Alex as Well Read Free

are, you can attend to stuff like that.
    Why does it matter whether I am a boy or a girl?
    But it does. It really, really matters. People want to know which one you are. They want to be able to decide what you are, even when they are just walking past on the street and will never see you again. It’s crazy. Most people don’t see it as a grey area. They are physically affected when there is confusion.
    They are repulsed.
    For me it’s a very grey area. Greyitty grey. We are the Earl and Countess of Grey, Alex and I.
    Now that you know, you’re probably wondering what I look like. I kind of have that Tilda Swinton Cate Blanchett Cooper Thompson–ish ice-queen, cleaved-from-stone look. I’m beautiful/ugly. Pale, long and bones. Like a duck carcass. People get an emotional response when they look at me. It’s fascination and loathing. Because they can’t figure out what I am.
    ‘How old are you?’ he asks.
    ‘Sixteen,’ I answer, biting my lip. ‘Soon,’ I clarify.‘In a year…and a half.’
    He puts the papers down and folds his hands on the desk. ‘I’m sorry. We do wills and contracts, and property title searches. That’s our thing here. You are obviously going through something’—Crockett waves his hand, searching—‘profound, but we’re not the right fit for you.’
    ‘Where do I go then?’ I ask. I pick at my fingernails as I explain. ‘I want to go to a new school, but I want to go as a girl, and now they want to see a copy of my birth certificate. It says I am a boy.’
    ‘You could just tell them.’
    ‘Just tell them?’
    ‘Yes.’
    I curl my lip. Alex says, ‘They’re going to go, “Yeah, that’s fine, come on in! None of our parents have any problem at all with a transgendered freak getting changed with our little boys and girls. Why, our English Master wears French knickers, and our Scripture Mistress has a very handsome Fu Manchu. You’re going to fit right in!”’
    Crockett looks at me for a long time. I’m wondering if I’ve overdone it, and he’s pissed. Finally he says, ‘Getting your gender reassigned is not something you can undo. Adolescence is a very confusing time. You should probably think about it for a while longer before you make any decisions.’
    Now I am pissed, because I wasn’t just walking pasthis shop and thinking, I know, I might get my gender reassigned today.
    Ok, maybe I did, but it’s been a long time coming.
    You know what it feels like? It’s like someone got it wrong to start with. That’s what I feel inside. When I was born they went it’s got a noodle, it must be a boy , but I’m not a boy on the inside.
    I say to Crockett, ‘Have you ever heard someone sing the wrong lyrics to a song, like that Beatles song, “She’s got a chicken to ride”? It’s wrong and it seems so silly to you that the other person could think that’s how the song goes. But then imagine you heard everyone sing it, like, even the actual Beatles. So you assume that, ok, they must be the real lyrics, even though it’s absurd. It’s like that.’
    The whole time I’m talking, Crockett watches me, but I don’t think he gets it. I don’t know why I thought he would.
    ‘Have you talked to your parents?’ he asks.
    My head drops and I stare at my hands. I have painted the nails a dark purple colour, but I bite them and it’s half worn off, so it looks more like I slammed my fingers in a door.
    ‘I told my mother,’ I say slowly. ‘She says I am a pervert and I am killing her.’ I pause because the next bit is harder to say out loud, like when you fall off your bike and skid along on your elbows and you’re afraid to look because you know there’ll be no skin there.
    Because at least my mother has the delusion that I can change, that it’s some naughty thing I am doing to annoy the crap out of her because I am a teenager and one day I will wake up and I won’t feel like I am a girl trapped in a boy’s body.
    But my dad, he knew it wasn’t a