I’ve been writing a lot about being trans lately, I hope it isn’t repetitive. There is nothing about my life right now which seems repetitive. So it would just be sloppy writing.
As a storyteller, in life especially, I tell people stories of my life and things I read, hear about, do, encounter. At times I can’t remember who I told what to, especially if the listener is from the same category as other people I have spoken to. Make sense?
For example, I have several therapists. Because of this I often find myself asking whether I have told something before, as I know I have told at least one therapist. The same works for my circles of friends. I say circles because that is how my life has always been. It is easier to keep people who might not gel with one another away from each other…One of my closest friends described me as a chameleon [have you ever seen that Woody Allen movie Zelig? I do have an issue referring to someone who is a known child-molester, but the movie is apt]. She said this of me for this quality—to adapt to different social situations, I become like the people in it…or rather, just show the part of me which fits best. Do we all do this?
There are now just 18 days to my surgery. I have a growing sense of calm, but the surgeon’s assistant put some fear into me as she said that they would like me out of the hospital in just a few days. In contrast, other doctors I have spoken to, tend to keep us for 5-6 nights. Big difference.
“We’ll keep you if you need it,” she said.
“I know I’ll need it,” I replied.
My children think my surgeon is gorgeous. I do too. My crush is growing. What isn’t hot about a really good-looking person who gets paid to castrate men and is sanctioned to do so by the law, by society, by years of training, by industry recognition. I would love to see more people follow in their footsteps. I’ve spoken a lot about this to my main therapist, who assures me that all of her trans patients have this same fantasy in relation to their surgeons. Hot. It makes me wonder how many of us are submissive?
Someone I cherish posed a question to me the other day. She asked, what is the difference for you between being a slave and being submissive. She had her own answer but asked me to answer her before sharing. In the conversation which ensued, we established that I am not submissive. Not at all. I may never have been. But I am a slave. I own myself now, which has been a powerful journey, and curiously seems to give me more opportunities to explore what it means to be a slave with more and more people.
I am finding that many women I meet are not turned off by this thought, but on the contrary, are eager to explore it. It allows them to express their own feelings of submissiveness. And knowing that I am not fetishizing them or asking them to dispense kinks to me, but am rather just exploring my own femininity, we find a gentle and safe space for mutual exploration.
I am becoming the dominatrix that I always wanted to play with. I will go pro. This matters to me and has now become wound together with how femininity is manifesting within me. The emotional baggage I want to leave behind is being a doormat. I will not be a female doormat. I will be a lioness. No compromise. With men, I am ferocious, and will be ferocious, and feel increasingly confident and comfortable with asking them to be naked in my presence, if they want to be in my presence.
And it is a curious thing. A man who is willing to be vulnerable with me in that way, who asks me nicely to beat him, will also be showered with sensual and erotic touch as I caress his body with whip, lips, nails, and hands. I could never do this with a woman, or to a woman. I could not, will not, strike a woman. I get asked, more and more, but I won’t. I won’t humiliate a woman either…I’m not sure I really want to humiliate a man…I want him to behave, to learn respect for women, but I don’t want him to feel bad. No. I want him to grow. To be worthy of love.
My brain is different. My sense of self is different. The imminence of surgery and my changed legal status, soon-to-be-new name means that I am increasingly comfortable inhabiting and asserting my right to be seen as a woman. I still get “sirs” from some people, who are too inobservant to think through what a “man” with tits, towering over them in heels, and with very long legs, obviously presenting female actually is, but I no longer have a problem correcting them. Some school children stopped next to me the other day, and asked, “are you a man?”
“Not any more,” I said.
“You sure are tall,” one said.
“Thank you.”
Over dinner, a male friend said that my physical presence, and my joy, evident on my face and in my demeanour, was a colossally revolutionary act. I can’t help but think that the adversity we face as trans people, does grate and wear on us, and we only notice it by its absence, because it is never ending. And non-trans people wouldn’t see it. London is one of my favourite cities on earth, and despite the obscene tenor of mainstream politics, it is a pretty good place to be a trans woman. But even still, most people stare, most people misgender, most people make comments, snigger, whatever.
