On the rainy ride into midtown I replayed the situation in my head and decided my producer probably saved me from embarrassment. I mean, let’s say I did go home with Candice. Would I have to tell her about my surgery? If I didn’t, would she be able to tell the difference? And what if my penis didn’t work? How would I explain that? It hit me then that I would most likely never know what it feels like to have a one-night stand. Not that I was that type anyway, but still, it made me a bit sad to know the option was off the table; just one more reminder that I would never be a “regular” guy.
I relayed this story to my brothers-in-law over a few beers. They both told me I needed to relax and be patient.
“It’s been FOUR YEARS,” I snapped.
“Shtine, if it’s that big a deal, my offer still stands,” Lane said.
I looked at him and just shook my head.
“What offer?” Mike asked.
I sighed. “Lane offered to get me a hooker for my birthday.”
“Not a hooker, Shtiny,” Lane interjected. “A high-class call girl.”
Mike laughed. “Actually, it’s not a bad idea, I’ll chip in.”
“Are you two insane?”
Lane went into sales mode. “Think about it, Shtine. You’re so anxious about it working or not, you might as well try it out on someone you’ll never have to see again. Then if it doesn’t work, who cares?”
“Lane’s got a point, Shtine,” Mike said. “You could get some practice in so when you finally get the GF, you’ll know what you’re doing.”
“I’m not paying for sex,” I said.
“You won’t be,” Mike said, laughing. “We will.”
I rolled my eyes. I admit I actually considered it for a second. Then I just felt dirty. Nope. I wanted my first time to be with someone I really cared about—who cared about me. So I decided if I was ever going to have sex, it would be when I was in a meaningful relationship. But God only knew when that would be.
With my love life in the toilet, I focused on my work. I earned an Executive Vice President title and accomplished all the goals I’d laid out for myself when I accepted the position on McDonald’s. It had taken seven years instead of five, but I’d done it. My team’s work was on the agency sizzle reel and showcased in new business pitches. Creatives were now asking to work on my account, and talented creative directors were helping me run it. Awards were rolling in. And our little spot about a singing fish was making a big splash.
We knew we had something memorable when we were shooting the spot and couldn’t get the damn song out of our heads: Give me back that Filet-O-Fish, give me that fiiiish. Talk about an earworm. But the reaction we got after the spot aired was something we never could have predicted. In just three hours it went viral, spawning ring tones, DJ remixes, multiple fan clubs on Facebook, and by the end of its twenty-eight-day run, over a million hits on YouTube. Then came the local, regional, and national press. The hype was crazy and my clients were ecstatic, especially when their numbers came in. Filet-O-Fish sales were through the roof. And like the sandwich, we were on a roll (well, technically, a steamed bun). For the first time in history, McDonald’s green-lighted a sequel and toy that sang the original version of the hit song as well as a club remix. (If you’re interested, there might be a few still available on Amazon.)
I was flying high . . . and putting in sixty- to seventy-hour weeks. The projects just kept coming. I expected a lot from my team and ran the Mickey D’s account with a “work hard, play hard” philosophy. I organized all sorts of social events to keep everyone motivated—from lunches and post-work cocktails to my infamous roof-deck parties and the ever-popular “Sox in the Box” night in Arnold’s skybox at Fenway Park. So it was only natural I found myself spending a lot more time with another creative director in my group, both inside and outside the office. And I didn’t mind one bit.
Mary was the whole package: beautiful, talented, witty, and stylish (with extra points for being shorter than me). She didn’t know it, but I’d had a crush on her way back when she first started as an art director at Arnold. She had won a bunch of awards at another agency, so her creative reputation preceded her. I was attracted to her immediately, and since the printer I used was right outside her office, I began printing out my scripts one page at a time. In regular, six-minute intervals.
Back then, she was already in a serious relationship and assigned to different accounts than I was, so our paths never really crossed. Ten years later, here she was in my group and available. Technically, however, I was her boss, so I kept things professional at first, which was initially easy as she wasn’t sending me any vibes that she’d be interested in anything more than a working relationship. I remember being on set once, posing for a picture with the rest of the creatives. Mary happened to be standing next to me, so I casually put my arm around her shoulder—like you do for group pictures—and she immediately stiffened like a board. I assumed I’d crossed a line. But a few months later while on another shoot, she specifically asked someone to take a picture of just the two of us and rested her head on my shoulder. Hmmmm . . .
The flirting went on for weeks but I was still getting mixed signals. She’d been talking about wanting to see the movie The Hurt Locker because it won so many awards. I asked her if she wanted to go. She turned me down. Flat out. No excuses. The next day she asked me if I still wanted to see it. (Yes.) She said it was only on On-Demand, so we’d have to watch it at my place. (Interesting.) I’d upped the ante and suggested dinner first, so there we were, getting to know each other over adobo steak and a bottle of Malbec.
“I can’t believe I’m on a date with you,” she said after a few sips of wine.
“Okay, so this is a date then?” I asked. I had chosen a quaint Venezuelan restaurant because it was a fun spot to go with a friend but could also double as a romantic place to bring a date. Since I didn’t know what exactly “this” was, I figured I’d hedge my bets.
