

SLIDERS: The Dark Side of Transgender

By Aimee Norin

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011, 2012 by Aimee Norin. All rights reserved. Beyond the legal minimum, no portion may be copied without written permission from the author. Email Aimee Norin at aimeenorin@gmail.com

This novel is a work of fiction. Any similarity to events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All characters, things, places and events appearing in this work are fictitious.

This novel is meant for adult reading and is not recommended for minors, as it is very open. Concepts, sex and language are not spared at times. It is about an unfailingly good person, male-to-female transgender, intelligent and educated, who nonetheless has issues with denial and social non-acceptance. Her personal evolution is a process of self-discovery and learning how to seek her own happiness in life.

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### SLIDERS: The Dark Side of Transgender

By

Aimee Norin

The Preface is recommended

for this novel

to help understand the chapters.

Begin Reading

Preface

Copyright

Table of Contents

About the Author

Contact the Author

For Abbie

An early trailblazer.

"I am not desponding by nature—and after a course of bitter mental discipline & long bodily seclusion, I come out with two learnt lessons, (as I sometimes say & oftener feel) .. the wisdom of cheerfulness—& the duty of social intercourse. Anguish has instructed me in joy—and solitude in society—it has been a wholesome and not unnatural reaction... What we call Life is a condition of the soul—and the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement!"

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1845, EBB to RB

### PREFACE

_Sliders: The Dark Side of Transgender_ isn't like most novels on the subject. There are many examples of trans women leading happy, fulfilling lives. This author knows that and many happy depictions are in my other novels. But this is one focuses on internal or social conflicts, difficulty working through issues or finding respect. Though Regina is a heroine where she appears in my other books, _Sliders_ delves more into the area of her personal problems. More than any other, she experiences denial of how people see her, and of some aspects of how she sees herself, which interferes with her ability to connect with people socially. Love becomes very difficult for her to find. She becomes angry, alienated and lonely later in life, before she begins to get a handle on things.

As we progress well into the 21st Century, it's easy to criticize what someone experienced from earlier times, the terms they used, how they learned about themselves, and how they handled situations, but that would be unfair. Word/term usage changes over time, and motivations behind evolutions are not always pretty. People struggle to do the best they can, often with little to no guide in life for situations in which they find themselves.

Though living in transition continues to be very difficult or even dangerous for many, _Sliders_ is set when the culture was even less receptive. People like Regina, with their sacrifices, suffering through their alienations, helped form the foundation for current social progress, but not without extreme personal cost.

When you see an older person who began transition decades ago, s/he deserves your respect. She may be smiling the day you see her. She may be confident—survivors tend to be. But you have no idea what she's had to climb through to get here, the daily head games, the social games, presumptions inside and out, conflicts, abuse, or worse: friends she's lost to suicide or hate crimes.

These few scenes are one person's struggles. These are the conflicts in which she finds herself. These are her demons, shared openly with you. Right and wrong, good and bad, this is a novel about one woman's experiences. Revelation of this depth celebrates the trailblazer who forges her life—by herself, usually—in a social climate of apathy, disdain, or even cruelty.

Though Regina shares her life as she honestly sees it at each stage of her transition, the novel as a whole is shared from the view of some _much older transitioners_ , 30 to 40 years into transition, looking back. And with that, a couple of things should be obvious in the novel: (1) Issues evolve through the culture over time, with changing terminologies, changing organizational schemes, changing social attitudes; and (2) issues evolve through the protagonist over time, including the way she sees herself, her emotional needs and her gender expression.

This type of open sharing fits Regina's character as she is also open with her life in the story—with others, with students—willing to share, to promote trans living, even if it's about deeply personal issues that other people likely would find embarrassing. Though Regina is fiction, she is a description of one of the kindest people I could ever know: true, loyal, and genuine.

The exposé aspect of _Sliders_ is inherent in the story, not in pointing out names. All characters are fictional; no person or institution is identified. Rather, some of the _kinds_ of things that can happen in a trans person's life also happen with this protagonist—and often in a deniable way, much as they can and do happen in life. Both the trans person (who may be in denial) and the other person (who may have an alternate agenda) can claim it was something else that was going on—with the net result that the transgender continues on her way thinking she got something she didn't exactly get, and the other person continues on her way with whatever she sought, be it money, avoidance, or a false belief in liberality or acceptance.

Note in Chapter 1 how the doctor refers to the social effect of Regina's surgical choices. Regina beams at his encouragement because of her strong internal needs. The doctor is aware that others in Regina's daily life see it differently, yet withholds that perspective to promote his services. Regina is aware and educated, even suspicious of reality, but denial is so seductive, and the doctor is mixing his true understanding of reality with a sales pitch that slants that reality, enabling Regina's denial. This is an example of Regina being mislead by someone who represents himself as an authority, by someone she regards as knowledgeable, whom she has paid to help. (Sliders does not bash doctors. For an example of a _helpful doctor_ , see Charlie in Chapter 12.)

And the effect of a thousand things like that through various areas of life, have an effect far greater on Regina than just an understanding of her appearance. _Sliders_ is not just about a body choice of breast size. Misdirection, misinformation, deception, minimizing, exaggerating, enabling...from others affects everything else about her as well: how she understands how other people take her; how she feels about herself; how she interprets her own reality, both in private and in public; and other choices she makes as she goes through life, which Regina later learns has led her to then present to others in a way that cascaded the problem.

A single incident, as shared in Chapter 1, may not have had a damaging affect on Regina, but many of them over time fostered a path through her life that created problems, both for Regina and for other people in her life.

The thing Regina discovers is that becoming more herself isn't her only goal. Her goal is to be both a woman _and_ _to be accepted in society_ _by others_. She needs love, friends, family, as a woman, as a trans woman—either or both are good with Regina. She does not shy away from herself knowingly. She does not want to be an island, and couldn't be if she tried.

But when she knew all the details of her life and transgenderism as a whole, had known market movers personally, had become, herself, a national leader of her paradigm, could readily relate reams of data to more people than were interested in listening— _how could it be there was actually any denial?_

It's in the way she looked at it, valued things within it, the way she understood it.

Chapter 1 is an example of one of the things that goes on. If you do not see what is being conveyed in this chapter, in the deniable way it occurs, then you will miss what occurs in most other chapters.

SECTION 1, in 1990 at her age of 38, her first year in transition, using the terminology of the period in Los Angeles ("transgenderist," specifically different from current), Regina is ultra-fem, relative to her own life-long expression; in denial of much; ecstatic with her transition yet faced with hardship.

SECTION 2, in 2005 at her age of 53, 15 years in transition, _Sliders_ shows Regina relaxed into a much less feminine expression (for her); dressing and makeup are not so important; the newness has worn off; denial is still very operative in her life on a personal level yet she faces challenges more directly. She has become a leader of the transgender paradigm. She appears more seasoned, experienced.

SECTION 3, in 2017 at her age of 65, 27 years in transition, her denial falls away—suddenly, after a few years of peace. She is struck with an approach to herself that is radically different from what she felt before; how people in her life, professional or otherwise, have not been honest with her in how they really felt about her, how they've used her or even outright lied to her, which enabled denial—or how others, who were honest with what they felt, were so harsh in the telling that the message could never have been received. Thinking she was doing things in her interactions with others that were helping herself, she realizes she was sometimes hurting herself instead. And then, Regina encounters a transsexual whose life view is so harsh, that she is rocked too far the other way toward a hyper-critical self-awareness that, itself, blocks a realistic view of herself.

Is that where it ends? Is that latest "realization" the "truth"? Or is it just the next phase in her evolution?

Sliders ends in 2026, when Regina begins to recover, to understand how to seek what she wants, 36 years into transition.

It didn't have to take that long.

Those swings in her expression and in the way she looked at herself were not just a result of her earlier-life's artificial gender expression released at transition, but also a result of the way she encountered other people in society and how they treated her—all of which has changed (improved, I hope, in general) for trans persons as we move into the future.

Beautiful would be the life of such a person who could have been herself earlier in life, from birth, with no social derogation along the way, no related self-deception, no people misleading her, restricting her.

It should be noted that scenes are not meant to reflect the legal climate in California for the year in which the chapter is set. This novel is not about law. For legal questions, a competent lawyer should be sought. The novel had to be set somewhere, yet anywhere is a problem, because, in truth, in the United States, the legal status of trans issues has been quite variable during the time period of this novel. Different areas of the country are not consistent with each other, as the country struggles to recognize that, in truth, all people are created equal (see notes on "Emancipation" in _Falling in Love_ ). Some areas of the country are even opposite to others, so an effort was made to depict situations or concepts that people sometimes experience, even if they are in different areas.

Blessings to all,

Aimee Norin

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

DR. REGINA ISLER is always helpful, unfailingly good, intelligent, and extremely well educated, yet even she can have issues with denial. Is it all her doing? Or do others in society enable it?

_Sliders_ follows Regina from 1990 with the loss of her family in Beverly Hills to 2026 and her eventual life by the beach in Santa Monica. She becomes a national leader of the transgender paradigm, yet she makes several mistakes along the way and winds up where she doesn't want to be before she finally begins to figure herself out. People who give mixed signals, or even lie outright, easily confound her efforts at finding love and acceptance, making it difficult to find her way. Through hard experiences, she learns what she could have done better to achieve greater happiness.

SECTION 1

EXCITED IN THE BEGINNING

Age: 38

The early 1990s

Discovery is enthralling.

Sex is exciting.

Terms are of the period.

Adjustment is difficult, unrefined.

Regina is new to womanhood,

Just starting.

Denial of how people see her.

Loneliness grips with silent fingers.

CHAPTER 1

Regina Isler was happy, even high, in a way she'd never known, and no drugs were involved. Wearing only a thin paper smock, she sat on the doctor's office examination table, in his fancy office suite high over Beverly Hills, with a smile on her face that wouldn't go away. Losing her wife, her kids and her home had been painful. But the reason she lost everything else, she reasoned, was that she'd gained herself, and the joy that came with that gave her an inner glow. She felt she was hugging herself from within, as if her arms were wrapped around her heart, carrying it gently into a new world.

_God, how things worked_ , she mused, that the worst pain she'd ever known could be followed by such pervasive joy.

Usually reserved, she could contain her excitement no longer. Transition was so beautiful. She felt as if she wanted to touch everything around her, again, for the first time, to reach out and greet the life energy in everything, to be closer to it. _This is an intralife reincarnation,_ she thought, both a death and a birth of sorts, only without forgetting the life before. She was reborn. The whole world was completely different—the way she approached life, the way the world treated her, the way she dressed, walked, talked, and moved, the things that were important to her—and every day she was becoming more giddy with excitement.

She felt the paper on the exam table beneath her. It was so soft to her touch. She'd never noticed that before _._ She smiled visibly. _Hello, paper_ , she thought, greeting it as if for the first time. She heard the air-conditioning coming in through the vent, flowing perfectly through the louvers. She noticed the squeaky clean countertop filled with sterile supplies, not a hint of dust.

That window was too large for her to ignore! Her heart went out to embrace it. _Such a beautiful window_! The whole western wall of the room was glass. She felt an urge to go over and look out.

She glanced unnecessarily at the door. _What a beautiful door!_ _Is he coming yet?_ The door didn't answer, but Regina was sure the door's silence meant that the coast was clear. It had to be a female door because people entered it. _So giddy!_ She laughed to herself; this was all very unlike her. The surgeon didn't seem to be coming in yet, and she hadn't heard anyone lift her chart off the outer side of the door. So she slid off the table and walked over to the window. The glass was warm to her touch, glowing almost as much as she.

There it was: everything. The whole world was down there waiting for her, and she was part of it. Her heart went out to every single thing she saw, the people, birds and buildings below, the huge blue sky above, the Pacific Ocean off in the distance. She loved everything in life, as if each breath held the scent of a fragrant rose she could smell forever.

The whole decade had glowed since the beginning of her transition.

All fifteen days of it.

_The '90s will be ecstatic_ , she thought to herself with an uncontrollable smile. The whole world was fresh and— _alive_!

She touched the window and looked at the sidewalks below. All those people running around. Women with their own breasts! Wearing lingerie under everything. And people think it's okay for them to wear it! All because they're women.

Regina was ramped. Her mind was dancing. It wouldn't hold still. She had her own breasts, now! She looked down at them. On hormones, her breasts never developed much, so she had them augmented. She felt like a schoolgirl who had won the lottery, as if the whole world were at her feet— _and there they were down below,_ she joked to herself again. There were so many new things to try, and so many ways to do them!

She counseled herself to slow down a little. She was normally so modest—a tenured professor of clinical psychology at a major university—but not lately and not today. She couldn't be. She was busting—

_Busting!_ She laughed again at her own joke, touching her lips with the fingers of her right hand. Her forearm brushed against her right breast, a fairly new feeling, which gave her another rush.

Female hormones softened her skin in ways she hadn't expected. The surprise wasn't just that her skin was softer to someone else's touch; her skin itself was softer—so everything she touched was softer, too. And her own skin felt even softer to her because the fingers she used to feel _it_ were softer. When her arm brushed her side, both textures were softer. Women's clothes were softer than men's, and when they graced her softer skin, the sensation was electric, leagues softer than anything she had experienced before as a man. When she bathed, her bath oils floated over her skin in a fluid harmony, a heavenly caress. And even when she did nothing in particular, just walking or moving, her skin stretched against itself and seemed so sensual.

She raised her left hand so she could see her fingers and, ever so slightly, moved each finger against the other. Her fingers were clean, nothing on them. Yet they were _slick_. She couldn't escape the feeling they must have a little glycerin on them, each and every one.

_Women have had this all along,_ she thought, and they may not have known. Unless they'd been through a transition themselves, changing from a man's skin to a woman's, they'd have nothing to compare. _They've never known what they had._

She knew the people in the city below could neither see nor hear her, but she felt she should give herself permission to share her joy: _it's part of a healthy mind to vent pain,_ she told herself, _but also to experience pleasure._

"Hello, everyone! How do you do?" she asked in front of the window, in her natural voice, showing the world her new C-cups. "What do you think? As good as anyone's? Brand new," she confided. "Aftermarket installation." She turned sideways a bit and gave the city a profile.

The plastic surgeon came in the door suddenly, but to her surprise, she didn't mind. She turned to smile at him, her smock still open to the front.

"Good morning, Regina." The doctor said with a smile. "Showing the world, right?"

Regina acknowledged in a softer voice, "Yes."

The doctor chuckled. "A lot of my patients do that. Does it approve?" he asked.

"Heartily." She was sure.

"Have a seat." He motioned her to the exam table.

Regina climbed back on it.

"Like this?" she asked, settling back.

"That's good," the doctor answered with a reassuring smile.

Regina tried to relax.

He glanced at her chart. "I did you last Thursday. It's been a week."

She nodded.

A nurse came in and then excused herself and left.

The doctor smiled at Regina. "Wrong door?" he suggested. "Let's just have a look now." He opened her smock a bit more. "Ah! Beautiful," he exclaimed. "Couldn't look better on a movie star. I do some of them also, you know," he bragged.

"Which ones?"

The doctor gently felt them. "Can't say," he said with a knowing smile. "Patient confidentiality and all, but I see some of my breasts about every other time I go to the movies.

"They look good," he said, back to the task at hand. "They hang like I'd expect at this stage, post-op. How do they feel?" he asked. He poked and massaged a little.

"Still a bit numb in places, but the pain has not really been a problem. The pills you gave me worked fine."

"How long did you take them?"

"Only for two days. I don't like to take pills if I can avoid them. The rest are at home in the bottle." They were narcotics, a strictly controlled prescription, and Regina was aware of the problems associated with them. "Do you want them back?"

"No. You keep them for later."

He stepped back for a look at her breasts together, framed by her largish shoulders, rib cage, and biceps.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

He considered. "I'm extrapolating. Considering you as a whole. You weigh about one eighty-five? I'm getting the whole picture, the gestalt." He moved his hands around her upper torso as he spoke. "I want you to be happy with your results, not have to come back next year dissatisfied. You should have C-cups when you're done. And if you ever want a reduction, just let me know. I do those, too." A smile.

"I have narrow hips, a small butt. Can you do anything about that? Give me a more girlish figure? Like Cher, maybe?"

"Not much at this time. There are a lot of problems with that. There have been some attempts, but the results are highly questionable and problematic. Maybe after the turn of the century. The back inserts don't stay put well, and experimenters are having problems with infections in them. I'll let you know if I get something going.

"As far as that goes, though, you don't need to worry, because breasts like these," he cupped them proudly, "will draw the gaze of the viewer up here, and breasts are womanly." He looked at her convincingly.

Regina relaxed. Her broad smile returned.

He stood back.

"There is still some swelling," he said, "which is to be expected. Remember: don't judge their looks until you're three months post-op, when most of the swelling is gone. Until then, one may appear larger than the other, and that may change week to week. Little things you do may affect that swelling, such as rubbing them, doing anything to irritate them. Oh, and don't sleep on your stomach. Okay, young lady?"

Regina felt charmed to be called "young lady." She was not so young at thirty-eight, and she was new to being called a lady. She could get used to that for the next fifty years.

The smile on her face wouldn't go away.

"That smile happens to a lot of my patients," the doctor said. "Any surgery carries a risk of complications, but the way I did your implants, you'll be just fine. I have excellent results. Just wait until the swelling is gone, same as for looks. You'll have someone goggling at them in no time. You into men or women?" the doctor asked.

Regina didn't think the question inappropriate; she was eager to disclose and share. "Women. I've tried men, and I can have sex like other women, but I don't really get into it."

"Then you'll have women pouncing on your breasts in no time. But don't let them yet. Tell them to take a number. They're still healing."

As if it were possible, Regina seemed to smile more.

"Your face may break, if you keep doing that," the doctor teased. "Then I'll get you in here for a face lift. Now let's lie back and get into the stirrups."

"There's a need?" she asked. "For breasts?"

"It's what women do," he reassured her.

"I haven't had surgery down there, doctor."

"Since you're here, we should look at what might be done in the future."

Regina was unsure, but she relented.

He helped her lie back and put her heels up into the stirrups. The position felt odd to her, but, she reasoned, maybe it had a place.

"May I?" he asked.

"You're the doctor."

He gently lifted her penis and looked under it and under the scrotum; he felt the size of the testicles, all briefly.

"How long have you been on hormones?"

"Two years. I transitioned last month. I wanted every day of the '90s to be as a woman."

"Good, good. So your penis has decreased in size a little on the hormones. It's probably a bit smaller now than it was two years ago."

"Yes. Maybe twenty or thirty percent." And then gently, to not hurt his feelings, she said, "But I'm not really comfortable calling it a penis, anymore, Doctor. The Y chromosome has been neutralized by the hormones; it is smaller under hormones and the tissues are homologous, anyway."

"Same nerves," he said weekly. "Are you going to want sex reassignment surgery some day?"

"Oh, no." She was clear. The look on her face was not antagonistic, but wasn't in accord either. "Not for me. But thank you."

"It might still function as a clitoris," the doctor said of her glans, "after S.R.S. The surgeries are better than they used to be."

"Remove ninety percent of the thing? Invert part of it? Rearrange? Use only part of the glans for the clit, hoping the nerve doesn't get cut?" Regina's smile to the doctor was reassuring, confident. "I'm fine the way I am."

"What about intercourse?" the doctor asked.

"That's what it's for."

"I mean with a vagina."

"If I ever want that, anal sex will do fine."

CHAPTER 2

They raced up Interstate 15 past the desert town of Baker at ninety miles per hour in Stephanie's red 1978 T-top Trans Am, top panels left back at home—screaming joy and laughter about womanhood to every atom of life on the planet.

Grandma and Grandpa Slow were creeping along in the right lane when the fast car raced past, a Doppler-shifted V-8 and a higher-pitched "WOMAAAAAaaaaan!" heard above the wind noise.

Stephanie was driving, sometimes even paying attention, which was so hard. Because she was hard.

Regina sat in the passenger seat, knees together with her left touching the center console—not because the position was ladylike, but because it seemed to put more pressure on her groin. With her genitalia tucked far back into her panties, sitting on them on the leather seats, she was getting aroused.

Regina ran her left hand over the hose on her left thigh. The tender skin she had developed from the hormones made the hose feel even more electric than before. She could _feel_ them better than she ever could before; they were so much softer.

She looked over at Stephanie. They were both wearing slinky miniskirts with hose, silk panties with white lace borders, and teddies underneath. A vision of what Regina needed filled her mind and grew until she couldn't ignore it. _I can't go on like this,_ she thought. I can't enjoy the day with this happening all by myself.

Stephanie looked at her and saw her flush, and Stephanie's expression changed to one of need, also. Then all they could hear was the wind rushing over the top of the car, the engine roaring.

Regina said nothing. She moved her left hand over to Stephanie's right, on her gear shift lever, and gently lifted the hand off and guided it to her leg.

The car swerved a little.

Then Regina brought Stephanie's hand slowly up her silky thigh to her groin, over her erection tucked deep beneath her skirt. She held the hand there and closed her eyes as if she might blow any second.

Regina felt the warm air, the freedom in the car, the sun shining down on them both, and she looked longingly toward the side of the road.

"Me, too," Stephanie told her.

Regina reached over and slid her left hand under Steph's skirt, and it was true. Stephanie was as erect as a post, though her penis was still tucked back in her panties, also.

Stephanie pulled the car over to the side of the road and reached farther down into Regina's panties to slide her penis out.

Regina felt Steph's mouth warm and wet sucking on the whole thing, her tongue moving over the head, and within about five glorious seconds Regina came, filling Stephanie's loving mouth with her come. She nearly passed out from the feeling.

Grandma and Grandpa Slow drove past them and saw Stephanie giving head to Regina, cleaning her penis with her tongue. They were going so slow they could have probably filmed the scene for five minutes on the way by. Their mouths dropped open, their words stunned, their heads shook in shame, and Regina thought she'd come again right there in front of them.

Regina gazed in amazement at her life: she was sitting beside the road on this fantastic morning, wearing a minidress, panties, bra with real breasts, teddy, hose and heels—not one article of men's clothing anywhere around her—with Stephanie's face in her crotch against her dress, two hundred miles from Los Angeles where the only clothes she had to wear were these that she brought with her, where she had to dress like a woman whether she wanted to or not, where she had to face life as a woman with whatever it offered her.

She felt liberated from the chains of manhood she'd grown so sick of in recent years. She felt confirmed in a role that couldn't be made manly at this juncture. If a natural disaster occurred, she'd have to deal with it in her dress. When she had to interact with people, she'd have to do it in her dress. When she checked into the room, when the waiter served her dinner, when the dealer dealt her cards, she'd have to wear her dress because that was all she had with her. She felt like such a woman, and she could have an erection the whole time if she wanted. If an erection occurred first, she couldn't bend it back under her panties. But if it was already tucked and then got erect, it would stay there. As a matter of fact, it stayed in place better with a bit of an erection because she could push on the front, at the base, and push the length of it backward.

Stephanie finished cleaning Regina's penis, and Regina began coming back down to earth a bit. She framed Steph's face in her hands and raised it to her lips to kiss her lovingly for a long time. Their tongues met and swam together like dolphins. Regina could taste herself in Stephanie's mouth, mixed with the flavor of her lipstick.

Stephanie didn't have to ask. She just leaned back in her seat, and Regina reached over to move Stephanie's panties aside. "You don't have any panties," Regina said. "Only a teddy? How do you keep it in there? It'll fall out sometimes with only a teddy."

Stephanie laughed. "That's okay, love. Women don't wear panties with a teddy."

Stephanie's legs were beautiful in her hose, and her miniskirt draped them so softly. Regina bent over to take her fully into her mouth and loved every second of it for her.

Stephanie took only a few seconds, also, to come. She held Regina's head down in her crotch with both hands as she squirmed. A bit of come leaked out of Regina's mouth onto the hem of Steph's skirt. Regina loved the sight. She couldn't contain her feelings and groaned with joy.

They kissed again, and Regina felt Steph's breasts. Steph moved to do the same, but Regina spoke up, "No, no. Doc said it's too soon for that for me. You'll have to wait."

Stephanie understood and felt her own instead, while they kissed again.

They both tucked again, back between their cheeks, left their skirts in a risqué drape over their thighs, and headed out for Hot Vegas. Stephanie slammed the car into first, popped the clutch, and the car squalled for a mile up the freeway.

Jean, Nevada, went by so fast that, if she'd have blinked, she'd have missed it. In fact, Regina did blink, and she did miss it.

Then Vegas hit them like an orgasm.

She'd waited for this for years. She wore skirts and panties, bought shoes at will, talked girl talk with anyone who would listen—Stephanie, mostly—flirted with other women, teased men, danced when something wonderful happened, and enjoyed herself immensely.

This was what life was about, she felt: just be yourself, totally, just yourself, without others telling you how to be, what to say or do, what to wear, how to act, or who to have sex with. She'd missed the sexual freedom of the '80s because she was busy being all proper, being married, raising children. But in the '90s, she was going to ride the wave of sexual liberation wherever it took her—and with gusto.

They blew through casinos like high rollers in heels, playing twenty-one, craps, roulette, sometimes literally screaming at the top of their lungs even over small wins, drinking mostly soft drinks because they didn't want to dampen the moment with a downer. This was a time for excitement, and they didn't need any little white pills to keep them going. Nothing could beat this: breaking down social walls that limited you to boxers or briefs, or to speaking in a deep voice and walking as if you had a four-foot board up your ass. She loved living a role in life not dictated by preachers and old men in smoky rooms with cigars.

_Fuck 'em!_ she felt. Fuck all of them for all that sex role stereotyping, their belief that men are men and women are women and that you have to be one or the other or else. Fuck _'_ em with their dicks in briefs and their pussies in panties. God didn't ordain that. It isn't written in stone anywhere that you can't be a woman unless your clit is formed a certain way. She can be a woman, Regina knew, if she's a woman. And fuck the circular argument also! Whose business is it of anyone's, anyway, if she's a woman or what she has under her skirt, under her panties, held tight against her butt by her teddy. Whose business is it if she likes to wear hose and feel their soft, silky fabric slide over her thighs, getting her aroused? Whose business is it if she likes to wear a slinky dress that slides over her ass while she walks, or if she likes it to ride up on her thighs when she sits down? Why does it matter if she's a woman with muscles? All women have muscles. Some even have large muscles, like body builders, and people still know they're women. Muscles are homologous, too.

Sitting at the next slot machine, Stephanie reached over and put her hand in Regina's crotch, felt the penis hard there, underneath. Regina froze and then smiled, so Stephanie grabbed her hand and led her into the ladies' room, into a stall—

CHAPTER 3

COLLEGE CAMPUSES were so "home," the stately halls, the lawns, the trees, the smell of miles of cut grass, the students strolling by with books. Regina had been on them ever since she was eighteen, either as a student or as a member of the faculty, and they'd been among the most beautiful, challenging, and enlightening places she'd experienced in her life.

She'd been on sabbatical since she'd transitioned two months before, and she didn't realize how much she'd missed the place.

"Thank you," she said to a colleague, both for helping her feel a part of the campus again and for giving her an opportunity to be a part of the enlightenment process for this group of students.

She was speaking to his class on human sexuality about transgenderism. Personal revelation and thought were the heart of her presentations. And, it appeared, she was successful in getting the students to forget her status as a professor and to drill her personally with the most detailed, intrusive, and offensive questions they could imagine. To give them an idea, she'd passed around a hat containing the worst questions she could think of to ask, and the students seemed to get the idea. The discussion became a free-for-all after she got them going. After all, it was the _'_ 90s, and stuffy, old-school, didactic instruction was passé. Particularly with her.

"So you threw away all your men's clothes?" a lad asked.

"Yup," Regina said.

"Okay. So you've had surgery to become a woman, now?"

"Yes."

"What was that like?" someone else asked. "Were you scared?"

"No," Regina answered. "I was excited."

"What kind of excited?" a young man from the back of the room asked, but his question got jumped on.

"You took female hormones?" another asked.

"Yes."

"Those breasts are yours?"

"Yes."

"Can I come and feel _'_ em?" a young man with a big smile asked from the side of the room. The class laughed in a way that made Regina think the fellow might be the class clown.

"You're using 'come' and 'feel' in the same sentence in a class on human sexuality?" Regina feigned embarrassment to him, and the class laughed some more. But Regina didn't want the class to progress to a touchy-feely level, so she added, "I'll have to decline. No offense, but I'm just not into men."

"Ooohhhhh," the class groaned.

A gay student hopped up in mock outrage to ask, "You saying there's something wrong with loving men?"

"No, no," Regina told him. "Sit down. Just as it's not wrong for you to prefer men, it's also not wrong for me to prefer women." Her warm smile got the message across.

"But do you still prefer women because you're still so manly?" The class didn't like that question, but the student defended herself with, "It was taken from the hat!" and she showed it on the slip of paper.

"Yes, that's right." Regina calmed them down. "College campuses are notoriously some of the most liberal places in our country, but some of you might be interacting with people one day who aren't on campus—that is, unless you stay in school your whole life and never graduate and never take an apartment anywhere and always keep paying tuition forever, which is great for those of us who want a raise."

She got some laughter on that.

"Interacting with noncampus personnel, you need to understand where they're coming from. Crude questions are part of it. Crude orientations are often part of it. So let's deal with it. That's what we're here for. There are a couple of things in the question that are important, I think. Now don't get upset," she cautioned them.

The class consented.

"One," Regina continued, "is whether gender, masculine expression, is related to sexual orientation. There is a positive correlation between sex orientation and gender expression that people at large seem to sense, right or wrong, that being that many gay men have some effeminate characteristics, and that many lesbians have some more masculine characteristics. Many individuals don't fit that trend, though, just to point that out. And while the correlation exists, there may be other reasons for it besides sexual orientation—who you're into—causing gender, or gender causing sexual orientation. We don't know. Maybe we will in _Star Trek_ days. I hope so.

"Two. Am I really manly?" The class was quiet, and that wouldn't do.

"You're trying not to embarrass me. Unfair!" she mock-scolded them. "You're going to have to go out into the world and interact with real people from Texas, from Ohio, or even from the Valley!" More pretend outrage, enjoying a poke at the Valley.

The class laughed again.

"Come on! Who has the question about my appearance?"

A young man in the back held up his slip of paper.

"Well, Geronimo? Jump!" Regina told him.

"Okay," he said, though he seemed reluctant.

The class waited. Regina drummed her fingers on the desk at the front. Whistled a bit. Put her hands on her hips. Sent out for coffee. Had some dental work done. Looked around the room at invisible rafters, then back at the young man.

The lad laid the slip of paper down on his desk.

"All right." The man looked serious. "We're supposed to address as well the views of others off-campus, who may have family who are—you? Who may not like it. So, here it is: You don't look like a woman to me. You look like a man in a dress who doesn't know he looks ridiculous, and the whole thing about you being a woman is pure hype, a postmodernist twist on reality to fulfill your fantasies. You hope we'll all play along."

The class was stunned silent. A few mouths flew open. After a couple of moments of shock, the hosting professor of the class decided to rein this in. "Mark! We don't think that, we—"

"I'm not making this up," Mark said. "There are other professors who preach this stuff."

"Mark!" his professor said.

"No, no, Prof," Regina said in her typical man's voice. "I got this." Regina looked angry and slowly reached into her purse to take out a small squirt gun; she squirted the blunt Mark from across the room. A few students squealed and scattered, laughing and chattering. Mark got hit by some of the sprinkles, but he stayed right where he was and glared.

Regina half smiled. The class half smiled. The prof looked angry.

Regina waited for a couple of beats and then broke the silence. "That," she said, "was not the question on the piece of paper. But it was exactly what I was hoping for."

Everybody looked at her and then at Mark.

"Those questions in the hat were to give you a guideline, to get you started. Because when you interact with those folks, or if some of you later become therapists and you work with someone who has nonaccepting family, friends, or employer, _that_ is exactly the sentiment you will be faced with. If you don't learn in here, you won't perform out there.

"Damn that was good." Regina continued rummaging through her purse. "I ought to give you five bucks for that."

There was some nervous laughter, as part of the class didn't know how to take Mark's statement or Regina's response. Mark didn't look as if he were espousing the view of the conservative masses. He looked as if his words were his own view.

Regina continued, "It stings like holy hell to hear what you said. But those sentiments, when they exist, will sting those you're trying to help, also, when their own families feel that way, so, again, we have to deal with that view. Thank you, Mark. That took courage."

Then a round of controversial comments erupted from the class as a whole, as the students jumped into a debate on whether Mark's view was inappropriate for this class or whether his comments were enlightened, considering what the guest lecturer was telling them.

Regina gave the professor a look to indicate "let it run, I got this." She let the discussion continue for a minute while she gathered her thoughts.

"Okay. Pipe down, or I'll have to use Mr. Squirty again," Regina finally said, the humor intended to break the tension.

"You can't," Mark said from the back of the room. "You had Mr. Squirty removed." Some chuckles.

Regina took a deep breath, debating her answer, but Mark spoke first.

"You said you had surgery to become a woman, didn't you?" Mark said.

"Yeah, that's right," another student chimed in.

They all stared at her crotch, and a few students tried to ask about her operation, but Mark spoke above them. "Regina, may I ask if you've had the surgery to get female genitalia?"

"That's private, Mark," the professor scolded with both his tone and his glare. "We will regard her as a woman in this classroom because that's the way she self-identifies—"

"You don't mean because that's the way I am?" Regina asked. "Just because that's the way I identify?" She intended her questions not as scolding but as part of the open discussion she'd been encouraging.

"Regina," Mark tried again. "I don't mean disrespect, but in the spirit of speaking the view of unaccepting significant others, I think I should share the truth of what we're seeing. None of the others will, that's clear," he said and looked around at the other students. "I have to say that you don't look like a woman. You're, what, six feet tall or better?"

"Five foot, eleven inches, plus two-inch heels today," Regina said.

"You have broad shoulders. Your arms are long. Your forearms are muscular, which you display out of your three-quarter sleeves. Your hips are narrow, yet you wear a straight skirt. You have male-pattern baldness and you display it by brushing your hair back and over your head. And your voice is clearly a man's. Your manner is kindly, but I don't see any 'woman' in it—"

The class erupted in protest.

"Mark!" the professor barked. "Please leave the class. Now. I'll see you in my office afterward."

Regina began to hold up her hand in protest, but she couldn't get any words out. She looked down at the floor, and tears began to flow silently down her cheeks.

Mark gathered his things and left.

The class talked.

Regina sat in a chair at the head of the class and crossed her legs, hose over knobby knees and thin calves, large feet in black two-inch-heeled pumps. She let the class slow down because she didn't yet have the strength to continue. The professor tried to step in to help, but Regina motioned for him to hold off.

"No," was all she could get out right then. But after a few minutes, she gathered her strength. "I hate Mark, and I'm thankful for him at the same time," she said.

A student reached into her purse and offered Regina some tissues, which she used to wipe her face. She sniffled. Saying "thank you" to the student helped her regain her voice.

"It's okay because we need to share this process together." She paused again to collect herself. "I think I have some of my own issues here. Mark's comments weren't strong enough to provoke this," she said, referring to her crying. "A person doesn't usually go through all this calmly. The transition is not like quitting a job or moving to a new city."

"When you meet someone like me in the future and she's talking to you about her heart breaking because her wife is leaving her, because she's lost her job and home, because people treat her like a freak—all that because she's put on women's clothes and gotten herself breasts—you need to know both what she's going through and what others in her life are thinking and doing."

The class was silent. No one said a thing.

"No. I didn't have this removed," she said and motioned toward her crotch. "I don't want to. I shouldn't have to. There are more options out here. It's the '90s, now, and I'm coming out as a transgenderist. We've been around for quite a while. Like most, I don't want this removed," she said indicated her crotch again, "and why should I? Transsexuals get all the press. But I have to speak honestly about how I see other choices because that's what I'm here for, or how else can I help people understand? How else can I support my position? My lifestyle?

"I am a woman, a female. Not because of consensus, but because I feel myself a woman inside. I have had a male body for most of my life, and that's good. I didn't start out thinking I was female, but the idea grew in me. It's where I evolved to. Why? I don't know. But the idea became more and more important as the years went on.

"I've always been interested in womanly things, and as I developed, I also wanted to feminize.

"Why? I don't know. But I have to be myself, and so I transitioned to a woman, and I want to earn your respect as such."

The class paid respectful attention. Regina wished Mark were still there so he could hear this, but the prof had sent him out.

"But to me, it's not a penis but a clitoris. Sounds ridiculous? Female-to-male transgenderists who take testosterone, their clitoris grows to about the size of my little finger, and if they have it released, it angles up, and they call it a penis. Indeed it is a variety of penis, because the tissues are homologous.

"And in male-to-female transgenderists, hormones are also taken, female hormones, and the penis gets a bit smaller over time, nearer that same size. So why can't I think of it as a clitoris if I want to? It is the same tissue as your clitoris, "Regina said and motioned to a female student sitting near her.

"What about you?" Regina asked another female student. "Do you like to have sex with your clitoris?"

The student looked surprised to be asked such a blunt question, but she answered, "Yes."

"Well, so do I. And if I have it removed, it won't be there. Most of it would be thrown away in a garbage pail. I'm just as much woman and female as anyone," she asserted to the class. "Sex is in the brain.

"So, if I'm female, and these are my genitalia, then these are female genitalia. _Modus ponens_ ," she said, using the Latin term for an argument in deductive logic. "If, if I am female then these are my genitalia, then, if I am female, then these are my genitalia."

"It sounds like you're making an assumption about your first premise, there," a bright student said.

" _Modus ponens_ is valid; disagreement over premises is part of my life," Regina said. "But that's the way I see it. It's what I feel like to myself. It's what I'm here to share with you today. To me, there's no difference. I'm not going to have it cut off to meet someone else's standard.

"You think I don't feel shame in my heart when someone points out my 'inconsistencies'? You think it doesn't hurt? You think because I present myself as dignified I don't feel humiliation? Why do you think I like to keep some things confidential?

"I shouldn't have to. I should be able to be a dignified human being _as who I am_ , not have to pretend.

"I ask to be respected based on the nature of my character—no matter how easy it may be to criticize me. I hope not to be degraded by others in society—all too easy to do, believe me I know—because I'm different. That's why I'm here, today.

CHAPTER 4

LYING ON A PADDED table, Regina held her breath as the needle was inserted into another hair follicle on her upper lip, near the nose. This was the most painful area for her. She took some painkillers she had left over from her breast augmentation, and she needed them, because electrolysis was painful. But it was the only way to get rid of her beard.

She was still working on hair removal after a year and a half, though she was new to this particular electrologist. People didn't seem to stay in her life long.

The electrologist made conversation to help her relax. "So, Gina, you're a psychotherapist?" she asked.

Regina groaned as the needle stung.

"RE-gina, please. And yes," she said between stings. "Yes, or I have been," she said, pleased to distract herself from the stings.

"Not anymore?"

"Well, I am, still. But as coincidence would have it, I might as well have changed my practice, also. Most of my clients have recently left. All kinds of reasons. When it rains it pours. So, in effect, I've lost my practice. Maybe I can—" Regina stopped to wince from another sting. "Maybe I will try to rebuild one, some day. I do well with people."

"I'm an electrologist. I have 'clients.' You should have 'patients'? You treat them."

"Makes them sound sick, that way, doesn't it?" Regina said. "And that creates a separateness." Regina paused for another sting but continued talking to distract herself. "I like to de-sick people, and that includes how I talk with them."

"Okay," the electrologist said with a smile.

"Mostly, though, I'm a professor." It occurred to Regina that she might be bragging to the electrologist, which was unlike her normally.

She paused her thought for another sting.

_So why am I bragging?_ _Knocks,_ she thought.

She'd taken some ego blows, a lot lately, and she was trying to feel better.

"Do you research mostly or teach?"

"I used to do more research but as I grow older, I really prefer teaching."

"What kind of research?" the electrologist asked, which got a groan from Regina. "Oh, sorry! Bad question? Stress affects how much pain clients feel." She removed the needle, removed the whisker, and inserted her needle into another follicle.

Regina groaned again. This stuff was seriously painful.

"No, no, it's all right. I have a low pain tolerance. It's just me." Regina exhaled to try to relax. "I used to focus on problems of differentness, how someone who is different may struggle with a life of separateness or seek acceptance— Ah!" Regina said with a little laugh. "I guess I still do. Eeeeah!" Regina groaned again.

"That was a sensitive one. I think we're on a tense subject, Regina, and you're feeling more pain."

"Now," Regina said in humor to help distract herself, with as little lip movement as possible, "there's a good little electrolysis machine. You don't want to hurt me. This is the 'blend' method?" Regina asked, though she knew it was. It was just that this approach was more painful than the galvanic method used by the last person she'd seen. She was trying it because she liked the personality of this electrologist. She seemed like a warm, inviting person. Regina had felt a little alien with the last one.

"Just relax," the electrologist said soothingly. "Do some alpha waves—think calm evenings on a warm beach—"

The electrologist worked on a few follicles a little farther from the nostrils for a while to help Regina relax.

Regina groaned a bit more and then tried more conversation to distract herself, trying to keep her lip movements to a minimum. "My concern was the development of anger and depression over time in people who are different, if they can't find acceptance—" another groan "and the possibilities of suicide later in life."

"Working with gays?" the electrologist asked.

"No. Schizophrenics, actually, and other people with substance-abuse issues because, not surprisingly," Regina paused holding her breath, stifling a groan, "heavy substance abuse also creates a significant separateness with which a lot of users struggle, and symptoms often overlap between a schizophrenic and a post drug–impaired individual."

"Heavy."

"Not all that heavy, really," Regina told her between pursed lips. "They're all people with feelings."

Electrologists can become confidants, like therapists or bartenders sometimes, or even a friend, although they're just there to stop unwanted hair from growing. But they're in a helping profession, and they are helping immensely; and you're there, face to face for hours on end, so conversation seems to happen. Many electrologists converse with clients to distract them from their pain, help them relax.

"My wife and I— It didn't work out." Regina told her finally. "And we decided to insulate the kids. The dog stayed with them. I had to move,"

"How many kids?" she asked. Regina knew that people ask mundane questions want they fear a conversation can get too dark.

"Two. A boy and a girl."

"How old are they?"

"Twelve and ten. Jack and Jill."

The electrologist chuckled at that and inserted her needle into a new follicle, getting another groan from Regina.

"Just kidding," Regina said, smiling right through another groan. "They're good kids, and we've always raised them to have a sense of humor about life."

"Like you?" she asked.

"Yes. People who have transitioned usually have a different sense of humor, coming at life from a different angle, with elements of anger and frustration, yet needing to survive. Humor helps handle stress."

"Survive?"

"Yes. But people mostly treat me as a woman."

The electrologist looked at her for a second before continuing. "I'm glad," she said. "They should."

"It is so much. You know being a woman is so much harder than being a man?"

"Really?"

Regina slightly nodded, as much as she could without disturbing a needle. "There is so much. More underwear to wear. More hair care. Makeup. More doctor's visits—and more expectations from society, I think. Men just sluff it off."

The electrologist said nothing for a while, waiting for the mood to change.

Regina seemed to relax some, lying more softly on the table.

"I'm sorry. It must be hard to adjust." The electrologist didn't sound patronizing or placating; she sounded genuine in her concern.

She asked with her eyes if it was okay to continue, and Regina indicated with a slight nod. "But can we move to work over by the sideburns? The lip is getting raw."

"Sure," she said, and she moved to do so.

The electrologist asked another safe question. "So where did you move to?"

"A little house in Santa Monica. It's a long walk to the beach, but it's nice enough. It has a private backyard."

"Great. You unpacked yet?"

"No. I haven't spent the time—" Regina started and then corrected herself. "I don't think I want to, I guess. I go digging through boxes to find a skillet or my files. I have boxes stacked along bare walls. Curtains were the first priority, though, so the neighbors can't see me running around in there naked. Need a little privacy."

"I love moving into a new house. It feels so fresh and new, like starting over."

CHAPTER 5

REGINA DROVE HER black Porsche between rows of palm trees, up North Beverly Drive to her former home in the middle of Beverly Hills, although actually located down on the flats. Now her ex-wife-in-process had the house, along with the palm trees, the pool, the yard, the gardeners, and the kids. _She can damn well have the bills, too,_ Regina felt, and she was relieved her wife wasn't asking for any alimony or child support. Marsha was the one with most of the money anyway, being a successful lawyer, but the real reason she was making no demands was probably because she wanted to sever all ties with Regina, just keep her away. Marsha didn't want others in her life to know she'd been married to a freak.

And Regina also knew she was lucky at that. Sometimes if a divorce gets nasty, the spouse will level charges of abuse or molestation to hurt the other and improve a negotiating position, but Marsha hadn't. And Regina didn't want to do anything to hurt Marsha or the kids. So theirs was a clean divorce-in-process, no fighting, just paperwork.

The problem was, Regina missed her children so much she could feel the emptiness in her gut. The source of the feeling wasn't just the move, the loss of her old identity, or the painful changes she'd had to make under crisis. It was the loss of her family. At night when she was trying to go to sleep, she'd feel the vacuum in her stomach created by their loss. On waking alone. When seeing other families in public. On coming home to her own, separate, empty house. The look of worry on Marsha's face when Regina left, the look of loss on her daughter's.

That was the image that stayed with Regina so clearly when she was trying to sleep or eat or work: her daughter, Lisa, crying, while Daddy was willfully driving away.

She was still grieving the loss of her children. She had to see them if she could without upsetting Marsha too much.

She knew being at the house was a violation of her implied agreement to stay away, that she could embarrass them all, that going there could change the course of her divorce, still not final; but she'd held both children in her arms when they were born, cuddled them when they were infants, picked them up when they fell, cleaned scrapes, helped them learn to walk and then ride a bicycle, moved with them from their old house in Santa Monica to this house in Beverly Hills. She had got them seated in a new school and shared these last dozen Christmases with them.

To have that all ripped away because she couldn't keep the bedroom door locked? Because she felt like a woman? Because they couldn't stand to see her as a woman? It seemed such a major loss for such minor things.

How could this be? She'd raised them to be more liberal than that, to be more accepting—

There was nothing she could do about the situation, but she did sorely miss them. She ached to see them. Her last visit had been months before. She'd driven by a dozen times, never stopping, never getting out of the car, never seeing the kids in the yard or coming and going, all the time questioning her agreement to stay away for "their benefit."

The thought of her kids being raised without her made her feel empty inside. She'd not be allowed to go to any school plays, no concerts, no movies, no birthdays, no pool parties, no graduations, nothing. Until they were of age and probably never even after that, if the wife had any say in it, with the assumption that, after six or seven years of the poisoning the kids would get from their mother, they wouldn't want to be around Regina anyway.

She parked her Porsche on the driveway for the first time in months.

By Beverly Hills standards, the house was on the less expensive side of the median, though still nice. Her savvy ex-to-be was able to buy the place two years ago because she was a smart real estate attorney who learned of the former owner with a problem and then bought the house on the cheap to prevent foreclosure. The transaction was all very hush-hush as that former owner had a public reputation to uphold, so the public line was that he was fed up with the pejorative "left coast" and was moving to Miami where he could still live in the U.S. but be closer to the Caribbean.

Who cared, really?

Regina missed her kids.

She got out, walked to the front door, and rang the bell with her knuckle so she wouldn't break a nail. Time passed, The foot didn't pat. She stood like a lady, patient. Someone should be there this time of day. The sun shone, shadows crept, and birds chirped.

Finally the door opened, and there stood Marsha: five feet, seven inches, hair perfectly styled, a striking figure in a tailored miniskirt suit, black two-inch pumps. Perfect, save the stern look on her face.

Marsha stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. "Get out of here!" she said in a loud whisper.

Regina opened her mouth to speak, but Marsha cut her off.

"Get out of here!" Marsha repeated.

Regina didn't move.

"I'll call the police!" Marsha threatened.

"No, you won't. That would draw attention," Regina countered.

"Yes, I will! And, yes, it would draw attention, but having been drawn, I'll have no reason to worry any longer about the neighbors, so I'll get you arrested for trespassing, and I'll tell my lawyer you violated your agreement to stay away, and I'll sue for child support, and get I'll get the court to question why you want to wear dresses near your kids! I'll do all that to fuck you up!" Marsha waited a second for her threats to soak in.

"I have nothing to lose, Marsha," Regina said. "I've lost most everything but my self-respect."

"You've lost that, too. You just don't realize it." Marsha looked around, past Regina, to see if any neighbors were looking. None yet.

Regina said, "But they're still my kids, and I'm not sure I made the right decision in promising to stay away. Even if I'm a woman, I'm still their father."

Marsha's eyes rolled. "What a crock! Woman?"

"Yes—"

"Reggie." She looked angry but she paused, as if trying to organize her thoughts. "Reggie, you're a nice person. You're smart. You used to be a good father. But whatever you are, you're not a woman. You're just screwed up. Look at you! What the hell are those gallon jugs on your chest? Even if you were going to impersonate a woman, you don't look like one. You're wearing clothes designed to make you look like a man in a dress. Even if you were a woman, you don't have the figure for those clothes. Straight skirts are there to slim your hips, but yours are already tiny. Miniskirts are there to show off your legs, but your legs look like a man's. You look like a clown, a caricature of a drag queen. I don't want the neighbors to see you. I don't want the kids to see you. Especially Leon. He's twelve, and impressionable. You've hurt him quite badly already."

Marsha's words felt like daggers through Regina's heart. Nothing could be as painful, Regina was sure. Tears welled up in her eyes and began to smear her mascara.

"These are appropriate clothes for a woman. Women wear these—" Regina tried to respond.

"But you're not a woman, Reggie!"

Bigotry!

"I am inside—"

"Are you mental?"

"This is not a mental illness," Regina countered.

"You are totally unable to perceive reality, Reggie. You figure it out. Now get out of here!"

Regina didn't move, stunned.

"Now!" Marsha ordered. "Or I'll call the cops, so help me! And get you locked up with whatever drunks they have down at the jail. In the men's tank."

Marsha went back into the house and slammed the door.

Regina went back to her car, more from the force of Marsha's demand than from any cooperation with it. Tears flowed down her cheeks and stained her blouse.

There was a knock at her passenger-side window. Through tears, Regina looked. It was ten-year-old Lisa, squatting down to hide behind the door, her head barely seen through the glass.

Regina's heart jumped. She was overjoyed and humiliated at the same time, glad to see her daughter but not in this way.

Lisa looked surprised at the sight of her father. The girl had never seen Regina in full dress before. There was a hint of disgust at the sight, Regina could tell, but there was also determined insistence that Regina hurry and roll the window down. Regina did.

"What is your phone number, Daddy?"

Regina was so happy to hear Lisa's voice. Regina said, "I've been trying to see you for months—"

"Why are you dressed like that, Daddy?"

"I—" Regina didn't know what to say.

"Give me your phone number! Hurry up!" Lisa said. _Some of her mother's impatience in her,_ Regina felt, and she quickly shared her new phone number.

Then Lisa ran from the car, up the edge of the driveway toward the back of the house.

Regina felt a small spring of hope inside, which only made her feel more alone.

CHAPTER 6

REGINA DROVE up 10th St. in Santa Monica, above Montana, in her old, black Porsche, and turned into her driveway. In an area of well-kept older homes, Regina's was looking a little shabby. The lawn was not cut evenly. The sidewalk wasn't edged. The paint, while not cracked, looked a little tired. The one palm in the front yard needed to be pruned.

Regina didn't notice, largely because she didn't think to care.

She pressed the plastic button on her visor. The little, one-car garage door rose in response, and she drove into her cave, just short of an old motorcycle, without looking around at the other houses in the neighborhood. The garage door immediately lowered into place behind her.

She sat in the dark garage listening to her engine run.

