A Dilemma

Today I got an e-mail from another prof at my main job.  She and I have completely different schedules this semester, so I haven't seen her.  And, she is as busy as she says she is because, among other things, she heads an interdisciplinary program at the college, and is the college's representative on the university senate and to the union.


Even though some of our opinions and ideas are very different, I have always liked  and, more important, trusted her. While she is a late-middle-aged version of the sort of tweed-clad hippie the University of Wisconsin in Madison was graduating around 1972, she does not have that terrible quality that so many leftist academics (or those who fancy themselves as liberals) display:  that curious sort of hypocrisy that causes them to, sometimes misguidedly, take up the causes of people they will never meet and issues that they understand only in abstract ways while they neglect their children (if indeed they have them) or anyone or anything else they encounter every day.  Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew could have had them (or their 16th-century equivalents) in mind when he said, "In brief, sir, study what you most affect."


Anyway...I had asked this prof if she would write a letter of reference for me.  It would actually be more of a character than a professional reference, as she works in a different department and has only passing familiarity with my work.  She agreed, and that presents a dilemma.


You see, she feels that the strongest endorsement she can make of me comes from what students in her classes say about me.  She teaches a course that's part of the college's core requirements, so her students have had courses with nearly every other instructor in the college--including me.  And, she says, her students often make unsolicited comments--all of them positive--about me.  According to her, the students say they like and respect me as a teacher and admire me for my courage.  She has told me that her students have made comments "I want to be like her." and "She makes me realize I can do what I want to do."


Mind you, she's willing to write a reference that doesn't mention those things.  But, she says, she could write something even more powerful--even more powerful than anything she's ever written for anybody--if she could mention what her students said.


What that would do, of course, is to reveal that I'm transgendered.  And I feel that if I were to go elsewhere, I don't want to go in as the "token trannie" or as someone who's a transgendered prof or transgendered whatever.  I'm liking the fact that on my part-time job, I have not talked about it and have felt no pressure to do so.


Now here's another part of the dilemma:  The college to which I want to apply for a job has a reputation for openness to , and acceptance of, LGBT people.   It has a very large and active gay-straight alliance, and, from what I've heard, I wouldn't be the only trans faculty member there.  So it's no surprise that while most people there accept members of the LGBT spectrum, they also understand the differences between us.


On one hand, it's tempting to let the prof talk about what her students say and the workshops and guest lectures I've given on the topic.  On the other, I don't want my identity to be the basis of acceptance any more than I want it to be the cause of rejection.


So...Here's another case of "What's A Girl To Do?"

Meeting The Right Ones

It's still strange when a man hits on me, even though that's been happening with greater frequency.  Actually, I may just be noticing it with greater frequency.  

To tell you the truth, for much of my life, I wasn't comfortable with the fact that someone or another was attracted to me.  There's one all-too-facile explanation for that:  Because I felt uncomfortable with my own body--no, I felt appalled and revulsed by it--I felt that anyone who was attracted to it had to be, as we said circa 1992, "damaged goods."  And I felt that anyone who was attracted to anything about me besides my body had to be even even more fucked-up than I was, or simply stupid.  

That self-loathing had a number of sources, but the main ones were my gender identity conflict and the sexual molestation I experienced as a child.  The former preceded the latter:  I can remember a time before the sexual abuse, but I cannot remember a time when I didn't feel as if I should've been female, whether or not I could articulate it in some way that made sense to anyone but me.  

Well, I have dealt with both issues as best as I and doctors, therapists, friends and some family members could. I guess that might make me more attractive (Notice that I used the comparative, not the absolute.) to some people.  And while I know I'm not and never will be a beauty and have all sorts of character flaws, there are plenty of people who, I daresay, are even less appealing than I am yet have no trouble meeting people.  So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some guy asked whether I was "doing anything" last night, or that a couple of guys I see every day in the neighborhood have expressed interest in me.  

But it's still weird.  A woman I know tells me to "get used to it." She was probably accustomed to such attention by the time she was twelve years old, and she's even older than I am.  

I know I'd like to get involved with someone.  But I'm not ready to hop into bed with just anyone. While I know what attracts me (I'm talking about personal as well as physical traits.), I'm still cautious, perhaps to the point of being fearful.  I don't want to end up in a compromising position with someone who's dangerous, violent or simply disrespectful.  And, while you can practically see the skulls and crossbones on some people, there are many others who aren't what they seem.  

