The name for this story is not taken from the venerable magazine published for Transgendered people. Instead, it is stolen from my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. In this episode's story, Captain Picard dies and the omnipotent Q gives him the chance to go back in time and change some things in his life. That premise gave rise to a question in my head one day, "If I could go back in time and change something in my life, in regards to my being transgendered, what would I change and why?" Easy enough question, it was just coming up with an answer that was tough.

Would I have not started what I started as a kid? Would I have come out earlier, or further? What would I change? Finally an answer came to me. Nothing big, nothing anyone could have ever known about except me. Just one thing I wish I had done differently.

By 1971, at thirteen years old, I was already well practiced in borrowing my Mother's clothes and makeup without getting caught. (Getting caught would come later.) My mother was in a bowling league on Tuesday nights and would take my little brother and me with her. I convinced her, at some point, that I was old enough to stay home by myself, besides there was some television show on that I couldn't live without. Eventually, she decided it was easier to leave me at home than listen to me whine all night about missing Batman or Bewitched. During these Tuesday nights I raided her closet and makeup and played around until ½ hour before she was due home. Thank goodness that my Mother liked to bowl.

At this time there was no thought of right or wrong, at least in my mind. But, somehow I knew that others, especially my Mother, would think it was wrong. It wasn't simply that I was using her belongings without her permission, something that she was extremely finicky about. It had to be something more as I didn't tell anyone about these times and the fun that I had. Not my little brother, or my school friends or even my best friend (whom in retrospect, I am sure is also transgendered. So, if your name is Mark W. and you grew up on Washington St. in Harvey, IL during this time - then contact me; we should talk.) Just something inside of me kept me from telling anybody.

Tuesday nights came and went, through summer into the fall. It was my Mother's habit to visit one of her sister's on Sundays. Both of her sisters had lots of kids, in 1971 one had 5 and the other 6, so my brother and I were supposed to have lots of kids to play with. This year Halloween fell on a Sunday and our scheduled visit to our Aunts wasn't interrupted. In effect, Halloween was put on hold. No costumes for me or my brother, no trick or treating with our friends in our neighborhood, we had to go to Aunt Pat's this Halloween. She only had one boy, closer to my brother's age than mine. So Aunt Pat's house, for me, consisted of sitting in front of the television, riding a skateboard down their steep driveway or walking alone through the field behind their house. Not exactly what a budding cross dresser has in mind for Halloween, even at only thirteen years old. Though I hadn't got to dress as a girl for Halloween, I still immensely enjoyed the holiday. Better than Easter, Thanksgiving and even summer vacation. This year was going to be a tough one.

When we got to my Aunt's house all of the kids were busy planning their Halloween costumes while I plopped down in front of the television and started flipping channels. My cousin, Andy, came home sometime later with a brown paper bag that he claimed held the last piece of his Halloween costume. His sisters came around as he pulled out a blonde wig from the paper bag. His sister's were giddy and all laughed as they imagined, and giggled about their brother dressed as a girl for Halloween. They dragged him upstairs to help him with the rest of his costume selection. Meanwhile, I sat on the sofa in the living room with my heart beating a thousand times a minute. At first it was kind of exciting, maybe I'd get pulled into the costume frenzy also and I could finally be a girl for Halloween. Then, I started getting mad because nobody was coming down to get me involved. So I sat there and sulked. He came down a while later all dressed and made up (pretty ugly actually) and his best friend came over (also dressed as a girl) and all the kids were ready to go trick-or-treating. Mom and Aunt Pat came out to take pictures and my Mom saw me sulking on the sofa and said, "Steve, why don't you go with them?" I said, "No, I don't have a costume!" She said, "Well you could go with them, I'm sure one of your cousins has a dress you could wear." I said, "No.", end of conversation. One of us gave up too soon. My cousins all went out trick or treating and I sat in the living room brooding.

If I could go back in time, I don't think that I would change any of this. "Why not?" you ask, read on.

We left Aunt Pat's that evening fairly early, but it was dark as I sat in the back seat of the car on the ride home, still somber after my lost opportunity. My little brother was eating some candy he had borrowed from my Aunt's house but I was so depressed I sat with my arms folded across my chest. Kenny knew that something was wrong and offered me a piece of his candy and I refused it. Mom noticed my refusal and asked me what was wrong.

"Nothing."

"Are you mad because you didn't get to go trick or treating this year?"

"No."

"I don't have any candy at home, so you'd better take what your brother just offered."

"I don't want any!"

"Why?"

"'Cause."

"What, you don't like candy anymore?"

"Yeah, I like candy…but not his!"

"Well, when we get home, why don't you two go trick-or-treating then you can have your own candy."

Just then, a plan formed in my head. I said, "But Mommm, we don't have any Halloween costumes!"

She took the bait, "Well let's see…I could dress you two up as girls, like your cousin did, and you could just go to the apartments on our block. I'm sure you would get lots of candy."

I protested a bit (not too much, I'd learned my lesson earlier that day) and finally "gave in" to her suggestion.

The fun started when we got home. She proceeded to do our makeup and pick out clothes for us to wear. I was still small enough that I could fit into her shoes, so I got to wear a pair of her heels. Kenny's feet were already too big so he wore his slippers. She didn't pick my favorite dress of hers for me to wear, a short blue dress with white polka dots, and I didn't think it was wise to offer too many suggestions, so I settled on the skirt and blouse she had picked out for me. After what seemed like a short time, we were ready to go. Mom sat us together in a chair and pulled out a Polaroid camera and took a picture of us laughing and giggling before we went out to collect our treats.

It was pretty late by the time we headed out and, sad to say, we didn't exactly clean up in the candy department. We did have a lot of fun though. The few neighbors we saw all laughed and whistled at us and nobody knew that (in my mind) I had orchestrated this whole event. I slept well that night.

The next morning life went right back into it's routine. Mom woke us up for school (which was no easy task) and we dressed in our uniforms and ate breakfast and walked to school. I told no one at school about my best Halloween. That afternoon when I got home from school I found the picture that Mom had taken of us and admired it for a long time. I put the picture back but found myself drawn to it whenever I walked by the living room. Eventually, the picture was put away with the other family photos.

I was starting to miss that night and the fun and the clothes but I was still struggling with the right and wrong of it. I didn't dare say anything to Mom about it. I began feeling bad again. I'd sneak into the shoebox of pictures and dig that one out and look at it as often as I could. Or, I would pull the box out when others were around and look at all of the pictures and only focus on that one, but not for too long. It wasn't long before I took the picture from the box and hid it in my room. Day after day the bad feelings about really liking this were getting worse. Once I took a ballpoint pen and scratched a big "X" through my face on the picture, but still, I saved that picture. Later the next summer I swore I was done with all of this and I took the picture with me outside, tore it into tiny pieces and stuffed the pieces behind the gas meter on one of the houses on our block. I remember crying for a long time behind the fence by the hill swearing that I would never retrieve the pieces of that picture. I never did.

It should be obvious by now, that if I could go back in time and change anything, I would go back and change how I treated that picture. I wouldn't deface it, I wouldn't tear it up and I wouldn't throw it away like I did. I would have saved it as a symbol of my first realization that being a cross dresser is okay. I would have used that picture a thousand times to console myself during high school and college when dressing wasn't available. I would have looked at that picture a thousand times more during my 20's when I was trying to be "Mr. Junior Businessman" to remind me that there is nothing bad about cross dressing and that fun does exist in this world. I would frame the picture and have it proudly displayed in my house now as a reminder of the history that exists behind me. I think having that picture would have made my life easier as a transgendered person.

So Q, if you're listening…