First of all, I want to commend this site and all of you who visit and inhabit it. In the 90's, I used to visit an internet chat called "Gazebo" and, for me, it was an eye opener...There were people like me out there! The Gazebo is gone now. Today, there are other TS sites out there but I find the caliber and depth of discussions to be here in Susan's Place to be far better. In some other sites, a deep conversation consists of three word sentences bantered back and forth, such as, "How R U?," "Fine, U?" Even though such sites are labelled transsexual, the banter is often or usually about totally other topics. It's not that they don't have a right to discuss things with their friends online...it's just not what I came there for.
My life? Like everyone's here, I suppose, it's been a struggle. I was jealous, as a kid, when one of my friends was able to wear his sisters clothes OUTSIDE...it was Halloween and thus allowed. He had no TS desires. He did it as a lark. Nevertheless, I was jealous. I remember sneaking a few fimes into my mother's closet and staring in wonder at her clothing. Sometimes, I'd try on a jacket or dress, but always I'd check before EXACTLY how it sat on the clothes rack so I could put it back in exactly the same way. From these beginnings, I have changed a lot, as you will soon see...
In my mid-forties, like many TS's of my generation, I decided that I had to transition...maybe it's our own form of mid-life crisis...getting what we always really wanted. I attended a few transgender meetings at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. I'd been there before...ten years before, in fact. But I'd decided then that I would try to control it, forget about it. But the feeling that I was in the wrong body always came back. And so here I found myself, back in TG meetings and starting over, for the hundredth time. In a book store, I found a book about transgenders and, in the index in back, was a recommended site, the Gazebo. In going there, I found feelings that had resonated in me for years. My girlfriend, who I had lived with for fifteen years, chided that thought, "You can find esoteric groups of all possibilities on the internet. That doesn't validate it as not being crazy." Nevertheless, I knew that there were good groups of people that had found themselves on the internet...people who had, up to then, suffered alone with trauma. A "Dateline" reported how a baby was born with "questionable genitals." The surgeon got rid of the male part of the genitals and the parents were instructed to raise the child as a male. It didn't, as many of you probably have guessed, work. The person raised as a female rebelled in his teens and parents admitted what they had done. He stopped wearing dresses and became what he knew what he was inside, a man. This story hit home with me. It was terribly difficult, though. To say I was "a woman inside" was the stuff comedians use daily in their jabs. And, I knew from having lived on the male side, that some might presume that I was doing it in order to get the outer accoutremant of females, the clothes, the makeup. I resolved to shirk overtly feminine things in order to show society that there were some TS's that didn't fit so neatly into their stereotypes. Perhaps it's silly. I should behave as I want. But I guess I was always a rebel in some way or other and this was my way of rebelling against how society thinks of womens' things in sexual terms...panties, nylons, bras, dresses, cosmetics...to society, these THINGS say feminine. I knew my spirit inside was female and did these outer things to prove that. I have gotten into some trouble in Susan's Place for saying things like that. Some presume I am saying that I object if other TS's say they like feminine clothes. Let me assure you, I am not judgemental of others, especially other TS's. The point of the introduction, I presume, is to bare my thoughts -- what was going on in my mind. If we cannot speak openly here about our inner thoughts, than where? If society damns me for saying "I'm a female inside," because they presume it's because I want to wear dresses, than is it so odd that I would rebel against that stereotype and want to tilt their windmill? Additionally, it's also a factor of age. I was in my late forties when I transitioned, and I knew that, after years of male hormones travelling through my body and changing it physically, I would look silly if I dressed in an overtly feminine fashion. I'd seen a CD with a beard wearing a light chifon dress and I feared looking like some variant of that. I mean this as no insult to drag queens. They have just as much a right to be on this earth as me. I just didn't want to be thought of as one...I wanted to blend in. Older women generally wear less sexually overt clothing and my goal was to fit in, above all else. I knew that women at work wore pants and that I would stick out like a sore thumb if I walked in, wearing a dress.
