Chapter 22 - The Other 90%

This might be a good place to stop and talk about the 90% of my life that isn't directly connected with being transgendered. Of course, since this in a memoir of my life as a transgendered woman, it isn't surprising that that's what I've been writing about.

In fact, just the other night Julie and Sam were over for dinner with me and Isaac so Julie could offer some comments about what I'd written so far. That boiled down to 'don't be so hard on yourself' and 'the sex was a lot better than you wrote, but please, no details!'

That's when we started trying to find a title. I was prosaic - My Life as a Transgendered Woman seemed to fit nicely. It was roundly panned by all the others present. So, for your edification and entertainment, here are a few of the suggestions. Obviously you know what the final choice was if you're reading this, but here goes:

Too Soon Old and Too Late a Lady

Connie: A Woman Born of Man

Connie: A Stealth Transition

Changing Gender is not a Con Game

Connie: Born Again But Not The Way You Think

Connie: A Life Skating on Thin Ice

Connie: Born Before Her Time
 

We got pretty silly, but it was a good evening together, and I see I've done it again. I introduced a topic and immediately skated off in another direction.

Naturally. I knew I wanted to be a woman as soon as I put on my first bra had a major effect on my life. But this was the sixties, transgender was a word that virtually nobody had heard of, including me. I spent five days a week in school. I played pickup baseball and terrorized the town with my buddies on our bikes. I was a slightly effeminate boy but nobody had the nerve to say much about it because I was obviously a boy and did the stuff boys do.

Most Saturdays I was a girl, and a few Sundays sometimes. As puberty hit each of my friends in turn, the casual comments about what boys and girls should do and say made it clear that I had to hide my feminine feelings or it could get sticky.

College was much the same, leavened with the growing feminist and LGBT movements, but transgender was still not on many lips or minds. Remember the panty raid that I started with? That sort of attitude was pretty common and I went along with it, hiding my growing feelings that this was just not right! I shoved Connie deep in the closet and locked her in.

Like I said, I had an active social life as Conrad, so don't get the idea that I was a loner or outcast - I wasn't. Considered a little weird, sure, but so were a lot of other guys.

It helped that my sexual orientation was tilted toward women, but I have to think I maybe was fooling myself. That slowly changed as my feminine desires grew, as you will eventually see.

Chapter 23 - The Mysterious Connie

OK, back to where I left off, with Connie out at the radio station and in the closet anywhere else, or so I hoped. That lasted about half an hour, about as long as it took to get back to the dorm.

If you're just hanging out on campus on a Saturday afternoon, a lot of the students have the campus radio station on in the background. Lloyd's show was popular, partly because he did manage to find interesting people to talk to, partly because he said outrageous things and loved to get a good fight going on the air. Long before outrageous talk radio went national, Lloyd was perfecting the format. It seems people were slavering to see what sparks flew with Lloyd's sour views of women and and an outspoken feminist like Maggie.

That meant a lot of people were listening. I should have figured this out when Julie and her roommate came rushing down to the station. The tech let her in because everybody knew she and I were an item, but fortunately, nobody else got to actually see me being Connie for the microphone.

When I got back on the floor, the conversation went something like this:

"Hey man! You missed it. Some chick gave Lloyd the business on his show."

"You don't say?" I replied, consciously trying to keep my voice in a lower register.

"Yeah, she knew her shit. Fuckin' bitch laid it all out and made it sound sweet. That chick of yours would love her."

"Julie did mention something about it."

"At least this Connie chick likes guys, not like some of those lezzie bitches. Hey! You work at the radio station - think you can get me a date with her?"

You get the idea. A good fraction of the students were the typical college troglodyte, interested in wine, women and song as my parents would phrase it. Booze, bitches and Rock 'n Roll in the patois of the time. I shudder to think of what that phrase has morphed into in the age of the Internet. Eventually I made my escape to my fortunately Arthur-free room. I lay in bed wondering what I had gotten myself into.

Suddenly I realized I wasn't depressed any longer. For one glorious hour Connie had taken the campus by storm, freed from her closet and on top of the world. Did I really want to push her back in again?

Nope.

But I wasn't going to just call up Sandra and have her ship Connie's falsies and clothes to me and come out with tits a-blazing. I called up Julie and told her I needed to talk. She just asked if I hadn't done enough talking to last an eternity that afternoon.

See why I loved her?

We returned to the scene of the crime. One advantage of being record librarian is you can go into the library and hide out if you're in a solitary mood. Nobody thinks to look for you there. When you need some alone time with your girl and you can't get rid of your roommate, there is a comfortable couch just perfect for snuggling. It's old and ratty, but at least the springs are still under the padding and not sticking you in the ass. The perfect place for a private talk.

Just how far did we want to go in letting Connie out into the world? As far as I knew on that day in 1971, the only clue I had that I wasn't unique was Sandra's mention of men who wanted to have breast forms. Since all this happened fifty years ago, and Isaac reminds me I have a problem remembering where I left my purse, I've spent a fair amount of time on Google researching the timeline.

If only Google had been around in 1971! I now know that The NY Times estimated there were some 3,000 transwomen living in 1973. 3,000! Gender correction surgery, while in its infancy, was already available, but I hadn't a clue. That was about to change.