GenderBendy

Hey baby, click on me!

The feeling of wanting a special someone in my life has been building for a long time, and I guess with my surgery scheduled I could finally give myself permission to look, because earlier this week I went to Zoosk.com and submitted a “woman looking for men” profile. I picked Zoosk because of their hip young vibe, figuring they would be more accepting than the stodgy old established dating sites. This was my self-description:

Well, I'm trans. I hate to lead with that, because it is not nearly the most important thing about me, but I figure it's good to be clear from the start. In short, I was born with a male body and lived the first 46 years of my life as a man, but that was all a mistake and is in the past, and now I am totally grooving on living as the woman I was always supposed to be. (I am in the process of getting the male body issue fixed). Aside from that, I'm a non-profit manager with sidelines in writing and crossword-puzzle construction; I have two teenage children, one in college and one in high school; and my big project right now is to become fluent in French. I have a dream of moving to France someday for a while to teach English, so if we're going to spend the rest of our lives together, darling, you better be willing to travel... ;-) (Note: I'm curious whether the gatekeepers at Zoosk.com will allow me, an out trans woman, on their site. If you're reading this, they did, and good for them. But if you are the gatekeeper and you are about to reject my profile, shame on you.)

Yep, shame on them. Everything I entered was rejected with boilerplate e-mails citing “inappropriate content.” While deleting the last shreds of my profile I wrote in the “why are you leaving?” text box that I felt I had been discriminated against and would appreciate an e-mail back with an explanation of the rationale of their decision. No reply.

Next I went to match.com, whose services I had used when I was dating as a man looking for women. According to one ranking table I found they have the largest customer base of any dating site. Lo and behold, my profile, with the same descrip above, was accepted! Good for them.

In my first 24 hours my profile has been viewed 54 times, and I have been winked at about a dozen times.

It’s gratifying, of course, to be winked at, but I wonder if some of these guys have done anything more than glance at my headshot before they wink, because with about half of them when I clicked to view *their* profiles, they had become unavailable. I take that to mean they went back to learn who they had winked at, discovered I’m trans, and shut me out.

Yes, I am assuming rejection. I wish I wasn’t, but on the other hand, I already know from abundant experience how freaky my mere existence is for most men. Kinda cute, still has a penis...fuck fuck fuck, run screaming from the screen! Also, most of the guys who have winked at me live thousands of miles away. Tulsa? WTF? How did you even find me?

I’ve done some searching too, and winked at four guys, discovering in the process a little more about who I am looking for. All four sound cerebral, and look and/or sound unconventional and quirky; I detect humor and engagement with life in all of them; they can all spell and write; and they are all tall. This last is shallow, I know, but I *do* so enjoy feeling petite and svelte standing next to someone... :-p I sent one, a writer in Mass, a one-line e-mail, because some word-play in his profile made me smile. No answer so far, and no other e-mails.

So here I am, sweet 49 and never been kissed. I’m feeling vulnerable and tentative, but also curious and eager; and as with surgery, I hardly dare imagine how good it might be. I might discover, for the first time in my life, what love and sex are both really about...which would be terribly sad in a way, but which could also be fucking incredible.

Voice truth through comedy

Almost a month since I last posted. Sorry! It’s because of a big development still in process, which I’m not ready to write about. Soon. In the meantime, a reverie on performance and voice.

I posted back in early August about my first experience performing on stage - a monologue I presented as a guest in the Femme Show which came touring through from Boston. Well, tomorrow night, it’s stage two of my performance project: I’m trying out a completely new routine (this one for straight people) at the comedy open mic at Slainte in Portland.

I am so not nervous, which I love. Of course, as in the Femme Show, my heart will be beating as I step up, but there is none of the old male-era fear - just an eager hunger for the rush, the heightened awareness, the challenge.

Last month I went with my friend Jessica, who has comedy performance experience, to check out the venue. Small crowd, young, male - mostly comics waiting their turn. The comedy was generally raw and profane, often pushed hard in an attempt to shock. Jessica leaned and whispered, “This is why I stopped doing stand-up...it’s such a boys’ club.”

Interesting wrinkle - I don’t think anyone read me that evening. “You ladies,” the MC said, addressing Jessica and me, and then we were the two ladies at the front table. Just in the past few months I have been passing more and more; and once people read you one way, I find, they really seem wired to stick with that. Illustrative anecdote: I presented a workshop at a conference a few weeks ago, and at the end, after an hour of me talking, one of my participants complemented me on my voice - she said it was so deep, I sounded just like Lauren Bacall. When I have to talk a lot I tend to drop back into male range, but she had read me as female in the first minute, and that remained her take.