She smiled, blushing. “Well, I was hoping it was.”
“Good. Me too.”
I asked Mary if she was aware of my “background.” She said yes and that it didn’t matter to her. She only knew me as a guy and that’s how she thought of me. I remember thinking she was too good to be true.
She held my hand on the walk home. It felt comfortable. Right. This woman was someone I could see a future with. I knew that soon she’d be leaving for a two-week vacation in Bali, so when we got back to my place, I presented her with a care package I’d made her for the trip. No, it did not include a mix tape. It was a mix CD. And I think it was the clincher. We never got to the movie.
We spent all our free time together until she left for her trip. That morning, after I dropped her off at the airport, I just couldn’t get her out of my mind. On my way to work I kept worrying: What if something happens to her on one of the legs of her nineteen-hour journey? I was about four blocks from my house when I pulled out my phone and dialed her number.
Hey, it’s me. I know you’re on the plane and can’t pick up but I wanted to leave you a message and tell you that I . . . I think I’m falling in love with you. I just wanted to make sure you knew that.
I didn’t know I’d fall so deeply in love with Mary. That she would love me back so completely and unconditionally. That we’d be together for years. That our relationship would take me to places I’d never expected—like Ireland, Austria, and a remote part of Mexico where I would get fleas. That I’d find myself attending falconry school, releasing baby sea turtles into the ocean, snuggling with an Italian Greyhound named Finn, or kayaking for so long I’d end up offering a few houseboaters a thousand bucks for a six-pack and a tow. At the time I didn’t know any of that. All I knew was that I had an important email to send out.
To: Mike; Lisa
Subject: It works
Date: April 3, 2010 10:40:38 AM EDT
From: Chris Edwards
EPILOGUE
July 28, 2014
“So, Shtine, what’s the lates
t with the book? Any updates?”
This was my cue. The answer to Wendy’s question would serve as the opening to a conversation with my nieces that had me filled with anxiety. They knew their Uncle Shtiny had written a book and were very curious what it was about. My previous answer, “It’s about me,” seemed to be enough to satisfy eight-year-old Ava, but not Calla, who at age eleven was full of questions. My sister and I figured if the girls hadn’t already been exposed to the “T word,” they would be soon, and we wanted to shape their impressions before anyone else did. So after some debate we decided the time to tell them was now, sitting at the kitchen table while the girls schooled me at a card game called “golf.”
“Well, a bunch of editors are reading my book right now, and hopefully one of them will like it enough to publish it. Then maybe you girls will get to read it someday.” They both smiled—especially Calla, who had just accomplished her goal of reading one hundred books in a year.
“So . . . do you guys know what my book is about?”
Calla nodded. “It’s an autobiography, right?”
“Yes, kind of. It’s actually called a memoir. The difference is an autobiography is about someone’s entire life from start to finish. A memoir is about a certain time period or event in someone’s life and focuses the story around that. You guys don’t know this, but your Uncle Shtiny went through something very, very hard, and I wrote this book so I could help other people going through the same thing.” I looked at Wendy and took a deep breath.
“When I was born, I had a girl’s body.”
Calla’s big brown eyes went wide just for a second—as though she caught herself looking surprised and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Ava looked down at her lap and began shuffling the cards in her hands. Keep it simple, I reminded myself.
“But I knew I was a boy ever since I was four or five and couldn’t understand why everyone thought I was a girl and why my body didn’t match. I was really, really sad for a long, long time. I didn’t think I could tell anyone or that anyone would understand. I was worried people would laugh at me or make fun of me. So I just kept my feelings inside and got sadder and sadder.” Calla’s eyes began to well up. I couldn’t read Ava. She just kept her head down, avoiding eye contact.
“Finally I got the courage to tell Mimi and Popsie and your mom and Aunty GG. And they were supportive and helped me find the right doctors who could help me. And now that my body matches who I am, I’m so happy and everything’s okay.”
I paused and looked to Wendy for guidance. Her eyes had teared up too. So I changed my tone to be more upbeat. “I’m still the same Uncle Shtiny you know and love. This doesn’t change who I am . . . I just wanted you to know who I was. And I didn’t want you to find out by reading my book!” They both laughed.
Wendy chimed in and explained how this was different from being gay, which was great because she knows better than I do what they already know and understand about sexuality. Then I told them the word used to describe this is “transgender,” and that they will probably be hearing the term a lot in school and on the news. I thought this was important because with kids now transitioning at all ages, schools at every level were reevaluating and in many cases evolving their policies to be more inclusive of transgender students. I told the girls there might be kids in their class who were going through what I went through, and that I hoped they’d be understanding and treat them like they would anyone else. I then made sure they knew this wasn’t a secret about me; that everyone in our entire family knew except for Chase and Jake (my nephews). We didn’t think they were old enough to understand so we weren’t going to tell them yet.
Then we all kind of just sat there.
“Well . . . are you surprised?” I asked, breaking the tension.
They both smiled and nodded vigorously. They didn’t have any questions but Wendy and I told them if they ever did, they should feel free to ask us.
And that was it. The card game continued. I lost as usual and it was like nothing had happened. The next day at the beach I caught Ava staring at my bare chest with a little extra scrutiny, but as soon as our eyes met she turned away quickly, grabbed her boogie board, and headed for the shoreline with her cousins who were still in the dark about my past. I confided to Wendy that I was worried my revelation would change the way the girls looked at me and, in turn, the close nature of our relationship. “Absolutely not,” she said. “They love you, Shtine. I am surprised they haven’t asked me any questions, though. I thought last night before bed they’d bring it up, but nuthin’.”
The following day Calla did have a question for me.
“Am I in the book?”
••
If you’d asked me twenty years ago if I ever thought I’d write a book about my transition, I would’ve said hell no. I never wanted to be an activist or “poster boy” for the transgender movement. All I wanted was to get through my transition and put it behind me—live my life as a regular guy. It took time but I achieved that goal. I’m not my parents’ transgender son. I’m their son. My friends don’t introduce me as their “trans friend Chris.” Just Chris (or “P-Head” or “Eddie” or “Bird”). And at Arnold, I wasn’t Chris Edwards, the Transgender Creative Director. I was simply a creative director—well, an EVP/Group Creative Director. I don’t want to sell myself short!
Thankfully, my story has a happy ending. But I’m one of the lucky ones. For the majority of the trans population, the picture isn’t quite so rosy. This is especially true for transgender youth. The sad fact is fifty-one percent of all transgender teens will attempt suicide (compared to 7.8 percent of teens in the general population).8 And without parental support, many of them will succeed. It took seventeen-year-old Leelah Alcorn to bring attention to this staggering statistic.9 Her story, which made headlines and went viral on social media last year, opened up a national discussion about “fixing society” through gender education. Schools at all levels are now doing more and more to educate students on this topic and are adjusting their policies to be more inclusive of transgender kids. I believe this is critical as education and understanding will lead to acceptance. But all too often, as in Leelah’s case, the problem isn’t at school. It’s at home.
While numbers are hard to quantify, studies suggest that nearly sixty percent of transgender teens go without support from their families, and in those cases the risk of suicide is much higher.10 I know if I hadn’t had the support of my family, I wouldn’t be here today. That said, when I first told my mom and dad, they weren’t all, “Well, let’s go get you some surgery!” You may remember they initially asked me to reconsider. But their reaction was based on fear—fear that I would be deemed an outcast by society and lose all of my friends; that I would be worse off than I already was. But once I started coming out to my friends and my parents saw how amazingly supportive each and every one of them was, that’s when they got fully on board. With this overwhelming acceptance, suddenly my future didn’t look so bleak. They believed I had a chance at happiness and they were going to do whatever they could to increase my odds.
When you get right down to it, all parents really want is for their child to live a full and happy life. And for parents of kids who are transgender, gender education alone isn’t going to provide that reassurance. What I think would really help is hearing more success stories from regular people who can show trans kids, their parents, and society as a whole that being transgender doesn’t have to forever define you (unless you want it to). That you can still build a successful career, get married, raise a family—basically live a “normal” life just like everybody else. I believe those kinds of everyday success stories would give parents a more optimistic outlook for their child, which in turn would lead to greater parental support for trans kids overall and fewer suicide attempts. Not to mention it would also give the rest of the world a more complete picture of the transgender population.
The inherent problem with this solution is it means asking people who’ve purpose
ly been avoiding the transgender spotlight to go center stage. That’s a lot to ask. Which is why there aren’t many of these stories to point to. All I can tell you is they do exist. I’m living proof.
Thanks to others who’ve come before me, the transgender topic is finally being talked about openly. My hope is that having read my story, you’ll continue the conversation.
8 Statistics found at: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/1-12-teens-attempted-suicide-report-article-1.1092622.
9 For more on Leelah Alcorn’s story, see: http://www.popsugar.com/tech/Teen-Leaves-Suicide-Note-Tumblr-36373960.
10 For more on parental support, see: http://www.academia.edu/7252800/Impacts_of_Strong_Parental_Support_for_Trans_Youth.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To say I self-published this book, while technically true, wouldn’t be accurate. It was a four-year uphill battle, and there were so many people along the way who helped put BALLS in your hands.
Jim Eber, the man of many metaphors, I learned so much from you about the editing process. You have the patience of a saint. Thank you for helping me “find the thread” and cut 27,000 precious words. More importantly, thank you for continually saving me from myself.
My former boss and longtime friend, Pete Favat, for giving me the idea to call the book BALLS during our vodka-fueled brainstorm at Baxter’s and for bringing my vision for the cover to life. A thousand times thank you to you and your killer crew at Deutsch LA: Nathan Iverson, Ali Ring, John Cluckie, and Katie “Nice Legs!” Dittman.
Bob Mecoy for believing my story was one that needed to be told before it was fashionable to do so.
Alan Nevins for helping me even though I was way below your pay grade. We came so close! To you, I dedicate Whitney Houston’s 1987 ballad, “Didn’t We Almost Have it All.”
BALLS Page 23