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SNAFU Part 13

by Angharad

This is a work of fiction any resemblance to anyone alive or dead is unintentional.

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While browsing on the net a few days later, I came across a BBC documentary on David Reimer. He was the boy whose penis was burned off during a circumcision operation whilst he was a baby. I managed to see a copy of the film, it made harrowing viewing.

It seems, his penis was destroyed and his anxious parents sought help from Dr John Money at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. He was doing pioneering work on gender identity disorder at the university there. He had developed a theory that gender was created by nurture and thus a boy could be raised as a girl or vice versa.

David was one of twin boys, and for Money, it was a wonderful chance to prove his theory, one would be raised as a boy and one as a girl. A pseudo vulva was created on David and he was castrated as well. He was then raised as female. His parents were told not to tell him he’d once been a boy.

Things went well for a while then ‘Brenda’ as David was called, became more and more tom-boyish, eventually being unhappy in his girl status. He refused to see Money again, whom he accused of using some very questionable techniques. At age fourteen, he said he didn’t want to be a girl and his parents told him the truth. He decided to become a boy. His twin brother, however, had problems with the news and developed schizophrenia.

Money was still proclaiming his theory as proven and David and his brother made a documentary to show this was not the case. Soon after this, his brother died from a drug overdose which may have been accidental. David had married a woman with children and seemed to be happy, then a series of personal disasters happened including the death of his brother and he became very depressed. He killed himself with a shotgun in May 2004, aged 38 years.

After watching this I went around in a daze for several hours. I sent a copy of the film to my parents, and I loaned mine to Sheila. I needed to think. Was this going to happen to me?

I could see some parallels. Okay, I was eighteen years not eight months, but I could see how circumstances conspired to cause me to adopt a role I hadn’t intended. I was damaged down below, albeit not to the same extent as David was. However, there were also some differences. As a boy I wasn’t a boisterous type, well I don’t remember being so. I didn’t play much sport because my small size tended to disadvantage me and I wasn’t the sort to accept that as a challenge, leastways not a direct one. So instead of going down the gym and pumping iron, I learned to fight back with my mind when I wasn’t sewing or knitting at my grandmother’s house.
Okay, so I was different in lots of ways, but it was the lack of consultation that angered me for both David and myself. We were pawns in someone else’s game and that really pissed me off.

I know there are many things I have to accept because I have no control over them, from the weather to taxes. I accepted my conscription for National Service and ultimately my placement because there was little I could do about it. However, no one had the right to change my official status as male or female without my consent, which is what happened. Neither I nor my family was consulted, I was seen as a computer error. How could that happen in this day and age? It was disgraceful!
You can see why I was self-absorbed for a while, it had pushed my buttons good and proper. I didn’t know what to say or do, I felt in limbo. It surprised me. Just when I thought I was comfortable in my role and thinking in terms of when rather than if, I would have genital surgery, this happens and throws everything up in the air.
My parents said simply, that it was for me to decide who and what I was and whatever my conclusion was, they would support and be happy for me. A nice cop-out, but typical of them.

Sheila felt that she was not really neutral because she had been instrumental in getting me where I was. She had supported the breast surgery and urged me to remain female and in nursing, refusing to aid my discharge on health grounds.
I showed the film to Kate. She said that I must make my own decision, but in her opinion, she told me she couldn’t see me as a man, no matter how hard she tried. She described me as being as female as any ordinary women she had ever met, more so than some. While I valued their opinions, they gave me what I expected. What I needed was someone to challenge me, but who?

Traditionally, this is the domain of the psychologist or psychiatrist. I only knew one of those and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go there. In fact, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to. At the same time, part of me wanted to see what the reaction would be, but then part of me didn’t believe it would be fair on the poor man. He’d suffered enough.
Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to go and see Pam. After all, she owed me one, big time. She lived with her partner, Corporal Stuart Goode, a mountain of a man. They had a house in married quarters about half a mile from the hospital. Taking a copy of the film with me, I cycled around to the house. Stuart was out, and Pam was pleased to see me.

“Hi Jamie, you’re looking better than the last time I saw you.” She seemed to genuinely welcome me.

