Roger and Charlotte were that increasingly rare\u00a0breed: high-school sweethearts. They had met in the late 1960s, two Grade 11 students in Scarborough. Soon they\u00a0 were sharing lunches, playing cards in the cafeteria and\u00a0listening to Jim Croce and John Denver. By the time their\u00a0final year rolled around they were a couple\u2014a handsome,\u00a0 enviable pair. Roger, the lanky football player whose amateur\u00a0team twice won the Ontario Senior Men\u2019s championship.\u00a0 Charlotte, the blond gymnast with big, expressive eyes.
\nThe August after graduation Charlotte became pregnant\u00a0during a camping trip. Unaware, the two headed to their respective universities. When they learned they were to be parents, a wedding was hastily arranged at an Anglican church. By spring the young couple had welcomed a baby girl into the world. Roger stayed in school, paying for tuition and bills by driving a cab and delivering Chinese food. Charlotte dropped out to work full-time as a bank teller, enrolling their daughter at a nearby daycare. Their life together had taken an unexpected turn, yet in the eyes of all their friends they remained the perfect couple.
\nBut Roger had a secret he\u2019d been keeping for years: He liked to dress in women\u2019s clothing. As a teenager he would lock himself in the bathroom and put on his mother\u2019s outfits and
\nmakeup. At the same time, he desperately wanted to be one of the guys.
\nRoger was very close with his brother and friends, who loved sports, and he tried to out-muscle them in football, wrestling and lacrosse. \u201cI was a macho jock,\u201d he says. \u201cThe rougher
\nthe sport, the better. I needed to prove to myself I was a man.\u201d
\nBy the late \u201970s transgenderism was inching its way into public consciousness. Roger had already heard of Christine Jorgensen, a former army officer who became an instant celebrity when he underwent sex-reassignment surgery in the 1950s. Then, in 1977, Ren\u00e9e Richards, the tennis star who transitioned from male to female, won the right to compete at the U.S. Open. Roger began to wonder if he might be like Christine and Ren\u00e9e.
\nWorried that a full disclosure would destroy his marriage, Roger didn\u2019t tell Charlotte how he felt. A new husband and father, he was devoted to his family responsibilities, which increased after Charlotte gave birth to a son in the early 1980s. But Roger began leading a frenetic double life.
\nHe started working different shifts at a local airport while his wife continued at the bank, and with the house often empty, he lived out his fantasies several times a week. He purchased skirts and blouses, storing them in garbage bags in the rafters of the garage,
\nand dressed up while Charlotte was at work. \u201cIt gave me an opportunity to explore my feminine side,\u201d he says.
\nIt wasn\u2019t until the 1990s, when Roger started using the Internet at the North York Central Library during his lunch breaks, that he made a lifechanging discovery. His secret distress
\nwas, in fact, gender identity disorder, defined as a powerful identification with the opposite sex and a discomfort with one\u2019s biological gender. \u201cI found out there were others like me,\u201d Roger says. \u201cI also learned it wasn\u2019t my fault. The shame and guilt subsided a little bit.\u201d Though Roger continued to hide his true identity from Charlotte, their bond stayed strong. Whenever the kids were out the couple would pull a mattress into the den, light a fire
\nand make love. On anniversaries, Roger never forgot to pick up Charlotte\u2019s favourite bouquet: six yellow carnations for friendship and six red carnations for love. They camped as often as possible at Oastler Lake Provincial Park, a pretty spot south of Parry Sound with windswept trees and rocky shorelines. Roger loved barbecuing rack of lamb and roast
\nbeef for his family. And as their children grew, the couple became more involved in their activities, with Charlotte driving their daughter to dance class and Roger helping to
\ncoach their son\u2019s soccer team.
\nThen one day in 1995 their idyllic life came crashing down around them. Charlotte found a trove of cosmetics in the back of a filing cabinet. She thought Roger was having an affair.
\n\u201cCharlotte came to me with the bag. She wasn\u2019t angry, but she was upset. She wondered if it belonged to another woman,\u201d says Roger. \u201cI guess it did. The other woman was me.\u201d
\nOverwhelmed by a maelstrom of emotions\u2014remorse, relief, terror\u2014 he explained to Charlotte that all of his life he had never felt like he was the person he was supposed to be. He was trapped in someone else\u2019s body\u2014a man\u2019s body. He told her that transforming himself with makeup and clothes put him at ease. \u201cShe didn\u2019t yell or call me names,\u201d says
\nRoger. \u201cShe was more concerned about how it would affect our relationship.\u201d
\nSitting on the family room couch they put their arms around each other and cried.
\nCharlotte tried to make the best of it. She helped Roger choose a new\u00a0name\u2014Paige\u2014and took her shopping for outfits. While no one else knew at that point, the couple realized they needed help if their marriage had any hope of surviving. \u201cWe knew the odds were bad, but in my research I had learned that some couples in similar situations had managed to make a go of it,\u201d Paige says. \u201cI guess I was hoping that we would end up as one of them.\u201d
\nAt the time, there were no supports groups in Toronto for couples\u00a0dealing with transgenderism. So Charlotte (who declined to speak on the record for this piece) joined a
\nsupport group for women with transgendered partners. Betrayal was a big topic in the group. If you didn\u2019t know something so important about your partner, what else didn\u2019t you
\nknow? Sexual uncertainty was also a concern. Charlotte, for instance, was aware Paige wanted to transition fully through the help of surgery and drugs. Paige now recognizes that fact must have raised an important question in Charlotte\u2019s mind: If my husband becomes a woman, does that make me a lesbian?
