“Which?”
“That feminist one. Where you talk about toxic masculinity and shit.”
“?‘And shit,’?” she echoed drolly. “I write for lots of feminist sites. How else do you think I pay rent, meathead?”
Half-truth. Ingrid sat on a very cozy trust fund. “Could you maybe . . . take a break? At least from your more incendiary pieces. It’s dangerous to associate your real name with that stuff right now.”
“I’ve got a brand to maintain. You know how it is—you do the same on YouTube.”
“Maintaining that brand is much more dangerous for you than me, Inge.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because women like you are being targeted by the men’s-rights lynch mob. And I’m worried.”
She held my gaze. Inge’s intelligence was implacable, and somewhat predatory. A Venus flytrap patiently closing around each thought. I could never ask her an innocent question—in seconds she’d discover what I really meant, unearth every ulterior motive.
“Women like me,” she said, “are always being targeted by men. I’ll be fine, Boy Scout.”
Unlike Cressida, there was no mistaking her mockery. The words “men” and “boy” dripped with irony.
Another moment of silent eye contact. The air between us teemed with all we’d left unsaid.
Ingrid touched the door and I said, “Wait.”
Her head half turned.
I miss you. “Tell my princesses I love them.”
Her face was pale and smooth as milk glass, her eyes empty. But finally she cracked that conspiratorial smile I knew so well.
When she left I locked the door behind her. My palm stung. I was crushing the gel packet, wasting my precious T. The drug I had to take every single day for the rest of my life.
Or else die.
Not directly. Inge was right about that. But my life wasn’t worth living without it. Testosterone was a medical necessity because it was all that made living inside this body bearable.
She didn’t get that. Nobody did.
If only they knew what it felt like, being held hostage by your own skin.
TODAY
DELETED VLOG: DEPRESSION
REN: This is the fifth time I’ve tried to make this video. Fuck it. Fuck putting a brave face on things. I’m not well, Internet. I’m telling one million strangers instead of telling my therapist, because I can’t afford him right now and what is therapy, really, but reflecting ourselves at another person and seeing what bounces back? Maybe I’ll find myself scattered somewhere in these million shards. Maybe all the pixels will come together, coalesce into a portrait of a sad, lost boy.
I’m depressed.
I haven’t said that out loud for years. It feels . . . terrifying.
Last time I owned my depression was before I started T. Back then I thought it was just part of dysphoria. Once I fixed my body, once my brain soaked up the right hormone, I thought it’d stop. And for a while it did. Or at least transition kept me busy, distracted. There was always the next milestone to look forward to: My voice dropping, my beard coming in, my curves flattening out. Top surgery. Official document changes.
I mean, just look. Look at how I used to be.
[Cut to an older video clip.]
. . . and my voice is still dropping. It feels like roots growing up through my chest, tangling around my throat. I can’t sing for shit. Like, it’s seriously bad. My roomie imposed a moratorium on shower singing. She’ll freeze me out—she flushes the toilet if I so much as hum. Thinks it’s funny when I scream in my new man voice. I kinda hoped I’d be a tenor, but I guess I’ll never have to worry about passing vocally now . . .
[Cut to another clip.]
You guys. You see this? This is my brand-spanking-new Illinois driver’s license. And that, right there, under Sex? That says Male.
[Cut to another clip.]
So, I did it. I scheduled top surgery. Three months from now, I’ll let a man in a mask drug me and touch my tits. When I wake up, I’ll have the adolescent boy-chest of my wildest dreams. This is happening. Really, truly happening. I feel . . . terrified. In a good way. I feel hopeful.
[Cut to the present.]
That was my life. Milestone to milestone.
Now I’m all out of goals. Transition goals, anyway. All I’ve got left is to live.
And I’m fucking miserable.
I don’t get it. How was I more hopeful back then, before I passed, before people called me “sir” without snickering, before they shut up when I spoke and treated me with basic human decency because they assume I have a dick?