ANOTHER PATH
Paula J. Coffer
All of us want to be happy. We want to have a really great relationship and we want to have the opportunity to love and be loved. Truthfully, nothing else really matters. What goes into building a great relationship? Isn’t self—acceptance the first ingredient? For most of us that degree of self-acceptance necessary for a desired relationship with someone is pretty much a given. We just “are” and therefore don’t think about it. Okay, so an obese person or a person with scars from an accident or a person with some sort of physical deformity has to overcome a lot of self-hatred that has been learned from others before self- acceptance is a reality. But, if you basically look “normal” on the outside and for all intents and purposes are a normal everyday person, what if within you there is such a raging storm that self-acceptance is far from being a given. What if that storm never really calms completely and having that successful relationship is just a dream?
Mine is a story about facing the raging storm within and how I’ve attempted to calm the waves enough to enjoy a relationship; a relationship with myself as much as with another.

DECADE 1 (YEARS 0-10)

Growing up in the desert Southwest had its unique qualities. Grass, for an example, was a luxury that most of us didn’t have because the water bills would have been too high. So that meant playing in the dirt or in

some other makeshift play area. For example, we had this large tractor tire lying in the backyard. It was filled with sand in the middle and we could sit on the tire and wiggle our toes down into the cool damp sand. What a wonderful place to sit and share tea and conversation. We’d look at magazines and just know what we would wear and do. We were so big! Even if we were only three.
Pricilla, Chris, and I would play for hours in the backyard together. We were okay with playing house together. We had that portion of the yard with the tire set aside where our brothers weren’t allowed because they kept stepping on the tablecloth or messing up the rocks we used for room dividers. Pricilla and I were only three years old and really had no cares in the world. We just played with our dolls and tea sets and enjoyed life together. Suddenly, the neighbor put a fence up. Not just any fence, but a privacy fence. Now Chris couldn’t come over any time he wanted. We all cried when Chris’s mother told us that Chris had to play in their own yard and couldn’t come over anymore. We could still look through the cracks in the fence, though, and talk with each other. Chris’s mother began to dress him in the cutest dresses and shoes. Oh how I wished my parents could afford to buy me dresses and shoes like his. So for the next year and a half or so, Pricilla, Chris, and I would play apart and talk through the fence. This period of my life was pure innocence, joy, and a pure love of life. No responsibilities, no worries, no concerns, just the love of a friend, family, and of myself.
A turning point for me was when my father accepted a job in Utah and we had to move. Oh the truth of a relationship. It was moving day, and we were all packed up and ready to get in the car for the ride away from all I knew. I was almost five and I was leaving my best friend and everything I knew behind. We were all saying our good-byes when all of a sudden my brother was fighting Pricilla’s brother. Pricilla and I were holding on to each other not understanding why they were hurting each other when my brother broke off the fight, looked at me, and told Pricilla’s brother that even if I was a sissy, he couldn’t call me that. Then my brother just pushed past me and told me not to ever talk to him again. I didn’t dare ask what a sissy was, and we loaded up in the car and drove away. So this is what leaving a friend behind was all about. Crying, fighting, and having my brother tell me not to talk to him. During this journey to Utah, I learned that I wasn’t supposed to be such a good friend to girls who only wanted to play “girlie” things. I struggled with this change in my environment. If I wasn’t supposed to play like I always had, how was I supposed to play?