\nPaige joined a group for transgendered women. \u201cI wanted to meet locally with people in my situation. I was desperate to learn more about what I was going through.\u201d Thinking back on it and recognizing how badly she underestimated Charlotte\u2019s anxieties about lesbianism, Paige wonders if she and Charlotte should have tried harder to pursue therapy together. \u201cMost of the time,\u201d Paige says about her group, \u201cour discussions focused on ransgenderism and its effect on us and the people around us. We didn\u2019t really talk about its effect on our partners\u2019 sexual identity.\u201d
\nThe couple\u2019s two children, who each discovered the truth about a year after Charlotte did, reacted differently to the news. Their daughter was in her early 20s. \u201cWe were upstairs
\nin my home office. I wanted to get it off my chest. The first words out of her mouth were, \u2018Oh, cool,\u2019\u201d said Paige, who admits to being surprised by the reaction. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t bothered
\nat all.\u201d Their son, 12 at the time, found out accidentally. \u201cAt Christmas he was looking for hidden presents and found my wigs in a box,\u201d says Paige.
\n\u201cHe went to Charlotte and she told him what was going on. We didn\u2019t talk that much about it. He was, and still is, a little embarrassed.\u201d
\nThe couple\u2019s mutual friends have been mostly supportive, but it took some adjustment. \u201cI showed a picture of me dressed as Paige to my four closest friends, all of whom I played
\nfootball with. No one recognized me. When I told them who it was, their jaws dropped.\u201d One friend, despite having very liberal attitudes about different lifestyles, turned white. \u201cHe
\nhad a hard time with it.\u201d
\nIn 1997 Paige consulted specialists and started taking hormones. From her perspective, the marriage was still on solid ground. \u201cCharlotte and I continued to have an intimate sexual relationship,\u201d she says. \u201cOther than the transgendered issue, we were pretty much a normal couple.\u201d
\nOver the course of the next several years, Paige\u2019s desire to transition fully became stronger. \u201cI wanted it so badly,\u201d says Paige. \u201cI knew it was my only shot at complete happiness.\u201d In
\nOctober 2004 she was approved for gender-reassignment surgery, which occurred the following year, in the spring of 2005. She was in the hospital for ten days, five of which Charlotte spent in the room with her. After the surgery Charlotte threw a birthday
\nparty for Paige at her favourite restaurant. \u201cShe was so sweet, accepting and understanding,\u201d Paige says.
\nEven so, Charlotte began to grow more distant. While most of the couple\u2019s family and mutual friends had been supportive about the surgery, Paige sensed Charlotte\u2019s circle
\ndidn\u2019t feel the same way. \u201cThey kept saying to her: \u2018You\u2019re not going to sleep in the same bed, are you? You\u2019re not going to stay married, are you?\u2019\u201d The questions were having an
\neffect. In the end, the support group Charlotte attended just wasn\u2019t enough to defeat her doubts about her new sexual role with Paige. \u201cWe don\u2019t necessarily have a lot of control
\nover our own desires, what is attractive and what\u2019s not,\u201d says Paige. \u201cI saw the end coming, but I didn\u2019t want to deal with it.\u201d
\nAfter the surgery, the two women still shared the same bed, but the intimacy started to ebb. \u201cWe hugged and spooned,\u201d says Paige, \u201cbut she was getting very cold.\u201d
\nBy summer, uncomfortable with the changes in Paige\u2019s body, Charlotte had had enough. \u201cWhen I wanted to hold her hand, she yanked it back,\u201d says Paige. \u201cWhen I wanted a kiss,
\nshe turned her face the other way.\u201d
\nCharlotte told Paige she loved her, but it was time they went their separate ways. Paige was devastated. \u201cWe were best friends for 34 years,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought that might count for
\nsomething. Love isn\u2019t just a physical thing.\u201d
\nThe couple\u2019s kids are now grown. Their daughter is nearly 40 and their son is in his mid-20s. Paige still feels like their father, but is uneasy playing the role around other people. \u201cI ask
\nthem not to call me Dad, but I\u2019m not their mother. Charlotte will always be their mother. I\u2019m Paige.\u201d The couple\u2019s children never went to counselling, but as a teenager Paige\u2019s son became close with a girl who was herself struggling with the reality of a transgendered parent. \u201cHe tried to be a friend to her and tell her how he dealt with it.\u201d
\nWhile Charlotte stays in touch about the kids, she keeps her distance. Paige, who isn\u2019t attracted to men, has initiated relationships with other women, but their feelings quickly
\nfizzle when she discloses her history.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not something I would want to deceive someone about,\u201d she says.
\nPaige is much happier as a woman. \u201cI love the way I look,\u201d she admits. \u201cI feel a whole lot better.\u201d However she misses Charlotte deeply\u2014misses her hair, her tiny hands and feet, her sense of humour. \u201cIf Charlotte had warned me she positively was going to leave when I first told her I wanted to go through with the surgery, I\u2019m honestly not sure I would have done it,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought we\u2019d grow old together. I never thought it would come to this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roger and Charlotte were that increasingly rare\u00a0breed: high-school sweethearts. They had met in the late 1960s, two Grade 11 students in Scarborough. Soon they\u00a0 were sharing lunches, playing cards in the cafeteria and\u00a0listening to Jim Croce and John Denver. By the time their\u00a0final year rolled around they were a couple\u2014a handsome,\u00a0 enviable pair. Roger, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":269,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-272","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/272\/revisions\/277"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}