For the briefest moment, he thought that leaving the engine on and letting the fumes take her might be her best choice. She laid her face into her hands on the steering wheel and cried, which did little more than make a mess. She didn't finish her cry. She never was good at crying, and she didn't feel better afterward as others claimed they did. Not caring if the mascara would ever come out of the fabric, she wiped her hands on her skirt and got out.

She entered the house through the attached garage, the click of her plastic heels echoing off bare walls, and she put her purse down on the naked kitchen countertop. She sat in a lone chair by the bar, staring out through the sliding glass door to the backyard, thinking of nothing. Her mind was as blank as the house, with a few thoughts and feelings stacked along the walls in boxes. Locked away from view. Hidden from use and awareness. Leaving the place barren and ugly, lonely. Sterile.

She wiped her eyes with a tissue.

Her wife had tolerated Regina's interest in wearing women's shoes and nighties for years, and she had also tolerated discussion of the idea of taking hormones. But when Regina started developing breasts of her own, her wife grew restless and began having irrational fits of crying, sometimes screaming at "Reggie" to stop this bullshit. "Crazy," she called it. Sick. Her husband, who had a pretty good physique for a man to start with, was getting small breasts growing on the pecs under his chest hair, developing into a "perverted blend" of partly man and partly woman. And in lipstick and a wig in the bedroom with his panties on, with those breasts growing, Marsha was disgusted.

And the kids saw her too soon, she felt. It was Leon, the boy, age twelve. Last fall. Regina didn't mean him to see. She thought the bedroom door was locked, but Leon opened it—never knocking on any door in his whole life—and saw his father in a slip, wig, and lipstick. If he had only waited to enter when she was fully dressed, it could have all been better. He kept his reaction to himself for two seconds before he screamed for his mom and sister, which gave Regina only another two seconds of relative peace before the entire family burst into the room. To stare at her. Which gave her another two seconds of relative peace before the room erupted into the next level of hysteria with their shock, accusations, stomping, and screaming.

The whole thing hurt. The event was humiliating, more than she could ever have imagined. She hoped for that day when it would all be fixed. If Leon had come in two minutes later, he'd have seen Regina in a dress, and then, maybe, he would have formed a better initial impression, But Leon had seen only the wig, the lipstick, and the slip, with Regina's developing breasts showing, bare, beneath chest hair.

Regina had planned to discuss her transition with all of them one day, calmly, before going public, but it had happened that way instead. Life has its own plans.

Marsha had then kicked Regina out, summarily. Then Regina's home was motels and an apartment, briefly, until finding this house to buy. Regina didn't have much money, but the house was rundown, a fixer-upper, and she grabbed it so she could have some place on the earth where she could try to relax. The backyard was pretty small, and half of it was taken up with a small patio and an old barbecue pit. But a high, wooden fence encircled the backyard, creating total privacy. No prying eyes from other houses could see in, and that was just the way Regina wanted it.

At the moment, though, she didn't have even a cup of coffee to sip. She just stared at the empty backyard—thoughtless, tired and depressed.

She thought about getting up out of the chair and moving into the living room, near the front of the house, to sit in a chair there, but that thought was depressing, also. Except for cardboard boxes lining the walls, the whole place was barren. Bare wood floors, bare walls, no lamps, some curtains were bought, but not hung up yet. No couch, only a couple of wooden chairs to sit on. The bedroom had a cheap, full-size bed in it, but no headboard. Her new women's clothes—she had probably bought too many under the circumstances—filled the closet and spilled over onto some racks she'd bought and placed for now in her bedroom. The house had only two bedrooms, and she didn't want to use the second bedroom as a closet; if one of her kids ever wanted to stay for the weekend, she wanted a room for Leon or Lisa.

She thought of going out onto the patio and sitting in a chair, but the move would take too much energy, and there was nothing to see out there, anyway, that she couldn't see from where she was. So she just sat in the dining room, listening to her thoughts echo off the walls, staring out into nothingness in the backyard.

Her knees drifted apart in an unladylike manner. She thought about masturbating, but she didn't even have the energy for that. Or maybe she did. She reached up her skirt for her panties but stopped when the doorbell rang.

This was the first time the bell had ever rung, and she was initially scared of who might be outside her door, embarrassed that she'd been touching herself when the bell rang and further depressed at how lonely the doorbell sounded. She tucked her semi-erect penis deep between her cheeks and went to the front door.

She opened it to find five happy ladies bearing food standing on the front stoop. Their bright, inviting faces froze for a second, but they were not without social skills. They recovered quickly.

"Hi! We're your neighbors," a woman who introduced herself as Pattie said with a bright, friendly smile.

"We've seen you come and go in your car for the last few weeks," a woman who called herself Nan said, "but we kept missing you, so today we all camped out over at Pat's." She indicated a house across the street with a nod of her head.

"And waited until you came home," the woman named Amber said.

"Like, you know, an ambush or something," said the self-identified Shelby.

"You can't avoid us for long!" the last woman, Lourdes, asserted with a smile.

Regina said nothing.

"We need fresh blood, and you're it, punkin'," Shelby told Regina.

Regina felt overwhelmed; she didn't exactly know what to say.

"Well?" Amber asked.

"You gonna invite us in?" Pattie asked.

"Um, hi." Regina made an effort to sound feminine. "Please come in," she added, stepping back and motioning her visitors into the living room.

They all piled in and stood among the boxes. Shelby made a quick trip through the other rooms. Nan checked out the view to the backyard.

"Oh, yes. This is the old Brown house," Lourdes said, looking at the walls.

"They never took care of the place," Nan said. "Just let it run down. It's a good house. It just needs someone to give it a little attention." They all agreed.

"But we don't mean to put pressure on you. Sorry," Shelby offered. "Can't you four leave her alone? We're in the door two seconds! She'll think we're animals."

To Shelby, Amber said "We ARE animals, sweetheart." Then to Regina she said with a fun smile, "After a couple drinks."

"If you don't get arrested once in a while, you aren't really trying," Lourdes confirmed.

Regina began to half-cock a smile at this rowdy bunch. _What kind of angels were these?_

With a nod of the head, Nan tried to explain, "That's Lourdes, your next-door neighbor that way," she indicated just to the north "Her father was a judge and went to jail a couple times for drug possession. So they won't let him be a judge anymore."

"Yeah, but he sounds like great fun," Pattie chimed in. I'm Pattie, I live across the street. I have that second-story balcony, and I can see everything that goes up and down the street, but I'm not a snoop. Just bored." She punctuated her words with a knowing nod. "Like, that's how I know you're a doctor. A Ph.D.? Like, in what?"

"You know that from watching me drive up?" Regina asked..

"No, silly," Nan said. "From your mail. We don't read it; we just know the mailman, Hank, real well, and it happened to slip a little."

Amber took Regina's hand and shook it. "I'm married to a nice, normal, middle-aged man with an idyllic, June Cleaver life." Big smile.

"Bullshit!" Nan said,

"No," Amber said while moving over to look at the kitchen.

Pattie continued, "You're a lesbian and you sleep with other people's wives and seduce them away from their husbands with the promise of great sex."

Shelby pretended to be aghast.

"No, she doesn't," Lourdes said. "She likes women because women are the greatest! Who the hell wants a man when you can have this?" She stood with her hip jutting out like a model on a runway.

They all giggled.

"I'd be a lesbian, too, if I were into women," Nan said.

"Now, there's wisdom for you," Amber said.

"No, truly," Shelby said. "We're kidding around. They're all lying to you to kid you. They're all straight, but I'm better. My one-and-only, long-time, solo lover is the one who I'd marry if it were legal, so I could and suck the juices out of her on a nightly basis." They all giggled in titillation. "She's Kendra, who I've been with for umpteen years already. We live four houses up past Lourdes."

"We're the local Neighborhood Fun Gang," Pattie said.

"Up to no fucking good," Shelby offered sarcastically.

"Not good for fucking, she means," Nan said. Nan had a gruff exterior, something like a biker.

"Really, we just like to do things together, and we thought we'd come over and get you into our group," Pattie said.

"Movies, shopping, games, baking Christmas cookies," Lourdes said.

"Thank God we're not a sewing circle," Shelby said. "Nan and I have butched the group up some. When we got here, they only wore white lace with pigtails."

"I'm not a dyke, though," Nan said. "I just ride a Harley. Bud and me both. Not everyone is a delicate flower like Kendra."

"What do you ride?" Nan asked Regina, pointing to the helmet on the floor by the garage door.

They all stood there, still holding the food, and looked at Regina, who stood in silence, half her face grinning, the other half downturned in dismay.

Regina stammered an answer, "A— An old Yamaha." Then she fell back into silence.

Pattie took the lead. "All right then. Ladies, take the food to the kitchen. Nan, would you organize in there and heat up that stew, because I'm hungry. If you can find the pots. Everybody else, let's get this place organized. Chop, chop," she said and clapped her hands twice.

People started happily moving. Food was stashed. The refrigerator temperature was reset. Cabinet doors and boxes were opened.

"Can someone turn on the TV?" Lourdes asked. "I want to catch the news. They're talking about a rally at the federal building, something about the Middle East and oil and all that."

"And it's too damn quiet in here, feels like a museum," Shelby said. She walked over to the small TV set sitting on the floor and turned it on for background noise.

They opened blinds, windows, and boxes.

"Oh, Jeez, lookey this!" Nan said, and she lifted a lava lamp out of a box. I haven't seen one of these since I was over at Shelby's yesterday."

CHAPTER 7

DAWN AND REGINA walked through the mall wearing matching bags and heels. Going shopping was a great woman's thing, and their interest felt self-affirming. All their adult lives they'd spent their time and money in a binge/purge cycle of surreptitiously buying women's clothing, wearing the garments at home, and then throwing them out for fear of being caught. But now that they were women, they could shop openly and proudly, and others approved of the activity.

So far, Regina had extra clothes hung on a rack in her bedroom because they wouldn't all fit in her closet. Dawn had converted her second bedroom into a huge closet, with racks along the walls to hold her growing collection. Not a pair of men's pants in sight.

"Oh, girl! Look at those shoes!" Dawn squealed like an air leak, which was a trick because her voice was deep. The pumps were red and glittery. They would have looked similar to Dorothy's if they hadn't had four-inch heels.

"For a basketball game? Are you kidding?" Regina asked incredulously. "Don't you think you should stick to two-inch heels, sweetie?"

"Lots of women wear four-inch heels!" Dawn protested.

"Yes, because they're short. But you're already six feet tall—"

She stopped at the dirty look from Dawn.

"If you've got it, flaunt it, Gina."

Regina bristled at her shortened name. "You can walk up and down the bleachers in those? I couldn't," Regina said.

Staring back into the window at the shoes, Dawn said, "You will when you get more experience. Oh, they would look just darling with that new dress we saw back that way," she said, pointing at a shop behind them.

"We've already spent enough, honey, don't you think?" Regina asked in a tone that mocked conservatism. "We've got to leave something for someone else. Besides, who am I going to get to carry all this stuff?"

Dawn giggled.

"These bags must weigh a hundred pounds," Regina complained, again mocking.

"We need a manservant. Big and hunky, with hard muscles." Dawn laughed. She was into men—well, anybody, really, it seemed—but men, also.

Dawn baby-trotted in her black, four-inch heels to the window where the red shoes were on display. She half-squatted before them to look more closely and then called out a high price she read on a card beside the shoes.

"You shouldn't spend the money, really. You've got rent to pay," Regina said. Dawn was twenty-eight and hadn't bought a house yet.

"I've just paid it, Gina."

"RE-gina, please?" Regina tried to correct her friend as gently as possible, but her scolding came out insistent in tone. Regina had been her name _en femme_ since her testes dropped, and that's the way she liked to hear it. The whole thing.

"Okay, okay. But women often shorten their names. Look at Liza Minnelli!"

"I think that's her name, honey."

"Not short for Elizabeth?" Dawn asked.

"No. I think that's her real name."

Dawn nodded knowingly. "And a good one."

"But my name's not Gina; it's RE-Gina."

"Femme version of Reggie! Can't you think of a better name than that?"

"You mean like Dawn for Don?" That stung.

Regina tried to explain. "People always called me Reggie, but as time went on, I preferred to hear Regina, regardless. I'm a feminine version of myself. You think I went to all the expense of this breast surgery to hear something else?"

"Okay, all right. Never mind. RE-Gina," she said, waving her hand in dismissal. Then back to the shoes. "Fuck it. Yes, I can wear those up and down the bleachers at any Lakers' game," Dawn said. "Watch me!"

"You know, think Whoopi Goldberg! She did a movie about running a basketball team. Think sneakers. Running shoes. Or _basketball_ shoes for a game: there's a novel idea."

Dawn didn't even hear.

They went into the boutique and addressed the saleslady in their best women's voices.

"Good afternoon—ladies," The saleslady said with barely a hesitation.

"Oh, hi. Lovely day for some shopping, isn't it?" The saleslady started to respond but didn't get a word out before Dawn continued. "I'd like to see those shoes there, in an eleven, and that skirt, over there. Probably a twelve."

Regina leaned over and whispered into Dawn's ear, "Women aren't so pushy!" Which got her a scolding look.

"We _are_ women, Regina," Dawn whispered back. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck!"

"We're going to a Lakers' game this evening," Regina began explaining to the clerk, "and those games are such a fashion statement, aren't they? You ought to see some of the clothes women wear there!"

"And I guess you will!" the saleslady said, obviously pandering to her purchaser. "I'll go and get them. Would you like to go into that dressing room there?" she asked.

"Absolutely," Dawn said, giving a dirty look to Regina.

For years Dawn had bought women's clothing by just guessing at the size and buying it without trying it on, because she'd been a man at the time; but now, being invited into women-only territory was almost a badge of honor. She walked over to the ladies' dressing room.

The saleslady brought nearly a dozen different skirts and dresses before Dawn settled on one skirt. The dresses didn't fit. Her shoulders were the problem. They were too broad for the clothes the store had in stock. She had to go to a big-and-tall store for ladies most of the time. But skirts were easier, as she was usually a size twelve in the waist and hips.

Dawn came out of the dressing room wearing the new skirt: a straight cut to just above the knee, made of slinky rayon. She wore a pair of come-fuck-me shoes.

"How's this?" she asked the saleslady and Regina.

"Fine."

"I think it's a lovely color," said the saleslady with a big smile. "It brings out the blush in your skin."

Dawn glowed and readily paid for both items with her credit card.

"Now," Dawn said when they were leaving, "can you tell me where the lavatory is?"

"We don't have one in the store, but the ladies' room is just down the food court." The saleslady smiled sweetly.

In the mall Regina wanted to know. Normally, she was fairly reserved, but she asked Dawn, "Do you think she read us?"

"No. She took us for the women we are." Dawn was sure of it. "She showed us skirts, and did you notice how I asked for the 'lavatory' in a nongender manner? But she referred us to the 'ladies' room,'" she said, nodding her head in confirmation. "This happens all the time."

Regina was happy and thankful.

"You're new at this, Regina. I've been shopping as a woman since last fall. "People see what they want to see. If you believe you're a woman, others will believe you're a woman."

* * *

Seventeen thousand people screamed the roof off the Forum as the basketball teams fought their way back and forth across the court. The Lakers' "Showtime Team" was setting the pace.

"Magic! Magic! Magic!" Dawn and Regina yelled with the crowd.

Regina heard the people behind her talking, so in the spirit of group experience, she cut in to offer her comments. "Right! Loved Kareem, too. But Magic Johnson can handle them! You'll see."

The man behind looked at her but said nothing.

The woman behind them gave them a polite smile. "I'm sure you're right," she said politely.

"Oh, I love your outfit," Dawn said to her. "Where did you get that blouse?"

The lady was wearing a Lakers-type jersey she'd bought in a gift store.

"Please excuse her," Regina said to the lady. "She's off her meds right now." Then to Dawn, "Are you kidding? _Lakers!_ " she said, clearly indicating the jersey. "Hello?"

"Oh! Shit! Yes. Sorry," Dawn said. "How stupid. Jees." Then, "Habit!" she said to the lady. "Sorry."

Regina grabbed Dawn by the shoulders and spun her back around to the front, casting an apologetic look at the lady behind her just as the crowd exploded into another scream. Dawn and Regina looked up to see what had happened, but they'd missed the action.

"What happened? Somebody make a touchdown?" Dawn asked.

"Ay-yi-yi!"Regina said to Dawn. "That stupid act may feel feminine to you, but it's coming off as annoying. Will you stop it?"

Dawn's mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

The guys in front were talking to each other and seemed to know what was going on, so Regina leaned forward to ask, "What'd we miss?"

"Charging," the guy on the left said. "We get the ball."

"I know about charging," Dawn said.

"Ah, now that's a fact," Regina said.

The guy in front on the right continued in some kind of a country drawl, "Basketball is a fast sport, you know. Baseball, now that one puts me to sleep. I sit there for hours waiting for someone to do somethin'."

"Yeah, but didn't you see _Field of Dreams_? Came out last year," Regina asked him.

"I did," the one in front on the left said. "Great movie."

"Doesn't it make you sit there during a real game thinking someone will materialize out of the back wall or something?" Dawn said. "Shoeless Joe or Kevin Costner's dad or somebody?"

The two guys looked at her humorously. Regina looked up for spiritual guidance.

"Hey, are you two guys gay?" Dawn asked them.

They were taken aback for a second, but then the guy on the right answered in his country drawl, "Sorry, hon. That may be a normal question out here, but I'm from Odessa, Texas, so it takes me by surprise."

"You came out from there to watch a Lakers' game?" Regina asked.

"Didn't know I was," the Texan continued. "But my friend here bought the tickets. He's trying to butter me up with the game 'cause he wants to buy my company. So I figure—hey—sure, I'd love to see a real game for a change."

"I didn't know Texans liked the Lakers," Dawn said to both of them.

"I didn't know women did, either," the Texan said.

The men turned back around to the front. Then Regina noticed the Texan pull a business card out of his left coat pocket and reach behind him to hand it to Dawn surreptitiously.

"I think I'm going to split right after the game," Dawn said quietly to Regina.

Magic got the ball and made another basket with easy grace. The crowd screamed their love to him.

CHAPTER 8

REGINA LAY ON THE SAND about a half a mile up the beach from the Santa Monica Pier, close enough to hear a bit of the noise for atmosphere, but far enough away for the beach to be peaceful.

The time was about one o'clock in the afternoon. Morning stratus clouds had melted away, and the sky was a rich blue. That's what the clouds did near the Los Angeles–area coastline, often in the summer, because of an onshore breeze and the cool waters just offshore. Everything would be overcast in the morning—sometimes all day—but usually, about noon, the clouds would melt away to form a perfect day.

Just like her life: cloudy at first, beautiful later.

The sand beneath her was about as warm as the sun above, maybe eighty degrees or so overall. Great for roasting all day.

She'd worn her bikini. She'd worked out how in the past couple of months: wax chest hair, trim eyebrows, shave everything else: arms, calves, thighs, and bikini line—but she did that anyway. Then all she had to do was wear her bikini and take a towel. She was getting a great tan. She was concerned about her scrotal bulge, as no matter how you shake it, that was not a common appearance among women.

To have a "break day" like this one, Regina would park the Porsche in the lot and gather up everything she needed for her day at the beach, including a small radio, small picnic basket, thongs, and a large beach towel. She would then walk to her spot on the beach with the towel wrapped around her. She didn't want to wear a wrap, because wraps often aren't feminine enough. She liked to show her shoulders.

When she arrived, owing to the bulge in her bottoms, she'd wait until no one seemed to be looking to lay her towel down. She would stretch out on it and then drape a portion of the towel over her middle as if to reduce sun exposure. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she could tuck just a little better, and, keeping her legs together, she could let them get a little sun.

* * *

Regina held her hands dutifully on the steering wheel of her Porsche while she waited for the police officer to walk up from his cruiser. Her eyes followed him in her mirrors.

As they were supposed to, the cruiser's flashing lights attracted attention. A few people stopped to see what was happening.

The officer arrived at Regina's window, flipping open his ticket book, and looked at her, pausing a few moments longer than she'd have expected.

She felt her heart sink a little, kept her hands on the wheel.

"Driver's license and registration, please," the officer said without a smile.

Her hands a little unsteady, she reached into her purse on her lap and drew them out for him.

He looked at the information, at her, back at the information, back at her. "Are you Reginald Isler?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered as politely as she could.

The officer grimaced. "Is this your address?"

"No. It's where I used to live, but I got divorced and had to move a few months ago."

The officer thought for a second and then said, "Step out of the car, please."

"Officer, I'm only wearing my bikini. I've been to the beach—"

"Step out of the car, please." The officer stood back a few feet to allow the door to open.

Regina slowly released the steering wheel, got out—careful to keep her knees close together—and stood by her car, in front of the officer and a growing crowd of onlookers. Her hair was about a foot long at that point, combed back over her head. She wore a little red bikini over her large rib cage, C-cups, and small hips, with her bulge plainly visible in the bottom of her bikini. Her muscles were rounded, softened from two and a half years of female hormones, but they were still largely there.

The officer stepped back another two steps to stare at her.

Regina glanced at the onlookers, the officer, and then at her feet. She felt her face redden in humiliation and anger. She could feel people staring at her. She wanted to complain to the officer for his callousness, but no matter how she felt, she had to play this game—in case it got worse, make it clear from the start, in front of these people, that he is the aggressor—and get out of this situation without making something bigger of it. He could haul her off to jail if he were that kind of ass hole. It was 1990, for God's sakes; this shit shouldn't still happen. She remembered Virginia Prince's experience, and she was notable in the field. Other transgenderists had had problems also. Once, Regina had witnessed it, herself, a few years prior: a cop berated someone in drag on a city street, and when the woman complained, the cop cuffed her and took her away. Regina complained loudly to the Mayor, and the police apologized to her—Regina—of all things. What about the lady in question?

Regina felt reading people was a forte of hers, and this cop was pissed, trying merely to act proper on the surface. She sensed he knew people were watching.

_People are probably watching to see if there will be violence_.

"You people move on," the officer told them.

The people shuffled to move, but largely stayed.

The officer turned back to her.

Regina wondered about the cop. She didn't want him to arrest her.

"Reginald Isler?" The officer said loudly enough for others to hear.

"Yes," she answered respectfully and also loudly enough for others to hear.

"What in the hell are you doing?"

"Just driving home, officer," she said. Her voice shook a little at his manner.

"Are you sure you're the person on this driver's license? I can see you're 'something,' but you don't look like him."

"I am he, officer," she said and then added in a slightly softer tone, "I'm going through a transition. I'm becoming a woman. It's a medical condition."

Regina was careful to stand still and keep her hands at her side. She didn't want anyone to mistake a movement, least of all the cop.

The officer looked at her as if to imply that it's a mental condition. She added for legitimacy, "I'm under a doctor's treatment. I can give you his name if you like."

There was a sound behind the officer.

"People! Move along! It's just a traffic stop," the cop told the onlookers. Two of them walked on. Most just took a step in some direction but then remained yet again to watch.

The cop looked disgusted at the whole situation. "You know what you did?" he asked Regina.

"Yes," she said. "I accidentally cut someone off in my car, caused him to swerve. There was no accident, but I'm very sorry. I'll be much more careful going forward."

"See that you do," the officer demanded.

"Get back in your car, 'madam,'" the officer said sarcastically. He gave Regina a ticket. "Get this taken care of. You don't want me coming back."

* * *

She paid the ticket through the mail.

But what to do about the driver's license?

She followed a friend's advice, obtained a doctor's letter of "gender change" to a "woman," implying sex reassignment surgery. Hoping the clerk would misunderstand, and hoping she wasn't breaking too many laws, she took it to the DMV on a busy day so the clerk might not look at it too long.

Was this fraud or perjury in misrepresentation? She didn't even know the law. She worried. She'd feared becoming someone doing risky things she'd counseled others against. The thought of jail crossed her mind briefly, but the threat was fleeting. Jail never seriously occurred to her, nor did asking a lawyer for advice. Law was not her forte. As much as she hated the cop's treatment of her, as much as she felt traumatized by it, the thought of how people would treat her in prison—maybe a man's prison—was too horrible to contemplate, so she didn't. Yet worried anyway. And if the DMV wasn't enough to do it, then what if something else— What if some other cop fabricated something, or someone accused her of something?

She felt like an easy target. Something about the cop's attitude left her scared.

She looked at her new driver's license when it came in the mail. It said "Regina Isler" on it, and it bore her new address and a nice photo of her in full hair and makeup. It had the royal "F" on it for "female."

CHAPTER 9

IN THE SHOWER, Regina applied a conditioner to her hair. The conditioner was some new stuff that cost a fortune—money she shouldn't be spending—but her hair seemed too thin and fine. Evidently, that was a problem a lot of women in Beverly Hills had because that's where she bought the stuff, which, in exchange for a hefty sum, was supposed to make her hair thicker. _It damn well should,_ she figured. She could weave dollar bills into her hair cheaper than this.

She rinsed and got out of the shower just in time to hear the answering machine click off in the living room.

Wearing a towel, she played the message. "Hello, Reggie, this is Mom. Where have you been? You haven't come to visit in months. If you don't feel comfortable here, we can go out shopping or something. I've got to get to know you again because no matter what, you're still my— I'm still your mother. Call me, and that's an order! Okay?" Click, the recording ended.

Her father had been in the army. A bit starchy, he had always referred to himself as Colonel George H. Isler. Her mother was kidding about the order. Her father used to give the orders, but he had passed away a couple of years before from a sudden heart attack.

What to do with her mother? The woman absolutely refused to call her "Regina" or "she" or "her," let alone refer to her as "my daughter," but she said she wanted to pal around and go shopping? But Regina needed family, even if her mom fought Regina's new role.

Regina was truly sorry that her wife divorced her and kept her kids away, but they were nearly teenagers and likely were self-absorbed, anyway. You could spill a drink in your new Lamborghini, and your kids might reject you when they're teenagers.

_I'd love to see them, though,_ she thought, Lisa with her bright smile, and Leon so clever. But Marsha made it clear that Regina was not to come around. It was her doing. Lisa hadn't called. Regina had left messages for the girl several times, but no one ever returned her call. _It's an adjustment period,_ she guessed. _Often adjustment takes a year or two._ But she hoped that after a time, her children would adjust. _We aren't Neanderthals._

After all, no matter what, she was still their father.

Regina had never been close with her own father, though. He was an asshole—or maybe he was just an ass. He wasn't overly harsh, but he was nothing warm to hug, either. He was direct in his criticism, and that stung sometimes, but he was also clear about what he expected. You knew where you stood with him. There was no guessing. Diplomacy wasn't his style, a fact that became especially clear one day during an inspection when he found some panties in Regina's drawer and on another day when he caught her dressing.

Regina would rather have died when that happened, but, unfortunately, that's not the way things went. Instead, she just put up with his rudeness. He had berated her about dressing in front of the whole family.

She'd wanted desperately to leave then, but where can a teenager go?

Thankfully, her dad was away on trips most of the time. Originally from Fort Smith, Arkansas, the family got bounced around a lot, moving from base to base, until Mom finally put her foot down and planted the family in Pasadena. If her husband wanted to travel the world, he could, but she said after twenty years in the army, she needed a china cabinet with some real china in it and a place where the family could come visit on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Her mom wanted Regina to go visit? Regina hadn't been back to show her mom her new breasts, but she didn't think she'd go any time soon.

She had visited her mom six months before at Christmas, wearing a brand new, conservative dress with matching heels and bag, just after her transition, yet before her breast augmentation. The visit was a disaster. You'd have thought someone dropped a bomb on the place. Back then, her breasts were lucky to be an A-cup, though they were thankfully noticeable. She was proud of them, but her family kept using the wrong name or pronoun for her, as her mom had on the answering machine. And while they didn't degrade her outright, she was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room that no one wanted to talk about.

But now, with her C-cups, maybe her womanhood would be more clear.

Help her mother adjust. In spite of everything else, help her mother, too.

Maybe.

That would have to be another day. She couldn't face the thought right now.

CHAPTER 10

REGINA WENT to the women's bar she'd begun to frequent after work. She didn't like to go home to that empty house.

She'd finally gone back to teaching at the university. At first her classroom was only half-full, but after the first day, it filled rapidly. Quite the opposite of what she'd been told, privately, when she'd gone on sabbatical, the students actually seemed to like her. She still needed a lot of courage to face them, but if she came to class wearing a new pair of heels or sporting a new dress, they always seemed to express approval.

She ordered a glass of wine from the bartender and took a table along one wall to relax a bit, when she saw her: a charming, thin, blond wallflower sitting all alone in the corner nearest the door. Barely in the place. And no drink.

Regina looked around. At five o'clock in the afternoon, the bar had few customers, and no one seemed to be accompanying the flower in the corner.

Regina sipped her wine and did nothing, but she noticed the young lady looking at her. This look seemed to be different from the look she often got from people—one of curiosity. Instead the lady seemed to want to talk. So Regina crooked her left index finger and beckoned the blonde over with a smile.

Gently, the lady rose and walked over, but she didn't sit. She just stood in front of Regina.

"Hi," Regina said, in a voice a little less exaggerated than usual. She wasn't in the mood for feigning a whole lot of womanhood right now. "Please," she said, "have a seat." There was something almost professional in Regina's manner.

The lady did so, but she didn't say anything. She didn't smile, either.

"I'm Regina," Regina said. She waited, but the other didn't share her name. "And what's your name?" she asked.

"Sarah. Sarah Lowe," which said she was new to women's bars. Even though it was the '90s and lesbianism was supposed to be out of the closet, people still tended to restrict access to their lives beyond the bar. Gals rarely gave their last names right off the bat.

"I'm just in here after work. Sometimes I come in to relax. I teach psych over at the university."

"Oh," Sarah said. "Okay." She sounded a little afraid to talk or even to be in the bar.

Regina waited a few seconds to scrutinize Sarah before gently proceeding. "You—" Regina chuckled in a friendly way and then said disarmingly, "Sorry for my assumptions, but you seem a little scared to be in here right now." She hoped her warm smile would help melt the ice with Sarah.

"Well," Sarah said, sheepishly. "I, um, am new to this." Sarah motioned to the whole bar.

Regina relaxed in her chair.

"Well, you're okay here. Other than a few obvious eccentricities, I'm a harmless, boring teacher, and Marni, that butch bartender over there, would grab you up and take you home in a second, but she's way over there, and she can't reach this far. So you're safe."

Sarah smiled for the first time and sat at Regina's table.

"Would you like a glass of wine? Just one?" Regina asked Sarah.

"Yes, thank you."

"Red or white? That's about as picky as you can get in here."

"Red, please."

"Marni?" Regina called out across the room. "A red wine, please."

"I'm Regina Isler," Regina said, extending her hand for a handshake. Sarah took it, and it was their first touch.

For some reason, Regina felt she could be open and honest with Sarah. The blonde seemed so soft and flexible, and even inviting, as if she were truly interested in Regina.

"Let me guess," Regina said. "You came to Los Angeles on a bus from Idaho to make it on the big screen in Hollywood, and they misunderstood over at the big archetypal studio and put you into porn films?"

Sarah laughed.

The wine came, and Sarah sipped, but Regina kept on. "You were at a soiree in the Sudan when you were seduced by a sultan into serving in his harem, but you slipped away on a steamer and sailed away to safety here in this sleazy place?"

Sarah laughed again.

"We aren't really sleazy here, but the word seemed to slide so nicely into the rest of the sentence."

Sarah smiled.

"You're a dental technician from Westwood?"

"No."

"A horse trader from Alabama?"

"No."

"A Chinese immigrant?"

Sarah laughed again. She was Caucasian, and she didn't look even remotely Chinese.

"An astronaut on leave from the Air Force?"

"No."

"God, tell me you're not from New York," Regina said in mock horror.

"Broadway," Sarah said with a nod. "Stage actress."

"No! Oh, Jeez! That ruins you for me! Like, how can I talk with one of _them?_ "

Sarah looked at her teasingly, and Regina realized she'd been had.

"Well," Regina offered with an air pretend self-importance, "I'm a wealthy entrepreneur from Century City. I own one of those buildings over there, the one with all the glass windows on it," she pointed to one, which was like all the rest, "and I'm just in here for a short while because my limo is having a new Jacuzzi installed."

"No, you're a teacher who's having a drink."

Bright smile. "Or that," Regina acknowledged with a nod of awareness. "I knew I was something like that."

They fingered their drinks a while until Sarah finally asked simply, openly, "So, what are you doing here?"

Regina found the candor refreshing. Then she caught herself. She'd have been insulted or disappointed, she thought, if most people had asked the question, but with Sarah, it seemed so simple and pure. Nothing negative in it.

"Midlife crisis," Regina said.

Sarah smiled at Regina again, knowing she was being teased.

"No. I'm thirty-eight now, and I finally decided to be myself, so I did all this."

"Are those real?" Sarah asked, pointing to Regina's breasts.

Regina touched them with her finger and looked at them inquisitively. "They seem real from here. Real plastic," she said. "But they're partly real. That part is one of the most genuinely womanly things on me. I was an A-cup before, but I had them pumped up to a C."

"And what about—" Sarah didn't finish.

Regina took a couple seconds to catch up. "Oh. Yes, that's still there. I don't want to remove that. I have a use for that. That's me: I love women, and I wanted to be one, so this is what I wound up as. I was married. My wife divorced me. I transitioned this year."

Sarah's face fell in sorrow.

Regina continued. "I have two kids who don't want to see me now. I have a small house in Santa Monica."

Regina could see that she'd hit a nerve with Sarah. "What about you?"

"My husband left me. I don't know why."

Sarah looked as if she might cry, and tears might be a conversation stopper, so Regina jumped in. "Oh, let me guess: he has an I.Q. of minus ten, and he's running for office in the local chapter of Dumb Fucks of America?" Regina knew that sometimes love just changes, that people grow apart, but she was trying to sound encouraging to Sarah, empowering. She wanted to lift Sarah up, right now, not be reasonable.

"What the hell's the matter with you? Do you have warts?"

"No."

"You really did become a porn star?"

No. Sarah cracked a smile.

"What? Catholic or something? I hear the Pope's gay."

"No!"

Regina let her humor sink in, let Sarah take her time with her own disclosure. She knew the story would come out later, but for now, she segued. "Can you cook?"

CHAPTER 11

SARAH-DOORMAT-WALLFLOWER melted into Regina's life as if she'd been a part of it for years. She came home with Regina that evening and didn't leave for a week—and then only to go to her former house to get her things. The second bedroom worked great as a storage closet for her. The main bedroom was renamed "the Nest."

_What am I doing_? Regina asked herself, but only once. Love was happening, and she was delighted. That hole in her heart had found relief.

The match seemed surprisingly perfect. Where was the hitch? They enjoyed each other's company, enjoyed the same foods and activities. Sarah stayed. Regina felt as if the whole world had turned right-side-up. Her classrooms and the streets were the same, but the people around her were all different, perhaps because she was brighter with them. Suddenly they were nicer to her, warmer with her. And the house was totally different. Instead of being a cave of isolation or retreat, it became a loving place of nurturance.

She felt as if she'd been living in a tired, old, black-and-white vampire flick—not drinking anyone's blood but being the powerful, charismatic, walking dead, living in bleak, lonely surroundings—as if everything had been straining to exist in form only.

Then, with Sarah, the whole world came to life. Color, taste, smell all begged for notice. Regina was happy to walk through the living room—and now it was a _living_ room. She was happy to enter the kitchen, happy to go to bed, to get up, and to shower.

She noticed she wasn't as afraid to go to work in the mornings. _Afraid to go to work_ , she pondered. The idea caught her by surprise. She knew she'd been eager to go to work to get away from the lonely house, to mix with people, but she realized she was also afraid to be at the university, knowing she'd have to come back to an empty house. That must have been the problem.

But now, she felt her life was at home, with Sarah.

* * *

Disneyland: Riding roller coasters. Watching the "Golden Horseshoe Revue." Eating at the indoor/outdoor French restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean. Staying out half the night to enjoy the ambiance. The two of them soared and shared.

They walked over the drawbridge to the castle, and Regina squeezed Sarah's hand. "I love you," Regina said.

"I love you, too," Sarah told her.

* * *

Long Beach: Aboard the _Queen Mary,_ they pretend-sailed the oceans with dignitaries; on the Spruce Goose, they pretend-flew with Howard Hughes around the world.

Love was in the air. It did not occur to Regina, anymore, to question love. She just wanted to feel it.

* * *

Marina del Rey: Yacht club dinner. Regina hadn't been there in a year, since her transition, and she likely wouldn't have gone back but for Sarah. Sarah made attendance possible, emotionally, for Regina. They ate dinner, talked about boating, and had a wonderful getaway. And others tried to grapple with what wasn't said.

* * *

Pasadena: The family. Christmas Dinner. Sarah and Regina went together and shared a meal with the family, just like in the movies. Little Sarah was Regina's bodyguard, her knight, her protector. Regina couldn't face her critical family without Sarah. Sarah's being there made all the difference because she was so supportive. She meant so much. There were smiles, good food, wine, presents. Regina and Sarah wore matching skirts and heels. The undies matched, also, and they shared that fact with the family as well.

* * *

Avalon, Catalina Island: Thirty-eight nautical miles sailing from Marina del Rey to Avalon. Moored in the vicinity of the other thirty-six-foot sail boats. Walking up the streets to the beautiful sights from atop the hills. Touring the casino on the northwest side of the bay. Eating in restaurants along the beach. Walking on the sand. Looking for the spot where Doris Day crashed up on the beach in _The Glass Bottom Boat._ It was always beautiful, but it was stunning when shared with someone like Sarah.

Everything Sarah did seemed to be exactly what Regina wished for.

* * *

Shopping mall: Rows of stores. The three of them shopping together: Mom, Regina, and Sarah. Like three musketeers on a raid.

* * *

"Oh, we've been having a marvelous time," Sarah told the Neighborhood Fun Gang one evening at dinner. The group met for an evening dinner about once a month at someone's house, this time at Lourdes's, next door to Sarah and Regina's house. They were all milling around the kitchen, getting in one another's way as usual, getting something cooked somehow, and having a good time socializing.

"I'm glad we kicked the men out," Shelby said, "so you can all google-eye over Kendra, here. Get the chance to see how life is really lived!" she said, referring boastfully to her lover who was helping in the kitchen. All eight of them were washing dishes, chopping vegetables, browning hamburger.

"Really, except when you're riding my Harvey like a Harley for hours on end," Nan said through many pretend jibes. She was as normal as any of them, but sometimes she popped off with some imitation, crude biker joke.

"Like that huge old thing you drive? What is that?" Regina asked.

"It's a 'soft tail,'" Nan said. "We've always ridden Harleys," she added.

"I would, too, if I had one all the time," Regina said tautologically. She got some jibes with that.

"What kind is yours?" Kendra asked Regina.

"Well, this one is a Yamaha, but I've had several," Regina said. "The Goldwing was just about perfect, but I wound up selling it for a Beemer for no good reason. Then a Kawasaki, and then I got this Yamaha. God knows what I'll have next year."

"It's just something to play with," Lourdes said. "I know. It's like Raul used to do when we met. Changing them around is part of the fun, I guess. He kept working on them over in the garage." Lourdes leaned back on the counter to watch the others cook in her kitchen.

"You guys own the garage. He should be able to get someone else to work on them," Pattie said.

"Yeah, well, I think tinkering with them is part of the fun, too. Toys," she said, confirming.

"Amber," Sarah asked, "I haven't seen you with anyone in quite a while. Do you have anyone?"

Amber looked a little embarrassed. "Not at the moment." The group quieted for a second. "Not at most moments."

"Why?" Sarah asked. You're beautiful and smart. You make good money."

Amber, who was normally artistic and professional, didn't really have an answer to give. "Oh, I don't know. I just seem to be good at picking jerks."

"Well, you're dry anyhow," Regina said.

"Two years," Amber said.

"And that's a fact," Nan said, seeming proud of her.

They all cheered Amber.

"I know what it is: she's holding everyone up against Magnum P.I., and nobody measures up," Lourdes said, stirring the spaghetti in the pot.

"No, they don't. Big Tom is hard to beat," Kendra confirmed, winking in fun at her lover, Shelby.

Shelby reached over and put her arm around Kendra for a quick kiss.

"Oh! Let me go get my camera! Sam does love lesbian flicks," Pattie joked.

"So where are the men?" Sarah asked.

"Over at our place, across the street," Pattie said. "Probably watching sports on TV, eating pizza out of the box, and burping—"

"Drinking beer out of a can—" Lourdes said.

"And scratching their balls," Amber said.

"What is it with the balls?" Shelby asked.

They all laughed.

"That's okay. It's nice to be here, together, just us girls," Regina said.

* * *

Sarah and Regina sat on the lawn at the Griffith Observatory, reading books together, munching on nuts, sipping a soft drink. It was a beautiful place. Regina had always loved it there. High on the hill, the Hollywood sign stood to the northwest. Downtown was to the left, then the Wilshire District, Hollywood below, Century City a little farther away. On a clear day, you could see all the way to Catalina.

"I was talking with someone, and I think I know how we can do it," Regina said.

"How we could get married?" Sarah asked.

"Yes," Regina said.

"You have to show your driver's license at the county office to get a marriage license, and yours says 'F' on it. Two females can't get married, but if you tell them you haven't had surgery down below, they might make you switch your 'F' back to an 'M'," Sarah said.

"Well, I am female, but I wasn't thinking when I got the license changed," Regina said.

Sarah put her book down to listen.

"My driver's license says 'F,' but that doesn't change my anatomy that most of the world says is male," Regina said.

"So? You going to lift your skirt for the clerk to get a license?" Sarah asked.

"No. I'll show them my passport for identification. I haven't changed that." Regina smiled. "It's perfect! What a way to live!" Regina explained. "The way I see it, I can be female in society with an 'F,' and I can get married as a male with my passport. The house will be half yours, and I can get you on my insurance."

Sarah smiled warmly. It was all figured out, and they set a date for the third of next month. This was to be the happiest day of Regina's life since transition.

* * *

The next day after work, Regina came home to find Sarah and her things gone. There was no note. Nothing of Regina's was taken, but nothing was left of Sarah's, either, save one photo on the table of the two of them at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

CHAPTER 12

REGINA SAT LIFELESS on the doctor's examination table—her general practitioner in Century City, the one she'd had for years—wearing only a paper smock, open to the front. She couldn't enjoy the view out the window because there was no window to this room.

He poked and prodded, though gently.

"Lie back, please," he asked her carefully.

Regina heard him, but she was slow to respond. When she was lying back, he poked some more around her liver.

"Sit up, please."

"No stirrups?" Regina asked.

"No need," the doctor said. "Any trouble with your breasts?"

"No," Regina answered curtly and then said, "Why are you tiptoeing around me today, Charlie?"

"Oh, gosh. Why? Like, because when you're handling fragile egg shells, you're gentle. Don't want to break them," he said while he washed his hands in the sink.

"I'm not so fragile, Charlie. I help people who are fragile. I'm able to take life."

"Maybe you're a brilliant friggin' little therapist, but, like, you know, you're also human."

"You say 'like' too much."

"I've been a Malibu surfer dude since I was potty trained. I have to. And 'cool' and 'man' and 'dude.'"

"Remember Jaws? Sharks bite, fool," she'd told him a hundred times over the eight years she'd known him.

"I have a little sign on the bottom of my board, you know, like, 'Sharks, fuck off,' and I ain't never seen one. And they ain't never one of them hurt me as much as that chick hurt you, man."

"Woman, dude," Regina told him, speaking his own language.

"Hey, man, like, that ain't you! That's me." He held his hands open like an Italian for emphasis.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Regina said. That was just the way he talked.

"But that chick, man— And you might be the hot friggin' therapist, but, you know, when it comes to love, you got to know you're just plain gullible."

Regina hung her head. It was true.

Charlie took out a prescription pad and started scribbling.

"That's twice you've been dumped like that. Weak point, that's all. Like, remember when I went through that phase with that board sponsor? I got rail-banged, twice. Right in the balls."

"Yes."

"Yeah, well, you know, I did learn to use those boards, but I had to change my technique, you know? Made some money on that deal."

"You should have been a therapist, Charlie."

"No, I mean, like, Regina: you gotta change your technique, you know? Don't be so gullible with love."

Regina could hear him.

"You're a very sensitive chick. You need a lotta love. But you hurt yourself by jumping into it too fast, you know? Because you wind up with a net loss when they hurt you. So knock it off, okay?"

He scribbled something on a pad. "Stay on your same meds, but let's up the antiandrogen and get you over to the lab for some blood work. Okay? Cool."

CHAPTER 13

AS SHE DID A NUMBER OF TIMES in the early years, Regina talked to another college class on human sexuality, this time with a female-to-male who called himself Jason. Regina didn't know him; the professor had found him.

The class absorbed them both.

Jason was a young fellow, maybe twenty, and not entirely comfortable being on display in front of a class for the first time in his life. He wore jeans, a T-shirt, and pack boots. He was five-feet-five, a little plump: small head for a guy, small hands, and small shoulders, with larger buttocks than most would expect. His voice was a little raspy, like an adolescent male's. He had some definition in his biceps, some whisker stubble on his chin, and a flat chest.

Regina, nearing forty, was wearing a conservative skirt suit with matching two-inch heels, hose, matching undies, and full-face makeup. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She was quite a bit taller than Jason, with a deeper voice. Her forehead was high, revealed by her combed-back hairstyle, her head larger than usual. Her shoulders were wide, arms long, hands large, abdomen thick, hips narrow, buttocks missing, knees knobby, calves thin, and feet large. She had C-cups on her chest.

But to Regina, she was a thirty-nine-year-old sophisticated woman, sporty in her new suit, tall and sexy, a visiting lecturer. She didn't think she looked like a transgenderist. She felt she looked more like a lawyer in this suit.

She and Jason were sitting on the prof's desk at the front, facing the class.

Regina gave instructions for using her question-asking hat, as usual, and got the ball rolling—only this time the hat was loaded for Jason as well.

A student halfway to the back, with an insecure grin, pulled out the first question.

"Do we have to use that hat?" Jason asked Regina and everybody. "I mean, I know it facilitates questions, but it's so artificial."

"It's worked before," Regina said. "I hoped you wouldn't mind."

"Well, I do," Jason said irritably.

Regina worried about him and started to pat him on the back, but stopped herself as the gesture might seem patronizing.

The student asked the question she pulled out. "Jason, have you had a genital surgery? A phalloplasty?"

"Oh, holy shit. _Fuck_." That was it. He was done, and Regina thought he might leave, so she jumped off the desk.

"Oh, sorry. Too much hat," Regina said. She jumped into the seats to take the question-asking hat back from the students, her appeasement to Jason. "You know, I'm sorry, but the direct nature of questions I put in that hat would be more suited to me. They could be enough to scare a truck driver off his CB. And Jason, here, seems like a fine, upstanding young lad who's not accustomed to this. So, my bad. I'm sorry, Jason."

Jason seemed somewhat reassured.

"Oh, I can't believe I did that. I'm so guttural." Regina went fishing in her purse. "Just for that, I'll have to punish myself good." She pulled her squirt gun out, acted as if she might accidentally squirt some of the class members—which got some squeals—and squirted herself in the face instead. Once.

The class seemed excited. Regina loved the squirt gun. Then trying to look as if she just thought of the idea, she handed the squirt gun to Jason.

The class complained, "Oh! No!"

Jason took the squirt gun. A devious smile grew on his lips, and he looked over at Regina.

"No! Jason!" she said commandingly. "Jason!" she said again as if she were scared.

Jason slowly raised the gun at Regina.

"Do it! Git it!" the class begged.

Regina started backing away from him, hands in the air, but Jason got off the desk and stepped toward her.

"Now Jason! You have to be prim and proper! A good boy! Don't be squirting innocent people with that _thing!_ " she screamed as he let her have it, a nice healthy squirt of tap water on the nose.

Regina let the water drip ceremoniously onto her blouse.

The class cheered Jason on, but he was a gentleman. "No," he said. "I won't squirt her twice for the same crime." Then he added, "And I think I'll get another chance later on."

Jason looked back at the student who had first asked the question and prompted her to finish.

Regina took a seat on the prof's desk again, next to Jason, acting as if she'd be a good girl.

"No," Jason said to the class, trying to get with it. "I haven't had genital surgery yet, but I'll get to some of it. I've only had top surgery at this point."

"Do you still menstruate?" another asked.

"Jesus!" Jason said, wincing. "No. Testosterone stopped that," he said. He looked at the squirt gun but did nothing with it.

"Breast removal?" the student asked.

"Yes."

"What about a hysterectomy, vaginectomy?" another student asked him.

He decided to answer more fully. "Some of us get hysterectomies. Some get other things taken out. Not too many get phalloplasty, though, because it doesn't work and just bulks up the place. What's the point? And the clit gets bigger and feels like the second coming."

He got some chuckle for his pun.

"Why aren't the genital surgeries very good?" Regina asked.

"I don't know," Jason answered. "Maybe because it's harder to add something new than to take something away."

"Yes," Regina said to the class, confirming. "Except for boobs, I think that's probably true."

The class laughed.

"Would you two ever date?" someone asked from the side, on her own.

"Oh, God, no," Jason said, before he caught himself. Then he looked at Regina. "Sorry," he said.

Regina was not offended.

"No," Regina said to the class. "I'm into women, and he— I don't know."

"Women," he said without embellishment.

The prof sat in the back and looked at his shoes.

"Do you date?" Another student asked both of them.

Jason said nothing.

"Other folks? Yes," Regina responded to the question.

"How are they?"

"It's no problem," she said.

"Have you had any _good_ relationships since your wife divorced you?" a student asked.

"Yes, but—" She hesitated. The class waited respectfully. Then she continued, "It'll come. There's someone for everyone." Then she felt the desire to philosophize a bit with them. "There's someone for everyone, if you can be yourself. That's one of the reasons I've got to be myself, because if you're false to yourself, if you're false to others, how can someone find you?"

She looked at Jason to see if he wanted to add anything, but he said nothing.

"If you represent yourself falsely and someone likes you," Regina said, "then who is it they like?"

Jason still didn't chime in.

"If you're representing yourself falsely to others, and they _don't_ like you, then is it you they _don't_ like?"

The class thought about the question, and the logic seemed sound. A few nodded their heads.

"I need friendships. I need love. I need my kids. I miss them. I need my family, my brothers, my sister, my mom. I need a wife. I need someone at home, someone to share life with."

The levity in the classroom was gone.

"I need someone to talk with, to go shopping with. I need to matter to someone. When the time comes that I'm older, I'll need to look back at my life and feel that it mattered.

"What's the point in gaining all this," she motioned to herself, "if only to be left alone—to relieve a pain in one area of life only to gain pain in another? To supplant gender dysphoria with loneliness and dejection from others?"

Then she summarized. "I need to be myself and to have the courage and strength to persevere. Then I'll be all right. Love will come along. There is someone for everyone."

SECTION 2

THE LONG MIDDLE

Age: 53

2005

Years in Transition: 15

Seasoned empowerment in role.

Reference has evolved to "transgender."

Appearance slides, not as fem.

Denial seats, engrained.

Loneliness is crushing.

CHAPTER 14

LENA AIMES, the host of a salty, Dallas-based TV talk show known for its outrageous confrontations, sat calmly in a luxurious chair on an elaborate set, with upwards of two hundred audience members in attendance. Three cameras were positioned on the floor before the audience. The ceiling was littered with a hundred lights and a thousand cables.

Regina stood in the wings with a friend, Michelle, a well-muscled transgender from Atlanta, who also served with her on the board of a nationally oriented transgender advocacy association. Michelle was the president this year, and Regina was in charge of memberships. Although the ultraconservative show had for years publicly degraded transgenders—as well as everyone else from gays to Democrats—the association's board wouldn't approve an official in-person response on air because of the confrontational nature of the topic. So Michelle and Regina decided to do the show on their own.

