5. Surviving Counselling
My goal – a flat chest.
I was sick of wearing two bras that didn’t have the effect I wanted anyway. Nothing to do with what anyone thought of me when they looked at me. If I were the only person on earth, I would want a flat chest. When people did look at my breasts, I felt worse. Some guys online described it as shame. To me, shame describes what you felt when you did something that hurt someone or had bad consequences. It wasn’t shame, it was extreme discomfort. And I was officially sick of it.
Use it or lose it. That’s what coaches say about muscles, but I’m talking breasts here.
There were ways to bind my chest. I decided Gran’s party was the last time my breasts would be visible in public. Since then I’d tried sports bandages, the springy kind with a sort of sticky film on them. It worked okay in my bedroom, but even after an hour of messing around on guitar everything had slipped downwards and it looked like a saggy bra. Sometimes one layer slipped and bits poked through.
After that I tried cling film, which would be okay in the middle of winter, but not the heat of a summer. It made me feel like leftover meat.
To: Finn
Re: Where can I get a binder? Locally?
Dude! You need to check these guys out, they make vests and stuff that you can flip up so they double-bind your chest. If you’re about a B then they’ll be fine. They make all sorts of stuff – have a look at the website.
I clicked the link. This company certainly did make all sorts of things, including the big undies for women who wanted to look thinner and a bunch of singlets made of really strong spandex. Problem: no credit card. Plus I hadn’t come out to anyone yet so there was nowhere to send mystery packages. Mum was too nosey about mail to have it sent here.
I could have gone down to the bank and signed up for a credit card. Or applied online. Then waited weeks to be processed and approved. I’d already had enough of waiting.
Looked like it would be another DIY job.
Alone at home, I shuffled into Mum’s sewing room and dug through piles of fabrics she’d accumulated. Calico, curtain material, linen, ugly polyester for making who-knows-what. Where do you even buy this stuff? Eventually, I hit pay dirt with some black and pink striped spandex from Mum’s Pilates exercise phase. I could use her machine while she was at work and she’d never know.
First, I emailed back.
From Finn:
Re Dude! Thanx for the link. Due to lack of credit card, designing my own label. If turns out well, I’ll patent it and make millions!
As I sewed my first DIY double binder, the mid-afternoon sun streamed through the windows and I thought back to my weekly sewing classes at school. I learnt a bit in that class and it wasn’t all about DIY sewing. My education was about handling bullies, and about how I didn’t. But maybe I was a bully once, too.
There was a boy called Aaron who liked me and was always trying to show off to me. One time he kept following me in the corridors and I grabbed his forehead and shoved his head back, and it happened to hit a door jamb, though I didn’t mean it to.
‘OWWWHHH!’
He was a lot more subtle after that and didn’t follow me again.
A few weeks later, we were in sewing class and Aaron nearly electrocuted himself. I was trying to put together what was supposed to be a baseball jacket with white sleeves and a zip up the front. I never finished it. Probably just as well.
The ‘temporary’ portable classroom had been there for years and was used for noisy classes. Our sewing class qualified all right. One hundred per cent noise. It was a fun way to spend the long hot afternoons with all the windows open.
‘How do I make a button hole?’
‘What goes in here?’
‘The zip’s stuck.’
‘My machine’s gone mental.’
Sniggering, the boys made more noise and fuss in this class than any other, while the girls just got on with sewing, asking the teacher how to do things and trying to create something, but with loud questions and demands.
‘Need some help with pinning this, Miss.’
‘How do I cut this pattern?’
‘Which stitch do I use?’
It was a few weeks into the term and we’d decided what we were making and had our patterns cut out. Now it was time to attempt to sew things together. I was pinning the various parts of the jacket together, wrestling with the concept of ‘seam allowances’ and trying not to stab myself with the pins. The girls were rating each other’s work.
‘Nice, that’s a really awesome top,’ Jax, the ‘popular’ leader of the pack said to another girl in a tone that made no attempt to hide jealousy.
‘Oh, yours is so much better, Jax,’ the recipient of this ‘compliment’ replied, obviously lying. They carried on appraising each other’s work.
Eventually they came over to me and gave me ‘the look’ that I’d grown to know and dread. A mixture of derision and slight horror, which added up to extreme criticism.
‘What are you making, Skye? Are those sleeves a different colour?’ Jax demanded.
‘It’s a baseball jacket ...’ I mumbled, wishing they would leave me alone.
‘Oh. Do you play baseball?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. So why are you making a baseball jacket?’ She turned to the group with a pitying look. They took the cue and copied.
I hated this. Why couldn’t she leave me alone? I said nothing and stared at my half-finished jacket.
‘Well?’
I shrugged and kept staring.
‘Hmph,’ Jax snorted, and moved on to Marla.
‘Ohmigod, Marla’s making something black! We’d better call the newspapers.’ Jax turned to her cronies and they all tittered.
‘Come on, girls, be supportive of each other’s work,’ the teacher called out, without lifting her head from the magazine she was reading.
‘No really Marla, I love it. Could you make me one?’ Jax bent down and stroked the fabric.
‘Don’t touch it!’ Marla jumped to her feet. The cronies took a step back; Jax didn’t move.
‘Jax, girls, get back to work.’ The teacher’s tone had more irritation.
Jax and Marla glared at each other as the pack slowly moved away.
‘What do you think of mine?’ One of the boys down the back held up a T-shirt with sleeves of obviously different lengths that had bunched up where he’d sewed it back on itself. He was there because he’d been kicked out of woodwork and metalwork for stuffing around with the machinery. Plus two accidents involving the first-aid teacher who never wanted to see him again.
‘Keep trying, it looks great,’ one of the girls said sarcastically. Jax nodded, her blonde hair falling across her face.
They looked around for more entertainment and spotted Brad. The other boys were noisy, but his head was bent over in concentration and his machine whirred steadily then slowed and stopped. He flicked off the switch and drew out a black vest made of four panels.
The girls whispered to each other. Jax swooped in and grabbed Brad’s pinned-up work-in-progress, put her arms in the holes, and swaggered down the aisle between the desks like she was on a catwalk. Jax reached the teacher’s desk and spun on her heel then flounced back down the aisle. Brad’s desk was surrounded with every girl in the class but Marla and me.
‘Hey, Brad’s vest design is cool!’
‘Let’s see it Brad. Need a model?’
Brad lapped it up.
‘Brad, you could wear that vest for racing on the track!’ Jax teased. We all knew Brad had a weekend job down the racetrack, cleaning cars. His dad worked there, too.
Somehow the mood switched from cruelty to popularity, and Brad was temporarily the centre of attention, because Jax decided that he should be. I knew what had happened, and I’d been an on-the-spot reporter for bullying, but didn’t know how to control it. There was no way I could influence how others thought about me. As an outsider, I’d just have to find ways of coping with gang disapproval. Jax as the powerful leader of the ‘in’ group was the sort of girl who could ‘out’ me. So I kept quiet, out of cowardice or maybe just survival, knowing that if I crossed her, she’d attack. Jax knew how to get people to do what she wanted. That was a skill I hadn’t learnt yet.
They all switched attitudes to Brad after that, except for Aaron who cut an electrical cord with scissors and caused a huge bang that fried the machine’s motor. He wasn’t allowed back in the class, ever.
Jax left me alone after she left school and got a job in the Mall. Sort of expected her to get some girlie job where she could wear false lashes and frilly, short skirts. Bit of a shock to see her wearing an oldie, white uniform, with a demo tray of food in the supermarket, trying to get shoppers to taste Yuk Yoghurt. She loved having a microphone to tell them what to do. But they didn’t seem to be buying much.
Still, I learnt enough sewing skills back then to make a binder now I needed one. This wasn’t the kind of project where I could ask Mum for help.
***
Standing in front of the door to Greer’s office, I felt suddenly apprehensive. This was a bad idea. She wasn’t going to know anything about what I’m going through. There might even be all the same stuff Marla went on about, how I should admit I’m a lesbian and just get on with finding a girlfriend. Marla wasn’t the only one who got it wrong.
