None of the Above (10 page)

“Yes,” I said. “Could I please schedule surgery as soon as possible to remove my testicles?”

I got lucky. Dr. Cheng had a last-minute cancellation and she squeezed me in for Wednesday the following week, but not before bringing me in to her office to tell me and my dad, face-to-face, what I was getting into.

“Once your testicles are removed, you'll have to take daily estrogen to replace your hormones.”

A pill every day.

“While most girls do well with medication, sometimes testosterone deprivation after surgery causes hot flashes, depression, and mood swings until we get the dosing right.”

Eighteen years old, and going through the Change. At least Aunt Carla and I would have something to talk about. I should have gotten a menopausal woman costume for Halloween, not that I'd be trick-or-treating tomorrow.

“For these reasons, a lot of people in the intersex world are
very passionate against gonadectomy.”

I'd seen a couple of articles, and couldn't really understand why some people were so militant against surgery. In little babies, maybe I could see delaying an operation until they were older and could make their own decision. But once you understood what you were . . . how could someone not want to be fixed?

I couldn't conceive of a world in which I wasn't broken.

“Finally,” Dr. Cheng said, “on top of the potential complications from surgery—namely bleeding, infection, and pain—I'd be remiss if I didn't warm you that estrogen does have side effects. It can cause weight gain. Blood clots. Headaches. Fluid retention. And there's a theoretical increased risk of breast cancer.”

At the
C
word, my dad flinched, and I felt my heart race. Dr. Cheng just sighed and brought over a form for me to sign. “I apologize if it seems that I'm laying things on too thick. But it's my job to make sure you're fully informed about the risks and benefits before you give consent for the procedure.”

I thought back to that moment when it'd seemed easier to deal with cancer than with being intersex. Now, more than ever, I agreed. I couldn't cut the Y chromosome out of each of my cells, but I could cut out those balls that everyone seemed so fixated on.

I looked at the consent form, which listed two paragraphs
of complications, including brain damage or even death from anesthesia.

Without even glancing at my dad, I signed my name.

The nurse who called the night before surgery reminded me that I couldn't eat or drink anything past midnight the day before my procedure, so by the time they rolled me back into the operating room I wanted to keel over from starvation. One of the techs had me shimmy over onto a metal table covered with bright white towels, and strapped me in. Then someone put a mask over my face that smelled like cherry bubble gum and I went to sleep.

What felt like two seconds later, I woke up feeling like a quivering ball of Jell-O. Someone had thrown a blanket over me but it didn't cover my legs or my arms, and a man was saying, “You're waking up from anesthesia, Kristin. The procedure's all over. Everything went great.”

My testicles were out. I had hoped, expected even, to suddenly feel like I was a girl again. But all I felt like was an empty jar.

When I got home, Aunt Carla was already there, ready to play nursemaid. “You just lie down and relax, young lady. I've got a pot of nice chicken soup on the stove and some tea with lemon.” I didn't have the heart to tell her that those were cold remedies. Maybe they worked just as well for
girls who'd been castrated.

Up in my room, I changed into pajamas and looked at my incisions. I had two of them, one on each side right at my panty line. I probably couldn't wear a thong, but I might be able to get away with a normal bikini.

I ran my fingers across the red, puckered lines. Dr. Cheng had told me that she'd used dissolvable sutures and skin glue, so I could shower as soon as tonight. The skin around where she'd cut felt sore, like a muscle strain, but not truly painful.

After dinner, when I went to say good night to my dad, he was at the kitchen counter hunched over his laptop. I caught a glimpse of someone in a track uniform and peeked over his shoulder.

“I'm researching that runner Caster Semenya,” he said. “I can't really find many specifics about the case. I mean, from the medical point of view.” He didn't look at me, keeping his eyes on the screen. “But if anything happens with your scholarship, I think we can fight it.”

“You mean, in court?” I didn't know if my dad could afford a lawyer.

“We'll see if there's an issue,” my dad said, still scrolling through an article. He clicked through to another article and there was a close-up of a runner. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.

“Is that her?” I asked.

My dad nodded. We both stared at a shot of Caster waving
the South African flag after winning a race. She had tight cornrows that emphasized her thick eyebrows and the hair on her upper lip, and her toned arms and six-pack reminded me uncomfortably of Sam's. In her yellow-and-green skintight track uniform, you could see that she was flat as a pancake, and that she definitely did not have what my aunt Carla called childbearing hips.

My dad clicked on the little triangle at the center of the picture, and a video played.

“When she won the eight-hundred-meter dash at the 2009 world championships in a time of 1:55.45, Caster Semenya was just eighteen years old,” a woman with a British accent said. “Because she had improved her personal best time by eight seconds in less than a year, officials decided that they were ‘obliged to investigate' for performance-enhancing drugs. When they found a level of testosterone that was four times that of a normal woman, this sparked a gender-verification test and a year-long ban from competition. But Caster Semenya and her family insist that she is a girl. The controversy has sparked a firestorm of criticism against the International Association of Athletics Federations' handling of the matter, with some accusing the organization of being sexist, racist, and insensitive to privacy and human rights.”

