Secrets of Dorley Hall (The Sisters of Dorley, #2)

by Alyson Greaves

Stefan, who has spent years as a closeted and barely-out-to-himself trans woman, knows there is both grace and strength in survival, should you wish to claim it.

I feel foolish. And stupid, claiming womanhood in front of all of you when I look and sound like this and you look and sound like you. And I worry, now that you know me like this, you won’t be able to see me as a woman later.”

Tell your dysphoria the same thing I told mine: you won’t win. Name it as your enemy and kill it.”

She’ll instead take pride in being pretty despite her unaltered face, she’ll tease out her hair to de-emphasise her hairline, and she’ll curate a folder on her laptop of photos of professional models with tall foreheads.

It doesn’t matter how many years she puts between herself and him; she’ll always be grateful that it’s Edith who greets the morning sun and not that broken, spitting, desperate child who once sneered with her mouth and hated with her voice and hurt with her hands. Every day’s a victory.

“I always saw myself as someone kind of… waiting around for life to start. Everything was awful and kept getting worse, and it was like, if I waited long enough, maybe everything would just work out. Even though I knew it wouldn’t.

“So everyone here is a, uh, a bad boy turned good girl?”

A+ joke

I mean, I’ve had this whole thing I’ve been trying to get over where I don’t want people to see me — especially you, but also just, you know, people — while I’m still so early in transition, because I feel sort of ridiculous and ugly and male, all that shit. And I’m working on it, but… I didn’t want you to see me,” she says again.

“It’s been wonderful getting to know the girls and Pippa’s amazing and so are Christine and Paige and Maria and all the others but it’s hard to look at them and then look at me, like all the shit I hated when I was growing up is still there, and I’m changing but I’m not changing fast enough, and then I feel guilty raging about that because if I’m not changing fast enough then what does that say about— about— Fuck.”

Don’t be a girl,’” Melissa says, with air quotes. “So much of what’s taught to boys, especially boys with the sort of fucked up relationship to masculinity that the programme tends to sweep up, is based around not being a girl, not being a pussy, whatever. In many ways it’s harder to unlearn than the defence mechanisms. They all have to learn that being a girl isn’t shameful or weak. They have to learn that the thing they were taught their whole lives to be afraid of is actually… fine. Just completely one hundred percent normal and fine.” She rolls her eyes. “Personally, I think it’s clearly the better choice, but that’s the advanced class.” She grins, shows her teeth, but doesn’t quite break Stef’s mood.