Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides [223]
He never mentioned anything about hypospadias, and I began to hope that the word didn’t apply to me. Maybe I had taken it out of context. Dr. Luce may have been referring to another patient. Webster’s had said that hypospadias was an abnormality of the penis. But Dr. Luce was telling me that I had a clitoris. I understood that both these things grew out of the same fetal gonad, but that didn’t matter. If I had a clitoris—and a specialist was telling me that I did—what could I be but a girl?
The adolescent ego is a hazy thing, amorphous, cloudlike. It wasn’t difficult to pour my identity into different vessels. In a sense, I was able to take whatever form was demanded of me. I only wanted to know the dimensions. Luce was providing them. My parents supported him. The prospect of having everything solved was wildly attractive to me, too, and while I lay on the chaise I didn’t ask myself where my feelings for the Object fit in. I only wanted it all to be over. I wanted to go home and forget it had ever happened. So I listened to Luce quietly and made no objections.
He explained the estrogen injections would induce my breasts to grow. “You won’t be Raquel Welch, but you won’t be Twiggy either.” My facial hair would diminish. My voice would rise from tenor to alto. But when I asked if I would finally get my period, Dr. Luce was frank. “No. You won’t. Ever. You won’t be able to have a baby yourself, Callie. If you want to have a family, you’ll have to adopt.”
I received this news calmly. Having children wasn’t something I thought much about at fourteen.
There was a knock on the door, and the receptionist stuck her head in. “Sorry, Dr. Luce. But could I bother you a minute?”
“That depends on Callie.” He smiled at me. “You mind taking a little break? I’ll be right back.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Sit there a few minutes and see if any other questions occur to you.” He left the room.
While he was gone, I didn’t think of any other questions. I sat in my chair, not thinking anything at all. My mind was curiously blank. It was the blankness of obedience. With the unerring instinct of children, I had surmised what my parents wanted from me. They wanted me to stay the way I was. And this was what Dr. Luce now promised.
I was brought out of my abstracted state by a salmon-colored cloud passing low in the sky. I got up and went to the window to look out at the river. I pressed my cheek against the glass to see as far south as possible, where the skyscrapers rose. I told myself that I would live in New York when I grew up. “This is the city for me,” I said. I had begun to cry again. I tried to stop. Dabbing at my eyes, I wandered around the office and finally found myself in front of one of the Mughal miniatures. In the small, ebony frame, two tiny figures were making love. Despite the exertion implied by their activity, their faces looked peaceful. Their expressions showed neither strain nor ecstasy. But of course the faces weren’t the focal point. The geometry of the lovers’ bodies, the graceful calligraphy of their limbs led the eye straight to the fact of their genitalia. The woman’s pubic hair was like a patch of evergreen against white snow, the man’s member like a redwood sprouting from it. I looked. I looked once again to see how other people were made. As I looked, I didn’t take sides. I understood both the urgency of the man and the pleasure of the woman. My mind was no longer blank. It was filling with a dark knowledge.
I swung around. I wheeled and looked at Dr. Luce’s desk. A file sat open there. He had left it when he hurried off.
PRELIMINARY STUDY: GENETIC XY (MALE) RAISED AS FEMALE
The following illustrative case indicates that there is no preordained correspondence between genetic and genital structure, or between masculine or feminine behavior and chromosomal status.
SUBJECT: Calliope Stephanides INTERVIEWER: Peter Luce, M.D.
INTRODUCTORY DATA: The patient is fourteen years old. She has lived as a female all her life. At birth, somatic appearance was of a penis