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.

One Week To Go

Exactly one week from today, I will be undergoing my gender reassignment surgery. In four days, on my birthday, I will go to Colorado, where my surgery will take place.

I pulled out the suitcase I'm going to use for the trip and started to pack. I don't usually start packing so far in advance, and I really don't need to bring very much, as I will be in the hospital for the majority of my trip. Perhaps this is all making me a little obsessive. Just a little. Or maybe it's my giddy nervous energy. Yes, yes, yes, I want that surgery and I want it now. I can think of a hundred things to do between now and then. I will do maybe ten of them; four or five, if that many, absolutely must be done before I leave.

Let's see: The must do's: Pay my rent. Buy a box of maxi-pads. Get haircut and manicure on Thursday. (I have an appointment.) Leave cat food and litter for Millie, who will care for Charlie and Max. And, of course, pack.

The want-to-do's: Go for long bike ride tomorrow. (It will probably be my last opportunity.) Lunch with Bruce on Friday. Buy an iPod. (No, I don't have one. I'm such a dinosaur, aren't I?) A meal and/or tea with Millie and John some time in the next couple of days.

Actually, there are lots of other things I'd like to do that simply aren't realistic possibilities. One is to spend a couple of days in Paris with Marie-Jeanne and Janine. Not only is it logistically all but impossible, it's not do-able because Janine hasn't been well lately. She would try to accomodate me in all kinds of ways, as she's done whenever I've visited her, but I wouldn't feel right about that.

And I'd like to see everyone in my family. But, getting everyone in one place happens about as often as a full solar eclipse, and not everyone in my family wants to see me. Mom's talking about coming "up north" in late July or early August to visit me, my brothers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (where her aunt also lives) and my aunt and uncle upstate.

My mother's aunt and I talk to each other regularly, and she has been very supportive emotionally. However, I haven't seen her in at least twenty years--during the funeral of another of my uncles. So, whatever pictures we have in our minds of each other are very dated, to say the least.

One week until the surgery...Will this one go by even more quickly than the previous 51 weeks have? Or the previous 51 years? Well, OK, I haven't gotten to that second milestone yet. But when I do, I'll marvel at and lament how quickly tempest has fugitted. I know, no Latin verb is conjugated that way. Then again, who speaks Latin, anyway?

I don't. I also don't wear a beard or drink beer (or any other alcoholic beverage, for that matter). Not anymore, anyway. They are behind me now, just as the military drills and the conquests of mountains and women. As is my attempt at being a husband, as are my attempts at being a male lover. All behind me; the surgery and so many things I can and can't imagine are ahead of me.

More About What I Can And Can't Blame On The Hormones

Slogged through this day. Had a headache that started yesterday. The doctor says it's probably due to the reduction in my hormone dosage.

If any of you guys are reading this, just remember it the next time your wife or girlfriend says she has a headache. I suffered from migraines even before this change in my hormone dosage. And, if your wife's or girlfriend's hormones ebb and flow as I now suspect they do, she really will have headaches sometimes--yes, perhaps even at times when you want to fuck her. Really. It's not one of those "check is in the mail" excuses. And we certainly don't plan our headaches; they just come.

So what did I do? What any woman does: Try to get some rest, and do at least some of the things I'd planned to do. One of them was to take a bike ride, though later in the day than I'd intended. The weather was warmer and sunnier than it has been in some time, so I think that the sun bearing down on my fair skin probably tired me out, too.

Still, I had a good ride, even if I lingered at the Rockaway Beach and Coney Island boardwalks longer than I'd intended. I drank a coke while at Rockaway Beach, and I could swear that it was absinthe. Not that I've ever drunk absinthe. But I found myself lightheaded at the same time I had my headache, and the textures of the skins of sunbathers, volleyball players and swimmers filled, not only my eyes, but the pores of my skin. So did the colors they wore, the sea that's turning into a softer shade of blue-green than it's been and, of course, the sun. I felt as if I were beyond my senses, or that they were beyond me: All I could do was to be filled with impressions. Some may remain with me, like the one of the friendly husky pup whose eyes mirrored the sea and the young man, as friendly and as radiant lucent in his own way, who was walking him. The pup's name was Sam; I never did learn the young man's name.

