- The Little Boy Book
Transitioning female-to-male in Australia
Stand by your Man (and stay sane in the process!)
I knew I had to transition when…
Charlie (53)
“I couldn’t keep up the sham anymore. I couldn’t take one more day of being “ma’am’ed the rest of my life and being expected to like certain things and act certain ways based on assumptions of who I am. I couldn’t live the rest of my life in the body I had. I had to reconcile this brain with the right body and be honest at last.”
Hawke (28)
“Every part of the body was a total eyesore to me! Waking up every morning, hoping to have the body transformed without any intervention. But it did not happened after 25 years in my life. So, I told myself to stop dreaming, and I really had to go do something about my life! From there, I started.”
James (48)
“I saw Loren Cameron’s book and for the first time realised that it was possible to transition and look male. Looking at the faces of the men in the book who transitioned and completely changed their appearance from female to male, made me realise that my dream could come true, that I could look as I felt inside. ”
Daniel (18)
“I knew that I had to start transitioning and being seen for what I truely was inside when I was 16. I was always depressed. I would look in the mirror and see something that I wasn’t. I was always embarrassed about the way I looked. It was horrible. The only time I was confortable was when I would get called sir or mister. I didn’t understand what transgender or FtM was. I wasn’t raised to know. I just knew that I was definitely NOT female. I am glad I finally did something, because if I hadn’t, I wasn’t sure if I would even be here.”
Koen (26)
“I reached the point that the pain of fighting who I am became so great that nothing else – not the prospect of getting discharged from the army, not having to give up playing footy, not any kind of fear or possibility of loss – was strong enough to overcome it. I’d reached the point where transition was the only way forward and in the end it wasn’t that I decided to transition, but that I decided to stop fighting myself and just be me and accept whatever else life threw my way.”
Tex (37)
“I could no longer look at myself in a lie, when I would tell my children to always be honest with me. I would look at myself and knew I was not even being honest with myself. I felt like such a liar and I could no longer move forward. As a parent I had to come clean. I felt like I was dressing in drag just to play the role of mum. Now I’m me – I’m Dad and so happy with myself and my new found honesty with my teens. Best choice ever!”
Mike (42)
“I hit rock bottom with dysphoria and depression. Felt like I was lying to the world by who I seemed to be. The gap between intention and effect couldn’t be breached. I have had no problems with either dysphoria or depression since transitioning. I am steadily and gainfully employed and happily married.”
John (38)
“I was completely unable to use the women’s room at work or in any other public place, and I thought hey! I am not just ‘butch’, I am purposely appearing completely as male. I know I want to transition, and now I have to wake up and stop doing it ‘unconsciously’ and face what I really want: to live as male, be seen as male by everyone. The process from knowing I wanted to transition until being ‘ready’ took seven years.”
Sean (42)
“I knew I had to start transition when my bipolar started getting totally out of control and I had over 40 hospitalisations in a six-month period. I knew it was time to stop kidding myself and start moving in a new direction. Once I started transition I have not been hopitalised again.”
Tom (31)
“Thinking back upon things, I don’t think I had any one eureka-type moment. It was more a series of different moments that had a cumulative effect.” – Tom (31)
Resources
page updated 3 January 2011
