I have frequently referred to my life attempting to pretend I was male as "Living in Stealth". i've compared it to being a bit like a spy, an undercover cop in the mob, or a Jewish person in Nazi Europe.
Just before my father died, I found out how truly accurate this description was. By the time I told my parents, the first time, I was about 6 years old. I was in tears because my mother had unlocked the bathroom door and saw me in her clothes. After she went to the bathroom, (which was why she unlocked the door, she came out and sat on her bed with me. I cried, telling her how much I wanted to be a girl. She seemed understanding and even took me shopping for a pair of tights.
A few days later, everything changed! They told me that I should never get dressed in public and I shouldn't tell ANYONE about wanting to be a girl.
It turned out that my mother had spoken to her therapist about the issue, and she was told by the psychologist that the "treatment" for transsexuals was daily electroshock for 30 days in a row, "Aversion Therapy" (torture), and if those failed, then lobotomy. There was not even the possibility of gender reassignment. Granted this was in 1961, nearly 8 years before Harry Benjamin wrote his study of transsexuals. Christine Jorgensen had written her book and her story had already been out for around 5 years. Still, the AMA and APA did not endorse SRS or even HRT. Doctors could lose their licenses and/or hospital privileges if they assisted a transition. Castrating a man was considered worse than giving a woman an abortion.
My mother had already been through daily electroshock - 3 separate 30 day treatments, of daily shocks. Back in those days, there was no anesthesia, no paralytic, and the patient was usually forcibly bound in 5 point restraints.
When I tried to bring it up with my father, he would tell me "I took a test in college and they told me I was 75% female". At work, however, he dead-ended his career by wearing a pink tie to work. He tried to encourage me to "pretend you're a boy".
Mom was even more covert. We began devising a code to let me know which clothes I could take and which ones I couldn't. She would tie a loose knot in her pantyhose, which meant I could wash them and then "throw them away". We also had a "goodwill pile" - from which I could take what I wanted.
Even when she found a stash of stuff that included a sexy teddy I really liked, she didn't get angry because I had the stash, she only got mad because I didn't ask for it and just stole it.
When I was 11, she began taking me shopping, and asked me to help her pick out clothes for her. She'd wear them once or twice then put it on the "goodwill" pile, from which i would take it. She even bought a pair of Go-Go boots she couldn't possibly wear because a polio operation had resulted in an ankle the size of a grapefruit. it was a miracle she could even get them zipped. Those actually ended up in my closet mysteriously. She even got a wig to cover a bad hairdo, even though she only wore it for about 2 weeks.
Due to asthma (stress aggravated), I was seeing a psychologist several times a week. When I tried to tell HIM that I wanted to be a girl, he said "we know, and you probably should be a girl, but we aren't allowed to talk about that". During a research study, they had put me with the girls' dorm house mother and my asthma improved so radically that they actually considered taking me out of the home. However, when they put me with the boys' dorm house mother, my asthma got so bad i almost had to be hospitalized.
I was a bit different, having undescended testes, I barely met the minimum requirements to be a boy. Even what I did have was significantly smaller than what other boys had. There is even a scar that seems to indicate surgery on my scrotum.
When I was 11, my testes dropped, and I wasn't happy about it. I knew that i would be changing into a man and it made me almost suicidal. By the time I was 14, i had a deep bass voice and became self-destructive, turning to recreational drugs, alcohol, and prescription drugs that led to a misdiagnosis of epilepsy. Before long I was drinking into black-outs where I either ended up in the coat room with my head between almost anyone's legs, or with everyone in the room ready to kill me and everyone I was with.
I tried to kill myself at least 40-50 times between high school and college. Attempts ranged from drug overdoses to playing matador with cars on a dark curvy road to eating 1/4 pound of glass chips and ground glass. Somehow, I survived. Ironically, even though I was seeing a therapist, each time I tried to bring up the transsexuality, they refused to even allow me to discuss it.
It wasn't until I was almost 25 years old and was working a 12 step program that I finally shared it with a sponsor as part of my 5th step that I got ANY feedback at all. Even then, it was very limited guidance. I told my girlfriend and when she seemed to accept it, I decided to marry her. I didn't find out until 12 years later that she never accepted, but she didn't want to lose me.
8 years, 1 marriage, and 2 kids later, we went for couples counseling. This time, my wife brought up the gender issues, and the therapist arranged a one-on-one. By the end he told me and my wife that I was a transsexual and would probably end up in an early grave if I did not transition.
I started transition and my wife and I got divorced. It was only when my wife threatened to have my visitation revoked, showing me a letter from a social worker advising that visitation be revoked or at least supervised, unless I stopped the transition, that I aborted the transition.
A 170 lbs, a heart attack, a stroke later, my father's death bed wish was "If I give you nothing else, be yourself, even if that's Debbie".
I've been in transition for over 2 years now, am living full time as female, and am happier and healthier that i have been in a very long time.
