She was living in her parents' house. Not earning nearly enough money. She sometimes felt that the pronoun was undeserved, she hadn't done enough to earn it. Hormones for a year and her appearance basically hadn't changed. People in stories always changed extremely. Transformed beyond recognition. They got desirable female figures, dyed their hair blonde, wore makeup and dresses. Even the nonfiction stories the press seemed to pick up, the people they seemed to be interested in, were like that. Look at these before and after pictures, it's amazing how much the person changed. She looked the same. Still wore t-shirts, hoodies and jeans, they were just from the women's section now. Her hair had gotten longer. She kind of wanted to cut it—she liked the aesthetic of short hair on women—but was afraid it would make (even) more people see her as male. If she dyed her hair it would be some color like red or blue, but she was too much of a coward. Unlike stories where a “new gender” made people brave. Didn't want to draw attention to herself. Didn't want bleach to damage her hair.
She had been going to college, at a school known for being liberal. She came back after summer break, some a few more months of hormones and wearing female clothing. After someone called her “he”—how dumb was the guy, she gave a female name and had visible (fake) breasts—she ran away. Went home. Cancelled classes for the semester. Couldn't deal with it. She was theoretically going back but not looking forward to it. Maybe it'd be better next time. Yeah right.
She was really thin, probably underweight, and 6'2”. Maybe 6'3”. People sometimes said she should be a model but a. they were people who knew she was trans and were very nice and she paranoidly feared they were patronizing her and b. it meant she basically wasn't to grow any boobs. Straight up and down. Best that could be said for that was that it was androgynous maybe.
She remembered a time at what was supposedly a support group, supposedly for trans people. The facilitator, also a trans woman so she should have f**king known better, insisted on using “he” because as she said, “you look more male to me.” Or something like that. Who could remember exactly what someone said a year ago. Maybe it was less than a year. More? She couldn't remember.
Back when she first realized she was trans—realized she was female—she thought transitioning was gonna solve her problems. Her social problems, her self esteem and body image problems. If she did have body image problems; it's not that she thought she was too fat, just that she disliked looking in the mirror. Anyway it hadn't, if anything she was more awkward because now it actually made sense to expect people to dislike her, to be weirded out by or flip out at her. Not that that had happened. She felt worse about her body because it was not only ugly, but the wrong sex. She needed to gain weight to have boobs. She looked terrible all the time. Even if other people disputed that.
She didn't like the term “passing” because she was real liberal and it involved certain assumptions, yet she was still basically obsessed with the concept. It felt like the people who knew who from the past would never really think of her as female, just adapt to using a different pronoun out of kindness. Humoring the crazy person. It didn't help that people slipped up when they were distracted. It made it feel like “he” was how they really thought of her, and they just papered over their true, unacceptable thoughts with tolerant, enlightened word. She only wanted people to think of her as female—they didn't have to think she was cis—but it felt like trans women would secretly seen as men as long as they were seen as trans. She knew there was nothing wrong with being trans but was still problematically happy if someone didn't realize. She didn't want random guys in public to hit on her but was worried that it meant something that they didn't. Although that was probably because she didn't go outside much. Not interacting with people was easier.
She had been reading weird stories—stupid stuff, really—since she was very young. Stories about people “changing gender”, crossdressing or having their body magically transformed. Changing gender was in parentheses because she didn't want to imply that having your body changed to the opposite sex meant your internal sense of gender was changed. That was a problematic implication for real-life trans people. The idea that someone put into the body of “the other sex” (in quotes because it implies there are only two binary sexes) should just stop whining and get used to it. Behave how someone with that type of body was supposed to behave. Then again, it was magic, or sufficiently advanced technology. Who the f**k knows what it would do to your brain. But she was very careful, a good liberal. If she hadn't met someone before she was usually careful to call them “they”. She didn't want to make any assumptions. Way too many people had called her sir for her to want to do that to somebody else.
The first time she remembered getting an erection—yes “she” and “erection in the same sentence that way sounds very funny, very interesting and unusual, laugh it up, asshole—was from reading books with crossdressing. At the time she thought they seemed to make her have to go pee, except it felt good. In retrospect most of those books were meant to be funny. She didn't think it was funny at the time. She stilldidn't think it was funny.
She actually never crossdressed—well back then she would have considered it crossdressing. Even though she wasn't religious she thought of it as sinful. And taking people's clothes was creepy. In fact men dressing as women was creepy. She used to be really worried that she was an incurable pervert, that she had done this to herself by reading all those weird stories and now she wasn't turned on by normal sex. Sorry, “normal”. Even though she never remembered a time when when she was turned on by that. She was afraid she was ruining herself, corrupting herself past any chance of having a normal relationship.
