Frasch Ideas—Examine, Inquire, Explore

Transsexual State of Affairs

• Posted by Theresa on February 15th, 2007 filed in Book Review

I am reading Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian. I have read a number of his books and I am always impressed by how real they seem, as if he were relating a true story. I emailed him once to ask him about someone he quoted from in the book Buffalo Soldier. I wanted to find out more about this man. Come to find out it was all made up as part of the book.

Anyway, Trans-Sister Radio is a book about a transsexual man, a man who feel he was born the wrong gender and is in preparation to have a sex change operation. It is also about how it effects his new girlfriend and her college-aged daughter. This is from the daughter Carly the night she finds out:

No one likes to imagine their mom or dad making love - not with each other, not with other partners. So to keep those images at bay when I went to my room that night, I tried to concentrate on my mom’s remark that she hoped Dana would still change his mind. She doubted he would, but she said that a pert of her fantasized he’d be so happy once he’d moved in with her that he’d postpone his surgery indefinitely.

I also tried reassuring myself that my mother couldn’t possibly be a lesbian. After all, she was forty-two. One would think she’d have figured out her sexual orientation before midlife.

But then I began to wonder. I began to wonder about her, and I began to wonder about me.

She’d said that she’d fallen in love with a person named Dana. After his surgery, she observed, he would still have the same brain, the same soul, the same sense of right and wrong. The same sense of humor. The same understanding of exactly how much fresh mint should go into a summer pea salad. Why, she had asked me, would the things that she loved most about him have to change once he’d had his surgery? The fact is, she had said, they wouldn’t.

And so it was a possibility that the two of them would stay together after his operation. They’d certainly remain friends. As for the rest? She just didn’t know.

Which in the dark of night, made me begin to doubt myself. I didn’t assume lesbianism was genetic, but that evening I did find myself questioning my own sexual orientation. Why had I been so quick to break up with Michael last spring? Why didn’t I have a boyfriend at Bennington?

The reason this caught my attention was that I had gone through a similar experience a number of years ago. I found out that my best friend (K) from high school, the one I hung out with constantly, the one I went to the beach with, the one who I picked up guys with, the one with whom I shared everything, had had a sex change operation.

I had moved to Oregon with my then-husband and had lost touch with my friend. We had started moving in different circles after high school, but we still kept in touch, she came to my wedding and to my baby shower.

I went back to California for my brother’s wedding and on a whim I decided to look her up. It had been about 10 years since we had had any contact. I didn’t have any idea what had become of her so I looked in the phone book and found her parents who still lived in the same house, where we hung out as teens.

Her mom and I chatted for a bit and then I asked after K. Her mom hesitated and then said I have something to tell you about K. K (girl’s name) isn’t K any more, she’s K (boys name). I stood there, stunned. Finally her mom said that she had had a sex change operation and that she was living in northern California.

We talked about how hard it had been on her and her husband, and on K’s sisters. But they were all finally coming to grips with it, K’s mom after years of introspection on what she had done wrong as a mother to cause this. She told me that she was sure K would love to hear from me and gave me his phone number.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was in a state of shock and I was sure it must have been a sin and completely wrong is God’s eyes. After all, he made her what she was.

I had dreams about K off and on for awhile. In my first dream I saw her as she always was, a girl, and I said to myself - See, she’s not a man, she’s a girl. Each dream I had though, brought me a little closer to the truth and a little closer to acceptance.

After a couple of years I decided to reach out and call him. I needed to do it for myself, for questions, for curiosity, for closure. I no longer had his phone number so I called his parent’s again. This time I talked to his dad and he wouldn’t give me the number, saying that K was very protective of who he talked to about this. He gave my number to K so that if he wanted t talk to me he could call me.

I got the call that night. We talked for a couple of hours. We talked about our high school days, all of the goofy things we did, where we were in life now and what was going on with each of us. It was like catching up with an old girlfriend except he’d say things like, remember when I was a girl and we did this and that?

Eventually we got onto the hows and the whys. He explained the whole process to me, the counseling, the drugs, the surgery. He elected to keep the female sexual organ, because although they could fashion a male organ, it wouldn’t work.

The whys were a bit more difficult for me to understand. After all, we had done everything together, including being with guys together for a make out session. Yes, in high school she said she was a bi-sexual, but it was kind of the in thing to be one and she never acted out, quite the contrary.

He reminded me - don’t you remember how I always wore men’s t-shirts and men’s watchbands and sandals? That’s what really threw me for a loop, because yes I did remember and guess what? I had worn exactly the same things. Often times we dressed alike in my dad’s t-shirts. We both went shopping for our watchbands and tire-tread sandals together. Did this mean there was something wrong with me, too?

It is a good thing I happened to be in therapy at the time so I had someone I could talk out these feelings with. I understand what Carly meant when she said she began to question her own sexuality. I made it through to the other end and there is no question about who I am, but it shows you how fragile our psyches are and how we can be thrown off track by things that aren’t even our own.

Technorati : books, change, choices, decisions, differences
Del.icio.us : books, change, choices, decisions, differences
Ice Rocket : books, change, choices, decisions, differences