He obviously suspected that my talk of writing a term paper about the clinical use of jekyllase was a cover story, and that I or someone I knew was taking jekyllase and changing sex.
Thursday, I went by the campus post office after class, and checked my mail. There was an envelope with a Stanford, California return address.
The psychiatrist who’d written that paper was at Stanford.
I didn’t open and read it right there, though I wanted to. I took it back to my dorm first. Randall wasn’t around. I tore open the envelope and pulled out two sheets of paper:
“Dear Sir:
“You understand, of course, that I cannot tell you very much more than what was in my paper without potentially compromising the privacy of my research subjects. What I can tell you, I will. I did not have space available to fully describe the symptoms which led me to diagnose Mr. C. as transsexual. No, the diagnosis did not rest solely on the fact that he transformed into a woman under the influence of jekyllase, and no, I would not automatically assume that anyone else who changed sex under the influence of jekyllase was transsexual. I would think it likely, and check for other evidence. But jekyllase is too new and too little studied for us to be sure of what its effects on a patient mean about his mental life.
This is the only case I know of where a person has changed sex under the influence of jekyllase; there are probably only about half a dozen psychiatrists and psychologists researching jekyllase in this country, and not all of them have published papers, though most of us talk to one another to some extent. I try to listen for rumors about recreational use of jekyllase, but such rumors are of course unreliable. Still, if you hear any stories about the effects of jekyllase on your fellow students who might try it, I would appreciate hearing them, along with your estimate of their reliability — did you hear directly from the person who took jekyllase, or indirectly, and how much do you trust the source? And if you hear of your friends using jekyllase recreationally, do try to persuade them against it, or at least to use small doses (under 500 mg) at long intervals (a week or more). Moral questions aside, it is not safe to take it without medical supervision.
“If, in the next ten or twenty years, we treat fifty thousand patients with jekyllase, and ten of them change sex, and all ten turn out to be transsexual by other diagnostic criteria, then I would be more prepared to say that anyone who changes sex under its influence is almost certainly transsexual. But we don’t have enough evidence yet. Based on our limited understanding of the effects of jekyllase, I would not be surprised if other cases of change of sex are caused by other mental conditions. It might be simply a sign of latent homosexuality; the patient might feel that as a woman their attraction to men would be safer and more acceptable. They might associate the idea of womanhood with purity, innocence or some other desirable trait. There may be many other possible reasons; we just don’t know. If you hear of a friend or friend of a friend who changes sex under the influence of jekyllase, I hope you will advise them to see a psychiatrist, and to not take jekyllase again until and unless their psychiatrist prescribes it.
“As for why I treated Mr. C. with estrogen, and may eventually arrange for sex reassignment surgery, rather than prescribing an increased frequency of jekyllase to reset his default state — the answer is simple. We don’t understand jekyllase well enough yet. Until we do, it would be irresponsible to deliberately overdose someone on it and cause a permanent change. No responsible researcher will give someone jekyllase often enough to cause a permanent change, but every year since its rediscovery we have had some cases of accidental or deliberate overdose by recreational users, and they are unfortunately increasing in number. Eventually, studying these unfortunates may give us information we can use to determine when and how it may be safe to deliberately cause a permanent change, but as yet it would be premature.
“I hope this helps, and I wish you well with your term paper.”
I folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and put the envelope in a drawer with the photocopied articles. Then I leaned back and thought for a while.
He obviously suspected that my talk of writing a term paper about the clinical use of jekyllase was a cover story, and that I or someone I knew was taking jekyllase and changing sex. Maybe writing to him had been a bad idea. He hadn’t given me any concrete information. What he said gave credence to Jennifer’s contention that I wasn’t transsexual, but he’d also said he would think it pretty likely that someone like me was transsexual, and would look for other evidence. Would he find it, in my case? I didn’t think so. I liked being Jennifer, but I didn’t want to stop being me, and I didn’t have any desire to wear her clothes when I didn’t have her body. But maybe I should see a psychiatrist to be sure.
