman. It's not just because I'm wearing a very feminine casual outfit ( a tiered purple skirt with lace trimming and a sleeveless knitted pink sweater) or the way my hair is falling. Rather, it has to do with the way I occupy that space: I have not taken over or conquered it; I lived in it, or more precisely the moment which was the space that was shown in those photos. And, oddly enough, something about the way I reclined--that made the photo dynamic, in the way that sashaying is a form of motion.

Finally, much of this last day before my surgery has been spent with a Southern couple and their MTF daughter who is undergoing the surgery. They sent their younger son to stay with the mother's parents, who brought in a bunch of their fundamentalist relatives and freinds to preach at the boy. No matter what he does, they berate and abuse him for what his sister is doing.

When I met the couple last night, the mother was in tears and the father looked like he wasn't too far from them. I listened to them, held their hands and just spent time with them. Today, we went to the hospital together and the young woman's mother has brought me a couple of things that I'd forgotten. My operation is scheduled for 6:00 tomorrow morning; that young woman's will follow mine. And we have all promised to stay in touch after we leave.

The mother said I am a hero. She should meet my mother. And my mother should meet her.

If and when that happens, I will have become what some like to call a "new woman." And I'll be in excellent company.

Today I Arrived in Trinidad

Today I arrived in Trinidad.

I walked down Main Street, part of which was part of the Santa Fe Trail. Between the gingerbread houses and Victorian storefronts on the east side of the street--where one can find vintage dresses in the window of a store that's still marked "Chemist"--flat-topped Fisher's Peak looms like a broad-shouldered gargoyle over a series of chapels.

Most of the stores and galleries were closed today. I'm not sure whether it's typical for Sunday, or whether they were closed because it's the day after the holiday. However, after spending some time wandering about in a store that sold all sorts of "vintage" chotchkes, I sauntered into a museum dedicated t0 the work of Arthur Roy Mitchell. Admission to it is free on Sunday.

A very gaunt and soft-spoken man with breathing tubes in his nose described the importance of Mitchell and his work. According to this man, Mitchell couldn't decide whether he wanted to be a cowboy or artist. Finally, at age 30, or somewhere around it, he "got the courage to go to New York to see whether or not he could become an artist," according to that man.

As it turned out, Mitchell found a niche: doing the artwork for the covers of magazines dedicated to stories about cowboys and the Old West, of which Mitchell experienced its last days when he was a boy. Apparently, those magazines had a very large readership during the 1930's, so Mitchell became a very in-demand artist.

It struck me as ironic that Mitchell's courage took him to my hometown, while my courage--Yes, now I believe all of those people who've been telling me I have it!--brought me to his hometown.

The museum closed at 4:00. I spent some more time wandering and window-shopping when I felt rain coming on. Plus, I was starting to feel hungry. So I ducked into a place called Jo-Jo's Pizza, where the eponymous owner, his wife, daughter and mother were cleaning up and "doing a bit of re-arranging," as the mother said.

I could have spent the rest of the day with them because they were so friendly and welcoming. In fact, I plan to go there after my surgery. I was especially taken with the daughter, an almost perternaturally intelligent and aware girl named Lauren. Even more striking was her resemblance to my niece Lauren, at least the way she was at age seven or so.

I'm surprised now that I didn't cry, or at least start to feel wistful, over Lauren--especially when I found myself talking with her the way I used to talk with my niece, and the girl I met today talked to me the way Lauren did. Actually, it didn't occur to me until later that I was seeing my brother's daughter in Jo Jo's daughter.

Oddly, that exchange, and the walk in the shadow of a mountain, made me feel transcendant in some way. I mean, I haven't even had the operation yet--that's coming in about 36 hours--and I feel in some way that I've been freed from something. Even though this town is about 6300 feet above sea level--an altitude I haven't experienced outside a plane since my last trip to the Alps--I did not feel tired, or in any other constrained by my body.

In fact, I felt as if I weren't even using my body to walk down that street, to photograph Fisher's Peak or the mountains that stand to the west of the city, or to come back to the Morning After House, where I'm staying until I have my surgery and for two days after I'm released from the hospital.

