Two in the morning

 

I reach over over and switch on the lamp.

“It’s nearly two in the morning for Christ’s sake. Two questions: who are you, how did you get in and what are you doing here?”

OK, three questions. Perhaps I shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine.

But once I am able to focus properly I already know the answer to the first one. The other two are going to take a bit more working out.

I look over the girl standing by the door as she tugs nervously at the hem of the too-short dress and fiddles with her hair. She looks both scared and elated at the same time and probably just as bewildered as me. I recognise her of course. She’s younger than I remember and wearing far too much makeup. When did I stop using blusher? The wig – a cheap and overly shiny Halloween blond bob – is a giveaway. And the too-thick eyebrows. She hasn’t quite found herself yet. She will. My heart goes out a bit.

“Are you ...me?” She looks a bit shocked. Understandable I suppose. It’s not every day you meet your older self. Then again it’s not every day that you take your first brave and tentative steps outside the house dressed to the nines late at night, hoping that no one will notice you or, worse, call you out as anything other than just a woman out walking, but also wanting to be noticed and seen as a woman. I need to point out the paradox of that to her, but to be truthful I’m still half caught up in that mindset all these years later. I decide to take the initiative. “I think we need coffee, don’t you?” She nods. Can imaginary visitations from the past even drink coffee? I suppose we’ll find out. She may well be wondering just the same about me. To be sure, I’m not sure which of us is dreaming who. If indeed one or both of us are dreaming this. I pop into the bathroom on the way to the kitchen and check myself in the mirror. When did my eyes start to get baggy and my jaw drop? It’s hard to tell under under the amount of makeup the younger me is wearing. Has she even found out about contouring yet?

I place a cup of coffee in front of her. At least I know how she likes it. I wonder how much I should tell her about what’s to come. Will it make a difference or change anything, and if it does what would mean for me? Will I still be the same ‘me’? Or will she (or even I) remember any of this afterwards, or experience a Men In Black memory wipe once she leaves? This is what a lifetime of reading science fiction does to you. Not that I’m tempted to go around stamping on butterflies. Especially the one sitting across from me, barely out of her chrysalis.

I wait for her to speak first. After all, I already know and share most of her story.

“How long?” she asks.

“From you to me?” It's August 2024, so just a couple of weeks over 9 years”.

“You look older obviously, but more confident and sure of yourself.”

“Compared to you, or how I remember being you, yes, I’m in a fairly good place at the moment. It’s not perfect and it’s not always been an easy road, but we’ve got through it. Finding friends we could talk to and confide in was a first step, even if only online, and a set of labels (trans, bi-gender, gender fluid) that finally fitted how we felt. And starting to learn not to worry – or indeed give a f**k – about what other people might think when they see you, and accept that if they have a problem then that’s theirs, not ours. That was really liberating.”

“So do I go out more?”

“Oh yes. Not properly for a while yet. There’s a bit of a rough patch to go though first, and then the world will get and feel very strange for a couple of years, but once you’re out the other side of that things will start to look up, especially as you get more confident about yourself and your ability to blend in. One of the keys to that is to pay attention to what other women are wearing and try not to draw the wrong sort of attention. That short dress and those heels for instance - especially when out unaccompanied after dark. I know,” I hold up a hand to forestall her. “You’re worried you won’t pass unless it’s dark. Don’t be. You don’t. I don’t. We’re tall, my posture and walk is wrong and I probably give myself away the moment I speak. We’re still working on that. But you know what? No one really gives a toss. And if they read you and peg you as trans, so what? There are some definite advantages to being older. You become socially invisible. Most people don’t give you a second glance or seem happy to treat you as you present. You won’t get many wolf whistles as a 50 plus woman, but a cheery ‘love’ can give you a buzz for the rest of the day.”

“Although,” I add, jealously, “you do have better legs. They won’t look quite that good again”.

“Maybe”, I muse, “I should visit you instead so I can have your body and my confidence.” She has the grace to look alarmed. “No, we’ve both seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And not without a good dose of jealousy, although neither us ever understood quite how the heroine ended up swanning around the desert in that in that gorgeous evening dress after being taken over. Perhaps even aliens have an inner drag queen.”

“On the other hand I have gained a bit more flab over the last few years, so with a bit of help I can almost fake small tits and a bit of cleavage. We’ve always wanted to have breasts, through experimenting with those pills wasn’t such a good idea.” She smiles, nods.

“But please, for our sake, don’t make a habit of going out dressed on your own late at night. It’s not really safe.” Perhaps I should warn her of the scary feeling of being followed late at night, feeling someone still behind you whichever way you turned, but she’ll learn soon enough and it’ll put a stop to many more night time jaunts,

“And at home…?” The question hangs unspoken.

“No, that hasn’t changed. But we’ve learned how to compromise, and give each other time and space to do our own things, even if this is one thing we still can’t share. I still wish, of course, though not without much real hope. It would be nice (big understatement) to be accepted rather than merely acknowledged and tolerated. Birthdays and Christmas can still be tough. Outside the house, though, I can be a bit more open, less guarded.”

“Do other people know about you/Susie/us?”

“A few. It means not always having to pretend or cover up any longer any, which is a relief.”

“How many? Who?”

“Sis initially, then big brother. Not mum though.” I don’t say what provoked that first drunken coming out. It’ll be too much to cope with. I’m not sure I can reply on the MIB memory wipe thing, and there are some thing you shouldn’t know in advance, especially family bereavements.

“Two or three people in fandom who we’ve known for years. I think you can guess who. Then three people on the new Pride Committee at work when I first joined. Rather more now since I attended the last Witney Pride March as Susie. The family don’t know about that one yet, though.”

“You did what?!”

“I thought it was time I lived up to the slogan on the company’s Pride t-shirt -“Bring Your True Self to Work’. OK it wasn’t work exactly, but we had a banner and a place in the march as one the sponsors, and a stall at the event. Although nothing’s been said about it since.”

She’s starting to fade a bit and go transparent. I can see part of the wall behind her. Her coffee remains untouched.

I’m aware I’m talking to much. But there's so much to tell her. To reassure her.

“Listen”, I say. “It’ll be alright. I’m -you’ll be – happy. Or if not happy, content. Just stay away from TERFs and right wing politics and media. Not that I need to tell you that. There’s an anti-trans backlash coming. It won’t be pretty. But real people will have a lot more important things to worry about than whether the unusually tall woman walking along the canal path or in a park, shopping or waiting at a bus stop is trans or not. You’ll do all of those in time, and more. Though you still need to be wary of teenage girls in groups. On their own there’s no problem, they’re usually too busy looking at their phone to even notice you, but in groups of three or four they seem to develop a collective t-dar that can result in odd looks or giggles that can be a bit unsettling. Older women, though, are quite happy to chat to you at a bus stop or in a queue without giving any indication of anything amiss.”

“T-dar?”

“Sorry. Trans radar. It’s a term I picked up from a friend. You’ll develop one of your own because we are constantly watching people around us for clues as to how to try and fit in. You can’t help it.”

“You’ll have good days. Euphoric ones even. Ones you’ll look back on and remember fondly. You’ll have a bucket list of things you want to do as Susie and see a lot of those ticked off. Days out in the park, visits to art exhibitions, museums and church sales, tea rooms, shopping.”

I open the phone and scroll through folders of photos of Susie out at different times and places.

“Wow. That’s quite a lot. I see what you mean about dressing down when out. That little red number would attract all sorts of unwanted attention.”

“Outside of our private fantasies, yes.” We haven’t changed that much it seems, though it now requires a longer stretch of imagination from my perspective than it would from hers. In 2015 she could still get away with something that short without her internal critic muttering something about mutton and lamb.

“And as someone pointed out recently, as a group we are notoriously prone to self documenting. But then so is almost everybody else now on social media. Posting photos is a mix of holding on to and preserving the good times as well as looking for a bit of validation or reassurance. Plus, it has to be said, an element of narcissism.”

I point the phone at her and take a quick snap.

“That’s strange.” She’s not there. Not in the photo anyway, although I can still see her sitting across from me even if I can see most of the wall behind her now. I’ve heard of camera shy (try getting non-Susie me in a group photo) but this is taking it to an extreme. Struck by a sudden thought, I turn the camera around a take a quick selfie. No, I’m still there. I wince a bit and delete it. Not that this really proves anything. Dreams have their own peculiar logic. If this is a dream. I can never remember my dreams anyway, except as short disconnected fragments. And aren’t ghosts supposed to be scary and bring dire warnings rather than appearing as nervous figures from the past looking for reassurance? Or is it me that’s looking for reassurance, that while not perfect, things have actually turned out to be OK after all, or at least something I am reasonably comfortable with? It’s nearly three am now and my brain really isn’t up to this.

She’s almost disappeared now. I wonder what will happen when she’s finally gone. Which of us will wake up and remember any of this?

I can still just about see her. I’m tempted to give her a hug before she goes but I don’t know what would happen or whether it would freak her out. And then it’s too late.

“It’s nearly two in the morning for Christ’s sake”, I hear someone say before the room floods with light.

*****

This was partly inspired by an article written by a friend of mine about an imaginary conversation with her younger self in a dream. Then though my Tumblr page is long deleted my account seems to be still active and sent me an email to remind me that Susie turned 9 on the 18 July, around the same time I started this blog, and the two came together and set me thinking about what had happened in the time between then and now.

xx

S

A good day

Yesterday was a good day. In fact it's a been a good week all told.
L was away for the day and warned in advance what time she would be back (she was late - she's always late).
I did an early shop and trawl of the local charity shops in man mode. I was rootling around in a box of odds and sods and found a white box. When I looked inside there was an ash blonde bob wig inside. The box was marked at £3.45 (!) so there was no way it wasn't coming home with me.
And Friday I left work a bit earlier than normal which gave me an hour to trawl the shops before they closed. I was hoping to find a pair a flats, but nothing approaching my size (instead I found a pair of black flats, size 8, in Sainsbury of all places). But browsing the racks in Helen Douglas  house I found a white peplum dress marked at a fiver. No way was that not coming home either.
I don't have a problem buying female clothes as a male. I realised a long time ago that most assistants really don't care or pay much attention, and attempted excuses that you're buying for someone else (who just happens to be your size) are likely to be pretty transparent. A sale is a sale. If there is private gossip in the local charity shops that I'm the guy who sometimes buys women's clothes, then I've not heard it, and frankly I no longer care.
The weekend before that I ventured into town - again looking for some more comfortable flats - and instead found a stunning red peplum dress. (Are you beginning to detect a pattern here?) It's a bit short (mid thigh) and racy and not something you'd go to the shops in, but who says we have to practical and sensible all the time. It's also rather low in the back. I really ought to get a backless bra or one of those multiway things, as I have no natural assets up top. I must have a look on amazon.

I've noticed I go through cyclic clothing obsessions, often based on something I've noticed other women wearing that has struck me as particularly stylish or attractive. A while ago it was cowl neck sweaters and sweater dresses (I would still love to find one in soft white wool), then it was shrugs. I don't know where the peplum thing started, but it crystallised with the girl on the bus on the way in to work. I usually sit behind her, and noticed after a couple of week that she had a set of around seven or eight very stylish  jackets and tops that she would cycle through. One of those was a white zip front peplum jacket (she has another in orange and another in a nice floral design) that I would be tempted to mug her for if it wasn't at least a size too small and she didn't look so good in it.

So anyway, home again, home again, with whole day to myself, a couple of new outfits and a new wig to try out. Can a day get better?
Weirdly though, while I spent most of the day catching up on Susie's blogs (I have my first ever comment. Yay! Thank you Lynne) I settled for a rather more restrained black top and leggings with a pair of low(ish) heels.

Even having to change back, scrub my face off and tidy everything away by mid-evening when I expected L to return, to have her turn up over an hour later, didn't manage to kill my mood.

Trans and the Uncanny Valley

“Whether it’s the skin, the voice, or the way it moves, we can tell the [robot] is attempting but failing to pass for human and that gives us the heebie jeebies”. Thus comments researcher Masahiro Mori on the uncanny valley that forms when something attempts to pass for something it isn’t but doesn’t quite get it right. The discrepancy between what we expect to see and the reality gives rise to a feeling of creepiness and sometimes revulsion. We are OK, and often amused, when the mimicry is an obvious pastiche, such as a toy, but become unnerved at a point when the mimicry becomes too realistic. Beyond that, when the mimicry is so perfect that we can no longer make a distinction, we relax.

The uncanny valley.

Mori, a professor of engineering, proposed the uncanny valley as a thought experiment for robot design, and how we would interact with them. (The recent Channel 4 series Humans exemplifies this perfectly.)

But it has also been used in psychology in a paper by Frank E Pollick of the Department of Psychology at Glasgow to explain (seriously) why we are sometimes unnerved by clowns (Capgras Syndrome).

And it could also have a bearing on passing and trans-people. People are unnerved, frightened, and can sometimes react abusively or violently if their perception of a transperson falls in this uncanny valley (which may be different for different people). And as the uncanny valley shows, you only need to be a little off in appearance, voice, gait or behavior. Drag queens, comedian Eddie Izzard and artist Grayson Perry (in his Claire persona) are on the left side of the scale. Theirs is a performance rather than an attempt to pass. Caitlyn Jenner, along with many successful transwomen, appears to have passed though the valley and out the other side. But the valley is a real trap for the weekend crossdresser, especially if they like to go out occasionally.

If on these occasions you find yourself in the valley, this suggests two possible strategies, depending how good you look and how comfortable you feel, that can push you to one side or the other. The first is the Eddie Izzard/ Grayson Perry approach, “Yes, bloke in a dress. So what? Deal with it.” The other, as many suggest, is to practice a confident attitude and walk in sensible clothes and comfortable shoes on the basis that if you don’t look nervous and self-conscious, and you don’t obviously frighten the horses, then most people probably won’t give you a second glance.