Couple Enjoys the Best of Both Worlds

Mike Dennis was a married man for 40 years. He and his wife divorced in 2007, after he decided to stop hiding the fact that he was transgender. So, at 66, she was a heterosexual, transgender woman who now went by the name of Mike/Michelle and sometimes still dressed as a man. She was pretty sure love, for her, was a thing of the past.

Robin Gurse is a bisexual Jewish woman, now 65, who never married and has had some pretty painful relationships, mostly with men.

Robin and Mike/Michelle remember well an evening in 2010, just a few days after they met by chance (or was it beshert, fated?) at a self-empowerment seminar, and realized that their encounter could change their lives.

Mike/Michelle invited Robin to a play. Over dinner, Robin suddenly realized that this elegant woman, whom she by that point knew was also a man, was courting her. At the time, she laughed out loud; today she tears up at the memory of it.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, is this the perfect person for me?’ ” Robin recalls.

As Robin speaks, Mike/Michelle jumps in. They were driving down Olympic Boulevard, Mike/Michelle remembers, and Robin told her she was bisexual.

“I just about drove off the road, because I thought, ‘This is so perfect!’ ” Mike/Michelle says.

Five months later, the two exchanged rings in a commitment ceremony, and within a year they officially married. Mike/Michelle wore a traditional white gown and pearls, and Robin wore a raspberry evening gown.

Rabbi Lisa Edwards of Beth Chayim Chadashim co-officiated with the pastor from Mike/Michelle’s Brentwood Presbyterian Church. The couple remain actively involved in both congregations, as well as in JQ International, a Jewish LGBT organization, where Mike/Michelle organizes the speakers, and Robin handles the newsletter.

The two grew up less than a mile apart, near Centinela Avenue in West L.A., and both attended Venice High School, a few years apart. Robin was confirmed at Temple Adat Shalom and has warm memories of celebrations of Jewish holidays with her family.

The two have very different styles. Robin, a life coach who runs empowerment workshops for teens, sports jeans and a tie-dyed top, no makeup, and her cropped silver hair surely doesn’t need more than a towel dry. She wears a simple wedding band and a small, silver Jewish star around her neck.

Mike/Michelle, by contrast, wears a frosty coif, her nails and makeup done just so, dangling earrings and a thick, silver necklace. On this day, she is also wearing black heels, polka-dotted black stockings and a striped bolero jacket over a short black dress with a thick elastic belt.

Mike/Michelle, who was the director of finance for the City of Santa Monica for 20 years and now teaches finance at UCLA, goes by male and female pronouns. He said he had wanted to be a girl since he was a young child. His then-wife knew, but had little patience for it, and he would secretly cross-dress whenever he could.

“Have you ever tried to keep an inflated beach ball underwater? That is what I did for years. And there was one night, when the kids were already off in college and my wife was asleep, and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I got on my knees, and I said, ‘Take my life, or show me something,’ ” Mike/Michelle says.

That was in the 1990s, and it was the fledgling Internet that opened up a new world for Mike/Michelle. Four years after that night, he joined a cross-dressers group. He divorced in 2007 and started dressing as Michelle most of the time.

It wasn’t until they were ready to become sexually intimate that Robin met Mike, sans wig and lipstick.

“Even though I was totally clear that the person I was falling in love with was a person who would sometimes show up as female and sometimes as male, I think that moment was still startling. It still is, every once in a while. God has a great sense of humor — I get both!” Robin says.

Mike/Michelle said she keeps both names because that is who she is, and because the slash opens eyes.

“It always generates a question, and I get to interact with people. My intention is for them to leave with the notion, ‘You’re 72, about 5-7, 160 pounds, transgender and you wear a size 10 shoe.’ What that does is it normalizes the experience and creates a safe space for transgender people. And that is really so important.”