I still held on to too much of my innocence. I learned that boys were expected to play in the dirt and get all grungy. I learned that boys
were expected to be tough, to not cry, to want to push others around, to play rough and tough. I learned those things and kind of did some of them. But I didn’t enjoy being the best at everything. I didn’t enjoy making someone feel bad because he or she couldn’t do something as well as someone else. It was this spirit of aggressive competitiveness that I disliked most about being a boy.
Most important, I learned to be secretive and for the first time I learned what rejection was. Unfortunately, the lesson was from my own family. But I also learned that I could overcome this rejection, and I could overcome my sense of loneliness. Within me I had the strength to endure the silence. Within me I had the strength to keep my innermost feelings to myself, but I so wanted to be able to talk to someone. There were just so many questions, so many things I wanted to know. Like why am I this way, my two brothers aren’t, nor any male figure in my life. There’s something wrong with me.
What was it about me that kept me gravitating toward beautiful girls who wanted to be my friend? Gloria Jean was just such a person. We would play and talk and walk together. We even started the first grade together. I even kissed her! She was everything that I saw myself as being. Really, it took a little while before I realized that she and I were very different people. My mother would give us three boys a burr haircut each summer and then let it grow some during the school year. Gloria Jean didn’t get the haircut; her hair was allowed to be long and flowing. How I wanted hair like hers! She got to wear the most beautiful dresses and Mary Jane shoes to school; I had to wear pants and button-down shirts.
I really don’t recall many issues during the first decade of life that would contribute to early gender experiences. My mother and father had some very angry talks about me on the subject that indicated I was to be this little boy and do little-boy things. It wasn’t difficult for me to repress the feelings I had about being a little girl; my mother told me that I felt this way because I liked girls so much and that I would soon begin to feel more like a little boy.
Being named “Jr.” was a curse for me because my father felt I should be just as macho as he. He absolutely abhorred my behavior. Is it any wonder, then, that I ended my first decade living two distinct lives? I feared my father. He would pull the belt off of his pants and use it with very little provocation. The net result of this was to learn to adapt. In one life I lived in a world of fantasy of what could or should be, and on

the other side, I lived a life of harsh reality. This made me pretty much of a loner, but it also allowed me to adopt a personal resolve to face the most challenging of issues and manage to overcome them.

DECADE 2 (YEARS 11-20)

Ah, the sounds of the gymnasium locker room, the smell of all the boys getting ready to shower and dress for the next class come rushing back to me. I was a year younger than most of the boys in my class. I admired how some of them always seemed in control. They could rally folks around them, have others follow their lead in everything they did. They could tell jokes, get good grades, as well as do some of the meanest things to their peers. The locker room, for me, was okay. Sid was one of those “special leader” types who protected me when any of the others began to pick on me. It could be because my body hair wasn’t growing like it did on everyone else or if I had some difficulty with some of the physical exercises, things that others could do. He told the other boys that it was due to my being a year younger. When my hair did start coming in, no one noticed that I shaved it off. I didn’t want to look like the other boys. I wanted 1o look like the girls—smooth, fresh, lovely, cute. Even though I knew that I couldn’t, I made a sincere effort to look more like them. I wanted to fit in the world that I was thrust into, no matter what personal discomfort at being with boys rather than girls, and to measure up to the physical demands expected of a boy my age. I relied on the lessons from the first decade. I could deceive these boys and my teachers into believing that I was a boy. I could adapt myself to be on the outside what I thought they wanted me to be. This is how I was surviving my everyday life at home, so it was easy to expand it here at the school.
I still had a special separate life where I could be me. I wasn’t sure what me was. I felt that I wasn’t quite like everyone else. The magazines and TV shows of the day (early to mid-1960s) really glamorized smoking. Leaving a ring of red lipstick on a cigarette butt, or holding that cigarette up with red painted nails and slender hands. Ah, that was glamorous and sexy. I would go into the garage and smoke my mother’s cigarettes, Tareton. The commercial was of this beautiful woman with a blackened eye stating that she would rather fight than switch brands. Now, that was a nice combination of manliness and femininity. I would feel very feminine when holding up that cigarette, sensuously blowing out the smoke, imagining the red lips and nails.

