Squirrel Cage (23 page)

*****

Several weeks later I would learn that Bruce had spotted me just as soon as I came into the chapel. He thought that I was either a woman from the leadership of the LDS Relief Society to raise some hell or that I was a reporter that was about to publish some article to the same end.

“Honest Cindi, you looked too nice to be one of our congregation, I just knew that I was going to have trouble with you sitting down there in our chapel. I had prepared another sermon, but the Good Samaritan seemed more appropriate,” he concluded.

“Let me tell you Bruce, you knocked it out of the ball park. I really needed a confidence boost. I took your speech in a whole different way than you had probably intended,” I explained.

At the same time he revealed to me his remembered thoughts of the occasion, I related to him mine… about the “clergy drag.”
He laughed heartily and used the phrase probably every day after that. He thought it very clever for a gay pastor to wear “clergy drag.”

*****

He clasped my hand firmly in a handshake. As I shook his hand, I announced “Pastor Bruce, my name is Cindi Jones.”

“How nice it is to have you join us today. We welcome all in our church,” he said.

I went on “Pastor, Sandy asked me why I am here”
and paused while I tried to muster some saliva to my desiccated mouth. “And I am going to tell you what I told her.
I am a transsexual” I said.

“Oh, are you going to have surgery to become a man?” “No, I’m going the other way. Pastor Bruce,” I paused again as tears welled in my eyes. “I have nowhere to go.” And I burst into tears.

“Cindi,” he said as he opened his arms wide “Let me be the first to officially welcome you to our little family.” And he gave me a big hug.

200 pounds were lifted from my shoulders. The shackles fell from my wrists and ankles. I instantly felt loved. And I learned later that these sentiments were real. These people would come to protect me and to help me survive. They supported me when no one else would.

I spent the next 30 or 40 minutes being introduced to many women and men. They were all very nice. No one introduced me as Cindi the transsexual.
I
f they were to know, I had to tell them. I did tell them. From the beginning, here was a group of people with whom I felt no fear of rejection or condemnation. I could tell them who I was and they accepted me with no prejudice or malice. Most had met drag queens but never a person with gender dysphoria, I
found out later
.

As the social part of the service wound down, Pastor Bruce called me over.
“Cindi, I hope that you will let me send you home with the leftover cookies.
I’m sure you will enjoy them.”

“Ellen, may I talk to you?” I asked her as I entered her office.

“Of course David, what can I do for you?”

Ellen was our Human Resources director.

“Ellen, I would like to look for a position in one of the California facilities.”

“David, I know something is wrong.
Do you want to tell me about it?

“Ellen, I’m going through a divorce.
It is painful.
I will support my family but I am receiving so many pressures from so many sides that I am just not effective here.
Do you know what I am saying Ellen?
I’m trying to NOT tell you the real problem.
I do not want to hurt others.”

I was hoping that Ellen, a non Mormon member might catch on quickly to what I was trying to say… or at least make a false assumption. She did not have to know for certainty my problem. I felt no need to verify rumors. We had known each other some time
and had worked in two companies together.
We were not close friends but we had run into each other every day for the past five years.

“David, I’m afraid I don’t follow. I know very well that you are having problems of some kind.
You have arrived at work troubled for several weeks now.
I hate to say it, but there are rumors spreading around,” she offered.

“Rumors of what?” I asked.

“David, they are rumors and I shall not validate them.”

I would later learn that everyone thought that I was gay.
Where they got that impression, I shall never know. Perhaps it might be easier to live against a rumor of being gay versus a certainty of being transsexual. I had shown up at work with my face red and swollen for several weeks now, tell tale symptoms of heavy sessions in electrolysis to remove my beard.
I just told them that I was having some skin problems related to shaving.
It sounded logical to me.
My hair had grown longer as well.
Long hair was not unusual in the 80’s.
If you had, who cared?
But David had always been a very clean and well dressed marketing product manager. He was a straight shooter and a “goody goody two shoes.”

Our company was small here when we occupied only one floor in the office building.
The company had been purchased by a large computer and instruments company based in Palo Alto.
My once company president was now my plant manager in the new organization and he was also an official on the regional leadership of my church. Yes, he was LDS.

“Ellen, I’m facing considerable pressure from my church, I’m sure that they will be excommunicating me. I’m sure that you must realize what that will do to me here in the valley. It will destroy my career.
I’ll have to move regardless.”

“Look David, I know that there is substantially more. Do you want to tell me about it? Ellen, please, just let me know what I need to do to look for other positions within the company. She pressed again “David, I really have to know so that I can help place you.
If you tell me it will help me substantially.”

Ellen was a woman who I knew would understand. I believed I could trust her.
“Ellen, what I’m going to tell you is very personal.
Will you promise me that you will hold this information in the strictest of confidence?
”

“Why of course, David. We’ve known each other for years.” And that we had.

“Ellen, it seems like I’ve had to tell this to so many people lately. You would think that it would become easier. But it is not. I have been haunted by personal problems for years. I am a transsexual. I need to get away from Utah. I want to protect my children from what is happening to me. I sincerely believe that this is having a severe impact on them. Of course they have no idea what is going on.
I have separated and moved into a small apartment nearby. Charlene has sued for divorce. The divorce will be civil.
I will support my family.”

