One thing that has become clear to me very recently, well yesterday actually, while talking to the couple I share a house with is that transitioning may indeed sort the gender dysphoria, even though it causes its own trials tribulations and traumas on the way through, but it what it doesn’t do is remove the default character traits you have before transition.

I suppose that is not surprising as I always say to people I am not changing, you get the same me, I am only presenting differently. I still laugh at the same things, I enjoy the same music, I eat the same food…it’s just that I dress differently and don’t have to hide behind that male façade which everyone knows.

So as it was pointed out to me I still have the same character traits and that I am able to delude myself through an attachment to my ego which believes I can make things happen when patently I am being “played” in relation to a contract I have been trying  to conclude for weeks now. I have not taken personal responsibility for matters that have caused delays blaming the actions or inactions of others. I should have taken personal responsibility and held myself accountable for what was going on. If I had I would have been able to be proactive.

It was also pointed out to me that I have allowed this desire not to lose face, again an attachment to my ego, has been a hindrance to my transition. I should point out that this was all said with my wellbeing as the main factor, not to attack or beat me up. It was holding up a mirror to my behaviour to help me grow. I value that. I value I have friends who care enough they want me to grow and not be trapped in a default system of operating that limits my potential and causes me stress. 

I recognise, it resonates with me that I act as described. I wonder whether this has roots in my gender dysphoria. I had developed a way of operating which meant I tend to smooth things over so nobody would know get beyond my carefully constructed veneer.

So the moral of the tale is that gender dysphoria is sorted by transitioning, the “gender chatter” is stilled, leaving so much more energy to grow as a person and deal with limitations which were always present and need sorting.

I have read a lot of blogs where people get really upset if people use their dead name. I do not get upset if people still use my former name when they slip up. They have known me for a long time and in their mind I am J. It is good if they realise and change it or correct it, however I am aware it is not deliberate and it does take time for changes to take hold.

One of my work colleagues who has been in the vanguard of telling people this is Emily constantly refers to me as Emily, “he “ will do this or “he” has done that and my colleague is quite oblivious that he is doing it. Other colleagues point out what he is doing and I do sometime call him “her”, however it has no effect and it is not malicious in any way. Other colleagues have absolutely no difficulty and have picked up my name immediately and never slip up.

What does irritate me are the people in shops who deliberately “Sir” you. I am clearly presenting female and even though I may not pass in the full meaning of “passing” I am not a man in a dress. It is usually said in a way that clearly indicates a kind of disapproval,  “your not fooling me Sir” manner. It just seems to me so unnecessary to say it. Others just say nothing; they will say “thank you” or “here is your change or whatever” without any sir or madam. Then there are people who are just lovely and call you “love’ or “dear” or some other familiar term often with a smile and a friendly look. One shop assistant where I go from time to time will make comments about my nail polish or something similar as a gesture of acceptance. Being treated like that is always a pleasant surprise as I do not ever expect such a response.

With those people I have regular contact I do not see the point of insisting people get it right every time when they are trying. With those that deliberately misgender me I do not feel the need to rise to their bait and cause an argument. If they are people I see regularly I would just not see them should they persist. With strangers it is a one off and not worth getting steamed  about, their loss.

Then of course just as an example, the colleague who cannot get my pronouns right introduced me as J to a new contact today who later sent me an email to Dear J. I replied and said that as he was checking out my company he wouldn’t find me as I was transgender and had changed my name to Emily so when he looked me up he would only see references to Emily. Then I signed the email Emily. He replied Thanks J I will be in touch tomorrow.

Sometimes it just seems so hard, you feel you are making progress, when you look back you know you are. It just doesn’t always feel like that.

I have been really fortunate in the huge support I have from the lovely couple I live with and share their house. I have also had a surprising amount of acceptance in the real world with people I come into contact with through my work. I had always intended to work just on my own so I did not have to face dealing with the strains of being accepted at work. Although I am self-employed in the main I have dealings with other people and one company in particular have asked me to join them and help with sorting out some of their admin problems. It has really surprised me how I have been accepted not just by the two girls in the office but by the directors and more surprisingly by the small workforce in the workshop.

Yet still I worry I am not good enough. I am just me and that is all I can be. I am improving with how I blend in…I am not there yet so the acceptance is really great. All the time I am meeting new people through sorting the company’s problems out and on each occasion I think “Is this going to be alright?”.

It helps no end with practicing my voice on the phone…I am not getting “Sir’” so much. Meetings which are impromptu, as when the insurance brokers arrived unannounced meant I just had to go for it and reminded me I must be on top of my appearance at all times….no slacking.

