The TRANSformation of Jennie Heckenlaible ~ Chapter 1: My Light Bulb Moment
Back Cover
Jennie’s awkward teenage life is upended when she discovers she’s not a boy. With her parents divorced, her father missing, and finding herself falling in love with a girl from school, she’s got enough to deal with already. The only way out of spiraling anxiety is to learn about gender identity and become Jenny Heckenlaible. With help from her girlfriend, school counselor, doctor, and mother, she charts a path to self-discovery and gender euphoria. Jenny secretly blogs about what led to her revelation and everything it took to become a Heckenlaible. When the class bully finds her blog, she has to call in favors from Greenfield Central High’s queer community to make it to graduation. Jenny’s memoir spans six years, from her gender awakening to becoming a visible advocate for her trans community.
Dedication
To everyone searching for their place on the gender spectrum.
Author’s Note
This story includes depictions of depression, suicidal thoughts (ideation), gender dysphoria, bullying, transphobia, and homophobia. It also includes outdated, disrespectful, and triggering words such as “transgenders,” “transsexual,” “transvestite,” and “pedophile.” Please take care of yourself and get help if you’re distressed by anything you read here. The back of this book lists some resources for those in the U.S. or Canada.
“LGBT,” “LGBTQ+,” and “queer” are used throughout as shorthand and not meant to exclude any of those who identify as two-spirit, questioning, intersex, pansexual, nonbinary, agender, aromantic, asexual, or any other member of our sexual/romantic orientation and gender identity family.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: My Light Bulb Moment
Chapter 2: Blogging to Self-Awareness
Chapter 3: A Brief History of Life in the Closet
Chapter 4: Discovering the Subconscious
Chapter 5: Is it Just a Phase?
Chapter 6: Third Time’s a Charm
Chapter 7: Subliminal Messages
Chapter 8: The First Coming Out
Chapter 9: Getting Help
Chapter 10: Accepting Myself
Chapter 11: Building Resilience
Chapter 12: My Second Puberty
Chapter 13: Coming Out to Family
Chapter 14: The Real-Life Test
Chapter 15: Should I Pass?
Chapter 16: An Open Secret
Chapter 17: The Future is Female
Chapter 18: The Heckenlaible Identity
Chapter 19: Dinosaurs
Chapter 20: Going Under the Knife
Chapter 21: The Never-Ending Coming Out
Chapter 22: Erasing Eric
Chapter 23: Changing More Than My Name
Chapter 24: Advocacy
Chapter 25: I’m Not the Only One Transitioning
Chapter 26: Affirming Gender
Chapter 27: The Overshare
Chapter 28: Go Wildcats!
Chapter 29: Into the Great Wide Open
Chapter 30: The Future is Queer
Chapter Notes and Resources
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: My Light Bulb Moment
February 19 began like every other day: with a six-mile ride along busy streets and wide-open skies dressed in my extra-large ski jacket and chinos tucked into my socks. I was a fifteen-year-old freshman without a social life at Greenfield Central High, so I didn’t worry about looking stylish. As I rolled into the bike rack outside school, through a group of cool kids waiting for the bell to ring, I heard Tad say, “Nice ride, Eric!” Tad was his usual sarcastic self—a boxer who liked to brag that his hands were registered weapons with the state of Colorado. No one bothered him, and he did his best to avoid fights because he’d get in trouble if he hit anyone outside a ring. He’d never bullied me, but his posse was always around him, and I stayed under his radar.
“Whatever,” I replied as I squeezed through the double doors of the school we called “The Castle.” It wasn’t an ironic name. The building was three stories of brick covered in vines, built in the Gothic Revival style, complete with parapets. At my locker, I hung up my sweaty jacket and changed into “school” sneakers, tossing my riding pair to the bottom to dry. Today was one of those sunny days when I liked to wear my bright yellow polo shirt tucked neatly into my pants and held with a slim, black belt.
Ninth grade was more challenging than I thought, but it was my fault for committing to orchestra, debate, and the cross-country ski team. I needed to be a doctor someday, and getting into a good college took top grades and extracurriculars. I even signed up for the Health Sciences Academy program to prepare for med school. Something about showing I can handle the pressure. My friend Peter and I got a hall pass that semester to hang out in the debate room during lunch, and it was the only thing that kept me sane. Not that we got much work done, talking about our favorite bands and gossiping about the other nerds, but it made me feel like I could hold it all together long enough to graduate and get out of there.
When the final bell rang, I checked the schedule I’d taped to my folder to see where I was going after school—and today was ski team. When I got to the locker room, half the team of twelve was already there and sitting around Charlie, who always took his shirt off, displaying his enormous arms and six-pack abs. Skiers weren’t even supposed to have big arms, but he credited his “guns” with making him the fastest on the team.
“Hey, Eric,” said Jay, one of Charlie’s worshippers.
“You still on the team? I thought Coach dropped your ass after we lost the last meet.”
What could I say? I rolled my eyes and dodged around them to my locker. I wasn’t the slowest on the team, but I was always second to last, thanks to my friend Mike, and I felt guilty that I brought the team score down. We were never in contention for top ranking, and Coach said everyone should have a chance to compete, even if our performance was more character-building than career-building.
