The Great Elephant Ride

by Stephanie Timmer

  These are real-life gender history issues. If you transitioned when you were young, you do not have these issues. However, the average age for a male to female transition is forty-nine. By the time you have reached middle age, you are probably at the peak of your professional career. You have to make the decision what to take with you and when and what you will say when you have to out yourself in those sticky situations.

  Since I had a lot of gender history, I chose not to go deep stealth. I work very hard to be as passable as possible, but if someone asks me if I am transgender, I will not deny it. I am a transgender woman, and I hold my head high when I say it. I am hoping to be the first person to set world records in both genders. That in itself will attract a lot of attention. I will not be able to hide the fact that I am a neo-woman.

  Your name change is import when considering gender history. I went from “Steven Alan Timmer” to “Stephanie Anne Timmer.” Using the same initials as before enabled me to sign my name as “S. A. Timmer.” This gave me a chance to conceal my transition when working with professional groups that I had worked with in the past. I do not like to share my transition with people who don’t need to know.

  I do not want to broadcast to the world I am a neo-woman. If they want that information I am sure they can find it on the internet. I am also writing this book the Great Elephant Ride that talks about all these issues and my personal transition. I know it is exciting to transition and during the final eighteen months of my transition, it became all-consuming. There were so many details that I had to work out, and the last six months I was counting the minutes until surgery.

  Now that it is over, I do not talk about it much. Everybody who needs to know has been told. The surgery was the end to a long struggle for me, and it is time to move on. But it was a beginning for others. It became pronoun hell for many of my friends as they struggled with my gender history. It was hard for them to adjust from Steve to Stephanie, but it was even harder for them to go from him to her. I still get funny looks from waitresses when I am at a restaurant with my children and they call me Dad.

  Because of history, my children find it difficult to call me “Steph.” I am their father and we still celebrate father’s day. I have mixed emotions about this since my surgery. I have a new level of confidence because I am a complete woman, and I have no trouble correcting others. I never correct my children; they have gender history with me as the man in their lives, and I do not want them to lose that. Eventually, I will develop a new gender history with them as a parent, and I hope that will enough. Correcting others is not a problem: if a woman calls me a sir or a he, I will politely return the gesture with a “Good morning, Sir”, or “Thank you, Madam” if it is a guy who calls me “Sir.”

  Your gender history is going to pop up from time to time, and it may take you off guard. Be ready for it and keep your composure. Majority of the time it is not done out of malaise, and sometimes I bring it on by acting like my old self. I will reiterate again, yes you are the same person as you were before the surgery. You have not changed – but to the world, you have. Now that I am a woman, the world expects me to act like a lady. It is getting a lot better, but when I am with people I have known for a time, once in a while my gender history exposes itself. And my male voice comes back or a life long action happens. Old habits are hard to break.

  Give people plenty of time to adjust to the new person. At first they will see you as the old person trying to act like a woman, but soon they will realize that you are not acting and are a true woman. The sooner you can get rid of your own personal gender history, the easier it will be for them. Every time you get called a “He” or a “Sir” quickly analyze the situation and see if there is something you have done to bring this on. I am 6’1” or I prefer to say “5’13” and a natural redhead. So I do stick out a bit. And many times people are not paying attention—they are just doing their job, opening the door, or giving you a shopping cart as you enter the store. They look at my height before they look at my face or breasts and will call me Sir—I correct them when it makes sense. When you are taller than nearly all women and most men, you can see why they came to that conclusion when they are not paying attention. Most will correct themselves once they realize what they have done.

  Going stealth was not an option for me because of my gender history and being in the spotlight so much of the time. If I felt I had to go stealth, transitioning might not have been the right option for me. During my early days of self-discovery, I had thoughts of having sexual reconstruction surgery and not telling anyone. SRS is for me, and what was in my pants is nobody’s business but mine. If I followed that plan, I would not have to come out to anyone and would not have to deal with the gender history issue

  A sex change without transitioning would be no better position than I was currently in. I would still be living a lie, wearing the wrong clothes, and could not use the locker room at the gym. I quickly dismissed this, though. Instead of hiding being transgender, something I did for forth years, I decided to embrace it. I would not have accomplished what I have so far in life if I had not been transgender.

  Being transgender gave me insight on how it feels not to fit in a social box. It helped me develop a better understanding of my son who has a mild form of autism. He has it hard because nobody knows how hard life is for him. How he tries to hide it from the world, so no one knows. He does this out fear that if people knew they would judge him. Sure, I am blind, so I already knew how people deal with others with disabilities. However, most people can understand blindness: they just have to close their eyes. It is much harder for them to pretend they are autistic.