Robin--Dr. Bowers' office manager--brought me here from the hotel in which I stayed last night. It's always strange to meet someone with whom you've only spoken on the phone for more than a year. Robin looks younger than I expected. And, in fact, she is younger. No, I'm not going to tell you how old. Suffice it to say that she's a good bit younger than I am.

And she was even warmer and friendlier--and more helpful, which is really saying something--than I expected her to be.

Bruce has said that people haven't changed; I'm encountering more friendly people than I did before I started my transition because, he says, I'm more welcoming than I was as a man.

The people are friendly here. I did not know a single one of them before I arrived here, and they greet me warmly and try to be helpful. And, as you may have noticed, I feel very open to them--I feel as if they are available to me, and I am to them.

Today I arrived in Trinidad.

Strangers At 33,000 Feet; Where Friends Are

Today, on Flight 745 from La Guardia to Denver International, I wrote the following in the notebook I keep in my purse:

Today I am on a plane, in a window seat. A young couple who are lovers of some sort but complete strangers to me are dozing off to my right.

This plane is full of strangers. It's flying over country where I've never set foot, and possibly never will. We're about two hours into a four-and-a-half-hour flight, so I'm guessing that I'm somewhere around Chicago, or more precisely, 33,000 feet over somewhere arouond Chicago.

When this plane lands, I will be in Denver: another place in which I've never set foot. I will scarcely know anything more about it than I know now, for I will not leave the airport. About an hour after this plane lands, I will take another flight in a much smaller plane to a much smaller town--where I have also never set foot.

About Colorado Springs, my destination for today, I know the following: It is the home of the US Air Force Academy. It's also the home of a couple of military bases, the US Olympic training facility, a few right-wing Christian organizations and Colorado Cyclist.

About Colorado Cyclist: I've never been there, but I've ordred from them, on-line ond over the phone. There was a time, about ten years ago, when it seemed that any time I ordered from them, I was buying French bike parts: Mavic wheels, Michelin tires, Look pedals. Colorado Cyclist always seemed to have the best deals on the previous year's models, which may not have been practically different from the current year's models. In fact, the previous year's models always seemed to come in some color or have some other feature that made me prefer it to the newer version.

Then there was the Air Force Academy: My father wanted so much for me to go there. In fact, it was just about the last place where I wanted to go to school. First of all, as angry and hostile as I was, I wanted no part of the military. And I had no interest in flying: I think I may have been the only one in my school who felt that way.

It's ironic that now, I am on the flight my father hoped I would take shortly after I graduated from high school. Of course, my purpose for taking this flight isn't what he had in mind.

Even if I'd taken this flight all of those years ago, one outcome would have been the same: I would have been flying with people I never knew and never would know to a place in which I'd never set foot and knew no-one. And, of course, I'd be over a country I'd never seen, thirty thousand feet over it.

I won't get to know Colorado Springs much better than I'll get to know Denver. I'll spend tonight in Colorado Springs; tomorrow, Robin--Dr. Bowers' office manager--will pick me up there. Then I'll be on my way to Trinidad for the very thing I've wanted for as long as I can remember.

Had I taken this trip upon my high-school graduation, as my father wanted, a bunch of guys would have tried to transform me. Into what? A guy like them: A guy who's convinced that he can transform anyone who walks through the gates of the Academy--by invitation, by acceptance, of course--into someone just like him.

I wonder whether they could have suceeded with me. After all, I was young and certainly more malleable--though I thought myself more immutable and incorrigible--than I am now. And I was a good student and something of an athlete.

Had I gone to the Air Force Academy, I suspect thatin one way, my life would have been exactly the same as it was until a few years ago: I would have been around lots and lots of people, but I would have come away knowing none, or very, very few of them. And they wouldn't have known me.

Now I am going to embrace my self, as I am, by doing something I've always wanted and needed to do. Last night, I joked with Millie, John and Lisa that I'm going to meet the love of my life, and that person will be from China, South America or some other far-away place.

Why not? I suspect that most of the people who go to Dr. Bowers are going for reasons like mine. At least we'll have something in common: what we've always wanted from our lives.

Pike's Peak Behind The Clouds

"If thtose clouds would get out of the way, you could see Pike's Peak."

So said the cab driver who brought me to the hotel in which I'm staying tonight. It had been raining heavily just before I arrived here in Colorado Springs, and from the window of the cab, I could see some of the lower peaks that surrounded Pike's.

The highway on which he drove me stood over 6000 feet above sea level, he told me. "If you start to feel winded when you walk up a flight of stairs, that's normal," he advised me. "And, be sure to drink a lot of water: It's drier here."

At that moment, I don't think he knew where I came from; he knew only that I'm not from this place, or any near or like it. He told me he was originally from Alaska: "another beautiful place," he said.

He was responding to my query as to whether he came from this place. I guessed that he had; if I had to pick any other place as his native land; I probably would have chosen, if not Alaska, another part of the Rocky Mountains. Or some other mountainous and relatively wild area: Somehow I could not imagine him having grown up in a city or a coastal region, or just about anywhere in the US that's east of the Mississippi River.

It wasn't only his rather gaunt body and face or his beard that clung to his face as it hung from it that said "mountain man." Nor was it only the way he wore his tatoos: Somehow it seemed as if he always had them, and that he didn't have them burnished on his forearms to rebel, or to seem as if he were rebelling, against whatever it is the trust-fund anarchists or the ones who get tatooed at the local mall want to seem to be rebelling against. I say that as someone who for so many years rebelled but didn't know what I was rebelling against.

The chief reason why he struck me as someone who belongs in this place, or some place like it, is that he got me to where I was going quickly and efficiently without seeming to rush to it. He was not fighting time; it was moving him--and me, as he drove me in his cab--exactly as it should have.

Now, I don't mean to criticize all those immigrant cab drivers one finds in most cities, including New York. They, like the one who took me to LaGuardia Airport this morning, often work very long hours and make not a lot of money. However, some of them could spend the rest of their lives in the cities (or nations) to which they've emigrated and never be integrated into them. Some have to learn languages very different from their own; most have to adopt a way of life that is completely different from the one they left. Some of them, perhaps, were neither born into the environment nor were inculcated with the rhythms that were best suited to them. Perhaps some will never find those things; all they can do is to find whatever way has the best chance of ensuring their survival. If they're lucky, they find ways to turn their survival into life and can ascend from merely making a living to living.

Somehow I suspect the cab driver who drove me past the clouds that shrouded Pike's Peak has, in some way, done the latter. He seemed very intelligent and articulate, yet he didn't seem to yearn for some other life. I would be happy for him if he were come to New York or go to Paris, if he really wanted to see those places. But I wouldn't try to goad him into it--because, interestingly enough, I didn't envy him for seeming to have happened into his element without having to search, yearn or fight for it.

However, I still can't help but to wonder how he saw me. I don't mean what he "thought" of me; to wonder what someone thinks of you is to assume that someone has made judgments--which is, in fact, a way of judging that person.

He was, in fact, very polite without being obsequious, helpful without being condescending. In other words, he acted in a way a considerate man would act toward a middle-aged woman who's in a place she's never before seen. I honestly don't know what more I could ask of any man who's a stranger in a similar situation.

In spite of my tiredness and the headache that seems to have been a result of eating a strudel and a piece of chocolate on an empty stomach, I am happy about this day. I can even say that, even though I spend most of it in airplanes and airports, it's one of the best birthdays I've had. After all, how can a day go wrong when it begins with Tami, my choreographer friend-neighbor paying me a surprise visit and giving me a couple of suprise gifts. Or when it's followed by a visit from Millie, who saw me off, or when I have my mother's encouragement at the end of the day.

Tomorrow morning I will get to see Pike's Peak. At least I know it's there, behind those clouds.

Packing: Mandatory Minimalism

Some writer once sent another writer a very long letter he ended by apologizing for the length. "I didn't have time to shorten it," he said.

