A transgender Army bride in the '80s

Panic set in when my editor asked me to select a representative chapter from "Trans Figured." Picking just one chapter from my memoir was akin to a parent having to choose a favorite child. Agonizing over my decision, I settled on Chapter 13, "Love Connection," which captures the light-hearted innocence of the pre-AIDS, gay community of the early '80s. Love was in the air, in a time of optimism and promise. In reference to my own journey, this chapter of my life was incredibly transitional.

Revisiting my life, I am amazed at times to meet this young person of such indomitable spirit who overcomes devastating obstacles while sorting out their gender identity. At this point in the saga, Tish enters womanhood. At the opening of the passage she is a young, carefree co-ed. The next thing you know, through happenstance and sheer will, involving a wedding celebration, a manufactured passport, and new breasts, Tish ventures forth, trustingly leaving friends, family, and country. By the chapter’s close, with a newly minted identity as a buxom transgender woman, the story of Tish is working out happily. But, ever after? Hmm…

Paulie was making a toast. “Here’s to Tish, a true star with a heart as big as her reputation at Yale and the best friend anyone could have.”

Happy for the first time, I was truly overwhelmed by all the good that was happening in my life, despite the daily struggle to find my place in the world.

Paulie leaned over and asked, “Is it still cool to smoke weed in here?”

I nodded as we dashed over to the ladies’ room.

Once inside, Paulie fired up a joint and took the first long hit. He passed it to me and I pulled it deep into my lungs and, just as I was about to exhale, the door burst open.

It was the handsome doorman I had noticed earlier when he had held the door for me as we entered the bar. He was a bit taller than me with dreamy sea green eyes and dirty blond hair that just brushed his shirt collar.

He was shaking his head with a disapproving look, one a parent might give a naughty child. “Sorry, but the boss doesn’t want this going on in here. You’re going to have to take it outside.”

“No problem, handsome,” I said, looking at Paulie and flashing my eyes for him to leave. I got a really good look at him now, as I finally let the smoke escape my lips. Our eyes met and he blushed. Now that we were alone, he leaned in and asked me my name.

“I’m Tish,” I said.

“Tish?” he repeated.

“Yes, Tish. It rhymes with fish.” I said, giggling like a geisha.

“I’m Denny, short for Dennis.”

The weed was good and I was buzzed. “You want a hit?” I passed him the joint and he took a little pull on it and then leaned close to my face, our lips almost touching. He blew the smoke into my mouth, shotgun style, as the sound of Joni Mitchell’s voice singing the first chorus of “Help Me” emanated from the bar outside. Help me. I think I’m falling in love again. When I get that crazy feeling, I know I’m in trouble again.

Denny pulled back for me to exhale and then leaned in and began kissing me. This was the time when my initial anxiety about being trans would typically rocket through the roof. If it hadn’t been for the hazy buzz, I would have pulled away and played my usual coy, What kind of girl do you take me for? routine. But it was too late. His kiss was soft, sweet, and gentle. I had a sixth sense about men and somehow knew when they were going to be cool or not cool with my gender identity. But we were in a gay bar, after all, and he worked here.

READ MORE: I quit the Catholic Church

We ended up back at my apartment on Goddard Street and made love all night long. He never asked me about my gender so my hunch that he might have had figured it out had been right. The next morning, I explained to Denny how Tish came to be. I expressed what I hoped would happen in the future. This wasn’t the first time I had recalled my story to a potential partner but this time it did feel different. There was an acceptance I hadn’t felt with any other man before. Could this be the real thing?

Like me, Denny was from a broken home and a large family. Like mine, his mother was a single mom who raised a bunch of kids on her own. Denny had a past, too, which involved legal problems and ending up in a home for boys at one point in his early life. At nineteen years old, he was a bit young for me, but then I was barely twenty-three. His father was Italian and his mom was French, which provided him with his classic good looks. What I liked most about him immediately was his cool composure and steady manner. Nothing really seemed to bother him, which made sense because he was born under the sign of Capricorn, a very stable and grounded earth sign, in sharp contrast to my triple fire sign status.

