Hi there,
My name is Rachel and I'm a 24 year MTF transwoman. I was introduced to this little corner of the web by one of the members and thought to myself... "Why not?".
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And now you're stuck with me BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Here's a brief history on the universe... er me.
I had originally started writing a more in depth history of myself and it ended up being about 4500 words and not halfway finished... Its not quite finished nor would I ever post something that long without a bit of proofreading. So here is a much, much abridged version.
I struggled with myself for many years while growing up. When I started college things really went down hill and I was forced to deal with some of my issues. I ended up having to drop out at the end of my freshmen year because I was so depressed.
After further struggling with my depression and gender identity for the next few months after my freshmen year, I ended up finding a trans oriented website and got some help from some of the other members. This led to me start seeing a therapist to start dealing with my gender issues. After a bit of work there I was significantly less depressed but still quite sad and went on for the next few years of my life. I attempted transition a few times, but several severe bouts of depression and a hostile home environment made that significantly difficult and I was forced to hold off for the time being. This ended up being one of the better things that could have happened to me.
It wasn't until I was 21 where I really started working on getting at the some of the core issues (besides gender dysphoria) that really hurt. When those were relatively taken care of I started really turning my life around. I went back to school, I got a better job and I made new friends. I was happier than I had been in a long while, but part of me was still just wrong. People used to say to me, "You always seem so happy... but then you look into your eyes and just see sadness".
Thanks to my new job I had the finances to separate myself from my parents. Thanks to a fairly generous company health insurance policy I was finally to start my transition without worrying about money and with the supervision of an endocrinologist. In April of 2009, I began HRT, one of the major milestones in any transperson's journey.
I however, did not start living full time right away. I took things rather slowly. My thoughts were even if things were to be difficult, with the mind/body mismatch, I had been doing it for so long already and could live with it in the short term for long term benefits. Transition is a difficult path. If you can do something to make it easier, you should do it.
By September I was comfortable enough with my body to start going to school presenting as myself. With only a minor screw up by the teacher on the first day of the semester, I was not ridiculed, stared at or anything of the sort at any time during the semester. By the end of September I was virtually spending all my time while not at work as myself. Given that I was working around 45-50 hours a week at the time this ended up being about 50% of my waking time.
Around Thanksgiving the stress of switching back and forth from the mask of my former self to my true self was beginning to become unbearable. By that point I had been on hormones for 7 months and my body was developing accordingly. Hiding things was beginning to get rather difficult... wearing 2 sports bras that are a size to small for you gets really old really fast. I ended up letting my direct supervisor know about how I felt and about my transition. He didn't really blink much of an eye at it actually. We both agreed mutually that I'd come out at work when I had some kind of knowledge of when my identification would be changed.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a court date until December 30th. Even then it took nearly 3 weeks for the court to even schedule the date. These were probably some of the toughest times for me that I can remember. So close, yet so far away. Switching back and forth and knowing the end was in sight was terrible to wait through.
But finally the day came. On December 23'rd of 2009 I came out to the rest of my coworkers. My company is a rather small software company. We only had 12 employees at the time and I had a pretty good idea how everyone was going to react. The only person I was really worried about was the president of the company due to his age and some of the inappropriate comments he had made in the past regarding women. I ended telling him on the 22nd with the help of my supervisor. He was absolutely fine with everything. A huge burden had been lifted by just hearing his reaction... which I quote, "Oh thank god, I thought you were going to ask for a raise".
The next day the president of the company, my manager and I grabbed people in groups of 3/4 and told them what was going on. A few of my coworkers knew and helped out a bit. All in all no one reacted poorly. I left for lunch, went home, put on some gender appropriate clothes and some makeup and went back to the office.
That first day was kind of humorous... I had someone walk into a wall doing a double take. Not because I looked horrid... Au contraire... Some of them didn't recognize me at first and when they did, didn't believe I could have hid myself for that long. Our clients were rather amusing as well. For the first month, I basically had to pretend to be my own brother/sister over the phone. Some of our customers would only deal with certain technicians and a lot of calls ended up going as follows:
"Hi this is Rachel, what can I do for you today?
Can I speak to David (my old name). I only really work with him...
Are you sure? I'm his sister. I think I help you out...
*Insert generic customer whining here*
Ok fine... One moment.
Hi this is David...
Hey Dave how are you doing... so your sister started working there... she sounds cute....
Um..."
Or some basic variation of this. I actually had a customer insult David to Rachel.... That was amusing. All and all there weren't really any issues with my voice. Working as female didn't cause many issues either. There were a few times where I got quite angry for a male customer treating me like I was a moron, being quite rude and nasty about it, then talking to my "brother" and being perfectly polite. Or when a customer would get a little bit fresh and start making lewd comments... But really nothing my other female coworkers didn't have to deal with.
In February, my family situation improved quite a bit. From the time I was 18 until the time I was 22 my situation with my parents was very rough. They loved me, yet they were not ok with the choices I made and certainly not ok with me transitioning. There were many fights which usually ended up with me sleeping in my car and crying myself to sleep. Things had been improving for quite a while but were still difficult. I ended up skipping the winter holidays with them because of that. My parents knew what was up, but I really didn't want to deal with them. In the beginning of February my mom opened the lines of communication up and we started talking again. I didn't have to lie about transition anymore, because my parents already knew.
2 weeks later, I met my parents for the first time as myself. It was a bit of an emotional night to say the least for all involved parties. We ended up meeting at their house for dinner then going to a PFLAG meeting together which was extremely helpful for my parents. My mom ended up crying during the meeting, but I think it was a good way for her to release some emotion. She knew her son was gone and was mourning for him, but at the same time she was happy for her daughter. Since then, things have been going pretty well with them since then.
Don't get me wrong. There are still times when I want to kill them due to something they say or do, but I don't think I could do all I have done without their support and I love them for that. If you had asked me where my relationship would have been with my parents a year prior, I probably would have said we wouldn't be communicating and probably never would again. People can change or rather their opinions on things can change. If anyone has the opportunity to make amends with their family from a previously broken relationship... take it!
With my a renewed relationship with my parents, came a renewed relationship with my extended family as well. I ended up coming out via letter to my aunt's and uncles at my parents urging and for the most part received a positive response nearly immediately. From some of my mother's family we heard no response and really didn't know what to make of it. This was the side of the family that was way more conservative than other parts of the family. Not knowing their reaction was very scary.
My mother's family is all situated on the East Coast of the US so in the past we would spend major Christian holidays together (also helped since my dad's side is Jewish). That Easter, we were supposed to visit the family that did not respond to my letter, so we really had no idea what to expect. My cousin has been known for doing and saying really stupid things. He's 4 years older than I am and an ex marine. He doesn't really have whole lot of brain mouth filter. We were also very close when we were younger but after he hit 14 or 15 we really drifted apart. Knowing some of his past exploits I really was scared when I drove up to their house that Easter Sunday....
Was I going to get beaten? Was he going to say something really hurtful? All of these were possible knowing his past. But what happened was a shock. As I got out of the car he got off the hood of his truck and came over and said
"Come on over here... I want to give my cousin Rachel a hug. You never have to worry about me... I may have done some pretty stupid things in the past, but you're my family and I love you" This was quite a bit for me to take in and resulted in a few tears... but it just goes to show... You never know how someone will react.
This brings me about to the end of April. Prior to April I was working mostly tech support. I'm a computer science major and wanted to be a programmer at some point so occasionally some of the developers would give me little tools to write to make things a little bit easier on a day to day basis. One day they basically just offered me a junior development position. They gave me an opportunity to do what I wanted to do and I have been loving it ever since.
I only bring this up to make a point... A point about happiness. My job doing tech support was ok for a while... It paid well enough, but it really wasn't satisfying. Prior to transition it kept me busy for a little while, but after you do something once and can remember it, any mental effort used to figure out the same problem is close to nil. This can lead to some pretty shoddy work if you're not careful. After my transition things were the same, yet different. I was happier with myself and my work improved... yet it still wasn't satisfying. It took a bit of work to actually prove to the management that I could program at the level they needed. Earning that made me truly happy. Yes, it wouldn't have happened had my transition not occurred, but it wasn't a magic happy pill that some think it is.
And now back to your regularly scheduled introduction.
May brought more family reintroductions which all went well. My immediate family and the uncle's on my father's side of the family ended up going on a trip to Australia. When my dad around 10 years old, my grandmother and grandfather ended up getting divorced. My grandfather left the country and hadn't seen or heard from in close to 40 years. One day someone ended up doing a Google search and bam! (Emiril style) there he was. After about 2 years of communication we ended taking a trip to meet him.
This was my first experience with airline travel since going full time and I was a tad bit nervous. I got a new passport of course, though it still had M for gender. My mom freaked out a little and thought I should bring a copy of my old passport and show the customs and TSA agents that first. I probably would have way more problems if I had. That is to say, I had 0 issues in airports in 4 states, and 2 countries. Now whether I got lucky and they didn't bother to read the gender marker or the TSA has made strides in sensitivity training, I 'll never know.
In Australia I met my half aunt. She saw a family picture at one point with the old me, and was told ahead of time of my status, but other than a 2 minute conversation that I brought up verifying that someone had told her, that was the only time my previous gender was discussed by my Australian relatives the entire trip. It was nice to have a family relationship only be based on the present and not the past
My aunt also has a gorgeous 2 year old little girl... About a week prior to making the trip, endocrinologist added progesterone to my hormones. Progesterone has a lot to do with a girl's cycle and pregnancy... It also had the effect of putting my newly forming maternal instincts into hyper drive. Not that I'm complaining... but if you are starting hormones and are going to go on Progesterone just know that you may end up staring at the nearest baby or toddler for significant periods of time.
This leads me to the summer and now into the present. Life is good. Work is going extremely well, as is school. I've also started dating... which is a bit of a different experience. Sometimes its kind of difficult, but I'm happy
and that's what's important.
I've also aiming for an August timeframe for SRS/GRS. I've got my letters from my therapists and will be sending in my intake form to Dr. Mcginn after I've had a chance to speak a bit more with my mother. I am quite excited about that.
And just to make some points stick out. These are my opinions and you are welcome to them if you like.
- A support system is important. Family can be a great asset if they're on your side. Any opportunity to get them on your side should be taken
- People can change and they may surprise you. Don't write someone off as being a bigot until they've actually proven this.
- Transition cannot create happiness. If you imagine your life like a puzzle. Transition is just a single piece. While it may be a very big piece, its never the only piece.
- A journey begins with the smallest step. Take your time if you need to. There is no magic deadline! Transition is hard, make sure you're ready
PS... This is the abridged version... really it is.
I'm sorry... I really am! I swear I won't write another 2600 word wall of text... I promise!
