Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out (5 page)
I took a sociology class where we discussed male and female gender roles. Believe it or not, people have this assumption that females are supposed to take up less space than males. When I’m on the subway and I sit with my legs spread out, people respect my space. Before, when I was still seen as female, people would sit down and squish me.
I take on the male social role now. I’ve always wanted to be treated that way, so it’s not a problem, but it took some getting used to. When I go places, like to a restaurant, the waiter flat out calls me “sir.” Before it was, like, “Mister?” “Miss?” People were hesitant to come up to me. “Is that a guy or a girl?”
Now 99.5 percent of people call me “sir” wherever I go. When I’m walking with my girlfriend, they respect me more because they see me as a guy with his gal. They don’t hassle us.
Whoa, back up. Girlfriend? Jessy breaks into a big smile and continues his train of thought.
Before, the guys on the street wouldn’t respect two women together. But now that they see me as a man, they back off. Even when I go to a club with my girlfriend, guys don’t mess with us. One guy tried to go up to my girlfriend and I was, like, “Excuse me,” and he’s, like, “Sorry, man.” And he just backed off.
Because Jessy now has a partner, our one-on-one interview changes to a dialogue. Her name is Nan. They met at a gym in Jessy’s second week in Bangkok. He immediately asked her out. She immediately turned him down flat.
“I feel nervous for love,” Nan says six months later, sipping red wine in my studio.
JESSY:
She was not open. She had her guard up. She gave me her office number. Her
office
number? Obviously she didn’t want to go out with me.
A month later, we happened to be working out at the same time. I went up to her and asked if she remembered me. She didn’t, actually, but she pretended that she did. I ended up calling her office number a day later, supposedly to ask her something work related.
Nan was a part-time model working for a fitness company that distributes vitamin supplements. Jessy saw a way in: “Hey, do you sell L-Carnitine?” Nan told him that her company did sell it and that they would give him an employee discount if he picked it up at the office.
JESSY:
At the end of the workday, I went to her office to pick up the supplement. “Did you eat yet?” I asked her.
NAN:
“No, I’m not hungry.”
JESSY:
“Can you get a cup of coffee with me?”
NAN:
“No.”
NAN:
The main reasons I did not accept his invitation were because he was much younger than I was and because I only dated older women. Never men! A third reason I wasn’t interested was because he lived in New York.
Jessy literally begged her to have a cup of coffee. Nan remembers saying, “Why should I give you a chance? What makes you think you’re on my level?”
JESSY:
I said to her, “Give me two weeks. I’m not asking you to love me. I’m not asking you to sleep with me. I’m just asking you for a little bit of your time before you jump and make assumptions.”
Nan finally gave in and went to Starbucks for a quick cup of coffee. They ended up talking there for hours. A week later, she accepted his invitation to dinner. She gave him a chance and was not disappointed.
JESSY:
On our first date, I told her I liked her. And I told her I was transgender. I didn’t want to keep anything from her. If I wanted her to like me for who I am, she needed to know about the things that make me who I am. I didn’t rush Nan. I didn’t call every day.
Although Nan accepted Jessy’s transition, she never uses the pronoun
he.
She only refers to him as
she.
Surprisingly, Jessy, who spent years convincing his family and friends to use male pronouns, doesn’t mind.
NAN:
I was attracted to Jessy because of her optimistic, sunny personality, not because of her gender. Definitely not her gender! I responded to the feminine features that still remained, including her soft skin. But I didn’t like the fact that she was taking male hormones. I said to her, “Why? Why are you taking your hormones and things? I like soft skin. I like everything woman.”
JESSY:
I guess she came to terms with it. I’ve been able to show her that my gender doesn’t affect how much I love her. I explained that I wasn’t going to get any hairier than this. I’m Thai. In general, Asian guys don’t have much hair. I’m not going to get a huge beard; this is the most I’ll get.
I think she’s okay with it now. We openly talk about it, and we share how we feel about it. That makes me really love her, because she tries to understand me. This is the first relationship where I can be truly open about everything. I don’t have any secrets. I’m not scared to share my past with her. I’m not scared to share things about my family, things that I’ve been through. She’s the first person I’ve completely opened up to.
I really don’t care about pronouns anymore. A pronoun doesn’t define who I am. I have a male role in society. I’m proud to be transgender. It’s an enriching experience and a big part of my life. But yet I can’t get rid of the fact that I was born a biological female. I’ve had the privilege of being born into a female body and living in a masculine body. I like the fact that I’ve changed my sex.
