What do you do when you come to savor the peace and contentment of living a life true to yourself, only to have it ripped away? How do you move on? Can you move on? Katie, the main character, must find a way by turning her pain into something positive.

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Spring semester of 2014 was in the home stretch, at least it was for everyone else in this small college town, but not for this “girl.” Now you may be wondering why I put the word girl in quotations. We’ll get there.

Sitting at my desk in my small apartment, I grasped my copy of the University resignation form. The fresh ink of the Dean’s signature certainly gave me a sense of finality. The painful realities of the situation I now found myself in started to sink in while I stared at the clean and crisp form. But at the same time everything was sinking in, a lot of whys, which were refusing to be relegated to the periphery of consciousness, began surfacing. The most annoyingly vocal one was, “why are you resigning when you’ve come so close?”

And I was close, crazy close as they say nowadays. If I wanted to get my bachelors, all I had to do was complete just over one semester’s worth of coursework. Using the tired analogy of mountain climbing, it was like I had gotten within several hundred feet of summiting Everest, but inexplicably decided to turn back. In reality, effort-wise, because of my learning disability, it felt like I had dragged my exhausted body up the summit three times. However, I still couldn’t cut myself any slack. That was also another problem of mine.

“What is wrong with me?” I muttered to myself. “Why am I such a failure? Why can’t I just finish like every other normal college girl?”

It wasn’t too long until my mind reminded me I was anything but a normal college girl. In fact, up until fall semester 2013, I had appeared to everyone else as just a normal college boy. Little did they know at the time how miserable I truly was. In fact, if it wasn’t for my therapist, I don’t think I’d be alive today to tell my story. Yes. Things got so bad and my life seemed so hopeless that I was actually considering suicide. But at least that-at the time- low point served to put the ordeal I was now going through in perspective. And I needed some perspective right then, as well as a healthy dose of positive self talk!

“Just calm down Katie,” I continued to reassure myself. “Chill girl. Remember, just like the character Andrew whom you used to play, school was all part of the lie you were living. You don’t need school to throw yourself into in order to distract yourself from the pain anymore. Just let it go Katie. Just let it go. At least you’ve got a place to live and a steady job. All is not lost. Plus, you’ve got your support group meeting in Roanoke coming up!”

Renewed with cautious optimism, I carefully folded the resignation letter in half and buried it in Andrew’s neglected and bulging blue file container.

“There!” I declared. “Out of sight, out of mind.” Swiveling back around in my desk chair, I wondered, “Now where was I? Oh yes. The meeting!”

I logged onto facebook and checked the support group web page to see if the meeting was still on. And it was! I always worried too much.

“Yay!” I exclaimed, spinning around in my chair. In a sing-song kind of tone, I announced, “I get to see the girls again and we get to go out and have drinks again!”

I was allowing myself to feel good again, and even though it was “proceed at your own risk,” I had to let myself hope, just like I had to check my email before I began getting ready for work. I had to see if today was the day that perhaps I would receive an acceptance letter from one of the many literary agents I had queried over the past few months.

As I logged into my university email account, a delightful surge of nervous energy surged outward from my heart, leaving my fingertips tingling. As usual, thanks to all of the list-serves I belonged to, my inbox was bloated. I scanned away until I came across a familiar name, a very familiar name.

“Wow!” I declared. “She got back to me fast. I wonder if that’s a good thing?”

But then I scanned the subject line. Uh oh! There were those three dreaded words at the beginning.

Thank you for…

“Damn!” I said with subdued exasperation. “Not another one.”

Even though I knew what was waiting for me in the body of the email, I clicked on it anyway. For me, it was always preferable to rip the band-aid off quickly.

“Thank you for your interest in…” I began. “Blah, blah, blah…I do not feel that I would be the right literary agent for this project…Blah, blah, blah…Best of luck in your search for representation.”

With cursor hovering over the delete button, I sighed with head in hand.

“At least she got back to me,” I conceded.

Instead of deleting it, I moved it over to the folder with all of the others I had received. Then I looked over at the bulging file folder and managed a half-smile. I figured at this rate I’d have enough rejections by Christmas to finally cause catastrophic failure of the structural integrity of my el-cheapo file box.

I slapped myself on the forehead because I was doing it again. I was retreating into knee-jerk negativity once again. It was time for some more positive self-talk.

I put my computer in sleep mode and shuffled into the bathroom in my cute powder blue ankle socks. Arms akimbo, I studied myself in the mirror. I had always disliked fluorescent lights, but now that I was transitioning from male to female, my dislike got upgraded to hatred. I hated the fact that these unforgiving lights revealed every blemish, mole, and unsightly large pore. I hated how much my nose protruded in the mirror. I hated that every frizzy hair of my growing mop of dark brown hair stood out. But above all, I hated the sight of every stubborn left over black hair on my face that had resisted the latest round of laser hair removal four weeks ago. It was imperfection on a new scale. It was imperfection in High Definition. I couldn’t help but sigh. Yep, I was going to be using a whole lot of concealer today.
I opened up my makeup bag and got out all of the necessities. Before I began transitioning, I viewed them as extras, but now I saw them for what they were. And they were indeed necessities given that I along with every other transgirl and cisgirl were burdened with the unwritten societal expectation of approximating the feminine ideal as closely as possible.

