(Miriam renews her faith. Don and Miriam finally take Jack to see Dr. Ellis)

Choices
Chapter 18

How do you explain the adult world to a child, an eleven year old who just two Christmases before still hopefully clung to a belief in a white haired bearded jolly old man in a red suit bringing presents? How do you tell your child that the world he lives in is, at times, cruel and hateful, sinister and ignorant as well as unyielding in myths and dogma? How do you explain reality?

“You could just tell them.” Jack said, not just innocently but with such conviction that to him it was just a matter of being candid. To him, if I just explained that there was some mistake made when he was born, then people would just accept it; his teachers, our friends, the director of the children’s choir at church, even Bertha Adams. Actually the choir director probably would believe it, the only person in Moundsville who might.

It was Saturday morning and I had ordered Jack to my bathroom, washed his hair and had him sitting on the side of the tub, feet in, in my old pink terrycloth robe. Don had taken Brenda to Wheeling for her piano lesson and dragged Tim reluctantly along. With comb and scissors in hand I began trimming his wet hair. He was more than resistant to letting me work on his shaggy hair that was drawing so much attention and falling into his eyes. I had to negotiate but we reached a compromise. I did threaten to walk him to the barber and sit there in front of boys and men, watching, while the barber made him appear like his peers with a buzz cut or flattop. After I said that he was slightly more willing to negotiate. The pink robe also helped.

What turned the tide however, was that I told him that I believed. Up until that first week in January, with the conversation Don and I had with Jack, with his brother fighting a much bigger boy making ‘sissy’ remarks about his little brother, and with the assault on my front porch by Bertha Adams, I had not actually said to Jack that I believed. I had told him I was on his side, and that I would help him and even protect him. I had been with him when he looked almost darling in Brenda’s dress when I hugged him and told him I would find answers. I also kept my promise and bought him a pair of panties, withholding the matching bra, which I strategically had laying out on my bed when I asked if he would let me work on his hair. Even though I staunchly felt eleven was too young for a first bra, even for a girl, I needed to show Jack my faith.

But I had not previously used those words; I never said to him that I too believed he should have been born a girl. That Saturday morning I did. I didn’t just say those words to force a compromise. I still did not understand how a baby could be born so clearly one sex, and later so convincingly insist they were the other. I believed that somehow Jack was different, blessed, or perhaps cursed, with a temperament and personality significantly incongruous with his physiology. I didn’t use those words with him.

“Yes Jack, I believe you were meant to be a girl.” I told him truthfully.

I came to my belief while laying on my bed feeling sorry for myself the previous Thursday afternoon asking myself what was wrong with me. Why had I felt almost repulsed by the sight of Jack, my own son whom I gave birth to, just after I had been verbally assaulted by Bertha Adams? I can’t say for certain that God spoke to me but something did, and it didn’t come from me. Truthfully, it wasn’t as if I was actually thinking, but as if words were being said to me. ‘You are trying to see a boy, Miriam’, the words noted and went on, “there is not a boy to see.”

I sat up and looked across my bedroom and into the mirror. ‘That’s it.’ I spoke to the image staring back at me. Jack bothered me because I was trying to see a boy, my son. That is what I saw just after my frigid front porch confrontation; a boy, a sissy one who would bring Don and I, Tim and Brenda, heartache, pain, trouble and shame. The words told me I should not be looking for a boy at all because there just wasn’t one there. I decided I had to tell Jack that I believed.

Of course I had to add an explanation as best I could.

“But I’m your mother. I know you. Jack, no one else will believe.”

That’s when the naïve child suggested if I told the world, they too would believe, and then, he could start wearing dresses to school. He didn’t add the part about the dresses but I knew it was what he meant. He was so child-like sitting there in that large pink robe. It was silly but I looked at him and thought of Peter Pan and Wendy, with the clapping of hands, fairy dust and Tinker Bell. You could fly with a little fairy dust, if you truly believed.

“No. Jack, people wouldn’t believe me.” I told him playing the part of the adult to the Wendy who did not want to grow up. “Your father didn’t believe me at first. People in Moundsville would quickly conclude that I went insane and that I caused you to be this way. Jack, there are people who would take you away from us, take Tim and Brenda too. They would say we are awful parents. They would say we abused you. No one would help us Jack, not even your grandparents. Right now Jack, I’m all you’ve got.”