Things moved fast. Before long, I moved my man in and I was strategizing on how to get rid of Dayna. She was well on her way in her transition. I was tired of her being the third wheel in our relationship. She was needy and having to include her everywhere we went was an imposition.

Eventually, Dayna and I had a huge falling out. She was moving in with her boyfriend and tried to skip out without paying her share of the rent. After all I had done for her, this wasn’t a good way to treat a friend. She was ungrateful for all the guidance and care I had shown her and I really resented it. Sometime later she made some half-assed apology and we restarted our friendship. As fate would have it, our paths would cross again later in New York at a moment when my life would take yet another unforeseen direction.

Denny found a job and we were bringing in a little more money so we found another apartment within walking distance of my job. But I soon discovered that Denny truly had a bad temper and had trouble keeping jobs because his anger would get the best of him.

While I was content with the state of my physical being, I wasn’t ever happy with the size of my breasts. Being a big-boned gal with broad shoulders, I knew a fuller bust line would detract from that and feminize my appearance even more. Luckily, I was receiving health benefits from my job. Knowing it would be challenging to get it done in Rhode Island, I went to New York and consulted with Dr. David Messier, who had already plied my hips and breasts with silicone. The doctor somehow finagled a way to get my insurance to pay for my hospital stay and the procedure itself. Messier was one of the shadiest and most unethical plastic surgeons on Park Avenue. He would write prescriptions for anything I wanted on more than one occasion. His waiting room could be a real horror show. Often, I would see someone who resembled Jocelyn Wildenstein, the current New York socialite who overdosed on plastic surgery. She clearly had no idea when to stop. She’s known as the lion woman of New York as her face ended up resembling a lion. If he were at all ethical, he would refuse to do more work on patients like that.

The day arrived when I was scheduled to be in Yonkers for my procedure. Paulie escorted me on the trip and did his best to calm me on the train. I settled in and was prepped for the surgery; I was stripped to the waist and felt the nurse strap my arms out from my sides like some crucified Jesus. Slowly, they administered the anesthesia and I felt a little loopy, sensing the wheels under the gurney rolling down the hall to the operating room. Once we were inside, Dr. Messier came in and asked me if I was okay. I said, “Whatever you do, just make them big and bouncy,” right as I lost consciousness.

Awaking in my room and still feeling no pain, I was wrapped in gauze around my torso. Reaching down and feeling my chest, I could tell there was a big improvement in size.

More confident in my physical appearance, it was time to meet Denny’s entire family in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. His mother, an ex-nurse who had been born in Wyoming, adored me and loved that I was in college studying theater and English. I really hit it off with his sister and half-siblings as well. They never knew my gender was ever something other than what I presented.

One day I was home alone sitting at the kitchen table in front of a pile of Popsicle sticks trying to come up with ideas for my arts and crafts class when Denny came through the door. He had a look on his face suggesting he had a secret he couldn’t wait to tell me. He told me he had gone downtown to the recruitment office and joined the Army. My whole life flashed before my eyes, as I was certain this was his way of ending our relationship, for there was no way I could see myself fitting into this plan at all. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” wasn’t even on the radar yet and if you were gay you kept it a secret and certainly never let on to anyone; otherwise, you could be thrown out.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I said. “There’s no way in hell we can be together if you join the Army.”

“Well, there is one way,” he said.

“And what’s that?”

“We can get married and you can come overseas with me.”

“Married?” I said. “Honey, are you stoned?”

