Chapter Nine: Bailey Comes to Life

“Who’s the girl staying at your house, Brian?” Megan Tompkins asked one morning as she caught up with Brian as he was walking to school. It was several weeks after the Fashion Girl show, and Brian, in the mode of Bailey, had already appeared in some of the clothing store’s advertisements.

“What girl?” he asked, feigning an ignorance about the question.

“That girl I saw getting into your mom’s car the other day,” the girl explained.

Brian wondered why Megan was suddenly being friendly; the previous summer, she had beaten him up on the street, making fun of his girlishness. Since then, he had avoided her judiciously, even though they were in the same classes at school. Their friendships had been close since they were toddlers, having lived several doors apart on Garfield Avenue, but had soured as Megan seemed to take on the “tough girl” role. She had developed into quite an athlete and had bested a number of boys beyond Brian.

“Oh her,” Brian said, trying to fake his disinterest in the question. “Just my cousin from Wausau.”

“I never knew you had a cousin,” she said. “She looks just like you.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” His face grew red.

“You’re blushing, Brian. You in love with her or something?”

“I’m not blushing.”

“You are too,” she said.

Brian realized that his face was probably growing more and more red; how he wished Megan would run off with her rude friends.

“She looked very pretty,” Megan continued. “Just like that girl in those Fashion Girl ads on TV and in the newspapers. That girl is so pretty, even if she is a fatty.”

“She’s not that fat,” said Brian quickly, suddenly wishing he could take the words back.

He sensed Megan must have been looking at him, questioning his denials. He tried to speed up his walk, hoping to discourage further talk, but Megan persisted:

“Oh, so you look at Fashion Girl ads, just like all of us girls? Don’t they have the prettiest outfits?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he lied.

“You know what I think, Brian, I think that girl is you.”

“No, what are you talking about? How could I be a girl?”

“Easily,” Megan said, grabbing his wrist, holding him firmly in her grasp.

The two had paused along a walk that adjoined a small city park that was heavily wooded, and they were alone, without others in earshot.

“Come on Brian, tell me. You’re that girl, aren’t you?”

“Let me go, we’ll be late for school,” he protested.

“I looked at how that girl walked on the TV commercial, and you walk the same way. And your hair, it’s just the same, too.”

“Let me go,” he pleaded, finding her grip too firm, realizing there was no way to get away from the strong, athletic girl in front of him. Tears began to form, in spite of his efforts to not be reduced into crying, as he so often did when facing tense or embarrassing moments.

Megan’s tone of voice suddenly softened, and her grasp was slightly loosened, but she still held him firmly. He was not going anywhere, he knew; he was her captive.

“Don’t cry, Brian, I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “And I’m sorry for being so mean to you. I want us to be friends.”

“You do?” He asked as he felt the need to cry grow less intense.

Megan said she had recognized Brian the first time she saw the advertisement on television. The mannerisms between the girl in the ad and Brian had seemed so similar. It were those same feminine gestures and movements that had caused Brian, when in his male mode, to be so harassed as being “gay,” “a faggot” or a “sissy.”

“I’ve been thinking of you since then more as a girl, and thought it would be fun to be girl friends,” Megan said, a mischievous glint in her eye.

“But I’m not a girl,” was all Brian could think to say.

“You are to me, Brian,” she said. “Oops, we better run or we’ll be late.”

“But, you won’t tell anybody will you?” Brian said desperately, as she released her grip, and turned to head to school.

“So you are that girl,” she said gleefully. “I knew it.”

Brian nodded, pleading as she walked off ahead of him, “Don’t tell anyone, please.”

“Come on, let’s run together,” she said, grabbing his hand in a friendly gesture. “I know you’re in better shape now.”

“Megan, please,” he said as they began a slow run to school.

“You’re my friend again, Brian, I promise, cross my heart and hope to die, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks Megan.”

“By the way, when we’re girl friends, I can’t call you Brian,” she said, breathing easily as they ran.

“Call me Bailey,” he said, his breath growing a bit short from the exertion.

“A pretty name for a pretty girl,” she said.

