I'm a transwoman in my mid '40's. I awakened, as I say it, about four months ago. With my 'male' life almost literally in flames around me. I endured a frightening assault by the person who lived with me and was forced to confront what I thought was merely a quirk in my makeup.
I was outed, I was nearly arrested for defending myself, and I was facing the suddenly quite appealing option of abandoning my almost 20-year career and leaving the state for good, going back to where my parents lived. I started telling a few close friends but as I did I realized I did not have to say goodbye. Well, not as such. I did say goodbye from Old Male Me. He was for all intents and purposes, dead. I was a phoenix rising from his ashes. To be honest, nobody was more surprised than me, or more taken off guard, that I am actually a transwoman.
In my case I hid in a male identity I only somewhat accepted (I refused to identify as male if I could possibly help it, choosing 'other' wherever the option was available) without knowing what I was doing, and when I stopped pretending to be that person, I realized I had quite a bit more willpower than my old 'boy' had. I was able to clearly see us as two distinct people, one of them a weak tool, the other one the fount of all of my best parts. My intelligence and creativity were female things. I was a girl. I've always. always. Always been a girl.
It's my identity.
I don't get to bargain with the image in my head. If I see myself as female, I feel OK. If I see myself as male, the reaction can be anything from disgust to despair to outright physical agony. Deep physical agony, the worst ever. All over the body the muscles tighten; it is not an imaginary pain. I can feel it when it lets go, when i 'fix' it by looking right. It's not to be controlled or switched off. It is beneath where I can even verbalize what exactly crosses the line. I just know because I know. I know when I look right. I know when I am miserable.
One of the first moments I knew this was me was when I imagined for the first time that I was waking up from 'the' surgery. I'd had it described to me by my very close friend, who had worked with a transwoman who transitioned about a decade ago. So I had gotten an earful from him about this process, which was very upsetting at the time, and I knew exactly what 'those people' did. I just didn't cotton to myself being one of those people, despite my life-long dream of being female. Until, forced to confront it, I did. The reaction was something like a rush, a massive outpouring, and when it was done I felt very little pain and for the first time in my life, I was not feeling that muscle-clenched sensation. I had never, ever, ever known it as pain before that moment. And after that moment I could never un-know what it felt like, to NOT have that anxiety/tension/agony wrapped around me every day, every hour.
Several times after that I crossed boundaries in my life, where I could see myself as female. Usually late at night, during the witching hour when I was almost asleep and my imagination is at its best, I would flash on these crossings and believe myself to be female, and the pain would leave me blessedly. It was undeniable, I was not just dreaming of being a woman; I was dying of it. I could hardly eat anymore and I was wracked with sorrow and despair most of the time, when I had to girl down.
So I kept crossing boundaries and kept getting accepted. I went out to more and more places as a female until I was everywhere, even at work. This world was ready to accommodate me. They've seen others on TV, as human. I knew it was OK to keep going. And I felt better all the time.
Hormone replacement has started for me now. It suppresses male hormones, which is quite necessary, and replaces them with female ones. It's just a couple of pills.
It has not quite been a month for me. I've felt skin soften, I've seen some slight changes in my hands, my facial hair has dramatically slowed its growth and between two laser sessions (I call it 15 minutes of agonizing delight) I barely have to shave anymore. The act of shaving was very evocative of manhood to me so not having to do it every 4-5 hours is a delight. It's more like a 2:00 a.m. shadow now, before things even start to show much.
I also don't feel 'male' anymore. I've been told by a friend who hadn't seen me for awhile (and therefore hasn't watched me change gradually but all at once) that my mannerisms all read very feminine and that even my very modest softening of my voice has made it sound quite convincingly female. I am definitely much happier. That I can tell.
I've also been rather fortunate. It appears that the cause of this, or one of the causes, is a low level or a bad receptor for testosterone, not just during the part where my brain was growing, but almost all the rest of the time. My body already looks quite female and so does my face. Even my parents have admitted that, and they had the most investment emotionally in me being male. So, it seems there's not much masculinity to 'overcome' or erase as it were. I was always quite effeminate, thank goodness.
I have watched the rest of my self quite eagerly for other changes, with the mental image of myself ratcheting up a roller coaster towards the first big plunge. Whenever I see something that I think has changed, I spend literally hours talking to myself about it. These are tiny changes that may only be in my imagination so far. I wrestled early on in this with a terrible fear that I might not be trans either, the kind of self-loathing doubt that is common I believe among us. Feeling how eager I am to see the tiniest bit of feminization in my hands, face, arms, anywhere . . . clearly if I am just nuts, I'm just exactly nuts in this way that I still want to be a woman and will be happy, so I can't see that any of my silly doubts have any meaning now. In a moment, in a week, in a month, this little coaster I'm on that I thought was done rolling forever, will tip up over the biggest rise ever and down I'll go, screaming all the way with joy and terror. It is a strange journey that I cannot but take, and relish the little thrills of fear that come with the rest of it. I do not think such a meaningful journey could possibly come without fear, it would simply not be as rewarding. I have surrendered as there is nothing else to do.
Everything from here is gravy, boys and girls! Everything! And every day I become more what I dreamed I always was. I'm halfway through the uncanny valley now. I see myself in the mirror sans makeup and I could be a man or a woman. If I dress just so it is quite impossible to tell. The features seem precisely balanced. The lack of facial hair makes it hard to be sure. I don't get upset at what I see anymore which is how I know. I do not see a man glaring back at me. I can feel the 'dial' poised to start slowly tilting the other way.
Wheee!!!!!