Magical Thinking (5 page)

I didn’t think much about transsexuals again until I was nineteen and working in San Francisco as a junior advertising copywriter. The receptionist’s name was Amber. She was six-foot-four, black, and had Diana Ross hair . . . except that she had been born a man, so her hairline was receding, and she looked like Diana Ross after a particularly brutal round of chemo.

My transsexual obsession was rekindled. Occasionally, Amber wore brightly colored stretch pants, and I couldn’t help but stare at her crotch because the fabric dented at the hole between her legs. It didn’t make any sense to me. Surely the surgeons could have closed up the hole better than this? Her vagina seemed so large, I could easily have stuck my fist in it. Maybe she needed to go back for a revision but couldn’t afford it? This was probably the case. She’d probably saved all her money for the big operation and couldn’t afford the finishing touches. In this way it was like buying a Jeep, stripped down until there wasn’t even carpeting or an AM radio.

Amber used to eat her lunch alone, downstairs in the vendingmachine room. Her lunch was always the same thing: a gigantic
plastic tub of spaghetti with meat sauce that she brought from home and an entire bag of Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popcorn, which she microwaved and ate one kernel at a time with her long, slim fingers.

I couldn’t help but watch her gigantic Adam’s apple slide up and down as she swallowed. This seemed to me to be a dead giveaway. This, and the fact that she was six-four and balding.

I started reading every book I could find on the subject. I spent hours at night scrutinizing graphic photographs of postsurgical vaginas. I compared the clitorises created by the various doctors in America, Asia, and Europe. I learned that Amber could have a tracheal shave, where her Adam’s apple would be trimmed and made to appear more feminine. I learned that, indeed, many new women have to go back and have their new vaginas revised. And even if you have to finance it, every clitoris needs a hood.

I wanted to show Amber the articles I found but felt I better not do this, in case it upset her that she hadn’t “passed.” This is something else I learned about,
passing
. And it’s the goal of every transsexual.

A transsexual that doesn’t “pass” alarms people. I think this is because as a culture, we are uncomfortable with sex to begin with. So when we see someone who is toying with their own sex, it makes us want to grab our penises and cross our arms in front of our breasts. It threatens us in a deep, primal place in our brain stems.

One of my favorite transsexuals was named Caroline Cossey, also known as Tula. Unlike many male-to-female transsexuals, Tula didn’t look like a super-tall depressed guy in a matronly floral dress. She looked like Cindy Crawford. With a better body.

In fact, Tula was a Bond girl and a Seagram’s model before a British tabloid revealed the fact that Tula was once a guy. This horrified people, probably men who had previously engaged in
erotic fantasies of the lovely Tula only to learn she had recently been some bloke named Hal or Martin.

When I turned thirty, I briefly flirted with the notion of undergoing sexual reassignment surgery. Once again, I was ready for a big change in my life. Plus, I was having a really difficult time meeting gay guys who didn’t seem gay yet were still caustic. So I figured, as a woman I would have a whole new pool of men from which to fish.

I decided that I would probably opt for the self-lubricating vagioplasty option. This was a more expensive vagina, because it was partially constructed from a one-inch band of mucoussecreting small intestine. The plus side of this vagina was that it was, like the name implies, self-lubricating. So I wouldn’t need to give myself away and reach for the K-Y. On the downside, it was always self-lubricating, so you had to wear a maxipad at all times, even at funerals.

I wouldn’t make the same mistake that Amber had made: I would absolutely have the tracheal shave. I would also have the “facial feminization” option that was offered by a surgeon in San Francisco.

And even if the hormones made my breasts grow, I would still get saline implants. Because if I was going to be a woman, I was going to be
stacked
.

The problem was my feet. I wore a size-thirteen shoe, and while I could possibly find a surgeon who would be willing to remove my toes and bring my feet down to a more reasonable ten, I might have trouble walking and would have to sit in a wheelchair.

And then, of course, there was the fact that in the end, Rogaine really hadn’t worked for me. So I’d be forced to wear wigs. And while there were excellent-quality wigs made from the finest Japanese hair, each wig cost thousands of dollars and New York can be extremely windy in the winter.

It all seemed like so much unnecessary trouble, and it wasn’t like I was unhappy being a guy. I really liked being a guy. It’s just I was bored with my life and wanted a change.

So here’s what I did: I went to the AKC Puppy Center on Lexington Avenue and I bought a purebred shiba inu puppy. He was frisky, smart, and adorable. I called him Becky.

And if you asked me, I could—even today—glide down a runway while my jacket slid from my shoulders and down my arms. I could then catch it by the collar at the very instant I reached the end of the runway, pause, and sling it over my opposite shoulder while completing a full-Dior turn and then head back up the runway to exit the stage correctly.

You see, I didn’t
just go to modeling school
; I approached Barbizon with the same focus and dedication as any student at M.I.T. or Harvard.

“That’s it, yes!” Phillip shouted as I kicked a leg in the air. He touched his short, somewhat plump fingers to the scoop of his neck. His thick black hair was perfectly sprayed into the style of a fifties crooner, and his almost handsome but fatally doughy face was overmoisturized. He looked to be about thirty, but it was a very real possibility that he was closer to fifty. “But when you bring that leg back down, remember to park it at a forty-five-degree angle from your other foot.” Then Phillip clapped his hands like an impatient dog trainer and addressed the entire room, men and women.

“People, remember, please. Ladies, when you stand, your right foot is
always
at a ninety-degree angle to your left foot. Gentlemen,
your
right foot is always at a forty-five-degree angle. I can’t stress the importance of this enough. Forty-five degrees for the men, ninety degrees for the ladies.”

There were about twenty of us, and we were in posing class, first semester.