  I am trying out for the Olympic long distant running team—5,000 and 10,000 meters. If I make it, I am sure I am going to be outed to the entire world. The higher your profile the harder it is to be stealth. I do not want a scandal, so I am not hiding it; I am just not promoting it. I don’t really want to be known as “Oh you are that blind transgender Olympian.” I just want to be known as an Olympian, without the adjectives. The adjectives make a good story, and I am sure if my parents are still alive at the time it will make them cringe, especially if I get on television and say “Hi, Mom,” like all the other athletes.

  I have chosen not to let being transgender get in the way of my dreams. There is a price for that because not everyone is going to accept me for who I am and, like my parents, are going to judge me before they get to know me. I can live with that. I can live with the fact that everyone in the world may find out that I have gender history. However, every accomplishment from this point forward belongs to Stephanie. I may have a new cover, but I am the same book underneath. It is going to take time to recognize that.

  Gender history is going to be with you the rest of your life. It may show up when you least expect or want it to. This is especially true when starting a relationship. When do you tell your potential partner? You will not be able to hide it from him forever, even if you transitioned when you were eight. There are baby photographs. Photo albums are usually a surefire giveaway. I have pictures of my children on my desk; I am proud of my children and will not ever hide them. However, if I ever have friends over at the house they may ask questions.

  Telling partners is far better than stumbling upon it on their own. If they stumble upon it, they feel like you are trying to hide something from them and instantly the little level of trust you have between each other is gone. Tell them before they find out. I don’t tell them up front—I wait until we have had a first date. If I feel there is a connection, before anything goes any further I tell them. If there is no connection and I don’t plan on seeing them again, there is no reason to tell them.

  I will not go on a second date until I have told them. I will only tell them face to face in a public spot. You do not know how people are going to react and if you are in a secluded area, you may find yourself in danger. Put yourself in a position where he will have a chance to walk away if he needs to. Don’t tell him when you still need
a ride home, and always bring enough money with you in case you have to get away.

  Gender History is your history. I have yet to meet someone who had such a bad history that they found nothing to hold on to. Part of transition is accepting who you are—yes, you are transgender, but beyond that you are a person. As a person be proud of your accomplishments, be proud of who you are. To leave your accomplishments behind would be locking part of yourself in the closet. When you finally come out of the closet, take all the good stuff with you, and leave the baggage behind!

  Photo Journal

  Paralympic National Silver Medals 400M and 1500M

  Me Today

  Me at 300 pounds

  Paralympic Nationals

  Questions and Answers

  I have been asked a lot of question during my transition. Some of them were funny and others were very thought provoking. I wrote down some of the better ones, because they may have been questions you have had or other ones you had not thought about.

  How did your children take the transition?

  They probably would have preferred that I had not been transgender. Everyone wants a father. They actually took it very well. I always assure them that I am there for them any time they need anything, and that no matter what I will always love them. I also explained to them, and they truly believe this now, is that they can tell me anything and I will not judge them. They know I will not treat them as my parents treated me. I think overall this experience has made me a better parent.

  What do my children call me?

  I gave them the choice and said they could call me Steph or Stephanie, but if they did not feel comfortable, they could just call me Dad. They still call me Dad, and that does not bother me because I am their dad. It is interesting when we are in a restaurant and they say, “Dad, can we order an appetizer?” You tend to get interesting looks from the server.

  Do you celebrate Father’s Day?

  Yes we do, but we call it Parents’ Day instead—there’s not really a card for that, but once gay marriage is legal, stores probably will have more appropriate cards for those occasions.

  Were you sure you wanted to do this (SRS)?

  Before I came out to the world, I took the time to determine if my life would be better if I had SRS. I always had the feeling that it was right for me, but it really became clear as I started to go through the transition. I knew for sure the day they removed the packing after surgery, and I could see that all that was making me a man was gone.

  How are you going to run professionally after surgery?

  My response to this question has always been that I will run just like I used to, except now I will be able to wear cuter outfits. I do run professionally as a female now. As long as I have had SRS and my testosterone levels are within the female range for a year prior to competition, I am fine. If you take testosterone, the hormone can remain in your system for up to six months.

  Will you regret it after the honeymoon is over?

  This question means, “Would I regret having the surgery after the excitement of the surgery was over?” Guys do have it pretty good—I do miss my larger bladder. It was nice when I could stand and not have to sit every time I go to the restroom. There are some things about being a guy that are nice, but I have never regretted being a woman. I do not regret being who I am, and that is a woman.

  Will I be a lesbian?

