Transition

 

For male-to-female transsexuals (MTF) - transitioning is the period when you stop living your every-day life as man and begin living it as a woman.  It sounds short and easy - what more can be said?  Actually, a quick search of the Internet reveals that a lot of girls have a lot to say!  For example, Calpernia Addams:

"I did feel like I went through puberty at age 24.  Learning to wear a bra, makeup, date boys, all that - everything other girls learn at age 13.  And we're alone.  Most of the time society hates us - people think we're freaks or whatever - so you're doing all this alone.  And it can be really hard."

For the vast majority of western MTF's, transitioning is in fact an enormous challenge, and probably the most stressful time of their life.  The former professional cyclist Robert Millar - a married man with a son - is an example of the real-world problems that transitioners face.  Friends became suspicious when the then 40-year old was seen in pigtails with a suggestion of breasts under his top.  One said, "Every time we meet him he seems to have a bigger chest, but he won't talk about it".  Two years later he - now she - moved town and changed her name to Phillippa York, leaving friends, family and son behind.

Emily De Salvo (formerly Stephano) failed to win a place at the prestigious Tito Schipa Conservatory as a male baritone. Following three years of vocal stretching exercises she succeeded at age 29 as a female soprano.  (Italy)

Transition is not a brief event.  I first posted this page in early 2001 - a few months after I had begun living and working as woman.  However, I was still far from comfortable with my new life and it was not until well in to 2003 that I stopped wondering if I had made a terrible mistake.  My transition spanned over 10 years - from first taking female hormones in May 1994 to having sex reassignment surgery in October 2004.   I could shorten the period by using numerous alternative key dates, for example the first day I lived full-time as a woman, gaining a female passport, the day I had an orchiectomy ... but none are really a better start or end point.

An attractive if obviously staged photo of Vicky  (formerly Victor) Eriksson after her transition age 16. (Sweden)

An important acknowledgment at this point - when I was transitioning I found Adele May's excellent The Bird Cage website to be a wonderful source of information and inspiration.  Sadly this site is now long gone, as are the short lived succeeding sites from the other side and Altered States that I suspect she web mastered.  I've taken the liberty of repeating here some sage words of advice that I gained from Adele's work.

Emel Aydan, was born in 1951 as Erdoğan Kaşif.  'Emel' translates roughly to 'Desire' in English, which may have assisted her subsequent post-transition career as a singer, show girl and actress.

A New Name
One of the biggest considerations when transitioning is selecting a new name.  This will be 'set in stone' as you introduce yourself with the new name, ask embarrassed friends and family to use it, change bank details and documents, and submit it to government bodies.

1. Make it easy for family and acquaintances by selecting a feminised version of an existing Christian name, e.g. Jack to Jackie, Charlie to Charlotte, Terry to Terri, George to Georgina, Bob to Bobbie, ... 
   or
2. Emphasise your new female identity by selecting a common female name that has no relationship to your previous Christian name e.g. Liam to Emma, William to Ava, James to Sophia, Simon to Anne, ...

Ava Glasscott came out as a girl age 12 and transitioned age 15.   Shown age 32, after SRS.

The first approach helps avoid the situation of someone calling you by your name repeatedly, but you not reacting.  A very possible scenario after a few glasses of wine late at night!

The second approach has the advantage that it aids stealth.  For example, someone searching for you on Google using the name is unlikely to get relevant hits.

Of course, a third option is to make clear the dramatic change in your life and select an exotic girls name that you just like - Aoife, Eibhleann, Orlaith ... . But the challenge then is to remember how to spell and pronounce it!

A feminine physical appearance is - unavoidably - a very large step towards passing.  (Gabrielle Schaffer)

Documents
A high priority task in every transwoman's transition is changing as much documentation and as many records as possible to reflect your new name and sex.  But be careful, if your documentation states that you are female then a female appearance helps a lot - whatever the law says.  For example, a transitioning transwoman changed her bank account to her new female identity but when she subsequently visited a branch to make a transaction the staff suspected that she was a man impersonating the account holder and blocked all access to her bank accounts.  It took weeks to resolve the issue.

I've included in a separate page here some information (mostly derived and updated from Adele's original and now off-line work) about how to change your name and documentation during the transition in the UK and Ireland.  However much of the information is became out of date in 2004 with passing of the Gender Recognition Act.  This established a Gender Recognition Panel which makes it immensely easier to get documents changed and re-issued to reflect a legally adopted female name and a change of sex, also the level of evidence and representation required has become less onerous and pre-SRS women are also often accepted. 

