Redefining Realness (28 page)

What I cringe at is not the act of sex or my young, undeveloped body. I’m not ashamed of my form as much as I was when I was a teenager. I can recognize the beauty of that girl. I can see what makes her beautiful, but what makes her tragic is the desperation. Immortalizing my desperation for the world to see, that hunger, that starvation, are what makes me ache now.

I initially wanted to paint Felix as the villain who wooed me, urged me to do something, taking advantage of my youth, my lack of resources, my desperate situation. But I can’t put all of that responsibility on him. He profited from the facts that I was poor, desperate, immature, impatient, that I didn’t have the foresight to know that the Internet would become a platform for pornography, most of which objectifies women’s bodies for the male gaze and pleasure. At the same time, I profited throughout adolescence on my beauty and my body. I used what I had at the time to get what I needed.

No one can destroy their past. You can try your best to cover it up, edit it, run away from it, but the truth will always follow you. Those
parts of yourself that you desperately want to hide and destroy will gain power over you. The best thing to do is face them and own them, because they are forever a part of you. In writing this, I am facing the consequences of a decision I made as a teenager, a decision that afforded me the resources to exist, live, and dream in my body. I compromised my integrity by exposing the one thing I hated most about myself: my unconquerable desperation.

P
eople often describe the journey of transsexual people as a passage through the sexes, from manhood to womanhood, from male to female, from boy to girl. That simplifies a complicated journey of self-discovery that goes way beyond gender and genitalia. My passage was an evolution from me to closer-to-me-ness. It’s a journey of self-revelation. Undergoing hormone therapy and genital reconstruction surgery and traveling sixty-six hundred miles from Hawaii to Thailand are the titillating details that cis people love to hear. They’re deeply personal steps I took to become closer to me, and I choose to share them. I didn’t hustle those streets and fight the maturation of my body merely to get a vagina. I sought something grander than the changing of genitalia. I was seeking reconciliation with myself.

Arriving in Bangkok on the night of December 19, 2001, with sixty-five hundred dollars in cash as my only travel companion, I was aware that I was so near my lifelong goal, yet so far from home. I was alone and eighteen in a distant pocket of Asia. My first thought
was bittersweet:
I made it on my own.
It was apt, though, that I was alone in a foreign country. In reflection, it’s symbolic of my solitary journey to accept, adapt, and adore myself, an expedition that would be deemed just as foreign as Southeast Asia was to me my first evening in Thailand.

The custom lines at Don Mueang Airport were all kinds of wet hotness. Steamy heat moistened my face in a way that Hawaii’s humidity never did. With my new passport stamped, I pushed through a crowd of men looking for their next fare, past the bustling baggage claim area. I saw a white card with my name on it, held in the air above two smiling Thai women, both just above five feet with matching dark, chin-length hair. One wore a vibrant purple and orange wrap, colors that reminded me of Grandma Pearl’s garden. When I approached the women, they were delighted to see me, as if I were an old friend. The woman in the wrap introduced herself as Jane.
She was the surgical nurse and office manager for Dr. C.’ s clinic and spoke fluent English. The other woman, Fern, was all smiles and nods and tasks, grabbing my bags and taking on the streets of Bangkok from behind the wheel. She didn’t utter a word as we drove about an hour to the doctor’s office, where I was scheduled to have my presurgical consultation that evening.

From the leather backseat of the sedan, the unplanned juxtaposition of wealth and poverty struck me. I noticed sparkling glass high-rises and luxury car dealerships adjacent to tarp-covered, tin-roofed homes and people eating street meat under twinkling neon signs advertising “Girls! Cocktails! Good Times!” Fern, her fellow motorists, and pedaling pedicab drivers ignored the lines painted on the road, merging at a rapid pace in the dimly lit darkness. I dug my palms into the champagne-colored leather seats, trying to maintain some semblance of control.

I was nauseous when Dr. C. held both my hands in his and kissed
me on the cheek. He looked even more boyish than the photo on his website, with a kind face and an unfaltering smile. He called me Miss Janet, and his sweetness eased what little anxiety I had about placing my life in the hands of a stranger. We had communicated through a series of e-mails over the past four months, and I knew instantly, from the kindness of his staff, the cleanliness of his clinic, and the genuine respect and empathy he exhibited, that I had chosen the right person. I lucked out to have been treated by Dr. R. and Dr. C. I’ve since learned that it is rare for trans people to have access to medical professionals who are skilled, respectful, and sensitive.