Brian suddenly pictured himself as a pretty girl, with his hair in a pony tail that was tucked through the hole in the back of his pink baseball cap, the pony tail bouncing as he ran.

*****
Several days later, Brian had his appointment with Dr. Benedict, his psychiatrist, a quiet, unassuming man with whom Brian found growing trust. His advice, as it developed, seemed to always work and Brian felt reassurance in confiding in him.

“I think I can tell Dr. Benedict anything, mother,” Brian said to his mother, after relating how Megan had discovered that he was the popular Fashion Girl model.

“If she figured it out, Brian, I’m afraid others might, too,” his mother said.

“I’ll have to tell him and see what he thinks,” Brian said.

Brian realized too late that his enthusiasm over being chosen by Miss Claire to be one of the featured models in the Fashion Girls Teen Plus television commercial was misplaced. Many people who hardly ever noticed the models in newspaper advertising became far more attuned when the same model appeared on television.

Even Mark had mentioned one day as the two of them were watching television that “the girl in that ad looks just like you, Bailey.” Brian blushed at the comment, but his friend didn’t notice, as he was otherwise deeply engrossed in the program they were watching.

“Perhaps it’s time for a discussion with your school principal, Brian,” Dr. Benedict began. “You realize that now that you’ve begun testosterone blockers that your body features may become even more feminine.”

“Yes, doctor, I understand.”

“More and more of your classmates will notice that too, exposing you to even more chances for teasing and trouble from some others. Are you prepared to stand up to that?”

“I don’t know, doctor, but what can I do?” Brian felt tears about to come. Why was he so different than others?

“You’re a very special person, Brian,” the doctor began. “You’re intelligent and courteous and have a sweet, gentle nature. You seem to care about others, and that’s so important in life. I know that physically you’re not strong, but mentally you are, or else you wouldn’t have gotten this far. I think you’re ready to stand up to this challenge, Brian.”

Brian was puzzled. “What challenge?”

“I’m going to suggest to your mother that you begin attending school starting next semester which begins in a month, in late January, as Bailey Kendall. What do you think about that?”

Brian was stunned. He didn’t think this would happen, but the idea scared him. At the same time he was excited; wasn’t it what he always wanted?

The doctor took off his glasses, taking time to bring out a tissue and clean them, before continuing, leaving Brian to think about the prospect.

“Well what do you think?” the doctor said.

“I’d be scared to do that, doctor,” Brian said simply, not sure what else to say.

“Of course you would be scared, dear girl, but isn’t that who you are?”

Brian smiled, nodded his head.

“Let’s bring your mother in now and talk with her about all this and see what she thinks.”

*****
Armed with a long letter from Dr. Benedict, Amy Kendall and her son and soon-to-be daughter met with Walter French, the middle school principal. He was a stern, humorless man who commanded strict adherence to school policies in all matters. For the most part, he got total attention from both students and teachers alike when he demanded it. That was no small feat among children of middle school age, when many of them were seeking to challenge authority at that age.

Behind his back, the kids called him the guillotine man, since his disciplines were often overly tough they felt and since someone figured out it would fit well with his last name of ‘”French.”

“This is outrageous, Mrs. Kendall,” he boomed as she presented him with Dr. Benedict’s letter.

“But Mr. French,” his mother began, only to be interrupted.

“I’ll not have it, not in my school. No freaks here and that’s it.”

Brian began to cry and his mother put a hand on his arm and got up from her seat in the principal’s office and began to lead her son from the office.

“Thank you Mr. French,” his mother said sarcastically, adding, “We’ll see about that.”

“Wait, Mrs. Kendall,” the principal ordered.

“You’re an abominable ass,” his mother said, and she and Brian strolled out the door, banging it shut behind them.

Brian was in tears and his mother was red with rage as the two left the school.

“You’ll be absent today from school, Brian, while we figure out what to do,” she said.

As they drove home, Brian suddenly began to laugh; perhaps it was laughter arising from tension, but laugh he did.

“What’s so funny, Brian?” his mother asked.

“You calling him an abominable ass, mother. That was great.”

