For Christmas vacation, my maternal grandparents were planning a trip from Tennessee. Their last visit was at Christmas 2 years before. Needless to say, a lot had changed.

My mom had spoken with them about my gender issue and my grandmother understood completely. My grandfather, however, was another story. As he saw it, his grandson had had a male to female sex change and was destined for hell. An uncomfortable, possibly heartbreaking confrontation was brewing.

That night, my ghost came back. Lisa was, as typical of her, in a deep sleep, so I didn’t try to rouse her. Instead, I bravely asked the specter, “Who are you?”

Once again, she moved toward the center of the room. As it moved, I heard a child’s voice say, “Help me.” Then, it disappeared near the center of the room as before. Somehow, I knew that this was a little girl, but I can’t explain how I knew that.

I awoke Saturday morning as the light was just starting to break up the darkness in my room. I got out of bed, slipped on a housecoat, and decided to see if I could explore the house without getting lost. I peeked in at Lisa and she was snoring. I went downstairs and saw a room with a light on. It was my dad’s home office. He was at his computer reading some gibberish. “Hi, Daddy!”

I made my way up to my room, called Lisa, and told her I was headed to her house with news. Lisa loves news … not TV news, but other news … OK, gossip. I told her it was something that involved my gender and it was amazing and incredible. I took my time getting to her house and made her suffer a little. She was waiting just outside her front door when I arrived, patting her foot and pretending to be looking at her watch. We talked as headed to her room.

Chapter 4

About a week after the doctor assured us that I had gynecomastia, and nothing fatal, my mom came to my room and asked, “How’s the chest?”

“It’s better. They’re getting smaller.”

“Let me see.”

I knew there was no need to argue, so I opened my shirt and showed her my healthily growing boobs. She took one look and said, “OK, back to the doctor. This time, I’m not taking ‘gynecomastia’ for an answer!”

So back to the doctor we went. Same office … new doctor.

“Looks good. No sign of boobs.”

“How was your shopping trip?”

“Good! I saw a dress that would look soooo good on you! Who knows? Maybe I bought it for you! Are you feeling better today?”

“You know, my head and my stomach feel fine. Would you go for a body swap, you and me?”

The rest of the summer was probably the best time of my life (up to that point). We met a girl next door also named “Amie”, and a girl across the street name “Jamie”. Amie’s dad was a doctor and Jamie’s mom was an attorney. Her mom was engaged and, even though her parents were divorced, Jamie’s dad also lived there in a separate part of the house. The girls were a few years older than us, and both were headed for Rice University at the end of the summer. Still, they accepted our invitations to come to the pool with us.

Monday was more active. Lisa and I both got haircuts at “Nancy’s”. We both got what mom called “pixie cuts”, and I got my ears pierced, after which I looked into the mirror and said, “No going back now”. Nancy looked puzzled, but I didn’t care; let her wonder. Lisa and I looked even more alike, but she was more beautiful than ever. I told her I was going to call her “BC”, for “Beautiful Cousin”. She said she would do likewise.
I thought for a second. “Lisa, I’m kinda glad you’re not my sister.”

“Amie!...Why”

“We would be calling each other “BS”.

“Silly girl!”

Lisa and I “worked” on sorting clothes. Mostly, we modeled for each other and took pictures with our digital cameras. Even though Lisa was my cousin, she was so beautiful it was hard not to stare. Finally, she said, “What?” I hadn’t realized how intently I had been watching her. I told her the truth, “Lisa, you’re just beautiful.”

“You’re not gonna get kicked out of bed yourself, cousin.”

“Well if it’s a guy, it’ll be me doing the kicking.”

“I think you’ll change your attitude”.

“We should bet on that. Got a million dollars?”

“Not at the moment.”

The house was dark when we got there, but the motion sensors clicked outdoor lights to life and, created near daylight when we pulled into the driveway. Walking up to the front door activated more lights. Not that there was any danger, we were in the safest neighborhood in Houston, with the possible exception of the “gated” communities which, to me seemed like visiting a prison. The police patrolled the area, alert for any rare case of burglars or prowlers.

We got into Houston early in the afternoon, but it looked like the rush hour was already underway. Luckily we were going into town and most of the traffic was headed out. After exiting the freeway and making numerous twists and turns, we were home. We pulled into the driveway that must have been a quarter of a mile long. The house was a great distance from the road and huge oak trees shaded the massive yard.
I was incredulous, “Mom, are you sure this is it?”

“Yes, honey. Your dad said it was big, but I’m a little surprised myself!”

Monday had me back at school trying to pretend nothing was different. I imagined kids were looking at me and whispering. I was sure they were saying, “Hey, did you hear, he’s really a girl!”

I was standing at my locker, catching my breath, when Lisa showed up. She made a fist and lightly hit me on the arm. “What’s up, dude?” She
smiled, “or whatever!”
“Lisa … hush!”

“Oh, Aar…Amie. Nobody heard me. Are you paranoid?”

“I just feel like everybody’s staring at me!”

“Hey! That hurts my feelings!”

“Why?”

Lisa’s mom was gone. The door was unlocked, as usual, and I went in and made my way to her room.

“Hey Aaron … Wow! What’s the matter?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “Nothing … why? Everything is normal….”

“Oh, come on Aaron, you’re all flushed! Your eyes...Have you been crying? Are you OK?”

“I’m not sure. I have the most unbelievable thing to tell you!”

“You definitely have my attention!”

“Lisa, when I share this with you, I’m going to trust that it doesn’t go any farther.”

“You got it! What is it?”

I looked in the mirror. “You look good!” I said it out loud. I was wearing my mom’s slinky blue dress, her jewelry and her makeup. I was alone; Dad was at work and Mom was shopping. I continued, “God, why didn’t you make me a female?” Actually, I wasn’t far from it; I was short and thin with little body hair. The hair on my head was nice and thick and I kept it long. It was inevitable, however. Soon I would
be developing facial hair, body hair, and my voice would change. It made me sick to think about it.

Summer vacation ended. Our senior year began with both Amie and I needing very few credits for

graduation. This gave us time for career research with a lot of free time also. We had both decided on

our majors. Amie would study law, I was going into medicine. Now that I had decided on a direction, I

was anxious to get started. I had heard horror stories about the hours required of interns, but had my

mind made up that nothing would deter me from the path I had chosen.

During summer vacation, Hanna and I became close. She invited me to go to her house when something was bothering me, and I took her up on the offer. At times, we had long talks and found that we saw eye to eye on a number of things.

One evening my mom came home from work and began showering and getting dressed up nice. She and Hanna were going to dinner. She explained that Hannah wanted to discuss something. It sounded kind of serious.

On the first day of the new semester, we awakened to a cold, rainy morning. The combination of rain and temperatures below 40 degrees brought hope for snow to those of us from the southern part of Texas. Houston gets a small amount of snow about every 10 years, and I remembered a snowfall when I was much younger. San Antonio, however, was even farther south than Houston.

Back to school day is here. We decided to fly even though we had just barely escaped disaster. We didn’t figure lightning would take a second shot at us, and neither of us wanted to endure the long drive in the Corvette again. I was happy not to have the specter of surgery hanging over my head. My new parts were still tender, but could hardly wait to take them out into the world.