Roberta

A brief look into a transgendered girl's life.

    Roberta sighed as she checked over her eyeliner. She tied her hair back with a light blue hair tie.
    
    "Roberta! Are you ready?" Called her mother.
    
    "I'm coming!" She called back from her bedroom door. Her voice was gravelly, in that stage between a man's voice and a woman's. She strode to her closet and pushed aside the large sum of mens shirts and pants, reaching for the last item in her closet: a straight but flowy sky blue skirt.  She pulled on the skirt, and looked at herself in her mirror. She was relieved that her brown hoodie didn't clash with the skirt. Since it was fall she had an excuse now to wear baggy clothes. Which helped to hide her developing chest. Her hair was a honey blond, that, when not tied back fell to her shoulders.
    
    She was off to her LGBTQ support groups on her mother's insistence. She'd started hormone replacement therapy about five months ago, and was nearly halfway finished. Her mother had thought it would be a good idea if she was able to be around people who would help support her through it.
    
    She flicked off her light and trudged slowly downstairs. She stepped into the kitchen to grab her coffee tumbler and went to find her mom.
    
    Her mom was her rock, she never saw her father anymore; he wanted nothing to do with her.
    
    She'd known since age six that this wasn't her body, or at least not the right one. But being so small, she didn't know how to fix it. She fixated on much more feminine things and never played with her hot wheels. Her father had thought it was a phase.
    
    She'd heard the arguments:
    
    "For god's sake Marcia! He's a boy!"
    
    "That doesn't matter! We need to support her!"
    
    "Stop calling him 'her!"
    
    While her father handed him red fire engines her mother would secretly hand her Polly Pockets.
    
    "Easier to hide." She'd say.
    
    Then she was fourteen and the fights had stopped. But if anything she felt more awkward than ever before in this man's body. And one night her parents sat her down. She'd noticeably been seeing her father less and less and even as he sat there he pretended that he didn't know what the conversation would be about. This made Roberta feel worse than she already did.
    
    "Sweetie," Marcia began. She looked confidently at her daughter, a soft smile playing on her lips. She'd grown up Presbyterian and liberal while her husband, Ronald, had grown up in a slightly more conservative household.
    
    Roberta looked up at her mother, "Yeah?"
    
    Marcia smiled gently, reassuring her daughter, "We, your father and I, know that this is a difficult time, and even more difficult with your body issues." 'Body issues' was the term for what she was going through, it was gentler to her father because they knew he wasn't one to accept terms like 'transgender'.
    
    Roberta nodded, knowing her mother wasn't finished.
    
    "Well, while I'd like to help you now I'm afraid there's a little resistance." Marcia sighed.  "But we'll do little things to make you more comfortable alright?"
    
    "Alright."
    
    "And when you're eighteen and still having these issues then we'll discuss transitioning. Alright?"
    
    "Alright."
    
    Shortly after that Roberta had her ears pierced. To appease her father though she had simple silver studs done.
    
    At fifteen she got her first dress. It was long and flowery a summer dress. She felt close to normal in it. But she only wore it inside her house and her father definitely avoided her when she dressed in it. She practically lived in it like a little girl in a princess gown. And that's exactly what she felt like.
    
    At sixteen she had her first boyfriend. (Needless to say her father wasn't happy about it.) To her she was straight, a woman in a man's body, externally she was gay. That was what was hardest for her: that this man loved her thinking she was gay. It felt like she was betraying him.
    
    "Robbie," Duncan hummed as he kissed her forehead. His arms wrapped around her waist and he looked into her eyes. A frown grew upon his lips, "What's wrong?"
    
    She was going by Robbie, it seemed more unisex than Robert or Roberta. She buried her face in his neck, "Nothing," she mumbled.
    
    "This doesn't seem like nothing," He rubbed his boyfriend's back, trying to coax an answer from him.
    
    Roberta shrugged, "Nothing, I'm just off."
    
    "You'll tell me when you're ready right?"
    
    "Of course."
    
    While he understood fully, Duncan was the first person to break her heart.
    
    At seventeen she switched schools to a more liberal one. Before going there she taught herself to put on makeup, walk more femininely, talk more femininely. There she was 'Roberta' and while there were the prejudiced jerks she was, on the whole, accepted as a woman. And as her birthday was only a few months after the school year would start, she could wait.
    
    It had been the moment she waited for, for four years since that talk when she was fourteen. She had survived in a man's body, the wrong body.
    
    "Mom?" She was in the kitchen grabbing a coffee cup and filling it with its soothing brew.
    
    Her mother was home from work and heating up Chinese takeout she'd gotten that evening.
    
    "Hm?" She glanced up at her daughter, who was merely a few inches taller than her and had the broad shoulders and narrow hips of a man, but she saw a confident girl.
    
    "I want to change," She said softly, in excitement and fear of the unknown.
    
    "Are you sure?"
    
    "Very."
    
    They then had a consultation with a doctor and decided that after she graduated she'd take a year off before going to college to undergo all those years of puberty crammed into one. But it was suggested she get the needed surgeries out of the way.
    
    Small scars were left behind but she felt all the more comfortable in her body, it was magnificent.
    
    She'd graduated and was excited to start her hormone treatments. The prick of a needle was painful but the feeling of change flowing into her veins in the form of estrogen liberated her. She didn't know if she'd ever get enough of it.
    
    Now here she was five months into this thing and was rushing out to her mother's car to get to her support group. This hadn't been her day and she felt a little crappy. She slammed the door of the car and slumped back, buckling herself up and sighed.
    
    Her mother pulled from the driveway away from their suburban house. "What's wrong?"
    
    "Nothing," Roberta sighed.
    
    Marcia smiled a little to herself and let the matter drop. It was an interesting experience dealing with her daughter going through puberty  twice. It was certainly something to write a novel about.
    
    Roberta sipped her coffee slowly, trying to save some for the group.
    
    It was an impromptu thing for their district of town, about ten or eleven people were there every Thursday night. Mostly gay, bisexual, and lesbian people where there. She was the only transgendered girl and the whole thing was run by a LGBTQ group manager.
    
    The rest of the car ride was a quiet one, and when they pulled up to the college gym Roberta stepped from the car and into the building. Her mother was probably going to the bookstore like usual and be back in an hour and a half.
    
    Roberta smiled as a few people called, "Hey Rob!" and Patrick and Don came and hugged her. That was just the boost she needed at that moment. They were actually dating but had quickly become her best friends.
    
    "Hey," She smiled a little weakly.
    
    Don frowned, "Maybe you should go first today."
    
    Roberta sighed, "You know I hate talking."
    
    "But we make you, every week," Pat teased her.
    
    "Yeah, I know," Roberta stuck her tongue out at him.
    
    They both picked her up and brought her to her seat.
    
    Mrs. Rondale smiled at Roberta as she took her seat in the circle.
    
    "Rob needs to go first," Pat volunteered her.
    
    Roberta playfully glared at him and Mrs. Rondale nodded, "Yes, go on."
    
    She sighed, "It's nothing, really, I've just been really touchy today is all. I had my treatment yesterday so I've just been on edge today. Alternating between crying and screaming into a pillow," she half smiled at the assembled group.
    
    Cynthia was the girl she sat next to and the next thing she knew she was enveloped in a hug, "I'm sorry, sweetie. You're close though, just seven more months right."
    
    "Yeah," Roberta sighed, seven months felt a little daunting at the moment.
    
    "You'll make it."
    
    No one else really had issues like her, so she'd zone out after it was her turn. It was the weekly usual and occasional calling of 'f*g', some familial issues. She experienced some of these problems, but not many addressed the topic of your father totally avoiding you because you didn't turn out to be his little roughneck son.
    
    Don worried a little about Rob, he couldn't even imagine what she was going through. Some days she'd seem in the best spirits and other times, like now, she looked about ready to give up on the whole endeavor.
    
    As the meeting broke up Patrick got a text from his mother and pressed a kiss to Don's cheek before running out. Don caught the arm of Rob before she could leave.
    
    "Hey, after I get out of school would you like to go have coffee with me? I know this cute little place, they have nice espresso and cake." He pleaded with her with his eyes.
    
    Roberta relented, it would be good for her to get out. "I'd like that, I'll meet you in front of the school?"
    
    "That'd be perfect, and Pat won't be with us," Don squeezed her arm for reassurance and comfort, "It'll be just the two of us."
    
    Roberta furrowed her brow but accepted it. "Alright, so I'll see you, my mom's out front."
    
    Don nodded, "See you."
    
    She slipped into her mom's car quietly. A little more relaxed than she'd been all day not so tense and worked up. Her mom pressed some molasses cookies into her hands and Roberta took a bit of the warm chewy cookies. Smiling sleepily.
    
    "How was the meeting?"
    
    "Nice, the usual for the most part. But nice."
    
    "I'm glad it was good today."
    
    "Mhm, I'm just kinda tired."
    
    "Well when we get home you can go right to sleep."
    
    "That was the plan anyway," She chuckled. "And tomorrow I'm going to have coffee with Don, from the group."

    "He's gay right?"
    
    "Um, bi, I think, but he's dating a guy."
    
    "Alright, thanks for letting me know," Marcia said appreciatively, silently thankful her daughter wasn't some rebellious teen.
    
    "No problem," She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, puberty is draining, she thought. Before she knew it she was home. She got out of the car and as she walked out into the warm evening towards her house, stars twinkling above her. Suddenly tomorrow seemed a little brighter like those stars. And, she thought, I just might make it.

Author's Note

Pronoun changes are on purpose and I wrote it that way.