Had I made a bad decision?
I read the label on the door four times. Greer Knight, Counsellor. Hours: 11am–4pm Monday to Thursday.
We’d never actually spoken, but had played a brief game of phone tag during the week. After my first message she left one on my mobile phone with a suggested time and the address of her office, then I called back and agreed to it, this time leaving my name as Finn.
I took a deep breath and knocked. Waited a while and knocked again, then tried the door. It was locked.
What was going on? Was it the right day? I’d checked a million times. I fumbled in my backpack for my phone to check again, but just then the door opened and a short woman smiled faintly at me.
‘So sorry, I was caught up on the phone. Finn?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Someone had called me Finn for real. An invisible layer fell away.
‘I’m Greer. Come in.’
She stood back and motioned for me to come inside. I hesitated. Her manner wasn’t all that welcoming. Her black hair was cut short in a random sort of style, if you could call it that. She was wearing a string tie. I’m hardly a fashion guru, but there was something off-putting about the tie. And the green vest. Knowing I couldn’t stand there all day, I went through into her office.
We stood for a few seconds looking at each other in silence. This wasn’t the greatest start. I was already nervous and the lack of words in the room wasn’t helping.
Finally she said, ‘Come through.’ She led the way into her consulting room. I followed, with every part of my body not working right, and super-conscious that I didn’t want to bump into anything and be labelled clumsy, even before we started.
With the big comfy lounge chairs and knick-knacks on bookshelves, it felt more like someone’s study or spare room than a therapist’s office. Weren’t they supposed to have one of those leather couches with a pillow-arm at one end, for me to lie on and talk about how crazy I am? I’m not here because I’m crazy though. I guess I didn’t really have a picture of what gender counselling would look like.
‘Take a seat,’ she said.
Sinking into the chair, I was suddenly acutely aware of my chest, as often happened when I sat down. Everything gets bigger then as it’s all pushed upwards. Could she tell I was serious about transitioning? Did I need to prove myself? I hadn’t got my spandex binder tight enough yet so I’d used bandages, but they felt useless. Not enough protection. I was on show, and she was going to judge whether I was worth helping.
‘I’ll just get you to fill this in.’ Greer took a clipboard and pen from behind a lounge chair and handed them to me with a faint smile. ‘Put whatever details you’re comfortable sharing.’
Greer looked out the window while I wrote my details on the photocopied form. Another first – writing the name ‘Finn’ on a form, and the gender ‘Male’. There were no boxes for gender, only a dotted line. Why couldn’t all forms be like this? The rest of the questions were quite boring. Address, phone, job – I like to write ‘none’ instead of ‘unemployed’, no job through choice, not the un-state of employed, like it’s essential for my very existence on earth. I passed the form over and Greer spent a minute or two studying it.
‘Well, thanks for coming in,’ she said, looking up. ‘I’m just going to ask you a few questions to see where you’re at. Then I’ll outline my methods and the process I’ll be taking you through, if you decide to work with me. Is that okay?’
I nodded. Work with her? Were we building a boat? I had thought this would be about me talking about my problems. She hadn’t even asked me anything about my gender.
‘So, how did you find me?’
‘Um ... I called Sexual Health.’
‘Oh. That’s odd, I don’t think I know anyone there. Well, that’s fate, isn’t it?’
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
‘Are you still at school?’
‘No, I finished last year.’
‘Do you live alone?’
‘No, I live with my parents.’
‘Do they know about your desire to transition?’ she asked, more gently. ‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
I stared into the patterned rug, which had suddenly become very interesting. Did it matter? This was my time, my transition. Who was I kidding? Of course family opinion mattered, but I didn’t want to admit not telling them because I was scared to. That would make me seem a coward.
‘It’s okay if they don’t know at the moment. We can talk about the best way to tell them, when you’re ready to. I can help you with that.’
