The Greatest Lie Part 14

Sanguan, had cautioned us that the junctions between our vaginal openings, which he had fashioned from inverted, and inserted penile skin, and the colon segments he had used to lengthen our vaginas would form a tight ring of scar tissue. These rings, he had warned us, would make vaginal sex horribly painful or utterly impossible with larger penises. We had scheduled surgery with him to break these rings. We hoped our upcoming surgeries would enable us to enjoy satisfying vaginal sex.

The University of Minnesota had changed my status to female, and Tran had gotten her GED as a girl. However, Chiang Mai University required proof of my high school matriculation to admit me, and Uni High in Los Angeles had graduated me as a boy. Though the Thais are superficially more tolerant of their katoey than we Americans, the katoey suffer from terrible status discrimination in Thailand. Knowing this, and the controversial nature of my research project, I wanted to expunge any evidence of transsexuality from the records I was taking to Thailand.

But the Los Angeles Unified School District refused my first request to change my transcript, despite the Court's command. The district demanded a senseless application and personal appearance in the Principal's Office, as though my sex-change operation had been a violation of some unspoken academic rule. I was obliged to return to the familiar and much-dreaded corridors of University High School: the scene of my turbulent and unhappy adolescence , and the earliest, most awkward and painful stages of my transition.

It seemed like yesterday, and a million years ago, that I had scurried through these fetid halls, eyes averted from the hostile glares of my classmates. Now I walked these same halls as a beautiful stranger, attracting the astonished glances of a horny horde of high school boys, all agog at the fresh new babe in their midst. It was as if the old Alex was invisible, and the new Alexandra was walking a runway, or shimmying on a stage.