Anyway, I hope that tomorrow night I continue to pass right up until the reveal of my first line - it’ll be more fun that way. Might be the only time too...if I keep doing this, soon I’ll be known as that trans woman comedian, and I may never get to startle an audience with my transness again.

I’ve had a lovely exchange of e-mails about comedy theory with my friend Dan who does volunteer voice work (of a very high caliber) at my radio station. He’s a serious student of standup, and gave me valuable critique of the video of the Femme Show routine. He has also urged me not to worry about whether I get big laughs or not, but just concentrate on the material and be as real as I can. This has always been exactly my plan, so I was grateful for the corroboration. And, he offered advice about finding a character’s voice, about letting go into it - and he was talking about “Lisa” as the character.

Hm. Fascinating. First reaction: no, that’s not right. Lisa is me; “Dave,” that guy you knew before, he was the character. But wait: I played Dave for my first 46 years, non-stop; I didn’t speak a single word myself. Surely at some point it’s not acting any more, it’s just being. And also: when I stop thinking about talking and just talk, I still sound more male than female. And I do continue to struggle with voice, so much...not to find a “feminine” voice, whatever that is, but just to find a voice I can be comfortable speaking in - a voice which sounds like me to me. Also, there’s no changing that I got a male vocal instrument - so the reaching for feminine feels artificial, often strained. So: am I Lisa who used to play Dave, or someone as yet unnamed playing Lisa, or what? No. I’m Lisa. But finding my voice is still much more a fruitless and frustrating labor than a natural relaxing into deeper realness, and it’s making me crazy.

Which brings me back to tomorrow night: the dominant vocal sound at the open mic was loud and deep....one male voice after another. The MC was particularly in our faces, as though he was projecting to a thousand-seat coliseum rather than a narrow bar. I think my best approach when I step up to that mic is going to be to take a deep breath, let most of it out again, and then nearly whisper my first line...and then, all the way to the end, keep it light, gentle, glinting with twisty little touches of humor in pastel hues. One of my worst lines at the FS was when I went loud and deep to convey vehemence. So, emphasis with vocal music rather than vocal strength. Capricious; whimsical; eccentric. Breathe! As I interpret my routine, I’ll be feeling deep for the sweet strong bizarre feminine voice I know I have hidden somewhere in me...striving to let it free. Breathe! The more radically my work differs from the dominant male mode of the room, the better it will be. Breathe! Take the time to be in the moment, then see the bigger joke this all is and ride the wave. Breathe! Yes, OK, I believe I'm ready.

Chatted up

Last night during the First Friday Art Walk, for the first time in my life, I got hit on. As a woman, I mean, by a man.

It was at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA. I was staring at  the work “Sturm und Drang,” by Stacy Howe, when a strong masculine voice spoke next to me. “Powerful piece, isn’t it?”

He was maybe 60, casually dressed, with artfully unkempt grey hair and beard, full unsmiling lips like my father’s lips, and aggressive eyes. Despite our similar heights I felt loomed over. I arranged my throat for the feminine voice I had been practicing all day. “It’s intense and disturbing,” I agreed.

He began to explicate, pointing out features. His voice was deep, and he spoke loudly. His comments were insightful, knowledgeable, and stated as fact. I felt invited to admire.

As he spoke he contrived to step back and give me the full-body once over. I was rocking the femme: sandals to show off my lavender toenails, a swirly above-the-knee black skirt, a skin-tight curve-enhancing spangly purple top, big twirly silver earrings, and my new ultra-femme designer glasses. I had my hair clipped back for a soft over-the-shoulder fall, and had made up my eyes.

I listened with my arms fenced across my front and felt acutely my lack of experience responding to a man on the prowl. I wondered if I thought he was attractive, but I was too discombobulated to tell. All I knew was that I didn’t have a clue what to do, and that I wanted to get away.

This proved hard to do. He controlled the conversational rhythm. He would pause for an affirmation, but then cut in again, leaving me no chance to disconnect.

I saw another woman approaching, attractive, physically confident, stylishly dressed. She tapped him on the shoulder. He made an impatient “wait a minute” gesture and turned to her. Clearly at least friends, they greeted each other, hugged, bantered. I gathered from their conversation that he was an artist, and retired. I could have walked away, but I didn’t.