San Francisco is the one city I have been where this is not the case. Not at all. Nobody even pays attention. I had that same feeling on one of the Greek Islands, a very Greek island, and the Greeks just ignored me. Bliss.
UK trans activist India Willoughby pointed out that there are roughly the same number of trans people in the UK as Jews, 250,000. Would anyone ever allow, either inside or outside of the Jewish community, the kind of bigotry that is shown towards us, as trans people? That we allow for hate speech from our own Prime Minister? What kind of sick situation do we find ourselves in? It is bigotry, and it has no place.
Every trans person has their “reasons” for the path their journey takes. Choice is not really one of them, as far as I can tell. What is happening to me is a state of flow. I am guided by instinct, but the pattern becomes increasingly clear as I look behind me from where I have come.
My life has been leading me to this moment. From the first moment that I learned that boys and girls were different, and began to understand what those differences were, I wanted to be a girl. I wanted it so badly that I couldn’t stand being a boy. I hated it, and so I also hated myself, and was profoundly hurt by being deemed to be a boy, particularly in certain ways, ways that had anything to do with women’s struggles to have a voice in society.
And maybe if society were different, if we lived in a state of true equality, and gender expression didn’t matter, I would never need to transition, but the context does matter, and here we are.
Transition is of life importance for me for being a woman gives greater legitimacy to me for fighting for women. I am transitioning as I wish to devote my life to women, to empowering women, to supporting women, to providing safe spaces for women, to healing women, and to helping women find their voice. This is my life path, and it can only begin post op. I know this.
In the coffee shop, the woman making my coffee said, “you are so elegant,”
“Thank you,” I said, “and you are so beautiful.” She beamed. My coffee tasted better because it was filled with good will.
I sat with my Reiki Master the other day. She said, “I felt the energy in the building change before you got here. The change in you since I met you, with so many breakages and blockages inside of you. Now they are all gone. You are ready for this step. Spiritually you are ready. The energy is flowing within you like an ocean, and I can see and feel the energy pouring into you from all dimensions.”
It’s how I feel. I am ready. Dear souls, I am ready.
Wow…18 days. You’ve been on my mind a lot, beautiful. Sending lots of love and light your way, and hoping that the healing process goes quickly <3
I look forward to living it and to writing about it. Everything is happening so fast now that it is hard to find time. My days are consumed with Japanese bondage, learning how to be a dominatrix, the hard skills, seeing friends, and dealing with doctors and logistics.
Your days sound pretty incredible, my beautiful friend! Are you on a hiatus from work then? I’m curious about the logistics of your daily life. XOXO
I hope so, hiatus that is. I am not working at the moment. While I need to focus on my transition, it will be a burden after the operation, a source of real worry. I had my job quietly terminate over what seems to be my transition–never said…and I had another opportunity which was a verbal offer which got pulled when I disclosed. Some people tell me that I am fool to disclose, but I don’t like secrets or pretending. And anyway, what I am is so obvious now, that meeting me and my long flowing locks is to know a trans woman.
My wife is continuing to pursue a scorched earth divorce which sucks, but mainly it hurts the children, and she doesn’t care–even go so far as to tell them so. So selfish. What can I say. They are by my side and will be by my side as I go through this process and convalesce. They are greatest things that ever happened.
They are thriving in their academic pursuits, one of them was just admitted to one of most prestigious schools on earth, and I am so proud.
My daily life right now consists of packing, tiering up loose ends, parading around the house naked, going out for cappuccino at my favourite cafe, taking ballet several days a week, and learning shibari one night a week and weekends.
I am definitely going to become a dominatrix, as someone quite special has decided to take me on as an apprentice.
