Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family (19 page)

Nicole barely missed a beat, but her heart was pounding. When her classmate left she took the photo down and hid it in a drawer.

The oddest part about being in the closet at King was that anything even remotely related to being transgender felt threatening. One day, Kelly received a call from Nicole’s teacher, who wanted her to know that the following week there was going to be a bullying-awareness day and a film shown to all students that included transgender issues. Nicole might feel uncomfortable during the discussion afterward, the teacher said, so she was being given permission to call in sick that day if she wanted. She did.

Even when things were going well, it wasn’t about the danger of slipping up so much as the sense of always having to hold back. Eventually Nicole and Jonas developed a small, select group of friends, but they were always held at an emotional distance. For Nicole, it wasn’t about shutting people out so much as shutting herself down. It felt especially hard one weekend when she and about five others gathered at a friend’s house and built a campfire in the backyard, then watched movies. Everyone was so relaxed and the conversations often veered toward the intimate. These were people who knew Nicole, and yet didn’t. She knew them well enough to know she could probably trust them, but not saying anything was a promise she’d made to her mother—to her whole family—and she couldn’t break that.

I
N
F
EBRUARY
2010
EVERYTHING
seemed at a breaking point for Wayne. They were still paying $1,500 a month in mortgage on a house the family no longer lived in, and for which they’d eventually take a $28,000 loss. They were paying another $1,200 in rent for the duplex in Portland. Then there were the utilities for two households, books and clothes for the kids, and the cost of Wayne traveling hundreds of miles every weekend, sometimes by car, often by bus. He estimated that over the course of the first seven years in Portland, the family took on an additional $105,000 in expenses. On top of that he and Kelly also owed $33,800 in lawyer’s fees to their first attorney, whom the family had just dropped. He just didn’t seem to be on top of the case, and it didn’t help that his own teenage son had acted disparagingly toward Nicole. The incident happened outside school when the boy pointed her out to a friend and Nicole heard him say, “There’s that kid my father is representing” in a tone that could only have been called disgust. When Kelly called the attorney that night to complain, he actually seemed irritated.

“What do you want me to do?” he said.

Kelly was worn down with worry, and losing weight, but she was determined not to let Nicole and Jonas see her anxiety. She rarely cried, but she did one night, watching, of all things, an episode of the reality series
Cops.
The story that night was about a transgender child, male to female, like Nicole, who lived on the streets and worked as a prostitute. In the episode the police were giving her a hard time, even though she wasn’t a runaway. Her parents had thrown her out of the house. The thought of rejecting Nicole had never crossed Kelly’s mind and, as difficult a time as Wayne had understanding their daughter, she was sure it hadn’t crossed his, either. In fact, Kelly was used to telling her mother, her friends—anyone who would listen—that Nicole would always have a home with her. She’d never be abandoned by her family, and she would never be left to be harassed by the police, or anyone else for that matter, as long as Kelly had anything to say about it. If Nicole couldn’t make it in the outside world, she would live with her mother the rest of her life, and that was that.

A bit of good news arrived in March 2010, when Kelly and Wayne received word that attorneys for Boston-based GLAD would represent them in their legal battles, along with Maine private attorney Jodi Nofsinger. The biggest relief: The GLAD lawyers would be paid only if they won the case.

N
icole was eleven years old and she wanted breasts. Anyone can grow their hair long and wear makeup and feminine clothing, but if she had breasts, there would be no mistaking her for who she really was. Before she could begin taking estrogen, however, Dr. Spack had to make sure she didn’t enter male puberty. He’d promised her that when the signs were there, they’d begin her on puberty-suppressing drugs.

At Nicole’s appointment in September 2008, Spack had told Kelly and Wayne that he would begin to carefully monitor her gonadal hormone level and that if it started to rise high they would move quickly, because beginning male puberty would be terrifying for her. In early January 2009 he noted that Nicole had not had a growth spurt and had not developed adult body odor or chest hair. Two months later, however, her hormone levels had risen, there was evidence of a bit of coarse pubic hair, and she had experienced some unwanted erections. It was clear she was on the cusp, and Spack didn’t want to miss the window. The puberty-suppressing drug Lupron can sometimes take as long as three to four months to begin working, so the decision was made: Nicole would begin monthly injections right away. She was thrilled.

When Nicole next saw the psychologist at the gender clinic for a periodic checkup, Dr. Laura Edwards-Leeper asked her what it felt like to still have a penis.

“I’d like to cut it off,” she said, before quickly realizing how melodramatic that sounded and added, “Not seriously.”

“Is that how you really feel about your penis?” the therapist pressed.

“I just try not to care about it because there’s nothing I can do about it at this point. Not until I’m older.”

