Darin Dares

Chapter 7 of 7

© 2014 by D.L.

We were soon on our way and I noted that we weren't heading for home, but instead going towards the town centre. I didn't bother asking our destination, and my mother wasn't in a talkative mood, so we made the journey in silence.

The remainder of my second day at school dressed as a girl went on without incident. Many people were giving me funny looks, and I could tell most of the nearby conversations were about me, but I wasn't being overly harassed. A few jibes came my way, but for the most part, there wasn't anything nasty.

I still hadn't had any word from my parents by the end of the school day, so I had no idea if they had managed to obtain an appointment for me at the doctors.

I didn't have the luxury of an early escape like the day before, so I found myself walking out of the school in a crowd. I didn't rush and made sure to stay close to where the teachers were stationed. There seemed to be more adults around than usual, which might have been directly related to them expecting trouble. I stopped at the school gates and surveyed the area before stepping over the threshold.

As I started to walk in the direction of home, I noticed my mother’s car pull up at the side of the road ahead of me. I quickly got in and shut the door before anybody decided to intercept me, although there didn't appear to be any sign of trouble.

We were soon on our way and I noted that we weren't heading for home, but instead going towards the town centre. I didn't bother asking our destination, and my mother wasn't in a talkative mood, so we made the journey in silence. It was only a few minutes before we were pulling up in a side street near the doctor's surgery. My mother instructed me to follow her and she led me to the reception. Apparently, she was able to secure an appointment and we were directed to the waiting room.

There were only a few chairs left, as it was quite busy. My mother took the seat on the end of a row and I sat down next to a young girl. It was obvious that she wasn't feeling very well as she was sat very quietly and was exceedingly pale. I estimated that she must be of primary school age, but wasn't in a school uniform. Instead, she was wearing jeans and a sweater. I just hoped that whatever she had wasn't contagious.

The girl looked at me in puzzlement for several minutes before asking, "Excuse me, are you a boy or a girl?"

I could see several people nearby take interest in the question. As she asked politely, I decided to answer her, "Both, or possibly neither. I look like a boy, but I think, and feel, like a girl. That's why I'm here."

"That's silly. How can you not know what you are?"

"I do know what I am. I'm a girl. The problem is I don't look like a girl and everybody else keeps insisting I'm a boy. It’s very annoying."

"You should grow your hair longer and put it in pigtails. Boys don't wear pigtails. That way you won't keep getting mistaken for a boy."

"I keep trying to grow my hair long, but my mum keeps making me cut it short."

The receptionist called out another name, and the girl’s mother stood up. "I have to go see the doctor now, bye," the young girl said as she disappeared off.

"A few months ago you were begging to have your hair buzz cut," my mother remarked. "I'm not the one to blame for its current length."

"I was still in denial at that point. I had previously been growing it longer, but I was getting to much trouble for it, so cut it short. Unfortunately, it didn't have much effect and only made me feel bad, hence why it hasn't been cut again since."

We sit in silence for several minutes. A couple more people were called for the various doctors on duty and a few more people arrive. A couple of boys turn up and sit on the opposite side of the room and I can see them pointing in my direction and sniggering at me. I notice the young girl and her mother re-emerge from the corridor with the consulting rooms and head past the reception and through the door into the attached pharmacy. The receptionist calls out "Miss Mitchell" and looks in our direction. I smile at being called miss, and along with my mother walk down the corridor to where the doctor is stood outside his door, waiting.

Dr Sumas is one of the younger doctors at the surgery and appears to be of Indian descent, but instead of the accent you might expect, speaks with a strong Liverpudlian inflection.

"Now then, what seems to be the problem?" the doctor asked. If he had a suspicion based on how I was dressed, he wasn't letting on.

"I believe I'm transgendered," I replied.

"I see, why do you think that may be the case?"

It was at least a good sign that he wasn't dismissing me out of hand. I could only remember seeing him once or twice before. I don't go to the doctors very often and it had been several years since my last visit. He spent the next ten minutes asking questions about how I felt and how I interacted with others. I answered as honestly as possible, although there were some things I simply couldn't explain.

He then asked if it would be okay to give me a physical examination. He asked my mother to leave the room while I undressed. Dr Sumas then proceeded to examine my chest and genitalia to make sure I was developing normally. He also took the opportunity to ask some more personal questions about my development that he didn't think I would answer with my mother present, such as if I was experiencing erections and had I ever ejaculated semen.