A transwoman doing her make-up.  Girls practice this from a young age and it can present an immense challenge to some transitioning women.  Of necessity, their make-up often rapidly improves.

In the UK, if granted a full gender recognition certificate by the Gender Recognition Panel, it is now even possible for transsexuals to get a new birth certificate reflecting their gender.  In a UK context the next item that you should change is your passport, armed with this (which has a photo) it's then much easier to get other key documents and records quickly changed.

Beginning to Pass as A Woman
Although my viewpoint offends some people, I personally suggest that for most MTF women an ability to pass consistently as a woman is essential if they are to enjoy a successful and happy post-transition (and post-SRS) life, with little or no regrets about their actions. 

The challenges involved with transitioning are immense, just one small example is that girls practice their make-up from as young as age 2.  By age 16, most girls will have spent many hundreds of hours on this, a male-to-female transsexual transitioning as an adult will probably have only spent a tiny fraction of that time.  This presents an immense challenge, although most transwomen will have vastly improved their make-up a year after transition.

A few lucky boys look like a girl long before they transition.

But the good news is that you can stack the odds in your favour.  Just fifty years ago only a very small percentage of adult men could in truth live and pass convincingly as a woman; nowadays a transitioning MTF transsexual woman can improve her percentages considerably.  Some physical characteristics (height, hands, feet, ...) remain almost impossible to change, but the modern transsexual woman has an enormous battery of weapons that allow her to feminise many of her other characteristics.  For example, good quality silicone breast forms and mastectomy bras are available for as little as £200 ($300) which bestow on a [clothed!] transwoman breasts whose appearance and movement are totally indistinguishable from a natal woman.

In general, my own advice is if that you can afford them and need them, then use them:- hormones, breast augmentation surgery, a 'nose job', additional facial feminisation surgery, hair transplants, electrolysis, skin peels, liposuction, etc, etc.  But a very serious proviso is to always seek good quality professional medical advice, care and treatment - you get what you pay for and skimping is big mistake.  To the physical changes you can add valuable aids such as voice training, deportment lessons, grooming tuition... even cookery lessons (really, they were a great laugh!). 

Make up presents an immense challenge to transitioning transsexuals, however poorly padded bra's are easier to avoid with advent of silicone inserts!

Assuming that physically you are reasonably feminine in appearance, then passing then often becomes all about the small things - things that are second nature for someone brought up as girl but entirely strange for a man - and things that Hollywood often has a field day over when a man impersonates a woman in a comedy. 

For example, personally I physically have too many "male" appearing characteristics for comfort - I'm quite tall (5ft 9in), have broad shoulders, large feet (size 8 UK), a thick neck, and a boyish waist.  I will for the rest of my life be slightly worried about people (particularly strangers) instinctively classifying as a man based upon a first impression of physical characteristics.  For me, maximising my chances of making an immediate female impression means that I've learnt to emphasise some factors of my appearance: staying slim, a substantial bust, figure flattering clothes, suitable hair style, a good and very fair complexion with relatively light make-up, and an appropriately female (but not exaggerated) posture and manners.

 

In Between Two Stools
My long second puberty - the period from when I first took hormones in May 1994 (still in my 20's) until I started to live full time as woman in December 2000 (mid-30's) - was difficult and hard.  When still supposedly a "man" I worried about how people would take some of my oddly feminine characteristics.  For instance, questions I faced included:

• How do I explain my shaved legs and plucked eyebrows?
• How do I react to jokes about my "man boobs"
• Dare I go to a doctor?
• How do I react to comments about my pierced ears?
• How do I avoid being seen topless? (e.g. at a pool party) 

You have no choice - you love these!

While as a woman (pre or post-transition) I faced new problems like:

• Do I have facial hair or a shaving rash visible?
• How do I react to a groping or over-forward man?
• How do I react to children and babies?
• At security checks, will the guard discover anything unusual?
• Sharing a changing room with other women.

 

Transition
A man trying to "pass" as a woman faces a constant and often high-risk challenge and obstacle course.  It is one thing to dream about being a woman, to actually try to live as a woman is quite another.

It's a real "chicken or the egg" situation - you can't successfully pass as a woman until you've lived as a woman, but you can't successfully live as a woman until you can pass as a woman!  It's also very hard to go to work and be accepted there as a woman until "being a woman" - with all its many downsides as well as upsides - becomes at least second nature. 

Before I transitioned I always worked as a man and largely socialised as a man.  However there were increasing periods between age 21 and 33 when I also socialised as a woman - Toni, later Annie.