“I’m okay, but I need to talk something over with someone neutral.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by neutral.”

“Someone who isn’t exactly involved in my life, but who knows a bit about my origins.”

“If you think I can help, I’ll do all I can.” She smiled at me. It seemed we had both changed quite a lot in the intervening years.

I showed her the tape of the film and we discussed my history. She did a passable impression of a goldfish on several occasions. “I honestly don’t remember kneeing you all those years ago, and I’m so sorry I did. There is nothing I can do make good that injury or hurt, is there?” I shook my head in response. “I feel very ashamed of the way I treated you.” I was blushing and she was staring at the floor. We both reflected on some of the horrible things she did.

“I always wanted to ask you why, but never got a chance.”

She continued examining the floor. “I don’t know. I suppose you were an easy target. I was abused by an uncle when I was a kid and I hated all men and boys. As he was abusing me, I needed somehow to pass it on to someone else, you and Richard Lees, seemed to be the most convenient targets. You were both smaller than I, and you were prone to burst into tears like girls.” This was something I hadn’t known before, and I found it embarrassing now.

“A group of us girls began to call you sissies, because you were both almost defenceless and really more like girls than most girls.”

“I remember you made my life hell when you found out I did knitting when I went to my gran’s house.” Some of the anger from that time began to rekindle itself. She had made my life a misery, even Richard Lees saw his chance to escape by betraying me, something I should never have done to him. As long as we were in it together, I could cope. When he changed horses I knew I was fighting a losing battle. It was about this time that I suffered my deepest humiliation and darkest hours.

“Why did you make him do all those horrible things to me?” I was now beginning to cry as I recalled the devastation of those memories.

“I don’t know. I was being abused and I just wanted to hurt someone in turn because I couldn’t do anything about my own situation. I couldn’t stop my uncle, but I could pass on the pain and it seemed to help.”

“So instead of telling your parents, you got Richard Lees to abuse me?”

“I’m so sorry, Jamie. I really am.” She was crying now as well and went to hug me.

“Don’t touch me.” I screeched at her. “You completely fuck up my life and expect me to forgive you just like that.” I was now moving towards hysterical. All the pain of years of abuse and humiliation, which I thought I had dealt with were suddenly unleashed. I had suffered sexual and physical humiliation and abuse by this woman and her friends, and worse by someone, I had thought a friend. Yet he turned out to be a total renegade. He even began to enjoy the power he wielded over my life. He was no longer the victim, but the master and he made the most of it. He had much of my pocket money, he made me do sexual things with him, which I’d prefer not to dwell on. He and the gang of bully girls openly referred to me as Richard’s girlfriend, I was known as ‘Dick’s chick’, sometimes as ‘Lick dick’, which will give you an idea of what happened.

He quickly realised that he could physically dominate me even without the support of the girls, and then he got very mean. He made me get my ears pierced. No big deal today, and even then it wasn’t that much of one, except that I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to hold on to what little masculinity I had and to any self-respect I could find.
The boys in my class thought it was hilarious and I got abused by several of them as well. This was when ‘Wanda’ became a familiar part of my life.

I was increasingly isolated, seen as a freak or some universal victim, I could only retaliate through my work. I did and I succeeded to some extent. However, even that was a battle. I was told to throw a history test by some of the boys. It was one of my strongest subjects and I refused. That lunchtime a gang of them dragged me off to the toilets and abused me.

I was soundly beaten and one of them stamped on my hand, I could hardly hold a pen and despite my efforts to avoid it being noticed by the teacher, it was. “What’s the matter with your hand, Curtis?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Hold it out.” he examined my hand, I winced as he touched my fingers. “What happened?”

“I fell over, sir.”

“I see, you fell over did you?”

“Yes sir.”

“How come I can see what are obviously tread marks from a shoe on your hand? You’ve been trodden on haven’t you?” He looked me straight in the eye and I couldn’t answer him, instead, I began to blub. It embarrassed him and amused several of the gang who’d abused me. “Get off to the nurse, now Curtis, forget the test, it isn’t you who needs it anyway. It’s for the rest of this rabble.” He sneered as he looked around the class. Fortunately, it was all just bruising, but it was days before I could write properly again.

