At Least I’ll Own a Dress…

There was a relatively lengthy moment of silence, then; “You like men? Do you like men?” She stoically queried. “No, no…I don’t. I like women. Girls. I just have this,…this feeling I’ve had my whole life.” I gently stated. It was out now,…i’ve done it,…I did it, said it, itemized it, at least the major plot points, now what?

So, we moved into the kitchen, my favorite place in the whole house. The kitchen table took up most of the space, but no one minded much, as it was the nerve center of all that was really good and for certain, a comfort zone of sorts. The table was that which my parents purchased many years prior when we lived in another town, it was a heavy, darkly stained piece of oak with both leaves removed. This was the kind of table, that when touched, even lightly; you knew there was something there and that I believe was why it was so safe, around which to sit, lean into with your elbows and let your guard down.

Over the years much truth and where many secrets would be kept…at

The Truth Table

We certainly smoked many cigarettes that night, as we continued to talk. I know my mother was hurting from all what I’d told her and she was trying hard to find her way, so at one point she says; “You should see someone, a therapist…” “I have, that’s partly why I’m at the end of my rope and why I really needed to talk with you.”, I said. “They have to be able to help you…”, she states. “He does want to help me, he’s going to help me…” I choke through as I’m preparing to tell her the next bit. “Good, good…I’m glad you’re seeing someone about this,…what do they think,.., this therapist?” She pours coffee for us both and lights another Carlton. “Yes, yes…this doctor I just started seeing,…well he diagnosed me immediately as,…as transgender,…you know,…transsexual…”, I offer, as I unconsciously stir the half&half into my mug of 8 O’ Clock. “Yeah,…uh huh…” she says easily enough.

This is not exactly how I imagined it going, or rather wanted it to go. But this was, I mean though it was definitely difficult, the most difficult conversation I’d ever had, it was going pretty well.

WAIT-A-MINUTE!!!

I don’t think my mom has fully grasped what I’ve just told her. I’m allowing for her not remembering and it’s not an age thing either, we’re only 18 years apart-remember 1958 and that little thing called pregnant before being married thing…sure I can do that, but we’re well past those items now and we are both firmly planted in the present and she is a smart woman, one of the brightest-Salutatorian of her graduating class in High School,…carried a 4.0 GPA attending full-time at Rivier College, all while married with 3 kids and a household to run. Yes intelligent, educated and quick on her feet. But is it possible she’s not getting this?  I’ll try another approach, just to test the waters, see if this will bring it crystal clear.

“Mom,…mum…so this doctor, this thereapist, psychologist,…whatever,…anyway, after he gave his diagnosis, and he’s been doing this a long time, matter of fact Transsexualism is his metier, his specialty. Yeah, I know…yes, they have such things. Well, he…after we finished our first session it was very clear to him that I’m,…my story,…me, what I’m going through is textbook.” I finish and wait. She goes, “Uh huh,…so what’s he think?” “I just told you, he says that I’m a textbook transsexual and his recommendation, he recommended,…he said it’d be a good…”

I’m losing it now…she’s not getting it, but it’s too late…I’m on a roll.

“What? What did he say,…recommend…” another Carlton placed between her lips. “He recommended Hormone Therapy.” I did it! I said it! The whole shebang!!! Me, the one who has always run from conflict and confrontation my entire life. I finally did it! What a relief…wait another minute,…she readies her response…

“So, he’ll give you hormones to make you feel better, that’ll make you feel,…you’ll feel,…so they’re,…he’s going to give you something to increase your hormone levels,…you had low, you have low testosterone,…as long as he knows what he’s doing,…this should make you feel better…” She takes a sip of her coffee and yup,…lights another Carlton.

I’m in the corner now, for sure. Now I don’t get it. What more, how much more clearly could I have explained, told her every major moment and the present. C’mon…I just want to crawl under the table, The Truth Table, where even the truth is able to get lost in the translation.