‘I’m ready now!’ The words burst out, surprising me. ‘But I don’t know how. I don’t know what they’ll say. They seem cool, but ...’ I couldn’t think of what exactly I was afraid of. I was just afraid. Anything could happen. ‘What if they stop me from doing it?’
‘I’m fairly sure they can’t do that,’ Greer said in a way that left no doubt that she was utterly sure. ‘It’s your process; it’s between you and the medical practitioners. You’re eighteen – you’re legally empowered to make your own decisions.’
Greer leaned back, dangling her hands over the ends of the chair arms. She seemed so relaxed. I leaned back, too, and soaked up the relaxing vibes.
‘Let me explain some things about gender identity and the medical process.’
She spoke for some time about the medical system, using quite a few terms I didn’t understand and some I’d seen on the forums, but didn’t know what they meant. I knew GID stood for Gender Identity Disorder. It was in my song. Greer talked about Harry Benjamin, a doctor who specialised in transgender patients. I hoped I could find one like him, but he seemed far away like Sigmund Freud. Greer asked if I would like a copy of his Standards. I had lost the thread of what she was saying so I nodded. Perhaps I would work it out by reading it, whatever it was. I could always look up things I didn’t understand on the internet.
GID. It was like speaking in code. I hadn’t yet fully grasped the cipher.
Alphabet Code. A title? Alpha Code? That was an idea for my lyrics. But maybe Alpha meant something else, not just the beginning?
Omega meant the end.
Finn meant the end, too, but maybe the beginning for a new me.
There was a lyric there, for later.
Greer wound up her monologue on the medical side of transition. She really had lost me in there. Too many new words, and no idea how it all applied to me. I had my doctor’s appointment for my referral coming up. Beyond that was still hazy and now it seemed complicated. I was drowning in words.
‘So, what would you like to do? Would you like to work with me?’
I nodded. ‘Yes,’ my voice stated emphatically for me. I had no solid ground to walk on, and something told me Greer would help me find some.
***
Sitting alone in Sophie’s garage, which was also her occasional second bedroom, and where we hung out, I waited for the band to show up. Once again it was great to drive over without watching for cops. I don’t speed, the van would shake too much, so now there was no reason to be pulled over.
Sophie was probably inside the house, but if I went to check I’d end up trapped in a conversation with her parents whose only interest was working. Their standard question was, ‘And how’s work? Did you ...?’ End of conversation.
She’d be out soon enough.
I always feel like I should be ‘practising’ or going over my stuff before we play together. Silly really, because we’re a punk band – no one’s rating us on our musical abilities. I forced myself to relax and read magazines instead. It was pretty comfortable in the beanbags, and the garage had been carpeted and insulated. There was a sliding glass door linking through to the house.
Marla showed up first with the stage sign we’d made crammed into a reusable supermarket bag. She came straight from work, which was convenient for me as I didn’t have to organise a lift, and was also slightly hilarious because she was still in her blue supermarket uniform, looking like an ad for ‘how not to turn up to work’. Complete with her name tag with ‘have a nice day’ actually written on it, and nose jewellery taped up with plasters.
‘Ugh, I HATE this uniform. Do they make them uncomfortable and unflattering on purpose?
I agreed. Worse than the one Jax had to wear to demo Yuk Yoghurt.
‘Yeah. Probs,’ I said.
She whipped her uniform off over her head and flung it to the floor in one swift move, and stood there in her underwear, hands on hips, staring at Sophie’s clothes.
I went back to my magazine. I’d given up telling Marla it’s a little strange for me to see her in her underwear – it prompts her to rant about how we should be proud of our bodies. She doesn’t understand why it weirds me out, which is understandable – I’ve only just worked it out myself. If she saw me as male, she wouldn’t do it.
‘Crap, I should have brought something to change into. Oh well, Sophie won’t mind.’
Marla grabbed a torn white T-shirt and patched black denim skirt off a clothes rack held up with duct tape and pulled them on. At once, the glass door slid open and a blonde head poked in.
