by Nick Krieger
“The chest is one of the first places people look to for gender,” Jess said. “And I don’t want to be associated with anything feminine. When I’m addressed as ma’am or lady, I hate that.”
“So, what about ‘she’?” I asked. “Are you okay with that?”
“When I hear ‘she’ I think who? Sometimes I look around as if someone else could be there.”
I let out a little laugh as I carried my beer across the kitchen and sat on the table next to the stove. “You know Greg calls you ‘he’?” I said. The few others who used male pronouns for Jess were in her inner circle. I was not. Jess and I were debate partners, rallying our ideas and questions across the black and white squares of our kitchen floor.
“Hearing ‘he’ does make me more comfortable,” Jess said, washing down the beginning of her smile with a swig of beer. “But I’m only fine with it when it’s subversive. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m a man.”
There was only one other option I’d encountered—the gender neutral “ze,” which sounded either gender neutered or Russian. I decided to give up on Pronouns 101 until I could find a tutor. There were more important subjects at hand. “So, what do you do with the binder during sex?” I asked.
“I don’t take my shirt off.” Jess jumped off the counter and took control of the sizzling pan, stirring the mushrooms. “I love breasts. Just not mine. I don’t want to see them. I don’t want anyone else to see them. When I’m conscious of them, I’m uncomfortable. They don’t exist to me. I won’t even take my shirt off afterward.” She banged the spatula hard on the edge of the pan.
I flinched, momentarily taken aback by her self-assurance. I equated sex—especially relationship sex—with skin-on-skin contact, and I felt sad for Jess, that she’d decided to give that up, go without that kind of intimacy. Then again, I went without sexual intimacy altogether.
Once the force of Jess’s assertion settled, I remembered walking past her room while her on-again, off-again girlfriend was in town. Through her door, left ajar for the cat, I saw them in bed together. Jess was on her back, topless. It couldn’t have been more than a few months before. I wondered when Jess had stopped taking off her shirt. The power of her conviction made it seem like she’d been keeping herself covered forever. But Jess tended to carve her feelings into stone, whereas I spoke to try on my thoughts and see if they were true. “Sometimes I think about having top surgery,” I said.
“Me too,” Jess replied. “I’m just not in a position to do it.” Her primary reason was her job. She’d already risen high in a company and industry dominated by conservative white men, and she believed that having top surgery could jeopardize her finance career. As a teenager, she’d also had a handful of major surgeries to correct a shoulder injury and still carried the trauma from being hospitalized; she’d recently ended up in a hospital pharmacy so a friend could pick up a prescription, and, overcome with anxiety, she’d had to leave the building and wait outside. “It’s not something I’m actively considering,” she added.
I had my own concerns about jobs, surgery itself, scarring, society’s response, and destroying my parents, but my thinking was mere fantasy, like a dream in which I’d wake up in the morning, my tits gone, and before making coffee I could throw all my bras, sports bras, and binders in the garbage.
“Does this mean you consider yourself trans?” I asked.
“No. To me trans means becoming a man. It’s what Greg’s doing.” Jess opened the cabinet beneath the sink. “Men take up space. They’re privileged and entitled. I don’t want to be a man!” Her beer bottle clanked into the recycling bin. From the fridge, she removed two Coronas, leftover from a party, opened them both, and handed me one. “Why couldn’t I just be a flat-chested dyke?”
I raised my bottle to her in agreement. My top-surgery fantasy had nothing to do with transitioning. Since being a man didn’t appeal to me, it seemed like my flat-chested desire had to be straight-up vanity. “It’s hard for me to think of top surgery as something other than cosmetic surgery, like a nose job.”
“It is essentially cosmetic and I struggle with that,” Jess said. “When I read men’s magazines, I compare myself to the models. I want to be fit, flat chested, muscular.”
I did too. I compared my body to that of men at the gym and on the street, men like my brother, as well as to other boyish dykes. For me, a flat chest was about looking hot. Even on a lesbian show like The L Word, both the androgynous and the transgender characters were super flat chested; it was hard to pull off an attractive masculine aesthetic with huge breasts. I often caught other dykes wishing aloud for narrower hips, flatter chests, bigger muscles—markers I associated with physical masculinity. It was frustrating to think I’d escaped the influence of mainstream beauty only to fall for media-inspired standards in a flipped alternative universe.