After completing the tedious routine of shaving, cleansing, and moisturizing, it was time to apply. The oven was preheated. Now it was time to bake the cookies! Now it was time to make myself look as delicious as possible.

Okay. To be perfectly honest, despite my growing skill with makeup I wouldn’t exactly characterize myself as delicious on this particular day, even with my auburn shoulder length straight-haired wig. In a dimly lit bar, perhaps. However, on this day, as on most days, I settled for being simply passable. Considering that I was wearing my work uniform which consisted of a khaki pencil skirt and a white polo shirt which wasn’t very flattering to the shoulder area, this was no small feat.

I studied myself one last time in the mirror. And after nodding my head in approval, I grabbed my favorite white purse and rushed out my apartment door.

I jogged across the parking lot toward the bus shelter because I didn’t want to miss the earlier bus. I was very happy that I was wearing tennies instead of heels when I made the last mad dash to stay ahead of the approaching bus.

I greeted the bus driver with a relieved smile as I dug around in my pocket for some change. To my surprise, my freshly painted purple nails scraped up against nothing but freshly laundered lint lining the bottom of my secondhand pocket.

My heart dropped in my chest and anxiety surged within me once more. Thankfully, well before the usual what-ifs had a chance to race through my brain, Alec, the transit bus driver flashed me a warm smile.

“You’re fine,” he said calmly. “I remember you.”

“Thanks,” I said, brushing away a few strands of artificial silky hair, freeing them from their adherence to my dewed brow. “I was running behind. I must have forgotten it. I really appreciate it.”

He smiled once more before returning his attention to the road ahead. And I smiled again for a few reasons as I found a seat in the first row. First of all, he thought I was still a student at Tech, but unbeknownst to him, I had already turned in my college ID at the Student Services Building. Second of all, I smiled because I knew I would have never been able to pull off such a pedestrian deception if I had been in boy mode. Lastly, and more importantly, the main reason for my persistent smile was because, to be perfectly honest, he was kinda cute. I especially liked his pretty blue eyes. I know it’s corny, but I could have gotten lost in those eyes, just like I was now lost in thought.

Hmm…I wonder if he’s married. Well Katie, maybe if you hadn’t been so busy gazing into his eyes you could have glanced at his ring finger.

Despite mentally slapping myself for such premature musings, I couldn’t help but indulge. During the remarkably short ride over to the grocery store where I worked, I began imagining what our wedding might be like.

Jesus Katie! Get a hold of yourself girl. Even if he is single, do you think he would want to go out with you if he knew what was between your legs? Hmm…Does he know what’s between my legs? Is that why he was interested in me? Is he one of those pervs who wants to take a walk on the wild side with some trans-woman he thinks is a shemale? Or was he just being nice?

It was like zero to distracted neurotic wreck in six seconds. Thank goodness another passenger was cognizant enough to look up from her glowing smartphone for more than a nanosecond and notice she was nearing her stop, which lucky for me, turned out to be our stop.

I gave Alec a nervous wave and exited in front of the bus shelter in front of the shopping center. Then I leisurely strolled across the parking lot toward the grocery store.
Directly above, the hawks were riding the thermals. I, however, continued to ride this high of perfect femininity. It radiated outward from my soft skin like the heat that was radiating off of the asphalt on this sunny yet cool spring morning.

Nearing the entrance, I smoothed my hair, adjusted the “girls” and smoothed my skirt before gliding through the sliding doors and being blasted by the hot desiccated air.

I felt as bubbly as a cheerleader as I walked to the rear of the store. I greeted coworkers along the way with a warm smile and the customary good morning.

This is so wonderful! No, this is awesome!

This was my first job as Katie, the real me. I was lucky. I had begun going full time before I had started working again. I was thankful there was no need for any kind of awkward transition during work. I was thankful that there wasn’t any need for an employee meeting to remind my fellow employees to be respectful of my decision to present as female. And I was especially thankful that there no awkward silences accompanied by the abrupt stoppage of conversation, clearing of throats, and averted gazes when I walked into the break room or the employee locker area, just as I was doing now.

I felt just like one of the girls when Mandy stood up from stuffing her purse and phone into her locker and gave me a wave.

“Hey girl!” she said.

“Hey Mandy,” I replied.

Arms akimbo, Mandy looked at me with a quizzical expression.

“Well,” she began. “You’re certainly in a good mood.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess I am.”

“So what’s the occasion?” With a devilish smile, she continued on. “Did you get lucky or something?”

“Mandy!” I said in a half-whisper. “Someone might hear.”

With a dismissive wave of her right hand, she spoke again.

“You worry too much. I mean, who gives an f. Right? So, did you finally take my advice or what?”

“No Mandy. Unfortunately I did not get lucky last night.”

“Then I guess we have something in common,” she added. “My boyfriend hasn’t fucked me in like a month.”

“Mandy!” I hissed.

I could feel myself blush but Mandy’s perfect porcelain skin remained, well perfect, like a bottle of foundation.

“Well he hasn’t,” said Mandy in an innocent tone.

