Stumped

I checked for all the usual signs—outsized hands, narrowed hips, an Adams apple—but I still wasn’t sure. She was tall and too thin and had the high, bulbous tits of a Barbie Doll. She might have been a man once but she might just as easily have been any other over-manicured woman in LA who kept her plastic surgeon on speed-dial. Her lips looked freshly plumped with collagen and there were no roots showing on her long blond highlights. She wore no makeup since the wisps of color above her eyes and around her mouth had been permanently tattooed in. The skin on her face bore the shiny, reddened tightness of a recent acid-peel. Her arms were smooth, entirely hairless, and though her voice was on the wrong side of throaty, her chain smoking explained it.

I tried to decode her mannerisms instead. There was something slightly cartoonish about her femininity. While holding a cigarette, her wrists drooped and slid around, boneless, as if pre-calculated to ward off rigidity, as if being a woman required a certain looseness, a certain adaptability of form. It was not unlike watching a gay man who let his wrists lead him. Also, there was something awkward in the way she repeatedly swept hair out of her eyes, grabbing the fallen lock between her thumb and forefinger and pushing it to the side while bending her neck toward one shoulder. I found myself raking my fingers through my own long hair more often than usual, just to try to spot the difference. She was undoubtedly more feminine than I was, but I don’t think there are trans women who describe themselves as tomboys. Tomboy territory seems to belong exclusively to those who haven’t had to explain their gender.