“It is cosmetic,” Jess repeated. She focused on her stir-fry, tossing the vegetables with great contemplation. Sweat beaded near her hairline and she wiped her forehead with her arm. “But it’s more than that. It’s about identity.”
She looked up at me, her pale cheeks rosy from the heat. I could tell she was waiting for me to agree or object, but I had no response, let alone an identity—if the gender pronounced at birth wasn’t a given, I wasn’t sure where to find one. But I agreed with Jess, something about top surgery had to go deeper than the surface. War-wound-size scars weren’t cosmetically beautiful.
Outside of my house, I wouldn’t have shared my comparison of top surgery to face lifts and nose jobs with anyone—that was best left to health insurance companies. I had read a few articles on trans issues here and there, and I knew that too many people desperate to change their bodies and unable to afford surgery went to chop shops or committed suicide. I felt guilty Jess and I were having a comfortable, intellectual discussion, as if we were in a seminar at one of our fancy liberal arts schools, about something she could easily pay for herself, and that I, if I kept working, probably could eventually, as well. We weren’t desperate.
Or maybe we were and just didn’t know it, refusing to accept the extent of our struggle because we had to live it. I continued to favor the Frog Bra and wear the binders as little as possible. If having breasts was such a burden that I’d call a chafing, sweaty, constricting, irritating chest girdle “comfortable” like Jess did, I was in trouble. I couldn’t wear those binders forever, and I couldn’t think about where I’d be forced to go and what I’d have to confront if I let myself love the image of the flat-chested person in the Trans9 shirt. It was easier to try to avoid mirrors and my own reflection, to look away.
Four. Middle Ground
Despite the record-breaking Indian summer heat, I tried to turn down the invitation to the A-gay pool party. It was across the Bay, on the far side of the Oakland hills, at someone’s parents’ house. I argued that there was no public transportation escape route and gave in only when Zippy, in town for an appointment with her family dentist, texted me, “Get your ass over here. Pronto.” Used to my one-foot-out-the-door ways, she suggested I bring my bicycle on my ride’s car rack so I could pedal to the nearest train station at any moment. Her solution was perfect, even though I hadn’t shared the real cause of my anxiety, that my chronic bathing-suit phobia might escalate into a full-on bathing-suit panic attack.
Sometimes I thought I moved to San Francisco, or at least stayed, because the coastal fog and cool summer made a jacket and wool hat required beach attire. Back when I broke the men’s underwear seal, I also purchased a pair of Billabong swim trunks, a baggy, knee-length revelation that at least made half of my body bearable in sunny weather. Hiding my top business was still a challenge, my discovery of binders useless for lounging by a pool. With only two options, I chose my more water-appropriate Speedo racing top over the Frog Bra, as if appropriateness mattered when wearing a makeshift bathing suit.
The second my tru
nks were on, my tropical daydream hit, as if there was magic dust in the mesh lining. In it, I’m running on a white sand beach, completely alone. With the sun beating down on my bare back, my legs are spinning and my arms pumping. As I speed along the shore, weaving in and out of the waves, my breasts are weightless, buoyant as helium balloons.
In my room, I removed my shirt and held the flesh on my chest, trying to replicate the sensation of lightness as if I could alchemize breasts into feathers. I walked over to the mirror and noticed the fat squeezing through the openings in my fingers. I pressed myself in tighter and tried to envision myself without boobs. It didn’t work. I looked like I was wearing a bra made out of human hands, which although creepy was way better than the Speedo racing top. This provided coverage but was looser than I desired, leaving me with my uniboob sausage. I quickly put on my tank top and mentally padlocked it.
Two A-gays, my bike, and I arrived to a dozen or so scantily clad athletic women milling around the pool. Surveying the bikini fest from the upper deck of the house, I thought I was watching an early scene from Girls Gone Wild, except the girls had a dykey strut, shouted instead of spoke, and hadn’t yet gone wild. I spotted two boys, the host’s college-aged brothers, and wondered if they felt out of place, as if they’d been mistakenly given VIP access to a club.
Across a patch of perfectly manicured grass, there was a Ping-Pong table and a basketball half-court. Beside the pool, a hot tub was tucked into the corner underneath the shade of trees. I was already glad to be there; access to this kind of property was rare. I set up camp at a round table where Tori and a few others were playing dominos, and added my Sunday New York Times and Details magazine to the leisure reading pile on top of Bitch and Bust magazines.
Zippy scampered over for our reunion. Since Ta-Ta Tatas, we hadn’t seen each other or even spoken for more than a few minutes, maybe once or twice—the emerging reality of a long-distance friendship. I was happy to see her face, yet well aware that large groups overstimulated her, and I had little expectation of one-on-one time. I also had no idea where to begin with someone so far removed from my daily life. “It’s hot as balls out here,” I said.
“Hot as your mama,” she replied. “What’s that I hear?” she cupped a hand to her ear. “What, what . . . is that the pool calling your name?”
I shrugged her off with a laugh. It was too early in the afternoon to start making swimming excuses.
Zippy handed me a bottle of SPF 4 sunscreen. “Help a sister out,” she said, kneeling between my legs. A tanning professional, known to wear a bikini under business casual work wear as well as being a regular visitor to the spray-tan booth, Zippy was an even brown.
She brushed her hand up my leg and I jerked it away. “Holy moly,” she shouted. “Somebody stopped shaving.”
Squirming uncomfortably in my seat, I felt the plastic slats sticking to the back of my thighs. In the past month, my legs had gone from a stubbly cheese grater to a plush felt rug, the softness a sensation that I preferred. I told myself that I hadn’t stopped shaving intentionally; it was more that every time I saw my disposable orange razor in the shower, I couldn’t find any reason to pick it up. “Well, it’s not like anyone ever sees my legs.” I hoped my face wasn’t as red as it felt.
Tori, sitting in the seat next to me, leaned over to see. “Good god.” She pinched an inch of hair between her fingers. “That’s no excuse.”
I scowled at her and shook my head, a useless chiding. Tori had two modes, completely supportive and utterly obnoxious, and only she controlled the switch. “Are you falling under the influence of those roommates of yours?” she pushed.
“So what if she is?” Jane said, eyeing me with support from across the table. I loved Jane. Her history extended well beyond this small homogenous circle and included all types of people. With her wavy dirty-blond hair, she reminded me of a gorgeous golden retriever, and she was more androgynous than the other A-gays, even in her bikini. She raised a leg to the glass table. “I don’t shave, either.”
“You have no hair,” Tori said. “And it’s blond.”
I appreciated Jane’s effort to back me, even though I had more hair on my big toe than she had on her whole body.
“Well, Nina can do whatever she wants,” Jane said, holding me with her gaze. “Right, honey?”
I nodded in agreement and flashed Tori a fake smile that didn’t quite mask my embarrassment. The power of her barbs came from the underlying truth in them—my roommates were influencing me. I thought about Bec, her recent complaint about her silky dolphin skin, her desire for at least a few wisps of ruggedness. At first, I didn’t believe that a female, even a boyish one, could want body hair, but with her voluntary mastectomy, Bec was unlike anyone I’d ever met. When I nervously showed her the happy trail on my stomach, the thin line of hair that had been waxed and shaved in shame dozens of times, she said, “Dude, that’s so cool,” and rubbed my stomach as if I were Buddha. For a second, I felt proud. That was around the time I stopped shaving my legs.
“Hey, missy,” Zippy said. “Easy on the sunscreen.”
There was a huge puddle of white on her upper back. “Right. God forbid you avoid skin cancer,” I said sarcastically. I started to massage her back, lifting one bikini strap and then the other, rubbing underneath until the white disappeared. I applied some more lotion to her lower back and snuck my fingers underneath the elastic waistband of her low-cut bottoms. I felt awkward and clumsy, envisioning myself as my brother helping the pretty girls with their sunscreen on our scuba-diving adventures. I wondered if anyone was watching me. I concentrated hard on not missing a spot. Then I patted Zippy’s back, sending her off. “You’re all set, pal.”