“At least you have a boyfriend,” I said in deflated tone.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “I’d fuck you…If I was still in my lesbian phase and single of course.”

“Of course,” I conceded. “That old caveat.”

Mandy yawned.

I said, “You’re here early. What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion,” she said. “Just me being dumb, as usual.”

Now it was my turn to show her a quizzical expression before she elaborated further.

“Dumb as in being dumb enough to switch with someone to the morning shift.”

“Seven to three?” I inquired.

“More like six to two,” said Mandy in a weary tone.

“That’s crazy,” I admitted. “I don’t know how you even found the time to put on makeup.”

“Well,” she began, “other than some eye shadow, mascara, and lip gloss, I didn’t have time for anything else.”

As if she even needed foundation and powder anyway! I am so jealous!

“Well, you can’t even tell,” I said. “I think you look perfect just the way you are.”

“Hey,” she teased. “Stop trying to hit on me. Didn’t I tell you I’m done with my lesbian phase?”

I wish being transgender had just been a phase!

She giggled. And I quickly followed suit, temporarily forgetting about all of the pain over the years.

“Oh Mandy,” I said. “You are too much.”

“Don’t I know it,” she observed.

Our giggling spilled over into the break room. We sat and ate together. She was finishing her “lunch” and I still had some time to kill before the start of my eleven to eight shift.

I cherished every moment of our time together that morning. When I was with her it felt like we had been girlfriends for years. She was like the sister, friend, and confidant I had never had, all rolled into one. And what a package deal that was! Was she crude a lot of the time? Sure. Did her humor occasionally stray well past raunchy? You have no idea. Could she be abrasive and stubbornly opinionated? You bet. But past that tough and defiant demeanor of hers was a loving, generous, and kind human being. And although sometimes I wasn’t sure if I shared all three of those traits with her, I was certain and quite proud that we had one thing in common: we were both unflappably honest.

Honest. Ah, honest. Yes, honest was like a double edged sword, sometimes a good thing and sometimes far, far, beyond T.M.I. A few customers were way to honest…honestly rude that is, especially with their disrespect for PGPs (Preferred Gender Pronouns).

As I sat there talking with Mandy between bites of my granola bar, I wondered if I would make it through my shift without another violation of my sense of self. But like I said, it was a small town and after living in it for quite some time, to the list of inevitabilities of death and taxes, I wished to add ignorance and narrow-mindedness. Of that I was most adamant, especially after today’s shift.

Mandy and I clocked back in after minutes seemed to pass like seconds, each going to our designated register, on opposite ends of the front end as it turned out. And I think it was a good thing it turned out like that because Mandy was out of earshot for the “incident.”

I wasn’t even an hour into my shift when I saw “her,” get into my line. It was that woman, that otherwise inconspicuous and seemingly sweet middle-aged woman who had chosen me, yes me, out of over ten other cashiers. But it was anything but a privilege or a complement. It was an insult waiting to happen, an insult almost worse than some redneck snatching away my wig, unmasking me for the perceived offense of impersonation.

While I was dispensing the usual pleasantries and efficiently scanning away, I saw my supervisor approach out of the corner of my eye.

My supervisor stood by my side, glanced over at “that” woman, and then looked at me.

With softened expression, she said, “Katie, are you going to be alright? Do you need me to take over for a bit?”

I shook my head.

“I’ve got this,” I said.

“Are you sure?” she wondered.

“I can handle it,” I assured. “I’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” replied my supervisor. “But if you need me for whatever reason, just page me and I’ll come right over.”

“Thanks Sharon,” I replied.

The habitual offender drew closer and closer until I removed the rectangular order separator so another inevitability of my life could play itself out.

Like a frustrated yet composed flight attendant after a transatlantic flight, I greeted her like any other customer.

“Good afternoon ma’am,” I said. “Did you find everything alright?”

“I did,” she began. “But it would have been easier if ya’ll hadn’t a changed the store around again.”

Why can’t you just say, “yes, I sure did,” like everybody else?

Instead, I just said, “Sorry for the inconvenience, but that’s corporate for you. We’re still getting used to it ourselves.”

“Well please tell corporate that for some of us, our time is precious and is better spent doing something other than spending ten minutes just to find a particular brand of raspberry preserves that we enjoy.”

Oh, the humanity!

But once again, I bit my tongue, a tongue that was becoming riddled with sores I might add.

“Once again,” I said. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

The middle-aged woman sighed before speaking.

“I suppose I could complain to corporate, but I guess it wouldn’t really matter. I suppose the only constant anymore is change.”

Change? Tell me about it! My parents know all too well about change.

As fast as I finished scanning the woman’s items, it was if I was going for some items-per-minute bonus or similar incentive. And it wasn’t until after I had handed her the receipt that it dawned on me: during the whole transaction, she hadn’t once addressed me as sir or used the wrong pronoun or anything! Then again, she hadn’t addressed me as ma’am either. However, it was progress and I did acknowledge that.

Maybe people can change.

I basked in my perceived moment of slight victory. I felt like a trans-ambassador who was slowly winning over the county populace, one enlightened customer at a time. I did, until she started looking at her receipt as she shuffled toward the exit.

Here we go again!