Now I'm realizing that everyone with whom I've ever been romantically involved--in fact, everyone with whom I've even had more than one night of sex or more than a couple of dates--has been, in one way or another, as much of a misfit as I was.  Even the ones who were beautiful, smart, interesting or sympathetic were alienated, damaged or at least wounded.  A couple used one or more of those qualities to provoke my sympathy and sometimes to cynically manipulate me.  I don't want to repeat such experiences.

Maybe because I'm so used to being involved with problematic people, I don't know how to find or relate to the ones who are serene and secure in themselves.  You know what they say about doctors (some of them, anyway):  They see nothing but sick people,so they don't know what a well person is.  When physicians are admonished to heal themselves first, part of that healing involves, I think, seeing healthy people and realizing that they are the normal ones.

Perhaps cops make an even better analogy.  They spend all of their time dealing with the worst elements of society.  After a while, they start to think everyone is a criminal, or capable of being one.  Then again, I'm not sure most cops get over mentality that even when they're retired.

Well, I guess I know what one of my challenges in my life as Justine is.  

A Crossing

After work today I flew to  San Francisco and have been taking in the Bay Area hills and wind from my bike.  And, yes, I rode by Stanford:

All right.  So I wasn't in the Bay Area.  I was really in Hollywood.  Well, kinda sorta.  I was actually in a neighborhood called Holliswood, which isn't far from where I work.  But I had never been in it before.    At the intersection of Palo Alto and Palo Alto, a car pulled up to me.  A woman whom I would have guessed to be a few years older than me leaned out of her window and asked whether I knew where the Holliswood Hospital is.  

"Sorry, I don't.  Have a good day."

Well, I took a right at that intersection, and two blocks later, there was the hospital!  I felt bad for that woman:  For all I knew, she drove miles in the opposite direction.

Anyway, as it was an utterly gorgeous, if somewhat windy, afternoon, I just rode wherever Arielle took me.  Much of the time, I didn't know where I was.   I didn't mind, really:  Along the way, I stopped at a drive-in convenience store for a drink and snack.  Two men worked there:  I got the impression they were the proprietor and his son, and they had lived in the town--Lynbrook--all of their lives.  And they seemed especially eager to help me--even more so than the other customers, for some reason.

Then I took my Diet Coke with lime and Edy's dixie cup to a schoolyard/playground a block away. I went there because I saw benches in the shade:  I'd been in the sun for a couple of hours and wanted to get out of it for a few minutes, even though the weather wasn't hot at all. There, another black woman a few years older than me started a conversation with me upon seeing Arielle.  She started riding again "a few years ago," after having both of her hips replaced and back surgery.  She says that even though her rides aren't as long as those of some of the cyclists she sees, it's "what I enjoy most in my life, apart from my grandchildren."  I'll think about her the next time I'm whining (even if only to myself) about feeling subpar.

 When I got on my bike again, I finally  knew where I was when I had to stop at a grade crossing for a passing Long Island Rail Road (Yes, they still spell "Rail Road" as two words.)  commuter train.  

I had stopped at that same crossing, which was on Franklin Road, the last time I cycled there.  That was eight years ago, at this time of year.  Then, as now, I didn't get there intentionally, but I didn't mind being there.

I took that ride eight years ago at about this time in September, if I recall correctly.  I probably do, because I also recall it as being around the time I started teaching at La Guardia Community College, which begins its Fall semester around this time of the month.  And it was also about three weeks after I moved out of the apartment Tammy and I shared, and into a neighborhood where I knew no one.

Even though it was less than an hours' ride from where Tammy and I had been living (in Park Slope, Brooklyn), the block to which I moved--which is only seven blocks from where I now live--seemed even more foreign to me than Paris did when I first saw it.  So, for that matter, did most of the rest of Queens, not to mention the Nassau County towns through which I pedaled then and today.

I think that day at the railroad crossing, I knew--or, perhaps, simply accepted the fact--that I was entering a new and very uncertain stage of my life.  I knew what I wanted and needed to do:  In fact, a year earlier I had the experience that taught me I really had no choice but to do it.  And I also realized something I didn't quite understand at the time:  that I wasn't going to be riding "as" Nick for much longer, and that also meant that I probably wouldn't be riding with the racers and wannabes.  

Why didn't I know what all of that meant?  Well, I did know one thing:  that the difference between cycling as Nick and cycling as Justine would not be just a matter of wearing different clothes, having longer hair and possibly riding a different bike.  But how else, I wondered, would they differ? I even asked myself whether I would continue cycling.  After all, I didn't know any other cyclists who were transitioning, and I didn't know (or didn't know that I knew) any who were post-op. Would I even be able to continue?

