A story about a family with two boys aged 10 and 13, in which choice is a delusion and gender, an illusion. Having discovered Blair’s crossdressing, Miss Umbridge, his dragon of a teacher, has summoned Maggie to a showdown at the school.

Choices Chapter 6
A psychologist’s choice

“Ms. Maguire, why have you permitted this boy to defile the body that God and Nature gave him? Why have you permitted him to come to school dressed like a girl? Is this your doing?” Miss Lucretia Umbridge demanded as she exposed Blair’s bra strap.

Maggie was speechless. As requested, she had left her volunteer work at a women’s shelter to rush to Blair’s school, where, with no more than a “Follow me” and a rude crook of a finger she’d been ordered by Blair’s teacher to join him in a classroom, temporarily emptied by a leaky roof. There had been no words of greeting, no small talk, before the inquisition began. It was only then that she realized that she hadn’t been summoned for the usual reason — a schoolyard brawl (which Blair occasionally had to fight, and inevitably lose, for being judged a “sissy”). When it was a question of bullying, Ms. Umbridge had always ridden (“on her broom”, joked the fifth grade) to Blair’s defense. But there was no mistaking that she had turned against both child and mother. Miss Umbridge’s ugly tone and menacing manner left no doubt of her intention do them harm.

Before Maggie could formulate either a strategy or an answer, Blair leapt to the rescue, quite literally, of “mommy”. Bounding out of the chair, where Ms. Umbridge had decreed he “stay put and shut up”, Blair did his best, given his frail frame, to block the teacher’s view of his mother. Thus interposed, he manfully assumed the entire blame for his crossdressing:

It’s unfair to blame my mother for the way I’m dressed or for my haircut. She had no idea till now that I’ve started wearing girls’ clothes to school. After all, I was able to fool even you, Miss Umbridge, for a couple of days. Anyhow, I’m the only one who’s ever wanted me to be a girl. No, I didn’t say that right. It’s not that I want to become a girl; it’s that I was one from the moment I was born. But I didn’t have the balls to take my girls’ clothes out of the closet until now. Yes, Ms. Umbridge, I am a transsexist, a girl born in a boy’s body. So it’s not fair to blame my mother for God’s fuck-up.

“Blair,” Maggie said sharply, “don’t you ever use the F-word! It’s especially out of place at a parent-teacher meeting. Apologize to your teacher for swearing.”

“Yes, mommy. Miss Umbridge, I’m sorry for the bad language, but I was severely aggravated when you seemed to blame my mom for something that she didn’t know anything about.”

“Well! I find it hard to believe that your mother didn’t have a say in your hairstyle. Am I to believe, Ms. Maguire, that you thought bobbed hair and bangs suitable for a boy?”

“She didn’t think so at first,” Blair interjected before Maggie could answer. “Isn’t that right mom? You were upset with my haircut until I told you that it was a pageboy, and that lots of the guys are getting their hair trimmed this way because of the movies and video games about the awesome knights of yore. All the ‘prentice knights used to cut their hair like mine — that’s what I told my mom. And she believed me, ‘cause I don’t lie.”

The last sentence genuinely shocked his teacher::

You don’t lie? That’s rich coming from a little pervert whose mind is so twisted that he can’t accept the truth about his own gender. You’re a boy, got it! I don’t buy any of that mumbo-jumbo about ‘boys born in a girl’s body’ being peddled by the Jerry Springer and Morey Povich shows. There is no such thing as transsexuals; they’re no more real than the Martian babies supposedly conceived by desperate housewives. Blair, it’s a genuine tragedy that you and your mother have not had the courage to face the truth about you.

“And what’s that?” Blair and Maggie asked almost simultaneously, he nervously, she icily.

That Blair is a fairy, a sissy queer, an effeminate gay, a limp-wristed homosexual. Oh please, don’t either of you insult my intelligence by denying the obvious. Blair can’t even stand straight. The only reason he’s deluded himself into thinking that he’s really a girl is that he can’t handle his sexual attraction to other boys.

Maggie finally got in a word: “Blair is much too young to be sexually attracted to anyone. He’s not even humping his pillow. How dare you tell me — right in front of the child — that he’s a homosexual?! Sure, Blair is more delicate than other boys, but that doesn’t mean he’s gay. You’re stereotyping, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”

Blair looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock. His mind was wandering, as he considered the phrase “humping his pillow”. What, he wondered, did it mean and how could his mother be certain that he wasn’t doing it? Was it like spanking the monkey? Some kids boasted about doing that, but he hadn’t dared to ask them how it was done. There was simply too great a risk of being told that he would have to sneak into a monkey’s cage to spank the bottom of an angry chimpanzee to prove he wasn’t “a fag”.