With Jane standing close by, I sat on a paper-covered exam table in a thin pink medical dress. Dr. C. took my blood pressure and monitored my heart and lungs with a stethoscope. He then asked if I would mind lifting my dress. I nodded, slowly gathering the hem of the garment to my stomach.

“This is good, very good.” He smiled upon touching my hairless genitals with gloved hands, his slim eyes twinkling with delight. “We’re going to achieve very good depth.”

“How many inches do you expect?” I asked.

“I can promise seven inches, but I know we can get eight, maybe even more with good dilation when you go home,” Dr. C. said. He went on to explain the details of what would happen during the following morning’s procedure, which would involve him refashioning the skin, nerves, and tissue of my genitals (except erectile tissue and testicles) into a vagina of my very own.

“Will I be able to have an orgasm?” I asked.

“Yes, the majority of my patients in time achieve good orgasm.” He pulled the hem of my dress back to my knees.

Jane handed me a consent form that reiterated the details of the surgery, listed the cost and one-week recovery stay at the surgery center, and the long list of possible complications, including death. I
paused for a beat over that five-letter word and realized that I could die alone in a country many miles from those I loved. I reflected on the fact that I never asked my mother or father if they were okay with this, that I barely said a proper good-bye to Chad, Wendi, or Jeff, that I boarded the plane never thinking, not once, that I wouldn’t be on the return flight home.

I didn’t dwell on the risks because there was no other alternative for me. This surgery in this foreign country was the step I’d known I had to take ever since I was old enough to know it was a possibility. Death was guaranteed for all of us, and I was young and naive enough to believe that I had more living to do. So I signed my life away, handing Jane the consent form. She added it to my file, which included my blood tests, chest X-rays, and endocrinologist’s letter, verifying that I had been living as a woman and under his care for hormone therapy since I was fifteen.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said as I handed Jane sixty-three hundred dollars in cash, the outstanding balance for my surgery.

“
Kop khun krap
, Miss Janet,” he thanked me in Thai, reaching for my hands. “I want to thank you for trusting me to help you in this next step of your life. It’s a blessing that I get to make people like you more happy.”

I paused on his sentiment of “more happy.” I liked his acknowledgment that the surgery wasn’t finally making me happy; it was a necessary step toward greater contentment. Having genital reconstruction surgery did not make me better. The procedure made me no longer feel as self-conscious about my body, which made me more confident and helped me to be more completely myself. Like hormones, it enabled me to more fully inhabit my most authentic self.

The hospital, my home for the next week, was just a few miles away. It resembled a hotel, with a doorman who grabbed my bag from
Fern and escorted us to my room, marked “Miss Janet—Hawaii” on the placard. It was a single room with a full bathroom and balcony that overlooked the city, my closest neighbor a mosque. As instructed, I hadn’t taken hormones for the past two weeks, and I blamed this hormonal imbalance for my teary farewell to Jane and Fern when they bade me good night.

As I unpacked my bags, a smiling nurse came into my room to administer an enema, which cleared my bowels for the surgery. I showered, settled into my bed wearing an oversize tank top, and called home. Mom was more than half a day behind me and was already at her office, working one of her last days before the Christmas holiday. I let her know I’d arrived safely and my surgery was scheduled for seven
A.M.
and I would have someone call her when I woke up. We exchanged “I love yous” and hung up as if I were down the street, spending the night at Wendi’s.

After a restless night, I sat up on my bed at about six
A.M.
to the sound of the mosque’s morning call to prayer blasting through the speakers. Shortly after, Jane, in green scrubs, greeted me with a smile and a surgical gown. Slipping into the white cotton dress, I lay on my back in the rolling bed outside my door. Jane and another nurse took me in an elevator up two floors to the operation room, where Dr. C., an anesthesiologist, Jane, and the other nurse stood in matching green scrubs. They were wearing sandals, and this reminded me of home.

