Sunday, January 12
My b'day is getting closer and closer, and while it shouldn't be any different from the fourteen other ones I've had, it is. I'm 15. I'm "out" as a girl now (although, really, deep down inside, I was a girl for all the other ones, too!). Looking back, I'll have basically the same friends over for a party that I had last year, plus Carlos plus maybe some dates (oh, and Randi, who wasn't one of the sister-wives last year.) I got Mom to promise nothing huge -- a cake (yea!!!) and some ice cream and mocktails (yeah, I'm figuring out a Belini without champagne is just orange/peach juice and club soda, but whatever...) and some music and everyone telling me how beautiful I am!
But on to my week. Monday we were all back at school and it was cold and wet and it's impossible to look even moderately attractive in school uniforms but you add wet and cold and layers of outerwear and thick black tights under my khaki skirt and I might as well have been hiking in Antarctica. All this scene was missing was a bunch of penguins.
I'm not making this up -- some guy brought a stuffed penguin to school and carried it around from class to class, sitting it on the floor beside his desk.
So, the biggie (such that it was) was at lunch at Drama Club. Carlos and I were sitting on the sofa trying to pay attention to Mr. Mac but not doing a good job of it. Apparently, the Drama Conference or festival or whatever the heck it is will happen in April. We need to put on a regular three-act play in March and then perform the best single act from that (probably the third, he said) at the festival. He had some suggestions, but said he was leaving it all up to us. By "us" he implied the seniors in the room, and by "seniors" he implied Brandi.
There were a few new faces in the room. I recognized another ninth grader, Brandy (not to be confused with senior Brandi) who I knew was on the soccer team and so I went over to say hi at the end and she looked at me like she barely knew who I was. Brandy was a bit taller than me (and I'm taller than average) and was really athletic for a 9th grader. I welcomed her to the drama club and she kinda shrugged her shoulders and thanked me. I asked her what she was interested in doing, and she said, "My mom says I have to be in an elective or something and I tried out for basketball but I have a leg injury from soccer, so I can't play.
This is apparently it, and I'm a bit bummed about not being able to play basketball." That all came out kinda like one vomiting sentence.
I just nodded and said, "well, I'm glad you're here!"
Brandy looked at me and said, "you're that trans girl, Christy, right?"
I nodded.
She just nodded and smiled and said, "cool," then turned and walked off. I wasn't sure how to take that, but whatever....
As I write this, I notice I use the word `whatever' a lot. Huh...
Also, `huh.'
Monday afternoon, we went to meet with Dr. Strange. He did yet ANOTHER physical exam, and just nodded at my physical progress. He said, "Thanks to your natural body hormones, and catching your gender issues early in puberty, your physical development is quite good. You've put on about an inch in your hips and I can see that your breast development is at least twice what we would normally have expected."
I was a little miffed at that. I was admittedly overjoyed to have any breast growth at all, but would hardly use the word `development' in the same sentence. Then again, I needed to count whatever blessings I had.
He asked me about the holidays, and I told him all about the trip to the east coast and my extended family and the conference we attended and such. I explained to him about having to travel somewhat stealth' because my birth certificate and such still said male' but I was fairly androgenous the whole trip and frankly my gender identity never came up.
Dr. Strange then started in on one of his regularly scheduled monologues, telling me basically stuff I already knew. He said that he was concerned about three things, which were all part of my overarching transformation from boy' to girl'. First, there was my physical development, which was a combination of my own physical/hormonal development and exercise and self care. Second, he was concerned about my continuous public presentation as a female. Third, he was concerned about my overall mental health.
I replied to him, "Well, that's a lot, doc. I mean, I'm constantly aware of my body -- I look at it every day. It's still got the broken plumbing I want to have ripped out..."
He bolted upright in his chair when I said that.
"...but don't worry, I'm not stupid enough to do anything... well... stupid. My life's going pretty well. I've been quietly surfing the web for trans-friendly information, and I really can see that I'm lucky in a lot of ways. I've got a supportive family, supportive friends, I'm physically nearly a girl anyway, and I have a semi-boyfriend, or something like that."
"You say semi?"
"Yeah, well, I guess boyfriend. I mean it's not like we're on top of each other all the time, but yeah, he's my date."
Dr. Strange just nodded. (I realized I'm spending so much time calling him Dr. Strange, I might forget his real name is Preston. Dr. Preston.
Gotta remember to say that out loud.) "Are you still seeing Ms. Hargrove?"
"Yeah, it's kinda hard to talk about sex with someone who looks like Molly Weasley." He just nodded. "In fact, her office kinda looks like the Weasley house and she dresses in that sorta earth-mother fashion statement. I'm not saying she IS Ms. Weasley, but it's awful suspicious."
He just smiled and nodded, then asked, "How do you feel about your birthday coming up?"
I thought about it for a minute, then said, "Fifteen feels a lot older than fourteen. I know I'm probably already over-the-top four a fourteen year old girl, but I don't think I'm far different from my friends."
"Well," he said, "from what you're telling me, you have a very precocious set of friends."
I thought about that for a minute, then asked him, "What do you mean by that?"
"Let's say... advanced."
