That scene pretty much served up a summary of my teenage mind/body conflict. You look at photos of Teen-o-rama Rahne and you might never guess that Morrissey was calling me when he got stuck for song titles. You’d never think I was preparing for my fate as a carnie.

Perhaps you can recall your own closet days, fretting for months about coming out to someone for whose approval you ached. While still tendering those feelings, I was outed to my partner’s family, and I heard back well-wishes, appended with “Oh, but she should be careful. Transsexuals make ugly women.”

I started hearing versions of this caveat from every corner, from people who had never even met me. As if my primary concern was whether I’d wind up pretty. As if the fear of “ugly” might deter me. As if the only value a woman has, trans or otherwise, is in her beauty. Thankfully, I was already a feminist, and was way ahead of their little games – intellectually, if not emotionally.

It certainly did not help my case that the only images of actual transsexual people were provided to me on daytime talk shows. Things were considerably more tame when the host was Phil Donahue than when it was Jenny Jones or Jerry Springer, but there wasn’t much empowerment to be had. Even in those tender years, I knew all that glamour was fleeting and illusory. At the end of the day, even the most dazzling tranny showgirl had to take down the big top.

I had every reason to be scared. I never knew when some church authority guy would slap my scrawny androgynous back and wax ebullient over how my shoulders would eventually broaden and my voice would deepen – all I had to do was wait it out. I tried to get a glimpse of my future in an unkempt mustache, and wished for death or kidnapping. Or both. I had dreams of being saved by Patty Hearst. Something had to happen before it was too late, before I became unsalvageable. Which brings me back to my Donnie Wahlberg moment.

Things looked bleak because I was squaring off alone against heterosexism, the Beauty Myth, all-purpose misogyny, poverty and the American Dream, religious fundamentalism and maybe even puberty without even knowing how to talk about these things. I was facing more layers of poison than are in the latest Taco Bell promotional menu.

Of course, few of my worst fears have ever been realized. During the time of my transition where I wasn’t passing so well, some shitheel would speed by screaming abuse and sometimes he’d wreck my whole day. B.F. Skinner would be proud to know how effective random and unexpected punishments function in actual people; the impressions are pretty much indelible. So when the drive-by homophobia began to morph into standard-issue hetero catcalling, I had to learn to ignore a whole new kind of asshole. That was a very confusing time.

Worst of all was when someone – god forbid – would express an actual attraction to me. This was impossible, of course. People don’t find freaks attractive. It’s just not done, and if someone were to find out that I was a tranny and persist in their attraction to me, there was clearly something wrong with them.

This kind of insecurity is nothing new to most of us who have slogged through a sexual maturation process; my situation just happens to have a pungent transsexual/transgender flavor to it. It’s something that can be overcome. As I once told Morrissey, these things take time.

On this side of my transition, I’ve found that not only am I not hideously repugnant, but I can feel hot and sexy, and I am very interested in continuing to feel this way whenever possible. It’s quite a relief. In fact, it’s even been discovered that some might find me attractive, at least in part, because of the transition I’ve made.

There’s a name for some of these folks, but it’s got a bad connotation: trannychaser. You can even hiss the word, to make it sound dirtier. Say like an angry Bette Davis: trannychaser. Feel the burn?

Ostensibly, it’s a word that is supposed to somehow ward off the advances of those who might fetishize a chick with a dick or a fella with a manhole. But where is the term for someone who might find transfolk attractive without the seamy side? So far there isn’t one. Once, when I tried to spark discussion on this issue in what seemed to be a transgender forum, I got reamed. The person unleashed a great deal of vitriol for even suggesting that one might be seen as being attractive in a non-creepy way precisely because ze has had a gender transition in zir past, or that one might wish to have that achievement acknowledged – nay, worshipped. Best of all, this person called me a trannychaser. I felt the burn through my keyboard.

Maybe I am a trannychaser, but only in the same way that I might be read as an autogynephile. I’ve been chasing a dream since I heard that I could transition. I was reviled, and I almost let myself be convinced that transition wasn’t possible. But then it happened, and I’m very happy with the results. But my love and appreciation for the successes of myself and all the other transsexed bodies I’ve met will not be reduced to a mere fetish. This body of mine is the tranny Taj Mahal, as far as I’m concerned. And anyone who worships here is going to know how lucky they are to be there, how much had to be overcome to realize the dream.

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Rahne Alexander is attempting to change the meaning of marriage forever with her website, xantippe.com.