Patty Keene — From Boy to Girl to. . . ?

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

As I told you in my last column it was the fall of 1990 when Patty Keene had been among the fifty-one first girls to enrolll at the previously all-boys elite boarding school called Lakefield College.

In reality Patty had been a 13 year old boy pretending to be a sixteen year old girl. Short and late arriving at his own puberty the ruse was working well until the inevitable march of time caught up with Patty.

Patty’s gender secret was revealed to the school administration. Her parents were summoned to take her home and hopefully to get her some good counseling.

Of all the events she knew were coming Patty feared the ride back to Toronto with her mother the most. At least she would not have to face her father. He was busy running a large mining operation in Brazil.

When she arrived at the school Patty’s mother, Kendra Worthington Keene, seemed not a bit surprised, shocked or dismayed to see her son sitting in the headmaster’s study wearing the same school tunic, blouse blazer, knee socks and loafers that all the other girls were wearing that day. It was not exactly the reaction Patty had expected.

Apparently the headmaster was at his apologetic best regretting that this situation had happened and assuring Mrs. Keene that this affair would be handled with the utmost discretion. Unfortunately they would not be able to refund the fees that had been paid for the first semester but they would make sure that ‘Patrick’s’ academic records would be up to date when forwarded.

With that Patty, her luggage and her mother were quietly escorted out to their waiting car, conveniently parked out of sight from the main school buildings. As they drove down the tree-lined lane toward the highway Patty thought she caught a glimpse of Trevor watching from behind a tree but she wasn’t sure.

Mother and child drove in silence until they were clear of Lakefield village and almost to nearby Peterborough. Mrs. Keene broke the silence, “I need a coffee and a pee. Let’s stop at a Tim Horton’s.”

“Are you sure you want people to see me like this?” asked a defensive Patty.

“Sure, why not? You look lovely except you could use a little lipstick. Here, try mine.”

Hesitantly the shocked Patty took the lipstick from her mother and expertly colored her lips.

“You look as if you have been doing that for years,” said her mother with a wink.

Tim Horton’s is a nationwide chain of coffee/donut shops in Canada. They are national institutions that have actually contributed to the Canadian vocabulary. In Canada you do not ask for a large coffee with two creams, two sugars. You ask for a ‘large double-double.’ Or when a golfer is having a particularly bad round of golf (as I often do) and scores a couple of double bogeys in a row she is said to be having a Tim Horton’s round.

It is rare to find a Tim’s that is not busy and so it was that mother and child lined up for their coffees and found seats with others all around. Even though no one seemed to be paying any attention to them Patty found herself more nervous than she had ever been. But it wasn’t the strangers that were making her nervous. For 13 years she had been the little boy of the woman sitting across from her. Now she had changed and she was finding it hard believing that her mother was accepting the change.

Once they were settled at their table and had their first sips of their coffees Mrs. Keene broke the silence. “I guess we have some decisions to make and make pretty quickly,” she opened.

“What do you mean? I’ve been assuming that I was going to have to cut my hair and head back to Lawrence Park or to UCC.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Well, no.” A glimmer of hope welled up in the perceptive Patty. Was her mother going to offer her the chance to stay in femme mode?

“Let me tell you a few things Patty,” her mother started, “I know that last year you thought you were secretly taking my clothes from the laundry hamper. I was on to you. I even made sure you would have a good selection and when I discovered you were going out for walks I made sure you had warm clothes to wear. I was not worried. I knew you were a bright boy, er girl, but for a while I kept a secret eye on you.

“You knew all along? Did dad know?”

“Not at first. I saw no need to tell him but when the move to Brazil came up I knew I could no longer keep the secret. Who knows what would have happened if you had come with us and decided to go out as a girl in Brazil? It is a different world there. So we decided to enroll you in Lakefield. Daddy thought that would ‘make a man of you’ but you were a couple of steps ahead of us. I was not totally surprised when we got the phone call from the school. Yes I was surprised that you had been living and attending classes as a girl but I figured you had somehow been caught crossdressing. When the full extent of your ruse was revealed I was flabbergasted.

“Now that I have time to think about it and to realize that you have spent much of the last year living as a teenage girl I think your wishes for the future have to be taken in to account.”

Patty sat in silence. She felt herself blushing.

“Patty, you do not have to decide right now or in the next day or two but it will have to be soon. Your father and I agree. We will support any decision you make but when you enter your next school it will be as Patrick Keene, the boy or Patricia Keene the girl and there will be no turning back. If it is the latter we will help you get all the counseling, therapy and, yes, surgery you will need. I have already talked to a doctor at the Clarke Institute and you would be taken on as a priority case. If you want to proceed to manhood they are also willing to help you. Take your time.”

