Come out, come out wherever you are...

There are a lot of good, practical reasons that we keep our status as TG a secret, most of them based on fear: fear of being disowned by our parents and fear of being shunned by our families. Fear of losing our jobs and our insurance. Fear of being abandoned by our friends and ridiculed in public. Fear of being attacked and beaten, or worse.

But tonight I found the best reason of all to come out.

It's hard for us to be friends with those who don't know about us. We can't go out to dinner with them and enjoy ourselves. We can't discuss our love lives and our latest shopping finds, or talk on the phone all night about the important things in life. Not when everything about us, even our appearance, would be a lie.

We each tend to have one or two close friends that we've come out to, and others in the TG community (if we're lucky enough to live somewhere that has one). But what do we do when our one or two friends are busy, when they're out on dates or visiting family? When there's no one to go out to the TG bar with? And there's no support group meeting until next weekend?

We sit at home and think about how wonderful it would be if everyone knew and accepted. If we could go to a movie or a bar or the grocery store without worrying about being outed. If we could call up our best friend from high school days and just say, "Wanna talk?"

So we slowly plan how to tell this person, what to say to that person. We fret over the exact wording of the letter to send to our ex-wife or our colleagues at work. And we have hope that they will accept us.

We know that not all of them will, but the possibility of having a few that do makes all the difference in the world.

We come out because it's damn lonely keeping it to ourselves.

"You like me, you really, really like me!"

About a hundred years ago, when I still thought I could be a guy, I had a relationship with a woman who ...well, let's just say she had a lot of problems.

Foremost among those problems was the fact that she had a long history of dating real scumbags. Not just your everyday scumbags, you understand; real grade-A, foul-mouthed, violent-drunk, steal-your-money-and-wreck-your-car jerks. She told me more than once that I was the only 'normal' guy she had ever dated. Little did she know...

Anyway, I tried several times to get her to explain what it was about these guys that had attracted her. She was never really able to put her finger on it until one day she said, "I've got it. What attracted me was the fact that they really seemed to like me."

Needless to say, she had some self-esteem issues. But I thought of her one night recently when I was out at a TG club.

I had a couple of guys hitting on me and the overblown compliments were flying every which way. I thought to myself, "Come on, guys... I'm not going to fall for this stuff. I lived as a guy myself, remember? Besides, I'm not even really attracted to men." And yet...

I found myself starting to think, "Hmm. This guy isn't really so bad; he certainly seems nice enough, and he really does seem to find me attractive..." Then it hit me. I finally understood what my old girlfriend had meant.

For her, the fact that a guy seemed to like her and find her attractive played on her general self-esteem problems. For me, it played on my own insecurities about appearance and passability and "fitting in".

Am I really so shallow that all it takes to get me going is to tell me how nice I look and how attracted you are to me?

I guess in some ways we are as vulnerable as that old girlfriend of mine. We may place a high value on ourselves as people, but we're still insecure about our place in society. Anything that appeals to that is extremely attractive.

We have to be careful.

Them Changes

Another milestone passed today; I had my three-months-into-HRT followup with my doctor (it's actually closer to 3 1/2 months, but this was the first date I could get an appointment).

He started with a lot of questions about possible side effects: Any dizziness? Trouble urinating? Nausea? The list went on for ages... the only thing I had had was some fairly minor leg cramping at night, and that was only for the first few weeks.

He took blood for testing, mainly for liver function and that sort of thing. He suggested we wait until the six-month followup to do a full blood hormone level test. My body is probably still making adjustments, and by six months things should have settled into a pretty stable state (hormonally, that is), and we can look at the levels then and make any dosage adjustments that may be needed. I'm doing really well, he said; if I had had problems, or if the HRT had been ineffective, he would have suggested doing the full test now to see what's going on.

There was only one big surprise: I thought sure I had gained weight since I started in December; I had shed almost 40 pounds in the six months before that, and seriously doubted that I would stay at that weight with all the changes that have been going on. To my amazement (and delight!), I had somehow managed to drop another 8 pounds!

This seems a good time to look back at all the changes that have occurred in just 3 months...

I've kept track of my measurements since beginning HRT, and the changes have been pretty dramatic. My bust has increased an inch and a half, hips have gotten 3 inches larger, and my ribcage has actually decreased by almost an inch (though I have no idea how that is even possible). I've also lost an inch from my biceps. Interestingly, I've managed to get three-quarters of an inch shorter.

