/ Fiction /
Born in 1964 in Patterson, New Jersey, Ryan was heir to a welder father and homemaker mother. His parents bought him toy guns, but he was happiest when rummaging through Mama’s closet. In sixth grade, he sneaked into his parents’ bedroom, put on Mama’s black dress, inspired by Audrey Hepburn. Standing on tiptoes in imaginary kitten heels, body stretched upright, he twirled in front of the mirror.
“Brotha’, let me make you a foxy lady!” his teenage sister’s voice startled him. She hunted through Mama’s jewelry chest and clipped diamond earrings on his earlobes.
Positioning one hand on the gathering at the waist, he extended his arm, imitating Hepburn posing with a bejeweled cigarette holder.
“Waddya doing, boy?” Ryan turned and sighted his father’s presence looming in the doorway, with only a slice of his mother visible around the edges. A cold tingle rushed through his skin. “Get out of your Mama’s clothes. Go to the living room!”
When the leather belt flogged Ryan’s bare buttocks, the sting burned through his entire body. There wasn’t enough air in his lungs for him to cry. His father screamed, “Coach Johnson told me you missed baseball practice twice already. Tell me where you went!” He wasn’t going to admit that he stole away to join the home economics club.
That night, Ryan lay in bed, wearing only a pajama top; his buttocks and thighs blazing. “Why am I punished for wanting to feel beautiful?” Mama stroked his hair and wept.
Through high school years, his father whipped him relentlessly for being a “sissy.” He couldn’t wait to grow up and leave home.
Standing in front of the house with the black door, Ryan wanted to turn around. He dreaded parties. Kids sniggered when he cocked his hip or flapped his hands. But Mr. Earle was his favorite teacher and he felt special for being invited to the Honors History social. Girls flirted with Mr. Earle in his tight jeans and crisp white shirts, stylishly combed-back hair. Boys teased with a wink in Ryan’s direction, “Mr. Earle only likes boys.”
When he stepped inside, he was surprised to see kids chugging beer in the living room. Being underage, he wouldn’t dare drink booze and his parents considered it a cardinal sin. He wandered to the dining room. Bottles of Dewar’s and Smirnoff surrounded the charcuterie board. A cooler of beer bumped up against his toes. No soft drinks anywhere. He took one sip of beer, then another and finished the entire bottle. As he searched for a place to put the empty, a citrusy, leathery scent slid around him.
“Welcome Ryan.” Mr. Earle brushed against his shoulder to reach for the Dewar’s and two tumblers. He poured whisky into each and handed one to Ryan. “You know what people call whisky? Aqua vitae.” Mr. Earle raised his glass, “To life!” With his first taste, the roof of Ryan’s mouth tingled, fire rushed through his body. He felt so adult. Swigged down more Scotch, “To life!”
Feeling Mr. Earle nudging thigh-to-thigh against him, Ryan wanted to move away, but his legs felt too numb. He didn’t remember when the other kids leave. He didn’t know how he got pinned to the wall, pants and boxer briefs binding his ankles, while Mr. Earle thrust forcefully. The louder he pleaded, “Stop!” the more brutal Mr. Earle pummeled, crushing his face. When it was finally over, Mr. Earle hissed, “It’s our secret. No one will believe a punk.” Bent over in pain, he stood outside the locked black door. Limped home, way past curfew time.
“You stink of booze.” His father growled the instant Ryan sneaked into the house. “Get out!” ignoring the bruises on his son’s face, the terror in his eyes.
“I was never your son!” Ryan shouted before leaving the house with a single duffel bag stuffed with clothes and what little money he had. The duffel’s straps dug into his shoulders as he dragged his battered body past thirty blocks to downtown. Where to go? What to do? He sat down on the curb and wept. Across the street, a lamp post dimly lit up the green-white-red awning of Bernardi’s Italian Eatery, owned by a classmate’s parents. He lay down at Bernardi’s entrance. Cursing his body, cursing Mr. Earle, cursing his father.
