There are many books that document girls’ lives from the time they are born until they complete the journey to womanhood or until shortly after. These books treat it as if it is the end of the story. It is only the end of a difficult chapter in their lives. Post-op is the beginning of the rest of their lives, and it by far the best part ever. This chapter talks about the new beginning and the healing that needs to take place after all the years of hiding.
I had sexual reconstruction surgery on December 29, 2009, at 11:00 p.m. That Thursday night I woke up to find that I was now a legal female. My body and gender were finally the same, and it truly felt wonderful. I don’t like to say it was a new me, but more of a fresh new start. This was it. I did not want to waste a minute of this life. There was nothing holding me back but me—I wanted to experience everything all over again.
The storm of discontent has passed, but it did leave some things damaged that needed repairing. You cannot live a life of self-destruction without destroying or damaging something in some way. It was time to survey the destruction and hope that some things were only damaged, not destroyed. Discontentment was my demon. I never had enough, and once I achieved something, I would have to try something else. Two things always happened: if I was successful and achieved what I set out to accomplish, I found myself still feeling empty. You can never fill your void with accomplishments. If I was not successful, I felt like a failure and still felt empty.
Family, friends, and careers are just some of the things that get damaged during the transition process. Transitioning requires a significant amount if not all of your focus; during the two years I went through transitioning from Steve to Stephanie, I became self-absorbed. It really does require that degree of focus. Now that the transition was over, I needed to go back and see if I could repair some things that I did not have the strength to deal with during the transition.
I made a mental list of all the things I had to do. Number one on the list was my ex-wife. Four months prior to surgery, she filed for divorce. It was the worst time that she could have done it. I don’t know for sure but feel that in some ways is was her way of trying to get back at me. Those last four months were intense, and my emotions were off the chart because of hormones. Dealing with a divorce was almost too much. I knew it was coming and probably could have managed OK if it was the only thing going on in my personal life. I did not have a place to live, I was broke and bills were piling up, the country was in a recession, my company was in survival mode, and then the divorce was thrown on top. I just about broke—suicide was looking very good. Suicidal thoughts came more often than I liked.
I found myself sending emails at midnight from halfway around the world to my attorney, when I should have been recovering from major surgery. It was the first part of January: I had just about thrown in the towel and moved away. I would have, had it not been for my children. I was very angry with my wife. She could have filed in April when we decided that we probably should not be living together. I had worked it out that as long as we were separated and not divorced she would still covered by my health insurance. She could have the house and everything.
I was lucky to have the surgery paid for in full by July. If I had waited, the legal fees of the divorce might have killed the surgery. I don’t think I was ever this angry with anyone before in my life. It felt like she was doing everything in her power to kick me when I was the most vulnerable.
I had told her repeatedly that I was not her enemy and I would not fight her, but she still hired a lawyer, which forced me to retain one as well. Things got ugly from that point on. I was the only one employed, and everyone was fighting over the money I was earning. The reason I was so wealthy is that I was a workaholic. I no longer wanted to work nights and weekends. I wanted to go kayaking on Saturday afternoons; I wanted to run marathons just for the fun of it. She wanted the lifestyle that I used to provide for her.
Our marriage had been decaying for several yeas prior to my transition. I did not seriously consider transitioning until I was sure there was no hope for our marriage. For better or worse, we still had our children. We needed to work together to raise them. I needed to work through my anger so that I could talk to her without my blood pressure rising to a dangerous level. Our children were going to graduate from school, then go to college. They needed support; they needed their parents. We needed to work together. I suspect she will always blame me for what had happened—maybe so, but it was not like she did not know. I told her very early in our relationship that I was transgender.
I can only control what I do, and I needed to work through my anger. It is much easier to say than to do. The anger and hurt has diminished with time, but these are things that you must contend with when you transition. Transitioning is like a party: it is all very exciting, but soon after the transition you are left with some pretty big headaches that hormones and surgeries can’t fix.
I also had my children. No longer living at home, I needed to make sure I contacted them as much as I possibly could and let them know that even though I was not physically there, I would always be a phone call away. I work very hard to make it to every birthday and special event they have. I guess that was part of my anger with my wife—she got to keep the most important part of my life: my children.
I had always loved my children, but I had learned to live in an isolated world and never let anyone get close to me, in the fear that they would find out who I was. Those walls were gone now, and I needed to repair the bond between my children and myself. If I had waited any longer, my children would have never known me, even though I had lived at home. Quality time with my children was rare before transitioning, because I was always too busy. Even though I only see them now about once a month, I have spent more quality time with them than ever before. Rebuilding this relationship is the most critical, and when I am with my children they get my absolute and undivided attention.
Both parties must be willing to come together for a relationship to work. I am still not sure the relationship can be repaired between my parents and me. When I needed them most, they rejected me. They were never able to ask me how I was doing, and when I asked them to only address the envelopes with my legal name on outside of the envelope, they found it easier not to send me anything. Being rejected this way by your living parents is harder than if they had died. As long as they are living, you hold out hope that maybe someday they will accept you. As long as there is hope, you don’t move on. I hear stories about these parents who lose their child but are unable to move on until they know for sure that their child will not be returning—I have lost my parents and still hope they will return, but hope is diminishing.