Life changed drastically when my father broke his back. We were forced to move into the country where new responsibilities and demands were placed on each of us. The arduous task of rebuilding the home, irrigating the desert to grow alfalfa, digging fence posts, working the cattle and horses—all developed my body into what a thirteen- to fourteen-year-old boy was supposed look like. I became lean, and tall, not exceptionally muscular, but I had a lot of strength. That first summer I had a job as a lifeguard for a swimming pool. Jerry and I would ride our bikes the four or five miles to the pool and clean the pool prior to opening. He was a year behind me in school but the same age. He was very well developed, while I was this lean young man. I remember a swimmer named Woody, who shaved his legs to allow for faster swimming. It prompted me to learn to swim, for then I, too, could shave my legs. I could now appear in public without fear or humiliation from this practice. I had to look more feminine. It was exhilarating not to hide or live in a secret world. What pure joy it was to do daily things without shame. Alas, the workload became too strenuous at home and I had to give up the swimming pool job.
I went back into hiding. Somehow, I knew that I was doing something wrong. I struggled incessantly with why I felt that way. Why am I doing this when no one else my age wants to do it? I didn’t see any other boy in school having the same desires, or were they hiding like me, living a secret life? Are there other people like me? I didn’t think so because I would surely have heard any rumors to that effect in this small Southwestern desert town. One day I heard about a soldier who had a sex change operation and was now living his life as a woman. Christine Jorgensen became a part of my imagination and lifelong dream. What if I could become a woman? Could I do it now, while in my teens, and stop the male development of my body? I began having this recurring dream. I dreamed of having breasts like other young girls were developing. When I awoke from dreams, I would feel down my chest; oh no, another dream and no breasts. Those dreams were so real! There were times when I would run to the bathroom and look in the mirror to make sure. The disappointment and realization that I could never be like the other girls in my class made for withdrawal into a private secret world. My other recurring dream was in the form of prayer. Dear God, I would ask, please make me whole, make me into a girl or into a boy, but make me whole.
I found myself attracted to girls but not physically. I wanted to be like them, look like them, be able to act like them—heck, I wanted to be one of them! I dated a few times. There were some beautiful girls who really wanted to be with me, and I wanted to be with them, but only to just hang out. I wanted to learn all I could about them, live my life through them, and to know what it was really like to be girl. My fantasy world only provided me with so much input before the harsh reality hit me and it made me look at who I was. I felt tremendous rejection within myself at this time. I didn’t think I was good enough for anyone. I felt that I was “damaged” property I just didn’t have anything to offer. My family didn’t have much money, and I was neither a scholar nor an athlete.
One clear memory occurred during my teenage years. It is an incident related to gender presentation. I would put on mom’s bra when I went to the bathroom I was taking a bath and had forgotten to lock the door. So, when it opened, I threw the bra over my shoulder and it landed behind the old eagle claw bathtub. My mother found it later. She looked at me squarely when she asked how it might have gotten there. I, of course, maintained a deafening silence. Adolescence was difficult for me. Whether it was the verbal and physical abuse from my father or an inner desire to be someone different, I just don’t recall much during this decade.
At seventeen I enlisted in the navy. As soon as high school graduation was complete, I was off to San Diego, California. I was convinced that by getting away from home I could “be the man” I was destined to be. Furthermore, it was a great opportunity to escape from my family and start a new life.
After a few months in the navy I realized that I couldn’t be the man I wanted to be. Something inside prevented me from acting like other men. I wanted so much to have these femme feelings go away. As I mentioned before, I wanted to be like other guys. At the age of eighteen I volunteered for Vietnam. I found myself wishing for combat duty that would allow me to die without shaming my family. I thought that the insurance money, provided by the navy would benefit my parents and they would never know about my gender struggles. I did two combat tours in Vietnam. My feelings vacillated from one gender to the other. Sometimes, I would feminize my body as much as possible, while at other times I would be as macho as I could. It was a regular tug-of-war. Who was I? What did I really want to be? I was still plagued with the why. What did I ever do to God to make this happen to me? What could I do differently to make it all go away and be “normal”? Why can’t I die instead of getting these medals? Why me, what have I done to deserve this?
After my first tour of duty, I thought I’d look for others like me. My ship was home based out of Alameda, California, and we were allowed to have a locker on base where I kept civilian clothes. I had a wig and makeup hidden away there. I visited San Francisco and found a gay newspaper. The thought occurred to me that maybe I was gay! I looked through the paper hoping to find a personal ad that seemed appropriate. Mind you, I didn’t know what appropriate was. I was looking for someone to talk with. I found an ad with a phone number and got up the nerve to call. I called and spoke with a man who said he would see me. I rode the trolley, the bus, and then walked the several blocks to where this man lived. I had my wig and makeup kit in a paper bag. Oh, what an adventure I was on. When I got into his house, he offered me a drink and a chance to talk. Nervously, I asked if I could use his bath— room to get “ready.” He said yes, and after more than a half hour, he got worried because I hadn’t come out yet. Finally I came out, wig and makeup on for the first time where someone else could see me. He smiled and asked me to sit. He said that if this is what I desired, then I wasn’t gay. I didn’t want to be rejected again, and I begged him to let me do anything that would allow our meeting to be a gay encounter. He said he appreciated that. However, since I wasn’t gay, he wasn’t going to do anything with me and that I should leave. Crying, I cleaned the makeup from my face, ran down the street, and got public transportation back to the ship. I disposed of my bag with the wig and makeup and vowed never to do anything that foolish again. That was the first of many purges. It is common for cross-gender folks to “purge” as a way of cleansing the closet and the mind.