“Mom,…mum…what I’m saying is, is that his recommendation, based on his diagnosis of my being transsexual, is that I should immediately begin hormone replacement therapy,…estrogen accompanied by an anti-androgen and that after a time, after a certain amount of time, that I should start living, working and presenting as a girl,…a kind of assimilation,…you know…”

I once again prepare myself for her response.

Sipping her coffee, dragging on her Carlton; gently, yet firmly she begins -

“You were born,…God made you,…He created you a boy and, and…there’s nothing wrong with being a sensitive man,…a man who likes,…likes beautiful,…enjoys pretty things. That’s O.K.,…it’s alright for a man to like, to enjoy, theatre, music and, and…things like that. There is nothing wrong with that.”

“I know, I know that. But mom, what I’m trying to tell,…to tell,…tell you…”, I plead.

“But if you think, think that by growing,…developing breasts, that that will make you a woman,…you’ll never be a woman. A real woman. You won’t be able to bear children, you have no womb. You won’t even be able to have a period.”

“I know, I know,…but there are plenty of women who don’t,…can’t bear children…”, I feebly attempt a counter-point.

“And besides, your grandfather will never be able to accept it, nor your brothers and your father. They will never be able to accept this.”

She’s now pretty emphatic and sees me completely decimated across the table and she reaches out in the only way she could; “If you decide to go through with this, do this,…yes, I will love you no matter, I will always love you,…but I don’t know,…I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept this either.”

So there it was,…it had been told, discussed to whatever degree and there it was;

My Deep Dark Secret exposed, bathed in the brightest light to the person I loved the most and I had hurt her, hurt her in a way that only I, her child could do.

Suppress. Suppress. Suppress.

It would be another 10 years before I would again deal with my transsexualism.

In the meantime, I had drugs to do.

Bang!

Right after I’d had the visit with the Ph.D, I decided that I was somehow going to pull it together, drive up to NH and stay with my parents for a couple weeks, the reason (not that I needed one) I gave was, that I needed to “get away”, “clear my head”,  and that miraculously, yes I was looking for a miracle (aren’t we all?). They’d see, well specifically my mother would see how depressed I was and she’d figure it out and finally confront me with it and we’d cry and she’d hold me, hold me with all her love, all her unconditional love and she would wipe away my tears, then hers and quietly tell me that it was alright and that it was going to be alright and that she’d known all along and we’d work through it and in her inimitable logical way of breaking things down, she’d say;

“Well, I think a shopping spree is in order.”

Some imagination I got, huh…

So off to NH I go and just start hanging out and tooting around with her, it was the summer of my 30th year and she taught school, so she had plenty of time for me, her first born. Listen, she’d have had time, plenty of time for any and all three of her kids, regardless. When she said she loved us equally, all the same, she meant it. Not lip service either. Anything to do with her children and her relationship to and with them was on a level that most will never fully comprehend. I know I fall very short of grasping her love for us.

I miss her so so much, my skin hurts…

even now

nine years after

her

Death

So, somewhere toward the end of my two week visit, she and I were up late watching TV, my dad was already in bed and I’m certain fast asleep. When she looked over at me and asked me; “What’s the matter?” I balked, choked even and dismissed it out of hand. She waits a moment and then says; “What is it, you look so sad.” And I’m processing this moment in nano seconds and my synapses are firing at break-neck force and I’m struggling against coming out with it. Finally it’s the moment I’ve been waiting for my whole life, I’m thinking, knowing even, she knows, she must know, she’s my mother the one who has known me the longest. The one who never for a moment, considered giving me up for adoption, the woman who though pregnant out of wedlock in 1958, held her head high, as she continued to attend Sunday services,…with me tucked safely inside her tummy.

