"I did have allies, though I must confess, no close friends. It appears that I was the first trans person to have openly come through their doors. There were also a couple of queer students. Three exactly. Openly queer, I mean, since there did appear to be a good number of closet cases among us. A young lesbian who seemed almost creepily interested in me, and two gay boys, who were also romantically involved together. We never really spoke much. We did share a few enjoyable lunches in the cafeteria and at first they assumed that I also was a gay man. I think one of them was actually attracted to me, and so the thinly veiled but profound disappointment when they heard that I was transitioning. But they did get over it, as we say, and our visits, though sparse, did continue to be enjoyable. There was a camaraderie based on that common feeling of having nothing to hide from each other. The girl student, whom I shall call Rachel, was rather different. She would frequently stop to say hi, ask me how my day was going, and then she began to have all sorts of questions about my life, not the nosy prurient ones, but about my background, my family, the town I grew up in. We never actually sat down to visit, but she would simply stop with me between classes, or perhaps escort me to my next class before leaving me at the door. A most curious individual...
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