  It turns out I am not gay; I like men. I find myself enjoying the embrace of a strong man. I find myself attracted to the type of man I could not be. Maybe I find the rugged hunter-fisher-go-to-football-games-type man attractive because for years that is what I thought a man should be. I have a lot of gay friends, but I never found myself attracted to them because I guess I never really saw myself as a man.

  I had a close friend ask me, “When we hung out, who was with us, Steve or Stephanie?”

  A friend asked me this question. She wanted to know who was I when I was with them. Steve was always someone I tried to be, and Stephanie was who I was. I wanted people to think I was Steve, but truly all the while I was Stephanie.

  How do you know if you are transgender?

  It is easier to explain to someone how to tell if he is not. I simply tell him that if the thought of having your manhood cut off bothers you, then you are not transgender. If having it cut off does not bother you, then we should probably talk.

  How old were you when you knew you were transgender?

  I cannot recall a time when I did not know; I just could not explain to others or understand what it was until I was in my late teens. However, cross-dressing and being a girl is something I did my whole life.

  Do I ever have phantom pains?

  Phantom pains are pains that many amputees experience when they have a limb amputated. War veterans can experience leg pains and itches on limbs that are no longer there. I, too, have experienced similar pains. The doctors reuse the skin from your scrotum and penis for the reconstruction; they also keep the nerves intact and reposition them. It was soon after surgery when my stitches started to dissolve and poke me. I perceived that the pain was actually external versus internal.

  Are you able to have an orgasm?

  Yes I am, but it is different. It is different and takes a lot longer. I say it is better now than before, but that could be because the gender and body are now in sync with each other, which does make it better.

  When do you tell the person you are dating that you were once a man?

  This can be tricky. First you will never be able to hide the truth from someone forever, especially when you have children who still call you Dad, or you have written a book about the transition. If someone does not know when he meets me, I don’t tell him until we have a chance to get acquainted. If there is no chemistry between us, then things are not going to go any further—I don’t tell him. If things look like they are progressing, I will explain things to him. I never tell him I was a man; I tell him that I was transgender since birth and did not have corrective surgery until recently.

  The Great Elephant Ride: The Story Behind the Title.

  Have you ever sent somebody an email and the instant you clicked on the “Send” button you noticed somebody was in the list or there was a part of the email that was not meant for another person to see? Well, that never happens to me, because I am blind; it is not until someone tells me that I never responded to their email, or somebody emails me back and is completely confused about the email they have see, or even worse they are furious over what they had just read, that I realize what I had done.

  During my transition phase, I needed to send correspondence back and forth to various individuals, especially Linda, about various things. I knew myself and what I was capable of doing with emails and realized that there was no way I was going to be able to talk about things openly in an email, because if I sent one to the wrong person, I would be outed prematurely. That would be bad, very bad if I chose not to pursue transition any further. I did not want to come out until I was 100 percent sure that this was something I must do.

  An early requirement in the process of planning for surgery was to make a plane reservation to Thailand. Yes, I made plane reservations before I was sure that I was even going to go all the way through transition. I did that because the doctors’ schedules fill up fast, and to get the doctor you want, you have to plan ahead. I figured if I chose not to do go through with it, I could always back out, but if I waited to be sure, I would have to wait longer. Making plans forced me to make a decision. It is easy to procrastinate on making a decision this difficult.

  The hospital in Thailand would not schedule surgery unless I could tell them exactly what my travel plans were. I had to make them a year in advance and long before I was ready to tell everyone why I was going to Thailand. I did not have a charge card that had a limit big enough, so I had to charge the airline tickets to my corporate charge card. I needed an excuse or reason to go to Thailand before anyone started asking questions. Something I had always wanted to do sin
ce I was a child was to ride an elephant

  Jokingly I said to Linda that we could just tell everyone I want to go on an elephant ride. Well, that is how the great elephant ride got its name. Every time I sent an email about the trip, instead of calling it “Surgery” or “Vaginaplasty,” we started calling it the “Elephant Ride.” The code name for the reason behind the trip for to Thailand became known as the “Great Elephant Ride,” and believe me, it was a journey and a ride of a lifetime.

  Resources

  The International Foundation For Gender Education – IFGE

  www.ifge.org

  This is a great website that provide the latest news on conferences and events, as well as additional resources for individuals, families, and significant others.

  Bangkok Gender Clinic – formally known as Thai TS Clinic.

  http://www.bangkokgenderclinic.com

  I have nothing but good things to say about this clinic. I can only go by what my experience was, and it was all good. They picked me up and when they returned me to the airport twenty-five days later, I returned to the U.S. as a very happy, complete woman!