When the sun hit Ryan’s face, he woke up; pain throbbed throughout his body. He staggered from street to street, pretending to head to a destination. Relief washed over him when he spotted the library nearby where he could be safe. He bolted past the library front desk, washed up in the men’s room and headed to the computers.
“Can I help you?” asked the librarian standing next to him. Ryan recognized her as a church lector. “I’m, ah, searching for tutorials on computer programming and engineering.”
“My son is an electrical engineer with the Navy. Let’s check out their free training manual.”
After the library closed, he returned to Bernardi’s and hid by the kitchen’s back entrance. The tantalizing aroma drifting from inside intensified his hunger pangs.
“Ryan? What you doing here?” Mr. Bernardi’s appearance unnerved him. Gently touching the injuries on Ryan’s face, “Sei nei guai?” he led the teenager inside. After binging on three helpings of fettucine pomodoro, Ryan followed Mr. Bernardi to the basement storeroom. “Dormi qui.” A comforter and wool blanket were already unfurled on the floor. Exhausted and grateful, Ryan wept. Mr. Bernardi held him, “Shh. Calmati.”
Ryan wondered if the librarian or Mr. Bernardi would alert his parents. But even if they came for him, he wouldn’t go home. The makeshift refuge felt right. Here, he could cry.
* * *
Mr. Bernardi offered him a part-time dishwasher job. During the day at the library, he studied computer programming and volunteered for tasks. While organizing books, he noticed a bound volume, opened to an exquisite illustration of an immortal in a flowing white robe seated on a large lotus flower. The caption read, “Guanyin, an Eastern divinity, manifested as male, female, all beings.” Fascinated, he studied the text below, “I am Guanyin, the supreme deity of compassion and mercy, with a thousand eyes and thousand arms. My name means ‘hears all cries,’ regardless of gender, race, religion, age and social stature. I appear in many manifestations to redeem humans in suffering. Many mortals are tormented in the liminal space, the bardo, between darkness and light, death and life, lies and truth. I hear their cries, emancipate them from bardo to affirm their true selves.”
The thousand eyes seemed to follow Ryan’s gaze as he re-read the caption. “Manifested as male, female, all beings.” The fundamental concept in computer science was binary: 0 or 1. But Guanyin was not bound by binary. Something shifted inside him. He read all about Guanyin that night.
* * *
“The Bernardis told me you’re here.” Surprised by a familiar voice, Ryan looked up from the dishwashing sink. His sister stood in the restaurant’s kitchen. "Mom and I miss you very much. Dad…is Dad.” She handed him a small suitcase and several twenties.
When his sister visited again, she showed him an ad for a junior computer technician job.
“I work for the hiring company and can put in a good word for you.”
“No one would hire a high school dropout.”
“Nonsense! You’re super smart.”
He applied, landed the job and continued working part-time at Bernardi’s for food and lodging. On weekends at the library, he studied programming and eastern spirituality. A Computer World article featured Oscar, a software firm’s founder boasting “unbreakable security” of his new product. As a dare, Ryan hacked the program, sent the code along with a snooty message.
Weeks later, a terse email appeared in his inbox, “…Please meet with our founder to discuss your hacking of our software.” Frightened and flummoxed, he asked his sister for advice. “Meet them. You’ve nothing to lose.” She dragged him to shop for a suit. In front of the mirror, he practiced the dominant stance, head and chin raised, shoulders squared off, big strides.
* * *
As Ryan entered the conference room in Boston, he spotted founder Oscar, dressed in a black shirt and black jeans. Noticing only polo shirts and jeans seated around the room, Ryan nervously fidgeted with the hem of his suit jacket.
Oscar lunged, "You know that illegally hacking into our system is a felony? What are your academic degrees?"
Ryan felt himself shrinking in his suit." I dropped out of high school at seventeen."
"How did you learn programming?"