At Coney Island, I sat on a bench about halfway between the Parachute Jump and Sea Gate. That part of the boardwalk doesn't get the throngs of people that fill the area around the Cyclone and the other rides. Usually, one finds other cyclists, older couples and teenagers, most of them black. I have always felt comfortable there: I can hear the hissing tides and feel the song of the sun lambenting on them about as much as such sensations are available in a large city.

And I encountered something that has been disturbingly frequent these days: a cat who wanted to go home with me. As far as I can tell, this one was female. A narrow white streak that began just under her nose widened as it swept down her neck and underside and tapered again back to her tail. Her legs were black, but her paws were white. And she had one green and one blue eye.

She had been sleeping or stalking under the boardwalk. After I propped my bike--my good ol' Mercian--against the railing, she bounded up the splintering steps to the boardwalk. I looked her way, she looked at me and tiptoed toward me. Without my even calling or gesturing toward her, she sniffed around my legs and ankles, and circled them. Then she jumped onto the bench and propped her front paws on my right thigh.

She didn't even flinch as I stroked between her ears and down her back with my fingers. For a cat who was living under the boardwalk, she was extremely clean, and her coat was very smooth--almost as smooth as Charlie's, one of the silkiest I've ever felt. I took out a piece an oatmeal cookie I had in my bag, broke off a piece and gave it to her. Then I gave her another piece. It certainly wasn't the best food for her, but I didn't have anything else on me. Besides, would a Nathan's hot dog, tasty as it is, have been any better for her?

Anyway, before I got on my bike, I bade her good-bye with a very long stroke from her ears all the way to her tail. She rolled over and wriggled to the rhythm, such as it was, of my fingers stroking her belly. I knew I wasn't getting away so easily and, truth be told, I didn't want to. And she knew it. But how do you tell a kitty who's probably been abandoned that you already have two, and your landlord--who lives directly above you--could have a seizure or worse if you brought in another?

As I got on my bike and began to pedal away, she followed me until she couldn't keep up with me. I wasn't trying to outrun her; indeed, I didn't want to leave her behind me. I felt the same way the other day after I had nearly the same scenario with another cat in the park at the foot of the Whitestone Bridge. The only difference was, that cat was male and orange--a dusty shade, like Max's--with stripes in a slightly darker hue. He, too, would have followed me home if he could have kept up, and I would have taken him, just as I would have taken her.

I wish I could say those cats, or the dog I found in the street on Thursday, were just hallucinations that I could blame on the hormones. Unfortunately, I've been reading and hearing reports that more and more people are abandoning animals. Some of those people cannot keep homes for themselves, so they cannot keep pets in them. Or those people are so overwhelmed with bills and such that they can't afford their pets anymore. Or, maybe, they're just stressed out and they don't want to take care of anything or anyone if they don't have to.

Whatever the case, I'm sure that more animals will tug at my heartstrings in the near future. Maybe, once I recover from my surgery, I should move to a farm or some other place with lots of space for animals. The only problem is, while I get along well with dogs and even better with cats, I have practically no other skills relevant to farming. Just because I milked a cow once, that doesn't mean I'm not a city girl to the bone.

I mean, didn't all of the humor of Green Acres derive from a proto-Material Girl trying to adapt to life on the farm? Zsa Zsa Gabor didn't even have to act in that one; just the sight of her in overalls was funny enough.

That show aired a long time ago. I wasn't even taking hormones back then!

Pride

Here is an e-mail I've just sent to Sonia:

Howzya doin?

Looks like we have something in common...We're both getting ready to leave on the 4th! Of course, that's when I'm going to Colorado for my surgery, which is scheduled for the 7th.

It also just happens to be my birthday. If you're really good, I'll tell you how old I'm going to be!

Anyway...I walked in the Pride March. This is the first time I've done it in a couple of years, and I couldn't help but to notice a change: no hecklers. Other marchers, some of whom have been part of the movement for much longer than I've been, noticed the same thing. Maybe the would-be hecklers went to the beach because it's the first really summery day we've had. But I'd like to think that there's a sea-change happening in people's attitudes.