How could I forgive the woman who’d destroyed what defences I had and opened the gates to all and sundry. I had had my chance to get even though and I couldn’t do it. But now rekindling all these thoughts of hate and anger of my humiliation I just screamed at her, then exhausted I sat on the sofa and fell asleep.

I awoke hours later in their spare room. I was fast asleep when Stuart came home and he simply carried me to the bedroom and they covered me over and left me to sleep. I felt lousy when I did wake up. My eyes were sore and so was my throat, and I felt emotionally exhausted. I had no tears left to cry, I felt no pain from my memories, but that may have been due simply to exhaustion.

Pam came in with a cup of tea. “How do you feel?”

“Awful.” I croaked back.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I am truly sorry for what I did to you or encouraged others to do.” She was crying, and moments later so was I. She sat on the bed and we hugged, sobbing together.

Forgiveness is what moves us on from past miseries. Resentment only poisons us and wastes our energy, bitterness consumes us. I had to forgive her and the others in order to move on, in the same way, she needed my forgiveness to move on herself, although she had been unaware of this until she had seen me again and realised who I was. I had opened several memories for her too and she was ashamed of them.

“I shall try to forgive you and the others.” I sobbed.

“Thank you.” She sobbed back. “You honestly are such a sweetie.” She sniffed at me. “You make so much better a girl than you ever would a man.”

“It might have been nice for me to make that choice.” I sniffed back.

“Like the man in the film?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know anything anymore.” The tears came again and she held me and patted my back.

“I think you are so brave, young lady.” She chirped at me.

“Oh yeah, so brave that I burst into tears every two seconds.”

“You have a great deal of pain to wash away. If the tears help, let them come.” I did and they duly obliged.

“I could cry for England.” I sniffed, then saw myself getting a medal in the ‘Emotional Olympics’ and began to laugh. I laughed until I wet myself, which made things even more embarrassing, but we managed to sort things out. When I did return to a stable state I asked where Stuart was.

“I told him you’d been upset remembering about abuse you’d had in school. He was so concerned that he might make you feel threatened, he went to stay with a friend.”

I felt so ashamed of myself. “He’s a real treasure, isn’t he?”

“He is, a gentle giant. He wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

We talked for some time and Pam reinforced what she had said before. She thought I seemed better as a girl than a shadow of a man, which was all she could ever see me being. But, as everyone else had also said, “The final choice has to be yours. You are the one who has to cope with the consequences.”

Then she raised the question of the flowers in the ward and my tame redcap. What did I feel about him? In response to that, my spirits lifted, as I talked they began to soar.

“What do I feel about John? I don’t honestly know. He makes me laugh, he’s strong and his kisses taste wonderful. I love the smell of him and he makes my heart do funny things.”

“You’re really stuck on him aren’t you?”

“A bit.” I vaguely answered back, I was swimming in those deep limpid grey pools and my body was aching for him.

“A bit!” she retorted, bringing me back to earth. “Looks like more than a bit from where I’m sitting.” She quipped, laughing.

“Alright, it’s a big bit.” I conceded.

“You’re in love aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“You might not know, but your whole body lit up when I asked about him. It stands out a mile, girl. You are potty about him. Tell me the truth, you are aren’t you?”

I felt all coy, “I might be.” I allowed.

“Might be? Oh, girl, you’ve got it bad. The question is, how does he feel about you?”

“I think he likes me.” I could feel the heat of my blush toasting some bread across the kitchen in which were sitting.

“Does he know about ...you know what?”

“I haven’t told him…yet.” Now I felt sad again.

“Have you had the operation, you know the vagina thingy?”

“Not yet.” Now the blush was scorching the paint off the walls.

“You are going to, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know, I s’pose so.”

“Well, you’ll miss out on things if you don’t. Unless of course, you decide you want to be a big strong bloke again, especially one with tits.”

I glanced down at my chest. I was now quite well endowed in the breast department, even allowing for the implants, and I was uncomfortably aware that talking about John had made my nipples erect and protrude rather prominently. Pam had noticed this, hence her comment.