It was almost show time. Michelle wore an expensive skirt suit. Nervous, she kept pulling a hand-mirror out of her purse, checking her makeup, and then putting the mirror back into her purse.

Regina wore a pair of everyday jeans with a nondescript top she had found at a thrift store. She wore no makeup at all.

The lights brightened a bit. They saw a man tell everyone, loudly, to get ready. He counted backward, "Five, four, three," then held up two silent fingers, then one, and then pointed to Lena Aimes.

Lena started talking into the camera.

Michelle looked at Regina pensively, quietly. "Wish us luck."

"We have to say something, Shell. I've even got this trans hatred crap coming up in therapy," Regina said, referring to a part-time practice she maintained for a few transgender clients. "You mess with my clients, and you mess with me. We can't go on in silence. We shouldn't take the prejudice lying down. No offense," Regina said in fun because Michelle had once been a prostitute.

Michelle laughed at the unexpected joke.

Lena captured their attention. "This morning, we have as our special guest Dr. Regina Isler, whose latest book Making Woman Work, which is about living with transgenderism out in the open like anybody else," she held up a copy of the book, briefly, as if to show it to the world, "has captured the imagination of some conservative bloggers who adamantly disagree."

The camera went wide.

"Joining us now is Dr. Isler to fill us in."

The audience clapped on cue.

"Break a leg," Michelle said.

Regina looked at her.

"I used to be in collections, too," Michelle said.

Regina smiled at Michelle, walked out from behind a partition, waved at the audience, and moved to take a seat on the sofa opposite the host.

"Good morning, Dr. Isler," Lena said with faux warmth.

"Good morning. Call me 'Regina,' please."

"That your real name?"

"For a long time," Regina said with a faux smile.

"Regina. We have only a little time, so tell me: you're a man living as a woman—"

"No. I'm a woman living as a woman."

"But you haven't had the surgery down there?" Kristina asked.

Regina wasn't surprised by this. The interview was supposed to be about the book, but she knew Lena's agenda. "I've had surgery, but not down there, no."

"Then?"

"Read the book. It's been shown that gender identity is in the brain. I'm a woman. What's down there is just tissue."

"But don't the choices you make out here in the world reflect what's going on in your head?"

"There's a lot more going on than just that, in both places," Regina said.

"Oh. I see." Lena raised an eyebrow, looked at the camera incredulously.

"I know. You're making a joke of this, but millions of people are proving that old stereotype wrong every day."

"Oh, no, no. I'm not the one making jokes." Lena turned to face a camera again. "Ladies and gentlemen, please also welcome General Sherman T. Walcott of the Fifth Southern Brigade blog, which is growing in popularity on the Internet." Lena smiled and clapped heartily.

A burly, potbellied man in surplus army fatigues, with a fishing lure clipped to his pocket, came out from behind another partition. He wore a big smile on his face and dangled an unlit-but-chewed cigar from the right corner of his mouth—clearly a substitute for what would have been chewing tobacco if he'd been able to spit.

He was supposed to take a seat beside Regina, but he refused with a chuckle. The camera followed him off-stage, instead, while he found a folding chair propped against some scaffolding. He came back and sat beside the host, opposite Regina.

He continued to wear the smile, but it wasn't pleasant one. "Good mornin', little darlin'," he said to Lena.

Lena seemed to feel his show with the chair was funny. "You don't want to sit by her?" she asked.

"That ain't no 'her,' and I ain't sittin' by no freak."

The director cut to a shot that included some security personnel standing in the wings and then cut back to the three on stage.

Regina started to object to the man's reference, but he interrupted. "Ner pervert, neither," he said as if correcting himself, daring Regina to say anything in response.

Lena seemed to shrink back in her chair in happy anticipation of a fight.

Regina smiled. "The book," she said pleasantly, "is about an alternate lifestyle growing in popularity. It's always been here, but it's been forced to live in obscurity because of backward, hostile, even bigoted social aggressions from people who, apparently, know nothing about it," she said clearly, in a straightforward, intellectual challenge to the "general."

Walcott's smile was hostile, accepting the challenge. "You think 'cause I'm country, I'm stupid? You put on panties and think you can call me names like that! It just so happens I'm transgender, too. I got a pair o' panties on, right now!"

Regina looked surprised.

Then Walcott laughed.

Security crept in because their heightened presence looked good on camera, and maybe also so they could truly intervene if needed.

Lena looked into the camera and made her next announcement. "And to check this 'backward, hostile aggression,' we've asked a neutral moderator to join us. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Reverend Dr. Matthew B. Stronge—silent 'e'—of the Fair Way Baptist Ministry."

A ministerial-looking fellow came out from behind yet another partition and joined them, sitting beside Regina on the couch. "Good morning, Ms. Aimes, General Walcott."

"Howdy," the general said.

"So, Doctor Stronge, tell us about your ministry," Lena suggested.

"Reverend Stronge," he corrected with a smile. "We're a large evangelical group devoted to fairness in ministry and society. The strength of our ministry lies in that very thing: fairness. For we know that God's message of love will never be received without fairness between us."

"Whatever's going on here," Regina said, "I'd like to make it clear on the air this is not what we discussed beforehand—"

"Oh, it's okay, if everyone agrees," Lena said.

The men agreed.

Walcott said to Regina, "You're here to promote your deviant lifestyle and get people to buy your book—"

"Sounds about right," Rev. Stronge agreed.

"—so's you can infect us like an evil plague with your California socialist drivel," Walcott said, "and get other people to start cross dressin', too. Probably think we should issue pink panties in the military, also, and shoot little fluffy, cotton ball bullets at the enemy, like with lace on 'em?" To illustrate, he made a motion behind him, and a soldier walked onto the stage wearing a bra and panties over his fatigues, strutting like a model.

"Now, General, be fair," said Rev. Stronge.

"Okay, okay. Fair and balanced? Manny, you also come out here," Walcott said.

Another soldier came out on stage, strutting like the first one but without the exterior bra and panties.

"How's that?" Walcott asked everyone.

Regina gave her own incredulous look to the camera.

"Those panties are lovely," Lena said.

"There you go," Walcott said. "Showing both. Now, which one you want fighting for your freedom next time we're attacked? You want Shirley van Winky-dink out there defending the U. S. of A.? And when he does, you want him coming home to try an' make babies with Tommy? Men should be men, and women should be women. Get it. Believe it."

The audience clapped without a prompt.

Lena smiled warmly. It was all about ratings.

"It's always been so," Walcott said. "That's why men have the big muscles. That ain't what ya thought I was gonna say, was it?" he said humorously to the reverend.

The reverend laughed.

"And women have the womb. Read the Bible; it's all in there. And if you can't read that, join the Republican party, and we'll tell ya how it goes. "

"What do you think of that?" Walcott asked Regina.

"You think everyone should be that way?" Regina asked.

"Yup," Walcott said.

"The law of the land?" Regina asked.

"Of course," Walcott said.

"Well, hell. I'm kind of surprised you don't want it the American way," Regina said angrily, ready for a fight. This was what she had come for. "Because the way you describe it, it'd be fascism. The United States of Fascist America."

Walcott looked as if he might have a stroke.

"Look it up in the dictionary, Walcott. And if you can't read that, join the Democratic party, and we'll teach you to read."

Regina was pissed. "Remember, fake general? The founders of this great country? 1776. The Declaration of Independence: life, liberty and the individual pursuit of happiness—"

"It don't say that!" Walcott yelled.

"—and the Bill of Rights! 1791. The founders again confirmed with the First Amendment protecting the right of individual expression directly protecting people like me from people like you: fascist bigots."

"The Constitution don't say that, either!" Walcott yelled.

"Probably had to clarify it right off. Right after the Constitution was ratified, they double-stamped our freedoms with the Bill of Rights. The founders probably had to deal with fascist bigots back then, too," Regina said.

Regina kept her eyes on Walcott, but she turned slightly to the right. "Michelle," she called.

The muscle-bound transgender walked on stage carrying three documents. She handed them to Regina, who in turn handed them to Walcott.

"Here are copies of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, with the appropriate passages highlighted for you. Just sound out the words."

Then Regina turned to Lena. "How's our time?"

* * *

Regina and Michelle sat laughing at a table in a gay bar in Deep Ellum, an artistic area a mile and a quarter east of the infamous grassy knoll in Dallas. Music played. People danced all kinds of dances. People milled about, shouting and screaming in fun with each other.

"Fuck him and the mule he rode in on. Fuck you, you fucking bigots," Michelle kept saying. She was drunk as hell, and inebriation obviously felt good.

Regina laughed. "I just hope I didn't screw us over good on that one," Regina said, sipping her scotch. "But joke 'em if they can't take a fuck. I am sick of those assholes. Goddamn bigots! I'll probably get hate mail for this."

The muscular, formidable, and teetering Michelle stood and raised the middle finger of both hands, yelling "FUCK YOU!" to the whole world, which got a laugh from everyone within earshot.

"Fuck you!" the drinkers at half a dozen tables answered, also to the whole world. Then laughing at themselves, they turned back to their discussions. Regina smiled at all of them, raising her glass to signal the server for another drink.

"Who gives a shit!" Michelle yelled across the table to Regina. "Asshole needed to be taken down. I hope he is traumatized. I hope he needs therapy for a year. Maybe he'll see the light of God! Glow and shit like that! Start being nice to old ladies and putting up with Jews and shit. Go to a gay bar—"

"Did you want to give him a blow job, Shell?" Regina fed ammo to Michelle because Shell was on a roll and seemed to want to blow off.

"Oh! I should have! That'd fix him," Michelle said, slamming the rest of her bourbon. Jesus, I'd probably have to wash it first. That's his anchor, you know. I'm sure. His dick. Pointy little thing. Sharp. Stuck in the dirt, right through some shit. Like a plow on a horse. Probably keeps him from drifting off to the left." Michelle seemed to think for a minute. "They plant Angus beef on the right side, and cobb salad on the left."

"A 'whatever' salad on the left, thank you. With bleu cheese dressing, thank you," Regina said, a little tipsy herself.

A server brought Regina another scotch, dropped it off, and left without a word.

"But we did fuck him a little," Michelle said.

"I don't think it changed his life any," Regina said.

"No— Are you kidding? His mind is so closed. Ever notice how close 'fascist' is to 'feces'?"

"Yes! It's, like, the same thing!" Regina said.

"Shit," Michelle confirmed. "Totally true. But, maybe you'll have done some good for someone out there in the world, someone who needs you to stand up for him. The viewers see the goon come out there dressed for bear and then this frilly thing here with her boobs," Michelle swooped an arm at Regina, "totally fuck him over with his own Constitution. 'The American Way,' you said!"

"That's what it's there for, Shell."

"Fuckin' A," Michelle said, clicking her glass to Regina's.

They sat studying their drinks for a few minutes, listening to the loud music and the clatter all around them.

"You really were in collections?" Regina asked.

Michelle laughed a little. "More like orthopedics," she answered with a grin.

"Like Mafia?"

"No, not exactly."

"Not exactly. So how did that work with—" Regina waved her arm at Michelle's clothes.

"Well, actually. You know, not everyone is as closed-minded as that prick," she said, referring to Walcott.

"HEY, WAITER!" Regina hollered.

He came over. "Yes?"

"Can we have two of your best scotches to go? And a taxi?"

"Can't do scotch to go. But I can do two coffees to go," he said with a wink.

* * *

The taxi drove away, and Regina and Michelle stood on the grassy knoll. Neither of them spoke as Regina opened her paper bag to lift out two paper cups. She gave one to Michelle, and she held the other.

Michelle took a sip of hers.

"Shell!" Regina said.

"Jackie wouldn't mind," Michelle said.

Regina took a sip of hers as well. "Just to share with Jack," she said.

Michelle nodded.

"To a great man—"

"And his wife," Michelle added.

"And his wife," Regina said and then added as a toast, "Thank you for being a great man and for all you would have done if you could have stayed longer." They both took a tiny sip for the toast and set their cups of scotch on the grass.

CHAPTER 15

REGINA NEEDED to get some copies made before her meeting with the controlling group for a large transgender organization. She was both chair of their clinical psychotherapy recommendations committee and chair of their long-range planning committee.

She had to hurry, so, naturally, there was no fat chance of getting photocopies fast.

_Goddamnit_ , _the university bookstore was crowded again,_ she bitched. Kids everywhere. She was taller than most, yet she stood on her toes in her tennis shoes and looked over their heads to find a path to the copy counter, and then to find which cashier had the shortest line.

She started maneuvering toward it. The tennis shoes gripped the floor nicely. Her college-norm jeans and average long-sleeved shirt would have blended in nicely if someone else had been wearing them. But she was still top heavy in everything from her shoulders to her breasts, and her hair was still combed back and over so as to expose her male-pattern-baldness. _Why?_ Because it was _her_ , that's why. _Why not?_ She was transgender and proud of it. Why shouldn't she be? This was who she was. Should she feel any worse about herself than a gay guy? Shouldn't she be able to stand tall and let her identity be known? Should she try to hide?

Plus, it was too damn hard to put on makeup every day.

"'Scuse me!" one student shouted as he bumped into Regina. He'd been scrambling just as she had. Then he stared at her for longer than would have been normal for someone else.

"What are you lookin' at?" Regina demanded angrily in her haughty, commanding voice, implying "How dare you?" or "Don't you know I'm a professor here?"

"Excuse ME!" Regina said and elbowed past him, never giving him another look.

"Goddamn kids." She wasn't in the mood for this shit. Not today. She faked her way through her class, being all calm and nice, but now it was time to move. She had to get these copies done, get over to the parking lot, get into her brand new, overpriced yet bottom-end Porsche, and hump clear down to Palos Verdes to meet with a bunch of jerks to talk about what direction they'd take over the next ten years.

Most of them couldn't see past their own wigs, too new and uneducated to be in a position of transgender leadership. Only two of them had Ph.D.s, and that loon Andrea was such a pain in the ass. Sharp as a tack, but a lawyer. And she was emotionally unstable.

_How the hell did she get on the long-range committee?_ Because she says things loud and long that other transgenders want to hear. It made no sense. But there it was.

Regina nudged between two others near the counter to work her way up front. Looks were exchanged, but when others saw she was obviously an angry person of some kind, people got out of the way. They didn't want the fight. Not with her.

She reached a long arm forward and slapped her packet down on the counter. "Six copies of each, please," Regina told the female clerk with a stern look that said, "Just do it."

The clerk hesitated for a second but then proceeded with the order.

Regina waited impatiently while the clerk readied the copier. She looked around. Students were squirming all over the place.

That goddamn Andrea better not push her buttons tonight. If Andrea screamed one more time, "Do you have any data to back up that claim?" or "That's anecdotal," Regina thought she'd knock Andrea's block off with one good punch to the kisser, as only a large queen can. _Knock her ass right over the back of her chair,_ she thought. But instead of making Regina feel better, the thought made her angrier.

_Jesus, it's like thirty miles over there, and it's already five o'clock._ With traffic—which everyone could count on in L.A., right?—she worried she wouldn't make the six o'clock meeting. She likely wouldn't, she figured.

Especially if this dork clerk couldn't get her ass in gear.

"Just put it in there and push that button, that one right there." Regina tried to point to the large green button that said "start" on it, as any idiot could see; but instead of complying even nearly as well as your average third-grade trained monkey, the clerk simply stopped what she was doing and stared at Regina.

"Please?" Regina asked in mock pleasantry. "Just do it? I have to go," she showed the clerk her watch.

The clerk didn't move.

"Please push the damn button!" she said to the clerk, who then started to argue with Regina.

The supervisor came over and started to ask a question, but Regina cut her off. She pointed to the immobile clerk.

"Please ask someone to push that green button so I can get my copies. She won't do it! She's just standing there— Is she prejudiced? I can only guess so she can cause trouble."

The supervisor tried to speak again, but Regina cut her off again.

"PLEASE someone push the green button? I need my copies. I have an important meeting across town in an hour, and I'm going to be late."

The supervisor tried to speak again, but Regina jumped in."Can we talk while the machine is copying? Then I'll answer all your questions and tell you how I'll tell management how you won't provide service to this transgender even though it's your job, and it's just ONE goddamn button!"

The supervisor went over and pushed the button. She told the clerk to leave. "I'll take it from here, Allie."

Saying nothing else, the supervisor made the copies and handed them to Regina, who left even more rapidly than she had arrived.

* * *

It was an adequate condo. Nothing to write home about, but the entry was partially private, and no one stared when you walked up. There was a partial water view of the Pacific during the day, and if the weather was clear, you could see part of Catalina Island. But it was night, now, near the shortest day of the year.

Regina could see nothing out there but dark, and frankly, that's the way she felt about the committee. Regina couldn't tell them anything, they were so full of shit. The very top-heavy, degree-laden group of doctors and lawyers that made up the long-range planning committee was so full of newbie transition issues and faux bullshit that Regina thought she would strangle them sometimes. But they thought they knew about all this shit because they had their Ph.D.s, or J.D.s, or M.S.W.s, or M.D.s, even real ones from distinguished universities. Which was good, she admitted, but most of this shit was not taught in schools. All anyone ever got in classrooms was a few sound bites and a few clichés; the real research was rarely looked into. The subject was considered too controversial, too flaky, too disgusting.

_Damn,_ she chastised herself as she walked up the steps. There she went again with that negative, hostile attitude. Where did that come from? She answered her own question: because just sometimes people can be such assholes.

Regina was no newbie. It was 2005. She was fifteen years into transgenderism, an established woman in society fighting irrational prejudices longer than the rest of them combined.

She didn't ring the bell. She opened the door and walked in, looking at the group waiting for her in the living room.

_Shit._ But they didn't know how she felt, and maybe they could make progress in a couple of good areas with this meeting.

"Finally." The six already there greeted Regina when she walked in and took a seat on Michelle's sofa. Not the Michelle from Atlanta.

"Andrea was just telling us that we should have a float in the next Pride parade. She wants to be on it," Michelle said. It was clear she was annoyed because Andrea brought the float up again, though Michelle didn't say so out loud.

Regina was in no mood for Andrea's bullshit. Having a lawyer on the team was nice, but sometimes Andrea was too much to put up with. "Well, I'm sure she can discuss that with some other committee. This one is about long-range planning."

"It may not be important to you, but it's important to some of us," Andrea said, campy. An arrogant lawyer, Andrea was not in the habit of giving the opinions of others much credence. She was more in line with arguing them down, and only two years into her transition, she was still hot with such things as sexperimentation and parading. Where some people are by nature a sponge that soaks things up from others, and other people are rocks, solid and immovable, Andrea was more like a rogue cannon: loud and explosive. You never knew when she would go off.

Eli, the only female-to-male transgender there, jumped in. He said to Andrea, disgusted, "You just want to get up there and dance in front of the crowd. Like, that's all you live for."

Andrea started to blow up at Eli, but Charlene interrupted, accustomed to running groups.

"This meeting is not about that, guys!" Charlene said.

"Don't call me a guy!" Andrea scolded.

The look in Charlene's eyes made clear she wasn't saying that. "Parades would be part of the publicity committee, and we've got other things to discuss here. If the group likes, perhaps we can discuss the parade afterward?" she said to everyone.

It was a good segue, but Kylie, unhappy with letting Andrea set any agenda, wasn't interested. "This is long-range planning. That's what I came for, and I want to get out of here before midnight. I've got other things to do."

Tomasina, a general practitioner whose practice had failed on her transition to womanhood, shook her head in disgust at the whole thing, but she didn't say anything. She didn't have to.

"I don't think the parade will take long—" Andrea refused to give up.

"God, I hate this histrionic male-to-female T bullshit!" Eli said forcefully to her.

Andrea erupted, but Eli stood up and overpowered her. " _That's enough!_ " he shouted forcefully and moved his hands like a baseball umpire signaling "safe." Though shorter than all of them, he had a force of personality that swamped them all when he used it. Regina wondered privately if the reason was too much testosterone. "That's enough!" he said again, looking at everyone with some kind of threat in his eyes.

Waiting in silence to see if he was understood and seeing no one buck him, he slowly sat down—still with a threat in his eyes, slowly reaching for a Danish on the coffee table. "Goddamnit, now," he said, taking a breath, "I'm gonna sit here calmly and eat this and listen to a few words on—long—range—planning," with an emphatic pause after each word, "or come hell or high water, I will personally disrupt this meeting in a way none of you will like!"

No one was sure what that meant, though he sounded like Daddy delivering a veiled threat, so they all left everything alone, knowing they'd pushed him far enough.

Eli took a bite of his Danish and waited. Nothing. Good. So he turned to Regina. "Okay, chair. Now. Would you like to start this meeting? Finally?"

"Okay," Regina began, leaning back and organizing her legal pad and pen. "We've been hashing the generalities of our overall orientation for weeks—months, really—and our statement is coming together, with just a few aspects of it to confirm for presentation to the board, and a few others to tweak.

"On the issue of using the umbrella term 'transgender' to refer both to ourselves and also to other groups," she said and looked at them for a response, "what is our view going to be?"

"I think it's perfect," Andrea affirmed. "I don't see any difference, anyway. One trans group is the same as another."

"The cross-dressers want to be thought of as female, or like us, or something," Tomasina said. "It's part of their psychosexual fantasy, so there's no argument from them for rolling their group into ours. But there are many transsexuals who have spoken out against being reclassified. They say they have different goals than us, a different lifestyle."

"Fuck the transsexuals," Andrea said.

No one argued with that. Instead, there were a couple of chuckles.

"Lets take it easy on them," Regina said.

"I see little difference between transsexuals and transgenders," Michelle said. Then referring to herself and everyone else sitting there, she said, "We live as the other gender. We generally take hormones. We sometimes have surgeries such as facial feminizing surgery, FFS. We sometimes have gonadal or reproductive surgeries such as with a hysterectomy or an orchiectomy. We sometimes have some degree of genital surgery, such as a clitoral release. So where is the difference?" she asked. "These differences can easily be seen as variations on a continuum, a difference in degree, not in kind. By any objective measure, they're only different by a small, extra amount of tissue, and then just an extreme version of us."

"Well," Charlene responded as devil's advocate for the group not present, "transsexuals say they are trying to actually _be_ the other sex, that we're not because we want to keep the genitalia we were born with, or much of them, and that the major difference isn't even the tissue but a one-sex orientation much like cisnatals. Even though it's to be the other one-sex."

"I am female," Andrea objected.

"Yes, you are, honey," Kylie supported her.

"What I have between my legs is what I was born with, and it's nobody's business. That other idea is so old-fashioned, very last century. This is the twenty-first century, and enlightened people understand."

"Right," Kylie agreed.

Charlene added, "It's old school science, that there are two sexes. Intersex and transgender have been kept in the closet, or killed, so it's been easy for them to take that old view. But the curious thing is that most of the world agrees with the idea that males and females are different things. Most transsexuals don't agree with being forced into a group that tries to be a blend, that they're not about."

"That old school bullshit is what we're here to combat, Charlene. Not agree to," Eli said.

"There is strength in numbers," Charlene conceded. "We are so few in society as it is. To have a social movement, we need transsexuals in our lot. They imply a sense of legitimacy to the broader world because they do more closely ally with popular views. But we're also incurring their wrath as a group who will stand in opposition to us—always behind the scenes with a counterview—which can point out issues, make us weaker."

"No problem," Eli said. "A lot of them who have gender reassignment surgery will support us all as one group, 'transgender,' because they see the importance of strength in numbers, too. We can claim there are transsexuals who support us. And besides," he looked at them, this time his implied threat leveled at the transsexuals, "the number of transsexuals compared to us transgenderists is very, very small, and they prefer to live in the closet, pretending to be cisnatal. Hide and fake. They won't have a voice. They can't speak up without stepping out. Most people who transition are transgenders, and, increasingly, we are willing to be public about ourselves, so we'll win." He seemed satisfied with his argument.

Regina thought. "So G.R.S. will no longer be a distinction that sets us apart. They'll just be extremists who don't accept their new group."

"We will take a hit with transsexuals, but I think we have the academic strength to overcome that. But coopting their group will strengthen transgenderism. Net gain. So I say we do it," Michelle said.

"Okay. Now," Regina asked, "as to what it means. Is this term 'transgender' going to be used by our organization to redefine all other persons as a variation of transgenderism, on a 'spectrum,' or is it going to be an umbrella term that is meant to include all other groups as subgroups?"

"Not 'transgender- _ist,_ ' anymore because that makes people think we still have a dick and balls under our skirt, like some famous people we know," Andrea said, looking at Regina. Then she turned her gaze to Eli. "For those of us who have them," she said to Eli.

"Fuck you, Andrea! I don't have to take this shit. What are you doing on this committee, anyway?" Eli asked angrily.

"That's enough!" Regina said, but she wasn't heard because the room erupted.

Michelle stood and jumped in to bring the discussion back on track. "We're all variations of the same thing," she said.

"Reality is we're related individuals on a spectrum," Tomasina said. "Intersexes also prove it. Look at complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, CAIS, for goodness sake. A beautiful female, tall, gorgeous, who is also a 46-XY male, chromosomally. She's born female. She's treated female. She's believed by all to be female even after they learn she's got male chromosomes. So what is she?"

"Female," Andrea affirmed.

"Right," Tomasina said. "Most people assume the sexes are distinct because they're unaware."

"So I think 'transgender' will have to mean that all trans persons are a part of our group, that we're all transgender together. Strength in numbers, yet also redefining other groups as part of our own," Michelle said.

"Strength in numbers," they all seemed to agree.

"Okay. Right," Regina agreed, though she paused to think about the idea. "Yet we can't feed that to the transsexuals all in one bite. Too big to swallow. We need to first, and for several years, just use the term as an umbrella term for related subgroups, and then let if morph over time into just what we are, related individuals as a spectrum of expression. Agreed?" she asked the group.

"Do I hear a motion?" Regina asked.

She got one. It was adequate.

"All in favor?" Regina asked. They all raised their hands. The decision was unanimous.

CHAPTER 16

THE CLASS GIGGLED at yet another joke.

Regina belonged in front of a class, talking and teaching. And she belonged in Santa Monica. Probably a neural plasticity issue: her brain formed years ago with Santa Monica and college campuses in mind, and getting older, it was less plastic, less inclined to remold to new neural patterns.

Today, like most other women at this stage of her life, she was wearing a pair of worn jeans with a sleeveless blouse and moccasins. Her hair was combed back and over to one side: "college chic" she would have thought, if she were to have considered the matter, or perhaps just "comfortable."

Talking with the students, Regina could feel. She hadn't realized she'd been angry with life until she saw herself relax with the kids.

She was thankful for small favors.

"I know. I know," Regina said with a smile. She sat on her desk at the front of the class. "Freud was a character, right? People make jokes about sex with moms, trains going through tunnels, and cocaine. But remember that when he was popular, little was known in this area. He was actually a pretty smart fellow, but he was breaking new ground—no one knew what they didn't know yet—and when someone is doing that, you can't reasonably judge him or her by the standards of a later time."

"You seem to love him," a student said. "Are you a Freudian?"

"No," Regina responded. "Not in the way you're thinking. I don't do cocaine."

The class members laughed.

"Oh! I did it!," Regina joked. "Okay, I'm just kidding. I hope Freud had a sense of humor. No. I don't do psychoanalysis. My counseling tends to be what you might call humanistic, and at other times it may seem more reality-oriented because I don't feel the need to diagnose and treat, but instead to interpret the client's behavior more as choices or acting on deep-seated, internal unhappinesses. I don't use the term 'patient' as it seems more clinical; I prefer 'client,' because it feels more human to me. I try to keep the 'illness' concept out of counseling. Exactly what I do, personally, depends largely on the client and the situation. It's kind of client-centered at times, like Carl Rogers; or kind of choice-and reality-oriented at times, like Bill Glasser. It depends on what I'm doing.

"But in another sense, 'yes,' I am somewhat 'Freudian.' And most therapists have some Freud in them today, though few would be willing to admit so openly, as he's out of favor." Regina paused before asking, "Have you all heard people refer to 'ego'? Or ego strength?"

The students nodded.

"That's from Freud: the id, ego, and superego. The id is primitive impulses, the superego is like your conscience, and the ego is the moderator between those two aspects of personality. Without much to stand on, he popularized the idea of defense mechanisms we all use such as denial, repression, rationalization, and so on—concepts very widespread and basic to most basic psychotherapy—dream interpretation as a clue, transference in the therapeutic relationship, the importance of slips of the tongue as clues to what someone is thinking. So, do you all think in terms of a person having an ego?"

Most did.

"Do you believe there's a thing called 'denial'?"

All agreed.

"That often people have a problem with denial of something they could reasonably know?"

Yes.

"Do you believe suppression exists? That people push out of their minds things they don't want to deal with? Maybe to protect sore feelings or a concept of self they prefer?"

Yes, they all nodded. Some verbally agreed.

"And repression? That sometimes people totally block something out, lock it away as if it didn't exist? For example, if a girl is molested by her father as a child, and she can't handle the memory. The thought is too horrible for her; the experience was too traumatic. She needs to feel good about herself, somehow, and she also needs to feel good about her father, so this horrible thing couldn't have happened—so she blocks it out. It's repressed."

Yes, the whole class could see that.

"Then you're all Freudians, somewhat!" she said with a humorous smile. "Or, as I prefer to think, you're all a bit of a psychotherapist, a mom, a friend, a wise person, because Freud shouldn't corner the market. It's just basic personality stuff that he became known for.

"We all need to feel good about ourselves. We have to." She put her fist on her chest. "We have to live, but we can't all be the same. There are genetic, intrauterine, environmental, and personality differences such that each one of us is an individual, unique in our own, particular way.

"Yes, society puts restrictions on us, places value on everything from sex to food. There's no way to be in harmony with all that. So how do we cope? Sometimes we don't need to cope much, if our personality happens to be similar to society's demands.

"All praise June Cleaver," Regina said.

"But when we're different, sometimes we cope by compromise. Sometimes by opposition to society in some direct manner, which if you do it wrong can lead to jail, so watch it!" She got a few chuckles from that because of how she said it. "And sometimes we cope by blocking ourselves out or changing our beliefs about ourselves unrealistically: denial, self-deception, lack of awareness. Thinking we're thin when we're not. Thinking we're funny when we're not. Thinking we're a good person when we're not. Thinking we're fun when we're boring. Thinking we're liked when we're just being patronized. Thinking we're included when we're estranged. Thinking we're being honest when we're really being angry."

CHAPTER 17

THE JANUARY AIR was uncharacteristically clear in the Los Angeles basin that day—no smog, not even any haze—because a strong katabatic wind was blowing the pollution out to sea. The locals called it a "Santa Ana," a high column of air over Utah that, as it descended, would warm, expand, and blow, resulting in a hot-air blast furnace that could sometimes reach hurricane speeds through passes and canyons, or a good thirty or forty miles an hour through the Los Angeles basin, lasting sometimes for two or three days at a time. Trees would bend. Palm fronds would litter streets and yards. Trash cans could blow over. Sometimes power would go out, and the skin on hands could get red and chapped. The face could show more wrinkles than any aging person thought she had.

Regina was fifty-four. That day she looked sixty-four. Yet wrinkles were only a subconscious irritant to someone who didn't think to care anymore.

Regina looked out the window of her living room to gauge the weather, unconsciously rubbing her dry hands together. The air temperature was maybe eighty-five degrees, but the streets would feel like ninety-five, she was sure. _What a way to spend January!_ But at least it wasn't snowing, and if you must have "winter" weather, it may as well be warm.

She didn't want to go out, but she had to get out of the house. The walls were closing in on her. For a while after she moved into this house on 6th street, a couple of the neighbors would sometimes visit, but all that ended long ago. Now the only people who came over were a few other transgenders and sometimes her daughter.

Alone.

But what difference did aloneness make? She wasn't in the mood for visitors much. They were a pain, and she didn't like the uncomfortable feeling she often got when they left.

She didn't live on 10th anymore. That house dried up on her after her neighbors stopped coming over. They were like one big, happy group frolicking through life together for about a year, but after a while, they stopped coming over altogether. They still invited her over to their homes sometimes, but after a while that dried up, too, and she was left in purgatory.

She didn't know why. She just knew that the loss hurt. Interestingly, if she thought to think about it, she'd have seen that she was hurt and angry because they had rejected her due to her transgenderism—though she never made a real effort to wonder why things were that way. She was just living her life, doing what she was doing, limited to what she was doing, living with her anger and loneliness.

She moved away from 10th because she was sick of the house. Sick of the yard. Sick of the little garage.

Not that she was pleased with this house, either. She'd been in it for probably eight years now, and the time for another move was nearing. She simply wasn't happy there anymore. No reason. It had lousy foliage. It was plain. She didn't have a good view from the kitchen window.

_Why did I ever buy it?_ she thought.

She'd been wondering if she should get a condo or something nearer to the ocean. Living on 6th, she could walk over to the 3rd Street Promenade, the beach, or the Santa Monica Pier, which was great. And she enjoyed doing that sometimes on days when she had no classes, but a condo nearer the beach would be much better, she felt.

Yet beach condos were pricey. She was in a house now. Such as it was, hers had a relatively private backyard, or a yard at all, compared to a condo that had nothing but a terrace. But with a condo, she wouldn't have a yard to deal with, and she could come and go as she pleased without having to fuss.

She walked out into the garage and got into her car, another old Porsche. It started up fine and ran well, but she was getting tired of it, too. Restless.

* * *

Driving around Santa Monica in the wind, she kept the windows rolled up with the air-conditioner on. The car was smooth in the Santa Ana. No rocking. She wouldn't even know the wind was blowing if she didn't see the palm trees bend over and the bits of trash blow across the street, or if she didn't have to drive around the occasional palm frond. There weren't all that many cars out today, few pleasure drivers. The weather was nasty. People stayed home to watch a game on TV or something.

Ocean Avenue was a favorite street. She loved the office buildings and condos strung along the avenue facing southwest—and, on the ocean side, the long row of palm trees in a thin park. All of it paralleling the greatest beach in the world, the one that always reminded her of the 1960s' band, the Beach Boys. And the Pacific Ocean lay beyond, blue and inviting.

Here she could do just about anything even without a car. She could walk up and down the long park, or sit on a bench there and read a book. Talk with passersby who were walking their dogs. _Maybe get a dog of my own?_ Why not? What kind of a dog? Maybe something that would jump up in her lap and love her. She could walk to any number of bistros or restaurants along the strip, or other kinds of shops in the neighborhood as well. And she could walk over to the Santa Monica Pier any time.

Living there, she could choose on a daily basis how much human interaction she wanted, from isolation on her own terrace, with a fantastic view, to a crowd on the pier or the promenade. Only the prices had gone up so much in the recent real estate boom that condos on Ocean Avenue were beyond her reach. No way was she in the seven-figure condo price range. Lowly college professor.

Teaching psych was great, and it paid well enough, but not well enough to instantly pull herself out of the financial doldrums she'd been in for the last fifteen years. She was recovering, but she hadn't recovered that much, yet.

Society, prejudiced against a woman just because she's different.

So she drove a few blocks inland from the coast to look at the condos in that area. Go inland a few blocks, save half a million dollars. She could walk a hundred yards for half a million dollars.

* * *

"Thank you, Lisa. You can put that box over there by the window."

"Okay," Lisa said. Her voice sounded tired. Noticeably absent from her reply was the tag "Daddy," but Regina no longer expected it. She knew Lisa felt uncomfortable with the word. Lisa couldn't handle the name "Regina" either.

"The movers are due here sometime this morning. They wouldn't say exactly when. But I didn't want to trust them with everything. These things, I wanted to move personally," Regina said.

Regina's new place was a fairly nice condo on 5th—only a little closer to the ocean, but also a little more to the south, closer to the pier.

"Great view," Lisa said, stepping out onto the terrace, looking toward the southwest, toward the ocean.

"Great view of the _ocean_ ," Regina said with emphasis.

Lisa looked again. "Do you mean the view from the roof? I don't see anything from here except the backs of other condos."

"Well, 'nice view' of those condos over there, and _they_ have a great view of the ocean," Regina said playfully. "I mean, you could imagine, you know, like, sand down there, some waves up there. Blue sky above. We've got a lot of that." Regina smiled at Lisa, trying to warm her up.

Lisa smiled back, although there wasn't much warmth in her smile; she walked back into the condo to inspect the large, empty kitchen. They didn't sit anywhere because there were no chairs.

"You know, the last time you helped me move, you were only nineteen, a sophomore in college."

"Go Trojans," she said.

"Now, you're a big girl all out on your own, and assistant professor at that."

"Anthropology is a good field, but it's hard for me to make a good living with it other than teaching. Mostly. Which works out, actually, because I like college campuses, and I want to stay near home to raise some kids," she said.

"That's appealing to me, too. Maybe you got that from me," Regina said.

Lisa's face scrunched a little in a rhinencephalic response. She looked at her father incredulously. "Are you saying you want to have kids now?"

"No! I didn't mean that," Regina jumped. "You mean like this?" Regina asked, indicating herself _en femme_.

"Yes. You think you're a woman, and now you think you're going to have babies, too?"

"No, hon. I'm sorry. No. I meant when I was younger, I did just that: I worked on campuses and I hung around home to raise a family."

"It's hard to tell what you mean, sometimes," Lisa said. "That's why Leon stays away." Lisa tried the gas burners on the stove. One of them didn't light.

Regina went over to inspect the burner. "How is your brother doing?" she asked, a sting of pain in her heart. She hadn't seen Leon since he was twelve. "Is he all right?"

"Uh, fine," Lisa said, leaning on the bar across the kitchen, arms crossed in front of her.

"Is he well? Is he working?" Regina asked.

Lisa replied, "He says I'm not to go into any of that with you. Sorry. He doesn't want you to show up the way you did that day at the house."

"That was fifteen years ago!"

"I know, but—people get weirded out by things like that."

"By just being myself? What's wrong with that? Isn't that what people are told they should be?"

"Being yourself can be overdone."

"You're here," Regina said. "You're the only member of my family who I've been able to maintain contact with, and visits with you are sparse at that. I don't want to piss you off. But _why_ is this so difficult?" Regina asked. "I miss them. It's been so long. When will they accept me as a woman? Will they ever?"

"Being yourself is one thing; pretending you're something you're not is another. You have to know; that's the way we see it," Lisa said.

Regina looked into Lisa. Lisa had backed away, emotionally withdrawn, not looking Regina in the eye anymore. "Honey," Regina said, "I can see you're thinking about something. I want to work something out, but how can I if you don't tell me what you're thinking? Please. Can we have lunch together sometime on campus? We're both faculty there. We should, sometime, shouldn't we?"

"Sure," Lisa said. "Sometime."

CHAPTER 18

REGINA CARRIED A LOAD of goods back from the chandlery. The day was soft—gray, cloudy but not rainy. No wind to speak of. A little cool.

She swiped her key card through the lock with her free hand and walked down the dock to her slip, an easy halfway down on the left. Her boat was already wide open; she'd been on it earlier that morning.

She set her paper bag down in the galley with a sigh.

Everything was quiet. All she could hear were a few tiny waves slapping the hull of her Pearson 35 sailboat, a few dozen halyards slapping their masts on nearby sailboats, and one lone foghorn periodically sounding its baritone warning in the distance, about one second every ten seconds.

Peace and quiet.

She sat inside the cabin on the settee and rested. She was only fifty-four—that wasn't old—but she often felt tired. She didn't know why. Maybe she was aging after all. She reached over to prep her coffee maker for a cup of coffee.

She dumped her shopping bag out on the table: turnbuckles, D-rings, some cable, some lightweight block and tackle.

And she pulled a portable drill and some bits out of a locker.

A real sailor, she knew, would go forward to handle his boat—raise the mains'l or put up a jib—but she wasn't sure that being all that manly was important to her. She didn't care if she seemed a wimp to anybody else; she was going to rig her sloop "all lines aft," so at sea she could stay in the cockpit. She didn't feel as safe on the bow when the sea was tossing the boat around.

Real sailor be damned. She used safety as a copout—er, no, a damn good reason, she corrected herself. If you die at sea, you're no longer a good sailor.

And besides, she'd already done most everything else she could think of to the sailboat over time, and this was the only additional modification that came to mind.

The real truth of it: tinkering with things, the solitary surety of fixing something so she knew it would work, gave her license to enjoy herself. She could hire things done, but how would she know the job was done well enough to risk her life on?

Turning a wrench, it seemed, was something she could count on.

She'd had the yard connect the head of a roller-furling forestay. The bottom end was lashed to a bow rail. She'd do the rest on her own.

Coffee was made and partially drunk up on the deck. From there, she saw a man she knew on the next dock, getting on his powerboat. "Hey, Carl. Good morning," she called.

Carl waved and disappeared inside his boat.

She sat her coffee cup inside a gimbaled cup holder on a stanchion and got to work. She strung the furler over to the clamp by the bowsprit and tied it off with a lanyard, connected a turnbuckle to the bottom of it, and then hooked it to its permanent hardpoint at the base of the bowsprit.

She felt peaceful sitting there, with no worries, using a wrench on the turnbuckle. The hardware was good, the connection, solid. She knew in the roughest sea, it would hold.

She put one long line on the roller and coiled it half way in.

Then she went aft, got a genoa foresail, and brought it forward, slipping its leading edge, the luff, into the groove on the back of the furler, feeding it in, hoisting it aloft with a halyard. The genoa sheet was already attached to the clew, the most rearward corner of the sail, to use later as a sheet, the line used to unfurl and trim the genoa.

She stood on deck and felt the wind. It was dead calm, or near to it—common enough under stratus. Good. She stood back, pulled the sheet to extend the sail, and pulled the "reefing line" to turn the roller-furling housing, and the genoa rolled on the forestay. It wasn't perfect, but it would do at the dock. Some pleasant day, she'd take the boat out and furl the sail at sea. The wind would hold the genoa out full while she furled it, keeping it nice and smooth.

With the genoa on the forestay, next she fastened her lines to the deck and lead them aft ito the cockpit. Lines were laid out on the deck. Blocks—pulleys—put into positions, and she spent the next two hours drilling holes in the deck, butting and bolting blocks down, and running lines through blocks for both the genoa and the mains'l.

She sat back in the cockpit to look, and she was well pleased. Her sails should work. She'd find out soon.

Now, get someone to go with.

She pulled out her cell phone and dialed. "Hi, Shell. How are you doing?" The big one at the TV station. "Oh, I'm fine over here." She waited while Michelle talked a while.

"I've just been tinkering with my boat. It's one of my hobbies. Got it slipped over here in Marina del Rey. By Los Angeles, right." There was another long pause. "It's a nice area. Beautiful. Peaceful. How would you like to come out and help me sail it for a while? Be a nice break. We could sail over to Avalon on Catalina Island—'twenty-six miles across the sea,' like the song," she sang. "More or less."

Another pause.

"Women work on their own sailboats sometimes. I've seen it lots of times."

Newbies!

"It'd be a nice vacation. You can stay at my place."

Another pause. Regina felt sad.

"Yeah. Okay. You're busy. That's okay. No, don't worry about it. Another time."

She hung up and looked at her work by herself.

CHAPTER 19

REGINA WHISLED TO HERSELF as she bustled around her empty condo, getting ready to go out. She set the trash in bags by the door to take down later, put some mailings on the table by the door to take down to the car, and watered her two potted plants on the balcony facing the lovely backside of the buildings with a view of the beach. Her balcony faced southwest toward Santa Monica beach, on the other side of those lovely buildings over there, so the early morning sun never graced her miniroses.

Four months after moving in, the place was organized well enough. It functioned for physical sustenance. _But who cared, anyway?_

She stood by the door for one last scan before leaving. Her efforts to make the place warm and inviting now seemed cold, because no one had ever come to see her, or at least no "normal" person. Only a couple of transgenders had offered, and they were fairly new in their chosen lives, obviously wanting Regina to validate them in some way—or have sex with them, which she couldn't care less about.

The agenda was always about what someone else could get, she knew. Always about what was in her for them. She disclosed in classes, taught people what she thought transgenderism was about, but teachers only wanted programming or wanted others to embarrass themselves to validate the teacher's message—the stranger the better—to stimulate later conversation. The students wanted something else to talk about, a day off from real thinking.

Regina gathered up her trash bags, mail, and car keys. She didn't carry a purse anymore—hadn't for years. Handbags seemed to go by the way with skirts and dresses. She had pants, and they had pockets, so she just loaded them and went about her business.

She walked to the elevator. A neighbor down the hall, whom she didn't know, stared at her but didn't say anything. His expression wasn't flattering, but it wasn't insulting, either. Just curious in some irritating way. She didn't try to speak to him, didn't offer a friendly "hello" or "hi" or "good morning," not even a " _Gut Shabbos_ ," in case he was Jewish, because such things were a tiring waste of effort, amounting to nothing more than an expenditure of energy intended to elicit an interchange that might bring some energy back to her as well.

_That's what it was all supposed to be about, wasn't it? You do things for me. I do things for you. We do things for each other._ There's interchange, intermixing, back and forth. That's how we get things done, isn't it? That's how life is lived! That's how we get along, all of us. None of us can live life alone. We're human. We're not meant to be separate, self-sustaining islands, but part of a network of helping hands.

Instead she ignored him, as was her habit these days, and got into the elevator.

Trash got thrown into the dumpster. Mail tossed into the mailbox. And she drove her old Porsche out the gate.

Thank God it was Saturday.

Fuck them all at school.

* * *

She drove to the Santa Monica Pier and parked out on it. Huge parking lot. She got out and walked on the uneven, thick wooden beams. The place was its usual carnival: bumper car rides, sideshows, cafés, restaurants. Lots of places to spend money. Vagrants fishing off the side of the pier, trying to catch swimmers down below. Someone hit her up for some change.

She walked halfway to the end of the pier, but the weather was chilly, with enough breeze to make her wish she'd brought a jacket. So she turned around and walked back to the car.

* * *

She shopped in a huge mall near Beverly Hills, half-wondering if she'd accidentally bump into her ex-wife or now-grown kids, but she knew that fantasy was folly. Let's see: clothes she could never wear, and way too expensive. They evidently make them all for little, skinny rich girls. _Where in the world do normal people shop? What if you're nearly six feet tall?_

She tried on a suit anyway, and naturally it didn't fit right. Something wrong with the fashions this year. The skirt was too short; it made her knees look knobby. Tucking her clitoris and balls far enough aft to prevent a bulge in front was easy, as the years of hormones had atrophied them enough that they weren't so large. But the shoulders of the suit jacket were too tight in the back, and the arms were too short. She wondered if she could have the sleeves lengthened, but there was this classic slit in the cuff, common to women's suits, and tailors were loath to lengthen anything with a slit in it, even if you told them to do what they had to do to make it work, even leave in a dimple or cutout for the slit.

"How are you doing in there?" came the call from the apparently friendly, helpful salesclerk just outside the fitting room. "Can I get you anything?"

Regina decided to risk opening the door. "What do you think?" she asked the clerk.

The clerk looked surprised for a half a second, but then she recovered. "Oh, I think it's lovely. Yes. Though I do think that beige blouse would look nice under that jacket. Would you like me to go get it for you?"

Regina was thankful for the woman's confirming remarks, but she felt irritated anyway. The suit didn't seem right. Nothing seemed to work as well as it used to.

She took off the suit, didn't buy a thing, and promptly left the store.

_Get lost in a retro action flick,_ she decided. Like one of those great old ones with Bruce Willis or Kurt Russell. She didn't find one of those, but found something else that would have to do. She walked up to the concession stand at the theater and ordered a medium popcorn, chocolate almonds, and a small Coke.

"Would you like to get the family pack for just fifty cents more?" the clerk asked with a friendly smile.

"Please don't push products at me, kid. Just give me what I ordered." Regina's tone was decidedly masculine, but she didn't notice. She adopted that tone, sometimes, unconsciously, when she wanted to enforce her will.

The movie sucked, but it provided an adequate diversion for a couple of hours.

* * *

She waited while the checker at the grocery store began scanning her items. "Do you have your membership card?" the checker asked kindly.

"I don't use one," Regina said. "I think you should charge the same price for everyone."

The checker stopped scanning. "Well, don't yell at me. I'm just doing what I'm told."

"I didn't yell. I just told you why I don't use one. And please continue scanning. I have to leave."

"It's designed to save you money." The clerk seemed insulted that Regina wouldn't use a card.

"No, it's not. It's designed to charge me more if I don't use the card. You track purchases, sell the information to data-mining companies who profile us," she indicated to the other impatient people waiting in line, "and develop God knows what kinds of conclusions about us—all without telling us you do that, and without telling us what conclusions you draw. Then that secret data is sold to companies who hire us or to government agencies who investigate us. It's a multibillion dollar business, and you don't pay us for it with these card 'discounts.' You just charge us more if we don't participate."

The clerk acted truly offended at the implication of unethical behavior.

The people in line began complaining about the time wasted in all the conspiracy theory stuff.

* * *

The checker at the home electronics store finished her scan of Regina's latest DVD purchase. Regina swiped her credit card in the reader, signed the plate, and put her card back into her wallet.

"May I see your credit card and driver's license, please?" the checker asked.

"What? You couldn't ask while I had the card out? You had to wait until I put it up before you asked to see it?"

"I didn't know if it was a credit or a debit card," she said.

Regina thought the woman was mentally lazy and didn't think to look at it while it was out. "I want to see the manager," Regina demanded.

* * *

The street was packed. Gridlock on a Saturday evening. She was trying to go home to her view of the back of the condos overlooking the beach, to spend a peaceful evening alone with her TV, and she couldn't because everybody and their goddamned dog was out parking in the middle of intersections having a shout fest.

CHAPTER 20

REGINA FINISHED her classes for the day—they were always well attended—and walked down the hall to her office. Students roamed the halls doing student things. One of them seemed determined to follow her all the way. Another one. Why did they all come to her? She was just a professor here. Her classes tended to be full, she figured, because she tried to make the classes fun. But the students didn't usually follow her back to her office unless they were also transgender.

"Dr. Isler," the student called, male-to-female transgender, six-feet-one if an inch, probably transitioned last week on a trip through the mall. Wig, small breasts, training bra, matching panties no doubt, minidress, two-inch heels, which jacked her up to six-feet-three.

Regina's impatient sigh was only in her mind. She'd never show it. She had to be polite.

"Yes?" Regina turned to speak to the student in the hall—better than in her too-private office.

"Hi," the student said, as if that said it all. She stood there, smiling, waiting for Regina to respond.

"Hello. May I help you?" Regina asked, trying to sound professional.

"Yes, I was thinking of taking your abnormal psych class next semester, but I have some questions. Maybe I could go over some of them with you?" The student's smile indicated more.

"Okay. I'm always here for students. My office hours are posted by the door, and I should be in there on Thursday between ten and twelve. Could we talk then?" Regina tried to sound obviously helpful in every way, to head off a likely complaint. She'd go back to her office, and now—instead of jumping into calls as she'd intended—she'd first make note of every word of this conversation and email it to herself as a time-stamp.

"Oh, yes. The student tried to sound feminine and demure in the face of having to bend. "Yes, I'm sure that would be fine. But I don't know if your office would work as well." She leaned a little closer to Regina. Regina leaned a little farther away and then took a step back. The student looked into Regina's eyes and smiled.

Regina raised her voice just a little, a calculated amount, so she could not be accused of shouting but so that, hopefully, others who were near might hear, and said, "Miss—?" she asked.

"Amanda," the student said, extending her hand.

Regina did not shake it but smiled. "Amanda," she said, confirming. "I work with students in my office during posted office hours. Please feel free to drop by at that time." No way was she going to say anything like "please come by" or "come on by" or anything with "come" in it, as from some earlier problems of this kind, she'd found some people, the student or others near, were prone to misunderstanding or misremembering.

