Christopher To Christina: An Answered Prayer

12. Changing Mindset

The hormones had another effect on me: I started noticing boys. Of course it may have just been an effect of the training and my desire to be so throughly girly, but either way, I was beginning to notice boys the way girls naturally do.

I had never had any even remotely gay tendencies before (I hated everything about boys too much), and although I'll never know for sure, I don't think I would have noticed them ever, if I had had to grow up as one. But now I was a girl I was literally beginning to turn into a thoroughly heterosexual girl.

It shocked and scared the heil out of me the first time I realized I was looking at a guy like that. It actually turned my stomach and made me physically sick.

It bothered me so much I couldn't quit thinking about it. Even though it disgusted me and turned my stomach, deep inside there was a curiosity and a spark of excitement like I was doing something forbidden.

After a while I convinced myself to try to get over the negative feelings and explore those feelings of curiosity and excitement. One day I decided to try letting go of my negative thoughts and just observe.

Mom and I was in the mall and as we shopped, I watched the boys closely, trying to determine what it was about them exactly, that was giving me butterflies in my stomach and making me feel warm.

I looked like a girl, I acted like a girl, and I thought like a girl; and suddenly, letting go of my inhibitions, I began to notice things about boys . . . like a girl . . . things that I, I uh, suddenly found myself liking. Their lean flanks. Their strong arms. Their broad shoulders. Their firm butts. The way they smiled. Their beautiful eyes. The little--and sometimes not so little--lump in the front of their jeans.

The denim tended to wear in that spot, and as a result that interesting area would be graced by a little highlight. I liked to watch the slight unconscious swagger that that lump seemed to put into their walk, on every one of them, even the wimpiest had a gait so different from my own feminine walk, which by now was second nature.

That night I lay in bed thinking about what I had discovered about boys and learned about myself that day. I knew one day, in the distant future, I would be with a boy.

As I drifted of to sleep I found myself beginning to form a list of preferences; shaggy unkempt blonde hair, southern drawl, sun-tanned skin, tall, sweet, shy . . .

Mommy's plan for me was for her to continue homeschooling me until my junior year in high school, to give my body time to develop, but my development went faster than Dr Madison had anticipated.

Between Mommy and my psychiatrist, they discussed it and came to a conclusion. I would get to go to the public high school in my sophomore year.

The first thing we found out when I started public school was that I was way more advanced in nearly every subject. Don't try to tell me home-schooling doesn't work.

By this time also, Mommy's lawyer had managed to get my birth certificate and other records changed from Christopher and male to Christina and female.

He regarded this procedure with prim and stiff-lipped disapproval, but Mommy could be very emphatic
when her mind was made up, and he ended up carrying out our wishes.

"Wait a minute," you might be saying. "I thought your name Was Christine not Christina."

You'd be right. Mommy came up with Christine and that's what I went by up until time to file for a new birth certificate.

As we was filling out the forms, Mommy asked me if I was sure that was the name I wanted for the rest of my life. I didn't have to think about it much at all to know I loved the name, but I decided I wanted to change it to be a little more mature sounding, so I swapped the e at the end of Christine to an a and Christina was born.