Join a dozen Roses as they attend the SWEET Conference (South Western Exposition for the Embetterment of Transwomen/Transpeople, depending on who you ask.) Rose Gallagher is a registrar for the conference and notices that there are 12 Roses in attendance. On a whim, she contacts them and suggests a meeting of the Roses to share a bit about their choice of the name Rose.
Seven authors collaborate on one story to tell us about
Click on title to jump to that story
Dedication
Give Me An R…O…S…E
by Patricia Marie Allen
Cis Rose
by Cheryl Bishop
Annie’s Rose
by Andrea Lena
Yellow Rose of Texas
by Nuuan
A Rose by Any Other Name
by Patricia Marie Allen
Thorn in the Flesh
by Rosemary
Rose Gold
by Ayleasea
Secret CD
by Cheryl Bishop
The Floral Arrangement
by Rosemary
Rose from the Ashes
by Melanie E
Kat Rose
by Andrea Lena
Wild Irish Rose
by Ayleasea
Afterword
Dedication:
This work is dedicated to Erin and her cadre of minions whose tireless efforts keep Big Closet Top Shelf running. Without them this work would not be possible. Can’t thank you guys enough.
Hi, my name is Sam. I bartend in the Tomb. The Tomb is a little auxiliary bar, tucked away in the basement of the Luxor. I like it because it's quiet, I find the noise at the main bar fatiguing. The Tomb is meant as a decompression chamber for serious gamblers, most of the tourists never find it.
It was a quiet afternoon. There was one guy at the bar complaining about his luck, and a pair of young men at a table having beer with their hamburgers discussing the best approach to sport betting. In came a group of about a dozen women.
Their leader said, “Hello, we are all named Rose. We are with the SWEET conference. It was suggested that this would be a good place for us to meet and exchange stories. Do you mind if we rearrange your tables so we can sit together?”
“Hello, ladies. I’m Sam, your bartender. You’re welcome to rearrange things to your desires. Would you like anything to drink?”
They moved the five tables farthest from the entry into one long table. They ordered three bottles of wine, a double Jack straight, a Cosmo, a Lone Star, a Newcastle, a diet coke, a seven up, a black coffee, and two waters.
I came to the realization that SWEET was an organization of transgenders and/or transsexuals, and that these ladies had started life as boys. This could prove quite interesting.
The leader, a well preserved older lady who exhibited the energy and enthusiasm of a much younger person, organized them and began telling her own story.
Ladies, could I have your attention? Thanks. Well, I’m the Rose whose grand idea it was to call us all together. My wife calls me Rosie; that may make it easier to keep track of which Rose I am, what with us all being Rose.
I’m one of the registrars for SWEET. It’s a bit past the time I set for us to get together and even though we’re not all here, I suppose we should start. Hopefully, the others will show up before we get too far along. As the instigator of this meeting I’ll start off our sharing. But before I do, I’d like to thank you all coming. I know that there are other things we could all be doing.
Why don’t you take a minute here to introduce yourselves and try to come up with some way to differentiate yourself from the group?
Why don’t you start, dear,
(I indicate the Rose sitting on my left)
Hi. I'm Rose Greene. I married a crossdresser or as she now prefers to self identify a social transgender. You can call me Cis
(I nod at the Rose to her left.)
"Hi...I’m...My name is Rose McDonough. I’m from Virginia of late… near Richmond...but I spent nearly all of my life in New Jersey. You know Linda Hunt the actress? We were born in the same hospital….sorry… I’ve only recently come out of the closet. Non-op, I suppose since I finally came out...Is that okay? But you can call me Dee to make it easy?" (She looks around at all the other Roses at the table.)
"Why Dee?""Oh...sorry...I'm...I am Rose... But Annie used Dee... like the initial of my other name ever since we were married, but lately so it wouldn't seem odd even though Dee now means something else entirely. Is that okay?" (nods around)
(They all get the idea and don’t need prompting.)
Howdy all. Um, I’m a Rose too. Rosalee Colette Davis, but most everybody calls me RC. This is the first of these types of events I’ve been to, so pardon me for being a bit skittish. Me and Mike, that’s my husband, we came up for the rodeo national finals. I compete in barrel racing, been doing it since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Mike registered me for this little shindig as a surprise and didn’t tell me a thing about it until today. To say I was surprised when I found out there were so many other gals like me… I had no idea!
Hi, well, I don’t know just how to introduce myself. I guess my name will do. Of course you all know it’s Rose, if we need to keep track of which of us is which, you could add my middle name and call me Rose Marie. I’m single, still looking for an open minded woman to call my own.
My name's Rose Carlisle.
(Others want a differentiating name.)(She takes a swig from her flask) Call me Jeff then.
(other women are shocked, to which Jeff shrugs, and looks to the next Rose, signifying the end of discussion regarding her name.)
Hi, I'm Rose Gold. I really don't know what else to say, I'll tell you more when it's my turn to share.
Hello, I'm Rose White. I am new to this, and feel like I'm in over my head at this conference. You can call me Newbie
"I'm Rose Williams. I haven't always been, as Williams is my married name." she giggles
“Oh...my turn? I’m Kat...Kat Rose. I’m...post-op and I live with my girlfriend Anita just South of here in Henderson. Oh… just got a message…I gotta answer this text… Sorry…. my work… I’ll be back in a bit.”
I’m Rose of course, but my Dad calls me “Rosheen”, his little rose. (she smirked a little) So I guess Rosheen will do here.
OK, that should help us keep track, thank you. I guess we should get on with why we’re here.
This is pretty amazing. I never thought Rose was that popular a name. What are the odds that there’d be an even dozen of us at this conference? But since there is, I thought there might be some interesting stories behind how we all came to be called Rose, as I noted in the message I sent inviting you. I think we should share one at a time. Since it was my idea, I’ll start off. The rest of you can be thinking of just what you want to share while I drone on. If you’re all in agreement, we can just go around the table in order we just did. You can share as much or as little as you like. Anyway, here’s my story
I guess my being Rose long term was set in motion when Mom found me as in the sunroom just before I started high school. I had my laptop open viewing the CD of our summer’s vacation pictures, my eyes brimming in tears
“Joe? Why the long face? You look like you’re ready to cry,” she said.
“What? Oh… I was just looking at the pictures from our vacation,” I told her.
“We had a good time, why would they make you want to cry?” she asked.
I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t say what I really had in my heart.
Perhaps I should back up and explain just how it is that I’ve come to this. It all started that spring. I was a normal thirteen year old brother of a fifteen year old sister. Like most boys of thirteen, girls were starting to look pretty good to me. So I was delighted when my sister’s cheer squad chose our backyard to do their extra practice for the summer competition season. I mean I had eight hot high school babes cavorting around in my backyard wearing short shorts and crop tops. OK so one of them was my sister, but who could fault me for watching. I mean, wouldn’t you?
They were pretty good and I thought they should win the competition. I got to know the girls during their breaks and they seemed to like me. Mostly, I think, it was because I was encouraging them and sometimes suggested ways to do some of the trick things in a way that would make it easier and still look cool. More than once, I had to take one of the girl’s spots in the squad to demonstrate what I meant. Now that was definitely cool. Can you imagine actually touching those beautiful babes and having them touch you? WOW!
Well, everything was going along fine until Rose, the squad flyer, took a weekend off to get in some late season skiing on the Palmer Snow Fields with her mom and dad and broke her leg. Something called a “spiral break.” It was going to be six weeks before she would get out of her cast and another three months before she could even think about cheering, much less jump down from the top of the pyramid formation. I found out about it when I came home from school on Monday. The squad was already there and instead of practicing, they were just sitting around.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Where’s Rose?”
“She broke her leg skiing over the weekend,” Judy informed me.
“It’s a bad break,” Marcie added. “She’ll be in a cast for six weeks and who knows how long before the doctor will release her for cheering.”
“She won’t be able to do any cheers for the whole summer,” Linda said.
I said, “Bummer. What are you guys going to do? Rose is kind of the key person in most of the stunts.”
“We’ll just have to find someone else, but I don’t know where,” Karen lamented.
“You’re right, Karen,” Luce (short for Lucinda) said. “It may take a week or two, but we’ll just have to ask every girl who’s the right build to consider joining the team.”
“You know,” Judy observed, “we can’t afford to not practice for a week or two. We still need to keep up on all our parts. Joe, you know all Rose’s moves and you’re about her size; would you fill in for her during practice while we find someone else?”
I shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?”
So they got down to business and we started the routine. We were doing the pyramid for the second time when Marcie said, “You know Joe, you should be wearing shorts. Those jeans just don’t give us the right feel.”
I told her, “I don’t have any shorts, sorry.”
Judy offered, “I have some that should fit you.”
I tried to sound disgusted when I said, “Girl’s shorts? … I don’t think so.”
“Oh come on Joe,” Luce said. “What’s the big deal? It’s just clothes.”
They all pleaded with me and in the end, I gave in.
“Come on Joe,” Judy said. “Let’s go to my room and I’ll find something for you.”
Like a lamb to the slaughter, I followed her. She opened a drawer and rooted around for a minute and finally came up with a pair of black shorts that looked a lot like what she had on. “Here, put these on. They’re a little tight around the hips for me. They should fit.”
I took the proffered garment and went to my room. They fit ok, but they were really short and had flared legs. I’d have chosen something a little more close fitting and longer. When I came out into the hall, Judy began laughing.
“What?” I demanded.
She stood me in front of the mirror and I could see what she was laughing at. You could just see the edge of my boxers hang down below the shorts.
“You can’t wear those boxers under them. I’ll have to loan you some underwear as well,” she told me.
She didn’t take long to come up with a pair of white nylon panties.
I blurted out, “Panties? You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t wear panties.”
She insisted that I couldn’t wear my boxers and pointed out that I didn’t have any briefs. That didn’t leave me any choice.
I was reluctant and had to say, “It’s bad enough I’m wearing your shorts. What will people say if I wear panties as well?”
Her answer was simple. “Nothing.” She told me that unless I told them I was wearing them. She urged me to quit wasting time. “Just put on the underwear and no one will know. I won’t tell them and you’re not likely to, so just put them on,” she said.
I took the panties and retreated to my room. It was a real shock, to say the least, when I pulled them up. I mean, I’ve never felt anything like it. I had to tuck things back and pull them up tight to keep from being obvious that they … I … well, you know. Anyway, I got them and the shorts on and stepped out in the hall for inspection.
Judy approved and herded me post haste out to continue the practice.
‘Was that the first time you’d worn panties?
Well yeah, but… to be honest when I helped with the wash, I’d examined them. I wouldn’t admit, even to myself, that there was some fascination involved. I… well, I did wonder about the fabric. I mean nylon… it's all slick and sexy feeling. But I refused to think about how it would feel to wear something like that; you know guys don’t wear that kind of stuff.
‘Let her get back to her story. So how did you feel going out to face the girls wearing your sister’s shorts and panties?
I ventured back outside with some trepidation. You know, because I was wearing my sister’s shorts and panties. The girls had respected me up ’til then. I had to wonder what would they say when they saw me?
Answer: nothing. I got out there and they were all ready to do their routine. I was a little off because of the bare leg contact and the silky feel of the underwear. We were nearly done when mom came out on the patio. She must have gotten off early because she usually shows up about the time the girls go home. I was sure that I’d have time to get my jeans back on before then. She eyed the shorts, but didn’t say anything.
“Ah, hi Mom,” Judy said, “you’re home early.”
“No,” she said, “I’m just on time. You girls are practicing late. How come Joe is taking Rose’s slot? Where is she?”
Judy informed her that Rose had broken her leg skiing the day before and wouldn’t be able to cheer until she started college the following year. She added that I was helping them stay in practice for the competition until they could find a replacement for her.
Mom said it was too bad about Rose. She then informed us we had about forty-five minutes before dinner would be ready.
With that, she headed back in the house. I was feeling seriously nervous then. I could tell by the look Mom gave me that she had noticed I was wearing Judy’s shorts. I had to wonder, ‘Does she know I’m wearing her panties too?’ We went through another routine but I didn’t do too well because of Mom being there.
When we went inside, Dad was there. “Hi kids,” he said. “Well Joe, your mother tells me that you’re one of the girls now,” he continued with a wide grin on his face.
I replied, “Ah, not really. I’m just keeping them in practice until they find someone to take Rose’s place.”
Dad, still grinning, continued teasing me with, “Well, whatever the case is, the outfit is fetching on you.”
Mom told him not to tease me, since I was nice enough to do the girls a favor. She said to get washed up for dinner because it was on the table already.
I wanted to change first, but she insisted that I should just wash and eat because dinner would get cold if I took time to change.
So, I ate dinner feeling very self-conscious because of the feeling of Judy’s clothes below the waist. It was my turn to clean up after dinner, so I didn’t even get a chance to change then. When I got done, Judy was already at the table doing homework and Mom told me to do the same. The way she phrased it there wasn’t any room for negotiation.
Well, the short of it is that I didn’t get out of Judy’s shorts until I went to bed. By then, I was pretty used to them. The next day, the girls showed up as usual and Judy hauled me upstairs and handed me another pair of panties along with her shorts. The rest of the week went pretty much like that. On Tuesday I changed before mom came home.
“What? Where’s my second daughter?” teasing, once she spotted me in my normal clothes.
“Second daughter?” I asked.
It seems that while she didn’t think Dad should tease me, it was OK for her to do so when she said, “Well, yesterday I came home to find you in Judy’s shorts and today it’s jeans and a T-shirt. You seemed pretty comfortable in them. Maybe I should get you some shorts of your own… Or do you prefer borrowing Judy’s?”
“Oh Mom,” I said. I know I was blushing because the truth is I did kind of enjoy the feeling of wearing Judy’s shorts and underwear.
‘So mom thinks dad shouldn’t tease you but it’s OK for her too? Wow, what a double standard.
Well Mom apologized saying she just couldn’t resist teasing me a little. She hugged me the way moms do… the kind of hug I’d have been embarrassed to have the guys see. She said she was a little surprised to see me in Judy's shorts the day before. But understood why I wore them. Then she said, “I assume that you wore them again today, or did they find someone to replace Rose already?”
I told her no, that there weren’t that many girls the right size to choose from. That the one they were working on didn’t look promising because she was a straight A student and didn’t want to take the time away from home work, plus, she’s afraid of heights.
By the time the weekend came around, I was pretty much OK with wearing Judy’s shorts and panties, so much so that I didn’t bother to change back to my usual boxers and jeans on Thursday or Friday opting to just wear them until bedtime. ‘No big deal,’ I thought, ‘like the girls said, ‘they’re just clothes.’ I told myself that, but looking back, I came home each day looking forward to changing. I argued with myself about that being inappropriate, but still each day, I found myself was hurrying home to put them on.
I kind of got into the thing of practicing with the squad and the girls treated me as an equal member. By the end of the second week it seemed like I had always been a member of the squad. I was braver than the real Rose and added some flourish to my dismount and I ramped up the tumbling aspect as well. Friday afternoon practice went well, but the girls took off right away and didn’t hang around after like they usually do. I thought it was a little strange, but then maybe there was something going on, you know, date wise. But then I worried that they’d found a replacement and that they didn’t want to hang around while Judy told me they didn’t need me anymore.
As usual, Saturday morning, I took the opportunity to sleep in. As I got dressed, I wondered about the feeling about being replaced from Friday. If they had found somebody, then sometime over the weekend Judy would tell me about it. When I showed up for breakfast, well OK, brunch, Mom and Judy were at the kitchen table.
As I came in, I heard mom say, “So there’s no one left you can ask?”
“No,” Judy answered her, “Our best prospect allowed that she wouldn’t mind being a cheerleader, but there was no way she was climbing to the top of the pyramid let alone jumping down. I talked to coach Parker. When Rose broke her leg, I told her we had an eighth grader who was practicing with us, just to keep us in shape ’til we found a replacement. So when I told her we’d run out of candidates to recruit she asked me if our temporary was any good. I had to tell her that the temp was probably better than Rose. Before I could tell her that it was Joe, she interrupted and said that if our temp was going to be attending Harrison High next year, she could get a waiver to let her compete with the squad. Somehow I never told her that the temp was my brother. She referred to the temp as ‘her’ and in the coach's mind the problem is solved.”
Mom turned to me and stared a hole in me. I really felt like I was being put on the spot.
I wanted asked what would happen when she found out I was a boy.
“We can’t use you as a boy,” Judy informed me. It was because they competed in the all-girls division. With a boy on the squad they’d have to change to the mixed division. There they would be at a serious disadvantage. All the mixed squads had really buff guys to do the lifting and throws. Karen and Luce were strong, but not that strong.
“But if he was a girl,” mom asked, “Coach Parker could get a waiver to allow her to compete?”
I noticed mom used the ‘her’ pronoun and winced. I had to wonder what she was thinking.
“That’s what she said.” Judy said. Then she rounded on me and begged me to say I would do it.
I asked Mom, “I can’t do that can I? I mean I’m a boy.”
She said that since I would be the flyer, it wouldn’t really give the girls an advantage. She thought we could bend the rules a little for that.
But I insisted I was a boy and asked how it was going to work?
“He’s about the same size a Rose.” Judy blurted. “I’m sure her uniform would fit and his hair is long enough for a ponytail, so hair style isn’t a problem.”
I stared wide eyed at them. Mom nodded her head.
Mom allowed that if Dad would sign off on it, that she could make it work. But pointed out that we would have to swear the girls to secrecy.
I wanted to know just how much time I’d have to pretend to be a girl.
Judy told us that the city competition was just one day and it didn’t start until noon, so it would really just half a day.
I allowed as I could do half a day.
“But what if you do well?” Mom wanted to know. “I seem to remember that the top two teams go to state.”
“That’s right,” Judy agreed. “The state tourney is a two day event.” But she insisted that I didn’t have to be on display the whole time. She said I could just be dressed and stay out of sight for all but a couple of hours when we need to be on the field.
But Mom remembered that two years before, while Judy was still JV, the varsity team went to the regionals and that it was a three day event.
Judy was pretty sure that we didn’t have much of a chance at that because this year, the competition was pretty steep. She pointed out that there were a couple of hundred high schools competing at State and we’d have to finish in the top three to go to the regionals. What’s more in the whole history of cheer at Harrison, they had never gotten beyond the regionals.”
Try as I might to come up with arguments as to why I couldn’t do it, in my mind it became a challenge to see if I could pull it off. In the end, I did manage to put a proviso on it.
I told them that I was OK doing it, but that the first time anyone even hinted that they could see through the charade, I was going to cut and run and they’d be stuck with explaining it to whomever.
Well to make a long story short, Dad did sign off on it. Rose’s uniform fit like it was made for me after they got me a padded bra. Since the uniforms all had the girl’s names on them, I became Rose.
‘So the first time you were seen in girl’s clothes it was a cheer uniform?
Not exactly. I needed some girl’s shoes to go with the uniform. All I had were my basketball shoes that were Converse high-tops. The girls all wore Keds in school colors. So I had to get a pair. So I had to borrow a top from Judy and wear her shorts and a pair of flip flops. Back then we called them thongs. I don’t think thong underwear was even thought of in those days.
‘I bet that was exciting. Out in the real world dressed as a girl for the first time.
Yeah, if you call being terrified exciting. I’d have refused if I could have formed a coherent argument, but all I could think of was I’d be wearing all girls’ clothes for the first time. Well I guess it wasn’t the first time, but I’d only tried on the uniform and taken it off as soon as Judy and Mom determined that it would fit me fine without any alterations. While we were out mom picked up some panties and ankle socks so I wouldn’t have to borrow Judy’s the whole time.
So it wasn’t just a quick trip to the shoe store and home again.
No, we went to three shops in the mall. It would have been more, but Judy assured mom that just to compete in the city tournament I wouldn’t need anything more than she could loan me. But Mom bought me some plain girl’s T-shirts. I have to say that I liked them because the neck wasn’t so tight.
Judy’s estimate of just how much time I’d have to be Rose was way off. For starters, there were no half days. Mom insisted, that on a day when I had to compete, that I would be Rose for the whole day. Something about getting into character.
Then Coach Parker signed us up for a three day cheer camp. So that meant Mom had been right. She should have gotten me more clothes. She took care of that without me, so I was spared that whole shopping thing. Mom volunteered as a chaperone for the camp and I roomed with her. The folks running the camp were good at it and we learned a lot and picked up a few more stunts that were just for competition. They helped us pick things that were well suited for our group, kind of customizing our routine.
So that added three full days to it. What’s more, we did go to state where we finished third, just good enough to go to the regionals. For the state tourney, I made do with what I’d worn at the camp. But I needed more for the regionals so I had to buck up my courage and do another trip to the mall. I came back with what I was sure was at least three times as much as I really needed. We didn’t do all that well in the regionals. Most of the teams there were all-girl teams and the meet was dominated by the large school districts we finished fifteenth. Coach Parker was good with that. She felt we made a good showing.