DECADE 3 (YEARS 21-30)

At age twenty—one I was assigned to an aircraft carrier that was moored in the Gulf of Aden during the Middle East crisis of 1973. At that time I had a girlfriend back home. It was during the stage of life when appearances were everything. Becky was her name, and she considered me a hometown hero. She wrote me letters, and, more important, she indirectly validated my masculinity to the men I served with. I had a poster-size photo of her hanging in my workspace. All who saw it thought I must be in love with her. I suppose I was in love with the idea of being in love. Becky was, and I think still is, a beautiful girl. Whenever I could I would emulate her looks, her eyebrows, and her makeup. I would dream that I was her, waiting for my sailor to come home.
During my time aboard ship, I was very discreet with my femme/ masculine presentations. I would shave off all my body hair, trim my eye-brows, and sometimes use clear polish for my nails. As a macho man, I would sometimes grow a beard or a mustache. I truly thought I was living in my own world, unknown to anyone else. A second-class petty officer told me one day to call him when I’ve had my sex change. That came as a complete surprise. To me, that meant that people knew about me and they just didn’t care. I had spent most of my time alone and away from others, and that comment may not have been necessary.
Upon my return home from the navy tour of duty, I married Becky I regret that I couldn’t muster enough courage to tell her about my innermost feelings. I wanted to break off the wedding plans, even though I had pushed for her to marry me. I didn’t know how to stop the whole process without embarrassing me, her, and our families. A few weeks after taking our marriage vows, I had all these feelings, desires to feminize again. I couldn’t stop them and perhaps, more important, I didn’t want to. One day my mother came to the house unexpectedly While Becky was at work, I had just polished my nails. I almost died when she knocked on the door. For the whole time that she was there I kept my nails hidden. She looked at me quizzically, but didn’t say anything. The experience was both a frightening and an exhilarating moment, of nearly getting “caught.” What if I had been caught and my gender conflict had been out in the open, in what ways would my life have changed? Would such exposure have allowed me to live openly that which I had kept secret all my life? Or would I become a victim of humiliation to all?
One time, my wife did her own nails and she offered to paint nail lacquer on one of my hands, too. It was a pivotal point in my life. Later that night I awoke, took a shower, shaved all my body hair, and applied makeup before going back to bed. Becky woke up and asked me where I had been. Crying, I told her I took a shower and feminized my body It was then that we talked about the inner me for the first time; about how I felt inside. Finally, I was able to share my secret with someone close, and it opened many doors. I went to the university library and looked for anything related to what I was feeling, but I was not successful. I had no idea what the terminology was or how to search for anything about the subject. I knew for certain that I wasn’t gay.
During college I enrolled in Army ROTC and, upon graduation, accepted a commission in the Finance Corps of the army. The Finance Officer Basic Course was a tremendous experience. I got instant recognition as a second lieutenant and was given my own private sleeping quarters. This enabled me to feminize without fear of discovery. To ensure to my peers that I “was a man,” I would act more macho than most of them. However, I still couldn’t be a man. I could look, walk, and talk like a man, but I definitely felt that I was not like other men. Knowing within myself that I could never change being a man, I tried time and time again to “be a man” and couldn’t. Now that I was back in the military; I had to work much harder at disguising this inner me. I had developed tricks to hide my femme side. I had to conform to what all those around me considered a man to be: an army officer, a father, a husband. I couldn’t shake my desire to be feminine. It was like an obsessive- compulsive thing. My innermost feelings would begin, much like the beating of a drum, and it would be intense, and overwhelming. All was quiet within my mind when the “drum beating” stopped. Only by feminizing myse1f even partially, would these intense feelings stop. At its peak, I would finally give in to this emotion and “take action.” This evoked a new set of emotions that would take over. I felt guilt, fear, and shame. In the quiet of my mind I would doubt my sanity; reasons for living, and an inability to control my inner feelings. I felt terribly inadequate and inferior. I asked God, the “why me?” routine. This led to redoubling my efforts to be “right” and “normal.” During these periods I was highly productive. I could focus on any task and do it well. However, the drums of my femininity returned, would reach a crescendo, and the cycle would begin again.

