She ran her fingers across the scars, and a solid mass started rising out of my skin. She worked her fingers along the side of my chest and said, “You are seeking entry into the Piscean age, when the very foundations of the universe shift toward the dignity of all people.”

I nodded, enthralled by all things fluid and dignified.

“Also, for what it’s worth, the surgeon did a good job,” she says, giving my chest a pat.

“Thanks.”

I went into the bathroom to change. I pressed my hands against my pecs, which were still flabbier than I would have liked, but way better than boobs.

THE OFFICE OF DR. GARTH

Dr. Garth was the surgeon who did everyone’s chest. A robust, cub-like man, he had the mannerisms of a trans guy but was not, as far as anyone could tell, trans. Some patients chose to hang out in his waiting room after hours because it was the only place on earth where T-guys could speak among themselves, and the nurses obliged, installing a card table. They sometimes hovered on the fringes, jotting down their anthropological findings about this curious demographic. (T-guys are way sweeter than cis guys, a standard finding.)

When I went in for my first appointment, I, too, was amazed by the existence of these characters: a luggage handler, a kindergarten teacher, two servers, a visual artist who used his old menstrual blood as paint. I wasn’t sure I could find common ground with them, tho. If I said I was a dog walker, they would forever identify that job—the least important thing about me—with Pen R. Henderson, and if I said my future was still unformed, they might think I was full of shit, just another frivolous artist who hangs out in the neighborhood where everything was built from newly harvested bamboo and recycled bottles.

When I heard Stuart the teacher talking about his two beagle “sons,” I thought, What if everyone thinks all trans guys are as bubbly as him? Or as nebbishy as Clive, the sloppy bike messenger who drinks water with chunks of garlic in it for his immune system?

I’d been well conditioned by solitude and waited to be called from the back of the room. When I came back for a presurgery consultation, the guys were talking about the cliffhanger of Goblins and Trolls, and from my lonely chair, I blurted out, “I wish they had done a better job foreshadowing that Medusa was going to turn on everyone,” and the five sitting there threw me a nod and I was grateful to join them for some seconds.