“I wonder if he knows what abominable means,” she said, joining now in the laughter.

*****
At home, his mother called the school board office and got the assistant superintendent of student affairs on the line, a woman by the name of Mrs. Jackson.

Brian sat nearby as his mother talked on the phone. He could tell by how rapidly that his mother talked that the person on the other end was an impatient person.

“I thought the school board had a LGBT-friendly policy, Mrs. Jackson,” she said.

Brian could hear the faint tones of a strident person coming through the earpiece.

“Yes, that’s right, Mrs. Jackson. I know Brian might be the youngest ever in the school system to be transgendered, but it’s still his right.”

Brian listened as more unintelligible sound came through the receiver from the other person.

“The man is an ass, Mrs. Jackson, I don’t know how he ever became principal. You know that he told Brian to become more of a man and not be such a sissy. Can you imagine? And he treated us so rudely. Is that school board policy?”

There was a long pause.

“OK, thank you, Mrs. Jackson, you’ve been so kind.”

His mother hung up. “What did she say, mother?”

“She said she’d have to talk with Mr. French, but she really sounded like she would do something. She did mention that you could transfer to the specialty school for LGBT students and others who face such issues, but I said you wanted to stay at John Muir Middle School if you could. That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Yes, mother, all my friends are there,” he said with a smile. He only had four such friends, Mark, Amanda, Janet and now, apparently, Megan. But they were so special.

“She’ll see what can be done,” his mother said. “She’s aware of the school board policy and she’s committed to it so I think there’ll be action.”

“Oh mother, you’re so marvelous to do this for me,” he said, hugging her.

*****
The next Monday, there was a new principal at John Muir Middle School, a Ms. Luchtenfeldt, a chubby, short women whose no-nonsense attitude gave her a commanding presence in spite of her height, slightly more than five feet. On Wednesday, her greetings to Amy Kendall and Brian were gracious, even offering Amy coffee, which she declined.

She apologized for the treatment Amy and Brian had received from Mr. French, and said she was there to try to carry out school board policy in all matters, especially for LGBT students.

“I’m fully aware of Brian’s situation, Mrs. Kendall,” Ms. Luchtenfeldt began. “I’ve read Dr. Benedict’s letter. It’s not that we haven’t dealt with these situations before, but it does seem that Brian is awfully young to begin such a life change.”

“Oh, we’re sure that it’s for the best now, ma’am,” Amy said.

“I wasn’t questioning that, Mrs. Kendall,” the other woman said. “We won’t be debating that decision. After all that’s yours and Brian’s to make.”

The plan, as Ms. Luchtenfeldt outlined was to permit Brian to enter the next semester in three weeks as Bailey Kendall. As Bailey, he would be excused from physical education classes and would take dance classes in their place; he would be able to use staff bathrooms, which were all unisex.

“Maybe as the children grow used to Bailey,” she said, “She can begin going into girl’s facilities. But right now, many other girls might feel it strange.”

“I understand, Ms. Luctenfeldt,” his mother said. Brian nodded agreement.

Brian couldn’t control his enthusiasm as they left the office.

“Just think, mommy, I can be Bailey all the time now.”

*****
There were lots of raised eyebrows as Brian — now Bailey Kendall on the school’s pupil listing — entered the second semester of the 7th Grade. The school had gone through many paperwork exercises as the huge city school district dealt with this change from Brian to Bailey, but thanks to the combined persistence of Ms. Luchtenfeldt, Mrs. Jackson and Amy Kendall the alterations were accomplished.

Bailey was escorted to her homeroom that first morning, a gray, dampish late January day; Bailey hardly slept the night before, worrying about how she’d be received in the morning by her schoolmates. Amanda and Janet both agreed to walk with her to school, where Bailey hoped she’d be viewed as just another girl. Yet, she knew the word of her change had spread through the school community; both she and her mother had received numerous anonymous calls during the weekend leading up to this first day.

“There’s no room for a faggot in my child’s school, you ___ __ _ _____,” one man screamed at Amy Kendall, who slammed down the phone and began to shake uncontrollably.

