When Gender Transition Requires a Long, Strange Trip
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/07/30/when-gender-transition-requires-a-long-strange-trip/Amanda Hess
7/30/09
Suzanne Clayton, like many transgender women, finds the "journey" metaphor helpful in talking about her gender transition. Clayton lived 37 years as a man before coming out as female two years ago. Since then, Clayton's gender transition has required a good deal of internal navigation, but it has also resulted in more classic expenses: about $5,000 for travel and lodging.
Last week, she returned from her sixth excursion to Carrollton, Texas, where she receives electrolysis treatments on her face and body. She's traveled to Philadelphia four times in relation to her sex reassignment surgery. After nearly four decades of self-suppression, Clayton has amassed enough savings to make the procedures, and their travel budgets, possible.
