I knew when I was three... There I sat, on the floor under the grand piano in my maternal grandparents' house at the holidays, knowing that I was wearing the wrong clothes...I should have been in a frilly dress. But, I had to keep it a secret, everybody in the family being a Catholic, and wed to always judging others. I struggled through the years, occasionally cross-dressing when I was home alone.
I got out of there early, into the Air Force at 17...still hiding who I was. Got to Japan and watched some interesting people who were able to fluidly move between genders in that culture. Came back to the U.S., and started in the computer industry in 1962...and found my "income niche." I worked and worked at it, sublimating my true "self" at every chance, until it would breakthrough, and I would have to find some outlet.
Ultimately, I was very, very lucky. At the age of 32 I came under the care of a world-class psychiatrist to help me sort out all these feelings, desires, and needs (he later became a well-known teacher in his field), and made the decision that marked "BEFORE" and "AFTER." It was 1976, I was 35, and I was in a hospital bed recovering from the major surgery that I always knew I'd needed. It was a rough year of recovery, with lots of painful dilation, and medications, and doctor visits...but I came out as who I am today. I was a well-know writer in trade journals of my chosen career, and when I wrote a cover-to-cover issue of one of those magazines, with a new photo and a new name, it was my leap of faith into the essential goodness of the universe. What I found out was that people who valued and respected me were HAPPY for me...and the rest stayed away.
Over the years, I learned a lot about behavior (in a field called Neurolinguistic Programming; a sort of "applied practice" of therapy), and scaled it up apply to large corporations, and became a noted consultant to companies like IBM and Dupont and Intel...and lots of others. I built a high-paid career at a pivotal time--both in my life, and in the transitions that corporations were making from the old management models, and the Internet.
My choices in my intimate life have been varied: I engaged in deep relationships with both men and women, and eventually, in 1989 I met a wonderful woman to whom I've been a partner (and, later, married) to. She loves for who I am, and I love her for who she is, and we're always THERE for each other. When I have concerns about consequences of my life choices, she's the first one to support them; when I have concerns about whether to be private or open, she's the one to encourage me to open up. When she has medical issues, I devote everything I have to supporting her; and when I started chemotherapy six months ago, she was constantly at my side, at every doctors' visit. We still laugh every day, and hold hands while we watch TV at night.
So, I'm 75 years old now, and have crossed beyond the point where half my life was lived as a male. I am now a happy ole broad, with a wide circle of friends (all of who know; I make so secret of it), looking at the final years of my life with flair, and happiness, and a body I look at with marvel every morning, as I smile in the bathroom mirror. I am who my brains knew I should be come...and I knew it before I could read or write...and it's still as true today as it was when I was 3...but I now know I am happy because I CHOSE to be happy, as the woman I was destined to be. Happy, Elder, and still a profound Geek!
I can only hope for those of you who are just commencing this journey that you can be a committed to your own life, and it's fulfillment, as I have been...even those there was some in my history who were not willing or able to make the journey with me.