I kept busy to avoid the pool, flipping though Details, snacking on chips, salsa, and strawberries. I ate constantly in case I needed to claim the thirty-minute rule to avoid cramping while swimming. I played a few games of Ping-Pong until the game switched to beer pong. I moved constantly and fell into a steady cycle of drinking water, having a beer, and heading up to the house to use the bathroom.
In the late afternoon, it was still too hot to walk on the cement barefoot, and after a few beers, I did hear the pool calling my name. I actually enjoyed swimming, but like lactose-intolerant people who fought the urge to eat ice cream, I fought the desire, knowing the outfit required would leave a pit of sickness in my stomach.
I walked over to the basketball hoop and picked up the slightly deflated ball. Nothing relaxed me more than the cadence of a basketball rhythmically hitting the ground. The steady sound of a bounce, a swish, a bounce, a swish, was like meditation. I scissored my legs, passed the ball through, and tapped it into the hoop off the backboard.
The host’s two brothers joined me on the court and we took turns trading shots. Both shirtless and sculpted with muscles, the younger one was a swimmer with the abs and deltoid wings to prove it, and the older one was thicker with a weight lifter’s bulk. I admired their ripped chests, the hump of their biceps as they launched, elbow bent for a jump shot. They suggested a game of H-O-R-S-E, and although it took longer than it should have, I knocked them both off. We shook hands and I cut back across the grass to the pool.
Several of the A-gays had been watching and hailed my return with high fives, “good jobs,” and something about kicking boy ass. “Get your sharp-shooting guns into this pool,” Tori shouted from a raft in what for her passed as an apology.
I said I’d be back in a minute and climbed the stairs to the house. I opened the sliding-glass door to the remodeled kitchen. Zippy followed me in, shutting the door behind us. The air-conditioning blew the smell of baking brownies around the room. Zippy took her Gatorade bottle out of the fridge. “You really squashed those guys,” she cackled.
I barely smiled, trying to play it cool. I liked the attention of winning, regardless of whether it was against men, women, or toddlers. I poured mys
elf a glass of water and leaned over the countertop, scanning the scene outside. A crowd was forming around a patio table that boasted bowls of potato salad, pasta salad, and corn.
“Look at them,” Zippy continued, gesturing toward the boys, now hanging around the edges of the A-gays in bikinis working the grill. She opened a container of vanilla cake frosting on the counter and scooped some up with her finger. “I bet they love all these hot chicks at their house.”
Watching the two guys reminded me of a scene from a high school health class video: the moment when the pimply adolescent boy climbs up to the high dive at the public pool. He looks out at all the bare skin and cleavage, and then pops a huge boner, blushing a cartoonish stoplight red. “I bet it’s a little uncomfortable for them,” I said. “Our friends are hot.”
“Hells yeah, we are,” Zippy said, dipping for more frosting.
“Everyone here is really hot,” I repeated quietly to myself, not expecting to be heard.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Zippy said.
I watched the A-gays through the sliding door, their conversation muted by the glass. I’d always found them attractive; I’d never thought much of it. Now it weighed on me. I felt myself searching for something I couldn’t articulate. “Everyone is hot,” I repeated again.
Zippy held her wet, glistening finger in the air, her widening eyes nudging me.
I glanced at the tile floor and when I looked back at her, I saw it clearly. She was a woman. And I was not. It made no sense. I turned back to the floor.
“Duh,” she said. “We’re hot.”
We weren’t. She was and they were. But I wasn’t. I could’ve had their bodies. I could’ve worn a bikini. I had worn a bikini. I could’ve waxed and shaved and tanned. I had done all three. I had looked exactly like them. Maybe I still did look like them. To Zippy, I was one of them. Hot. But to me, looking like them, no matter how attractive I found them, made me feel ugly. I understood then, fully and completely, I wasn’t an A-gay, or a woman-loving-woman, or a lesbian—capital-L or not. I’d never pass the entrance exam. I wouldn’t even sit for the exam.