He left me to dress, leaving the room. A few minutes later, he knocked on the door to ask if I was decent. Confirming that I was, he entered carrying some bottles of pills and was followed into the room by my mother.

"There doesn't appear to be anything physically out of the ordinary from the limited amount of testing that I can do without specialist equipment. As far as I can tell, you are male and seem to be developing normally for a boy your age. I can't see any evidence of any obvious intersex condition, although for thoroughness I will be sending you up the hospital for some additional tests."

Dr Sumas spoke with a soft calming voice. I thought that he possible suspected I would be upset at being told that information. While the thought had crossed my mind that there was a slim chance that I had somehow been misidentified at birth, I knew that it was incredibly unlikely to be the case. I simply nodded in agreement. I knew from my research that treatment for my condition would be a long drawn out process, which is why the doctor surprised me by laying out pills on the table in front of him.

Firstly, there were four small round yellow tablets. Next to them, he placed two blue capsules and two large flat white discs.

"There are multiple ways I can potentially treat you," the doctor explained. "The first one I will definitely not be doing and that is to ignore the problem and tell you to go away and not be so stupid. The mere fact that you are here and that you believe you are transgendered is enough to demonstrate that you are questioning your gender, and are therefore experiencing gender dysphoria. The question is not if you are transgendered, but to what extent, and how much it is effecting you. I am going to present you with three options, some of which I suspect you will hate. I want you to listen to all three before making your choice, and I want to stress that this is your choice. Don't pick an option because it’s what you think is expected of you by your mother or myself."

The doctor pushed the yellow tablets towards me.

"You've heard the expression 'it'll put hairs on your chest'; these will do exactly that. Contained in these tablets is a mix of testosterone, steroids, and other body building supplements. These are the type of pills that are banned by all professional sports bodies. If you are involved in any series competitive sport, then let me know and I'll dramatically drop the dose so that you won't be disqualified. The effect will be to kick start puberty big time. You will soon overtake the rest of your peers in muscle development and nobody will ever even think of calling you a sissy again. It will also boost your sex drive. To put it crudely, your only interest in girls’ clothing will be how quickly you can get them out of it so that you can fuck their brains out. Any doubts about your manliness will probably disappear. Unfortunately, you will have to be careful to manage your anger. You have presumably heard of the term 'roid rage? You may end up suffering from it."

I was slightly caught off guard by his language and simply nodded at the question at the end of his explanation. After a short pause, Dr Sumas pushed the reaming tablets in my direction.

"Option two: the exact opposite. The blue tablets destroy virtually all male hormones. Three of these would be enough chemically to castrate any adult male. I'm giving you two, as you haven't reached full adult height and weight, and don't yet have adult levels of hormones. They will flush any testosterone out of your system and completely shut down your testis and their ability to produce hormones. It may be possible to restart them again with the other tablets, but it’s by no means guaranteed. The chances of you ever becoming a father would be very remote. The other tablets are a massive dose of female hormones. To put this into perspective how strong these are, a women undergoing hormone replacement therapy would only need to take half a tablet per month. I'm giving you two to get you started and then, depending on how fast your body reacts, we'll work out a continued dosage. No tablet can make you grow boobs overnight, but you should start noticing them start to bud within a fortnight. Within a couple of months, you should have caught up, if not overtaken, most girls your age. However, these don't come without side effects. You will experience the biggest bought of PMS that any women is capable of suffering. You will probably have morning sickness for at least a week. That shouldn't start until after you have digested the tablets, so you don't need to worry about vomiting them back up again, but you may find yourself off your food for a few days until the queasiness passes. I can prescribe some additional medicine to help with that aspect."

While I don't like the sound of the side effects, I always knew that messing with my bodies’ chemistry wouldn't be an easy journey. I let the possibility sink in as the doctor pauses ready to deliver his final option.

"The third option is we do nothing. We simply monitor the situation, run more tests, and meet again later to review first two options again. I presume you are familiar with the scene from the matrix with the red and blue tablets. If you choose either of the first two options, then they will be life changing irreversible decisions. Unlike the movie, you don't have to make that choice now; you can choose to wait until you are certain."

All eyes fell on me. I looked at the tablets on the desk in front of me and pondered which option to take. The doctor put a disposable cup of water next to the tablets should I choose to take any. After a few minutes of silence, I deliver my response.

"Out of the three options, I can definitely say that I don't want to pick option one. I don't think this feeling is going to magically disappear, and all those pills will do is make matters worse. I realise I'm already depressed and the thought of being stuck still wanting to be a girl, but with even less chance of passing, is not something I want to consider. I have never felt suicidal, but I do worry that if this treatment affects my emotional balance, then I might do something stupid."

I shoved the yellow tablets away from me before continuing. "The only reason I haven't grabbed and swallowed a whole bottle of the other tablets is that the rational part of my brain is shouting at me that I should be taking option three. I also have this sneaking suspicion that it's too easy. That you haven't even taken any blood samples yet to determine my current hormone levels. Although I hope and pray that I'm wrong, I suspect that this is some kind of test to see how committed I am, or if this is a wind up, and these are actually placebos, or worse, something like extra strong laxative to teach me a lesson. Which is why I'm going to do this..."

I pick up the plastic beaker of water and one of each of the option two tablets. I pop them in my mouth and swallow them with some water. They don't taste particularly nice, and I pull a slight face. I'm not sure if the taste is a good or bad sign. I looked back at the doctor who was maintaining a poker face with no sign of emotion. "Well," I asked, "can I start celebrating my journey into having the body I should have had from birth, or am I spending the rest of the day sat on the toilet?"

"I wasn't lying when I told you what the tablets are," The doctor said, "but I was grossly exaggerating the dosages. The blue pill is an androgen blocker, but you would need to be on them for months before the effect became irreversible. The other pill is a standard birth control pill a girl your age might take."

"I've heard in sex ed. that they take a couple of weeks to take effect and shouldn't be relied on for contraception immediately," I acknowledged.

"In your case the dose is so low as to not have an effect. While not technically placebos, as they have active ingredients, the effect is the same. You are right in that we need to monitor your hormone levels, so we will schedule you in for some blood tests next week, once the effect of the tablets, if any, has worked its way out of your system."

"In that case," I responded as I picked up the other half of the dose and swallowed the remaining tablets, "I can safely take these anyway. Sure, conventional medicine suggests that they won't work, but the placebo effect has been shown to work under some circumstances, and the mental outlook of the patient can have a physical active effect on their body: mind over matter. Also, if homeopathy is correct, even highly diluted substances can work. Perhaps after being shown what it should be producing, my body will get the message and actually start producing the right chemicals."

The doctor laughed, "I don't think that is likely to happen, but we will be monitoring it in case it does. In the mean time no more tablets, and no self medication, young lady."

I smiled at being called a young lady, and promised not to take anything without a doctors consent. We then discussed my treatment from then on. My doctor would schedule more tests, including blood work. He would also refer me to a specialist, but warned me that it could take weeks, if not months to get an appointment.

"Does that mean I'm forced to return to pretending to be being a boy at school? Although, I do not intend to pretend anything, so I would simply be a girl attending in boy's clothing. I've temporarily been removed from the changing rooms for P.E. over concerns for my welfare, but the school can't justify that arrangement on a permanent basis without a medical justification. Considering that everybody is aware of my status, to be put back in the boys changing room only to be removed at a later date so that I can officially start a real-life test is going to make everyone, not only me, uncomfortable."

"I can understand that," the doctor agreed, "Your headmistress has emailed the surgery explaining the situation and included the observations of your teachers as she thought it might be relevant to your treatment. I also have a daughter in your school, in the year below you, so got to hear from her some of what you have been up to. That was before I realised you were one of my patients. My recommendation is that you be removed from the changing rooms due to it putting you under emotional stress. It will be up to the school what arrangements it chooses to make, but I will stipulate that if you are removed entirely, some alternative form of exercise be undertaken, outside of school hours if needed."

As I waited for the doctor to type and print out a letter to take to the school, I couldn't help but think of the old sitcom, Only Fools and Horses. "He who dares, wins, Rodney," Del boy would often quote. While some may regard me as a 'he', I certainly think of myself as a 'she', although admittedly not as much as I would like to be able to due to my anatomy. I dared to step out and show my true self, and I have won a small victory, in that I haven't been shot down at the first hurdle, and I am being taken seriously. I'm aware that the will be many more battles to be won, and hurdles to jump, but at least I'm out of the starters block and onto the battlefield. I have hope, and many more metaphors to mangle.