Then he was focused on me again. The other woman hovered. Scraps of coherent thought flitted through my brain: should I drop a hint that I’m trans? He certainly seems practiced at this. Hm, I don’t feel required to have any ideas of my own. What’s with the frown line - doesn’t this man ever smile?

The other woman somehow snagged him back again, and I saw my opening. I touched his shoulder. “Sorry, I have to go,” I said. “Nice chatting with you.”

“Nice chatting with *you*,” he said, like a last reaching out of a hand, and then I was away, feeling giddy, relieved, gratified, womanly.

Whadayathink: should I go back next month?

The conundrum of male privilege

“Do you think that as a trans woman there are still some aspects of male privilege that have shaped you?”

My friend Anne asked me this question last week, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It’s an excellent question, and I’m grateful to have been asked it. What has been the effect on me of having lived the first 46 years of my life as a man? What of that still lingers? With what consequences?

Thank you, Anne, by the way, for the value-neutral “shaped”...so much better than, say, “skewed,” “spoiled,” “corrupted,” “ruined,” etc... :-p  There are people who would say that having lived as a man makes me a worse woman, or no woman at all, so I would also like to allow the possibility that in some ways having lived as a man might make me a better woman, too.

All those years I spent impersonating maleness, I was not self-aware as trans. Very early on I pushed my femininity down so hard and deep that I could not directly experience or express it. Still, from elementary school through the first year of college I struggled to find a mode of boyhood I could inhabit. I was gentle and emotional. I wore my hair long, often triggering gender confusion in others. I was routinely bullied and shunned. Childhood was lonely and difficult.

Things got better in college. I cut my hair, grew a beard, and threw myself whole-heartedly into my masculinity project...and I found it easy, in part because I had begun to discover the many compensations of being taken for a man. For example, I took full advantage of the privilege of moving through the world without fear. I went for long runs and bike rides in remote places late at night; I travelled and camped alone. I was as oblivious as any other young male-bodied person to the dangers all female-bodied people face.

Other privileges:  as a sexual being, it never even occurred to me that I didn’t have to worry about being abused or getting pregnant. As I made my way through school and on into the world of work I accepted without a thought that I was taken seriously as a student, as a job seeker, as an employee. In my daily interactions with others I felt entitled to press my point, to interrupt, to oppose others. I found it unremarkable that in a group enterprise my idea often ended up being what we were all working on. I developed and expressed a high opinion of my own qualities - intelligence, creativity, talent, self-knowledge (ha!) - and there was no one to gainsay me, at least not based on my apparent gender. All these privileges I took for granted.

No doubt at times acts and words of mine suppressed or silenced female people around me. I hope it didn’t happen often, but then I wouldn’t know, would I? Fortunately I was raised a good feminist, and so have less to reproach myself for than I might otherwise have.

When I came out as a trans woman, some of the privileges of masculinity evaporated immediately. My sense of safety is gone. I am vulnerable both to those who would do harm to women, and to those willing to act on their transphobic or homophobic impulses. (Once they’re beating the crap out of you, it is not going to do any good to explain to them that you’re not actually a drag queen.) Note that one of the effects of hormones is significant loss of muscle mass and strength, so I can’t count on being able to defend myself physically any more than other women.

With regard to social power, as people begin to accept me as a woman, I have discovered how hard it can be to get a word in when some male person is holding forth; I have found myself in a subordinate role in groups of which men have taken charge; I have been addressed with condescending banter from guys who would have formerly addressed me seriously, as an equal. It is most educational.

There is a disturbing twist to this part: When these moments happen, I feel affronted or devalued or silenced...and at the same time I cannot help feeling a little spurt of joy, because I know I’m really being seen as a woman. Once, back when I was putting on fake boobs and hips and dressing up and practicing walking in public, I got cat-called in an alley in Ogunquit by some unseen man. “Hey, hot mama!” he shouted, and even as I thought “asshole,” I also smiled and put an extra little swing in my hips in response. Hmm. Thoughts, anyone?

What I have retained from my male-time is, I think, I hope, mostly internal and mostly positive. Changing my public gender has not changed the fact that I am accustomed to being taken seriously by the world. I am still willing and able to stand up for myself. Having experienced being both masculine and feminine among others, I am both aware of and empowered to respond to the abuse of social power. I am self-confident and sure of my own strength (most of the time).  My psyche, free from the scars of rape or abuse, feels basically sound.