“From free tutorials at the library.”
Oscar smirked, gestured Ryan to sit down. Around the table, the engineers bombarded with technical questions. Remembering his sister’s advice, "you’ve nothing to lose," he answered calmly. Back straight, feet firm on the floor, hands interlocked on the table.
It was late when Ryan returned to his NJ shelter. In his inbox was an offer letter for a junior developer job at the software firm. Many questions churned in his mind. Would they truly accept a high school dropout? He pulled from his duffel bag the black dress snatched from his mother’s closet when he left his family. Put on the dress, paced back and forth. What if they caught him in woman’s clothes? The screensaver of Guanyin shone on his laptop. Should he give up this opportunity to prove his worth to his father? He smoothed the silk down his legs. In that moment, he felt that Guanyin had heard him. He accepted the job and moved to Boston.
***
A system glitch caused the long lines at the neighborhood grocery store’s checkout. Standing behind Ryan, a petite woman with waist-length copper hair gyrated to the disco track broadcasted in the store. Ryan tried not to stare but found himself tapping to the music. The woman whooped out a full-bosomed laugh, held out her hand to dance with him. Hiding the prescription for anti-depressants he’d just picked up under a bag of chips, he gave a little shimmy. The sensation felt novel. He had gotten used to his stiff-legged swagger at work. They chatted after shopping. Originally from New Jersey, Leila taught middle-school math and offered free coding workshops to under-resourced kids. She invited him to mentor a class and shared her contact information.
That night, Ryan couldn’t stop thinking about Leila’s captivating face and exuberance. At work, he cursed, smoked, strutted and method acted the mannerisms of macho engineers. He scorned their lewd recounts of strip club parties and sexcapades. Colleagues privately derided him as a “weirdo” and “faggot.” To anesthetize against alienation, he took antidepressants, worked sixteen-hour days, smoked weed and shopped women’s fashion online. He dialed Leila’s number but hung up. His eyes strayed to the closet with dresses organized beside men’s outfits. Was he gay, straight or something else? Leila’s hair swept so gracefully across her back when she’d turned. He wanted to know what her hair felt like. Slowly inhaling and exhaling, he called her.
Ryan was surprised at how much he loved coaching the sixth graders at Leila’s coding workshop. As they dined at a local Thai restaurant after class, he couldn’t take his eyes off Leila. Before he realized how long they’d been there, the manager flicked the lights to indicate closing time. They strolled the ten blocks to Leila’s apartment in the crisp November weather. She rubbed her hands and murmured, “Feeling a bit chilly.” He gingerly took her arm, wrapped it around his elbow and slid her icy hand in his down jacket’s pocket. Intertwining fingers, they smiled at each other. When they arrived at building, she unwrapped her arm, standing chest to chest and glanced up at him. With the first touch of a woman’s bosom, his pulse pounded. Cupping her hands around his face, she kissed him on both cheeks, chuckled, “You’re so shy!” and disappeared into building.
Leila invited Ryan to her place for Thanksgiving. Holding a bottle of red cabernet in his left hand and balancing a peony bouquet on the crook of his elbow, he rang the doorbell. Heart palpitating.
“Welcome!” Leila opened the door, kissed him and led him inside. He glimpsed at a turkey uncooked in a roasting pan. Following his gaze, she blushed. “I usually go home for the holidays. This is my virgin Thanksgiving feast. I fussed over the side dishes and forgot to put the turkey in the oven.” Affection and desire surged through Ryan’s body. No longer calculating, he stepped close, wrapped his hands around Leila’s waist, feeling the delicate mound of her breasts against his chest. Heat rose in his cheeks as their tongues wrestled back and forth, pinning each other down.
In the following months, Ryan slept over at Leila’s whenever he could. But he made lame excuses for not inviting her over.
“Are you hiding a wife at your place?” Leila probed when they were heading to her apartment. Ryan twitched, glanced away, “No, no. I’m just worried what you’ll think of me if you see my things.”