‘Am I late?’ Katie asked, frowning. Katie was so paranoid about everything, and not just minutes late. She stepped inside. Marla and I blinked at her burst of colour. Rainbow stripes from head to toe – a rainbow neon dress and striped socks. The only item distinguishing her from a knitted door-snake was her Doc Marten boots, and even those were bright blue.
‘Jeez Katie, did you get dressed in the dark?’ Marla snorted at her own joke.
Katie glared, dropped her bag and stomped over to the drum kit in the corner. She sat down heavily on the creaky stool and bashed out an intro from hell. Katie didn’t shout or swear – she said it with drums.
That jolted me out of the beanbag. This was what I came for! I flipped the top of my hard case and took out my Fender. The sparkled scratch plate shone against the black body. White scratch plates were so fifties. This one rocked. It was the opposite of my crappy old electric with stickers and band names scrawled all over it that barely worked. This one was pristine and that was exactly how it would stay. Vic had his car; I had my Fender. But he drove slowly. And I played fast and loud.
I plugged in.
‘SCREEE-wowowowow-WIII-kachunk –’
Not quite the sound I was aiming for, but it did impress the crowd of two. Katie and Marla both cheered in unison and went ‘Awwww’ when I pulled the lead out. Examining the amp I mumbled curses on a thousand generations of Sophie’s family. Kicked myself for not checking – she had fiddled with the dials during the week. The door slid open one more time and Sophie came in rubbing her cropped wet hair with a towel.
‘That sounded cool,’ she observed.
‘It could have sounded like nothing very soon. Don’t leave it turned up so loud, or it’ll blow the speaker.’ I was pissed off.
‘Well, you should check before you turn it on.’
I grunted. Sophie was right. I turned everything down and plugged in again. Tuned up with the volume down low while Marla showed Sophie our painted sign.
‘Check it out, this is awesome!’ Sophie waved for Katie to come over.
I wanted to sulk, but they were loving the sign we had made so much I wanted in on the praise. Nothing brings me out of a sulk faster than a good word or ten.
‘Oooh, it’s so cool! Can you make one for the kick drum to match?’ Katie asked, her eyes wide. She looked at Marla as if she’d just painted the Mona Lisa.
We really had done well. The outline of the band name was my contribution, mainly because I couldn’t trust Marla to spell it right and not put an apostrophe in ‘Cramps’. Then Marla had drawn flying skulls and flaming feminist symbols all around it and made it look like the letters were bleeding. Underneath all that the words ‘all-girl’, ‘feminist’ and ‘collective’ were scattered around.
I was proud of us, but felt a niggling doubt in the back of my mind that this was the beginning of the end. All-girl. If they knew I was going to transition, would they still want me in an all-girl band? All the cool signs in the world wouldn’t get them to accept that. I wouldn’t fit on the sign any more, and there would be other places I’d no longer be welcome either.
Marla took over the beanbag and we got started. Sophie ran the show, and that included practice.
‘Okay, what’s first?’
We cranked through a few songs.
Should I offer my lyrics, or was it too early to go public? Maybe I shouldn’t say anything? It would get us talking about it if I did ...
‘I’ve got a new one ... Not sure of the title yet, so I’ve called it FTM. It’s a kind of alphabet song.’
‘Alphabet songs! Didn’t we finish with them in kindergarten? My mum used to get mad when I kept saying Z the American way instead of Zed. That was when she was anti-Yank because of her ex-boyfriend,’ said Sophie.
‘Not just an alphabet. Sort of like a shorthand. Letters are short for words, by different groups. Acronyms. Like their own secret language.’
‘If it’s a secret language, the audience won’t get it,’ said Katie.
‘How many people know the original words to most songs?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, like the national anthem ... Did you learn the rude version at your primary school?’ Katie grinned.
Sophie shook her head. ‘Give Skye a chance to explain. Why’s it called FTM? Is it like a chemical, H2O or something?’
‘Give us a demo Skye. Sing it.’
Usually they don’t have to ask me twice. I like sharing my songs, even my new, not-quite-finished ones. But this was different. These were lyrics, and this song meant something to me. It was my voice. It was my life. Would they get it? Would they be able to see things my way?
