No Turning Back

Part One - At Dr Grant’s Surgery

“Jack, have you ever heard of gender bi-morphism”, asked Dr. Grant? “Yes, I replied, it’s when a boy turns into a g.......irl. Oh no! No, Doc. Please tell me it’s not happening to me.” I felt the colour drain from my face. I slumped back in the chair. I was on my way to school. I was wearing my boy’s school uniform. “Please tell me I’m not turning into a girl, Dr Grant.” I looked up at him. He was not looking at me. “Are you telling me I’m turning into a girl?” His silence was long enough for me to know the answer was “yes” before he confirmed it in so many words. “I’m really sorry, Jack, but that is what is happening to you. Gender bi-morphism has taken hold of your body.” I asked him to put a stop to it somehow. I was beside myself. If there was one thing that had never so much as crossed my mind, it was that I might be turning into a girl. “You must be able to do something, Doc. Can’t you make it slow down even,” I pleaded with him. “No, Jack, at present there is nothing I nor anyone else can do. Even if it had been diagnosed at the very onset, there is nothing that medicine can do to stop you turning into a girl. We don’t know why it happens, All we know is it takes hold of some boys during puberty.” I was sitting opposite him in a pair of grey trousers and my red school blazer, and being told that my whole life ahead of me was to be no longer as a boy, but as a girl. “What we do know is that what is happening to your body right now is that your Y chromosome is getting replaced by another X chromosome, which is why you are becoming female.” Dr Grant paused. He must have seen the look on my face. “You see the two X chromosomes make you a girl. It can’t be reversed or even halted. I’m afraid you are just going to have to accept it, and that’s what I’m here for.” I was devastated by the news. I was just seventeen and was making my name as a young athlete on the running track. I’d been selected for the county athletics team. I’d had my picture in the paper. I looked good, very masculine, posing for the camera in my running kit. “Tell me. Have you not felt anything happening till now,” Dr Grant asked me? “Well, yes, but I thought it was all connected to my sport and me pushing myself to the limit physically.” “You’re a bit of a local hero on the track, aren’t you?” said Dr Grant. “I’ve been reading about you in the papers. Your picture took up most of the sports page on one occasion recently, if I remember.” His tone became more serious. “So, what did you notice that was different? Has there been any change in your libido?” “Yes, it’s diminished. In fact to be honest it’s practically nil at the moment.” “When did you last have an erection, Jack?” “Not for ages, I said. I just assumed it was a result of all the sports training I was doing. I know it can affect a boy’s sexual drive. You don’t tend to think the worst, do you, Doc?” “And turning into a girl you would regard as the worst?” asked Dr Grant. “I can’t imagine not being a boy any longer, I said. My world’s just done a somersault and turned upside down. I mean, it’s not as if I’m some sort of sissy. There are lots of boys at school who are more effeminate than me.” “That’s got nothing to do with it, said Dr Grant. What exactly made you come in today?” “Well, I noticed my times on the track were suddenly dropping, and I couldn’t see any reason for it.” “Nothing else,” he asked? “Well, if I’m being honest I thought my penis was getting smaller.” I went bright red. “Yes, it will be, Jack, that’s what most boys notice first, of course.” I felt desperate. “How long have I got, Doc?” “According to your test results for gender bi-morphism you are at a pretty advanced stage,” he said. He could see dismay written all over my face. “How long, I repeated softly?” “About five days, Jack.” He saw me take a gasp, but ploughed on. “Look, Jack, he said. We’ve got to talk about this now.” “It’s Wednesday, I said. You’re saying by Monday I’ll be a girl.” “At the latest, Jack. I’m so sorry. Look, we’ve got to enable you to get on with your life somehow.” “As female,” I said sounding really dejected. “You do mean fully female, don’t you, Doc?” “You know I do, Jack. Look the best thing you can do for the moment is to continue as normal.” “Normal, I shrieked. What is normal about a boy turning into a girl.” “Well, if you think about it, it is entirely normal because it is going to happen to you completely naturally. It’s not as if it’s an operation you need or some sort of medical attention. It’s just going to happen. You know there are girls in the Dominican Republic who turn into boys at puberty. They become male and they are in full working order.” “Lucky them,” I snapped. “I expect they feel just as horrified as you do,” said Dr Grant. He was trying to be helpful I knew that. “You’re going to have to face up to this somehow, Jack. I’ll do what I can to help in any way, but your transition from boy to girl is now under way and is as inevitable as night follows day.” Some of it now made sense. I kind of knew something was going on with my body, but you shove it to the back of your mind. My whole approach had been if you don’t think about it, it might go away. My running times had been slipping badly in the last two months. That I did know for a fact. Then last week I’d been certain my penis had been getting smaller. No boy ever wants to have to admit that. Then this morning when I woke up, I was very conscious of how tender and also how much bigger my nipples had become, and although I couldn’t be certain, or rather didn’t want to be certain, I could tell my breasts were growing. No point in fooling myself. I was changing physically and every change was making my body more like a girl’s. All through breakfast and whilst going down to Dr Grant’s surgery and sitting there in front of him, I could feel that my breasts were slowly increasing in size. My breasts! What was I saying. What boy says “my breasts.” I could hear Dr Grant’s voice but it seemed a long way off. I was in a state of suspended animation mixed with disbelief. I suddenly got a grip of myself and came back to reality, although it was a reality I could have wished far enough. “I can make arrangements for this weekend to book you in at.......” were the first words I heard him saying. “I know, Girl School.” “Yes, that’s what its become known as among boys who go there, but it’s somewhere to make a start, Jack. Gender bi-morphism is still not common, but it happens quite a lot more than you’d think. About 6,000 boys have gone through this transition already.” “So, I take myself off to learn how to be a girl.” “Face it, Jack, you haven’t got a choice, and time is not on your side. Consider this. Meeting other.......... boys,” Dr Grant hesitated. “You mean other girls, Dr Grant. That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?” I knew Dr Grant was trying to do his best. Even he seemed a bit out of his depth. Perhaps it was me that was getting a bit too confrontational, but I was p.issed off big time. When I’d woken up this moring turning into a girl had been the last thing on my mind. “Do you want me to talk to your parents or do you want to do it,” he asked? “Will you phone my mum, I said, and you’d better book me into Girl School.” “Look, Jack, you will get both help and support. And you will realize that you’re not going to be on your own.” “You mean we are all going to turn into girls together. Big deal.” “Listen, Jack. Snap out of this. Get yourself off to high school now and I’ll see you again tomorrow morning first thing.” “Shall I come in girls’ school uniform?” I suggested. “Actually, that’s entirely up to you, Jack. That will be your decision. And if you do, by the way, then that’s fine by me.” I looked at him hard. He was being serious. I walked to school, looking at groups of girls in their grey pleated skirts and girls’ blazers. Next Monday that’s going to be me, I thought. What’s it going to feel like putting on my own grey pleated skirt and setting out for school as a girl? I wanted to run away, but wherever I ran to I was still going to turn into a girl. How do I tell anyone, I thought? It hadn’t yet happened to another boy in our town. This time I wasn’t going to be on the back page of our local newspaper. I was going to be the f.ucking headline. Dr Grant was phoning my Mum at this very moment. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And what the heck was Dad going to say. I put it to the back of my mind as I turned in at the school gates, and let my mates take my mind off it. It certainly helped that they had no idea right now. As Dr Grant said, I wasn’t ill. It was just going to happen, willy nilly. I sniggered. Unfortunate turn of phrase in my case, I thought. There was going to be no “willy” by Monday. What was it going to be really like with a vagina between my legs? I shut out the thought and joined in a game of football in the school yard.