“Why? There’re dead bodies? Let’s go to your place now.”
As they were walking, he said, “Did I tell you I met Lynn Conway at a conference a few weeks ago? She’s a tech legend. Pioneered VLSI which revolutionized the microchip design.”
“Wow! Did you talk to her?”
“Oh yeah! So brilliant!” Ryan took Leila’s hand. “I researched her background and learned that she had gender dysphoria. You’ve heard of that? It’s the mismatch between gender identity and birth-assigned sex.” He paused to gauge her reaction. “In the 1960s, IBM fired her when she transitioned from male to female.”
She looked confused but not alarmed.
“I love your place!” Leila gushed as she stepped inside his apartment. “Show me your bedroom.” His stomach clenched. Peeking through the half-opened bedroom closet were several dresses on hangers. He mumbled, “I, ah, like to cross-dress in private.”
“My silly sweet potato. I love to dress up in costumes too.”
“It’s not like that. Sometimes, I feel like a woman inside and have the urge to dress in women’s clothes and jewelry. Hard to explain…”
Only half listening to Ryan, Leila reached into the closet and sorted through the colorful ensembles. She glided her palms down the silk, gently crinkled the organza. She took out the dual-tone silver-gray chiffon dress, “Try this on. Now, let’s check out your jewelry.” Watching her rummaging through his jewelries, he felt the same titillation as digging through his mother’s treasures as a boy. She put on him black pearl earrings and a silver filigree necklace, led him to the mirror. “Just exquisite!” she whispered, nibbling his ears and neck. He inhaled her scent and felt the warmth of her body.
Leila’s affection eased the gender dysphoria gnawing Ryan’s psyche. He wondered what it would be like to build a life together. During dessert at L’Espalier, he got down on one knee and proposed. Infatuated with Ryan’s intellect and sexual chemistry, and urged by her ticking biological clock, Leila rationalized that his cross-dressing was a fetish and that she could fulfill his erotic and emotional needs. She accepted his marriage proposal without hesitancy.
For the first time since leaving his family years earlier, Ryan called his parents and invited them to the wedding. After a few seconds of silence, his father said, “Son, we won’t miss it for anything.” He heard his mother and older sister cheering in the background.
* * *
Every morning before work, Ryan trained with a speed bag in the gym to release the angst of having to again playact manliness throughout the day. Stepping through the office revolving doors, he pointed both index fingers, cocked his thumbs like two revolvers. Today, the office was missing its usual hum. For weeks, the rumor of global tech behemoth MaxIC Inc. acquiring his employer whirled. Layoffs were common with acquisition.
Oscar’s assistant summoned him to a private meeting. Ryan’s throat tightened when he stepped in the same conference room where he was once chastised as a hacker. Oscar gestured Ryan to sit.
“MaxIC has bought our company and appointed me enterprise CTO. I want you to join my new team, and have already assigned you to the integration committee. There’s a meeting next week with Lián Lu, their chief revenue officer. Don’t screw up.”
Ryan slipped into his briefcase the folder containing extensive research on Lián, “a woman to watch in tech," as touted in Bloomberg News. He pushed open MaxIC’s meeting room’s glass door, looked forward, took big strides and shook Lián’s hand with a firm grip. A middle-aged woman with shoulder-length silky black hair, animated eyes, and soft full lips, she spoke in a clipped pace with a slight accent, exuding competence.
Interacting frequently with Lián on integration priorities, Ryan was impressed by her intelligence and instinct in rapidly sizing up people. But she seemed guarded. He sensed that her impenetrability was a defense mechanism for someone feeling like an outsider, just like him. She mentioned an upcoming trip to Anchorage, Alaska, "My family relocated there from Hong Kong in 1968 when the oil boom began."
“Cool! My wife Leila and I plan to celebrate our wedding anniversary with a trip to Alaska. Was it a rough transition from the tropics to the arctic?"