New woman. Feeling hot. She could hear the cogs in Amanda's brain screech, "I'm female now! Don't you want to suck my cock?" Though with plausible deniability, Amanda was clearly wanting to spend that kind of time with the well-known transgender professor, or wanting to be alone with Regina in order to claim that she, Amanda, had performed that act on the professor. But Regina would try to prevent that rumor.

Jesus.

The student just stood there and smiled, waiting, but Regina turned and walked away. In her office, Regina made notes on her computer and emailed them to herself at her university email account under student contact. What a pain to have to.

She made a few calls to some transgender advocates in her group, discussed how their leadership was doing. The term "transgender" was coming along. They were trying to convince the public that a wide variety of different phenomena could all be referred to by the same term, historically used only for Regina's group, and there was a great deal of behind-the-scenes resistance from some people.

Cross-dressers, CDs, were eager to join in. The term fit their fantasy.

The transsexuals were the most resistant. They wanted to live private lives and lie to people about their history. They'd have genital reconstructive surgery and then try to pretend they were always "that way." If transsexuals were successful, then transgenderism would lose them, and the cause would suffer. Regina's organization needed to get more women with G.R.S. to identify with the transgender social movement. The group wouldn't need many. If its members got some transsexual supporters, then in the face of opposition, they could say, "Some transsexuals do agree that they're transgender," and suggest that the others, most of whom are extremely private, are few in numbers, estranged hold-outs from a time long ago.

It was a battle among themselves. Infighting. But before they could provide a united front to society, they had to unify, she felt.

She made a couple of calls about her condo. The management wanted to upgrade the outward appearance of the building, and the project would cost money. A vote on a building fund was proposed, and Regina was a little cash-strapped at the moment. So she was against it. Her condo cost so much. Real estate prices had soared. Her mortgage was triple the one she'd had just a few years ago, and the payments were extraordinary.

Then she made a call home, to Sylvie. She'd known Sylvie for only a month, but she'd grown close to her and had high hopes for a long-term relationship. Sylvie was cisnatal, born female, and she seemed to like Regina's knack for taking control, for fixing things up in life. She was a fem Regina had found in a women's bar out in Burbank, who, to Regina's surprise, had come home with her one evening and stayed.

She was a late sleeper, but she ought to be up by now.

Through the rest of the day, Regina made several calls to Sylvie's cell phone, trying to reach her, but only succeeded in leaving messages. There was no return call.

CHAPTER 21

THE CHAIR of the department, Dr. Leakey, had, on a few occasions, tried to persuade Regina to go on a weekend trip with him to Mexico. "Just a couple of colleagues taking a break," he'd said. He was married. He also had a girlfriend. But he wanted Regina to go spend private time with him in Mexico, too.

Regina saw the proposal for the sexual harassment it was, but she didn't find it particularly disturbing emotionally, in and of itself, so she didn't report it to the authorities. Instead, she tried to make light of it and continue on in the work place.

Then the chair went on vacation for a month and left Regina in charge during his absence. Seeing this as a great opportunity, Regina worked hard to handle the position well. It was about guiding the department, keeping it on course, but also, largely, about keeping the various personalities working, and working together. Regina thought of some of them as pathological egotists, or "egopaths" as she called them.

And sure enough, some of the egopaths quit coming to meetings because the "real" chair of the department was away. So she sent out a memo to everyone about the importance of making the meetings—which did no good— and when the chair returned, he berated Regina as a trouble maker inciting dissension.

She tried to defend herself against the charge. The conversation with the chair was private, but it would go in her university file nonetheless. She swore she was kind and gentle, and in truth she was. She was just doing what he'd asked her to do, but her effort made no difference.

Then the truth dawned on her; the situation was a set-up. He was preparing a rebuttal should she ever raise the issue of sexual harassment with the university.

You crooked son of a bitch.

Regina leaned over on his desk and spoke right into his face. "You know, I wouldn't need sexual harassment to fry your social reputation here, Arnie. Don't fuck with me!"

* * *

"Marty, I'm tired of hearing about disgruntled transsexuals, all right?" Regina spoke harshly into her cell phone, pacing her condo's living room as if her heavy footsteps could make an impression on the caller. "They're part of transgenderism, and that's all there is to it!"

She listened a bit and cut him off. "Big fucking deal, Marty." She listened some more. "Tough titties."

Marty was a new transgender man on her committee. He was new to dealing with resistance to the transgender movement.

"She's transgender, just like everyone else, Marty. After hormones, after transitioning, changing the genitals is just one more surgery. It makes no difference other than that. They can't have sex better. They aren't healthier. The difference is a few ounces of tissue rearranged. Nobody goes around showing their genitals in public. It's even against the law. So others can't even see the difference. It's a private choice to have that bit of tissue this way or that, and what difference does it make? It's all homologous anyway! Transsexuals are just nuts, wanting to be cisnatal when they're not."

Regina listened a bit more, but she had little patience left for the old arguments.

"That's the way it is, Marty. I'm the chair of the committee. If you can't deal with our policy, then leave. If she can't deal with it, then kick her out. Okay? She's nothing but trouble, anyway."

Initially, her long-range planning group had thought that inviting a transsexual to join would make the committee look good, show its diversity. But the new member was causing only dissension. It seemed she only wanted to join to show the differences between them—a rare move, as most transsexuals simply stayed away entirely.

Marty hung up the phone suddenly, not even a goodbye.

" _Goddamnit!"_ Regina said, shoving the phone into her jeans.

She pulled it back out and turned it on again. Fine. Fuck it. She dialed a number she'd not touched in years: her little brother's office phone. He was a stockbroker in downtown Los Angeles.

"Gerry? This is Regina." She waited half a second for him to catch up. It'd been a dozen years or so, with contact before that sporadic. "Your sister!"

Wait a bit.

"I'm fine." She listened through his phony excuses for why they hadn't connected over the years.

"You know, you kept all that from me, Gerry. I didn't know you had any kids. I have two nephews?"

She waited through more phony excuses.

"Why don't you ever invite me over, Gerry?"

No good reason.

"Why don't you ever COME over, then?"

No good reason.

"Why don't we ever just go out for lunch, then? Meet at some restaurant?" She listened to nothing of substance.

"Do I have to pay to get you to see me? I have to buy lunch?" No, that was an excuse, she realized. He didn't want to see her no matter who paid .

She was getting angry, but at the last minute, she decided anger wouldn't help if she showed it. She had to play along. The only way to attract this fly was with honey, but she didn't feel sweet at this point.

"All right. I'll call you sometime next month to see if we can have lunch. I can pick you up at your office—"

But Gerry replied that he would call when he was making a trip to her part of town, and they might meet at a bistro somewhere.

* * *

The faculty meetings at school were held regularly on occasion and sporadically most of the time. Who knew who would show up for one at any given time? Attendance depended on a lot of things: who was on sabbatical, who was on vacation, who had a class to teach or an important business trip to go on, who was guest lecturing somewhere, who had a seminar or symposium to go to, who was out sick or pretend-sick, and so on. It also depended on who was willing or unwilling.

Sometimes arrangements for faculty meetings depended on the shared interests or facilities of departments. If one meeting was likely to attract only a few attendees and if two department chairs were speaking to each other, they could combine their meetings.

Today, the faculty meeting was being held in the dean's office, with faculty sprinkled in from psychology, biology, anthropology, sociology, and even law. For all Regina knew, someone from xenobiology might drift in somewhere after a salute to the flag.

The dean's office looked like a proper, stuffy, wood-paneled college office in an Ivan Reitman film, but how could anyone call this a faculty meeting? A dozen professors from half a dozen departments. What was this, coffee hour with the bozos?

The dean's secretary entered on cue and refreshed coffee for those who wanted it.

"That about takes care of most of our topics today," Dean Reynolds said to the group. "And so we have just one more item to cover. It's kind of a legal issue, kind of delicate, so I'm glad you're all here today. I think input from various professionals may help shed some light on the situation." He reached into the drawer of his desk, pulled out a file folder, opened it, and began reading silently.

After a time, his eyes floated up to the group. He looked at everyone except Regina. "We've had a few complaints from female students of intrusion in the ladies' room by male members of the staff."

The group murmured and looked at each other, all except Regina who sat motionless, beginning to fume.

"There haven't been any incidents. Nothing has happened. But there have been some complaints, and one student has even offered us the kindness of a lawsuit to help us see the light."

"Which ladies' room is it?" someone asked.

"Second floor, behavioral sciences," the dean said, and now, for the first time, he looked at Regina. "Right by Dr. Isler's office."

Heads swiveled like marionettes in unison to stare at her. No one said anything. They waited. The dean waited. Even the secretary waited, coffee carafe in hand.

Regina wished she'd worn a big "fuck you" T-shirt that day, so she could face them all head-on.

Normally, she was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla topic in every meeting that no one ever talked about, but today her colleagues were going to grapple with her.

The dean stared at her as if he expected an answer.

Regina stared back at him, thinking _fuck you._ She realized those words would not sound elegant, but if she thought that "fuck you" was the most intellectual thing to say, then it probably was. It sat on the shoulders of nine years of higher education followed by another twenty in academia.

But she didn't say it. Out loud. Instead, she said the second thing to enter her mind: nothing.

She got up to leave.

"No, Regina. Sit back down," the dean ordered. "We're going to talk about this for once."

"Nothing to talk about," she fired back at all of them. This whole thing was an ambush. That's why the motley crew from relevant departments. This wasn't a faculty meeting at all. It was just disguised to look like one because the faculty members didn't want to admit they'd put together an inquisition.

Reading people was part of her profession as a clinical psychologist. She noticed that Dr. Leakey, the chair of her department, was carefully trying not to stare at her at this point. The lawyer in the room was coolly observing her. Some of the attendees looked hungry, as if they'd been wanting to get into this for a long time.

"Natalie, would you please leave the room and close the door?" The dean said to his secretary. She looked as if she didn't want to leave, but she complied.

Regina sat back down. She could see this was going to have to be dealt with one way or another, and if she didn't do it here, she'd have to put up with more rumors later.

The dean continued. "Now this is all confidential. Do you hear me?" He looked everyone square in the eye.

"You look a little pissed," Dr. Hamm from anthropology said to him.

"I _am_ a little pissed," Dean Reynolds said. Then back to the topic. "If any of you discuss anything from this room today, I'll have your head on my desk within twenty-four hours, do you hear me?" He didn't look like someone to mess with at that point, so heads nodded.

"We have a letter here," he handed a paper to the law professor in the room, "from some fancy lawyers over in the Wilshire District who are threatening to sue us for exposing a certain young student to lewd behavior in the ladies' room." Then he turned to the law professor. "I know it's bullshit, but is there anything of concern here?" he asked.

The degree attorneys get is a _Juris Doctor_ , a J.D., a regular, professional level doctorate, but for some reason, people in the United States don't call lawyers "doctor." So "Mike" looked up from the letter and said, "Let me ask a few questions?" He held up one finger to the dean and turned to Regina.

"Regina, are you male?" Bold, to the point. He looked totally comfortable asking, but Regina squirmed in her seat instead of answering. He already knew the answer.

"Well?" The dean pushed for an answer.

Regina held.

Faculty members broke their marionette postures and began looking at one another.

"My God, Regina," Dr. Lamb, a female sociologist, said to her. "I thought you said you had G.R.S.—that you were female now."

"I am female," Regina said to them all. "And I've had surgery," she affirmed. She didn't look down, but she hoped she didn't have a bulge showing in her crotch at this moment.

"You've had THE surgery?" Mike asked, probing.

"How dare you!" Regina countered, aghast.

Dr. Schnell, the biologist, got more to the point. "Do you have any male anatomy down there?" he asked, pointing to her crotch.

Regina's mouth flew open, but she didn't answer. She was in shock from the directness of the questions.

The dean read from the file on his desk. "It says here in your paperwork to this university, Regina May Isler, Ph.D., Female. So are you female, Dr. Isler?"

Regina still wouldn't answer.

"Maggie," the dean said to Dr. Lamb, "Are you female?"

"Yes," she said, with a bit of a question on her face, as if to wonder why he would ask.

"Mike, are you male?" the dean asked the lawyer.

"Yes," he answered, comfortable with the question, glancing at Maggie with a slight grin.

"Bob?" the dean asked the biologist.

"Male," he said, then continued with a slight German accent, "but the answer depends on a lot of things, dean. You see, there is more than one indicator for gender, so let me ask." He turned to Regina again. "Regina, relax. We're not going to hurt you. You are among friends here. We just need to ascertain for legal reasons if there is anything they can hit us with."

Then to the whole group, he said, "You see, there are three general primary sex characteristics." He looked interested in the topic, as if he'd waited for years to ask these questions of Regina. He continued, "Chromosomes, gonads or reproductive organs, and anatomy. In general, there are two sexes in our species, male and female. The female is likely to have a forty-six-count chromosomal makeup we call XX, ovaries, uterus, vagina, and so forth, all to be able to receive sperm, fertilize an egg, grow a fetus, and perhaps have a baby. The male is likely to have a forty-six-count chromosome XY, testes for sperm production, and a penis, which is helpful in inserting the sperm into the female."

"We know," someone said.

"Right," said Dr. Schnell. "But gender gets more complicated when we start changing sex characteristics to help an individual simulate the other sex or gender. If a person takes hormones that make her skin gets softer, her hair grow less in some areas, and her breasts enlarge, then the sex isn't changed at all. Those are 'secondary' sex characteristics that make a person appear or womanly. But the chromosomes can't yet be changed. They're fixed at fertilization. For most biologists, that's it; there is no change of sex because of that."

"But for social purposes," the lawyer piped in, "we can effectively change the sex if we recognize the change at some point."

"Ah, but at what point?" the biologist continued. "The reproductive organs we can remove, but not change. We can remove uterus and ovaries. We can remove testes. And we can rearrange the tissue of the genital anatomy to resemble somewhat the genitalia of the other sex, so that it in part functions that way, or at least can't function as it used to. So that particular surgery is an important question for Regina here."

Mike, the lawyer, jumped in, "And that also bears on the question at hand. Regina, I need to ask you clearly: have you had your genitalia altered to the female?"

Regina's anger was building, and it gave her voice. "Yes. Of course! Like I've said."

Dr. Schnell pushed though. "By what means? Do you mean surgical alteration? Or some other kind of alteration?"

"She answered that already! Quit pushing her," Maggie pleaded on Regina's behalf.

"No, no, no," Dr. Schnell tried to explain. "It matters to ask, because external genitalia can be altered without surgery, and she can be telling the truth while still having a penis and testes there."

"Hormones alone will alter them, won't they?" Mike asked.

"Have you had your penis removed, Regina?" the dean asked forcefully.

"How dare you ask such a personal question!" Regina charged.

"Because it pertains to this potential trouble-maker lawsuit," Mike answered. "Especially if you have an unstable student pushing the matter, a hungry lawyer, and a school with 'deep pockets.'" Then to the dean he said, "Also, the desire to keep a penis could be used to show a male state of mind—"

"Jesus!" Regina blurted out.

"The charge doesn't have to be realistic. It's about what a jury may go with."

The dean pushed. "Are you male down there or not, Regina?"

"It's my clitoris!" Regina answered before she caught herself.

Mike gave the dean his devil's advocate position, one the other side might use in a fight. "Fraudulent representation to the university. Public misrepresentation—"

"I'm public about myself!" Regina countered.

"You're public about being transgender, but you imply to people you're female like a transsexual, leading them to believe indirectly that you've had that genital conversion when you have not. You can see it otherwise, but most people will see it this way, and that includes a jury," Mike said.

"I've had 'female' on both my driver's license and my passport for years now."

"And those documents aren't a change of biologic sex. Our government is a two-sex system trying to deal with, percentage-wise, a very few people who move somewhat from one sex to another. We all know that. But the other side would dig into every crevice of this and see where laws may have been bent or overlooked." Mike was implying some fraud on Regina's part for misrepresenting herself to those agencies for inaccurate documentation.

Regina didn't tell them she quit. She simply walked out.

CHAPTER 22

SCURRYING AROUND THE KITCHEN in twenty pounds of armored leather biker's gear, Regina was preparing breakfast. Eggs were cracked open and put into the frying pan on the gas range, none too delicately. One broke. Orange juice was poured into a glass. Pills were taken with the juice. Precooked sausages were added to the eggs, or more accurately thrown in on top of them.

She didn't notice the view out the window of the back of other people's condos who had a view of the ocean. The sky was still dark outside, early morning, but there was a view anyway. In Santa Monica and Los Angeles, as well as most of Southern California, scatter from the Los Angeles light sphere was so bright that the sky was never very dark, even at four in the morning.

The coffee finished at about the same time as the eggs, so she grabbed the pan off the stove and set it on the granite counter by the sink and then reached to set the coffee carafe off the maker onto the countertop as well. _Might the heat hurt it?_ She didn't care. Fuck it. It was granite.

She reached into the cabinet for a plate, set it on the counter, slid the eggs and sausage out of the pan onto the plate, grabbed a fork from the drawer, and lifted the coffee carafe; but this was the kind of pot that houses the grounds in the lid of the carafe, so she opened the trash compactor and impulsively dumped the whole contents into the trash, coffee and all, before she could catch herself.

"Shit!" she told the kitchen. "Fuck," she told the coffee pot. "Goddamnit!" she told the whole fucking universe as she threw the carafe and fork into the sink and headed out the door without touching her eggs.

* * *

Five-thirty A. M. Sun coming up. She raced down I-40 East on her bike, a 2006 Yamaha cruiser with 1670 air-cooled cubic centimeters of raw noise. Empty, open land racing by at ninety miles per hour, throaty roar, not another human in sight, and no goddamned windshield to numb the feeling. She had left everyday life behind.

While riding, and against every safety concern she ever had, she let go of the handlebars and removed her insulated gloves, stuffing them inside her armored jacket. She pulled out her regular riding leather gloves to put them on.

_Peace,_ she felt.

She saw no one for miles. The land was naked. All that talk of Earth's overpopulation: where was it coming from? All we needed to do was irrigate this land out here and expand. Hundreds of miles of it. Not a thing there but dirt and rocks, quiet and peace.

Her bike sat the road as if it were made for it, like zen-with-go, stable, solid, heavy. No little rock would perturb it. It wanted to go and go and never stop.

She rocked the throttle back an inch, heard the roar deepen like a gargantuan dragon on the charge, like an angel out of hell racing irresistibly, and felt the bike rock even faster, so effortlessly. In two seconds, she was going one hundred, the roar loud in her ears, the wind hard on her chest.

Not a whimper out of the bike. No hint of weakness, nothing soft. Strength, that's what it was. Though it was only a bike, and though safety was a major concern, always, the ride gave the impression of security and freedom.

_But that was like a lot of life,_ she felt: no guts no glory. Don't face your fears, and you could die someday sitting on your couch. More people have lethal accidents each year in their own bathrooms and kitchens than motorcyclists do, so stay the hell out of the bathroom if you want to live. Don't take any dangerous showers. Don't go to the commode. Stay out of the kitchen! Order pizza delivered every night!

Bullshit.

Just drive. Sit on this thing and drive. Face life and its dangers. _Why isn't this life?_ she wondered. _Answer: It is._ Face it. Master it. Do the best you can and live it.

One hundred was great! Her tachometer showed thirty-six hundred, and she red-lined at fifty-five, so she had quite a ways to go. One hundred felt fine.

A sign that said Ludlow flashed by, a wide spot in the road, up ahead, also light years from anywhere. She slowed to pull in.

Get some gas. Maybe waste some time. Feel her skin tingle from the ride, which it would do even though she was wearing armored leathers. At one hundred, it probably would have even if she'd had a full fairing up front.

* * *

After filling her tank, she tried walking to the ladies' room. Yes, she looked manly in her biker clothes. Yes, she sounded manly. Yes, she was too tall.

But fuck them all.

Today she was a biker chick. And if they messed with her, she'd show them just how biker chick she could be. Butch is the way she felt that day, and that feeling fit the biker mode. She wouldn't be the only butch biker chick to ride through that day, she knew, as a major biker run to Laughlin was scheduled for later in the week.

Her legs felt rubbery under her. They felt strong, but they didn't know how to walk so well after sitting on the bike for two hours, engine vibrations rearranging her muscle molecules. The sensation felt good. She was a biker.

The ladies' room was quiet. She was the only one there. She felt sorry. She wanted to assert her right to be there to anyone who might object. _Fuck 'em,_ she felt. She'd be strong. Let them guess if she was transgender or a bull dyke member of some biker gang. She'd look at them as if to ask, "What are you lookin' at?" And they'd leave her alone.

* * *

The road beckoned, and she flew down it for hours. Nothing rode better than her bike. She wasn't as strong as she used to be, so she didn't sit upright on it. Instead, she strapped a small piece of soft luggage to the rear seat, in front of the sissy bar back there, so she could lean on it.

Bug splatters on her? You betcha. Of course. Proves she's a biker to anyone.

Needles went by. Kingman. Flagstaff.

She got to Winslow by the afternoon, and she decided to take a break there to look at the meteor crater. Tourist trap.

Nice, innocent asteroid, peaceful in space, crash-lands here on Earth, making a spectacular explosion in the process, and for what? So unaware idiots could come here and say, "Oh, look, Mommy: a big hole in the ground."

But Regina was more aware than that. She looked at the crater, and her mind began considering the mass, composition, speed, and trajectory of the asteroid; she wondered how a rock would feel, if a rock had feelings, to float for four billion years in space only to crash into Arizona one day. The vacuum was nice and cold out in space. Sometimes the weather was hot in Arizona. She was ready to guess that the asteroid—again, if it had feelings—had grown used to its new environment.

That was bad. The asteroid might not have liked the forced change.

But, she consoled the rock: we have taxes in Arizona. And tourists drop little balls of spit on you just to see them splat. She winked at the rock, consoling it over its loss of space, encouraging it to accept its fate.

* * *

In Winslow, she stopped for gas at a quick stop and saw a little girl sitting on a curb nearby, trying to give away a litter of puppies. Regina stopped to look. The dogs were gathered together on a dish towel in the bottom of a cardboard box with a sign on the side written in ballpoint pen: "$5."

The puppies were mutts of no particular breed, although they seemed to have some shepherd and some retriever in them. They would grow to be medium-size dogs, Regina guessed. Some slept. Some crawled over one another, going nowhere. Just moving. They were a little older than Regina had thought giveaways would be. Six of them. Homeless.

The girl smiled and said nothing, although she looked up at Regina helplessly. "Please take one. Give it a home." The little girl looked down and out, too, from a poor family. At least, Regina thought, she hoped the girl had a family.

One of the puppies ranged out from the others, getting itself into a corner, and it didn't seem to know how to turn around.

Regina stood before the girl and began to cry. A tear fell down her cheek, though she didn't change her expression.

She reached into the box and picked up the wandering puppy. It quickly snuggled into her arms. She lowered her face into the chest of the puppy between its forelegs, nuzzled it, and got licked on her nose for the effort.

The puppy was the softest thing she'd known in a long time. Completely needing without knowing it, loving without strings, just needing a mommy and a home.

"Thank you," Regina said and paid the little girl a hundred dollars. The girl started to cry.

Regina hadn't had someone to love in a long time.

_I don't have much money,_ she thought to the puppy. She had a condo, but now she didn't know if she'd be able to pay for it.

"You've moved from one homeless situation to nearly another, I fear," she said to the puppy. "Maybe out of the frying pan into the fire."

She tried to think about the future and found herself with new determination. "But however it goes, we will do things together, you and me," she promised the puppy in front of the little girl.

"Winslow," she named the little thing. "That's your name. It means 'one who rises after crater' in ancient Indian," she joked.

She had no food for the animal. The little saleslady had nothing to offer on feeding information, though Regina guessed milk would help, and figured the puppy would eat what it wanted. She was on a bike. She had no collar, no leash, and no way to care for the puppy. She was six hundred miles from home.

Desperate situation for the little thing, but Regina would help.

Carrying the puppy inside her jacket—in which the little thing seemed to delight—she went to a discount store in Winslow and bought a leash, a collar, a baby carrier for her chest—size large—and some basic foods.

Outside at the bike, she took the soft suitcase off her bike, dumped most of its contents into a trash can, and filled it with puppy food and supplies.

The collar went on the puppy, leash on the collar, and the little darling was introduced to the asphalt of the parking lot, with her leash tied to a bar on the frame of the bike.

Regina took a paper bowl out of its wrapper and poured some milk into it. She scooted Winslow over in front of it, and sure 'nuff, the puppy liked milk. Looked as if milk fit the bill perfectly.

While Winslow lapped, Regina put the baby carrier on her chest,

After the lapping was done, little Winslow pooped right beside the bowl. Regina picked her up, nuzzled her once again, and slipped her inside the baby carrier.

She smiled at her little darling. "We're a long way from home, Winslow. It might take a day or two to get home, if we go sublight speed. So you just settle in."

Winslow settled in for a nap.

Regina drove cautiously, carefully, all the way back, minding Winslow's little comforts at every turn, feeding her at every stop.

The little thing depended on her utterly. No way was she going to let her dog suffer.

CHAPTER 23

WITH WINSLOW ON HER LEASH, Regina and her dog went together, back to the university, to pick up Regina's things. Winslow was going to get too big to ride around in the baby carrier. It worked great for the bike ride back then—a time that seemed bleak and desperate to Regina—but the dog was going to have to get accustomed to the leash for most things in the future. The vet estimated she'd grow to something like sixty pounds or so.

They were walking on the grass by the quad, and Winslow impulsively pooped on the grass. "That's it," Regina praised, reinforcing the behavior. She bent over to pet Winslow. "That's a good place to go. On the grass. Sure!" Winslow seemed proud of herself.

Regina reached into her pocket to get a sandwich baggie—an item she routinely carried around now—to pick up Winslow's poop. In the future, she reflected, when Winslow grew, she'd need to get larger bags. Not something she was looking forward to, but Winslow was just too cute to ignore.

She picked up Winslow for a good face-to-face nuzzle. "I wonder if the university offers any classes on dog training," she said to Winslow.

"Regina!" someone called.

Regina looked up. The caller was Mike, the law professor who had helped the university ambush her.

She looked away from him and gathered Winslow in her arms, turning to leave.

He pursued.

"Leave me alone, Mike," she said.

"I may have worked something out." He told her about an idea to continue her employment with the university, but at a different campus.

Regina's heart leapt with joy that she'd be able to keep her job and house, but a half second later, it sank, and her idealistic nature reasserted itself. "That means I'm being told to hide out because I'm transgender! That I'm not female because I'm transgender! What oppression! No way!"

Mike held up his hands for her to stop. "Get real! It's a penis in the vagina room, and if someone wants to make something of it— The university doesn't want to fight it."

"Why do you call it that? Female parts are homologous, and I'm female. So it's a clitoris."

"Most transgenders don't say it that way."

"Fuck 'em. It's up to us to define ourselves." Regina knew that Mike could have poked dozens of holes through that argument, but he didn't, and Regina was grateful.

He said, "It's a bitch, but until we move to unified bathrooms, it's the problem we have to learn to deal with."

Regina knew that he'd worked a miracle for her, that there was no sense in arguing. She looked down in defeat. "So what are you trying to do now? Date me because you helped me?" she asked.

Mike's expression was sympathetic. "No," he said. "Just advocating for peace. Trying to work things out. I used to be a defense lawyer. Old habits."

"Thanks," Regina said.

Mike reached over to pet Winslow. "Cute dog. Yours?"

Regina nodded. "Two days labor, getting her back here from Winslow, Arizona."

"Long way to go for a puppy."

"Short way to go for love."

CHAPTER 24

REGINA SAT on the examination table in the surgeon's office. The time had come for some surgery. She'd never wanted to do this, but the episode with the bathroom was the last straw. She needed some peace, and this should give it to her. Her testes didn't do anything for her anymore anyway, and removing them with an orchiectomy, she'd be able to discontinue testosterone blockers and reduce her estrogen intake, both of which made a little sense, long term.

And why not? The things didn't work anymore anyway; they just added bulk to her panties, something to dangle in the toilet. They weren't large, so it'd be a minor surgery. Local anesthetic, inside a doctor's office, a doctor she knew. Someone who helped other transwomen.

"Just an orchie, "she said to the doc.

"You don't want the penis gone, too?" he asked.

Jesus, nobody gets it.

"No. It's my clitoris and it works. How would your wife take it if she had her clitoris removed? Whatever you gave her wouldn't work as well, even if you didn't accidentally cut the nerve. It's what I have orgasms with. After G.R.S., most have some significant orgasmic issues. Some are completely inorgasmic. Why would I want that?"

"Well, I guess that's pretty clear. Had to ask, because the operation is more expensive. I have a new house out in Malibu, and it's pricey." He grinned at her knowingly.

She gave him a sarcastic smile. She knew the business, but she didn't like being on the business end of it.

"Lean back, feet up in the stirrups."

Regina lay on the outpatient surgical table, a.k.a. exam table, and tried to think of something else as she went through the process.

The doctor made jokes with his assistant.

The local anesthetic hurt a little, but he'd given her a topical anesthetic cream to put on two hours beforehand, so the shots weren't bad. Once during the procedure, she felt something—"I feel something like a needle sticking me a bit," she said—so he gave her a little more local anesthetic, and the feeling went away.

Things out, stitches in.

"And that's it. We're done. Now remember what we discussed. You have to take it easy for a while. It's a minor procedure, but it _is_ surgery, so you have to let the incision knit. Let it heal. Don't listen to me, and you'll have regrets, okay?"

"Okay." Regina knew he meant what he said, and she'd comply.

"So you have someone to stay with you tonight?" he asked.

"Yes. My daughter."

"Good. You shouldn't be alone the first night. And you have your pain pills we gave you. You should be fine. Call me if you have any questions later."

Regina dressed—uncharacteristically in a skirt this time—because even with a maxipad in her panties to catch any residual bleeding, the pressure from the crotch of a pair of jeans might be unwelcome.

A friend from transgroup picked up Regina at the doctor's office and took her home.

Regina felt fine, physically. She knew she had to take things easy because, minor or not, the procedure was surgery, and she had to allow time for her body to recover and the tissues to heal.

Her emotions, however, were screwed up. She wanted to think she was happy about having the orchie, but having her balls removed somehow grated against her soul. They were hers. They were somehow a matter of pride to her and her identity, something she'd had all her life that she'd, frankly, enjoyed playing with sometimes.

She had to have her balls removed to be "more" female? Why couldn't she be female with them? A lot of women had testes. She knew many of them herself. And there were intersex conditions, such as complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which individuals who were commonly accepted as women had testes. So why should transgenders be discriminated against?

But she did grasp some people's arguments, whether right or wrong. She'd now removed the ambiguity. In no possible way could she be accused of being male, she felt, if she didn't have the apparatus to make sperm.

She identified as a woman, lived as a woman, had her driver's license and passport changed to "F," took hormones, had breast augmentation, and had her balls removed. She felt there was little difference between herself as she was now compared to what she would have been if born female, other than a bit of tissue and a lot of social prejudice.

For decades, she'd been taking female hormones, and now she wouldn't have to take an androgen blocker anymore. She could reduce her female hormone intake, but she intended to increase her testosterone to normal female levels to maintain vitality as she aged.

Regina lay down on the sofa to begin relaxing.

Her friend got her some bottled water from the fridge, some potato salad, a fork, her cell phone, and the TV remote; she laid them all on the coffee table within reach. Pillow adjusted under the head. Pain pills right beside the water.

She knew what Regina might need. She'd been through the same thing with the surgeon last year.

"You're female, now," Regina was told. "Women are not as strong as men, so you need to take care of yourself. You lie here and get well. You've gotten rid of two of those tumors you were born with, honey."

Regina nodded in acknowledgement, although she didn't fully agree with the sentiment.

She didn't eat anything, didn't turn on the TV, didn't drink the water, didn't notice when she fell asleep, and didn't notice when her friend left.

CHAPTER 25

REGINA MARCHED INTO the dean's office—the same lovely, paneled office that held the inquisition against her a few months before—and handed him a letter.

"Barging in?" he asked.

"Natalie said to come on in."

The dean doubted that.

"I didn't mean to barge, but I wanted to show you this letter personally. I don't want it floating around." Regina's tone was forceful.

The dean took the letter and read it. It was short, so the reading took only a minute.

He looked at her over his reading glasses. "Is this real? Because if it's fake, we'll fire you in a hot minute."

Regina looked at him with an angry challenge on her face, daring him to try her patience. "It's real. Touch it!" she challenged him.

"Let's see," the dean read again and commented. "Letter from a surgeon that says you've had gender-affirming surgery as a woman—so you had that surgery?" the dean asked, pointing to Regina's groin.

"Yes. I did. I'm female now," she said defiantly, hoping he would misunderstand. Maybe he was full of shit, but she didn't want his crap.

Smiling, the dean sat back in his chair, and asked, "So how does that feel?"

"It was painful. So now can I have my old office back? And go to the bathroom once in a while without any crap?"

The dean sat back up to his desk and looked at the letter again. Regina guessed he wouldn't grasp the subtleties of the statements—most people didn't, which explained why the letter was written that way. The dean said, "Maybe. I think so. It's no cocks around the boxes," he said and smiled, probably seeing if she'd bite.

She didn't.

"I don't make the rules," he said. "The last thing I need is an uproar over discrimination against a trans person, so let's get this whole thing over with, shall we? I'll have to discuss your letter with others, but I think it will be okay. Of course this letter will have to be checked and retained in your file against any future complaints." He smiled at her.

Regina was already pissed and when so, her voice tended to drop and become even more manly than usual, but she contained her anger. "It better not get out," she said threateningly. "It is a cruel treatment of us that our sexuality has to be a matter of record, Dean, or that we be suspect for such mundane and normal bodily functions as going to the bathroom. But after your wretched and unprofessional treatment of me last spring in this office, I can see that I should expect no less.

"But now that the operation has been done, let me tell you that if I receive any more trouble from this university, I'll be the one who files the suit."

Finger pointed at him in warning.

Lewis Black would have been proud.

The dean smiled at her, put the letter aside on his desk, and ignored her and her empty threat.

CHAPTER 26

February, Hawaii

WAIKIKI BEACH was too rocky for her taste, and Diamond Head was too far to walk to. What she saw was hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, a million little shops, places "greaching"—grabbing and reaching—for her money, yet clearly not wanting her. Just her money.

_What a horrible place,_ she thought. How low. How cheap, that a place could be that pro-greach, that outright and unashamedly grabby! _The locals aren't even trying to hide that fact,_ she thought.

A clerk in one knickknack store tried to sell her everything in stock; he seemed so friendly, so human. Yet after she bought a stupid little sailboat carving, she tried to engage in friendly conversation, but the clerk suddenly morphed into a busy bee with many pressing tasks.

Then she encountered another clerk in a swimming suit store. Regina could tuck better now that she'd had the orchie. There was less bulk in her panties. So she thought she'd get a swimming suit and lie on the beach. No longer a kid, she went for a one-piece, but she couldn't decide, so she stepped out of the dressing room a few times to ask the saleslady for an opinion. Another customer—one with the look of a beached whale who would look no better than a hippo in a bathing costume—turned up her nose at Regina and left. _What was that all about?_

"Oh, everything is just so lovely," the clerk told her. This one has formed cups, This one is multicolored, so if you get something on it you'll never know. This one has this elastic around the waist, so it's slimming. We could all use some of that, right?" the clerk said and winked at her in collusion. "However, the color of this one suits your skin tone. Ah, you look lovely—"

But the clerk's tone was distinctly distant. She was lying to Regina, trying to make the sale.

And the proof of it, Regina felt: She lay on the beach for hours, sunblock all over her, and no one came up to chat. There, among a thousand other people having a good time, Regina lay alone.

People weren't as friendly in Hawaii as she'd heard.

* * *

She sat on her couch at home and looked through the list of contacts in her cell phone, unhappy about what she was seeing. _Why not call Vonda?_ She hadn't seen her in a long time.

Regina made a call and waited while it rang. "Hello, I'm probably out solving world hunger or chatting with the Vulcans, so please leave a message."

Regina didn't leave one.

She dialed the next one in her book. It was to Margie, someone she'd known at the yacht club.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Margie, this is Regina Isler from the yacht club. How are you doing? I was wondering how things went at the meeting the other night." Regina had been a member of the yacht club for some years, though she rarely did anything with the group.

"Oh, yes." Slight pause. "How are you?" Another slight pause. "You can read the minutes on the website, but I can't talk right now. I'm on my way out." A few social pleasantries, and the line went dead.

Regina stared at her phone and went through the contacts in it one more time.

She called Trent, someone she'd met at a club once, and for some reason she'd gotten his number.

His message was different: "We interrupt this phone call for a special news bulletin: I'm not here! So leave a message if that's your thing. Or play with your thing."

Regina didn't.

* * *

"Oh, you're beautiful, honey! You look so darling in your new hairdo," a fellow T, a trans woman, told her in a mall. Regina had called her to go shopping largely because she couldn't find anybody else. Roberta was supportive of the trans movement, but she was fairly new to it, at only six years in transition.

Regina was twenty-one years posttransition, a lot more experienced.

Regina didn't hang out with these new gals often anymore because they were so full of shit.

"This is the twenty-first century, honey! It's all about being yourself. However you are, you're so beautiful. Let your inner beauty shine—"

Shit like that.

Regina knew she couldn't express her true feelings to Roberta. Roberta hadn't arrived at the point of understanding yet. And, after thinking about the subject more, Regina guessed she had asked Roberta to go shopping just so she could hear this drivel. Bullshit though it was, it was positive, with the intent to be helpful, and Regina needed help. She was so lonely.

* * *

The Vegas strip was a diverting place. The Hilton, the Bellagio, Mirage, MGM Grand, Paris, Wynn. Lights! People! Action! She loved them all, and roulette was her game. A drink in one hand, chips in the other, she was up a hundred in one casino, down two hundred in another, up fifty in another, but literally at the end of the day, she had about a hundred and thirty dollars more in her pocket than she had when she had arrived! _Take that,_ she thought.

So, to be a winner and beat Vegas, she stopped gambling—brilliant—and used the money instead to buy a ticket to a popular comedy-magic show that evening. What could be better?

She started counting her drinks anew because now she wasn't gambling; she was being entertained.

After her second drink, she took her seat in the auditorium next to a gal with short, blond hair who she could swear was a lesbian. And Regina knew lesbians; she was one herself. The lesbian was all alone, too, it seemed. How fortuitous! No other gal was with her. She was sitting quietly, so estimating her height was hard, but Regina guessed the woman would stand about five-feet-six. Something about her reeked of a women's bar, even though she didn't have a beer in her hand.

"Hi," Regina said to her with a smile.

"Hi back," the gal said and sized up Regina in a two-second glance.

Regina wasn't exactly what she'd call "drunk," but she wasn't exactly stone sober either, so she tried consciously to moderate herself, make sure she was friendly.

"Well, this is nice," Regina continued in a friendly tone. Ride my bike to Vegas, win at the tables, and sit here by this goddess to watch a world-class show. Now this is living." Big smile.

The blonde glanced at Regina, but turned back without a smile. She slid down in her seat and tried to ignore Regina.

Regina said nothing for a time while she absorbed the rebuff. Was she more drunk than she thought? Was the gal with the man on the other side of her? Regina leaned forward just a bit to look at him. The blonde wasn't interacting with him. She was ignoring him, too.

"These guys are funny," Regina said to the gal, but there was no response. Was the blonde simply in the mood to be quiet, not wanting to talk with anyone?

The stage was still empty. The show hadn't started yet. Talking was common at this point.

Regina put her fingers together in front of her chest in thought.

The show began. Lights. Music. Famous comedians or magicians or both. Talking. Waving of hands, props moving about. Beautiful women wearing the most outrageous costumes. Things popping into and out of existence, hidden behind things that couldn't possibly hide them. Comedy gags between snappy punch lines. Laughter. And more applause.

Regina leaned over at one point to comment on a trick, but the gal beat her with her own punch line: "I'm just here to watch the show." There was no humor in that, only something of a command: Leave me alone. Or leave me the hell alone. Or leave me the fuck alone.

Regina wasn't sure which cuss word was in the blonde's rebuke, but it must have had one.

The spurn stung like a bee on Regina's heart. Rejection so clear, and she had to stay there beside this woman for the next hour during the show because leaving in defeat would hurt more. She had to get some pleasure from the show.

_Maybe she's a butch who prefers fems,_ Regina thought, _and maybe she doesn't think I'm fem enough for her._

Maybe that was it.

Or maybe Regina had been obnoxious. Too many drinks?

* * *

Regina sat in the stadium on the first-base side with fifty thousand fans cheering the Dodgers on. The weather was a little warmer than usual, but overall, being there that afternoon felt pretty good.

The score was three to two, Dodgers, top of the eighth. Two outs.

A batter got a hit. "Oh, that's a foul! It's okay," she cried loudly enough to engage someone around her, anyone.

Everyone around her seemed to have come to the game with someone else, yet she came alone. She didn't know anyone else to come with, so it was their loss: she'd have bought their ticket to get them to come. They missed out.

Finally the pitcher walked the batter. One man on base.

New batter.

People milled around Regina, getting up, making their way to the aisles, sitting down, talking to others. Regina stood to let a man scooch past on his way to somewhere else important.

"That'll be five bucks to pass," Regina told him with what she thought was humor.

The guy gave her a wary look and continued on his way.

A crack was heard. About twenty thousand people screamed and jumped to their feet, and the other thirty thousand in the food lines turned to look.

"Yes! Yes! YES!" people around shouted.

"Run!" Regina yelled.

The man on first dashed for second, and the batter ran for first.

The ball went wide to left field, bouncing once before the fielder got it and shot it hot to second base.

Out.

Without fanfare, the bottom of the eighth inning began. Teams jogged to change places. Spectators sat down or turned their attention back to the menus at the concession stands.

"That's good. That's the way," Regina told the game, a little louder than she needed to. She hoped, privately, that someone would talk with her more, something beyond the polite pleasantries she could force them into. The man on her right had spoken to her earlier, but after that, he'd shown more interest in the guy on the other side and two others in the row ahead.

Regina got out some sunscreen to put on her face, and the lady on her left accepted a little for herself, with a polite smile but without saying anything.

Regina sat through the rest of the inning and then left the park, alone, ahead of some of the crowd.

* * *

Regina and Winslow double-handed her Pearson 35 sailboat off the coast of California, down toward Ensenada.

With a gentle northwest breeze off the starboard quarter, she had about a ten-degree heel to port, so she sat on the starboard seat, feet propped on the port seat, right hand on the helm. Winslow lay in the sun on the port seat by Regina's feet, sleeping in the warm afternoon sun.

"So, boat, are we going to have calm waters today?" she asked. _How would I know?_ She felt it answer. _I'm a boat. Ask the sea._

Contrary boat! Regina smiled.

She looked at her crew. Winslow was a great help. Regina needed someone to eat scraps, keep the birds off the boat, and participate in general. She'd have to clean the galley, and Winslow would be right there with her.

Winslow was a good and dedicated crew, and she didn't even want a cup of gin per day. Just about fourteen sausages. And while Winslow was a great swimmer, the ocean was a greater force, so Regina kept the dog in a harness clipped to a jack line, running fore and aft.

Both the mainsail and genny were full, and the wind meter indicated about a five-knot breeze—that was in addition to her own speed—so she guessed she was doing about six knots. But she wasn't interested enough to look at her knot meter.

Avalon or San Diego might be fun places to stop, so she might take a whole week to get down to Ensenada, and since both the current and the wind tended to come from the northwest, getting back home could take a month. But she didn't care if the return trip took years.

She looked around her, up ahead, all around, for ships, boats, cargo containers, buoys, junk, white-caps—anything that could indicate a change in the wind and seas—swells, whales, oil derricks, islands, volcanoes, Captain Kirk in a Klingon ship, or anything else that could indicate a problem. Seeing nothing, she closed her eyes.

A hundred miles away, not even on the same continent as anything else, a world unto herself, she prayed. There was so much she needed, so much pain inside.

She both knew the reasons and wondered why at the same time.

She was fifty-nine. Life was passing her by. Why was she all alone? Why did she hurt so much? Why couldn't she connect with people? Why didn't her family want her? Why couldn't she find a lover who wanted to marry her, something more than a trans woman who wanted to live out fantasies? Why did people treat her with such distance when, by every metric she could think of, she would say and do things that were considered nice, friendly, and inviting? Why couldn't they see how good a relationship with her could be, how warm and inviting her home could be, how happy they could be together? Why couldn't they see her thoughts and emotions? And why didn't they care?

Wouldn't they like to go to movies? Wouldn't they like to go for a sail? What's so wrong here? She could serve wine and cheese, and gladly so. They could barbecue off the rail. Wouldn't they like to ride the bike to Vegas? Wouldn't they like to go to conferences? Go shopping? Cook at the house? Plant flowers in little pots for the balcony?

She was more on the ball than most any ten other people, it seemed. There was so much she was aware of, so much she'd learned about in life that she could share if only others would listen. She would be dedicated if anyone went to the hospital or had a family problem. She would be there for someone who needed a friend. She would be a dedicated wife. She would help someone move, help someone if a car broke down, help someone do—anything. She would simply spend the day with someone.

Remember a time, decades ago, when a friend would come over and spend the day, all day, doing nothing in particular, simply for the pleasure of your company? Why couldn't that happen anymore?

What was so goddamned different now, that finding intimacy with others, getting close to them, was so difficult? Why didn't anyone want to go shopping with her? Why didn't anyone want to lounge in her home all day? Or even come over for dinner? What food would she prepare that would be so uninviting? What show they might watch on TV could be so unappealing?

What was wrong with her embrace that someone wouldn't love it?

Why did no one want to get to know her?

CHAPTER 27

"LISA, HI. IT'S ME." Regina wasn't sure how to refer to herself around her daughter anymore.

"Hello," Lisa said quietly.

"You wanna go out to a movie some time later this week?" No answer. "Shopping? We could go to the mall in Century City. We could probably spend a lot of money there without breaking a sweat." She tried to sound humorous but feared her words came out desperate nonetheless.

"No, thank you. Not right now. Maybe sometime next month?"

"Oh." Regina's disappointment was obvious.

"How are we ever going to get together if we don't get together? It's been years, you know. I'm sixty-one now, and you're thirty-three. Are you always so busy?"

"I've got a lot on my plate." Lisa said.

Regina thought Lisa might have someone else there with her, someone Lisa didn't want to know who was on the other end of the phone line.

"Maybe we could meet off campus some time and have lunch?" Lisa said.

Regina was getting angry now. "That was the same lie you gave me last time, and you're not a liar, Lisa. I didn't raise you that way."

"Just not now, okay! Don't press me. I'm busy!"

"Then forget it!" Regina said before she caught herself. Then in a nicer tone, trying to sound familial, she said, "I'll call my mom instead. It's been a while since we went."

"Dad," Lisa said, using a name Regina hadn't heard in years. A long, uncomfortable silence followed. "Your mom isn't here. She passed on last year."

Regina was stunned. "She's dead?"

"A year ago. They told us it was probably her heart. She passed on in her sleep, peacefully."

"She's dead? She died?"

Lisa said nothing.

"What did she die of? How did it happen?"

"In her sleep," Lisa repeated. "Probably a heart attack."

"But she was healthy, wasn't she? How could that happen all of a sudden?"

"Yes, she was healthy, and it did just happen. Her doctor said it happens sometimes. She just passed on one night, Dad."

Regina's mind was reeling.

"Where is she?"

"Ask George."

"Good God!" Regina thought. "You guys never told me? How could you!" Regina screamed. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have gone to the funeral!"

Lisa was silent.

"She was my mom, for Christ's sake!"

"No one called you at all?" Lisa asked, which sounded to Regina like an effort to shift responsibility for that call to everyone else.

"You know, fuck every one of you. Bunch of goddamn puritanical bigots, paramilitary lot. _Goddamnit, that was a horrible thing to do_!" Regina hung up her cell phone without waiting for a reply.

* * *

Regina tried to make nice with the colorful crowd. They met once a month to discuss information they had, or thought they had, that indicated that (1) aliens from outer space have been visiting us for at least hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions, (2) those aliens have nurtured the evolution of our species to develop more intelligence in the universe, and (3) there is a future purpose that we're not aware of yet—although the association was sure there is a larger plan. Every kind of kook and wacko attended the meeting, which made it hard to notice, also, that every kind of rational thinker and scientist attended as well.

"It's the Grays! They're the smartest ones. They run the whole thing from their mothership which sits out at a Lagrangian point behind Jupiter! Look at these photos!" The speaker showed the crowd genuine photos of Jupiter. "See this area here?" He showed them how the "Big Red Spot" changed from one photo to the next.

Someone else chimed in. "Sometimes they come in to sit behind the moon, but they can't do that all the time because we orbit it with something, and we'd see them!"

"Why do they need a mothership and why do they have to hide it?"

"They can breathe our air, so they don't need a ship. Too much coming and going to worry about. They have secret underground bases they operate from."

"I was abducted by them back in eighty-two. That's when my hair started falling out."

The emcee held up his hands.

"All good ideas for thought. We could look at them in greater detail another time," he said, as if trying to inject a calmer rationale into the proceedings. "But the focus tonight, as part of our series, is more on an examination of artifacts around the globe, looking at many of them from a fresh, new perspective to see if there is more indication of alien involvement in our lives, through our evolution, than mainstream thought has been suggesting. Does anyone have any ideas along these lines?"

There was a murmur, but no takers at first.

Regina felt a strong need to connect, so she raised her hand, unsure of what she'd say.

"Dr. Isler."

Smiles and applause. The crowd loved having people with doctoral degrees lend an air of intelligence and mental muscle to the proceedings.

When the group quieted down, Regina said, "I haven't seen any aliens myself, but the collective evidence does seem to suggest that something is going on in that direction, and that the news of it is being clouded by various governments, including our own." She smiled broadly. She was hoping the people would like what she said.

The crowd's response was lukewarm.

"Well, that was a whole lot of nothin'," someone said.

The gathering turned its attention to the next speaker.

* * *

"Near-death experiences give us a glimpse through a briefly opened window into the life hereafter," someone said.

This group was smaller, fairly sedate, much more orderly and inquisitive, but it had even fewer answers than the alien theorists.

Someone else responded, "Many people who report these things—and there have been tens of thousands around the globe since Adam—have a similar experience, all dealing with visions that are hard to see, darkness around, a light ahead, a sense of friendliness or love ahead."

"But that experience could be a hypoxic hallucination, the narrowing of the perceptual field due to less oxygen in the brain, with less respiration or none at all. Near-death is similar to the experience of fighter pilots pulling lots of Gs, a condition in which less oxygen is delivered to the brain. Vision narrows from the edges toward the center, producing an effect like a near-death experience."

"Yes, but in NDEs, people are having conversations, interacting with others, loved ones, and the brain can't generate new thoughts or ideas at that level of hypoxia."

"True, I think," replied Regina, trying to sound calm like the others but, in truth, feeling agitated inside. "But the experiences of thought and interaction could be generated while the patient is going into that hypoxic state and also when coming out of it, generating whole 'minutes' or even 'hours' worth of seeming-thoughts in seconds, like a dream."

"Yes, but there's the similarity of experiences reported among people of different cultures, all around the globe, and through time," someone responded.

Regina seemed to have taken the floor for the moment. "That's true," she said, "but we're all human, same species, wherever we are and through time. And the natural tendency of our brain to generate experience in twilight is felt by us all. Just as all cultures smile, even if one has never known another. All cultures frown. All cultures know fear and happiness, love, the need to reproduce. And all cultures dream.

"In a hypoxic state— such as after respiration or blood flow to the brain stops, which the body and brain experience as a near-deathlike state—dreaming of what we desire the most—peace, forgiveness, security, happiness, and love—may be natural for our organism."

The group offered no response.

