Chapter 2

By the time I had discovered the announcement for the conference, the deadline for registering had passed, and my application and deposit were returned with a polite email denial. However, I was informed that I could contact Dave, the conference organizer, directly to plead my case. Feeling quite a bit of urgency (I really wanted to go now, my stubbornness had kicked in), I emailed this Dave person and begged him to let me in. I included my telephone number. That evening Dave called me. Oh, he sounded just like a typical gay swish, high whiney voice and all, but I kept my snort of laughter silent. Yes, he had a room available at the college where the conference would be held, but that location was about 45 minutes away from the Orlando airport. Unfortunately, the shuttle buses were booked full, and I couldn't catch a ride on one to get to the campus. Unless I had the funds to afford the hundred dollar cab fare (um, my funds were stretched very tight just then, I shouldn't have even been trying to pay for the conference itself), he could only suggest one alternative. He himself was driving down from Ohio, and he could swing by the airport late on the arrivals day. It would be up to me to pick a flight that would put me in at the closest time. Despite Dave's swishy sounding nature, he was very nice, and we seemed to connect during our conversation. I looked forward to meeting a gay man on an even playing field.

After getting off the phone, I gritted my teeth and called my brother Lane. My brother, the red neck alcoholic knock off of my homophobic, misogynistic, brutal father (ahemmmmm), was working in the public relations department of a major American airline at that time. One of his perks included very low cost air travel for his immediate family, including siblings. I really didn't get along with him, but I couldn't afford to fly with my entirely depleted savings account. I told Lane I wanted to go to a Quaker conference in Florida, and he was rather surprised I wanted to have anything to do with a religious outfit. For Lane, my wilder younger days meant I was damned to hell forever, never mind those days were 15 to 20 years in the past at the time I was asking for the tickets. I carefully said nothing about the gathering being a Quaker conference for the queer community; I just cheerfully chatted about how nice it was to have the event in Florida now that it was winter. He agreed to put in my travel request, and when he called back, he told me my tickets would be ready at check in on the day of my travel.

I got through Christmas, somehow, on my own, and it really wasn't too bad. I had a nice day of contemplation, and I cooked myself a pretty passable meal. Two days later I drove to the airport, boarded a plane, and flew to Orlando.

Once I got there, I waited in front of the terminal for the car Dave told me he would be driving. The air felt really hot after the winter temperatures of the north. Dave showed up about half an hour later, and two other people who had been waiting greeted him, too. We were the last minute registrants who had been squeaked onto the attendee list by the goodness of Dave's heart.

We all chatted merrily along as we drove to the site. I really started to like Dave and the other guys, despite their obvious gayness. They were funny, and they didn't seem to take themselves very seriously. Unlike the men I had known to this time, even the gay men, these guys were not jockeying for position with each other. They included me in their talk, but they were a little reticent toward me. Well, even I understood that I didn't share the same story and hadn't had the same experiences, as they had. I tried to not let it get me down.

When we arrived, I was checked in and given a key to my dorm room. We had gotten there just before dinner, so unpacking got put off while we ate. After dinner, I was walking to my dorm when I passed Dave unloading his car. I went to help him, and found him trying to haul out a sewing machine. I looked at him, and I looked at the sewing machine, and I burst out laughing. I couldn't imagine a guy dragging a sewing machine along with him, or even wanting to use one. I cringe now at my internalized homophobia and gender rigidity at that time. Dave at first looked really hurt, then his face hardened and he stopped speaking to me. I had erected an unbreachable wall between us, and I knew it at once.

I was a lot more unsure of myself after that gaff. I came back to the cafeteria which was the main gathering room for the conference. At one end, some folks had set up a TV and a VCR, and put in a movie. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert came on, and it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Men, pretending to be women just because it was fun, and the lead character wanting to actually be a woman - well, something big was stirring in me, a combination of excitement and nausea. I was caught between wanting to run away and wanting to paste my nose to the screen. As a counterpart, Dave and several of his buddies, many fully bearded, had set up the sewing machine at the other end of the room, and were screaming with hilarity as they stitched this and that piece of gauzy finery. They threw the garments back and forth to each other, tried them on and generally had a ball. It was reaching that weird level of surreality again, and I was having trouble breathing. I made it through the movie, but then I escaped to my room for the evening. I was not a gay man. I was not a gay man. I was not a gay man. Why was this affecting me so? MY BODY WAS NOT MALE.

The kick-off event for the conference was a full Quaker worship in the cafeteria the next morning after breakfast. I went down early to eat. Several additional people had arrived by car since the previous night. When I walked into the room, I saw a huge line backer shaped person, whom I interpreted to be a man in a dress, standing talking to a couple of other attendees. I said to myself, "Oh, no, there's going to be men in dresses here," and I felt disgust, fear, and fascination. I decided, for whatever reason, to directly confront the person. I walked up, and that person turned to me mid-sentence and looking up and down at my face, raised her eyebrows (I remember this so very, very clearly). The other people just melted away. I stuck out my hand, and introduced myself. She said, "Hi. I'm Joanne, and I'm a transsexual." Ohmygod. She knew somehow to start talking like mad or I was going to run away, so she immediately, out of the blue, launched into a thumbnail sketch of how she had come to know she was trans and about her transition. In about 10 minutes, she told my story. I mean, she described never being at home in her body, never knowing what was wrong, never being able to connect to her real feelings and sensations until she transitioned and felt simply at home inside for the first time ever in her life. The first part of her story was me to a T, in reverse, me not experiencing my female body as my own, whereas Joanne had not fit into the male body she had been born into.

I didn't immediately accept that I was trans. I didn't even really understand what being transsexual meant, I didn't know until I spoke with Joanne that it was even POSSIBLE for there to be female to male transsexuals. Oh yes, she assured me, about 50% of all transsexuals begin life as female. I was dumbfounded.

The conference was three days long. For three days, Joanne and I wandered the grounds, talking nonstop. We didn't attend the scheduled meetings or workshops, we simply walked and talked. I remember at one point standing a yard or two away from an alligator zoned out in the sun on the edge of the water, a foot high concrete wall between the monster and us, listening to Joanne. I never said to her, much less myself, that I might be a transsexual. It just felt like I was obsessed with Joanne's story. At one point, she reached up and brushed a strand of hair from in front of my eyes, and said, "You're the reason I come to events like these." I am sad to say that trans people had not been treated very well by the Gay community, not even at Quaker meetings, and Joanne had been battling transphobia within the queer branch of the Quaker religion for some time. It took courage to keep trying, and she was trying to tell me that I was part of the reason she was doing it. I didn't understand why she said this.

On the last day, she insisted that we go to closing worship, pointing out that we hadn't attended any of the conference. Quaker worship of the Hicksite tradition is like attending church, except it is held in silence without a minister or leader. People sit in worship of the God within their deep selves, called the Inner Light, and when they feel God wish to speak, they stand up and let the Inner Light guide their words as they say them aloud. Every person is considered to be a minister in their own right because of the indwelling Light. We went to worship, and an older straight woman stood up and said she was now willing to accept the trans people among us as normal variations of the human experience. It was very powerful; she was shaking as the words poured out of her.

Afterwards, I said goodbye to Joanne with a throat almost closed in emotion, and rode to the airport with Dave and a carful of guys. They didn't talk to me, but I was lost in my own world anyway and I was hardly aware of their presence. During the flight, the air was crystal clear and the plane followed the east coast all the way up. Its serene beauty was a counterweight to the turbulent confusion within.

Upon my return, I put it all behind me. I told myself I really liked Joanne, but her situation didn't pertain to me. I tried to re-insert myself into my life as I had known it. I remained very unsettled, and I decided what was missing was a relationship to keep me stable. I was completely disconnected from myself, and was willing to expect another person to patch me up. I was about as crazy as it is possible to get and not be carted off to the asylum, well, not completely, because I got even worse later, and still wasn't hospitalized. At any rate, I put a singles ad in our local gay and lesbian newspaper. I was making a last ditch effort to fit into the role that I kept trying to play despite being wholly unsuited for it.

I got a response from a young Catholic woman. The sole daughter in a large family of boys, she had held them all together when their parents had died. Lea had been a young teenager when it had happened. As she got older, as a believing Catholic, she had briefly flirted with the idea of going into a convent upon coming of age. Instead, she moved into an apartment with a nun, at a time when nuns were coming out of the convent and living amongst the people. Lea is the most highly sexed woman I have ever known. Within a short while of them moving in together, she had seduced her roommate, the nun (I'm not making this up). For eight years, they persisted as a totally closeted couple, with the nun resisting Lea for as long as possible, then breaking down and agreeing to sex. Afterwards would come a round of self recrimination for both of them, and promises they'd never do it again. Slowly, the cycle would repeat itself. Lea decided to join the dating scene when her true love, the nun, had finally broken down and pleaded with Lea to find someone else so she, the nun, could be true to her vows. Enter me and my ad.

Lea was a hot tamale. I've always been partial to either very large or very small people. Lea fit into the first category, being shaped like Joanne but with HUGE bazoombas. Lea could have made two or three of me weightwise, and I'm no featherweight. However, what made her the hottest was her sexuality. She was a walking, talking, breathing sex bomb. Yup, a totally conflicted, guilt ridden one, too. The whole scene was pretty weird. Lea was still living with the nun, and they were like lovesick puppies trying to stay away from each other. The nun was completely wonderful to me, but every time I looked at her her eyes were filled with pain as she gazed back. I found myself trying to be a complete gentleman (!) to Lea to help her through this ridiculous situation. I brought her flowers, I took her out to meals, I touched her tenderly and put her needs always ahead of my own. It's no surprise that our relationship was filled with problems, but not all of them were of Catholic origin. The first time I tried to engage in oral sex with Lea, an old reaction occurred - I got sick to my stomach. I felt like I was going to gag. I began to go numb again, and I tried to avoid sex with her. Avoiding sex with Lea is like being an ant avoiding a steamroller bearing down, it just wasn't going to work. Rather, I took a stone butch approach, covering the fact I was numb by pretending I didn't want to get off, and not letting her do me. Other than never touching her with my mouth, I was the one using my touch or our toys to bring her to orgasm. She really loved to do it in cars, and I was always afraid we'd get caught.