My hair has gotten noticably thicker. There is a lot of new growth, about 2 1/2 inches long, among the longer hair. The thin spot at the crown of my head has begun to go away. I now have hope of being able to dump my wig eventually!

The strangest and most unexpected change has been in my eye color. I've always had dark brown eyes, but now there is a ring of light grey around the outside of the iris, and it's getting wider. Could I eventually have grey eyes?

The changes haven't all been physical. I was always one to keep my emotions in check, to hold back and not put myself "out there", so to speak. Now I feel much closer to people, and if there's something even remotely touching about a song or a movie, I'm instantly in tears. Before, I would avoid anything that might really touch me; today it feels good to let go and let the emotion sweep over me.

Just before I started, a friend said, "Girl, you are in for the ride of your life!" She was certainly right.

Blasting My Face With Laser Beams

There seems to be a lot of interest in laser hair removal right now, and as I recently had my first session, I thought I would describe it.

I decided on Laser Lovers in Gulfport, Florida. The decision was an easy one for me; I've known Jennifer (co-owner with her partner, Sandra) for some time now. Most of the people I know who have had laser have had it done there, and they all give the place high marks. I like the fact that they have a lot of experience with transgendered clients, and the idea of supporting a TG owned business appeals to me.

I began with a free consultation in which Sandra took a brief history and did a few test spots just below my jaw line to see how my skin would tolerate different power settings, and to give me an idea of what it was going to feel like. We discussed prices and a schedule, and I left anxious to get started.

It really wasn't all that uncomfortable, similar to having a rubber band snapped against your face. I never saw any redness, and there was never any peeling or blistering. I think this was due to two facts: their laser sends out a jet of cooling gas onto the skin immediately after the laser pulse, and Sandra knows what she's doing!

The plan we arrived at was to alternate between doing the whole face & neck and doing just the goatee area. The lip and chin are apparently the most stubborn area for most people, and doubling up there would make for faster progress. The cost was to be $100 for just the goatee, and $250 for the full face and neck (this included a "family" discount; see, there really is an advantage to using a TG business!). Alternating sessions would be scheduled 4 to 5 weeks apart.

A few weeks later there was still no sign of any adverse reaction to the tests, and the area tested was completely free of any hair. I scheduled my first session.

I decided to start with the goatee area only, mainly because I had just paid off a few things and money was tight (isn't it always?). I arrived Saturday at 10 am, and we began just a few minutes later.

I was warned that this session would probably be one of the worst, as the lip and the area immediately below the nose is extremely sensitive. I donned the protective goggles and we got started.

It was worse than the test spots we had done before, but it wasn't horrible. The cooling blast from the laser dissipated the heat almost immediately, and by the time it started to get really uncomfortable, the lip was done. Sandra handed me a frozen water balloon to roll around on my face, and it felt really good. A few minutes later, we started on the chin.

It wasn't as bad as the lip, but there was more of it to do. Again, by the time it started to get a bit much, it was done. A few more passes of the balloon and all was well.

The whole thing was over in about 15 minutes. I paid the bill and was reminded to wear a 30 SPF sunscreen on the area for a few days to prevent hyperpigmentation; with some people, the area is extremely sensitive to sun for a while, and it can darken with too much exposure.

Once again, any redness there might have been was gone by the time I got home, and the only lingering effect was that I felt like I had a mild sunburn for a couple of days, especially right along the jawline under the chin.

Within a week, the hairs had begun falling off my face, and by the end of two weeks there was almost nothing left. Now, almost 4 weeks later, there are only a few hairs growing on my chin, and none on my lip. I can only hope that the next session works as well!

There really is a noticable difference, especially along the lip. Even shaving as closely as possible, there are always the dark ends of hairs visible in the pores, but now there is nothing. The skin looks and feels smoother. It's an odd and wonderful feeling to touch your lip after not shaving for 24 hours and feel nothing! I can't wait for the whole face to be like that.

My next session is in a week and a half.

It's Not About Sex

This post was originally made on my Yahoo blog on March 22; I've added it here in the interest of keeping all my TS related writing in one place.

"Being transsexual is not about sex."

People hear this and are simply unable to understand how it can be so. If you want to change your sex, then it's about sex, right? Well, no.