On the other hand, life as a trans woman involves a deep feeling of insecurity. Once I staked a claim to manhood, and the world capitulated. Now I have staked a claim to womanhood, and the world has said, mmm, maybe sorta, but maybe not so much. Most of the time the joy of my release sustains me in the face of society’s ambivalent welcome; but when my confidence is low I find myself worrying that the world is right. Have all those years inhabiting masculinity somehow made it impossible for me ever to be a “real woman”? This persistent anxiety can bring me to tears.

Of course all those years living as a man shaped me. How could they not? If things about me still seem male in ways that confuse or offend people, all I can say is, I don’t like it either, and I’m sorry, and I'm working on it. As for having learned to love myself and to be forceful in the world, I cannot see these traits as bad.  My path turns out to be complex and sometimes perilous, with no clear end. I need all the help I can get. So while I am not done - and perhaps never will be - seeking ways to manifest these strengths in ways which more purely express my innate femininity, I am definitely keeping them, thank you very much.

Sexless

Male sexuality shut down by hormones; female sexuality stymied as yet by genital incongruity. Still lugging the vestigial appendage around. Useless thing.

So, I am temporarily a sexless being. It is an instructive state.

Lesson one: The extension of the jaded palette principle.

I discovered the jaded palette principle many years ago when I decided to stop eating processed food. At first I missed my Smarties; but then, as my taste buds readjusted, an apple, formerly bland, became deliciously sweet. I discovered what pleasures I had been missing on account of having my flavor knob turned up to 11 all the time. Now candy tastes...well, it just doesn’t seem like food...it's vile...and apples are divine.

The sexual extension goes like this: of course orgasms are intense...but if you haven’t had any for several months, and there is no prospect of any in your near future, happily other things step in to take their place. For example, as I write this I am eating a pizza I made for myself. It has on it portobello mushrooms, summer squash, anchovies (not too many - just enough for that sexy salty zing), fresh oregano, and goat cheese...and when I took the first ravenous bite my knees buckled, my eyes rolled, and I sagged against the fridge. I've always enjoyed eating good food, but not *that* much. It was as molten a moment, in its way, as any orgasm I can remember having...and, honey, I’ve had some good ones.

It’ll be nice to have sex back someday...but in the meantime I’m doing OK without it, thanks.

Lesson two: Tenderness is the thing.

The stereotype is true, at least for me: when I was a man, I thought with my testicles. I saw, I wanted to fuck. Now, testosterone suppressed, I feel how unimportant fucking is. Tenderness is what matters to me now, not getting my (no longer functional) rocks off.

Actually, that was true then too, but the rocks business obsured the point. I think back to my last few romances: when my partner held me, that was what pierced my soul. Sex is fine, healthy, fun...I can do it...and it gives me pleasure to pleasure my partner...but really I don’t care that much about it. Just so long as some other time, before or after, connected to it or not, you’ll hold me.

And, it seems I am a heterosexual woman after all. I say so because, even unsexed as a I am at the moment, there is one person, and he is a male person, a man, who, if he asked me out to dinner...with beating heart I would say yes.

New tires, new insight

The tire purchase went fine. Of course. [See previous post for the setup on this.] They did a good job and charged me what it said on the website they would charge me. A little less, even. And they were courteous and professional. And I feel like a jerk for imagining any other outcome. Alas.

Thinking about it I’ve realized there’s another aspect of my discomfort around buying these tires besides the fear of being ripped off and the fear of unpleasant response to my transness...an issue I have struggled with all through the transition process. It is this:  As I let go further and further into my natural femininity, I keep finding myself also wanting to let go of feeling capable and responsible.

Apropos example: the other night when I saw my tire was flat, I had to work for a second to remember that I know how to change a tire. And beyond that, I really wanted someone else to take care of it. I didn’t want to change my fucking tire. The willful little girl at the center of my self pitched a tantrum...and I sighed, and put on a different pair of boots so I wouldn’t ruin my nice ones stomping on the tire iron to loosen the lug nuts, and changed my fucking tire.

So what am I, some kind of unreconstructed pre-feminism girly-girl, wanting a big strong man to take care of things for me? Does my innate definition of femininity turn out to involve weakness, helplessness? But then, isn’t it good to sometimes rely on others? Well yes, but...aargh! Round and round...I am still very much working out what it means to be feminine.

I *did* stumble across a new insight the other morning which helps me feel a little easier about this issue: perhaps my weariness with being capable and responsible does not proceed out of my gender identity, but out of my character and history. Gender is still involved, but as a detail, not as the driving force.