When we made arrangements to go, I found out why Mom wanted me to have so many clothes. Dad and Mom rescheduled their vacations to coincide with the regionals which were held in Los Angeles, so we stayed and went to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios and SeaWorld. The rub was that since we were flying and there was a hefty charge for extra luggage, I would be stuck as Rose for the two weeks. I couldn’t believe just how many changes of clothes I needed as a girl.
Did I say “stuck”? That’s the way I played it, but I have to tell you by then I was an adrenaline junkie. Every time I went anywhere wearing the girl’s clothes when people could see me, especially if I needed to interact with them I was on an adrenaline high. It was equal parts fear of being caught out and the excitement of being seen as a girl.
It was the week after we came back that Mom found me in the sun room looking at the photos.
She noticed the tears in my eyes and asked, “Joe, something is troubling you, what is it?”
I replied, “It’s over Mom, it’s over.”
She told me that I didn’t exactly sound like I was relieved that it was over; that she couldn’t see that that would bring tears to my eyes.
I looked down, and shook my head.
‘OK, wait, I’m as confused as your mom. You’ve just spent two weeks out and about with your family on a vacation that any of us would have given their right arm to experience, and you’re sad, nearly crying looking at the pictures?
‘Yeah, I’m confused too.
‘Ladies, I’m sure if we give her a chance to continue, she’ll make it clear why she was sad.
Thanks I will. OK where was I? Oh yeah, Mom wanted to know what was bothering me.
She got real serious and asked, “Joe, am I missing my guess that you’re sad that it’s over? That you don’t have to be Rose anymore?” I nodded.
She told me that she wasn’t surprised. That by the time we headed out for the regionals, I had seemed to be pretty much into the part. She said I took to being Rose like I was born to it. And it seemed to her that I had a good time in California for those two weeks.
“Am I right?” she wanted to know. I nodded again.
She told me that dad even noticed how much fun I had. They had talked about it and they had been wondering if maybe I would have withdrawal symptoms.
“You know,” she told me, “we did spend a bit of money putting together a basic wardrobe for you to wear at the various venues where you had to be Rose.” Then she point out the souvenirs I bought.
“You do know that all the sweat shirts and polo tops, not to mention the bracelets you bought were way too girly for a boy to wear without attracting notice, didn’t you,” she asked.
Anyway Mom and Dad had decided that if I needed to decompress, Rose could hang out around the house as much as I needed.”
I did break down at that point and cry, but they were happy tears. If they had known the truth, by the time we got back from camp, I was into being Rose. The clothes Mom bought didn’t include anything really girly, but the fact they were indeed girl’s clothes was exciting. Then of course there were the additional things we bought to go to the regionals.
‘So, what did you get for that trip?
Well things for the trip were really girly. There were even two real dressy dresses and more shoes, four pairs. The tops were real blouses with features like cap sleeves or ruffled hems and oh, the colors. There were a couple of skirts, but mostly pants. Capri pants, leggings and several pairs of shorts in different styles and a purse. What teenage girl would be caught dead without a purse?
So, I was set and had the OK to be Rose as I felt I needed to. I had planned to taper off and only do it a few times a week and get down to where I’d only do it sometimes on weekends. I was doing pretty well at getting my life back as Joe.
But then the whole thing went south the second week of school. I had to tell Mom as soon as I got home.
“Mom, I think Coach Parker knows it was me last summer,” I blurted out as soon as I saw her.
“You do? Why do you say that?” she wanted to know.
I explained that while Judy and I were talking at lunch that Coach Parker came over to talk to Judy. She asked where her cousin “Rose” was and reminded her that “Rose” was allowed to be on the cheerleading team because she was going to be attending Harrison High that year. I told Mom, “Then she looked right at me with a kind of grin on her face and said, ‘Tell Rose that I expect her at Cheerleading tryouts. After what I saw this summer, she’s assured of a spot on the Varsity squad.’ She then looked back at Judy and said, ‘I’m sure you can convince her to come.’” I told Mom that way she said it, there was no doubt that she wouldn’t accept any kind of excuse for Rose not trying out.
By time I had started with the story, Judy was there as well. “Is that the way you saw it Judy?” Mom wanted to know.
Judy confirmed my opinion. “Yeah,” she said, “I think she knew it was Joe last summer and she wants him to try out for the squad. Joe’s right, the way she was talking, it was more of a demand that he become Rose and tryout for the squad.”
“What do you think we should do?” Mom asked. She thought she could go talk to the coach and try to reason with her.
Judy disagreed, saying, “I think Joe should do it. Do you realize what an honor it would be? Freshmen just don’t make the Varsity squad. It just isn’t heard of. The best they should be able to do is JV.”
But Mom was concerned. “I don’t know,” she said. “It took quite a bit out of Joe last summer. I’m not sure that it’s a good idea.”
But it was a done deal. I sure wasn’t in the mood to let the opportunity pass. For the next four years, I had a double life. Joe the nerd in class and Rose the cheerleader most days after school. I got really close to the girls on the squad. We only had one new girl graduate to the Varsity squad before Judy went on to college. Coach Parker admitted to me that the first time I showed up with the squad she knew it was me. That was at cheer camp, but, she said that by then the die was cast and she couldn’t object without losing face. That and I was good both at flying and at being Rose. Of course, after Judy went on to college, there were more new squad members, so she took each new girl aside at the beginning of the year and spun some yarn about me being trans and that we’d have to keep it secret. She also allowed that since I was not attending class as Rose that I didn’t have to wear my uniform to class on game days like the rest of the girls.
Anyway, after high school, I just couldn’t give up being Rose. Trans??? I don’t know just what criteria you need to meet to be trans. I only know that sometimes; make that often, I have to be Rose.
The next storyteller was another well dressed older lady, who like the first didn’t emit any vibes, to cause me to question her original gender.
Thank you Rosie, both for getting us together and for sharing your story.
I don’t think I’ve ever been with so many people named Rose. I find it surprising so many of you chose that name. I was assigned Rose at birth and I wasn’t especially happy with the name, it seemed like an old person's name. But it fits how you blossom when you live who you really are. I am not used to competition for the name Rose, but I can see it will be a problem here. You can call me Cis spelled Cee I eSs. It acknowledges my difference, but makes me feel accepted as a sister.
Our paths here are all different. Mine was less twisted than most. I married into it. I remember my then fiancé taking me out to a very nice steak and lobster dinner displaying the same nervous tics as the night he proposed. This had me very concerned as we had been officially engaged for 6 weeks. As we sipped our after dinner coffee, he took my hand in his and quietly told me, “I am going to tell you a secret that I have never told anyone. This is hard because I fear it could be a deal breaker, and I fear losing you. But you need to know before we get married. I am a transvestite, I like wearing women’s clothes.” He squeezed my hand, but I didn’t find it reassuring. My initial reaction was that it might indeed be a deal breaker. I remember wondering if he could be homosexual, while flashing back to what I had thought were mutually satisfying encounters. “I have some literature I would like you to read. I know you have lots of questions and I’m not sure how well I can answer them.”
My world was jumbled, confused, and seemed to be crumbling. I latched onto what seemed to be a lifeline. “We need to discuss this. But I would like to read whatever you have for me, and get my thoughts together first.” I squeezed his hand. Though not at all certain, I wanted to reassure him that there was at least some desire to remain a couple.
When we returned to his car he gave me a brown paper bag with some books and magazines. One was “The Transvestite and his Wife” by Virginia Prince. This got me to see his crossdressing as more a speed bump than a deal breaker. I realized his kindness and nurturing ways, his willingness to listen, his non-dominance, even his disinterest in sports could all be labeled feminine. But these were all very attractive to me. I still wanted to marry the man I thought I knew, enough to give the woman in him a chance to express herself.
We spent much time discussing things. I think the process brought us even closer. We decided to proceed with the marriage and deal with the crossdressing together.
“Did you meet her before you got married?” asked Rose Williams.
“It was about a month after we were married that I first met his alter ego. He said cross dressing was a release for him and that he was feeling a need. I told him to go change and I would meet him in the living room and we could talk. I opened a bottle of wine and lit some candles. I learned crossdressers take much longer than women to get changed. I think I was on my third glass when she waddled in on her 4” heels that were beyond her skills. My first thought was whore. And I wanted to say no self-respecting woman would be seen in that. But I controlled myself and said, “That’s a pretty sexy outfit.” That greatly widened her smile.
“Thank you.” she beamed.
As I handed her the glass of zinfandel I had poured for her, I asked, “Do you have a name?”
“Not really, you are the first person I have met while dressed this way.”
“I think we should call you Cindy. Short for Cinderella, for your magical transformation.”
“I like it, but I think Cinderella should be just for us. If there should ever be anyone else who meets Cindy, it should be Cynthia.” She replied.
Thus Cindy was born. We sort of bonded over our Cinderella.
I spent the rest of the evening bursting Cindy’s bubbles.
“Maybe that outfit is too sexy for someone who is not naturally endowed to pull it off.” I offered.
The smile narrowed but didn’t invert. As she replied, “You’re probably right. I bought it more for how it makes me feel, than for how it looks.”
“How does it make you feel?” I asked.
After a thoughtful pause, she replied, “Feminine and desirable.”
“I think I would find you more feminine and desirable in something classier.”’ I said.
“Could you help me shopping?” was the quick reply.
“Of course. And we need to find you a better wig. That looks like a garage sale reject, and your complexion doesn’t go with that blond.”
“Actually it was. I thought it was a wonderful find for only $2 at a garage sale.”
Thus I became Cindy’s wardrobe, hair and makeup consultant and instructor.
At first it seemed like an imposition. It was like I was saddled with a 13-year-old little sister. That wasn’t part of what I signed up for getting married. But Cindy’s joy over my assistance made it worthwhile. As Cindy began to look and act our age she morphed into being my best friend. We started spending about 1 night a week as Cindy and Rose. Cindy seemed happier than Steve, but Steve’s moods were also noticeably better after a Cindy visit.
Then I got pregnant.
Even though Steve and I went to birthing class. I kept getting the urge to call him Cindy when he was birth coaching me.`
Rosie asked, “Why did you want to call him Cindy?”
“I didn’t really know why until the nurse teaching the class talked to me after class.”
“You’re really lucky. Your husband will be a real help, when the time comes. You can tell he really loves you by how gentle and caring he is. And he has a nurturing way, almost like a woman. He won't be a Captain Bligh type.” she said.
“What’s a Captain Bligh type?” I asked.
“They are ones who feel they need to be in charge, for fear of losing some of their precious macho, even though they know less than anyone else about what is going on. I recall one especially bad case. The captain was barking orders like an abusive football coach. Finally your obstetrician said ‘Mr. Bligh, I don’t think you are helping, please leave the delivery room.’ You could see his anger flair, and that he wanted to take a swing at the doctor. Two orderlies had positioned themselves either side of the captain. ‘The doctor is in charge here. Please do as she says, she is only doing what she feels is best for your wife and child.’ He left, but that is a scene I don’t want to see repeated.” replied the nurse.
I realized that even the class teacher could pick up on Steve’s feminine vibes, that was what made me want to call him Cindy.
Cindy really enjoyed that when I told her.
We discussed how to handle Cindy and the children. We decided that having a dad who sometimes wore dresses could be confusing to the children. Also the children could be a security risk, as Cindy’s existence was still a tightly held secret. So we decided children wouldn’t meet Cindy until they were older. This pretty much caused Cindy to disappear from our household. I didn’t like the effect on Steve, he became tense, short tempered and grumpy. I could tell he was missing Cindy time, since when on the rare occasions we could leave Jane (our firstborn) with my parents and arrange a Cindy visit those effects would ease.
So when we found our second child was on the way, I told Steve, “I think Cindy should join a crossdressing club. I just don’t have the time or energy she requires. I think it would be good if she made some other friends.”
“But aren’t you worried about others finding out?” Steve asked.
“Not really. I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of. There are some that wouldn’t like it if they found out, but that is more their problem than ours.” I replied.
“If it’s OK with you I’ll give it a try. I need to do something to relieve the pressure that builds up when Cindy is suppressed.”
Steve was nervous the evening he went to meet the group screener at a coffee shop. But not as nervous as Cindy going to her first meeting. I gave her a professional look in the skirt suit we had sewn teaching Cindy to use the sewing machine I had given “her” a couple Christmases earlier. I thought she looked very passable, the biggest problem being her visible nervousness.
She was very high when she returned early the next morning. I didn’t mind being awoken to be told how they couldn't believe it was Cindy’s first time out, as she presented herself so well and looked so good (I felt a good deal of pride for my part in that). As a bonus Steve provided some very good sex.
Cindy wanted me to go to a meeting with her. I was reluctant. I was still wary of what weirdos might lurk there. I also enjoyed being the unseen wonder worker who helped create Cindy.
When I finally allowed myself to be dragged to a meeting, I found a wide variety of regular people. The major difference was how appreciative they were, for just being treated as human beings. I can’t say there weren’t any weirdos but they were a small minority. I found I really enjoy the people in this community. Now that Steve is retiring, Cindy and I plan on going to more of these conventions.
Cindy grew more and more self-confident and more active in the club and the broader crossdresser community. She has her own Facebook page and e-mail, corresponds with others, and even writes fiction for a site devoted to transgender. She was elected treasurer of the group so she had to collect meeting fees from all the members and deal with the hotel where they met. She has started describing herself as social transgender rather than crossdresser, saying being accepted socially as a woman was much more fulfilling than just wearing the clothes. Steve reassured me he did not want to get on the roller coaster of hormones and wouldn’t want to change our enjoyment of being husband and wife. But Cindy did start electrolysis and got her ears pierced. I decided I love both Steve and Cindy and would continue to, unconditionally.
Rose Marie asks, “Where can I find a wife like you?”
“You don’t find one. You cultivate one. You start with an open minded woman. Get her to fall in love with you. You communicate openly and honestly. You let her evolve in her own direction at her own pace. You continue showing her kindness and love, even when that is hard. And you both become better people.” I replied.
"The next Rose had an air of sadness about her, even though she was singing to herself.
She wore little make up other than lipstick. She would be prettier if she learned to highlight her good features.
(I’ve been sitting listening to the first few stories that help me understand just why I feel like I belong. With that, I finally get around to settling in. I stop looking over to the exit and I remove my coat and drape it over my chair. Looking down, my self-conscious default takes over. Am I overdressed? Am I underdressed? Seriously, I’m wearing a fairly nondescript waist-length charcoal cardigan over a pewter blouse with black slacks that are a bit more dressy than my usual jeans.)
“J’taime.”
(I softly sing as I stow my purse under my chair. My voice is almost breaking, echoing the emotion of the song. A few moderately raised eyebrows greet my singing. Almost opposite the anticipation everyone else seemed to display, I wonder if I look rather sad...)
‘Oh… Sorry...J’taime… I love …Lara Fabian’s a favorite of Annie and me… Annie’s my wife.”
(I shrug in apology.)
I’m Rose...jeez, of course I am…I mean I’m Rose McDonough. I… well… singing is sort of self medicating for me…since I was a kid…when I was a little girl.
“You were trans back then, weren’t you?” Rosemary asks.
“Just in here,”
(I pat my heart.)
“Only really been out since I turned sixty. I guess I sort of turned into my cat-lady mom.”
“Your wife…accepts this?” the kind looking Rose to my right uses her hand in a broad gesture to indicate everyone at the table.
“Well, now, yes….I… May I say something?”
“Go ahead,” Rosie urges.
“I… we share that name… It really has special meaning for me. Oh…I’m sorry. I guess it is special to all of you?”
“Yes it is, but please don’t apologize…it’s okay,” Rosemary encourages.
“Annie…My wife? She insisted I come… She said she needed this as much as I… well, here I am.”
(Nods and mmm’s from most of the ladies at the table.)
“Rose was her idea. McDonough came with the marriage. Her maiden name … I...I use it for times like this. But Rose...the name…well not just the name.”
“After I proposed…When she was praying about if we should get married, her bedroom was filled with the smell of roses. She remembered it when she met this part of me…”
“She called you that from when you came out?” Rose Davis asks.
“It took a bit of time for her…. No, that’s not right…” (I shake my head no.)
“It was like she almost knew me before, but I was too afraid to tell her.”
“I know how that feels
“Me, too.” I still haven’t told my brother,” (more nods all around.)
“After she found my story on our Desktop, she actually laughed. ‘So that’s why you have fashion sense,” she says. Instead of laughing along I actually started to cry. It felt like she was teasing, and I wasn’t even ready for serious, you know?”
(More nods and even an understanding pat on the hands by Rosemary and Rosie.)
“She looks at me sort of apologetically and smiles “I’m sorry” she says and I start to bawl. ‘Why are you crying?” I look around the table even as my eyes tear up at feeling like I’m right back then with her hands gently holding mine.
(Raised eyebrows and nods)
“’I’m so sorry… You must hate me!’ I say. She smiles and hugs me. ‘Babe? I don’t get this at all, but I love you… We’re not going anywhere.’”
“Oh…” comes a sigh to my right.
“But after a while, she’d make a remark or ask a question when we watched a movie or a TV thing… like I had to know? To have an answer? I didn’t. Except when I was brave enough to talk about me.”
You? Isn’t that what she meant?”
“Not at first. More asking my opinion on the subject. As kind as she was, she was also very analytical...everything...everything had to have a reason. It was only after she brought up about reading more of my writing? Which was so hard.”
“Why?”
“Yes… wouldn’t that make things easier?” Rose Greene interjects.
“OH yes, but not right away. I had to open up my library, sort of, and that left me open for questions about everything in my past.”
“Didn’t you want her to know?”
“I… I needed her to know that me being abused had nothing to do… She was so analytical at first…she needed a ‘real’ reason for me being trans. Like something had to cause it?”
“My sister is still like that.”
“My Mom wondered until she got to know me as her daughter.”
“Well, that’s what she finally realized, too... that my heart had been…like a girl…a woman all along, if that doesn’t sound too stupid? Sorry…force of habit.”
“You’re not stupid. What you said? My Dad made me feel that way.”
I nod in agreement.
“I bet most of us have felt something like that.”
“Anyway? She actually said, ‘Well, I guess what they’re saying…’ we were watching a program on a transwoman who was out and still married… She says. ‘You’re trans…’ Not transgender…’trans.’ The thing that put it over the top? When Bree is crying on her Psychiatrist’s shoulder…Transamerica? Annie looks at me and she has tears in her eyes. Not long after that we were in bed and she …we were spooning? She turns over and I thought she was just going to pet our cat… She says, ‘promise me that no matter what, I still have my husband?’”
”Wow…she actually said that?”
“Yes… It was like every bit of what she was afraid of?”
I put my hand to my mouth to stifle a sob.
“I am so very glad for the girls of today… well all girls, but especially trans kids. They…”
“Uh… I think I know .”
“Yeah… that whoever they meet? Mostly, I hope that they will be able to say something that many of us never got to say… Being a boomer, I climbed out of the closet years after I met the love of my life.” I stifle another sob.
“I…being here...But earlier...a nice moment? While I was getting dressed this morning? It was like waking up to the smell of Roses...”
“Like what you said about her?”
“That’s so sweet… I bet she really enjoyed that… like old times?”
“It was like she was reminding me that we’re still in love,” I say as more tears fall.
Will she be meeting you here? “Rosie asks eagerly.
“Oh… I’m sorry… Annie died last year. But I like to think that she’s here with me, you know?”
“Oh…” “That’s so sweet.” gasps and a few small sobs from several of the ladies.
“Her last words… That morning she went to a party at her sister’s house… ‘I love you.’ She kissed me…her husband good-bye for the day and she said at last, ‘I’ll see you later….Rose.’”
“Oh!”
“We had just begun to talk about telling our son and his fiancée. And now? They've been married almost a year… I…”
I try, but the emotion of the moment is just too much, and I dissolve in tears, prompting Rosie to pull me into a hug and kisses me on the cheek. Rosemary leans close and whispers,
“
I know….shuh...shuh...It’s okay…”
When the teary hug fest settled, the next storyteller was one I was looking forward to because she reminded me of a playmate I had spent a lot of time with (her print version only). She tried to dress as a cowboy, but her shape denied the boy part.
“My story is pretty tame compared to what some of y’all have gone through but as y'all asked I’ll try to tell it without putting y’all asleep. Although I believe I’m gonna need a refill before I start.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” (the Rose with the dark brown hair in an updo giggled.) “The bartender hasn’t taken his eyes off y'all since we sat down.”
“Yeah, he probably thinks I’m Cindy, my sister. She did some modeling and stuff back in college. Oh boy did daddy have one hell of a hissy fit when he found out she posed for playboy! I caught hell for that too as Cindy tried to say it wasn’t her, so of course Cindy and me being twins…”
“I thought you looked too good to be a genetic male,” (one of the women commented, while several others nodded in agreement.)
