Being transgender in my 70’s

Footprints In The Sand at Low Tide     They first met in Destin, Florida at a rustic 1950’s fish camp restaurant. The evening air was still oppressively humid almost smothering, it was early August 1985. She wasn’t the southern girl he first imagined when seeing her walk in and approach the bar. When she ordered a dry Absolut vodka martini the sound of her voice was unmistakable, she was from New England most likely Massachusetts. Maxine, her shining ebony black hair tightly pulled into a ponytail, long tan legs, and azure blue eyes, immediately captured JR’s attention.    He confidently rose and walked up to the bar and stood right next to her almost invading her personal space.  -Smiling he said, “You look exactly like my first wife”  -To which she replied “are you a married man?” -“Not yet” he said.    He hadn’t ever thought about “love at first sight” but he knew immediately that he was maddening in love. Despite the heavy ...

  I Don’t Like Sundays  Maureen had just secretly finished her lab work ignoring the acid burns on her hands. She was so confident earlier this evening and now guilt riddled confusion was threatening her plan. So far her mission had been proceeding with few signs of delay until tonight. Michael, her twin brother, had been shot during a robbery on a southern California Sunday afternoon in 1969 when they were twenty. Now she was on a mission for revenge against her rapist/abuser. Previous mental clarity was now blurred by the multiplicity of her situation…. murderers…. rapist…. death ….. hatred …. heartbreak. With the Rolling Stones “Emotional Rescue” ironically playing in her earphones….. she forced a smile thinking about the karma of it all.  “Is there nothing I can say, nothing I can do To change your mind? I'm so in love with you You're too deep in, you can't get out You're just a poor girl in a rich man's house”   Organic chemistry used to be the bas...

25th & Imperial    The three young black men walked into the Safeway supermarket on Easter Sunday afternoon, quickly spreading out to corral the startled shoppers. Each carried a sawed off shotgun. I was renting a room in an old two story house from an eccentric black woman named Cleo Mobley. The house was four blocks from the Safeway store in an area known as Logan Heights. But the story really began six months earlier.....    I was transferring from my junior college to San Diego State with a plans to become a dentist. The two years spent prior to the move to SDS were a scattered mess. I tried marine biology, English literature, various science courses even graphic design, searching for a direction. I had visited San Diego many times in my youth and the connection was mysteriously powerful. One major reason was the Navy presence and the numerous warships. The other reason was I had relatives who lived there. But the Navy and Marines were a fascinating...

  Long Story Short   “It was so sudden….. I couldn’t remember why I was standing there dancing naked. Numb to the men watching…. girls in their unending routines… their lost stories…. the smells of sadness and loneliness. I need a couple of lines of coke to get through this shift. Here I am hustling $20 dances in “Solid Gold”, somewhere in Dallas I’m not exactly sure where....with the song “Faithfully” blasting over the speakers for an uncountable number of times…..” “Circus life under the big-top world We all need the clowns to make us smile Through space and time, always another show Wonderin' where I am lost without you”    “Just as suddenly, reality slaps me in the face. I think often, cry really….. about the naive fourteen year old girl from Galveston, who was not pretty or beautiful but “cute”. Since my so-called mother was lost to a crack pipe, I had to teach myself everything, how to do my makeup, keep my skin moisturized, take care of my h...

A Parallax Life  “ apparent shift caused by viewing an object from two different vantage points ” “the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points not on a straight line with the object .”    The trip from Great Inagua Island to the Dry Tortguas is not especially unusual but there are numerous hazards that can destroy even the best laid plans for the solo sailor during the passage. After days of rationing water,hiding from the blazing tropical sun and humidity, my body and mind were spent. I wept like a child with a broken heart. This is our story…. two separate stories actually, parallax stories of Douglas and Victoria….. AMAB. Translation….. “Assigned Male at Birth”. Who can say what is really true….    We are 52 years old but this is not something new to us. I’ve been unable to understand and explain to Victoria or myself our existence. If you choose to continue to read this story, do ...