I had to take time to think about the relationship between me and my parents. The relationship that I had with my parents would never be as it was again. But what kind of relationship did we actually have? They never really knew me: I never let them know who I was, and they never asked. They do not even know what my university degrees and where they are from. So if I rebuild a relationship that was built on the person they knew, they still would not know me.
The old relationship I had with my parents is not the relationship I really wanted. I also knew that the relationship that I have with my children would never happen between my parents and me. I needed to start from scratch and hope that someday my parents would be able to love me as their child. One thing I did learn from my transition is that love is only something you can give, and there is no guarantee that it will be reciprocated.
Being so flatly rejected by your parents is very difficult to overcome. I think maybe someday I will be able to forgive them but I will never be able to forget. This is going to make rebuilding the relationship hard to do. If they eventually are able to love me as their child, the love will always be questioned—do they really mean it or are they going to hurt me again if I do something their pastor says is wrong? As a parent I know how my love is for my children and that would never falter, and I often wonder if my parents ever loved me.
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It is going to take some time before I will be able to reach out to them again. When and if I do, I am not sure at this point what I would be reaching out for. I can forgive them, but this is something that I could never forget. I know my parents’ history and can rationalize why they reacted the way they did, but being rational does not help the hurt. I have become resigned to the fact that I must live the rest of my life never seeing or speaking to my parents again.
I hear a lot of girls say they are still the same person and that is true for them. However, for everybody else you have changed and the relationship that you had with everybody in the past has changed. You are a new person and you need to rebuild your relationships. I don’t look like that old person or act like that old person they used to know. These relationships had to be rebuilt.
I had thought that sexual reconstruction surgery was the final step to transitioning. This assumption was quickly dismissed when I discovered that there was still a lot of transitioning that occurs post surgery. One outcome of surgery is confidence. I had a far amount of confidence prior to surgery; however, afterwards it was stronger. I did not have to wear breast pads; I actually had cleavage. I went from hiding the fact that I was a man to showing the world that I was a woman.
Prior to surgery, I used the women’s restroom, and every time I did, I was mentally prepared to defend myself if ever challenged. During the duration of the transition I was never challenged, but the defensive/cautionary attitude was always present. That all changed once I was a complete woman. People comment on how my posture changed after surgery. I think we all have a funny way of perceiving ourselves.
My fashion choices changed with my new confidence. Stretch pants and jog bras became the norm at the gym, versus baggy t-shirts and sweat pants. I started buying tops that accentuated my womanhood instead of hiding masculine traits. The skirt length changed from below the knee to slightly above the knee. The skirt-on-piece swimsuit was replaced with a bright halter top bikini.
The new-found confidence really helped to continue breaking down the walls that I had created. My female personality worked its way out as these came down. Over all I was genuinely happier than I had ever been before. I felt like this new colt who had just learned how to walk, then run, and soon it is bolting around the pasture totally enjoying the new-found freedom. All I wanted to do was live. I had done a lot in the past, but now I wanted to experience everything all over again.
Testosterone stays in your system for six months after the surgery. Each progressive month after surgery I could actually feel the changes in my body as it disappeared. Some of the changes were subtle, others were more noticeable. The hair on my head continued to get thicker, My cheeks filled in and so did my posterior. I noticed softer skin and less hair growing out of my ears and under my arms.
What is interesting about transitioning that many people do not think about is when you transition you actually transition from one gender to the other. Transitioning means more than getting to wear a dress whenever you want to. Transitioning means never to be a male again, and you inherit everything that females have to deal with—good and bad. Never is a long time, so those who are thinking about transitioning need to keep this in mind. Not only do you not get to be female, you get everything that females have to live with.
It was fourteen weeks post-op when I was suddenly introduced to what it means to be female one hundred percent of the time. I was on a business trip to Las Vegas. Up until that point, I had been getting up early and running every morning. It took a bit to get back to where I was prior to surgery, but I was easily running five and half miles in forty-five minutes. I arrived late on a Monday and got up early Tuesday morning; I went down to the fitness center to get my early morning run in.
I was feeling lethargic that morning and found it difficult to run my normal morning distance. I was discouraged but brushed it off as being tired and not used to the altitude: where I stayed the elevation was about 1500 feet, and I am used to training at sea level or close to it. In the past this had never been a problem, but I was looking for excuses and that seemed like a plausible one. That night I went to bed on time trying to get caught up on my sleep. Sleep came quickly, and I enjoyed the first four hours of it.
About 2 a.m. I was awakened buy a sudden urge to go to the restroom. This was not uncommon now post-surgery because my bladder seemed so much smaller. Like most individuals who get up in the middle of the night half awake, I staggered my way to the restroom, trying not to turn on any lights. I fully intended to go back to bed right after this ordeal, and hopefully before the warm spot in my bed had a chance to cool.