Sometimes being a little naive can be an advantage. Never once did I think about the legality of what I was about to attempt. The wheels in my mind began to spin. I thought, Well, I do have identification that states my gender as female. All I needed to do was show a driver’s license at the City Hall clerk’s office; then I guess it wouldn’t be too difficult. Getting the license was easy but when I went to take the required blood test, I sat there sweating the whole time, worrying that you might be able to tell a person’s sex by their blood. Luckily, you can’t. The whole process was a lot easier than we expected. We even decided to have a small ceremony with Denny’s Catholic priest friend/trick on the side performing the ceremony. Was this really happening, I thought to myself, as I imagined my future as the wife of a handsome Army GI?

My current boss at the Housing Authority, Ann, let us use her lovely home on the East Side of Providence for the wedding. We invited Denny’s entire immediate family and a few close friends from school and work. Paulie would be the best man and my friend Lori Freeman agreed to be my maid of honor. I invited Del and my Aunt Connie, who really was the only supportive member of my extended family.

Unlike my mother, Aunt Connie had always really appreciated my sensitivity. I felt that she might have known all along that I was going to be different from the rest of my siblings. Her two children, Debbie and Guy, were also fun to be around. If I felt love from any family member, it was from my aunt, who never shamed me or made me feel badly.

I decided that it was too risky to invite any of my siblings, although my youngest brother, David, did attend with my mother. He was barely a teenager and didn’t pose as much of a threat as my other siblings. Joe, Randy, Jeffery, and the twins Todd and Sheila were persona non grata. I couldn’t risk any scene with my family of origin. Since Denny’s family knew nothing of my gender, I swore my mother and Aunt Connie to secrecy.

Paulie made my gown out of beautiful inexpensive ivory-colored lace, with layers of ruffles that cascaded full length to the floor. Gloria, Paulie’s mom, made her Swedish meatballs and one of my coworkers brought lasagna. Gloria later told me she talked to Del while Denny and I were together standing before the priest.

“Del, isn’t Denny so handsome? They look so beautiful together.”

“Well you know he doesn’t have a pot to piss in, not a nickel to his name.”

All through the party, I was paranoid whenever I saw anyone talking to my new husband’s family. I hated that, even at that joyous occasion, I had to worry about hiding the fact that I was transgender. Fortunately, the champagne that was flowing freed me of this guilt.

At one point, I glanced over at my mother, who had a look of utter bewilderment. Her face displayed not only her surprise at how smoothly things were going, but also how clearly perplexed she was by the actual reality that her son who was now her daughter had married a man under illegal conditions who was enlisted in the US Army and would soon take her far away from home. While she never expressed it to me in this way, I’m sure she was terrified for my safety.

Denny was assigned to an Army base in Schweinfurt, West Germany. The plan was that he would go first to settle into his deployment duties and find an apartment where we could live, and I would join him later. I sent in a request for a passport, but it was rejected because I hadn’t provided proof that I was living as a female. Although I had changed my name legally and had a female driver’s license, the passport office must have noticed that my social security card didn’t match my new name. There was no way I could go to Germany with a passport that stated my gender as male while my appearance was female.

If anyone could help me, I thought perhaps the doctor I saw for my hormone treatments could. He understood my dilemma and wrote a letter stating that I was living my life as a female and that he was treating me for gender reassignment, which I included with my second passport application. Anxiously checking the mailbox every day, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finally retrieved the envelope with my name neatly spelled out: Mrs. Natalia Gervais. Inside was my new passport. Quickly flipping through, I found my name and near the box for gender was a check mark that read female. Now all I had to do was get to West Germany in one piece.

After my dramatic fiasco with Professor Burn in the theater department, and because my marijuana use had now escalated to the point where it affected my motivation, it was inevitable that I lost interest in continuing my studies at Rhode Island College. My grades suffered as a result. I quit school believing the lie I would tell myself that one day perhaps I would get back to it. I was much more wrapped up in the coming reality of being an Army wife. I felt that I had reached a pinnacle in my young life. My transition was nearly finished; not only did I have passing privilege, but my legal female identity was complete. And soon I would have the means and support of my husband should I want to start planning for the final phase of transition, gender reassignment surgery.