Perhaps the story is apocryphal. I gave the writer in question a masculine pronoun because, as I recall, the writer was male: The literature professor who related this story to me many years ago told me the writer's name, which I recall as a male.

Anyway, real minimalism--as opposed to cutting just for the sake of cutting--is difficult business. Although Robert Browning's poetry has lost almost any appeal it ever had for me, I will credit him for a wonderful summation of the ethos: "Less is more." Of course, lots of artists and CEOs have interpreted that statement, for which Mies van der Rohe rather than Browning usually gets credit, in ways that would probably leave Browning and van der Rohe spinning in their graves.

Now I am trying to practice a sort of minimalism. I am packing for the flights I will take tomorrow. I want to keep everything in one carry-on bag. Because I am transferring from one flight to another in Denver, I want to eliminate the possibility of waiting for a bag that doesn't arrive, and of hoping that they will ship it in some timely way to the hospital.

I used to pride myself on how minimally I could pack. Other people, too, recognized that ability I had. Bicycle touring is good training for that. You have even less room for carrying equipment in a set of bicycle panniers, handlebar bag and seat bag than you have in backpacks or duffel bags. And, depending on how long you're going to be on the road or trail, and how far you'll be from bike shops, you need to carry some spares and tools.

On a bike, you deal not only with space limitations; you have to consider the fact that everything you pack onto your bike has to be pedalled up any hill you encounter or into the wind, if it's blowing at you.

I will not have such considerations on this trip. On the other hand, I won't have many opportunites to buy things I might forget. Also, I want to bring my laptop and cell phone, in part to keep up this blog and my other writing, but also to stay in contact with people to whom I promised I would. Until the last couple of bike tours I took, cell phones weren't much smaller than today's laptops, and the laptops would fit in the laps of one of those mythical creatures you might encounter by a remote lake or Alpine pass. Plus, I took those trips to get away from the people and things I knew, so I didn't want to do too much to stay in touch.

I used to spend a couple of weeks, even a month, on my bike. Then, at the end of it, I'd visit friends in Paris whom I would not have seen otherwise. I always enjoyed those trips, but now I can admit what I was really doing.

And now? The past few years have been about embracing who and what I am, for better and worse. This trip is to help me culminate at least part of that process, which I suspect will take the rest of my life--and, according to Buddhists, one or more lifetimes after this one.

First I had to scrape away the corrosive residue of anger that I once mistook for my protective shell. It was what got me to drink, fight and perform all those other nearly-suicidal feats on which I prided myself. Then I had to peel away various layers of sadness and despair.

I'm still discovering what's underneath all those layers, although I know a few basic things about what I've found and expect and hope to encounter. So, the surgery I'm about to undergo is both a culmination of one kind of change in my life and a continuation of a journey of discovery.

Whatever else it may be, I've got to travel light. I'm talking about minimizing spiritual as well as literal baggage. Minimalizing the former will be another process that will continue throughout my life, and beyond, while minimalizing the latter is something I've got to finish tonight, unless I forego sleep.

Robin, the manager of Dr. Bowers' office, said I should consider myself lucky if I get any sleep tonight. For once, I hope she's wrong. That's not the sort of minimalism I had in mind!

Whatever happens tonight, I had a fine day in spite of all the running around I did. Millie and John had me over their house for a "last supper." Of course, Millie, being a much better Catholic than I've ever been, would never call it that. Lisa, their unmarried daughter who's dating a standup comic (whom I like a lot), joined us for a repast of Spanish-style chicken and rice with chorizo and peas, and a salad. Yum!

And they had a surprise for me: a birthday cake. Not just a birthday cake, though: a strawberry shortcake. Now tell me, wouldn't you rather have a strawberry shortcake than just about any "real" birthday cake you've had?

No minimalism there. But sometimes you need something fulsome in order to practice minimalism.

Now that I've shown what a fraudulent philosopher I am, I'll get back to my minimalism, I mean, packing.