“The name on my birth certificate is Ross and I was born a boy, but it’s quite the con-vo-looted story. Let me get another beer and I’ll tell y’all about it.”
(Leaning back in my chair, the front legs rising off the floor while looking over my shoulder at the bartender with my glass raised high so he could see the empty glass,) “Sweetie, could I get another? This one had a hole in it!”
(Several minutes later the bartender was sitting a fresh glass of beer in front of me,) “Here you go. You’re Miss McColloch, right?”
(Smiling up at him,) “That was my maiden name, it’s Mrs. Davis now. Although I’m Rose, and unless you’re into watching barrel racing, it’s my sister Cindy that you’re probably thinking about. She was the one that posed for a certain magazine?”
“Sorry I, um, it’s just that you look just like her.”
“We’re twins”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” (looking around trying to get out of the awkward situation he had put himself in,) “Anyone else need a refill?”
(Once he left to go back behind the bar I continued,)
“I guess the first thing I should explain is that twins run in my Momma’s family. Seems like most women on my Momma’s side of the family have more twins than single births. My Aunt Sandy is my Momma’s twin, and my aunt’s Patty and Debbie are also twins. My grandma had a twin, although my great aunt Mary died before I was born, and my Grandma told me her Momma was a twin too. Cindy and I are twins and we have two older brothers, Tom and Ben, who are also twins.”
“Tom and Ben are seven years older than me and Cindy. The reason we were so far apart in age was that Momma had a miscarriage a couple of years after Ben and Tom were born and both Momma and Daddy were afraid of it happening again. So when she became pregnant with me and Cindy, the doc put her on some medicine to help prevent another miscarriage.”
“Was it DES?” The red-haired Rose asked.
(Shrugging my shoulder,)
“Probably? All Momma told me and Cindy that it was a synthetic estrogen. So me and Cindy were born and the doc looked between our legs and put male on my birth certificate and female on Cindy’s.”
“We grew up on a decent sized ranch east of Dallas about midways between Dallas and Shreveport, Louisiana. Daddy usually has around five to six hundred head of cattle and thirty odd horses. None of Daddy’s ranch hands could ever tell Cindy and I apart, and I think most of them believed I was a girl some of ‘em said I was too pretty to be a boy. It didn’t help that Cindy always called me Rose.
“Wait a minute,” the Rose who had said her last name was Greene interrupted. “You said five to six hundred cattle. Just how big is this ranch?”
“We’re just shy of eight hundred acres.”
“Jesus!” Rose Greene gasped, “That’s huge!”
“Heck we’re just a tiny little thing compared to the O’Connor’s or the Waggoner ranches. Both of those are around five hundred thousand acres each. Now King’s ranch is a big’un, it’s down south of San Antonio. They say it’s bigger than the state of Rhode Island!”
“You said your sister always called you Rose?”
“Yeah, well that started when we weren’t even knee high to a grasshopper. Cindy was always a stubborn cuss, guess I probably was too. Back when Momma was teaching us our letters and how to read, Cindy got it stuck in her head that all ‘O’s’ were all pronounced as ‘Oh’ and started saying my name with a long O in it so it sounded like she was saying Rose.
By the time we started school she had gotten so used to saying it that way, and me hearing it, that it kinda stuck. We were thick as thieves anyway and both of us got a big kick out of confusing everyone as to who was who. As young’uns we pulled a lot of the stunts you’d expect from a pair of twins. Dressing in each other’s clothes, answering to the other’s name and that kind of stuff. Of course, we couldn’t fool Momma as her and Aunt Sandy tried to pull the same stuff when they were young’uns too, but sometimes Momma played along just to have some fun with Daddy.
There was this one time Daddy decided he was done trying to tell which one of us was which and he went to drag me down to the barbershop for a haircut. Only thing was he took Cindy instead of me. Cindy didn’t tell Daddy she wasn’t me until the barber had her sit in the chair. I’ll tell ya he was madder than a wet hen when he got home and was ready to take a switch to both of us. I think Momma laughing about it might have made him even madder ’cause he took off hunting with Tom and Ben for 3 days.”
(Taking another sip of my beer,)
“Sorry, I tend to get sidetracked when I think back to the fun Cindy and I had as young’uns. So Momma always took both of us to the beauty parlor together for our hair, and she let us keep identical haircuts.”
“Living on a ranch being a boy or girl made little difference in how everyone typically dressed. Jeans, flannel shirts, cowboy boots and cowboy hats were worn by everyone, with Sundays being the exception of course. Some of those Sundays Cindy and I would end up trading clothes. I don’t think Daddy ever caught on, but sometimes Tom or Ben would give us a funny look during Church when one of them figured out what we had done.”
“Cindy and I were both late bloomers and didn’t start puberty till darn near the end of junior high,” (taking a sip of my beer for effect and to wet my whistle before continuing.) “We were about halfway through the eighth grade when the titty fairy visited. Reckoned he must have been drinking or somethin’ an’ thought he was seeing double, cause he visited both of us. I tried to hide what was happening to me, but Momma wasn't no fool and never fell for any of our tricks.”
“When Momma figured out what was going on she took me to see the doctor, he ran some tests and thought I might be intersexed, y'all know having both boy and girl parts. Which worried him as if I had girl plumbing on the inside it could have caused some big problems. He wanted Momma to take me to a specialist he knew up in Fort Worth. We went and he did a whole mess of other tests, thank the lord it was during the summer as I think I spent more time riding in the car back and forth from home to Dallas to go see doctors or have tests run than I did doing anything else.”
“With school starting back and me now having to wear a B cup bra Momma thought seriously about home schooling me. Cindy was the one who came up with another solution, although I can’t say if she was rescuing me or pushing me in the deep end but the end result was that I went to school dressing as a girl. I just knew I was gonna get the crap kicked out of me by some guys who remembered me from our other school but the guys I feared the most acted like they always thought I was a girl. Heck even the ranch hands mostly acted like I had always been a girl.”
“So what did the doctors discover was causing this?” one of the other women asked.
“Oh, yeah that. Well they figured out I had what they said was a form of Swyer syndrome, but that weren’t the end of it. The doctors up in Fort Worth did a bunch of genetic testing and since me and Cindy were twins they wanted to test her too. Darndest thing was they came back saying me and Cindy were not paternal twins, we were maternal, identical twins.”
“But that’s impossible for twins that are born as different sexes!”
“Yeah, I know, the doctors told us the same thing and that’s why they did all those tests on Cindy too. Cindy has Swyer syndrome too. So we’re both technically male, she just got it worse, or depending on how y'all look at it, better than I did and wasn’t born with any male parts like I was.”
“After all that we had a family pow-wow on what we should do. Pretty much came down to me either having a mastectomy and taking pills for the rest of my life so I would look something like a boy, or letting nature take its course and start dressing as a girl. I really hated the thought of taking drugs for the rest of my life and to be perfectly honest I liked the times when I would pretend to be Cindy and wear her dresses.”
“Although it wasn’t all a bed of roses.”
(grinning at those around me,)
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Even with all the stuff from the doctors, the high school that me and Cindy would be starting at in the fall insisted that I would be treated like any other boy and have to take boy’s PE classes, use the boy’s bathroom, etcetera. I swear I think Daddy was ready to rope half the school board and drag them behind his horse, but Momma calmed him down and said she would take care of everything.”
“I reckoned they were expecting us to pull something, as the principal and the boy’s coach was waiting at the door when me and Cindy, dressed in identical blue dresses, our hair, nails, everything matching each other so much it was like looking into a mirror, walked up to them. We both were taken to the office where they kept demanding us to tell them which one of us was a boy. They ended up calling home and Daddy came down to the school. He just laughed at them when they demanded that he tell them which one of us was which and told them it was something that only their mother could do. They told Daddy to take us home and to make sure we were dressed appropriately for our gender when we came back to school.”
“Of course we did exactly as he asked and came to school dressed identically again, but this time in skirts and blouses. The principal really should have re-read the school’s dress code, as there wasn’t anything in it about boys not being allowed to wear skirts and dresses, he may have kept his job if he had. But then it all came to a head a few weeks later.”
“The Coach and the Principal were determined to catch us. It made it really hard for them as the school was small and we were in all but a couple classes together. Even in those classes we switched back and forth as to which one of us went and took good notes for each other. I was leaving one of those classes when I was grabbed from behind. Not sure how they figured it was me, or if it was just a lucky guess but I was dragged into the Boy’s locker room.
The coach and a couple more boys were waiting in there. The coach grabbed the front of my blouse and yelled that the first thing they were going to do is get rid of the fake tits. They may have been holding my arms but that didn’t stop me from kneeing the son of a bitch as hard as I could. The coach went down with a handful of my blouse and bra leaving my breasts on display for all to see. Seeing they were real the boys just stared at my chest, before anything else could happen the door flew open and my brothers and some of their friends came plowing in. We’re lucky my brothers and their friends didn’t kill any of them.”
“Came out in court that the boys believed the coaches hogwash about me dressing up with fake boobs and such and were following his orders to expose me as a fake. They found out the principal was in on it too, and both he and the coach spent some time in the crossbar hotel. One good thing did come of the courtroom circus that caused. The Circuit Judge decided that all the doctors that have testified agree that the two of us were maternal twins which are always the same gender, therefore our birth certificates would be corrected to show that we are both the same gender and that all the medical tests proved the two of us were genetically male.”
(The memory of that day, hearing him begin that way had me thinking the worst. Chugging down close to half the beer in my glass, I wiped the tear from my cheek and continued.)
“I really thought the worst when that judge came out talking like that but then he smiled over at me and my family and said that while genetic testing did prove we were genetically male, we had both naturally, without drugs or other medical assistance, developed into two lovely young women and that he would be negligent of his duties to rule otherwise. He went on to say that it was a birth defect that confused the doctor of my gender at birth and advised my parents to have corrective surgery done at our earliest convenience.”
“So you’ve had your bottom surgery?”
(Nodding)
“Yes, during the summer after school let out between my freshman and sophomore year. If any of y'all haven't had it done, it ain’t no fun, felt worse than getting cow kicked by a horse! Speaking of horses it was months before I could ride without it being painful. Although it was kind of funny,” (giggling at the memory,) “Cindy was jealous that momma let me have what she called ‘my toys’, the dilators I had to use after the surgery.”
(Looking around at the other women at the table with me)
“So that’s my story, kind of fairy tale-ish compared to what I know some of y'all guys have gone through.”
The next storyteller looked like she was single and out to cure that condition. She claims to be looking for a woman, but the sundress and strappy 3" wedge sandals, look like man bait. She should attract plenty of both, with her nice figure and pretty face framed in auburn curls.
So, I guess I’m next. The story of my name goes back to my childhood. I was eight at the time. It was in just after the second gulf war. I blame the whole thing on Susan. Susan was the girl who lived in our basement apartment. Her father had been called up in the National Guard and was in Iraq for a year. They decided to give up living in their house and rent it out to cover the mortgage payment. The rent on the apartment we had in the basement fit the budget imposed by his Guard pay which didn’t even come close to his regular pay. The apartment had been grandma’s before she died. It’s just two bedrooms, a bathroom and a sitting room with an efficiency kitchen and the rent helps us with the mortgage, since dad left. As part of the deal, Susan’s mom watched me while my mom was at work.
The easiest way to tell the story is to recount the conversations that led to my name. I had to tell my mother just how strange a girl Susan was.
“Mom, while we were playing today, Susan wanted to play dress up,” I told her.
“We played dress up when I was a girl. We had lots of fun. What did you dress up as?” Mom said.
“I didn’t?” I answered.
“You didn’t? Why not?” she wanted to know.
I answered, “Well, all she had to play dress up with was her mom’s old clothes. Besides, she wanted to be the mommy and me to be the little girl and wear her old clothes.”
Mom got a mischievous grin and said, “Oh I see; too tough a part for you huh?”
Confused by the comment, I asked, “What do you mean, ‘too tough a part’?”
“It’s pretty tough pretending to be a girl,” she told me. She also said she could understand why I wouldn’t want to do it.
I had to tell her it wasn’t that it was tough; it was that boys just don’t do that kind of thing. She answered with a non sequitur.
“Tommy did.”
I had to wonder, if she was deliberately trying to confuse me. “Who’s Tommy?” I asked.
She told me about Martha and her little brother, Tommy. They lived down the street from her when she was ten. Martha had a whole bunch of clothes they could dress up in and Tommy joined in with them. Most of the time he played the little girl to their Mommy and aunt or some such.
I’m sure I sneered when I said, “Yeah, well he was some kind of sissy. I bet he grew up some kind of wimp.”
“Not really,” she said in an off handed manner. I was informed that he had been a star running back in high school and college. Apparently he was so good some pro scouts looked at him, but he was in ROTC and went into the Marines instead.
I commented that they had probably forced him to play dress up with them. After all, he was the little brother.
Mom retorted, “We didn’t force him, he asked to join us.” When they didn’t want him to, Martha’s mother made them let him join in. Mom claimed he was good at it and a lot of the time it was him that suggested that they play dress up. She said he liked it so much that sometimes he’d suggest it even when the weather was good enough to play outside.
“You’re not making that up?” I wanted to know. Before she had a chance to answer, I fired off, “This Tommy guy really did play dress up and like it?”
“Sure,” Mom claimed. She maintained she could prove it with some pictures in her old family album.
I followed her to her bedroom where she pulled a box down from the shelf and put it on the bed. She took out an old album and flipped through the pages and showed me a picture of three girls sitting at a picnic table on a patio. Two older ones of them were wearing ill-fitting grown up clothes and the other one was wearing a party dress complete with tights and Mary Jane shoes. Her hair was a little short for a girl, but had a big bow on the side.
“See, there’s Tommy,” Mom said. “The weather was nice so Martha’s mother had us have lunch on the patio,” she explained.
I was convinced that it was not a boy, but a girl with short hair. But Mom insisted it was Tommy. She showed another picture of him. In that one the three of them were standing in front of the fireplace, again, the two older ones were in grown up clothes and the younger one was wearing a short skirt and a blouse. This time, she had on ankle socks with lace and little flats. The blouse was sheer enough I could just make out her training bra underneath.
I claimed she was pulling my leg; that it was really a girl.
“OK then, look at this picture,” she said
In that picture they were at some park and the two older girls were wearing shorts and halter tops, but this time, there was a boy in jeans and T-shirt with them.
“Is that a girl?” she asked.
I had to agree that in that picture it was a boy. She told me to look at the face in both pictures. I did, and it was the same face.
I was astonished and said, “But that’s … She… he… looks so much like…like a girl.”
Mom informed me that at that age boys do.
I countered, “I’ll bet he turned out to be some kind of fag.”
Mom snapped back, “Watch your mouth! Fag is not a nice word.” Mom informed that he was not homosexual. That he’s married with two kids and never did have any gay tendencies. He just enjoyed playing the part of a girl.
‘She was shooting down your arguments right and left.
You got that right. As we talked, she produced several more pictures. Apparently, this guy played dress up for years. Mom had been fixing dinner and the oven timer went off, needing her attention, so she left me to study the pictures.
In the later pictures, he obviously had on a bra and his hair was long and with the make-up he had on he looked older than his sister or my mom. In some of them he wore heels and nylons and mom and his sister weren’t playing dress up at all. But most shocking of all were the pictures of him in girl’s clothes outside, like the ones of the three of them waiting in line for movie tickets and the one of them at the beach. Mom and Martha were wearing two piece swimsuits and Tommy had on a one piece that had a little skirt on it and there were lots of other people around.
Mom appeared at the door and said, “So you see, it wouldn’t hurt you to play dress up with Susan.” The roast was ready and she directed me to call Susan and her mother up for dinner as she took the album from me. They ate dinner with us instead of mom paying her to watch me.
I went to the stairs across from mom’s room and called out, “Dinner’s ready.”
“OK… Mom, dinner,” Susan called from the bottom of the stairs.
All through dinner Susan looked at me, grinning.
The next day was a teacher planning day and wouldn’t you know it was raining again. Susan and I were sitting around bored while her mother watched the soaps.
She asked me to show her the album.
I played dumb and said, “Album? What album?”
She wasn’t buying it and said, “The one with the pictures of Tommy in it.”
I just blinked at her as if I didn’t know anything about it..
She told me, “The one your mother showed you last night.”
I started to say something more to deny any knowledge of what she was talking about, but she stopped me informing me that she had been on the stairs and heard everything Mom and I had said last night before dinner. She said she just wanted to see what Tommy looked like. She asked if he really did look like a girl.
I told her he did, but that I wasn’t sure that mom had been telling the truth. That I thought she was just pulling my chain.
She insisted that I let her see the pictures and see if she agreed. I went to mom’s room and found the album on her dresser. She hadn’t even put it away. That was good. That meant I wouldn’t have to rummage through her closet to find it.
We put it on the table and I leafed through it until I found the first pictures. “There,” I said. “Mom says that’s a boy. Now I ask you, does that look like a boy?”
She observed, that he didn’t, not very much. But she pointed out the hair was kind of short.
I pointed out the bow. I insisted that no guy would wear a bow in his hair like that.
She just countered, “Not unless he was trying to look like a girl.”
We leafed through some more pages and found lots more pictures of this guy. Most of them were him dressed in girl’s clothes, but some were him as him. Susan was convinced that they were all Tommy.
So Susan was convinced that this Tommy really did cross-dress; that your mother was on the level.
Yeah, she did. But I still wasn’t convinced. The whole idea seemed off.
“No way,” I told her. I insisted that it had to be some sister or cousin or something; that no guy could look that much like a girl.
Susan kept to her guns, saying, “I don’t know; if I put you in the right clothes and did something with your hair, I think I could make you look that good.”
I showed a brave front and said, “No you couldn’t. I look too much like a boy.” But there was a part of me that thought just maybe she could. It both scared me and excited me.
She went for the kill. She said, “OK, let me prove it. Let me put you in one of my outfits and do your hair. If you look as good as Tommy, then we’ll play dress up.”
Shaking inside, I wanted to put the idea to rest before it became too tempting. I wasn’t sure that I could put the idea out of my mind. It had already been foremost in my mind since Mom had shown me the pictures. I demanded, “And if I don’t, then we’ll drop the subject totally!”
She agreed. But I wanted to tie down the subject and said, “And never talk about dress up again.”
She repeated, “… And never talk about dress up again,”
It was a dumb move. A really dumb, dumb move. I should have known it because I had been wondering just what it would be like to do what Tommy had done. I hoped that by letting her dress me up that it would put an end to the wondering. I guess I just didn’t want to believe that I could look like a girl. I was absolutely sure that I was so masculine that no matter what she did, I’d look like a boy in a dress. I was sure, well at least hoped, it would put an end to it in my mind.
“OK, now let’s see what I’ve got that would look good on you,” Susan mused as she slid the dresses in her closet across the rod. When she found a dress she liked, she said, “Oh, this will be perfect. Only, you have to wear something under it.” She struggled to remember the word, ‘translucent’ that her mother had said about the dress, but finally came up with it.” With that, she picked a slip off the hook on the side and told me to take off my shirt and put it on. She handed me the slip.
I dropped it on her bed as I peeled out of my T-shirt. Picking it up, I had a hard time figuring out just how it went on. After turning it around a few times, Susan told me that the little bow went in front. Turning it that way, I put it over my head. I was totally unprepared for the feel of the slip.
It was a real experience to have that soft, silky thing right next to my bare skin. I was thinking, ‘Why couldn’t my T-shirt be made of this kind of material? It sure beats plain cotton any day.’ That thought brought me up short. I continued thinking, ‘Whoa! The guys at school would really think I was weird for thinking that.’ But then I thought, ‘What am I thinking? I think I’m weird for thinking that.’
Nonetheless, I went on with what she wanted me to do. By the time I got the slip on, she had the dress ready and slipped it over my head. She fussed with it a bit and then had me go into the bathroom and where she worked on my hair.
‘Oh, so you liked the slip the first time you wore it?
Well, yeah. It was so different from my T-shirts. But something inside of me said I shouldn’t like it and that I shouldn’t admit to anyone, not even Susan that I liked it.
‘Yeah, I know the feeling. When I was starting out, I knew instinctively that I couldn’t tell anyone about it.
‘Look, it’s her turn to share. You can tell us all about that when you tell us your story. Go on hon, Susan went to work on your hair.
OK, well she brushed it every which way, like she couldn’t figure out what to do with it. ‘This is where her whole scheme falls apart,’ I told myself. ‘My hair will never look like a girl’s.’ After a bit, she did something really dumb. She got a comb and holding my hair up by the ends, she combed it backward, down toward my head. I guess she realized how dumb that was and then took her brush again and smoothed it all out again. She then gave up and just put a barrette in it on one side.