“Oh David!" Ellen sighed as she calmed herself. “I truly had no idea what it was that was bothering you. I could not imagine the enormity of it.
Of course I have heard of this kind of thing and I know that the company has methods for dealing with it.”

“Ellen, will you please look into a transfer?” I asked.

“David, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll also contact our legal department to see what we can do to help on this end. And I’ll keep it secret.

And for some reason, she revealed my secret to Dennis Baldwin, our plant manager, one of my counsel members of the Mormon Church.
She would later relate that there had been a necessary reason to talk to Dennis about it and she now knew that she should have talked to me first.
Dennis decided to get involved with me, with the Church, and with outside counsel from prominent church oriented psychological
people
. Ellen had warned him to cease and desist. But he felt it important to follow through.

*****

“David, I have called you in here to talk to you about your problem” Dennis said to me. He sat behind his large executive desk. I sat opposite him in an uncomfortable chair.

“Dennis, what I told Ellen was strictly confidential. You have no business knowing this information.”

“No David, I am also a high council member in the Stake where you live.” The stake is the regional authority within the Mormon church.

“I understand Dennis. But here, at work, you are my employer only.
If you would like to discuss religious issues, you may invite me to your office at the chapel. But the invitation must not be made here where I work. I feel uncomfortable with this conversation and feel that it is discriminatory.”

And so it would go. The advice would be the same. The admonishments would be the same. The recommended scripture reading would be the same.
And, he would also employ the help of a highly recommended psychiatrist.
The problem was that he had no rights to intrude into my personal business and I advised Ellen that I felt uncomfortable with this situation.
I felt that it had nothing to do with
my
work.
I felt that it was discriminatory against me, against issues that I was resolving on my own.
I did not need nor did I want his intervention.
I was kind to her but I was clear.
I also put it in writing.

“The reason you are taking this path is due to the relationships you have with these self help groups and your psychologist. The longer you remain loyal to them, the more determined you will become to do this sinful thing,” he told me.

“So, Dennis, tell me this if you would. I’ve been headed this direction for the past 6 months with the counseling. I’ve literally gone through torture for 10 to 20 hours a week under the electrolysis needle. That’s why my face is often so swollen. I don’t think that I could convey to anyone just how miserable that experience is. So, if you were to commit yourself for six months of this counseling and could possibly endure the torture of electrolysis, can you really believe that you could be convinced to
change your gender
… to have your penis surgically removed
?” There, I’d said it. I can’t describe what pushed me in this “gender dysphoria”. It was do it or die, in my mind.

My journals record a few meetings with Dennis at his request. The details are all quite boring. He always focused on the sinful nature of my
behavior
, how I should allow God to free me, pray, attend my meetings, return to my wife, all of the things that I had willingly explored a few times before but felt dead set against now. Each time I responded that I felt uncomfortable discussing this at work and that I felt the comments discriminatory.

******

My private world had completely unraveled in Utah. I really had to leave. I had just received a note from my Mother. Now before I reveal what the note said, I want this made known up front.
My mother was the first to connect to me with unconditional love.
You tell someone you love them and expect nothing in return.
You ask for nothing. It opens the door for effective communication for
long-term
resolution of problems.

She would send me a letter every couple of weeks for the next two years expressing her love and support. She was the first to express unconditional love and would be one of the last to accept the reality of what happened.
I only present her letter she wrote at this time because it clearly and succinctly expressed so many feelings and attitudes at the time.

The envelope was addressed to C. Jones.
The letter inside had no salutation and was written clearly in neat penmanship:

“
I think that you’d better leave the state. I’m sick of you spreading your nasty little accomplishment all over Salt Lake. We have to live here.
AND leave my daughter ALONE.
”

The note was signed with my mother’s signature, her full legal name.
Her daughter, referred to in the letter, was my sister Charlotte. Charlotte had at first taken the rumors of my transition very hard. She had looked up to her senior brother her entire life. David was her role model.
David was her hero.
And with a few words, her vision of the perfect man had been shattered.

She would later receive counsel from a close friend who knew something of these issues.
She was told something about transsexualism, some point clicked, and from then on, she fully accepted the fact that she now had a new sister. Charlotte would become my strongest supporter in my family. She had always been my sister and now, I knew that I was hers.

The apartment I had rented was very compact.
But the layout was comfortable for me.
It was fully furnished with small chairs in the living room.
It also had a bed and a chest of drawers in the bedroom.
It was a new apartment and the rent was very low.
Best of all, it was very close to work.
I had very little money, so every cent I could save on gasoline was needed for living expenses.
I learned that it wasn’t enough to save on gas.
I did not have enough money. After I had covered the costs of Charlene’s home, I had only enough to pay for rent and my car payment.

A sales guy had shown me once how to pad an expense account.
And in reality, I still spent less on expenses than anyone else. I usually didn’t eat three meals a day while traveling.
But three meals would appear on my expense reports. When customers paid, I still expensed a meal. And finally, if there were anything I could get with a meal that could be carried home, it would be in my suitcase. I managed to get fruit, rolls, crackers, peanuts and other things to bring home.