Not that anyone ever suspected anything. She wasn't bullied at school—she was tall, got good grades and according to other people she was handsome. Her stepdad maybe thought she was gay because she never dated but that's about it. She never thought asking someone out seemed worth the risk of rejection. Rejection was something she was terrified of. She also didn't ask friends if she could come over to their house. Always waited for them to call. She didn't want to bother anyone. Annoy anyone who secretly disliked her. She had changed her mind on those things though. Honestly, she wanted a relationship, she just wasn't sure what gender she was attracted to. Maybe she was asexual, demisexual, something else. Maybe she was straight, gay, bi, pan but was too messed up about her own body to imagine sex with anyone.
She spent most of her preteen and teen years on the internet, reading every story she could find. It was escapism. She still spent far too much of her time that way. The only difference was that now all the stories upset her, with their worlds of people who were seen as female with magical ease and problematically limited notions of femininity. Or maybe that should be femaleness. People in stories seemed to start as nerds and turn into cheerleaders. She started a nerd and was still one, and wasn't planning on changing. She was still the same person—honestly, she had always been pretty tolerant of differences between humans and was an atheist so didn't have any religious objections. She had never cared that much about men being stereotypically masculine and women being stereotypically feminine. Despite reading all those stories she hadn't really thought about real trans people—she had just kind of assumed everything that didn't seem like (her) real life was fiction, or at least not thought about how it applied to the real world. Accepting trans people didn't require any changes to her belief system, unlike some people. She just wished she could accept herself.
Liz sighed. She hadn’t seen her grandpa in years, and he really wasn’t in the best of health. She realized she should probably go see him, but she also just really didn’t feel like it. But she finally got around to it. At least one last time before he died. Honestly, she was incredibly selfish and really should have done this before now.
Sitting in the BART on the way to Oakland airport—flying Southwest, of course—she tried to figure out the order in which she’d have to contort her gender presentation to minimize conflict. She had managed to change the gender on her passport, literally right before Trump came into office, so she figured she was fine wearing a skirt through security. But her grandpa was kind of conservative—like, he was in his nineties—not to mention he watched a bunch of Fox News. She wasn’t exactly out to him. Not to mention all the weird-ass loser uncles that she barely knew. How bad did you have to be doing in life to move back in with your parent at sixty?
Honestly, she hated Idaho just in general. Goddamn fat white Midwesterners in a Walmart who gawked at anyone who was visibly different. She didn’t even mean herself—she hadn’t been there since transitioning. But last time they went everyone stared at her mom, like they had never seen an Asian person before. Maybe they hadn’t. She wasn’t sure whether to be glad or angry that she mostly just looked white to people.
Idaho was weird, anyway, at least to someone who grew up in the LA area. All these fields and barns that were slowly being devoured by minimalls and chain restaurants. She knew the result, just not the process. Her grandparents had wanted her to go to Boise State but she just straight-up refused. It was definitely for the best.
Not that Berkeley wasn’t annoying in its own ways. All these fucking cis lesbians who’ve convinced themselves that they’re SO GREAT about trans issues but will jump on how terrible penises are at a moment’s notice. Fucking “Allies.”
Anyway, so back to what she had been thinking about. God, she got distracted way too easily. So to get through this security, she better look female. But she better look male by the time she got to her grandpa’s house.
Also, honestly, did they even have Uber in Idaho? Because she hardly wanted to make her ancient grandpa drive or to sit in a car with one of her weird uncles for half an hour.
She dicked around on her phone until the BART finally got to Coliseum, then switched to the shuttle. Honestly, this thing was so nice. It made her feel like she was in the future or something.
She got off at the airport and headed for the terminal. She tensed up in trepidation as she stepped into the scanner, but for once they didn’t pat her down. She wasn’t sure whether to be happy about that. It might’ve just meant they pressed the “male” button.
She sat around a while waiting for the flight. She was kinda hungry—she just ate a single, dry piece of bread for breakfast—but also she didn’t want to spend ten dollars on a shitty airport wrap.
Finally, they called her flight and she stood dutifully in line until she boarded. She loaded some stuff on BigCloset on her phone before the plane took off, but there was an old professor-y looking guy sitting right next to her and she didn’t feel comfortable reading it. Arguably it was super inappropriate and showed there was something deeply wrong with her for her to even consider reading what was basically porn in public. And she didn’t exactly want to risk getting an erection, not that that was especially likely.