Next they had clips of an interview with Caster's father: “She is my little girl. I raised her and I have never doubted her gender. She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times.”
They showed pictures of the South African town she grew up in, and interviewed her high school teacher and her grandmother, who told the camera, “It is God who made her look this way.” And then they ran a clip of an interview with Caster.

Her head was bowed, except for when she took a swig of her water, and the guy interviewing her was offscreen so you could only hear his voice. You assumed it was a man, and he asked the usual questions about her time and whether she would set a world record. Then Caster talked, and her voice was deeper than his. My dad gave a start.

As I stood behind him, trying not to have a panic attack, my dad searched “intersex test,” and I got to read about how in the seventies, before lab testing was developed, officials would have all the girl athletes parade naked in front of doctors to make sure all their parts were in order. Then he clicked on a link to a David Letterman skit about a “gender verification test” that involved hitting a person in the crotch with a baseball bat. My dad swore and closed the tab right away, but I'd seen enough to make me feel sick.

Together, we found another article about Caster where this women's magazine gave her a makeover. They'd put on hair extensions, stuffed her in a dress, and decorated her with earrings and dangly bracelets.
LOOK AT OUR CASTER NOW!
In some ways, that was the worst of all. How easily you could make someone look more “feminine.” How easily you could turn a freak into a homecoming queen.

One thing Coach Auerbach hadn't mentioned was that, even though Semenya was cleared to race in the Olympics, some people thought that she had thrown the gold medal race because she didn't want to face any more controversy, and didn't want to be accused of having an unfair advantage. And who could blame her?

My dad surfed onto a video of Caster at a press conference a year after the controversy broke. While he watched Caster talk about staying positive as an athlete, all I saw were the YouTube user comments underneath.
God, it sounds like a dude
, said one.
It LOOKS like a dude too
, said another. Then:
OK here's the real test. What guy would want to stick his wiener there?

And all of a sudden it was too much.

“Turn it off,” I said loudly. My dad jumped. “Please turn it off,” I pleaded.

He blinked and shut his browser. “Honey, why don't you go see if there's a game on?” my dad asked. “I'll be done in a second. I can make popcorn.”

I swallowed. My dad's hand was still on the mouse. I might not have the stomach to read any more, but he did. When my mom was throwing up from chemotherapy, all I could do was hold her hand. But my father researched every kind of antinausea treatment and came home with ginger and peppermint oil and DIY acupuncture wrist bracelets. It's what he did to keep the powerlessness from eating him alive.

I shook my head and gave him a kiss on the head. “You
keep reading. I'm going to bed.”

I trudged up the stairs to my bedroom, telling myself,
I don't look like Caster. I look like a woman. I am a woman. Dr. Cheng said so.
Just to prove it to myself, I dug into my closet and got the emerald-green Victoria's Secret nightie that Sam had given me for Christmas. I put it on and posed in front of a mirror. I told myself that if I took a picture and posted it on Craigslist personals I would get hundreds of responses.

I would. I knew I would.

But the only response that I wanted was one from Sam. With shaking fingers, I tore off the nightie. Even after I'd curled into bed in my flannel pajamas, though, all I could think about was Sam, and each memory was like a hot poker in my chest: The look of joy on his face when he saw how pleased I was with his gift. The way his lips parted ever so slightly when I modeled it for the first time. The feel of his biceps against my rib cage when he lifted me up for a kiss.

I had been staring at my alarm clock for almost half an hour before it dawned on me that I had lied to Sam and Faith. And to myself. Dr. Cheng hadn't said that I was a woman. She had said that most people with AIS “identified themselves” as women. Which wasn't the same.

Which wouldn't ever be the same.

After another half an hour of lying in bed awake, I turned my light on to go to the bathroom and tripped over my purse. The pain medicine Dr. Cheng had given to me fell out. I hadn't
planned on taking it—the pain wasn't that bad—but then I caught sight of the little yellow warning label with a droopy eye.
MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS
.

A bonus side effect.

Before I could change my mind, two of the Percocet pills were in my mouth. They didn't go down easy, sticking in my gullet like concrete. Even after I went to the bathroom to get some water, it still felt like there was a knot in my heart, but before I knew it I had drifted off to sleep.

I woke up the next morning in a Percocet haze. The whole world was fuzzy, and I couldn't move, as if I'd been cemented into my bed. My muscles had turned into stone, my blood into molten lead. Just turning my head to see my clock took all the energy I had. Reaching the snooze button was impossible.

It didn't matter if I went to school, did it? In the grand scheme of things. No one would be hurt. No one would die. The only people who'd care would probably be Sam and his jerk-off friends, because they wouldn't have their new punching bag. If I stayed at home it'd be one less piece of homework for my teachers to grade, and one less stop for Faith.

It was a win-win situation, really.

I lay there until I had to pee so badly I couldn't hold it anymore, and I rolled out of bed. As I walked to the bathroom my dad was coming upstairs to put his uniform on.

“Why aren't you dressed yet? Faith's going to be here any minute.”

“I don't think I can go to school today.”