"In the face of a simple, reasonable explanation that fits what we know of how the brain works, to presume something else is a flight of fantasy, of wishful thinking, of a need for life-after-death to give us long-term purpose, and a desire that we will never have to come to grips with our own ends!"

The meeting ended. The tone was somber.

"Goddamnit," she hit her own steering wheel as she drove away. Those nice people were trying to find solutions to life's mysteries and she had poked holes in their most important ideas. Using her brains to knock them down!

And the goddamnedest thing of all was that she was successful! She deflated the whole group, knocked their hopes and dreams down for their own life meaning and life after death.

Because I'm angry?

"Goddamnit," she said again to her steering wheel, gripping it tightly with both hands until her knuckles turned white.

* * *

She'd never been to a _Star Trek_ conference before, and her first was a gas! Never before had she seen such a collection of fans and half-characters in her life, and everything she experienced was all great.

She went to the counter and bought some Klingon attire. At her height of five-feet-eleven and with her muscular frame, she could pull off a convincing Klingon female with no effort, where other women had to work out on weights for years or take steroids to pull off the same thing.

Nobody knew her there, and damned if she'd tell them who she was. She strutted around all day in her armor and helmet, and people liked her as long as she didn't speak. For some reason, they didn't seem to like her when she spoke.

_You know, fuck 'em._ She was a lesbian Klingon, with C-cups to boot, and they could eat that. That attitude went with the role just fine, also.

She bought a name tag that lit up her name, Phouk Eough, paid for membership in an organization, bought someone's book and stood in line for thirty minutes to get it autographed, and attended a gathering in the large hall where stars showed themselves and talked about the future.

"Any reason the future couldn't be as advertised?" an emcee was saying to the crowd. There was huge applause. "Characters are part of the series, and we don't know what's out there. Yet." A few laughs, jokes, comments. "But is there any reason we can't be an intelligent species who wants to explore the galaxy?"

Both the applause and cheers were thunderous.

"Any reason we can't build ships to go where no human has gone before?" Even louder applause and cheers.

"Any reason we can't learn to get along with people who are different?" More cheers. "Even with people who are VERY DIFFERENT?" Even louder cheers.

_This place is home,_ Regina thought. She was going to sleep in her costume for life, camp out by the front door of the convention hall.

The emcee continued, "Is there any reason we can't learn to understand even great differences among us as preparation for understanding other beings?" People standing, cheering. "Other species!" Louder. "To one day be part of the galactic community of beings who are, perhaps, even very different—" Although the emcee had a microphone with loud speakers, he was having trouble being heard. "—and who squabble sometimes, yet who form that body which is intelligent LIFE in the cosmos! HUMANS being a part of it?"

Regina shouted her cheers along with everyone else. No one could hear her scream because there was such an uproar. Jesus, she was never going to leave!

* * *

Dressed in a full-length chemise, corset, blouse, long skirt, bodice, and sandals, Regina tried to enjoy the period get-away of a Renaissance fair. The sun was out, the air was cool, and the people were playfully zany. The whole scene was a lively mix: people strolling along eating turkey legs or ears of corn on the cob held in their fists; children running; flutes playing in the distance; mock sheriffs trying to catch runaway thieves; fake politicians running for office, decrying the local debauchery; actors playing peasants, complete with dirt on their clothes and straw in their hair; prisoners in stocks; sideshows with outrageous comedians and magic acts. The most hilarious performance was an effort to lampoon Shakespeare in a spoof of _The Taming of the Shrew._

The fair was an attempt to recreate life as it was in Elizabethan England—the first Elizabeth, or thereabouts, Regina guessed—but if life was this way, imagining how the people survived was difficult. Thank God Henry VIII was gone, or maybe they wouldn't have.

Regina tried unsuccessfully to forget all the other bullshit of her life: bills; the economy; employment; lovers; people setting her up to do a thing, and then when she did it, complaining about what a horrible job she had done; family who wouldn't keep her informed.

She sat on a crude bench under a tree and felt defeated. She looked at the dirt.

_I am alive,_ she thought. She was a thinking person. She was basically healthy. She could enjoy the wonders around her. Those things had to be miracle, in and of themselves.

But not everything is a blessing.

She could love, but she had no one to love. Winslow, for sure. But no lover she'd ever been able to find and keep, no long-term sense of home and family, with the hope or even the certainty of growing old together. When she got old, she'd wind up alone in some nursing home with no one to care or even know she'd ever lived.

One of the actors, she was sure, approached her to ask if she'd seen a man running that way, a man who had dishonored his sister. He had a sheriff in tow, and a short, fat, obviously happy young lady who couldn't get the grin off her face. The interaction was designed to cheer Regina up, to bring levity to someone who needed it, but Regina's only response was a tired and irritated, distinctly masculine, "Get the fuck out of here."

They left. Some others who heard her looked at her, astonished, and scurried past.

_God, I didn't mean to do that._ She felt sorry. The people were only trying to help, she chastised herself. But those were the only words that would come out: she knew that if the people came back, she'd tell them the same thing again. Tears started to form, but with all her significant internal strength, she fought them back.

This insidious, chronic loneliness was so crushing. It was like a small pressure that slowly grows and never gives up. A person can deal with loneliness for a week, a year, or even a decade, but eventually the collective weight of it—day after day, never really ending—will bend and then break a soul into a dying heap, its force made all the greater because of the certainty that no one cares.

She watched some God-knows-whats walk by in a little group, obviously males in gender-fuck drag, probably cross-dressers, playing at pretending to be women for a day in some ridiculous way. She was thankful they didn't notice her.

She looked back down at the dirt pathway. Her tears started coming. She couldn't stop them, but she could keep her face from wrinkling up into a good cry. She could keep her voice from making any sounds. She could hold her body still, but she couldn't stop the tears.

She took out her sunglasses and put them on, although they weren't period attire. She reached up with her hand, periodically, under the edge of the sunglasses, and wiped tears away. _Keep the face stiff, hard as a rock. Don't let the muscles move,_ she counseled herself. And she hoped no one would notice she was actually crying.

_My mother died,_ she thought. No one called to tell me. _Don't I even rate that?_

In time, her tears stopped, but she left the glasses on and strolled in a stupor along the charming dirt path near the pond.

She could see that the craziness around her must be fun for most people whose lives were intact in some way, a playful respite from the daily grind. But the tone of the fair was so far from where she was that she seemed to be walking through a movie, some kind of unreal 3-D production. The fair was so far from her that she couldn't get a handle on it, couldn't reach out and touch it, let alone embrace it.

She was simply alive. She breathed. She felt the sun on her arms. She was glad she could feel the earth beneath her sandals. How friendly the earth was, she felt, the dirt itself, the planet, this miraculous thing that produced them all.

Then she found herself standing motionless in the path, with people going around her in gleeful play, shopping for things, eating ice cream—most of them accompanied by someone—when she noticed a sign up ahead on a tent for a Tarot reader. A psychic.

What total bullshit. Tarot cards for Christ's sake. How fucking stupid.

She walked into the tent and found an old lady wearing a large shawl. Fifty dollars, she said, for a reading.

"I don't believe in silly magic, Tarot cards, or psychics," Regina said.

"I don't claim to be a psychic, and there's no silly magic in the cards. They're just the story of life, symbols that relate to things we all experience in life, or spiritual things. They're about life and death, rebirth of ourselves or ideas, love, greed, hate, striving to make something better, and defeat when our efforts fail. They're keys to concepts that inspire a thought or a feeling in me, and then I tell you what I'm sensing."

"So I don't have to pay you unless you're right, right?"

"Wrong. Sorry," said the old gal with a friendly grin. "But much of what I tell you will be about the future, so there's no way to tell yet, is there?"

"Pay you on installments for each prophesy that comes true?"

"You're a suspicious one, aren't you." Saying it as a statement, not a question. "Yet curious, also. You walk in here to challenge me, but you're also curious."

Regina was taken aback by the crone's frankness. Sometimes, she chastised herself, with her doctorate and her profession—

"Yes. Glimmers of truth, reflections on life, are found everywhere, from a rock yet undiscovered to distant galaxies swarming beyond our sight."

Regina liked the way the woman talked. She sat down without thinking.

"Even whale shit?" Regina asked?

"Even whale shit," the reader replied matter-of-factly without pause.

Regina got the sense that this old gal had been around a few blocks.

"And the cards—" the woman pulled one out of the deck, seemingly at random, and flipped the corner as one might a playing card, "—are just cards that tell the story.

"Like the six of swords," the reader said, referencing the one she was holding and showing it to Regina. "There are six swords in the picture, which may be difficulty, problems, conflict. But notice the picture is not about sword play or fighting. See that boat on the water, there? It's about a boat sailing across a sea to calm waters ahead. The card does not create the calm. But it reminds me of the concept of peace up ahead, the kind of relief one feels after a storm—like the way the air may be still after a hurricane, where the atmosphere feels so desperately nurturing. The still air was present at a thousand other times in life, but the seemingly incessant howling of the hurricane brings focus to it, and that calm, this time, feels like a soothing bandage on a tortured soul."

Regina sat immobile, staring at the card.

The reader placed the six of swords at the top left corner of the table and then laid down a spread in lines on the left, lines on the right, with one final card in the center: the death card.

Regina jumped.

The reader noticed.

"Someone dear to you passed on?" That question is a classic for fake psychics, Regina knew. It made the woman sound like a charlatan.

The dirty look Regina telegraphed suggested, _Don't you know, psychic?_

"You were close, yes, but there's more," the woman continued.

Regina's reaction grew.

"You were kept from her! The bastards kept you away?"

Regina felt as if she might flee, but instead she succumbed to the reader's urgings to talk. Regina revealed how she learned of her mother's death. Today was the first time she had talked about the disclosure, and she found herself dumping everything on a cheap, Renaissance-fair psychic who seemed, against all odds, the perfect person to confide in.

"But," the reader pointed out, "this 'death' card isn't about that. It was your reaction to it we've been working with, but this card isn't about physical life ending. The way it's seen here, it's about a passing from one phase of life into another. It's metaphoric. It's more about the end of an age and the beginning of a new age. The end of an idea, as it were, and the birth of a new one!"

Regina was intrigued. The woman continued the reading without distraction. "The cards are strong in this one," she said. She laid another card just north of the death card, the hanged man, and another just south of it, the fool. "Oh, my God," the reader said.

Regina jumped.

"Oh, no. Sorry," the reader explained. "It's not bad at all. It's just so pure!" Her smile made her positive message clear. "These cards are coming together for you. It's beautiful. _You_ are beautiful, honey." She reached across the table and touched Regina's hand for a moment.

"But look at this! Here we have the death card in the middle—meaning the end of one era and the beginning of another. And this card just below it is your past, how you have been dealing with life."

"The fool?"

"Oh, that card doesn't mean you're a fool. In an older sense, the term refers to someone who lives life through various experiences. A free spirit, as it were. It doesn't mean you're not also deliberate in much of your life, or disciplined, or responsible. But it reflects on this thing that will change, this era that will morph into another era. There is something that will change in you in the near future. This speaks more to an awareness of something than it does to a whole lot of action. Does anything I'm saying making sense to you yet? Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"No," Regina said sincerely.

"And this card," she referenced the hanged man, "is your future."

"Jesus Christ!" Regina said boldly. "Jesus goddamned Christ. This one says I'll be killed, and this one says I'll be killed by hanging!"

"No it doesn't," the reader said sternly. "These cards are _metaphoric_ , not literal. This one, the death card, says something major in your life will change soon, and this one," she referenced the hanged man, "suggests that you'll be helpless to do anything about the change." She looked at Regina again in a way that suggested that Regina might already be aware of her future directions.

"The hanged man is in a circumstance not of his conscious desire, though he may have influenced it subconsciously. He's in a circumstance beyond his control, and the best thing he can do is nothing. Sometimes in life, you must simply surrender: hold up your hands, quit struggling, and say 'okay' to the cosmos. Let it have its way.

"This thing in your life," she continued, again pointing to the death card, "will be something like that, where you have to go with it, not fight it. Better yet: stop fighting!" She said it like an order. "You will cause more problems by trying to fight than by letting things take their course. That's what this card is.

"Now let's see more about this," she said, laying a card to the left and the right of the hanged man.

Regina saw the woman's eyes widen. "This reading is so pure. Look at all this major arcana."

Regina didn't know what that meant.

"This card to the left, strength, shows the lion and the lady. It means something like 'strength through softness,' as opposed to a brute force method of dealing with something or direct opposition. The lady can't overcome the lion with strength, but notice how the two exist in harmony? Through her gentleness and guidance she tames the lion.

"And this card to the right, the tower," she said, looking solemnly at the obviously in-crisis Regina, "here, with these cards, suggests that the road ahead will be difficult."

"The tower?" Regina asked. "How's that?"

"Again, the cards are metaphoric, what they mean to me after using them to interpret life for a couple of generations. The meanings are idiosyncratic, just my interpretations of what I'm seeing, but in all honesty, I'm sensing that your road ahead will be a struggle, and that your path may get harder than it already is.

"But not in the same way it is right now. Remember the death card? Things are going to change, to be different in some fundamental way with your life, and apparently, from what I'm reading here, you need to roll with the change, not fight it. Your best course is to be gentle with life's changes, but nonetheless, some aspect of the change will be difficult for you. A difficulty of a new kind for you, one you haven't worked with before."

Regina sat, totally sold on what the reader was saying, for she'd developed an unexpected respect for the crone's views, although she was not yet fully comprehending what the reader was talking about.

After a few moments, Regina said, "But, of course, it's just as it seems to you. I mean, these are just cards, and you are just reading them. At a faire. Right?"

Regina paid the woman sixty dollars, ten for a tip, and left, not in the same depressed shock she'd been in, but in some other space, as if she'd been changed in some way of which she was as yet unaware.

CHAPTER 28

SEVERAL MONTHS LATER, Regina stood just outside the drip line of a large tree, in the middle of what could have been a vast, beautiful park, looking forlornly at her mother's headstone. It was medium-size, granite. Her mother's name was carved on it, dates of birth and death, with the inscription, "The Best Mom in the World."

The cemetery was a peaceful setting, and the marker was a respectful stone that looked as if it might have been purchased on a budget. But respectful.

Regina tried to imagine her mother's body in it, lying, eyes closed, among white silk padding.

Regina had found this location by getting someone from school to call her brother, George Jr., and claim to be another old army wife, a friend to her mother. Regina's previous attempts at calling George had been met with direct anger and one actual threat of bodily harm, followed by no answers then at all. Other members of the family acted as if they'd been told not to tell _or else._ Even Lisa said Regina would have to get the address from George.

Why her mother's grave wasn't near her father's Regina could only guess, but she thought that George Jr., who she'd learned now preferred only George, had become a real alpha male and had bought a family plot in this other cemetery for whomever he would consider family. He didn't include Father, and he probably wouldn't include Regina, either, when the time came. Some people could be so cold.

Would Mom's body register the chill in winter? The ground would get cold, a little, down there. But her brain was deteriorated. _What a stupid thought,_ Regina chastised herself. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her daughter.

"Yes," her daughter answered as a statement, without saying her name.

"I'm standing here at Mom's grave. George wasn't able to keep the location from me. Why would he even try?"

"He said you were a pain to your mother in life, and he didn't want you to disturb her peace in death."

"That's bullshit," Regina said.

"Yes, it is," Lisa agreed.

"So why wouldn't you tell me? Why did you make me finagle the information from him?"

She hemmed a little. "I was just trying to keep peace in the family."

"Aren't I part of the family," Regina asked aghast. The implications of what she was saying—

"You aren't ever around," she said flatly.

The implications of Lisa's statement were obvious to Regina. "Are you thinking that's because I want to stay away? I get everything from a cold shoulder to outright threats from the family. How can I be included?"

"Listen, I have to get the kids ready for school. I can't do this right now."

"Okay, just one thing. You and I both know that the family doesn't want me around because I'm transgender. But why? What am I, poison? I'm just a person, okay? I'm truthful and responsible. I brush my teeth, and I do a bunch of other good stuff. It's like 'gay' was fifty years ago. Bigotry is based on ignorance and unfamiliarity. So let's do something about that. You're a cultural anthropologist. Come with me to a gender conference next weekend and learn what we're like."

"I don't have time."

"You're thirty-four, Lisa. I've been living as a woman for twenty-four years so far. When are you ever going to have time?"

The line was quiet for a few moments, and then it went dead without another word.

* * *

The annual gender conference was held at a large hotel, where every manner of drag something-or-other took over the place for the weekend. Regina couldn't tell what the attendees were, precisely, from watching them roam the halls or lobby, from how they acted, from how they talked, from what they said in the coffee shop or bar, or from how they dressed—and certainly not from any evidence of G.R.S.

Most of them were cross-dressers caught up in the fantasy of being "female" for the weekend. "My pussy this," or "My pussy that," they'd say, when in truth a raging hard-on was pointed aft between cheeks. But the movement considered all of them "transgender," as they were definitely trans-something, and there were more lines crossed here than on a plate of spaghetti.

With only slightly less effort to restrain herself, she could have been laid five times on the way to breakfast, no doubt with each cock protruding from the leg of a pair of silk panties.

Fine. If that's what they want, let them. _Fuck the whole world right along with them,_ she felt.

The evening banquet was set in a large hall and attended almost entirely by ladies who might have been auditioning for a retro Mae West production. The exceptions in the crowd were what appeared to be two transsexuals, a few professionals who worked in the industry, and Regina, who—in her jeans and T-shirt—looked as if she'd come from working on her car.

"Trans is a good way of life," she told the eight "ladies" at her table, herself a model of success in the transworld. At that venue, her long hair and breast augmentation made clear she lived as a woman. Most of the "ladies" knew who she was, as she'd been promoting transgender social acceptance for some years from the university.

But not everyone knew her. "You transitioned to a woman _24 years ago_?" a new one asked. She looked as if she had transitioned thirty minutes ago out of a suitcase, with her fake boobies, newly shaved face under pancake makeup, and overdone wig.

"Of course! Why not? It's who I am," Regina said with total confidence. "How could I go through life as anything else?"

"Well, because of all the bullshit," one of them said.

"Oh, yeah. But acceptance was hard for the gays at one time, wasn't it? It was hard at other times for other groups, such as Jews, Irish, blacks. Those who are different always face troubles, but in time, if we stand up for who we are, we will gain more acceptance."

Her words sounded rational to them, and the encouragement, the empowerment, was well received.

"Here's to womanhood!" one of them said, raising a glass, and they had another toast.

Regina downed her drink in one big gulp. _Fuck the whole world,_ she felt.

At that moment, a little thing, probably not more than twenty-five years old, maybe five-feet-six in height, wearing a rhinestone-studded silver minidress, wig, and heels—nice figure—approached and squatted on the floor beside Regina's chair, her knees between the legs of the chair. The look on the squatter's face was one of rapture or ecstasy.

The lady looked up at Regina, a little spacey, and squirmed in her pantyhose, rubbing her cock against herself.

Conversation at the table stopped, and Regina stared down at the doll.

"Oh, Dr. Isler," she said in a feminized version of her daily voice, rather like Marilyn Monroe, "thank you for being here for me!" Her lips slightly parted, her lipstick perfect, her eyes pleading.

Regina didn't even think; she simply leaned over and kissed the girl dead on the mouth, a long, loving, sumptuous kiss, and moved her hand between the girl's thighs to find her rigid cock hard beneath the soft pantyhose. The girl moved her hands up around Regina's neck and kissed her from below as if they were in the honeymoon suite instead of a banquet hall with a couple hundred people watching.

Regina loved the feel of the rigid cock beneath the girl's pantyhose as she stuck her tongue deep into the doll's mouth. One slow caress was all that was needed because the girl was ready to pop. She lost herself in a never-ending wave of orgasm, her hips moving to Regina's hand, her groans heard even above the conversation at other tables.

People from surrounding tables lost their trains of thought and watched the pair.

When her orgasm was over, the girl held on to Regina's neck, unable to let go from the embrace, but Regina slowly disentangled her arms and let the doll slide back onto the carpet. Regina looked around. Someone was at the microphone, saying something. No one was listening, and most of the audience had forgotten the speaker was even there at that point.

"Uh," the speaker said, "there goes our family rating."

The audience erupted in laughter.

"Dr. Isler," an official said from a nearby table. Then he didn't continue, verbally, but he gave a hand motion to indicate that Regina should slow down.

"Right! Right!" Regina said to him, a female-to-male who seemed to be sometimes a leader. Then continuing to the whole banquet hall, she said, "We should, perhaps, take it easy?" She was switching from giving pleasure to giving direction. "We shouldn't be truly who we are!" She was getting angry. "We should go through life pretending we're like one of them!" She waved her arms angrily at the whole world. "Like we don't want to get our rocks off!

"What in the hell," she shouted at the room, "is so _goddamned bad_ about being sexual?" She was getting responses from many of them, as if she were at a political rally. "What the hell is so goddamned bad about _being trans-anything_?"

She was standing now and walking between the tables toward the head of the hall, near the microphone, but her voice carried, and she didn't need amplification.

"We try to be who we are. We try to live like whoever we feel we are. And how do they treat us?" She was daring anyone to challenge her.

She looked at the girl who was sitting on the carpet, one hand on her crotch.

"What is wrong with this? She was beautiful! Thank you, doll," she said to her table-date. "Why should that be wrong?

"We should pretend we're not sexual? We should think it's sinful to have a cock? Or we should have one, or a pussy, but we should pretend we don't? We're supposed to be proud trans persons who aren't sexual?"

The room was shouting clear agreement with her, and the noise level was building. Most of them the attendees didn't know what the agenda was, and they couldn't have cared less at that point.

"As long as we pretend we're not who we are, as long as we hide behind propriety, we can't advocate for ourselves in society. People won't know who we are. They won't know what they're being asked to accept. And the confusion will cause as much or more difficulty for us in society than our trans nature does." She lost some of them with that.

"If this is who we are, then we need to _BE_ it. Joy given. Joy felt. Love in the heart."

Regina paused for a second.

"She probably came so fast because I'm so hot," Regina said in mock self-aggrandizement. The crowd laughed in nervous tension. She was good in classrooms. "Her clitoris will probably hurt for a week." The crowd roared. "And she'll have a memory that will last a lifetime." The crowd applauded.

"This is transgender." She motioned to the room and to the girl on the carpet, who was getting up now to take Regina's seat.

"It feels good, doesn't it?" She demanded of the crowd, and their cheers confirmed it.

Regina stormed out of the banquet hall, and a dozen gals followed like fallen leaves in her wake.

CHAPTER 29

REGINA DASHED to the elevator, grabbed her stuff from her room, nearly ran to her car, and began the long drive home.

She wiped her tears with the short sleeve of her T-shirt. _Jesus!_ she chastised herself, hitting the steering wheel. _How could she be so foolish!_ What in the hell was she thinking? She knew she'd just embarrassed herself in front of all of them. And those who didn't already know who she was now knew for sure—a flake who makes the transgender community look bad.

There would be rumors—and God doesn't know rumors like transfolks can tell rumors—only in this case, most of them would be true!

She mashed the throttle, and her used Porsche made its way at ninety-five down the winding freeway without the slightest embarrassment, a solid, black powerhouse of roadway engineering. The panel lighting was dimmed against the car's black interior, and her headlights were far too bright against the moonless night.

She thought about shutting her headlights off and driving by starlight alone. She was sure she could, if she allowed time for her vision to adjust.

Snap, she turned her lights off.

Everything went black as a coffin, and for some strange reason, she left the lights off for a few seconds before turning them back on out of fear alone.

The freeway had turned under her car, and she was nearly off the road, so she swerved back into a lane and held the car there, slowing to a reasonable speed.

It was late, but she called her daughter, Lisa, on her cell phone.

"I want to come over," she told her.

"Now?" Her daughter stalled.

"Yes, now! Why not? It's been years since I last visited. You always have a reason. I'm your— you're my daughter, and I need to see you," she said earnestly, honestly.

"No! John's folks have come over for a visit, and they're all watching the kids' favorite program together before bed. It's quality family time for them. They don't come over often, and it's important for them. I don't want them disturbed," Lisa said.

"What difference does that make? They're my grandkids, too. I'm coming over!"

"Daddy!" Lisa shouted quietly into the phone. "Please don't screw this up!"

Regina started to object, but Lisa cut in with a tone that said it all, even more so than her words, which hit Regina like a truck: "I have a family."

SECTION 3

RADICAL NEW VIEW

Age: 65

2017

Years in Transition: 27

Dramatic perspective change after peace.

Denial swings to self-criticism.

Anger blooms.

Disgust grips.

Loneliness remains.

Internal strength grows.

CHAPTER 30

A PRIVATE DETECTIVE for an attorney found a sizeable inheritance left by Regina's mother, and after some legal assistance, brother George found Jesus and felt a strong urge to do the right thing.

_Bless his heart_.

Regina lay with her nine-year-old wonder dog, Winslow, on the balcony of her new, high-rise condo by the beach, eight floors up, overlooking Ocean Avenue: rows of palm trees, the best beach in the world; the Santa Monica Pier to the left; Malibu to the right; and the never-ending, perfectly blue Pacific Ocean absolutely everywhere beyond all that to the west.

Today the morning sun was shining; no stratus clouds in the sky. With the morning sun behind her, everything to the west was highlighted, rich in color, bold and fresh as a vase of new flowers.

The time was about nine A. M., but Regina couldn't be bothered to look at a watch. "You're a good balcony," she said. The balcony, she was sure, was pleased to hear those words. As a matter of fact, it did seem to smile back. Then to Winslow, she said, "You'll never go wrong with this." In agreement, Winslow brought her head over for a good rub.

The gentle, on-shore breeze was full of life, interest, happiness, and success. It was fresh, some of the purest air on earth. It had been cleansed by seven thousand miles of ocean, and it felt like a caress of the gods over every inch of her needy soul, like a thin layer of fine silk lightly gliding past her face, neck, and arms.

Winslow and she lay in peace.

Regina no longer worked as a full-time professor. After she had humiliated herself at the gender conference three years earlier, and after her daughter made clear that her father was unwanted, Regina broke down, either unable or unwilling to go to work. Truthfully, she was too embarrassed to show herself to her colleagues for fear they'd heard what she'd done. The event happened a long way away from home, but her behavior was notable, and dumping dirt on a transgender woman is great sport behind closed doors.

At the same time, she received her mother's inheritance, so she didn't need to work anymore. She could largely retire, teaching only sporadically to keep her hand in. She had a sizeable bank account, a part-time teaching job, a relatively new condo with a million-dollar view, a loving dog, a boat at Marina del Rey soaking up moss, and not a goddamned other thing in the world to fuck with her. All felt perfect. Just the way she wanted it.

And her situation had felt continuously perfect, so for the last two years she'd languished on that balcony like a vegetable. She had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and every desire to stay right where she was and soak up life.

She knew she'd live in that condo for the rest of her life. She'd made it her home. No more cheap houses with nosey neighbors and no view. No more broken down grills to fix. No more myopic living rooms that closed the world out but holed her in. This condo, she felt, this place, was where she'd always belonged. The neighbors were respectable, if distant, and the view was killer!

_God,_ there was something about it that gripped her soul more than the air she breathed.

She would continue to live in that condo for years, even after she died. No reason to let a little thing like death make her leave. Some termite inspector would break in through the front door some year and find she'd passed away—God knows when—on that balcony, napping on the deck with a big smile on her face. Mummified in place. Look like King Seti the First of ancient Egypt with this big, never-ending grin. Probably need Temperance Brennan herself to identify the bones.

They'd have to use gallons of solvent to pry her dead body off the balcony and haul her away in a body bag. And then she'd be buried beside her mother in that family plot because that arrangement was part of the deal she'd worked with good old George, bless his heart.

Fuck him.

Winslow and she walked into the kitchen to have some breakfast. Regina had a cup of coffee. In the past she had tried offering some to Winslow, but the dog wasn't a coffee drinker. Regina had a perfect kitchen, and—.

Her mind faded to black from there. This place was such a blessing. Peace was all she wanted.

She let her mind float as free as the fan palms that grew across the street from her building, in the small strip park that follows the edge of the cliff by Ocean Avenue. Many of them grew to near eye-level from her balcony, and their fronds seemed to float in slow motion about flexible trunks, lifting the breeze on its way.

She had, over time, distanced herself from most everyone, preferring her own company to that of other people. She was past showing any outward anger toward her family. They were gone. She didn't want to see any of them anymore.

She had no friends of note, but she knew many people, most of whom were trans people who wanted to look as if they knew what they were doing and where they were going by claiming they were friends of hers. But they weren't really friends.

She hadn't had a decent lover since Jimmy Carter was in office, other than trans women or the occasional someone who sought her for a fling—only a fling!—rather than a committed, long-term relationship.

So now she had only Winslow, herself, and her condo. It was a deeply touching condo, and she felt it could last, be counted on. No one else would ever get a key from her. She didn't tell people in general where she lived these days. She simply wanted to make this life continue as it was, and it seemed to, year after year. Peace in her condo. Loving dog. Coffee. Eggs. Palm trees. The smell of salt air. Santa Monica Pier off to the left. Malibu to the right. A little walk to a bistro now and then. Ocean. Perfect. Everything.

"This would be a nice day to go to the mall, Winslow," she told her love. "I may see a movie or something." She looked down at Winslow and, despite the dog's fleeting desire to go out and jump all over strangers in the park, Winslow seemed to agree, reluctantly, that a movie was indeed good.

Regina went into her bedroom and pulled a nice, flowing-yet-casual pant suit from her closet. She had bought the suit at a boutique in Malibu. She put the suit on. The north wall was mirrored in its entirety, so she could easily get an idea of how she looked—

When she suddenly stopped to stare at what she saw.

_What was it_ , she wondered, aghast at something undefined yet vividly different.

It was _herself,_ she saw, in the mirror.

Her face. The way she stood. Her arms. Her eyes. Her hair. Herself. It was herself.

_This is me_ , she thought, shocked at her own image, as if seeing herself for the first time.

Then in wonder, she looked down and noticed a small bulge in her crotch. It wasn't a big bulge. It was rather small, actually. But it seemed— she hadn't thought of it in a long time. She'd been so unconcerned in recent years about her appearance, so disconnected from herself or what others thought of her, that she hadn't been tucking "properly" since forever—because who cares?—but that morning, in that casual suit, looking into the mirror, she noticed the slight bulge, and the sight hit her like a metaphysical, deeply spiritual shock wave.

The realization was sudden and completely unexpected, so true to herself that she had no recourse, no way to deny it, no way to fight it. A thousand thoughts shot through her mind in a simple, overriding awareness: _she was trans_.

She'd been in denial of parts of that the whole time. _She wasn't who she thought she'd been these last decades. She wasn't who she thought she'd become._

The thought wasn't vulgar. It wasn't self-deprecation. She didn't mean to dump on herself, though the truth hurt more than anything she could remember. In spite of the pain, she didn't run. And then she remembered: she had known this for years.

In a way completely different from anything she'd felt before, however, she saw herself in a "realistic way" for the first time, this way, a combination of her outward, objective self and who she felt herself to be inside.

I'm not just the me I need to be. I'm also the me who transited here. The whole thing.

She'd become a trans person in her life, she realized, and that fact came as a major shock.

How ridiculous? Because she'd known all the time she was trans. Of course.

But, she corrected herself: "trans woman." Not a "woman" as people thought of women, but a _trans woman?_

She was stunned. The awareness kept flowing through her mind, over and over again, as if it were a new thought every two seconds that rebooted itself because it finally found a circuit. _Why couldn't this thought go away as it had a million times before?_ she wondered. And the answer was known to her as soon as she asked the question: because this time it found a way to her mind's surface.

She looked at herself in the mirror again as if for the first time, her head slowly listing right, then left, to gain more perspective. Small hips. No buttocks. Bulge, real if small, in front of pants. Oversized breasts. Square jaw. Male pattern baldness.

_Holy shit!_ The reality hit her again with alarm. _Every two goddamn seconds!_

She'd been a young man! Years ago. Years ago. A Ph.D.— Ah! She'd have to quit patting herself on the back for that one, she chided herself. Low self-esteem. _Needed to feel good about myself, okay?_ Correction. She had a beautiful, successful wife and two great kids, and she threw all that away—

For this?

How could she have done that? Her own question made no sense to her—what the fuck was she doing?—but then again, it did. She'd known all along she was a trans person. She'd lectured on the specifics many times. How could she have known everything about the phenomenon the whole time, yet not have known what she was doing? Who she was? How others saw her? Or how she felt about herself and them?

Then she realized she'd cycled through the awareness process again. A few seconds in-between this time! Repeating her thought process over and over.

But, still, net result: She wasn't who she'd thought she'd been these last twenty-seven years.

She wondered if she should be alarmed.

She thought to look around her and did so, but everything else in life remained peaceful. Nothing was trying to hurt her. No one was a threat, not even herself.

She was safe.

Yet she felt an explosion going off in her head, over and over, with the same thought of what she was. Not a woman like her ex-wife, like her daughter, like her mother. Not like the women she saw every day in life. Not at all.

"A trans person," she said to herself aloud in a voice she recognized as a man's. She looked around as if someone else had spoken, although she was alone in the room. God, she thought to herself in surprise: she'd been using that same voice the whole time.

She was a man— ? Well, she wasn't sure she was a man so much, or anymore.

So what was she?

She realized, as she continued staring in the mirror, that this train of thought was painful, but that she now had the emotional ability to face it, whereas she hadn't had that courage in her whole life before, up to that moment. There that feeling was again: as if she had known before she was aware of knowing, so that when she became aware, she wasn't surprised. She was only surprised that she hadn't shut the thought out this time. It was as if she'd been running from herself her whole life, desperate to live, stumbling head-long toward a mirage and calling it real. The thing she saw ahead, she knew now, wasn't what she'd been thinking it was.

_My God,_ she thought, _it's classic denial._ Regina was no mental patient. Her denial wasn't like that. It was something her mind did to shut out pain, so she could press on. _I knew all along what I was doing and how I felt about my choices, except I was blocking out the most painful parts._

_Oh, my God,_ she thought. _NO! I've been in denial of what other people have been thinking of me! Of how they've been taking me! What was I thinking?_

Now I know what my wife meant on the porch of her house when she wouldn't let me in. _She could see this, and I couldn't?_ And God! _That's what my daughter was telling me!_

I've been humiliating myself for years, and I haven't even known it!

What the fuck!

No. Bullshit!

No—

_If this realization is real,_ she told herself, _you've been setting yourself up for trouble all along._ She thought she should feel dizzy then, but, no. She was fine. She seemed able to cope. Barely. Somehow. Ah: because she'd already been aware.

She'd cycled through her awareness again.

She didn't say anything. Didn't move.

She looked at herself more critically in the mirror. She wasn't a "man" anymore, by any stretch, if she ever really had been. But she was male.

Oh, me? Saying that binary shit?

Standing there, looking at herself in the mirror, she felt she was a male who was feminine in some ways, more like a woman, but she was more of a cross between the sexes than any stereotype in particular. Terms that fit most people didn't fit her. The old idea she'd touted to less "enlightened" persons for years of a gender spectrum now felt like a story she wanted to believe, that she had hoped other people would believe.

The dawning of that hit her as hard as— Everything was hitting her hard at that point, as if a whole encyclopedia of knowledge had come crashing into her mind at once. Forget the fancy ideas of how most people don't understand sophisticated thought processes twisted into skewed reality. _People know what men and women are, and they are right._

_They can't be right!_ she thought to herself.

_People know,_ she thought. _And they are right._

Oh, Jesus. They're fucking right.

She put her hand to her face and sat down in a chair by the bed, a little light headed.

_Oh, Jesus,_ was all she could think.

The implications of her realization were legion. Myriad. What was she doing? Where would she go from here? _If I'm not really a woman, if I want to be true to myself, how should I live my life now? Who should I say I am? What about my penis? What about my missing balls? Should I get rid of my penis and go further in the direction of woman? Or should I get some silicone balls and have them inserted? Now that I see the truth, should I revert to living like a man? Being like one? Acting like one?_

Why should such things be important? She didn't know, but she'd thought of it. How could she do that and keep any pride?

To hell with pride!

She needed to be honest with herself in her own mind, she knew, perhaps for the first time. If she'd been wrong, then she needed to admit her mistake and live as well as she could. But she simply wasn't on the same path she taken twenty-seven years ago, not even ten minutes ago.

_God,_ she thought _, how people have been seeing me! How people have been putting up with me this whole time._ She'd been frustrated with them a million times for their seeming cruelty. She'd felt their impatience, their rejections, their painful remarks—when in fact they'd been tolerant beyond reason, patient, often kindly critical, trying to help without pushing, and so flexible with her in letting her live as much as possible in her self-deceived role that they were often forced to play along with her against their will.

Should she tell her daughter about any of this? Lisa probably wouldn't want to hear.

But Regina wasn't that young man with the wife and kids any more. She was a sixty-five-year-old queen with the last twenty-seven years lived in that role. It was part of who she had become.

A queen, not a "woman"!

Regina felt like her life had been a cruel joke played on her, unwittingly, by queens in fantasy who came before her and espoused all this drivel about how they were becoming women; by treatment professionals who learned about the phenomenon from those queens and then gave Regina support for her flailing dash toward the mirage; by other professionals in the field who actually could see the truth but wouldn't speak up for fear they'd be decried as unaware or blacklisted by trans people as transphobic and lose some of their patient base and revenue; and by others who outright lied to her, or craftily didn't quite lie, so she'd spend tens of thousands on plastic surgeries.

_Autogynephilia,_ she thought. A male's love of seeing self as a woman, or female—a love that could become all-encompassing, all-possessing, overpowering. Gender-change professional policies were driven by the autogynephilic self-deceptions of the afflicted, she now thought, and by the tens of millions of hard-earned dollars those afflicted people paid to medical practitioners who gladly supported them along their way. Feeding off the needy.

She realized she'd need help with her new understanding, figuring out how to live with it, where to go from here. _Did other older trans persons go through this?_ The implications were astounding.

_I'm a trans person_ — There it was again, that new-again realization of what she already knew.

She had, maybe, ten or twenty more years of life left on this earth, she thought. She felt she'd screwed herself out of a lot of it, and she wanted to live the rest as well as she could. Make as much happiness for herself as she could, and for her daughter, the only family member who hadn't totally written Regina off.

She had to figure out what to do.

But who could she go to for help?

She knew or had known, personally, everyone in the area who outwardly worked with trans-related phenomena, and she believed none of them would be any good for her as they'd all bought into the popular transgender paradigm, the same song and dance she, herself, had been touting her whole adult life. So they couldn't help. She could go to a therapist who did not work in the trans-industry, hoping for a fresh perspective. That idea held promise. But who? There actually were many particulars in the field that noninvolved therapists didn't know about, concepts that are not obvious to outsiders, and Regina—

Regina? Now that name felt sick, a label for the cloud she'd been living under for the last twenty-seven years. But her original name, Reggie, sounded too male for her at this time. Maybe she should consider changing it to something androgynous? A name that could be indistinct?

Back to the question of getting help. If she went to a therapist who didn't know the field, she'd spend months correcting him on this and that, teaching him many of the basics, and even then, she felt, he'd probably misunderstand because the majority of the trans-industry was touting phony ideas. And then, after spending so much time trying to teach the therapist the details, she'd have to leave and seek a new one, one who might be more open. More years lost.

That won't work.

Or she could interview prospective therapists, find someone who seemed "wise" somehow, beyond her peers, and then try working with her for a couple of years, actually giving in to whatever she's says, and see if her advice works?

But Regina had only thirty years of life left, if she was lucky, with the best portion of that happening now, not later.

She sat in her chair feeling that all was lost. Her situation was hopeless.

Regina imploded.

_I've been looking like a caricature of a drag queen in front of everyone,_ she thought. My faculty. My students. Other professionals. My family. Jesus! Seeing me walking down the hall in a miniskirt and heels, they must have been laughing their asses off.

No wonder that student threatened suit if I was in the ladies' room with her.

I'm sick!

She laid her face in her hands and cried harder than she'd ever known she could.

Winslow laid her head against Regina's calf and whimpered sympathy, but Regina didn't notice.

_I've perverted my life,_ she felt. I've humiliated myself in front of everyone. I have nowhere to go. No one could understand.

She grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled it out by the roots. "Goddamnit!" she screamed at the world, at the doctors who lied to her, at the family she'd hurt, and at herself for feeling so sick.

She grabbed a lamp off an end table and threw it at the mirrors on the north wall of the room, shattering the center section. Glass flew all over the room.

Winslow ran for safety.

Regina grabbed some scissors in her right hand and sliced her left wrist. Blood spurted onto her lap, and shock hit her awareness.

" _Goddamnit!"_ she cried again. Then she asked for help from the only being there. "Winslow!" But Winslow couldn't help. She grabbed a pair of socks from a drawer, stuffed them under her left armpit, clamped down on them as a pressure point to help stop the blood flow, wrapped a belt over the wound with another sock under it, tight, to keep pressure on it, and dialed 9-1-1 from the phone by the bed.

"Get an ambulance over here! I'm bleeding badly. I've been cut!"

CHAPTER 31

REGINA LAY IN BED in the emergency room at the local hospital, her left wrist stitched and bandaged.

A nurse came into her room, long, straight dark hair, slightly plump, short in stature. "You're lucky you only got part of it," she said.

"What?" Regina asked.

"The artery was easy to fix." The nurse pointed at Regina's wrist. "Good for you you're a bad shot."

Regina was no fool, and she could see that the nurse wasn't either. The nurse was looking for clues of a suicide attempt; the ER was obligated to send Regina for a three-day psychiatric evaluation if she had tried to take her own life. No doubt the doctor told the nurse to inquire—less threatening than a doctor would have been, but still a viable witness.

Regina was cool. Oliver Stone should have sent a film crew.

"This?" Regina held up her wrist and pasted a disgusted look on her face. "I was carrying a lamp and fell into the full-length mirror on the bedroom wall. Dog toy on the floor, I think. And it wasn't the mirror that got me. It was the lamp."

Regina could tell that the nurse didn't believe the story.

"Don't you think I know where the artery is? I'm not suicidal. If I were trying to kill myself, I'd make sure I sliced the artery, and not just nicked it." Plausible. Some people would believe that line.

"And the only injury is that one on your wrist?" A knowing look.

Regina exhibited no evident guilty cringe, only outrage at such a suggestion.

So the nurse gave her a break and said, "Okay. I'll tell the doctor this was an accident. These things happen." She patted Regina on the arm and turned to leave.

At the touching, something clicked in Regina. She called the nurse back. "Wait!"

The nurse returned.

"What's your name? Do I know you?"

The nurse's face went ashen for a second, and then resignation appeared there. I'm Lourdes, your old neighbor on 10th Street," she said.

Regina's face lit up as some rusty old cogs churned. "Lourdes! The Neighborhood Fun Gang!"

Lourdes nodded, though she didn't appear overly joyed at that moment.

Regina sat on the edge of the bed. "Where the hell have you been?"

Lourdes said nothing.

Regina said, "The whole thing just sort of fell apart. I thought we had a good thing there, but where did you all go?"

Lourdes shrugged, reddened, and paused for several seconds. Then she asked, "Aren't you a professor over at the university? Doctor of something?"

"Yes. A clinical psychologist. Mostly I'm just a teacher."

"But your university has a medical center?"

"Yes—"

"Okay." Lourdes thought another two seconds. "Yes, the NFG was a great group, but it fizzled."

"Why? I sure enjoyed it, us girls getting together all the time—"

Lourdes winced.

Regina noticed.

"Get dressed," she said to Regina. "Get discharged and go home."

"Okay."

"I'll come over to your place in about an hour."

Regina was happy about that. "Let me give you my address, phone—"

"It's in your file. I can get it. Now go. Get out of here before I change my mind on the suicide thing."

"Accident!"

"Bullshit," Lourdes told her quietly. "A right-handed, older queen gets her left radial artery cut. You're a tiny fraction of society, but a larger percentage of suicides. You're a high-risk population."

"You know about me?"

"Sweetie, everybody knows about you."

CHAPTER 32

"YEAH, IT'S A BIG MESS," Lourdes said, looking at a ton of glass on Regina's bedroom floor.

"I'm not going to clean it up," Regina said.

Questioning look from Lourdes.

"I've already called for help. The workmen should be here tomorrow. New mirror, and replace the carpet. I'll never get all the shards out of this one. Until then, let's stay out and leave the door closed so Winslow won't get into it."

Winslow was jumping all over Lourdes, rubbing against her.

They walked through the condo to the kitchen, where they both got a cup of coffee. Then they went out onto the beloved balcony.

"God," Lourdes gasped. "look at that view."

They sat down in lawn chairs.

"How did you afford this place? It must have cost a million," Lourdes asked.

"My mom passed away a few years ago."

"I'm sorry—"

"Thanks. She left me a little, and this was a foreclosure. A record producer used to own it several years ago, I'm told. I don't know which one. But there was a candelabrum in the closet. "

Lourdes acknowledged the joke, but she still seemed ill at ease. Had, ever since the ER.

Regina decided to probe. "So what happened to the NFG?" she asked. "How did they know about me?"

"Regina, I'm not much good at shading the truth," Lourdes said, petting Winslow while looking out over the palm trees in the park across the street, "and queens are so given to self-deception that I think I need to be bluntly honest with you. You get bullshit from everyone else in the world; you won't get it from me."

Regina was offended by the remark—queens—but she was so happy to see Lourdes, she was willing to let almost anything slide. She ought to be able to handle that word. She was a clinical psychologist, for Christ's sake.

"The N.F.G. knew because everybody knows."

Regina considered this, especially in light of her new awakening on the subject, but "everyone"?

"Nearly everyone. Most people. Usually. Yes," Lourdes said.

Regina needed to know. She'd self-learned this conclusion earlier that morning, but she sensed she would need to relearn it a hundred times before she understood it, so deep was her denial. "How can they tell?" she asked.

"The same way they can tell anything else. It is what it is. It looks like it. Same way they can tell that apple from that tomato," she said, pointing as if the objects were before her. "If you don't see that fact in yourself, then you may have a problem with denial."

"May?" Regina asked.

"I fear you may blow up at me. I'm trying to be nice," Lourdes said sheepishly.

"No, honey. I'm sorry for giving that impression. I won't blow up at you," Regina said.

"Some have."

"It's okay. Please tell me what you're thinking."

Lourdes reluctantly nodded. "Sometimes—a lot of the time—people lie to us about how they see us. When we're taught we are one thing or another, then self-acceptance of a falsehood might not be denial. But when there are enough signals out there to show us the truth, and if we still believe something false, then there may be denial."

"Why does it matter?" Regina asked, although she already knew.

"Because denial—worse than being lied to—is like driving through life while on pain medicine. It is literally like pain medicine. You may think you're doing fine, but to others who aren't in your denial, you appear off. Fake. Phony. Deluded. Not dealing with reality. Denial can wreak havoc on your social life. I think you know about that."

Yes, Regina knew about it. It was a big part of why she had become so different from others around her, why she hadn't been connecting with others well for most of her adult life.

Lourdes continued. "People don't usually want to deal with fakes, or people in denial, or people who try to sell them fakes.

"Yeah, but 'transgender' isn't fake. It's a real person," Regina said.

"Yes, a real person, but maybe not a real _woman_ , not a real _man_. As people think of them. It's the pretense that's the problem, trying to get people to buy something that they know isn't what you say. Like, what if you had a Ford, and you wanted to make it a Chevy? A 'trans car.' You paint it like a Chevy; you replace some of the body parts. What do you have then? You have a Ford that's painted like a Chevy with some Chevy body parts. It doesn't run like a Chevy, doesn't look like a Chevy, because it isn't a Chevy."

"But this new car is a real thing, a real car. It's a work of art—" Regina objected.

Lourdes looked at her with a critical frown. "You know good and well what I'm talking about. You want to sell it as a work of art? Fine. That's up to you. You want to tell people it's the best of both worlds? Tell them it's better and more beautiful this way? Fine. Maybe you'll be taken as an artist and be invited over as part of a colorful evening. But to most people, if the artist acts like he thinks it _really is a Chevy_ , he'll be seen as a con-artist or delusional. Then most people won't want to have to play along, get to know him, or invite him over for dinner.

"And this fake metaphor isn't even as personal as sex and love. There really are differences between men and women," Lourdes explained gently.

The argument seemed a little disjointed to Regina, but she followed it.

"If a man wants to be like a woman, he can't change everything," Lourdes said.

"But the parts in the sexes are homologous," Regina objected, hoping for a compromise.

Again, Lourdes looked at Regina as if she were daft. "'Homologous'? They start out as the same tissue _in utero,_ but then they grow into _different things_. Different tissues, different natures. Changing them later doesn't make them the other thing.

"They're not even close enough for most people to ignore. There are things left that people pick up on. Usually the signs are glaringly obvious. And sometimes they're subtle cues, something about the nature, the posture, or the way a phrase is said. Subconsciously, people pick up on things."

Regina knew all this, but her whole life, she'd seen the sexes and genders differently than most people do. _Jesus, people have probably been thinking I'm so out to lunch._

"But I've been in thousands of situations—" Regina said, as much to herself as to Lourdes. "Hell, it's been twenty-seven years! Where people couldn't tell. They treated me like a real woman." Regina couldn't believe she'd said that. She could hear her old denial sweeping back in.

Lourdes sounded exasperated. "You mean they didn't hold up a sign in front of your face," she said, holding her hands up with an invisible sign, "with flashing neon, that said in bold lettering, 'We know you're transgender,' so you _thought_ they thought you were cisnatal? And why? Because they were nice to you? Because they referred you to the ladies' room? Because they did something else that seemed to confirm you?" Lourdes wore a look of near-disgust.

"What makes you think you know so much about this, Lourdes?" Regina said getting defensive. "You're just a nurse? Okay? You work with trans sometimes—what—when they float into the ER attempting suicide now and then. So you know all about these things?"

Lourdes looked uncomfortable.

Regina waited for Lourdes to say something, and sensed she should remain quiet.

"No," Lourdes finally said. "It's because I've been doing something seemingly similar, but very different, all my life. And also because I started out with reality, not denial and fantasy."

Regina was shocked.

Winslow didn't care.

"You're transgender?"

Lourdes' face was thick with disgust. _"God no!"_ she said earnestly. "I'm transsexual. The difference ought to be clear."

"God, I never knew! How did you do it?" Regina tried to figure it out quickly. "Were you born hermaphroditic? You're Latina, but that doesn't help. You're short, and that does—"

She cut herself off. Regina scanned Lourdes with an experienced eye and began to pick up on signals that she'd missed before. Nothing clearly identified Lourdes as a transsexual, but some things were of a former male self, things that Regina noticed now that she'd been told. Little things. Unsure things. No, she wasn't sure.

"You're playing with me," Regina said with a half-smile. "What's going on?"

"I don't like to say it outright. It's been quite a while."

"God," Regina kept saying it. "You and me—"

"No, not 'you and me,'" Lourdes corrected. "You're transgender, and I'm transsexual. Different things."

"Bullshit, it's part of the same thing. You're just more extreme than I am," Regina said.

"No," Lourdes said patiently, as if to a child, holding her anger back. "We're kind of the opposite in this realm. And we don't get along. We may look similar to others, but we're different. You know, it's like saying all Hispanics are Mexican. Okay? Not everyone who has slanted eyes and eats rice is Chinese."

"That's rude," Regina said.

"Rude is making me out to be something I'm not so you can promote yourself."

"I'm not—"

"Really?" Lourdes said. "Transgenders see everything run together. Okay. Fine. And you're the largest group of public trans-anythings who are 'out.' But you're a tiny fraction of other people who see people differently. And you influence them to misunderstand me."

Regina started to object, but Lourdes cut in. "Do you think all blacks come from Kenya? Do you think everyone from the E.U. is French? Do you think all college students are psych majors?