But the next thing she did surprised me. Instead of coming back to dispute the price of her precious raspberry preserves, she headed in the direction of customer service.

There is a God!

At least I was beginning to think that, that God wasn’t some kind of absentee landlord, until lo and behold, she ran into my supervisor, who was probably coming back to check on me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t deaf like my supposed God seemed to be most of the time.

She must have known I was still within ear shot, because she kept annunciating “that” word. I heard her say, “I think he overcharged me…Didn’t he know that this item was on special?”

And she went on and on. She didn’t just use the wrong pronoun twice. She kept on using it during the animated exchange. Like I said, she was a habitual offender, seemingly taking a perverse pleasure in continuing to twist the knife into my back.

At least if you’re not going to address me like any other woman, at least have the decency to do it to my face!

At that moment, I wanted to put my hands over my ears or at the very least put on some earmuffs. I wanted to, but I had to maintain my composure. I had to be strong. I couldn’t let her see that her callousness had wounded me to my core. Also, I had to get my line down.

After I got my line down, I had to cool down, and my fifteen minute break was the perfect opportunity.

After that unfortunate exchange, suffice it say that my confidence was somewhat lacking, so I retreated to the rear of the store to use the employee bathroom. I didn’t want to give any other woman the opportunity to hurt me even further, whether it be from a relatively harmless raising of an eyebrow at the sight of a transwoman violating the sanctity of her bathroom, or, even worse…I think you can imagine “even worse” just fine on your own.

After using the facilities, I stared at myself in the mirror. Despite shaved arms and legs smoothed and softened with fragrant body cream; despite carefully arranged hair which flattered the shape of my face; and despite the excellent job I did with my makeup, I felt like less. And I found myself wondering what the point was.
From my appearance to my voice and mannerisms, everything about me screamed girl. At least that’s what all of the other girls in my support group kept telling me. Yet the world kept screaming back at me to the contrary.

I thought back to something my supervisor Sharon had once told me during my training, right after the first time a customer “accidentally” addressed me as sir. Handing me a tissue in the office, she had said, “you can’t let someone else control how you feel.”

I forced a smile. She was right. And so of course was my supportive mother when she had told me there would be days like these. These were the days that positive self-talk was designed for.

I like the real me. My friends like the real me. And my parents and sister are supportive of me. To hell with everyone else!

I beamed a genuine smile borne of contentment and walked out of the restroom a confident young woman once more.

The rest of my shift was fairly uneventful, as was waiting for the bus at the shelter in the chilly and still air perfumed with the sweet smell of cut grass. But instead of savoring the smells and sights of a much welcomed spring after a bitterly cold winter, I was preoccupied with the sight of a young man opposite of me in the shelter’s twin across the street. I was preoccupied because he seemed to be preoccupied by me.

Despite features as average as the day’s weather-average build, average height, etc-this twenty-something’s creepy fascination with me was anything but run of the mill. He had me squirming on the bench as if the “birth defect” between my legs was protesting from too tight of a tucking job with the cloth tape.

Is that why he keeps staring at me? Is it because of my “you know what” between my legs?

I pretended to stare at something off in the distance, but I could still feel him boring into me with those cold eyes of his.

The bus belatedly arrived and I breathed a sigh of relief when I sought refuge within. I found my seat, crossed my legs, rested my head in hand, and wondered when I would see Alec again. I also wondered if he would be the closest thing I would ever get to a boyfriend. How pathetic is that?

~o~O~o~

When I returned to my apartment, I breathed another sigh of relief after locking the door.

Yay! It’s comfy clothes time!

I strolled into my bedroom and freed the “birth defect” from its restraints and traded the microfiber bikini briefs for a freshly laundered pair of my favorite lavender colored cotton bikini-cut panties. I also swapped the pencil skirt for a tiered white linen skirt.

After changing, I returned to my desk once more, hopeful again. And when I checked my inbox, there was some good news and some not so good news. The good news was that I hadn’t received a rejection letter from a literary agent. The not so good news was that I had received a rejection email from a business where I had applied for employment. And those same dreaded words popped up in the subject line: thank you for…

I could feel tears beginning to well up. Tears weren’t now stinging my eyes because of this one rejection, but because of the cumulative emotional toll that dozens of rejections had inflicted since the beginning of the new year, both from literary agents and other businesses. I just couldn’t seem to catch a break.

“I really need a part time job. That job would have helped out so much and the location was so convenient. I should have known it wouldn’t work out, just like all of the others.”

I deleted the email and pondered things further.

Look on the bright side Katie. At least you’ve got until the end of July before your parents stop paying the rent.

“Yeah. I’ll be okay. That’ll be plenty of time to find something.”

I logged out of my account. Then I clicked on the “my documents” tab and selected the new story I was working on. I scrolled down to the latest chapter heading and rested my head in my hand once more.