His teacher, bristling at Maggie’s challenge, became more graphic in her exposition: “There’s nothing wrong, Blair, for a sissy boy like you to fantasize about — let’s be blunt — being fuc … er … skewered by the hunkiest boy in the school, which, of course, would be Alex Shirazi. When I’ve done hall duty, I’ve caught you more than once staring at Alex’s crotch.”

“I wish you wouldn’t use such language,” Maggie said. “Blair is too refined to look at anyone’s crotch.”

“Blair,” the teacher resumed, “has long had an obvious crush on Alex, who is, from what I can see, the best-developed boy in the school. Of Iranian persuasion, he wears tight pants like the rest of his tribe. Inevitably, a boy with Blair’s proclivities seeks to ‘figure out’ Alex’s religion.”

“So, Blair,” Miss Umbridge asked, “why didn’t you simply approach Alex in the hallway, flash that winsome smile of yours, bat those long, luxuriant eyelashes, and try to seduce him? Even if the two of you had then started openly dating, prancing around hand-in-hand, making asses out of yourselves, you’d still have more of a future at Lewis A. Clark Charter School than you have now.”

“How is that?” Maggie queried.

“Because, Ms. Maguire, this school has a liberal-minded staff who do our utmost to protect gay students from bullying. You haven’t been told, there being no need before now for you to know, that I personally initiated the suspension and eventual expulsion of two boys who were picking on Blair. Of course, I knew from the first time that he lisped his name that Blair is as gay as a San Francisco hairdresser, but I thought him, nonetheless, a sweet, innocent child of innate nobility who needed and merited a woman’s concern and protection. But I definitely don’t feel that way now. Blair, you must go away for the good of the school. I will not permit you to expose Lewis A. Clark to your mental disease and moral corruption.”

“And where should Blair go?” asked Maggie tersely, coldly.

“Why not to Amsterdam or, better yet, Denmark? Either place will cut off his testicles and penis for free. Then your kid can have a body as freakish as his mind.”

“I don’t like your attitude one iota. A bigot like you has no place in a school.”

“A pervert like your son has no place in a public school. Take him home and never bring him back. If you contact the queer community, I imagine that one of them is suffering from the same mental illness as Blair; he-she-it may be able to recommend a tutor to home-school your child. Blair shouldn’t be allowed to infect other children by attending another school.”

Maggie was by now so angry that, paradoxically, she began to calm down. Slowly and deliberately, carefully enunciating every syllable, she said: “Your views are not only abhorrent, they are also irrelevant. You lack the authority to expel my child! You’re just a teacher.”

“You’re right. I do lack the authority to expel even a child as repugnant as Blair. Yet I do have considerable influence with the principal, and your deviate son will soon be thrown out on his panty-clad bottom.”

Maggie asked: “Are you saying that it’s exclusively the principal’s decision to make? That the principal will have to accept exclusive responsibility for discriminating against a transgendered boy with an excellent record for academics and attendance?”

“The principal doesn’t have to take full responsibility for the expulsion of a child by reason of mental defect, because he relies on the expertise of Mr. La Ronde, the school psychologist. If Mr. La Ronde decides that Blair threatens to spread the virus of gender dysphoria — yes, I know both the word and the disease — to the rest of the student body, then the principal will have no choice but to expel the pervert.”

Maggie, thoughtful, with her chin in her hands, replied: “And I suppose the opposite is also true — that the principal wouldn’t dare to expel a student whom Mr. La Ronde judges not to be a threat to the school?”

Miss Umbridge nodded. She also reluctantly admitted that Mr. La Ronde was still in the building.

“So why wait?” said Maggie. “Let’s get this over with. If the school psychologist endorses my child’s right to attend this school dressed discretely as a girl, then you will keep her crossdressing a secret from the other staff and students or risk disciplinary action. If, on the other hand, the psychologist shares your antipathy to my daughter and to her constitutional rights, then I can promise you a lawsuit that will bankrupt this school district and cost you your job.”

“You can’t threaten me. The union will stick by me. As for suing the school or the district, I don’t think you want your son’s sexual deviancy to become the subject of international gossip. Do you really want Blair to tell the media that he’s a she? How do you think Blair’s going to react to seeing doctored ”before and after” photos of himself … and herself … on the cover of every supermarket tabloid in the country? No, I don’t believe you are foolish enough to sue.”

“I wouldn’t bet your career on that belief. In any case, I’ve wasted enough time talking to a nobody with no real authority. I want you to take my daughter and me to see Mr. La Ronde … right now!”

“Your daughter? I can’t believe you’re calling him your daughter! Come on, Blair, you can’t yet be sick enough yet to see yourself as this madwoman’s daughter. Insist that she acknowledge you as her son.”

“I don’t want my mom to call me ‘son’, ‘cause I am her daughter. I’m a girl, aren’t I?” (Blair wished he had a photograph of Maggie’s smile at the moment to treasure for the rest of his life. She had never loved him more!)

“No, a girl you are not!” shouted the teacher. “You’re nothing more than a seriously messed-up gay boy, a sissy boy to be sure, but a boy nevertheless. You’ve got male genitals. That’s all that matters.”

“I won’t have them for long,” Blair countered. He was enjoying her discomfort. He wanted to get back at her for all the insults; so he decided to tell her something so shocking that it would ruin her day, and hopefully her week: “I want to find someone who’ll cut off my cock and balls while I am still in your class. Then, if you beg, I’ll let you see my vig — vigina. It will look brand new, not old and whorey like yours.”

Ms. Umbridge spluttered: “Ms. Maguire, if somehow Blair does evade a well-deserved expulsion, I can promise you that he-she-or-it will live to regret talking to me like that. Imagine, calling his teacher a whore!”

“I did not!”

“Blair, she continued, “If the psychologist and principal do permit you to continue your studies at Lewis A. Clark, you can consider yourself on after-school detention for the rest of your stay here. It’s hard for me to believe that I ever liked you. You’re a brat in addition to being a pervert.”

Tears of self-pity were welling up in the teacher’s eyes. At age fifty-nine, she was tired of being called names like “nobody” and “whore” simply for doing her duty. It had taken her less than three days to discover Blair’s masquerade. Why did the brat’s mother not understand that Blair’s mental disease had reached the stage where he could no longer cover it up like a melanoma on his lower back? “The two of them have insulted me simply because I’m realistic enough to realize that a boy can’t become a girl without having the other students hand him his gonads on a stainless-steel platter.”

With Miss Umbridge briskly setting the pace, it didn’t take them long to reach a door plaque declaring this to be the office of the “Guidance Counselor and Psychologist.” With only the pretense of a knock, the teacher charged into the office, followed closely by Maggie, determined not to miss a word “the old bat” had to say.

Staring at them was the ample rump of Mr. La Ronde, who was on his knees, his back to the door, trying to retrieve something under his desk. When Miss Umbridge noisily cleared her throat to announce their arrival, the psychologist gave such a start that he banged his head against the desk’s interior with sufficient force for the “crack” to be heard by Blair, lagging behind in the hallway.

Slowly and laboriously, La Ronde, a half-eaten donut in his left hand, extricated himself from the desk’s confines. After a quick dusting of the confection, he plaintively asked the ladies for a hand to help him back onto his feet. Seriously unfit, morbidly obese and permanently short-of-breath, the psychologist knew that Miss Umbridge, who had a habit of storming unannounced into his office, wasn’t going to wait while he crawled on his knees around the desk to his sturdy office chair, which he normally used, by pushing hard on the seat with both arms, to pull himself up to a sitting position. The two women helped him huffing and puffing to his feet. He noticed that the stranger was better-mannered and more helpful than his least favorite member of the teaching staff. At least she didn’t mutter insults about his weight problem.

As he wedged himself into his chair, La Ronde further noticed that the stranger had a smile almost as broad as the teacher’s scowl. So, violating protocol, he addressed the stranger first. By then Blair was lurking behind his mother, trying to be the invisible kid. The psychologist, concluding that Blair was the reason for the rude interruption of his working day, commenced with, “Madam, may I have your name and that of your … [after a hard look] …er… your son? Now don’t interrupt, Miss Umbridge! There will be time for you to have your say, but fairness requires me to hear first from … [he paused long enough to get their names] Ms. Maguire and her delightful son Blair.” (Blair was turning on the charm full-blast.)

“Darling!” Miss Umbridge spluttered. “Just wait ….”

He cut her off: “Please Miss Umbridge, we will be still here at nine o’clock this evening if you keep interrupting. There are procedures to follow. Now, Mrs. Maguire, what seems to be the problem?”

To intermittent “tsk, tsks” and “oh mys” from Mr. La Ronde, Maggie explained that Blair’s teacher, having discovered that her son was a transsexual, “a protected category in this State,” Maggie emphasized, was now bent on breaking the law by denying him a public education. “I’ve never met a greater bigot than that woman,” Maggie concluded.

“Now, now, one shouldn’t stoop to insults. I am certain that Miss Umbridge is not a bigot; she always has the best interests of the school and the child at heart. Am I not right, Lucretia?”

“That’s Miss Umbridge to you, Jean-Pierre! Now can I have my say?”

“Not just yet. I need additional information. You say, Ms. Maguire, that Blair, who is certainly pretty enough to be a girl, is a practicing transsexual. Except possibly for that haircut, he doesn’t seem to be dressing as a girl right now. When does he dress up?”

After Maggie explained, at some length, her arrangement with Blair, Mr. La Ronde gave a brief summary: “So you’re telling me that Blair only dresses as a girl when he’s either at home or somewhere, like St. Wicca’s, so far away that he is highly unlikely to meet anyone from his school or neighborhood. In other words, he has no desire to be exposed as either a transsexual or a transvestite. That’s a wise precaution for one so young to take. Maggie — may I call you that? — what then is the problem? Why have you all come to my office if the child is willing to hide his gender change while at school?”

“Because — can’t you see the evidence before your very eyes? — The boy is not trying to hide his gender change! You can see that. Tell the truth to the man, Blair. Tell him that everything you’re wearing the good Lord and the owners of the Penney Department Store intended to be worn only by females. Hence, you’re dressed as a girl, and you have no right to impose your mental sickness on your fellow ten-year-olds.”

“Is it true, Blair? Are you dressed entirely as a girl?”

Blair nodded: “Yes and no. Yes, these clothes are often worn by girls, but they’re unisex, so boys wear ‘em too.” He blushed at what he had to say next: “It makes me feel good to know that I’m dressing in girls’ clothes — it makes me feel like I’m being honest with myself and it pleases my mom big time — but I don’t want anyone to know at school. So I wear jeans and tops like those I’ve seen on other boys.”

“I see. But your teacher found out your secret. How do you explain that?”

“Because she grabbed me by the arms and wouldn’t let go. She held on so tight that I’ve got bruises — look at them [which everyone did.]! She did that so she could brush my hair to make me look girly.”

Visibly shocked, the psychologist asked, “Miss Umbridge, you were the one who combed his hair into a bob? You manhandled him too? Oh my, oh my, this is not good, not good at all.”

Maggie got the knife in first: “My son has been messing up his hair before coming to school. As you can see, he has delicate features, and the only way he could be sure of looking like a boy in unisex clothes was to look like a slob. And that’s what he looked like until this woman took it upon herself to fuss with his hair, something that she had no right to do.”

“May I at least have a chance to say my piece?” Miss Umbridge could wait no longer. “I merely exposed the bob; his mother probably created it. There is no denying that Blair has been coming to school in a girl’s hairstyle and clothes. Given his effeminacy, he won’t fool anyone for long. He should take his sickness elsewhere; I do not want him to infect my class.”

“I see,” said the psychologist, now perspiring profusely. “You maintain that this boy has a mental disease, your proof being that he wants to become a girl. But boys his age dream about growing up to be all sorts of things — fire fighters, police officers, football players, astronauts, and President. How, then, is it all that different for Blair to dream about becoming a woman? Is it up to us to crush a child’s aspirations?”

Miss Umbridge picked up two books and slammed them on the psychologist’s desk. Startled, he might have jumped out of his chair had he not been weighed down by inertia. Instead, he mopped his brow with a handkerchief, saying, “My, but it’s hot in here. Do you all find it as hot as I do?”

“No, I don’t find it hot, you pile of blubber!” yelled Miss Lucretia Umbridge, now thoroughly enraged. “But I can make it too hot for you to stay at this school if you dare to permit a child with a disease to infect the student body!”

She had La Rond quaking like a bowl of jelly. To calm her, he threw her a bone: “Miss Umbridge, you are, as usual, correct when you aver that one cannot, and must not permit a child with a disease to infect others. If a child does have a disease, then that child must quit the school until it is cured.”

Now it was Maggie’s time to object and to be shushed. “My dear Maggie, please let me finish my thought. Now, to come directly to the point: While I agree with you, Miss Umbridge, on the necessity of quarantining diseased students, I am not sure that I agree with you that this particular student has in fact a disease. Let me finish first, and then you may reply. I have a question to put to you, Ms. Umbridge, is transgenderism the disease that you fear and the reason that you insist that Blair be sent home until he be cured of it?”

“Finally, we’re getting somewhere,” she replied. “Yes, that’s it precisely: because he is transgendered, Blair is mentally ill and therefore must leave this school until there is a miracle — and it would take Jesus Christ himself to make it happen — until there is a miracle cure.”

“Yes, as you say, we have isolated the key question.” Everyone then waited while he again mopped his brow. “They do overheat this building. Now, as I was saying, the key question is whether Blair has a mental disease that requires him to be sent home. Just look at this sweet child [Blair was now grinning broadly like a Cheshire cat or American Idol’s Tim Urban]; does he look mentally ill? Not in my opinion.”

“For whatever that’s worth,” said Miss Umbridge.

La Rond pontificated:

You’re right as always. My opinion is no more valid than anyone else’s — even yours. My professional expertise is, however, quite another matter; and I will not allow a teacher to question it. So here is my decision, and all of you must pay heed to it, or there will be hell to pay with me, the principal and the school board: Since Blair is a transgender, he must leave the school if — and it’s a big if — transgenderism is in fact a disease. I am uncertain as to whether it is a disease or not as it is a fairly recent phenomenon, one that has arisen since I studied for my Masters at Western Washington Polytechnic during the Ford, Carter and Reagan presidencies. Therefore, I must consult higher authority before rendering a decision. In the meantime, since the child requires an education, Blair should stay in his present class until further notice — provided that he does not draw attention to himself as a girl. I see no reason why he can’t continue to dress in unisex clothes and I have no problem with his current haircut, so long as it’s suitably mussed.”

Miss Umbridge’s jaw dropped: “You’re going to consult higher authority? What kind of decision is that? And you’re telling me that I must in the meantime allow a pervert remain in my class?”

“Yes,” Mr. La Ronde replied. “Moreover, not only must that child remain in your class until I have ascertained whether he does have, professionally-speaking, a mental defect, but if I learn that you are harassing this dear, sweet child because of his transgenderism or in any way alerting his fellow students to his crossdressing, then I will do my utmost to have your teaching certificate revoked. Do I make my understood?”

“Understood. I understand that you are incapable of making a decision.”

“It doesn’t help our relations with the public, Ms. Umbridge, for you to behave like a petulant teenager. Or is it a grumpy old lady? In any case, you have been warned: Leave this child alone until I have rendered my decision or your career will soon be as vanished as your looks. Now, it’s time for my late afternoon snack, and I wish to be left alone to enjoy it. Maggie, it was a delight to meet you and Blair.” He then waved them goodbye.

As they left, Miss Umbridge muttered something about an “ignorant, lazy pig who’ll “never get around to making a decision.” She then turned to Maggie and Blair: “This is only the beginning, my pretties. While I may not be able to expose your crossdressing, Blair, there are other ways, many, many other ways for me to make your stay in my class so miserable that you’ll be soon begging your mother to take you home for good. Just you wait!”

She then turned sharply on her heels (like an SS officer, thought Maggie) and marched back to her classroom. Maggie took Blair to an ice cream parlor four blocks away to celebrate.

Aside from the school custodian, only one person now remained in the school: In a dimly-lit office, working the computer keyboard with the index finger of his right hand, while his left hand nourished him with sugary treats, Mr. La Ronde was keeping his promise to consult a higher authority. As he slowly read out loud what Wikipedia had to say about “transgenderism”, he became increasingly weary — it had, after all, been a fatiguing session with that “hag of a teacher” — and his eyelids were growing ever heavier until he fell fast asleep.

After a few hours spent snoring, snorting and dreaming of himself in the Land of Oz, La Ronde awoke sufficiently refreshed to realize with crystal clarity that he should take his time — indeed, lots and lots of time — to study the phenomenon of transgenderism because as said out loud , “Blair’s a sweet kid; let him be.”

La Ronde thus chose procrastination and deferral. True to his pattern, he then chose to reward himself for his non-decision with an extra-large, four-cheese pizza and three cans of Classic Coke.