15 years since I transitioned

It will soon be coming up to the 15 year mark when I took the step and socially transitioned, and started to live my life as my true self; as a woman. If I compare the 24 year old me to the 39 year old me now I can see there are a vast number of differences.

Back then I was very impulsive, that is clearly illustrated in how I went about transitioning. In that I picked a date and just told everyone that it was happening then and they didn’t have a say in the matter. This caused some issues with some people but I really didn’t care, indeed for my brother it really confused him and he got my parents to sign his forms so he could join the army early to get away from my transitioning.

I would also frequent transgender chat rooms and message boards on a daily basis, as outside of work this took up a lot of my free time. Talking to other trans people and interacting with other trans people was what I did. You could almost say that my life back then revolved about being trans, it was a huge part of my identity.

If I went on a night out, it would normally be with other trans people and we would go to trans bars and trans clubs. Most conversations, outside of work, would revolve around trans issues. Things like hormones, clothing, tips on how to “pass”, moaning about the gender identity clinics and all other things trans.

Hell at 24 I had even planned out how my transition was going to go, what mile stone would happen by what age and how I would deal with them and so on and so forth. I was obsessed with being trans, it felt like it was my entire identity and nothing else mattered.

With the gift of hindsight I can see that I was very naïve, and although I was driven with my transition at the time. I was missing out on a whole lot of other things that I could have been doing at the same time, if I just had stopped for a moment and not been so obsessed with everything transgender.

This mentality did eventually change, but it took a few years to happen and it took the step of me deciding to go back to university. As this would give me a whole new opportunity, I was moving away from where everyone knew I was trans to a new city where no one would know I was trans unless I told them. I knew I passed as a woman and didn’t look “trans”, so I decided that I would be selective in who I told and would just try to live normally as a woman.

This essentially was a complete 180 from how it had been, but was a challenge I was looking forwards too. I decided that no one on my course needed to know that I was trans, so I didn’t bother telling any off them, I just let them assume that I was a normal woman who was just that bit above average height.

At university I was quickly co-opted in to being on the committee of the LGBT society, so I did tell all the members of the committee; in case a member came to them asking for advice on being trans they could point them in my direction and I could help them out. But aside from that no one else got told.

Well there was one person, who was both a member of the LGBT society and also on my degree, who I had a brief fling with and there was sex so she got to know about it. But I asked her not to tell anyone and she was very obliging on that front and didn’t tell anyone.

I would still frequent trans chat rooms and so on, but much less frequently. I only really went in them to talk to people I considered friends, as that was where they went to talk so I did too. During term time my social habits also changed, instead of frequenting trans bars and clubs. I would go with my friends to normal gay bars and lesbian bars and clubs instead, and I actually felt more comfortable in them.

Outside of term time I would still go occasional to trans bars, but I was starting to feel out of place in them. As while there was the odd trans woman in them who I would talk to, the vast majority of the clientele were transvestites and pervy men looking for sex with trans people; and being hit on by someone old enough to be your dad is a bit cringe worthy.

As university progressed I became more distant from all the trans stuff, and even when I had a GIC appointment, they would normally be about 5 minutes talking about trans stuff and then 55 minutes talking about politics or current affairs. As the shrinks there could see that I didn’t have any issues relating to being trans.

My internet habits also started to change, and instead of trans chat rooms I was moving more to lesbian and bi women chat rooms. I was clear on my profile on those sites that I was trans, but to the vast majority of the women in the chat rooms they didn’t care. I became one of the gang, and they treated me like any other woman.

I did get a bit of a reputation in there for being a bit of a flirt, as I would flirt with all the women as to me it came naturally. I even ended up dating about half a dozen of the women from those chat rooms, so I knew that they accepted me as a woman; even though I was trans.

I was also included in the activities that they did, as one summer a group of them from the chat room all went camping and I went along with no issues. Hell I even started dating one of them on that trip, I had been flirting with her for a while and offered to share my tent with her and she accepted; and I can leave it up to your imagination as to what might have happened. Especially as we had sleeping bags that could be zipped together.

To follow that up, I used my connections with the bar owners in Canal Street in Manchester to arrange a night out for all the ladies from the chat room too. Which went down a storm as not everyone was a fan of camping, but lots of them were up for a night out drinking.

So I knew about 4 or 5 years in to my transition that society accepted me as a woman, lesbians were happy to date me. I had got to a point where for me being trans was a minor thing, I saw myself as just a normal woman.