They knew me, and they might not understand how important this could be for me. What enormous change would there be for me as a male with strangers, if even my friends didn’t understand the importance of what I was saying?
I picked my way through the sea of cables to the microphone and cleared my throat. So nervous. Turned my guitar down so they could hear the words and started strumming.
F-T-M, 2-B-I
Changing my look to match what’s inside
Never gonna wear a dress
Binding up to look my best
Tell everyone I know that they can say goodbye
I’m F-T-M, but U-C-F
Every little girlie thing makes me stressed
The doctors give shots of T
And chop me up with surgery
So I can finally be me
From now until eternity
F-T-M, F-T-M!
There was a heavy silence while the amp hummed.
‘I don’t get it,’ said Katie. ‘What was that about shots of tea?’
‘It’s about testosterone, the hormone.’
‘Testosterone? What would you want to sing about THAT for?’
Testosterone was a dirty word around here. The ugly hormone that made men violent and angry.
‘Well, it is a hormone found in half the population.’
‘So what does FTM mean?’
Deep breath. ‘Female to male.’
‘What? You’re not male.’
‘I’m going to be male,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘I’m going to take hormones and be male.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Why would anyone want to be male?’ asked Katie.
‘I don’t want to be, I just am. I always have been, on the inside. I want to be male on the outside, too.’
‘Wow, that’s totally subversive. It’s like you’re messing with the dominant male paradigm by infiltrating society as the opposite gender,’ Marla said excitedly. She read a lot of feminist theory and liked to use big words wherever possible.
‘You make me sound like a spy.’
Sophie interrupted. ‘Instead of FTM, why don’t you call the song F-2-M, with a number two? Sort of like it’s going somewhere. And things are changing.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘F2m; that’s how you’d text it.’ That was better than being a spy, and I knew she was offering me more than a song title. She didn’t understand, either, but she was trying. And that was enough for now.
‘Maybe we could perform it next gig. You sing it,’ said Sophie, ‘and we’ll play.’
Sophie had pushed it too far.
Marla exploded.
‘You’ve got to be joking. No one would understand the song, or the words, or even what Skye wants to do. How can we be the Chronic Cramps if one of us is ... isn’t one hundred per cent female?’
‘Since when are you in the band?’ Sophie asked. She played this card whenever she wanted Marla to shut up. It had the opposite effect.
Marla glared at her briefly then turned to me.
‘You never said anything about this before.’
I was really in the spotlight now, interrogated. ‘I never knew about it. I mean, I never knew I could do anything about it until now.’ A flash of sadness hit as those words came out of me. What if I’d known earlier about transitioning? I’d be male already, so I wouldn’t be standing here. I felt even sadder at that prospect. These were my friends. Weren’t they?
‘You’re only doing it because of what other people think,’ Marla said. ‘You just need to be more confident as a woman.’
‘Marla, if I were the only person on earth, I’d still have to do this.’
Marla’s face was now seriously red with emotion.
‘SSSSKYYYYEEE!’
Outraged at something beyond her, Marla turned on me. It was something she couldn’t understand, so she attacked as the quick form of defence. I sort of understood, but didn’t know how to handle it or what to say.
‘And what’s this UCF bit? Undercover female?’ Marla demanded.
‘No, it means, “you see” –’
‘That’s it. If this isn’t a girl band, I’m outta here.’ Marla shoved her uniform into a supermarket bag and stomped out, attempting to slam the sliding door behind her, which instead caught on the thick mic cable and hissed to a halt.
The girls stared at me. I looked down at my guitar.
Finally Katie spoke gently. ‘Do you want to keep going with practice? We can do our other songs.’
I nodded and shuffled back over to my spot near the guitar amp. Really I just wanted to go home and put my head under the covers. I was used to Marla’s hotheaded outbursts, but this stung. Marla was mad at me for something I couldn’t control. It was as if she was accusing me of being a bad friend. Or a hypocrite. As if I were faking something. But I wasn’t. Sophie and Katie didn’t understand either. What hope was there that strangers would understand Finn if no one understood Skye?