“You’ll pay for violating God’s plan,” threatened a husky woman.

Finally his mother unplugged the phone, and Amy called the school principal to question whether Bailey should show up for the first day.

“Yes, Mrs. Kendall, we’re ready for the worst, and I believe Bailey should be OK,” she said with seeming positive assurance.

As Bailey and her two friends approached the school, they were shocked to see a huge conglomeration of students and parents gathered about the two stone lions that marked the entrance to the school. Two police cars were parked at the curb, and four police officers stood next to their cars.

“I can’t go through that,” Bailey said.

“That’s scary,” Amanda agreed.

“But let’s show ‘em you got a right to go to school, Bailey,” Janet said. She was always the more daring of the three.

“I’m scared,” said Bailey.

Just then they saw the short stocky figure of Ms. Luchtenfeldt emerging from the crowd. She beckoned to Bailey to join her; she also called to the police officers.

“This is the girl we need to escort in,” she told the officers.

“OK, we’ll do it peacefully, ma’am,” said an officer, a red-faced, husky man with a badge the said Sgt. Peterson. “We’ve done this before.”

“You’re looking lovely today, Bailey,” Ms. Luchtenfeldt commented. “Let’s go.”

Amid a scattering of home-made signs that quoted the Bible and made nasty comments, the crowd yelled. Suddenly, there appeared a group of boys, led by Mark Eaton, came forward, yelling “Let her through,” Let her through,” “Let her through.”

He came forward, took Bailey’s arm as his friends — about two dozen — gathered about them, with the police officers retreating in the background.

“I’m so proud of you Bailey,” Mark said to her amid all the shouting. “May I escort this pretty girl to school?”

“Oh, Mark, you’re so sweet,” she said, clutching his arm.

At that moment, Bailey saw Megan Tompkins struggling with one of the teachers and he heard her yelling at the teacher: “Let me through, I want to join Bailey. She’s my friend.”

Bailey waved at her new friend, and yelled at the teacher that was restraining Megan, “Let her through,” and the teacher did. Megan ran to the head of the line, linking arms with Bailey and Amanda, Janet and Mark.

Bailey felt like a princess as they marched among the crowd of students and parents. Outside of some nasty comments, the group made it peacefully into the school. Mark guided her to her locker, helped her put her coat and scarf away, before guiding her to her first class.

Thus, began Bailey Kendall’s first day in school.

Afterword: Six Years Later

“Mother, you don’t think I look too fat in this, do you?” Bailey asked, as she twirled before the bedroom mirror in the pink gown she had chosen for the senior prom.

“No darling, you look just fine, really,” Amy Kendall assured her daughter.

“I love this gown, mother,” the girl said. “I wished I just wasn’t so fat.”

“You’re not fat, honey,” her mother said, perhaps for the 10,000th time in the last few years. “You have a lovely figure, but you’re just built a bit bigger than most girls. You can’t do anything about that.”

Bailey smiled at her mother, and looked at herself in the mirror. In her mind, she knew that she truly wasn’t a fat girl, but that her body was such that it would never fit in a size 2. She was more like a size 10 or 12, she realized.

Actually, she had become quite narcissistic about her body, convinced that through the years of moderate, regular exercise (usually a form of aerobics) and careful eating she had developed a truly lovely, feminine body. A bit thick in the waste, perhaps, but that was offset by lovely firm breasts. Overall, the girl in the mirror looked soft and smooth, with just about the prettiest neck, shoulders and arms a girl could have. The gown was strapless, and showed off her lovely features just fine.

“Maybe I should have gotten a darker color so I wouldn’t look fat,” Bailey said.

“Bailey, darling, if you keep this fat business up, I’ll rip that dress right off your back and you’ll have to tell Melvin that you can’t go to the prom,” his mother responded, truly angry this time.

Bailey couldn’t help herself. Her weight had always been a sore point with her, likely going back six years when she was nothing but a fat, pathetic sissy boy. For the last five years she had lived as a girl, and she had easily passed into the world of girlhood, particularly when she entered Lincoln High School, where only a few students remembered that at John Muir Middle School she once had been the boy named Brian. Bailey thrived at Lincoln, which was the college-bound honors school in the urban school district. She had been the featured sax player in the school’s renowned jazz band, was on the debate team and the National Honor Society.