We talked some more but only round in circles. She had helped to release some of my pain, and that night, I wrote things about the past on small bits of paper and then burned them, scattering the ashes. I felt much lighter.

I managed to get a long weekend pass at what would otherwise be seen as a half-term holiday anywhere else. I decided I would go home and talk to my cop-out parents. But even this could prove risky because I felt more and more unhappy with their liberal detachment from the passions of life. My dad could get excited about a rugby match or some political topic. He could glow incandescent about literature or abuses thereof. But not about his child his son or his daughter whichever I truly was.

My mother was very similar, with no passion. My gran, however, I am sure was very different. Sometimes I wondered if I was more my gran’s daughter than my mother’s. It was perplexing. I did notice that I had said daughter, not son, or child, so that may give some indication of what my unconscious thought if that isn’t too much of an oxymoron. Maybe I should have persisted with the slither of glass from the mirror? No, I mustn’t think like that, no matter how bad things got, that was no solution. I must look for the positives and having set a positive outcome, work out how to achieve it. I must also give up reading these self-help books.

I got home on Friday evening, having set it up with my mum a couple of days before. I intended to stay for the weekend and return the next Monday. I had some assignments to finish on my course, but I had most of the week to do them. I was consistently the best student and this was my way of competing, and I suppose ultimately in maintaining my self-esteem. The other girls could go on and become wives and mothers or adopt a career, I could marry (once the little anomaly was sorted), but could never have children. I could have a career, and I intended to. So once again it seemed it was me against the world – not exactly a very female response. Perhaps I needed to learn more about cooperation, although I thought I did a fair bit of that on my course. I needed to feel good about myself in some ways. I did when it came down to academic studies, and I thought to myself, I do when John is about. I do miss him.

I’d had the odd text message, but he was still away and couldn’t say where. I had a feeling it was the middle east, possibly Iraq, but I didn’t really know. It could just as easily have been anywhere, Bosnia for example. Just what did he do, he was so secretive about his work.

On the train down, I fantasised that he was a James Bond type, so could that make me a ‘Bond girl’. If it did, then I wouldn’t be the first transgendered one, that was Caroline Cossey. I had amassed quite a pile of information about gender identity disorder even though I didn’t exactly meet its diagnostic criteria, well not in the classical sense. If I got to be a psychologist would I want to treat it? I didn’t know, because I hadn’t thought about it.

My father met me at the station and after a bear hug that almost snapped me in two and a kiss on the cheek, we set off for home. He was chuffed, he’d been commissioned to write a biography of Robert Browning. Oh well, he lives in the past anyway, so he may just enjoy it were the thoughts that passed through my mind. But he was so pleased with himself, that I allowed myself to enter his enjoyment and we talked about it all the way home.

My mother had the kettle boiling and I was ready for a cuppa. The tea on the train was okay. Well, it was better than making a flask, but nowhere does tea taste quite the same as it does at home. It was wonderful and I had two cups.

We spent the evening in, and my mum had made us a chicken casserole in the slow cooker. It was very good. I nearly had seconds but thought that I needed to keep an eye on my waistline. I would ride my old bike a bit while I was home if the weather permitted. I had asked Dad to check it over, which he mentioned he’d done. It’s only a cheapo mountain bike, but it has road tyres rather than those horrible knobbly things designed for riding off-road. I already had the perfect things for being off-road, or all-terrain equipment – they are called feet.

I’ve been exercising quite a bit more in recent weeks, I even got talked into playing netball, something I’d never tried before. It was good fun and quite skilful, well some of the girls playing were. I had no idea and it showed. Still, it was only a practice game, so it didn’t matter too much. There was apparently, both a girls' or should I say ladies, rugby and football team at Barbury, although it was the army camp rather than the hospital which was primarily involved. As I couldn’t play either for toffee as a boy, I failed to see what difference it would make playing them as a girl. If they had a cycling club, I might be tempted, except that could get expensive to buy and maintain a decent bike. Correction, to buy and pay someone to maintain it. I have mended a puncture, once. It was, however, the limit of my engineering skills and my dad supervised me doing it. Actually, he made me do it because he wanted to make sure I could, just in case it happened some distance from home. He was quite practical. Me, I don’t know what I am.