Fatigue

Now the fun begins. Five more days until surgery, and I keep on wondering whether I'm forgetting something. I don't mean as in stuff to bring; I mean things I am supposed to do in order to prepare.

As I'm looking at the checklist, I realize that there are a few things I'll need when I get back from the surgery. I don't know whether I'll want to deal with stores or any public places in the days immediately after the surgery, so I should probably go and buy those things tomorrow.

So that will mean another shopping trip tomorrow. And I was hoping to get in another bike ride: I've done so little, compared to other years, and I'll be off my bike for three months after the surgery. Oh well.

I am so tired now and I have a headache. This headache's been coming and going ever since I reduced my hormone dosage. I hope that the surgery, if nothing else, stops these headaches. Hey, that's what I'll tell my therapist: I want to undergo GRS to stop my headaches. Now there's a good reason to change one's life.

Maybe going to bed--and falling asleep, if I can do that now--will help. But how is it that I can drift off in my chair, but when I get into bed, I don't fall asleep for a while?

But I'll go to bed now, anyway.

The Last Time; What's Next?

Today I had lunch with Bruce. It is most likely the last time I will see him before my surgery. One might see it as a "good-bye" of a sort, though we've made plans to meet again as soon as I'm well enough. I feel sure that this meeting will take place, and many more will follow; after all, we've known each other for nearly thirty years and we even were interested in the same woman once. I've seen him through the deaths of his father and brother, through various jobs and relationships. And, not long after he and I pursued the same woman and she decided, "None of the above," he met Carolyn. They've been together ever since.

And he's seen me through drunkenness and sobriety, and through all sorts of depression and despair and anger. Now this: Now his male friend Nick turns into a woman named Justine. Or, to be more accurate, he finds out that his male friend Nick is a woman named Justine. Then again, he always knew that his male friend Nick wasn't quite that or just that.

Still, I can't help but to wonder what the future will bring. Of course, I don't think the surgery is going to radically alter my personality. I think that the hormones and therapy probably have changed me about as much as I can be changed. Bruce says that in the six years since I've "come out" to him, he's seen me more joyous than in all of the years that preceded it. Better yet, the anger that governed almost everything I did in the old days is gone. I still experience frustration and, at times, grief. But who doesn't?

The thing that Bruce has always understood about me is just how emotionally vulnerable I am. He also knew that a lot of the things I did in order to make myself into a man--You see how well it worked!--were ways of running from what I perceived, and believed that other people perceived, to be a weakness. What amazes me now is that he put up with that for all of those years.

Now we are more emotionally available and sincere toward each other. What next?

I guess that's always the question, isn't it?

Leslie Mora and Jackson Heights

As much as my life as a woman has brought me so much more joy than living as a man ever did, I realize there is a risk of violence that I never faced when I was a man. Part of that has to do with the dangers that any woman faces.

For example, when I was living as a male, I almost never thought about where or when I was going. I walked through abandoned alleys in the wee hours of morning; I stayed out late for parties and such and never worried about getting home safely, even when I lived in a couple of urban combat zones.

But now I am more careful. When I'm riding my bike, there are places I avoid. And, when I teach night classes, if I miss the bus after getting off the subway, I don't walk: Along one stretch of the route from the subway station to my place, there's a stretch of auto body shops and such that's deserted after sundown. Other women advised me not to walk through that area late at night.

I was reminded of the perils we face when I received a message about Leslie Mora from an organization in which I volunteer.

A week and half ago, on the night of the 19th, Leslie was walking home from a nightclub on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. Two young men called her "faggot" in Spanish as they beat her with a belt. This attack left her with bruises all over her body and stitches in her scalp, and ended only when a passing motorist threatened to call the police.

The stretch of Roosevelt Avenue where Leslie was attacked is about three miles from my apartment and bisects the neighborhood of Jackson Heights, which is believed to be the third-largest LGBT community in New York City as well as the largest or second largest Indian and Pakistani community. In addition, thousands of immigrants from various Latin American countries live there.