Well, of course, I found some of the answers through my own research (This is one time I was thankful for the Internet.) and from women cyclists I know.  And, since my operation, Velouria and others have given me some very helpful advice. 

One thing hasn't changed:  I often end up by the ocean even when it isn't my intent.  

I was happy to go to there, though:  Only a few people strolled the boardwalks, and even fewer were on the beaches. I didn't see anyone swimming.

And then there were the couples that remained after the summer romances ended:

Actually, I know nothing about them.  I took the photo because I liked her skirt.

And, once again, I ended up in Coney Island, where I rode down the pier to take a couple of photos.

The young man who was just hanging out was the only other person there.  He asked me what I was doing tonight.  Now that's something I wouldn't have anticipated at that crossing eight years ago!

After 9.11: Riding Without The Guys

Now, two days after the anniversary of 9.11, I'm thinking about how that day changed my cycling life.  I'm not going to talk about how it changed my life because that's way beyond the scope of this blog, much less this post.

None of the cycling partners I had at that time in my life are cycling partners now.  In fact, most of them dropped out of my life, or I dropped out of theirs, not long after that time. 

I'm thinking in particular of someone we used to call "Crazy Ray."  I met him back when I was an active off-roader; later, he, a few other guys and I did road rides.  

He always seemed to be riding the line between physical courage and insanity.  One of the things I prized most about my pre-transition life was his respect.  When we pedaled through the trails--and sometimes off the trails--in the Catskills and in Pennsylvania and Vermont, I didn't do all of the jumps or other stunts he did.  And I didn't barrel down hills with the abandon he did.  But I was in really good shape in those days, and I could keep up with him in every other aspect of our rides.  None of the other guys in our "crew" could say that--not even the ones who were a decade or more younger.  He noticed that.

But, he once told me, the real reason he respected me was that I wasn't a "bikehead." And, he said, he admired the fact that I have the sort of education and do the kind of work I do.  That, I thought, was interesting, as he seemed satisfied with his work, and was certainly earning a lot more money than I was.  But, he said,  there were a lot of things he wished he learned, but felt he couldn't.  I suspected that he had a reading or other kind of learning disability; I offered to help him if only to figure out what kind of help he would need and whether I could give it, or refer him to someone who could.  He said he would take me up on it, but he never did.

I think that he felt a bit insecure, not only around me, but around his girlfriend, who was working on a PhD in, if I remember correctly, sociology.  I know that he felt insecure around some of her friends and colleagues, whom he met at parties.   I told him he shouldn't; he actually sustained thought and expressed himself well.  "But," he said, "I know I can do better."

I'm sure he could have done "better."  Maybe he has. I haven't heard from him since about two weeks after 9.11.   

We had our last phone conversation in the early hours of one morning that was, as I recall, chilly for the time of year.  Actually, he called me and cried.  That wasn't like him.  "Ray, whatever it is, you know I'm cool with it."

"It's not like that, he sobbed."  I heard other voices, and machines, in the background.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at the World Trade Center."

"What are you doing there?"

He explained that he'd gone there to help with the rescue and recovery.  His metalworking skills, which he gained from his work as a plumber, were needed.  So, as soon as it was possible to ride his bike there--a couple of days after the planes hit the towers--he went to help.  That was more than a week before our phone conversation; he had been at the site around-the-clock ever since.  And, as you can imagine, he had gotten almost no sleep during those long nights.

"Why don't you go home, see your girl?"

"I can't.  They need me."

"But you've been there nonstop.  Nobody can ask more of you than you've already done."

"Yeah, but..."

"But nothing. You can't take care of anybody else if you don't take care of you."

"All right.  Maybe tomorrow I'll go home, for the day."

"Would you like for me to bring you anything?"

"No, Sarah will do that for me.  But thanks..."  He was crying again.

I never heard from him again.  Nor did I hear from any of the rest of our "crew."  I know that at least one other was working at the World Trade Center site in those days after the attack.  

That fall and into the winter (which was one of the mildest I can recall), I rode, almost always by myself.  I didn't mind that; actually, I was trying to make sense of a few things--or, more accurately, some things made perfect sense and I was trying to deal with them.  

Most of them related in one way or another to the gender transition I would undertake.  Tammy realized that I was headed for it and there was no way to stop it; when I offered to live the rest of my life as Nick, she said, "No, you can't do it just for me. In fact, you can't do it at all."  