"There is a spectrum of variation," Regina asserted. "When you get in there, you can't tell where the division is between transvestites, transgenders, and transsexuals."

"So just tell the Koreans and Vietnamese they're Chinese now? Not _Asian_ but _Chinese_. They're all a variation of Chinese because YOU can't tell 'em apart? It's a fake union for a social movement that _hurts us_. You're running over us for your own benefit—all to hide the fact that you want to keep a penis. That's it, isn't it: If we say we're transsexual, that right there implies that there's a difference between transsexuals and trans genders. What's the difference? The fact you want to keep your penis—no, a _lot_ , because it's not just the penis. It's even who you want to be. So you roll us into you for validity then lie to people about what you're really doing."

Regina wanted to argue and would have, seriously, at one time in the past. But that morning, something held her back. That something was her own perspective from that very morning. She knew she didn't know a lot of things she thought she knew earlier that day. But having Lourdes challenge her to face facts stung nonetheless.

Then Regina felt the impulse to argue that Lourdes's transition was only slightly more extreme than her own because only three inches of penal tissue was involved. Subtle differences in behavior or speech didn't mean much, but she felt as soon as she thought about uttering those statements that her argument was bullshit. An atrophied penis may be only three inches of tissue, but it is a lot more than that—

Lourdes studied Regina's face intently. She could see Regina's conflict within. "You've woken up, haven't you?" Lourdes asked.

Regina looked at her, almost afraid to admit what she knew to be true.

"It hit you, didn't it? You did the waking up thing. Sometimes people do." Lourdes said it as a statement.

Regina felt exposed.

"It was recent, wasn't it? You're just working through all this."

Regina felt as if she'd been undressed, standing there naked, for Lourdes to see.

"It was this morning?"

Regina felt a little in shock.

"That's why you cut yourself."

Regina nodded. "It was a reaction," she said, sharing the unnecessary shame she felt. "Because it turns out my whole life has been a fake. A joke played on me by my doctors, others, and myself as well. I've spent my time becoming something I wasn't really thinking about, living a lie. I'm not who I thought I was becoming, Lourdes." Regina looked as if she might cry.

"But look at you!" Regina said. "How did you do it so well? What? Did you start out looking like a model in the first place?"

"No," Lourdes said. "I just didn't start out in fantasy. I needed to _actually be female_ as much as I could, biologically. That's what I needed, still need. It's all I could see."

"But I was trying to be a woman!" Regina said.

"No, _you were trying to be both_. You just _thought_ you were trying to be a woman."

"But you—"

"But I couldn't have tried to be both," Lourdes said. "The thought of it, for myself, never entered my mind. I could never have tolerated any part of manliness. Keep a penis? _Disgusting!_ _Putrid, disgusting!_ Show any male pattern baldness? Talk like a truck driver? Never! I could never consider any of that."

"But your voice! How did you change that?"

"Easy. Hard. I couldn't make a sound if it wasn't right. It was abhorrent to me, disgusting."

"But if it was a man's voice, then—"

"No. Wrong approach. Not my thought process. Don't go there. If the sound is wrong, then don't make it. Never. Not when alone, not when with friends, not with confidants, not in private, not in public. Never."

"I—" Regina thought. "I can't imagine that—to give up speaking because it doesn't sound right."

"It's—" Lourdes thought. "For me— I just need to be just female. And the need is so strong. I can't stand male anything on me.

"But you can change it a lot, if you work at it," Lourdes said. "Your brain will adapt more than you think if you persist. Neuropathways. And it's muscle tone, technique. It's like in falsetto: Take your voice up there, over the break, then ride it low—not like Mickey Mouse—ride right on and around the break without letting it crack—like base falsetto—then change the timbre to remove the grit—like, change a saxophone into a clarinet—and voila. You just do it. You've always seen the result. Notice my vocal range is a bit narrow? That's why. I'm holding it there for an adequate sound. If I take it up, I sound like Mickey Mouse."

"How can you possibly practice that?" Regina asked. "Where would you? How—"

"Sing in the car," Lourdes said. "Radio. Put on some of your own music, and sing with it. Turn it up so you can't hear yourself well, but low enough so you can hear yourself a little. And when you sound fake adjust it. It also develops great muscle tone, and, frankly, the singing helps with daily depression. You don't need a teacher to be yourself," Lourdes said. "You just need to be yourself."

"And all that faking is 'yourself.'"

"It's the me I need to be: female. Just female. That's transsexualism."

Regina looked as if she was considering it. "I don't think I could ever do all that, though. Too much faking."

Better to be a mute woman than a voiced trans," Lourdes said.

"That's a transsexual view."

"Exactly. Thank you. Not transgender. Just one of a million differences."

Regina's brow wrinkled.

"You think I'm faking to people with my voice," Lourdes said. "I think you're faking, lying to people about wanting to keep a penis."

"We don't see that as faking, but private," Regina said.

"You all imply it in a hundred ways, and you know it," Lourdes said. "You want your own denial, and you want everyone else to be in denial, also."

Who the fuck is this person!

"You're not transsexual," Lourdes continued. "You're trans _gender_. Whatever you are, wherever you're going, you need to be in touch with reality. If you aren't, you don't know what others are seeing in you, even how they're reacting to you. You won't know how to act, what to say, how to say it, when to do what, what clothes to buy, who might be your friend or lover, a million things. You will defeat your own efforts, sabotage yourself, if you don't deal with reality. Others will see the differences in you, the things that ring 'trans'—and they'll think you're just game playing, or outright delusional.

"People will hang around you for a while because they're nice, or because they're curious, or to support a liberal agenda, or to prove to themselves they're not prejudiced, but then after a while they'll fade away. Somehow you won't see them anymore. And you'll be alone."

Lourdes let the words soak in.

"Like the Neighborhood Fun Gang on 10th Street," Regina said.

"Yes," Lourdes said. "Exactly."

"Why fade away? Why wouldn't they get to know me? I'm a good person." Regina asked, though she knew the answer already. She just needed Lourdes to confirm it.

"Yes, you are a good person. But it's because they don't like trans and they don't like being faked out,'" Lourdes said.

"That's prejudiced," Regina said, testing the limits.

Lourdes shook her head. "Maybe, some. But not like disliking Mexicans or something. I'm Latina, and I've experienced bias sometimes. Not like disliking blacks or Jews or something. I think the reaction is deeper than that, as deep as the need to eat, or love, or have children. I think people have a deep aversion to sexual variation. The more extreme it is, the more it's hated. It makes fitting in as a trans-anything very difficult.

"And trans is very extreme. From that view, living as a person who is some of both sexes, or neither, is much more extremely different from the norm than trying to be just one, even if the other one. Notice, with the N.F.G.: I was in, but you wound up out."

"But they didn't know about you."

"I'm not so sure, Regina. I think people read me too, over time. I think I was just more _like_ them."

"No!" Regina couldn't believe the other women had known about Lourdes. "You're 'not so sure' if they read you?"

"I never ask. People who hide can't talk about it," Lourdes said firmly.

Regina nodded.

"And then there's the autogynephilic fantasies. But it's not something most others are into. It's distasteful to most."

"Shouldn't be. And anyway, autogynephilia is a bullshit concept dreamed up by the sexually ignorant and repressed—based on millennia of forcing intersex, trans, etc., into closets, or outright killing us, so they can live in their myopic, binary deception," Regina said, hoping for at least some of her former concepts to be true, but as soon as she uttered the words, she doubted herself.

"Really?" Lourdes asked. "Let me guess part of it: for the first few years after you transitioned—" She waited, hoping Regina would be finish that sentence, but she didn't, so Lourdes did, "you had some hot sex? In 'role' as a 'woman'? Talking about how you were a woman getting fucked?"

"I was new in role—"

"That was a male in sexual excitement at seeing himself as a woman. That's an example of autogynephilia."

"Christ," Regina said. "That is so Bailey, so Zucker."

"That's what it _is_ ," Lourdes said. "And later, even if muted, still more of the same. Society shuns that, too, so trans people go into denial. I've rarely seen any who weren't. Then they make major changes to their bodies and their lives, chasing a fantasy as if it were real. And some of them get really hurt by it."

"You're a transsexual who has bought into—who lives with that black and white, binary sex, self-hatred 'cause you can't actually change sex thing going on in your head?"

Lourdes said nothing.

"How can you live with yourself?" Regina asked.

Self-hatred and shame were evident on Lourdes' face.

"What about you," Regina asked. "Did you feel autogynephilia?"

Lourdes looked sick, but she answered cleanly. "What I felt the whole time, what I still feel, is intolerable disgust at this malformed, male-formed body, at not being able to be myself enough to ever live even a single day as my heart needs. And it hurts. Every day. Excitement has nothing to do with it."

Regina moved the topic back to herself. "So I felt hot having sex as a woman. Other women are sexual—"

"'Other women'? You're not a woman, Regina. Women are sexual, but being a woman who is sexual is different from being a male who is aroused at the thought of being a woman who is sexual. Autogynephilia. Again: transgenders don't usually see this because they're deep into it, where most other people do see it because they're not. At least most _newbie_ trans don't see it. But thirty years later some do—"

"But I've said that phrase, 'I am a woman,' to doctors and family. To you all of the N.F.G. And you didn't correct me. None of you!"

"Yes, that's right. I'm sorry. We're also at fault."

Her doctors— Regina had put a knife in their hands, in more ways than one—where they could help her _and_ hurt her. She needed help, and they didn't tell her! They took her money and didn't tell her. They knew the truth, and they didn't tell her. _The goddamn bastards_. Hell, even Charlie hadn't told her.

"To someone who is self-deceiving, not-being-clear comes across as tacit agreement or even approval," Regina said with awareness.

"True," Lourdes said. "Everybody becomes a victim when we do that. People want something from you, or they don't want to face you, confront you, get into an argument, or hurt your feelings. They're chicken. They let you be delusional and go on your way and then talk about you behind your back."

_Everyone?_ Regina wondered. _Talking behind my back?_

"And doing that," Lourdes said, "they create even more eccentricity in you—which can create greater social problems for themselves. They don't want to own those, either, so they blame the 'pervert' for being weird and don't own any responsibility themselves. Trans-folk become 'Identified Patients' in a dysfunctional social system."

"Maybe some of them would like us with all that?" Regina asked.

"Maybe some. What, one in a hundred thousand? If I admit to that, you'll think that most people you meet are those one in a hundred thousand. Or are you referring to some guys who want a kinky fling far from anyone else they know?"

Lourdes continued, "So how does your family take it? Have they warmed up to you yet? They've had time. It's been twenty-seven years."

Regina didn't answer aloud, but Lourdes could see the answer clearly on Regina's face.

"How do you deal with it? You're one of us," Regina said.

"Stop that!" Lourdes said.

Regina was surprised at her anger.

Lourdes said in a challenging tone, "Can't you see the differences? Will it ever sink in? _I'm not one of you!_ You're a transgenderist—"

"We don't like that word—" Regina argued.

"Because it reminds people you want to keep your dick! Virginia Prince popularized it as such. You want to use your own term 'transgender' as an umbrella term for all trans-variations to obscure what you're really doing? That's a social movement, and I'm not a party to it! I hate 'transgender' because I'm very opposite that!"

Regina felt slammed, but she felt she couldn't argue.

"Regina," Lourdes said, pleading for her for her to understand. "You can be what you want to be. You were in denial for most of your adult life, but you're past that, now. Look at the choices you've made, how you've lived most of your life. Can't you see it? You're not a person that most people want to be around, but the fact is, _you can be what you want to be_ , where I can't."

She paused and then continued more softly. "Look. I'm not putting you down. I'm just giving you some straight information in a world that shades things. You can be who you are. You will have to begin learning how to live with others that way, but you can live as who you want to be. You are.

"Me?" Lourdes shook her head in sorrow, looking defeated. "People who need to be the other sex? We can't be what we need to be."

"Why not?" Regina asked.

"Thick!" Lourdes looked like she was in pain. "I literally can't be who I am inside. Not really. No matter how many tens of thousands I spend on procedures to correct as much as I can, no matter how much I try to become _who_ I am, _what_ I am is still in conflict."

"But you're female, now—" Regina stopped herself again. She was sixty-five, and a lifetime's perspective on these issues was deeply ingrained, hard to change—habit—but she could see more every time she looked. She needed to look again and again, more and more, to relearn.

"Now who's being binary?" Lourdes stared at her.

"Multi-modal distribution," Regina said.

"Rationalization," Lourdes said.

"You really buy the binary shit," Regina said.

Lourdes tried again. "It's like, the brain is one way and the body is another. It's an intersex condition. A brain of one sex; a body of another. It's a constant tug of war. And medical science can't bring them together. Not really. Not yet. And that's what I'm talking about."

"You can't see chromosomes!" Regina forced out.

" _It's a lot more than that!"_ Lourdes was starting to raise her voice again. "Some things can be changed enough to meet a social standard, sometimes even be deemed lawfully female. Thank God. And while I'm forever thankful, that recognition is not nearly enough. The union of who and what I am is never complete."

"Why?"

" _Because I'm still not totally what I need to be_ , Regina," she explained. "Every day I hurt, Regina! Every fucking day!" Now she was mad. "I'm not happy. I'm not thinking, 'Wow, isn't this great?' I'm instead begging God for any way to try to live with myself, begging for insight, an idea, a way, a medical breakthrough, or even an understanding in some others—just a few!—who might understand what I'm saying to you—and you don't get it, either! I've been able to change enough to survive—many transsexuals don't—but not enough to be myself."

When Regina regained a little of her balance, she said, "But you're married."

Lourdes glared at Regina for a while but then turned her gaze away. "I _was_ married."

Regina's face showed her sorrow at the loss. "What happened? You two seemed so happy together."

Lourdes got up and paced the ample balcony, stepping around Winslow, and wound up sitting in another chair a few paces farther away from Regina. "He divorced me." Lourdes's tears flowed down her cheeks. She buried her face in her hands.

Regina started to get up and go touch Lourdes, but Lourdes jerked back.

" _Don't touch me_!" she said angrily.

Regina recoiled and waited.

"It's been, like, twelve years now. He's gone."

"I'm so sorry—"

Lourdes shook her head. "I don't think you really are."

Regina didn't know the source of the anger, but she could see it was directed at her, so she kept her mouth shut.

"Raul was quite a guy. Really a good man. I know I'll never know another like him. A rare man. He loved me, truly loved me, deep inside. He could see past the bullshit of my T, past the bullshit of my birth, and saw me for who I am, not what I am. He used to hold my hand in the movies, kiss me in even public, sometimes much more tenderly than you'd expect. I loved him because it was just him. He was a good man. Smart and genuine! Ah! Amazing. God, I loved him." She smiled.

"He was a mechanic. That's all he wanted to do. He'd let me come into the garage where he worked, and he'd show me how engines worked. We'd go out with Mick and Donna, the two who ran the place, and sometimes with other workers, Marc, Steve, the other Donna, Gary, or Brad. He wasn't afraid to admit he loved me. He wasn't ashamed of me. I don't know why he fell in love with _me_ , but I think It's just that he loved me. He was bigger than most other people, inside. You know? In a lot of ways like a Latin Jimmy Stewart. Like if you fell in love with someone you never thought you would, like someone of a different race or someone who was handicapped."

Then she stopped.

"So what happened?"

"In the '90s, the 'transgender' paradigm was popularized, with your game-playing ideas about being trans women and the idea that all trans folks are 'transgender.' You said we're all part of the same thing."

Lourdes waited expectantly for a response, but Regina offered none.

"Your group said I was part of yours. You took away my nature and said it was like yours. You said I didn't want to really be the other sex. It changed the way his family and friends saw me and therefore him. It's hard for a man to put up with sexual criticism from his friends and family. He knew better, but after your movement, they saw me as one of you."

"But you're transsexual, not transgender."

"You hear yourself, now? That's not what transgenders normally say. We're tiny in numbers, compared to you, and all other people hear is your voice. Drowning us out."

"How could they even tell?" Regina asked. "You're so perfect. I couldn't tell, and I still wouldn't if you hadn't told me."

"It's because of 'rule number one,'" Lourdes said. "People know. If they don't get it right off, they are more apt to over time, especially years."

"I just don't see in your case," Regina said.

"Oh, Christ. How can you be so smart and so fucking stupid at the same time? You don't see because you are a _transgenderist_. You see everything blended. Other people don't have that issue. People sense things. On some level, in some way, they know."

"But if they were going to peg you even as transsexual, wouldn't they know? Wouldn't they hate you even if there were no transgender paradigm?" Regina asked.

"No. They didn't. They probably knew all along," Lourdes answered. "And as long as they could see who I was inside—my thoughts and interests—they could sense the truth, that there was an intersex problem I was dealing with, that I was someone they could get their head around. But when you all _en masse_ started telling everyone—wrongly—that I was part of a group that wanted to be a game-playing both, everything broke down. They didn't know you had a dick, sometimes, but it shows all over in everything about you.

"Transgenderists don't want to actually be the other sex. I do. But the family didn't get that anymore, so they pressured Raul," she continued. "And— Eventually he gave in."

The conversation threatened to become an angry argument, and neither one of them wanted that. Regina said, "So the rise of the transgender paradigm changed the way your husband's family and friends saw you and therefore him. Your marriage failed. The man you love is gone." Then she added, "It might not be that way. You aren't perfect, either. It might be that he left you for some other reason."

"Yeah. It might," Lourdes conceded. "But tensions built around his family, and then one time they came over and tried to make me leave. But I wouldn't leave. We were married for eighteen years, and that incident is what we fought about before he left." She looked straight at Regina. "Tell me I'm wrong."

Regina couldn't.

"He was more important to me than my own life. Previously, I'd thought that only my impossible need to be female was the strongest urge I could know, but after I fell in love with him, I knew he was more important to me than that. And now he's gone. I don't even know where he is.

"You can blame some other part of the marriage, say that it was something else, but that is what happened. You people have no idea about a life like mine. You have no idea how you hurt us."

Regina finally got it.

"You saw me open my door to the Neighborhood Fun Gang."

Lourdes nodded. "And I knew right then you were a threat to me, my marriage, and my life. But I couldn't act as if I knew. I couldn't show my true feelings. All the time we were getting acquainted, I was running scenarios in a panic through my mind, trying to figure out how to avoid disaster. I survived through those years, but ultimately I failed when your movement grew."

"You could have told me right off, about myself."

"Oh, Jesus, Regina. Rule number one? People know. Everybody knew but you. It probably took a quarter second for it to hit us all. And then I had to have you over to my house. Raul hated that. You were a major threat to my marriage, my home. He knew that, too, but I was a charter member of the N.F.G. I couldn't refuse to host you without making an issue because it was clear to everyone that you were some sort of queen. We were all talking about what to do. Should we befriend you or not?"

Regina set her coffee cup on a table and thought. "Do you hate me?"

"I'm angry with you, but I don't hate you. But I'm not comfortable being angry with you, either. You didn't personally set out to do anything mean to anyone."

"Do you think you're better than me because you pass better? Because you've known these things all along, while I've been a delusional game player?"

"I don't think I'm better. Just different. Transsexuals need to go our own way without you changing our course."

"All right. So I'm an obvious, self-deluded queen who has been promoting a paradigm of blended inclusion, and my kind and I set the stage for the destruction of your marriage. So then why are you here? Why are you sitting on my balcony pontificating to me about all the mistakes I've made for the last twenty-seven years when you could be out fooling people into thinking you're natal, dating normal men, and living an otherwise normal life?" There was anger in that statement, Regina noted.

"You seem to be ready now, Regina, and I'll run through it with you in exchange for something. A swap."

"What?"

"I want to be examined much more thoroughly than I have been in the past. I want to know why I am transsexual. I want to learn about what I think is a congenital intersex condition of the brain one way and the body another. I want brain scans, hormone testing, D.N.A. testing, smell tests, all of it."

"And that's why you asked me if I work in a university with a medical center."

"Yes."

"Why should you trust my sage input?" Regina asked. "After my kind and I have been so destructive to you over the years? You've got a lot of reasons to be angry at me. You might put me through the ringer and exaggerate things to me, which means I shouldn't believe what you're telling me half the time."

Lourdes gazed at her steadily. "Think about what I'm saying. You'll know I'm telling the truth because you already know. You just woke up."

CHAPTER 33

"YOU NEED TO DO THIS, Regina," Lourdes explained. "You might see what I'm talking about." Lourdes explained that she believed most queens avoid video of themselves because they secretly don't want to see themselves for real. "You avoid seeing because you're in denial," she said. "And, basically, you need the video, not the audio. Folks can see better when they're not listening."

Lourdes was dressed in bland clothing, nothing loud of color, nothing fashionable or different, and she carried a shoulder bag under her left arm that had her home video camera peeking out under the flap.

"You just live a day. We'll go out and do whatever you normally do, and when I can, I'll stay back so I'm out of your interactions, and I'll try to focus mostly on the people who are watching you. You'll be on the recording, too, a lot, but when I can, I'll focus on others who are reacting to you."

Regina wasn't sure this video was needed, but Lourdes wanted to do it, and Regina was thankful for Lourdes's efforts. Something of value might come from the project, something salvageable.

* * *

Regina walked out the front of her building onto the street and bought some coffee at a local bistro. "Thank you, and good morning," she said pleasantly to the man behind the counter.

He smiled at her kindly and went on to the next customer.

* * *

Regina walked across the campus where she'd worked for so long and where she now taught only once in a while to keep her hand in. She marveled at how lovely the morning was. She always enjoyed campus life.

Students walked by. She didn't know any of them, but she did spot a faculty member she knew from the anthropology department, where her daughter used to work.

"Oh, hello, good morning, Dr. Auberghast."

Surprise registered on the other's face, then recognition. "Oh, hi, Dr. Isler. It's good to see you. Where are you headed?"

"Over to a clinic in psych. Nothing major. Just seeing a friend."

"Okay. Well, see you later," Dr. Auberghast signed off and walked away.

She walked past a hill where students were lounging, reading books. Two lovers on a blanket under a tree admired each other. A young man walked his dog along a sidewalk. The foliage, she noted, was always so wonderful on campuses.

* * *

"Hi," Regina said to a receptionist. "I'm Dr. Isler, here to see Dr. Marshall if possible?"

"Down the hall, fourth door on the right," the receptionist said.

Regina made the short trip and found Dr. Marshall in her office. Regina explained who she was and that she had an unusual case that she hoped might be of interest to Dr. Marshall. Regina wanted to get some intensive research done with "Maria" to look for clues to uncover a transsexual intersex condition.

Dr. Marshall explained that such work had already been done many times, and researchers generally found no intersex condition in the transgenders of record. Her department wouldn't be interested in spending its meager resources on a further search in that area at this time.

Regina explained that the nature of this subject was transsexual, not transgender, and that the reason studies found little biological intersexuality is that most subjects had been transgender, not transsexual. Dr. Marshall explained that the studies included only people who had undergone G.R.S.. Regina explained that transgenders do sometimes have G.R.S., yet are still transgender, whereas transsexuals with a brain-intersex condition would also have G.R.S., although a distinction could be made. Most people who had G.R.S. choose in other ways to retain a blend of sexual characteristics. Different criteria need to be used to define a transsexual.

Dr. Marshall looked a little tired and said she'd look into the matter. Then she asked to get back to her work.

* * *

Inside Dr. Haller's lab, Regina was asking about various types of brain scans: functional MRIs, MRI spectroscopy, PET scans, diffusion tensor imaging, and any other alphabet scans that might prove helpful; but Dr. Haller said he had too long a list of other conditions to look at, and such scans had shown in the past to be nonrevealing for transgenders.

Regina argued that researchers needed to make a distinction between transgenderism and transsexualism to find a distinction. Dr. Haller had too much to do to delve into that.

* * *

Genetics was another possible area of inquiry. Some gene studies of "Maria" might show how she differed from other humans. Dr. Shea offered no insight. She said a graduate student might take on the topic for a thesis, but at this time, no one was working on that particular issue.

Perhaps Regina should try over in microbiology?

* * *

Regina talked with Dr. Matthews in microbiology about the possibility of using someone as distinct as "Maria" as a research subject.

"Oh, she's transgender?" Dr. Matthews asked. "Such studies have already been done, showing little."

"No. She's transsexual," Regina explained.

"You mean an extreme transgender?"

"Well, I don't think so. I think she may be something else, something different, which presents with only some superficial similarities." Regina explained that researchers should approach the study with an awareness that only a minority of G.R.S.s are performed on transsexuals.

Dr. Matthews said that assumption would introduce researcher bias.

"Our hypothesis is that the intersex condition is rare and that it's distinct from the autogynephilia of transgenderism, that the idea of all transitioners being variations of the same trend may be in error. The occasional odd result is not statistical scatter or an unusual result, but a true measure from an individual in a study who is actually transsexual, not transgender."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Isler," Dr. Matthews explained. "We're trying to be transgender-accepting here at the university. If we took on a study like that, we'd get hammered so loudly by the transgender community that the university would shut us down. No can do."

* * *

The clock said noon, lunchtime. Regina bought a hot dog and a soft drink at the concession stand for herself and one for Lourdes. They walked into the movies to relax a while. Approaching researchers was stressful for both of them. At those meetings when she accompanied Regina, Lourdes hung back, trying to stay out of Regina's interactions as much as possible.

After the show, Regina went to the ladies' room, with Lourdes following several seconds behind. They acted as if they didn't know each other.

* * *

The Santa Monica Pier had always been important to Regina. To her it was a peaceful, playful place, where lovers walked hand in hand and enjoyed a pleasant day together away from the stressors in their everyday lives. Sticking out into the ocean, the pier was literally out of the city. No matter how much noise was made there with carnival rides, cars thumping over the huge planks, or people excitedly yelling, the place still seemed, nonetheless, calm and quiet to Regina. It was a good spot for relaxing.

She drove her Porsche out onto the pier, parked in the lot, and walked out to the end of the pier to enjoy the view. Some afternoon stratus clouds were approaching, and the air was turning chilly, but she stayed a while, folding her arms over themselves for warmth.

The ocean view was so far away, so apart from her life ashore, that she longed for more of it, and the view of the shoreline was rich and beautiful. From the end of the pier she could see for fifty miles, on a clear day, some of the most beautiful coastline in the world. The pier felt like fulfillment, happiness. Her own getaway spot.

She didn't talk with anyone, didn't try to interact. Didn't buy a soda. Didn't have dinner. Didn't ride any of the carnival rides that were always going. Didn't try to find a lover.

She just relaxed, and in time, left. The evening was approaching, and the clouds were coming in. This would be a nice evening to stay home and cook something nurturing. Turn on the fireplace, have a glass of wine.

Maybe Lourdes would like to join her?

* * *

After dinner, they sat down to watch the one-hour, silent video of Regina's day.

Lourdes said nothing. There was no need to explain anything. She turned the system on and set the sound to mute.

Regina forgot to drink her wine.

After she left the bistro that morning, the man who had been so pleasant to her half-smiled at his colleague and, barely noticeably, shook his head. The colleague raised his eyebrows and shook his head in agreement. _Who knows in L. A.?_ their gestures might have said.

On campus, the professor she had talked to on the sidewalk, on leaving, dropped his smile and replaced it with a frown of disgust and a barely noticeable shake of the head.

Students lounged on a grassy hillside, most paying Regina no attention, but one at a distance of about fifty feet, well out of her attention, who had been relaxing, doing nothing in particular, began staring hard at Regina.

After Regina walked away from the first receptionist, she returned to her work with no noticeable reaction.

A man Regina talked to in an office seemed displeased to be having the conversation. Regina hadn't gotten that impression in person. Perhaps his tone of voice? What he had said didn't sound disapproving in itself, but in the silent video, he clearly didn't want to speak to Regina. His body language spoke volumes.

At the movies, the concession stand employees looked at one another after she left. One of them looked as if she were quietly trying to swallow her own words. A customer watched Regina walk away and rolled her eyes somewhat less diplomatically than the employee.

Inside the movies, Lourdes's camera couldn't record much in the dark, but now and then, someone from two rows back and a few seats to the right stared openly at Regina, leaning forward to look more clearly, yet staying out of Regina's field of view.

After the movie, in the ladies' room, Regina washed her hands and left. Lourdes lingered behind while two patrons, also washing their hands, complained to each other about the queen who had just left. The audio wasn't on, but with their noses scrunched up as if smelling something offensive, they may have said something like, "Jesus Christ, they're everywhere!" They weren't laughing; they were disgusted and offended.

On the pier, when Regina walked out toward the end to stand by the railing, the video showed that others, without being obvious, tended to stroll somewhere else, keeping a few more feet than usual between Regina and themselves. Their eyes would occasionally turn to her, and one man stared from the other side of the pier. He acted as if she might be a curiosity he wanted to see, but not get too close to.

"Jesus," Regina said, half to herself, half to Lourdes. "Most of this was behind my back. Most of us," referring to all transgenders, "never see any of that."

Lourdes added, "And these people are disconnected from each other. One doesn't know what the other has done. It's just natural for them to do it."

Regina looked at Lourdes with awareness, but Lourdes continued. "I've done this same thing for years, now and then, with others. It differs, somewhat. San Francisco is more self-righteous; for people there gender acceptance is a campaign. Texans are more offensive in their responses. New York is more easygoing. But I see reactions like this almost everywhere."

Regina realized she'd never seen these things for the last twenty-seven years. These reactions had been going on the whole time, and she'd never noticed.

CHAPTER 34

THEY HAD SPENT the morning cruising another university, looking for someone to take an interest in research on Lourdes. Lourdes was disappointed. They weren't finding anything, but campuses were so nice that their time on them was pleasant, nevertheless. They enjoyed the large grassy areas, stately buildings, and people interested in learning.

Eventually, they lounged in a coffee shop near the campus bookstore.

"You see him?" Regina asked Lourdes, indicating a man walking by with a student in tow. "He's one of the local big shots."

"Can he help us?" Lourdes asked, referring to research on herself.

Regina smiled and sipped her coffee. "I haven't talked with him in years, but you don't want to ask him."

Lourdes watched the man disappear around one of the stately brick buildings.

"He's female-to-male. Passes beautifully, natural in new role, but still transgender."

Lourdes looked after him again, but he was gone.

"A lot of F.T.M.s transition better than M.T.F.s," Lourdes said. "What was his intent in transitioning?"

"Intent?" Regina asked.

"To be male or just manly?"

"To be a man. He's a man now," Regina said.

"Did he have G.R.S.?" Lourdes asked.

"G.R.S. doesn't make you a man, Lourdes. That's one of the central messages of the paradigm."

"I know, but the way you're using sex and gender terms confuses the issue, which is the goal of the paradigm," Lourdes said.

Regina looked questioning.

"Being manly is one thing. Being male, or even trying to be, is quite another."

"Not in the transgender paradigm."

"Exactly," Lourdes responded with enthusiasm.

"A lot of female-to-males say they would have G.R.S., but it's not good enough yet."

"News flash!" Lourdes said. "Most male-to-female transgenders don't have G.R.S. either. All kinds of excuses. G.R.S. isn't good enough for anybody who wants the real thing, but transsexuals take it because they need to, because it's the best they can do."

"You're not biologically female," Regina said.

That hurt, and Lourdes winced. "I'm doing everything possible to be. But, in contrast, _they don't even want it_. They prefer to have sex with what they have."

"And what's wrong with having sex with that?"

"Nothing. But—and transgenders don't get this— _Hello—it's female_. Clitoris is female. Calling it your dick doesn't make it one," Lourdes explained, bluntly, as if to a child. "Even if it got somewhat bigger with testosterone. So," Lourdes continued, "is that denial or a sell-job?"

"Now I feel slapped," Regina said.

"I'm not trying to hurt you. I just think honesty is important, remember? I think it's important because so often people lie to us. We even lie to each other, and to ourselves."

The raised tone of Lourdes's voice drew the attention of students at nearby tables. One student butted in as if he had been part of the conversation all along. "A manly person can have a vulva between his legs and a bean which he loves to have sex with. And if he chooses to keep it, then implying to people he really is male is a misrepresentation. The question is whether the sex can be changed. If the sex can't be changed, then you can't change it. If you can't change it, then—" he mulled the ideas over in his head, as if searching for the right logical argument.

Lourdes shrank back into her chair in horror. She looked as if she wanted to flee immediately, but she stayed frozen in her seat.

Regina wondered why Lourdes had reacted so strangely. Regina smiled and talked with the student. "You're talking about both changing sex and the issue of fraud representation. How about separating the concepts for this simple argument."

The student tried: "If, 'If he changed sex, then he is male,' then if he changed sex, then he is male. _Modus ponens_."

"Okay," Regina said with a smile.

The student tried again: "And if, 'If he changed sex, then he is male,' then if he isn't male, then he didn't change sex. _Modus tollens_." The student smiled, enjoying this. "And you could do something like that for fraud also, relating, so if he's not male, I think he's committing a fraud if he claims he is. On that particular issue."

The student looked at Regina as if to ask, "How did I do."

Regina gave him a look of accomplishment and looked at Lourdes to see if she wanted to contribute.

"I'm sorry?" Lourdes asked and then fell silent. The terror on her face spoke volumes.

"What's your major?" Regina asked the young man hoping to divert attention from Lourdes, who was squirming in her seat.

"Philosophy," he replied with a smile.

Another student, at a completely different table, chimed in. "You mean chromosomally? Anatomically? Because I'm pre-law, and it seems to me that the issue of fraud is more of a legal concern than a biological one. It's not about whether chromosomes can be changed, but whether there's a legal standard that's met or accepted for some area of society to mostly agree to the adoption of the other sex. For legal purposes. Check with a real lawyer—I'm just a student—but it's my thinking that some places, like out here on the left coast or New York or something, we've generally been accepting of a person in a new sex role if he or she has gone through some kind of transition, including genital reconstruction. Sometimes not if not, I think. I don't know how far you have to go. Some places don't, and some government agencies may not, so far, no matter where you are, so it's a mess. And legally around the world? Total mess! Everywhere you go, it seems it's different. But I think if the legal standard—not a biological one—is met in some area, then it would not be a fraud. I think. God, check with a lawyer in that area." Then to Lourdes, he said, "It's not my area of specialty. I'm business law. And I know for certain, that if you ask ten lawyers in one specialty of law, you can get fifteen answers. I've really been mis-steered a few times, myself. Can't figure out most things, any more."

A young lady at yet another table chimed in. "It's kind of like gene pools," she said.

Regina smiled broadly.

The young lady continued. "I'm a biology major, not law, but it seems to me that when a person from a significantly different gene pool, say who is Asian, immigrates, when he meets the legal standard to become a citizen, then he is American. He may always look Asian. He may still speak with a heavy accent. He will always have his genes from his own, different, former gene pool. But once he becomes adopted, I think he's American by law." She smiled, proud of her contribution.

"So he gets to say, 'This is my country' and 'I am American' and refer to 'our founding fathers,' like that, even though he wasn't born American," the law major said.

The biology major summarized, "So, more biologically? If a female-to-male transgender, who has not chosen to acquire male genitalia, prefers men— Is he straight or gay? If the state doesn't have same sex marriage laws, can he marry a man or a woman? Or does he get to choose? The law shouldn't even have a say in it, if you ask me, but if he's still genitally female-ish?"

"This conversation is making my head hurt," a student at another table said.

"I think each case would have to seek out lawyers to find out for his real status, his situation, and the area—" the law student said.

"Until we figure out that what's legal for one American ought to be legal for all Americans," an adamant student said at another table.

"Because of this prudist, puritanical, fundamentalist Bible-based bullshit that just can't stand human freedom—" another student piped in, loudly.

"What's G.R.S.?" yet another student asked from yet another table.

"Genital reconstructive or reassignment surgery, or by some similar name. Having your genitalia reconstructed into the anatomy of the other sex," Regina told her with a smile. The student was obviously wondering if Regina had had G.R.S., so Regina told her.

"I haven't had it. But she has." Regina pointed toward Lourdes.

Lourdes's face went bloodless. Her mouth fell open.

The students all looked at her intensely. They hadn't guessed.

Lourdes glared at Regina and bolted from the bistro. Regina jumped up and dashed after her.

They'd driven there together in Regina's Porsche. It was parked in the north parking lot, and Regina expected that Lourdes would head toward it, but she didn't. Instead, Lourdes rounded a corner on campus going in the general direction of the local shops. Regina knew that several bus lines ran along that street.

Lourdes walked at a fast-but-normal pace, like Jason Bourne making a get-away, with Regina perhaps fifty feet behind her, trying to catch up. In less than a minute, Regina caught up and touched Lourdes on the arm.

"Lourdes!" Regina said.

Lourdes shook her arm away and ran, but Regina ran after her, moving in front and stopping to face the nurse.

"Stay away from me! How could you! _Goddamn_ you!" Lourdes screamed.

"What's the matter? What did I do that was so wrong?"

"How could you have been so stupid to tell that about me? What if one of those kids finds out who I am? What if I have to leave my job because one of them rats on me?"

Regina begged, "I'm sorry. I didn't think. I wasn't thinking. We were talking so openly, and I didn't know you weren't aware they could hear— It's normal. That kind of thing happens. They get into one another's business for a communal discussion, and— It's not your realm, but I thought you were okay with it."

Lourdes snorted. "Give me your keys!" she demanded.

Regina looked at her questioningly.

"Give me the keys to your car!" Lourdes demanded again.

By way of apology, Regina handed them over.

" _You_ take the bus home! If you're lucky, I'll see you later. We have two more campuses to cover. That's how much I want some research. Not you!"

She stormed away, then turned to whisper-shout at Regina, "You gonna call the cops on me?"

Regina wondered why.

"For taking your car!"

"No! I gave you the keys."

"Yeah, but you blab everything else about me! You gonna call the cops and try to get me arrested?"

"No, no. No," Regina tried to share her sorrow at her own thoughtlessness. "I'm sorry. I deserve this. You go. I can get a ride. I'm so sorry." She dropped her face in shame. This was her field, and she had thoughtlessly humiliated someone she'd come to love as a friend. "Please, please don't disappear. Please feel free to drive to Timbuktu, but please come back when you can. I'm so sorry. I won't ever do it again. You're my therapist, I can say, if it ever comes up. And if I think we're talking in a place where anyone can hear, I'll remind us to leave or quiet down, or let you know. I wasn't thinking. I was enjoying the exchange, and I didn't think about you. I'm so sorry."

"How could you enjoy that?" Lourdes demanded. "What are you thinking? Don't you remember what you learned the other day? What: three days ago? You don't even have your stitches out of your little attempted suicide, and you're already back in denial?"

"No denial! It was a nice conversation about trans issues."

Lourdes spoke quietly. "I mean denial about how you seem to others and how you feel about yourself. Those kids don't see you as a respected professor in an intellectual discussion. They see you as a freak who's willing to share 'his' penis for discussion before class. Remember the mirror? The truth of it doesn't change because you get tired of knowing it," Lourdes said.

Lourdes gave Regina her keys back.

* * *

"So I'm a freak," Regina said quietly to Lourdes at a steakhouse in Westwood. They got a quiet booth in a corner, away from most people. "And so are you."

"More so, now that you transgenderists have convinced the public I want to be like 'ladies' with dicks."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to slam you with the freak thing. I meant to ask, how have you been living with this internal conflict all your adult life?"

Lourdes looked around at the other patrons, obviously checking to make sure no one was paying them any attention. The closest diners were a couple at a neighboring table, but the restaurant was noisy enough that muted voices wouldn't be heard.

"I was a teenager," she said finally. "Seventeen. I had parents who understood and a doctor who wouldn't let me drop into denial about the bad things or fantasies about good things. He told me a sex change could be life-threatening stress, with a million social situations I couldn't foresee, and if I couldn't take the stress, I'd do better to fall apart with him, then, rather than later when I was alone. And he was right. I tell people I didn't leave the house for two years while I changed. That isn't entirely true, but it's close. I didn't leave much until I was through as much of it as I could be."

"And you came out—" Regina's demeanor changed in a moment. "Yes, it's a lovely décor here—" she said for the benefit of the server who approached with a basket of bread, two glasses, and a bottle of wine.

"You two ladies out for the evening?" the server asked. The area was gay friendly.

Lourdes shrank back into the booth a bit.

"No, it's not like that," Regina told him with a relaxed smile. "We're both faculty on campus. It's an after-work dinner."

Lourdes tensed visibly.

"Oh, how wonderful. What do you teach?" he asked in conversational tone while he poured a bit of wine for Regina to sample.

"Psych," Regina said, indicating herself. "Spanish," she said, indicating Lourdes.

" _Buenas noches. Hablo con un acento_?" the server asked in Spanish.

" _Habla bien, pero sus sonidos de acento como ello son de Europa. Es de Espana_?"

"Ah, you noticed! Yes, I'm from Spain. I was raised there until I was thirteen, and then we moved here.

"Well, keep up your native language. Don't lose it!" Professor Lourdes encouraged.

Regina approved the wine, and the server filled the glasses.

"May I have an extra dish for scraps?" Regina indicated an empty place near her plate.

"Sure, _no problemo._ Be right back." The server went away with a smile and a glance at Lourdes.

Regina turned back to Lourdes. "I mean, how do you live day to day? You knew from the start you were making yourself into a freak—what others might think of as a freak—and you did it anyway. How do you live with that all the time?"

"As hard as it is, I think stepping into the hell of it knowingly is easier than thinking you're going to heaven, only to realize the truth later. I always knew how others would see me, and every time, of a million times when I'd slip into the idea that I really am a girl, I'd have someone, either my parents or my doctor, correct me, remind me that I was becoming much like a girl, but not what most other people would think a female really is.

"My mother taught me all the things she'd have taught a daughter. Our house was like college for a girl major. She taught me sewing, cooking. Made me clean house with her. We made my clothes. I had to unlearn some boy conditioning and learn some girl attitudes. If my sense of humor was too masculine, my doctor would coach it out of me. I saw him twice a week for two years. If I valued some TV show that my father thought was for guys, he'd slam me for it, saying he'd not have a tomboy for a daughter, and send me to the kitchen to get him a beer.

"I got lots of love for settling into a stereotypical female role. And it served me well when I married Raul. God, I loved him."

Her face went sad.

"Here you are," said the affable server. They sat silent while he brought Regina's extra saucer, laid it on the table, and then left silently.

"You didn't automatically settle into girlish things?" Regina asked. "You had a female brain? Right?" Regina wasn't chiding. She was asking sincerely.

"That's fantasy land, Regina. Even with a female brain—if that's what it really is—there's a lot of conditioning you'll never really overcome," Lourdes said. "What if you learned one sloppy kind of man's handwriting, and want to retrain thirty years later to a woman's? Very, very hard. Or let's say I was born and raised in Arkansas, but I always believed I belonged in L.A. As a young adult, I move to L.A. and want to blend right in with people here, but I'll still have an Arkansas accent that makes me stick out.

"Sticking out is bad, if you want to fit in—because it draws attention to my heritage. The way I was. So I had to coach my way out of the Arkansas accent, as it were, and into an L.A. accent, until the L.A. accent took over and became habit."

"And what would be wrong with living in L.A. with an Arkansas accent? Your heritage is not bad," Regina said.

"Because we're not talking about accents. We're talking about gender. Rule number two? People don't like it, not gender blending. I want people to actually like me as a girl."

"Ah, okay. So drop the old. In every way?"

"It's part of the limitation of transitions. You can't drop all of what you are, leave it all behind. Even _if_ you have a female-type brain at birth, you've still gone through decades of male-related conditioning, and like it or not, it's part of you. Depending on how you live, the results of that conditioning may fade over time and be replaced by the new, but the conditioning is still there. And people can sense it. So I would never do something like you just did," Lourdes said.

"What?" Regina asked, puzzled.

"You referred to me as faculty to that server."

"That's a good thing!" Regina said.

Lourdes shook her head no. "That made me stick out in his mind. He took closer notice of me, and that's bad."

"But you went with it. You even played the part."

"Because after you identified me as faculty, after he engaged with me as that, to _not_ play the role would have created even more curiosity in his mind.

"Curiosity, interest in me, often turns out poorly because there are signs people see. You can't totally overcome a physique or conditioning that was for that other sex. If I'm examined too closely, bits of that old 'Arkansas' culture will be spotted by those around me, and I'll be blown. Then they'd see me as trans, and I don't want that. That can prevent relationships I want to form, and it can be destructive to relationships I may already have. Like my marriage. I'd have to leave, move."

Regina was following Lourdes well. "You don't have any roots," she stated insightfully. "You can't put down roots."

Lourdes shook her head no, in agreement. "For me, it's better to be an anonymous woman, female, than to be a known trans. Because up here," she pointed to her head, "I'm _so very not that_. I so need to be just normal, though I can't be, or at least consistent with myself, brain and body, though I can't be. That's the dilemma of my intersex."

"And doesn't that mean you're lying to folks? About what you are?"

"You mean, if I don't discuss my sexuality with people, I'm lying to them? You mean my sexuality is something that can't be private? Because I'm different, so people have a right to know how?"

Lourdes froze when the server brought dinners to the couple at the next table, though he didn't speak to them on this trip.

"Those are my same thoughts about mine," Regina said. "However different."

When the waiter left, Lourdes continued. "You mean I have an obligation to share my sexuality lest people be deceived? Or if I don't mention this third arm growing out of my forehead, then I'm in denial about it, as most transgenders are? You guys make other people _think_ I'm in denial like you are if I don't bring it up. But I think bringing focus to it and lying, _both_ , are counterproductive—destructive—to the best ends I can achieve.

"Haven't you noticed? I never actually come right out and claim I'm a woman. I say I want to be accepted or loved as such, sometimes, but even that's rare. Normally, I just hope some people will perceive."

"I'm sorry, no," Regina said. "What am I thinking? Trans has no right to privacy?" she said almost to herself.

"I don't lie to people, Regina. I want to maintain my integrity, but I also have to think about how lies affect others. People often sense something. They don't put me through an airport scanner, but they often do sense _something_ on their own, even if they don't know what it is. Because if I lie, then the lie compounds the problems people have with me. People don't like to be faked. You'd have to be in gross denial to think people believe your lies.

"Lying compounds the problem. Example: if I'm talking with some gals, and Susan mentions that she can't have children. We all know she probably can't because she's forty and she hasn't. I don't jump in and lie that I have kids and that they live in Mexico or Florida or someplace else. I don't say I can't have kids and imply that there's something wrong with my uterus or that I've had a hysterectomy. Those would all be lies.

"Rather, I would just sympathize with her. If we got closer, I might say that I wish I had kids—and I do—but I wouldn't imply something fake about it. Rather, I'd just leave my reasons unsaid."

"But if you're in role, wouldn't talking about those things fit with the role?"

"I'm not in the role of being a liar. I've honestly done everything possible, within both myself and society, to be a normal female. I'm not there, I know, but from here, I've found I'm better simply _being_ that, as much as I can, and not making any claims to status or role. Let people take me as they take me. Be loving, genuine, honest, and even if they suspect something is up—which they usually do after prolonged exposure—they're more likely to see me as a woman they can understand who is dealing with something private I don't want to talk about.

"And by the way, being myself doesn't mean blocking out my reality and living in fantasy. I don't share my desires with others, but I have to remember them, for myself. Or I'll come off to others as deluded."

Regina was absorbing her words, not commenting.

"Being myself doesn't take me all the way in role, but counter-intuitively, keeping my awareness of my own horrid nature—and to me, it is a nightmare—brings me closer than if I lied my way through. Because lies are sensed, and they're off-putting. Being honest with people, even humble about my own privacy, invites people in a very calm way to look into me. There, they sometimes find truths about me I can't speak to them. Especially after you transgenders convince them I'm self-deluded.

"I have very little in life, Regina," Lourdes said, pausing. "I'm thought of as a freak by some, a fake by others. I have no real friends. Other than Raul, never any good lovers. Even Raul left me after his family and friends pressured him. But I can still have integrity, and that's valued by most people who matter to me."

"You must hate transgenders," Regina said, "because most of us try to fake our way through a fantasy. Like claiming we're female when we're not even close."

"I didn't used to care. You do whatever you want. It's your business. But in the '90s, transgenderists started saying _en masse_ that I was part of them. Then they began to hurt me, personally, and that I care about."

"So you wouldn't claim to be faculty to a server."

"If I were faculty, and if it was reasonable to share that fact, then I'd share it. Not lie. But to drop that in like that creates curiosity—as it did in him—invites scrutiny, inquiry, focused attention, and revelation. I don't want to be in any spotlight."

"Yes. And seeking the spotlight, approval from others, is often a symptom of low self-esteem. A problem a lot of transfolks have," Regina said.

They sat back in the booth and broke the conversation because the server brought the food. He smiled heavily at Lourdes. Lourdes gave him a brief half-smile in return.

After he was gone, Regina started her meal by cutting into her steak, and Lourdes started by dressing her salmon and baked potato.

"So," Regina summarized, "you try to be aware of how other people see you, you don't like to bring attention to yourself, and you aren't public with your sexuality as it's nobody's business even if they already know. Even mentioning your sexuality makes you 'trans' and not 'woman' in the eyes of all; you live in a state of female-ishness that is not the ideal you crave. You feel that lies are off-putting, and humble honesty is inviting."

"Yes. But you can't do what I do. That's what works for me. You'd have to do something different to fit who you are, how you're taken."

"Well," Regina said while processing that, chewing, "to start with a realistic view of how I'm taken," which required another cut of steak, "I think most people see me, right off, within about a second, as a queen. I'm trans-something. Obviously. Rule number one: they know. And Rule number two: they don't like it. They may smile, say they're glad to see me, offer me this table to eat at or this other thing to buy, or make nice, but deep inside, there's an aversion to my way as it's been."

Lourdes took a sip of wine and a small bite of salmon, nodding encouragement for Regina to continue.

"I've made myself into something that people readily identify as transgender. Which fits—as much as I hate to say it—because that's what I am. But the be-an-actual woman thing isn't real and isn't me. I like the woman thing, but really, it's not who I am. It's just something I like. I did have some hot fantasies, hot sex that you wouldn't believe," she smiled at that, "but I don't know if I still have that in me. Well, I guess I do, but it's probably dormant or decreased. Though I need some womanish, I just don't feel as sexual anymore."

"How's your testosterone levels?"

"Good. I'm regulated for a normal female. But I think I've just worked through some of the sex. Over time."

Regina paused, thoughtfully. "When I started, I thought I was really becoming a female. I guess I'm a slider."

"A what?"

"A slider. Like Stanley Schachter, a psychologist who did a series of experiments back in the '50s on how society accepts people who are different, such as one who agrees with the majority, one who _disagrees_ with the majority—and then the 'slider,' who initially _disagrees_ with the a majority but then changes to _agree_. I think it could actually be either from or to a majority or minority or even back—just a change in views. I remember my old professor saying, over and over, how the new group in society embraces sliders, and how dissenters vilify someone who leaves them.

"I don't know how to tell society I'm a slider, but I have to face the fact that I am one. Since my awakening. My view has shifted to the majority—I am not a woman; I'm transgender—because my denial faded." Regina hung her head in resignation, seeing the surprising truth. "I am male. I want to keep being a male. But I like to have womanly attributes.

I can't possibly mean this?

What the hell's going on?

"God," Regina confessed to herself and to Lourdes, "this life is not what I expected. Reality, loneliness, how people lie to you— It doesn't all work out for the best because of the transgender movement's idealistic rant, 'Be yourself.' This is the dark side I never heard of. The transgender movement doesn't usually tell you about this stuff."

"So where does that leave you now?" Lourdes asked gently, despite the harshness of her words.

Regina's first thought was to put her old friend in her place, but after a second's thought, she knew what Lourdes meant. Lourdes thought, in a world where people lie, that honesty is best. And she'd said so at the outset.

Regina said, "Out in the cold. I admit it. My breasts are overdone. Maybe I should have small ones, an A-cup. But the truth is, I don't think they suit me at all anymore. I'm not even sure I should have them at all. They have no place on me. I don't know what I should have."