With her friends beginning to bud small breasts, a flat-chested Nicole still looked childlike in many ways. When she pleaded with her parents for a bra and a set of falsies, Wayne left the decision up to Kelly, and Kelly finally relented. But where do you get falsies for a prepubescent trans girl? Kelly was on her own. She began by buying A-cup bras at Target and at a local sewing shop picking up gel packs worn inside a bra to enhance what’s naturally there. What was “there” for Nicole, however, was nothing, so Kelly sewed little pockets into the bras to hold the gel packs in place. The “enhancement” wasn’t very satisfactory. Nicole’s first boobs, as Kelly called them, were just a bit underwhelming. After more Internet searching, Kelly learned she could buy silicone breast prostheses and bras with built-in pockets designed for women who have had mastectomies. That’s how she bought Nicole’s first real set of “falsies,” the smallest ones available, online. Nicole thought they were perfect. They were squishy and felt substantial in her hands and they even had nipples. Nicole threw away the awkward gel packs and slipped the two, teardrop-shaped silicone breasts into the pockets of her new bra. Wearing them was altogether transformative. Nicole walked around school with a newfound confidence. She was even able to be playful about her “breasts” with her friends back in Orono, once tossing them at another girl while they tried on clothes in a dressing room at the mall.

Kelly always looked in on the twins on her way to bed, and in the first few weeks after Nicole received her new breasts, she would find her daughter all tucked in, but still wearing her bra and prostheses under her pajamas. It made Kelly smile, remembering all the times Nicole had felt embarrassed about her body. Once, when Kelly opened the door to the bathroom while Nicole was taking a shower, she realized she was washing herself in the dark, just so she didn’t have to look at herself.

On another night, feeling lonely and a bit down, Nicole wandered into her parents’ bedroom and asked if she could sleep with them. Kelly was watching
The Tonight Show,
and Wayne was almost asleep. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Nicole tiptoe carefully over to his side of the bed, trying not to wake him. Then, just before sliding in under the covers, she carefully placed her new breasts on the nightstand next to the bed.

A
BOUT A YEAR AFTER MOVING
to Portland, Kelly was hired to be the executive assistant to the city’s sheriff, where she quickly learned the department had one of the best transgender prisoner policies in the nation. Staff was trained to make sure transgender female prisoners were assigned cells with other females, not males. There were no incidents of harassment, no derogatory comments. Rather, there was a simple, even dignified acceptance that started at the top, with the sheriff.

Life at home, however, was anything but simple. Once, on a weekend afternoon, with Kelly and Wayne doing chores and the kids on their own, a thunderous crash sent them all running toward the sound, which appeared to be coming from outside the house. Kelly thought she’d seen Nicole moments before going up to her attic bedroom, so the horrifying possibility that her daughter had just plunged through her bedroom window and was lying in a heap by the side of the house seemed all too real. Jonas and Wayne dashed outside while Kelly grabbed her phone and tried to dial 911. She didn’t have her contact lenses in and her reading glasses weren’t nearby. Blindly she pushed at the buttons. Just then, Nicole sauntered up from the basement where she’d been playing video games.

“Hi, guys, what’s up?” she asked breezily.

“Oh my God,” Kelly said.

She grabbed Nicole and hugged her close just as Wayne and Jonas, confused, wandered back inside.

“I thought you were dead!” said Kelly.

“Thank God you’re okay,” said Wayne.

Without hesitating, he and Jonas joined Kelly and Nicole in one big family embrace and they laughed with relief. The noise turned out to be someone moving furniture next door, but it was clear from their initial reactions just how much strain they were all under, especially Kelly. They’d been through so much, and trouble seemed never to be more than a few minutes or feet away. It was almost like they all had posttraumatic stress disorder, always expecting the worst, always in “what next” mode.

W
HEN THE
O
RONO PROPERTY
finally sold, Wayne moved into cheap graduate student housing. Kelly and the kids, who were now in the eighth grade, were also able to move into a new home several blocks and a world away from the duplex. It was a street of modest, single-family houses and stately trees. The backyard wasn’t huge, and a commuter train ran by several times a day, just beyond the fence. But it had more room, including a patio, and there were no police sirens in the middle of the night.

In the spring, Nicole had an appointment to see Dr. Spack at his Boston clinic. He told her he might start the estrogen sooner than age sixteen, as originally planned. Nicole could have kissed him she was so excited. When she’d first met the doctor she’d been a bit intimidated, but he gave off an aura of assuredness that always seemed to put her at ease. In fact, after the first couple of visits, Nicole began to think of Dr. Spack as family. So whatever he needed to do to make her fully female, it was all right with her. Spack started Nicole on estrogen right away. She was thirteen. She would also need to continue taking the male hormone blockers until she underwent sex reassignment surgery. Everything was moving ahead at the right pace, he assured the family, just as he’d expected.

