The Underpass
I can’t be the only trans woman to come out of Kemnal, my all-boys school...
I can’t be the only trans woman to come out of Kemnal, my all-boys school. I think about this sometimes - wonder if any of the ‘boys’ in my year group were struggling with the same secrets as me. If there were, I’ve sure as hell not heard about them. There were a few kids I had my suspicions about; who were quiet, or had long hair, or seemed sensitive in some way. These kids surprise you, though. They grow out of it - end up as scaffolders, or army sergeants, or convicted murderers. Makes you glad you never confided in them. Always trust those instincts, girl.
There were a few kids who were gay. Not that they knew it yet, necessarily. Nobody was ‘out’ at Kemnal; the closet was roomier than the coffin. But the kids knew anyway. Young boys have a sixth sense for it - they can sniff out a ‘bender’ from a hundred yards. Interrogation turning to violence in the blink of an eye. You adapt accordingly - learning their lingo and making strange alliances. You find a good spot on the grounds where you won’t be seen, but you’re never there longer than a few days. You keep moving.
Kemnal wasn’t the only single sex school in the area. Just over the busy motorway was Beaverwood School for Girls. Pleated skirts and sickly sweet body spray. Beaverwood was another planet - one I should have been born on. Instead, I was stuck on this one - where the gravity wasn’t right and my breathing was strained. Sometimes, during breaktimes, the Beaverwood girls would pass by the gates of our zoo. They’d peer through the bars and wave at the animals. On these days, the threat level would be increased to Amber. Boys, whose atoms were now under observation from female observers, would suddenly kick into action. Try to demonstrate their manliness. Find a faggot to smash.
Me and my friends had a pretty good bush to hide behind. We’d spend most breaktimes there, shaded as it was - with room to pace and large branches to perch upon. We weren’t the first outcasts to discover it - ancient records of homos-past left carved into bark, or tagged onto brick. We’d smoke there, and talk about music, or films, or gossip about other students. Sometimes we’d drink. Often, somebody would have an old coke bottle filled up with vodka or some mystery concoction, hidden deep in their backpack, underneath their contact book and minidisc player. Once, I attended a science lesson so drunk that I simply couldn’t believe I had gotten away with it. The room stayed spinning for the entire hour.
What got me through most lessons though, was my daydream. I only really had one. In it, a teacher would pull me aside, and tell me that they knew. It was obvious, they’d say. They’d phone my parents, and tell them. Then, I’d be sent to Beaverwood - to live out the rest of my school days in relative safety. I’d have the right uniform, and the right friends, and the right chance at life. The teachers there would care about me, and would encourage me to follow my creative dreams, instead of writing me off. They’d have actual expectations of me.
My daydream was often interrupted by a punch on the arm, or somebody trying to set my hair on fire with a lighter. So, instead, I made due with what I could. There was nothing to be done about my uniform, but at least my immediate friends were nice. They didn’t know it, but they were my girlies. The closest thing to it in a place like this, anyhow. The gossip got me through. The shared sense of injustice. We weren’t plaiting each other’s long hair, but we were protective of it. It was all we could do to express ourselves, among a sea of buzzcuts and Nike caps.
The topic of ‘trannies’ came up sometimes, specifically in reference to a science teacher called Miss Diamond. Kids called her Mrs. Doubtfire, and speculated often that she ‘must be a man’. She was older than a lot of the other teachers - had a slightly coarser voice than the other women. Her hair, the students were convinced, was a wig. Apparently, a few years back, a boy had pulled it off - but nobody could say who the boy was. Sometimes, boys would ask other teachers - the casual types, who just wanted to be one of the lads - if it was true. Was Miss Diamond ‘really a man’? Thankfully, they would deny it - tell said boys to get a grip. To buck their ideas up. I never got close enough to Miss Diamond to make my own, more educated assessment. I was too dumb; her science class being one of the top-sets.
I had a friend named Tom. He was very effeminate, and one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. His comebacks were always catty and barbed, and I’d often find myself struggling to breathe on the bus ride home, cackling as I was. I was convinced he was gay. Today, though, he has a wife and kids. Go figure. Lots of my old friends do, as it happens - their lives playing out in the exact way that was predicted for them. For them, being different was just a phase.
That motorway that divided Kemnal and Beaverwood was a busy one, and it also separated the school from the bus stop when we’d arrive. Cars zoomed by at great speeds, and time and time again we were told off collectively in assembly for trying to cross it in the mornings. ‘There’s an underpass for a reason, you idiots’ - except, sometimes, the motorway was safer. The underpass, dark and subterranean as it was, was the perfect place to have your money taken. To be surrounded, and shown a pen knife - barely concealed behind a psycho’s back. You walked quickly through it. If a detention had you leaving school late, you avoided the underpass altogether.
One day, we had an impromptu assembly that was more serious in tone. We were solemnly informed that a fellow student had been struck by a car that morning, trying to run across the motorway. He had died. I didn’t know him, personally, and I can’t now even remember his name. I still think about it sometimes, though. I can’t help but wonder; was he late for school? Was he just stupid?
Or, was he avoiding the underpass for the same reasons as I was?
Hey, by the way - my short film ‘Transsexual Psycho Bitch Murder Party’ premieres this Saturday night at 8pm (GMT), over on my Youtube channel. Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out. Thank you.
Also, also: I have started uploading to my old Youtube channel again - just for casual little personal interest videos. Go and subscribe if you’re into that sorta thing.
MEMOIRS OF AN EVIL, HORRIBLE TRANNY is written by Jen Ives.
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