As a child I spent hours looking through the Sears catalog at all the woman’s clothes and dreamed. Much later in life I would buy and secretly wear them. Eventually in my twenties I started going to gay bars in drag. Cross-dressing was the starting point, and it is what I call the experimental phase. The experimental phase is a critical part of personal growth; it is essential for individuals who are transgender to go through this phase. This is a time for self-expression and discovering who we are. Non-transgender individuals go through this at puberty, but for me and many other transgender individuals, life during puberty is just confusing. Our brains are going one way and our bodies are going another. It is as if we have to go through puberty in secret.
I make it sound as though it is all about wearing clothes, and it is not. Males and females dress significantly different. Clothing, shoes, and jewelry are very important to a female because we use them to express who we are. We do like lace, flowers, perfume, and chocolate. Cross-dressing is the beginning point of self expression as we explore our female side. Every woman has her look. Part of growing up is developing a persona, and women express their personas with a look. When you are going through this first phase, you experiment with makeup, clothing, wigs, and accessories as you struggle with identifying your persona. Clothing is as important to transgendered individuals as it is to any other woman. We, too, can have a closet full of clothes and not have anything to wear. This is a concept that completely eludes most straight males.
Having gender reconstruction surgery is not for everyone. As I said earlier, I never questioned whether or not I was transgender; it was not until I went through the process of self- acceptance did it become clear what was right for me. I guess I would say it took a good 18 months of taking baby steps before I realized the right move for me. Unfortunately, these baby steps have to be done in secrecy. I was married and I am blind, so the only way I could have gone to a support group or a therapist is to have my wife take me, and that would out me. I had to go it alone.
The journey from boyhood to womanhood is a lonely one. It is a journey all who are transgender must take. For some it is a long one, for others it is hard, and for still others find it may be devastating, but no one will ever say it is easy. The road you must travel is one littered with lost souls and the bodies of those who got beaten by the struggle. Suicide and self-medication with drugs and alcohol to dull relentless discomfort is very common. This is a very dangerous journey; one wrong step and it could mean losing everything, professionally, personally, and financially. Here is my journey.
In 1991, I graduated the first time from college. I had just had my first child and then my second child 18 months later. I could still drive at this time and was able to attend a support group for transgender individuals. My wife knew that I was going, but her solution to difficult topics was to ignore them. So even though she knew I was going she would not talk to me, and of course she would never attend the sessions for spouses and significant others. The support group gave me the chance to go through the phase of self-discovery. It was at this support group is where I met others who had to take the same journey I did.
During the recession of the early 90’s I had to move out of state to find work. That meant leaving the support group I was running behind, and building a completely new life in a small town in the mid west. I took the change as just that and I purged. This was the second phase, denial. I was not going to be transgender, I was going to be normal, or what I perceived as being normal. Forcing yourself to be something you are not is like trying not to be hungry; inevitably you are going to lose. I knew this but I tried anyway.
When we moved I threw away everything—OK, I lied. I kept a complete outfit, wig, and makeup. My wife watched me throw away everything else. The job I took was demanding and the pay was low, but that is the kind of job you get when you are fresh out of college. We lived in a community of about ten thousand people with not a lot of things to do. My relationship with my wife strengthened. Years later I would find out that I was nothing more than a means to an end for her. Nonetheless, ignorance can be bliss at times. We did have some good moments living in the small town. However, after a couple of years we could not take the isolation of where we lived, and we ended up moving back to Michigan. Fortunately, it was about 100 miles from my closest family member. The suburbs of Lansing, Michigan are nice, but I was back near my support group again.
The difference between when I left and when I came back is that when I left I could drive; by the time I came back, my vision had gotten to the point where I could not drive. I essentially became a prisoner under house arrest, not able to go anywhere without someone to drive me or know where I was going. The internet was still a two-lane dirt road, and it would be years before it would become the information highway. Connecting to people outside of my wife and kids was nearly impossible. I truly loved my wife and children, but at times, I just wanted to run away. However, to run away I would have to ask someone to take me. The pay was better in Michigan, and we could afford to rent a duplex in a nice neighborhood.
To get out of the house, I went back to school; it was a great opportunity to have intellectual conversations with my peers. That helped, but the desire to be me was always there. It never really goes away. I tried to ignore it by focusing on other things, like college and starting my own business. However, it is only a smoke screen and soon what you push to the back comes to the front again.
With more education came better employment and soon I was making well over one hundred thousand a year, plus bonuses. I finished school, again and again, with an MBA, then a PhD, and then even another PhD. Finally I stopped going to school and put all my energy into a new business I started. I would work 80 to 90 hours a week, trying to get away from myself. On a positive note, my business flourished. There can be some positive side effects from being a workaholic. I was able to accomplish a lot and do more than many others. As much as I was able to accomplish, I still felt empty.
Travel for my business was light at first, then, around the turn of the century, it picked up speed. By 2007 I was on the road over fifty percent of the time. At first, this was a good thing for my relationship with my wife because it gave me the opportunity to get away from the house. Being blind you never have much “me” time because you always have to be with someone. Travel gave me some of that much-needed me time. At first, I just enjoyed the freedom of being alone, but soon I was using the free time to express myself.
One day it happened. I was out looking for engineering books and an ad for a prom dress appeared in my browser. It was one of those places that sold end-of-season or overstock items, and there was this pink chiffon dress with an empire waist. I ordered it. I could not help myself. Like cancer coming out of remission, the pink fog emerged with a vengeance. This was it. I did not know it at the time. However, this was the beginning of what I have called the Great Elephant Ride. I continued to order things, timing the purchases so that they would arrive during the day and I could sign for them. Everyone would think that they were just packages for work. I would hide the clothing articles in my office or tape them in boxes to make them look like future shipments.
This strategy of scheduling deliveries went well for a while until one trip when I was in Las Vegas. I called home like normal and my wife sounded quite distant. It turned out she had received some packages and signed for them, but the company name was on the box was “Bare Essentials.” Curious, she opened it up to find a new bra I ordered. She continued to open the next several packages to arrive, and as bad luck would have it, they were all female items, too many to explain away. I was busted. I had to admit to her that I was cross-dressing again.
My first instinct was to lie. However, I knew there was no way that I could lie this one away. I guess part of me was relieved, but I still had not reached that acceptance stage. Feeling very ashamed and scared, I buried myself in my work as I always had in the past. At times, I thought about apologizing and promising never to do it again, but t
hat would have been like promising never to eat again.
The more I traveled, the more I found myself alone spending weekends on the road. Being gone so much was the point where I believe my marriage started to end. It was the ending of my marriage that was the real tipping point for me. My wife and family were main reasons I remained a man. At this point, my wife and I had been married for 17 years, and I think if I had not been transgender, I probably would have tried to make our marriage work. I felt it sliding, but I did not do anything. Communication between my wife and me had always been a weak point in our marriage, and instead of fighting, we just stopped talking to each another.
My relationship with my wife was now nothing more than a sharing of responsibilities. I reached out on several occasions to see if we could rekindle the love we once had, but she did not want any part of it. My true feelings were the same, and I think we both kind of waited for the inevitable: divorce. This was also the time I started seeking professional help with Dr. Howard. He was a kind soul and a very good psychiatrist, but a bit behind the times and not available by email or phone. All sessions needed to be in person.
I talked to my wife about it and she, too, agreed I needed to see someone to help me with being transgender. I procrastinated about six months before I went to see him; I must have called and canceled three appointments before I finally had the courage to enter the office. My wife had to drive me to the appointment, and before I got out of the car, I said to her, “Do you know what this means?” She said in a slow, low voice, “Yes,” and with tears in my eyes, I got out of the car.
At this point I had been legally blind for fifteen years, and my sight was still getting worse. I had to overcome a lot of fear about going blind, but nothing was as scary as the next twenty-four months. I knew I was about to start a journey I had fought my entire adult life not to go on, but today was the first step down a one-way path. I knew there were going to be emotional highs and devastating lows. I also knew that this journey was going to come at a price, both monetarily and emotionally.
The first time I met with Dr. Howard I had to go over all the basics, from health history to emotional history. The last question was the hard one: “Why are you here?” I swallowed and replied, “Because I am transgender.” It really felt weird coming out of my mouth. I had written this word countless times, but it had been ages since I said it to someone I had just met. I guess it would be the way an alcoholic would feel the first time he or she stood up in an AA meeting and said, “My name is Stephanie Anne Timmer, and I am a transgender woman”
The conversation finished after fifty minutes and then he asked me when I would be available. He wanted to see me every other week. That would have been great, but my work schedule was not very conducive for biweekly sessions, so the next time I was going to be available was four weeks away. I tried to keep a four-week schedule, but soon found even that to be difficult because of my work-related travel.
I started to look online to find other organizations that might be more suitable for a busy adult who was not suffering from any serious form of mental illness. I just needed to be able to talk to someone. I needed help. All of the doctors or clinics wanted me to meet with them at their location on their time schedule. I lived in central Michigan at the time, and the nearest Clinic was at the University of Michigan. A good clinic, but it was about ninety miles away and if you cannot drive, it might as well be a thousand miles away.
I was going to have to go it alone. The gatekeepers rigid structures that did not make room for people who had to work for a living. Yes, I could have changed my occupation to fit into their schedule, which is what they wanted. However, if I had done that, then I would not have been able to afford surgery. It quickly became clear I was going to have to find everything I needed by myself.
