My poor long-suffering brother had
completely accepted my male identity. I had told
him a couple of years after transitioning, when
I couldn't keep it to myself any longer,
although he was 12,000 miles away in the UK. I
feared his reaction.
But his accommodating response was remarkable
for someone so conservative and unexposed to
such things. It was when I told him I was
changing back that he kicked up a
protest.
"But I have got used to thinking of you as a
bloke now," he complained. (A 'bloke' I never
was.)
And that was it always brief, subject closed.
I broached it once more when I was thinking
about female names.
"Well, it's a pity you didn't pick a name
like Lesley that would have done for either,"
was all he said. Short and sweet.
It has become once again the subject we don't
mention.
My parents had died before I changed to male
but other family; elderly aunties and a cousin I
didn't tell about FTM, I had left it up in the
air. Being overseas like my brother, they only
saw me once during my transition to male and
just thought I had put on weight.
"You look older and fatter," they said.
Maybe I'll look younger and thinner having
stopped the hormones.
It's not just a matter of coming off the
hormones and feminising. Changing back to female
is fraught with as many complex issues as there
were becoming male.
At which point do you change your name (yet
again); tell people; or call yourself a woman?
Do you dress differently to hide the flat chest?
And how do you explain the deeper voice to those
who query your sex?
One of my aunts, a 90-year-old, had even
started calling me a 'he' of her own accord,
picking up on my deeper voice and
masculinisation, I expect. No explanation
forthcoming from me. (I had decided she was too
old to tell).
Then she seemed to go back to calling me a
'she' when my voice got slightly higher, post
hormones. If I had wanted to follow through
being FTM I would have been one of the lucky
ones, with an accepting family, albeit a silent
acceptance without further discussion.
Using the female toilets once more was the
easiest bit. I relished never having to enter
the stinky male loos again. As a man, I use to
sometimes use the female toilets and prior to
that as a woman I had used the male toilets in a
kind of private experiment of public reactions.
I could write a paper on toilet etiquette in
both sexes. No-one ever questioned it either
way; such was my androgynous face on life.
The 5 o'clock shadow hadn't happened after
three years on hormones but I was just about to
get slight beard growth when I stopped them. A
bit of residual bum fluff on the chin has been
easy to hide, but sometimes I'm self conscious
of it when I forget to shave.
But the hardest step is friendships and
acquaintances, as it was going the other
way.
I am leading a double life around people who
don't know my history - the not-so-close friends
and neighbours who still know me as male.
Perhaps they've noticed my "prettying" face such
as you get without the hormones. And my slightly
longer hair (thank goodness I hadn't receded or
gone bald on testosterone).
I have told important friends who didn't know
me before I was male. Friends who had invested a
lot in me being a guy too. They are women who
whom I was their only male "he's possibly gay"
friend. Women who had confided me in me things
about their husbands or girlfriends that they
would only confide in a gay male friend. It was
with great intrepidation (on my part) when I
told them the whole story, one of whom had known
me as a friend and freelance colleague for four
years.
She had a shock but didn't take long to get
over it. She went through a great disappointment
that she no longer had her male friend. She had
been proud to have a gay male friend in her
otherwise heterosexual life. It was important to
her that I was male, she said. I had to tell
myself that it wasn't my business; she would
have to deal with it. And she did.
My work identity is still male. As a writer I
have a male byline. I can't change that and
don't want to, having already published in that
name. But I can adopt an androgynous one from
this point, if I must. When it comes to names,
somehow I can't quite go completely to female.
The male part of me is still there.
How to explain to clients that: "I was female
originally and changed to male, but now am going
back to female again" is beyond me at the
moment. It's too wordy an explanation for a
writer!
It's none of their business. But I can't just
turn up for a conference with a client who I
rarely see, dress as a (corporate) woman, when
they are expecting a man (how do women dress
anyway?)
I am tempted to work as a male but live as a
female but I know that would only lead to an
anxiety-ridden life.
I didn't have these problems when I changed
to male. I had come from another country and had
begun a new life in Australia as a guy with a
clean slate. Now I have got a six-year history
and a huge pile of documents as male to switch
over.
It is hard to explain why being male wasn't
right for me. I had had a relatively easy FTM
transition and was making my way in life as a
guy, but I still felt as desperate as ever. It
didn't fix anything. And it added further
complications in the relationship department,
like how to be intimate with someone without the
necessary 'gear'. Having to explain every time I
met someone that I hadn't always been male. I
just wanted to be spontaneous but I felt like I
was shrouded in a mystery that weighed me down
like a lump of lead.
Yes, you can get around these things, but for
me it was a half-life, that I wasn't prepared to
live with.
My gender identity is androgynous and being
male placed me on the wrong end of the
continuum, as it did female. But this time
around it will be different. I am learning to
accommodate the female part of me.
And the nagging voice still says, "are you
sure you are making the right decision?"