A flight attendant came by and Liz just asked her for hot tea. She kind of had a headache (as usual). She absently noted that the attendant was pretty attractive but didn’t know what to make of that thought.
Finally, the plane landed. She got out into the airport, which was honestly nicer than she had been expecting. After thinking for a little bit, she went into the women’s bathroom with her luggage, and sat in a stall meant for disabled people—kind of shitty of her, unless you considered being trans a disability—took her bra off, and changed into jeans and a hoody. TBH she didn’t usually wear makeup anyway so that wasn’t really problem. She bet her nipples were going to get chafed, but there wasn’t much for it. Technically, the jeans were women’s but she bet no one would notice. Also she didn’t even own any boxers anymore but she figured that her panties looked enough like tighty-whities anyway. Just to be save, she changed into a white pair with an unadorned waistband. Finally, she fished a tie out of her purse and fastened her hair back in a low ponytail. After thinking about it a little more, she took out her wallet phone and put them her hoody pockets, then buried her purse in her luggage under some t-shirts. She winced as she straightened up and her phone fell out of the pocket and onto the floor with a loud smack. She picked it up and pressed the battery cover back on. It was fine, but she should really get around to getting a new one one of these days. Money, though. She just felt so guilty about spending it. Blame her parents.
Finally, she emerged from the stall. The few women in the bathroom—or people, she guessed she should say, for all she knew they were closeted trans people or nonbinary or something, she shouldn’t assume—didn’t seem to think anything of her being in there. She wasn’t really surprised by that. Normally she’d be happy about it, but with what she was going for it was maybe not a good sign.
She requested a Lyft on her phone—like a good liberal—and winced as she realized her account said “Elizabeth.” The driver didn’t question anything, just asked if she was Elizabeth when he pulled up. She tried to chat with him for a little bit but he didn’t seem into it, so she ended up just sitting there silently for the rest of the drive out of the city into the weird housing-development suburbs.
She kind of hated these newer suburbs. Like, she was used to suburbs—she grew up in the South Bay (the one in LA, not the Bay Area)—but these were just, like, aggressively annoying. All the streets were incredibly winding and named bullshit like “Falling Feather” and “Seven Oaks,” and for some reason there were a bunch of random ponds. All the houses somehow looked completely different and yet the same.
Finally they arrived. She swallowed. The house was familiar, despite her not visiting in years. Since before her grandma died. She lugged her luggage—wait, was that why it was called that?—out of the back seat and perfunctorily thanked the driver. Then she walked up, dragging her case, and rang the bell.
She had to ring several more times before she finally heard someone stirring. Finally, the door opened.
Her grandpa looked much older than when she had last seen him. She felt a sudden stab of guilt as she realized how stooped his posture was now.
He welcomed her, almost immediately deadnaming her. She tried not to let it get to her. It’s not like he knew any better. In the background, Fox News blared on a big screen TV, with a plush armchair conveniently positioned in front of it. As he led her to a guest room, one of her weird uncles walked by without really even trying to say anything to her. Honestly she wasn’t even really sure which one that was.
She honestly immediately felt depressed being here. She felt isolated. In a weird way it felt like she had never left.
That night, she ate overcooked mediocre steak with her grandpa sitting on the other side of the table. She swallowed her impulse to respond angrily as he vented about how all these goddamn Berkeley hippies were destroying this country, replying in noncommittal monosyllables. She was almost relieved when he somehow got onto the subject of how he served in World War II and proceeded to go on about it for far longer than necessary.
She basically did nothing the next day but watch cartoons on her grandpa’s cable. That was the one nice thing about being here. Her grandpa came by and pressured her to go with him to a gun show tomorrow. She replied noncommittally, knowing she would find some way to worm out of it by then. She just really wasn’t interested in that kind of stuff. A lot of the time she really felt like she just wasn’t at all the grandchild her grandpa wanted.
The days blurred together as she did almost nothing but watch TV and look at erotica on her phone. She had initially felt like five days sounded like forever, but she realized now that it was actually very short. She walked around a little bit and would’ve gotten lost in those goddamn winding roads if not for her phone. She and her grandpa went to a farmer’s market one day and a restaurant that her grandpa liked another day.
Finally, it was time to leave. Somehow, even though she had felt so guilty about not seeing her grandpa in so long, now that she had it felt kind of pointless. He didn’t really know her. Somehow, a relative she had grown up with was now more distant than a stranger. Was worse than a stranger at actually seeing her.