I am sure he did not understand but he took my word for it, again looking dejected.

“I thought you wanted to help me?” He cried.

“I am helping you Jack. My first job is to love you and protect you. No one else can see what you and I do. That’s what I’m doing by trimming your hair. Then we have to see that doctor in Wheeling. If anyone might believe us Jack it’s Dr. Ellis. You’ll have to tell him everything, what you are doing and how you feel.”

“If you believe mom, I’ll just be a girl for you.” Of course I knew that wouldn’t work either, for long, but my goal that morning was to make Jack more boy-like; give him an appearance that would keep the wolves, and non-believers, at bay.

“Your hair is getting so long and shaggy people are saying things. Just let me trim some and even it out so we can fix it for school.” I told him while he sat next to me, and the bra, on my bed before he agreed to a trim.

“No. It has to grow.” He said resolutely.

“Did you know hair has to be regularly trimmed to grow?” I offered.

“It does?” He asked suspiciously.

“Yep. And if you let me I can fix it so it will grow and you can dry it and tease it so it looks very, uh, girly.” I ran my fingers through his hair to see what it might do. “And for school we can put some Brylcreem on it and comb it with a heavy part and back and you’ll look like that Elvis person, except for the sideburns.”

He relented, fingering the little first bra meant for a girl about his age, the one that matched the panties I gave him.

“Make sure you hide that.” I told him giving him permission to take it with him after I finished his hair.

So I put him in the tub, washed his hair and trimmed as best I could. I evened the sides removing about a half of an inch including the shaggy parts that were encroaching over the collar of his shirts. I then dried it for him teasing it and brushing it forward. To tell the truth we were having fun. I couldn’t keep the front of his hair from flopping into his eyes, it would need to grow a lot before he could tuck the front strands behind his ears but he was delighted. He wanted me to leave it that way but I asked him to trust me. I slapped on some Brylcreem, parted his hair lower on the right and combed it back on both sides. We both laughed at the image in the mirror, the one that clearly made Jack look like a young boy trying to emulate a certain rock star adored by girls everywhere. I believe he appreciated the irony as much as I did.

I sent him back to his room with a new hair brush and comb, a large tube of Brylcreem, a hair band, the little A cup bra, and a promise to keep his hair neat and boy-like when going out of the house. I relieved him of my pink tattered robe and replaced it with a towel, as well as a hug.

* * *

After my conversion late that cold January Thursday afternoon and before my makeshift salon session with Jack Saturday morning, I reflected constantly on what it meant to be a believer and to have faith. I prayed, wondered about miracles, and recited verses borrowed from more traditional doctrines. Believing that my son was somehow meant to be the opposite sex, or gender, than the one he was given, was both redeeming and vexing. Believing gave me an exhilarating feeling of joy, for him and for me. Whatever it was that made him feel this way, when embraced, seemed to me to be almost as glorious, without being sacrilegious, as any religious experience.

The vexing part was that I was alone in my belief, except for Jack of course, and the prospect for new believers was rather dim. I felt Don had made considerable progress but when it came to religion, especially blind faith in the face of observed reality, Don was stubbornly skeptical. I had no other prospective converts and I was not at all tempted to go on a crusade.

No, it was time to be cautious and pragmatic. Believing in the face of the hard reality of Jack’s impending development, and the wrath of that would surely come if my faith was revealed, inspired me to take a measured approach. First, I had to contact the one person who I felt would not condemn me, Dr. Ellis. Second, I needed to convince Jack I believed him and would help him. What worried me most was that Jack’s faith went beyond mine. He somehow believed he would become a girl. I didn’t believe in that miracle.

My reasonable husband was first enraged when he saw his eldest son with the black eye and swollen lip but became a proud and congratulatory cheerleader when the details were explained. It was as if the raw male aggression of Don’s first son balanced and muted the cross dressing behavior of his second. Thursday evening Don was engaged with both his sons, sarcastically cautioning Tim about fighting and being warm and loving to Jack. There was hope to go with the faith.

By Friday morning I had fully recovered, and felt determined. I still could not fathom that others were talking about Jack, about all of us as a family. I wondered about my friends, Moundsville’s finest, and concluded that they would not see what the ilk of Bertha Adams saw. My friends were educated, sophisticated. Our sons would naturally be a little softer I suppose, and somewhat likelier to be teased, taunted and bullied. Our daughters would naturally be more refined and fair and, therefore, envied. My friends would not see Jack as a sissy girl-like boy, would they?

Precisely at nine a.m. I called and left a message for Dr. Ellis to call me. I told the nice woman who answered that it was important. Actually I may have used the word ‘urgent’. He returned my call immediately and listened carefully as I rattled off all that had happened since I saw him in December. I even recited in detail how I discovered Jack in a pair of his sister’s panties and that he had worn them on our shopping trip to Wheeling, except I forgot to mention, perhaps intentionally, that I bought him his own pair of panties. I was so relieved when he told me he was unexpectedly free on Tuesday, his class at Ohio State was cancelled for some reason, and could therefore give us two hours. We were to be in his office by ten a.m.

* * *

The drive to Wheeling to see Dr. Ellis was unusually quiet. It had been just one week since Don faced his son for the first time about cross dressing and came away from the discussion somewhat enlightened but still with significant doubt and skepticism. Then Tim gallantly fought a bully, standing up for his brother, and won, while I stood up to, more or less, the bully’s mother.

Now we were driving in silence, Don at the wheel glancing occasionally in the rear view mirror at his son obviously not happy with what he saw, or with me. I had laid out a pair of dress slacks for him and ironed a shirt. I presumed he would fix his hair the way I showed him, with the Brylcreem and heavy combed back part. Instead he came down stairs in a pair of pants from a couple of years ago which now fit him shockingly tight and a loose fitting shirt. The pants failed to reveal any hint that Jack was a boy but I resisted asking him how he accomplished that. The shirt was actually his father’s but he wore it just like some of the teen girls did, untucked with the top button undone. I imagined he might be wearing the bra I let him have after I trimmed his hair Saturday. The biggest surprise though was his hair, teased and brushed how I taught him so he could look girly. I snapped at him when I saw him and tried to brush his hair back but he pushed my hand away. I remembered how I told him he would have to convince Dr. Ellis when I told him I believed. The way he looked would be more than convincing. My boy looked like an eleven year old girl with short hair in every aspect, except the too tight pants, as well as the shirt, were clearly boys’ clothes.

When we arrived in front of the Wheeling Steel Building on Market Street, the building where Dr. Ellis’ office was, I realized how deeply what we were dealing with affected my husband. He had agreed to be involved; he said he was resigned to being the father of a child who was different, he referred to it as a ‘fixation’; and he appeared to love Jack and did not openly reject him. That changed as he stopped the car at the curb instead of looking for a parking space.

“You and Jack go ahead. I’ll park and meet you up there.” He said glancing at his strange looking son in the back seat. I got the message; Don didn’t want to be seen on the streets of Wheeling with his son. That hurt me and I’m sure Jack too. But what choice did I have. At least he was participating.

* * *

“Why do you think you were meant to be a girl?” Dr. Ellis asked Jack early in the session. It seemed to take forever before Don arrived and I was beginning to think he decided not to come and I would find him in the bar of the McClure Hotel.

I knew Dr. Ellis was going to challenge. He said as much when I called him, panicked, the Friday following the disastrous Thursday of Tim’s fight and my front porch episode with Bertha Adams. I wanted to answer for Jack, but resisted, probably because I had converted and became a believer. I wanted to say to Dr. Ellis, even to anyone who would listen, ‘Just look at him. Look at the face, the hair, the way he sits, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. Of course he was meant to be a girl.’

The session began nicely, introductions and pleasantries. Don was cordial but notably cool and uncomfortable. I couldn’t tell if Jack was wearing the bra under the heavy loose fitting shirt but felt he probably was. He was a little shy or perhaps skeptical. Still, he was so polite and cooperative, answering questions without hesitation, until Dr. Ellis asked about the girl thing. Oh, before that there were lots of questions about school, who his friends were and what Jack liked to do. That led to Dr. Ellis’ first question about cross dressing.

“Jack, I understand you sometimes dress up in girls’ things?” I remember him asking.

“Yes sir.” He answered in a soft voice. I am sure Dr. Ellis noted that Jack did not shy away from the answer, nor appear ashamed or feel he needed to explain. Jack also did not elaborate. He just looked at the man nearly as old as his grandfather, in a dark pin striped suit, gray hair and moustache. Don and I were sitting on the couch and Jack sat in a big chair almost facing the one Dr. Ellis sat in.
There was a long silent and uncomfortable pause as Dr. Ellis hoped for a further response. Don squeezed my hand which I took to mean he was enjoying seeing another adult, a man no less, verbally spar with Jack.

“Ok Jack. I need to ask some questions about that. I want you to think hard and tell me whatever you can.”

“Sure.”

“Jack, can you remember the first time you put on something a girl would wear, a dress or something.” Thank god he didn’t mention panties.

“No, not really.” Jack said slowly then added after thinking about it. “When I was little I remember a little dress I would wear sometimes when we played.”

“Who do you mean?” Dr. Ellis asked. “Your brother and sister?”

“Yes, mostly Brenda.” Jack explained. “Tim was there sometimes but he never wore a dress.” Tim would be the last little boy to do that.

“Did Brenda make you wear the dress?” Dr. Ellis pried with the question that was on my mind, and Don’s too, I was sure.

“I don’t think so, doctor. I just remember it was fun. It wasn’t all the time, just in the summer I think, when I was four or five.” Jack told him. “It wasn’t very often and she never made me. I think I wanted to.”

“Oh.” The psychiatrist remarked a little surprised. “”What do you mean you wanted to?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I think I was too little to know.” Jack said mysteriously.

“To know what?” Dr. Ellis responded falling into the pure innocence that Jack always projected when he described his feelings.

“About the boy thing.” Jack said matter-of-factly. Don and I looked at each other. I suspected what was coming.

“What’s the boy thing Jack?” He asked predictably.

“You know. I didn’t know I was a boy.” Dr. Ellis looked at me almost with a resigned desperation. It was revealing, as well as surprising, that Jack described his situation, feeling like a girl but actually being a boy, as ‘the boy thing’.

“Didn’t people call you ‘Jack’, and didn’t your mother dress you like a boy?” The doctor pressed.

“Uh huh. But I was little.” He reasoned. “I didn’t know anything then. And I had long hair that Brenda would put in pigtails sometimes.” What Jack was saying somehow made sense to me. As a toddler maybe he didn’t understand how little boys were different from little girls. I suddenly remember seeing Brenda braiding little Jack’s long hair once. Maybe that is when this started; he was three or four and somehow got confused about whether he was a little boy or a little girl, and Brenda braided his hair, offered him a dress, and he had fun and well, over time it just became black and white for him. I was starting to suspect that Brenda put Jack on this course. Why wouldn’t I have noticed and figured it out. I should have put a stop to it but I really didn’t know.

“Are you saying you thought you were a girl, that when you played dress up with your sister you got mixed up?”

Jack seemed slightly annoyed, as if he was frustrated that he couldn’t make himself understood.

“I wasn’t mixed up!” He answered forcefully not being absolutely polite for the first time. I would have chastised him but he didn’t let me. “I just didn’t know I wasn’t like Brenda.”

It took me much too long to understand that my eleven year old was referring to body parts. Jack was telling the doctor that, as a toddler, he didn’t realize the anatomical difference between a boy and a girl. He should have. From the time he was at least two until, well, for several years really, I bathed Tim and Jack together in the only bathtub in a house of four adults and three children. But I had to allow that didn’t mean he ever saw how his sister was different, or made a conscious connection of that difference.

I don’t think Dr. Ellis knew where to go from there. “Umm, I understand.” He muttered without conviction. “Then Jack, at some point you must have realized that you weren’t a girl, like your sister. When did you realize you actually were a boy?”

Jack didn’t hesitate. “Never.” He answered. I don’t think he was being rude. I felt he was just being honest. He’s said roughly the same thing to me. He told me during that first, perhaps the second, conversation I had with him that he has never considered himself a boy and that he had to pretend until his prayers were answered.

“I’m not a boy.” He said calmly. Jack’s demeanor with Dr. Ellis was so different than the conversation between him and his father just one week before. With Dr. Ellis Jack was open, and resolute, instead of defensive and on edge. Just the same, however, Dr. Ellis, the educated professional seemed somewhat frustrated. He continued.