I found that it was much easier for people who had only met me as "Annie" to accept me as a woman (even if they knew that I was a transsexual) than people who previously known me as a man.  When I finally came out to my family it was obvious that while trying to be supportive they had problems adjusting, although the passage of time helped a lot and my mother was always generally supportive.

When I transitioned I was reasonably confident about my appearance and dress, but was also very aware that my instinctive reactions and manner might differ from those expected of a woman.  For several months, every time I appeared in public or had to interact with someone, I felt that I was still "acting" a female role.

However, under pressure (near panic!) the human being is an amazingly quick learner.  A few months after transitioning my instincts had become 'female'.  I still caused slight puzzlement occasionally, usually due to a strange ignorance, but it was getting rarer and more trivial. 

Surgery
Very few transitioning transwomen don't have some surgery.  By a large margin the first surgery sought by all transsexual women is breast augmentation - requests varying from slight augmentation in order to reach a very natural looking B cup, to porn star "balloons".   

Facial feminisation surgery (FFS) is often the next priority.  Prior to about 1995 this really just meant a nose job (rhinoplasty), but progress since then has been extraordinary.  For transwomen with deep pockets, and willing to stand the pain, an acceptably female - even attractive - face is often only a large cheque away.
 

Cadence Matthews, she (or perhaps her family) spent a lot of money on her FFS when she was just 22.

Sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is usually but not always the last item on the surgery list.    There are many reasons for this, e.g.:

• The cost and medical risks associated with the surgery

• Even after transition, some transgender women still sexually enjoy having a penis

• The woman's libido is so low that sexual intercourse is no longer desired

• The financials gains from prostitution as a shemale

 

The Cost of Transition
Transitioning often has many serious non-monetary costs, e.g. the loss of life-long friends and the rejection by one or both parents.  But the financial cost is often the most immediate disaster.

Rodrigo Lopes is one example.  Age 23 he stared in the 2009 UK edition of the TV reality show Big Brother.  After emerging from the show she transitioned to Rebekah Shelton but found it impossible to earn a living.  In desperation she resorted to prostitution to fund her breast augmentation (2012), SRS (2014) and facial feminisation surgery (2015).

Rebekah Shelton, age 26 after transition but before any surgery. The blond hair extensions and make-up are key to instantly identify her as a woman.

For me, transition had a devastating financial cost - my income dropped enormously.  In the year 2000 - just before my transition - I was working as a man as a consultant on a tax-free salary of roughly £50,000/$75,000 at the contemporary exchange rate.  I then had two short terms jobs of ever decreasing wages, before hitting a low point when thirteen months later I briefly worked as a Teacher's Assistant for what would have been just €10,000/$10,000 in a full year.  There has since been a slight improvement as I rebuilt my CV, and in 2004 I was delighted to accept a full-time job as a Sales Assistant at €22,000/$25,000 a year.  Thanks to several promotions this increased to €32,000/$40,000 (before tax) by 2010, although still less than half what I had been earning a decade earlier allowing for inflation. 

Although my income collapsed, some outgoings increased massively during and after my transition.  Between December 2000 and July 2004 I spent £11,000 / $17,000 on doctors, hormones, laser hair removal, breast augmentation, orchiectomy (not SRS!) and a few other bits (blood tests, skin peel,  dermatology).  That excludes other associated costs such taking as days off work and travel expenses. Also the added financial cost of simply living as a woman was extraordinary.  By 2002 I was totally broke and to help identify potential savings I kept detailed records of all my expenditure.  I found that I was spending at least €200 / $240 a month on clothes, make-up, hairdresser, etc, and that really was an absolute minimum. 

The exact financial cost of my transition is impossible to calculate but from rough calculations I expect that if I had continued to endure living as man, my bank account would be least £20,000 / €25,000 / $30,000 better off every year due to higher earnings and lower essential expensiture.

In 1998 Carlos Roberto Paz Wells became at age 38 Veronica Paz Wells, an ex-husband and father of a daughter.  Many transsexuals only face their gender dysphoria when they hit middle age and transitioning is very difficult.

The term "cost" can have other meanings as well.  Almost all women instinctively make a huge investment in both time and money on their appearance (i.e. improving their beauty and attractiveness to men) because that's what society expects and that's how they've been brought up.  As a man I guess I used to spend about 20-30 minutes a day showering, shaving, dressing, etc.  When I first transitioned I had to get up (in England in January!) at 5:00 am so that I had two hours to get myself ready for work.  I'm considerably more efficient and practiced now (standard mascara and lipstick in a minute), but I still spend at least one hour a day on my grooming, and on top of that there's the gym, the dieting, the shaving, the Hair Salon ... while preparing for a big night out can dominate my life for days.  Personally I don't like some of these aspects of womanhood, although I know that many women enjoy their daily beauty routines.  However the constant worry over my appearance is something that I've had to learn to live with and cope with. 