“OK,” she said, “now all we need is some shoes.” Back to her bedroom we went and she got out a pair of really girly sandals. “You won’t need socks with these,” she told me. I sat on her bed and while I took off my shoes and socks she said, “You know, you should take off your shorts. They show when you sit down. It ruins the effect.”
That made my heart rate go up a notch. ‘If I did that,’ I thought,
‘wouldn’t that make me just like Tommy?’ “What? Take off my shorts?” I said, “No way. That’s, that’s like, like … well I couldn’t do that.”
She looked smug and said, “Why not? Us girls do it all the time. What do you think we wear under our dresses or skirts? And don’t tell me you’ve never looked up a girl’s skirt to see what they have on.”
I blushed. I had looked up a girls skirt and just about every boy I knew had as well. And she was right; girls just wear underwear under their dresses.
She went on with her argument, insisting, “If a girl can do it, you can do it. Besides it will help with how you look. Those shorts kind of show under the dress anyway.”
OK, so I turned my back and pulled the shorts off. I’ve got to tell you, I felt like I was naked. It was like I was doing something naughty… deliciously naughty. I was blushing again when I turned around.
‘I like your phrasing... “deliciously naughty”. That's a good way to put it.
Um, yeah. Her next order was, “Put the sandals on and we’re done.” And by this time I thought she just might be in charge and I’m sure that she thought she was.
I self-consciously sat and put the sandals on trying not to show off my underwear. That accomplished, she took me to the full-length mirror in the hall. When I got there, I was stunned. I did look like a girl. Try as I might, I couldn’t see anything about me that didn’t look like a girl.
“There,” she said. “I guess we play dress up don’t we?”
I was completely dumbfounded and could only nod my head yes.
‘Were you honestly surprised? I mean, your mother told you that young boys could easily look like girls.
I guess I shouldn’t have been. But I guess I was in denial. I wanted to believe I was manly even at ten-years-old.
‘So, tell us about the dress up session.
Well, she went to her dress up clothes and got out an outfit and soon I was the “daughter” to her “mother.” To my surprise I actually had fun. She had me doing all sorts of girl things like sitting with my legs crossed at the knee, and hanging one shoe from my toe. We changed outfits a couple of times. Each time I put on a different outfit, a little thrill went through me.
And before you ask, she never undressed. She was wearing some short shorts and a tank top. They didn’t show when she put on her mother’s old clothes.
Anyway, then without warning, disaster struck. Mrs. McCormick was standing in the door. “Are you ‘girls’ going to want lunch soon?” she asked. There was a smile on her face that somehow reminded me of the witch in Hansel and Gretel when she invited them inside.
Susan grinned and said, “Look mom, Ross is playing dress up with me.”
Her mom said, “So I see. Ross, you look just great. I’m fixing lunch and I just wanted to see what kind of sandwiches you wanted. We have PB&J, tuna and bologna.”
“I’d like tuna, please,” Susan told her.
“Ross, what would you like?”
I had been standing like a deer caught in some headlights with my mouth slightly open.
“Ah, tuna is fine,” I said, finding my voice.
“Why don’t you girls wash up while I make your sandwiches?”
It was a very weird lunch. I felt really self-conscious sitting at the table eating soup and a sandwich wearing Susan’s dress, but her mother acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. In fact the only recognition of what I was wearing was her referring to us as “you girls.” It was as if she thought I was a girl for real and not just pretend.
Susan and I continued in our game for the afternoon. Around 4:30, I said, “Ah, I think I should go up and make sure my room is clean before mom gets home. I didn’t make my bed this morning.”
“OK, you can come down and play some more after.”
“I don’t know, I think maybe I’ll just watch some television ‘til mom gets home. So I need to change back to my own clothes now.”
“Oh,” she said, obviously disappointed.
I told her that we could play some more the next day. I claimed, “I just kind of need to do some other things for a while.”
“OK,” she said, brightening a little. “I’ll pick out some really neat stuff for you tomorrow.”
With that, I pulled my cutoffs up and pulled the dress over my head. She took it from me and hung it while I pulled off the slip. After I put my shirt on, I started to head up the stairs, but she giggled and told me to not forget to wear those sandals again the next day when we played dress up. Embarrassed, I came back and changed my shoes.
Mom got home at her usual time and started dinner. When she was setting it on the table, she told me to call Susan and her mom.
“Dinner,” I yelled down the stairs. They showed up just as I was sitting down.
Mrs. McCormick filled Mom in on the day. “Ross and Susan played dress up today,” she said just as calmly as if she were commenting on the latest episode of “As The World Turns.”
“Oh?” mom replied, looking at me. Then she dragged me into the conversation. “Did you have a good time?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and confessed, “I guess so,” is all I said. I know I was blushing three shades of red, and thankfully, mom let it drop.
That evening, Mom decided to revisit my time playing dress up.
She told me, “I’m proud of you, you know.”
I asked, “Proud of me? For what?”
She replied, “For playing dress up with Susan. With the way you feel about it, it was brave of you to do it and it was nice of you as well.”
I explained that she didn’t exactly leave me any choice. I went into detail about how she made a bet that she could make me look as good as Tommy. I claimed she did some really sneaky stuff with my hair and then made me take off my cut offs after I had everything on. I told her that Susan claimed they ruined the effect. I concluded, “It was only fair for the bet.”
“So, I take it that you did look as good as Tommy?” Mom wanted to know.
“Yeah,” I sighed and asked, “Mom, what does it mean that I can look so much like a girl?”
She answered simply. “It means that you’re young and haven’t gone through puberty yet. Though given your genetics puberty may not really change you that much.”
That got my attention. I asked, “What do you mean?”
She explained that her father was sometimes referred to as being ‘baby faced’ well into his forties and that my dad didn’t exactly have super masculine facial features.
That took me by surprise. She could read that on my face.
She smiled gently at me and said, “But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is you tried it and had a good time. Do you think you’ll do it again?”
I told her that I kind of had to, because when I changed back to my clothes to come upstairs, I kind of promised to do it again.
“Good for you,” she said, “Tommy really liked it. If you give it a chance, I’m sure you’ll like it too. Most boys who get by the old ‘boys don’t do that’ thing usually do.”
I told her that the only thing that bothered me was that I had to take off my cut offs. Up until then I just had on a dress and slip over my clothes.
She asked, “And when you took off your cut offs, you felt strange?”
I told her I did.
Mom looked thoughtful for a while and asked, “So, the slip… what kind of material was it?”
I told her I didn’t know that it was slick and shiny.
She said it was probably nylon or polyester. When I shrugged, she asked, “Did you like the way it felt?”
I started to say no, but I remember the thoughts that raced through my head, wishing that my T-shirt was made of it when I first put the slip on. I looked down and nodded my head. Mom reached out and lifted my chin. She was smiling.
She told me that Tommy said he like the feeling of the clothes, especially the underwear. She said, “It’s OK really. Girl’s clothes really are much nicer than boy’s clothes.”
Tommy liked the feel of the underwear… that was TMI. It caused the whole idea of dressing completely in girls clothes, underwear and all to run rampant in my head all night.
That was just the start of it. It was a very rainy spring and every rainy day after that, I found myself in a dress almost from the time we got home from school until just before Mom came home. Even though she knew I was playing dress up, and she couldn’t help but know because Susan often recounted our adventures at dinner time, I couldn’t bring myself to let Mom see me in a dress. The idea of Mom knowing and approving of me wearing girl’s clothes and that I liked it scared me.
That changed when we went into a weekend that was filled with not just rain, but a really gully washer. It had rained all evening Friday depositing over two inches of rain over night followed by two days of steady soaking rain. Just looking out the window and seeing standing water in the grass told you that stepping off any paved area would lead to disaster. Susan wanted to play dress up.
I told her that I didn’t think I wanted to; claiming we’d played dress up a lot lately. I suggested that we could play some board games and then on Monday, after school, we can play dress up some more.
Susan objected with a counter claim that after school, we didn’t really have much time. That we were just getting started and I want to change back. She said that we could have a chance to make it a real pretend time and do some really neat things on the weekend.
Just then Mom came into the room and said, “Why don’t you go ahead Ross? Susan has a point. After school you only have about two and half hours and you’ve never continued after dinner.”
I tried to object but Mom continued. “You’ve admitted that you like playing dress up, so go ahead.”
It was almost like an order. What’s more, she was right; I did like it; I liked it too much. Whenever it was raining I was distracted in class. I knew I’d be dressed in Susan’s old clothes. It was hard to concentrate on what the teacher was saying. When we got out of school, I actually looked forward to it. On the way home, Susan and I would talk about which outfit I’d wear. Over the previous month and half since we’d started my hair had grown and she could really do stuff with it that made it look good.
So there I was, wearing a dress down in the apartment with Susan while Mom was home. When Mom called us up for lunch, I nearly panicked. Susan insisted that I stay in her outfit because we’d just come back down and play dress up some more.
As I walked into the kitchen to eat, Mom smiled at me and put an arm around my shoulder, bending down to kiss the top of my head. As we ate, I relaxed a little. Susan did her commentary on what we had played that morning and Mom dragged me into the conversation by asking my opinions about it.
The next morning, over breakfast Mom questioned me about how I really felt about playing dress up.
She said, “So, Ross, it looks like it’s another dress up day. You and Susan really seem to be having a good time to spite the fact you’re stuck inside. Aren’t you glad you decided that you could do it?”
I agreed that it was better than watching daytime TV.
Mom couldn’t resist making a point. She said, “Now that you’ve let me see how nice you look, maybe you’ll not be so quick to call a halt to it before I come home during the week. I know that Susan would like to continue after dinner.”
I agreed.
She got a wistful look in her eye and said, “You know that you really do look good in her dresses. Easily as good as Tommy. I’ll bet we could take you anywhere and no one would suspect you weren’t really a girl.”
That was prophetic. Because, that summer I ended up with Susan and our moms at the state fair. My skirt was long, it went down to mid-calf. Susan was in a sundress. By then, I’d become really at ease in dresses, but it was still a bit of a rush to have everyone see me as a girl.
Of course at the end of the school year, Mom and I had had the conversation that really got me hooked on the dress up thing. It went something like this.
Mom speaking, “Ross, you know there’s only one thing about this dress up thing that has me concerned.”
That statement got me concerned. I worried that whatever it was might be enough for her to put a stop to it, because by then I was liking it a lot.
“It’s your underwear. Tommy’s mom ended up buying him panties because he said he didn’t feel right wearing boy’s underwear under the girls’ clothes and Martha drew the line at letting him wear hers.”
I didn’t know where she was going with this, but she didn’t leave me much time to wonder. She handed me a bag from JC Penney’s. It contained four packs of girl’s nylon panties in varying colors.
If I thought the slip was something great, it paled in comparison to wearing panties. Needless to say, when we went to the state fair, I was dressed as a girl from the skin out.
Oh, my, what a dream come true. At that age, I was still sneaking my sister’s clothes.
At that age, I went out; late at night I’d get out my stash and sneak out after my parents went to bed and walk around the neighborhood. It’s a wonder I was never caught or seen by someone.
Hey we’re getting carried away here. It’s her time to share and I, for one, want to hear the rest of her story.
Me too, go on, hon.
I’m nearly to the end anyway. Susan’s dad came home just before Thanksgiving. That put a stop to our playing dress up. Even Susan allowed that her dad wouldn’t like me wearing her old clothes. Susan’s dad gave notice to their renters that they had to be out on the end of January. He figured that he didn’t want to evict them before Christmas.
They went to Susan’s grandmothers for Thanksgiving and stayed until Christmas. When they came back I helped them pack things up. We put all her old clothes, the ones I’d been wearing for dress up, in a large garbage bag to be given away. I felt really kind of sad that they were going to be gone. She surprised me one day after school when she brought the bag to me and asked me to find the clothes a good home. I threw it in the back of my closet, not wanting to deal with it right then.
While I missed Susan, I was relieved. I truly thought that I’d leave the dress up thing alone even though Susan had given me all of her old clothes. To my dismay, wearing tighty-whities all the time irritated me. Not my skin, but my feelings. By spring break I had become entirely surly and Mom noticed. One Saturday morning she confronted me as I flipped through the TV channels.
“You know Ross, I really wish Susan and her mother still lived downstairs and you were playing dress up with her. You had a much better attitude then.”
That made me think about the bag of dresses dumped in the back of my closet and the panties in my underwear drawer. I suddenly knew that’s what I wanted.
I said, “Well she’s not so I don’t have anyone to play dress up with.” I’m afraid I was really surly.
“You don’t really need to have anyone to dress up with. I know that Susan gave you her old clothes before she left. You can dress yourself, you know.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You… you really think… I couldn’t do that. It’s strange enough that I did the dress up thing with Susan, but it would be really strange to do it by myself.”
“Not as strange as you may think. There are lots of boys who sneak around and dress up by themselves whenever they can. You’ve got it all over them. You don’t need to sneak.”
I sat there doing an imitation of a goldfish.
“Why don’t you go put on something nice and we’ll have a mother/daughter day,” she continued.
That was what I needed. By dinner time I was really relaxed.
“Well,” Mom said as we ate, “I think we’ve solved your attitude problem. I think we’ll do this a lot more, don’t you?”
I looked down and shrugged. She waited a bit and then went on.
“It’s OK. Tommy found out he couldn’t stop when Martha and I outgrew our dress up stage. I’m thinking you’ll never stop wanting to either.”
I was conflicted because I thought she was right.
“Mom, I… I don’t know if it’s really OK for me to do this.”
“Of course it’s OK. You’re not hurting anyone. I’m good with it. Nobody else’s opinion means anything.”
She got up and came around the table and drew me into a hug. I cried for a bit and when I calmed down we sat and finished dinner while I processed the whole idea. As we cleaned up I realized that I was indeed going to be dressing up a lot.
“Thanks Mom.”
“Thanks for what?”
“For realizing that I needed to do this.” I waved my hand up and down indicating my outfit.
“So I was right, you really do need to do it?”
“Yeah.”
We were both grinning.
“You know if you’re really going to be dressed like that, I can’t keep calling you Ross.”
“What else would you call me?”
“Well, if you had been a girl, I’d have named you Rose.”
So that’s my story. I still get together with Mom for lunch a couple of times a month. And we do vacations together. She loves having our mother/daughter outings.
‘If only… I’m jealous.
The next Rose seemed to be going for an androgynous look in black jeans, a western shirt with bolo tie, and low heeled black boots. She was drinking from a flask in her purse. She seemed beaten down by life
So what’s your story?
I was born, Jeffery Carlilse. I had a sister named Rose, who was born a year later than I was.
We were very much two peas in a pod, and we loved the same things, although I tended towards several typical guy things, while she tended toward the girl equivalent. I played football, she was a cheerleader. That kind of thing.
We loved the same foods, TV shows, activities... We even looked alike. We lost our parents in an airplane accident when she had one year left in high school. I was eighteen, so I just took care of her, and we’ve been thick as thieves ever since.
Which leads me to my problem.
For a while, I didn’t have a lot of money until I got a decent job, and I needed some food for both of us.
I had a buddy, Matt Riggs, who had some expertise at the five finger discount, among other things.
We decided to ‘borrow’ a rather large amount of money from a convenience store. He went in while I waited in the car. Once everyone had left the store, I watched as he made his way to the counter. He had on a ski mask which he pulled down, and he pulled out a gun. I don’t know what was said, but I saw the clerk’s hand go under the counter, as did Matt. The next thing I knew, there was blood splattering everywhere, and Matt was running out of the store. He jumped into the car, and I peeled out of the parking lot.
Wow, that’s crazy!
You wouldn't have got a large amount of money anyway.
Matt dropped the gun in the store, but he had prepared for that. His fingerprints were on it, but he staged a robbery in his own home, a few days before. He reported the gun missing, so when it turned up at the crime scene, it was pretty much expected.
The prints on the gun would show that someone had worn gloves when they fired it. Matt’s prints on the handle were messed up from that. Not at all strange if someone had stolen it and then used it in the robbery.
This was in the mid ‘80s, and forensic evidence was nowhere near what it is now. So as long as we had an alibi, we should be okay and we had one – We were at a game. We had made sure we were seen entering. Granted, we left halfway through, but prove it.
You were involved in a murder! How can you sit there so calmly?
Because I have terminal lymphatic cancer. I’m going to die in just a few months. Even if I go to prison, I’ll only be there for a short time. Because of my impending death, I want to try to live my last few days as Jeffrey.
(Looks down at herself)
I'm not having much luck in that regard.
(Takes a drink from her flask)
Go on (Someone else says.)
Well, we didn’t get any money from that robbery, and neither of us had the stomach to try it again. At least, I didn’t, anyway, and I don’t think Matt did either. He entered the priesthood after a while, I think for penance.
I got antsy a few years later. DNA evidence had come a long way, and there might be a way of proving that Matt had been at the store. And if he’d been, my alibi was shot.
It’d serve you right! (The previous Rose says)
Maybe so. I wasn’t sure what to do, but then, on one of Rose and my spelunking expeditions, something happened.
I should have said earlier that one of our favorite things to do was explore caves. I had a good one on the property I had bought when I did make money.
Anyway, we were traversing a cavern, and Rose was ahead of me. All the sudden, the floor gave way under her! I jumped back, into a smaller shaft, and watched as the entire ceiling gave way. It was horrifying!
It came crashing down. There was now sunlight shining in from outside. We had been inside a sinkhole as it formed.
I crept to the edge on all fours and looked down. I screamed her name; then I realized that wasn’t a good thing. The ceiling could fall on me at any moment.
I couldn’t see any sign of her, and I couldn’t imagine she could have survived the tons of rock that had crashed down on top of her.
I started weeping, but then the rock started to slough off on the edges of the hole, and I decided it would be the best thing I could do to head back the way I had come. Part of me said I should have stayed there and let myself be taken to my death too, but I just didn’t have the guts.
“Too bad.”(Came from someone.)
I knew that the sinkhole would be on my property, so I made my way home the same way we had gone to the cave. On the way home I came up with a crazy idea. It would solve, hopefully, my problem of the years ago robbery.
When we were kids, we had played around fooling people with who was who. I’ve read many TG stories where this is a common theme, but we actually did it. And we were good at it. We even had our parents fooled for a while one night. Well… Mom kept glancing at us. I think she knew something was up, but just couldn’t place her finger on it. Then, while we were watching TV, in a commercial, she had it. “Alright, you two. Go change back to yourselves. Enough is enough.”
We giggled as we ran off to change.
We tried it a few times when we were teenagers too. We had the look down, but I wasn’t great with all the actions.
But could I do it now? And permanently?
If I didn’t think it would work, I would report her as having died. If I thought it would, I would report me as the one who died.
I got some clothes from her room, and was thankful that I was only about a half inch taller than her. I changed into them, and put on some makeup. I had longer hair, and mine was only a shade lighter than hers, but she had gotten hers highlighted. I tried walking like she did, and I was starting to get the hang of it.
Then, there was a knock on my door. I looked through the window and saw a USGS vehicle outside my door. I could feel my heart thudding in my chest, as I opened it.
Why did you open it? You could have changed back if he hadn’t seen ‘Rose’ there. You screwed up your own plans.
I know, and what’s worse, I opened it wide. A woman wouldn’t have done that! If she didn’t know someone outside, especially in the country, she would have left it on the chain. I quickly closed it. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I thought it was my brother forgetting his keys again.” I kicked myself again. I hadn’t unlocked the door. I hope he didn’t notice.
“I’m from the USGS, ma’am. We got a report of a sinkhole developing on this property. We would like to survey it, if that’s alright.”
“My brother isn’t here to give permission, and he’s the property owner. It’s up to him,” I said. I wasn’t sure I wanted them sniffing around there. My situation seemed to have gone from bad to worse. I suppose if she was found, I could say I was a transvestite, but then I put my foot in it. “He’s spelunking in a cave on his land.”
“Ma’am, we have a survey of that cave. It looks like the sinkhole is associated with it.”
I had to let them search, and now, I felt trapped as Rose whether I wanted to be or not. As time went by, and I remained talking to the USGS, police, and attorneys as Rose, I dug my hole deeper. I breathed a sigh of relief when the geological people decided that it was too unsafe to search for Jeffery’s body.
I found that what goes around, comes around. Matt had joined the priesthood as penance for the death of that poor kid in the convenience store, and I joined womanhood.
It usually does.
Yeah. I never had gender dysphoria, and until that day, I never had any whim to live as a woman. But I messed up, and had trapped myself living as my sister, permanently.
I’ve attended many of these conferences over the years, hoping to help me in my masquerade, and I believe I’ve learned a lot from them.
I actually convinced my current doctor that I was trans my entire life, and the records of my birth have been ‘corrected’. A few years ago, I transitioned completely because it seemed the rational thing to do. Not nearly as many questions.
