Preface to this Page: |
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:
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 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.
A New
Name
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!
Documents 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 However much of the information is became out of date in 2004 with passing of the Gender Recognition Act.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.
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.
When I married my partner in a church in Ireland, this was nearly a decade before the Marriage Act 2015 legalised what the press like to call "same-sex marriage". I was able to show the Priest a female passport and later a Birth Certificate, but my Baptism Certificate had the wrong forename on it. If for some reason a document cannot be re-issued, it is now relatively easy to obtain or even produce for yourself a very authentic looking "corrected" version - and this is a risk some transwomen choose to take. However the same march of technology also means that increasingly official records and archives (including Births, Deaths and Marriages) are readily available on both government computer systems and the internet, and even the most convincing "original" document may be only a few key strokes away from suddenly becoming suspicious. If you pass convincingly as a woman then the responsible official just might let you get away with showing a dubious document, but pass unconvincingly and even the most authentic looking Birth Certificate that 'proves' that you were born female will be checked out - leading to possible criminal charges.
Beginning to
Pass as A Woman If six months after transitioning you are still constantly getting strange stares when shopping, and your "friends" and even family obviously don't like going out in public with you, a very hard re-assessment is appropriate before proceeding further and undergoing irreversible actions such as surgery. The often lambasted one-year real life test prior to SRS does have a very serious purpose. 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.
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!).
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.
In Between Two
Stools
While as a woman (pre or post-transition) I faced new problems like:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is usually but not always the last item on the surgery list. There are many reasons for this, e.g.:
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).
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.
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.
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.
The
March of Time 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.
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.
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....
It's Physical 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.
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
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.
Weight 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.
Gossip and Maintaining a Consistent Story
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.
|
If
you have any questions, or perhaps just want to know more about me,
please feel free to email me.
Please send any
comments, feedback or additions to the Webmaster.
Copyright (c) 2012, Annie Richards
Last updated: 17 January, 2012