At the beginning of the transition, I was uncertain how far I was going to go down this transition road. Sexual reconstruction surgery was definitely on my mind, but it took me almost a year before I knew I was going to go all the way to the end. I had made the first step of my journey.
I never thought I would ever make an attractive woman: I was tall, fat, and hairy. The fat part I started working on right away. I was surprised just how quickly the pounds came off. I was hoping to lose a pound a week, so it would take about two years to lose the hundred pounds I wanted. As a man, my ideal weight was 219 pounds, so I figured if I got down to 229 pounds, I would be within 10 pounds of my ideal weight. I was hoping to get my waist size down to a Misses size 16—no more shopping in the fat woman’s department.
Success kept me motivated, and within a year I went from a 44-inch waist to a 32-inch waist; it was the thinnest I had been in my adult life. I contribute much of the weight loss to running full marathons: I ran six full ones the first full year, and I still run every day to keep my girlish figure. I know how easy it is to put on weight, and I have made a vow never to need a size 14 or to be fat ever again.
I enjoyed running and used that as an excuse to shave my legs and then later my chest. I was about as hairy as they come. Shaving my body actually did help my running because it helped keep me from overheating; it is surprising how much heat that layer of hair holds in. It was also the first time in my life I had six-pack abs and great looking legs. The irony is that the harder I worked toward being a female, the better looking man I became. The amount of hair I had to shave: chest, back, arms, hands, legs, feet—it was impossible to shave without needing a transfusion afterwards from all the nicks and scraps. So I resorted to Nair. It took nearly a bottle and half to completely treat my entire body. This torturous process had to be repeated about every four to five days. My facial hair was so thick with beard stubble that I had to shave twice a day, and I never found a foundation that adequately covered it up. I only tried Nair on my face once, and the reaction was very similar to that of the little boy in the movie “Home Alone” when he tried aftershave for the first time.
This led me to the first permanent thing I did for my transition. I had tried electrolysis in the past, but since electrolysis removes one hair at a time, I would have died a very old man and still not be done. I turned to the internet to find what kinds of options were available to me. There are many websites where my trans-sisters have shared their experiences. There was a lot of chatter about laser hair removal.
Since electrolysis was not an option, I chose to go with laser treatment. Now there is a lot of negative press about laser and how it is not permanent. With that in mind I went to American Laser in Las Vegas. The proprietor greeted me and took a survey of my hair color and skin tone. She told me I was a good candidate. I was fortunate in that my body hair was still dark and my skin was quite fair, which is preferred with laser hair removal. She then set my expectations appropriately.
If you have never had laser hair removal, it hurts. The laser can penetrate the skin, and if your hair is darker than the skin, it will heat up. The heat from the laser destroys the hair follicle, sort of burning it. Yes, you can smell the hair burning as they treat you. When you are as hairy as I was, it really hurts. In addition, if you think that one laser treatment is enough, you need to think again. It took me nearly 18 treatments to remove the hair from my face. It gets easier every time you get a treatment, but the first four or five times, it is like getting a tattoo all over your body.
It can be very discouraging because this is a multi-year and multi-treatment program. Only 20 percent of your hair can be affected by the laser at any one given time, because the hair is either doormat or in different stages of growth. I figured that I had nothing to lose in this case, and this was a safe step to take in my journey. If I never transitioned, all this would mean is that I would have a hairless chest and never have to shave again. I did not think that was a bad consolation prize.
I think every girl who is thinking about transitioning needs to have laser treatment. Not so much for the hair removal, but more to test her resolve. If you cannot handle the pain that is associated with laser hair removal, y
ou will need to question whether you have the ability to deal with the pain that is later to come from facial feminization surgery, breast augmentation, and eventually dilation after sexual reconstruction surgery.
I had my first laser treatment and until that point I had never paid or asked someone to hurt me. It is bearable, but just be aware it is going to test your conviction to complete the transition journey. The part that hurt the worst for me was the shoulder blades on the back, front of the neck, and under the nose. The process is simple. The esthetician places a cool jell over the area she is going to treat to help with the burning. Then she places the cool metal tip of the laser against your skin—it feels very cold—then you hear the click of the foot pedal switch that triggers the laser. There is a split second between the time you hear the click and the pain from the zap of the laser. It zaps like a small electric charge, and within a few seconds after the burn you can catch a whiff of the smell of burning hair. It is hard not to flinch when you feel the laser touch you, because you know you are about to get the sensation of what feels like a bee sting.
Some notes about laser. Start it two years before you begin to transition. You can do it during transition because you do not need to let the hair grow for the laser to work. However, if you start taking hormones before you start laser, it may not be effective because it only works on dark hair. Hormones typically do not stop the growth of hair, but they will definitely make your body hair lighter and finer. When that happens, laser will not be of much help.
The Great Elephant Ride Page 11