I talked with my parents after we all watched the film I had sent them. I was beginning to think I could practically recite it, I’d seen it that often, except this time I was watching them watching it. They had looked at it when they first received it, but with me there, it obviously took on a more personal dimension.

Their overall impression was sadness. It was a very sad film ending in the tragic death of two brothers and the impact of that loss upon the parents. It was the love of the parents and their attempts to deal with the problems they foresaw with the injured baby, which gave an opportunity for Dr Money to run his experiment. His theory was wrong and it made things worse for David. We all know that now. I was interested to see how my parents felt about the role of David’s parents.

Mum was distressed and said she thought they had acted in what they believed were the best interests of the children. Sadly they had been wrong, but lots of things parents do are wrong. Being a parent is one big experiment. In their case they’d only tried it once, I was an only child.

My father considered that it was difficult to compare attitudes between then and now. Things were much easier now, and surgical techniques were more advanced. A baby boy whose penis was destroyed in the same way today may have a chance of some form of reconstructive surgery. Also, he might be better able to cope with the trauma of being different.

They were still detached, living in their minds, not their bodies. “What about me then. Why couldn’t I have been reconstructed as a man? I still had my willie, it’s only my balls that are gone!”

“We weren’t involved in that decision.” Riposted my dad. “If I recall, you’d already made it before you and Sheila told us.”

“Sort of…” I said, “but like David, I felt decisions were made for me. The change of status as a computer error etcetera, no one consulted me.” I was pouting now.

“They didn’t consult us either.” Declared my mum. “If they had we’d have discussed it with you and supported whatever it was you wanted to do. It would be your decision not some jumped up civil servant in Whitehall or wherever. I still think it has to be your decision, and we’ll support it whatever it is.”

“Do you wish it hadn’t happened then?” asked my dad.

“If I could take it back to the start, Daddy, then yes I would. But I can’t and I have to make a decision about whether I want to stay a girl or try and go back to being a boy.”

“Are you unhappy being a girl?” asked my mum, moving closer and hugging me.

“I don’t know,” I said and promptly burst into tears. Why did this always happen when they were with me. It’s so girly.

“Oh, my lamb...” my mother cooed to me, hugging me and rubbing my back in her attempts to calm me. “We thought you’d made your decision, and are so proud of how brave you were.”

Her compliments or intended ones only made me feel worse. Now I was letting her down, and by presumption was now ceasing to be brave. My mind kept flitting to the documentary we had just watched. If I had understood it, Money believed that if ‘Brenda’ had had a vagina, then she would have felt more female. I would have disagreed with that, for her part it would have made things worse. But would it make a difference to me, if I had one? I didn’t know and I felt frightened about it. Certainly, the presence of my remaining male organ did tend to keep the door open regarding a possible last-minute change back, so maybe getting rid of it would stop this vacillation? Yeah, but what if I’m wrong? Oh shit. I howled some more.

Eventually, I did calm down but I had prevented further discussion with my hysterics. Ha, that’s a laugh, hysteria means arising from the womb. Good isn’t it? The irony was not lost on me. Sometimes I did think I should have done it that day in the hospital. The problem with a failed suicide attempt is, one can live to regret it.
Yeah I know, women talk about it, men do it. Or are three times more likely to do it. It’s suicide I’m talking about, just in case you thought I meant sex.

I slept very fitfully that night. I was exhausted, but I kept waking up. In one particularly horrible dream, I dreamt I had stabbed myself in the neck and I watched with failing sight, the blood pouring out of the wound spraying over my parents who were absolutely distraught but did nothing to stop it. ‘It was her decision, and we must respect it.’ They kept saying. Then everything went black. I sat bolt upright in bed, the sweat was running off me and I was shaking. I recognised that I was afraid to die. Even with the experiences I’d had of things beyond, I was frightened about dying. I switched the bedside lamp on, it was three in the morning. I was going to read and were it not that I would disturb my parents, I’d have made a cup of tea. Instead, I drank some water and went to the toilet.