All I can be is me. That is why I have transitioned, so I can be just me not pretending to be someone I am not. Not having to think about gender anymore. In practice my gender is no longer a topic in my head. I know who I am and am living my truth. All that I can do now is be the best I can be and keep up the progress even when sometimes progress seems slow and and there seems a long way still to go.

I am not sure whether what I do the right thing when talk to people for the first time about my transition. I worry slightly that I am being apologetic which is not what I intend. I want to be considerate of other people’s feelings and not just insist take it or leave it this is who I am.

I was contacted by S, the daughter of my best friend, who sadly died some ten years ago and whose wife died last year. The last time I saw the S was at her mother’s funeral some nine months ago when she asked me “what’s with the long hair?” My response on such a difficult day was simply “it’s a long story” and she moved on to greet other mourners. This was also the last occasions I wore a suit out of respect for the situation.

Anyway, fast forward to yesterday when her husband got in touch saying they would like to catch up. So time to tell them what’s happening and I responded to the text saying

“Something has changed since you last saw me. S asked me “what was with the long hair? The answer is I am Transgender and I have transitioned since we met, so if you can face that possibility, you get me, the same as always just dressed differently! If you think the idea is okay, will send a pic so it’s not too much of a shock when we meet!”

“Ok mate yep a pic would be good and we could come over to……..( a town 30 miles from where they live) to catch up. Best of luck with the transition”

“Thanks; you need to know that I understand if you can’t handle the idea. I won’t be offended. I don’t expect anyone to just accept this. So far I have been lucky and able to work without problems which has been a big relief….Be good to meet if you still want to.”

So pic duly sent

“Look pretty good, what’s your new name?

“Thank you, Emily”

“In this day and age I think you should be who you want to be not dictated to by others. Great name. I will chat to S and we can arrange to meet at some point.”

I am wondering whether I am getting this right. I do not feel I am being apologetic and it is true if they can’t handle it I won’t be offended. I am doing what I need to do and there will be people in my life who can’t hack it. The way I feel right now is that if people can’t accept it, it isn’t a slur on me more a reflection of where they are.  So okay our relationship ends.

This is something I will reflect on as it will come up several times as I reconnect with people I have known in my previous incarnation. However, it does seem to me I should not be giving them the option to say no they cannot deal with the change. It could almost be taken as an invitation to say no. I think it would be better just to say that I have transitioned and leave them to decide what they want to do with that information.

It has been a strange week, moving on from my last post my reaction to the cartoon seems to have been really positive. I feel as if the “shell” that has sheltered me for so long has really fallen away.

I do not know whether there is a tipping point in transitioning. For me it has always seemed to be a long and winding road along which I have been travelling and one on which I would at some point reach a destination. I will have transitioned. Of course that is only part of life’s journey and having transitioned life will continue to be a journey while you still draw breath. Right now though it feels as if there really is a tipping point. Up until now I have felt I have been steadily moving towards transition even though I have been 24/7 for quite some time. Now I feel as if I have transitioned and it a question of making me the best transwoman I can be. I suppose it is only psychological, maybe it is, but even so the sense of freedom is amazing. I know I cannot expect people to accept me, many will not, some will be downright abusive or hostile. Somehow it is no longer so important, it will be what it will.

So this week I visited a wig specialist/ hairdresser for advice on what to do with my unruly head of hair now it has grown nearly to my shoulders. The result was I had my hair cut and blow dried in my first ever feminine style. I was delighted with it and felt a million dollars as I walked back through the town. I know it will get better as it grows and will be coloured soon. The bad news of course is that I do not have the skills to manage my new hairstyle. Yet another skill to learn in a hurry! This morning was a“bad hair day” as I tried to get some semblance of style back into it.

The next day I was visiting a firm I work with and felt so more at ease with my new hair and the two ladies in the admin team were delightful as I was introduced and were so accepting….asking a hundred questions, of course some you should probably never ask! I later heard they had said “it will be great all girls together”.  I have found the level of acceptance I have experienced to be amazing. I am not sure whether it would have been the same if I had simply switched overnight with those people who already knew my male persona. For them it seems to be more difficult to “get their head round it”. 

I have also been working on feminising my voice something I have found really difficult. I must have achieved a level of success as one of my long term work colleagues commented today “are you losing your voice you sound different”! I do not think that was the effect I was trying to achieve.

I have been feeling really positive of late and being able to “go with the flow”. I had a chilled day off on Saturday and was idly looking through Twitter when I came across a  cartoon posted by a transwoman I follow. 