The #7 train of the New York transit system rumbles and screeches on tracks several stories above Roosevelt Avenue. One can take this train and, on a good day, be in Chelsea within half an hour. However, about the only thing Chelsea and Jackson Heights have in common is their large gay (male) population.

Not so long ago, Chelsea was a working-class Irish neighborhood. Today, it's not defined by any ethnic groups or races: Today, almost everyone refers to it as a "gay" neighborhood. You will find more rainbow flags in store and apartment windows along Eighth Avenue from 14th to 23rd Streets than you would find in most states or countries.

You will find scarcely a rainbow along Roosevelt Avenue, or along 34th or 37th Avenues, the other main "drags" (pun intended) of Jackson Heights. One reason is that most of the gay men are older than the ones living in Chelsea. They're also more likely to be in couples and many of them live in the garden apartments or the mini-Tudors that line many of the side streets. These houses are nowhere to be found in Chelsea.

And, as you may have guessed, the couples in Jackson Heights, for the most part, don't want to draw attention to themselves. Part of the reason for that is that like most heterosexual couples in their 40's, they want to live quiet lives. Many have dogs, and a few of the couples have children they've adopted.

But probably the larger reason gay couples in Jackson Heights seem to live an almost subterranean existence is the fierce and often violent claim each ethnic group--or, more precisely, its gangs--have staked in the neighborhood. Even on the major thorouoghfares, there's practically no mingling between each of the groups I've mentioned. The Indians "own" 74th Street; the streets in the 80's and 90's are the territories of people from one Latin American country or another.

In an eerie way, this mimicks the Jackson Heights in which my father's aunt and uncle were living around the time of the Stonewall Rebellion. Then, most people thought of Jackson Heights as a Jewish neighborhood, although many blocks were home to second- and third-generation Italian and Irish Americans. One almost never found an Irish person walking on an Italian block, or a Jewish person on an Irish block. And they practically never shopped in each other's stores or ate in each other's restaurants. Today, people like me who don't live in the neighborhood go there to eat, but one doesn't find Latin Americans in the Indian restaurants or vice-versa.

A foodie or other tourist is not likely to notice the tensions I've described. Such people also don't normally frequent Roosevelt Avenue, mainly because it's seedier and grittier than the other streets and avenues of the neighborhood. The stores, restaurants and even the bars and night clubs along Roosevelt are frequented mainly by local residents, and those who work in them are recent immigrants who speak little or no English.

When I was writing for a local newspaper, other journalists and cops referred to Roosevelt Avenue as "Vaseline Alley." It still has a mostly-deserved reputation as a little Times Square--or, at least, Times Square before it was Disney-fied. The sex trade is as strong as it ever was; as you might imagine, it exploits the most vulnerable people--namely, immigrant women who don't speak English and young transgender people, many of whom live on the streets.

Now, I'm going to convey one observation I made while I was writing for the newspaper: Exploitation and violence are each other's evil twins. First of all, there is the violence that is employed against exploited people by their exploiters. Second, those who are exploitable are, far too often, the victims of violence by those who are looking for violence. It's the same relation as the colonizer to the colonized: One sees the other as not quite human, only as labels (whore, tranny, puta, maricon), and can thus rationalize violence against them.

Worst of all, some people--mostly adolescent males and young men--go to places like Roosevelt Avenue (and parts of Chelsea or the Village) for gays and transgenders to beat up or even kill. Those same young males also go to places like Roosevelt Avenue and commit the same kinds of violence against immigrant day laborers. They are the people "no one will miss," so they are easy targets.

As was Leslie Mora. Any young woman leaving a club on a place like Roosevelt Avenue is vulnerable; that she is trans practically made her a target. Her attackers, who shared her ethnicity, didn't see her as one of their own; she didn't belong on "their" turf. And, ironically (at least to anyone who has not spent time in these communities), she also didn't belong in the "gay" areas: She is younger than they are; she is poorer. She is a woman--a transgendered woman. And she got caught in the middle of a ethno-socio-economic battlefield whose barbed wire and mines consist of sex and gender expression.

I hope you recover well, Leslie Mora.