So there it is, my moment of reckoning. But why isn’t she saying anything, I mean why hasn’t she even begun to broach the subject, not even a sliver’s worth. Nothing. The ball is obviously in my court. I dig deep and start to cry, but through my tears I ask her; “Remember when you told me when I was a kid, that no matter what it was, no matter how bad I thought it might be, that I could always tell you anything, everything even and you would always love me?” She straightens herself from her half-prone position on the couch and says, “Go ahead, let it out, yes of course you can tell me and yes I will always love you regardless.”

I’m going to do it now, wow this is what it feels like to really say it to someone, not just any someone, but to my mother.

“Mom,…um did you,…I mean,…did you ever suspect, or think even, that there was something,…ah,…oh mom this is really hard.” “It’s O.K.”, she tells me again.

And I stutter and stumble and I just can’t bring it…and I’m still crying and she looks so hurt, so sad for me.

“Well, see ever since I was little, I,…oh God mum, this is so painful. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I’m ashamed, I don’t want you to be ashamed of me,…of who and what I am.” “What is it, come on,  just let it go…” She gently pleads and lights a Carlton 100, I do likewise, though not a Carlton, probably a Camel Filter. I take one good drag, not the one when you first light up, but the one directly after. The good one, the one you’re never quite able to recreate again, till your next one.

(sort of like my drugging, but that’s for another page…clean 15 years!)

“Mom, I have always felt like a girl.”

I can’t believe what just came out of my mouth…

“Ever since I was little, 3, 4 or 5 even…didn’t you ever suspect anything, see anything?”

“No, nothing”, she says.

And then I begin to list all my girl-moments, my litany-my laundry list. 

“Well, remember the time at Nana’s when I came out of the bathroom dressed in her things,…and when you’d take me with you to the Beauty Palor, I was so happy to be there with you, you have no idea, it was my safety zone,…and when the other women would comment on my lashes, or my deep blue eyes and say “Jackie, with those lashes and those Baby Blues, he should have been a girl…” Then there was the incident at White Wing with the Dress-Up Box,  and,…and,…and the dream I had where I was sitting at Nana’s counter and all of the girls were there, you and,…and you were giving me a perm and you put me under the dryer.  Mom, I was so happy during that dream that I never wanted it to end and even when I awoke, I awoke all warm, giggly and content…,how about the time when I pretended to be sick for one whole week, so I could stay home and watch Christine Jorgenson on the Sonya Hamil Show, she did a whole week with her and,…then remember the time I went to the Bedford Mall and bought both Harry Benjamin’s, The Transsexual Phenomenon & Christine Jorgenson’s Biography, I was about 14 and you were waiting for me at Nana’s and I had them in a bag and Nana said, “What did you buy, let me see, let me see,…I love books” (and she did, she was a voracious reader, curious as a cat and the only person I have ever known, who was truly without guile) and I said, “Oh, it’s nothing…just a couple books…” and she playfully snatched the bag from me,  opened it up and there they were, in full view for all to see and you said nothing, but Nana, Nana says, “Christine Jorgenson, I want to read this when you’re done, I’ve always wanted to read her story. She’s the one who used to be a man.” You still didn’t make a comment, then Nana reaches over with her hand and pushes back my hair from my forehead and says, “Let’s see what you’d look like if you were a girl,…you don’t want to be a girl, do you?” You looked at me and my heart sank, but I recovered quite quickly with,…

“Na, it’s just a book, that’s all…” No one made mention of the Benjamin book, not one word. “Remember, mom? You remember that right?”

And she didn’t even have to think about it, she simply said she didn’t remember.

No not that, not really any of it.

So, I reach real deep and relate the following:

“That’s O.K., mom I know that these were some fairly fleeting blinks in the course of my life, and there were countless others, but you’ve got to remember the time when you’d picked me up at Nana’s and we were heading back to our house and I had my Prize Speaking performance that evening (I did Poe’s The Raven, all 16 stanzas and won First Prize/$30.-and a Certificate – Quoth the Raven, Nevermore...) and you looked over at me in the car and told me that I couldn’t go on looking like that, meaning the length of my hair and you told me,…you told me that you were taking me to the Barber Shop to get a regular haircut and I said I didn’t want a regular haircut and we volleyed verbally for a few brief moments more, and I guess you figured you’d attempt reverse psychology on me, or something, so you said, “Fine,…fine, your hair is long enough to be a girls’,…you want to look like a girl, you must with hair that long, huh,…(I sat silently holding on to everything within me, once again to not scream out at any second, with “Yes! Yes! I want to be a girl!”) then if you want to look like,…be a girl, then I’ll take you to the Beauty Salon and you’ll have your hair done, permed, so that it’ll look nice and then we’ll have to take you shopping, we’ve got just enough time to make it to the Mall, we’ll get you pretty under things, shoes and a pretty dress…”

Defeated, I acquiesced and we went to a Barber Shop and I got that haircut, that regular Men’s Haircut.

“But do you know now, that I so very much wanted, no I yearned for you to take me to the Salon, then shopping and all the rest…”, I told her.

 And in a blink I saw the whole scenario play out in my mind’s eye. Then it was over. I just didn’t want you to be angry with me about it,…(tbc-to be continued)

I wanted you to want to help me in my quest, for it to be more than O.K. to revel in my femininity. But you were mad at me and I continued to suppress those,…my female feelings from then on and never even dared get close to revealing them to you, or anyone else for that matter.

 

So what does it mean to transition -

 

“The more one talks about the “elephant” in the room, the smaller she becomes,…until she is no longer.”

 

Well, therapy for one is and has been for me, one of the most difficult parts of this journey. Let me break it down into segments, that it might give you more of a crystal clear vision of the stages into which I’ve entered and with the exception of this past year; exited and exited like Elvis leaving the building.

 

My very first encounter with a therapist (we called them Counselors, when I was growing up. Unless of course they had a Ph.D following their name). I was around 13, maybe 14 years old and seemingly in great distress and it must have been, because my mother was the one who suggested I might want to see someone, “talk” with someone. I remember the appointment quite clearly, I was shaking on the inside so badly that I couldn’t concentrate and the man I saw was nice enough, but at every turn when he’d ask me; “So, tell me what’s bothering you,…everything said here is confidential and you can feel safe.” All I remember is that I sat there and barely looked at him, but inside I was screaming out and terrified that at any moment I would just loudly proclaim;

 

“I AM A GIRL!!!

 

Can’t anyone else see this?!

 

What’s wrong with you people?!”

 

Truly, I was on the internal edge of my seat for the entire hour. When it was over I felt relieved, well that’s not entirely true, I was still scared, but refused to return, even when my mom suggested that it might be good to go more than once. Yes, it would have been, not probably would have been, but would have definitely been a good idea to go again, but I knew deep down, that if I did return I’d have painted myself into a corner from which there’d be no return and I would have to tell.

 

Fast-Forward, 16 years later, Baltimore. Once again I was ready to burst wide-open, (oh and by the way, there were innumerable periods during my life, where i’d feel that I would lose it at any moment, but somehow I’d dig deep and hold on with everything I had and tell myself; “I can handle this. I can overcome this. This will pass. It’s just a phase. A fantasy of sorts. Uh huh…and so it went) I called a guy with (yes, you guessed it) a Ph.D behind his name, a therapist/psychologist with GID/Transsexualism as his specialty. (“Specialty sounds so, so,…Culinaryesque – “Yes waiter, as my appetizer I’ll have the GID, dressing on the side (double-entendre absolutely not intended, still funny, n’est pas?) and for my main course, my main course,…did I hear you correctly when you said that the House Speciality was,…was,…what did you call it, wait-wait don’t tell me,…ah yes, Transsexualism. Yes, definitely I’ll have the Transsexualism and not the lunch portion either, I’m famished,…and I want it to arrive to my table on a platter,…yes you heard me correctly, did I stutter,…a platter of Transsexualism, and no-no-no, no dessert for me, I’m certain I’ll be quite satisfied after that…) So, there I was in his office, no couch, no tables, just a couple of leather Brahmin-Lawyer like chairs. I tell him my “story”, 50 minutes later he renders and delivers his diagnosis; “It is evident that you are a textbook transsexual.” It was chilling to actually hear it for the first time, out loud. I believe I wept, yes I wept. Then he hands me a tissue and says, “Alright, tomorrow I’m going to make a call and refer you for Hormone Replacement Therapy.” Yes, that matter-of-fact, as if he were about to call the Deli and order a Rueben. (I’m thinking; what? No roses? ) And I freak. I mean I just freak, internally of course, but nonetheless I do and I ask him (I’m very polite, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, about things, so mostly I don’t tell anyone anything, mostly I ask) if it’d be alright if I got back to him. He says of course and says also this, his parting words, something I will never forget;

