ACT ONE

I was sitting on the banks of a peaceful river. The sun was out and it was fall. I laid back to take in the beauty that surrounded me. I splashed my left feet in the water of a nearby stream. There was a soft breeze that carried the light scent of honeysuckle.

The ancient oak that I was reclining under was magnificent. Its mighty limbs reached down to the ground. I studied its majesty for quite some time. That was when I heard the call of a distressed bird. This creature was perched in the limb just above my head. How could I have missed such a thing?

This grizzled bird threw its beak open wide, giving off another ear spitting call.

Damn! 4:30 a.m. I fumbled with the off switch on the alarm clock, knocking over the glass of water I kept on my bedside table. I can only compare the sound my alarm makes to the unholy union of grinding metal and fingernails on a chalkboard.

I thought to myself, “I have a lot to do today. God if I could just go back to sleep.”

I need to get up. I need to get ready. I thought of the things I needed to do. I reminded myself to make sure I have all of the documents I would need to file for my name and gender change. “Where did I put that check? God, what time is it? 4:35 a.m.” Four hours of sleep.

It was about then that I noticed that my foot was wet. So I did what any rational individual would do. I laid in the dark and wondered why I had a wet foot.

I slowly reached under my covers. I found to my amazement that there was a rather thick rope in my bed. I crinkled my nose and thought that perhaps one of my roommates was attempting to play some sort of practical joke on me. I grabbed the rope tightly and began to pull it up for a closer inspection.

Suddenly, the rope was forcefully pulled from my hand. I heard a rather loud thump. My foot was still wet. My mind raised back to a childhood fears of snaggletooth monsters crawling into my bed.

I switched on the light just in time to see what appeared to be a mutant rat hiss at me. Its demonic eyes reflected the overhead light. It huddled itself in the corner of my room.

“My god! It’s a possum!” My mind raced. My foot… my foot… wet. I thought, “A possum crawled into my room, under my covers and has been eating my foot!”

A second later I realized that my foot felt fine. “He slobbered on my foot!”, I thought. I reached under the covers to inspect my foot and then slowly raised my hand to my face.

The possum had released the contents of its bowels on my foot.

I am sure that there exists some volume of omens which would explain precisely what it means when a creature who, upon feeling the need to defecate thinks to itself, “No, I think I will hold it… I feel the urge to save it until I am in Cristan’s bed.” And so, against all natural instincts, it clenches it’s little butt cheeks while it finds its way into my house, then into my room so that it could quietly creep into my bed, under my covers and then crap on my foot.

In fact, it was an omen. My incontinent friend had fired a sticky warning shot all over my foot. I should have taken heed. I should have stayed in bed.

I was going to file my petition far name and gender change that day with a friend. I had thought this day would never come. Never was about how soon I could scrape together the money to get my name and gender change. I was caught up in a catch-22 that many find themselves in: they can’t get a job because they have a the wrong gender marked on their license, but they can’t get it changed because they don’t have the money to pay for a lawyer because they can’t get work.

ACT TWO

We arrived at the courthouse early in the morning, filed our petitions and received our court assignments. I was assigned a court that no one had tried to go through yet. I swallowed the icy grip of panic that was twisting my stomach.

When we went to get a court date from the judge’s scheduler, I was informed that if I would like to wait around, the judge would be back soon and would then listen to my case. My heart leapt as I realized that I might walk out of the court building with the ability to get a job, write a check or legally check “F” on all of my documentation.

My exhilaration was extinguished when the court scheduler informed me that the sitting judge was on vacation and that the judge that I would be seeing was his fill-in. My heart sank lower when I caught a glimpse of the replacement judge. He was old and by old, I mean ancient. It also appeared the he found it to be fashionable to wear as many necktie pins as possible that quietly referenced to his choice of religion.

So my friend and I waited. And then waited some more. Then we waited longer. I thought that it would be a good idea to double check with the scheduler. My knees went to rubber when she told me that he had gone to the legal library to double check some of the statutes that had claimed on my petition.

I knew that I was sunk. My case hinged upon trying to bring many points together in order to show that if you look at that specific section of the law in a certain way, that you could then justify the change of name and gender. I knew that nowhere in Texas law did it specifically say that it is legal, or for that matter, illegal for a pre-operative transsexual to obtain a name and gender change. Would he agree with the argument? Did he know about the Littleton case? If he did, would he find it relevant? I almost threw up all over the smiling scheduler’s desk.

I went back to waiting. I paced. I prayed. I thought, “Breathe, breathe in and let the fear out… let it all out. That’s right… it let all of that nasty anxiety out. Feel all that fear, stress and anxiety leave as you open you mouth and exhale…” I went to the bathroom to vomit.

Finally the judge asked to see me in his chambers. I walked in and he sat down. I sat down. He got up to retrieve a law book. I stood up. He sat back down. He asked me to sit down. I sat down. He looked at me. I looked at him. He looked at the law-book and looked at me. I looked at the collage of tie pins: small golden and silver crosses, bibles, doves, halos, stone tablets, rings of thorns and chalices swirled in a biblical medley. I felt sick.

He told me that the section of law that I quoted in my petition said nothing about gender changes. He spoke these words crisply – authoritatively. There was a silence that seemed to echo in my head. I realized that it was up to me to either make this happen or at least get him to defer this ruling for the sitting judge.

I explained to him how to get form that section of law to the evidence that I had to a gender change. The judge licked his parchment lips and said, “But it doesn’t say anything about a change of gender in here.” I went on to educate him about the oppressions transsexuals face on a daily basis, the job discrimination and the plethora of suggestive studies that have been done about gender, brain structures and prenatal hormone levels. He looked at me, at the floor and then the law books. I looked at his tie pins. I went on to educate him about the standards of care – the standards which one must adhere to in order to receive SRS – the same standards, which all but said that it patients should get a gender change. I went on to explain that the courts have a long, long history of deferring to the experts in areas where expert advice is needed. He leaned back in his chair and said, “But it doesn’t say anything about changing your gender here.”

I could see that I was getting nowhere with logic and – god help me – I resorted to acting the part of a silly female who really didn’t know what she was doing… or possibly, where she was at. All of a sudden, it seemed that we were getting along famously.

He told me about the years and years of judgifying that he had done. He told me about his family. He showed me their photos. He told me about what he did when he wasn’t sitting in for a judge who was on vacation. He told me about both his last fishing excursion and golf game. Then he agreed to let the sitting judge hear my case. I smiled… sheepishly, and thanked him as if he had just put an end to the holocaust, received another court date and went to the restroom to vomit.

Note: After two more court dates, the author received her name and gender change.