DECADE 4 (YEARS 31-40)

Having been married twice by the age of thirty, I was about to marry for a third time. This time I went to several psychiatrists to get help with my gender conflict. Each of them had their own idea of what I should be. One suggested that I was fundamentally gay. Another believed that the conflict was due to an “abused childhood.” Still another said that my grandmother’s “sweetness” during childhood was a cause of my gender troubles.
By this time, I had read a few books on my own and had even visited with a physician who performed the sex change operation. I was living in Germany at the time, and all I had to do to meet his criteria was to be on hormones for the next six months and he would schedule the surgery. I would return to the States as the woman I’ve always wanted to be. I feared making that quantum leap without a clear means of knowing how I would support myself. I feared how the army and my family would react. I decided not to choose this option. Instead, I married again in an effort to put an end to all my struggles with gender, forever. I told her about me, and the gender conflict. I guess I didn’t communicate it effectively enough. Even though she said she understood, years later I found that she really didn’t. She said that the thirteen years we were married were stolen years. She felt betrayed and could not accept my transition toward full womanhood. This decade was the hardest for me. I decided to make the military a career now. I had been offered an opportunity to attend graduate school and wanted to have a secure life. I looked into the process of becoming an army officer on the outside while allowing for my inner self to grow. While in graduate school, I did not have to dress in military uniform and was free from much of the military protocols. I even grew a beard to prove that I was a man. I went back to the desert Southwest to visit my two sons in the hope that I could be a convincing enough man to gain contact and parental rights. I wasn’t successful, and I was kept from seeing or having contact with them for the next fourteen years. Again I called upon my inner strength to cope with the issues in my life. I got the message that I was a bad person and as such could not let my children know all about me. I’m such a bad person that I can’t share my true self with my parents. I did share with my older sister. Her only comment was “I didn’t sit and walk like a woman.” Hence, the gender shift and presentation was a reaction to blaming our parents for my conflict. On reflection, I think that her response was due to her own failed marriage and not about me.
In the early years of this decade I was getting hormone treatments. These were illegally obtained because I feared that if the military found out I would be dishonorably discharged. The hormones over the last ten years of my career definitely affected my ability to meet the military physical fitness standards. I almost didn’t make it a couple of times. I had to stoop a little and pull my shoulders in so that my breasts would not show. Daily life was a challenge to physically be a man and an army officer. There was always present the constant fear of discovery. If people suspected anything about my feminization, they never mentioned it directly. My home life was becoming very hard. My wife found me physically repulsive and asked that I sleep in pajamas to keep her from seeing my body. While we slept in the same bed, we didn’t touch.
It was during this time that I made some key decisions. I would retire and leave my wonderful family. I would live alone and learn how to be me. I had achieved a degree of success in the military became a field-grade officer, and was being considered for a promotion, transfer to another part of the country, and would have a new set of responsibilities. I decided not accept promotion and transfer. I preferred to stay with the transgender friends and acquaintances that I had met in Indianapolis, and so I retired.

DECADE 5 (YEARS 41-50)

This was the decade of awakening, the decade of experiencing life. Upon retirement from the military, I moved out of my family home and began to live life alone. I was lonely and occasionally prone to some serious crying jags. However, this was a period of positive growth. I slept alone, and there was no one to find me repulsive and unlovable. I no longer lived in a constant state of rejection. The decision to give up everything I had was overwhelming and brought with it major consequences. I gave up my home, my family, and my career. I was starting off fresh. A clean slate. I had no money, no job, no support network, and only a few friends. This is when I found out what being alone truly meant.
Even before my retirement, I experienced the first phase of my gender reassignment, an orchiectomy. I remember that it was Mother’s Day and this was a gift to myself I had finally stopped the source of the “bad hormones” that had been coursing through my body. Now I would see the real me develop over the course of the next several months. I wished that I could’ve afforded to have the complete sexual reassignment surgery then. The recurring dream of just knowing I was a woman was still with me. All my life I had dreamed that I was a female, and upon awakening I would run my hand down my body. First the hand would pass over my budding breast and I would smile and know it was true, but then my hand would continue to the genital area and discover that I was just deluding myself I wasn’t really a woman. I was just a velveteen rabbit. I was a “wannabe.” When I awoke, I would sit up and say “Oh shit” and begin my day.
I began my transition with Tiffany. We both retired from the military at the same time and lived together for a short period while attempting to get a business started. I was overdosing on hormones, and she was experiencing the loss of a dear friend. Both of us were too depressed to get the business off the ground. I moved on, without clear purpose, but I did cut back on the hormonal intake so at least I wasn’t suicidal and totally depressed anymore.
Transition in the normal sense wasn’t for me. As I saw it, it was a big lie to present myself as a woman when I wasn’t. I didn’t get a big thrill out of wearing feminine clothing. Rather I wanted to be. I wanted to be the woman I knew I was. This was a physical desire, not a desire to pretend I am a woman. My outer presentation was less important than to be true to myself then I could dress appropriately. In effect, I did the transition in reverse: have the surgery first, then dress and live accordingly. If I couldn’t get a job and live as Paula, I would work as Paul. Who cares what is between my legs except me? I had a forty-one-year history of being a male. I can’t turn that away and create a false past. I decided that I am neither a man nor a woman. I am me. If I must label myself, I am a transsexual woman, a spiritual being having a human experience.
I focused on creating a business as a way to deal with all the stresses of my life. I took the concept to several states in the Southwest. I tried to forget that I was neither gender and just worked at the survival skills. I needed to eat, sleep, and make enough money to support my estranged family. I was honest with myself during this two-year period, though. I was in a disguise for the express purpose of creating work or at least a life where I could support myself while going through transition. I just nearly didn’t make it. Once again, I couldn’t make a success of the business venture. I was considered too passionate, too focused. I didn’t bother to tell anyone that this was my life for the moment, that there was nothing else for me, that I had to make this work or die. One person during this time told his girlfriend that I was on the edge and a person to be wary of. His making that comment brought me to a realization that I was on the edge and had no idea of how to move away from it. I returned home and asked to live in the guest room until I could find employment and support myself again. The children were ecstatic. They had always given me unconditional love and valued me being in the house again. Of course I presented as Paul, and that meant my wife didn’t have to face the embarrassment of having others know and be aware of me or my transition.
I found a job as a traveling consultant, which suited me just fine. My spouse even fronted me the funds to do what needed to be done. My life was on track again, but as a man and not as the woman I had wanted to be. The consulting firm went out of business while I was on a job site in Tennessee. I stayed there and took over as general manager on a temporary basis. After four months in this position it became apparent that I would not remain there, so I began a search for another job. I had met a gentleman who helped me to formulate some of my strengths into a meditation program. I spent the next several months writing a book for meditation. It was a “how-to guide” showing others how to survive the struggles within and succeed. During this period my spouse made the decision