9.11 didn't cause me to re-evaluate my life or undertake my transition.  However, less than two months before that day, I had the experience that caused me to realize that I could no longer live in this world as a man.  I had always known myself as female, but I spent more than forty years trying to live otherwise.  Just a few weeks before 9.11, I realized that I simply could no longer pretend.    And, just after 9.11, I found myself thinking about the people who died that day, and how many of them had unrealized dreams and unfulfilled lives of one sort or another.  I realized that had I been in one of those towers, I would have had the "M" on my death certificate.

And so I embarked upon my transition.  However, the transition didn't entail only what I did consciously and willfully.  It also involved those parts of my life from which I passed, or that passed from me.  And it, like 9.11, would change my cycling life as well as the rest of my life.

Charlie's Pillow

The weather has been autumnal for the past few days:  cool and breezy.  Today some rain was added to the mix.  


I suppose that if I were another sort of creature, I'd be thinking about hibernating.  Actually, I did that, more or less, this afternoon:  I took a nap when I didn't have much incentive to go out.


Charlie and Max appreciated the time I spent at home today.  They took turns curling up on me.  Charlie especially seemed to be enjoying my time at home:  He fell asleep on me.  And he propped his head on my right breast.


Now, my assets aren't going to rival  Pamela Anderson's, nor do I want them to.  But I think they've grown, if just a bit, since my surgery.  When I started taking hormones, the doctor said my breasts would grow for about a year or two until they were about a size smaller than my mother's.  That's what happened.  Nobody said anything about breast growth after surgery.  And, while they don't look bigger, somehow they do feel as if they've grown.  Or, more precisely, they seem more supple, which may be the reason why they seem a little bigger. 

Maybe that's what Charlie noticed.  He used to curl up on my torso and prop his head on my shoulder.  But the last few times he's curled up on me, he's used my breast--the right one--for a pillow.


I guess I should be happy that he's not using my belly for a pillow, though he could.   Still, it's odd to know that I have enough on my chest for him to lay his head --and close his eyes.    Somehow it's even stranger than--although as exhilarating as-- the first sensation I felt in my new clitoris and vagina.  I guess I was expecting to feel twinges, pulses and tingling in my new sexual organs, but I wasn't expecting my breasts to serve as a headrest.


Will there be more surprises?  I suppose that question answers itself:  If you have to ask about what will happen, it is by definition unexpected, and therefore a surprise.   At least these surprises are interesting, and even pleasant.

Acting Like It's 9/10

I called Mom and Dad last night to wish them a happy anniversary.  My father asked whether I was going to the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center.  I said I was thinking about it.  But not long after talking to him, I decided against it.  For one thing, I didn't lose anyone that day nine years ago.  So I really didn't know what I could offer anyone by being there.  Some might say "solidarity," but  I'm not so sure that I am capable of even that.  Empathy, perhaps, at least to some degree:  I have endured grief, however different it may be from theirs.  Then again, anyone of my age who's lived anything resembling a real life could say the same thing.


And, truth be told, it looked as if the World Trade Center was going to be an arena for the battle between those who don't want to see a mosque built there and those who see building it as a matter of liberty.  In the former camp are some lunatic pastor who threatened to tell his congregation to burn copies of the Qu'ran.  Just what the world needs right now...


But even more disturbing, to me, are those who would profit from such a fight, which further victimizes the victims' families to the point that they can be nothing but victims when they are prompted to talk about their victimization by members of the media horde--and, worse, when politicians are using the victimhood of the victims' families to further their own careers, or to revive moribund campaigns.  Now, I'm not a fan of politicians generally, but I see them as particularly grotesque when they show up in just the place and time that will allow them to benefit from other people's grief.


And their speeches--they're never about the people.  They're about some abstraction or another.  Actually, that's not quite accurate.  When something is abstract, some people have more or less clear ideas of what it is, or at least what it represents.  But if you ask most people what "liberty," "terror" or "triumph" mean, they probably couldn't even begin to hazard a guest.  It's not that all of those people are stupid.  They simply are hearing what they've heard all of their lives and repeating it.


Lots of people get through life that way.  And they "get along" with others to the degree that they simply relay what they hear.  That's what allows them to talk about a "war on terrorism" and to think that "fighting" it has something to do with "liberty," "justice" or  being an "American."


Mind you, they are saying things that meant something at one time, and probably still have meaning.  But they no longer have any idea of what those meanings are.  "Muslim" thus becomes a nationality or ethnicity rather than a religion and "radical" means whatever doesn't like or agree with you.