They both sat and stared at nothing, both feeling defeated. Food was there in front of them, but neither was hungry.

"I guess I'm leading a lonely life. Extremely lonely," Regina said, looking at her wine glass.

"Me, too." Lourdes said. "Most of us do. Years later."

"And I think I would like to come off less odd to others. Whatever I am, I want to back up and learn how to make friends who would actually like to have me over once in a while."

Lourdes did nothing, said nothing; she only stared at Regina's wineglass.

"That's going to be hard," Regina continued. "I'm a something-different that most people seriously don't want in their lives. Deep inside, I know I won't be able to change enough to overcome that reaction entirely, at my age, but I hope I can do some things that can help."

"That's rule number three, as I look at it," Lourdes said.

Regina looked at her.

"Compromise," Lourdes said simply.

Regina agreed, nodding several times. For most of her adult life she'd have fought that idea. Stand up and be proud of yourself; be out and proud, she'd have promoted. Is there anything wrong with being trans? Are people saying we should hide in a closet? Those ideals require either self-sacrifice or inveterate denial or both. They were the ideals of a social movement. They'd sound good at a trans speech or in a parade. Not for making friends with someone at work or even across the hall. Not for getting invited over for dinner."

"In reality, everyone has to compromise," Lourdes continued. "Even if you'd been raised as a little girl, you'd have to compromise. But if you do, you'll be accepted more, and that's what I'm talking about for us.

"Think about marriage as an example. Marriage is completely compromise, all the way through. Because you're two people who will, hopefully, over time, meld to become more like one person with two halves. You want that special someone for whom you don't have to change? Who doesn't have to change for you? Where is there no compromise? That's storybook fantasy. Adolescent.

"And society is the same way. You want to get to that point where people look at you closely enough to see if they like you? You need to look and act like someone they might be interested in. You need to be attractive to them, to attract them. Parents know this. They may not state it outright, but they say, 'Girls do this, not this.'"

"And if I want to be both manly and womanly at the same time," Regina said, "I need to be honest about that as well. Most people won't like what they see in me, but I reveal who I am for those who can. And then I need to moderate the differences. Tone myself down for others when I'm wearing my public face."

Lourdes and Regina grew silent. Music played. Dishes clanked. Food was served. Other people talked at other tables, and they seemed happy.

"There are others, aren't there? Sliders?" Regina asked at last.

Lourdes nodded.

"We don't hear much about them," Regina said. "Most transgenders haven't gotten this far yet."

"Have you seen the pattern?" Lourdes asked.

"What pattern?"

"Most trans persons begin life," Lourdes said, "trying to fit in with their natal role. It feels artificial for them, so they transition. After transition and for a few years, they often go overboard toward the other extreme. Way too 'womanly,' for many."

Regina finished it. "But then they settle down into something that's seems more normal for them. I'm a seasoned therapist, and we see this in older trans people. Part of it might be age, also. But I think I've been missing something: they're not really settling into something 'more normal for them' at that point. They're just going through another swing in the process, aren't they?" she asked.

"Yes," Lourdes said.

"Only the gender swing is more toward the masculine side again at that point, usually less or no makeup, plain or butch clothes or behavior. I did that, too. But that second swing is not the end; it's the middle, isn't it? It hasn't settled yet. And there's more, after awakening." Regina knew now.

Lourdes nodded. "They mostly don't go to therapy after awakening," Lourdes added. "So you likely won't see people at that stage in your office. Their crisis comes when they see what they've made of themselves, but those who survive usually find themselves settling down between the two extremes. The process goes on throughout life."

The food was cold by then, and the wine seemed less inviting at that point. But the evening, somehow, seemed successful to Regina.

"Your denial will slip back in now and then," Lourdes said, "but it's mostly gone. Life will be more painful in some ways than before, but because you're dealing with reality you can do better with other people, be rejected less, and be hurt less than before. If you learn how to put yourself out there. The problem is that you've been so long with your prior habits. It's not the same as trying to start out when you're young. You're beginning late in the day."

Regina shed first one tear and then several. She knew Lourdes was right. She wanted to reach across the table to hold Lourdes's hand, but she knew Lourdes wouldn't want her to. "I'm so sorry. I've spent years hurting you, and I didn't mean to. I was so arrogant, and I'm so sorry," Regina said.

"I know I've hurt you, too, Regina, and I'm sorry, too. But thank you for saying that," Lourdes said. "I know I've shared a lot of things that have hurt, but in the years ahead, ask yourself if they're true. And if they are, then please don't be angry with me."

CHAPTER 35

REGINA SAT in the beach park with her aging dog, Winslow, beside her on the bench, a slack nylon leash dangling to the ground. She was sixty-five; Winslow was aging. Winslow's head lay in Regina's lap, but the dog wasn't asleep. Around them, lovely date and fan palms reached up, like the surrounding buildings, to disappear into a base of low stratus clouds. The afternoon sun had no hope of shining through. Cars drove by with a whoosh, occasionally honking. People walked. The breeze barely moved. But Regina didn't notice any of it.

A man walked by. He may have said something to her, but Regina didn't know. She perceived only a distant suggestion in her mind that anyone had even been there. It was like her life as a whole. In her life, other people seemed like cardboard cutouts of real people, probably because they emotionally kept their distance. Didn't want to get close. Didn't like the trans thing. They were nothing to her, most of the time. Shapes or forms of beings, as if she were a hologram in a time-space machine. She could move through their lives at arm's length, understand what they were saying—but as if she were slightly out of phase, in a different dimension. Like they couldn't actually see her. Like she was a ghost.

Regina knew she was numb, but she didn't care.

Part of her mind could still think, somewhere inside, sealed off from the rest of the world through a veil of fog so thick it dampened sound. _Curious,_ she thought. She could still think, but the rest of the world could go fuck itself. Why should she reach out? Why should she fight to touch the fog, or listen to it, or talk to it? _They are all goddamn assholes—_

She cut herself off because she knew they weren't. They were largely good people, struggling to get through life just as she was. They wanted happiness, something better for themselves and their children. Most of them would help in a time of crisis—unless you were too much of an emotional risk for them.

That's what she faced, people of her kind, or anyone who was different in a "negative way." Social cowardice.

A man walked by, glancing briefly at her.

Regina's mind didn't form the word "coward," but it was a truth she already knew. She stared without looking at people walking along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. After a while, her hand found the strength to move onto Winslow's side and rest there.

_Depression,_ she knew. She was dumping on herself and others too much. Big, fat pity party.

She'd known depression a million times during her life. How could she not, in a life where most of her basic, human needs were never met? No love—well, Winslow loved her. But she meant from another human being. No one to really care. Trans friends came and went, self-absorbed. Professionals, she knew, but their interest was not as a real friend. She was rarely included in any group other than squabbling, adolescent, myopic, rationalizing trans groups.

She had a home, thank God. She prayed she could keep it her whole life. She had this lovely girl, here—she petted Winslow gently along her side—that she would soon lose to old age. She had food. She had her car and her sailboat. She even seemed to have herself, more and more, although most people would rather she not, or if she did, to keep herself at a distance.

But she didn't have _them_ , the other people. She couldn't walk down the street in the morning, making pleasantries to local shop owners whom she liked and believing they were glad to greet her, also.

She knew from a long history that when she was depressed, she could still use her brain power to move her limbs. She could detach muscles from her depression and still move hands, feet, mouth, still say things she needed to say, still function. On brain power. She might appear down to people, but they'd never know how low she felt.

But lately, in the last few years, putting on a cheerful face had been harder. There was no one. Her dog was ill, aging quickly. Her family had disowned her _de facto_. Her mother was dead. And Lourdes had disappeared, gone for nearly three years now.

It was odd how much Lourdes had come to mean to Regina in the short time she'd known her. That little Latina who was nothing more than a neighbor Regina had known briefly dozens of years before, but Lourdes turned out to be a transsexual Regina never read and didn't understand, a member of a group that Regina had always unwittingly slighted, a group Regina had always thought to be condescending toward transgenders. Yet Lourdes had turned out to know more about it all than exalted Regina did, and Lourdes had helped Regina more than anyone else in her life. She'd come to mean more to Regina than anyone else. She'd even begun thinking of Lourdes as a family member, of sorts—

She caught herself again. She had long-standing familial needs unmet, so she was reaching out, forming family in her mind without basis in reality. Also just as Lourdes had said: she'd forget and have to relearn what she already knew a thousand times over, for years, but because of her great awakening that day in her bedroom, her new insights would stick better and better as she went along.

She was aware of this, now, whereas before she hadn't been.

She was mystified by the twists and turns life makes.

Lourdes came into her life and turned her life upside-down— _No, unfair,_ Regina counseled herself. She'd come to her own realization first, before finding Lourdes.

But Lourdes seemed to know all about it. How? Another mini-re-revelation: _it was reality Lourdes had independently discovered._

Regina had failed, she felt she knew, dropping her hand back onto her lap. Lourdes had hoped Regina could use her connections and understanding of the academic establishment to find someone to do some in-depth research on transsexuals as a phenomenon distinct from transgenderism, but Regina had failed. Researchers didn't want to offend the larger group of transgenderists, who had long advocated a view of trans as all-inclusive, leaving transsexuals largely untreated as a group, having to tolerate people misunderstanding them as transgenders in society, invalidating their own different intentions and efforts.

Sex and gender are different things, she admitted to herself again.

Another re-revelation, she noticed. She was going round in circles with herself, relearning, over and over, what she already knew. Her new awareness, new knowledge, was a force combatting a lifetime of deception. This new pattern of thought was forging new pathways in an older brain set in a previous way.

_Goddamnit_. Regina sat there in utter disgust, anger, and helplessness.

Racing to Las Vegas and other events in cars and hotels, her own bedroom, even in movie theatres—she remembered the hot sex, the fantasy-acting-out, and her efforts to draw others into her way of thinking.

Fantasy becomes self-deception becomes belief.

The need was so strong that self-deception was easy, and when other transgenders reinforce it, when doctors and therapists also seem to reinforce it, and when even the public reinforces it with their false smiles and their directions to the ladies' room, the self-deception is, over time, ingrained to the point where it becomes certain knowledge.

* * *

Regina shopped at the mall with an undeniable awareness of how others were seeing her, as if their eyes drilled through to her inner secrets. Walking down the hall felt humiliating with others knowing what she was, and she was certain they did, or most of them did, if they looked for longer than two seconds. She felt as if she'd had her lifelong mask removed, and now she knew others could see who she really was—or as if she were now aware, for the first time, that she had been nude her whole life.

She'd had no clothes for decades.

She still needed to adjust her wardrobe. She'd been buying different kinds of clothes since "awareness," searching for a more compromising look, something that worked a little better with her man's bone structure, to achieve a more acceptable, less queenie look.

This day she noticed a clerk who seemed approachable. "Excuse me," Regina said, "Can you tell me where the restroom is?" She knew where it was. She'd lived in that town forever. She just wanted to know what the clerk would say.

The clerk looked at her briefly and, with only the slightest hesitation, told her, "The ladies' room is just over there."

In the past, Regina would have thanked her with a smile and gone. But this time, she continued looking at the clerk for an extra few seconds.

"May I ask, very gently, in a dire need for genuine truth, Do you really believe that's where I should go?" Regina asked as softly as she could, kindly, trying to avoid alarming the clerk and raising her defenses.

"Oh, sure," she said. "It's just over there." And she pointed.

Regina continued to stay and talk with the lady, who was becoming obviously uncomfortable. Regina thought the situation would make anyone uncomfortable; asking for the restroom and then staying to talk raised suspicions about motives. But Regina also sensed that part of the clerk's discomfort came from being confronted with the need for a truth that she didn't feel she could give.

And that was the answer Regina was looking for.

"Thank you," she said to the clerk. "You see, many a younger transgender needs to have his self-deception reinforced, but what I'm doing is wondering if people out here in public really think we're women or not, or just deluded people who shouldn't be confronted."

The clerk looked stunned.

Regina looked embarrassed. "No, no," Regina said. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to put you on the spot. It's just that reinforcement is taken differently by transgenders than most people think. I'm sorry for bothering you. Truly. I have my own issues. I'm sorry. Thank you for your help," Regina said kindly and left.

* * *

On Friday night at the movies, anyone could see that a greater percentage of the audience was composed of couples, compared to other times. The start of the weekend was a popular time for dating, for people going out together to share. A sexual undertone was often present. Daters were attracted to each other. Attraction was a common basis for relationship building—not the only one, but a common one.

Regina went alone, aware she had no one, aware she wasn't likely to get anyone other than a "tranny-chaser." Such relationships were never long-lasting—a one-night stand usually—because the chaser was looking to live out a fantasy, not trying to see through to the person underneath.

To face strangers with the obvious facts of her sexuality, her genderality, and the social isolation that came with it was humiliating. But it was part of the whole. She had found no way to address it, other than the compromise—rule number three—that Lourdes had suggested: that the loneliness and isolation that naturally resulted from her gender difference could be ameliorated, even if only slightly, by not throwing her transgender in people's faces as much.

She had undergone a breast reduction the year before, down from a C- to an A-cup, which, she decided after an honest look in the mirror while dressed, might still be too large because of the size of her ribs underneath. Overall, for a woman, people tended to expect a certain feminine shape in clothes, or one of a group of shapes that were common to women. Big on top, small on the bottom with tiny hips was not one of them.

She could make them all happy by having the breasts totally removed, cutting her hair like a man's, speaking in lower tones, and wearing men's clothes, but— Actually, the thought wasn't entirely unattractive, and sometimes it seemed to fit who she was. But after devoting her whole life to being a woman, she didn't know how to save face while transitioning back to a man. Such a step would make her life's effort doubly a joke, further humiliating her. She wondered if she'd sometimes need to go out as a woman for that gender feeling. Sometimes need to have sex as a woman?

She caught herself doing it again

Re-aware!

_The transgender paradigm was so screwed up_ , she thought. The leaders of the paradigm would do better to advocate for what they were really doing: wanting to be the other gender, but not the other sex.

_But how can they advocate for THAT lifestyle,_ she thought, _if they hide it?_

Someone should do something to help.

CHAPTER 36

REGINA PARKED HER PORSCHE in the middle of the golf course, got out, and walked among the crowd the half mile south to the Rose Bowl. Looking around, she saw no one else walking alone. Everyone was with someone else, walking toward a goal the pair or the group could share. Even if they couldn't yet see the stadium, they knew where it was. It was south. Big. Concrete. Hard to miss.

This New Year's Day morning in the "dead of winter" in Southern California was crisp and clear, which, that day, meant a cool, one-knot breeze blew almost imperceptibly through palm trees and over lush, green lawns. The air was fresh, like early spring air over a late spring landscape, as most people in the country might have interpreted it.

She left her windbreaker open at the neck. She needed to feel something.

On the fairways next to the stadium, tailgaters dressed in team jerseys were parked everywhere— unloading a ton of camping gear, generators, large TV monitors, and charbroilers—to watch the big college football game. The closer she drew to the stadium, the more of them she saw and the louder they became. She didn't mind. The noise was one of the main reasons she came to the game, just to hear people scream in happiness.

They looked as if they were having fun. They all seemed to have a dozen friends around them, enjoying the bawdy banter being spat back and forth, the hotdogs being eaten, and the beer and sodas behind consumed from coolers set by a back tire.

She looked at them as she walked by. She didn't stop, didn't try to approach them, and didn't try to have fun with them because she knew the pretense at fun couldn't be believed without a large dose of wishful thinking or denial, neither of which she had anymore.

She watched herself philosophizing about her life, disgusted that she'd sunk into yet another bout of intellectualizing.

Oddly and truthfully, however, she felt she could be closer to the partiers if she could walk by without attracting their attention—a person they did not dislike and did not reject. Being so different in a way that mattered so much to so many, trying to get closer only resulted in greater distance. Keeping her distance—however pathetic, she thought—actually helped her remain, in the end, a little closer. Because she wasn't pushed away.

Pathetic, she told herself again.

Don Quixote? She'd spent her life looking at the world as she believed it should be instead of as it really.

Dawn Quixote, she mused, changing the spelling to a feminine. How could he find happiness that way? Only if he stayed in his dream and lived a lie.

She knew she was still in a pity party, four years after "awareness." No. She stopped herself. Her depression was not a pity party; it was a downer that sprang from real-life strife. It was daily life after she woke up. How was she to live with the conflicts within her—conflicts she'd created and now, at her age, couldn't escape?

She realized she'd stopped to stare at a group of tailgaters. Viewing an old football clip on a TV monitor, they erupted in celebration at some pass or run, and a man leaned over to plant a big wet kiss on a surprised, but happy, young lady. Others teased them in a playful way.

"Woman" is a windmill, Regina confirmed for herself.

"She" is a goddamn honorarium.

Jesus! She chastised herself again. Christ.

She put her hands in the pockets of her wind breaker and walked alone among the crowd toward the stadium.

* * *

A pass was intercepted. The player was making an eighty-yard dash for the goal.

Ninety thousand people yelled at the top of their lungs, and so did she. She didn't feel the urge to yell, but she felt closer to the crowd when she did.

"All the way!" the guy to her right yelled.

"Ruuuuuuuuun!" Regina yelled.

"Git it! Git it! GIIIIT IIIIT!" the guy on her left kept yelling.

The announcer was hollering his own excitement over the loudspeaker, but no one could hear him.

"Aaaahhhyyyyyeeeee NO! NO! NOOOO!" a guy in front screamed, rooting for the other team, but his protest did him no good.

Through all the opposing team members, the runner found his way for a run that would certainly make news on all the sportscasts that evening. The faster he ran, the louder the scream grew, until he crossed the goal line, and then bedlam broke loose. People screamed and jumping, hugging each other. Drinks were spilled. Chili nachos hit the stands. Religious epithets were thrown everywhere by both sides, happy and angry.

"AN eighty-two YARD RUN AND THE SCORE IS NOW SIXTEEN TO FOURTEEN—" The announcer faded in the shouts.

Some of those around Regina hugged one another. Then they noticed a flag on the play, and the cheers changed to boos.

The score was dropped back down to ten. The score was now fourteen to ten again.

"No way! Uh-uh!" someone cried.

"Bullshit ref!" someone else complained.

"What the hell?" Regina was dumbfounded. She felt as if someone had taken a hug away. "What the hell are you talking about?" she yelled at the referee.

And a fifteen-yard penalty was assessed.

"Boooooooo!" yelled most of the fans in Regina's area.

"That's right!" the fan of the opposing team yelled. "That's what I'm talkin' about!" Then he yelled, "Thank you, ref! Meet me after the game, and I'll give you another hundred bucks!" which earned him some good-natured, pretend-accusations from those around him.

Although she tried to experience these people on their wavelength, Regina knew she was failing. Her heart went out to the guys who booed and to the guy who claimed to have bribed the ref, but she'd been so long without love from anyone that she could not appreciate the differences between them.

She watched them, as if she were a holographic image, barely visible to the indigenous population, as if she'd materialized in a bi-phase time machine that allowed her to stand by other people living life, to understand what they were doing, or at least watch them doing it—yet not be a part of them. Their happiness, she seemed to understand. Their needs, their satisfactions—she felt aware of them through a veil. Yet in her own cross-phase world, she found no satisfactions, only needs whose sharp pains in earlier years had dulled to an overall ache far more horrendous.

She considered leaving early in the fourth quarter. She could beat part of the crowd, she knew, but an early departure would require initiative, which she didn't feel.

She was aware she was leaving after the game, but she was also aware that she moved because the crowd moved, that she was being ushered along with it mindlessly.

Her car was out there somewhere, stack parked among thousands of others on the golf course, but she didn't have the will to find it. And she didn't care. The misplaced car didn't matter, although she suspected it would, somehow, find itself for her, almost against her will.

And there it was. Her feet found it, of all the luck.

She got in and waited, sitting inside isolated in her own quiet world, waiting for some car either in front of or behind her to move so she could.

She felt as if she should cry, but no tears came.

This shit has got to stop, she knew. This shit has got to stop.

CHAPTER 37

"CLASS," THE FEMALE professor at Regina's old university said loudly enough to be heard. "This is Dr. Isler, professor emeritus in psych right here at this university, who is here today to give you a presentation she calls 'The Transgender Paradigm.'" The students murmured; some liked the topic, and some didn't. "I know, I know. You've all heard it before, but Dr. Isler used to be a west-coast leader with some standing in the movement, and she may have something of significance to share." Then to set the tone, she added, "Give her your full attention."

Regina thanked the professor, went up front, sat on the desk, and introduced herself to the class, receiving a not unexpected humdrum, a not very interested response.

"This is an undergraduate class in psych, but you've all probably heard this stuff before, haven't you?" she asked the class.

A few heads nodded. Most students sat stupefied, waiting for lunch.

"Go ahead. Bark it out. It's what we're here for," Regina told them.

No takers.

"All right, class. Good morning. I'm interested in what's really going on and how trans people are seen from different viewpoints in society. I think that transgenderism wouldn't be such a problem in society if others truly accepted them. Pretending we're all so liberal, enlightened, and understanding—only part of the social ticket—does little to help."

She started to get their attention.

"Problems come for transgenders from the other ninety-nine percent of society who are resistant, who don't like the idea of gender-bending, or gender-blending, who talk behind our backs, and who think we're men parading around in panties."

She earned a chuckle for her frankness.

She held up her hand to the professor in a mock sign of resistance and said with a smile, "So, let's represent these view to ourselves—not as a debate but as an argument."

"Yeah!" one student said.

"That's all you ever want to do," another said.

"We should be able to say whatever we want," another said.

Regina liked the banter; she had a tendency to encourage it. "Let's make a rule in this class, here today," she said, "that everyone on this half of the room," she motioned to her left, "has to take the view that they're liberal and understanding—"

"That's your left, but our right," one student butted in.

"Oh, Jesus, you don't' know how right you are!"

The class laughed.

"That is so prophetic, so often the case!" Regina told them. "Puns are so good, I love them."

Regina rose from the desk and turned herself around in mock pretense of trying to see which side of the class would be the class's left. But she turned for another reason. She wanted them to see her figure, or the lack of it, an image she thought would be helpful to them later.

"Okay, okay," she said. "This half over here," she said, facing forward with the class at her back, waving to the group on her then left, and also their left as well, "is liberal—"

"And they're on the left!" a student called.

"You don't know your left from your right," another student accused the first student.

"All right. That happens," Regina said. "Dissension. Good. Reality!"

Another chuckle.

Regina turned around to face the class and returned to her seat on the desk. "And you," indicating the group to her left and their right, " _aren't_ liberal. We'll get to what you are in a minute."

"You mean we're from Podunk, Ohio," someone quipped and the students chuckled.

"Or Miami or New York or Cedar Rapids or wherever. Geography isn't the issue, and we'll get to what you think after we define the left-hand view. Okay, you guys on the left," she said, "are all liberal, tolerant, accepting of whatever variation comes along, but also, you believe, like the reigning paradigm, that there are no real differences between the sexes—"

"Bullshit," somebody sneezed, humorously.

The class roared.

"That's Johnny. There's no excuse for him," the professor said to Regina with an embarrassed smile.

"—that homologous tissues and intersexes blur distinctions and form such crossovers that everyone sits somewhere in a spectrum of variation of traits, that it's all a matter of degree, that objective realities are so vague and hard to define that it's pointless and erroneous to try to either nail gender down or to even claim you know A from B, or even A from Z.

"So if there are no clear males or females, no distinct men or women, then the only thing to do is accept people as they self-identify, and on and on. Got all that?" Regina asked the left half of the class.

_Sort of_ , the body language and murmurs seemed to say.

"And you guys on the right half of the class," she indicated them, "don't buy the postmodern view of gender vagaries, of gender-bending, of gender-blending, and take a pragmatic view of being able to see, clearly, the nature of reality around you. You know good and well what men and women are—"

"Oh, yeah. I think they do," someone from the left said derisively, in reference, perhaps, to some Friday-night sexcapades.

The class laughed again.

Regina was good at getting a class to loosen up, and she was pleased to do it again. This was better than the goddamned Rose Bowl. She could feel the class at least.

"It may be hard to tell, sometimes, if someone is really a man or a woman inside, but you know damn well what males and females are, intersexes notwithstanding. Virtually everyone does. It's got something to do with reproduction, right? Chromosomes, reproductive organs, genital anatomy. It's a problem fathers have the world over: keeping teenage daughters from getting pregnant before maturity!"

The class laughed. That brought it home.

"For you on the right: Homologous tissues? They start out as one set in utero, but after they differentiate, they're different, right? Fancy, pseudointellectual rationales to support either a studied self-deception or a medical practice don't fool you. The truth is usually a little more down to earth. You get all that? That's your view. Just for today," she instructed them.

"You mean we have to be bigots?" a student asked.

"He already knows how," someone else said, teasing him.

More chuckles.

"No," Regina said, "not bigots. I'm not saying you like or dislike anyone, or that you misunderstand them, or that you'd treat them badly. Believing our species is composed primarily people who are actually male or female isn't bigotry. It's reality.

"And the division we're creating is a way of looking at the problem, of perceiving what may be some truths of the paradigm, because without a clear understanding of reality, we can only stumble on good, long-term, humane behavior by accident, or even less often than that, if an erroneous understanding is taking us in another direction."

The students stopped laughing and looked at her more seriously, as did their professor. Regina was moving toward something serious on the heels of all the playfulness.

"I don't know which side I'm on," said a female student who was sitting roughly in the middle.

"And how often is that the case for many people?" Regina responded obliquely, sharing a truth without solving the girl's dilemma.

"Okay. So. You're sophisticated. All of you."

Grins from them.

"So. Remember: from your own class-today view—liberal on the left," she said pointing to them, "and conservative on the right," she said, pointing to them. Today, looking at me now, after hearing your professor introduce me, after watching me talk with you for the last ten minutes, what do you think I am? How do you take me? What do I seem like to you? This is the part where you elicit truths from me."

"You're a beautiful woman," someone from the left said.

"You're a screwed up man," someone from the right said.

A few nervous chuckles, but Regina chimed in, "Right! Thank you. This is a class, and you're speaking from the position I gave you. It's okay."

"I don't know what you are," someone from the middle said.

"Right. Yes. And that's reality. That's what people do in the world. What is the real truth? We as people out in the world don't usually know. We just know what we think or how we feel. Those on the left think this, those on the right think that. But does that make either view true?

"And then there are those in the middle who admit they don't know," Regina said, pausing to let herself think. She walked to stand in the middle of the class.

"And that's kind of like me," Regina said, capturing their attention with a change in her attitude, from humorous to serious, "I—"

She broke the conversational momentum by shifting into a tone of deep disclosure. The shift was easy after all she'd been through. She'd based her career and her life choices on her transition, how it made her a woman, and now she was opposing herself in a public way. This was, personally, a painful moment, but she felt she needed to convey the truth.

The class fell into a hush.

"I don't know what I am, either," she said simply.

Regina sat on the desk in the front of the class and waited to collect herself. She never used to feel this pain from truthful disclosure, when she started or when she was a leader of the transgender paradigm because she hid her feelings behind denial. She had lived without sensing her own truths. But now she felt the truth, and it was crushing.

She didn't want to cry in front of them; she held her tears in. To the students, she appeared ready to speak again, but she didn't. She just sat.

Finally, a student asked quietly, "Have you had G.R.S.?"

Regina shook her head no. "I've been known to say so— Well, yes, I've had a bit of genital reconstruction. But it was just an orchie." Regina stopped for a second to collect herself. "Years ago. But it's not what you're thinking, and it's been deceptive of me to say so before. So I guess 'no' is the correct answer."

"It's still a reconstruction even if you retained part of it," someone from the left said, still working with the division Regina had made.

"Would piercing your penis also be a reconstruction? Terms can be used to mislead, and transgenders often use them for that purpose. The questioner meant to ask if I've had my genitalia adjusted to resemble that of biological females, and no, I haven't. I'm male," she said. "And I should have an 'M' on my driver's license, because that 'F' doesn't stand for feminine."

The professor looked at Regina, aghast, with her mouth slightly open. This was the opposite of what Regina had preached in the past.

"You're a man?" another student asked from the middle.

"No. No, I don't think so. Not as I've been thinking of manhood these last few years. You see, these terms have been common package deals issued to us by nature and culture, that a male and a man are much the same thing, and that a female and a woman are the same. But with the development of trans technologies, those correlations are not clear to me anymore."

"An 'M' for male?" a student asked.

"Yes," Regina said. "But since most people confuse gender terms with sex terms, maybe we should lump them all together on the driver's license, too, and put an 'N' on mine, for neither."

The class was immobile.

"Or a 'T' on there for trans? Or, better yet, no marker for anyone, as why should it matter? God," Regina said in confession. "Ever since I woke up a few years ago, this stuff is humiliating to share. I'm genitally male, and I don't want to be genitally female. But am I a 'man' or 'woman'? Frankly, after a lifetime of being transgender, I'm not sure I fall into either of the package deals nature gives us.

"I'm— just me. Whatever that is. Usually, I feel like neither—not both. Or maybe just nothing, any more."

The professor and the class members looked stunned at her unexpected disclosure, her journey off her beaten track, and her evident humiliation at traveling in that direction. "My current state wasn't by intention. It's simply where I've wound up. I've been doing this since 1990. And am I more comfortable here than where I was before as a man? I'd say both yes and no."

"Then why did you do it," a brave student asked.

Regina's shoulders rose as she tried to answer. "I thought a gender role change was what I wanted, who I was. But I misunderstood the phenomenon, misunderstood myself. I could see down the road only a few years, only learn from the example of those who stood up to share—and it turned out they were relative newbies, themselves, of only ten or twenty years."

"That's a long time," another student said.

"But only a small part of a life span that stretches into the seventies, eighties, or nineties. Or a hundred. Life continues past ten or twenty years—or we hope so—and the life of a person develops through all that time. Views change. Realities stand ready, waiting to be seen.

"Consider the idea that serious, functional denial can last for a long, long, long time, or even for the rest of a life, and that the eccentricities that develop as a result of denial lead a person into social alienation, isolation, and a crushing, long-term loneliness that can and does lead to suicide."

This confession had been building in Regina for a long time, and she had to get it out.

"Transgenders who seemed joyous about a transition in the first several years may well come to believe, later, that they spent their lives chasing an illusion."

The class was silent now, apparently digesting this new idea. This wasn't the party line they normally heard from transgenders.

"Do you wish you hadn't done it?" a student asked

"Right. Well, to clarify, I wish I hadn't felt the need. This," Regina indicated herself and her life, "is no life I'd wish on anyone. Waking up many years later to find you're just—differfent? That you've been duping yourself your whole life, that others have known the truth and haven't told you? Busting your ass to make something of yourself in life, only to find that others won't even come over to your home to watch the Oscars? Or the Super Bowl? Not even if you offer to feed them?

"The most painful rejections are the most subtle—not the overt ones where people tell you to go fuck yourself, but the 'diplomatic' ones in which they claim to be your friend, claim to like you, but they don't carry through. They fade away instead.

"It took me forever to learn to see this pattern," Regina told them with the most serious expression. "Even though a lot of people do it!

"You find yourself in a personal-space prison. You're standing there at a gathering, at church, on the street, or at the movies—surrounded by other people—but a barrier keeps them away, won't let them get close. It's the 'trans' thing. And it leaves you alone in the long run with only superficial 'friends' who smile when they see you, but wouldn't think of inviting you over.

"No. I don't recommend the lifestyle. I think a lot of people are getting a denial-filled and short-sighted message about what life as a trans is like, and they're messing their lives up with it. It's part of why our suicide rate is so high, and I don't mean only prior to transition."

"What if this view is just from this early phase in social acceptance? What about greater social acceptance in the future?" a student asked. "What if transgenderism catches on more, and people quit worrying about it so much? Like gays have, some. Then wouldn't trans folks have more friends?"

"Insightful question," Regina noted. "But we're so few, I don't know. Maybe one quarter of 1% of people in the U.S.? Some more? I hear things, but nobody really knows. But however, we have only a small fraction of the numbers gays have, by comparison—maybe they're 10%-ish—and look at the trouble they've had since forever. Even if the laws of the land were changed to force tolerance, people would still shy away because trans is so deeply different to them that they deeply don't like it. Speaking of their instinctive dislike is not politically correct, but the feeling is there and it is acted on.

"The best we're likely to get, in the most 'tolerant' circles, is the status of a conversation piece, which we've already been for years now. No. I think trans-related practitioners need to rethink their involvement with, and support for, transitions, stop rubber-stamping transitions for a liberal agenda or revenue, stop offering hormones with only token 'evaluations' and surgeries for anyone who can pay.

"Some say, 'A person should be able to modify himself or herself at will,' but I think a transgender procedure is a matter deeper than a nose job. It's an attempt to modify your gender and maybe your sex, not just your attractiveness. Such steps have severe, long-term psychological consequences that most people don't realize. If patients' needs are considered at a more realistic level, we might see that the transgender industry has been a fantasy-driven road to more lucrative therapeutic and medical practices. They fucking use us.

"I'm an example. Look at me: clinical psychologist, university professor, involved since Jimmy Carter, I suppose. Throughout my life I've been able to recite every detail of the transitional process and life thereafter, but I had my own problem with functional denial.

"I didn't know. Denial, by definition, is hard to see. And when I had my awakening, one day a few years ago, reality hit me _hard,_ and I've been suicidal in recent years." She held up her hand to stop comment or action from the professor, who was required by law to report suicidal intent in some cases. "I don't want to now. And I haven't tried it," Regina lied to avoid a forced hold in a mental hospital, "but I know some transgenders who do. Think about how hard living a life like this can be.

"Suppose you feel transgender. You know how much society hates to see panties on a penis, or a man in a dress, and yet you have this growing urge to modify yourself in that direction. You think your real self is calling you, so finally you decide to do something. I made that decision at the age of thirty-eight. So, like me, you give up your home, your wife, your kids, maybe your job. You don't want to, but people back away from you because of your change. You hope they'll adjust in time while you try to satisfy your own gender needs.

"You see doctors, therapists. You tell them you need to be a woman. Sometimes you tell some of them you want G.R.S. later so they'll support you, though you have no intention of actually having it, which they can mostly tell; and other times you come right out and make it clear you're keeping your penis.

"Some people reinforce the idea that you're a woman because you say you are, or that you're becoming a woman. You are decried by some other people, such as your ex-wife, as misguided, delusional, but you write them off as hurt and maybe prejudiced. You don't notice people on the street who stare; or when you do, you attack them defensively as oppressive. Shopkeepers refer you to ladies' rooms—"

"Regina," the prof tried to step in, but Regina cut her off.

"And then, years later, long after your life has settled down, when the pressure's off, when your internal sense of personal, emotional security is stronger and less able to block the overwhelming truth, this decades-long denial fades away, and the truth blasts through and knocks you over the head. Then you can, for the first time, see yourself as you really are, as most other people have always seen you but been unable or unwilling to tell you.

"I'm a— What? What am I? I've made myself into someone different, a kind of person who is not generally wanted—"

A couple of objections arose at that, but Regina cut them off. "—who is not wanted outside a college classroom or a doctor's office, or some aspect of the transgender movement, such as a so-called 'gender conference.' In truth, 99.999 percent of all people don't want to be around a transgender person."

Regina's tone escalated as she talked. "You realize you're thought of as a 'freak,' and you realize that label is true!"

"Now, Regina, you're beginning to dump on the whole community of transgenders, but this university is trans positive," the professor injected.

"I'm not dumping on anyone," she told the prof. "I'm trying to help. Truly."

The professor sighed volubly and sat back down.

Then Regina continued. "You come to realize that this perception of you as a freak is real. Though many people will use you as a conversation piece and have you over sometimes, long-lasting relationships don't develop. That becomes the basis for a life of loneliness that can't be clearly described, but the loneliness compounds like interest on a bad loan year after year.

"And then you realize what you've made yourself into. You see," she said to the class, looking individuals in the eye, "the way the transgender paradigm has been handled, people are being supported by the medical profession—for big bucks, often many tens of thousands for surgeries, prolonged hormone treatments, related psychotherapies—through transitions that then also cost the person much more dearly than he or she is aware of. Over a lifetime, the cost often includes the loss of friends and family, often job or career, maybe a home. But the losses are internal, too. Over the course of their lives, transgenders may well lose their self-esteem, their ability to connect with other people, or, often, the opportunity to grow old with someone else. Why would they do that? The medical profession."

"Now you're indicting the whole medical profession, Regina," the professor interrupted.

Regina's look was so stern, and what she was saying, so important, that the professor backed down again.

"If people can't see what they're doing to themselves, why does the medical profession walk them through the transition process without making sure they know? Really know it, I mean. Here," Regina touched her heart to show where she meant.

"My best guess is that some of the doctors and therapists, themselves, either— _one,"_ Regina held up one finger "—don't get it because they're also caught up in some view of enlightened vagaries, or they've been learning about the phenomena from newbie-transgenders, who themselves are still in denial; _or two_ ," Regina held up two fingers, "—and this I suspect more and more often of more and more of them— _practitioners know what the hell's going on and go with it anyway because if they play the game, go along with the transgender paradigm, they can grow their practices and buy that luxury car they've dreamt of!_ Your doctors and therapists tell you you're a woman, tell you you're female, when they don't actually think you are! They lie! And, _three,_ They have to. If they vary from the paradigm, they get blacklisted by others in the field and the patients themselves! I've known us to shut people down for it, in the past. I've helped us do it!"

" _That's enough_!" the professor shouted, clearly angry.

"And there'd go all that _money_! Pfffffffttt." Regina made a fizzling sound.

Some of the students joined with the professor in decrying Regina's surprisingly "trans-hostile" attitude.

Regina rose from the desk at the front of the class and walked back and forth to get closer to each student. "I'm one of the people who fought to promote the ideals of the paradigm; and in my later years, I've learned I was wrong. People are led into this happy carnival of shadows and mirrors only to learn much later that the images aren't real. Shadows hide truths, and mirrors reflect fantasies. Both block the view of life beyond, of the future, of what people are doing to themselves, of how others will see them for what they really are."

The class members argued loudly among themselves.

The professor was trying to shut Regina down, but everyone wanted to press his or her own argument. The class was erupting.

"In this, I don't blame transgenders for being wrong," Regina shouted above them, "for their denial, for chasing what they feel are needs, or for not knowing their own futures. Issues they have— All people have issues, and that's why we go to doctors for help.

" _But I do blame the medical professions for not standing up to the truth! For going along with their patients in denial. The emperor has no clothes, for God's fucking sake, somebody should say! Doctors let people make fools of themselves because their clients pay them money!_ "

"The medial professions should know better," Regina shouted loudly over everyone. " _If they charge money for their services, they should know better. My guess is most of them, in fact,_ actually do _know better!_

Class members started yelling at each other.

Regina had to yell to be heard. "They're hurting people in need! Giving them a temporary elixir, pretending a fantasy with them, a fake cure that feels good for a while but leads more often to despair! Sometimes suicide!"

" _That's enough_!" the professor said loudly. "We don't dump on transgenders here. Get out of my classroom!" she shouted.

The class erupted in shouts and pleas. Some supported this idea as refreshing reality, while others shouted their support for the downtrodden transgenders who were now taking guff from one of their own.

Regina didn't move. She'd led a public life of doing what she thought was right for downtrodden people, and she was continuing that mission. She knew that if she held her ground, security would be called, she'd be removed from the class, and the press would pick up the story. Somebody probably already had her presentation posted on the Internet.

She hadn't said what she'd said to achieve that result. She had hoped to relay all this and much more to the class, but after the prof threw her out, she rolled with events as they unfolded, hoping to take her case to the world.

CHAPTER 38

THE NEXT COUPLE of months were a mess.

Regina refused to leave the class that day, in the name of academic freedom. The university administration insisted she leave, out of fear of being seen as intolerant of the transgender minority. In the end a security detail was dispatched, and Regina was forcibly removed. The removal made quite a show, and some footage of her being escorted off campus by three security guards was posted on the Internet almost immediately by one of the students from the class.

A student wannabe reporter asked for the camera, "Dr. Isler, why are you being kicked off campus?"

Regina tried to think quickly. From previous experience with publicity, she knew she needed to deliver a sound bite. "I'm exposing the transgender paradigm as a fake," Regina answered, security guards holding her arms, a crowd gathering as they walked. "It isn't what it's made out to be. Medical professionals are using vulnerable people in need to line their own pockets. And this university won't let me speak because it's afraid of transgender backlash."

That was all she could say before another guard pushed the student reporter back. They turned a corner into the parking lot where Regina's car was parked. The video showed a large crowd following her off campus. The major news channels in Los Angeles picked up the story that evening, and it went national by the next morning.

Regina's sound bite was carried everywhere: "I'm exposing the transgender paradigm as a fake."

Transgender paradigm support organizations immediately decried her opinions as out of date: "very twentieth century, while this is the twenty-first century," saying she was bitter about her life, but that many people live fulfilled lives as transgenders. Still other trans people screamed their social victimization to cameras, demanding equality and inclusion—while nonetheless confirming their solidarity with other transgenders in condemning Regina as a bitter, old transgender who needed to get out more. Websites were put up to denounce her; they showed testimonials from thousands of people several years into transition who said they were glad they'd made the change. Medical professionals were interviewed; nearly all of them supported the paradigm.

* * *

Regina wound up speaking about the incident and her views on a Los Angeles morning show. To protect its credibility with the public, the station also brought on a female-to-male professor, who liked his life as a trans man.

"We hear that many people are helped by their transitions, Dr. Isler," the host said, indicating Dr. Subterman sitting with them, "yet you say transitions hurt people?"

"Of course you can find people who support transitioning," Regina responded. "But look— Remember maybe ten years ago when I was one of the movement's leaders? On TV now and then, heading committees, standing up for public understanding of our differences?" The host did not. "Well, I was. I was one of them, tried and true with a couple decades as a woman under my belt. Even at that stage, I believed what I was saying, what you're hearing Dr. Subterman saying now."

"You've changed, Regina," Dr. Subterman charged.

"Yes, I have."

"It's you. It's not the paradigm. We're still the same. Something happened to you. What was it?" he asked.

"I woke up, finally, and took a realistic look at us," was all Regina could say. Her "awakening" and its subsequent evolution were far too complex for a twenty-minute spot on a local TV station.

The host studied Dr. Subterman. "He looks happy with himself," the host observed, "and, I might add, a hell of a guy!"

Regina agreed. The F.T.M. sitting with them made a good-looking man, quite buff, like a film star ready for an action scene.

"You're a man?" Regina asked Dr. Subterman.

"You bet your tight ass I am, sister," he said.

"And you like people to take you as such?"

Both the host and the F.T.M. ruffled with frustration. "I can see a fight coming on here," the host said eagerly

"No," Regina said to both of them, holding her hands up, indicating she was not trying to pick a fight but only make a point. She reached into her briefcase, took out a snapshot, and gave it to the host. Then, knowing the host wouldn't show it to the audience—easier to apologize than to ask permission—she showed a copy of it to the camera, which readily zoomed in.

"This is what they're not telling you," Regina said.

The photo showed a nude person, apparently a man, in good physical health, but with no male genitalia. Instead, the crotch was apparently female with a large clitoris noticeable between labia.

"He wants to be taken as a man," Regina pointed at Dr. Subterman, "but doesn't tell you that he doesn't want to be male."

"That's a lie!" Subterman charged, standing.

"When they have sex, these 'men' want to do it with a clit," Regina countered. "Not all, but most, like M.T.F.s. Do they tell you that?"

"That's an outrage!" Dr. Subterman charged.

"Really?" Regina said. "What do you have in those boxers?"

He went white. "That's offensive!"

"Do you have a dick in there?"

"Yes, of course— How offensive!" he yelled.

"You've had G.R.S.? Surgery there?" Regina pointed to his crotch.

"You gonna let her do this?" Dr. Subterman demanded of the host, who sat back, waving his hands, gesturing that this was not his fight.

"Surgery? G.R.S.? But was it to have a hysterectomy only? Or a 'clitoral release,' so your clit will stand out front?" Regina pushed.

"It's a penis!"

Then Regina reached into her briefcase again and pulled out two more prints, one for the host and the other one to show on camera for the audience. The photograph showed a woman with broad shoulders, breasts, and small hips, but with a penis and scrotum in her crotch.

"This is most transgender women—" Regina said. "Don't feel alone, Jim," Regina said to Dr. Subterman. "Most of them don't tell the truth, either."

Dr. Subterman sat dumbfounded.

Regina let her message soak in for a second. "You see, those who are transgender really want to change gender, not sex—while wanting everyone else to take them as the new sex. That's the truth of it. Like in these photos. They're not what people think of as a 'man' or a 'woman.' And I say this truth not to hurt transgenders, but to help them see that people know. They can tell. They can sense the disconnect. People aren't stupid, and you're hurting transgender long-term acceptance with the lie."

Then she said, almost as an apology to Dr. Subterman, holding up her hand as a sign of reaching out or quasi-comfort, "I don't mean to attack you, Jim. I'm not here to embarrass you, but to point out the inconsistencies built in to the paradigm."

Regina held the floor. "Doctors, therapists, or others who give transfolks the idea they can spread their wings and 'fly with trans' are creating eccentricities with this false empowerment that leads transgenders to alienate others.

"So how can an otherwise intelligent person—who can explain all the details of the transgender transition, articulate every nuance, and often do so whether people want to hear or not— How can this person _not_ see what's happening? Because people I trusted were lying to me about how they felt about me, and because I wasn't aware of the extent to which I was in denial, or even sometimes blatantly unaware. Yet, all the while—"

Regina paused and then asked the host suddenly, "What am I?"

He stared at her, looking surprised for a moment, and answered, "A woman?" but his answer was a question.

"I'm not asking you to give me the answer you think I want to hear. I'm hoping you will tell me what you really feel. Look at me. I am this," she showed the host and the camera a photo of a nude person, male bone structure, breasts, and a penis, indicating herself. "I am what I am. I still have a penis, and I have chosen to keep it. I sound like a man. I act like one about half the time. I have obvious features which are masculine, and some others that are feminine. I have breasts. I have no balls, but my chromosomes are still male.

"So what am I? I don't normally show people these photos—and most transgenders won't, I guarantee you. They're offensive to everybody involved. _And we like people to misunderstand._ Our social acceptance is based on misunderstanding."

Regina looked at the host, who stared at the photo.

The host looked uncomfortable. "Honestly, I don't know what you are, but I don't think you're completely a woman. No," he said.

Regina smiled and laid a hand on his knee. He looked uncomfortable again, so she withdrew it. "Thank you," she said. "That level of honesty takes courage. What's more, it's helpful. Honesty is best for us. Tell us what you like and don't like about us. The truth will hurt us terribly in the present, but not nearly as much as learning later that we've been lied to, that we've become freaks as most people see us, that we really were humiliating ourselves at Thanksgiving dinner."

"But you can't ignore the statistics on suicide," Dr. Subterman interjected petulantly.

"I emphasize the _older-age_ suicide risk because most people want to think our high suicide numbers come from people who are closer to the beginning. But they don't. It's when transgenders come to see the failure in their lives that their risk is highest."

"You're saying other people are to blame if transgenders get overly eccentric and commit suicide?" Subterman asked defensively.

"I'm saying other people play a part in the dynamic. No one's an island. Transgenders aren't the only ones causing their problems. Every time someone refers one of us to the ladies' room when they wish they hadn't, every time someone compliments us on our appearance when they don't consider us attractive, every time someone tells us outright we're women when they don't think we are—those response reinforce in us that we're doing the right thing. Our internal need, or fantasy, becomes stronger, and our behavior changes to match."

"So," the host said, "you're advocating tough love. We can be kind, but we must tell you the truth, even if the truth hurts, so we can prevent greater problems later."

" _Yes!_ " Regina exclaimed. "That is the message for everyone, especially the medical professions. When we're contemplating a transition, the onus is on them to learn the truth about the long-term effects of transition—which include negative social perception, alienation, isolation, and loneliness—and share that information unerringly with their clients. If they do, then the person who chooses to transition takes the step with a then clear understanding of what they're getting into, thirty years later."

Regina turned to face the camera, talking directly to the viewers. "This is a life-threatening condition," she said, indicating herself. "And transition doesn't solve the problem. In many ways, it makes the problem worse. Becoming transgender isn't a carnival. It isn't a sexciting foray into the future. It's not heaven. It's making yourself into something that is deeply unwanted by most people, and we have a hard time recognizing that truth because people lie to us."

Regina knew she could go on for hours, but she had to be brief owing to the time constraints of the program. Without a challenge the host sat back and allowed her to use the camera.

CHAPTER 39

AFTER THAT SHOW, Regina needed to think, and for her one of the best places to do that was on the road. Driving took her away from stressors and helped improve her mood, giving her a more balanced take on things.

She drove her Porsche down the windy path of the Angeles Forest Highway north of Los Angeles, thinking about where her new mission stood. Her message was important, no doubt about that. She'd gotten off to a good start a few months before with her anti-crusade, but she found she'd need a lot more personal commitment to keep it going. More than she'd intended. And she was getting older.

She tried to get other professors to let her speak to their classes, but they wouldn't. Small wonder.

She considered going on other TV programs, but decided not to when she started getting death threats from transfolks: anonymous letters through the mail, unsigned, probably no prints, and also probably mailed from some place other than the perp's neighborhood. She collected the letters, put them in a safe deposit box in case anyone ever carried out a threat, so the cops could find them, but she never told the police. She took the letters seriously enough to slow down her advocacy, which was probably the point, but she also knew that a significant proportion of the population is characteristically unstable, given to acting out, so she wrote a lot of the threats off as histrionics.

Regina had long ago dropped out of transgender advocacy groups, but some of them wrote her to say she'd been removed anyway. Probably to make a point. The expulsions didn't matter. She was done with those groups.

_What is my life about?_ she wondered? _Who am I inside?_

She had no idea.

In soul-searching, the only idea that returned, time after time, was the simple, interior thought, _I'm just me. I'm not anyone else; just me,_ meaning that she couldn't fit into any popular category of human being. She was different, a kind of person morphed over time into something unique, yet unwanted. _That's what a freak is,_ she reminded herself.

A good driver, she slowed ahead of a curve, down-shifted, and pulled the right curve with her fender two inches inside the lane, a steady technique that helped straighten out the road, let it curve under her so the little race car could glide through with little effort. Gently accelerating through the turn, she up-shifted afterward for a straightaway.

She should have been a racecar driver, she thought. _Fat chance,_ she scolded herself for her foolishness. There you are! Race car, track. Logos all over the thing, the crowd screaming, and her expecting the fans to love her while she brought her transgenderism to the macho sport. Ha! Her pit crew would— _Let me guess,_ she thought. They'd say they'd do a fine job for her, but since she needed them, they'd let her down on purpose to make her look bad, so she'd quit, so she'd leave and go do something else in some place far away.

Then she realized she was dumping on herself again. Just as she'd known she would for the rest of her life, while she relearned lessons, over and over again, all the while trying to figure out, without any teachers, how to live as something unwanted while looking for love. She was an old dog learning these new tricks. Her brain was set in its ways, yet the truth beckoned.

So how should she handle herself in public? She knew, now, that most people could tell immediately that she was transgender and that they didn't like what they saw. She'd been making compromises, but how should she feel about herself? How should she act with people? With full knowledge, out and proud, or as a handicap that she didn't want to use to define her life?

_What about the yacht club?_ she thought, a place where she had a right to go because she was a member. What if she went, and the members were having a banquet. Should she put herself out there, interpersonally, put on a happy smile and interact with them for the event, hoping others would like her and that she would feel good about herself later? Everyone's afraid of rejection. But should she consider she's facing an abnormally large amount of potential rejection in interpersonal relationships? Or should she enter social encounters with the awareness that, if she acts like a normal person putting on a pleasant public face, she will be seen as a joke because people see she is acting normally, yet everyone knows she is a freak? Does denial block the ability to anticipate rejection from others? Or is she inviting rejection if she anticipates it?