The sleep was driven from my eyes the instant I sat down. No, the toilet seat was down— there had been no men in my room that day. What woke me up was this intense burning sensation when I urinated. If I had not been going to the bathroom at the time I would have wet my pants. It was a pain I had never felt before. By this time all but a few stitches were gone and I thought that maybe one of them had gotten infected, and the slightly acidic urine may have been the culprit.
I finished the paperwork associated with the task and went back to bed. I had been in bed for what seemed like no more than a few minutes when I had to go again. I thought that maybe because of the pain I had not completely emptied my bladder. This time when I went the pain was even greater, and the volume was less than the prior trip. Upon completion, again I stumbled back to bed. No sooner had I laid down again that it felt like I had to go again.
This time it dawned on me what was going on. I had urinary tract infection. Welcome to womanhood! This is something that you may never experience as a male, but as a female expect it and expect it more than once. I was naive and thought I could beat it just by making sure I drank a lot and flushed it out. The next morning I felt OK and went down to the fitness center and attempted to beat yesterday’s poor performance of a workout. I did do it, but it took everything that I had. It was a busy day, and I think that kept me from feeling too tired. After dinner I felt exhausted and went to bed as soon as I could. I was not asleep long when the fever set in. It was a very long night waiting for morning. My alarm went off at its usual time, and I turned it off. I rolled over to see if I could catch a minute or two more of sleep, and I woke up over three hours later.
I had a friend take me to the closest “Ready Care.” I signed in and waited for my name to be called. When it was, I went up and they took my ID and insurance card as I described the symptoms to the nurse. I was not from there, and all my identifications indicated that I was female. I was unsure what I needed to disclose to her. She took my weight, pulse, and blood pressure just before leading me to the exam room.
As I entered she gave me a little cup to capture a urine sample. This was a first as a woman. It was so much easier doing this as a guy. I did manage to get some in the cup; when I was finished, I went back to the exam room and waited for the doctor. Thankfully, it was not a long wait, because I was getting the urge to go again. She looked at me a couple of times and then proceeded to ask me some questions: How long was my urine cloudy? Had I seen any blood or puss in the discharged? I politely explained that if there was I could not tell because I was legally blind and have very poor color distinction. She then proceeded to ask questions about my menstrual cycle to which I had to explain why I did not have one of those, either.
After I disclosed to her that I was transgender, she proceeded to ask even more questions. I am not sure if the questions were out of medical necessity or out of personal curiosity. She asked where and when I had the surgery, and if I was on hormones. The technician came back with the test results just as I finished answering her questions. I did have a urinary tract infection. The doctor gave me my prescriptions and I left.
No matter how stealthy you are, you are going to have to out yourself for the rest of your life. It is ironic that the first forty years of my life I spent trying to hide the fact that I was mentally a woman, and now that I have transitioned, I find myself trying to
hide the fact that I was once considered a male. No matter how much you want to rid yourself of your past, it is always going to be there.
The first and most important thing you have to work on when transitioning is self acceptance. If you are not confident about who you are, no one else will be, either. It does take time to build up that courage to transition. And no matter how unsure or scared you are, you have to hold your head high and look like everything is going great. There were a good many times I had a smile on my face and just wanted to go to my room and cry.
I had many fears but one of my biggest was, Will anyone find me attractive once I am done? Am I going to have to live the rest of my life as a single woman? True, I would rather live my life as a single female than as a married man. But was I going to find that special someone? It is hard to get back into the dating game when you are in your forties, but being a neo-woman is even more scary.
Thank goodness for the internet and online dating sites. I wanted to find out if anyone was going to be interested in me ,so I put up my picture and filled out my profile and waited. I did not disclose that I was transgender in the profile; I just simple put “single woman interested in a long term relationship.” I did disclose that I was 6’1,” thinking most men would not want to date a woman who was taller than them.
I guess I forgot what men are like. Within an hour I had about fifty responses to my ad. The interesting part was that I posted the ad at 5:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. As a guy, sex is truly on the brain 100 percent of the time, and many of the responses clearly reflected it. I shouldn’t have been, but I was taken aback by how quickly I received pictures of their male anatomy. A few of the responses described in detail what they wanted to do to me—it is amazing how uninhibited men can get when they have the anonymity of the internet.
Welcome to womanhood. I found out what if feels like to be seen as “something to do,” as it was put in one response, versus being a person they wanted to be with. This was a real revelation for me. One response stuck out from the rest: a man, I purposely left out the “gentle” in front of the man, who sent me something for the first time, so it was not as though we were having a conversation. His response was a single line of text: “You are marriage material.” It was nice of him to let me know. When I read it I was taken aback, and I was thinking what kind of response was he looking for? Does he actually think that was a compliment or that I would even respond? I was learning what it was like to be female.
The Great Elephant Ride Page 17