And, in that schemata, someone's identity becomes his or her destiny, and having a capacity for something means being an automaton that can't help but to do whatever it is one has the capacity for doing.  Thus, if you do a good job of teaching a class, they think you're "born to" be an academic, and they try to tell you that they "can't see" you "doing anything else"--provided, of course, that your doing that thing doesn't challenge them in any way.  Likewise, if you care about something that you believe in more than your life itself, you are automatically seen as someone who will die--and cause others to die--for your beliefs.


What I've just described not only precludes any ability to actually think (as opposed to simply making intellectual gestures), it also prevents empathy.  And, even children who don't know the word "empathy" can see its absence when some authority figure is "talking at" them.


That is exactly what I feel every day on my regular job.  There, I am seen as someone who is bound to act in certain ways because I have undergone a gender transition and the surgery.  I really try to be something more than that, but I am given a hard time because I don't fit into notions they have about transsexual people.


And they are the ones who tell you that they're not treating you with prejudice against who you are, and would have you believe that none of their colleagues are, either.  Some of them go to great lengths to make you believe that they understand how you feel--that they "understand" you--whatever that means to them.


In other words, they do exactly what I didn't want to do today:  to display unearned emotions and to appropriate your right to be heard.  And, after silencing you, they'll use you for their purposes--whether you're a tennis player, trannie,  or someone else.  Those purposes are always encoded in some vaguely abstract term:  As the people who act is if it's 9/10, or if they want time to revert to that date,  talk about "liberty" and "war"s against "terrorism" and such, education administrators act as they do in the name of eliminating "disruptions" and doing things "for your own good."  Those administrators no more know you than those who want to "bring back America" know a Muslim or a "terrorist." 


In brief, there is nothing more cynical--and there are very few things I detest more--than exploiting someone's victimhood and grief.

Gender Studies

OK, now I’m going to offend Floyd “I have a naturally high testosterone level”  Landis  and get myself barred from every gender studies program in the world.  But it will be a lot of fun.  Here goes:

All cyclists are, or should have been born, women because

•        We absolutely must have the right shoes.
•         We absolutely must have the right bag.
•         Not having the right outfit can ruin our day.
•         We accessorize, accessorize, accessorize!
•     We know that titanium is sooo 1996.
•     We spend more to get less.
•      We justify maxing out credit cards and raiding 401 K’s by saying, “I bought it on sale!”
•     We can never be rich or thin enough. (Don’t I know about this one!)
•      No matter what we do, we end up with “helmet hair.” 
•      Our spouses/partners/loved ones simply cannot understand.

Trust me:  I know!

You Do It So It Won't Be A Big Deal

I'm still thinking about the experience I had the other day at my new part-time (one class, to be precise) gig.  There is an irony to it that I'm seeing just now:  In some way, my gender reassignment surgery didn't make that much difference--at least in that situation--and that is what I wanted.


And that is the very reason why I made the changes I've made.


In other words, I was able to have a teach, walk around, have a snack and sit in the summer afternoon sun among hundreds of young people--and I was nothing more than a middle-aged woman, if I was noticed at all.  If any of them noticed me, he or she might've thought I was a professor, simply because I am older than them and wasn't wearing a uniform of some kind.  Actually, that happens even when I'm not working:  People often take me for an educator of some sort, or a writer, and I don't try to project either.


But I realized that what I was experiencing was, in at least some way, the point of my surgery and all of the things that led up to it:  I wasn't seeking a different life so much as I wanted simply to experience life as the person I am, in a body that is a reflection of it.  And that is exactly what happened the other day.  I wasn't explaining, or apologizing for, myself--and nobody demanded those things of me.  


That's not to say that I want to leave everybody and everything I've ever known.  Some trans people do that after their surgeries, or even while they're preparing for it, and it doesn't always turn out well.  Plus, when you get to a certain age, it's not as feasible simply because it's more difficult to start over.  I want to be around people for whom my transition--if they know about it--will not be an issue. Such has been the case with my old friends who've remained with me as they were friends of Nick.  For them, there's not so much difference, except that I've been happier, so--as they say--they like my company more.  And, of course, my parents have been supportive even when they haven't been approving.  That in itself is a testament to what kind of people they are, and why I'm not going to leave them behind.  (Actually, I don't think I could, even if I wanted to.)


But then there are people--including some at my regular job--who see me only in terms of my transition, even if they never knew me as Nick.  And then there are the ones who really leave me confused and frustrated:  They were fine with me until either:  a. I got my current position there or b. I got my operation.  I've mentioned some of them, if not by name, on other posts.  As I've mentioned, they can be treacherous.   What I've learned is that they haven't changed:  I'm simply seeing a part of them I might not have seen otherwise.  