“There were a hundred thousand people in Anchorage but only sixty-five Chinese. I felt like a freak with no friends and no English.”
“I know what it’s like to feel like a freak…” Ryan checked himself and steered back to business. Bound by the shared experience of alienation, they became MaxIC’s odd couple.
* * *
At a lunch, Lián ranted at the promotion of her peer, Jim, to be President of MaxIC’s flagship product division.
“I’ve outperformed Jim the last six years, but he’s promoted, just because he was the CEO’s frat brother. So sick of the boys’ club.”
“The inequity sucks. The systems I developed are selling billions, but I’m stuck as a senior engineer, because I don’t have a degree…and don’t fit in.” Ryan wondered whether to divulge his gender dysphoria.
She smiled sympathetically, “I always feel like an outsider, being the only woman of color in the C-suite. Talking about outsider...” She showed on her Blackberry an article with a beautiful woman’s headshot. “She’s Jin Xing, a famous dancer and TV host in China. She was the first person there to openly undergo gender transition from male to female. China’s dehumanization of trans people is even more savage than America.”
Unshackling from analytical defense, Ryan took a risk, “Like Jin Xing, I want to appear and behave like a woman.”
Lián moved from behind her desk, sat next to Ryan. “Thanks for confiding in me. Just watch out for gossipmongers.” She tilted her head quizzically. “Women have such a shitty deal. Why do you want to be a woman?”
Ryan was about to respond, when Lián had to answer the CEO’s call.
That evening, Ryan read about Jin Xing and also did research on nandan, the male divas playing female roles in Peking Opera. Expected to look, behave and even think like women, many nandans were persecuted by Chinese society.
* * *
Coming home from work, Ryan found Leila sitting on the edge of the bed, tears rolling down her cheeks. She showed him the test strip, “I’m pregnant.”
“Wooh! We’re gonna have a baby!” He swung her around and around.
Leila laughed and cried, “I want lots and lots of kids with you.”
That night, Ryan stayed awake trying to unscramble the elation, shock and fear muddling his brain. Could he be a good role model for his son? Baseball, brawn and braggadocio were alien to him. If the baby would be a daughter, would she be disturbed by his affinity with all things feminine?
The predicament of his gender dysphoria swirled through Ryan’s head as the months of his wife’s pregnancy flew by. A neighbor called him when he was about to board a flight for a conference. “Leila’s in labor. Hurry to Mass General.” He canceled the trip and rushed to the hospital. The baby wasn’t due for a couple of months. His thoughts careened through worst case scenarios. He prayed to Guanyin for the safety of mother and child.
Ryan stared at the flat wave of the electrocardiogram monitoring his premature daughter in at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Leila was sleeping in the maternity ward after a difficult delivery. “Administer epinephrine,” the doctor pressed his index and middle finger hard on the baby’s chest. Ryan gasped, like a carp left to expire on the ice slurry, and tried to muffle the cries retching from his core. Work colleagues described his superpower at problem-solving, but here he was, impotent. Flatline on the EKG. 150 seconds passed. Ryan tried to force his breath across the space, to resuscitate Brooke. The EKG spiked. Dropped. Rose to a normal rhythm.
When Ryan finally left the hospital, he clutched the car steering wheel and sobbed. Grateful for the deliverance of his wife and daughter. Awestruck by Brooke’s triumph over death, propelled by authentic, pristine primal force. The exact antithesis of his life, stained with deception. To be worthy of Brooke, he knew he had to renounce his male specter and attest to his genuine female self. He promised himself to move forward with gender transition.
Behind Leila’s back, he began feminization hormone therapy and researched gender affirmation procedures. Prominent trans women became his role models. He didn’t know how to navigate his marriage and career as a woman. But he had to find a way.
