This is long - I apologize! But it's my personal dilemma condensed down as tight as it will go. So please, ladies, bear with me!!
Almost exactly a year ago, I finally admitted what I had truthfully always known, but for so, so hard to deny: I'm transsexual. And I would love to be able to transition. But what chance do I have of doing so successfully?
For someone my age – early 50s, but look younger – that's not easy. I have family who depend on me as a husband, father and breadwinner. Any decision I make affects them profoundly, so I can't necessarily do what I want if it's going to cause them unreasonable pain or wreck their standard of living.
Also, to state the obvious, I look like a guy. I'm 6ft tall. I have big male feet. And I sound like a guy, move like a guy and as far as the world is concerned act exactly the way they expect from a guy.
So I see a plastic surgeon who specialises in FFS and he says (pretty much his exact words), 'I can make you look very feminine, much younger and – if I may say so – much better looking.'
Well, plastic surgeons are the medical profession's answer to car salesmen. They'll say anything to get a sale. But when I see the virtual FFS pics, the results aren't at all bad. I'm not going to be on the cover of Vogue any time soon. But not a total embarrassment either.
I remind myself that Uma Thurman, Elle Macpherson and Brooke Shields are all my height and 40-plus. At 168lbs/76.4kg I am only fractionally heavier than the average British (and probably US) woman, and confidently expect to get below 160lbs. My wrists, shoulders and ribcage measurements are all well within female norms and I can reasonably expect a 29-inch waist with a combination of HRT and dieting. So far, so good.
Then I discuss my situation with a friend who is a doctor, working as a forensic pathologist in a New York City police lab: genuine CSI New York stuff. He is very sympathetic and supportive. But then – because I have asked him to be frank – he writes to me as follows ...
'You're a good-sized man, taller than most, solidly-built; there is nothing delicate or effeminate about you. I don't know how good current plastic surgery techniques are, but I think it will be very hard to just delete your maleness.
'I imagine that, as you change, the way you carry yourself will rapidly become feminized, but there's no real hiding your frame: I suspect from a distance, an average person would read you as "male", then have a period of cognitive dissonance as you came closer and they see you're dressed as a woman. Then he or she would look at you more carefully to reassure themselves as to your gender. If the surgeon is correct, and he can give you a younger, prettier face, then that average viewer will just assume that you're a larger woman - maybe an athlete.
'But you're a mannish man. Again, I don't know how realistically the surgeon can reshape your face, but I would find it hard to believe that he could make you "pretty". I imagine that he could make you passable, maybe even a handsome woman, but I suspect that there would be enough maleness left that a person talking with you would wonder if you were transgendered.
'But others will definitely know immediately that you used to be a man, and those others will be your friends and family. For us, in addition to any concerns about whether you look like a man or a woman, there'll be the dissonance of having known you as a man, and now meeting you as a woman. Some will embrace you immediately, others will never accept what you've done, but most will be in the middle, and will struggle over their own confusion and discomfort over your decision for a while before accepting you as you've become, and the longer people have known you, the longer it'll take them to adjust to your change, particularly. So, when you change, it'll be awkward (and that's a huge understatement).'
Well, I'm ready for awkward ... I think ... though it's easier said than done. But what I really want to know - from the experience of those who have walked or are walking this road ahead of me - is this: is he right? Is the best that one can hope for a kind of embarrassed, awkward agreement to go along with what is obviously something unnatural and inauthentic. Or can I hope for something more?
Just how much of a chance do any of us who transition late have of simply becoming regular, everyday women, in our eyes and those of the rest of the world?