Here’s the scenario: There was five-year-old little me, a dutiful over-achiever; and I discovered that the world wanted me to be a boy, and then a man. Another little trans girl might have bucked, but I hopped right to it. I was the sort of girl who did what she was told. And beyond that, I was seduced by the challenge and the hope of reward if I did a really, really good job. I didn’t just set out to be a man; I set out to be the *perfect* man - strong, capable, responsible, selfless, reliable, gentle, kind, virile, romantic, courteous, gentlemanly...

Oh, how I had to clamp down on my wild girl-self to do that. And I kept it up for over 40 years before I finally realized the project was doomed. Is it any wonder I want someone else to change my tire now? And shovel the driveway and make the money and save the world? I'm sick of all that stuff. I want to play!

Butching up no more

Tomorrow I have an appointment to have four new tires put on my car. It’s past time: yesterday I had a flat and wouldn’t be surprised if it was because I just wore completely through the rubber somewhere. I’m on the donut for the drive to the tire store.

It has taken me so long to do this partly because I can’t afford it; I’ll be further burdening an already overburdened credit card. But it also has to do with my gender work.

The last time I had to venture with money in hand into the ultra-masculine world of auto-repair (not counting oil changes at Chip’s...he’s an old friend) was a year ago, at inspection time. Since I was still living as male, I butched up for the occasion. [Post here.] But butching up is not an option this time. I’m buying tires as a woman named Elizabeth now, no matter what.

Thank goodness for friends and the Internet! First I sought a recommendation from my friend Dal, who is not only a transwoman but has worked as a mechanic; and then I discovered to my joy that her favorite tire store has a fully-featured website where I could pick my tires, decide what extra services I wanted, select which store I wanted to go to, make my appointment, and get a subtotal on my purchase, all without any human interaction at all.

I did have to make it through the company rep's call to confirm details. Despite prolonged struggles with voice I still sound somewhat male, and I could hear the man’s confusion as he asked for Elizabeth; but then his good sense of customer service engaged and the conversation became less awkward.

Still, the whole business has me feeling uptight and suspicious...and I hate feeling this way. That’s actually the worst part of this: the yucky sensation of helplessly demonizing the probably decent guys who are going to put my tires on for me. I do still have to be careful, just as a consumer; and my shields will be up, in case I stumble across an unfiltered bigot. My biggest challenge, though, is going to be giving these guys the benefit of the doubt they deserve.

Deciding what to wear would also be a challenge, except wind chills are going to be down to 13 below tomorrow morning. I only have one ensemble for temps that cold. Just as well; I have enough to worry about already.

Date bars for snowblowing

I came out to my next-door neighbor, D, back in the fall.  D is single and lives alone. He's in his early sixties, I guess, and works as a handyman. The coming out was a spur-of-the-moment thing during a casual conversation at the border-line between our backyards. He's a bluff masculine man, and I gather he's conservative and religious, but he said something like "I respect that...a person has to do what a person has to do," and it seemed we were fine.

D has a snowblower, and these last two big storms he has come over and cleared my plow berm for me. This was a real help. I'm not getting any younger, and the hormones have taken some of my upper body strength. Also, doing the first big shovel back in December I ripped something in my shoulder. It still hasn't healed, so I have been hurting.

It was a novel and not unpleasant sensation, having a man do something for me like that...something I would have found it hard to do for myself. Watching him work I realized I wanted to do something in return; and the impulse which came to me was take him some baking. I had already been planning to make some date bars, so I made a batch and a half. By the time they were done, though, he had left for the weekend. Word is he has a girlfriend down in Mass.

No matter. I bided my time; and this evening when I got home his van was in his driveway. So, I arranged the remaining bars on a paper plate (tasting the crumbs on the knife to make sure they were still fresh), covered them with foil, and put on my coat to take them over. Then I stopped and looked at myself in the mirror.

Purple nubby hat with my ponytail peeking out, pink coat, scarf, earrings still on from work, plucked eyebrows...my usual look, not provocative, but definitely femme. And I realized I was nervous. At the tender age of 48 I have still basically zero experience as a woman talking to men. Would he think I was coming on to him? Would he reject the gift? Had he decided upon reflection that I am a contemptible faggot and would he therefore offer me abuse, violence? Would he invite me in? Would it be terribly awkward?

Fuck it, I thought. I have had a generous impulse...I'm going to act on it, come what may.

