Real Man Adventures (15 page)

MY BROTHER: “Awful shit” is pretty subjective. The things I hear when talking with people about it have never been what I would consider bad at all. Then again it’s not like I go around asking people about it either. Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s usually, “Why would someone change what they were born with?” or “Why would you change what God gave you?” I have never had anyone really say anything shitty or mean about it. Usually I get the feeling they feel pity for someone who is unhappy in the body they were born with. However, most of the people I have talked about this with have been other cops.

ME: How do you think Mom and Dad handle what I turned out to be? I didn’t tell them for a long time (I think I actually told you and Aunt Ricki first), because I just didn’t want to deal, and I thought it would freak them out beyond repair. But they’re handling it pretty well now, from my perspective. What do you think?

MY BROTHER: I think they have the same two concerns I mentioned above. Other than that, I believe their biggest issue now is that they think you want them to dismiss our memories and history of your childhood up to the point you made the gender change. We
know it is a concern for you, and not a problem for people who never knew you in your childhood, but it is going to be almost impossible to expect us to dismiss or not recognize the great times our family had when we were kids. We feel the expectation is that you want to forget about it because maybe it was a miserable time in your life. If it was, you hid it well and we didn’t know.
³

ME: You don’t have to tell me the content, but have our parents talked about me a lot with you? They used to talk to me a lot when they were worried about you.

MY BROTHER: Yes, they have, but most of the time it was regarding how sad they were. Sad not because of your change, but because they felt you hated them.
Hate
is maybe too severe a word, maybe
resent
is a better word.

ME: Do you tell people you have a brother, or a sister, if it comes up?

MY BROTHER: It does come up sometimes. I am not one to hide, and I am not embarrassed of my family or who I am or where I come from. I tell it like it is. If I’m asked, I tell people I have a sister by birth, and now I have a brother.

ME: What, in your opinion, makes a man?

MY BROTHER: The ability and desire to work your ass off for a woman until you’re dead, or until she finds someone better than you. Seriously, though, a man is just like any other animal, and it boils down to this: a man has a penis and it is used to procreate his species by fertilizing a woman’s egg. The stronger and smarter, the more likely he is to attract a female mate that will bear children to
care for him when he is too old to care for himself. The stronger and smarter man will have more success ensuring his children’s safety, thus becoming more attractive to a woman.

ME: What about a woman?

MY BROTHER: The ability and desire to marry a man who can afford what she believes her lifestyle is worth. Okay, the serious answer is an ability to bear children. The more traits a woman has to successfully bear children, the more attractive she will be to a man. I know you’re probably looking for a deeper answer, but this is what I feel to be true. I know these theories have evolved, and you may say they don’t apply in today’s day and age, however I think the only thing that has changed is that now when we say we are “attracted” to someone we use words like
trust, stability, kindness, good looks, character
, and others to describe what all boils down to procreation.

As far as
love
is concerned, I think it’s just a human word to describe a deep trust in your mate that we can’t describe in any one word, so we call it love. Not everyone feels the need to procreate these days, as we have evolved a little from the basic animal, but most can find a mate that they say they love.

Before you ask me about people who are attracted to the same sex or transgender, I’ll tell you that I am not firm on any one theory, however I’m leaning toward the idea that just like in nature where animals have been documented having sex with the same gender, humans can do the same. And just like in animals the majority of the population will choose to have sex with the opposite sex, and a
minority will go the other way. As far as transgender goes, I’m sure there are animals that wish they were born a different gender, but so far only humans have the ability to actually change this. I’m not sure, but I don’t think in the animal world you get your ass kicked or are an outcast if you’re caught having sex with the same-gender animal like humans do.

ME: Would you rather be a garbage man or a pest control worker?

MY BROTHER: I am a garbage man already. It’s just the garbage I pick up happens to be human. To more directly answer your question, I think I would want to be a garbage man because I hate spiders.

ME: What’s worse, being adopted or being transgender?

MY BROTHER: Well, I don’t know. I don’t consider either a bad thing at all. I had no choice in my adoption, and I suppose it’s the same with you.

_______________________________

1.
My brother is an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department.

2.
By “trannies and gays” I’m pretty sure he means hyper-effeminate males and cross-dressers, or what some people refer to as “transvestites,” that is, people who are not transsexual FTMs or MTFs. I think he might even include drag queens in this group.

3.
(Oh, how I debated whether or not to stick a footnote here. Looks like I did… My book: my rules!) For fuck’s sake, I do not want or expect anybody to alter their memories of the past, with or without me in it. Just because I wish to be referred to as male later in life as an adult doesn’t mean that my entire early life has been eclipsed. The truth is, I probably wouldn’t erase or change much about my past at all. I’m probably one of the lucky ones; that is, I wasn’t miserable my whole early life, feeling born in the wrong body, blah blah blah. I’m not saying it was always easy—of course it wasn’t—but I am saying that you can remember the past, talk about the past, even celebrate the past, yet still remain respectful of somebody’s all-grown-up, new and improved wishes and present-life situation.

People can and should have their own memories, just like I have mine. But if I looked a certain way to you in those memories, if you have decided I was something in your memories, just understand that that is your constructed experience, not necessarily mine. I don’t really understand why memories have to be gendered anyway, why they are threatened because I am different now than I was in memories then. I’m the same person, the same soul; I just went through some changes. All people change as they age.

