"If Men Could Menstruate..."
The Day Bubba Became Sissy...
Cathy Lantrip

            It was dark when he woke up, dark just like it had always been due to the blackout curtains covering the window, but this time something felt wrong. He rolled over and forcibly heaved himself out of the roiling, clinging depths of his waterbed and grimaced as he realized how sluggish and swollen his body felt. He better not be sick; he could not afford to take off work so soon after Christmas.

That fear was a secondary concern though. He needed to pee. Badly.

As he stumbled the few short feet from his doorway to the bathroom, he had never been so grateful that the back hall was so very small. He pushed the door shut carelessly, not bothering to ensure that it had latched much less taking the trouble to lock it. He was not sure what time it was, but his traitorous body told him it was early, far too early for anyone else to be awake.

He shut his eyes tightly as he groped for the light switch and dropped his pajama pants, stepping into his customary position in front of the toilet. He only opened his sleep bleary eyes when the illumination on the backs of his eyelids did not seem so harsh and when his plumbing did not appear to plan to function properly. He looked down and blinked and blinked again. He had grown breasts overnight, extremely feminine breasts. One hand reached below hesitantly only to discover that a vital part of him had indeed gone missing. He turned around and sat down numbly. He could panic after he relieved his bladder.

Fifty seconds and one deep breath later: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

His younger sister Cathy, always a light sleeper and whose bedroom was just across the hall, was the first to reach the bathroom. She burst through the half-open door, a look of panic on her face. Her expression immediately changed to one of alarm and embarrassment as her gaze registered the naked female cowering on the toilet, and she covered her eyes with her hands and started backing out.

“Sorry!”

“I have boobs, Cat. What the hell is going on?”

Cathy froze in place and slowly lowered her hands, her eyes large with disbelief.

“Bubba?”

He just looked at her.

She slid down the doorframe and pressed her fist into her mouth to stop the hiccups of hysterical laughter building in her throat. “You always were they pretty one.”

Three Weeks Later . . .

“I don’t know why you’re whining. You’ve bought them for me before and didn‘t complain this much,” Cathy exclaimed exasperatedly, as she dragged her “sister” toward the feminine hygiene aisle of their local Wal-Mart.

“Because I wasn’t buying them for me!”

“Hey, you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to. You just have to be prepared to face the consequences.” She smiled at him, savage glee lightening her eyes.

As was so common of women living together in a household, their cycles had synchronized, and neither felt in a particularly charitable mood. He felt trapped and impotent in a foreign body that had only betrayed him further by trying to rip itself apart from the inside out (at least that was what it felt like), and she obviously considered it poetic justice.

Other than the onset of regular hormone fluctuations, his life had changed remarkably little since he woke up one morning and discovered that he had become a “she.” He still went to work every day and set poles and drove the truck. If he could not lift quite as much for quite as long a period of time, he never mentioned it, and no one else did either. His coworkers had learned very quickly that he would not be coddled nor would he stand for any innuendo filled comments. The weight behind his punches had decreased, but the power had not.

Elsewhere (where his sense of pride did not come into play) he fully took advantage of the difference in treatment a pretty young brunette received as opposed to a brunet young man. He had cheerfully explained to his little sister that he knew how men thought and how to work the system to his benefit. She had to admire his handiwork. Anything he wanted someone would give to him.

Twenty Years Down the Line . . .

As she sat at a picnic table watching her “sister” play with the grandchildren, Cathy wondered: was he masculine or feminine? Initially he had remained clearly masculine in a woman’s body to those who really knew him and saw him when he was not putting on an act. However, as the years had passed, some of his masculinity had begun to fade. Family members still used male pronouns in reference to him out of habit, and with the pliancy of youth the children never questioned why they were told to refer to their aunt as Uncle Bubba. He was Bubba to his family, Bubba no matter what form he was in.

It was the world that saw him differently. To outsiders he was a menopausal lesbian, and a “butch” one at that. He liked cars and welding and taking things apart, kept his hair shaggy but short, and wore nothing but t-shirts and blue jeans. The world did not know that he had developed a love for sappy romantic comedies or that he loved to have his hair played with, and he would be the last person to ever admit to them. The world never saw his journey into a new self-identity. Sure, he had adjusted remarkably well under the circumstances, better than she would have to becoming a man, but when it had finally sunk in that he was not going to ever change back his life had been very difficult.

Cathy had been there through it all, the ups and the downs, the antidepressants and the shopping sprees. While she had always been closer to him than to her older sister, she could not help wondering if they would have been so close if he had remained male. He had been and always would be her big brother, but he was the best of big sisters as well. Life could not get more complicated or confusing.

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