Her dating — in spite of repeated invites — had been nearly non-existent, largely due to her mother’s fear that her date might seek to take advantage of her and through fondling in the car realize that Bailey still had her penis. Otherwise, Bailey had become as much a girl as any in the school. She was tall for a girl, nearly 5’10” but she had lovely legs and she’d heard boys comment that she was “stacked,” a phrase that embarrassed her, yet made her feel more of a woman.

Melvin Jackson, a senior honor student like herself, had taken Bailey on a few dates in recent months, the first boy she had dated — or even kissed — since Mark Eaton dumped her the previous year. She had cried for weeks, it seemed, after Mark, who had encouraged her transformation in middle school, said he had fallen in love with another girl at the college he was attending in the East. Mark had been sweet about the breakup, she knew, even coming home for a weekend to tell her. She should have been mad at Mark, she knew, but she realized that he had likely moved to a new phase in his life; often, at night, she wondered if he had rejected her because, even though in a few years she would be anatomically a complete woman, she could never bear any children. Perhaps, too, Mark would always carry with him the thought that she once was a sissy boy called Brian and that would always be a factor in their relationship.

“I have to be grateful to Mark,” she told her mother. “He as much as anyone, except you, mom, made me realize how much of a girl I was. I guess I’ll always love him.”

“And he stood by you when he could have walked away, too, dear,” Amy Kendall reminded her daughter.

“But Melvin is so sweet, mom,” Bailey said, referring to the current young man in her life.

Melvin Jackson, who was a tall, slender African-American boy, played bass in the jazz band with Bailey, where the two had become close; they loved improvising together, particularly when joined by Janet who had become a top-rate drummer. It was one of the friendships that developed through mutual interests, with no apparent romantic overtones. Bailey had been surprised then when in March of her senior year he suggested the two go on a date; he wanted to take her to dinner and a jazz concert.

After some consternation, including consultations with her mother and her two still best friends, Amanda and Janet, she agreed, but only if he knew her full story; that she was still anatomically still a boy. The testosterone blockers had worked to slowing Bailey’s puberty and female hormones had helped to add to her feminine features; still to be done, however, was sexual reassignment surgery that would have to wait until she was 18.

Melvin was shocked, of course, at the revelation, told after she had met him one cold Saturday at a coffee shop; they had retired to a quiet corner, hoping that being in a semi-public place the boy would not overreact or become violent, although he had always projected a quiet, almost shy demeanor. His only aggressive times came when he was strumming his bass.

“Oh my, Bailey,” was all he could say.

He remained speechless, content to look at her, his eyes examining her, finally stopping and shaking his head in dismay.

“Say something for God’s sake,” she said.

He hemmed and hawed. “It’s just . . . ah . . . ah . . . that you’re such a girl. It can’t be.”

“Well, it is, Melvin,” she said, slowly explaining the whole thing to him.

He listened attentively, nodded and finally said simply: “Will you still go out with me to the movies tonight?”

“Really, you still want me to?” she said, tears filling her eyes.

“Of course, you’re still the prettiest girl I know,” he said, a broad smile brightening his face.

Bailey turned her head so that he wouldn’t see the tears that began steaming down her face. Suddenly she saw his hand come forward, holding a tissue and she felt his other hand grip her shoulders and she couldn’t hold back the sobs. He quickly rose, moved to her side of the table, kneeled down and took her in his arms. He held her body firmly, but with gentleness, as she slowly quieted her sobbing.

“Is she all right?” she heard a young female voice ask. It must have been the waitress.

“Yes, she’s fine,” she heard Melvin reply.

Bailey nodded her head, ashamed of this outward display of emotion, hoping others in the coffee shop would just stay away. Slowly, she dried her tears, and looked up at Melvin’s dark eyes, so gentle and sweet.

She was — at this particular moment — the happiest girl in the world.