It sounds like you are finally living the life you were meant to lead, my beautiful friend. And after the surgery, hopefully you feel more at home in your body. I am so glad to hear that your children will be by your side, especially during recovery. All of you experiencing your transformation together, as a family, is such a beautiful thing <3
Oh, and I can’t wait to read about your adventures as a dominatrix! Sounds spicy 🙂 XOXO
I can’t wait to live them. Two women who have whipped me, and I mean, really whipped me, have agreed to teach me. One, in technique, and the other as an apprentice. I will see how this unfolds. With one of them I never write about what we do, as our time together has grown organically that way…with the other, well, the kiss of the whip tells all!
You are such a sweetheart. What would I do without kinky friends and warm and wonderful friends that have come out of the woodwork over the past years. And with all that you have in your life. Your warmth is deeply appreciated.
I am having so much fun. I hope you are doing well, getting to play, and I do sincerely hope that Daddy moves up the donor queue soon. If you ever want to practice in you both, please let me know. We can do that remotely…
There is no such thing as a sex change operation. You can’t change your sex. Increasing numbers of people are regretting having the surgery and suicide tendencies increase in people that do. For your sake, for your mental health, please do not get this done.
Hi David. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I hope that you have enjoyed reading my post. I hope you read others, and come to understand them as the perspective of someone different than you. And in that, are able to find compassion and respect for those differences.
I am guessing that your statement “there is no such thing as a sex change operation” is coming from a place of conservatism, a place that says there are only men and women born in this world, and that there are no options, no grey areas. I know that amongst some circles this is a popular if misguided point of view. Throughout the natural world we find rich examples of the existence of a wide variety of sexes outside that which we might call male or female. The condition is known as intersex, and it affects an approximate 1.5% of the human population. Intersex can mean many things, but simply means, neither one nor the other, or possessing characteristics of both. Examples include people born with XY chromosomes but having the secondary sexual characteristics of a female (eg. breasts, vagina, etc). Or it might be its opposite, a person born with XX and having a penis. There are also people with XXY chromosomes who might have characteristics of both. There is also a condition in which approximately 1% of natal women are born without vaginal canals. The procedure to fix this is called the Davydov, after the Russian physician who invented it in the 1920’s. In recent years, there have been successful examples of vaginas being grown from a woman’s own stem cells and then successfully transplanted.
The examples above are not exhaustive, just by way of saying. The point is that biological sex itself is not cut and dried. Some people appear to struggle with this notion, and there may be many reasons for it, just as people once struggled with the idea that the earth was round and not flat, or that the earth rotated around the sun.
The fact is, sex change operations have become increasingly mainstream since the 1950’s, and there are thousands of them performed around the world each year. The WPATH organisation, which sets global standards of care for transgender people, and have established guidelines for carers, insurers, doctors, and governments since the 1970’s has a membership made up of professionals from all over the world which now numbers in the hundreds of thousands. To my knowledge, every practitioner who serves the community, adheres to the guidelines laid out, as do most governments, including every single one of the nations that make up the OECD. That means that by common understanding, it is possible to change sex, and that the world is not just binary: gender identity exists on a continuum. And anyway, nobody has yet to come up with an adequate, sufficiently inclusive definition of what makes a woman or a man from a sex perspective, and what makes female or male from a gender perspective. Go ahead, give it a shot.
Some people seem to struggle with the idea that there is a difference between gender and sex. Put simply, sex is your body, gender is your perception of self. The vast majority of humans do not have a disconnect between the two. What we describe as our gender is for most people unquestioned in life. And our perception of sex, in terms of selfhood, is perhaps the most fundamental aspect, a given, of who we are. But for a very small portion of people in society, this unshakeable alignment between sex and gender is just not there. There is some dispute about exact numbers, but estimates are that transgender people represent somewhere between 0.5% and 1% of the population, even fewer than are born with intersex conditions. Less than one in 100. About the same number of people on earth who have red hair. Not many at all.
Why there is so much political noise about such a tiny minority is beyond me. Why an educated person like yourself would choose to assert to a transgender person, who also happens to be a transsexual, that it is impossible to change sex is beyond me. But that’s for you to figure out. I just had a sex change operation. Before the laws established by a just society, I am legally not male, but female. I may call myself a trans woman, but as far as the law goes, I am just a woman. I would go further. Before God, I am a woman. And most importantly of all, to myself I am a woman. To my family and friends I am also a woman.
