The Riddle of Gender - Deborah Rudacille [133]
Q: Did you in some way connect your feelings about being a girl and think that it was somehow related to this physical problem, like it was a punishment?’
Well, it was more of a religious thing. I thought this was a punishment from God for my feelings. I remember my parents bringing me my homework and I had half-Hebrew and religious studies and half-secular studies, and I’d work even harder to try to get it better. There’s a phrase in the early-morning prayers that the Orthodox still say: “Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the Universe, for not making me a woman.” Somebody said once, I don’t remember who, that having to repeat that on a daily basis was like swallowing crushed glass. And here I am, top of my class, and I know all the rituals and routines, and I’m being forced to say this but I know that I’m living a lie. But I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. They would have totally freaked out. You just didn’t discuss these things.
But those three weeks in the hospital were hellacious. I felt like I was bad and that there was something very wrong with me. Luckily, my way of coping was just to work harder. I never did drugs, I never did alcohol. And I grew up in that era [the sixties]! I was a control freak; that’s how I dealt with it. I was scared to death at letting myself go because I saw what was happening with my friends, and they looked happy and carefree and so on but they would say things when they were stoned that they would regret later, and I couldn’t let anybody find out about this. I couldn’t let anybody know. So I became sort of like Newt Gingrich—very uptight, very serious. I grew a mustache and, after a couple of years at Cornell, in the early seventies, I let my hair grow. But for the most part I’ve been in deep cover, protective coloration, all of my life. I couldn’t let on. I’ve never smoked grass, can you believe it? I smoked opium once, in Thailand, and it did nothing for me. I had to do something because my wife was provoking me. I was too straight.
But get this, the surgery didn’t work. A month later, I was bleeding again. I got out of the hospital in June. I finished the year at school. I was thirteen. I had my bar mitzvah. I was actually bleeding during my bar mitzvah. I came out, and because of my illness my parents hadn’t made any plans for the summer. I had been going to day camp, which was very common in Queens in those days, and they had to hustle to get me in, and because it was late there were no slots in my age group, so I was in a group of fifteen-year-olds instead of thirteen-year-olds. Boy, you talk about somebody who just went through this profound surgical/medical experience relating to sexuality and getting thrust in with kids two years older! The girls … I lusted to be like them, but I couldn’t. I was just this little nerd, you know, who was getting picked on by the guys all the time because I wasn’t with it, and I had a small penis, and everything like this.
Q: They teased you about your penis ?
Oh yes, because we had to undress; we went to public swimming pools and we had to get undressed.
Q: So after everything you’d just been through, you had these older boys mocking you?
And I wanted to be with the girls, and I couldn’t. Because if you’re a boy, you don’t go with the girls. And I had to go to the boys’ locker room to change. We had to go