So it was very interesting for me to read the articles you sent my way. Like Frank Rich, I didn't hear anything about the Stonewall Rebellion until many, many years after it happened. I thought about that as we marched past the eponymous bar and found myself holding hands with and kissing fellow marchers as well as spectators whom I'd never before met. Those homeless teenagers, drag queens and lesbians who were in the bar that night forty years ago had only each other. Most of them had been ejected from their homes or left them because of the violence they experienced. I think of that midwestern teenager who called Harvey Milk, wondering what he should do next. Milk's advice (in the movie, anyway): Take a bus to any really big city. That was a few years after Stonewall; on the night the rebellion erupted, about the only places in the US where gay and transgendered teenagers could be themselves were the Village, the Castro district and the French Quarter.

The teenager who called Harvey Milk ended up in LA, where he found a community, which is to say a family. Fast-forward to today: The first generation of kids who were raised by same-sex (mostly lesbian) couples is coming of age. That, I think,is the reason why more people support LGBT rights and gay marriage has passed in all of the New England states except Rhode Island and in--Who would have guessed?--Iowa.

In other words, LGBT (perhaps Ts to a lesser extend than the Ls, Gs or Bs) have what African-Americans and women have: parents. I mean this in the literal as well as the metaphorical sense. Great minds can argue the morality or logic of civil rights for us or anyone else, but in the end, the public sees us as equal when they see us as their daughters, sons, or other family members. Every parent who accepts, and better yet shows support--as my parents, especially my mother, have done--for his or her LGBT child is one of the real heroes in our fight for equality.

And, I realized as I walked by the Stonewall Inn, that is the difference between me and those mostly young people who fought the cops who raided one of the few safe havens they had on that night forty years ago.

Oh well. Off another one of my soapboxes. I'll write again soon.

At the march, I met one of the librarians from the college in which I work. His gayness is an open secret: I've heard a few people mention it, and a few others asked me about it. Whenever anyone asks me, "Is so-and-so gay?," I respond with, "I dunno; maybe you should ask him." That is a surefire conversation-stopper.

Three other faculty members have also told me they're gay. Of course, I'm not going to reveal their idenities to anyone else. One is a long-tenured prof; another is a relative newbie who wants to get tenure.

So I am living in a very, very strange world: I'm in a world where at least some people are willing to accept LGBT people. In that world, I'm in a country in which, according to polls, the majority of people support gay marriage and an even larger portion of the population thinks the military should lift its ban on gays. But I work in a place in which all of the LGBT people are in the closet. In fact, it's the only college in the City University system that doesn't have an LGBT organization.

Yet people there know about me. Some, including the librarian, know about my upcoming operation. He has been very supportive; in fact, he even asked for the address of the hospital so he could send me a card. But to some of the faculty, and a number of people in the administration, I am the in-law to whom nobody wants to admit being related. And, sometimes, I am simply a thorn in their sides: I don't try to make them look like fools and hypocrites, but I do.

They're the sort of people who tell you not to call attention to yourself, but who call attention to you. In other words, they want to keep you "in your place" but want to make other people think that they're really on your side.

People, including me, have wondered how gay marriage could pass in a place like Iowa but not in New York. Well, I've never been to Iowa, but I think I might know why. It comes down to something someone told me early in my transition: That honest working people will like you as long as you're honest and true to yourself, and them. "It's the professors and those prissy office workers that are going to give you trouble," that person told me. And she's been right: The best friend I've made since I started my transition has been Millie, who goes to church every week and didn't finish high school. On the other hand, I've had run-ins with people who've mastered all sorts of arcane theory but can't understand these simple truths: I am the daughter of two people who love me. I am the sister of three men who are good providers, fathers, husbands and citizens. I am a friend--and I try to be the best one I can be--to people who are loving, caring and intelligent in all sorts of different ways. And I am a colleague of people who are respected in their careers. All I want is to be seen and treated as a human being.

I suspect that all of the people with whom I marched would say something like what I've just said. And I believe, or at least hope, that most of the spectators were there because they understand and believe it.

In all, it was a fine day. Only nine more till my surgery.

No Gesture is Necessary, Only a Message

Now it's one week until I leave for Colorado; ten days till my surgery. Talk about "blink-of-an-eye" time frames!

I am thinking now of something Jennifer Boylan talked about in She's Not There. It was the day before, or a couple of days before, her gender-reassignment surgery. She wondered, in essence, how she should say "good-bye" to being male. If I recall correctly, she even thought about pissing against a tree one last time.

I can't remember the last time I pissed against a tree--or anything else that couldn't help but to stand erect in front of me. I also don't recall the last time I used a urinal or a men's room. Or a men's fitting room or locker room.

