My Name is Emily Ross

I didn't know whether anything else had changed. It was clearly evident that some things had changed, a glance into any sort of reflective surface would tell me that. But how far and how deep the changes went, or whether in fact they went anywhere beyond my new body, was still a mystery to me.

So as I walked through the streets I kept a keen eye out for any other sort of changes, mentally going through a checklist every time I saw something I didn't recognize and then comparing it to my own memories, finding out whether it was indeed different or whether it was just my memory playing tricks on me. Each time the result was the same. Each time I confirmed my own bias, finding that the world around me was identical to the one that I'd once lived in.

And so evidence suggested that the only real change was me. But as I crossed the border of the campus of Phineas College I didn't find that reassuring in the least. Putting aside the general disorientation of being in a body I was still having trouble recognizing as my own, I had to look at practical considerations.

I was walking into orientation, day one of a new term of school. Somewhere on campus there was a sign in booth and a list of names and on that list was my name, the name that I'd gone by all my life. But that name was an undeniably masculine name. It was a name that belonged to my old body and my old life and didn't in any way belong to this new feminine version of myself. So when I'd been swapped into this body, had everything changed? Was it just my body or was I given a new identity to go along with it?

The campus was alive in a way it only was a few times a year, the day or days set aside for mass arrivals and departures. Students, new and returning alike, were pulling up in cars driven by exasperated parents and stuffed full of luggage and supplies. Parents coming to terms with the nigh undeniable reality that their little kids were growing up were wringing their hands and fighting back tears, torn between not wanting to embarrass their kids and not wanting to let them go at the same time.

And I deftly moved through the crowd just like I did all those years ago. I shouldered my backpack a little tighter and tried to ignore the feeling that I was out of place because I didn't have any company, any concerned parents, any attachment at all. I didn't have anyone to see me off.

I'd never been close with either of my parents, but there was no real dramatic story behind any of it. A father who didn't understand his son and a mother who was intimidated into silence. Two people from a small town who didn’t understand why anyone would ever want to leave, let alone to spend years studying for a job that didn’t require hard physical labor and the effort of manual manipulation. Seeing everything that wasn’t working on a farm or in a factory, anything dollar that didn’t require literal sweat, as less worthy than. It's probably a tale as old as time, and one that doesn't warrant much addressing.

But the end result of it was that I got a handshake from the old man when I walked out the door. My mother swallowed back whatever it was that she wanted to say before pressing some sandwiches wrapped up in a napkin into my hands and sending me on my way. Not a cruel goodbye and not a cold one, but one that didn't warrant tears on either end.

Except now that I thought about it, dancing around the strangers on my way towards the check-in desk, I didn't remember it that way. That memory was there but there was another one layered over top of it. Both of them existed simultaneously and both of them existed for two different versions of me.

One where he shook my hand and one where he kept his distance. One where she bit back her words and one where she embraced me.

And other memories as well. A father who didn't understand his son and a father who wished his daughter had been born a boy. A mother who kept her own company and a mother who advised silence as best practice for her daughter.

Two lives. Two realities. Two histories.

I pulled up to the desk, the pretty young woman across the way smiling broadly up at me in greeting.

"Welcome to Phineas College, can I have your name?"

Her pen hovers over the check in list, ready to cross me off while her companion sits beside her ready to hand over my welcome package.

And I don't have to think before I answer, because when someone asks you your name the response is always automatic. It is muscle memory, even for me as her.

"Emily," I tell her, "My name is Emily Ross."

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