that we should get divorced. That would allow her to move forward with her life. I allowed myself to be taken advantage of during the proceedings. I felt I owed her because I had caused her to lose the most valuable years of her life. My daughters still provided me with unconditional love and are unafraid of showing me affection. Two days after the divorce was final, I had a penectomy and altered how I went to the restroom. After healing from the surgery, I had the final episode of the recurring dream. The one of waking as a woman and running my hand down my body and just knowing that I was real and not the velveteen rabbit after all. Finally, I was the woman I wanted to be for most of my life.
The next year was a struggle for me. I had my surgery and without the experience of the Real Life Test. I refused to live my life in masculine presentation again. I lived in fear of being caught in a women’s restroom or of being labeled a pervert by someone with no knowledge or education concerning gender conflict. So I transitioned after surgery; and I stayed with a friend who was very supportive. She even had romantic desires toward me both before and after the transition. It meant that I could still have a relationship. But that isn’t where I wanted to be. I didn’t want to share my life, with her, at this point in time. I just didn’t love her in a romantic way. Now, I was working in my chosen role as Paula. I was open as a transsexual and giving lectures at several Midwestern universities. I had accomplished all I set out to do. I was a professional woman working at a big-ten university as a financial analyst. My dream became a reality, at last.
While giving a lecture at an Indiana University class, I was asked if there were any differences between being a male manager and a female manager. I responded, yes, there are many differences. Men tell, demand, or require; women ask, request, or suggest. Women work within a work group; men work outside of the work group and bring back to the group the suggestions of others. What a turnaround. One of the most positive things to come out of these talks to students is that they would remark afterward on how positive I spoke about my experience. Other transsexual people they heard were always talking about what an unhappy life they had before transition and how they are still unhappy. I have been fortunate that I’ve never experienced any derogatory aspects to transition. I remember a regional gender gathering in Pittsburgh called the “Be All” where the folks in the bar were looking at us. We all decided that we would boldly go where no trannie had gone before. We went and sat with the folks all around the room and introduced ourselves and began conversations. It was amazing! There was one woman whose brother was transgendered, and she was seeking help in how to deal with it but couldn’t talk to him about it. How very rewarding that event was.
I’m no longer fearful or apprehensive about life, but I wonder which position I want to accept, where do I want to go next, or what do I really want to do. I have about given up on a relationship. Lesbian women tend to want a real woman, and I don’t want to involve myself with a man. I suppose I’ll continue to look for that one special person, male, female, third gender, or no gender, who will allow me to love them or at least share with them life’s daily routines and events—the happiness, the sadness, the joy, and the tribulation. Life for me during this decade has been exceptionally rewarding. If nothing else, I have learned to live with myself and have worked toward being of benefit to others.
I’m at the fifty-year mark, and I reflect on what I would like to have said at my memorial service. I would want people to know that I made a positive impact on others; that they have the strength within to succeed, not just survive; that I once had a kind word for some people at just the right instant when it was needed; that I was a good influence on how they behaved toward others. I could only dream that members of my family would stand and say they were proud of me, that I lived by my convictions, and that I brought about a positive glow and direction to them.
Most important, I want to be remembered for being a person, one who would smile at you on the street. A person who would not turn away from her fellow man during a time of need. Just a spiritual being having a human experience. As a friend of mine is wont to say, “Warm F1o’