God made me transgender for a reason. Maybe not God, but whoever created me. Whoever created me made me this way for a reason. I enjoy life from a different perspective. I can see the world simultaneously from a male and a female perspective. When I speak with Nan, I understand where she’s coming from as a woman. I understand the days when Nan has her period. I understand the days when she’s cranky ’cause I know what all of that is like. And then, when I speak to my male friends, I get along with all the guys ’cause I think like a guy. I always thought like a guy. I had a guy attitude.
Physiologically Jessy is male because his body operates on testosterone. But biologically, he’s still female. He will always have XX chromosomes. Men are born with XY chromosomes and women are born XX. You cannot change your genetic makeup. Everybody is born with male and female hormones, estrogen and testosterone. When a person hits puberty, males have a surge of testosterone and very little estrogen. Females have a surge of estrogen and very little testosterone. Testosterone activates certain genes, like those causing facial hair. Women also have facial hair, but because they have very little testosterone, it’s not apparent.
JESSY:
I still have a feminine side. As I said before, I’m more like a metrosexual man. I like getting my nails done. I admit that. I like going to a spa and having my nails —
not
colored! No! Not colored, buffed.
NAN:
I was surprised how much attention Jessy pays to her appearance. “What? You take care of yourself? Your face? Your hair? Your body?”
JESSY:
I want to be good-looking for her.
Jessy smiles broadly while stroking Nan’s arm.
The thing is, she’s always dated masculine girls; she never dated feminine lesbians. And most of them, she told me, didn’t really take care of themselves. She’s always had to dress them up, pretty them up. This is the first time there is someone in her life that can take care of himself. I go to the gym. I exercise. I eat healthy — I try to eat healthy. I take care of my skin, my hair. She’s surprised. She’s never met someone like me. She’s getting used to me.
NAN
[grinning at Jessy]: She’s almost like a gay man.
JESSY:
I’ve been taught that your body houses your soul. For you to be emotionally happy, you need to be physically happy; you need to be in good health. So I’ve always had this concept of taking care of myself.
Nan has been in New York only a few weeks. She’s here on a visitor’s visa. Is she adjusting? “It takes time,” she says almost in a whisper. Jessy is helping her adjust. It’s not easy because the culture here is so different.
JESSY:
A few days ago, Nan was walking down the street and a few men hollered, ‘Yo, what’s up?’ She got really scared. I said, “You’re in Brooklyn! That’s normal.”
Jessy is changing too. He no longer binds his chest. Now that testosterone is taking effect, his chest size has gone down.
JESSY:
And because I work out a lot, my chest is almost turning into muscle. Aren’t my arms nice?
NAN
[whispering]: Yes.
JESSY
[laughing, totally enjoying Nan’s comments]: Nan’s very confused. She likes a masculine figure but maybe not the sexual part of it. She’s not sexually attracted to men, but she likes a masculine figure — not overmasculine, like muscles the size of her head. But she likes someone toned, with a nice physique.
NAN:
At first she surprised me. I had never been with anyone like her — her body, her legs, and arms.
Before meeting Jessy, I dated butch lesbians, known as “tom” lesbians, tomboys, in Thailand. Although they dressed like guys, none of them were on testosterone. Unlike Jessy, they still had feminine features, such as high voices. Jessy’s voice has become deeper now that she’s taking hormone shots.
JESSY:
We’ve had a lot of culture clashes. Even though I’m Thai, I have American values. I’ve mostly lived an American lifestyle. Sometimes, during our meals together, she tries to feed me. Are you kidding me? I was, like, “What are you doing? American women don’t do that.”
NAN:
I was just trying to take care of her, like we do in Thailand.
JESSY:
She’d feed me and she’d fold my clothes. Folding? I can fold my own clothes. Nan was hurt. She couldn’t understand why I did not accept the things she wanted to do for me. I wasn’t trying to hurt her; I’m just not used to that. I hadn’t been exposed to it. It was all so new.
Sure, my mother nurtured my father. But it’s different when you see your parents doing something. It’s a completely different feeling. I tell her, like, “Babe, I want a girlfriend, not a mother. Do as much as you can for me, but you don’t have to do everything. I’m a grown man. I can help myself.”
NAN:
When Jessy came into my life, she changed everything: my job, my work, and even my thinking. I don’t know; right now I think I love her.
JESSY:
You think? Or you know you love me?
NAN:
I know I love you.
JESSY:
Two different words, you
think
or you
know.
Two words. I want to be sure.
Nan turns toward me and says, “A few months ago, she asked me how much I love her. I said, ‘Not a hundred percent.’
“Jessy asked me, ‘Why?’
“I said, ‘In real life, one has to live with a person before love moves to a higher level.’”
Now Nan turns to Jessy. “YEAH! I know I love you, Jessy.”
Jessy pauses, quietly reflecting on his good fortune.