If you want to tell my kids a story about me when I was a kid—like when I got in trouble for writing a letter full of curse words (really bad ones) and putting it in Libby Sparks’ mailbox eight doors down, or how I could never learn to spell
beacause
[sic] or
fasion
[sic]—then by all means, go ahead and tell them. They’ll love it. Just try to use my preferred gender marker, he, which is what I am. I don’t think those stories—or any stories, really—depend entirely on my perceived gender at the time.

And one more thing while I’m on a tear: My choices are not meant to be an affront to anybody else. In fact, they’re not about anybody else. People can keep their memories of me and don’t have to change anything about them. But if folks wish to be respectful of me and in my life nowadays, then they should refer to me as what I am when they talk about me, up and down the timeline of life. It’s really pretty simple. And if it’s not, refer back to “A Few Words About Pronouns” on page 53. And if it’s still not, then I don’t really know what else to say.

D
EXTER
W
ARD IS A
forty-eight-year-old officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. He works as an instructor at the Police Academy, where my brother also worked as an instructor for some time. Ward transitioned from female to male while on the job, beginning his transition in 2004. My brother put me in touch with him about a couple years ago, and I reached out to him, thinking I could maybe interview him for a magazine story. But I didn’t really know what to ask of him until I began contemplating this book. Here’s what he had to say when we ultimately started corresponding:

TC: My brother said that from his perspective in the department, your transition was handled pretty well by both your superiors and
your fellow officers. Is that true? I’ve heard some horror stories out there in a lot of fields—not just law enforcement and military—so why do you think it went so well for you in the LAPD?

DW: The LAPD has been great. I have had no issues at all. They protect me and come to me for my opinion about trans issues. I have nothing but praise for the department. As for the reason my transition has gone so well, I have to give the credit to [at the time] Lieutenant MacArthur [now Assistant Chief MacArthur]. When we had a big meeting and the department was trying to figure out how they should handle [my situation], she just said that every other company around the country has to deal with this type of issue, too, so let’s not do anything and play it by ear, and see what happens and check in with him (me) every now and then. So that’s how it has been.

TC: Did you work with my brother directly? How did you get to know each other?

DW: I do not work with S— anymore. He moved on, and I am still an instructor at the Academy, where we worked Tactics together for a while. We had two S—’s in the unit, and he was known as “Blond S—.” He was the first person I told, and he was cool with it—he is the most honest guy you will ever meet.

TC: My brother is pretty much the opposite of a blond. How’d he get that nickname—is it because he prefers blondes or something?

DW: Okay, S— is a great guy, but not the coldest beer in the fridge sometimes. Since we had the two S—’s, and your brother was a bit flighty at times, he was referred to as Blond S—.

TC: Well, I think that your talking to Blond S— about your transition really helped him understand and accept me more. So thank you for that. Did he tell you he has a trans brother? If so, when, and how did that go down?

DW: He was kind of not wanting to violate your privacy and seemed very protective of you, so I had to pull it out of him. But I got the gist of what he was asking, so I gave him my information because it was S—, and he is a good guy. I don’t remember when he asked because I have CRS (Can’t Remember Shit).

TC: My brother also said that one day you were just there in the men’s locker room and showers, changing like everybody else. What the hell was that like? Were guys cool with it?

DW: The Friday before I moved into the locker room was when all the captains in the department were notified that a person was transitioning from female to male, but they did not release my name. The following Monday my sergeant was waiting for me outside, so when I drove up he helped me move from the female locker room to the men’s. Then we had a unit meeting that same day, and I told the unit that if they had any questions, I would answer [them]. If there was a problem, I never heard anything; you would have to ask S— about that.

TC: Did any of your colleagues or superiors give you shit or a hard time?

DW: There was one guy I talked to all the time about Harleys and stuff, and once I transitioned he would not give me the time of day. I didn’t care, since you can’t change people’s personal opinions.

There was also an instructor who is an ass anyway, and he kept calling me “she.” I told him it is “he,” and he responded, “Yeah, whatever you are.” So I had to take him outside and talk to him. I could have made a complaint, but I found it a waste of my time and energy, and told him so. I also told him that I would not prevent anyone else who was standing in the area from [making a complaint] on my behalf. After that he was always trying to kiss my ass, but I had enough friends.

“Big” John McCarthy (who’s an Ultimate Fighting Championship referee now) also worked in the unit, and he put out a jar and announced that whoever called me “she,” “her,” or used my female name had to put a quarter in the jar. We [eventually] had enough to have a barbecue, so it was very cool.

TC: Can you give an example of a really positive experience with regard to your transition at work?

DW: I am a guest speaker when they teach the recruits the LGBT part of “Human Relations.” I like doing that, because after seeing me around the academy teaching, the recruits are pretty surprised when they find out [I’m transgender], and after that they just ask a lot of questions. I have been doing that for the last six years.

TC: Can you tell me a little about the process of picking up transgender suspects? When you bring them to jail or the precinct, where do you house them, according to what gender?

DW: If the officers have a suspect who is transgender, they have all been trained on how to handle situations dealing with the trans community. It is part of the “Human Relations” lesson plan. I know people think the LAPD are these big racist police officers, but I have done lectures all over involving trans issues and how other agencies should go about training their officers, and trust me, I would be afraid in any law enforcement agency outside of L.A. County.