Justifying the Ways of Trannies to...

If I remember correctly, in the introduction to Book I, John Milton says that his purpose in writing Paradise Lost was to "justify the ways of God to men."

I won't pick on Milton for justifying the ways of God to men--as if he felt no such need to justify them to women. Or children. Or.... All right, you get the idea.

Will I ever get to be a self-appointed oracle/advocate the way Milton was. I would love to have the talent--which Milton clearly had--needed to do the job. I'm just not sure I'd want the job.

However, I may find myself taking on a similar task, if on a smaller scale.

The other night, I was trying to help Sonia understand how Denise, as a transgender male, feels. And tonight I found myself doing the same thing when I responded to an e-mail from a Trinidad alumnus. His wife was getting antsy about all the time and money he's spending on surgeries.

He told her she needs to walk in his shoes in order to understand why he's trying to get the "perfect" surgery. Our seeming displacement isn't the same as the feelings of people who want to be skinnier, fitter, prettier or handsomer. Most people who have such wishes want merely to have a better (by their or society's standards) version of the bodies they have. They don't feel they were placed in the "wrong" body: They simply don't like the current state of the bodies they have.

On the other hand, we as transgender people, feel displaced in our bodies. We are prisoners for as long as we are living in the genders assigned to us at birth; we are refugees for as long as we are transitioning into the genders of our minds and spirits; we are naturalized citizens when we live in those genders. To carry this metaphor a little further, the person who is not transgendered is always at home and welcome in the native country of his or her gender.

Today, Danny, a female-to-male who had his surgery with Marci two days after mine, sent me an e-mail in which he described the friction his surgeries--or, more precisely, the amount of time and money he is spending on them--is causing between him and his wife. As much as he loves her, she has never walked in his--our--shoes. That is what he said to her; surprisingly (to my surprise, anyway--I've never met her) she was convinced by that. However, I don't think she, Sonia or anyone else, really, can fully understand our experience, no matter how empathetic they are.

Of course, this is the reason why I hated, or at least resented, most people when I was younger. They had a privilege I didn't. All of them, my parents, my brothers, my teachers, my co-workers, even my friends and lovers, never could understand, no matter how much they tried or wanted to. Other trans people I've met have described having similar feelings. Some still had them.

So does this mean that now I am a sort of transgendered Milton? If only I had his talent. Of course, I hope I don't have to go blind to see what he saw!

Justifying the ways of trans people to cis-gender people? It looks like my first job is to come up with a catchier line than that!

Mrs. Dalloway? Clarissa Vaughn? Myself In An Inverse Mirror?

Have you ever seen yourself in an inverse mirror? Or a photograph negative of yourself? Or, simply, what you would be in an alternative, if not parallell, universe?

I feel that I experienced all of those things last night. Yes, in the same person. And this person's friend made me think of what sort of friends I might have had had I been a hippie.

To digress for a moment: I share the hippies' (the real ones') distrust of authority and disdain for the pursuit of prestige and power, but for completely different reasons from theirs. To be honest, I came to mine mainly through my own anger at various authority figures in my life rather than through any principles. I still hold on to much of my distrust of authority in part because I've been part of it, albeit at its lowest levels. On the other hand, my disdain been replaced with the realization that I won't get anything I actually want in life, or help to make my world a better place, by pursuing power and prestige.

Anyway...about the two people with whom I spent last night: Sara is the latter-day hippie who is very interested in mysticism and believes in some version of Buddhism-- a belief system that I am not at all willing to dismiss. It makes as much sense as any other possible explanation of why I ended up in a male body with a female spirit.

I met Sara in the laundromat a few weeks before my surgery. We talked about lost socks, or some such thing that you might talk about with a complete stranger in a laundromat. We'd exchanged phone numbers, but neither of us called the other. I didn't think we'd meet again until I saw her about three weeks ago, when I was walking from the East River promenade into the Costco parking lot, which abuts Socrates Sculpture Park.

That night, two of her friends accompanied her. One of them, Dee, lives with her and stayed up half the night talking, talking and eating cheese and breadsticks, with us.

Dee and I are almost exactly the same height. We have a similar build and facial structure, and we both have the same reddish-blonde or blondish-red hair. Her eyes are blue; mine are blue-hazel. And our skin colorings--a pale ruddiness or a ruddy pallor--were all but identical. Saea noticed that we even have almost exactly the same freckle patterns on our arms!

Even more striking than our physical similarities was the inverse parallellism (Is there really such a thing?) that seemed to be our relationship to each other. You may have guessed it by now: She has always felt that she's male. And she acts the part, even in ways that I never did.

Is she what I would have been had I been born as a male in a female body?

Although I like Dee, I hope the answer is "no." She's a few years older than I am and, even if she could afford the gender-reassignment surgeries, she couldn't have them due to various medical problems.

So, while she and Sara were very kind, it was hard not to feel Dee's anger. She didn't direct any of it my way: I can simply understand that it's a large part of what she feels. But I could also see, in the little time that I spent with her, how that anger leads to some self-destructive behavior (Been there, done that!) and can make life difficult for Sonia, and perhaps other people.

During the course of the night, I learned that Dee and Sara have lived together for more than twenty-five years. I don't doubt that there is, or was at one time, some element of sexual attraction in it, as Sara describes herself as a bisexual who likes men and it isn't hard to see how petite, dark-haired Sara would appeal to Dee. However, I also doubt that they are sexually involved with each other now, or that they have been in a long time, if they ever were.

In an odd way, Sonia reminded me of Clarissa Vaughn, the character Meryl Streep played in The Hours. Vaughn is, and lives with, a middle-aged lesbian and is a doting friend to, among other people, "Richie" Brown, an AIDS-afflicted poet for whom she plans a dinner to celebrate an award he's just won.

By the way, I really didn't like the film at all. Yes, it had some great performances, like Meryl's (Nicole Kidman didn't convince me that she was Virginia Woolf, not even for a second!) and some nice cinematography. But I found it neither entertaining nor challenging, and felt that it made critics feel smart because it gave them the opportunity to recommend to the hoi polloi a film that ostensibly has something to do with Virginia Woolf. Never mind that said film avoided art, literature, politics, feminism, sex and all the other topics that one would expect to relate to Virginia Woolf and the people who read her works.

Back to Sara: One reason why she reminded me of Clarissa is that she is that same sort of doting friend. Also, and perhaps more important, is that undertone of de-sexualized (or, at any rate, sexually sublimated) lesbianism that seems to be a foundation of Sonia's relationship with Dee. That's what Clarissa's relationship what her partner seemed to have become. In the film, when it's even hinted that Virginia Woolf is a sexual being, she's always depicted as a kind of dyke manque, and that is presented as the driving force behind her relationships with people as well as her depression, work and suicide.

And, I think Sara herself would even admit that she was drawn in, and is now entangled by, someone who's an inverse image of me--or, perhaps, herself.

Finding Mentors and Being One

This afternoon, before I went to work, I had my third appointment with Dr. Jennifer. It has been not quite two months since my surgery, and a little more than six weeks since I've come home. Yet in that short space of time, I have seen her more than I saw any or all doctors, probably, from the time I graduated college until I turned 35.

I remember noticing my reliance on health-care professionals increasing when I started my transition. I commented on this to Dr. Meyer, who was my primary doctor at the time. He explained that I did indeed have greater needs than I had before I started my transition. In addition, he said that women generally go to doctors more than men do.

Of course, I am also getting older. When I was younger, I never wanted to believe that I would indeed spend more time with medical professionals. I shared other young people's perception and belief in their invincibility; at the same time, I didn't want to live if I would need anyone's help. I guess I wanted to die young and, if not beautiful, at least not wizened.

Another reason why I didn't want to go to health care-professionals, even when I had good insurance plans, is that I never felt that I could be completely honest with any of them. When I was young, I admitted to about a quarter of my actual alcohol consumption and none of my drug-taking. And let's just say that I whitewashed my sexual history a bit.

Aside from the quality of the care I've been receiving and the comfortable rapport I have with Jennifer and with Marci, I realize they're giving me something else I've never had before. I realized what it is as I was talking with one of my colleagues in the department.

Julia and I had always had a respectful and friendly relationship. However, she seemed eager to talk to me yesterday. As I anticipated, she wanted to know how my surgery went and how I'm feeling. To the latter, she said, "Do I need to ask? You should see yourself!"

I described the experiences I had at the hospital and the Morning After House. "That time showed me that I am a teacher and creative person, and cannot be any other way," I explained.

"Of course! What else could you be?"

"And, you know, teaching isn't about being in a classroom."

"That's exactly how you should use those talents." She suggested that I think about becoming a counselor or therapist.

A little further into our conversation, I asked aboujt her post-divorce life. She then described some of her misadventures as a middle-aged woman who's "entered the market," so to speak, which led to a sort of primer on men, especially the ones who are looking for de facto or de jure wives. I'm not looking for a partner just yet, but her advice is very helpful.

After we talked, I realized that I've recently had, in effect, female mentors of one sort and another. Doctors Marci and Jennifer and Nurse Phyllis, of course, have taught me some very basic things about my body, and specifically my new organs. And people like Julia, Regina, Millie and my mother have offered me advice, or simply their observations and wisdom, about things like relationships and about what sort of life I can make for myself as a woman, and how to make it happen.

As a boy, as a young man, I never had a mentor or even a role model. The truth was, nobody could have been either of those things for me. Various men in my life could only show me how to be a man, or at least men like themselves. So, my father and other men tried to steer me toward careers that were inappropriate for me or in which I simply had no interest. They also thought that by trying to pique my interest in sports and other "manly" pursuits, and in trying to make me dress, talk and otherwise comport myself as a man, they were teaching me how to live.

They would have been, had I been capable of sustaining myself in lives like the ones they led. And I tried; Goddess knows I tried.

And so did they. Really, there's no way they could have helped me to understand the feelings I had about my body, and myself generally. A few people, including my mother, suspected that something wasn't quite what it seemed to be to other people. But what parent--at least in the time and places in which I grew up--would teach his or her kid to be any gender but the one marked on the kid's birth certificate?

Now I also understand some of the anxiety I had about returning to the college. I started to wonder what I could possibly teach anyone else that could be relevant to his or her life. And I didn't want to perpetuate some of the mis-education I received.

But now I realize that the fact that I am finding my life-teachers only now is all the more reason to continue teaching, in whatever capacity and in whatever subject matter. Maybe I can't teach a young man how to be a man, or a young woman how to be a woman. And maybe what they need to learn is different from what I'm teaching in the classroom. Or, perhaps, they need it for reasons that I never even imagined.

Interestingly enough, Jennifer, Julia and Larry, another prof, all said this to me: "People are responding to you. You should see yourself!"

So I'm finding mentors at the same time I might be learning how to be one myself. That makes sense, especially when you realize that the reason you become a teacher is so that you can learn.

Another New Beginning

So I've taught three days in my new life. Each one has ended the same way: I've been exhausted!

At least my fatigue has nothing to do with my students, other faculty or staff members or even any of the insanity that normally accompanies the beginning of any college semester. Rather, it is a reminder that I am indeed still recovering from my surgery.

Every one of the four classes I'm teaching is full. Cady Ann, the department secretary, told me they'd filled up by the end of the first day of registration. The college increased the maximum number of students enrolled in each class, then added overtallies to two of my classes, as well as many others in the college. The result is that I have 114 students, whereas I would have had only 90 (assuming the classes were at their maximum enrollments) last year. When you're grading papers rather than multiple-choice tests, that's quite a difference.

And, at the last minute, one of my courses was changed--from one I could teach in my sleep to one I'd never before taught. So I had to make up an entirely new syllabus. That cut a few hours off my sleep time.

The weird thing is that as tired as I've been, and with as many people who've been tugging at my sleeve, I don't think I've ever been so focused and simply present for my students, and everyone else. A few of my students from last year are in classes I'm teaching now; all of them have said that I look "different." They meant it in a positive way. So did some of my colleagues, in and out of my department, who said the same thing.

And it's interesting that I'm hearing the same words from people who, as far as I know, don't even talk to each other: "glowing," "radiant," "shining." They're describing the way I look to them, but they probably don't know that they were describing the way I've felt. Ever since the surgery, even on my more difficult days (which, actually, haven't been so bad), I've felt as if a sun were opening and refulgent inside me. It's as if I couldn't stop radiating joy, even if I'd wanted to. And why would I want that?

Some female faculty members and students--as well as two women who work in the Provost's office and another who works in the college cafeteria--embraced me and said, "Welcome." Yes, I shed a few tears--the good kind: the ones I can blame on the estrogen!

To think that, just a few years ago, I was snarling and sneering my way through life like some Method actor playing James Dean--or a terrible imitation of one. Masks are lots of fun on Halloween, but living in them can keep you from breathing. Or, at least, they can make things foggy when you exhale.

But my most gratifying moment came when I was talking with an adjunct faculty member I met when we were both adjuncts at another college. As I was talking with him, a petite, dark-haired former student whom I hadn't seen in about a year ran up to me and hugged me.

She is a talented writer who worked very hard and actively sought my advice about her work. Of course she earned an "A."

One day during the following semester, she asked whether she could "take up" some of my time. She "came out" to me and described the difficulties her orientation has caused her with her family. It's put a particular strain on her relationship with her mother because her boyfriend is a deacon in a particularly homophobic church, she said. And her aunt, who had been supportive, was dying of cancer.

That aunt is gone now. At least she's not in any more pain, my former student sighed. Not long after that, she moved away from her mother and into an apartment with two friends. And now she's on track to graduate at the end of this semester.

"I figured that if you were doing what you've been doing, I don't have any excuse not to do what I need to do," she said.

It's good to have the chance to shine your light for someone like her. I have a feeling I'm going to be tired for much of the time, at least during the first few weeks of this semester. At least I'm being energized spiritually and emotionally. That, I hope, will carry me through the coming days, and brighten the lives of those who see me.

And now I'm starting to nod off. Tomorrow's another day. After what I've experienced so far, I'm looking forward to it.

Tomorrow, The First Day

Tomorrow I will teach my very first classes in my new life.

Somehow I get the feeling I will be more conscious than anyone else of that fact. I'll probably have some students who had me in previous semesters; I doubt that they'll notice any difference in my teaching. Now, if they tell me that I'm "glowing" or "radiant," as some of my colleagues described me at last week's meeting, what will I do? Glow some more! What else can I do?

Of course, the majority of my students will not have had me before. However, some of them will come into my classes on the recommendations of their friends or even the counselors and advisors at the college. That seems to happen every semester.

Even though this will be a "first" for me, I don't think it will be nearly as dramatic a change as 8 September 2003 was. On that date, I taught for the first time "as" Justine. As I recall, I didn't have any "holdovers" from the previous semester. However, I did see many students who were in my classes during the previous year. They didn't know that Professor Nick was about to become Professor Justine. Some of them did double-takes when they saw me; others walked by me until I called their names.

I think I saw more jaws drop during those first few days "as" Justine than I saw before or have seen since. All of them--even the ones whose grades were C or lower!--wished me well and, as you can imagine, a few sought me out so they could "come out" to me.

One of the most gratifying moments of my first year of working in my new identity came toward the end of the spring semester. On my way to a class, I went to the ladies' room. On my way out, I stopped in front of the mirror to brush my hair and fix my make-up. To my left, making herself even prettier than I could ever be, was a student I had the previous year and hadn't seen since. I don't know whether she didn't recognize me, or was simply preoccupied.

"Hello Maria."

She turned and gaped. "Professor!"

"Call me Justine."

"Well...I'm happy to see you. And you look happy..."

"You can tell!"

"Yes. And that makes me happy."

"Well, thank you."

"I'll always remember the day..."

I didn't recall it until she described it: She was looking as if her spirit were even more tired than her body. If she weren't in that classroom, she would've broken down into a long, cathartic cry. And, in fact, she did, when I took her out into the hallway as the other students were completing an assignment I gave. "Look, don't worry about it," I whispered. "You just go and get some rest. Your soul needs it."

"How did you know?!"

As the saying goes, it takes one to know one. That's not what I told her, of course. But I'd felt the same way more times in my life than I could count; the only thing that kept me going through that year--the one that followed my leaving behind what was, in essence, a marriage and everything that went with it--was my determination to start living on the terms on which I needed to live.

I didn't know the details of Maria's life the day I sent her home. But she told me a few things the day I encountered her in that ladies' room. She was a single mother. The father took all of her money and anything else he could sell. "Para otras mujeres, es lo mismo," she said. However, she could simply see no light at the end of the tunnel, and she felt that she had no spiritual or even emotional resources left.

Of course, at that moment, she was underestimating herself, to say the least. That she is a woman and that she got herself into school that day--that she'd gotten herself to that day, in fact--was a testament to something she had and that I hoped I had as I embarked upon life as a woman.

And that's what I still hope--for tomorrow, the first day. And for the days that follow.

Another Meeting 30 Years Later

Tonight I had dinner with someone I haven't seen in about 35, or maybe even 40, years.

Rocky is the son of Aunt Madeline, with whom my parents and I had lunch two weeks ago. I hadn't seen her in about thirty years. So, I spent more years not seeing her and Gene than I've been on this planet.

When he invited me to dinner, I accepted even though I had absolutely no idea of what to make of it. Maybe he's curious about me, I thought. Even though I couldn't honestly say that I knew anything about him, I sensed that his curiosity wasn't malicious or conspiratorial. I also didn't think he would mentally compare me to whatever he saw on the Jerry Springer show or what guests on Oprah's show said about trans people. For that matter, I didn't think he watched either show.

Turns out, I was right on all counts, or so it seemed. I never had the sense, as we talked, that he was sizing me up, or looking for juicy gossip. He did say that, as a Jehovah's Witness, he didn't "agree with" what I've done, but, "If that's what you feel you need to do, so be it. They only ones you have to answer to are yourself and God."

If he was proseltysing or trying to "convert" me, I didn't feel it. Perhaps the notion was in back of his mind; I'm sure that he had at least some wish that he could have spent time with me during the past years and, perhaps, convinced me not to undergo my gender transition and instead to become a Witness. But, during those years, other people have tried to turn me into a Witness, or into an adherent to any number of other religions. And you can see how successful they were!

I must say, though, that our dinner--at Uncle George's, where else?--and coffee and dessert (at Omonia, the bakery/cafe that made the cake in My Big Fat Greek Wedding), was unlike any other time I've spent with anyone else.

When he picked me up, of course, I didn't recognize him immediately. The last time I saw him, he was young and thin, and had a full head of thick black hair. Now he is bald, his facial structure has broadened and, while not fat, he's not skinny, either. (As if I should talk!) I could just barely recall that young man, and, as he talked about his jobs, marriage, divorce and kids and told some funny and moving stories about some of the things he's done, the boy whom he once knew seemed almost unreal.

Now I find it really odd that our past--which includes our relationship, however long it lapsed--was not at all a factor in our conversation. He never brought up anything he recalls about me as a child, as a young adolescent. His stories, as entertaining as they sometimes were, did not include any reminisces about the time we spent together, or about me. Except for this: He said that when he saw me in my childhood and teen years, he thought that I might possibly "go gay." He said I had "certain mannerisms" and that I talked and acted "feminine." But, he said, he never mentioned anything to anybody.

It probably wouldn't have made any difference, anyway. Actually, it's probably better for me that he didn't say anything. If he had, who knows how I might have ended up. I might've been shipped off to doctors and psychiatrists who couldn't help or who would have simply made things worse, as most of them thought that "butching up" a sissy boy would make him normal.

For much of my life, I had the same notions as those doctors. I thought the "right" woman, sports or any number of other things could shock, prod or otherwise exorcise the knowledge that I am a woman out of me. I did not talk about those things with Gene, not because I didn't feel comfortable with him--to the contrary!--but rather because they simply weren't a factor.

Even when he talked about his days as a bagel baker or his marriage, I never felt as if I we were reminiscing. How can you reminisce about someone you never knew, or someone of whom you have memories that are so distant that they seem to have almost no relation to the person you now know, or to what you yourself now are?

The thin, strong young man with the thick black hair is more like an image in a gallery than an actual memory. So, for that matter, is the boy I was when I last saw him. So having dinner with him was more like spending time with some cousin I never knew I had than it was like a reunion. Perhaps we will be friends. I would like that.

The Secret of A Luddite Tranny

I've just been outed....

No, I'm not talking about an incident at school. Or an article about my dim, dark, secret, sultry life. (I should merit such an article!)

Besides, anyone who's googled my name knows about all the things such an article would mention. Why, my father just recently googled my name and found things that shocked him in ways I could have only dreamed of when I was an adolescent!

So what closet have I been dragged out of?

It seems that a very intelligent man named Ed McGon, who's commented on two of my recent posts, has found an article that I wrote for a kinda sorta right-wing website.

Actually, I've written a few articles for Lew Rockwell's site. I haven't written for them as much during the past year as I had during the previous few, partly because I was busy with one thing and another. And, frankly, I started to feel a little out of place there: It seems that lately a lot of the articles have been about hoarding gold and guns. Now, I'm not keen on owning a gun, and don't think I'd ever acquire one unless I could see no other way to defend myself or anyone I love. I simply don't want to add to the violence that already burdens this world. As for gold...well, who wouldn't want some?

I first started reading Lew's site a few years ago because some of its writers were offering the most cogent and eloquent denunciations of the Iraq war I've seen. Some of those writers also explained something I had long intuited: that such wars are inevitable when states grow in their reach as well as in their size. I won't get into that here; after all, you're not reading this post for that. Right?

My most recent article was a slight revision of my Recovery Without the Telly post. Ed mentioned that he saw it on LR and liked it. He also said that while he agrees with my decision to give up TV, he won't give up his computer or internet connection. I feel the same way.

I thought about becoming the world's first (to my knowledge, anyway) Luddite tranny. Or Amish "girl." Having just had the operation, I'd give up all sorts of technology--like the ones that are allowing you, dear reader, to see this post!

Now I'll tell you another terrible (!) secret about me: I didn't even touch a computer until I was 41 years old. (OK, so now you know I'm over 40!) I really hoped to get through life without using one, much less a cell phone. Now, like most of you, I cannot imagine life without them.

And it's even more difficult for me to imagine my transition without these technologies. I was reminded of that today, when a fellow alumna of Trinidad called to ask me a question about dilation. I won't get into specifics here, but suffice it to say that it's not the sort of question you'd ask your neighbor, best friend or family member. I say that not because the question would be "inappropriate," but because none of those people is likely to know the answer. Even here in New York, you have a better chance of finding an albino peacock than of finding anyone among your immediate circle of acquaintances who knows anything about post-op issues.

I can't begin to tell you how much information pertaining to hormones, transitioning, surgery and related isssues I found on the internet, whether on websites or through correspondence with others--some of whom I may never meet.

Imagine how much more difficult and time-consuming those things would have been if I didn't have the Internet and a calling plan that costs about as much as one single call I made back in the day.

And, yes, all that technology made it possible for people like Ed to find out my secrets. Oh well. Why would I want to be the world's first Luddite tranny, anyway? The shock value, if there is any, doesn't interest me.

Besides, if my parents know my secrets, where are there any closets left?

My First Day Back

Today was my first day back at the college. I don't teach until Monday; today my department had staff development meetings. Plus, a committee on which I serve had its first meeting today. So, my first day at work turned out to be a long one.

I must admit to having felt some anxiety about returning. Would the ones who knew that I was undergoing surgery see me differently? Would I see them differently? And how would I answer "What did you do with your summer?" if it were asked by someone who didn't know I had the surgery?

Intellectually, I knew that the answers to my first two questions would be "no." Still, I worried. About the third: Well, I encountered it only once. And that was at the end of the day, so I was ready.

Even though I knew that the atmosphere would be informal , I wanted my "first" day at school to be flawless. I fretted over wearing something tasteful, and on the train ride to the college, I fretted even more that I'd be late.

Well, lots of people told me that I looked really good. Two female profs said my outfit was "perfect" for me: a long skirt in an Indian floral print in shades of light purple and a grayish-white hue, with a dressy tank top and cardigan in a purple that matched the shade in the print. Purple is my favorite color, and the cuts of the skirt and tops flattered my shape (no easy thing to do!), so I felt confident. And I arrived with time to spare.

Meanwhile, half of the male profs were wearing shorts and sandals. And the meeting started late because we were locked out of the room in which we were supposed to hold the meeting.

The first person I met was Janisse, who's about a decade older than I am and whose facial lines lend depth to her soft good looks. Her blue Midwestern eyes reflected concern and hopefulness as she embraced me. "How are you? I've been thinking about you."

"Thank you. I'm feeling good."

"You don't look like you've just had major surgery."

