The Dancer, Part 2

All right! So you want to know what our ballet dancer Kyle is up to now? I'm so glad you asked... 😉

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Kyle pressed his back against the cold steel of the pole. His back? Was that even the correct pronoun anymore? Kyle didn't know, and he hadn't known for months.

After returning from his fateful ballet class where the instructor asked him to wear a bra, he confronted his mother. The class was her idea, after all. To Kyle's shock, she didn't even bother denying what she'd done. In fact, she seemed proud!

“Yes, I've been putting doses of estrogen into your food.”

Kyle had been dumbfounded. "For how long?”

“Over a year,” she said, casually. "At first the dosage was low, just to help with your anxiety. But, after I saw how well you reacted to the estrogen, well, it become obvious your brain was meant to run on female hormones. I kept upping the dose... and I mixed in a few anti-testosterone medications as well, just to keep everything even.”

“But...but my body!” Kyle cried. "You've ruined it. I look like a girl, I have boobs!"

“Oh, sweetie, you're so small you were never going to be a real man. Besides, I don't want you to turn out like your father. He left us in the lurch. Why would you want to be like him? Why not be like your mother?”

Kyle had always had sympathy for his mother because of his father's treatment of her. Not anymore. “He probably left because you're a fucking nut. And I will be like him, because

you're a fucking nut. And I will be like him, because I'm leaving, too!" |

And he did. After a few days, Kyle packed his belongings and left in the dead of night. He had no destination and no plans. All he wanted was to go back to being a young man.

That didn't happen. With no college degree and no savings, Kyle was quickly forced to fall back on his one true skill: Dancing. Unfortunately, no ballet companies were hiring. Instead, Kyle got a job as a dancer at “Leave It To Beavers,” a downtown strip club.

“I'm... I'm not really a girl,” Kyle had told Dave, the owner.

“Now stop that shit,” Dave had said. “I can hardly believe you're trans—because damn, girl!—but we're in an open-minded part of the country. Everyone will love you, trust me."

And, amazingly, Dave was right. Kyle (or “Kylie” as he was billed) became one of the club's most popular dancers. On a good night, he raked in $1,000 in tips. Sure, he was still desperate to return to his life as a guy, but the money was hard to give up. And he certainly wasn't being bullied anymore.

Maybe Mom was right after all, he thought while practicing his routine on the main stage. Maybe I was never meant to be a man. But I was definitely meant to be a dancer.