Eye to eye
I’m sitting in the waiting room of a cosmetic surgeon. Or is it plastic surgeon? I’m not sure. I was told that there is a huge distinction, as one has extensive qualifications and the other can just hang up a sign and off they go. A nurse told me this, with great emphasis, after she came in from her cigarette break at the place where I get my hair removal done. I didn’t pay attention to which was which, and I didn’t know whether to believe her, then or now.
My body is still, but my mind is agitated, asking, yet again, what am I doing here? Two years ago, I began a transition out of the male identity of my childhood and decades of adult life. At this point, all I am sure of is that my face is ageing and manly; two things I dislike in equal measure.
This is the most spacious doctor’s reception area I have ever encountered. There are chairs, couches and, unbelievably, two modern chaise-lounges. Smooth curves, the rising ends of each are brought together to give the impression of a pair of perfectly rounded breasts. There is a lot of art, well-spaced and mounted. Most striking is a painting prominently hung and lit on the end wall. A stylised female head and body wearing a deep red strapless dress, matching fascinator and lipstick. She has one round scarlet cheek and a single eye with a red lid. I look at it and wonder if those patches of congealing colour are the bloody flesh where the doctor reconstructed her. Now I am on edge.
I turn to see a glass case that shows off antique ocean fishing reels. Next to it are fine engravings of marine species. I think of hooks caught in cheeks and lips. Sharp barbs. I imagine the surgeon reeling them in, gentle then savage, until their pierced mouths rise up toward him. Now I am ready to bolt for the door.
The doctor finishes with a previous client, who walks to the desk to complete her paperwork. I look at her taupe heeled suede boots and how she disappears inside her overcoat. I realise I am trying to guess what part of her body she is here to have refined. She seems very cheerful. The doctor strolls by, talking to the four blonde reception staff, then calls the only other patient waiting in this enormous space. I remember that I did not like the look of this surgeon in his photograph and I do not like the look of him in the flesh. Why isn’t he taller? I imagine his face would be squishy, were I to put my hands on it. I know these are unreasonable thoughts. I ponder – is it gender dysphoria to be repulsed by others’ male bodies or faces, as much as by my own?
I wait.
I try hard to think what I will say to this man. I have run through it with a friend beforehand, but still don’t feel I have the words. I want to be articulate and clear, but feel anything but. Again, I feel the impulse to bolt out the door. My stomach is turning a little, but that could just be the doughnut I ate driving here.
The four blondes have widely ranging body types and faces. They are pleasant, enjoy quiet conversation with one another and are hugely helpful when I realise I have forgotten my referral letter and in just minutes manage to retrieve it from my GP. Their presence offers me the only reassurance here. They seem normal and competent.
By now, I am working hard to force myself to stay. Force is required not only because of my visceral desire to leave, but because I am increasingly sure that I will not undertake surgery. The reasons for this have been rapidly accumulating.
The cost. Something I had not worried about until the Covid epidemic and recession. Now suddenly every dollar seems more precious and less likely ever to be replaced.
The pain. It was a mistake to come here directly from a laser clinic session, where I had everything from my dick up, zapped. I cried as the technician worked the flashes of heat and light across my face. When she caught a particularly painful spot on my elbow, I flinched so violently my arm flew out of her hand.
The love. I feel increasingly confident of my friends’ enduring affection. People might say gender transition is about how you feel inside yourself, but I am a person oriented to others and utterly influenced by how they regard me. How my closest friends treat me defines my self-regard. As I have become, and lived as, Hannah, they have accepted, embraced and loved me deeply. I am already a beautiful woman in their eyes.
*
I am finally called into the doctor’s office. He has that professional welcoming smile. In snugly tailored pants with a light blue – and very expensive – jacket, complemented by tan brogues that look hand-stitched, if needing a polish, he knows how to dress.
We sit down. Everyone is supposed to be maintaining physical distance, but this man is leaning forward over the peculiarly narrow end of his bespoke desk shaped like an elongated drip. I fight the urge to push back the chair I am in. Staring intently, he asks me why I am here.
I put on my best mature businesswoman’s smile, feel myself poised, upright but relaxed, and explain. As I talk, I am startled by the self-assurance and calm that I have conjured out of nowhere; did I find that within myself, or has he managed to bring that forth in just thirty seconds, all the while being so close I feel compelled to study the single vertical crease in his forehead?
Gradually I understand that he is not looking at me. Or rather, he is, literally, looking at me. It takes a moment to grasp that he is not meeting my eyes. He is simply examining, in detail, the features of my face, from my hairline to my wattled neck. He does this without a break in either his listening or his speaking.
He sits back now, to normal doctor-patient distance. I expect a conversation about surgery. Instead he recommends botox and dermal fillers, and thinks surgery won’t deliver that much benefit to me. Apparently, I already have a relatively feminised nose, no heavy brow ridges, and my widow’s peak is also a feminine feature.
He talks to me about products; whizzes through references to hyaluronic acid – apparently skin is 70 percent made up of it anyway. Tells me how the old cosmetic fillers weren’t as good – collagen extracted from cows with the ends snipped off the molecules to make them more like the version in humans. I have enough biology training to understand what he’s saying but little enough so as to have no idea if he is talking rubbish.
I learn that he has padded out his face himself; that his nurses try all the new techniques on him; and that he has made up his own topical anaesthetic that’s a bit stronger than the ones over the counter. I try to interrogate his face less obviously than he scans mine, attempting to guess where the fillers are.
…
At the end, as he makes notes, I examine the artifacts around his room. On the desk, a tiny sculpture of a female bust sits next to a well-thumbed catalogue of the Medicare Benefits Schedule. There’s another female figure on the wall next to the entry door, which means he can gaze directly at her as he sits at work, yet she hangs, unseen, behind the patient’s head. Over at the far end, a chest of drawers and display cabinet. More ancient fishing reels, with historic rods standing to attention on each side. However, my eye is drawn to an enormous ammonite, 340 million years old and nearly a foot in diameter, sitting on the shelves. I remark on it.
“Yes”, he says, “I found it in Sydney”. I know what he means but nearly burst out laughing at the image of him, casually unearthing this in the yard of some Watson’s Bay mansion. “It’s from Morocco, I think”. Then he adds, “what I like is the shape of the spiral, which represents the mathematical ratio of beauty. These creatures started out in an open, straight form”, he gestures in the air. “But then they spiralled like that.” He goes back to his notes, but not before remembering to flatter his patient. “That fossil isn’t often remarked upon, but the people who do, generally know what they are about”.
The plastic – not cosmetic, it has been made clear – surgeon waves me off to his nurses, who he assures me know more about the fillers than he does himself. I receive a government rebate that covers a fraction of the price of that thirty minute chat. I feel lighter, relieved, almost elated. I won’t be going under the knife. As I leave reception, I cock one, unbloodied eyebrow at the portrait in the foyer. “Good luck with that,” I murmur silently. In equal silence, she stares right back. “Just wait until you’ve had that botox”, I imagine she’s thinking, “and you won’t be able to cock an eyebrow at anyone”.