"Well, thank you. I haven't been feeling pain, just tired."

"Well, that's to be expected. Get the rest you need. Promise."

"Promise."

Others followed: Nathan, a poet/professor who looks the part and is all the more lovable for it; Ruth, a Jamaican woman who returned to college in the middle of her life and started to teach last year; Glenn, an African-American woman who returned even later in life and La Forrest, who left a career as a singer so she could write and teach. They have all lived through their share of difficulties and have no time to waste with superficiality. So their greetings, shows of concern and good wishes are genuine.

As Ruth said, "We're happy for you because we know what kind of a person you are and you deserve to be happy."

And, during the workshop, it seemed that ideas were coming to me from all directions, and I simply couldn't contain myself. Later, two of the profs in it commended me for my contributions. "You were just lit up today," one of them said.

"Yes. You were positively radiant," said the other.

Radiant: I love hearing that. And, yes, I was starting to feel that way: as if a sun were shining from within me that I couldn't obscure even if I wanted to.

So...after wondering whether I'd changed beyond recognition or not at all, I realize that I was, and am, simply who I am. And, it seemed, that was more than enough today.

Anxious About My Return

Tomorrow I go back to school. I am feeling nervous about it, although everyone says I shouldn't. It's not as if I'm going to do things there that I've never done before. At least, that's what I think.

On one hand, I really want to go back. It would be a sure sign that I'm progressing in my life, that I'm living completely as Justine. On the other hand, I don't want to leave this part of my life behind. I don't think I've ever learned so much about myself--or just simply learned--as I have during the past six weeks.

Sometimes, when I think about going back to the college--or about lots of other things--I want to be in Trinidad, at the Morning After House. It's the first place and time in my life in which I felt that I was "normal" whatever that means. In that community of transgenders, their supporters and medical professionals who helped them, I didn't feel out of place, as I have felt in so many other situations.

Well, who knows: Maybe I'll be normal--more or less--in that setting of college, of work, of colleagues. Or maybe not.

Now I just want to sleep

Plus La Meme Chose, Plus Ca Change

Tonight I got off the N train at Broadway in Astoria. I figured that I had some time to wait until the bus arrived, so I stopped in Parisi Bakery, which is right next to the entrance of the train station.

If you're ever in Astoria, forget that you're on the Atkins Diet. Any and all of Parisi's breads are to die for, from the traditional French/Italian to their double-helix (they call it "twist") loaf. Semolina, whole wheat, ciabatta: They're all great. And so are their pastries, which they began to make and sell only this year.

Anyway, I'd just walked out of Parisi, a twist loaf in my tote, when a baritone voice called, "Justine, how are you?"

"Danny?!"

It had probably been five years since I previously saw him. We'd been in a couple of transgender support groups, as I recall. He didn't seem any older, though he seemed shorter than I remembered him. During the course of our conversation, I would learn that he had been in an accident, which left him with a bad back, migraines and holes in his formerly-photographic memory.

He apologized profusely for that loss of memory. However, he seemed to remember the groups we were in, and some of the things I said and did, very well. In fact, he even reminded me that I gave him some of my "boy" clothes. Now I can scarcely recall having had, much less worn, male clothing.

The one thing he had difficulty in remembering was the time I interviewed him on the community-access cable TV program I did. Actually, he remembered my interviewing him and that it had to do with TV; he couldn't remember the details and circumstances.

I can forgive him for that! ;-) He's still as sweet and lovable--and smart--as I remember him. When I first met him, he had recently graduated from college but he looked younger; when we hugged at the end of every group session, I didn't want to let go. Yes, you could say that I was feeling friendly and maternal at the same time.

Turns out, we live only two blocks apart now. Actually, we have been neighbors for a few years; I didn't know it until tonight! Equally ironic is the fact that we both went to see "Gomorra" at the Socrates Sculpture Park film festival last Wednesday and didn't meet each other.

So...We tried catching up on five years during a five-minute bus ride. Last fall, he said, he took a trip to Paris and Rome--his first time in Europe--and "loved it." I can well understand, having lived in Paris and having returned eight times and having been to Rome three times.

He asked whether I'd taken any trips lately. "Colorado," I said.

"Oh, it must have been great!"

"It was."

"It's so beautiful. What did you do."

By this time, he couldn't see anything but my smile, which he later described as "radiant."

"I had my surgery."

His eyes lit up. "You know, when I saw you, I just knew. It must have been wonderful."

"It was." I talked about Marci, the hospital, the Morning After House and some of the people I met there. "You couldn't ask for a better experience than what I had."

"So you're done?"

I recalled that another female-to-male I knew once quipped "When you're becoming a boy, your work is never done." When I last saw Danny, he was about to have the surgery on his chest; he's had other surgeries since then and plans to have what he hopes to be his final surgery soon.

"Yes, the surgery is done. Marci does it all in one procedure, right down to the clitoriplasty. "

His eyes widened. I'm not sure that there were one-step procedures the last time we saw each other. To say the least, I felt very fortunate.

The funny thing is that if anyone had seen us five years ago and were to see us now, he or she probably wouldn't see much difference, at first glance. And Danny and I were talking to each other with the same ease and empathy we had back then. Yet, even before I mentioned my surgery, Danny said that he could sense, the moment he saw me, that "something was different." And I would've said the same about him.

The difference, I now realize, is that each of us feels more confident that our bodies--however similar they are to what they were before--are truly ours, that they reflect in some fundamental way the way we see ourselves and want to be seen by others. Even though he's lost some of his strength as a result of the accident, and I've simply gotten older, I realize now that each of us has been renewed and strengthened by the spiritually healing and nurturing relationships we have developed between our bodies and our selves.

Perhaps we should invert Hugo's Plus ca change, plus la meme chose. We are the same--we are ourselves, that is how we've changed. And how we recognized each other.

A New Mystery

Early this evening I went out for a walk. I followed 34th Avenue, which intersects the street on which I live, to 21st Street, which is one of the main commercial strips in this area. I'd planned to stop at the Dunkin' Donuts for a cruller or croissant and to walk some more.

Well, just a few steps away from DD, a man slightly taller, and a few years older (I guessed) than me, smiled and said "hello."

That in itself may not seem so unusual. But it seems that in the past week or two, I've passed this man on the street every day. No matter how hard I try, I cannot recall having seen him more than a week or two ago, much less before my surgery. Yet, each time he and I passed each other, I tried, in my mind, to locate him: Something about him seemed familiar, especially when he turned, gave me a wan little smile (which I wasn't expecting from him) and said "hello."

Tonight the greeting led to a conversation. He is an inch or two taller than I am, neither thin nor fat. In other words, he's neither imposing nor frail. A shade lighter than mocha, I guessed him to be a Caribbean-Asian mix of some sort. As it turns out, he's from Guyana, and of black and Indian origin.

And he told me more about himself: how working for a small bank became a career and forced retirement from Chase after it acquired the bank for which he'd been working, how he made and lost money through lucky investments and unlucky business ventures and an even unluckier marriage, and about his dilemma: his desire for material comfort and his need for spiritual nourishment.

"Isn't that the basic human dilemma?" I wondered aloud.

He paused. I wasn't sure of whether he wasn't expecting my almost-rhetorical question--or, perhaps, whether he simply wasn't expecting it from me. Somehow nothing I'd heard from them surprised me--or, more precisely, hearing it from him

And so we queried each other further. He's one of those people who is, even in his most mundane details, mysterious. Oh, no, I said it: The M word.

Authoritarian Genital Fixation

My new passport arrived today, three weeks after I mailed in the application. I'm one of the last people in the world to say anything good about a government agency. But here it is: The State Department processed my application and got my passport in my hands more quickly than their documents and website promised. I asked for the standard service (expedited service costs about twice as much, and I didn't think I'd need it), which, the State Department says, will result in delivery of a passport within four to six weeks of their receiving the application.

My only gripe is that I wish the photo were better. Well, not really better: It's actually not an unflattering likeness of me. Millie thought it was pretty good, and she can be a tough critic about such things. But I'm not smiling in it: The photographer claimed that the SD really wants a "mug shot" for the photo.

I actually had to work at frowning, or making a moue, or whatever they want to see in a photo. I guess the folks at State know what they're doing: After all, if I were to disembark at Port Said (Why I would do that, I don't know.) or some place like that and present a smiling likeness of myself--while smiling, as I am wont to do--they might think I'm one of those "loose" American/Western women.

What's interesting is that State returned my supporting documentation: my old passport, the court order for my name change, and a certified copy of Marci's letter, in which she states that yes, she did indeed give me female genitals. (At least that's how most people think of the surgery. If you've read some of my previous posts, you know how I see it: that she brought out what was in me, just as Michelangelo chipped away at the stone until he got to the David that was within it.) That is their definition of my femaleness.

That is also how most people would define my, or anyone else's, gender. I won't be too hard on them, though: I defined gender, to the extent that I did, in the same way. I had, really, only comic-book notions of what transsexuals or hermaphrodites were, and I knew nothing of intersexed people.

Now, you may be wondering, given the things I've just said said, I've had the surgery. Well, I do feel more complete, more whole now that I've had it. And healthier. It's interesting--to me, anyway--that "whole," "hale," "healthy" and "holy" all have the same root--hwalen--in Anglo-Saxon. And the words "sante" (health) and "saint(e)" (holy; also the title of anyone who's beatified; e.g., Saint Michel or Sainte Marie) come from the same root--sancteum--in the Latin dialect that would become Old French.

But I digress. I chose to undergo the surgery because I felt that it would allow my body to be, in some way, a better reflection of the female person I am. It did not "make" me female; in the corporeal sense, I will never be completely so because I still have XY chromosomes. But now, at least, I can better function as a female, in accordance with my spirit.

You might argue that I have internalised some of the same genital fixation that I have been denouncing. I would say not because I know a number of transgendered people who, for whatever reasons, have not undergone and will not undergo the surgery, and treat them as the gender that they are, or identify as. And I have never seen, and have no wish to see, their genitals.

Still, I can't help but to wonder how they'll cope with those scanners in airports that can see people without their clothes. Or with getting strip-searched, should things come to that. One thing I can understand is the frustration, anger and depression one can feel over his or her inability to function in the sexual as well as other arena in life according to the dictates and desires of one's spirit.

And how do they deal with the authoritarian fixation on genitals that rules so much of our lives?

Recovery Without the Telly

For the past six weeks, I’ve been recovering from my surgery.

Of course, one of the reasons why my recovery is progressing quickly and smoothly is that the operation has, in the space of not much more than a generation, gone from being very risky to fairly routine. That is a result of science and technology: Marci and some of her peers have dramatically improved the techniques used to perform that particular surgery.

Improvements in her technique have also been made possible by the instruments used in the hospital, and in my particular operation: They bear little resemblance to the machines on Marcus Welby, M.D. and other medical dramas I saw when I was growing up.

That brings me to the one “miracle” of modern technology I haven’t had during my recovery: television.

No, I haven’t been whiling away my idle days on some uncharted isle (unless you’re such an Uptown Girl or Guy that you consider Long Island to be remote!). I have remained ensconced in my Big Apple abode, in the bustling borough of Queens. And, no, we haven’t had a power outage like the one that plagued some of my neighbors for more than a week three years ago.

I am without the “tube” by choice. When the government ordered that all viewers would have digital TV or no TV at all, I opted out. I know, I could have gotten, with a government-issued coupon, a converter box for less than a Southampton summer resident spends on a pair of flip-flops. Or, I could have subscribed to a cable or satellite service for not much more than that per month.

However, as the date for the change-over drew closer, I became more determined to try living without the “idiot box.” I made this decision knowing full well that I would soon undergo the surgery I have just experienced, and knowing how much time I would spend recovering from it.

At various times in my life, I have subscribed to cable or satellite services. The result was always the same: Out of the 500 (or however- many) channels, I could find three or four, maybe five, offering programming that interested me. And, after a few months, those channels would repeat the episodes or movies I’d seen during the previous months.

The sad part is that what I’ve described is a better state of affairs than what is to be found on “regular” network TV. However biased some of the films and programs I saw on cable or satellite TV were, at least some of them exhibited more understanding of economics, history or the cultures they were depicting than what one sees on Faux, I mean Fox, News or the news programs of ABC, NBC, CBS and, sometimes, PBS.

Plus, I’ve gotten to an age at which one doesn’t miss pretty faces nearly as much as one does in one’s youth. Sure, Chris Cuomo and Matt Lauer are cute, as are the escapees on Prison Break. However, the plots of the latter program actually seem less convoluted and more believable than much of what is uttered as “news” or even “commentary” on most programs with pretensions about informing and uplifting the public.

I figured that allowing my mind to fill with such stuff wouldn’t help my recovery any. My hypotheseis, it seems, is bearing out: Today I visited my doctor, who said that I’m “recovering remarkably well and quickly,” given the surgery I’ve had.

Perhaps my home’s new ambience has something to do with it, too. There’s a bit more clutter, as I haven’t been able to spend the energy to organize, and I can’t lift anything weighing more than ten pounds, at least for the time being. However, something else makes up for its lack of physical beauty: a calmness I never knew possible.

If you have ever gone deep into a wooded or other uninhabited area, you know how quiet (sometimes disquietingly so, for city gals like me!) it is at night. No city street is ever that placid or peaceful, even after the stores, offices and clubs have closed and people have gone to bed. The urban scene I’ve just described is the best comparison I can make to the way my house felt when I temporarily turned off the television. The natural setting I’ve depicted is how my home now feels, by comparison, now that I haven’t “tuned in” for two months.

My physical recovery, I believe, is not the only thing that has benefitted from this change in my environment. I feel now that I can more fully concentrate on what I read and write. (It will be interesting to see whether I continue that after I return to my regular job next week.) And, some friends have said that I seem “more present” and happier. I know the latter is true; I trust their judgment on the former.

On top of everything else, Charlie and Max seem to be purring louder and more deeply.

I don’t know whether I will never, ever watch television again, as I don’t predict the future. However, if the surgery I underwent and the subsequent care I have received will make living in my body more tenable, I feel that forsaking television just might be helping me to find the life of my mind and spirit to be more fulfilling. And, I suspect, it could make me less susceptible to micro- and macro- forms of groupthink—which, after all, is what helped to bring this economy and country into the mess it’s in, and ensured that too many people would go along with it.

Perhaps switching off is not the solution. But, for me, it seems not to have been a bad start.

New Passport, New Journeys

Today I got word that my new passport will arrive shortly--around Monday, the 24th, according to the State Department. Of course I am excited about that: It's yet another sign of recognition of what I, Marci, my friends, some of my family and others already know about me. A few of them understood and accepted it as soon as I "came out," or even before.

Like I always say: If you want a government to do something, you have to do it first. And maybe, just maybe, they'll follow.

I thought my passport photo was fairly good. The woman who took it--a clerk at the Duane-Reade across from St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan--told me that the State Department frowns upon people smiling (She didn't say it quite that way, but hey, what do you expect from someone making $8 an hour?) in passport photos, so I had to turn down the wattage on that beam that's lit up my face just about continuously. Everyone who's seen me lately has commented on how happy I look. So it was pretty hard for me not to smile. But somehow I did it: After all, I'm a woman now, and women can do anything. Right?

I've already decided that during my winter break or next summer--if time, finances and my healing permit--I want to go to England to see Aunt Pat and France to see Janine (if she's up to it) and Marie-Jeanne. The new me, with a new passport!

I was tempted to ask whether I could have my new passport book with a lilac or mauve cover. Not that there's nothing wrong with the dark blue cover all of my previous passports have had. But, hey, if I'm paying $75 for something, shouldn't I get to choose the color?

Oh well. After all of my talk about the spiritual journey I've taken, now I'll have something I'll need to take a certain kind of physical journey. Except that I don't see the latter as a journey: After all, who calls travelling by plane a "journey?"

I guess it's a journey if you're changed at the end of it.

Doing Nothing Is Such Hard Work

I never knew it would take such effort to do nothing!

That's one of the things I told Bruce when he asked what I've learned from my experiences surrounding my surgery.

I knew the forced inactivity would make me a little crazy. (Then again, I've been told that I'm more than a little crazy.) It's not just the time off my bike that I miss. And it's not only my inability to pick up a ten-pound bag of cat litter or to do any of the other things I normally do that I find so difficult.

Rather, it's the time I have to spend doing things to take care of myself, to the exclusion of other things, that's so disconcerting and sometimes annoying. I take that back: It's not the taking care that I mind so much. Actually, I rather like that: It's teaching me to look at myself in a way that's, paradoxically, less ego-based than the way I saw myself before.

When you take care of any living thing, whether it's your pet, your child or yourself, you provide him or her with what he or she needs. Of course, I'm not talking only about material needs: I also mean the words, the actions and the empathetic energies that your charge (whom or whatever she, he or it may be) needs for emotional as well as physical survival and spiritual growth.

Now, I've never had children, and never will, so take what I'm saying for whatever you think it's worth. What I've said about providing means, at least for me, is that when you're providing whatever you're providing, you have to be completely present in the moment, for the sake of whoever is receiving whatever you're providing, and very often for the act of providing itself.

Sometimes parents or other caretakers fall into that state naturally, unconsciously: They describe moments with their kids when there's nothing and nobody else in this world. I've given moments like that to various people in my life, and to my cats.

What I never realized, until now, is just how necessary such moments are. They are not luxuries; they are necessary for the survival of the giver as well as the receiver. I also never realized that sometimes it's necessary to be both the giver and receiver, or how much focus on living in (rather than for) the moment that would take.

As I've mentioned in previous entries, I have to dilate for fifteen minutes three times a day for the next couple of months. After that, twice a day for another few months; then once a day. So, for now, forty-five minutes of my day are taken up with the act of dilating.

In order to dilate, I have to relax. If I'm thinking about going to the store, the upcoming semester or even writing one of these entries, my body will tense up. If that doesn't make it impossible to dilate, it results in dilation taking even more time.

And what does it take to relax? Well, as I mentioned, not thinking. Sometimes I can relax to music; other times I need silence. When I do put a CD into the player, of course Led Zepplin and Rage Against The Machine are out of the question. But even some of the less intense albums aren't helpful, either. For example, when I play anything from Vivaldi's Four Seasons or even Debussy's Claire de Lune, I can't relax because I become so involved in the aesthetic pleasure of listening to them. Then, of course, if the song has lyrics I particularly like--lots of Bob Marley, Nick Drake, John Lennon and, of course, Bob Dylan songs come to mind--there's no way I'm going to leave my mind behind.

