Eventually, she gathered enough courage to submit her application to the group. Within hours, she was accepted.

It was Wednesday. The next gathering was on a Saturday at a lesbian bar in Dallas called Sue Ellen’s. There were fifty others there, and they were, indeed, her kind of people: bold and beautiful. Jess began going every week. They made her feel normal. Maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with her, after all. Trans people weren’t girl-suit-makers or serial killers. They were regular North Texans just like Jess.

Before long, she herself was organizing gatherings for transgender women at Sue Ellen’s. Later, there were Christmas parties that transgender women from all over Texas attended. For two of the attendees, friends from deep-red Lubbock, Texas, it was their only chance to dress as women all year. They told their wives they were going deer hunting.

Jess began dressing up in her female clothes at home regularly. Debbie would call on the way home, and by the sound of Jess’s voice Debbie could tell if she would be having dinner with Jeff or Jess.

When the reality of the transition loomed, it was Debbie’s turn to struggle. She had always had an image in her mind of growing old with a man, and now she would be seen as a lesbian in public. But Jess was the love of her life. She decided to stay.

Jess came out to her daughter Alexandria at a two-week treatment session for sufferers of obsessive-compulsive disorder in Austin in 2009. Alexandria was feeling bad about having the condition, so Jess went into her hotel room and came out forty minutes later dressed as a woman. “She needed to understand that everyone has something,” Jess explained.

In 2015, Jess came home from the endocrinologist with patches of estrogen, which would begin to feminize her face, voice, and body. Her daughters coached her on how to do her hair and makeup. They call her “she,” “her,” “Jess,” and “Dad.” Because that’s who she is.

When Jess grew tired of having to rip off her nails and long hair before meetings, she told her boss.

“I’m transgender,” she said.

“Oh, well, that’s okay,” her boss responded.

Human resources changed her badge the following day.

(Perhaps this is because Jess worked as an IT consultant, and  Michele Gelfand has found that well-paying professions have looser norms than blue-collar jobs.)76

With that, Jess had told her employer; she had told her family; she had told everyone but the city of New Hope.