At least I know that it doesn't have to make a difference.  After all, I'm getting to live as the person I always knew myself to be.  I'll still have that when those people are no longer in my life.

Freedom In Anonymnity

Young people sat on the cinderblock benches, leaned on the edges of some kind of concrete sculpture and stretched, nudged and nuzzled each other, and sauntered all over the ground in between.  Some were eating slices of pizza from paper plates, French fries from boat-shaped paper trays and fried chicken and burgers from styrofoam plates.  The refulgent late-summer sun engulfed the radiance--and heat--of their youthful bodies and faces in anber rays refracted off tan and yellow bricks of the surrounding buildings.


It was late afternoon.  I sat among them, sipping an iced tea.  My class had just finished at my new part-time gig.  Today marked the third time I met that class; the students in it are--along with a few faculty members and the office staff of the English Department--the only people on campus who know even my name. 


Oddly--or not?--I don't feel lonely, much less isolated or alienated, when I am there.  The students on the terracce outside the school cafeteria seemed not to notice me at all.   That is, I think, as it should be:  They were talking with and nudging each other.  Some were with boyfriends or girlfriends; others were looking to find one or ther other.  So they didn't notice me, and I didn't mind one bit. 


The only person I've met so far who knew me is an adjunct instructor who was also an adjunct in two other schools in which I worked.  As a result, he knows about my transition. But we ceased to talk about it after a while.  It wasn't that he was hostile; rather, we simply started to talk about other things.  And that's how things stand now:  We talk about our jobs, the places where we live and such.  I may tell him that I've had my operation, should a conversation warrant it.  If I do, it probably wouldn't make any difference to him, although he may feel happy for me for finally getting what  I craved for so long.

But no one else there knows my history--at least, as far as I know.  And nobody's asked.  That's nice, actually.  I really don't want to talk about my views of gender.  In fact, today I submitted my syllabus for the class.  I broke up the readings into thtree different topics.  Gender wasn't one of them.  If students start to talk about gender roles and such during one of our discussions, I won't sidestep it.  But if I can help it, I won't talk about my own exprience or inject talk of gender into a discussion of literature.  

To be honest, I still don't have any interest in teaching or taking a gender studies class.  And I certainly don't want to be pigeonholed into a field that is evanescent or to be known only for my surgery and what preceded it.

You might say that I want to continue the honeymoon in my new surroundings.  I get the feeling it will last for as long as I can remain anonymous, at least most of the time.

Pronouns Are A Symptom

I mentioned that last week I met with the chair of an English department at a college other than the one in which I’ve been working.  Well, that has led to my teaching a course there.  I started it the other day, after my regular job.

I had also met with her and others in the department and college on Tuesday.  She said she was impressed with my work and knew she wanted me for a class.  “Just do whatever you’ve been doing,” she said.

Now, getting that class isn’t, in and of itself, a major accomplishment—at least professionally—at this point in my life.  But I am happy about it because, for one thing, it adds to my income.  Even more to the point, though, is that the atmosphere of the place seems so different from that of the college in which I have been working.

I’ve been around long enough to realize that there is a “honeymoon” at the beginning of every (well, at least, almost every) job.  So I am not going to gush about “new beginnings” or the like.  However, at this college, the people I met—faculty members, office assistants and students alike—seem happier and healthier than in my regular college. 

And the department chair seems like a truly educated woman.  I’m not talking only about her degrees or the schools from which she earned them.  One thing I’ve noticed about people who really are educated—that is to say, able to think for themselves—is that they’re not condescending.  That, I believe, is because they are secure, which is entirely the opposite of arrogant.  They can learn something new and not feel threatened by it, even if it negates what they’d learned before. 

That makes them more emotionally mature than those who are merely schooled.   So, they don’t feel as if you’re questioning their competence or integrity when you’re simply asking for information about some issue at hand.

Seeing that, alone, was reason enough to go to this new college.  If nothing else, it helped me to understand why I’ve been unhappy at my regular job.  I’ve never been in any place where people get so defensive when you ask them a question.

Perhaps even more to the point, no one asked me to explain myself.  As far as I know, they don’t know about my past.  Some might have their suspicions, and if anyone asks, I won’t deny what I was.  But I’m hoping that I now have an opportunity to be in a workplace where it won’t garner more attention than my work or how I treat people now.

As I mentioned earlier, I met the chair once, years ago.  I don’t know whether she recalls that encounter.  It was brief, so I would understand if she doesn’t recall.  I rather hope she doesn’t, not because I think she wouldn’t have hired me if she recalled it, but rather because I simply would rather focus on the present, at least in the workplace.

When I met her all those years ago, she’d offered me a class.  The following day, another college—which was a much shorter commute from where I was then living—offered me work, which I took instead.  She said she understood and would have done the same thing.  Perhaps she doesn’t remember that.

If she doesn’t remember that, she also may not remember the person I was in those days.  Or maybe she does, and decided that he’s not relevant now, at least for her.  If that’s the case, I look forward to working under such conditions.

It has to be better than being in a place where someone who’s seen me every day for the past five years insists on calling me “he” because, well, she can.  She also can get away with making up things about me, as she did last year, and get me hauled into the college’s Star Chamber—I mean, Office of Compliance—to explain myself, knowing full well that even when she’s telling the most outrageous lies about me, her words are seen as more credible than mine. 

I have a feeling that the chair at College #2 would not be impressed with the one who can’t get her pronouns right—but not necessarily because she can’t get her pronouns right.  

Unfortunately, the one who won't get her pronouns right is now the department chair.  At least I know they're not all like her, because I'm working for another-- in the present.

A Phantom Menstrual Cycle?

You may have heard of the "phantom limb" syndrome.  Sometimes, when people lose limbs (or other body parts) by whatever means, they still feel as if the missing appendage is moving with the rest of the body.  Very often, people who suffer from this condition feel pain and other sensations they may have felt in the missing organ when it was attached to his or her body.  It's common among combat veterans and others who do dangerous, physically demanding labor in which there is a high risk for serious injury.


A post-op trans woman I know has told me she experiences a sort of "phantom penis," in which she feels as if she's having an erection.  From what I've read, other post-op trans women have had a similar sensation.  Some might say that the tensing and pulsing in the muscle and tissues under my clitoris, and the tingling I feel around it, are similar, but I don't feel as if the penis I once had is still there.


However, I do feel something that is perhaps the inverse of a "phantom" organ.  It's odd:  I feel as if my body is responding, not to something that's been lost or removed, but to something I've never had--namely, a menstrual cycle.  


Sometimes I feel as if I've gained or lost ten pounds from one day to the next.  Now, nobody will say that I'm skinny, but at times it seems that I don't have the "muffin top" around my waist.  But, a day or two later, I look like the female version of the Michelin Tire mascot.  


I also notice dramatic changes in the size of my breasts.  At least, they seem to change from one day to the next.  I never wanted to have very large breasts because all of the big-busted women I've known have complained about their "assets."  But I wanted some that were at least noticeable.  


Well, on some days, I feel like Dolly Parton. Yet, a couple of days later, my breasts might seem flatter than my jokes fall during my lectures.  Some might say it's a matter of my perception, but the changes I see don't have any relation to my mood.  I could swear that they really do go from A-- to DD and back within a week.

Could my body really be responding to something that never happened to it?  


Interestingly, Eva and Tammy claimed that I had a "male menstrual cycle."  They--who, as far as I know, never met--both believed that my moods swung through an arc that lasted a month or so. If I was (relatively) happy, they knew that within two weeks or so, I would get into one of those depressions that nothing and nobody could pull me out of.  Other women--and men--I've dated have noticed the same thing, or at least something similar.


Maybe I had a phantom menstrual cycle all along.  According to what some of my female friends and acquaintances have told me, I should be very happy that it's phantom.

Not Eager To Go Back

Yesterday I had breakfast with Millie.  She's old-school and the wife of a retired blue-collar guy, so she doesn't do brunch.  That's one of the reasons why she feels like family to me.

Anyway, she asked whether I was looking forward to starting classes this week.  I'm not; she was surprised and almost a little hurt to hear that.  She said she never cared much for school, but she always liked the fact that I teach and have something resembling an education. In a way, that's not such a surprise:  She is knowledgeable about things that surprised me when I first knew her but don't now.

Why, she asked, am I not so eager to go back to school?  Well, I explained, I'm glad to be teaching again, but I'm not especially anxious to deal with some of the faculty and administrators.  Not all of them, mind you, but some.  And among them there just happen to be people I have to deal with regularly.

As I mentioned in some posts a while back, on a typical workday, I felt anxious and sometimes sick from the time I walked out of my apartment door until I set foot in the classroom.  I felt the greatest tension in my body when I was in a campus building but had not yet entered the classroom in which I was scheduled to teach.  My pre-classroom tension and nausea weren't quite as intense when I rode my bike to school:  At least on those days, pedaling relieved the tension for the time I was on the bike. But once I was parked,  my entrails felt even more tense and tightly wound together than the strands of the cables on the Verrazano Bridge.

I now realize that last year, when the semester was about to begin, I was just a few weeks removed from my surgery.  I was feeling ecstatic and as if I were learning a million things every second.  At times I was positively giddy.  When you feel that way, you overlook a few things, to put it mildly.

But the colleagues and supervisors who had been speaking to me condescendingly and treating me as if I were born the day before yesterday (Give them credit:  They didn't treat me as if I were born yesterday!) had not changed their attitudes or ways.  Being educators--at least in the sense I don't like--they are accustomed to dealing with people by exploiting their insecurities.  They assume that students and instructors with lower ranks than theirs--or people they perceive in any way to be less than themselves--are confused and unsure of themselves.  Contrary what they like to believe, they had a role in creating those fears and uncertainties.

Now I am everything they can't deal with.  I know who and what I am, and am still learning.  I give my best (which, in some areas, is pretty good, if I do say so myself) and go far beyond the written requirements of the job and the unspoken expectations of anyone who does it.  I'm not saying that I can't do more or better, I am saying that I'm not a slacker and, more often than not, I get the job done and I get better at it.  However, they still don't believe that a person like me is supposed to be capable of doing what I do.  

After what I've experienced, I can easily understand why Letitia left the college's Office of Students with Disabilities for its counterpart at another college.  I can also understand why someone who used to direct a campus office told me, "The day I turned in my ID and backed out of the college parking lot for the last time was the best day of my life. "  And, no, she hasn't retired.


They are examples of something I heard once:  Great spirits are the targets of mediocre minds.  

I Guess I Really Am A Woman Now

Yesterday I went to my gynecologist.  Over the weekend, I felt a few twinges and noticed a yeasty smell.  So I called her office on Monday and yesterday she confirmed what I thought.

“A yeast infection?  I guess I’m really a woman now,” I quipped.

“Next thing you know, you’re going to have your period.”

“And then I won’t need a turkey baster…”

We both giggled.  But then, I thought aloud, “Well, maybe I’m getting off easy, not having a period or worrying about pregnancy.”

“Don’t ever think that!” she implored.  “You’re just as much of a woman as we are.  In fact, even more so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I was born a woman.  So were most other women. But you had to choose to become one, and work at it.”

Not long ago, I would have debated that point.  But I realized that while I was born with a female essence, mind and spirit, I had to make the choice to be a woman—or, more precisely, to live as one. 

That has meant, of course, changing my body so that it is more congruent with the person I am.  It has also meant a name change and the other logistical changes one normally associates with gender transition and reassignment. 

But it has also meant changes in my milieu.  People who were part of my life before I embarked on this journey are no longer with me.  They include a friend--who, at one time, was the closest I’d had—who has become bitter and resentful of just about everybody.  She extended those feelings toward me because, she believed, I had no right to live as a woman because I never have, and never will, menstruate.  (Should I say “never”?)  She believed that I was living as a woman in order to take advantage of Affirmative Action and take a job that rightfully belongs to a “real” woman.  Actually, she’s not that altruistic:  She thinks I’m going to take a job from her.  That, of course, is ludicrous because she and I have never applied for the same job—or the same anything else. 

Anyway, she and other people aren’t in my life any more.  Others have remained, but I also now have new friends who understand and love me as the person I am.  And those who have remained have changed—or, in some cases, become better versions of what they always were.  I’ve heard some trans people, and people who work with them, say that when someone “changes” gender, the people around them change even more.

The funny thing is that the people who know me best may not see me differently:  They may simply see me more clearly, or in greater depth.  They know, as my mother and Bruce—who have never met each other—have said, that I wasn’t “a typical straight guy.”  And, really, I had no capacity for becoming one.

But even if you have the capacity for becoming something, you have to become it.  That includes becoming a woman or a man.  The vast majority of people who are cisgendered have a head start in becoming the women or men they envision themselves to be. Those of us who are transgendered or intersexed may have to “work at it,” as my gynecologist says.  Or, perhaps, we simply have a longer—and sometimes more serpentine or circuitous—road. 

For everyone, though, it is a road, because—to paraphrase Sylvia Plath—being a woman or man isn’t a destination.  Rather, it’s a country through which our journeys take us.  I didn’t arrive at womanhood when I started taking hormones, changed my name or underwent my operation:  Each of those milestones marks particular stages of the road that I have followed on my journey into womanhood.

Does that make me more of a woman, as Ronica says, or less of one, as others claim?  Frankly, I don’t think it matters:  This is where I am now, the day after my first (and, I hope—if unrealistically—last) yeast infection.