Coach shuffled into the locker room, gave off a few huffs, and headed into the coaching office to check the ski league scores. Some of us called him “Dr. Dvorak” instead of “Coach” because he taught our psychology class. It was no secret that teachers didn’t make enough money to live on, and Dr. Dvorak’s side hustle was an adult counseling practice he ran after school and over summer break. It helped that his thick Czech accent made him sound like the psychoanalysts in movies, and he could win anyone over with his superpower—flattery. One thing he did was come up with cute last names for younger women, like when he called Janet Beattie, our English teacher, “Janet Beauty.” He always bought us pizza and pop after our ski meets, so the students voted him the best teacher and coach for as long as anyone could remember. Physically, it looked like his body was retiring on him—he complained about his spine crumbling and said we shouldn’t make his blood pressure any higher than it was—but he reminisced about his years climbing mountains in Czechia and Alpine skiing adventures here in Colorado. His mantra now was, “Aging ain’t for sissies!”
When he came out of the coaching office today, we discovered why he entered with those huffs. Something he heard on the morning news over breakfast triggered him.
“Those transgenders are ruining the world. They should just shut up instead of protest. Did you hear that they’re protesting for gender-neutral bathrooms at Colorado State? So now everyone needs to put in more bathrooms?” We all just stood there and blinked for a few seconds at his rant, but when I looked around the locker room, I could see that some of my teammates were ready to cheer him on.
“Yeah, those queers are getting too bold. They’re always pushing it in our face in Denver, and now they’re coming for us in Northern Colorado,” said Jay.
I don’t know where my head was, but I’d just heard him use the horrible word “transgenders,” I was behind in homework and felt like the hours spent losing on the ski team would be the end of me. The pressure in my head was too much, and I heard myself say, “I think the world will be a better place when all the dinosaurs are dead!” Did I really say that? I thought. Jay slapped me on the back and smiled, so I guess it came off like I was supporting Dr. Dvorak and Jay.
Dr. Dvorak said something about strategy and led us to the ski team bus. At the ski trails, Mike and I took our usual places at the end of the line of teammates and slogged around the six-kilometer snowy path through the woods. I felt embarrassed and a little exposed by my outburst in the locker room and asked Mike, “What did you think about what Coach said about those protesters at Colorado State?”
“I don’t know. It just sounds like the way things are at college. Everyone protests for something there. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with turning a few bathrooms gender-neutral,” he replied.
“I’m worried Coach thinks I called him a dinosaur, being old and all. I didn’t mean him specifically. Just all the people you hear about on the news trying to keep kids from learning about sexual orientation and gender identity. I think what he said about the students protesting upset me because I don’t always feel like I belong in the boys’ bathroom.” Mike and I focused on getting around the track before everyone forgot about us and left us behind, and we didn’t talk about it again.
When the bus dropped us back at school, I noticed that our school counselor’s light was still on, and she was doing paperwork in her office. I’d spent lots of time in Ms. Norman’s office working through what I felt was bullying but might have just been classmates’ bad behavior. I wasn’t great at figuring it out myself. I knocked quietly on her window, and she motioned for me to come around to the door so she could let me in.
“Come on in, Eric! How’s it going?” she said.
Ms. Norman’s hair was as gray as Coach Dvorak’s, but hers was long, styled, and elegant. Her mascara was always perfect, and she dressed more professionally than Coach. On the other hand, her desk was atrocious—completely covered with papers to be filed or shredded, and some were already turning yellow with age. Still, something was reassuring about the mess because it made me feel like I didn’t have to worry about being perfect around her.
“I think I’m okay, but I might have said something rude to Coach Dvorak, and I’m afraid I might get in trouble,” I replied.
I sat in the cozy chair she kept across her desk and held my backpack against my chest.
“How did it happen?” she asked, with a subtle furrowing of her brow that told me she had my back and wouldn’t judge me.
“Coach came into practice today going on about transgender students protesting at Colorado State for gender-neutral bathrooms, and I think I snapped. I’ve been stressed about my homework and too many extracurriculars, and I said, ‘I think the world will be a better place when all the dinosaurs are dead.’ I meant dinosaurs in general—the people who still think kids are too young to know they’re gay or trans.”
She shifted slightly in her chair and said, “Why do you think you said that?”
“When I talked to Mike about it during ski practice, I told him I didn’t always feel right in the boys’ bathroom. I don’t know why. I don’t feel like one of them, and I’m always worried they’re going to find out and beat me up.”
“That’s a tough way to feel, Eric. I want to talk more about it, but I need to get home, and you probably do too. Maybe you can come by tomorrow? Most of Dr. Dvorak’s generation from Eastern Bloc countries came here being more conservative and with thicker skin than us. They lived through communism and a lot of government brainwashing. I don’t think you have to worry about hurting his feelings, but it might help to talk it over with him and let me know how it goes.”
“I saw him leave after practice, but I can try to talk to him tomorrow during lunch hour,” I said. We both got up out of our chairs, grabbed our bags—well, hers was a purse—and she walked me to the door.
“See you tomorrow!” she said as we bundled up against the winter chill.