I do pick up a tone of compassion in your message, which is why I approved it, and am taking the time to respond to it.
You mention this idea that “increasing numbers of people are regretting having the surgery and having suicidal tendencies in people that do.” I am not sure where you are getting your data, or whether you are listening to too many unsubstantiated political talking points, but do know this: the incidence of “regret” is extremely low. Actual numbers of detransitioning are below 3%. And when you ask why, the answer is never, I regretted changing sex, but that the social stigma and pressure was so great that it made it just too hard. In other words, the refusal of people [I’m sorry to say this, but like you] who do not accept transgender people, transsexual people, and make it very hard for us to exist in society, to hold jobs, to interact, and the extremely toxic narrative surrounding us is what causes people to regret. In other words, and making it personal, I used to be a white man, and now I am a trans woman…I have already lost two jobs because of it, and my career as I know it may well be over. Why? Because bigots think I am less capable because of what’s between my legs.
And the bigotry we face as trans people is very real. Know this. A trans child is 100x more likely than a cis child to attempt their own life by the age of 18. 100 times! Why? Because having gender dysphoria is devastating. There isn’t a trans person on this planet who wanted gender dysphoria. And gender dysphoria is not something like a case of the sniffles that just comes and goes…it is a devastating and lifelong disconnect between what are bodies seem to say we are, and who we know are inside. And yes, there is a reason that the entire global medical and mental health professions have rallied around the idea that this is not a mental health issue, it is a medical issue, because gender dysphoria doesn’t go away by telling someone to not transition, or to not express themselves, it only goes away by letting them become who they need to be. This is why it is classed as a medical condition, and why hormone therapy and surgery are now the most common routes for dealing with it.
Yes, some trans people can get by without transitioning. I tried. I tried to do it for my entire childhood, my youth, my early adulthood, my married life and career years…and I did this through an almost lifetime commitment to weekly psychotherapy. And then I reached a point where I knew I would take my own life if I had to live one more day without changing sex. And this would not have been the first time I had experienced suicidal ideation–and this was arising because I was not doing anything about my gender dysphoria and attempting to sweep it under the carpet. Only this time, I knew it was real (not that I hadn’t thought so previously), only this time, I REALLY knew. And I didn’t want to die. I hired four therapist at once and saw someone twice each week. I told my wife that I was struggling and there was no help there. Instead, ridicule. But I didn’t want to die. I love my children, I love life, and there is no f@$%king reason on this earth why I shouldn’t be able to exist and enjoy life and be a productive and proud citizen even if I change sex…ipso facto, a society which tells a trans person that there is something wrong with them is the same kind of society that treats all of its minorities like dirt, is discriminatory towards women…you name the group…
I don’t know where you are from, but assuming it is the US or the UK, we are talking about fundamentally unequal societies rife with institutional racism, dysfunctional political systems where political leaders actively spout bigoted ideologies to win votes, and where systemic inequality is so great that the gap between the haves and have-nots, the educated and the under-educated are shocking…
Anyway. I have had the surgery. And I am better for it. I will have regrets, but those will be that I have to put up with bigotry, with being stared at, with having to listen to idiotic and offensive comments that trans people are groomers, or that they did it to compete in sports, or that they just wanted to get into women’s locker rooms or bathrooms. The idea that someone would subject their bodies, their lives to what we go through to just be able to go out in public as ourselves, what a commitment it is (FOR LIFE) to take hormones and the consequences, how freaking painful it is to have this operation and the many others we get just to fit in, OMG, the idea should be dead on arrival.
I apologise for my long-winded response. I’d be happy to engage in a factual discussion on these and other topics, but I encourage you to read my blog and to open your mind. Trans people are humans, deserve the same respect as anyone else, and there aren’t very many of us, so we are easy to pick on…I expect better from society…and I will expect better from you.