After the appointment, the family had lunch at a dim sum restaurant in Boston, then rode the elevator up to the eighth floor of the building that housed GLAD’s main office in Boston. They were greeted by several GLAD staffers, including their lead lawyer on the lawsuit, Jennifer Levi, the director of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project. After twenty years as a litigator at GLAD, she was a nationally recognized expert on transgender issues. This was the first time the legal team had met the family face-to-face, and they were eager to tell them how strongly they believed in the case, but that not counting appeals, it could take as long as two years before it was all over.

At a reception for the family that night, held at the home of a GLAD board member, Nicole was a whirlwind of energy. She was clearly the star of the show. Afterward, Wayne was moved to write a long thank-you note. He needed to explain to all the people he’d just met how grateful he was.

In the past we have openly discussed the difficulties and rewards that exist for transgender children with those who are willing to listen. We attempted to answer any questions and work with teachers and staff to help provide a positive learning environment….However, the continued concerns that we face on an almost daily basis have placed us in a position that requires we speak out from behind a curtain.

It was impossible for the Maineses not to feel the importance of their case among these hardworking people, and they realized that their lawsuit wasn’t just about Nicole or their family. It wasn’t even just their story anymore. The lawsuit, even though it was just a state case, had meaning and significance for many others. And now Wayne, Kelly, Nicole, and Jonas would carry the hopes of those others with them as they sought affirmation from the courts.

W
orried about what the kids would do during the summer, Kelly made arrangements for Nicole and Jonas to spend time with their father in Orono, but she also had a surprise for Nicole. She’d heard from someone in Dr. Spack’s office about a transgender camp in Connecticut, one of the first of its kind. Nicole was signed up to attend for a week at the end of August.

Camp Aranu’tiq (the name comes from the Chugach indigenous people of Alaska and means “two spirit,” or “half man, half woman”) is part of Harbor Camps, founded in 2009 by Nick Teich, a trans man. As an avid former camper, he recognized the need for the more marginalized members of society, especially children and adolescents, to have their own summer camp experience. Although Harbor, a nonprofit, would eventually be able to buy, renovate, and equip their own 112-acre wilderness camp in New Hampshire, in its inaugural year it leased a rustic lakeside campsite in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

After a sleepless night, Nicole jabbered nervously to her parents and Jonas on the ride down from Orono to Old Lyme. Mostly she didn’t know what to expect. She’d never been to a sleepaway camp, much less one with other transgender kids. There were forty-one of them in total, all eight to fifteen years old. Beneath the name tags they wore around their necks were written the preferred personal pronouns. After reaching the camp and stepping for the first time inside Robeson cabin, the one set aside for the younger campers, Nicole wasn’t impressed. The bunk beds were okay, but the dirt floor, the cobwebs—it was all a bit shabby, she thought. But the campgrounds included a rec hall, an art center, and a cafeteria. There was a volleyball court, yoga, and kayaking. There were also campfires, games of capture the flag, a talent show, and skit night, when they doused one another in blue glitter. Within forty-eight hours Aranu’tiq felt like a home away from home, and Nicole loved everything about it.

One of the best parts of the day were meals because you were required to switch your seating so you were never next to the same person. At lunch one day, after downing quesadillas and rice, one of the counselors led the group in singing the camp song, which they’d just written—“Aranu’tiq, a great place to be. I love this camp because I can be me”—which led to other rousing, more traditional camp songs, such as “Rigabamboo,” “The Moose Song,” and “Little Red Wagon,” which for some reason segued into Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.”

I’m beautiful in my way

’Cause God makes no mistakes.

On one of the last evenings, Nicole wrote, directed, and acted in a three-act play with her cabin mates based on the board game and movie
Clue.
Nicole camped it up playing Mrs. White, but instead of the sexy widow, memorably and melodramatically portrayed by Madeline Kahn in the 1985 film, Nicole performed the role as a cranky old lady, a routine she’d developed a couple of years earlier. She’d named her character “Muriel,” and she was a classic curmudgeon, even misanthrope, with a Long Island accent. The audience at Camp Aranu’tiq lapped it up. One of her camp friends played the role of Mrs. Peacock, brash, obnoxious, and loud—just the kind of person Muriel disliked. When another character announces that Mrs. Peacock has been murdered and they all stand around looking at her body, Nicole ad-libbed.

“I know, it’s a miracle. Her mouth is shut.”

The campers and counselors convulsed in laughter.

At the end of the week, before they all went their separate ways, the campers gathered in the cafeteria and passed a ball of yarn from one table to the next until every person in the room was connected by a single spool. She’d spent only a week among these other transgender kids, but Nicole felt she’d made fast friends with at least two other trans girls. They hadn’t talked that much about being transgender; they’d just laughed and gossiped and swapped details about their favorite music, games, and TV shows. Cellphone numbers and email addresses were exchanged. Most of the campers tied the yarn around their wrists. Nicole wore hers until it finally fell off about six months later. She would return to Camp Aranu’tiq two more summers. When she attended the camp for the third and last time, after which she was too old, the final ceremony included a gift for all the graduates: a compass, so that they could always find their way back.