I stared at the cursor while my slender fingers dangled over the smudged keys, just waiting for inspiration to give them the go ahead. Then I stared at the cursor some more. Despite my eager fingers, my mind refused to follow suit, and all I was succeeding in doing was lulling myself to sleep from the hypnotic flashing of the cursor.
I closed my laptop and padded my way into the bathroom in my pink socks. I grabbed a couple of makeup remover towelettes and went to work. I couldn’t help but force a laugh when I thought about all of the time it took to put on my makeup versus the minute or so it took to wipe off the veneer of upbeat rosy cheeks, come hither eye makeup, and luscious lashes. Then I couldn’t help but wince after I splashed my face with cold water. I winced because there was that ugly stubble again. There were the remnants of that character named Andrew whom I used to play, remnants I couldn’t just sand away, even with all of the exfoliating cleanser in the world.

After slipping on my cami and pajama bottoms with the hearts on them, I buried my head in my pillow and cried myself to sleep. It was going to be a long journey until I could leave my apartment sans makeup, and the only accessories other than my jewelry would be the confident smile I would wear. I dreamed of that day just like I dreamed one day I would get my SRS.

All I can say is, thank God for brief respite that unconsciousness brings. Thank God for that!

~o~O~o~

The rest of the week dragged by at its customary slow pace, like the big hand on the clock near the cash office at work.

Friday morning rolled around, and so too did the promise that the weekend held-the one weekend which I had off every month!

In my cami and cotton panties, I skipped my way toward the bathroom with renewed hope and enthusiasm.

Yay! I get to see my girls again! I get to see my girls again!

In fact, I was in such a good mood, that even the patchy stubbly face which was confronting me in the mirror couldn’t bring me down!

I went all out. I fussed over my appearance for over an hour. Layer after layer of makeup-concealer, then foundation, then powder, and then blush and mascara and eye shadow-had finally paid off. I had crossed over from passable “work” Katie into “pretty, going to have a fun night out on the town” Katie .

I chose some lovely white capris and a red satin babydoll top, and of course some tan wedges to finish off the ensemble.

My confidence soared.

On the way to the bus stop, basking in the early afternoon warm spring sunshine, I savored the way the breeze caressed my skin and enjoyed the way my hair bounced up and down!

Hooray for cute shoe season! The best season of the year!

I took the bus from my apartment complex to the student center, and from there I caught the commuter bus to the city.

After just over an hour of listening to music-Katy Perry mostly-I arrived at the bus station in the heart of downtown. When I got off, I still drew attention, but this time in a good way, well sort of.

The acrid smell of diesel exhaust wasn’t the only thing accosting me in the late afternoon. While waiting for my taxi, comments-from mostly older guys I may add-ran the gamut from, “damn girl, you tall,” to “hey sexy” and of course the always popular departing line of “bye beautiful.” I suppose being objectified was preferable to having someone use the wrong pronoun, but not by much. I had to keep telling myself that it just went with the territory, that it was something that most women have to deal with, trans or genetic.

About five minutes later, my cab driver pulled his sedan up alongside the curb and one rite of initiation into the world of womanhood came to end, for the moment at least. Thankfully, the driver was quite the gentlemen, never once forgetting to address me as ma’am.

He dropped me off in front of the entrance to the diversity center at the Church of the Blue Ridge where this month’s meeting was being held.

I was grateful for the wedges I was wearing, allowing me to make a graceful ladylike exit from the cab.

“Have a nice evening ma’am!” said the cab driver.

I could get used to this!

The way he said it, with such genuineness, made me feel just like any other woman. My confidence was growing, just like my bust as of late.

As I went down a few steps and opened the door, there wasn’t any rush of nervous energy outward from my heart, just the rush of delightful anticipation at the thought of seeing all the girls again.

I think the clicking of my wedges gave me away, for even before I reached the entrance to the meeting room, the support group leader popped her head out into the hallway and flashed me a warm and genuine smile.

“Dottie!” I said.

After we hugged, Dottie said, “I’m glad you could make it to the meeting Katie. It’s been a while.”

“I know,” I replied. “I wanted to make the last meeting, but I’ve had a lot going on and there were issues with my schedule.”

“You look great,” said Dottie, her face lighting up once more.

A warm smile brushed across my face as I twirled around.

I said, “A far cry from the timid and unsure girl you met last spring. Huh?”

“You really have blossomed,” added Dottie.

“Just following your advice. You know, just letting the journey take me where it will.”

“Looks like it took you to the salon,” said Dottie. “Is that your real hair?”

“Yep,” I said. “I am one hundred percent natural…except for the boobs of course. Right now, I’d say the girls are about seventy-five percent me and twenty-five percent falsies…not nearly as big as yours yet. I am so jealous.”

I think she frowned a little bit before she spoke again.

“Well, it’s because I’ve been on the hormones for so long.”

My smile waned when I was reminded of her still very part time situation. If it wasn’t for her family, she would have fully transitioned by now. Considering that I was in the fast lane of transition-or more accurately, what I perceived to be the fast lane at the time-my heart went out to her.

Regaining her former cheer and customary composed demeanor, she asked, “Shall we?”

I followed her into the room and did a cursory inspection. It was still early, and understandably there were a lot of seats but few people to go with them. However, at least the few early birds were people I knew.

I hugged my friends and acquaintances hello. The complements about my straightened dark brown hair never got old. And speaking of complements, I think I went fishing on more than one occasion.

I sat down on the black sofa next to my friend Erin and unzipped my purse. I pulled out my driver’s license and showed it to her.

I said, “Hot off the presses!”

