We went into the school and found a place under a stairway with no one around. I opened my shirt and showed Lisa my nipples,
“Wow! Tracy, you’re taking hormones….?”

I quickly pulled my shirt back down. “No, I’m not taking anything! My nipples just started getting bigger! I thought they would stop growing, but they didn’t!”

“This is great….”

“Yeah, if I was a girl! I’ve been careful in the locker room, but if someone sees these, I’m done!”

“Yeah, I see your point. Have you told your mom?”

“No, she’ll make me go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor!”

“Get an ace bandage. You can say you broke a rib.”

“Good idea!”

“I’ll bring a bandage from my house.”

“Thanks!”

The bell rang and we parted. We would see each other in third, fourth and last periods, as well as lunchtime.

After school, we each headed to our homes to research my “disease.” As I was researching, my cell phone buzzed. “Got it, Lisa?”
“You have ‘gynecomastia’.”

“You’re fast. What the details?”

“It’s temporary, dammit. A few weeks … maybe months.”

“I’ve got to keep this hidden that long?”

“Now is the perfect time to talk to parents!”
“OK, soon.”

“Goodnight, Tracy.”

“Night-night Lisa.”

After getting my ‘diagnosis’ from Lisa, I told my mom, “I feel kinda bad. I think I’ll go on to bed now.”
“This early? You must feel bad!” She put her hand to my forehead. “You have a slight fever. Go on to bed and I’ll bring you some juice.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
The next day was Saturday, and I still felt down. I lay around the house all day. I asked Lisa not to come over in case I had something she might catch. Sunday, I was pretty much recovered, but still stayed at home.

I’ve always been an introvert and wouldn’t have had a lot of friends, but for Lisa. She had lots of friends, and they seemed happy to accept me as a friend. Lisa was beautiful, self-confident, and energetic. I never saw her overwhelmed by anything. Actually, I never even saw her ‘whelmed’. We were good friends, but I envied her. She seemed happy with her life and she always had time for me. Life, in general, seemed easier for girls. They could be mean, but they were generally nicer than boys. They also had more varied interests. All boys seemed to care about was sex and cars. The girls would talk about one boy or another, and I learned things they would never tell any other guy. But they would have been stunned if they knew the things the boys said about them. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them. They would make ‘hell’s fury’ look like a day in the park!

School was tough. Every school day, I was exposed to the repulsive stench and sights of the boys’ locker room. Most of them seemed to be years ahead of me in physical development, with lots of body hair and enormous …um… members? I had little body hair and what you might call a “junior member”. I kept to myself, usually managing to be almost invisible, and get out of the locker room quickly.

Bryan, one of the big guys asked me once if I was a “faggot”. I told him, “Actually, I’m not, but don’t you have a steady boyfriend already”? His buddies laughed, and I was seconds away from getting an “ass kickin’ ”. He approached and I backed up slightly, held my hands in front of me, and said, “Hey, I’m not judging. Live like you wanna live.” I figured if I was going to get an ass kickin’, I might as well make it worth it. The ass kickin’ was imminent, but Tim, who was even bigger than Bryan, said, “Back off dipshit.” Bryan walked off muttering something about me not being “worth it”. I mouthed the words, “thank you” to Tim.

Tim was awesome. He was a football star something-back and sometimes called “Tiny Tim” as an ironic reference to his size. Tim was one of those people who had everything going for him. He was big, strong, but very fast. When he ran with the football, no defender could catch him. If one of them somehow got a hand on him, they then had the almost impossible task of bringing him down. One time he ran for a touchdown dragging two defenders behind him. He was no dumb jock either. He was a straight-A student. Of course, he was also very good looking, but he was taken. He and Julie Reed had dated steady as long as anyone could remember. Julie was a star in her own right. Was she head cheerleader? No! She felt cheerleading was all about lust, and she wanted no part of it. Julie was an extremely talented violinist. Of course, her grades matched Tim’s. They were a star couple, and most people, myself included, were in awe of them.

So just a couple of words from Tim was all it took to get Bryan off my back. I could handle myself verbally. Physically, it was better to avoid conflict.
When my dad thought I was old enough, he showed me how to start the lawnmower. I didn’t have the strength to start it, so he started it for me. It was self-propelled, and I could manage to mow, but if the mower stopped, he would have to come out and start it again. My dad would say, “When you’re just a little bit older….” I really doubted I would ever be able to start that monster machine. When I pulled on the string, it felt like the engine was frozen. I couldn’t get it to move even slightly using both hands. Also, the smell of it was offensive and the noise was scary. It was kind of amazing to see my dad easily start it with one hand.