“Ok Jack. You’re not a boy. Don’t you really mean you’re not a boy on the inside? That must be really hard Jack. To feel you should have been born a girl but wasn’t, must make you angry.” Dr. Ellis told him.

Jack didn’t say anything. He was, I think, skeptical that someone believed him so quickly. I couldn’t tell if Dr. Ellis had hit a nerve but I liked how he tried to draw Jack out. Don listened intently. Dr. Ellis continued.

“It must hurt to be a girl if everyone thinks you’re a boy.” Dr. Ellis sympathized. “I bet it makes you mad to be the only girl who doesn’t wear a dress to school.” He continued.

That did it. Jack eyes became red, his face contorted and tears formed, then ran down his face. I handed him a Kleenex from my purse. I could tell that Don wanted to say something, that he was so uneasy with Dr. Ellis referring to Jack as a girl. I put my hand on Don’s arm asking him to be patient.

“I’m sorry Jack.” Dr. Ellis told him. “Do you want a drink of water?” He asked reaching for a glass and pitcher on the table next to his chair. Jack nodded and Dr. Ellis poured and handed the glass to Jack.

“Are you ok?” Jack nodded again. “I need to ask a couple more things and then we’ll be done for today, Jack. Ok?”

“I just need to understand something Jack. When you were little you thought you were a girl like your sister, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“Then when you got older people didn’t treat you like a girl, did they?”

“No.”

“Would you like to tell me about that?”

Jack took some time, obviously trying to remember. “I remember I was so excited to start school, you know mommy.” Jack said looking at me, still sobbing. “Remember my hair was down to my shoulders. Brenda used to brush my hair.” Jack looked back at Dr. Ellis. “Then they made me go in town and they cut my hair and all the men told daddy what a nice boy I was.”

“Tim had long hair too, before he started school. All the little boys did.” I interjected defensively. I wondered why I had not noticed how Jack had reacted so differently to the ritualistic hair cutting for five year old boys about to start school. Tim seemed to relish the event; he was no longer a little boy. Jack became quiet almost introverted during that period and it took almost a year before he was back to being the happy child again.

“I know, Mrs. Roberts.” Dr. Ellis acknowledged clearly annoyed that I had interrupted.

“Go on, Jack.”

“Well, I still thought mommy would have a dress for the first day of school.” Jack looked at me. “That’s all right mommy. You didn’t know.” I bit my lip trying not to cry myself. Trying to comprehend such a ridiculous notion as a boy actually believing he was a girl, and thinking his mother would present him a dress to wear to his first day of school, was beyond me. I suppose I should not have wondered why my little boy did not say something to me, but I did. Perhaps he did and it seemed so silly to me that I just dismissed it, and banned it from my memory.

“That’s when I knew.” Jack then revealed.

“Knew what?” Dr. Ellis asked.

“That I had to pretend. I knew I had to pretend to be a boy until God fixed me.”

My wonderful little boy was a believer too, just like me. Except his belief was pure and innocent. He really believed that God, the Creator and Controller, would somehow turn him into a girl. My belief was more basic and earthly. I believed in what should have been, but didn’t have near the amount of faith Jack did about the future.

“Oh.” Dr. Ellis managed.

“He’s really busy so I just kept praying. I knew he’d get around to it.” He noted confidently as if God was working through Dr. Ellis.

I silently prayed Dr. Ellis would not pursue any discussion of God and miracles. My prayers were answered.

“One last thing Jack. I need to ask you something and you will have to think real hard. I need you to try to remember if someone ever hurt you?”
Jack said nothing and I saw no revealing expression on his face.

“Did anyone ever hit you Jack?” Then after a second or two. “Did anyone ever touch you in your private place?” It was a necessary question that I had not considered. Of course, if someone did something terrible to Jack I supposed it could perhaps cause him to rebel against being a boy. I was certain however that Jack had not been abused in any way, and I was just as certain, as a believer, that he was not rebelling.

“Nobody hurt me. I knew you didn’t really believe me.”

“I’m so sorry Jack. I do believe you but I needed to make sure you haven’t been hurt. Sometimes little boys and girls are hurt and it makes them, uh, well, it makes them do things other boys or girls wouldn’t do.”