Two teenage sisters, born boys.

Shopping is yet another gobbler of time and money, half days off work and late night shopping trips with friends dissolve in to over stretched credit cards and aching feet.  But the compensation is a unique  relationship that no men [want to] experience, and long and insightful chats over a tea or even a glass of wine. 

 

For many transwomen, transitioning age 30 is a a case of being almost but not quite able to pass.

The March of Time
I mention elsewhere on this site that the passage of time works against the transsexual woman.

Transgirls who begin hormones and transition as a teenager have a good chance of passing as female without any surgery; transwomen who transition in their 20's can often pass after some medical treatment;  whilst sadly those who transition in their 40's or later are rarely able to pass even after very extensive plastic surgery - Caitlyn Jenner being a high profile example - her facial feminisation surgery alone is reported to have cost cost $70,000.

A 36 year-old post-SRS transwoman.  Very passable in this particular photo.

Caitlyn Jenner, she had SRS age 65, shown age 67.  Realistically she can't pass as a woman among strangers.

Transwomen in their late 20's and early 30's face an agonising "if only" situation.  When I transitioned, the first year was very very tough.  But to a degree, time then actually starts to work in favour of the transitioned woman who sticks with it.  Actions, responses, motions, stories, even feelings, that start off requiring conscious thought eventually become automatic. with experience.  I'm also certain that the effects of many years of hormones and later an orchiectomy slowly worked on my mind and body in many subtle ways: fat thighs and cellulite, an inability to do simple DIY tasks, crying for days when a hamster died, ... a growing obsession with my nails!  Looking at old photo's has become like looking at a stranger. 

Photo's of Erin's journey from a 18 year old boy to a 22 year-old pre-SRS woman.
After two years on hormones she had breast augmentation surgery.

For older women in particular there seems to be a divergence between intension at and the reality a few years afterwards.

Some transwomen would prefer having a natural looking vulva area or a sensitive clitoris over good vaginal depth, for sexual reasons that include lesbianism and masturbation desires. 

 

My Experience....

Swimsuit Time After long practice it takes only seconds to get my bottom ready to go out - the penis (shrunken and placid from hormones) is simply pulled back and held in place by a small piece of duck tape.  In these photos superglue has also been used to create the impression of a vulva - for a few minutes!    Wearing the swimsuit.

It's Physical
When I transitioned, people who knew my background often had an all too obvious furtive interest in my physical appearance - crutch, bust, skin, feet, hair ... - it was all being checked out.

A particularly bad problem during my early months after transition was beard growth and a beard rash.  I undoubtedly should have sought laser treatment for this before I transitioned, rather than after.

In my experience, transitioning and passing successfully is rather like sitting on large scales.  You start off with the male side the heavier and dominant, you keep on adding weight to the female side but it doesn't seem to make much difference - the male side is still "heavier" and people still identify you sooner or later as a man.  12 months after transitioning, I was close to despair; I had been out'ed in three jobs, the last of which was a particularly bad experience.  I began to seriously wonder if I was doing the right thing.

But keep adding the weight to scales and eventually adding just another a small feather to the female side makes it the heaver and the scales swing over - suddenly people are consistently identifying you as a woman.  It took about 18-24 months, two operations, three moves and four jobs for the scales to finally tip for me, but suddenly I realized that I was comfortably "passing as a woman" [a truly horrid term] day after day in a largely female work environment - something that simply hadn't been possible a few months earlier - and my confidence soared.  The feathers falling on the scales of my passability were individually light, but cumulatively they had finally reached a critical weight:- I instinctively touched-up my make-up every hour; my beard had gone; my hair lasted the day; I flirted as needed; I could often go a day without laddering my tights; my dress sense began to be quite fashionable! 

Two year after transition, thanks to necessity and experience, I finally reached the point where I was confident that I would be perceived as a woman by a new acquaintance.  That made me start to dream about going "stealth", I hated the feeling of being constantly under examination by everyone (even family) as a transsexual woman.  My body, hair, appearance, manners, make-up, voice, movements ... I knew that they were all up for discussion when I was not about. 

