These short pieces were in response to something someone said online about GC folk lacking empathy and not being able to imagine other people’s stories. So I did. I hope, empathetically…
Lola
I sit at the bar, drinking it all in. The music is pounding, the bright atmosphere belying the dark smoky vibe in the room. It’s my first time here. It’s my first time anywhere. Well anywhere like this. I’m new to London. New to life. The life I want to lead. For so long I’ve been closeted, hidden, keeping my thoughts and desires, private and suppressed. But now… for the first time I’m free. Free to be who I want. Free to be the person I’ve always known myself to be.
That doesn’t meant to say I’m not nervous. Because I am. I’m terrified. I’ve come here to experience all the things I’ve always longed to, alone in my childhood bedroom, a place where I had to pretend. There’s no pretending any longer, not here. Not in this place. Everyone is just like me. It’s like I’ve come home. It’s … liberating. I just don’t know where to start.
“New around here?” a sultry voice greets me from the other end of the bar. A tall svelte woman with long dark hair and the most amazing brown eyes greets me with a look that makes my stomach flip over.
“Yes,” I say. No point pretending, it’s obvious I’m a novice.
She makes it easy. She buys me a drink, pulls me onto the dance floor. Being held in her arms, feeling her close to me, smelling the scent in her hair, is intoxicating to say the least. One thing leads to another, and it’s a no brainer to get in a taxi and go back to hers.
The taxi ride is hot and heavy, and I’m panting with desire by the time we drunkenly stumble through her door. We’re so desperate we’re tearing our clothes off, and I’m eager to finally have my long-suppressed desires fulfilled.
It’s so easy.
Till it’s not.
“What the actual hell?”
My date is standing before me in all her naked glory. Or should I say his?
“You’re not a woman,” I stutter. “I thought you were a woman.”
“Of course I’m a woman,” she says. “I’m just as much of a woman as you.”
“You’ve got a dick.”
“It’s a girl dick,” she says with that sexy smile I found so devastatingly attractive earlier. Now it totally unnerves me.
“There’s no such thing,” I say.
“Oh poor baby,” she says, “you’re such an innocent. Come let me show you how much fun we can have.”
“I don’t want to,” I say. “I’m a lesbian. I don’t do dick.”
“I’m a lesbian too,” she says. “We’re the same, you and I. What’s between my legs doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I say.
The mood is lost, I am scrabbling for my clothes. I can’t stay here. This isn’t what I signed up for. She stares at me, furious. Her mood suddenly vicious.
“You’re such a little prick tease,” she says. “Typical bigoted dyke.”
“I date women,” I say.
“I am a woman,” she says.
“I know what you are,” I say. “I’m leaving.”
She lets me go, thankfully, and I flee back home where I sob my heart out into my pillow.
I’ve had a lucky escape. I won’t be going to that club again.
So much for my new start. My new life. I’ve moved a hundred miles away to find nothing has changed at all.
Transition
Before
I look at my naked body in the mirror. The body I have hated and despised for so long. The body that has bought me nothing but shame and insults. Tomorrow all that changes. All the months and years of sadness and self hatred. Finally, I get the body I should have been born with. I can’t wait. Tomorrow Danni becomes Danny. There’s no turning back.
I’ve always known I was different. I never wanted to have long hair or play with dolls. I hung out with the boys. They had better games and a freedom I craved. My mother was never that interested. I was neglected and looked it. The teasing at school was intolerable. It was inevitable that I’d be taken from her. Even though care wasn’t a whole lot better. No one bothered too much with me there either. My misery made me lash out, and I was known to be difficult. I hated my looks. My appearance. The way from an early age men leched, and tried to touch. I tried to disguise my femininity with baggy shirts and masculine clothes. I kept my hair short, and never wore makeup. And still they worked it out. Still they found me. I tried to tell people what was happening. But no one was listening.
Until the day I found out what was wrong with me. It wasn’t me who was wrong, it was my body. It was such a relief. And after that everything was simple. I sought help and I was quickly supported to get the medication I needed. My voice has grown deeper, and I get five o clock shadow. It’s the start of the change I long for. And tomorrow I get to the be the person I was always meant to be. I can’t wait.
After
The first year was brilliant. Waking up after the surgery to find my breasts were gone was the most amazing feeling. The pain and the recovery time were totally worth it. Danny was going to be so much happier than Danni had ever been. And I was … for a while. But slowly, gradually, the self-hatred and loathing returned. I had a beard. My voice was deep. My chest flat. But it wasn’t enough. I compared myself to other guys at the gym. They were taller, stronger, broader, fitter. However hard I worked out, I couldn’t get to where they were.
I still felt confused about life. About who I was. I still had no family to speak of. The friends I had were all like me, and mainly online. I was lonely, and at night would lie in bed wondering what was wrong with me. Did anyone else ever feel like this?
And then, I started hearing whispers. People wondering if it had been worth it. A boy I knew, a few years ahead of me, suddenly announcing he’d got it wrong. He’d fallen in love. Had a lovely girlfriend and they wanted children. Children he couldn’t give her; children he couldn’t have. They fell apart under the strain of it all and he was left wondering if he should go back to the life he’d had before. The punishment in our community was swift and brutal. I was shocked by the way he was kicked out and denounced.
We stayed in touch. Something about the things he’d said touched a nerve with me. I met him for coffee. I was stunned to see him wearing a dress, his hair long and curling. And was that make up he was wearing?
“I’ve gone back,” she said. “I made a mistake. I’m a woman. I just hated my body so much I never knew it. I’ve finally worked out who I am. I feel so much better.”
Oh god. This is me. This is me. Panic was spilling through my brain. What had I done? It had seemed so right. But looking at her, and seeing how happy she was, I was no longer sure of anything.
We talked some more. We talked for months. I read and I researched. I realised how little I’d known. How young I was to make such a momentous decision. How much damage I’d done to my body. I was unhappier and more confused then ever, so my friend suggested counselling.
And that’s when the penny dropped. It wasn’t me that was wrong. It wasn’t my body. I was unhappy because I had been neglected abused and unloved. I am still unhappy. And until I learn to accept myself I always will be.
So tomorrow I’m coming off the hormones. I can’t change my voice. I can’t change my facial hair. But I’m growing my hair again. It’s time for Danny to go back to Danni. The person I always was. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even wear make-up.
The Witch
The Wise Woman was much loved in our village. She would turn up unexpectedly – always when we needed her. There to help a birthing mother, a sick child, or comfort the dying when no one else could. When she was there the whole village came together, bringing her gifts and food, as she set up a temporary home in a shack in the woods. She was known for her herbal remedies and spoke about using her power to heal. No one questioned or thought it was odd. We were just grateful that she was there.
She never announced her coming. But her timing was impeccable. She had brought nearly everyone of us into this world. Many a mother crying as a child lay sick and feeble had cause to thank her for saving that child’s life.
And she was generous too. She seemed to require little for herself. And while she accepted the food she was offered, she frequently shared it with families who were struggling. The purse that jangled from the money she had been given for her efforts throughout the countryside was often emptied to pay for the farmer whose crop had failed, the workers who’d health had failed them, or the widows who were struggling to survive.
Everyone loved her. And her arrival was greeted with joy and festivities. Night after night when she was with us, we would feast and rejoice, while she told tales of her travels.
But as her fame grew, people grew jealous. However, much she gave us, some wondered why couldn’t she give more? Others pointed to the lame child in the village, born after a difficult birth. And there were tales from other places of the people she couldn’t save, the children that died despite all her care. Had we just been lucky that it hadn’t happened to us?
People started to mutter, and wonder if we had been wrong about her. The Wise Woman had seemed so good, so pure, we had taken her at face value. The greater the rumours, the greater the suspicion. And then the Inquisitors came to the village. By what right had she claimed to be our healer? they demanded. What was this mysterious ability she possessed? It couldn’t be natural, those things she did.
The mutterings grew louder, and people forgot the good she’d done. The power of her healing. The force of her kindness. They remembered instead her obscure mutterings as she boiled herbs on a fire, and some declared they had seen her in the woods casting spells to the Devil.
When she returned to the village, they came and surrounded her, and dragged her to the pyre already ready.
“Is this how you thank me?” she asked. “After all the good I’ve done?”
“Burn the witch!” was the reply.
And they stood and watched her burn. Knowing righteousness had prevailed