Is she likely to provoke more rejections by acting more normal? Being the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room that she, herself, isn't talking about? Or is she likely to cause more rejections by entering interactions with the understanding that people will likely reject her eventually?

She felt confused. She didn't know how to interact with the checker at the grocery store anymore, for if she avoided an attempt at casual conversation, she was seen as cold unfriendly, or rude. She was desperate for some kind of friendship! Her heart ached with so many years of being left alone.

What if, she reasoned, she had an obvious physical handicap? _Well,_ she thought, _being a transgenderist—dick and boobs—_ is _a social handicap._ But what if she had an obvious physical handicap. What if she had something like severe scoliosis, a congenital curvature of the spine? What if scoliosis were the eight-hundred-pound gorilla she carried with her, something obvious others could readily see.

Could she talk about her handicap with others? Or should she disregard it, preferring to deal with any topic except her handicap? _Likely,_ she thought, _she'd not mention it most of the time, but she might have to sometimes for certain reasons._

Scoliosis wasn't as personally private, in general, as sex or gender issues, so it was a poor example to think about. So what if her physical difference were something more private? What if she'd been born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, with differently formed genital organs, and she'd had them somewhat corrected, as well as could be, in childhood. Touched up by follow-up surgeries in adulthood. Would she talk about that with others?

_No,_ she thought. The signs wouldn't be obvious to people. Why bring them up? Like Lourdes, who doesn't talk with most others about her transition because she did a much different transition than Regina did, and with a different goal. Lourdes needs to _be_ female. _Lourdes carries around a ton of weight, but her burden is seen as less than mine,_ she thought, _although Lourdes would consider her own load just as crushing as Regina found hers._

_Goddamnit_! She complained to the cosmos.

Her sexuality, her genderality, was her own, goddamn business, even if it could be seen by everyone else.

What was she to do with it?

* * *

Regina had eaten before she went to the yacht club, but she put a few foods on her plate anyway. Filling a plate was a social thing to do, and the result gave her something to fiddle with while she made the rounds.

The atmosphere was festive. People stood in small groups, wearing Valentine's Day whatnots with red, pink, and white hearts. One woman, who had a perfect figure, was wearing pants with what appeared to be an upside-down heart covering her backside, the fine shape of her buttocks providing the form.

Some of Regina's recent notoriety had fallen away, yet she still felt self-conscious. She hadn't been to the club since the incident at the trans-convention because she didn't know how to take herself, let alone how she should present herself to others.

After a while, she approached a group of four who were talking about up-coming sailboat races scheduled for later that spring. One of the conversants, George, was known to compete on a regular basis with his sixty-foot JMV. He wasn't a professional racer, but he did enjoy racing for fun, and he took the activity seriously. The other three were members of his standing crew.

The four stopped talking for a second when she joined them, her plate of finger food in hand.

"Hello, Regina," they all said. She was, after all, a member of the club.

"Hello," she said.

They stood quietly, for a second, probably wondering if they should let her continue their discussion.

"Continue, please," Regina told them with a smile. "I haven't been here for a while, and I'm trying to soak up some sea water on this trip. I figured this salty bunch would do the trick."

That tiny bit of humor helped break some ice, and the conversation resumed. Many things about sailing were important to this crew: beer in the fridge, pretty girls, the latest type of Kevlar sail, no anchors, beer, fall waters, no more than two feet of swell, no white-caps yet a twenty-knot breeze, no airplanes crashing onto them, autopilots, and, of course the crew's daily shot of rum. Unless they ran out of rum. Then they'd take beer. Think Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean, only all show and no blow.

Regina had never raced her boat. She could, if she wanted, though she wouldn't win. Her boat was more for the enjoyment of cruising, handling the sea when rough, and the luxury of going.

"So tell me," she butted in, asking of George, "do you have a plank?"

He needed a second to catch up with her. "A plank?" he asked.

"In case one of these swabbies mouths off to you?" she asked.

"Make the blaggards walk?" George said, smiling broadly. He made a Tim Allen-type, guttural groan. His Southern accent didn't produce a credible Scottish brogue, but watching him try was fun.

"No, no!" the crew affirmed. "We don't need no stinking planks!" they said.

"Very passé," another confirmed, with a British accent. Regina didn't know if it was real or a put-on for the conversation. "Old school. Shows a stunning lack of sophistication to my way of thinking."

Another crewman: "I'd break it off! I'm too fat!" he said, although he wasn't all that heavy. "Now, Jake, over there," another indicated a tall man on the other side of the room, "He has a plank on his boat. That's why he can't keep his crew!" They laughed. "He says that's okay; it's a weight-saving technique for him! But he always comes in last, so what's he thinking? Has to run up there and set the spinnaker himself!"

They had a good laugh. They were friends about one and a half sheets to the wind, Regina guessed.

"No, darlin'. No plank," George said. "When I gotta get 'em in line, I just mosey over to the fridge and put this little lock on it. Next thing I know, I got a devoted bunch o' hard workin' sailors who'd take me round th' horn in a heartbeat."

Regina knew they weren't the alcoholics they pretended to be. They were just making jokes and having fun among friends. Salty jibes.

"And this year the captain's giving us a raise," said the Brit, "because we're a man short! Arnie moved to Florida! That means more beer for the rest of us, and more work for George because I can only do so much without a contract!"

George held up his hand. "Sorry, guys. I got a smaller fridge," he lied, "to save weight." Groans. "Less beer for everybody!"

"Bring me on board," Regina said to George in seriousness.

The crew quieted and looked at both of them.

"I've never raced, but you know I've sailed all my adult life. I know stem from stern, and I don't drink any beer."

"Oh, then you can't come, love," the Brit said.

That comment hurt Regina, but she realized that he didn't mean it as a cut. Just a joke about not drinking beer. She let it slide.

George seemed to be waiting to see what the crew thought, but two of them didn't say anything. "I don't know," he said to Regina. "I was thinking of not takin' on another crewman to save the weight. Makin' 'em slave harder. But you're probably seventy years old or so? Maybe not in the best shape for racin'?"

"I'm in pretty good shape," Regina told them. "And not all jobs on a boat require the most mobility. And I'm probably lighter than most men." She liked the way she phrased that, because she didn't say she was a woman and didn't claim she was a man, but spoke truly instead.

George thought for a second. "I don't know, Regina. I don't know if it'd work out well." He was hedging, she could tell, but also being honest, which she admired.

Regina studied her feet. This was exactly the kind of situation she'd been worrying over. How to come up to these guys? How to put her best foot forward? How to try to be liked? Be soft and feminine, reserved? Be macho goof-offs like these guys?

How to be?

So she tried the approach Lourdes had suggested: honesty.

"Look, guys," she said, "everyone knows what I am, and most people don't like it. I know that. You all know that. All of them know that," she said, gesturing toward others in the room. "I don't want to define myself with it or by talking about it, but I have to address it somehow so that you know where I'm coming from.

"You worry you'd define yourselves as aberrant socially if you took me on? Or you worry that your wives will think you're perverts if you accept me as part of the crew? But everyone will see you differently when they see I just want to race. Maybe they'll admire you for taking me on. I don't claim to be anything I'm not. I'm not here for any sexual reason. I'm not here to get you to define me either, and your wives will learn I'm an asexual boater who only cares about the race.

"I'm not here to play any gender games," she summarized. She looked each of them in the eye in turn. "I don't eat much, and I won't seek publicity. I just want to race."

They all stood and looked at each other.

"Well, I'll think about it, darlin'," George said, seemingly in a new light. "My main concern is whether you can handle the work. You're seventy, and when the sea gets rough and starts throwin' us around, I need you to do your job and not get hurt."

He was correct, in concept, and he may have been at least partly right in this instance. Nonetheless, Regina felt hurt. She needed to be accepted.

Later that evening, she went home to her condo, heartbroken that she'd not been accepted as a crewman on George's boat. On the positive side, the evening had not been a complete failure. She'd been sitting at home or going out alone for years, and spending time cutting up with those four fun guys had felt great. She genuinely liked them, and she felt they had some positive, if divided, feelings about her, too.

Putting herself out there to risk rejection hurt, but sitting at home, alone, looking at the walls on Valentine's Day would have hurt more.

CHAPTER 40

REGINA WOKE on her seventieth birthday in her lovely, eighth-floor condo overlooking the coastline in Santa Monica. She'd been looking forward to her birthday for a week for no good reason. _How sad_ , she thought, _to have a life so empty you look forward to something you dread_. This date marked a milestone in her life. _Probably near time to buy a cane,_ she scoffed.

The morning sun angling in through the east windows lit the room brightly. The full-length mirrors on the north wall helped reflect some of the indirect light for an even brighter look.

Regina pressed a button by the bed, and the curtains on the west window opened to reveal that killer view of the coastline she loved—probably since forever in some former life for all she knew.

You couldn't have a view like this from a house, unless it was eight stories tall. In a house, if you opened the curtains with windows like these, all the neighbors for miles would see you trotting around in your panties. And then half of them would have heart attacks, and the hospitals would be clogged, and Regina would be blamed for the social unrest that followed.

Seventy.

So here she was.

When she transitioned, at the age of thirty-eight, leaving her nice Beverly Hills home—

Don't go there.

She'd needed something to do on her birthday. She wished she felt happier about this day. Her life was passing by, with not a whole lot of it left, and she was yet to find any real happiness. But she had to do something to mark this day, she felt. It was important, and a sad, tearful trip down nostalgia lane was the only thing she could think of that even partly mattered.

Slowly, she showered, dressed in plain, don't-notice-me clothes, and walked to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

The condo was quiet. She was alone. No TV played, no radio; no sound came from anyone else. She could barely hear the soft settling of the surf outside her window, a white noise over ever-present cars, but even that was muted because of the hour, just after sunrise.

While the coffee dripped, she drank a glass of milk and took a couple of pills her doctor had prescribed for blood pressure and cholesterol. When finished, she poured her coffee into a travel cup, threw the grounds into the trash, rinsed the pot, and set it back into the maker on her pristine, perfect countertops, with no one else ever there to mess them up.

She didn't have anyone else to care for, not even Winslow anymore.

She walked into the living room alone. Everything was in its place. Modern furniture made the room look fresh and new, but she could see the fine layer of dust, from disuse, that had accumulated on all the surfaces. This room was a fake homage to a purposeful life, a pretense at happiness and viability.

She picked up a small canister from the mantle and held it in her arms as she walked down to her same old Porsche—the best car from the best car company in the world, she felt—and tried to recapture small memories of her life. Winslow had passed on. The vet had to put the dog down, and Regina's heart ached for Winslow, the only real friend she'd ever had. When the time came, she would have Winslow's ashes buried with her.

Today she would carry them in her arms. What better friend to spend the day with? She put Winslow on the passenger seat and strapped the seatbelt so the dog wouldn't fall on the floor. She drove northeast on historic U.S. Highway 66, also called, locally, Santa Monica Boulevard., toward Beverly hills, past the 405, Century City, the Los Angeles Country Club, and Wilshire Boulevard.

She turned left on Beverly Drive and parked across the street from her old house, the place she had lived some thirty-two years before. It looked different. It had been remodeled. She recognized some of the trees that had been there years ago, but she hadn't planted them.

There was no activity at present. All was quiet.

Her time there felt like a former life, but one that was still hers at one time. She'd had family there. A wife, of all things. Kids. A positive future. She'd had what she felt was love—

Could it have been love if they disowned her at transition?

Her mind zipped through a hundred philosophical questions. What is love? Is it a thing that can exist, and if it does, is it immutable? Permanent? Fixed? Ever-present?

Or is it a feeling that's present only when certain personal needs are met and therefore fleeting or dependent on other factors? Oh, so it's not a real thing in itself, but a response to other things.

_Wrong,_ she scolded herself. She was thinking in extremes.

Love is real, she decided, but it also depends on a multitude of influences, including a person's inner state. Real love grows, but it also fades. A person can do things to help love, just as she can do things to damage it. And once it's gone, it isn't likely to come back—not for the same person or in the same way—because learning has taken place, new ideas have been attached to that person.

She felt she had received love from her family, at one time, in this place. But Daddy dressed in women's clothes and wanted "her" own tits, a desire that was more than enough, evidently, to hurt their love.

The loss of love hadn't made sense to her at the time. She was educated, and she had a lot of educated support from others, including input on how to make the transition work with the family; but in the end, the love had faded and disappeared. Even her hopes for it.

They were gone now. The whole lot of them.

She watched as a car drove into her old driveway. A man Regina didn't know came out the front door of the house to get in the car. Then a woman came out the door, spoke to the man, and went back inside.

Regina's family was gone, and she didn't even know where. Her ex-wife would be sixty-eight, now. _She's lived her life—with someone,_ Regina hoped. She's had her career, probably retired now. Her son is forty-four, a man with children of his own,

Regina could look him up somehow, but she sensed contact could cause difficulty for him. She didn't want that.

And her daughter, Lisa, would be forty-two. She was the one most similar to Regina, at least in profession, being a cultural anthropologist and professor. Regina knew that Lisa had a family, at least she had at one time. But where were they now?

Was Regina a grandma? What a wonderful gift for her seventieth— No. _Grandpa?_ she asked herself? No. The sexed portion didn't sound right, since her denial faded years ago. But she noted she was still making gender mistakes.

Grandnothing?

_No,_ she corrected herself again. _Not grand-anything._

The car in the driveway left, and Regina remained sitting by the curb, alone again, listening to the soft sounds of rich, Beverly Hills birds singing contentedly in the trees. Probably because they were happy being birds.

* * *

She drove to one of the local college campuses where she used to teach to enjoy the buildings, the foliage. Students milled about. Life. They were so young, and she, by comparison, must seem so old.

She stopped to admire a building from a distance; it was one where she had taught. Those were windows she used to look out of. They seemed so far away.

"'Scuse me—" a student said as he pushed by, but he didn't seem to finish his sentence when he saw her. He seemed to cut off, as if he'd intended to say more, but changed his mind. He didn't mean to be rude, Regina guessed but he might have intended, "'Scuse me, babe," or "'Scuse me, dude," but he'd seen her and his question of her gender interrupted his thought process.

Years ago, she would have missed that part of the interchange. Now it was as obvious to her as her bone structure.

* * *

She drove next to the campus she liked best. She didn't know why she favored it, exactly, but to her it was the most beautiful. Something about the place felt like home. She and her daughter had both taught there at one time.

Walking through the quad, she heard, "Daddy?" Her daughter's voice.

Regina turned to see her forty-two-year-old daughter standing alone on the sidewalk near a statue. The sting of the sexed term gave way immediately to Regina's joy at seeing Lisa. Regina's arms, on their own, opened up for a hug; her eyes teared at the sight of her daughter, but Lisa held back.

Regina withdrew her hug. Her depression deepened.

"Lisa," she said, without embellishment.

"Daddy? Is that you?"

Regina nodded.

Lisa stood and looked at Regina. "A lot's changed," she said. "I saw you on TV a while back; but in person, you look different. I barely recognized you," she admitted.

"When I woke up, I barely recognized myself."

Lisa's face indicated a question.

"Honey, I've got to talk fast because I know you won't stay long."

Lisa looked hurt by that statement, but she did not deny it.

"Honey, I'm so full of shit."

Lisa looked surprised and possibly at little bit pleased.

"All this—" Regina indicated herself. "I've been full of shit my whole life. I woke up one day a few years ago and realized what I'd done. My goals, what I thought I was doing, how others take me— So I tried to make some changes. But I'm still full of shit. I don't want to be, but I am."

Lisa looked as if she were listening to Jesus; she seemed thankful to hear these words.

"And I'm so sorry—" Regina let her apology hang and teared, defeated. "You and your mother— I'm sorry for embarrassing you, for this goddamned fantasy I chased that I thought was real. I see, now, that it's not what I thought it was."

Lisa froze, dumbstruck.

"You wouldn't have me over, and I don't blame you," Regina said.

"D-d-daddy," Lisa stammered. "Is that name okay? Is that what I should call you?"

"Yes, hon. Of course— I wish it were truer." Regina felt naked in front of Lisa. She was Lisa's father, yet she had these A-cup breasts, long hair, and shabby women's clothes.

"Can we walk?" Lisa asked, and she set off along a pathway between some buildings.

Regina followed.

"I've thought about this, too, Daddy, and since you're being so honest, I'll try, too. I know you want to connect more, but I've got some problems with—largely my husband—my second husband—and his family."

Regina started to ask what the problems were, but Lisa cut her off. "Same as the first. I have a tendency to marry smart, good-looking guys who are unfeeling. That's who I am; my choices are part of what makes me work. But another is that there is no way he will accept you, Daddy. He thinks you're disgusting, and so does his family—"

"They know about me?"

"Yes. I told him. And he knows you were on TV. But, no, I will not put the two of you in the same room. Such as it is, I've got something with him, and I've never had anything I could grab onto in you."

Regina wanted to respond, to fight back, but she collapsed inside because she knew Lisa's assertion was true.

"All this," Lisa said, indicating her father, "is fake. You're a real something, but not a man or a woman, not anything I can connect with."

Regina wondered if this truth would ever stop blowing her away. How could it have evaded her for so l long?

"So what am I going to do from here?" Lisa asked.

"I don't know."

"Have you over when he's out? No. We'd never get away with that; the neighbors would see and tell him. I'm sorry if I sound prejudiced, but I'm not going to mess up my marriage for your paraphilia.

"You're probably thinking that my marriage isn't much if you would mess it up," Lisa said. "Marriages are often fragile, and this," she indicated her father again, "isn't a small thing. It's major to most folks.

"So maybe I should agree to see you off campus sometimes? Away from here and home both? Some place private where we can have coffee? Just to stay barely in touch? But don't you realize I'd have to tell him? Lies screw up relationships, marriage or no. And seeing you would put strain on my marriage, right or wrong."

"Lisa," Regina reached out her hand again, but Lisa didn't take it. "I have no one." Regina bared her soul. "I can put myself out there, talk friendly with people, and make connections. But none of them care about me. Most are glad when I leave. I don't even know what I am."

Lisa kept her distance, appearing unfeeling.

"Lisa?" Regina longed to hold her. "Can I give you a hug?" Regina had occasionally hugged people, but she could usually feel their eagerness to get out of it. Regina hadn't really held anyone, or been truly held, in decades, and she ached for it. "Please?"

Regina saw the reluctance in Lisa's eyes. Lisa started to leave.

"Please take this." Regina gave Lisa a card with her address and phone number on it. "I won't try to go to your home. I'll stay out of your life. But please, sometime, come see me? Or call?"

CHAPTER 41

_THE MONTH is may,_ Regina thought. She was finding that she felt more depressed in winter, guessing the reason was that she didn't get out quite as much for distractions. But this was a lovely spring day of the kind you only saw in Doris Day movies.

She forced herself to get out of her car and try to enjoy the weather. There was no wind, not the slightest breeze. The temperature was cool, perfect for stimulating the deepest breath of air. This day called for golf. Outdoors, Regina wasn't much for stiffing through on cold or drizzly days, or when the wind made her wish she was in a garage somewhere tinkering with her car. But warm, nurturing days like this were made for golf, when the fairways could embrace you with idyllic vitality. That's what she needed.

She admitted to herself that her depression was chronic, but she knew what she needed to do to get through life as well as possible, without letting her mood drag her down. Her depression was in part a result of her loneliness. She needed to force herself to get out, to socialize, and as hard as that effort was, given her physical and social state, she knew she could facilitate contact with other human beings in stimulating surroundings and in structured social settings, where others had to interact with her on some level that was positive.

Golf worked.

Sometimes.

Life, it seemed, was a series of days you had to get through until you were a hundred years old and could die without having to admit to yourself and everyone around you that you're a total and complete fuck up.

Some days you had to get away. Just you and a motorcycle, or just you and your car, endless desert roads, some anonymous distraction a thousand miles away.

But sometimes, she told herself, you need something gentle and social like golf. Everyone and everything about golf is proper, a prescribed set of social interactions. The golf club grouped you at the starting tee with, usually, three other people who you'd spend the day with.

Great.

The public golf course she went to that lovely morning had freshly cut green grass that stretched on for miles. Just the ticket for today's distraction. The smell of the grass filled her every pore. Every green was precisely groomed, and people milled about. Just what the doctor ordered.

The whole atmosphere was rich with success—

—and the tornadolike vitality of two transgenders ripping through the tired pro shop as if the employees actually needed a slew of new assholes.

"Why can't I play in the women's golf tournament!" the larger one demanded. She was a big "girl" at something over six feet, perhaps a hundred ninety pounds of muscle, long arms, rugged, outdoorsy voice with an attitude to match.

"She's the best golfer in the group!" the other yelled.

The manager looked to Regina as she entered. "The ruling committee—"

"Fuck the ruling committee!" both transgenders at the counter yelled. Then one of them yelled, "I'm a woman," and the other yelled, "She's a woman!"

"This is a public golf course," the big one said angrily, "and I have a driver's license that says I'm female. I use the ladies' room."

"That's a courtesy, Sam!" growled the manager. It seemed to Regina he was finding his testicles.

She didn't know any of these people, but the manager seemed to know Sam.

" _Samantha_!" Samantha looked around the room, then straight at Regina.

Regina raised her hands to signal "safe" and stepped back to stay out of the fray.

"We have separate tournaments for men and women for a reason," the manager tried to explain. "Men are larger. They have longer arms. They are stronger; they can hit farther. It's not fair to the women—"

" _Some women are large_!" Samantha said loudly.

The manager put his hands on the counter and leaned into Samantha. "I've known you for fifteen years, Sam. You're a man. You play on men's teams. And you're not bad, either," he said with a forced smile, "but putting on a dress and getting boobs doesn't make you a woman."

"I shouldn't have to sterilize myself to be considered a woman!" The disagreement went on, as if a scene played to a crowd at a state fair, which that day included Regina and two other people who had wandered into the pro shop. "To be prevented from having children just to be a woman? Other women get to have children, so why can't I? It's genocide!"

The other transgender stood beside Samantha and supported her at every turn.

Regina felt Samantha was a little unstable, and this matter could easily get out of hand. "Excuse me," Regina said, stepping up to the counter and cutting in.

Her action drew everyone's attention, perhaps because of her age, her demeanor of authority, or the weight of experience she carried. She was calm, speaking in the tone of a grandparent calling down squabbling kids. She was also, obviously, transgender.

"Maybe I can help a little?" Regina told them who she was.

"Yes, I know of you," Samantha said. "You're the one who says we're all nuts, which makes no sense because you're one, too."

"I don't say we're nuts," Regina said. "But belief doesn't necessarily make things so."

"Bullshit," the smaller transgender said from behind Samantha. "You're old and cynical. I saw you on TV some time ago. You got thrown off campus."

_That's always the thing they mention,_ Regina thought. "The need to see yourself as a woman is strong, but the reality involves more," she said.

"You saying I'm mentally ill?" Samantha asked.

_It wouldn't surprise me_ , Regina thought. "I'm saying the need is strong. And also that your doctors should have made your motivation more clear to you."

Samantha and the little one stomped and stammered, leveled a wide array of insults and epithets, and then, thankfully, left, knocking over a display of used golf clubs on the way out.

Regina felt defeated again. She felt she had done the right thing, to try to help, to inject a little reality in this one instance, but the weight of the larger problem felt crushing to her. One person against a system. One voice shouted down by a million Samanthas.

And that comment about her being old and cynical. Small, so small. It never would have hurt her years before, but now she was so sensitive, so beaten down. She'd gone to the golf course to be helped, but now she felt as if her heart had been shredded.

"Thank you," the manager said to Regina, coming around the counter. He bent over to begin picking up the clubs from the floor near Regina's feet. The other people in the pro shop moved to the clothing racks.

In a daze—not caring about golf any more, unaware whether the manager said anything to her, unaware of where Samantha had gone—Regina turned to leave, and tripped over a pitching wedge.

At the age of seventy-one, she was no longer quick enough to catch herself. She fell in slow motion through displays of clubs, bags, and balls, glancing off the corner of a display case. The manager noticed the trip and tried to catch her, but he'd been kneeling on the floor and was out of reach. Regina's arms reached reflexively for anything to hold onto, but sweeping through another display, they only found air.

Regina landed on the floor among a shower of equipment.

CHAPTER 42

REGINA HAD A BROKEN cheekbone, a broken rib, and some internal bleeding—not life-threatening, although she turned out to have a weak heart she hadn't known about.

She died twice on the operating table, but death didn't take. The doctors with their foolish assumptions made the choice that she must live and brought her back. No consideration was given to what she wanted, no slaps on the face with a "Hey, Bucko! What you want us should do?" She didn't even gain a near-death experience for all her trouble. No light at the end of the tunnel, no friends waiting there with lollipops, no floating above the operating table watching the doctors try to save her.

All she got was the floor at the pro shop and then the embarrassment of her first memory after surgery: a nurse's aide showing Regina's crotch to some friends. And when the nurses came to service her penile catheter. And her rectal tube. Or clean her up in bed—all of which meant they had to probe around the area to service her—and their facial expressions showed such disgust. Or sometimes curiosity. Or sometimes humor.

When Regina got off the heavy meds, she complained about the nurse's aide to a doctor, but she was told the incident must have been a hallucination. Realistic dreams were common on those meds, she was told.

Lisa. She wished Lisa could have come visit her. Or Lourdes.

She could have tracked Lisa down, though she felt contact unwelcome. And she couldn't have found Lourdes if she'd tried.

* * *

Regina woke yet again in her condo bedroom on the eighth floor, listening to the silence around her. Still taking it easy, she dressed in clothes that tended to conceal her body, most certainly not anything flashy—just so she wouldn't be naked and display even more of herself to others. She ate something by herself in her kitchen, a small TV playing the morning news.

Today was Thanksgiving, a day when people gathered with families and friends to fill a house with the homey smells of mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, and a golden brown turkey. Today kids would scream while they chased each other down the hall. Old folks would laugh and share old times, and then later, some would watch a football game on TV while others played cards or board games. This day was supposed to be a time of thankfulness, a time when people slow down enough to remember just how lucky they are.

_That happens in other dimensions,_ she thought, as theoretical physicists might say. In one dimension, she's herself, while in another dimension lives the happy "him" who made different choices, the him who had a family, or maybe the "her" who was born a girl and wanted to be a little butch, who had a family—or maybe the nothing who was never born.

Would it be better to have never been born or to be who she was? She thought about that. As difficult as her life was, it was still life: that amazing miracle where 7x1027 atoms come together in a way that produces a body that has consciousness. Without that miracle, she'd be 7x1027 atoms of water, dirt, or air, with no knowledge of anything. Not of herself. Not of life. Not of the beautiful planet, the moon, the planets, and stars—the cosmos as a whole. And she would never have known the joys of love. She thought of her daughter, Lisa. Her son.

Tennyson wrote, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

Painful, it was, to have lost. But there had been joys.

_No matter what else I am, no matter what else happens, when the universe gets older and looks back at itself, I exist and I have been a real human being on that beautiful, little blue planet in a spiral arm about two-thirds of the way from the center of a galaxy —with a life that's as real as anyone else's who ever lived or ever will live._ She was part of the universe that could contemplate itself. She had lived and loved. She had interacted and affected life forever more. _Be thankful,_ she reminded herself. _The fact that you can think proves you have something to be thankful for_.

She walked into the empty living room, thankful she had a living room. She picked up her car keys from an end table, thankful she had a car. She picked up Winslow's urn, thankful she had a friend.

She left her refuge to forcibly take herself out again, thankful she could still get out. She was seventy-two, but some couldn't get out at her age.

In the hallway on her way to the elevator, she saw a neighbor she thought she recognized—the man from across the hall—greeting some visitors who'd come over for the holiday. His guests stared at her, but after they walked into his condo, he remained in the hall, looking as if he might speak to her. Regina didn't want any more crap just then, so she turned and left without a word.

In the parking structure, she saw no one. She was both hurt by that and thankful at the same time. Driving up the coast through Malibu and then over to the Angeles Forest to straighten out some roads had become something of a ritual for her.

Few cars were out on Thanksgiving. Driving through the winding, Malibu hills, she found herself making roads a little straighter than she usually did. Her Porsche was magnificent. On a left turn, hug the center line of the road; on a right turn, hug the ditch. Pick up the speed a little. Up shift. Brake. Downshift, power through the next left curve and hang two tires in the opposing lane. Pick up more speed. Throttle. Hear the noise of her engine, that muffled, roaring beast.

Going through a tunnel on Kanan Road, she honked her horn just to hear it and reached over to crank up her radio. Satellite reception didn't work in the tunnel. But as soon as she flew out the other side, the radio banged out a good, old-fashioned, rock-and-roll tune, ZZ Top's "Gimme All Your Lovin'."

Jesus, those guys could play.

Throttle! Speed. Gs. Curve. Gravel. Ditch. Saved it. Curve.

_Car_!

She happened to be on the wrong side of the road on a left curve, but she missed the other car by a good two inches at least—so what was he bitching about?

_No!_ she chastised herself and slowed to a crawl.

* * *

Hands still shaking, she pulled into the parking lot of a movie theater she found in the Valley. She took Winslow in her arms, left the keys in the ignition, and walked away from the car.

She tried to watch the movie, but couldn't. Popcorn half eaten, she set the carton in the seat next to her and walked out halfway through, still carrying Winslow.

_Car's still there, so what the fuck._ She had given the universe a chance to take the vehicle from her, and the universe had declined the offer, so she guessed the Porsche was still hers.

The mall.

She went in, bought a man's suit and a briefcase, put the clothes on, stuffed her women's clothes in the case, and walked out.

_Haven't worn this shit since the Crusades._ _Now I'm a man again, right?_

She thought she must look disgusting. Standing in the mall, on the second floor, people were staring at her even more than they usually did. Long hair, man's suit, breasts still visible beneath the jacket.

She wanted to scream, cause an earthquake, shatter the whole complex, throw her briefcase at the window or something, but then—oh, hell no—such outrages would place her in the hands of small-minded, dick-faced, black-and-white police bigots who'd have her and then not let her go. Take her down to psychiatric observation and keep her for days in these wretched man's clothes where she could look even more like a freak in front of people who had nothing else to do for days except look at her and ask how she's feeling, wondering why she hates being a gender freak if she works so hard to be a gender freak. She must be crazy!

Fuck no!

So with all her mental might, she went back into the store, calmly changed into her regular clothes, left everything she'd bought in the dressing room, and walked out of the store with Winslow, quietly embarrassed.

Not as a woman, really. Not as a man, either. But as a person who isn't trying to be anything other than herself.

CHAPTER 43

IT WAS THAT FUCKING LOURDES, Regina thought to herself, shaking her head in disgust.

Though her condo's balcony sliding glass door faced west, some wind gusted in through an eddy. She went over to close the door and stared outside.

A hot Santa Ana wind had blown hot and heavy from the northeast for three days, hitting L.A. like a forty-mile-per-hour blast furnace, which irritated close to twelve million people altogether. It also wrecked Regina's million-dollar view of the ocean. Blowing offshore, it flattened the swells and made the ocean white-cap ferociously, so the water looked stormy and choppy as hell. Few ordinary swells lapped gently onto the beach. And she could see a dingy, orange glow in the air over the sea: hand-me-down smog from L.A. Unnatural, to her way of thinking. No place she'd want to sail, which ruined the peacefulness of the Pacific. The only good thing was that, if no rain fell over the next week and if the westerlies resumed as normal, that smog might wind up over San Diego. She hated San Diego.

_Damnit,_ she chastised herself for being so unkind. The good people of San Diego hadn't done anything to her.

She turned to go into the kitchen for some tea—let the Santa Ana rage outside, outside her strong condo building.

Lourdes hadn't done anything to her either— Fuck yes she had!

And _damnit again_ — Why had she lashed out so mean to transgenders back then? Back at the university? On T.V.? Back when she first woke up! They deserved better. How could she go overboard like that?

_God!_ She cussed herself. The things she'd done.

Why had she let Lourdes get to her?

It wasn't all Lourdes, Regina knew.

But it was partly Lourdes.

Regina thought about it. It was becoming clear. Regina had her own doubts that dawned, but—as "reasonable" as Lourdes sounded, as much as she "made sense," _those were her fucking demons! Fucking demons_ born of her old-fashioned, binary beliefs based—Regina used to teach this stuff but forgot it temporarily for years—based on that whacky notion that there were actually two sexes, born of ignorance and millennia of outright pushing intersex and trans into closets—hell, _God said they were abominations!_ —which gave the impression to the masses that, in fact, all people were square pegs that were supposed to fit into square holes!

Lourdes had bought that whole thing, probably since childhood, and she still believed it.

_What a painful way to live!_ Regina thought.

Lourdes is still out there, believing all that.

Regina's heart ached that she missed it at the time—due to her own issues. She wished she could have helped Lourdes, but now, she didn't even know where Lourdes was.

Later that afternoon, with the winds winding down, going out again was almost safe, most people in L.A. thought. For those on the beach, the best air came with a gentle, onshore breeze, bringing in fresh air from the ocean, cool and moist.

Regina put some lotion on her hands. Santa Anas are dry; they made her skin crack.

The doorbell rang. The grocery man came. She let him in, trying to be as pleasant as possible, though she knew she made him feel uncomfortable. She ordered her groceries delivered just so she'd have a visitor, but the man left all too quickly. His concern about her was subtle, but Regina had learned to recognize the signs. He was curious, questioning, worried, even while keeping his distance, emotionally and physically.

And she was alone again.

The condo was silent, no banging from any neighbor coming through the walls. The sounds of Santa Monica heard through the sliding glass door from the balcony were so common she didn't notice them anymore. The only things she could hear were the sounds she made herself, slowly putting away the groceries.

The view out the windows? Great, she supposed. Normally. Yes, it was great, though she rarely bothered to look much anymore and found herself, instead, watching a lot of movies on video.

_Okay,_ she thought, and went in to sit on the couch in front of the TV.

She didn't prefer to stream movies off the net, to watch whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. Rather she preferred to watch almost any live program from any event that was going on somewhere, as with that, at least, she was sharing something with other viewers. Even if they were somewhere else—in their own homes, tailgating, on a yacht, or standing with friends in a mall. Premium, most shows were not. But they were shared in some way. Tonight some damn show in which stars give one another awards was airing—a dog-and-pony show to let viewers ogle all the actors they like and criticize the ones they don't.

She didn't like to think how miserable she was.

She'd given up looking for friends, people who actually cared and weren't themselves so socially screwed up and friendless that they'd cling to any swingin' dick that offered even a dysfunctional relationship.

Stop that, Regina!

I'm too pessimistic!

She had a working relationship with neighbors, the condo administration, a few professionals she knew, but they were all strained by their limited understanding.

They made her look so phony—even when she actually was a phony, but worse.

Ah! I need to be kinder to myself, also.

Stop dumping on myself!

She tried to be nice to people, over and over, year after year—trying to be genuine with them in a way that cut through bullshit and helped people see something gentle and human in her, something that wasn't showy, not just that she was transgender—but she seemed to make no progress. Still she was left alone, night after night, year after year, with people avoiding her.

She knew they weren't to blame; she knew she'd learned ways of interacting, at the start, that put people off, and once learned, they were hard habits to change. Especially when other people expected those dysfunctional traits from her.

During a recent office visit, a doctor had asked her how she was feeling, and she had said she felt disgusted with herself. The doctor, with limited awareness yet meaning to help, put on a fake-yet-meant-to-be-genuine happy face, and said things like, "Go out and buy something pretty to wear! Have fun! Be yourself—"

Regina knew that kind of advice is part of what can alienate people from transgenders because there's no compromise in it, so she asked the doctor a plain, simple test question, to see if the doctor would tell the truth: "Do you think I'm male or female?"

The doctor replied with a smile, "I've always seen you as a woman."

Regina got up to leave, her temper ready to show. "Notice you didn't answer my question? You told me what you think I want to hear. Don't you know how often people lie to us? Embellish things?" She grew angrier but kept her voice calm. "You know," she said, pointing at the doctor, "transgenders tend to believe that false empowerment 'be yourself' shit. That kind of faux empowerment leads people to make major decisions about their lives that backfire on them later. They may transition thinking the family will actually see what they see in themselves—the doctor was so amazingly positive! Or have major surgeries on themselves and have good parts removed. They may choose to buy a certain house thinking a neighbor will accept them. Or sell a house when they learn the neighbors are talking. They may take this or that job, and thinking they're 'passing' as genuine—because people indicate so rather than tell the truth—transgenders may unwittingly humiliate themselves in an interview and never get a job. They may think for years that what they're doing is working for them, not seeing the pattern of rejection _until half their life is over!"_

The doctor sat immobile.

"Is there some reason you can't tell us the truth?" Regina asked the whole world. "The simple, goddamned truth? You don't want to get into an argument, so you lie to us and then lie to yourselves that you did a good job. You let us go on our way to mess up our own lives and aggravate somebody else? Goddamnit!" Regina stormed out of the exam room, down the hall, and out the door. She knew she'd just embarrassed herself again, and she knew she'd never return.

She didn't want to.

Where the fuck was Charlie, that great, old, beach-bum doctor she used to call? She didn't know. One year he was suddenly gone—without a word—like so many other people in her life. They put up with her, or had her there to give them money or some liberal perk, but she wasn't important enough in their lives for a goodbye.

So she sat alone on her sofa, bitter, her feet on her expensive-yet-dusty, modern-art, glass coffee table, and her gaze fixed on a blank wall screen.

_Compromise,_ Regina thought. Lourdes' Three Rules: Rule #1, people can tell. Regina nodded. Yes, usually they can. Even the best of them. And those trans people think no one knows because no one ever says. Rule #2, though, people don't like it. That was simply false. That, Regina had come to see, was part of the old, binary mind-set as evident in earlier decades of trans acceptance. As time passed, it was clear that not everyone minded. Some people clearly don't care. Some people even value the creativity, the diversity.

_Am I kissing my own ass?_ Regina thought. _Denial was one of my big issues._

She considered it.

No. I think that's actually true.

And Rule #3: Compromise.

Regina nodded to herself on that one. It was true. Compromise is an important part of getting along, integrating, and making friends, for everyone, cis or trans.

One hour and a wee-too-much scotch later, Regina must have dozed. When she woke the TV had magically transformed itself into some show probably from Hollywood. She saw an exterior that looked like a redecorated, outdoor studio lot.

Damn picture wouldn't hold still, though.

She turned the TV off and tried the reset button, but without success. "TV, what the hell is going on with you?" she asked it, but it responded with an inane, "I'm sorry, Regina. What would you like me to do?"

"Well, then," she said more softly, giving in, "turn off."

It did, and Regina sat in the quiet, alone.

Even her daughter had drifted the rest of the way gone. Regina hadn't seen her since forever. No phone calls. No grandkids. She knew she could force the issue. Easy to do. She could find her daughter, go over and worm herself into the family on some level. They probably wouldn't ask her to leave, face-to-face. She could pretend she was wanted and that she was a happy member of the family. Suppress her own discomfort at their discomfort. Get into a family photo. Look nice on some superficial level to support an argument of inclusion to others, maybe even fake herself out.

_But that's what newbies do,_ she thought. Someone in the first twenty years or so, or someone truly gifted in the denial department. She saw no emotional gain in deception anymore, only a net loss. She saw faking or forcing her way in as hurting more than helping in the long run. She could be present physically, she was sure, but she would pay a price emotionally. She knew that wasn't the way to go about finding acceptance. No matter how much she needed others, and in spite of their white lies and pleasant smiles, she knew that, deep down, they would be sorry she showed up and glad when she left. And then she'd have to deal with the conflict that would result later, both within herself and from them.

Although she'd learned everything she could, though she'd racked her brain for years, she still hadn't figured out how to meet her emotional needs, with her difference. Some transgenders, a few, were able to get into long-term relationships that lasted into old age, but many weren't.

Still, she believed, if we can't do something in life, it's usually because we haven't figured out how, _yet._

Something may seem impossible forever, but then when we figure out how— _bang_ —suddenly we've got the wheel, or we can fly higher than the birds, or we're on the moon, or we're married to someone of another race, or satellite communications make the world smaller so that we can stand in the Gobi Desert and talk on the phone to Mom in Poughkeepsie. It's like electronic telepathy!

But transgenders are so rare—

She didn't know how to work for transgender acceptance; but, theoretically, she continued to believe that a way existed. Real _acceptance_ , she meant—not a pretend, short-term, leave-you-later kind of fake-tolerance that's supposed to look like acceptance. She just hadn't found it, not yet, and she believed the way that acceptance had been sought in this last generation wasn't working. Maybe someday.

Not making acceptance harder for yourself in the first place would help, too, she knew. She reflected on her own life.

The best she could come up with was something of a compromise of both ideologies and actions— _damn Lourdes,_ she thought. _That little fucking mixed up genius! Where the hell is she?_

Did Lourdes still believe as she had? Or have her views changed over time like mine?

But to _compromise_ , Regina felt she had to give up some of her expression, which hurt some, to get a little more acceptance, which soothed some. With that compromise, perhaps she could get through her days. Carrying her issues with her every day hurt, yet through compromise she could slowly better her relationships with others over time, still being who she was. Overall net gain. Some people may judge her a self-deceiving transgender, but hopefully over time, they'd come to see that she was more genuine than that, not into denial and not claiming to be anything she wasn't.

And compromise on her own defensiveness, also. Don't jump down other people's necks so quickly.

She shook her head. The precious years of life she'd spent hurting herself were depressing to her. She wished she could have seen her options this way thirty-six years before.

It's not an easy life.

She thought she heard something in the hallway, but she wasn't sure.

"Door, is anybody out there?" she asked.

The doorbell rang and startled her because the door didn't usually answer.

She thought a second, got up to answer, and opened the door to see her neighbor from across the hall—a nice enough fellow, maybe in his fifties—with his girlfriend in tow.

Regina wasn't so tipsy that she'd forgotten her manners. "Uh, hi," she said to him, but in greeting to both of them.

"Hi, Regina," he said.

She waited a second, unsure of what to say.

"You know, I just thought I'd check and see if you were in," he said. Another clumsy attempt at conversation that Regina didn't pick up on. "I, uh—"

His girlfriend looked at him as an old wife might, with a quiet nudge and a push.

"You know," the man said, "I've lived here for the last year or so, and I've never said hello, so I'm sorry. But I know you."

"Yes," Regina said. "From a couple of owners' association meetings."

"Yes, but more than that," he said. He looked not so much uncomfortable as unsure if he should proceed.

His girlfriend's second look reassured him.

"No. I mean I know you from a hundred years ago, back in college."

"A former student?" Regina brightened.

"Well, it was a class you were speaking in. I got kicked out for talking to you straight."

_Holy shit_ , Regina thought. She did remember. "Oh, my God—" She looked more closely at him. "Mark? Is that you? Oh, my Lord. I do remember you. I'd never have recognized you, but I'll never forget that morning."

Regina was glad to see him, and he seemed glad to see her, too.

"I've been wondering if I should say hello to you sometime," he said. "Kathy here has been telling me I should, but I thought you might rather have me tarred. For what it's worth, I came on too hard, that day. I'm sorry." He turned to his girlfriend. "See there? I said it." Then to Regina. "Okay. This is Kathy, by the way." He indicated his girlfriend, who shook Regina's hand.

"I'm glad to meet you. Finally," Kathy said, with a disapproving glance at Mark for his delay in the process.

"Glad to meet you, too," Regina said. Then to Mark, "In the interest of frankness, yes, your comments did hurt, but the apology is well accepted."

He seemed uncomfortable.

"But I don't have any anger for you, Mark. I think I've given all that up."

There: That's a compromise.

Regina paused to see his reaction, which was one of relief.

"And," Kathy said, "we should all be more respectful. After all, it's a spectrum. Everyone's doing their own thing."

"Thank you," Regina said to Kathy, and continued with a gentle smile, in a tone more like a confession to an old confidant, in humble honesty, gently sharing her feelings. No varnish. No false social front. No pretense. "It's been so far too long that I've been waiting to hear that back from people, unsolicited." Then to Mark, "I'm glad you did say hello. The truth is my lifestyle is a bit off-putting to many folks, and I wind up spending far too much time alone." Regina had too little experience with this level of honesty, and she worried how her revelation would be taken.

But to Regina's surprise, Mark seemed to relax with it.

Regina thought that Mark didn't care for a whole lot of what he may think of as nonsense in his life, anyway. He preferred people to be real, simple, and direct. Diplomacy was not his way.

"Well," Mark continued, "the awards are on TV tonight. You want to join us, then? A few friends will be stopping by—if it wouldn't make you too uncomfortable. Some folks might recognize you; you've been on TV yourself, a few times over the years."

_Invited over?_ Regina was so shocked she barely knew what to say. She'd been deep in the throes of a pity party a few minutes before, dumping on herself, bumming on loneliness, seriously thinking of drinking herself to sleep again, and here was someone who'd hurt her—she corrected herself per the Angel Lourdes, again—here was someone who had tried to _help_ her, years ago, who was asking her over.

"Yes," she finally said with a soft smile. _What do I say?_ "I'd love to."

She felt critical of herself immediately, disdainful of how she was relating to them, but she felt the minimalist response was better than a passionate one. She was as eager as hell to be invited over, but she didn't think acting out that eagerness would go over.

"Great," Kathy said. "Do you have a popcorn popper? We tossed ours; it broke."

"Yes, I do," said Regina. She turned to go get the appliance from the kitchen, and Kathy followed her without invitation, making small talk.

"Great furniture," Mark said from the doorway, loud enough to be heard. "You might dust sometime."

Regina and Kathy came back from the kitchen toward the hallway, both wearing smiles over his comment. "I shovel it out every spring," Regina said, before she caught herself, but they seemed to like her comment.

"That's Mark," Kathy said in apology. "He's just blunt." She gave Mark a sharp glance. "He doesn't mean to be rude."

"What did you grow up to be," Regina asked as they stepped into the hallway. She locked her condo door behind her. Then she caught herself before continuing. She was going to jest too forcefully, too boisterously, and say strongly, " _An army sergeant?_ " but she'd learned that style didn't work for her as well as the softer touch, so she added her jest, as was her humor, but more softly, playfully: "An army sergeant?"

Mark unlocked his door across the hall, smiled, and answered, "Mob enforcer."

"Oh, he is not!" Kathy said. "Why'd you say that?" she said to him. Then to Regina, she added, "He's a lawyer."

"A prosecutor?" Regina jibed. Oops. She had pushed too far again.

"Warden," Mark teased.

Regina smiled, getting his humor.

"Smart ass," Kathy teased. "It's business law. He works for an import company. No big deal. I'm not sure why they hired him."

"Me neither," Mark said comfortably.

Regina felt good about the way he said that. She got the impression he was probably very good at what he did, but also that he might be the sort who would be comfortable with himself whether they had hired him or not.

As Mark opened the door to his condo, a realization hit Regina as strongly as the one she had experienced that day in front of her mirror: _So that was it! Jesus. It was simple. A way of being yourself_ , Regina realized to her astonishment, being genuine, playing the idea over in her mind as if she'd seen it for the first time.

It's just getting past some of your own issues—made harder when people enable denial, but still.

But that wasn't all. The transgender paradigm was partially right all along, but it was wrong in how it was right. It is important to be _who_ you are, really who you are without embellishment or denial—to be open to all your own beautiful _and_ painful areas—but _how_ you express yourself to others is equally important. _It's that compromise thing again._ The idealism of a social movement doesn't translate well into a personal life.

_Yourself_ , she realized more deeply than she had before. Not who you wish you were. Not who you believe yourself to be. Not who you feel like when you block things out. Not who people say you are.

Who you really are.

And then be genuine with others from there, she told herself. Not necessarily disclosive, but genuine.

She was going to be digging herself out of the denial hole the rest of her life. She could see it coming.

To Lourdes, Regina mused, humility was part of rule number three: compromise. But Regina felt being humble was important enough to add it as her own Rule #4.

She knew she'd already been aware of all this for many years. But, somehow, the conclusion hadn't made its way home, until now. This rule was going to dawn on her, repeatedly for years to come, wasn't it? Because her other mindset was so ingrained. A slight smile crossed her lips.

She couldn't believe how simple it all was, when you get right down to it. "Be yourself, but gently," she accidentally said out loud.

"Oh, he is," Kathy said. "He's one of the truest people I know. It's what I love about him."

Mark just smiled and held the door for them. "This way," he said. "Nice evening coming up."

Regina felt afraid of the social challenges she'd face that evening, but she knew if she were calm, if she didn't let her fears claim her personality, if she didn't overcompensate, if she could get out of herself and enjoy the other people for who they were, if she could refrain from trying to own the evening in her excitement and let people flow with their own energy—the event might work out fine.

As they entered Marks' condo, as the door closed behind them, Regina thought, for the first time in years, she might wind up a little happier after all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aimee Norin Writes novels about transsexual and transgender experiences in an effort to entertain, and also to illustrate lesser-known aspects of phenomena. People have different terminologies they prefer, so Aimee tries to use them all at one time or another, and ideologies vary, so in her books, characters experience lives and share views, which are all different. Usually, there are multiple views given within each novel, and some novels as a whole present views quite different from other Aimee Norin novels.

Her characters are normal in their humanity in that they also have issues in life with which they struggle while they search for love and respect.

Transgender lifestyles are not yet commonly accepted in most societies, and trans persons are usually heavily schachtered on an ongoing basis, with daily diminutions, or "daily _dimunitions_ ," as they are sometimes felt. Prejudices and oppressions, soft and loud, misleading and painful, can exist for a trans person throughout life in more ways that can be known or counted—not just in larger, social exclusions but also in assumptions closer people make that also keep trans persons on the fringe. A person living in these lifestyles may have to deal with all that on a daily basis—while at the same time needing to wear a smile, interacting with those same, oppressive people at work, in public, or at home, in such a way as to downplay internal fear and pain: smiling while hurting.

Saying things seem fine when they're not.

Aimee's experience is that most people do not really understand trans persons and tend to keep them at arm's length. People have opinions, and they may _believe_ they understand—because they've treated patients, or known some trans persons elsewhere, or had one in the family. But those contacts are superficial and rare compared to a mutually interactive, decades-long, daily involvement, through situations good and bad, or even actually being a trans person in self.

Aimee believes if most people got to know trans persons more closely—if they gained enough trust to be admitted to inner thoughts and private experiences, if they were to show the courage to ask insightful questions, if they were open to new ideas as they emerged—a different, more human, more genuine reality could well emerge with reasons revealed for things that had, hitherto, seemed eccentric or even spurious. Instead of a trans person appearing to be someone who is unduly concerned about social rejections or prospects, real reasons may be revealed that indicate the trans person is dealing with issues of which others are unaware—still needing at the same time to function as the helpful co-worker, the friendly neighbor, the loving husband, the devoted wife, the inspiring parent, the loyal friend.

Being a trans person takes more courage and inner strength than most people begin to conceive.

As such, a greater effort is needed to peer into the heart of trans people—to see what is really there, what is really being dealt with, much of which is likely not shared—and to convey a greater and more sincere compassion than previously considered.

Finally, in order for these novels to be FREE, no editor is used, relying, instead, on feedback from people. Please email aimeenorin@gmail.com if you have comments or concerns.

CONTACT AIMEE NORIN

 aimeenorin@gmail.com

<http://aimeenorin.wordpress.com/>

Because I have been offering these novels for free, I must schedule most of my time for other occupations, and hence, I cannot manage most correspondence as often as I'd prefer. As a consequence, I may find it best to respond to most concerns in the aggregate on my web log, or Facebook, or Twitter, and then, perhaps, intermittently. Please do write, though, as I do read them. Your comments and feedback are most appreciated and valued.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