Her comment was simply “it says it all really” and yes it did. Instantaneously I was in bits, tears welled up in my eyes and I was crying, as much internally as actual tears.  I had been pierced to my core.

This is the cartoon:-

I feel it is a positive message so why was I so upset?

I think it is really quite simple I recognised the exhaustion, totally wiped out.

I have frequently felt, no-all the time I have felt, a deep well of sadness within me. Whenever I get emotional or am focused on my emotions by some other means the first emotion to surface is always this sadness. I cry at films, music, almost anything that touches me brings tears to my eyes.

The words “You have tried to protect me for way too long” is an interesting take on the experience of not coming out. Was I really protecting the woman inside me,  my real self,  or was I just scared of letting her out? My own take is that I was too scared to face the truth. In fact I spent my time trying to shut her down, the male outer cladding was trying to suffocate the woman inside.  I really did not want my world turned upside down.

Fortunately,  that woman had a mind of her own and she was not going to be shut down at any price. For as long as I can remember that woman has pushed and shoved me down the road on this journey. At every crossroads or hurdle, deep inside me I was compelled to take the next step. There has never been any question of turning back however much I might have fought to keep her at bay.

Then the cartoon moves to the woman inside, the real me “ I will handle the stress now it’s going to require a lot of bravery….”. People often say how brave it is to transition. I do not see it that way. It requires strength to face the challenges. I do not see that as being brave when it is something which is beyond control; that woman is coming out come what may.

So I would say it requires strength “to just try and live my life and hope that everyone sees I am not some dangerous bad person”. Yes I do identify with that hope.  I can only be me and I do hope that people will see me and not just see a transwoman who is unacceptable and a threat to their world by being different and therefore a dangerous and bad person.

So I cried recognising the exhaustion from the years of fighting, all those wasted years denying my essence. It was a cathartic experience which left me feeling lighter. It is too soon to see whether the reservoir of sadness has been drained or just the pressure relieved. 

However, “I  got this”. That’s true I have got this I am on my journey, no longer fighting myself to protect me. All I can do is face the challenges full on as best as I can.

T Central “Just a mondo of Trans related blogs”. 

I find it hard to accept the word “just”. Having found T – Central by chance it became essential daily reading and from it I gained a real insight into what it meant to be trans, the difficulties, the hardships and the challenges which come with embarking on this journey. It also showed me that transitioning was really possible.

I followed real life blogs of people actually transitioning and their blogs were above all honest. Many of the blogs are about people in the United States and Canada. Before finding T Central the only person I had followed was the site of Dr Becky Allison a Cardiologist who had  transitioned.

The first blog I followed consistently was My Road to Womanhood (now only available by invitation), which morphed into My Road Redux. This showed me that someone could transition, could tell the children, could still earn a living and blossom into a really beautiful lady. I shared her tribulations and both the good days and the bad days, I shared her continued passion for cars. Through her blog I came across Cassidy of Cassidy’s Quest. Wow, one sassy lady who shares her life, her tribulations her successes and has also grown into a wonderful lady with her mane of red hair.

There are many others, in the UK, Jenny of Large Blooming Flower resonated with me, showing the realities of transitioning, Retrobass girl too. So why am I talking about this?

I realised to transition for me I needed to be aware of the reality. It was not going to be a walk in the park. You do not just get up one day and it’s all fine. It takes time, it needs preparation. Unless you are very fortunate and transition at an early age before the testosterone has done its worst then it is almost inevitable there will be a period of presenting as a “man in a dress”. 

With practice it has got better and in time my aim is to blend so that I do not stand out and would really be pleased if I ever reached the stage where I pass (which clearly the aforementioned Cassidy does to the extent that a co-worker who had never known her pre transition had no idea about her previous incarnation).

Without the resource of T Central, I would not have been prepared for my transition. When blocks came in the way or I suffered setbacks or got disheartened I knew from the experience of others this was how it is and this helped me weather the storms on this journey.

I hope that if and when my blog grows and is found, then I too will be able to contribute to the experience and reality of what transitioning means and in my way express the gratitude I feel to all those who have walked this path before me and shared their experiences.

This week I have been surprised by a change of heart I have had. I have been quietly coming out to work colleagues on a new project I am involved in. To my surprise they have all been supportive on the face of it, or at least not difficult. I will write about that in another post.

One of them to my said he wanted to do whatever he could to help and support me and for me to be happy. On its own that was lovely, however he has a good friend who is an aesthetic plastic surgeon and he promptly arranged an appointment for me to see him and to have an appraisal for facial feminisation. My immediate internal response was hey this is my body I am not sure I want anyone messing with it. That seemed really ungrateful and as my colleague, now friend, had been so generous in arranging it I went to see the surgeon with a degree of trepidation. My friend accompanied me and introduced me.

