Transfigure

My name has a strange characteristic: in French, it is for men; in Japanese, it is for women. People have often confused my gender.

When people are confused about you, why not make them even more puzzled? I recently made an app on my phone that turns me into whether appearance I want that day. It works with CSS and holograms and other things like that—I’ll explain some other time. Let’s just say Sailor Moon’s transformations ain’t go nothing on me.

Tonight, I’m doing my third test of this app. I tapped the icon and within seconds, I became like some sort of big bad ass sister which makes men think twice before approaching.

My female persona has loyal fans. Strangely, more than my male side ever did all my life. Some of them can get quite pushy. Like Yuri, a real fangirl. She is the most persistent, inviting me, or rather that one specific expression of me, at every chance she gets:

— Hey! Wanna go to this event tonight? It’s full of trans!
— Full of… trans? (I cringed at the way she said it.) Uh… I don’t have much interest in going to all-night events these days.
— But it’s filled with crossdressers and lesbians!
— Doesn’t matter who’s there. I just don’t have the time or the interest.
— Okay. How about we go to an onsen together up north next month? Lots of transvestites will come too!
— But… What’s the point? Won’t we be all naked there?
— Of course!
— Ah… Um… How about that event tonight?

I thought caving into the first option would finally silence her for a while, but I still cringed at her reasoning of inviting me to a place only because it is “full of trans.” All I could do was to shake it off.

Later, at the nightclub in Shinjuku, in female mode, I saw Yuri at the back. As I awkwardly walked among other guests while silently swearing at my high heels, more than a dozen of male-to-female crossdressers, trans women, and some porn actresses with whom I became acquainted in the past few months were pleased to see me. “Welcome back!,” they all said.

It wasn’t too long until a few of them came to me to talk about CSS, PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript. Because somehow 80% of all trans people and crossdressers are secretly Web developers. Events such as this one are a perfect place to recruit people in IT, but male headhunters on LinkedIn are too scared to adventure in here. I met one as my female mode in one of these places before. He fainted in shock, and stayed in a coma for a few months. Female headhunters also made their way in, but somehow they became too distracted to recruit anyone.

That fangirl of mine finally made her way to greet me, “Hey! I’m happy you made it. Before I forget, how about that onsen next month?” After the long walk I took to get to this place, I had something else on my mind distracting me from answering her question. “Uh… Can you hold that thought for a second?,” I asked. She nodded and smiled. I really had to pee—this is what happens when you hold it in for too long while you’re too reluctant to go to the restroom while you’re in transit.

The restrooms were simply labelled “urinals” and “WC”—not by gender. I chose the former, for speed. It was crowded. After waiting in line a few minutes, I went on to do my business. “Well, my mascara isn’t a mess. I guess I have this going on for me.” As I observed my makeup, someone next to me interrupted my idle moment. “Hey, Remi! Heard of those problems you’ve been getting with Ember,” she said. “Well, we finally upgraded from 1.9 to, uh, whatever latest version still has support, so I guess it’s a bit better now,” I replied while staring at the ceramic tiles in front of me. I wanted to chit chat a bit more, but I suddenly got this craving for sushi, and it was all I could think about. When I’m a girl, I always crave for sushi with loads of wasabi. Very strange.

I let my skirt down, washed my hands, and went out. Yuri was waiting for me, “Someone wants to speak to you!” A lady in a suit came, “You are that legendary Web developer, aren’t you? I am Akiko.” My eyes squinted in suspicion before she continued. “I’m the founder of a startup.” I knew it! My eyes shifted back and forth between the two women in front of me as I remained silent. That’s when I chuckled uncomfortably and excused myself to go get a drink, an excuse as a ruse to walk away. “A startup… It’s probably not even funded and they want me to work for free,” I told myself.

The moment I walked out the building, I was worried I’d attract too much attention. My hand reached in my skirt’s pocket—I always prefer my skirts to have pockets—and pulled out my smartphone. The tap of a button instantly reverted myself in guy mode out of a puffy cloud of rainbow glitter. I wanted to accelerate the growth of a beard too, but my battery was only at 10% and my folicles don’t like artificially grown hair. I coughed out some more sparkly dust as I walked the dark alleys of Shinjuku to find a hidden spot.

After moving at a steady pace between buildings, I stopped at a convenience store to buy some boxed sushi. While I was eating it in front of the place, my smartphone buzzed. A message came. It was Akiko: “You’re sneaky! We will meet again soon. I guarantee it.” Attached was a picture of her in mistress attire made of shiny latex.

I was not impressed. “This is a trap. Startup owners—they are relentless, but I know their tricks.”

My stomach full, I walked into the darkness, while looking up at the skyline of urban Tokyo, with all its skyscrapers outlined by neon lights.

To be continued…

Originally posted on Medium on 9th February 2017.