(Note: this is written from the point of view of a male-to-female transsexual. I believe that the situation is similar for the female-to-male TS, but I can only speak from my own experience.)

A widespread though long-discredited theory states that transsexuals are gay men who want to be able to have sex with other men without the stigma of being gay. Looking at this closely, it's easy to see why it's wrong. Let's take it one step at a time.

First, even if it was true at one time (which it wasn't), today the stigma of being gay is much less than it was years ago. Gay people are now accepted by a large part of society; indeed, if popular culture is any sort of indicator, it's the hip thing to be! Transsexuality has a much greater stigma; while discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal in many areas, acceptance of discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression is still widespread.

Second, there are probably just as many transsexual women who are attracted to women as there are those who are attracted to men. They want to be women, yet are only attracted to other women; by definition, this means that they want to transition from being straight men to being lesbian women! Doesn't sound like they're trying to avoid any stigma. Or trying to attract men!

Third, if the point of transsexuality is sex, does it make any sense to put yourself in a position which inherently limits the number of potential partners?. Gay men for the most part have no interest in transsexual women; they like men! And most lesbian women aren't interested in transsexuals either. Most straight men are uncomfortable with the idea of having sex with a woman who used to be a man (tranny chasers notwithstanding), and straight women are not generally interested in someone with a vagina, or a penis rendered largely ineffective by hormones.

Obviously the need to transition is stronger than considerations of sex; we transition in spite of the effect it has on our sex lives, not because of it.

So why? Why do we need to transition? Why would a man want to become a woman if it's not to get men?

The two key words in the last sentence are "want" and "become". We don't want to become women; we are women and need our bodies to reflect that fact.

You hear many transsexuals talking in terms of having a birth defect; they are women who were unfortunate enough to be born with the wrong genitalia. They do not consider themselves to have a psychological disorder. They have a physical affliction that can be corrected with hormones and surgery. Any psychological issues such as depression are a result of the incongruity between our true gender and our appearance. As Felicity Huffman's character Bree Osborne says to a psychologist in the film Transamerica, "Don't you find it odd that plastic surgery can cure a mental disorder?"

Still, we go along with this idea of Gender Dysphoria, or Gender Identity Disorder, because that is the umbrella under which treatment is available. Those are the rules of the game, so we play by the rules, whether we believe in them or not.

An Introduction

Hello, I'm Annie.

I'm a graphic artist, a writer, and a transsexual. It's that last part that I'll mostly be talking about here.

I've known since childhood that there was something different about me, and over the years it became clear what the problem was: I had been born with the wrong plumbing. Despite my wishes and feelings, testosterone had its way with me; as puberty set in, I became more and more male in appearance. Inside however, I was still a girl.

Every day I would wake up hoping that when I looked in the mirror, I would see my true self; that the big mistake would somehow have corrected itself. It never happened.

Of course, to the rest of the world I was a guy, with all the expectations that go along with that. I soon learned that failing to live up to those expectations of attitude and behavior would cause me to be hated and vilified, and even punished. I was a quick study; in no time, I became very good at pretending to be someone I wasn't.

Eventually, though, I came to a point at which I couldn't go on. Living the lie was destroying me inside; I could never become really close to anyone, and looking in the mirror each day was torture. I had only two choices: watch myself die, or take steps to become the same person on the outside as I was on the inside.

That point came not quite a year ago. I researched what could be done, and how to go about doing it. I began counseling with a transgender therapist. I started Hormone Replacement Therapy (it's funny; HRT usually means replacing the hormones that are lost when a woman reaches menopause, but in the case of a transsexual, it means replacing testosterone with estrogen and progesterone!).

Laser therapy is getting rid of my facial hair. I never had any body hair to speak of; God bless genetics. I'm re-training my voice; this may be the most difficult part of the whole transition. I have begun obtaining documentation in my new name, a long process, with the legal name change still being several months away.

At this point, I am female everywhere except at work; in Florida, there are no legal prohibitions against employment or housing discrimination against the transgendered. If my employers don't like it, they can fire me on the spot, so I am hiding it as long as possible. I really need the job and the insurance. At the rate my body is changing from the HRT, I probably won't be able to hide it much longer, though!

I suppose I've rambled long enough for this first post; I'll be back as events (and my thoughts) warrant.