Whoa There, Ned Nelly

There's a woman on my street who didn't use to be a woman. She was a man and then---poof!---appeared a woman. Kind of. Not the kind of woman that would win a beauty contest, if you know what I mean. More the kind of woman who looks like she might have been a man once.

I'd seen him around before, working in the yard, driving here and there. One evening, late, I noticed his garage open and some sort of partying going on. There were streamers and balloons, people milling about, whooping it up---like a birthday celebration. Or, say, a man-becoming-a-woman celebration. I found out the next week from my son's friend's mom (who's lived next door to him for years) that Ned was now Nelly. Whoa!! (The names have been changed to protect the....involved).

When I relay this story to some people, some have been known to be quite disgusted and put off by the whole thing. I find that my reaction has never been that---mostly, I guess, I feel kinda sorry for him/her. I guess "her" is what he is now. For a little while it seemed odd to refer to him as "her" but not so much anymore. She wears makeup and has breasts and even gets all decked out sometimes, but there'd never really be any mistaking her for someone feminine. And I just wonder what it'd be like to be forever stuck in the middle of two worlds----not really a man, not quite a woman. It doesn't invoke disgust---and I'm sure that my pity is misplaced as well. She seems quite happy and is probably happier now, closer to her "true" self, than she has ever been before.

Life takes an awful lot of courage sometimes.