On their fourth wedding anniversary, Ryan couldn’t wait to surprise Leila with an Alaskan cruise package. As soon as he stepped through the front door, Leila screamed, “You fuck! How can you do this to me?” She threw a letter at him. It was a note from his therapist regarding sexual reassignment surgery. His breath knotted around his ribcage. He hadn’t shared his plan. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled.
“Sorry? That’s all you can say? I tolerated the cross-dressing, thinking it was just as game. But you’ve gone too far. I’m your wife. How dare you plan to undergo a sex change without telling me?”
“I’m too scared. I love you and Brooke very much, and don’t want to lose you.”
“Lose us? You certainly don’t give a damn about me. I don’t want to be married to a woman. I want more children with a man. Not a eunuch.” She moaned, “Brooke’s only two. She’ll be all messed up, having a woman as a father.”
“But it can work as long as we love each other. Look at Jennifer Finney Boylan. After transitioning from male to female, she stayed married to her female wife and raised two kids.”
Leila stormed out and locked herself in the bedroom. Anguish and fear seized his whole body. Quivering on the couch, Ryan couldn’t think, cry, or breathe.
The following morning at work, Lián asked Ryan, “You okay? You look so worn-out.”
Tearing up, he bit his lower lip to curb his emotions and recounted the blowup with Leila.
“I’m so sorry, Ryan. You must do what’s right for you. Otherwise, you’d resent Leila and the marriage might still fall apart.” Lián continued warily, “By hiding your transition, you’ve violated her trust, so critical to a marriage.”
Spurred by Lián’s insights, Ryan finally found his bearings. He had to choose between his marriage and pledge for gender transition. But if he entombed his female self in the male mummy forever, he’d loathe himself and his wife. He and Leila divorced nine months later with joint custody of Brooke.
* * *
With feminizing hormone therapy, Ryan was losing facial and body hair. Bulges emerged in the wrong places of his polo shirts and chinos. At work, it became increasingly hard to ignore the sneers and sarcastic remarks. The intense work demands, parenting and gender transition exhausted him. He read in Tibetan Buddhism that “bardo” was the liminal state between past and future lives. Dreading that his real self would implode inside the male carcass, he needed to cross the bardo for a complete transition. First, unveil a female embodiment and name in public, then schedule the reassignment surgery for a year later.
* * *
At a wine bar, Lián was waiting for Ryan, who scheduled a last-minute meeting. A blond woman sat down next to her, “Hi gorgeous, remember me?” She laughed at Lián’s perplexed expression. “Fooled ya! I’m Ryan. Like my new name, ‘Ryanna’, for debuting my female self?”
“Wait…you’ll show up at work as a woman?” Lián cocked her head, narrowing her gaze. “Many will be offended. Are you ready for the vultures?”
He half nodded, “I’m afraid of being fired, just like IBM axed Lynn Conway.”
“That happened decades ago. Now, employees have more rights. Consult the HR handbook, and do tell Oscar ASAP.” She volunteered, “I’ll help you with the talking points if you wish.”
“Thank you. Sometimes I wonder if Guanyin sends you.”
* * *
Panic rushed through Ryan’s veins, while he waited outside the CTO office for the appointment. Oscar beckoned, still typing on his laptop.
“Just reviewed the sales report. The communication system you developed hit the $10 billion mark. We’re crushing it! When will the new release be deployed?”
“September. Oscar, um, may we talk?”
“Shoot!”
“I’ll be transitioning to a woman. There’s a mismatch between my biological sex and gender identity. For years, I’ve been trapped in the wrong body.” Forgetting his script, Ryan let his words surge, “I’ve doing hormone therapy, and am ready to be seen as a woman under a new name ‘Ryanna’.”
Oscar swerved his chair around and stared silently at the windows. Ryan’s pulse throbbed against his ears. He turned slowly, looked straight at Ryan, “Sounds pretty complicated. I hope you know what you’re doing. We don’t interfere with our employees’ personal affairs. That’s our HR policy. Just remember, performance matters most. Launch the new release successfully.” Oscar resumed typing.
Heartened by Oscar’s response, Ryan composed an email alerting colleagues of his new image and name. Fuchsia-polished nails hovered over the computer keys. Micropigmentation-refined eyebrows, eyelids and lips reflected on the vanity mirror. He tapped the “send” button. Waited. Hours later, several “You go girl!” dripped in. But mostly silence.
On her first day as Ryanna, she chose a white dress, which reminded her of Guanyin’s white garment. She traced her index finger over “Ryanna” inscribed on the new name plate before stepping into her office. To de-stress, she spun a pen between her fingers. In the past, her office buzzed with engineers. No one visited her office that day, except Lián. No one visited the following day and the following day.
* * *
Ryanna should be reviewing the new patent application, but couldn’t stop worrying about the gender reassignment surgery scheduled in three days. She would expunge her male embodiment, cross over the gender bardo to rebirth as a complete female. The irrevocability of the choice terrified her.
What if the surgery was botched? Jin Xing was almost paralyzed from nerve damage during her transition procedure. What if MaxIC fired her? What if Brooke rejected a total woman as her father?
To calm down, she texted Lián, “This PR headline ‘Castrated Engineer Delivers Billions to MaxIC’ will for sure drive clicks!” And prayed to Guanyin.
* * *
“Ryanna, your procedure went very well.” She gazed up at her surgeon’s kind face. Disoriented, she didn’t dare to touch her body.
Lián checked in every day, despite dealing with her mother’s unexpected death. For days, Ryanna avoided looking at her metamorphosized body. Finally, she stood in front of the bedroom mirror. Untied the sash of her bathrobe. The royal blue silk draped softly around her bare feet. For decades, she had engulfed a truth with deception. A truth she was unable to name or analyze. Tentatively and tenderly, she traced the surgical scar and prayed in gratitude.
* * *
Just as there were no condolence cards for burying Ryanna’s male life, there were no bouquets to celebrate her female rebirth. Colleagues took detours. She panicked at emails from HR, worrying about being fired.
One afternoon, inside the ladies’ room stall, she overheard two women engineers, “Did you read the article touting ‘her’ as the highest-ranking female engineer. What a freakin’ Aunt Tom. Ryan would still be a nobody, had it not been for the sex change.”
Angst punched Ryanna’s core. She left work early and headed for the gym. Facing her body at the speed bag, feet apart. 1-2-3 punch with the right fist; then left. Migraines and back pains from working 24/7 to install software she had created. Earned eleven patents and billions for MaxIC. Fuck them! Fiercer, faster, swiveling her hips. She missed three of Brooke’s birthday parties. Death threats spiked after sharing her transition journey on social media. Striking ferociously, she could no longer see the speedbag rebound, but only heard it. Her knuckles were bloodied and swollen.
That night, she reflected on how Brooke defied death. Alone, she would navigate her female life. What mattered was, for the first time ever, she felt whole.
* * *
After returning bereavement leave, Lian lunched with Ryanna and presented her friend a small red and gold brocaded box. Ryanna opened the box. Inside, she found a soapstone seal carved in a dragon design. Chinese characters were engraved on the bottom.
“Your Chinese horoscope is dragon; noble and powerful. Hope you like your Chinese name 利安娜, Lì Ān Nà. It means benevolence, peace, elegance and grace.” Tears glistened in Lián’s eyes. “Ān Nà is also my late mother’s first name.”
“I’m honored to be your mother’s namesake.” Ryanna leaned close. “You asked me why I wanted to be a woman? Women embrace humanity, compassion and nurture. I’m proud to embody womanhood!”
Ryanna bear-hugged Lián and prayed to Guanyin, who was male, female, all beings.
_______________
* “Hear All Cries” is inspired by research on transgender people in the U.S. and China, including transgender computing pioneer Dr. Lynn Conway who passed away on June 9, 2024. With this story, I honor transgender people and all who look, think and behave different.