I’m not sure Jack was completely convinced that Dr. Ellis believed him, believed he should have been a girl and not a boy, but he accepted the doctor at his word. After all, Jack’s goal was to have someone other than me on his side.

“Now Jack, I want to tell you, and your mom and dad, what I believe and what I know. First, Jack I do believe you. I believe you feel inside you that you are, or should have been born a girl. But you weren’t and I don’t have a way to show being born a boy was a mistake. So we are going to have to work on helping you be happy and healthy.”

Then Dr. Ellis just talked, actually treating Jack like a friend, perhaps an uncle or grandfather, using a friendly tone and giving information. He told the boy he had looked forward to meeting him because he wanted to find out what it was like. He asked Jack to describe it; did Jack feel alone; did he envy girls; was he mad about his unusual situation? He explained, in simple terms, about cross dressing but stayed away from and specific terminology, never saying ‘transvestite’. He said he didn’t know any other boys just like him but thought there probably were some.

Jack relaxed and told Dr. Ellis things he had not told me, or Don, for that matter. He talked about playing dress up with Joanie Benson many times. He revealed that before he started school and was home during the day alone with his grandmother (I would often go shopping or sometimes help Don in town) he would dress in one of Brenda’s old dresses and play with her dolls. I was stunned that my mother, the strict God fearing Christian woman would allow her grandson to do that, and more than shocked that she never mentioned it to me. I felt like an incompetent and out of touch mother with a daughter who braided my son’s hair and a mother who allowed him to wear dresses and play with dolls.

Jack also showed some mature insight about himself. He said he knew what he did, and how he felt, was a problem for us; he didn’t say it was bad or wrong. He expressed how deeply he wished he could just be normal, even saying that if he could he would be a normal boy, instead of a girl everyone thought was a boy. That seemed to connect with the father.

"But I can't. I'm never going to be normal." He said with a resigned sigh. I knew he was right about that.

Dr Ellis smiled and gave Don and I a knowing look. "As you get older Jack, normal will become less important. It’s ok to be different from other boys and girls." He smiled at Jack warmly. The room was silent for the longest time. Finally Dr. Ellis asked Jack about his hair almost as if neither Don nor I were in the room.

"I like your hair. Did your mom help fix it?"

Jack smiled a little and blushed. I felt Don tense up. I waited for Jack to answer afraid my husband would explode.

"Do you like it?" Jack asked proudly then continued. "Mom trimmed it and showed me how but I did it myself today." He flipped his head tossing his hair exactly like his sister does sometimes.
"What do you want me to call you? I can't call you Jack, now can I?"

That did it. Don stood up and headed for the door. "Miriam, Jack, this is not helping. " He stopped, turned and looked directly at me. "Are you coming Miriam?"

He really didn't give me time to answer. He turned back toward the outer office and through the door. But before he was completely out of the waiting area and into the hall Dr. Ellis caught up to him, pulling the door to his office almost closed. Jack and I could not see the two men but listened to the muted exchange, not able to make out the words just the inflections. Don did not shout or sound angry but I felt he was challenging Dr. Ellis’ professionalism and his strategy. I have no idea what Dr. Ellis said but shortly, just a minute or two, he returned to his chair, without Don.

“Your husband will join us in a minute, Mrs. Roberts, just as soon as I finish with, uh, with, well…” He looked at the eleven year old. “You never told me what name I should call you.”

I was not ready for that level of belief and commitment from the person who was supposed to help us. I had accepted that my son was different, embraced the idea that he wanted to be a girl, or should have been one, but I never considered that in any real terms. I thought that, like Jack, I was believing in a fantasy. I wasn’t ready to actually live it. Asking James Edgar Roberts, the eleven year old with a boy’s body, whom we called Jack, to choose a girls’ name caused me to almost react just like my husband did. I wanted to run. To me, the believer, I could accept that Jack thought he should have been a girl, and be at peace with him cross dressing, but he was Jack, my little boy, the one I named after the other man in my life, the one who died in the war on the day Jack was born. I couldn’t easily accept a different name.

Being a believer and worshiping is one thing. Practicing your faith by sacrifice and hardship was altogether different. Looking at Jack that day in his tight pants, loose shirt with the bra underneath and with the complete girl-like hair, and thinking of him with a girl’s name, required a level of faith I wasn’t sure I had.