Syzygy

By Tiffany Wan

Spring 2008 Kaplan Award Winner

When he was 10 years old, Greg Wylie began having a series of vivid dreams. His grade school crush, Vickie, lived down the road from him. To Greg she was perfect, the epitome of everything girly, and he adored her. For two weeks he had the same dream: he was riding his bike toward Vickie’s house, and each day he would get closer and closer. Finally, during the last dream, Greg made it to the house and found himself inside Vickie’s room. Vickie was there. But then he began to get confused. Yes, Vickie was there, but Greg was also Vickie; somehow, they had become one person. He perceived Vickie and he perceived himself. It wasn’t just that he worshipped Vickie as an object of his desire: he wanted her because he wanted to be just like her. At the end of those two weeks, Greg realized that he wanted to be a girl.

Now, Greg is no more. Standing in his wake is Elayne, a filmmaker and businesswoman, nearly indistinguishable from any other thirty-something woman. She has a boyfriend, Brent, whom she met over the Internet; they’ve been together for six months now. Elayne considers herself bisexual and has dated mostly women in the past, but she thinks she’s found someone special in Brent. As a pre-operative transwoman, some of the men that have approached Elayne have turned out to be “tranny chasers” (clinically referred to as gynemimetophiliacs), men who fetishize transgender women and pursue them for purely sexual reasons. But she knows Brent is different; they’ve talked extensively about Elayne’s past, and he treats her like a real woman. On his Myspace page, a picture of Elayne carries the caption, “This one stole my heart.”

It took 25 years for Elayne to escape from under Greg’s shadow, from years of doubt, fear and repression. Now on a daily regimen of female hormone, she’s five months into a yearlong required counseling track toward sex reassignment surgery (SRS). In a few weeks, she’ll make the call to schedule her first surgery with Dr. Marci Bower, a noted gynecologist and “rock star” SRS surgeon who is also a well known a male-to-female transsexual.

Elayne looks forward to her impending physical change, saying it’s more of a corrective measure than a removal of anything significant. “I’ve enjoyed my penis for the time I’ve had it, but now it’s an obstruction,” she says. “It’s not cutting off your penis, it’s turning it inside out. Imagine having a flap of skin sticking out of your bathing suit and having that removed. This surgery is going align the outside with how I feel on the inside.” Post-SRS, Elayne will anatomically resemble a woman who’s had a hysterectomy.

When I first met Elayne in 2004—still living as Greg at the time—she was in what she calls “survival mode.” Before fully committing to the SRS, social circumstances often forced her to live less like Elayne and more like Greg. What I knew of Greg at the time was that he was a filmmaker, president of the UW Film Club, and was engaged to a woman named Amy. We worked together at the Daily for a couple years; I later left to pursue other internships and Greg’s film producing endeavors took off, leaving little time to continue attending school. We reconnected at a career workshop for cinema studies majors where Greg—now Elayne—appeared as a panel speaker. Her appearance was surprising, to say the least.

It’s a Sunday night when I meet Elayne again at Pagliacci’s Pizza on Lake City Way; she works part time at the company’s call center and offers to use her discount to get us dinner. We start off just catching up on each other’s lives, but the conversation inescapably veers toward how and why Greg became Elayne. “I felt being a girl was inevitable,” she tells me. After years of harboring gender issues, Elayne says, “I decided I had been afraid to transition. All the survival decisions to blend in were based in fear of being happy, and a fear of loss and reputation.” Active in the Seattle filmmaking scene, Elayne had worked on her first two movies as Greg. How would people react if Greg suddenly became Elayne?

Approaching adolescence by the 1980s, it was a difficult time for Elayne to be herself. Transsexuality was a hushed topic, buried under talk of homosexuality and AIDS. “It was difficult to really progress emotionally when I had no yardstick, no thermometer of what was real,” said Elayne, referring to the lack of paradigms transgender individuals were able to reference at the time. “I sort of made things up as I went along.”

Shortly after her nocturnal awakening, Elayne began experimenting secretly with women’s clothing, delving into her mom’s wardrobe and pilfering women’s clothes left by the wayside. By the age of 12, her stash of female goods was discovered and promptly tossed out by her mother. Embarrassed about his feminine inclinations, a period of masculinization followed, mostly self-imposed. Elayne joined the boy scouts, taking on leadership roles and pouring her heart into the organization for six years. But at night she hoped and prayed that she would one day wake up as a girl. At 17 she devoted herself to Christianity, trying to exorcise the specter of femininity that haunted her daily existence. “I felt sinful, really evil for having these feelings,” Elayne recalled. Her family had always been loosely religious (Lutheran by denomination), but her early adult years were newly characterized by an extreme dedication to the Christian faith as pursued through the Seattle Church of Christ.

Yet outside of church, she consistently sought information about transsexuality. She furtively checked the libraries, developments in science, and even her high school biology book. She continued to keep a cache of female attire, dressing up as a woman every Halloween and occasionally on the weekend. Wigs, makeup and clothes were the gateway to her female identity. Old Polaroids show a teenage Elayne beaming from a beauty salon chair, having just had her cheap blonde wig fashioned into a do Dolly Parton would envy. Long and lanky as a kid, Elayne’s stab at early drag is impressively realized. She also came up with her first female name: Gina. But becoming a woman felt so distant, “like visiting Australia,” said Elayne. Creating a new name kept alive a dream that was not yet tangible.

In 1990, she graduated from Shorewood High School and immersed herself further in church, even living with fellow church members while attending Shoreline Community College. Again, Elayne inserted herself into roles of leadership, becoming a bible talk leader and participating heavily in the singing ministry.

To help broaden the mission of her church, Elayne moved to Los Angeles in 1993. “The church in L.A. basically needed more white people to enhance demographics in their South Central church,” said Elayne with mild derision. She helped recruit church members and participated in various vocal groups, eventually working as one of several song leaders. Attempting to cement her dedication to the cause, she threw out her stash of women’s clothing. But dressing up had become a compulsion, and it didn’t take long to replenish her collection. She even began growing out her hair, an aesthetic decision that was her innocuous stab at feminization. She was still Greg, but now she was Greg with a ponytail.

Elayne took up residence in a suburb of L.A. called South Gate, working as a school bus driver to pay the bills and attending criminal justice courses at Cerritos College at the same time. Driving gave her access to the city and it was during work that Elayne met her first group of transsexuals loitering near a bus stop in Hollywood. Growing up in Washington, she had never met any transgender individuals before. Connecting with the community in Hollywood boosted her spirits and led to the coining of her current—and officially legal—name: Elayne. More than anything, she wanted a name that was, in her mind, “unique and classy at the same time.”

The name Elayne was born from two influences, harkening to both her mother’s middle name and a character from a Robert Jordan fantasy series she was reading titled Wheel of Time. “This character developed a lot of inner strength over the course of the books, and that really spoke to me at the time,” said Elayne. While at school, Elayne still projected herself as Greg, dressing like a man and attending class. On the weekends she transformed into Elayne and worked at a clothing boutique in Hollywood. By 1996 she had left the church, no longer ashamed of her feminine nature. At that point, she made a commitment to not let herself end up like many of her other friends in the transgender community. “The archetypes in the community were porn stars, drag performers or escorts,” said Elayne with disappointment. The majority of her transgender friends were illegal aliens and inextricably tied to these “service industries” for survival. “There were no role models at the time. I told myself, ‘I won’t transition now, but if I do, I’ll do it with education.’ Later I can afford what I want.”

The following year Elayne left the Hollywood area to be closer to school, settling near Long Beach. She loved the friends she’d made in the transgender community but felt their lifestyles distracted her from her educational goals. Elayne also began a relationship with a woman named Emily, who she eventually moved in with after losing her apartment. Emily was a photographer for their college newspaper; they met while she was covering a student government race at Cerritos in which Greg participated. Emily was more or less aware of Elayne’s situation and was fully supportive. “I don’t like lying,” she said, “but I’ll omit things to certain people to protect myself.” At the same time, Elayne began her first bout of hormone therapy. It lasted for a few months until financial woes forced her to discontinue the treatment. She dressed up less as her body was weaned off the estrogen.

After graduating from Cerritos, she moved back up to Seattle in 1999 and began a customer service job at Microsoft. Emily decided to attend school in New York, ending their relationship. Instead of returning to her routine of dressing up on the weekends, Elayne found herself drawn to the Goth scene. “Lifestyle-wise, it was a lot of makeup and dressing up that blurred gender boundaries,” said Elayne. “Guys could be feminine, and it was safe.” In 2001, she enrolled at the UW to pursue her interest in film. By 2004, she was president of the Film Club and working on production of local Seattle films. She was also engaged to her girlfriend Amy, who she had met while frequenting various Goth clubs and parties. Like Emily before, Amy was wholly accepting of Elayne’s situation; at the time, Elayne said she had no desire to transition fully into a woman, and Amy made it clear that she would not stay with her if she did.

A year later the engagement was off. “We drifted,” said Elayne matter-of-factly. “I was becoming a filmmaker, and she decided to go back to school for graphic design.” Elayne discovered they worked better as friends and business partners than as lovers. She even hired Amy to design the business cards for her new company, Wyldkat Productions.

The following year was one of intense self-reflection. School wasn’t working out for Elayne because of its conflict with her filmmaking, which was beginning to eat up the majority of her time. “My whole focus changed,” she said. More than that, she simply wasn’t happy. Memories of Amy left her depressed and confused. She was tired of regretting parts of her life: her decisions, her faults, her fears, and her failures. So she decided to stop. Regret gave way to what Elayne calls un-regretting. “Un-regretting allowed me to own my experiences as being positive,” said Elayne. The process let her put everything into perspective and to finally take control of what she regretted the most: halting her transition to becoming a woman.

Then and there, at the end of 2006, Elayne decided to finish what she had started. She began with baby steps. She underwent laser hair removal, figuring if the procedure flopped that it would be the least invasive part of her transition. When that succeeded, she entered counseling in order to prove her mental stability and continue the transition process. Hormones entered the picture once again and her body reshaped itself to the point where Elayne could no longer hide the breasts that were developing under baggy clothes.

In early 2007, she began coming out to her circle of friends, starting with her roommates. She then told her managers and co-workers at the Pagliacci call center, receiving strong support from them. The last step was telling her family. It wasn’t until after she legally changed her name from Greg to Elayne that she contacted her mother. In March 2008, she flew out to Idaho and faced her mother, no longer as a son but as a daughter. “She was floored,” said Elayne, chuckling at the memory of greeting her mother as a woman. “She said, ‘Oh my God, you look great!’” That night they talked for hours. Elayne even received her mother’s and grandmother’s jewelry boxes, a peace offering of sorts. She couldn’t believe the level of acceptance that her mother put forth. “When all is said and done, that’s all I can ask for,” said Elayne. “She may not fully understand, but acceptance is important.” Elayne’s mother developed multiple sclerosis when she was a child and was always instructed her son to accept people for what they had to offer from within. “In my opinion, she tapped into that when accepting her son as her daughter,” said Elayne thoughtfully.

Although the response from family and friends was deeply positive, Elayne was stunned at the negative reaction from one roommate with whom she was particularly close to. Brian was initially supportive of Elayne’s announcement but grew distant soon after. “We used to be ‘the guys’ of the house,” said Elayne. “After my transition, he felt he’d lost his friend Greg.” Brian was the last person Elayne expected to be discontent: he’s a female to male transsexual. “It was weird to get that sort of reception, especially from him,” Elayne admitted. “It made me realize a lot of people probably felt that loss. I’m sure my mom is feeling that loss. ‘My son is gone,’ she may think.” There have been several awkward exchanges at work and otherwise; people slip up with the pronouns, referring to Elayne as “he” or “him.” “Some people are still getting used to the change,” she said.

In retrospect, it’s easy to understand Elayne’s penchant for leadership roles. When you fear what’s inside yourself, you try to control what’s around you and hope the climate will change to the point where you can be yourself. She still loves the limelight, taking on the task of discussion leader during group therapy sessions at the Ingersoll Gender Center on Capitol Hill. At first Elayne was leery of affiliating herself with any group, observing that most transgender individuals in Seattle are of the baby boomer generation. “I identify more with the cute twenty-something girls you see walking around on the Hill, not with older people,” said Elayne. But, recalling her sense of isolation as a teenager, she reconsidered on account of her desire to reach out to youths struggling with gender identity.

She recently got a tattoo to commemorate her transition: the word “syzygy” repeated in black ink, forming a perfect circle around her right bicep. A term utilized across such fields as astronomy, philosophy and psychology, the common thread speaks to the alignment or fusion of multiple bodies into a single, complementary entity.

Tagging along with her as she runs errands on a Tuesday afternoon, Elayne appears more comfortable and confident in her skin than most people I know, myself included. I ask if she ever feels like people do a double take when she walks by them, suspicious of what they are seeing. She grins, saying that kind of narcissism is a symptom of schizophrenia. “To me, there are four types of people that transgender people encounter, and those types have their own sub-types,” says Elayne with a hint of exasperation. She starts explaining them and I can almost hear the gears in her brain clicking as she goes down the list. The gist is that some people can tell, and some people can’t, and if they can tell they’ll either hide it or be condescending about it. Elayne has learned to tune these things out. “At some point, you have to stop caring. Some days are easier than others.”

We talk about Brent, the first man she’s ever seriously considered committing to. Interestingly, he prefers dating transgender women. “Brent is one of those guys transwomen look for, but instead they end up with tranny chasers.” I ask how she can tell and she explains that men like Brent are physically attracted to women, but they desire connecting with a male consciousness. “As female a brain as I have now, this brain was raised and conditioned as a male,” she says. Knowing she’s dated primarily women in her past, I ask Elayne when she became attracted to men. She says it wasn’t until she began socializing as a woman—around age 24— that she entertained the idea of dating a man. “Attention from men was exciting,” says Elayne. “It made me feel attractive. They treated me as a woman and not a gay guy.”

But after some experimentation she never quite found a “permanent connection,” she says. “I would go home, take off the things these men were most attracted to and put them in the closet,” she says. “I felt like they weren’t attracted to the real me.” Now partially through the transition process, her physical transformation has changed the way she views men, no longer having to hide the male persona that’s gradually dissipating. She’s begun to fantasize about making love as a woman, a dream that will become reality this time. “I think I’m going to be a lot happier with a vagina,” she says.

We walk into a kitchenware store called Mrs. Cook where Elayne is purchasing items for a friend’s party. I linger by the register as she pays for a decorative glass bottle, examining some French-made cutlery far beyond my budget. The cashier, an athletic-looking guy suited more for Foot Locker than Mrs. Cook, hands Elayne her purchase. As we walk out the door, he says, “You ladies have a nice day.”