 

“I wouldn’t wait any longer,…if I were you.”

 

I will return to this; My Travels Through My “Escape from Therapy”, shortly.

 

But my next post will deal specifically with finally telling someone,…

 

My Mom.

“buds,..yes definitely taste buds…”

and here i am at my “office”;

The French, with my girlfriends, writers, painters, mums, actors, filmmakers et al, and this is now approximately the seventh day

HRT

where i’ve noticed my coffee doesn’t quite taste right, something’s off. It’s the same coffee i’ve been getting for the past five years; 2 espresso shots on top of a third cup of half&half, 4 to 6 raw sugars, stir briskly, add dark french roast to fill the cup.

Nice. Simple.

I’d gotten off the mochas years ago, too sweet. Plus the calories.

Painting by Shelley Cassidy-foto by Marlo-

This work, among many of her others, hung in a gallery in London-Feb 08. The show was called,

“From Where I Sit”

This painting is called-

Under Construction

We’ve been talking about what the next one will be, she’s got a show coming up in Paris in Autumn -

(don’t even,…no there will be no Can Can…at least not until I get down to a size 8!)

Yes, all of these will be continued(s) and I am attempting on becoming more focused with my “aim”, if you will. So think that perhaps here would be a good place to start. The Beginning; I don’t know when exactly, that I found myself with feelings of the female kind, but as with so many stories of transsexuals, it began very early and it’s safe to say that my first memory of such would have been at the age of 4. That would have been the year 1963. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m 49. Whew. Tough, that age “thing”, n’est pas?

Anyway, there I was, all of four years old, Kennedy wouldn’t see the end of the year and I would discover a longing, a burning in my soul to be a girl. Yes, a girl and I started trying things on to see if they “fit” and they did, though not in the “size” way, but in the psyche-way, even to the point of being quasi-open about it. The one time in-particular that sticks in my memory, is when I was “encouraged” to swish (well, what else would you expect me to call it?) into my Nana’s living room, adorned in her lingerie and in front of both my mother and my grandfather. Both, well all three (including my Nana) made nice comments, but I’m certain that they all thought it was a phase. Yeah, well me too and from that moment on, when my feelings would “erupt” in some fashion, or another; I too thought, wanted to think, wanted to believe with all my heart, that these deeply seated feelings would someday pass and that it was “just a phase”. But,…(you filled in the rest haven’t you?) Rhetoric can be a beautiful thing. And so it went and so it went and I will, as my memory clears, give more from those “plot” points on the graph along my journey and besides, it’s too late now. And so there I was, but the “encouragement” would soon come to an end.

…and so it goes, and so it goes..

i’m writing this now some 4 mos. later and though much has transpired, changed if you like, it equally feels, as if nothing has changed. Certainly I have arrived to a certain level of liberty, though at extreme cost. The “mathematical” equations which perpetually run in my head are no less noisy than they were before i began to transition. Nonetheless i can’t help but feel i’ve “done it now…”. So i’ll continue to discover, discover as it continues to reveal itself to me and everyone around me.