So, sometimes I play music to which I would have turned up my nose or cringed. The "light FM" station gets another listener. Or else I put on a CD of "new age" music somebody gave me. I don't even know what those pieces are called or who composed, played or recorded them: The person who gave me the CD didn't label it. So there's no satisfaction--or, more accurately, ego-gratification--in being able to tell anyone the names of the works or who did them. All I know is that sometimes they relax me. That is to say, my body, for whatever reasons, needs them at that moment.

Another thing I discovered: When dilating, I can't read a book or a magazine. For part of the time, I have one hand free. Now, I don't know whether it has to do with my coordination or lack thereof, but even when one hand is free, I have a hard time keeping a book or magazine in it, let alone concentrating on the contents of the pages, when I'm doing the other work I need.

Ditto for reading while taking a bath. I've already dropped a book and a magazine into the water, and I've been bathing for only a month! But even more important, the reason for the bath is not only to clean those new parts of my body; it's also to relax them. That's why Marci recommends the warmest water you can stand, with Epsom salt. The purpose of the bath is to give myself something I need, not to get other things done or to satisfy the ego that I've rendered socially acceptable (at least in the circles in which I travel) by calling it my intellect.

Then, of course, it doesn't help my recovery in any way to think about whatever else I'm not accomplishing, or the ways in which I'm not being "productive" right now. What does it mean to be "productive," anyway? Contributing to the GDP? Getting an article published in a professional journal? Even if those are the definitions of productivity, I'm starting to wonder how it's possible to be productive without having at least some time in which one is "doing nothing," which is how we're taught to see that time we spend providing for the real needs of children, other loved ones, or ourselves. And, of course, as trite as it sounds, we can't give to others if we don't give to ourselves.

If that's "doing nothing," I'd like to know what hard work is!

Seven Years: No Itch, Only Change

Seven years ago today I took my first steps toward the life I have now.

It was a day very much like this one: hot, almost unbearably so. But that day seemed even hotter, mainly becuase I was moving from the apartment in which Tammy and I lived to one across the street from the one in which I now live.

That day, I arrived on this block knowing no-one. I had no job. All I knew was that somehow or another, I just had to arrive in the sort of emotional and spiritual place I now inhabit, or some place like it. I had no idea when I'd get here; I had only a vague idea, really, of how and which way(s) I'd go.

About the only things I knew that day were that my life with Tammy was done, my life as a man wouldn't and couldn't last much longer and that I could only move forward from where I was at that moment. And, oh, yeah, I had to unpack a bunch of boxes and make my new place habitable, at least for me.

If the year that preceded the move was the most desultory of my life, the year that followed was the most schizophrenic. Within a week of moving, I had work--as Nick. Soon after that, I involved myself with advocacy and various social events--as Justine. And I was careful not to be seen by my new neighbors in the identity I would, some months later, reveal to them: as the person I am, as Justine.

So, it seemed, I was always coming home very late at night--and, during the ensuing winter, through streets filled with snow and empty of people.

I suppose that if someone asked me how soon I expected to have the life I had now, I might have said "seven to ten years," even if that seemed like an eternity. Now I am surprised at how quickly that time has gone by. I am even more surprised at what I have experienced and what I have learned since then. And I am most astonished of all over the joy it--yes, all of it--has brought me.

I am not surprised that my mother could accept me even when she couldn't understand, much less approve of, what I was doing. Since those days, she has come to understand what I've done and why I've done it. As to whether she approves: I'm not sure that she does, or ever will. But, I've learned, that's not so consequential: Love matters more than approval, or anything else, really. I'm still learning to live by that lesson.

Also not surprising was Bruce: When I first told him, over the phone, what I was doing, he had his doubts. But, as he said much later, his curiosity won out over his skepticism, and he made a point of having dinners and lunches with me as I was starting my new life.

My most pleasant surprises have been with Dad and Millie. I really had no idea of what to expect from my father. On one hand, he wanted so much for me to go to the Air Force Academy, or one of the other Federal academies, and pursue a career in the military. And we often fought about how the directions my life took differed from the path he wanted me to follow. On the other, he was helpful to me when I left Tammy and at other times in my life. I guess he's like a lot of men: He doesn't know how to extend himself emotionally, but he tries to take care of, or fix, situations that arise.

There have been difficult moments--just last week, for example--and I think there will be others. But I can honestly say that he's been not just tolerant, but accepting. I even feel that he's tried to show some more affection than he has previously shown; I think he understands that, whatever else may be, he has in me a daughter, or at any rate a child, who loves him.

And Millie: I never in a million years expected to have a friend like her. Although she greeted me warmly the day I moved in--which I appreciated--I didn't imagine we'd become such good friends. When I first met her, I thought our common ground began and ended with our love of cats. But I would soon learn that she had more in common with other people I've loved, and that we shared more of the same loves and values, than I ever imagined. Most important of all, I never knew that I could just, basically, come out of nowhere into someone's life, and that someone would show me such kindness.

Then, of course, there are other people I've met, and things I've learned about myself, that I couldn't have imagined seven years ago.

Probably the most important things I've learned are that kindness--to myself and others--is not just a nice trait to exhibit; it's a survival skill. In all those years when I was skinnier than one of the rails on my bike seat and I was stronger--physically, anyway--than the iron I was pumping, I was punishing and pummeling myself and my body into submission. I wasn't a happy camper; people didn't stay very long in my camp. And who could blame them?

If some people want to see my kindness (such as it is) as weakness or naievete, so be it. It's keeping me alive. If they want to see in me someone who shouldn't have undergone my transition (because I don't fit their stereotypes of transgender people, which they use to rationalize their prejudices against us), well, it's not my job to argue them out of it. After all, winning argument isn't the same thing as being right or aligned with the truth; such victories will no more keeping one's game face on will ensure victory.

Every living being has no choice but to grow or die. (That much I remember from the Biology classes I took more years ago than I'll admit.) Growth comes about only through change. And, really, the only person, place or thing any living being can change is him or her self. Not any old change will do, however: It has to be brought about by love. And whom must we love first?

Maybe you've heard all of this before. If you have, I apologize, not for repeating it, but for being a slow learner. Then again, I am the kind of learner I am. All I can do is nurture it. And to nurture the woman I've always been. Those, for me, have been the lessons of the past seven years. Back then, I couldn't have imagined them.