Knock, knock. (No doorbell.) He comes to the door, wearing a vest and reading glasses, looking milder than his usual outdoor appearance...like an avuncular priest. I have a confused impression of a brightly lit, highly decorated, and somewhat feminine room - a plush couch covered in flower-print fabric, overlapping carpets, trim new-looking wood-veneer furniture, a large pristine aquarium glowing by the door. A friendly cat. I stammer my gratitude...we can't find a conversational rhythm, stepping on each other's lines...it is tolerably awkward. He accepts the plate with thanks. He invites me in, casual and friendly-like. I demur...gotta go get my dinner. He doesn't press the point. We wrap it up quickly and I'm away, feeling better than when I went over. Like a good neighbor. And, womanly.

Interesting experience. Nice guy. I hope he likes date bars.

Goodbye, David

Goodbye, David. You were a good man. The best I could make. And it was fun being you in many ways, but....you were wrong. You were not real. You were a construct. To be harsh for a moment: you were a lie.

A lie undertaken for the best of reasons, but still a lie. The best of reasons? Love, naturally. I wanted to be you to please my mother. To show her that I loved her. I wanted to be you so I could love my children the only way it seemed I was allowed. I wanted to be you so I could love myself, and live. That was a mistake. You were a mistake.

Well. So, then, what I need to do is learn from you.

What can I learn?

What a good man is. Because, except for not being real, you were a good man. Steadfast, long-suffering...a paragon of strength, constancy, and forbearance.

As for not being real...at the time, was I not?

David, grandson of Mabel and Jack and Kinch and Elizabeth. David, son of Don and Susan. David, husband of Amber for sixteen and a half years. David, brother of Sus and Brian. David, father of Madeleine and Samuel. David...Dave...Dee...all gone now. I’m Elizabeth now.

I mourn the passing of a worthy former self.

And then?

And then, time to play....

What to do with 48 years of David?

Yesterday I asked my friend Alex whether, a hundred years from now, when he has been laid to rest under a stone, he would want his old female name on that stone. He made a face. “No,” he said, with a touch of disgust in his voice. “I never liked that name. Even when I was a kid I used to write my initials instead of my name.”

I respect his feelings in the matter...but I do not quite share them.

I also just got an e-mail from my sister Sus, who said in part, “...you'll need to be patient with folks getting used to the pronouns - especially those of us who have known you as he/him for a very long time. I know with my friend Diana, we all did OK with the present tense - but past tense was hard because she was a he when some story we were discussing happened. It got confusing. Don't take it personally if people mess up.”

Sus has a knack for pointing out important things I haven’t thought of...thanks, big sister, for the umpteenth time... :-)

So, what shall I do about the 48 years of my history In which I was a male person named David? Hm...

Well...(working it out as I type, trying not to filter too much): until my gender revelation I felt myself to be a whole man, and functioned in the world as such. I loved, worked, raised children, played the piano, cooked dinner, mowed the lawn, made stupid puns. I think I made a pretty good man. I am done, now, with that making, but I do *not* now abjure who I was then. I do *not* want to erase or recast 48 years of history.

So, on my stone I suppose I want something like:

    David William Bunker  April 10th, 1962 - December 8th, 2010

    Elizabeth Hillary Bunker December 8th, 2010 - [whatever date I end up living to].

And, in future, when family or friends who “knew me when” speak of my time as a male person, I hope they will feel comfortable saying something like, “that was when she was still David,” or “back when you were still a man” and then go ahead and use the old name and pronouns for the telling of the story. Who, age six, nearly poked his eye out with a pencil? David. Who got a perfectly circular burn (with scalloped edges!) on his palm from the top bolt of a lamppost trying to sneak into a swimming pool, and lied about it to his Dad? David. Who, age five and sleepwalking, was observed by his sister in the middle of the night peeing on a chair? Um...well, now, that’s more complicated. Little Lisa might actually have been present in that moment in some sense...but, whoever that was, s/he stood up to do the deed.

I do not feel disgusted by my old male self. I don’t even feel separate from him. I was him, and he was me...almost. He was...a projection. An artful construct. A noble mistake. All I could figure out how to be at the time. Someone not unlike me.

So, world: I *am* asking for “Lisa” now, and “she” and “her”, effective from next Wednesday on...but I am not only not going to get upset when people slip (hell, I slip myself sometimes with some of my trans friends)...I am still going to be open to “David” and “he” returning in the context of recollection.

That’s the theory, anyway. We’ll see how it works out in practice.

I have to keep reminding myself that next week, barring a really bad coincidence, I’m not going to die. I am, if anything, becoming more alive. I’m still grieving, though. And ecstatic and terrified too. The rollercoaster plunges on...