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 $70,000.
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 nevertheless often the real disaster as income and savings vanish like snow in the summer.
Rodrigo Lopes is one example. Age 23 he stared in the 2009 UK edition of the TV reality show Big Brother. A few years later she transitioned to Rebekah Shelton but found it very difficult to earn a living. Allegedly she resorted to prostitution to fund her breast augmentation (2012), SRS (2014) and facial feminisation surgery (2015). Although "sugar daddies" often take her on expensive holidays around the world, she apparently struggles to make ends meet when back home and been nearly suicidal as a result. Personally, a major shock was the financial cost of transitioning. The added financial cost of living as a woman was extraordinary. A few years later I provided an article on my transition experiences to an Australian newsletter, an extract: Now that I was living day-in day-out as a woman ... I found myself needing a much bigger collection of clothes, shoes, jewellery, bags, accessories, et al. The et al including a pile of items such as such as shampoo, conditioners, setting lotions, body lotion, skin moisturizer, facial applications, cosmetics and facial makeup, nail varnish and perfumes. And that's before we even get into other essential items such as a good hairdryer and a lady shaver.
By 2003 my bank account was nearly empty and I was increasingly supported and financially dependent upon my boyfriend (now husband) - a situation that I never imagined that I would be in when I had transitioned less than two years eaelier. In 2004 I was delighted to accept a job in Ireland as a Sales Assistant, at just €22,000 or $25,000 a year!
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.
Transition is often assumed to be a brief period (perhaps just a day) when you move from living as a man to living as a woman.
I wish it was so easy and quick! 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, but I still need to spend at least one hour a day on my grooming.
On
top of that there's the gym, the dieting, the shaving, the Hair Salon ...
whilst preparing for a big night out can dominate my life for days. I don't like some of these aspects of womanhood,
but some of my daily beauty routines have become such a habit that I can't
remember doing them, particularly my early morning make-up which soon became
an auto-pilot process.
When I transitioned, the first year was very tough.
But bitter experience slowly works 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.
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, a lack of strength, crying for days when a hamster died, ... an
odd obsession with my nails. Looking at old pre-transition photo's
is like looking at a stranger.
However, as a pre-transition test I went on holiday to the USA, intending to pass 24x7 as a woman after exiting the airport. It was a horrible
surprise to discover that I wasn't passing.
Young women working in shops, dinners, etc. seemed to out me instantly. But particularly
brutal were children, I overheard a child asking her parents "is that a
man?" whilst pointing at me - and I was wearing a dress.
In the next few months, I worked hard to "up my game", including: dieting;
exercising, letting my head hair grow; plucking or depilation of unwanted
facial hair; looking after my skin; avoiding sunlight to lighten my skin (I
was working in the Arabian Gulf);
getting professional advice on my make-up; cultivating my nails;
finding clothes and shoes that flattered me; and training my voice.
Some
transwomen describe the weeks after their transition as being the most exciting period of
their life as they explore and discover living as a woman. I just remember it as the most
stressful and depressing period of my life.
One example of the unexpected problems I faced was the amount of time that I needed to spend every
day on my workout, shower, make-up, hair, attire, touch-ups ...
. I had done all this before pre-transition and it had often been enjoyable. But now that I needed to do this routine
every day, it soon started to become a chore.
After New Year I went to work for the first time as a woman, and 2 January was a day I will never forget. I had done a "dry run" and knew that I needed to get up at 6:00 am to get ready and then commute in. To play safe, I set my alarm for 5:00 am - and needed every extra minute. As I got ready, I increasingly panicked about going in to work for the first time as a woman and wearing a skirt. The bravest thing I've ever done was to walk into the company's lobby that morning.
I knew that I was not fitting in and it was no surprise when my contract was not extended after the initial three-month probation period. I had made no friends and was became increasingly depressed - whilst trying hard not wonder if I had made a huge mistake by transitioning. One big challenge was that I had not realised the problem that facial hair would give me when living full-time as a woman. Whilst my beard growth was light, it was still abnormal for a woman and frequent close shaves resulted in a razor burn. I should have sought laser treatment before I transitioned, rather than afterwards.
I knew any public observation or detection of my penis would be traumatic and potentially have very serious repercussions, e.g. if this occurred in a ladies toilet or changing room. I wasn't aware of the tucking techniques that are now widely posted on the Internet, I just wore a gaff under my panties to hold back my hormone shrunken penis and contain my similarly reduced testes. If I needed to ensure a good appearance - e.g. for a presentation - I used a piece of duct tape to pull back my penis, but this was uncomfortable and only reliable for a few hours due to sweat slowly weaking the adhesion.
Just over a year after transitioning, I was close to despair
after a disastrous period working as a Teacher's Assistant at a Nursery
School. I had accepted ever lower paying jobs and had been out'ed in all three. I began
to seriously wonder if I had made a huge mistake. The only thing
that kept me going was the support of a new friend who was working hard to
become my boyfriend.
But it's rather like sitting on large scales - male one side and female
the other. You start off with the
male side dominant. Adding weight to the female
side of the scales and it never seems to make much difference - the male side is still
"heavier" and people still identify you sooner or later as a man.
But if you keep adding weight to the female side,
eventually adding just another a small feather will make that side the
heavier and the balance suddenly swings to female!
18 months after my transition I was offered six-month contract at a college to replace a woman who was on maternity leave and was delighted to be accepted as a woman in a largely female working environment. Two years after my transition, I risked taking a job at a toy store as a woman (stealth) and thankfully passed day after day - with both other staff and customers. The feathers falling on the scales of my passability were individually light, but cumulatively they had finally reached a critical mass: my beard was gone; my appearance was unremarkable; my voice was acceptable; and I could confidently chat in the tearoom from increasing experience about boyfriends, children, and even women's problems.
I was now usually wearing trousers, comfortable flat shoes, a nice
warm top, and often no make-up beyond some quickly applied mascara and
lipstick - not what I had envisioned when I transitioned!
It's taken many years of practice, hormones, medical procedures, and often brutal experiences to reach the point where I expect to be recognised as a woman.
Weight
Gossip and Maintaining a Consistent Story
Over the years 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. A particular problem is
bumping into someone who remembers you - but you are
struggling to remember them. One or two minor gaffes can
be laughed off or the other person made to doubt his/her
memory, but eventually they may start to wonder what's
going on.
I always thought that I was very careful when I went out clubbing as a woman, and for many years I thought I had only slipped up once ... okay twice. But what was scary was discovering 20 years later on social media some photos posted by an old friend of me dancing and snogging with a guy - which I have no recollection of. That inevitably makes me wonder if there were any other nights where I got too tipsy or perhaps even had a spiked drink. I fortunately didn't end-up being sexually attacked or physically abused - as far as I can remember.
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Last updated: 17 January 2021