And I don't remember the last time I sat with a bunch of guys in a bar or cafe, celebrating some physical conquest, whether of a mountain or in bed. I haven't wanted to do any of those things again, so it wouldn't make any sense to "leave" maleness by doing any of them again.

Then again, it has been so long since I have lived as male that I couldn't do anything to "leave" it now, even if I wanted to. It's been nearly seven years since I last introduced myself as "Nick" to anyone: The last times I can recall doing that were with colleagues at LaGuardia Community College.

Although I started to live full-time as a woman on 8 September 2003--the first day I taught as Justine--I feel that my "exit" from maledom, my loss of citizenship in that gender, came two years earlier.

I may have told this story before, so you can skip over it or bear with me if you've already read it in one of my previous posts:

It was the summer of 2001. Tammy gave me the sort of birthday present she thought I would love: a bike trip in the Alps. Four years earlier, I ventured into those mountains, from France into Switzerland and back, and loved it. I knew that I could take an entirely different ride from that one. And, instead of starting in Paris and cycling through the Burgundy, Champagne and Franche-Comte regions before reaching the mountains, I would be flying into Lyon, with the Alps only a day's ride away.

Still, I was not eager to go on that trip. I had a premonition that it would change me and destroy the life I had at that time. I could not explain what that meant; Tammy, then in law school, dismissed it as an irrational fear.

So I went, and climbed as many mountains as I could. It gave me some bragging rights, I suppose, especially because I made those climbs on a bike loaded with my clothing and day-to-day essentials for a month. And, my ride intersected with the Tour de France at several stages: I got to see the peloton starting one stage and ending two others, and a time-trial up a mountain at Chamrousse.

Well, near the end of my trip, I pedalled up le Col du Galibier, one of the most famed Tour climbs. More than one Tour was decided wholly or in part on that mountain.

I was feeling good: The air was as clear as the nearly-cloudless sky; flowers turned into fields, trees multiplied into forests and mountains spread into ranges as I pumped my way up that road.

Finally, I reached the peak and munched on a crepe--still suprisingly warm and fresh--I'd brought with me from the inn where I'd stayed the night before. I took a few gulps from my water bottle, which I'd laced with jus d'abricot, and filled myself with the pristine sunlight that would become a field full of wildflowers shortly after I began my descent.

Just after that field passed behind me, something--not a physical sensation, not even an inner voice--told me "You will never have to do this again!" Of course, that did not make any sense to me at that moment, though, for some reason I couldn't explain, I felt a not-so-vague sense of relief.

As that mountain receded behind me, I took a route departmental that hugged the curves of a river valley to a town where I stopped, ostensibly to cash a traveller's check, but really to spend time in a cafe seemingly for no particular reason. I ordered a cafe au lait, then another, then a mineral water with some sort of non-alcoholic blackcurrant extract, and a few other non-alcoholic drinks. I couldn't say that I was trying to sort out what I'd expereienced because, well, it didn't even make enough sense to me to sort out, even though at the most intuitive level I knew exactly what it was. I knew it wasn't just about climbing that mountain, or any other, again.

About an hour later, I would learn the answer when I came into the town of Saint Jean de Maurienne. That is where I would stop at a traffic light and see the woman who, merely by walking home from work, would show me by the way she negotiated time and space, spiritually as well as physically, that I could no longer take another step in this world as male.

So I guess you could say that, unlike Jenny Boylan, I did not have the choice of making, nor did I need to make, some voluntary final gesture to leave the male race. For that matter, she didn't need to make such a gesture, either: Neither of us actually belonged to the world of men.

But both of us had to leave the trappings of maleness in which we'd clothed ourselves. And she needed to do what she did, and I need to do what I'm doing, so that we can more easily and readily move about in this world as the women we are.

Tonight I talked to my mother again. "Can you do something for me?," she asked.

"Of course."

"Could you ask Dr. Bowers to call me when the operation is done, to let me know you're fine."

"I'll call Monday and ask her."

"Do you think she will?"

"I don't see why not. I'm sure other people have asked her to do that."

"Good."

Of course Mom always wants to know that I'm safe. Any time I've travelled, I've called her when I've arrived at my destination, and at least once during the trip.

"I've arrived and I'm safe." That's what she wants to know. That's what I'd want to know, too. For that, one doesn't need grand gestures. Only a message is necessary.