It's been two years since I started this thread so I thought it might be helpful to give an update. Things do change as time goes on, and not always the way you'd expect.
My transition used to occupy every waking hour of my day. It was the very first thing on my mind on waking each morning, and the last thing as I drifted off to sleep at night. It was both a scary and joyous time of life. I loved knowing that I was finally free to be myself. I enjoyed feminine expression, and I was eager to transform my body to the female form. I had no doubts about the course I was taking.
Those early days were exciting and fulfilling. My social life blossomed as I got involved with the transgender community here in Chicago. My wife supported and accepted me. I reveled in a second puberty, feeling like I was a young girl totally at odds with my actual age.
I detached from my former gendered life. I changed my name on every source of mail, threw out or gave away my male clothes, began to celebrate my re-birthday, and refused to show people photos of the person who was quickly becoming a stranger to me.
I physically transitioned as fast as I could; facial hair removal Oct '14, FFS April '15, GRS Nov '15, and BA Nov '16. I drew on my retirement nest egg to pay for everything. Never once did I question whether the cost was worth it.
As I said, things change. Eventually, the euphoria that replaced the dysphoria began to subside. The focus of my life started to shift to things that had nothing to do with gender identity. My choices of clothing became more typical of other women. Makeup was taking 5 minutes to apply instead of 30. I stopped going to every trans support group meeting, and dropped out of one. I was settling into a new routine that was becoming increasingly comfortable and mundane.
I have a closet full of dresses and high heels that I haven't worn in more than a year. The core of who I've always been was reemerging from under a veil of uber femininity that I had wrapped around myself after years of being forced to fake a gender that never suited me.
We call transition a journey, and indeed it is. I've moved away from the trans community. The trans conferences, trans events, parades, etc. that I was once so enthralled with, seem out of place and irrelevant in my life today. I feel bad about it, in a way, but I realize that it was just a passing phase of my transition as transsexual woman.
Today, I live half the year in another state where there are no LGBT clubs, support groups, or other transgender people that I'm aware of. I live with my female partner in non-disclosure of my gender past. My friends there are cisgender people who seem perfectly comfortable with our same-sex relationship at social gatherings. Straight men don't shy away like they do where my past is open knowledge. It feels nice.
I've selectively preserved the parts of my past life that were real and meaningful while discarding those which were nothing more than male posturing. Lying by omission some would call it, but I see it as merely reinterpreting my past life in view of my true gender identity. For example, saying I was the only woman in my engineering class at college was true. I may have been gendered as a man, but I was always a woman in truth. I was the 'boy' my father always wanted in a family of girls. I made the best of it, and learned to do things that few girls have the chance to learn.
Amazingly, my life today is not much different than it was before. I changed my sex, I'm seen and treated as a woman, but I'm still me; just a prettier, weaker me who smiles when she sees herself in the mirror. I still do many of the things I did as husband. Except for sex, that is. I was never good at that anyway. The people that rejected me when I came out are forgotten. I don't feel the need to justify my decision to correct the course of my life. My only regret is that it took this long to find my place, but it's a regret I no longer dwell on. I've reached the end of my journey.
I realize how lucky I've been. Gender transition is hard, especially for those of us who transition late in life. I was lucky to have been able to afford the surgeries. I was lucky to find enough femininity beneath that testosterone-induced mask that misgendered me in the eyes of others and set for me a standard of behavior that I could never live up to.
The transphobes will continue to insist that I'm a man biologically and will always be a man, but it doesn't matter what they think. Fortunately, most of the people who knew me before are civil and respectful of my choice. I don't expect them to see me as a natal woman, because I'm not. But I am a woman, and am female in every way that matters. To have reached this point is, for me, the ultimate achievement as a transsexual woman. I'm going to make the best of it in the years that remain. I wish the same for each of you.
