I waited in Dr. Biber's examination room for what seemed like years, though it was only a few moments. Due to the differences in elevation between the First National Bank Building, and the homes across the street, the front porches of the houses looked right into the fourth floor medical office.
I had struggled with being a man since my father died when I was 14. He couldn't deal with my mother's mental illness, and he flew the coup after years of fighting the urge to do so. Suddenly I was her caretaker, her nurse, her parent, and sadly her lover. It was like being hit by a meteor, and I was completely and utterly unprepared for it.
Sixteen years later, I sat in that room looking at the rocking chairs that faced me. I imagined the locals sitting there, holding numbered signs up for the doctor to determine whether or not he should do surgery on the latest lost soul who traveled to Trinidad, Colorado to fix their complex problems.
Biber was a short little guy, but all tough. In addition to having performed over three thousand sex changes by the time I visited him in 1990, he owned a very substantial cattle ranch outside of town and his face and arms showed the signs of ranch work.
He walked in without any introduction, and ordered me to “take down my pant's” I pointed to the blinds, my white boy modesty having kicked in. His reply: “They don't look anymore, they've seen it all” He then proceeded to spread my legs and check my scrotum to see if I had enough tissue to make into faux labia. “You'll be fine, Jack. Oh, you know I signed your father's death certificate, don't you? ” And he left just as quickly as he had entered.
I didn't know that part of the drama. I knew my drunken father who abandoned me was buried there, in that tiny mining town. Turns out his grave was only a few feet from the window of my room at the hospital where my surgery was done. But I was so young when it all happened, and didn't know all the players then.
I sat on his old exam table and began crying. All of the various roads, and life choices, the family members and their secrets and politics, decisions good or bad had all intersected and brought me to that room on that fateful day in 1990.
I tell you this as a precautionary tail. Today, and every day, thousands of young people are lined up to be examined in similar rooms, some with views, some with cold white walls. All with smiling, or indifferent, or business-like doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists who are just doing their jobs.
Having a sex change is not about affirmation. The surgery is about destroying and rearranging the body nature gave us. It is, without a doubt, the most destructive and debilitating procedure humans have created in a thousand years.
Hidden in the desire to escape our trouble lives and be born again, we pay, we beg and cry out for doctors to save us from the mess that is our mind, our lives and the world we live in.
Not unlike starving mothers begging food for their children, their frail hands thrust out for alms and acknowledgment that they need something from the world around them.
But affirmation surgeries and years of chemicals can't fix or repair what is actually broken. Any more than giving a few quarters to the starving mother does. All both do, is kick the can down the road.
Of the dozen or so people I've known over the years who had SRS surgeries, I am the only one left alive. Once they finally stopped running from surgery fix to surgery fix, and finally confronted the uncomfortable truth about gender dysphoria, they choose to end their lives rather than live another day being trans.
I know many a proud transgender will comment, calling me an ass and to f off and die. Many will say that my journey is not theirs. And they will be right in a funny kind of way. But what they refuse to accept is that this journey for all of us who have struggled with gender issues, is that we are all on the same ship going to the same place. The only difference is the price we are willing to pay for our cabins.
Ironically life let's us pay as much, or as little for our awareness and peace with ourselves that we want.
We will all, one day end our journey called life.
I was willing to pay thousands of dollars, and dedicate twenty years of my life chasing some vague, indescribable emptiness through cross dressing and surgeries. I let go of lovers that I shouldn't have, I lost jobs I loved, distanced myself from friends and family members all for my new gender. I was beaten on public buses, assaulted by fellow officers when I worked as a police officer, and allowed my mother to go to her grave without making amends for my gender transition with her.
I was willing to pay and pay and pay and pay for the privilege to be the woman I thought myself to be.
And now our schools and communities are filled with children who clamor to stand on the pier waiting in line at the ticket office. All of them, digging deep into their pockets to pay for their cabins and passage to a better life.
And the dirty little secret of gender confusion, is that the person who steps out of line, and leaves the pier, will eventually end up at the very same place as the others, without having spent a penny trying to fix themselves. Because they were never broken. They were simply needing guidance, understanding and support to deal with the life they had been handed by God.
God doesn't not make mistakes. God gave each of us a personal invitation to this party. This is not a costume party. It is a come as you are, party. Have fun, figure it out as you go, respect others, care for others, love others unconditionally. And know that you were born whole, perfect, and complete.
This is a photo of the flowers I received after surgery. Lovely aren’t they?
Think of them as a consolation prize. You’ve just made the dumbest mistake of your life, and here is your reward.
Rene Jax
Please pass on to your substack members.
This is haunting and gorgeous. Thank you for writing and I hope - I pray - my son somehow, someday reads it and it gives him pause.
It's a miracle that you are still here, able to reflect and trying to help others.