The Clarke Institute of Psychiatry has a mixed but mostly negative reputation amongst the TG community. It has since been amalgamated in to a larger institution. For a long time it held a monopoly on approving or withholding permission for gender reassignment surgery. I’m told that to be approved for gender re-assignment surgery one not only had to live a one year life test but those aiming to be female had to live as ‘barbies’ and intended males had to be G.I. Joe types. That is ridiculous as very few born women live like Barbie and few men choose to emulate G.I. Joe. (Thank you to a 1999 TGF article by Dallas Denny for providing me with background information about the Clarke Institute.)

Patty stood up and came around the table to hug her mother. “Say hello to your new daughter,” she smiled. From that moment on Patty Keene was never again referred to as he or him. With Christmas vacations only a couple of days away it was decided Patty would not return to school until January. What followed was a barrage of tests and assessments at the Clark Institute. Patty was put on a routine of drugs and hormones that were successful in arresting any further development of male secondary sex characteristics and did finally show signs of developing Patty’s breasts. It seems that fortunately for Patty she fit the Clarke’s mould.

Patty’s mother also called in a favor at her old school, one of the swankest all-girls private schools in Toronto and Patty was enrolled as a day student. The headmistress knew of Patty’s gender situation but no one else did. In time Patty graduated from high school and went to university where she continued to excel as a student and where she met up with her future husband. Shortly after her 18^th birthday she went to Montreal for her genital surgery and shortly after that to Los Angeles for breast augmentation.

“Are you working now?” I asked Patty.

“Not really. I do a lot of volunteer work, including working with youth struggling with gender identity issues but mostly you can find me at the Racquet Club playing tennis with my mother and our friends.”

“Do you ever wonder what happened to your old dreamboats, Adam and Trevor? I guess you are not in a position to go to school reunions.”

“Adam I saw once. He still lives in the States and is a successful soccer coach. He came back to Toronto once for an old timers’ soccer tournament and I went to watch but he didn’t recognize me and I realized I really didn’t have any interest in him. But Trevor….”

She was about to answer when a tall grey-haired but extremely handsome and well-dressed man approached our table. Patty looked up, smiled and continued, “I don’t have to wonder. I know what he is doing. Linda, meet my husband, Trevor.” Trevor kissed Patty and shook hands with me. I recognized him as the man who had been her date at the Coronation Ball the night before. He pulled a chair over to our table and sat down.

I had to find out how the two old classmates had ended up together. “So what is the story?” I asked, “How did you two find each other?”

“Pure chance,” said Patty. “We had last seen each other in Grade 10 at Lakefield. Once I was discovered by Margaret and outed to the administration I was put in quarantine and not allowed any contact with the other students.”

“Including Trevor?”

“Especially Trevor. And Margaret was forbidden from telling anyone what had happened to me. She obeyed that commandment except for one person — Trevor. She was my best friend and his, too. She could not see him hurt by him finding out about my gender status from someone else. So she confided in him.”

“How did you feel when you found out?” I asked Trevor.

“I was surprised but not disgusted or angered. I was glad Margaret had told me and I tried to see Patty but I couldn’t get through the school security. I did hide in the trees to see her leave but I didn’t get a chance to talk with her. Afterwards I guessed that she would be transforming back to a boy so I moved on. For almost three years I didn’t give her much of a thought.”

“Then what happened?”

Patty picked up the story, “Pure chance happened. We both enrolled in Trinity College at U of T (University of Toronto). I was sitting in a large lecture hall with 300 other freshmen when Trevor and a couple of his friends walked in and sat on the other side of the room. I didn’t think he noticed me so the next class I arranged to sit very near where he had been sitting. He wasn’t there but at one point I looked over to where I had been sitting and there he was looking over at me. The class was in progress. I remember we were learning about The Great Gatsby so nothing was said but we got together right after the class and we spent the rest of that day and much of the evening getting caught up with each other.”

“We have been together ever since,” added Trevor.

“So, ahem, were you all woman by then, Patty?”

“Not fully. Remember I was ahead of my years so while Trevor was turning 19 I was still only 16. I would have to be 18 before I could get the final okay for surgery. Fortunately that little extra plumbing didn’t faze Trev. I think he really liked playing with it while he made love to me.”

“Really?” I asked with a sly grim towards Trevor.

“Yes, he did but he has done a good and faithful job of keeping me dilated ever since my surgery,” Patty said with a warning look and an emphasis on the ‘faithful’. It was if that girl could read my mind.

With that our conversation turned to more contemporary topics. I haven’t seen Patty and Trevor since that day but I think about them a lot. Now that I have their story transcribed I hope I can turn my mind to other stories; perhaps yours.

Tags: featured, Linda Jensen, Patty Keene, Transsexual, transsexualism

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment