I Remember Her Well

I remember her so well. We only met once but that evening with her left a lasting impression and I think what I heard about her a few years later cemented her forever in my memory.

We met up in San Diego. I was there on one of my ten-day ‘California Dreaming’ holidays where I live and play full time as a woman, alternating between Los Angeles and the Queen Mary Nightclub on weekends and San Diego, the golf courses and beaches mid-week.

She was there as part of her job as a technician in the aerospace industry. The company had brought their best and brightest to San Diego for some training on new equipment that was being installed in their Florida plant where she worked and elsewhere.

I’m not sure how we met up. It was probably through Craig’s List, Plenty of Fish or some other meet up service. We discovered that we would be in San Diego at the same time. We decided to get together for dinner at a restaurant and then ‘take it from there’.  In case anyone does not know I’ll explain that when someone says ‘we can take it from there’ she is pretty well meaning that she hopes they will end up in bed together.

Well, I picked her up at the hotel. Apparently getting out of the hotel was a little nerve-wracking as there were others on the same re-tooling course staying at the same hotel. I’m a naturally curious person so it wasn’t long before she was recounting her life story and I was lapping it all up. In a lot of ways we were so similar: life-long crossdressers who actively sought opportunities to get away and get out as our femme identities. We were about the same age so could recount being so jealous of our female classmates as we caught glimpses of their stocking tops and garter belts. “Yes!” I squealed as she recounted how she could sit in class and stare for what seemed like hours at the bra straps showing through the white blouse of the girl sitting in front.

As we sat in the restaurant and talked about more recent times and how dating men had become thrilling and validating for us, that despite the fact that we were both in what seemed like secure male-female relationships back home.  Then we came to a point where her life story started to remind me of that Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. Only I was staying on what seemed to be the busier road of retaining my male identity and playing the occasional female.  It turns out she had started on the road less travelled And that would ‘make all the difference.’ She had finally come out to her wife that she wished to pursue gender reassignment. That had not gone well and on her return from California they would be splitting their assets and moving on. For many that could be disastrous. However she saw it as something too long in coming. She wanted the full time experience of being a woman at play and at work.

“How will they take it at work?” I asked.

“I’ve already talked with them and they are ready to roll out the protocol as soon as I return.” She said.

“Are you worried about getting tired of it?”

“Not at all. I’m looking forward to working as a woman and bossing my guys around a bit. I’m also looking forward to more dating and finding the right man for me.” She told me of some of her seedy experiences at drag clubs in Florida. She told me as if she enjoyed the depravity of it all.

Well, the evening was drawing to a close. We returned to her hotel. She invited me to her room. Blah Blah Blah and then we said goodbye, promising to keep in touch.

We did exchange messages and I learned she was firmly established as one of the few female aerospace technicians in Florida and as a popular regular at one of the local drag bars. To the best of my knowledge she was female outwardly but not yet anatomically.

Then came a shocking bit of news. It didn’t come from her. Instead I read it in one of the daily newspapers that it was part of my job to scan to keep my politician boss informed of developing issues, locally, nationally and internationally. This bit of news probably made that paper in Canada because the paper needed to fill two or three inches in that column. “Transexual Hooker Found Murdered Outside Home.” There followed a story from her hometown telling how she had been found stabbed to death in her driveway. Her name jumped out as if it was in 24 point bold type. The story went on to speculate that she had picked up a trick that, on discovering her true gender, had got angry and stabbed her.

Sure, I thought, that is what is convenient to believe. But what evidence did they have that she was a hooker? She had a good job. The person I knew was not shy to tell her dates her true status. When you looked as good as she did there were plenty of admirers to date. She didn’t have to take chances like that.  Why do they assume that because she was in drag that she was a hooker? Why couldn’t they have dug a little deeper to write “Aerospace Technician Killed”?

My guess was that she did invite some hot young admirer home. However the admirer turned out to be a robber who thought he’d found an easy mark. She was not one to back down and when you stand up to the wrong person you are taking a big chance. She probably stood up and lost.

I never saw the follow-up, whether the murderer was brought to justice or whether later stories corrected the first impression of her life. The only time I’ve seen her name is when I read a list of the names of transgender persons killed as a result of hate crimes.

This brings me to the point of this story. It is coming to November 20^th, the Transgender Day of Remembrance.   Every TDOR I think of my old friend. I know she would rather still be on the green side of the grass but that is not to be.

This year on November 20^th I will be doing more than think about my friend. I will be in her home state of Florida. I’m making a point to get out to a Remembrance occasion to stand for a moment of silence for my friend and for the thousands of others who have lost their lives because someone else found them an easy mark or who hated them so much simply because they were not able to live in their birth gender.

As I look back I am glad I chose the more familiar road and I think there but for just a few circumstances or maybe just one my friend’s fate could have been mine. We should always remember that, too.

This week there is no shortage of Transgender Days of Remembrance activities taking place around the world.  Check this list: http://tdor.info/ Chances are there is an event waiting for you.

Tags: featured, opinion, TDOR, Transgender Days of Rememberance

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion