Two sisters, born boys but both transitioned before reaching 20.   . Transitioning around age 30 is often a frustrating case of almost but not quite passing.

The March of Time
The passage of time works savagely against the transgender woman, what is perhaps possible as a young teenager is dramatically different for adults.  There is all too frequently a divergence between intention and hopes at transition, and the brutal reality a few years afterwards.

Caitlyn Jenner had SRS age 65 and is shown age 67 before and after the help of a professional make-up artist.

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.

Transwomen in their late 20's and early 30's often face an agonising "if only" situation.  They can almost but not quite pass, if they had just started hormones and transitioned a few years earlier ... . 

19 - A very educational magazine for the transwoman!

A Girl's Education
Before my transition I received some excellent advice from a friend - read magazines intended for teenage girls.  These are packed with advice on shopping, fashion and popular culture, and plenty of tips on sex and love for the inexperienced heterosexual women.  Whilst at times you really do need to be a teenager rather than someone in their early 30's, they were very important in helping me develop a female sexual orientation and point of view.  My favourite magazine was 19, which is slightly more mature than Bliss or Sugar, but far more helpful, entertaining and enjoyable than the likes of Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan.

Girl's practice their make-up from a young age and it can present a challenge to some transitioning women.

My mother was unexpectedly a huge help.  I met her for the first time as Annie in 1997 when she arrived for a visit.  Her initially flattering comments about my appearance and passability as a woman started to become increasingly critical, even brutal, as the days passed - pointing out the many errors I was making.  But she made it her mission to improve my dress sense, make-up, hair, accessories ... she taught me a lot over the next few years! 

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.

From the left, Rodrigo entering the Big Brother House age 23; as Rebekah age 26 in a photo shoot shortly after she transitioned (with very obvious hair extensions!); and Rebekah age 34, after years on hormones and extensive surgery.

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. 

In 1998 Carlos Roberto Paz Wells became age 38 Veronica Paz Wells, an ex-husband and father of a daughter.  Transitioning at that age is both challenging, and financially often a disaster.

At an absolute minimum I was spending £150 / €200 / $220 a month on clothes, make-up, hairdresser, etc.  Also, between December 2000 and July 2004 I spent £11,000 / $17,000 on doctors, hormones, laser hair removal, breast augmentation, orchiectomy and a few other bits (blood tests, skin peel, dermatology).  That excludes associated costs such taking as having to take days off work for medical treatment and travel expenses.

A quote from a young transwoman: "My sister was born with boobs and a vagina, I had to buy mine."  Maya and her cis-sister Emma.

My income seemed to reduce in direct proportion to my increased outgoings.  In 2000, just before my transition I had an annual salary of about £50,000 / $75,000.  Post-transition my income collapsed as I went through multiple jobs, reaching zero at several points as I didn't qualify for the dole.

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!

A photo from an event at the University of Manchester.  It shows students age 18 to 21
from several universities who identify as male to female transgender women.   

Whether to transition is often an agonising decision that gets harder with age.

Transition and passing is hard,very hard

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. 

A feminine physical appearance unsurprisingly helps passing, but it's not enough in its own.  (Gabrielle Schaffer)

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.

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.

Penelope spent many years debating if she was a transvestite or transsexual, before finally making the leap and transitioning.

Another big problem after transition was my voice.  Despite training, the reality was that on the brutal 'phone call test', strangers would usually identify me as a man.  All I could do was work hard to talk more softly and continue to try to train my voice to a naturally sounding higher pitch.

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.   

Rylie Rae had doubts about her gender as a child, but nevertheless married and fathered a son before she transitioned.  Shown with her wife (right), age 25.

After thousands of hormone pills, many hours working on my make up, about 12 facial electrolysis sessions, two surgical operations, three moves, four jobs and a lot of voice training, the scales finally tipped to female for me. 

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!
  

I had to make my own gaff's in the 1980's.  Decades later the Internet is awash with everything from cheap gaffs (left) to sophisticated silicone vulva's (right) that even allow peeing.

A conundrum faced by transitioning transwomen is dealing with the resulting male attention if passable, and the risks if not.

However, a major problem was that I still couldn't not pass nude as a woman, be it in a women's changing room or being attacked by a rapist (and sadly many transwomen have been killed in such circumstances).  Having SRS/GCS nearly four years after transitioning was like moving from night to day in this regard.

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.

 

Two transgirls in their 20's.  Youth and rigorous dieting aids passability immensely - but this is hard to maintain in to the 30's, 40's ... and can lead to bulimia.

Weight
One of the hardest battles I've fought since my transition is limiting my weight and waistline.  Between 1997 and 2000 I put on a stone (14lb, or over 6kg). The increase was perhaps partly age related, but one of the effects of oestrogen is to increase subcutaneous fat deposits - which inevitably means a gain in weight if countermeasures 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 ft 9 in.  This meant (for example) switching from bottles of lager to a Perrier water with a dash of orange juice when on a night out.  I made the weight loss, but a constant challenge since then has been keeping it there. 

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 fat burning sessions.  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. 

Margo, a pre-GCS transwoman, posted this photo.  Despite rigorous dieting she has the common problem of a substantial waist.

Keeping my weight down will never be easy but ironically a very helpful factor is the much-maligned social pressure on women (from my husband, other women, the media, ...) to stay slim.  I know from bitter experience that I only need to slip for a few weeks and my weight will soar 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 disaster, so when my darling husband arranged a surprise birthday party, I nearly killed him!  I was completely stressed as my relatives and old friends mixed with new friends, some of whom were unaware of my past.

Valentia Sampaio was born a boy in December 1996.  She transitioned age 12 and was discovered as a female model aged 16.  The photo shows her working as lingerie model for Victoria's Secret in 2019.

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 gradually adjust their memories, e.g., recollections of their first "boyfriend" become totally ingrained in their memory after a while, and the responses and comments are automatic and very convincing. 

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. 

Three young women in a night club in 2020.  Incidentally, they are transgender.

An obvious problem faced by transwomen, particularly if pre-SRS/GCS, is dealing with men!  Some of the ridiculous offers that I said "No" to when I was transitioning in the Middle East included: an Arab who simply wouldn't give up telling me how beautiful I was and offered me ever more cash on the table in front of me to prove it; a lift proposed by a man in Lamborghini who said the car was mine if I accepted; and an invitation to a well-rewarded cruise on the luxury yacht owned by a Head of State.  The last was carefully described to me by his "agent" and didn't involve sexual intercourse - and I actually briefly considered it as it would pay for my surgery.

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.