A Girl's Education
A few months prior to my transition, I went on holiday as a woman.  This was a rather traumatic experience in which I discovered that my ability to pass in a bar or night club did not translate in to 7x24 full-time passability.  In addition to some problems about my physical appearance, I was just not thinking and behaving like a girl automatically.  Without the immersive experiences of a female childhood and up-bringing, I was still lacking essential instinctive traits and habits.  I had to work hard to gain these, carefully observing and studying other girls and women.  I inevitably used my last girlfriend as a role model, we lived together for nearly three years and in the last few months I began to imitate her behaviour to an extent that she disliked.

Reading women's and teenager magazines also became very important in helping me develop a female sexual orientation and point of view.  I can certainly recommend teenage magazines for advice on shopping, fashion and popular culture, and for plenty of tips on sex and love for the inexperienced heterosexual girl.  My favourite magazine was 19, which is slightly more mature than Bliss or Sugar, but far more entertaining and enjoyable than the likes of Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan.

Two transgirls in their 20's.  Youth and ruthless dieting aids passability immensely - but this is hard to maintain in to 30's, 40's ... and beyond.

Weight
Perhaps one of the hardest mental battles I've fought since my transition is the battle of the waist line.  Between 1997 and 2000 I put on a full stone (14lb, or over 6kg)!  The increase was perhaps partly an age factor, but also one of the feminising effects of oestrogen is to increase subcutaneous fat deposits, which inevitably means a gain in weight if counter-measures aren't taken.  Before my transition in late 2000 I made a determined effort to get my weight back down to 10st (140lb or 63½kg) - acceptable for my height of 5 feet 9 in.  The constant challenge since then has been keeping it there. A particularly difficult challenge was switching from a bottle of lager to a Perrier water with a dash of orange juice when on a night out.  

Although I'm far less rigorous than I used to be (my 6:00 am workout is ancient history), on weekdays I do alternate between a jog on my running machine and a video based fat burning session.  Saturday is my off day, but every Sunday morning I go swimming for an hour.  Minding what I eat is also important, although I'm now just habitually careful rather than rigorously dieting. 

Keeping my weight down will never be easy but ironically a very helpful factor is the much-maligned social pressure on women (from my fiancée, other women, the media, ...) to stay slim.  Also, I know from bitter experience that I only need to slip for a few weeks (aka when on holiday) and my weight soars again. 

Gossip and Maintaining a Consistent Story
In my first two jobs post-transition only one or two people supposedly knew of my transsexuality when I started.  Optimistically I hoped that this information would remain confidential (as they had promised) - I was fooling myself.  A combination of marginal passability and staff gossiping was a disaster which led to me to leaving jobs in tears. 

One of my biggest problems I still have (like many transsexuals) is that some people know my background while others don't.  Having the two groups mixing invites a public disaster, so when my darling arranged a surprise birthday party for me I nearly killed him!  It was the worst party of my life as a I  could never relax in case those "in the know" accidentally gave something away to those who didn't.

Another nightmare is that over many months I've often have had to make up things on the fly to tell people who don't know of my transsexuality (particularly my colleagues at work) which I've since forgotten, and thus I may contradict myself in another spur of the moment situation.  Lacking "Total Recall", there's always the chance of later being caught on one small point that someone thought strange or remarkable at the time and remembered.  One or two minor gaffes can be laughed off or the other person made to doubt his/her memory, but eventually people may start to wonder what's going on. 

Memories

A significant problem as a transsexual woman is that you may eventually get caught out contradicting yourself on some small point.  That risk will always be there, but transwomen going deep stealth undoubtedly slightly adjust their childhood memories, e.g. recollections of their first "boyfriend" become totally ingrained in your memory after a while, and the responses and comments are automatic and very convincing. 

I have many stories about my transition that are very easily adapted to a late and slightly drunken night with the girls... the Arab in the Night Club who simply wouldn't give up telling me how beautiful I was; the mysterious disappearance of my bikini top; the night when I started to walk home as I couldn't get a taxi and a guy in a BMW stopped and give me a lift; my first mammogram ...

A critical part is feed-back and support.  When I moved in with my boyfriend (about a year after my transition), we had a "honeymoon" period lasting a few days, and then it became tougher - for example I soon felt that I was the lackey on which all household chores fell. 

Marriage and Children
As a woman in my mid-30's, I was under constant pressure from uninitiated [and married] friends and acquaintances to marry my increasingly long-term boyfriend.  By the time we did tie the knot (overcoming a mass of legal and religious hurdles), I was in my late 30's.  I then faced intense pressure to have children - hints and reminders that my biological clock was ticking and that I should have children before it was too late were constant.   In some countries this would not be a big problem, but in parts of Ireland it's still fairly unusual.  Barring some dramatic medical development this was clearly impossible, and for a while I actually toyed with the idea of having a fake pregnancy and miscarriage!