It was then in my final year of university that I got a job as a personal assistant to one of the university lecturers, who also ran a charity that gave out legal advice to transgender people. So aside from all the PA stuff, I was also trusted in giving out legal advice to trans people as I was doing a law degree and it was coming to its completion.

This also made me dip my toe’s back in to transgender stuff, as I did my university dissertation on the evolution of British Law for transgender people. I did this because I was working giving out legal advice on this topic, and I thought that it might be helpful for me to do it. Indeed it was rather enjoyable doing the dissertation, as it was a socio-legal one. Looking at social aspects as well as legal ones, so I managed to wangle in watching several movies to see how the portrayal of trans people had changed over time, along with the legal advances.

When I finished my degree I carried on with this job, as it was fascinating and allowed me to see a whole sort of different things. For me it also opened my eyes, as my transition had been relatively easy, I hadn’t faced any discrimination or prejudice. But doing this job I was exposed to people who were having to deal with just that.

The person I was working for was considered one of the eminent experts of trans people and the law, so I got some opportunities that other people would kill for. I got to work on trans policy with the likes of The Home Office, Women’s Aid, The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) but to name a few.

It also got to the point where he became confident in my understanding of the law relating to trans people that I was allowed to go and do public talks on it to groups on my own, on his behalf. Initially this was terrifying but once I got the first one out of the way I really got the bug and loved doing it.

One of the best things I was allowed to do was to take part in a working group for the CPS, to help them develop policy on how to deal with trans people who were either victims of crime or offenders. So that they treated them with respect while they were dealing with the criminal justice system.

So now at about 7 or so years in to my transition I was in an odd place. To my friends and the people I knew from University they didn’t know I was trans, but on the work side of things I was sort of open about being trans, though not really making it a big issue. It was just something that I used to draw on for lived experience to share and help people with.

It started to become a bit of a pain to compartmentalise my life in to my personal life and my work life. So that year in Transgender Awareness Week I decided to say fuck it, so I outed myself to everyone I knew. Letting everyone know that I was trans, as it was starting to get to be a pain to keep it a bit of a secret. I got nothing but positive comments from those who didn’t know, and indeed not one person said anything negative nor did I lose any friends over it.

For me it wasn’t a major part of my life, it was just a little aspect of who I was. Indeed no one treated me any differently once they knew; they all still treated me as a woman. In fact some people said that if anyone said anything negative about it they would have them to answer too and I wouldn’t have to deal with them.

It was sort of a relief to be open to everyone after years of sort of living a double life. But it allowed me to live my life how I wanted to and to talk about anything I wanted without having to filter somethings out for some people. I even had one or two people saying that they would never have guessed that I was.

The funniest one of them came from a friend I had shared a hot tub with at someone’s party, where I had only been wearing a bikini bottom, but thanks to the orchiectomy that I had, you couldn’t tell. She was really surprised because she had seen me like that and there wasn’t a “bulge” visible, so she didn’t think I was anything other than a woman.

If you then fast forwards a few years everyone knew that I was having my genital surgery, and everyone wished me good luck and a speedy recovery. With everyone knowing it allowed me to talk openly about how it went, and how the recovery was progressing. Plus complaining about having a catheter in for several weeks after too.

Finally getting to the here and now I am a totally different person from who I was all those years ago, there are elements of all that I have talked about in me now. But I see things totally differently, I am still open to everyone I know about being trans, and have blogged about different aspects of it in the past.

Whereas at the beginning of my transition it was the be all and end all of everything, it dominated my life. Now it is just a part of who I am, part of a multi-faceted person who enjoys life. I am proud to be trans, and when I do post photos on twitter or Instagram I use trans positive hashtags. I don’t let it dominate my life like it once did.

I think for most trans people it is very similar, at the beginning it’s the most important thing to you it’s almost your total identity. But as the years pass and you grow older, and maybe wiser, your focus shifts on to other things, and being trans and proud of it stays with you. But you identify more with your true gender identity be that female or male.

You learn to accept who you are, and you accept how society sees and treats you. This then becomes how you see yourself, and the trans bit starts to move more in to the background and is not as dominant as it once was.

Till you finally get to a point where you see yourself as a woman or a man first and being trans as a secondary thing. Though it does not diminish it, and you can still be proud of being trans and being open about it. But your whole view of the world changes as you evolve as a person and time passes.