Luckily for me, I found a therapist who understood and even agreed with my reasonings. Transitioning was hard but, and maybe this is human nature, not as hard as I would have thought. I was always goal oriented throughout my life and I took this on as something I knew I'd have to do if my life was to make any sense. Telling my mom, family and coworkers was hard but I felt compelled to do it....I feared my girlfriend might tell them first. Looking back, I realize she never would have because she loved me. But we were going through some tough times. We'd have one day where she'd be supportive...we'd sit and watch a newsmagazine that showed TS's. I'd feel happy, only to find out, on waking the next morning, her telling me that "the more I think about it, I think this whole idea of transsexualism is like a lifelong mental illness." I'd show her medical studies regarding babies it the womb. It was thought that since the body forms at one point and then the brain much later that, if there was was a hormone difference in the mother during pregnancy, that you could end up with the brain one way and the body another. It made sense to me. To her, on her worst days, it was just another obssession "like pedaphelia. It'll never go away." Eventually, she did. It was hard -- even harder than transition for me -- to break up with her. Despite her mixed feelings about transsexualism, we had loved each other and spent 20 years sharing a life together. I'd tried many times breaking up with her but she'd start crying and I'd do anything -- anything -- to make the tears stop. I even, at one point, said "I'll be your man." I still shake my head when I think back to that...that I could say that. We didn't have much of a sexual life but we still loved one another. I guess love makes you say things that'll stop your loved one from hurting. The only problem was that it didn't get rid of my hurt, my belief that I was, as a man, living a lie. We split up.
In "coming out" I found something remarkable at work: a happily married woman who I jokingly refer to as my "womantor" (takeoff on "mentor"). Though we were just coworkers before my transition, she took me under her wing and she helped me through many stages of transition. She'd had a lifetime of female experience and I was a definite newbie. There was nothing sexual between us but a love grew so that I regarded her like a big sister or mother even though she was only a few years older than me. One thing I learned, quite accidentally, was the feeling of touch. I had grown up with parents and family who never touched or kissed or said, "I love you" aloud. My friend would sometimes touch my hand as I told emotional parts of my life. At first, I pulled away. I remember, at Christmas get-togethers at work, she would always hug everyone. I, again, would always pull away. As I began being more comfortable with her touch I found a feeling of peace there. Again, it was nothing sexual...by now, the hormones and androgens had knocked off any sexual desire. I read in medical books and found that a hormone, oxytocin, is given off whenever people touch. It is especially strong when a mother holds her baby. Medically, doctors know that this hormone gives people a sense of two things: peace and happiness. I had always coveted touch when growing up but felt anxious when it happened. I would look longingly to couples hugging in theater lines. But it wasn't for me. I wasn't nurtured that way. Until I met my friend. Now, when I date, I am not so shy as to not touch. Being at peace with touch is one of the unexpectected good side effects of my transition.
When all the doctor papers were approved, I flew to Montreal, Canada in May of 1999 and had, for all intents and purposes, a new birthday. Menard's clinic was wonderful in that it was like visiting a family of TS friends in a nice big warm house. Here were M2F's and F2M's, all of us beginning a new voyage. It, again, was reassuring to me to encounter F2M's for they, in my mind, validated my process. Society would think that M2F's transition in order to wear the outer garments and makeup of being feminine. But here the F2M's were, showing that they shirked all that outer stuff to be what they felt they were, men. I can somewhat understand society's confusion with TS's. They see drag queens getting dressed to push society's buttons and presume we're all the same. I don't fault anyone for doing what they want but I do, as you may gather, resist society's generalization that we do this for anything as frivolous as having the ability to wear women's clothing. It's more important than that.
I was happy when I awoke the next day. My roomate and I had just had the operation the day before and we were awaking to our new life. Now, we could disappear into womanhood and leave the angst of gender problems behind us. I misjudged how, even now, I still feel angst at any kind of discrimination. I think back and wonder at how Amos and Andy were tolerated as being funny, even though they were an insult to many blacks. For me, guy in dress jokes are what upset me. It seems that whenever a comedian is stuck on trying to think up something funny, the guy in dress jokes get pulled out because they're "sure fire jokes." They'll always get a laugh. I sometimes wish that someone would form an anti-defamation league for TS's so that media could become more sensitive that this humor is painful to people like me. I realize I need to develop a thicker skin but I think, if Amos and Andy-type jokes can be stopped, why not guy in a dress jokes? Other days I feel less critical...I sometimes even laugh with them. I like that Jackie Gleason, when he was urged to put on a dress for comedy, thought it was stupid.
Contrarily, I saw a teenage boy the other day, sitting with a girl in a nearby restaurant booth. He had eye liner and, I have to admit, he looked wonderful. Perhaps, in the future, as his generation bends the rules, the world will get a little more free. And people will see TS's as just one of life's many wonderful variations, worthy of compassion, praise for bravery, and worthy of acceptance and respect. In scuba diving, I see so many variations of fish...in rainbows of colors. I'm not a beautiful fish but I "pass" quite well as an average woman...and that was my bottom line.
Please as you read the above, note what I said in the beginning. These are just my inner thoughts. I apologize if anything I said upset anyone...That is not the intent. I do not mean to annoy or insult anyone...Like me, I'm sure you've all been through a lot of angst. We don't need angry thoughts here in our place. By being open about our thoughts, maybe we can all grow to learn the variances of being transsexual. And I, too, am still learning...
