Official beginning of being a female.

My conversion from male to female has officially begun, as my state IDs now say I am a female. The doctor approved me for feminizing hormones on Monday and my appointment for orientation to the hormones before they begin is August 30. I am accumulating a full set of female clothing and have started dressing as a female full-time. Yesterday I had my ears pierced. One of the biggest challenges at this point is arousing others to see me as pretty. People have been variously supportive and insulting, but the memorable instances are the positive ones. My brother Dave and his wife Rita had previously informed me that if I am crossdressing they don't want me in their home, so I will have to adapt to having no family anymore. My sisters either don't speak to me or say very little, a situation of long standing having nothing to do with transgender issues. Three of my friends have expressed support. The rest haven't said anything.

The name I have chosen to circulate among my acquaintences is Ise Alexandra Batek. Ise was the name of the wife of noted architect Walter Gropius. I met her on an open house to her home with the architects I was working with in the Boston area. She cornered me in a corridor and told me she thought I didn't look like a James, more like a Phillip. Phillip of Macedonia was the father of Alexander the Great, thus the middle name of Alexandra. The last name will go if I get married. I have reconciled with not having my own children. I'm a blank page as far as men go. I'm not worrying about it. I'm getting used to letting go of all my male impulses and taking up the female ones.

After one year of hormones I will be eligible for sex reassignment surgery. I am told it might be possible to get a grant for that. I am hoping to get one as Medicare and Medicaid don't cover it, though they do cover hormones. Male to female surgery is said to be more successful at this stage of medical progress than female to male surgery. They make a "neovagina" with the skin from your removed testicles and a clitoris from the head of your removed penis. I saw a video of part of the procedure and it was disturbing, but the further I get along in my conversion the less I care about keeping my male genitals. Although I can change my name anytime, like anyone, I can't change the sex on my birth certificate until I have the surgery. Plus a name change costs over $300.

The law in Illinois prohibits harassment or discrimination against anyone because of their gender expression. So far nothing prompting me to prosecute has occurred. Lots of stares, some guffaws, and a few bold questions, but also some smiles and complimentary comments. I feel very much that the community of women is beckoning me to take part in their adventure, despite a contingent of those who do not seem ready to have me as a part of their community.

My intentions in the matter of my gender.

I am going ahead with consultations with the doctor on my gender identity disorder. I had suspended consultations indefinitely after one visit to him in which he seemed ready to procede based on the fact that no actual clot had been found in me when I had a gangrenous bowel in 2008. At that time I was told by the doctors handling the surgery that the only possible cause of a gangrenous bowel is a blood clot, and that they therefore were of the opinion I did have one. I suspended consultations about transgendering because I was concerned that the doctor there was indicating he was ready to procede and my personal opinion at the time was that this was improper.

In the interim I have found it impossible to continue being a male and this has changed my opinion of the risks involved with transgendering. I now feel that if the doctor decides that the facts are in favor of proceding, then I will do so. It is better in my view to live as a female with a risk of a clot, which could have a number of dire consequences, than to live as a male, a path that has proven of no interest to me other than to parade around the fact that I am a male just for its own sake.

But there is the chance at present that the doctor will decide, for whatever reason, that it is not proper to procede with hormones and surgery to make me a female. In that instance I have now settled my mind that I would go ahead with beginning public cross dressing and change my gender by common law after letting people in general know that is my intent, using a chosen female name. I do not like the thought of being a biological male while living as a female. There are plumbing issues that are unpalatable, and without hormone therapy there would be a lot of obstacles to smooth functioning in a female identity. Plus, there is a great deal less legal support for a common law arrangement than having the law accept a change of gender and name on my birth certificate, which it would only do if I were approved for hormone therapy.

One thing that encourages me is that in Illinois it is illegal to discriminate against or harass someone for his choice of gender identity. This includes simply cross dressing.

I want to begin cross dressing in public again only once the doctor has made a final decision of whether to approve hormone therapy or not. I will need to prepare myself going into it for exactly the condition under which I will be operating, the alternatives being so radically different.

I wish to note that in the event I am able to get hormone treatment and surgery, there will be no biological heirs for me and I would share my best work freely with the world. If I end up retaining the ability to have biological heirs because of inability to get hormones and surgery, I would continue not to share the best work, saving it for my heirs as a competitive advantage in life in general.
I look forward to a much happier and healthier life as a female, and will continue throughout to exercise those functions which have been alotted to me as a person of some standing in the universe. I have much yet to accomplish and many ideas on how to go about it.

First hoop passed in change of my gender to female.

Tuesday was my appointment at the Howard Brown Health Center, a medical facility that specializes in transgender cases. The doctor's name was Alfred Torrence. He did a complete medical interview intended to determine if at this juncture I am suitable and medically ready to enter the passage to becoming a female. He said they never do a psychiatric evaluation because they do not consider the transgender person to have a sexual disorder. He simply asked me why I wanted to become a female and I gave him a pretty straight answer.

My taking Warfarin is an issue as hormone treatments will increase my blood's tendency to clot. I take Warfarin because my other doctors believe a clot caused my necrotic bowel of 2008. Dr. Torrence asked me if there was any positive proof that I had had a clot and I said no. This could be a game stopper.

Another possible issue is my liver, as it needs to be able to take some stress, for want of a better term me being a layman, caused by the hormones.

If these and all other issues turn out not to be game stoppers then Dr. Torrence will approve me for hormone therapy. This done, I will be given a lot of paperwork for changing my name and gender marker on some of the more important personal documents, these apparently not including my birth certificate as Illinois is said to give transgender folk a problem with it, One document the doctor mentioned was called a "safe passage". It guarantees to anyone concerned that I am legally able to use female public facilities, such as rest rooms. It was significant to me that all this paperwork can be prepared and completed immediately upon my approval for hormone treatment, rather than having to wait for some amount of time to pass for the hormones to start to take effect.

So the next step was blood tests and today I went in and gave blood for them. But at the end of the interview with Dr. Torrence he shook my hand and said I had passed the first hoop on the way to becoming a female.

Hard to say at this point what the odds are I will pass through the rest of the hoops.  No hormones would be a major disappointment, but even if that happens there's no going back to behaving like a boy. We'll see if my body is going to cooperate by getting itself approved for the next step.

There is one possible way to get some recognition of the gender change anyway, which is common law. With that I would just tell everyone I know that I'm making the change and what my name is going to be. It's not as solid legally, but it's certainly better than nothing. I don't know what all it would enable me to do.

Gender expression and cosmetics

Expression of a single gender is almost as just as expression of the physical gender. Cosmetics bring a physical woman into line with some ideal of Woman. They play the exact same role in a transgender female, and this is an internal legitimacy for her.

At least that's the way it seems to me.