“Wow!” said Erin, with typical subdued excitement. “I remember you posting about it on facebook. Is that your real hair in the photo?”

“It sure is!” I declared. “I got it styled right before I went to the DMV. I wanted to look my best. In fact, I think I was the only person who was excited about waiting over an hour. It was totally worth it though. I would have waited like three hours if I had to. I wish I had your hair color though.”

“Every woman wants another woman’s hair,” she said. “Women with straight hair want more volume and vice versa, Brunettes want to be blonde and blondes want to try out what it’s like to be brunette. Speaking from experience, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” she began. “Not all blondes have more fun, at least that’s the way it is for me, except on support group night of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

When she used the word “fun,” she was talking about decompressing after group because during group, after all of the preliminaries and introductions, things could run the gamut from informative and interesting to tragic and heartbreaking. But it was anything but fun.

After the usual ten minute grace period or so, the introductions began and so did a little of the awkwardness. In a way, it was kind of like the first day of elementary school, given some of the shy girls’ brief bios. A lot of “uhs” and ums” were uttered between sentences that began with “my name is ‘so and so’ and I’m a transwoman from ‘such and such’ town.” That was usually followed up by either “I’ve been full time since,” or occasionally it was only “I’m just here to listen and figure out what my next step is going to be,” or “I’m trying to figure out whether I want to go full time or not.”

When it was my turn, I elaborated further, but not too much. To be honest, sometimes I get tired of rehashing the old script in my head.

“Hello,” I began, with my customary accompanying half-wave. “My name is Katie and I’m a transwoman from Tech. I’ve been living full time since the first week of October of last year and haven’t looked back. Also, I’ve been transitioning on hormones since early May of last year. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster at times, but I think I’m doing pretty well considering. I feel fortunate to have the love and acceptance of my parents and sister. I don’t know where I’d be without them. Probably dead I guess. I suppose it’s really a miracle at all that I’m sitting here and talking to all you ladies.”

I could feel the tears beginning to well up. I fought back their sting with a half-smile. And that was the cue for the next person to introduce themselves.

I’m sure the scene played itself out in much the same way in transgender support group meetings throughout the country, from San Francisco to New York City, albeit with more members than this small city had to offer. If you had cut and pasted scenes from those meetings together, then voila, you’d probably get a very similar experience. However, other than wonderful, genuinely caring, and supportive Dottie, I think there was something else that made our support group stand out. Or I should say someone, someone who just happened to attend the support group meeting this evening, someone who was just about to introduce herself.

She was a young woman with shoulder length very dark brown hair. She adjusted her glasses before calmly addressing us.

“My name’s Geena and I’m a transwoman. I just moved here from the upper Midwest. I can’t say I miss the winters. I can’t say I miss the remnants of the old life I left behind either. I’ve been full time for over two years now and am fully transitioned on hormones. But I still have yet to get my surgery. I came to this area for a fresh start because there were just too many reminders of the person everyone thought I was for so long. I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.”

I wish I had a fresh start in a new place, where it wasn’t like a crappy version of “Cheers.”

Geena continued on.

“I needed to move on, so I took a teaching position at Tech. I’ve been going stealth ever since, and I debated for some time whether to come to this meeting or not. But I’m glad I did. It’s wonderful to not have to hide anything. It’s wonderful that no subject is off limits in this space. I can’t tell some of my new friends what it was truly like growing up, but I can tell you all about it. I tried really, really hard to be a guy for a very long time. I know it’s a cliché, but I thought that throwing myself into sports like football and weight lifting would help. I thought that by trying to be the best and most macho son possible I would become my parents’ son, that I would feel like their son…inside. But it never worked. No matter how much I bulked up, no matter how hard I hit my opponent on the field, and no matter how hard I hit the books, every time I saw a beautiful cisgender woman in school, my heart just ached watching someone I so desperately wanted to be. It was like I was looking in a mirror sometimes. So what did I do? I did what I thought I was supposed to do, what I thought any other guy would do. I manned up, shut up, and pushed it all down. It’s funny, but growing up, I thought that’s what all the other guys did when they saw a beautiful woman. I just figured it was all part of the “bro code,” you know, accepting the fact that you could never be that beautiful, grieving the loss and then moving on. Boy was I wrong. Well, now I know that I at least had one thing in common with the guys in the locker room: I wanted to get into a girl’s panties…just in a somewhat different manner.”

She let the modest laughter die down before finishing her story.

“To make a long story short, the pain from repressing the woman I truly was got so bad that it drove me to the ledge, literally. And I faced that terrible non-choice: suicide or transition. Luckily for me, my girlfriend talked me down. After that, I embraced who I was truly was and actually started to like myself. Like Katie said, I haven’t looked back since.”

I wonder how many of us have decided to jump?

It’s funny that I was thinking that because just after Dottie thanked Geena for sharing, she said, “There’s so much shared pain but there’s also a lot of courage and hope. And in a way, it’s kind of a miracle that we’re all here together to listen and support each other.”

A couple of chairs to Dottie’s right, Marjorie, who was fully transitioned looked like she was getting choked up.

“Are you going to be okay?” asked Dottie.

