It Chooses You - Miranda July [3]
The door opened and there was Michael, a man in his late sixties, burly, broad-shouldered, a bulbous nose, a magenta blouse, boobs, pink lipstick. Before he opened the door completely he quietly stated that he was going through a gender transformation. That’s great, I said, and he asked us to please come in. It was a one-bedroom apartment, the kind where the living room is delineated from the kitchen area by a metal strip on the floor, joining the carpet and the linoleum. He showed us the large leather jacket and I felt a little starstruck: here it was, the real thing. I touched its leather and immediately got a head-rush. This sometimes happens when I’m faced with actualities – it’s like déjà vu, but instead of the sensation that this has happened before, I’m suffused with the awareness that this is happening for the first time, that all the other times were in my head.
We murmured admiration for the jacket, which was entirely ordinary, and I asked if I could turn on the tape recorder. Michael settled into a medical-looking chair and I perched on the couch. I glanced at my questions, but now they seemed beside the point.
Miranda:
When did you begin your gender transformation?
Michael:
Six months ago.
Miranda:
And when did you know that you –
Michael:
Oh, well, I knew it when I was a child, but I’ve been in the closet all my life. I came out in 1996 and then went back in the closet again, but this time I’m not going to go back in the closet. I’m going to complete the transformation.
Miranda:
So the first time you came out must have been hard. You must not have had a good experience?
Michael:
It wasn’t hard. I just decided to do it, and I don’t know why I went back in the closet. It’s one of those psychological things that I’m going to a psychologist to work out.
Michael spoke softly and with a sort of evenness that made me wonder if he was a little bit drugged. Nothing crazy, maybe just some muscle relaxers to take the edge off. The thought calmed me – I was glad there was some padding between him and my invasive questions. I wished I was on muscle relaxers too.
Miranda:
What was your life like before you came out?
Michael:
I was trying to be the same as every other man, and hiding the fact that inside I felt like a woman. I knew that when I was a child, but I had this strong fear of coming out for a long time. The movement for gay people to come out helped me realize that I shouldn’t do that.
Miranda:
What did you do for a living?
Michael:
I ran my own business as an auto mechanic.
Miranda:
What do you do now?
Michael:
Now I’m retired.
Miranda:
What are you living on?
Michael:
On Social Security benefits. This is a Section 8 building, so rent is very reasonable. And before this building I lived in the cheapest rooming house in Hollywood.
Miranda:
And how do you spend your days?
Michael:
I go shopping and watch television, and I go for walks for my health.
Miranda:
What shows are your favorites?
Michael:
The Price Is Right and the news.
Miranda:
And do you feel like you have a community here?
Michael:
I do have a community. I’m going to Transgender Perceptions meetings every Friday at the Gay and Lesbian Center on McCadden, and there’s a bunch of other transgender people that go. Male-to-female, female-to-male. There’s two I met there that had their major surgeries forty years ago.
I asked if we could look around his apartment and he said sure. Michael stayed seated and watched us as we walked around, quietly peering at everything.
It reminded me of being at a garage sale, the rude feeling of surveying