Maddox K. Pennington

It was 2:30; my appointment was in an hour, so I needed to get moving. But first, I pulled open my Box ‘o Notebooks familiar to every scribbler. 

One I started in 2012 in grad school for recording my fellowship to-dos (35 pages filled). 

One I started in 2013 for my screenprinting class (14 pages). 

One that looks like an Etch-a-Sketch, complete with eraser knobs and a pencil tucked inside. All I have written in it is “How long before I lose these erasers?” 

One I started in 2015 for “self-care and cartoons” On pages 1-3, affirming doodles and playing around with markers. Page 4? “So this is what it feels like to regret getting married.” So dramatic. 

I finally find one with only a few pages despoiled. Then we are off to the metro, then a scooter. I coast to a stop in front of a bike shop, which feels like a sign, so I go in and buy a helmet. I’m ridiculously early so I look for a place to kill time. There is a Chipotle across from the clinic. I love Chipotle. Clearly, whatever power guides the universe wanted me to be trans, and wanted me to be here today, in this place, bearing this bag, and notebook, and a nauseatingly day-glo helmet. 

Oh, yes, this was the day of my first gender confirmation appointment. 

It felt a bit Men in Black at first. There was nobody at the receptionist desk downstairs, or the one on the second floor, which looked identical to the third floor. Finally someone materialized when I went back to the lobby, and pointed me to the fourth floor. Which also looked familiar. I felt comfortable. When I called to make the appointment, it was not hard to distinguish between my given name and my going name. At the clinic, they only asked for my last name to sign me in, and called me back to see the doctor with the name I have been fighting for weeks to get my parents to use. 

I was taken to an exam room, given all the usual social life questions and vitals-checking devices (also a flu shot, which I can only hope made me gayer). I met my doctor, who wore a rainbow sweatshirt and referred to herself as a care provider, via her first name. She asked questions gently, laughed generously at my jokes, and listened while, for the first time, I explained to a stranger, face-to-face that for my whole life, I had felt wrong, and learning the language of genderqueer/ non-binary/ trans-ness had helped me fill in the blanks. There was no judgment, no surprise, no “are you sure” or “but what if…” We swapped questions, talked timelines, and a quick half hour later I was back in a lobby 

The windows looked straight across a westward street, so I got to watch the sunset while I waited to be called in for blood-drawing. The sun streaked the sky with first neon then pastel colors. The blood-drawing care provider teased me about my grimacing face while she took blood. When I turned in my specimen samples without writing my name on them, I asked how they’d know it was mine. They held up the bag that contained the tubes, which was labeled. 

Miranda MADDOX Pennington was printed on a sticker near the bottom. So they can communicate with insurance clearly, but talk to me affirmingly. I almost cried, seeing it written like that. This year. I’ve had such tangled feelings about my name–my name, my book, my marriage, my contributions to women’s publications, my space in the world. So seeing the name my parents labored over practically embracing the name I’ve taken up for myself…it felt like a validation from past me, to future me. 

There was a Jump bike right outside the clinic afterward, so I put on my new helmet and cycled home, trying to keep the circulation in my hands (new nonbinary trans problem–my hands are even small for a woman’s, where do I buy gloves??). I come back in the door, shelve my notebook, greet the dog who has never cared for a moment what I am called, only that I am a warm body and I am hers. She cleans my ears for me–perhaps to console me for not having gloriously floppy velvet ones, like hers–and we settle back in on the couch.