Life After Life

By Daryl Gale
City Paper

Philadelphia
July 12, 2001

Gina Armour is a smart, professional woman with a wealth of experience and first-class education, and yet she remains chronically underemployed. The reason for her unsatisfactory employment situation is simple, according to Gina. It’s not because she’s north of 40, or because she’s a woman, but because until only a couple of years ago, Gina Armour was a man.

Gene, as he was known then, was a successful entrepreneur and theatrical producer. A graduate of Drexel University with degrees in engineering and business, Gene, says Gina, was knocking ’em dead in Chicago and New York, making money hand over fist with a thriving design, carpet and fine furniture business, and had a wife, and a big, big secret. And with the revealing of Gene’s secret came the not-so-mysterious disappearances of his wife, businesses and money.

A meticulously clean and handsome boy, young Gene was a star high school gymnast and quite popular with the girls. He actually turned down a gymnastics scholarship to Temple to attend Drexel for engineering. He also turned down most of the girls. Most, but not all.

"I never asked girls out; they always asked me," Gina says. "I felt strange because all the guys wanted these girls, but sex with them was so unfulfilling to me. Even then, I was living in denial."

Gina tells the story heard often from transgendered or gay people: a youth filled with confusion, worry and isolation, and slow acceptance of one’s true self. Looking at her today, it’s difficult to believe she was once so painfully conflicted. Sitting in the living room of her tastefully decorated Center City apartment, Gina Armour exudes confidence. In a short black dress, black stockings and pumps, she looks every bit the self-assured career woman. Her makeup is perfectly applied, and her wig is stylish. She speaks in a quiet, almost shy voice and sits and walks as gracefully as if she’s been practicing for a lot longer than three years.

"I always liked men, but never felt … you know, gay. Oh, I lived the so-called ‘gay lifestyle’ for a while, clubs and dancing and sex; but I’ve always felt more like a straight woman having sex with a man than another gay man," she says without a hint of pretense.

It was in college at Drexel that she (then he) met and fell in love with a woman, even while maintaining casual sexual relationships with both sexes. They married and moved to Chicago after graduation, where Gene took a high-profile job as an engineer with General Electric and treated themselves to a lavish lifestyle, says Gina. But along with the five-star restaurants and expensive clothes came affairs with both men and women that caused his wife to walk out after four years and plunge Gene into what Gina now calls her "gay phase".

In a career as well as lifestyle switch, Gene moved to New York and became immersed in the arts scene. He took dance lessons, says Gina, and was such a natural talent that he became part of the famed Alvin Ailey dance troupe. During this time, he also took a high-paying job as a design consultant and traveled the world with his jet-setting clients, eventually striking out on his own.

In a few months, he was making disgraceful amounts of cash, being chauffeured around Manhattan in his own limo and throwing lavish parties for the New York art and fashion elite. But he was horribly unhappy even then.

"I was a member of the Opera Guild, a patron of the Lincoln Center, I had friends galore, and I was just miserable," Gina says. "I totally denied my feminine desires except on a few occasions when I would dress up as a girl at home. I spent thousands on dresses that I would only wear in front of the mirror, then throw away. I was always surrounded by people, yet I was so very lonely."

So lonely and unhappy, in fact, that Gene did a reckless thing. Terrified of losing everything and wishing for a normal life, he pushed down his feminine tendencies, met a woman and married for the second time. It was anything but a blessed union.

According to Gina, it was a terribly unhappy marriage that scarred both of them.

He stayed in the marriage for nearly a decade, determined to make the best of a horrible situation. The only bright spot, says Gina, was that the marriage produced a son, now 12, and the light of Gina’s life.

At the end of the turbulent marriage that saw Gene go from gay to straight and from hedonist to religious zealot, Gene finally came to grips with what he knew all along: that he was never a happy man because he was never a man to begin with. He was a woman. And from now on, he was going to live and think and love as a woman, no matter what anyone said or thought.

His wife was unhappy with the developments and moved out in short order. The breakup left Gina with a low cash flow and low self-esteem.

"The first thing I had to do was get a job, of course, but I had no idea how different I’d be treated as a woman. Even gay men have little trouble in the fields of design or decorating, but a transsexual is a different story," she laughs bitterly. Many of the same design houses that praised her work as Gene now slammed the door in Gina’s face. Faithful clients shunned her, colleagues were embarrassed to be seen with her and the phone stopped ringing. It hasn’t started ringing again yet, and it’s been three years now.

Gina’s story of post-transitional employment is not so unusual, according to Angela Gardner. Gardner is the executive director of Renaissance, a Wayne-based group that provides information and peer support for transgendered individuals.

"There are many factors that contribute to a smooth transition," Gardner says, "or a bumpy one. It’s difficult to maintain and cultivate the same business relationships through gender transition, but certainly not impossible. Some manage to pick up their careers without missing a beat. It depends on how well you prepare yourself, your family and your business associates for the transition."

While Gina’s transition has certainly been a bumpy one, she wouldn’t dream of going back.

"I feel completely natural now," Gina says. "And even though I’ve been through a small fortune, two marriages and successful businesses, I am at last at peace. The problem is, I’m also poor."

To subsist, Gina has had to take some unpleasant jobs, including phone sex operator. While she insists there’s dignity in all honest work, she admits that she’s going to need a lot more money than she can provide right now.

"Sure, I had mixed feelings about taking it, but a job is a job," she smiles. "I have to live and work as a woman for a while before I get the SRS. I’d like to save enough money to get it, but it’s hard right now."

SRS is Sex Reassignment Surgery, which Gina says can cost anywhere from $12,000 to $25,000 and higher. Right now she’s on hormone therapy, which has given her breasts, softer skin and less body hair, but she wants to go all the way.

"I’m going crazy not being able to afford the SRS. I’ll do anything to get the operation. Right now I’m trying to get back into business or the arts somehow, not just for the surgery, but because of all the financial pressures and obligations I have."

Her first priority is to get back on her feet financially and emotionally. She’s even launched her own website, www.geocities.com/gina-ts to help link herself with other transgendered folks in transition. She writes occasionally for another trangendered website and is slowly working her way back to happiness.

Through it all, Gina Armour has maintained her good humor and has rediscovered her resolve.

"I’m looking forward, not backward. I’ve lost much because of who and what I am, but I have much to gain also."