Coming back from the loo, I spotted a picture hanging on my bedroom wall that I’d not seen before. It was one of those papyrus things they sell at museums with Egyptian type paintings on them. It was framed, and larger than the usual postcard size. But what really took my attention was its subject matter. It was of my goddess, Sekhmet.

I was partly shocked by it being there, mainly because I hadn’t seen it before. I would have to enquire in the morning how it came to be there. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, comforted, I think, but not certain. I wished I’d had her certainty of action, even if it seemed at times simplistic. As the US president before Honaria Caswell, Bush was simplistic in his thinking but he wasn’t short on action. Sadly, he was wrong as often as he was right, but he did do things. Whereas I tended to dither in case I was wrong, or hurt or upset others. Okay, so it isn’t archetypal Leo, but neither am I.

I fell asleep eventually because I remember my mum waking me when she brought in some tea. Did I mention we are real teapots in our house?

“Are you awake, sweetheart?” she called quietly.

“I am now,” I humphed back.

“Sorry, sweetie, I brought you some tea.”

“Oh. Um. Thanks, I think.” I sort of grunted back. My eyes felt full of grit probably because they hadn’t been closed long enough. “What time is it?” I asked thinking it was probably some ridiculously early one.

“Half-past nine. We let you sleep on a bit.”

I sat myself up. She handed me the tea and I smiled my thanks to her. It tasted good. It always did at home. “How did you sleep?” she asked me.

“Not too well,” I replied in between sips of tea.

“I did wonder if you would. You were upset last night, weren’t you?”

“I’ll live,” I said.

“I know you will, sweetheart, but I want you to be as happy as you can. We both do.” She sat on the edge of the bed. I recalled the day after I came home in skirts when she pretended to tell me stories.

“Not going to tell me any stories today then?”

She obviously remembered the earlier occasion, because she smiled in recognition. “No, not today. I think my little princess has to grow up and deal with some issues, doesn’t she?”

“S’pose so,” I replied.

I caught sight of the picture of Sekhmet. “When did you put that up?”

“Believe it or not I saw it in one of our shops.”

“You found a picture of Sekhmet in a charity shop?” I was incredulous.

“Yes. It was only a couple of pounds so I bought it. Your father confirmed I had the right goddess. He’s been reading Wallis Budge and Gardner Wilkinson.”

“Hey, those are my books,” I complained.

“It’s alright, he only read them and he did return them, unlike someone else I know.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll bring back his Tolkien. And he can read the Catherine Cookson.”

“I’m sure that would make his day.” She giggled at me. “He does get a bit pompous about literature, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. Just a bit.” We both giggled.

We hugged and I dressed quickly in sweatshirt and joggers, then got my bike out. I rode for about an hour until my bum hurt, then I came home. My legs were like rubber and needed a shave. So a quick breakfast and I got in the bath. It was wonderful. I pinched some of my mum’s smellies and lay back and relaxed. My legs could wait I thought.

Next thing I knew, my mum was banging on the door. “You alright in there, Jamie?”

“Ugh.” The water was cold and I was all wrinkly. “Yeah I’m fine, Mum, I’d fallen asleep.”

“Well hurry up, darling, lunch is ready. Have to go there’s someone at the door.”

I pulled the plug out with my toes, wrapping the chain around them. Then I stood up, my legs were stronger now, the stiffness had gone. Well, my neck was a bit stiff, but it was okay. I quickly ran the shower and stood under it for a moment to get all the suds off me. Bubble baths are all fine and well but you need to get the foam off or it dries the skin. I washed my hair and conditioned it. Then wrapped it in a towel and dried myself off. Shall I say expediency was now quite important, so I was part dry in places. It didn’t matter too much, I had my bathrobe here anyway – another of those purchases, from a loving mother, I had no room for at the nurses' home. Scuffed on some mules and set off for the dining room.

I was trying to extract the water from my ears as I walked downstairs, so I didn’t hear anything of what was being said there.

“Hi Mum, I’m home…” I called in fun. Then, “ Holy shit.” My hand flew across my mouth in shock.