My Gifted Life

The original version of this was written for Quora, this is expanded and somewhat rewritten.

Once you’ve transitioned and pass well much of these issues go away but for awhile people you interact with will know you’re transgender and that will be everyone for some period of time. They fall into several categories and almost never a good one:

The condescending asshole – whatever you want to do is ok by me. Because, you know, I was looking for your approval. Thank god you gave me the nod

I was standing in Sally’s beauty store and this was significantly after I had gone full time. I might have even let her know I’m trans – I’m not a big one on hiding it in such circumstances, sometimes I get useful advice. She’s with the whatever floats you boat and it’s your lifestyle honey. It definitely hit me in a very negative way.

The angry asshole – usually a man who takes out his disapproval with words, fists or just a glare. Fortunately I’ve only been glared at.

I remember my first public foray stepping into the Coach store up at an outlet mall. I glanced at these guys  who were looking at me with really piercing  and  unfriendly eyes. Although I confess they might just have been angry at women in general as I still see that look at times and nobody but nobody can look at me  and know anymore.

The clueless – hey, my friend Brenda in Los Angeles is a tranny, do you know her?

The sales clerk – well sir (you in a dress), we can’t help you

More than a few. I’m remembering one in particular at Banana Republic, but being misgendered by people who clearly knew I wasn’t presenting as male was a regular occurrence for a long time. A kind of micro aggression they could get away with.

The serial misgenderer – a cop in Philly who literally kept sirring me after I corrected him more than once.

I ended up making a stink with the  mayor’s office and got someone to talk with the cop. I’m sure nothing much happened, but I tried my best. I was two years on hormones at that point and while I had not been wearing  makeup I had on nail polish, female clothing and long hair. I hardly looked like a dude.

But I confess that most decent folks know to just treat you like a person. But the above happens enough to cause anxiety and general suckage.

Having to go through an ordeal to get our physical house in order to feel right. To date, and hopefully almost everything I’ll do:

• Electrolysis (> 100 hours and at about $75 or more an hour, expensive)
• Back waxing
• Epilating my legs (ongoing but other women do it too)
• Genital electrolysis and laser hair removal
• SRS
• Breast augmentation

This entire list involves pain, often large amounts of it. Enough so my pain tolerance, never low, has significantly increased.

Last, relearning just about 40% of everything to do with social cues, vocal phrasing and other gendered behavior.

Learning to sit, walk and carry myself like a woman and not like a middle aged man.

Learning to talk like a woman.

Throwing out all my male clothing, buy my new clothes and then replace many because it isn’t true you can learn to dress yourself watching What Not to Wear (but it helped).

And after all this to have outrageously ignorant assholes say we do this as a free choice or because we’re perverts. I personally suffered through hell for many years knowing what this would do to my family and wanted to die with it a secret. But I didn’t want to die because it was a secret.

I dare any of them to look me in the eyes and say that