During one of my attempts at lawn mowing, the mower spit out pieces of a grass snake. I ran into the house, crying. I couldn’t tell my parents I was afraid of a grass snake … a dead one at that, so I told them I fell and hurt my back. Of course, I refused any treatment, and you can’t look at a person’s back and tell whether it hurts or not. I dried my tears like a brave little boy, and my dad finished the yard. I think he saw the dead snake and realized why I was crying, but he said nothing. I didn’t walk in the grass for a long time.

That was just one of the times I felt that my dad was disappointed in me. He never acted like it or said anything. I just felt it. He didn’t ask me to mow the lawn again. That was fine with me; I enjoyed helping my mom in the house. I had never told my parents about my wish that I had been born a girl. I wasn’t sure what my parents would say, but I didn’t have the nerve to find out.

My dad was a religious person who never went to church. If that seems to be an oxymoron, I should explain. He grew up in a strict protestant church. He said he sat through countless hours of preaching and Bible teaching. He felt like about 90% of those hours were wasted due to the preacher analyzing the scriptures, expanding on them, and sometimes adding their own opinions. When he left home for college, he quit going to church completely.

He was still a Christian and wanted me to grow up with the teaching that he had. He said that the bible is both critical to literature and a good guide to living a full life. He decided that he could impart this knowledge to me and my mom without all the “fluff” and the hypocrisy of organized religion. So, when I was very young, he took the family to a service in the church he attended as a child. He said he wanted us to see what we were missing.

I saw what I was missing! I almost felt like I should get down on my knees and thank God that I didn't have to go back. With the singing, the announcements, the ‘testimony service’, the sermon and the altar call, I thought it would never end. The preacher took 45 minutes just to tell us that, as the old song says, “Pharaoh’s army got drown-ded. Oh, Mary doncha weep.” I left there with a sore butt from sitting so long. I vowed that if my parents wanted me to go to another service, I would have a drug problem. That is: I would have to be ‘drug’ to church.
But, as I said, my dad just wanted us to see what we were missing. He seemed to have a cyclopedic knowledge of the scripture, so he set up Sunday morning “devotions”, during which he would read from the Bible, and ask me and my mom to tell what we thought the passage meant, and how it could be applied to our lives. Sometimes we would tell something that happened during the week that we thought tied into bible teaching. He would then expand on the story and what we said about it. He made the stories short, interesting, and we found that there was actually humor in the bible! If the session was very long, it might last 45 minutes. My mom told Lisa’s mom about the sessions, and they joined us every week. Lisa didn’t like the idea at first, but I asked her if she wanted me to take her to one of the church’s 3-hour services and she was more accepting of our devotions. She even grew to enjoy them and participated eagerly. Of course, she loved to talk anyway.

Once, during our devotion, the subject was ‘the fall’; the eviction of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. I told my dad I thought Eve got a raw deal.

“Well”, my dad opined, “whose side are you on, anyway?! How was she treated unfairly?”

“The serpent tricked Eve into eating the fruit. Then, she gave the fruit to Adam and he ate it. So, Eve was deceived, but Adam was disobedient. Yet, Eve got punished more than Adam.”

“Wow, I’m proud of you for coming up with that, because it shows that you’re listening and you’re thinking. You’re not the first to proffer that idea, however. Here’s what I can tell you about that. The bible just says she gave the fruit to Adam and he ate. It doesn’t say whether she told Adam what the serpent said or whether she tricked Adam into eating. When the bible is silent on an issue, no amount of analysis or conjecture will yield more details about what occurred. As Christians, we must remember that ‘there is no respect of persons with God’. Our God is a just God. There is no way to know all the ways of God. The book of First Corinthians says, ‘for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ Thank you for pleading Eve’s case, though.”

“You’re welcome, Dad.” I looked up. “Eve, I tried.”

“Son, I know you’re only joking about talking to Eve, and I don’t want to nitpick, but the bible forbids trying to communicate with the dead.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s OK. You didn’t know, but now you do. No séances or the like.”

“Got it!”

Next: Aced