Mary and Janie
Is there a genetic link involved in our transgender tendencies? I have never thought so but recently I learned of an incredible discovery by one of my correspondence friends. Mary is unusual in a number of ways. First, she is old enough to be a grandparent and recently a great-grandparent but she carries herself like a much younger woman. Second, she shares my belief that one’s gender preference can be as much a matter of choice as a case of being a ‘woman born in a man’s body’. It was that perspective of personal choice that brought us together at a gender conference and had us corresponding occasionally in the years after. “If genetics play a role then somewhere in my ancestry or among my offspring would be stories of another relative who enjoyed a bi-gender role. To the best of my knowledge there isn’t,” she had exclaimed definitively.
That was some years ago and in the intervening time we had had no reason to discuss the role of nature vs. nurture vs. choice in gender identity. We were both too busy talking about how we were nurturing our separate but similar social lives. The last I’d heard from Mary was that ‘she’ was going in to a closet for a while. Mary is divorced and widowed with two grown children who both have two children. Three of Mary’s grandchildren are in their twenties. One of those had made Mary a great-grandparent. That girl’s brother was going to be coming to visit Mary for a while. Apparently he was a bright enough young man but a classic underachiever. Mary had described his teenage years as a continuing period of introspection including times when he withdrew from peer contacts. Mary often expressed distress over his apparent low self-esteem.
So it wasn’t a surprise that recently Mary invited her oldest grandson to spend a couple of weeks with her. She had learned he had quit his latest job. While doing the tourist things Mary hoped to subtly instil a sense of motivation in the young man that would see him upgrade his work and social skills.
To do that my friend was willing to banish all evidence of Mary from her life for a short period. Mary spends the winters living in an affluent retirement community in Florida where she is better known than her alter ego, Martin. To protect Mary’s identity from his family and to give her grandson more excitement than bingo and watching out for golf cart collisions Martin had rented a condo for a month in Orlando, removed his acrylic nails and pulled his drab wardrobe out of the deep closet. This was standard operating procedure for Mary when family were to visit. None of them questioned it or insisted that he not go to the bother or expense. They enjoyed the Orlando experience and assumed that he did, too. He enjoyed their visits and their farewells a week later.
This coming month long visit with Jason might be different. How do you keep a man in his early twenties interested in anything when he had recently given up his job and his girlfriend and expressed no pressing desire to get another job or another girlfriend? Martin thought that by showing the young man a life beyond his rural New England existence he could instil some motivation in to Jason. Perhaps he could influence Jason to get a job in the theme park area, the Space Coast or in construction anywhere and talk him in to leaving his closed environment back home. It was a long shot but you never know. How little did Martin/ Mary know!
The visit started out normally enough. Martin picked up Jason at the airport. In the half hour drive to the rented condo they pretty well exhausted Martin’s carefully thought out list of questions, everything from ‘how was the flight?’ to ‘how are the job prospects?’ and ‘is there anyone new in your life?’ ;Fine,’ ‘not so good’ and ‘not really’ were the answers which made Martin not feel like launching into a detailed cross examination. All in good time, he thought. Needless to say, Martin was less than impressed by Jason’s shoulder-length hair, thin frame and his penchant for jeans and black tee shirts. ‘The kid has so much going for him,’ Martin thought, ‘why doesn’t he just shape up?’
As Mary describes it the visit started out fine but was nothing to write about. They would go one day to a theme park or some other touristy thing and spend another day lounging by the condo pool. Martin would occasionally talk about the job prospects in the area or point out to Jason how some attractive young lady was giving the young man a second and sometimes a third glance. Jason wasn’t having any of it. Occasionally Jason seemed as if he wanted to ask his grandfather something but he always held back.
That all dramatically changed one evening when the two went to a nearby sports bar to watch the Patriots on Sunday Night Football or perhaps it was Monday or Thursday night; it didn’t matter. To watch football with Martin is to risk having him recount how he ‘rode the pines’ for his small college team and in a community beer league that existed back in the ‘70s. Jason was listening for the umpteenth time how the pros would do well to bring back a variation of the wing-T offence, “we could run the slant off tackle with a trap block and get a guaranteed three to four yards every time,” Martin insisted as they sat in a booth by themselves. “When you throw the frigging ball three things can happen and two of them are bad,” Martin would say to an audience of none.
Jason interjected with a question out of the blue that would forever change their relationship, “Grandma once said that when you were in your twenties you liked to wear women’s clothes?” It was one of those statements that doubled as a question.
Martin and Jason’s grandmother had divorced many years earlier. She had insisted that she had never told anyone about their special bedroom games but Martin had never been sure. Apparently one time she must have been in to the sauce a bit and had spilled the beans while within earshot of at least one impressionable child.
“Why would she have said that?”
“I don’t know but I think she was jealous when Mom told her about your new girlfriend.”
Jason’s grandma had died when he was twelve or thirteen so the comment had stuck with him a long time, thought Martin. How was he to answer? He could use any of the three best defences: deny, deny and deny or he could tell the truth, maybe even tell Jason all about his life today. However a sense told Martin that the Jason’s question and the answer he would give would have great significance to the young man. Martin decided to answer the question honestly but to go no further.