(She takes a rather large drink from her flask, and scowls when it empties.)
Why’ve you told us this?
I guess I have to get it off my chest before I die.
( Silence reignes as the Roses look on in dismay.)
Well, thanks for hearing me out. I think I’m going to bug out of the conference today.
(Stands and leaves the room, head down.)
The next Rose was young, soft spoken, and quite pretty, with long silken hair. Her ornate puffy dress, made me think Southern Belle, but she didn't have the drawl to fit.
I want to thank all of you for accepting me. It’s been a while since I…I must sound stupid and here I am, ready to cry…it’s just that I didn’t have support groups or people who watched my back or even looked at me. I was born six years ago, at least that was how my great aunt announced it to my family.
And in a snap, I went from being the youngest boy in the family to the only daughter. I took a suitcase, empty except for some notebooks and a rainbow top I had bought a few weeks before but never had the gumption to show my family. I kind of felt ashamed purchasing it. Like I was breaking a rule. I was what one could call--air quotes--awkward by my brothers and father. I was supposed to be athletic; could care less about sports. I was supposed to have a girlfriend…and I had girls who were my friends. I was once given some money to buy clothes for the coming school year, and I did: I heard that multi-colored blouse call out to me and I felt that I would regret it if I didn’t buy it.
My oldest brother was the first to say something by taking a picture with his cell phone. He had stormed into my room—which he did whenever he chose to—to see me wearing said rainbow shirt. Yes, it had the sparkle and pizzazz, like I should have had. He didn’t ask. He didn’t yell. He just snapped the picture and walked out of my room.
Then he shouted across the house, like I had slashed him with the cloth equivalent of a switchblade. His voice rang through the house: “Robbie’s wearing a gay shirt!”
If I was stronger, I would have chased after him, swatted his phone down like Misty Elizabeth May-Treanor, but instead I sat in the middle of my room and blanked out the world around me. Of course, one would think, so you’re wearing a multi-colored shirt…who cares? I also had a necklace and two clip-on earrings that I had, well, borrowed, from my mother.
The crowd stood at my bedroom door. They were squawking and hollering at me so loudly It was like we were at the Henry Doorly Zoo, but who was the animal? Dad demanded that I take off the jewelry. I did and handed them to mom, who flinched as the necklace winded itself in her hands and the earrings fell with a heavy clank. I turned away from the mob but felt a hand grab my shirt. There was a sharp tug and then a yank as my arms flopped into the air and the garment was forcibly pulled off of my head. I covered my body in shame and refused to turn around. My brother laughed; my father shouted words I never heard before that day, but I could feel each burning syllable. The door closed as abruptly as it was opened mere minutes ago and all was quiet again. It was a deathly quiet and the death was what I wanted to do right there. Not because of what my brothers would say or what my parents thought but more on how I felt about myself. I turned to the window. My room was on the second floor but the worst thing that would happen was I’d break a leg or arm, forcing me to stay at home trying to “recover”.
I didn’t come to dinner and, surprisingly, no one came back up to my room that night. I sat up against the wall and contemplated on what to do. I wanted to tell my family how I didn’t feel like a Bobby, Rob or a Robert. Perhaps more of a “Roberta” or maybe “Bobbi” written in elegant calligraphy. I would buy a closet so full that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Dreamcoat” tour wardrobe department would be put to shame.
At midnight, I stepped out of the house with nothing in my hands. Yeah, I didn’t think too far ahead. I only thought of the sadness in my heart and rage in my head. A part of my wishing for my family’s demise and the other wishing for my own. I trekked down a few blocks to where our neighborhood met the main road and stopped at this proverbial crossroads. We had lived there for two years but seldom had I ever walked or taken my bike across that street—and that was in the daylight. I took a small step after a car had passed by and then took larger steps—I was going to continue on away from home. They didn’t want “me”. No, they wanted Robert Roosevelt Anderson—a name that, if I had died that evening, I’d crawl out of my grave and deliberately smash up that marker with the terrible name. As I was halfway across the street, I heard the sound tires turning on gravel. I looked up the way and saw a car turning around. The car had a spotlight on the side. The spotlight was then accompanied by blue and red ones. I channeled my inner Caitlin Jenner and sprinted across the street and over a fence.
My marathons through the backyards set off countless alarms and barking dogs aplenty. This attracted more police activity and I, now thinking that the police were actually after me, personally, due to my violation of some family honor code.
‘It was only a shirt!’
‘But that one shirt. One colorful rainbow is a gateway to a world of sin and damnation.’
‘What kind of sin?’
‘Long hair, wearing dresses and women’s underwear.’
‘They are comfortable.’
‘Throw the book at “him”, your honor.’
I know, disjointed thinking.
The police didn’t find me as I fell asleep inside a tool shed that smelled of oil and grease—that I had gotten on my shoes and tracked as I ran away from my hiding place. It was early in the morning and I had to wonder if my parents actually had called the police by then. One part of me wanted them to apologize and talk to me about what I was feeling. They could have me talk to a doctor…but then I’d have to spill everything about how I felt…and then then it would start all over again.
There was no second part…no part of me wanted to go home. If I had to live off the street, so be it. A school bus drove by…it wasn’t my bus, but in a few hours, the school would call the house and announce I was not at school.
Good.
My father would get mad.
Yippie!
Mom would shake her head because she didn’t know what to say.
What else was new?
My brothers would argue about who was going to get my room.
I imagined that would be a discussion that would come up every Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Obviously, I hadn’t given much thought about what to do after leaving home. While it was a great idea at the time, I had to admit that I was at a loss as to what to do at that moment. I was too young to get a job and everyone would say I was too old to pretend that I was scared and all alone but, I was. I walked a few more feet but then stopped just like I had the night before, at a car sitting across the street: my parents, accompanied by two police cars.
“What the hell were you thinking, Bill?”
I sat in the corner of the living room as three cops and my parents stood aback from another visitor in our home. The only person left alive that could give my father any grief: my great aunt Donna.
“You need to ask him that, Donna.”
“I’m asking you!”
Great Aunt Donna usually came to visit around the holidays and she usually called a few weeks before taking her trip from Alabama to Nebraska. She had a late 70’d convertible and it was the only thing that could rival her tone of voice. Her hair was long and silvery, in direct contrast to her temper and glasses, which she looked over as she dressed down my parents.
“Did you even know Robbie was missing?”
“Donna,” Dad said with a dismissive wave.
“Answer the question, Billy!”
As much as I wanted to cheer my aunt on, I feared that anything I said or did would be held against me in a court of parental law.
The policemen looked like they really wanted to get out of there.
Aunt Donna walked over and sat on the couch that was the closest to the corner where I sat with my knees clenched behind my arms. “What happened, dear?”
I looked to my parents and then to the police.
“Don’t look at them, please look at me and tell me what happened.”
“I wore a shirt. They took it off and threw it away.”
“Was it the one you told me about?”
I nodded and for a moment I thought I saw my father roll his eyes. Mom’s eyes were hidden as she looked down and shook her head.
“Where’s the blouse, Bill?”
“What?”
“The shirt, William.”
“I threw it away.”
She scoffed and looked back to the cops. “See what I had to put up with?”
The officers looked extremely uncomfortable. They watched a small woman take small steps from me over to my parents. “That was something that belonged to Robbie, you just don’t take it.”
“Rose,” I said aloud. It was another of those “didn’t really think about it until it was too late” kind of things.
Everyone turned to me, even mom, but she still shook her head. I could now see the disgusted look on her face.
“We’ll go with that, dear. We’ll go with that.”
“He’s just confused, Donna.”
“Not the only one it seems, Billy. Everyone out. I want to talk to Rose.” She swung her hands around in a motion to hint everyone to leave. The four quickly went out the front door.
I just sat in the corner with what could be considered a thousand-yard stare. I could feel those therapy sessions and maybe a lobotomy in my future. Aunt Donna took a step from the front door and sat down on the loveseat. She removed a rose-colored clip from her hair and her locks cascaded down her back like a waterfall.
“Been wondering when this day would come,” she said as she held the clip in her hand.
I didn’t say anything—as much as I wanted to hear her out—I was afraid of the answer.
“They used to let your hair grow long. Did you know that?”
I shook my head.
“Those were pretty pictures. I guess you’ve had short hair all this time?”
I nodded.
“You’re named after your other great aunt, you know that?”
I shook my head.
“Her name was Meridia Rose. Strong woman. Great woman. Died too young, want to think. It was my idea to honor her through you. Of course, your parents were oblivious to that. They were thinking, ‘hey, like the president’ and Roosevelt was your middle name. It's a great name for a tombstone.”
I scowled at her.
“Don’t like that, huh? Nothing wrong with that,” she replied as she stood up, walked over to me, and then bent down a little.
“Have you told them anything else?”
“No,” I whispered.
“Afraid they won’t listen?”
“I know they won’t.”
“You’re right, Rose. I’m afraid you’re right. And when parents don’t listen to their kids, then their elders have to step in and set things right. First things first though. Take this.”
She held the hairpin out to me, moved it toward my head and clipped it to the small amount of hair I had.
I left with my great aunt that very day. Surprisingly, my parents didn’t put up much of a fight and, as much as I wanted to be free of being looked upon as some sort of disease, the fact there were only parting waves didn’t make me feel better. It was like getting a new job across town and then learning that everyone despaired you anyway.
It was not a Kodak moment. I wouldn’t have even had taken a Polaroid, but the memory of their “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” glances haunted me during the drive to Alabama.
“You don’t have to worry about them, kiddo,” Aunt Donna yelled over the sound of the wind and the engine.
“I know, but--”
“No buts. We can excommunicate them from our family.”
“Can we at least send a card?”
“Like at Christmas?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess they’re worth forty-two cents,” she replied. “We shouldn’t want to cut them off completely. Not yet.”
“So, I can go to the school in fall as Rose?”
“You betcha.”
I smiled at that, but I knew that it couldn’t be as easy as I wanted it to be. I knew that people would assume this or that but I people talking about me at home—perhaps more so after what had happened the day before, so it was just something the world would have to adjust to.
We stopped at a gas station in Missouri and Aunt Donna sent me in to pay for the gas and to grab two sodas for us. I walked to the cooler, picked out two bottles and then walked them to the counter. The clerk was barely visible as he was surrounded by cigarettes, trinkets and “Lotto” signs.
“That all for you, little miss?”
I looked at him blankly for a second. Not enough to make either of us feel awkward but enough for me to remember the clip in my hair. “Thirty-five dollars on pump two, please.”
I handed over the money before he even gave the total.
He gave me back the change and motioned a small wave as I took the drinks and walked away.
I have to admit, that felt good.
She must have noticed my expression when I got back to the car.
“Someone compliment you?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Remember, don’t be looking for flattery, lest you find yourself under a wagon wheel.”
I nodded. Granted he was probably just being friendly as part of his job, and I’d never see him again, but it still felt good.
“We’re going to re-do a room for you, Rose. We’re going to have to work a bit on it, but I think it’ll turn out great. It’s a spacious room with a large window overlooking a field and, in the morning, the sun wakes you up.”
I was too young to remember ever going to at Aunt Donna’s house, but I knew the upstairs had multiple staircases and a dumb waiter—or what my brothers called an elevator. We stopped going to her house one year and from that moment on, she just came to visit the family and would leave as quickly as she arrived. This time, faster than usual.
I tried to stay awake to talk but found myself falling asleep for a long duration of the trip. I woke up with the feeling of disorientation from sleeping with my neck craned back against the door mixed with really having to go to the bathroom and feeling hungry. The car turned down an onto a long road with a large house at the end of the drive.
We walked into the front room of the house and it had that smell of country in the fall: that potpourri mixed with the aroma of a PSL. We walked upstairs to a grand landing area and then to a room on the far side. Aunt Donna opened the door to reveal what looked like a shrine to an earlier time and everything had a shade of red: from the curtains, the bedspread, to the wainscoting. The only thing that was of a different color was a picture frame on the nightstand: it was gold.
I stared at the picture: it was of two young women holding hands and looking intently at each other. The blond-haired one bore a striking resemblance to my aunt. I didn’t know the other woman, who had a rose-gold colored clip in her in her short, black hair. I reached up to my head and felt the same clip.
“That was your great aunt Rose.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she was,” Aunt Donna said as she picked the frame up and held it close to her chest. ‘Not a day goes by that I don’t miss her.”
“What happened to her?”
“That’s a story for another day,” she said as she looked at the picture once again and then at me. “It’s like she’s with me in spirit.”
She was on the verge of crying, but instead she placed the picture back on the nightstand, clapped her hands, and then removed a set of decorative pillows that covered the bed.
“In the morning, it will be a new day for you, Rose What’s mine is yours.”
“Thank you, Aunt Donna.”
“You’re welcome, dear. Get ready for bed now.”
“I will,” I replied and then gave her a hug that could have lasted for years.
Ten minutes later, I was lying in bed, looking once again at the picture and the hair clip next to it. I wondered when the picture was taken and when she had died. At least I assumed she had died, or maybe they had a fight and she left so my aunt was left with just this picture. But that didn’t make any sense, because if they left on bad terms then why name me after someone that would depress you forever. I thought that maybe I could go to the library and look her up on the internet, without telling my aunt, of course.
I woke up to the sun shining on my face. It was a warm feeling, and the light was not blinding for a few moments. It was a new day and the start of a new life, as Aunt Donna has said.
I got dressed and ran down the stairs.
“Aunt Donna!”
There wasn’t a sound.
I looked out front; her car was still parked in the driveway.
“Aunt Donna!” I shouted again. She was probably tired, so instead of going to wake her I went into the kitchen. She said what was hers was mine, so I assumed that meant that I could make breakfast. The only problem was that I really didn’t know how to make anything except waffles and cold cereal, and I wasn’t sure if she had either. There were some bananas on the counter, so I had one of those instead.
The floor was made of wood and gave a little creak in some places, but it was wonderful to hear those sounds as I walked into the sitting room.
This room had rows and rows of bookshelves and a large portrait of Rose. She had a smile on her face that made me smile back at her.
“Nice to meet you, Aunt Rose. My name is Rose too.”
How I wanted her image to reply to me, or maybe wink or give a head nod, but she didn’t.
I walked out of the sitting room and looked upstairs. I decided I didn’t want to get the information from newspapers or articles, I wanted it from my aunt.
I climbed the stairs and steadied myself to knock on her door and poignantly ask what had happened to my namesake.
“Aunt Donna?” I asked as I knocked on her door. Maybe she had gone out for a morning walk? I opened the door and poked my head inside. She was still asleep in bed, at least she looked like she was, but something seemed off. I stepped further into the room and stood at the foot of her bed. A large binder was resting on her chest, opened to a page that showed her, again, with Rose, but Rose was lying in a hospital bed. She looked gaunt and her hair was gone but she still had the same smile on her face. My great aunt’s hand lay still on the picture.
I looked at her mouth and chest and I didn’t see any movement.
“What’s mine is yours,” I whispered.
I called 911 and a rush of people came over. Including a woman named Maureen who said she was my Great Aunt’s—and now my—lawyer. She said that the house and everything in it was mine and I would be taken care of. No family reunions unless I wanted them, and it’s taken a few years and I still don’t want to see that part of my family.
Does that sound heartless?
I admit, I’d do anything to have my Aunt Donna back. I wish she was here with us now.
The next story came from a young man about 25. He wore a dress and heels, showing a nice pair of legs. But everything else shouted male, his voice with monotone delivery, his walk and mannerisms, his cheap blond wig. Even his red lipstick did more to emphasize his 1 o’clock shadow than to feminize him. Few would mistake him for a her.
“Hi girls, it’s been a pleasure getting to know all of you through your stories. My name is Rose White, and as you can see I’m much less accomplished in appearing as a woman than you. I am recently married, and haven’t told my wife.”
“You really should let her know. It is a hard secret to keep. And if she finds out on her own, you may never be able to regain her trust.” Cis told her.
“I was hoping to get some guidance on how to do that at this conference.” was the reply.
“Cindy and I will meet with you later. Why don’t you continue with your story.” stated Cis.
“Ah, growing up I think I was a normal boy. I played with cars and trucks and construction sets. I had a brother two years younger, and we were each other's playmates. As we got older we competed at everything. We played baseball, football, basketball, soccer and all. I wasn’t great at any of them, but I wasn’t the worst.”
“How does this tie in to Rose?” interrupted a voice from over by the bar, from someone who had been sulking around but had not introduced themselves.
“Well when I started high school, the school was on split shifts due to overcrowding. Juniors and seniors went from 8 to noon or 1 so they could work after school. And freshmen and sophomores. Went from 11 or noon to 4. So I had mornings home alone. I experimented with my mother's clothes, and enjoyed them.”
“It doesn’t look like you have progressed from there." came from the same voice.
The group shouted her down, “Let her tell her story.”
Rose continued, “My sophomore year they opened a new high school. My opportunity to wear women’s clothes disappeared but the desire didn’t. I would imagine myself to be a sexy woman while masturbating. I researched transvestism, transgenderism, and drag queens. I was shy and didn’t date till college, but was attracted to women. It wasn’t until I got a job and my own apartment that I started to get my own women’s clothes. It progressed to where I often spent evenings home alone in a camisole panties, nylons and heels.”
Same voice interrupted again, “That’s a long way from here.”
Which brought on a chorus of, “Let her tell her story.”
Rose continued, “I formed a friendship with a girl at work. We started eating lunch together. Then we went to a few movies and restaurants together. Finally I asked her if she would like to try converting the friendship to a romance. She replied in the affirmative and we worked our way around the bases until I asked her to marry me, and she said yes.”
“I hoped marriage would cure my urges, I disposed of all my women’s things. But instead of going away the urge got stronger. The more I tried to forget it, the more compulsive the thoughts got.”
“When I saw this Conference nearby, I decided to come to see if I could get help and advice.
When the pre-registration asked for a femme name, I didn’t have one. I chose Rose after my maternal grandmother.”
“I came here as Robert. At registration they asked when I was changing. I said I wasn’t. They said that was fine, but I would be the only one not en-femme. They also told me I was invited to a gathering of the Roses. I felt Robert wouldn’t be welcome there and my curiosity drove me to a quick shopping trip and this rushed attempt at transformation in the handicapped restroom.”
After a pause, Rosie gently asked, “Do you have more to tell?”
“No, that's pretty much my whole story. I came here hoping to get help and advice on how best to tell my wife.” replied Rose White.
“You have pretty much missed the boat on the best way. You should have told her before getting married. Now you will have to confess to hiding something from her, that she should have been informed of.” Stated Cis.
“Take it easy on her. She is just discovering how much a part of her, this is, and that it is unlikely to go away.” said Rosie.
“You still have a lot of self-discovery to do. How you regard your crossdressing and handle it will evolve over time. So let her know you are just discovering how important this is to you, and how you want her to take part in deciding how to fit it into your lives together. But embrace your femme side as on opportunity to exhibit some of your better characteristics, that are inhibited by a male social role. And don’t feel guilty about it.” offered Rose Williams.
“Yeah, she’ll have questions, like ‘Are you gay?’ and ‘Do you want to be a woman?’ I assume the answer is no to both since you married her.” Came from Rose Marie.
“Good point, there are at least two studies that I’m aware of that helps answer those questions. One by Dr. Virginia Prince in the early 60s and another by Dr. Richard Doctor in the early 80s. Both point out that the incidence of homosexuality among cross-dressers is slightly lower than in the general population. Kinsey reported about 4.5 percent in the general population while both Doctors Prince and Doctor report about 4 percent.” explained Rosie.
“If she isn’t willing to accept this part of you, you should get rid of her as fast as you can.” came from Jeff.
“Neither of you should be too quick to reject the other. All marriages face difficulties, You need to work through them together. It seems you love your wife and want to keep her. It was very brave of you to come here, looking for help.” stated Cis.
“I do love her, and don’t want to lose her,” stated Rose White.
“If you would like Cindy and I will meet you and your wife at the Starbucks across the street at 2:00 Sunday after the conference breaks up, and try to help.” Said Cis.
“Oh, thank you, I would really appreciate that!” exclaimed Rose White.
“OK, I’ll give you my phone number, in case you can’t convince her to come.”
The next Rose just blended. She was nicely dressed and made up, but drew little attention to herself. I would guess she started life as a boy from the group she was with, but not from her appearance or her self- screaming. Giggle. I confidence as a woman.
So what is your story?
It’s kinda embarrasing. Are you sure you want to hear it?
Yes! We’re all telling our stories.
Well, alright then. First, I should tell you, while my name is Rose, I go by Rosemary. That should help a bit in our little group. My mother had a habit of calling me 'Rose Mary' when I got a bit headstrong. Which was often.
When I heard my middle name before I became Rose, I ran! I knew I was in trouble, but when I heard Rosemary, it thrilled me. It reminded me that those times were over. I prefer the name now.
Anyway, my story:
Well, I was probably around five years old when I told my parents that I was a girl. They thought it was cute, and laughed about it. Then, as far as they were concerned, that was it.
When I told them it was really true, Mom told me, "Boys can't be girls, and you're a boy."
I asked why I couldn't be a girl, and my mom said, "Girls don't have a wee-wee like you do. They're completely different than boys are."
I was confused and asked me to see that she didn't have a penis. (Giggle.) She wouldn't show me. I really didn't understand, so I asked about my daddy too. Mom explained that he was a boy, so he had a penis.
I really had to think about all these things, but in a couple of weeks, I asked if I could get my penis cut off so I could be a girl.
(Laughing, another Rose asked) What’d she say?
(Doing a bad impression of a parent.)
"Russell, you are a boy and that's all there is too it. That's just the way things are."
I was really pissed, but I tried to be a boy. I really did.
But you couldn't
No. A couple of years later it got so hard I tried to cut the damned thing off.
What!?
Yeah. I got a knife from the kitchen and made one deep cut at the base of it, then I ran into the living room, screaming. (Giggle.) I got blood everywhere.
Mom took me to the ER and it was stitched back together. I tried to get the doctor to cut it off. He wouldn't. He just wondered why I didn't want it. Why did he think I didn't what it? What an idiot.
The moron doctor left me alone in the room when he went to talk to my mom. I guess it didn't dawn on him that it was numb. I figured I could cut it off now, ’cause I couldn't feel anything, but they heard me looking for another knife.
I guess my parents finally realized just how important it was to me, ’cause they started taking me to psychologists, but they just wanted someone who would agree with them.
Three years they kept that up.
My dear father tried sports, models, trains. Anything he could to get me to think I was a boy. Needless to say, nothing worked.
Finally, when I was ten, they decided to actually talk with me about it instead of at me. My dad said that they’d talked to several doctors and they wanted to try something.
I’d had it. I wasn’t going to listen to this crap again. They’d tried and tried, and I was done with my needs being ignored. I yelled at him that I was Rose, and why couldn’t he understand that!
He was mad! He ordered me to sit down and shut up. He told me to hear him out, but I didn’t care anymore. I just looked away and ignored him.
We had finally pissed each other off so much that neither of us was going to budge. What was weird, is that he tried to talk to me calmly. He sighed and told me that he knew that I was Rose, and not Russ.
I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, because he never seemed to care how I thought of myself. Then he told me what He and Mom had decided to do.
He actually had tears in his eyes! It freaked me out cause I’d never seen or heard him cry before!
Then he surprised me even more. He said, “We want to let you live for a year as Rose, but we want to do it safely.”
Really? What did 'safely' mean?
My thoughts exactly. I figured it was gonna be something like I could be me on weekends and after school, but I had to disguise myself as Russ at school. I told them I didn’t want to do that.
Mom told me, no. I could be me all the time, because they were going to home school me for my fifth grade year. She told me she wanted to talk about it in a year and see how well it had worked for me.
A nice excuse for saying it didn’t work, so you were going back to being Russell.
That’s what I figured too. I didn’t say anything, though. A year to be myself sounded so wonderful! Of course, now, I realize that if I hadn’t stayed Rose, I probably would have been tempted to end it all.
The other thing ‘safely’ meant was they didn’t want me to hurt myself anymore. So even though I would have my penis while I was living as myself, I wasn’t to try to remove it.
I told them it was gross, and I still wanted to get rid of it.
(Disgusted laugh.) It wasn’t a good idea, but Dad told me that if I tried again, the deal was off. I figured whatever. As long as I could be myself, I could handle that one hitch. I would just ignore the damned thing.
I started wearing the girliest clothes I possibly could, but then I started to realize that the clothes didn’t really make me a girl. Who I was did.
From that moment on, I’ve lived as me. I haven’t looked back. When we talked about it a year later, I told them that I’d been the happiest I’ve ever been, and I think they saw it as well. They never tried to turn me back into Russ after that.
The first time I called my father ‘Daddy’, he hugged me with tears in his eyes.
Awww.
I’d never expected anything like that. They totally changed!
One thing that their ‘safely’ did was allowed me to go to middle school without people realizing that I used to be Russ. Since I wasn’t in fifth grade with them, they assumed that I had moved away. I acted dumb, and the ones I remembered, I pretended I didn’t.
One, though. I wanted to get to know him, and I did. We hit it off real good. His name was Lyle. We went together all through middle school and high school.
He didn’t know that I had ever been a boy until we started high school. He found out because he told me he’d always wanted to be a girl! I asked him how come he dated me. He was embarrassed and said it was because he’d tried to be a boy.
He was going to break up with me! I told him that I was a trans-girl, and then, he was really mad. He wondered why I hadn’t told him!
What? So it works only one way?
(Laugh out loud.) At first, that’s how it seemed, but as he thought about it, he realized he had done exactly the same thing to me.
We hadn’t talked for several days, but then he stopped by my house and wanted to talk to me.
We had both enjoyed kissing each other, and I loved being touched by him, or rather, her. She loved being touched by me just as much. We wondered if we could make it in a lesbian relationship.
Her name was Lilly, and we stayed together all through high school.
Lilly didn’t let anyone but me know about her. Her parents were all for it, but they really didn’t want people to know. Lyle had never been a jock, and was picked on because he liked to spend time with girls.
So all through school, we kept up the boyfriend/girlfriend thing, but we were really lesbians. (Giggle) Several of the girls wondered what I saw in ‘him’. I said he was the sweetest, gentlest guy a girl could wish for.
On summer vacations, Lilly went with us, and I went with her on her families trips. We spent as much time together as we could.
Sounds like both your parents were understanding.
Yeah. Once they saw how much being a girl meant to me.
Would you believe that they gave me the most wonderful graduation gift they could? They paid for my surgery!
They went from wanting me to stay a boy to paying for my surgery!
Lilly and I went away to a university in a different state. We wanted her to be herself. She had one last time as Lyle. When we got married.
She didn’t wear a wedding dress?
Not that time, but we went to a city where no one would complain and said our vows again. We celebrate that anniversary. Not the other one.
When did she transition?
She hasn’t. We found that there are certain things that we enjoy with her keeping her male parts It makes things pretty exciting.
You know what gardeners say. Lilies and Roses go well together.
Next the skinny, bedraggled, wreck, who had been sulking at the bar and drinking from her own flask, broke in. I was pretty sure she was strung out on something other than alcohol. I would guess she had military experience, from how the shine on her combat boots contrasted with her generally unkept and uncared for appearance.
(I listened to the story that was bein’ told and fought back the snort that tried to break out. Rose whatever-her-name-was, ‘Rose with the Face,’ finished her tale, sniffled, and smiled around at the rest of us, pleased as hell with herself.)
(Fuckin’ peachy.)
(I’d shown up late to the shindig, but the fact I’d bothered showin’ up at all was somethin’ at least, right? I’d stayed quiet and sipped my drink, listenin’ to the bitches talk.)
(I still couldn’t believe I was out with all these bitches. Rich bitches, fancy bitches, fat bitches, prissy bitches, psycho bitches. All of ‘em laughin’ and chattin’ like they’d known each other years, none of ‘em givin’ a fuck about the little skank bitch wh’d snuck up and hung back.)
(‘No throwin’ stones,’ I reminded myself as I took another gulp from my tumbler. The drink had started the night as a double jack, but I’d added a solid finger of the Ativan slurry I kept in my own flask, and the combination was lettin’ me loosen up a bit for the first time in a few days. It had the added benefit of makin’ the Jack easier to throw back: I didn’t normally drink, since drinkin’ brought the bad stuff too often, but for some reason I’d figured I’d make an exception for these bitches.)
(Whatever kinda bitches they were, for the night they were MY bitches. Or would be, if I could bring myself to chip into the circle jerk of storytellin’.)
(There was a lull in the sound around me. Normally that would send me runnin’ for the nearest hidey hole, but the Jack-ivan cocktail was doin’ its job and I only jumped a bit when I noticed the Roses and not-fuckin’-Roses all lookin’ at me like they’d just noticed I was there.)
(Guess I was up.)
(Fuck it.)
Alrightalrightalright. My turn.
I grew up a Ronnie. ‘Strong name,’ the shithead would say. My dad. ‘Make a man outta ya.’ ‘S what he’d always say, no matter what happened. ‘Stop bein’ a little shit and take it like a man.’
See how that shit turned out.
Anyway.
I always had problems, y’know? With people. ‘S just like, they weird me out, y’know? All smilin’ and plannin’ shit, and I could never figure out what the fuck they were tryin’ to do or why, y’know? Only thing I knew was, it prob’ly wasn’t good fer me, an’ it never was. Like, what the fuck? I didn’ like it even as a kid.
Y’all’re alright though. I think.
Hmm? So yeah. Didn’t like people. An’ I never liked all the other stuff he tried t’ get me to do, either. The fuckin’ sports ‘n’ stuff, right? Lookit me, I’m a fuckin’ stick! Got the shit kicked outta me in all o’ it, got laughed at an’ spit on. And then all the grown up fucks, just ignorin’ me while there’s all the noise and everythin’ else. Made me paranoid as fuck.
Okay, more paranoid than usual.
(I stopped talking and took another slug of my Jack-ivan, smiling at the faces of the ladies around me. Some of ‘em looked like I’d kicked their dogs, but most of ‘em seemed to be listenin’ at least.)
(Was more than I was used to.)
(Kinda nice.)
So yeah. Started growin’ up a bit, and stopped doin’ the sports shit, ‘n after that most people just kinda left me the fuck alone. ‘N that’s what I wanted, yaknow? Just leamme the fuck alone. But not erryone would. Was a coupla guys, big ol’ fuckin’, just, slabs of shit, y’know? Din’t. They din’t have to worry ‘bout what they did ta me, ‘cuz their dad was one ‘o the pricks who dumped money on the school alla time. So, like, nobody’d do nuthin’ to ‘em, ‘cuz the money was more important than some lil’ crack ho’s lil’ crack ho lookin’ kid, right? Din’t have no money, so I was worth less ‘n a sack o’ dog shit.
Y’know what? Fuggit. Y’all don’ wanna hear this part.
Nah. The real stuff, all that shit happened later. Like, fuck knows later. Few years ago, back when we was fightin’ those guys in the desert, right?
I was doin’ some work fer the man. Doin’ the mil’tary thing. I’d planned to do a tour, go to college, y’know? Get a job where I din’t have to talk ta fuckers all day.
Yeah, they knew I was fucked up. Dunno why they lemme in. Maybe hoped I’d get shot up or somethin’. Fuggifiknow.
So I was workin’ fer… what? I already said this. ‘Kay. Was scoutin’ stuff. ‘S what I was trained fer, y’know? Scoutin’. ‘Cuz I was a lil’ guy, right? Made me all sneaky ‘n’ shit. ‘N got me away from the team, don’ think they liked me much.
I tell you one time they tied me bare assed to a camel ‘cuz one of ‘em thought I was starin’ at his junk? Fuckers.
Anyway. Was scoutin’. I say that already? I was.
(I felt a tug on my arm, and looked down to see someone trying to take my glass out of my hand. I jerked it away from them and slammed the last dregs before they could try again, then slammed the empty tumbler on the table.)
Mine, fucker.
Mmm. Scoutin’.
So I was out there, right? Scoutin’ shit. Keepin’ an eye out for snipers ‘n’ bombs ‘n’ other shit. Was good at it. Guess too good, ‘cuz I found somethin’ I wasn’ s’pposed to. Still dunno what it was, maybe one ‘o them lizard guys’ place, th’ ones who erryone says ‘s runnin’ stuff? No fuckin’ clue now what it was, but it was bad.
Told my team about it, ‘cuz that’s what ya do, right? ‘N next day I was pulled out ‘n’ sent back t’ the States for scans ‘r somethin’. Said I was seein’ things that weren’t there.
I wasn’ havin’ it though, right? See, I was onta all their illuminati bullshit. I was fuckin’ through with it, an’ I wasn’ about to let ‘em wipe me or somethin’.
So I skipped out on ‘em first chance I could. Dumped my checkin’ account, and took it all t’ a casino. Got lucky an’ won like, I dunno, a fuckton o’ money. ‘Nough I figured I could stay off their radar a while, y’know? So I took it and ran.
But they found me. Guess I wasn’ careful enough, or their fuckin’ spy satellites found somethin’, cause there they were. Spies everywhere.
(I stopped talking and glared at the bartender. I’d seen him writin’ stuff while everyone’d been talkin’ and when he looked up and caught my eye I was sure I saw ‘im mouthin’ somethin’. Maybe he had one o’ them tooth mics?)
(I shook my head and reminded myself of Jen’s words, that she’d checked the place out and nobody was gonna find me here. I didn’t know if she was right or not, but what the fuck, I could take one spook if he tried somethin’.)
(Wouldn’t be taking no more drinks from ‘im, though.)
Wha? ‘M fuckin’ fine. Anyhow, yeah. Spooks ‘n spies. E’rywhere I went, they was there already, watchin’ me and followin’ me. So I had t’ do somethin’, y’know? Ta make me less conspigguous.
Conspitulous.
Loud.
Fuckin’ words. Anyway, ‘s when I had the idea. Remembered a coupla times in high school my cousin’d come by. She’d sneak me out ‘n we’d hang out. Was after the fuckheads were in the hospital.
The fuckheads from school I was talkin’ about earlier.
Anyway, she’d drag me out ‘n put me in a dress or skirt or somethin’ and we’d go to drink with her friends or see movies ‘n stuff. Dun’ remember why we started doin’ it, but we would, ‘n it’d be fun.
‘N I’d look pretty fuckin’ good too, ‘cuz I’m a skinny bitch right?
So, like, the guv’mint’s got these guys tailin’ me, right? I see ‘em everywhere I go, but they’re never grabbin’ me or cornerin’ me. Too sneaky, right? So what I do, I find this lil’ store and go in, make sure none of ‘em follow me, and buy some girl shit, change there, an’ sneak out the back.
See those fuckers follow me now, right?
“Wait. So you just waltzed in in drab and changed into women’s clothes?”
(I looked at the lady who’d asked me the question and tried to remember if she was a Rose or a not-a-fuckin’-Rose.)
(Then I tried to figure out why all the bitches had halos all of a sudden. Maybe the Jack-ivan was a bad idea?)
(Nah.)
Story. Right, sorry. Story.
So I did that fer, like, a year, right? Duckin’ into places ‘n’ changin’ if they got all close ‘n’ shit. Pretty sure it saved my ass a coupla times, ‘cause by then they prolly had snipers ‘n’ shit right?
But it was gettin’ ‘spensive, and fuckin’ hard to keep up with.
So I got the idea, right? This big fuckin’ idea. I had all these bitch clothes layin’ around, so why keep changin’ back and forth when I could just be, like, one person, y’know?
‘S when I threw out all my Ronnie stuff. Wasn’ hard, just stuffed it all in one o’ my duffels an’ dropped it in the river.
Not tellin’ ya where. ‘S a secret.
Anyway.
I went ‘n’ bought, like, a shitload more girl stuff, all that fuckin’ makeup ‘n’ shit. Started callin’ m’self Rose too. The casino money was still holdin’ up a’ight, ‘n’ I was kinda livin’ off the grid, y’know? ‘Cept I was stayin’ in the city, in crowds ‘n’ shit, ‘cuz after doin’ all the scoutin’ shit in the mil’tary I figured any place I didn’ have air conditionin’ was fuckin’ worthless.
So I was, like, off the grid, but still on it, y’know? One o’ them the-fuck-they called, slobberin’ citizens or whatever.
Sovereign. The fuck ever.
‘N that was, I think, like three years ago? Somethin’ like that.
“So, do you like being Rose? Or are you just doing it to hide from the spooks?” (Another one of the lades asked me. I knew this one was a Rose for sure, fuck if I could remember her name though. Somethin’ to do with colors or some shit? Other-Rose-with-the-face.)
(I closed my eyes to block out all the blurry people for a few moments and keep myself from fallin’ over.)
The girl thing? ‘S alrigh’, I guess. Not like I miss all the fuckin’ guy shit, y’know? Or the mil’tary shit. ‘Z all fuckin’, like, I’unno. Just a buncha fuckin’ bullshit.
Girl stuff ain’t half bad though. Clothes ‘r’ nice. I don’ have ta act like I care what yer fuckin’ football team scored or like I give a shit about cars. Don’ get shit if I order a fuckin’ salad at a restaurant and that’s it. ‘N it keeps the spooks away, and th’ nightmares, sometimes.
But yeah. ‘N now I’m here, ‘cuz the lady I’m rentin’ from, she’s one o’ them shrinks, right? But not like a mind-fucker, she like cares, y’know? Anyway, she said she wouldn’ refill some of my meds if I didn’ come here ‘n try ‘n be all fuckin’ sociable ‘n’ shit. Said it’d show I was makin’ progress or some shit like that. I told her ‘bitch, I’m try’na lay low, an’ you want me to go talk to a buncha fuckin’ people?’
‘N’ I’m here.
‘S been… I’unno. Not as fucked up as I thought it’d be. Ain’t slept in like four days though, ‘cuz I can’t ‘round all this shit, the noise ‘n’ the weirdos. Not sayin’ you bitches ‘re weirdos, just, like, the fuckin’ WEIRDOS, y’know?
‘S it been four days? Three?
No. Def’nitely four.
‘Cuz people fuckin’ suck, right? Like those guys at school.
You know who I’m fuckin’ talkin’ about. Yeah, them. Always breakin’ yer shit, stealin’ yer shit, kickin’ ya down the hall ‘cuz they got all the power ‘n’ you got jack fuckin’ shit ‘n’ can’t say shit about it.
Just… fuck ‘em, y’know?
‘Cept not really. Prob’ly got, like, crabs ‘n’ shit. Prolly did back then, too.
Heh.
So now I’m her. Here. ‘Cuz Jen said it’d help me get better. I think it’s doin’ fuck all, but if Jen wants me t’ try, I’ll try it, y’know?
“Jen?” (Another Rose asked, one who had a name that reminded me of some old comedian.)
Yeah, y’know. Fuckin’ Jen. Shrink lady I fuckin’ live with. Mind readin’ bitch.
Jen.
She said I needed ta get over my delusions, right? Stop seein’ stuff that ain’t there. Said it’s all up here, in my head.
Fuck, maybe she’s right.
‘N’ she said bein’ here, meetin’ you bitches, ‘d help.
Don’ think it’s fuckin’ workin’, though.
(I closed my eyes again, to keep the wobbly and blurry room from making me dizzier. I thought about leavin’, but the numbness in my legs told me I wouldn’t make it back to the motel. Maybe I should call Jen to come get me?)
(Fuck it, not like I could remember where I was anyway, and with how foggy things were I didn’t even know if I’d be able to see the phone to dial her.)
(Rose whatever-the-fuck, ‘nother-Rose-with-the face, was standin’ next to me. I looked at her and tried a smile, to see if I still remembered how to do it, and it must’ve worked because she smiled back, or at least I thought it was a smile through the blurriness in my eyes and in my head.)
(It’s been a long time since anyone smiled at me, ‘cept Jen. And this bitch -- no, this lady -- looked nice. Comfy too.)
(She flinched a bit when I leaned against her shoulder, but I needed the help standing. She didn’t tell me to go fuck myself, so I figured I was alright for the moment, at least.)
(So I closed my eyes, rested my head against her, and let the blackness take me.)
The next storyteller started out a little hostile. Like she objected to having a man in the room. But she seems to be coming around and has given me some nice smiles and nods."
“I wanted to apologize to some of you. I…I was out of line last night”
(I look over my shoulder in the direction of the bar. He’s moving around quickly; cutting up limes maybe or premixing some juices for cocktails. He sees me and waves. I wave back. )
"Oh,fu…oh gosh… am I interrupting things here?
”No, that's OK go on it should be your turn to share anyway. What were you out of line about?
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I say as I sit back down.
“No, that's OK...go on it should be your turn to share anyway. What were you sorry about? “ Rose Greene asks.
“Like I said…I…I was out of line.” I look over my shoulder again in the direction of the bar. He’s moving around quickly. He sees me and waves again. I wave back to my new best friend.
“Sam over there? What I said to some of you about him yesterday? Well let’s just say I was being my old obtuse self.”
“What do you mean?” (Rosie tilts her head and narrows her eyes just a bit.)
“I…Just a while ago when I came back down, I stopped off at the bar. When I walked up, he smiled at me and said ‘hi,’ in an actual human glad to see me face?” I pause and gaze down at myself. I’m hardly a looker with that worn-a bit-attends- Renaissance-festivals-dressed-as-a-wench thing.
“I’m sort of disappointed, since I actually almost wanted him to say something ignorant. Instead he smiled again and said ‘Blue Moon, right?’ He remembered from the night before. I’m not even within a parsec of some of the girls here when it comes to looks. You know? Like the older gal who hugs her girlfriend at the end of the Skywalker thing?”
“I can actually see that,” Rosemary teases.
“Anyway he brings me the beer.”
“’We ran out of Mango. Belgian White okay?’ So I nodded yes and he smiled at me. Almost the type of smile I wish I’d get from my brothers? He leaned closer and said ’Mind if I ask you a question?’ And there I’m thinkin’ oh, oh…here it comes.”
“Oh oh?” CIS says.
“That’s what I thought. Here it comes, you know?? But he asked, ‘Is this your first time, or does your boyfriend come to these a lot?’”
“He…he thought you were the girlfriend?” (Rosie half smiles and laughs softly. I make a sort of scrunchie disappointed face but she holds her thumb up.)
“Yes. Like I said, we have an awful lot of ladies here who could actually break Dwayne Johnson’s heart, you know. So I told him that I’m the boyfriend. Leastwise was, since now I’m the girlfriend too, you know? He laughed, and that set me off but he shook his head ‘no’.”
“That seems awfully rude either way…” Rose McDonough says.
“Maybe a little, but I realized he was really sincere? And then he nails it.”
“Oh oh,” CIS repeats.
“’You remind me of my Mom’s younger sister.’ Oh great, I’m thinking. I’m someone’s forty-one year old aunt? But then it dawned on me? We talk a lot about passing? But what we really want is to blend in?”
“I guess so,” Rose says. (A few of the ladies at the table look at each other.)
“All I ever wanted was for my brothers to look at me and treat me like their sister, you know? Not a visitor. When I started transition, I really dressed to the nines, but not only wasn’t it me, it wasn’t going to get me what I wanted.”
(I’m greeted by a few ‘yeses’ and nods.)
“Anyway, Sam saw my reaction and half-frowned. ‘I’m sorry.’ He shrugged his shoulders and walked a bit away and got a drink for a girl who looked like she could be Katy Perry’s twin. I’m standing there finishing my ale when he walked back.”
“OH OH?”
“’My mom is one of five sisters,’ he said. ‘My aunt…the one I told you about? She’s the only one who everybody else will talk to when they…you know like families do? She’s nice.’”
“Nice?” Rosemary asks.
“Wow…do you think he meant it?” CIS asks.
“At this point, it’s more like he wants to mean it? Like he’s trying? Like I said, I am so sorry. I guess some of us,”
(I use my arm in a broad gesture to indicate everybody else in the room.)
“We want acceptance and I get that. But someone reminded me that we do want and need some sort of validation. The blending in instead of standing out?”
“Is that fair?” Rosie asks.
“Maybe not, but we take what we can get and hope things keep improving.”
“Oh…don’t I know that.” Rose McDonough says with a smile.
“Anyway, Anita…my girlfriend did a double at the hospital. I gotta drive up to St. Roses Hospital of all places to pick her up and spend some time together before tonight? We’re going to dress up a bit more than I’m used to, but she insists that we’re both worth it. Ciao ladies.”
“Wait, how did you get the name Rose?” (one of the Roses asks; waving her hand urgently.)
“Oh, Anita...my girlfriend gave me that. It was the name of her best friend in grade school. Gotta run ladies, see you later? Bye.”
The next Rose seems like a princess posing as a street tough. Her Irish comes and goes, showing it to be more a pose than an identity. She is trying to be her own self with her eccentric fashion and makeup. But, to me it shows she is only starting to discover her true self.
May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far.
“Soith”
It’s an insult to some people. To me, it’s a badge of honor. I’ll have it inscribed on my tombstone with a more colorful display of words done with an acrostic. If you never meet me in life, you will not forget me in death. My plot will be like freaking Mr. Mojo Risin’ in visitors.
Anyway, my name is Rose Ingram O’Ceallaigh—Dad calls me “Rosheen”, his little rose. Yes, the same family that owns a vast number of companies. We just let Steve Jobs think he owned Apple. It makes it so much easier to deal with. Let’s see, when I was thirteen, I calmly, and by calmly, I mean I raised holy hell to have hormone blockers. I saw what body hair and secondary puberty characteristics did to you and I wanted nothing of that. Sure, I wore dresses all the time and yeah, I had my hair styled however I wanted it to be. This necklace? I got it to commemorate the day I walked into society as someone who I felt comfortable as.
Have you ever had that experimental laser hair removal? Where it helps to kill the follicles estrogen fails to stop? It works. Believe me.
So, I had some work done, out of the country, of course and I made it a point to be noticed by anyone who cared to ask. I avoided being a social whore, I mean, why go there, right? I didn’t have a publicist to keep a tight schedule so I could never have a television show. Twitter, that’s for twats, sorry, because I can’t think that I could ever just blurt out: “hey, you’re all great, my brothers and sisters trans-hood and I’m so proud of you!” I could do that, yeah, but I’d also have to call out to the ones who call us friends: “Who say you’re an ally but then treat us like we’re some sort of disease. I got two words for those people: caic tarbh.”
Kind of wished I said that loud and clear a few times in life, but I had everyone around me who listened to every word my daddy’s money told them to do. If the little princess wanted to fly to Singapore and try some experimental procedure, then I had people who would oblige, and I would come back with little or nothing to declare except some new clothes and a few extra pills.
Nothing illegal, it’s just that time was always against me to not turn out like others before me. I saw how it hurt them and I didn’t want to be like that, suffering my way through trying to convince some doctor about who I am so they can diagnose that I’m crazy. So, it’s like, you have to have a doctor’s note saying she’s off her rocker before you can do anything. Oh, and then you have to have your parents sign this paper and that waiver and talk about things that I wouldn’t even tell my pet dog. I figured I’m a strong young woman and I can do what I want.
So, I did.
And, after top surgery I replaced my entire fricking wardrobe with the works. The kind of clothes that hug at the curves, you know? So, when school started back up in the fall, I enrolled as Rose and signed my name with a flower at the end. So, yeah, she’s got everything: money, parents who let her do what she wants, a car, and the body to match up with the brain. But the question everyone wants to think: “Yeah, but did you have any friends, little Rosie?”
Let me tell you about friends. The ones I had, past tense, were not even fair-weather. No, they were friends of the family name. The wealth. Did they like me? I’m sure they tolerated my hormone-driven angst. I believe they understood my body dysphoria. I’m very sure they thought it was some sort of hobby, a hobby that had been going on since I was five, but one, nonetheless. One of those, oh, so it’s a Cher infatuation, a fetish, line of thinking. I told all of them, in plain, straight language that they could go to Hell.
My new friends were about the same, they didn’t know me, but they knew money. So, they were like all yes-men and women.
Yeah, I know, poor little rich girl. Sounds like I should have given all of my money to people who needed it, right? I tried to do that. I reached out as me, as Rose, not as a daughter of the O’Ceallaigh name but as the person sitting here with you. I wanted to start small, have groups created and meeting centers erected in towns where those places were lacking. No one wants to come to a library or a community center where you can’t speak your mind. I had this two story building set-up near the center of the theatre district in town.
No one wanted to know the reason at first. I had hired my own architect with a few, well, let’s just say that it was a good thing my parents never ran political office, offshore accounts. However, it eventually came out and my Dad called me in front of the carpet.
He acknowledged that I was looking well, but he didn’t approve of the multi-streaks of green in my hair. We went over his recent business trip to South Korea and how one day we’ll vacation there.
I politely agreed.
He then pointed at a stack of paperwork, invoices and letters. He almost spat out THE word: the one I had hated for so long but then stopped and then calmly stated “Rosheen, I have the FBI asking questions about the construction of this building. What is it for?”
“My people.”
“Your people.”
“The people like me.”
“Why?”
“There are girls out there without anyone to tell them they’re not crazy. To be there for them when they’re down. I wanted to bring a resource to them.”
“Ah, so this is a philanthropic cause?”
“In several ways, yes.”
“At twenty-two million dollars?”
I only nodded.
“Good. It’s a tax write-off.”
“I don’t want the company involved, Dad.”
“Why not?”
“It needs to be grassroots. It needs the heart. It can't be that way with a corporate sponsorship. It’s not a football stadium.”
“I get, Rose,” he replied and put his hands in the air in defeat. “I can set up a few sub-contractors, off the record, to assist in the opening.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Now, as caring as my business-minded father was, my mother tolerated me. We never went places together when I was younger and we seldom went out when I was older until Mom learned I was a magnet for the media—I assumed she loved the attention we got in the press, be it negative or positive—whenever she went out for a social event or something. I’d be there for the photo-op but would then go back to the car and leave—I wasn’t interested in a lot of her causes and she wasn’t interested in mine.
Our causes collided on a cold night in November when we arrived at the dedication of some memorial to a rich, old guy. Mom and her social crew had forced me to wear a long wig of my original hair color due to the “stoic-ness” of the event. I came to the event and, true to form, I stayed civil, quiet and kept away from the media, lest they ask me a question they didn’t want the answer to.
So, my mother’s talking gammy with every person there and my eyes turn to something going on across the street: Two men and a woman, from what I can see, talking—but something seemed off. I couldn’t hear them, but the conversation appeared to be going downhill. She turned around and one of the men grabbed her from behind.
It was like those accident videos on the internet, right? You can’t look but you can’t turn away from it.
The second man darted in front of her and slapped her across the face.
The woman then went down to the sidewalk and they started kicking her.
I ran to where my mom was—surrounded by cameras—and grabbed her by the arm.
“Mom, someone’s being assaulted!”
I looked back and could barely see through the darkness and the crowd surrounding us but the two continued to kick and hit her and everyone stood by like it was beneath them.
“We have to help her.”
“No, we are staying right here. The paparazzi will have a field day,” she hissed under her breath.
I threw my purse at mother’s feet, jumped over the concrete barricade and ran across the street in what could be a frenzy mixed with a dream. I think I should have been struck by five or six cars asI darted across the road in bare feet—I had taken my shoes off after my superhero-ish leap from the barrier and held them in my hands.
I was the soith that mothers warned their sons about as I ran up to one of the attackers, screamed and slammed the heels into his back. Yeah, I mean, literally into his back. I pulled one of the shoes out of the guy and made my way to the other one. I guess I looked like a freaking demon as he backed away and fell to the ground. At that moment, I could have taken the high road: street justice had been satisfied ad they were no longer beating up on her but, who was I kidding, it was worth overdoing as I wailed on the guy so much that anyone who stumbled on the scene would have assumed, I was the aggressor. That I was the one who started it all.
I’m not sure how much time had passed before several arms grabbed me and pulled me off of him.
“Are you alright, miss?” The disembodied voice asked.
I could feel the burning in my chest and and I saw fire: flames of blue and red flickered in and out of my peripheral vision; but it turned out to the face of the guy I had pummeled, streaked by the tears of hate and fear that had melted the make-up on my face.
“Never mind me, is she okay?”
“We’re having the EMT’s look at her. You should be seen too.”
“M’fine. Just do something with this trash and it’s all good in my book,” I replied as I looked to the other side of the street—everyone had their cell phone out. The ones who didn’t had cameras—specifically, video cameras.
Recall earlier when I said I didn’t have a publicist or a television show? Less than two hours later I had a team of lawyers and people once again “looking out for me” and my face, in various years of life, was all over television and 95% of images used was when…and what they said…the feckers…they decided to use m’first name. Someone thought it was great to look into m’past and put that one damn under the picture of my face: Richard. So much for a no good deed goes unpunished, right?
I was the attacker, at least in the eyes of whoever ran the news in town. Dad was mad at the attention given to the company and the family but he was furious on how quickly they, the scum, acquired some hot lawyers who knew where to stick the knife and twist it. They were the victims, not the girl and not me.
Speaking of the girl, yeah, I went to see her, to see how she was doing. She was out of it the first few times I went. No one knew her name and her face wasn’t really recognizable under the bruising. Her real hair was cut short and brown, as it was long and red the night of the beating. I’d stand in her room for a few minutes and allow the night to replay in my head. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved. I didn’t know this person at all, but I felt a connection, perhaps a kindred spirit kind of thing. I couldn’t have just turned my head because then we’d never meet. She would have been possibly killed and since I never watched the news I would have never known. Just a statistic on a screen.
I know, you’re thinking, “Hey, Rosheen, so if you’re not up with the struggle of it all why ya’ buildin’ your big ego project then, eh?”
Yeah, I thought that too as I looked out the suite window. I could build something and say it would be for the people who are overlooked, discarded. It was because I lived in a poor little rich girl bubble with no one really giving me a hard time. I could turn my back and forget about it all. But I didn’t know if she could.
As I said, I kept coming there until one day when I saw an older couple standing in the room. They didn’t look like attorneys or officials.
“Her parents,” I whispered as I continued to walk to the room. I was close enough to see a change to her face—the bruises were down a bit—there was more of a flesh tone, but her face was still red, like she had been crying. She looked at me, which caused the other two to turn their attention my way.
“Sorry, I just wanted to see if-”
“We’re fine, thank you,” the man scoffed at me and then turned back to the bed. “You see? You see what you did? What did I say about going out trying to be something you’re not.”
“Dean, this is not the right place.”
“Christ, Mary, either here or the morgue.”
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“She? This is my confused ‘son’ that thinks he’s a drag queen or something, ‘son’.”
Even though he looked like he was pushing near seventy and we were the same height my fear factor shot up. If I was hooked up to all of that equipment an alarm would be going off as my heart rate spiked.
“Dean,” his wife muttered, “not here.”
“He’s a bum, miss. A bum that’s going to cost me a fortune to be here. Why did you have them bring you to this place? Why didn’t you call?”
I wanted to say the obvious: That getting pummeled by thugs, kind of makes it tough to whip out a cell phone and say “hey, dad, I’m getting my arse kicked. No big deal.”
“He leaves college, starts going to these clubs, meetings, I don’t know what the Hell they’re called.”
The man marched around the room, pointing and waving his hands wildly. “If you had stayed in school, James and settled down. What was wrong with Lisa? She was the perfect girl for you and you go and pilfer one of her dresses.”
“I’ll leave you be. Sorry.”
“Who are you?”
“Just someone who wanted to help.”
“So, I suppose I owe for this.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I replied and if he tried to give me any moment, I would have ripped the bills in front of his face since I couldn't set them on fire inside a hospital.
“Thank you for bringing James here, miss.” The mother replied,
I nodded to her, it was the best I could do as I wanted to, stamp my foot, point my middle finger in their direction and scream like a banshee. But I also didn’t want to get thrown out.
I left the room, went down to the lower floor and sat on a bench. I cried a little, only because I felt like I should have said and done so much more but I have two settings: loud and damn loud and I had seen their type before: doesn’t matter what you say. You could have the encyclopedic knowledge of a Rhodes scholar and they would shoot you down, literally, or ignore you into submission. Maybe I could hire a hit squad and make them vanish? It would take a few days, maybe a late car payment, before anyone knew they were gone.
“Hi,”
I stood in the doorway once again. The parents were finally gone--I had observed them arguing with each other as they walked out the front entrance.
She slowly turned to look at me and then closed her eyes.
“Who are you?”
“Rose.”
“You were the one who leaped onto that guy.”
I nodded and took a few steps into the room.
“Why?”
“I saw them attacking you.”
“To be honest, Rose, I kind of wished you didn’t show up.”
I had seen that stare before—the one where you wish for your heart to stop as everything is in shades of a dark grey. I’d seen it countless times on others but never knew how to respond to it: give them “good thoughts”, maybe say a prayer or write a check? And by the time I thought of something I could try to do, they were gone and I never saw them again. This one, however, was a captive audience.
“You’re thinkin’ that ‘cause of your dad. I saw him. I heard ‘em. To Hell with ‘em. What’s your name, girl?”
“Girl?”
“Yeah, what do I call ya? Because I for sure as Hell ain’t calling you James.”
“Erin.”
“Erin. Nice Irish name. You better keep it so we can go clubbing sometime, eh?”
She nodded but then looked down.
“I’m not a girl…I’m just a…freak.”
“I like freaks. They’re honest. We gotta be honest freaks with each other or we get walked all over.”
“I can’t live like this. I don’t want to.”
“What do you want to be?”
“Something I can’t.”
“You can be who you are.”
“I get that you want to make me feel better. But, really, I’m just a confused mess and…”
“And what?”
“I could never be like you.”
“You can,” I replied and then pointed at her. “Oh and believe me, girl, you will. I am going to be your big sister and escort you down that road.”
“Why?”
“Like I said we need to be honest with each other.”
“You mean you’re like me?”
“Like a mirror, Erin. So, I need you to do a few things. First, you take me phone and call me if the doctors say anything to you. Meanwhile, I’m going to make sure ‘they’ can’t come back up here.”
“You can do that?”
“Sure as Hell gonna try.”
Everything; sometimes years change nothing...
The hospital discharged Erin a week later and I put her up in one of the rooms of the as of yet to open and unnamed building. It was a kind of spacious room too with all of the amenities of home except for a working maintenance and hospitality staff. Erin was my Guinea pig for the security technology, and I bored her to tears with every run-through of my “grand-opening” speech. We didn’t talk too much, and when we did, I think I did a lot of the talking. I tried to get her to speak but I was afraid I’d step over that line that my friends tried with me. For the most part, I left her alone to let her find herself. She wasn’t a prisoner; we both knew she was a prisoner to her body so I gave her a wide berth one day when she asked if she could take a walk around the neighborhood. She had a phone with her, and the area was okay in the daytime. Who was I to say no?
I spent a few hours talking with the soon-to-be-doctor-on-staff. We assured ourselves of the mutual trust we had to each other, how serious this was to me, and that we had our first guest. I felt pretty good about everything and you know what they say when you feel good about everything.
That’s when it all falls into shite.
So, come eight o’clock, Erin hadn’t returned, and I had clicked my phone screen hundreds of times debating on whether or not to play the “mom card” and call the phone. I held off until nine fifteen and sixteen seconds before I called the phone and it immediately went to voicemail.
I laid my phone down—lest I throw it against the wall in a fit of anger—and tried to alleviate m’fears. Maybe she had met with friends or maybe was ripping her dad a new one. That made me feel better for a moment or two, but only for that brief moment. I walked down to the lobby and tapped at the the computer that controlled the security cameras. I could see her leave the building and walk down the street, but she soon faded into the theatre district crowd and I could no longer find her.
I contemplated calling the police, but on what grounds? They wouldn’t do anything and calling all of the hospitals would take all night so I did all that I could: I sent a text message and waited for her to respond.
So, at three in the morning, I woke up to hear the door alarm chirping. I ran down the hall back to the lobby and turned on the cameras, in hope to see Erin standing but instead I see three men dressed like they were part of a missionary group.
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Reynolds.”
“Can I have your badge number, please?”
The look on his face stayed the same deadpan look as he rattled off his ID.
I unlocked the front door that led into a vestibule, but there was still another set of locked doors. The men walked in and then stopped at the second set of doors. I walked towards the doors and picked up a phone on the wall.
“How can I help you, gentlemen?”
“Are you Rose O’Ceallaigh?”
“Yes.”
“Can you unlock the door, please?”
“Due to security of the building and the tine, I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Do you know a James Collins?”
“I know an Erin Collins.”
The third man whispered something to the detective.
I hung the phone up, walked back to the desk, felt for the licensed revolver and then unlocked the doors.
The men casually opened the door and walked in.
I stayed in my seat and I could see the other two getting fidgety as the detective took the lead.
“Has…Erin Collins, been staying here?”
“Yes. This is a resource and protection center for human rights.”
“Were you here all day, yesterday?”
“Yes, I’ve been waiting for her to come back. She left in the late afternoon and I didn’t answer a few calls and texts. Has something happened to her?”
“Do you know a Dean Collins?”
“He’s her father, why?”
“Can you come with us to the station, please?”
Like I said, shite.
So, I call my dad, at like, four or so in the morning, lock up the building and leave with the officers to the station up the road. Dad arrives, furious at having to leave a global tele-conference, as we sat in a room together.
The same three men come in and sit down across the table.
Dad had his fingers on his phone, just waiting to call a few attorneys and I’m wondering what had happened to Erin.
“Mr. Collins and his son are dead.”
I cringed a bit as the detective continued to use such adjectives to describe Erin. “How?”
“We’re not sure, we were hoping you could fill in some blanks.”
“No, I don’t know, I-“
“Mrs. Collins said her son came in screaming about something you said: “To show his father a thing or two?”
“I had told, her, Erin, to stand up for herself and to remove the people from her life who would try to harm her.”
“To kill them?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Not another word, Rosheen.” My father said in a low growl. “These gentlemen do not care about your friend’s life. Only in closing this case so they don’t have to worry about it.”
I looked down at my hands—they were red and swollen as I had held them clutched through most of the night. Maybe dad knew I was about to swing them at someone, say, maybe a slightly balding detective.