As you might expect the surgeon’s bedside manner was impeccable and put me at ease. This was followed by him examining my face pulling bits of skin this way and that way and then advising me that he would be able to make an effective difference in feminizing my face.

Basically he suggests moving my hairline forward, lifting my eyebrows, tinkering with the tip of my nose, maybe shortening my upper lip by a fraction, inserting infills into my cheeks, trim my ear lobes…. It felt like a major rebuild to the point that I enquired “will my children still recognize me?” “Yes it will all be quite subtle” was the response.

I made it clear I was not seeking to be turned into a beautiful woman. I need to be realistic, I am a transwoman of mature years and all that I would be aiming for would be to blend in more easily and as a consequence hopefully reduce the level of transphobia I might receive. I would expect still to have some wrinkles, that would be appropriate.

It was left that he would write a report with his recommendations which I am waiting to receive.

So where am I on the idea of surgery now? Having gone with expectation of no way this is not going to be for me……I have to say I am tempted. I have noticed that some of the highest profile transwoman have undergone facial feminization and although I haven’t seen their before pics, the after appearances are successful.

The key for me would be if the surgery made the difference so that the subliminal recognition someone made of my gender was other than male. Ideally being read as female or at the worst androgynous confusion. If that was to be the case then yes I am tempted. Food for thought.

I am told it is never too late to be yourself…..I struggle with this as I have put off being myself for so many years, some would say procrastinated but hey I guess the time has finally come. Why now, because the pressure has become too much to bear. There have always been good reasons not to put myself first, not to be selfish.

Importantly, I have been empowered by an amazing couple who are supportive and only see me as the woman I am. They have enjoyed my small successes in taking, often only small steps, out of the closet; talked to me about it all, supported me at every turn, listened to my anxieties…and there are plenty of those.

So why a blog? Well as with so many blogs this is intended to be a record of my journey to womanhood. A record of the ups and downs on this journey. I hope that it may encourage other mature ladies to take the plunge, those who say it is too late now. There are blogs that have been really important to my understanding of the challenges I face. To name but a few My Road to Womanhood (My Road Redux), Cassidy’s Quest, Large Blooming Flower, Retrobassgirl and so many others. Lucy Melford, Lynn Jones of YATGB, Rhiannon Rambling, Upside down in a cloud, Paula’s Place, Hannah’s Thinking Again…the list goes on. People who have lives as well as being trans.,

It is not as if i have not known what i needed to do for some years now and in stealth i have worked quietly towards this point for nearly twenty years. I know that I have gender dysphoria, I know that I have to be myself and that I cannot continue to deny myself. For many years I did not know that there was such a thing as gender dysphoria. I grew up pre- internet so, along with many others, I just thought I was different. 

I knew when I was around three, I was a girl just like my best friend at preschool, Tess. As I grew up I was to be blunt quite effeminate looking though not in any way camp. I was an innocent looking choirboy in a cathedral school. I loved everything about girls, their dresses how they looked, make up their whole way of being. I remember vividly watching my mother and her friend refreshing their lipstick after meeting for coffee in town. I was absolutely fascinated. Seeing her in her slip getting dressed, watching her put on gloves before putting on her stockings so as not to ladder them. 

I needed to be part of that world, I hated having to be a boy and do boyish things, I was no good at them. I retreated into my music and books and lived in my own world.

As puberty came I endured years of confusion during which time I would, like so many others, buy my girly clothes and underwear and then purge them all because it was wrong, I was a freak, it wasn’t right. Yet all the time I would be yearning to be a girl. Girlfriends were forever disappointed that I wanted to hang out with them..I was not desperate to have my wicked way with them, affectionate cuddles were lovely.

Fast forward to the late seventies, I came across a book at the library. Conundrum by Jan Morris. She was writing about being transexual/transgender. This was the first time I had come across this. I read the book from cover to cover the first evening and I was stunned…..I understood, the jigsaw came together. I read the book several times, renewed it…..how could this be? She had undergone re-assignment surgery! 

Then the internet came into my life. Good grief, I was not alone. If I was a freak then there were lots of us.

Fast forward again to now, here I am, finally taking real steps towards transition. I have to be aware that I am never going to be that stunning model that I expect we all dream of being, but at the very least I can be me. Hopefully, I will achieve a level where I can pass or at the least blend in and be accepted as the mature woman I am.