The problem was that I couldn’t afford it, not without asking Mom and Dad to pay for it. And what would I tell them about why I needed a psychiatrist? The truth wouldn’t do, and any cover story I could think of at the moment would sound almost as bad. It would have to wait a few years until I was out of college and earning good money.
(As for the numbers in his letter, the estimates of the number of trans people in 1971 were way lower than they generally are today. This researcher’s apparent estimate (about one in 5,000) was actually much higher than the other estimates I’d seen in different psychology books and articles, whereas the recent estimates I’ve seen are more like one in 300 or 500.)
Friday after my last class, I took jekyllase, changed clothes and went back down to the lobby. Cynthia was there waiting for me, and we walked over to the parking lot near my dorm and cleaned the snow off my car. Then she drove us to a diner near the edge of town, where the new interstate highway was being built.
“Alice was getting ready for her date with Gary when I left the room,” she said as she turned off Campus Drive onto the main road. “They won’t be back till eleven at the earliest, more likely after midnight.”
“Great!” I said. “That will give us plenty of time alone.”
“If it were warmer weather, we could park on Otto Hill,” she said, “but given the weather I’m just as glad Alice has left us Emily’s room for the night.”
I put a hand on her knee and smiled.
We ate supper, talking about music and movies and mutual friends and finally circling around to the topic we always came back to, jekyllase and our relationships to our jekylls.
“I don’t know if we have a future,” she said. “Even if Scott and Emily both want to keep taking jekyllase after they graduate, we can’t be together unless they live in the same city.”
“We can write to each other in care of them,” I said. “And even if it can’t last past graduation, isn’t it worthwhile now?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I have a feeling Emily might... never mind. I shouldn’t tell you what she’s been thinking. But she might stop experimenting with jekyllase long before graduation.”
I thought about what she’d hinted at. What if Emily decided to act on her attraction to girls in her own person? That could happen, especially if she broke up with Darrell first. And then she might not need Cynthia as an outlet for a repressed part of her.
I put my hand on hers. “I hope she keeps taking jekyllase for a long time. I’d miss you if she stopped.”
“If she stops, Scott won’t have as much reason to take it either.”
“Yeah... maybe.” But I thought it unlikely. Scott liked being me, over and above my relationship with Cynthia, so I figured I was pretty safe for a considerable time to come. He could change his mind someday, but it didn’t seem likely to be soon. And there wasn’t much I could do to influence that decision, except to have as much fun as I could without getting him into trouble.
We were quiet for a few moments, and then Cynthia said: “Let’s talk about something more fun. I’ve heard that the Grateful Dead are going to be playing in East Lansing in March,” and we talked about maybe going to that show, if we could get tickets. Although quite possibly Scott would want to take Linda instead; he liked the Dead too, though not as much as me or Cynthia, and I wasn’t sure if Linda did.
After a trip to the restroom, we paid for our food and left. I leaned up against Cynthia as we drove back to campus, but we didn’t hold hands as we walked from the Carew Hall parking lot to Utterson Hall. Even if we’d been a straight couple, we might not have; it was cold enough to keep our hands in our pockets.
When Cynthia unlocked Emily’s dorm room and let us in, we had a pleasant surprise. There was a note from Alice on Emily’s desk:
“Gary says his roommate’s gone to visit family for the weekend, so I’m planning to spend the night in his room. Snore all you like without me.”
“Does Emily really snore?” I asked, shucking off my hat, coat and scarf.
“Terribly,” Cynthia said with a smile. “You know what this means?”
“We’ve got until the jekyllase wears off... I wish it could be longer, but I don’t think Scott or Emily would thank us for waking up together.”
“You’re right... well, let’s not waste any time.”
“Let’s not hurry, either,” I said, unbuttoning my blouse.