“Today’s your new birthday, Miss Janet,” Dr. C. greeted me, his eyes twinkling from behind his surgical mask.

I smiled as Jane placed an IV in my arm and the anesthesiologist rolled his chair to the head of my bed. He introduced himself and said that he’d be monitoring me during the surgery and that I had nothing to worry about.

“Now count backward from a hundred,” he instructed.

“Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six . . .” I counted, my last sight being the cream-colored ceiling of the operating room.

•  •  •

I woke up a bit groggy in the recovery room with my knees spread apart at a forty-five-degree angle. I immediately felt like I had to pee, though the attending nurse said I had a catheter and my urine would release itself. I was puzzled because the need-to-pee sensation didn’t leave me for that first hour. I didn’t feel any pain because I was given a Demerol drip intravenously. Discomfort from bed rest was a reality that no narcotic could ease. I wasn’t able to get up from my bed for four days because my vagina, covered with an ice pack to reduce swelling, was packed tightly with petroleum gauze to maintain its depth.

It was a relief when Dr. C. arrived in the room to visit me. Standing at my bedside, he placed a hand on my shoulder and smiled. He then made his way to my propped legs. Examining his handiwork, he said the surgery had gone well and that the packing would be removed in four days.

“Your job is to rest,” he said. “The nurses will take good care of you.”

“
Kop khun kha
,” I thanked Dr. C, feeling sleep drape upon me.

I was awakened every hour or so by two alternating and attentive nurses who seemed omnipresent. Neither spoke fluent English, so those first few days were full of mimed gestures, intermittent naps, blood pressure and temperature checks, sponge baths, and morning and evening calls to prayer.

My first thoughts during those initial post-surgery immobile nights were about Dad.
He was right
, I told myself as the mosque’s speakers set the city abuzz for evening prayers. I thought of my father because I knew that though he would be uneasy about the surgery, he’d respect my independence. I thought about his way of doing
things, how he’d taught us to ride our bikes without training wheels, and how he’d thrown me in a pool to teach me to swim. I’d screamed at first in protest out of fear that I’d fail, but he told me with such assurance and authority, “Keep paddling, man!” I moved my arms, stayed afloat and didn’t drown, and eventually moved forward.

Those intense months before my surgery, I kept afloat as Dad had taught me, blindly moving toward my destination. After all the work, the anger, the desperation, and the compromises and pain, I was able to pause because I had made it. After eighteen years, my body mirrored me. The weight of that dream realized was on me as the medicine let me sit with my thoughts. No longer was I numb emotionally, and I realized that there was no celebration because I was alone.

“Out of all my kids, man,” Dad told me recently through a smile, “you’re the most like me. That’s why we butt heads. You’re just like your selfish, big-headed ass daddy.”

I initially took offense at his statement about our mutual selfishness. I felt my decisions weren’t hurting anyone but me, whereas his hurt those who loved him most: His adultery hurt Mom, his drug addiction put Chad and me in jeopardy. Upon reflection, I saw that the people I loved most were slighted in my quest. I left home without really speaking to Mom. I missed the majority of Chad’s football and basketball games. It had been years since I last walked Jeff home from school, and now he was big enough to not even need me. Once I’d made the gradual decision to reveal myself, I began alienating myself from those I loved, a decision that made it easier for me not to be accountable to anyone. It was a solitary journey, one I’d take again to reach contentment, but the isolation I felt in that bed hurt.

As I rested, a nurse came in, asking if I’d mind a visit from another patient in recovery. The only people to visit me were the doctor in the
mornings and the nurses and the room attendant who wore a black hijab and brought me juice, water, and fruit on a mauve food tray. I nodded, and a six-foot-tall blonde made her way through the door.

“Hello, sunshine,” she said with an Australian accent. “I hope you don’t mind me barging in here.”

“Not at all.” I smiled, delighted by her familiarity. “I could use some company.”

She introduced herself as Genie and took a seat in the leather armchair near my bed. Her lengthy, sturdy limbs were covered in freckles, matching the smaller constellation on her nose, which gave her a youthful look. She was striking and sun-kissed, with blue eyes that looked slightly catlike from the pull of her high ponytail.