My dad went instantly into alarm mode, which I should've predicted. “Is everything okay?”

“I'm just feeling sick from the pain meds.”

“I'll get you some ginger ale on the way home. But we should make an appointment—”

“No,” I interrupted him. “No more doctors. Please?”

He looked at me, and turned away quickly. “Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath. “But I'll ask your aunt Carla to check in on you in an hour or two.”

“Fine.”

I went to the bathroom, texted Faith that I wouldn't be going to school, and crawled back into bed.

I woke up to a blinding light.

“Wake up, sleepyhead! It's a beautiful morning!” chirped Aunt Carla.

I tried to pull my pillow over my head, but she pulled it away and threw off my covers, which were damp with sweat. Aunt Carla gasped.

“Krissy, are you okay? Do you have a fever?”

“I don't know. I just feel hot.” When I went back to bed that morning, I'd tossed and turned. One minute I'd be burning up, the next minute I'd be freezing.

“I'll get the thermometer. What you really need is some nice fresh orange juice and some hot biscuits.” When I lifted my head I could smell something buttery and amazing. My stomach grumbled.

“Okay, okay,” I said.

After the juice and biscuits, my stomach felt full but the rest of me still felt empty. Out of place. Aunt Carla took my temperature, which turned out to be normal.

I brushed my teeth. Took a shower. And when I started thinking too much about school and Vee and hernias I went into the kitchen. Maybe I could surprise my dad with dinner. I flipped through our recipe box, and stopped at my mom's baked ziti recipe. It had been my dad's favorite, but we hadn't cooked it in years.

I couldn't understand how staring at a recipe card could make me feel physical pain. My mom always used to say that my dad was proof of the old saying that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and I wondered what aphorism she would've used to get me through today. Probably something like, “What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger.” I couldn't remember how many times she said that during her first few rounds of chemotherapy. By the end, though, her maxim became, “God doesn't give us more than we can handle in life.”

My mother never saw me run, and that was one of the saddest things about leaving the church—giving up the idea that
my mom was up there in some cloudy-fluffy angel land, looking down on me for my first kiss, or the day I won the state championship. I wished she could've seen me at Homecoming. Or even now. I knew she would've loved me even if she'd known that I had boy parts.

I decided to make a pie, which had been our favorite thing to make with each other. I loved cutting the butter into the flour, and the satisfaction of making a perfect lattice. Flour everywhere, soft and dusty like baby powder.

It would have killed my mother never to have grandchildren, I thought suddenly. She would've pretended it was okay, probably, but I knew she would've taken it hard. She probably would've noticed that I never got my period and taken me to an ob-gyn sooner. Maybe if she'd been alive, I wouldn't have had to tell Vee.

And what would my life be like, if no one knew but me? Would I still be running, or would I feel guilty that I was somehow cheating?

I'd never know.

I folded the crust into the pan and started to work on the filling.

While the pie baked, I brought out my laptop so I could email the secretary who was supposed to get homework assignments for students who were out sick. There were dozens of new messages in my account. I hadn't checked my email since the
locker incident. Half of it was spam, or the daily digests from the college track mailing list.

I would have ignored them all, just let them clog my inbox, if it weren't for the Facebook notifications:

Pat Hermaphrodite tagged you in a photo.

Bruce Torino commented on a photo you're tagged in.

Andy Sullivan liked a photo you're tagged in.

The kitchen was warm from the oven being on, so I shouldn't have felt so cold. My hand shook as I logged on to Facebook, where I had 846 friends. Where my status was still “In a relationship.” Where I was still listed as being female.

It hurt so much to see my profile picture that I almost couldn't breathe.

Vee had taken the picture over the summer, at her annual pool party. Sam and I were cuddling with each other on a lawn chair, and God I looked happy. I remembered the day: the smell of coconut-scented suntan lotion, the brilliance of the pool reflecting the cloudless sky. It was surreal seeing myself like that, like looking at the school photo of a missing child.

Just below that was the picture I had been tagged in.

Whoever it was in real life, Pat Hermaphrodite was a pretty talented Photoshopper. He (or she) also had good access to
porn, to find a penis that was just the right proportion and angle to splice onto the picture of me in my bikini at the car wash.

The picture had seventy-three “likes.” Sixteen comments. I didn't want to read them, but it was as if I was going by a car wreck and couldn't turn away.

There was one comment from Jessica Riley saying, “So not cool, guys. Not cool,” but five others that told her to chill out, that it was just for fun. Every post felt like a dagger thrust into my back, and still I scrolled through the list of people who “liked” them.

They were faces I had known since kindergarten, faces of teammates and rivals. A few people from my homeroom. One guy who'd sent me a singing Valentine during middle school. The girl who stood next to me in the alto section of our junior chorus.

I wanted to throw up. I ran to the bathroom, but when I got there all I did was dry-heave over the sink. When I lifted my head I could taste the acid in the back of my throat.

My brain could barely wrap itself around the hurt. These weren't mean people. I told myself they'd probably just seen a funny picture and clicked “like” out of habit, because that's what you do when you read something on Facebook.

But who was I kidding?