The previous Saturday Phillip had given us an assignment. “I want you people to
pore
through the magazines—
GQ, Elle, Vogue
. And gentlemen? I want you to look through
Vogue
and
Elle
, too, because you can use a lot of the same poses the girls use, with very minor modifications. So I want you all to go through your magazines and tear out ten, fifteen pages that feature models in poses you like, that you think you could master. And then I want you to spend
at least
an hour each day falling into these poses. Then, next Saturday, you’re all going to go through your poses in front of the entire class. So, really, you’d better practice.”

And now my groin hurt from kicking my leg so high in the air. I’d selected my dozen poses from the magazines, but my favorite, the only one I’d spent any real time practicing, was from an ad for Calvin Klein jeans, featuring Brooke Shields.

Goose bumps ran up my arms as soon as I had turned the page in
Vogue
. Brooke was leaning back on her hands, butt off the floor, chest turned toward the camera. Her huge right foot was flat on the floor, and her left leg was extended up and out. Her off-white silk shirt was buttoned only in the middle. Her long chestnut hair and the fabric of the blouse were gently blown back by an unseen fan. Although we hadn’t worked with fans yet, we knew it was only a matter of time, and we were all excited. “Fan work” was something you tackled in the second semester, once you had your poses down. That I would even
consider
a fan-assisted pose now, I thought, would telegraph my ambition to the instructor.

At the next class where we were all to demonstrate our poses, I intentionally saved myself for last. I wanted to watch the other students, so that I could modify, if need be, my pose. I was going to be the star of the class, this much I had decided. But to my surprise, the poses were very ordinary. The men chose standing poses, mostly from the Sears catalogue. They stood, and they looked off into the distance, and they pointed. This, I knew, was a pose that only worked if you were standing next to another person. Other people chose to lean against the wall, legs crossed in front, face turned to the side. And while I thought this was a legitimate pose for a bathrobe or perhaps a scoop-neck sweater, I felt it was a limiting pose and not one I would have selected. Amazingly, nobody chose the Brooke Shields Calvin Klein pose. I had felt certain that I wouldn’t be the only student to bring this electrifying pose to class. But apparently the other students had naturally gravitated toward a certain comfort zone, a safety area without risks: mediocrity.

Finally, it was my turn, and I assumed my position on the floor. Even with my short hair and no fan, I could feel myself resemble Brooke. I glanced quickly at Phillip’s eyes, to see if I could gauge his reaction. And for one brief instant, I felt I saw awe in his eyes. But I wasn’t sure. It may have merely been the hair-spray fumes, which had replaced the oxygen in the room. The entire building
smelled like hair spray and nail-polish remover. The men’s restroom smelled like face powder.

Phillip cornered me as everyone was collecting their notebooks, magazine clippings, and towels after class. He spoke in a low voice that seemed to suggest wisdom and authority. “You have real potential as a floor model. I mean, you
work
that floor.”

Had I heard him correctly? “Floor, um, floor model?? What, you know, exactly is that?” It sounded exotic, like a cosmologist who scans the sky for only collapsing stars.

He nodded. Phillip didn’t have the looks or the height to be a model, but he had the polish, and he certainly had the passion. Although the curious thing about him was that he was clearly a straight man. He was like some variant breed of straight man that seemed like a fag. “There are catalogue models, runway models, hand models, crotch models, and there are floor models. These are, you know, models who just really do well in a horizontal position. Some people? They just look wrong on a floor. Take Cheryl Tiegs. You never see her lying down, no way. Cheryl just doesn’t work when she’s horizontal because she’s actually got saddlebags. Neither does Christy Brinkley, although she’s very thin. She just doesn’t work when she’s flat because she looks slutty. But you know, there’s a lot of work for a model who can work a floor. There’s bedding, nightwear, and then the more avant garde. The eighties are going to change everything. With ‘new wave’ and everything, it’s just real exciting.”

So there were
specialties
. I hadn’t realized that modeling was such a parallel career to medicine. The decision between runway model and floor model was easily as difficult as the one between infectious disease and proctology.

But I still wasn’t convinced that I had the looks to be a top male model. I worried that my eyes were too deep-set and that my nose, while Roman, was too long. If I were going to be a top male model, I would have to be ruthlessly honest with myself. “Truly, do you think I have any chance? Or is this just a waste of time?”

Phillip bit his lower lip and touched his fingers to his intensely hair-sprayed hair. “I think you need to grow into your looks. I think you’re going to really bloom in four, five years.”

“Thanks,” I said. Maybe he was right. Maybe I would bloom. This gave me hope. I’d forgotten I was only a teenager and that I would change. Perhaps my eyes would begin to push out from my head. Maybe my face would grow in around my nose. And while this did comfort me somewhat, it also alarmed me. There were too many variables. If my biology decided to screw with my looks, it wouldn’t matter how ambitious I was; I’d never be a top male model. The Barbizon instructors would surely understand this. For they were people who had enormous ambitions to make it to the top of the modeling profession but whose genetics had other plans. Their genetics said,
“Oh no. You can’t be a top model. But you can teach modeling at a franchise school!
”

Phillip patted me on the shoulder, like a coach. “Now I want you to tape that picture of Brooke Shields up on your wall, and I want you to study it night and day. When I see you again next Saturday, I want to see your leg at the exact same angle as Brooke’s. Remember your butt. And really take a close look at how she’s got her fingers splayed behind her and the way her eyebrow is cocked just so.” He cocked his eyebrow just so. “If you spend a good couple of hours a day, I don’t see any reason why you can’t master that pose. I really think you can do it.”

“Okay, I will,” I said, trying to sound optimistic, trying to hide my doubts.