Marjorie replied, “After what Geena said about not looking back, you know, about transitioning, I don’t know if okay is in my vocabulary anymore.”

Marjorie paused for a few moments, looking around the room, making sure to make eye contact with all of the concerned faces who were about to hang on her every word.

“I had my surgery done just over a year ago, and let me tell you this: it’s not the be-all end-all that y’all may think it is. It won’t solve all your problems. It still won’t change how some people choose to look at you. It won’t…”

Her lip began quivering and then she wept. Dottie was quick to rush over with some tissues when the dam burst.

“Are you going to be okay hon?” inquired Dottie.

Marjorie managed a nod. After a few moments she composed herself enough to continue on.

“Even after the hormones and the FFS, it still doesn’t change the fact that I live in the same small town. For instance, last week, some prick actually addressed me as ‘sir.’ Can you believe that? After all this time, after all this effort. I’d like to leave. I’d like a fresh start like Geena, but I don’t know if I can though, ‘cause my family’s gone and all I have left to remember them is the house they left me and the family plot. There are just so many memories there and maybe I’m just too old to start over in a new place. It’s crazy. I can’t stay and I can’t leave. How messed up is that? Maybe I should just end it all. At least I wouldn’t have to feel hopeless all the time. At least I’d finally get a chance to ask God why he did this to me.”

She began sobbing once more. My heart went out to her and so too did the hearts of the girls nearest to her who were trying to console her.

I don’t think I could ever regret transitioning!

After Marjorie cried herself out, Dottie spoke in the most quietly reassuring voice I had ever heard her use.

“It’s not hopeless Marjorie,” she began. “And I don’t think you think it is either. If it was, I don’t think you would have come here tonight.”

Marjorie remained silent, wearing an expression like it had been numbed with alcohol.

Dottie continued on.

“I think everyone-to one degree or another-knows what it’s like to have part of oneself mired down in the past. It can be hard to get unstuck and move forward because you have to step out of your comfort zone, out of routine and the known, in order to grow. And I think right now Marjorie, you’re taking those first steps, difficult as they may be. All I can say is to keep moving forward. Things will get better hon.”

Marjorie forced a smile before saying, “I guess I just need to give myself more time to mentally transition. Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed my transition so much.”

Marjorie quietly rose to her feet and walked out. I’m sure she was anxious to fix her makeup in the restroom, the restroom with the welcoming sign which read, “all of God’s children.”

If only God existed.

After Marjorie left, the conversation was extricated from the depths of despair and brought up into the realm of the details and practicalities of FFS and SRS and of course the pros and cons of the transdermal patch versus pills. Ultimately, everything came back to cost, reminding me that it was going to be a very long while, if ever, that I got my bottom surgery done.

Soon after Marjorie returned, a small group of us, including Marjorie and I, went out for drinks at this tg-friendly restaurant and bar. That night, to us, it was mostly bar. But above all, it was a place to decompress and socialize, a place to check our painful pasts at the door and just live in the now because this was a place where everyone didn’t know our names-our old names at least.

Now I didn’t know it then, but that was the best I was ever going to feel that whole year. It was the most optimistic I was going to feel. It was the most social I’d ever be. It was the best my hair was going to look. And it was the thinnest I was going to be.

By now, you’re probably wondering what happened? What could have possibly derailed such a confident young transwoman from her journey toward completeness? To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t just one thing, it was everything, some of which were within my control, and some of which most certainly fell under the depressing category of “circumstances beyond one’s control.”

“And then what happened?” asked a meek and feminine voice.

“What?” I exclaimed. “Whose voice is that?”

The mystery voice jarred me back to the land of the living. I had been so absorbed in scribbling in my journal, that I had forgotten where I was. But I couldn’t forget for long. It’s just not something you can do when you’ve been committed to an inpatient psychiatric facility.

I looked over my shoulder and put a face to the softly feminine voice of the girl behind me.

I stared at her pallid face with the accompanying large searching brown eyes before replying.

“Why have you been reading over my shoulder? I wondered. “I thought you were sleeping.”

To which the dark haired girl replied, “I wasn’t sleeping. I was just drowsy. It’s because of my meds. But then I got more bored than drowsy.”

Motioning with my arm, I said, “There’s a television over there, and magazines and stuff to read.”

She said, “I swear to God, if I watch any more television, I think I’ll end up slitting my wrists.” A wry smile crinkled the corners of her mouth. Then she placed her index finger over her lips. “Shhh…Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said, with a hint of disdain.

“And yours is safe with me,” she affirmed.

“It wasn’t exactly a secret,” I said in a soft monotone.

She pulled up a chair next to me and rested her head in her hand.

“So, what did happen next?” she innocently asked.

“You mean before I began rockin’ Britney Spears’ crazy old hairdo?” I ran my fingers through my closely cropped hair, allowing myself to smile a little at my cleverness.

“If you wait until tomorrow, I can get you a transcript of my therapy session with Doctor Singh. I assure you, it’s as painful as it is illuminating.”

“Fine,” she said, momentarily raising up her hands. “If you don’t want to tell me, then don’t tell me. I just thought it might be nice to talk to someone. That’s all.”

She stood up, but before she could walk away I stopped her.

“Wait,” I implored.