An hour or so later, we had satisfied each other and were cuddling when we suddenly heard a key in the lock. I scrambled to pull the sheet over me, and Cynthia, with more presence of mind, got out of bed and tried to quickly put Emily’s bathrobe on, but the door opened and Alice came in so quickly that she got a good flash of our naked bodies in a compromising position. She stared at us in shocked silence for a few moments until I babbled, “Um, I thought you were spending the night with Gary...?”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?” she said. “You... you... I don’t know what. Get dressed and get out of here, you perverts!”
We did. I didn’t find out until much later that a drunken Gary had hit on another girl at the frat party while Alice was in the restroom, and another girl had told her about it as soon as she got back. But that night, we were too busy scrambling into our clothes and hurrying out the door. Alice sank down into her desk chair with her back to us and hugged herself, trembling. I knew something bad must have happened at the party, and I wanted to comfort her, but I knew she wouldn’t take that well from me just then — or possibly ever.
We walked down to the lobby in silence, and then stopped, not sure where to go or what to do. It was late, and the student union, library and so forth would be closing soon. “Want to go over to my dorm?” I asked.
“I guess,” Cynthia said. She looked defeated, and I hugged her, but she pulled away. “Not now.”
“Girls can hug each other,” I said in a low voice as a couple of girls came in from the cold and walked past us to the stairs, chattering with each other and ignoring us. “Nobody will think it’s weird.”
“Maybe so. We should have been more careful, damn it... rented a motel room or something. Or at least put a sock on the door in case Alice came back early. Emily probably won’t want to be me again now.”
I couldn’t think of anything comforting to say. She was probably right.
We walked over to my dorm and managed to slip in unchallenged, which was not always easy at that time of night. I let us into mine and Randall’s room and breathed a sigh of relief at seeing he was out. Although we couldn’t count on that; he might be gone all night, or might be back in the next minute.
We sat down on my bed and I hugged her again. “It will be okay,” I lied. “Alice was shocked, but she’s... I don’t think she meant what she said. She’ll come around.”
“I doubt that. Emily will hate me, hate this part of herself, for making things so awkward between her and her roommate. This is the last time I’ll ever see you.”
“Maybe so... I’ll try to persuade her to let you out again, though.”
“You or Scott?”
“I can’t promise anything for Scott, but I think he’d want to do it too.”
“I don’t think either of you can, but thanks for trying.”
“Do you want to put a tie on the door in case Randall comes back in the next little while?” I thought a moment. “Or a tie?”
“No... Alice killed the mood.”
“We don’t have to do each other. We could just cuddle.”
After a few moments' silence, she said: “Yeah, that sounds good.”
So I got a tie out of Scott’s drawer, opened the door and looked both ways, then knotted it over the knob and closed the door. Cynthia and I laid down with our arms around each other, and she fell asleep after a while. I kept holding her until the clock told me I was going to change back into Scott soon; I didn’t think Cynthia would want him touching her, so I extricated myself, changed into the bathrobe, and sat in the chair watching her sleep.
She changed into Emily first, and I reverted to Scott a few minutes later. Darrell would flip if he saw this, I thought, and resolved to find a way to keep him from finding out.
I put on my pajama pants under the robe and took the tie off the door, then studied until Randall got in half an hour later. He took one look at Emily sleeping in my bed and did a double take.
“You and Emily?” he asked in a whisper. “I came by a while ago and saw the tie on the door —”
“It’s not like you think,” I said, although it nearly was. “Cynthia had a fight with Emily’s roommate and didn’t want to hang around her dorm, and it was too late to go anywhere else, so Jennifer invited her back here... and she fell asleep, and we changed back. I didn’t want to wake her up.”
“Maybe she can go down to Darrell’s room,” Randall said.
“If she doesn’t wake up soon, I’ll spread a blanket on the floor. You okay with her sleeping here?”
“I guess. What kind of argument did her hyde have with her roommate?”
“I don’t think I should talk about it. It’s not even Jennifer’s business, much less mine.”
I did end up sleeping on the floor that night. Emily was gone when I woke up.
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