"OK, Doc, I can go with that."
"Be careful, is all I'm saying. You and your friends are all supporting one another like you are the entire universe. One girl does something, and another girl does something else, and before you know it, you're all acting like characters from Sex in the City but you haven't even finished puberty yet."
"Yeah, but..." Then suddenly I realized I didn't have anything to say.
"You are a unique case, Christy. Most men and women I see who are transitioning are fascinated with their new roles, and some of them can't wait to push the envelope a bit. I don't get many teens transitioning, but nearly all of them live in some world where there is some push back. You're the exception. You are very fortunate to be surrounded by friends and family and school officials who are supportive, perhaps even too supportive. Your friends, and you are lucky to have them, but they seem to see you as a story, a television show, that is fascinating and captivating and they can't wait to see how the next episode turns out. Unfortunately, they're all your age and don't yet have the maturity and experience to see that maybe they're encouraging you too much, and maybe even encouraging each other too much. I just want you to be careful, that's all."
I listened to him and nodded. After a while, I said, "Dr. Preston, I appreciate what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, this is all new to me, and maybe I'm trying to be 100% girl all at once..."
"Everything all at once," he said, "and I don't want to see you burn out." Then he seemed to change the subject and asked, "How old is your boyfriend?"
"He's a year and a half older than me. He just turned 16 last summer." After a pause, I said, "But he's very mature for his age."
"Yes, well, Christy, in my experience, there is nothing more dangerous in this world than a 16 year old boy who thinks he's mature for his age.
Be careful."
So... that was my Monday.
Tuesday -- there is this theory that when a lot of cis-girls are really close to one another and hang out all the time, their periods sync up. I hadn't really noticed, but everyone one of the Sisterwives were apparently having their periods (but... sigh... me). We all got together for a few minutes before school (since our lunches were all screwed now-a-days with activities) and I was at least self aware enough to realize that I was being obnoxiously cheerful while everyone else was suffering a mydol hangover. Huh... maybe I'm going to be a research biologist studying women's menstrual cycles.
Brie and I walked together to class, and I asked her how her Christmas went. She just kinda grunted and said, "It was OK. Randi came over a lot. One slight benefit to having a gay girlfriend is that parents don't seem to realize what we're doing when we're together, so they leave us alone a lot, which is nice."
"You're parents don't know you're gay?"
Brie paused on that for a long time. "Hey, I'm not sure I'm gay, either."
"Soooo.... You have a gay girlfriend and you spend a lot of time together and... hey, there's an old joke about gay guys. How do you know you're a gay male? The cock in your mouth is often a dead give-a-way." I paused for a moment, then said, `I didn't say it was a GOOD joke, just an old one."
"Yeah, but..."
I stopped suddenly and looked at her and said, "You and Randi haven't done the deed yet, have you???"
Brie just looked down at the floor and said, "Hell, Christy, I'm not even sure what `the deed' is. We just like each other's company, and yeah, there's been a lot of first base stuff and over-the-clothes second base a couple of times, but other than that, we just like being together, that's all."
"But you like being with me, right Brie?"
"Yeah, but that's different. I haven't kissed you, Christy, and frankly don't want to. That's the big difference."
The rest of the day kinda went like that. Hell, the rest of the week.
Apparently our play is going to be Noises Off, which requires five males and five females, so all is right with the world. Mr. Mac said everyone would get a copy of the play next week and get to tryout. Natch, there will be preferences for the older kids, but he said there's a lot for the younger students to do in tech and makeup and such, plus transporting the play to the festival will be an all-hands effort. I counted around the room (why had I never done this before?) and there were 20 of us, so about half would get speaking parts and about half would carry shit. I was guessing I'd be among the shit carriers.
Then on Sunday Father Bernie pulled me aside after Church and asked if I was coming to youth group tonite, and I said I was. He said, "Are you planning to go to the ski trip next weekend? I understand it's right before your birthday. You do ski, right?"
"Yeah, about that. I kinda want to go, and I snowboard, but I'm... well... I just don't want to freak anyone out with the whole plumbing thing and how will we be camping and how does this work?"
"No problem, Christy. First, Ms. VanderWater is going to be the girls chaperone, and she knows and is cool with it. The lodge where we're staying has a bunch of bunks and sofas and everyone just brings a sleeping bag and no one is the wiser. The girls sleep in the loft where there are a bunch of mattresses on the floor and the boys sleep on the great room floor. Plus, you have Brenda on your team. She won't let anyone give you any... grief."
I smiled. "You almost didn't say grief, didn't you?"
He just smiled and nodded.
Father Bernie, what did you do before you became a priest?
"I was a Marine sergeant."
"No... grief..."
He started laughing, and `grief' became our word. "Yeah, but that was a long time ago."
"Maybe you can tell me sometime. I'd love to hear."
"Sure. Sometime."
I followed him to the youth house where we had Sunday School which was basically just Father Bernie asking everyone to comment on the sermon they'd just heard. I wanted to have a stop watch to see how long it took for the subject to get to the ending episode of the Mandalorian (about 5 minutes).
Turns out, the sermon and the Mandalorian have a lot in common. Go figure...