She turned around, and there was that wry smile once more.

She said, “I’ll show you my scars if you finish showing me yours.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Okay. If you really want to hear this, here it goes. I returned to my apartment near Tech after the support group meeting as usual. In the weeks that followed, I slowly began to lose hope. I continued to receive rejection letters from literary agents and on top of that I couldn’t even find a part time job so I could make ends meet when my parents stopped paying my rent. But those were the least of my problems. And crazy as it may sound, being transgender was the least of my worries. That was the case because I found out I was being stalked. Remember that creepy guy at the bus shelter?”

She nodded and I continued my tale of woe.

“It was him. He kept turning up wherever I went. At first I thought it was just coincidence because it was a small town. In fact, I thought I was being paranoid until someone tried to break into my apartment. I guess he thought I wasn’t home. I guess he thought he knew my routine. Well he guessed wrong. At least now I know who had stolen my panties from the Laundromat.

“Gross!” exclaimed the young woman. “Did you call the police?”

I shook my head. “I never even got a look at him. He took off too fast. What was I going to say to the police anyway? I didn’t even have a description. Besides, the lease was still under my old name, and I didn’t want to have to explain that to them too.”

“By the way, how long have you known that you were transgender?”

“I’ve known I was different since I was five or six. But that's beside the point, because like I said, being transgender is the least of my worries...Anyway, after the attempted break in, my biggest concern was finding a safe place to stay. So I called up a friend, arranged for her to come and pick me up, and then threw my clothes and essentials into my carryon and tote bag and took a cab to the nearest hotel to wait for her. I was cautiously optimistic when she and I went back to get the rest of my stuff and in spite of the fact that we had to get a lawyer and ended up shelling out $1400 to break the lease.”

“Ouch!” said my new found confidant.

I continued on, relating my tale of woe.

“Moral of the story? Before you sign a lease, make sure there’s a way to break it because subletting can turn into a nightmare. And here’s another lesson I learned: you never really know someone until you live together.”

“So it didn’t work out,” said my new companion.

I shook my head. “Not so much. With us, it was like putting together gasoline and a match. All we did was argue. We argued about how best to go about my job search. We argued over how I followed up on my application for Medicaid. We got into a fight over whether I should take lamotrigine or lithium. We argued over what to buy at the grocery. Hell, we even argued over how to shuffle a deck of cards. In the end, she was just too bitter and uncompromising at times, and I was just too unstable. I was coming off some meds and starting others, desperately trying to figure out what was causing my scalp infection and my hair thinning. In the end, I gave up on my hair as much as I gave up hope that my friend and I could ever live together. Plus, there was the fact that she was in love with me and hers was the unrequited kind. In hindsight I should have known. I should have known that she would never have done as much as she did for me, going well above and beyond what any friend would, unless she loved me. But I was too naïve. Now I realize I’m too old to be so naïve, just like I’m too old to be starting from scratch and facing thirty-five thousand dollars worth of student loan debt. And I’m also no longer naïve about my transition. I had to stop my testosterone blocker because of the bad interaction it had with my psych meds. And now that I’ve stopped that, I’ve had to come way down on my estradiol dose. And I feel lousy because of it. I don’t feel right in my mind anymore. And I hate the way I’m starting to smell. And I’m also thoroughly disgusted with the renewed “activity” of the “birth defect” between my legs. In a nutshell, here’s where my life stands: I can’t get my degree because my learning disability and rapid cycling bipolar disorder have derailed me; I’ll never be even a modestly successful writer because my writing is good but not good enough; It looks like I can’t fully transition on hormones because of my genetics and drug interactions, and even if I could, I couldn’t afford it; and I’ll never be able to afford SRS ever. So I’ll never be complete. The life I was trying for is over, dead and buried, just like I’ll probably be soon. Right now, I just wish I would have taken more pills. I wish my friend had never found me until it was too late. And I wish she never would have called my parents and told them what happened. At least I wouldn’t be in this place. At least I’d finally have some peace. That’s all I want is some peace. I mean, is that too much to ask after all I’ve been through?”

At that moment, if I would have had any tears left, I would have cried.

My new friend gently grasped my hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I don’t want to be in here any more than you do. Just because I’m cisgender doesn’t mean my prospects are much better than yours.”

“But what do you do when you’ve tried everything? What do you do after you’ve tried all the different meds and combinations of meds over the course of nearly two decades and things still manage to get worse? What do you do when for the first time in your life you begin to feel happy because you’re no longer living a lie, and then it’s ripped away from your grasp?”

My new friend thought it over for a few moments before replying.

“Then I guess you’d have a lot of good material for one hell of a gut-wrenching story. You’ve already started it. Maybe you should finish it.”

“Who’d even want to read it?”

She forced a half-smile before speaking softly.

“I would.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Everyone needs a little hope now and again,” she added.

Hope. What a precious commodity that was to me. She had just given me a sliver of it as a going away present. But I would be responsible for growing that seed of hope into something larger to sustain me in the difficult weeks and months ahead.

It wasn’t until this moment, after over thirty-five exasperating years on this Earth, that I realized hope was a choice, an infinitely better one than “suicide or transition.” Maybe once I went home, I'd choose to be happy for a change.