My First (Re-) Birthday

image courtesy of: http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk 

In some popular teen movies like ‘Thirteen Going on Thirty’, ’Sixteen Wishes’, ‘Christmas Every Day’ and ‘The Last Day of Summer’, characters who make a mess of their lives get the chance to wind it all back; to start over.  It doesn’t happen in real life but it’s an attractive concept: You mess up first time and then ‘hey presto’ you are magically transported back to before it all went wrong. You get the chance for one more go; another bite at the cherry. As a teen I often dreamed of that possibility. By the time I became old enough to think it through I had a feeling that it would require some ultra high frequency magic: Things pretty much seemed to have gone wrong from the day I was born.  

Bizarrely, on April 10 this year I’ll be ‘one year old’:  I’m in the strange position of having that ‘Do Over’ wish come true. Last year on April 9 I travelled down to Charing Cross Hospital, London and the following morning had Gender Reassignment Surgery. Now, twelve months later, after innumerable packs of sanitary towels, my first period, my first orgasm, gynae exams, losing my cherry, cystitis, thrush, falling in love with a guy, having my boobs hurt (though not in that order), I have to come to the conclusion that I’m a woman. I have a vagina and a clitoris, I get very emotional and cry for no reason.  I’m contrary, impulsive and love shopping for clothes. I love girly chats and strangely, I’m beginning to forget or maybe blank out much of my past history. More important than any of this I’m one of those people who is happy the way she is, comfortable with her gender identity and…….

.....oh my God I’ve just realised…..I don’t feel transgender any more…..

The reality is that having lived breathed and worked as a female for almost ten years it has proved all too easy to forget that I was ever anything else. For a quarter of my adult life I’ve been acknowledged as a woman and the mother of my daughter.  Time they say is a great healer and the pain of the past now seems a long way off. So where does this leave me?  I no longer feel transgendered, I don’t feel like I have Gender Dysphoria.  I’m straight.  I feel attracted to men (the opposite sex since I’m female). I feel like I was always meant to be this way. Things have changed for me big time!

In my last post I talked about my boyfriend. I discussed his cross dressing and how I feel about it.  I promised to revisit it further and explore how I feel.  I realise now that when I meet his cross dressing  friends I always wonder about their girlfriends, fiancées or wives.  These days I’m eager to chat with them about how they cope with gender fluidity and with relating to a much loved man who is also a woman.

Let’s be really clear.  I have the time of my life with Tina; my boyfriend’s female alter ego.  She’s a girl who dresses fashionably.  She has a contemporary sense of style and she really knows how to dance.  She is a great mate to go out clubbing with.  She dances burlesque with sassy style and she has better legs than me.  She is in short a great bestie and girl friend (two words). Isn’t it strange how ONE space on the printed page can separate TWO entities?  Tina is not my girlfriend, I’m not lesbian and I don’t want to have her kiss me on the mouth or be intimate with me.  It isn’t an aversion. I just simply don’t want to do anything with her that I wouldn’t do with my other girl mates. This still doesn’t make ANY sense to me: Logic would dictate that Tina and my boyfriend are one and the same person.

But now to the controversial stuff. Latterly I’ve come to wonder whether my boyfriend and girl friend can ever be truly considered ‘the same person’.  That concept assumes ‘cross dressing’; something I realise that I barely understand. I have a Transsexual past, I’ve never really ‘cross dressed’.  Cross dressing to me seems like guys who dress in women’s clothes. That fits in with the impression given to me by many in the cross dressing community. They are people who talk from a guy’s viewpoint and behave like one while dressed as a woman. They can be such fun to be with:  I enjoy their company but I still feel as though I’m chatting to a guy. Occasionally I feel uncomfortable because of their intrusive questions but I remind myself that this is just curiosity. I don’t see any of those things with my girl friend Tina.  She describes herself using the term ‘Femulator’.  It could equally be applied to some others.  With her, I feel I’m talking to another girl. When she dresses from her girl closet she becomes a woman.  Her manner, her topics of conversation, the way she acts, all change drastically from when she’s in ‘guy mode’.  Being very much at the girly end of the female spectrum I find myself bemused.  How can anyone have such a dual mode of being and be comfortable in it? Answers on a postcard please…..

Meanwhile, let me get to that cake....but just a tiny slice please...no that's too big!

Hugs,

Jane xx