“Not that I blame them. It’s easy to look past it all, isn’t it? To pretend it doesn’t exist? According to the papers, you let the criminals who attacked my daughter’s friend out on bail. Do you really think they’re going to come back on their own recognizance?”
I looked up at my father and then at the cops.
“Is that true?”
“They were considered a victim in the situation.” The detective replied with an annoyed look on his face.
And at that moment:
I wanted to flip the table over, but it was bolted down.
I needed to hit the wall, but it was made of cinderblocks.
I desired to kick the living shite out of the police, Erin’s father’s corpse and maybe slap some sense into her mama!
But instead, I got up and walked out of the room.
“She leaves,” my father stated calmly. “And we’re going to talk, dear officers of the law.”
I left the police station in a daze and walked back to the building. A building that now had a name: “The Erin Collins Memorial Project”. I couldn’t help Erin like she needed but I’m trying to…I’m trying to help others and myself, to get past the pain of it all. Three hundred of our sisters and brothers died this year—and these are just the ones that were reported. I don’t want anyone to die, by someone else or by their own hand. I want to think that however long the day, the evening will come, and we’ll be accepted and to live as who we are.
I still miss her.
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While Rosie was talking on the phone of the passed out Rose, Rose Ingram, Irish Rose, came over to the bar. “Eh, Sammy? Whatever they’ve had and will be having. All on m’tab, Kay?” she said, laying a credit card on the bar. I figured if what she said about her family was true, she could well afford it. I did as she asked; she included a generous tip as well. I waved off the rest who wanted to settle up.
“Hello Rose.”
“Ah, hi. My name is Rose Gallagher. Not the Rose you’re expecting, I’m sure. I’m one of the registrars at the ‘SWEET’ conference being held at the Luxor. Are you familiar with it?”
“Yes, I’m aware of the conference. But I’m not sure why you would want to ask.”
“We’re trying to locate a counselor who sent a transgender person named Rose to the conference.”
“I’m not at liberty reveal the names of my patients or the nature of their treatment. HIPAA requirements mandate that I keep such information private.”
“I understand, but I’m not bound by HIPAA so I can tell you that there is a transgender person named Rose who was required by her counselor, someone she called Jen, and referred to as ‘one a them shrinks’, to attend the SWEET conference. She’s here at the Luxor down in the Tomb.”
“The Tomb?”
“Yes, it’s a small bar in the basement. Anyway this Rose has been drinking something from a flask and has passed out. She doesn’t seem to be in any distress but we’re unable to rouse her. You were the only contact on her flip phone. We were hoping that you might be the Jen she was referring to and could assist her. We don’t want to just leave her here.”
“Who is the ‘we’ you refer to?”
“There are twelve of us all named Rose who met here in the Tomb to share stories about our name and get to know one another. The Rose I’m calling about is one of us.”
“I see; One Dozen Roses, how interesting. Well I can’t confirm that this Rose is a patient but I’m willing to come and help. How do I get to this ‘Tomb’?”
“Well, it’s kind of out of the way down in the basement. I’m afraid if I tried to tell you, I’d get you lost. But I’m sure if you ask at the front desk they can tell you. That’s how I found out about it.”
“OK, I’ll have to arrange some transportation for this ‘Rose’. It’ll be about a half an hour. Can you wait with her that long?”
“Yes, that’ll be fine. Some of the girls have to leave, but I can stay and one of the other Roses has offered to keep me company.”
“Thank you. I’m sure that this Rose will be grateful when she wakes up. See you in about a half an hour.” 
As those who had stayed to watch over our withered Rose and visit, helped the friend who had arrived to claim the body, drag her out, I called out "Rosie, can I have a word with you?"
After reassuring herself the group had the situation in hand, she came over to the bar.
"Thank you for handling that situation. If you had left it for me, I would have had to have security dump her in the drunk closet. There's no telling what kind of nightmare her waking up there, would have created."
"As organizer of this group I felt responsible." replied Rosie.
"You can have a drink on the house." I offered.
"At this time about all I can handle would be a coffee." answered Rosie.
"Need any additives for that?" I ask as I poured two cups.
"Seeing you are joining me a little Irish cream would be nice," said Rosie. I added a splash to both cups."
"Your group was one of the most interesting I can remember. If your conference returns, I would be happy to host a similar gathering next year."
"This was a kind of a spur of the moment one of. But I thought it went quite well. I think Ill suggest we do something similar next year. What did you think of the group?" asked Rosie.
"Actually, I was expecting more weirdness. Though quite varied, the group came across as regular people trying to live regular lives, in a world that wants them to be something else." I replied.
"Your open attitudes won over a few who were uneasy with having a male in the room." said Rosie.
"This is Vegas; closed minds don't work well here."
Formatters note:
The voice of Sam provided by Cheryl Bishop.
All the graphics in this work were created by Patricia Marie Allen from photos found at pixabay.com
Anthology collated and formatted by Patricia Marie Allen
Thank you all for reading our anthology. It’s been a labor of love for the seven of us.
This concept was Melanie E’s brain child. On September ninth, she put up a blog post entitled: One Dozen Roses: Calling Interested Authors! She told us about a fictional TG convention where 12 individuals named “Rose” happened to be in attendance. She was looking for six to twelve authors to contribute to the collective work telling their collective stories. The trick is, unlike other anthologies written on a common theme, it was to be, collectively, a conversation in a tucked away bar.
We met in a group PM to hash out just how this patchwork quilt of Rose stories would come together. She set December as a tentative publishing date. It was to be a stretching of our skills to not only write a story in a given theme, but to make them interactive and a cohesive part of the whole. We had nine authors show an interest. However real life got in the way and when the dust had settled seven of us, including Melanie, began producing parts of the whole.
As we bounced ideas around we got to know each other better. It’s been a great, and greatly divers group. Seven different writing styles and seven interpretations of just how it would come together. By October first, a short month later, we had sent 371 individual posts and had an inquiry from a tenth possible author. In order to include that person, we started another PM.
We discovered different skills in our group and different assets that could be pressed into service. We ended up making use of Google Docs belonging to one of the members (thank you Rosemary) to post stories so that each of us could proofread the others stories and in that way learn from each other as to how to make this whole thing work.
We each submitted drafts of our stories for all to pick apart. Having six other experienced writers proofreading and commenting on just what should be going on in your story can be a humbling experience.
Then came the task of homogenizing the various stories to have the same look and feel without infringing on each authors individual style. Several drafts followed and ideas surfaced to give the work some polish. Since it was a rose theme, each author chose a rose to represent their story or stories (some of us contributed two) and the graphics were created.
Being that there were seven authors involved there was a need to create link that allowed readers to comment directly to each author about each story. Then there was the need to navigate through the work since it was to be posted in a single posting. So a functioning interactive Table of Contents was created that included the reader having the ability to not only jump to each story, but also go to each authors page so they could read other stories by each of the authors.
This was far more than just twelve stories cranked out and posted. We hope the finished product was a good read and you enjoyed your time with us in The Tomb. Kudos are always welcome, but there is no way to give individual authors kudos so we urge you to send a private message to the authors whose story you like.
Some of us feel there is more to the story of our Rose, so be on the lookout for follow up stories of our Roses.
Thanks for reading,
One Dozen Roses.
Comments
Wonderful Anthology
Congratulations to the Authors and those who contributed in other ways. This work is remarkable and well worth the time reading each and every story in the anthology. Thank you for all of the entertaining stories to read in this anthology.
Exploring the impossibilities,
Jo Dora Webster on YouTube
What a joy
and a privilege to be a part of this literary bouquet! Each story moved me in different ways. I hope my comments do them justice.
Patricia
I did break down at that point and cry, but they were happy tears. If they had known the truth, by the time we got back from camp, I was into being Rose.
It's such a nice discovery for some of us to realize the 'girl inside.' Thank you!
Cheryl
Rose Marie asks, “Where can I find a wife like you?”
“You don’t find one. You cultivate one. You start with an open minded woman. Get her to fall in love with you. You communicate openly and honestly. You let her evolve in her own direction at her own pace. You continue showing her kindness and love, even when that is hard. And you both become better people.” I replied
I immediately related to this in my own journey with my late wife. Like in every other aspect of marriage, our relationship was a garden, and in time with patience our understanding of each other in regard to Andrea was a matter of cultivation. Thank you for this spot-on observation!
Nuuan
“Tom and Ben are seven years older than me and Cindy. The reason we were so far apart in age was that Momma had a miscarriage a couple of years after Ben and Tom were born and both Momma and Daddy were afraid of it happening again. So when she became pregnant with me and Cindy, the doc put her on some medicine to help prevent another miscarriage.”
“Was it DES?” The red-haired Rose asked.
(Shrugging my shoulder,)
“Probably? All Momma told me and Cindy that it was a synthetic estrogen. So me and Cindy were born and the doc looked between our legs and put male on my birth certificate and female on Cindy’s.”
Like many wives and girlfriends, my wife was a bit analytical, wanting to know jus what 'caused' me being transgender. Between research and discussions with my therapist and endocrinologist, I realized that my mother, who had suffered from miscarriages before I came along, all sandwiched between my older brother and sister, and like many in her generation, was prescribed DES. That was the manner in which things came to be, but my wife realized not long after she met 'me,' that while the manner of beginning might have been hormonal, the ultimate intent of 'my' creation was purely providential. Thanks for this very personal piece!
Patricia
“It’s OK. Tommy found out he couldn’t stop when Martha and I outgrew our dress up stage. I’m thinking you’ll never stop wanting to either.”
I was conflicted because I thought she was right.
“Mom, I… I don’t know if it’s really OK for me to do this.”
“Of course it’s OK. You’re not hurting anyone. I’m good with it. Nobody else’s opinion means anything.”
One of the very last things my Mom said to me before she died was that she ALWAYS knew I wore her clothes when I was a kid. "Mothers always know," she said with a laugh.
Rosemary
You were involved in a murder! How can you sit there so calmly?
Because I have terminal lymphatic cancer. I’m going to die in just a few months. Even if I go to prison, I’ll only be there for a short time. Because of my impending death, I want to try to live my last few days as Jeffrey.
(Looks down at herself)
I'm not having much luck in that regard.
(Takes a drink from her flask)
How utterly. To die with so much guilt and hurt. To sacrifice for so long only to be laden still with something that wasn't his fault. I cried, not only because he was dying, but that he was hurt so much that he left perhaps to die alone. I hope he comes back. Very moving! Thank you!
Ayleasea
“Have you told them anything else?”
“No,” I whispered.
“Afraid they won’t listen?”
“I know they won’t.”
“You’re right, Rose. I’m afraid you’re right. And when parents don’t listen to their kids, then their elders have to step in and set things right. First things first though. Take this.”
She held the hairpin out to me, moved it toward my head and clipped it to the small amount of hair I had.
It makes me a bit jealous, even of a character in a story, since I had no one who could or would have understood this part of me. Thank goodness for loving friends and family. Thank you!
Cheryl
“You still have a lot of self-discovery to do. How you regard your crossdressing and handle it will evolve over time. So let her know you are just discovering how important this is to you, and how you want her to take part in deciding how to fit it into your lives together. But embrace your femme side as on opportunity to exhibit some of your better characteristics, that are inhibited by a male social role. And don’t feel guilty about it.” offered Rose Williams.
I have a friend in Pittsburgh who uses this name often for her newly-minted transgender girlfriends - 'Baby Trans," which should include girls like yours. But even more so, Rose Williams displays needed understanding and patience. We didn't come with instructions for each other but also for ourselves. Thank You!
Rosemary
She didn’t wear a wedding dress?
Not that time, but we went to a city where no one would complain and said our vows again. We celebrate that anniversary. Not the other one.
When did she transition?
She hasn’t. We found that there are certain things that we enjoy with her keeping her male parts It makes things pretty exciting.
You know what gardeners say. Lilies and Roses go well together.
I was putting my Christmas Decorations up yesterday and came across our wedding invitation. White with pink lettering and embossed with Roses and Lilies. My wife once said that in some ways, we sometimes complemented each other in an odd way, where she seemed t reflect a male point of view while I was all female. I loved how they chose to keep things exciting. Thank you
Melanie E.
(Rose whatever-the-fuck, ‘nother-Rose-with-the face, was standin’ next to me. I looked at her and tried a smile, to see if I still remembered how to do it, and it must’ve worked because she smiled back, or at least I thought it was a smile through the blurriness in my eyes and in my head.)
(It’s been a long time since anyone smiled at me, ‘cept Jen. And this bitch -- no, this lady -- looked nice. Comfy too.)
Trying to see if she remembered how to smile. I can't help thinking that like some of us over the years, your gal has used 'off-putting- as a defense. She seemed to grow the tiniest bit comfortable. I was sad when her story segued away, since I really like her. Thanks for a bit a cold reality with someone I'd love to get to know.
Ayleasea
I left the police station in a daze and walked back to the building. A building that now had a name: “The Erin Collins Memorial Project”. I couldn’t help Erin like she needed but I’m trying to…I’m trying to help others and myself, to get past the pain of it all. Three hundred of our sisters and brothers died this year—and these are just the ones that were reported. I don’t want anyone to die, by someone else or by their own hand. I want to think that however long the day, the evening will come, and we’ll be accepted and to live as who we are.
I still miss her.
So painful...I had to pause after I read this earlier because I could not stop crying. Between the friends in the section on the front page and some friends I lost from the at large transgender community, it is still hard to envision peace and safety for our friends and perhaps even ourselves for some of us. Thank you for this sad if hopeful story
So many different perspectives all told well and with room to continue, who knows? Thanks to you all.
Love, Andrea Lena
Well said
Thank you 'Drea, I've been so close to this story for so long, tweaking the formatting, looking for typos, offering critiques and suggestions, I'd become immune to the finer points of the story. Your observations brought tears to my eyes as I read them. You've reminded me of the depth of the individual stories and renewed my appreciation of the talent displayed by our authors.
Lest anyone forget, you have two stories there as well.
From Annie's Rose, "“Oh… I’m sorry… Annie died last year. But I like to think that she’s here with me, you know?”
“Oh…” “That’s so sweet.” gasps and a few small sobs from several of the ladies.
“Her last words… That morning she went to a party at her sister’s house… ‘I love you.’ She kissed me…her husband good-bye for the day and she said at last, ‘I’ll see you later….Rose.’” "
A sweet reminder that our loved ones aren't here forever, and that the little things we say mean the world.
From Kat Rose: (I use my arm in a broad gesture to indicate everybody else in the room.)
“We want acceptance and I get that. But someone reminded me that we do want and need some sort of validation. The blending in instead of standing out?”
“Is that fair?” Rosie asks.
“Maybe not, but we take what we can get and hope things keep improving.”
Acceptance and validation. In our hearts that what we really want. Not to pass, not be loved by everybody, but just to be accepted by others and validated for who we are. You reminded me that hope springs eternal in the human breast and we should embrace that hope.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Another hidden thing to appreciate
Andrea so eloquently gave us the vignettes of the touching parts of the stories, I'll not try to do that. But I was deeply involved in the technical aspects of the story and as such privy to the goings on backstage so to speak. The work, just like a dramatic production was far more than the what the audience, or in this case, the readers, see.
I'd like recognize one of our unsung heroines. Cheryl Bishop along with writing two fine and varied stories also provided the voice of Sam. She took on the task and in spite of doubts (mine being foremost) proved the worth of this element of the production. Unless you read the afterword, you had no way of knowing about her contribution in that area. Even there it was under stated, simply in a formatter's note: "The voice of Sam provided by Cheryl Bishop"
That simple statement didn't do justice to her contribution as "the voice of Sam". She too had to become deeply involved in just what made up the character her comments preceded, and negotiate with the individual authors as to the content of Sam's remarks. Sometimes not an easy task.
Thank you Cheryl. I've never been so happy to be proven wrong. ;o)
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Singing Praise
At this point readers may be tiring of this small group of writers singing each other praise. But at least for me, this is the most wonderful part of a wonderful experience. Drea pointing out parts that really hit home, is the kind of comment that really make it all worthwhile.
That the seven of us emerge from three months of fighting over the what and how of this work with a lot of mutual respect and maybe even a few new friendships is wonderful.
As I fought the objections of characters to having a chauvinistic cis-male describe them. I got to see the passion the authors had for their characters. I hope that I got to keep enough of Sam's rough edges to give the message that we don't have to get everyone to love us, that getting them to see our humanity and accepting us as the women we are, is winning the true battle.
I'm Disappointed
As I post there are 1055 reads but only 25 votes (kudos). This anthology is worth much more than that.
I won't try to emulate Andrea's comprehensive comment, but the varied points of view and what our authoresses have done with them makes a work of art.
Superbly done, ladies.
It IS worth more than that... but we'll get there, I have faith.
This was a lot of effort on our parts, but reading it will take people quite a bit of time too. We've been anxiously waiting to see people's thoughts, but we understand that it'll take time for a lot of folks to make it through such a long story, especially one that's as diverse as this is.
*hugs*
Thanks for reading Jo.
Melanie E.
Thanks for the kind words
It's music to our ears. Thank you for taking time to comment.
I encourage you to go back to the story and find the links at the end of each story you particularly liked and send a comment to the author. Those links send comments to the individual authors. There was no way to pass kudos to individuals so that's how to show the individual author your appreciation.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
As I'm replying, there are
As I'm replying, there are 1300 reads and 28 kudos. We're on our way.
Thank you, Joanne.
Hugs!
Rosemary
To be honest
To be honest I stepped aside from this anthology on first exposure. For me at least a work of this size is not a single sitting read. I read through the first bit of ligature but then set it asside. It'll take a bit for me to get through it. When I read stories posted by any of the authors of this anthology I tend to blast through all sections one after another. But somehow having them all in one big file seems to make it more daunting.
Probably just a personal foible.
I'm over my personal pique now. You'll hear back from me when I'm done.
BTW, is there a way for each author to get a link to this story in their story list?
PPS: It seems to have rolled off the first page now. That'll make it harder to stumble onto it. While it's a good thing that the site gets enough traffic it's kind of unfortunate that it happened to this one before it gets the full chance it deserves.
Your friend
Crash
We kinda expected it would take people a while to read.
So, no worries there.
We are a bit sad it hasn't gotten more response in the time it's been up... but that hasn't stopped us. As a group, we've already been brainstorming even more group collabs like this to work on, just because it's been so fun.
Be sure to let us know what you thought of it when you finish: we'd love to hear!
As for each of us getting a listing: with the way BCTS's posting structure works, that simply isn't possible. Pat's (to my mind brilliant) Table of Contents, with links to authors, is I feel the best solution Drupal will give us in this regard.
Melanie E.
A boost!
Thanks for pushing this back up to the top of the postings. The stories are wonderful but the anthology format seems to not quite fit with the typical "workflow" and features of this site.
Keep in a cool dry place
PS. My recommendation would be to post the table of contents with links to each individual story posted in the typical way. Of course the current work flow would make that hard to do manually. I'd be happy to work on automation to help with that flow if there is any interest or need. Go BC DevOps Team!
Your friend
Crash
Just wanted to say ...
how much I enjoyed these stories. It was really nice to have a collection of standalone stores from such an elite group of authors, so thank you all. In respect to number of kudos, I have probably returned here 10 times and will probbably several times more but can only give one kudos. I had to sign in (and rescue my password) which I don't do often, to comment and as I don't do it often, it is not so easy to even find where to go. But just so you know that you are appreciated all of you. I do prefer the solo entries, so to have a bunch of them had made an enjoyable week reading them.
Hugs
TinaC xx
We thank you
We thank you
Thank you for the wonderful
Thank you for the wonderful words of appreciation!
--Rosemary
Hugs!
Rosemary
Many thanks!
It was a lot of fun!
Love, Andrea Lena
Thank you for your kind words
Yes, kudos is the one down side to the group posting of the stories.
I would call your attention to the "Send author a message" link at the end of each story. If you click on that you can send a comment directly to the author of that story. Since there is no way to give kudos to individual stories that link was provided so each author could get feedback on their individual story.
Please go back and drop a line to the authors of the stories you really liked, even if all you say is "kudos".
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Quadruple the kudos
This is a truly astounding piece of work. The flow, the different voices, it's perfect. My thanks to all those who labored on it. I wish I had a bit of their skills. My heart broke, my eyes teared, it was all I could do to hit the page down button. Thankyoualleversomuch.
>>> Kay
Thanks
Thank you for your kind words. It was a labor of love as I noted in the Afterword. It was truly a team effort.
I would call your attention to the "Send author a message" link at the end of each story. If you click on that you can send a comment directly to the author of that story. Since there is no way to give kudos to individual stories that link was provided so each author could get feedback on their individual story.
Please go back and drop a line to the authors of the stories you really liked, even if all you say is "kudos".
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann