Michelle Berthiaume - The XX Club: a memoir

THE XX CLUB

a memoir

Michelle Berthiaume

Copyright 2019 Michelle Berthiaume / Emily McNamee

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-7341197-1-8

In Memoriam

I am the wisp of light at dawnGone!

But not forgotten

Michael Edmond Barcomb (1954-1994)

Whats Your Name?

She stood back on the curb

In the shadow of the building

Where Rodin is entombed

And watched paper faces

With iron stares float by,

No one saw her,

or so she thought

she melted there on the sidewalk

stabbed through the heart

by one carnivore looking back.

Evelyn Stone (1992 1994)

T his is a memoir - it is a work of non-fiction laid out in a format designed to be engaging for the reader. Persons, places, organizations and events are real and were laid out as they happened during the 1990s subject only to the frailties of human memory. Names have been altered to protect the privacy of the individuals. The chronology of events has been rearranged or consolidated to provide an ease of flow for the reader, and certain characters are composite--contain more than one persons history, actions or characteristics--to facilitate economy and better enhance an understanding of the transsexual experience.

Text Copyright 2019

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, compiled or otherwise used or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written consent of the author and or publisher.

Published by: Fyrecurl Publishing Group - Estes Park, Colorado

www.Fyrecurl.pub.com

www.Fyrecurl.Wordpress.com

Amazon and the Amazon Logo are trademarks of Amazon.com Inc., or its affiliates

ISBN: 978-1-7341197-1-8

Cover Design by: Emily McNamee

Illustrations: Kathy McKay [copyright-1994]

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

To my best friend and mother of my children: Deborah Marie (Sprague) who taught me that angels do exist; and to my children: Jennifer Rose, Jacquelyn Marie, and April Michelle, who taught me more about being a woman than I could have ever learned on my own, and without whose love and support, I would not have survived to tell my story.

_______________

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A big thanks to those who started me on the path to publication of my story, Diane LesBesquets, Roger Wiley Cash, Mitch Wieland, Jo Knowles, Richard Adams Carey, Mark Sundeen and Amy Irvine McHarg, and all of my peers in the 2012-14 SNHU Low-residency Masters in Writing program, for their inspiration, sharing, caring, mentoring, and in some cases cajoling, to get me to focus on writing down my memories truth to preserve an important part of LGBT history. And to my family, for standing by me through the difficult times, particularly my sisters, Kim Barcomb and Kathy Jean Bass, Karyn Barnett and Valerie Barcomb; and to my brother John Randy Barcomb, who set his own standard of masculinity that included an equal measure of integrity, courage and compassion. To my mother, Patricia Marilyn Howe Barcomb, whose faith and unconditional love prompted me to believe in myself and led me to accomplish the impossible, and more importantly, to get up on my feet each time I got knocked down and not give up.

A special thanks to Kelly Stone Gamble (editor), and Diane Walters (proofreader)whose patience and contribution in editing and raking through each word of my manuscript, turned it into a readable novel. And to my Beta readers and those friends who volunteered their time, skills and effort, to read and provide input, from its inception to the end, C.G. Fuston, Darren Leo, Tyler Fish, Tina Sears, Randi Sachs, and Ashley (the girl who hates to read), I thank you, your support and friendship.

And to my old friend Traci (wherever you may be) and all the femmes of the XX Club and others who silently passed through the annals of our history seemingly unnoticed. I hope you realized your dream, walked away from yourselves, and blended in to become that woman you were meant to be.

A nd to all who are still searching: May your journey out of the shadows be as remarkable as mine. May you leave all of the pain behind, and soar with the eagles into those light infused blue skies and beyond-

Excelsior!

Author's Note:

Memories are like stones, time and distance erode them like acid . - Ugo Betti

This is a memoir. It is my story. A snippet of life told from my limited perspective. Admittedly, it may leave much to be debated among those fortunate others who have survived similar turbulent times. The reader should not use this as a gauge to measure every person who claims to be transsexual. It is not meant to be an expose nor treatise on any subject but merely a vivisection of one small part of the life of someone who survived transition from male to female during the 1990s; a dangerous time for someone to go against his or her Makers design.

Essentially, it is memorys truth, subject to all the maladies of the fragile human mind. One does not live with a pen in hand writing down her life as she goes because she may want to recall every detail later. What matters is how she felt at the time she lived the events and how she perceived her actions affected others. When one is on the run from one life to another, there is not much time to unpack your bag and take notes.

I have persevered to accurately recreate the events and emotions I felt, or failed to feel, at the time of my transition during the 1990s. It was a time I was suffering from major depression and searching for my identity. A confusing time when the Gay movement had branched out into particularized groups divided by sex and sexual preference and the concept of Transgender was beginning to emerge from the phenomenon of Transsexualism, that was still a mystery to social scientists and the medical profession. I have consolidated several characters into one for economy and to elucidate salient experiences. Joe is a composite character that contained the experience of several aging transvestites I have met in my journey. Traci represents another group: the passable transsexual who went stealth and walked away from her former life. She was one of the lucky ones who, as Dr. Higgins described in our first and only meeting, blended into society so well she became someone else. Someone she was meant to be.

The XX Club was one of the last institutions, originally funded by a grant from the Ericson Foundation. It was set up by an heiress to assist the most vulnerable part of the gay community, the transsexual, a person who felt trapped in the wrong body and completely and utterly alone, and without its help, I too, would have succumbed to non-existence.

Names of individuals have been altered to protect privacy. Any resemblance to persons should be considered coincidental. Although there are an equal number of female-to-male transsexuals (f-t-m) in the world, this is the story of a male-to-female (m-t-f) transsexual and as such, its perspective is heavily slanted in that direction. References to transsexual or gender without further elaboration should be considered m-t-f. If the transgendered character has a male ego, or identity, he will be referred to in this memoir by male pronouns regardless of how he is dressed. This is to further define some of the larger transgender community from the transsexual, who is always gendered opposite his or her birth sex.