“Yes, it’s true in a sense. Your grandma was an adventurous young woman and she loved sex play. I’m not sure how I picked up the habit,” he fibbed, “but yes I did like to put on her lingerie and make love to her. I guess she enjoyed that when I was wearing her bra and slip I was more vigorous in my love making and after ejaculating my second erection was almost immediate.”
Martin expected Jason to say something like “Ewww! Too much information!” but instead a rare moment of insightful questioning came from the young man, “Did you ever want to dress fully as a woman? Maybe just to see what it was like?”
Again Martin could have denied ever having had any interest in that but he sensed there was something more immediate behind Jason’s question.
“Well, maybe Grandma told you so there is no sense in denying it. Yes I did go all out on occasion. While we were together it was your grandma’s and my tradition that we would go to a Halloween party with me dressed as a nurse or an Indian princess or something like that. It was all in fun but your Grandma knew that at the end of the evening for some reason the sex would be even better than usual.
“That was about it. What made you ask?” Martin did not go on to explain how after he and ‘grandma’ broke up ‘Mary’ eventually emerged into full bloom. He decided only to go as far as the questions asked.
Jason paused for a while and then dropped the bombshell, “I sort of like wearing women’s clothes, too.”
Martin was stunned. “I think I would have liked it better if you had said you want to be a football player like me but liking to be in women’s clothes is not so bad,” he said softly, “how do you know you like it?”
“After grandma told us about you I took one of mom’s bra and panties from the laundry hamper and tried them on. I got an erection. I played with it. My first ejaculation ever was in to her panties. After that I pretty well used every opportunity I got to use her bra and panties for my arousal.”
“But you couldn’t have been more than twelve years old? Don’t tell me. Afterwards you felt guilty and promised yourself that you would never do it again,” said Martin.
“I told you it was my first ejaculation and I seemed to hate myself afterwards but I couldn’t stop going back to doing it.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done much more. Sandi didn’t like to see me in lingerie and hers didn’t fit very well anyway. But now that we’ve broken up I wonder what it would be like to be a girl or at least to dress like one.”
“Have you ever tried it?” asked Martin while a crazy thought twirled around in his head. In an instant he was gaining a whole new understanding of his grandson. Now it started to make sense why Jason had been so moody and withdrawn at times, why he had trouble with relationships and self-confidence. The guilt of transvestism can be a heavy weight on any young man when he feels he cannot share it.
“Not really. Well yes, when Sandi and I were together and she was out I would put on one of her skirts and pull out an old bra I had hidden and dance around the bedroom to Man, I feel like a Woman.”
“I like that song too,” Mary tried to be nonchalant, “it has a nice beat.” Mary did not point out that number was much in request when she performed at the community center in her retirement village. “So have you ever dressed all the way?”
“No way,” Jason shot back. “I’d be too embarrassed to go in to a store to buy women’s clothes. I don’t even want to buy anything on line. What I really want to know is how did you make the urges go away?”
“Well,” Martin chose his words carefully as an idea swirled in his head, “what works for one person doesn’t always work for others. Let’s just leave me out of it. Sometimes you just have to try something to satisfy your curiosity and then you don’t want to do it again. Like last week when we went for that simulated parachute experience. It was fun but I don’t think I’ll ever do it again.”
“Do you think I should try dressing as a woman?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” said Martin and here he was less than truthful. He knew that many had lost jobs, relationships and even their lives by indulging their craving for a cross-gender life.
“I was hoping you would say that. Would you be willing to help me try women’s clothes?”
That is probably not the question every grandparent wants to hear but for Martin it was music. He had already started to see his grandchild in a new light. He noticed that Jason’s slight frame, long hair and light complexion with little facial hair would make a wonderful canvas on which to start creating a ‘Janie’ from a Jason. ‘Look at me. I’ve already chosen her femme name,’ Martin thought to himself.
“Of course I could help if you are sure you really want to try this. But you have to assure me that the minute you feel uncomfortable you have to tell me and we will stop. This has to be what you want to try,” insisted Martin. “And one more thing: you shouldn’t just try the clothes, that will teach you nothing. You should go for the complete makeover –- a wig, high heel shoes, makeup, jewellery; the whole nine yards.”
“When can we get started?” asked Jason, suddenly more alive than he’d been since arriving in Florida. “Tonight,” replied Martin. They did not wait to see how the Patriots game played out. They had been oblivious to it anyway. When they arrived back at the condo Martin suggested that they check the Internet to see if there were any stores in Orlando where they could get help turning Jason in to the image of a female. Martin knew where to look but he wanted Jason to do the finding.
At that point others arrived to join our conversation. Mary promised to tell me later how it all played out. I couldn’t wait to know but it will be four weeks before I get a chance to tell you more of the story
Next: An expert turns Jason in to ‘Janie’ and a new person goes forward in to the world.
Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment