Detransition: The Little Black Sheep

Detransition is seen as taboo within the transgender community.  A lot of people fear discussing it because they do not want to admit that it could be them one day.  Those that oppose the transgender community use detransition as a reason why transgenderism is disorder of some kind and not an actual identity.  Most just tend to avoid the topic altogether. 

There are a few things that I noticed when doing some minor research about the issue online. Detransiton seems to be a bit more common in the the female to male population and less so from those who transitioned from male to female. I looked up detransition on youtube a few times and most people who shared their stories were female to male. An article I read over the internet through a friend focused mostly on those that transitioned from female to male.  I cannot put my finger on why this is the case. My best guess is that the health risks associated with testosterone are lot more severe than the ones linked to taking estrogen. Maybe that is a bit of a stretch, but it is known that testosterone is a stronger hormone than estrogen.  It will not take as long for one to see the effects of the changes in his or her body as it would for someone transitioning from male to female.  Other than this small observation, it is still a mystery as to why detransition seems more common among the female to male population.

Some people have reported going through another serious issue in their lives at the time they decided to transition.  A person's life is not going to magically change just because he or she transitioned. One has to transition for him or herself. An individual is still going to have the same interests and emotions as before the transition took place. A person will have the same traits as he or she did before his or transition took place. An individual might be happier after transition, but the other aspects of him or her probably will not change that much.

There has been a lot of talk regarding how easy going doctors are these days to prescribe hormones.  Some argue that medical professionals should probe individuals about why they want to start hormones to make sure they are doing it for a good reason.  I do not think that care for transgender individuals needs to go back to the “gatekeeper” system, but I do think that a person should think about things long and hard before they do anything to his or her body. A person should be able to do what he or she wants with his or her body. I do believe that there should be guidance, but the decision is ultimately up to the individual. If the person regrets the decision later in life, then he or she will have to deal with those consequences.  This is why some people choose to live as the other gender for a while before they start hormones. No one says anything when people are of drinking age or smoke cigarettes, so why should hormones be any different?  I was told the risks of hormones before I took them. I had to sign a paper stating I understood that what I was going to do to do to my body was of my own free will.  Being “young and stupid” is not an excuse to institutionalize “gatekeeping.”  Any transgender person could decide to come off of hormones at any time.  They will still have to deal with the repercussions of what will happen to his or her body.     

The question regarding hormones being right for an individual is actually rather simple. Does one feel that in-congruent with his or her body enough to want to alter it almost permanently outside of other persisting issues?  Being transgender can be extremely confusing.  I was confused for ten years before I took any serious steps to do anything about my dysphoria.   Hormones are not a joke by any means. Even though, it takes a while to physically notice a difference in one's body, the changes start from the first dose that is taken.

 

The key to having a successful transition is to know what all the risks and challenges are before going forward.  There are always going to be things that come as a surprise when a person begins this process.  As long as one takes responsibility for the choice that he or she has made, then there will never be any regrets regardless of the outcome.  The most important part about the decision to transition is the power of choice.  The individual is living life his or her way.  Life itself is all about learning.  The journey is more important than the end result the majority of the time.  As long as one keeps pushing forward, he or she will always come out on top.      . 

A Positive Approach to Fighting for Transgender Rights

The dust has settled in regards to Donald Trump’s ruling on the rights of transgender individuals.  I already spoke about how this outcome could potentially affect business owners as well as everyone else.  Now I want to speak about the steps transgender individuals can take in order fight back against an unjust president. 

The first step that should be undertaken is to get all of one’s legal matters straightened out as soon as possible.  It is understandable that some states still make it difficult for those who wish to change their names and gender markers on documents that show identification.  An individual should do what he or she can to get everything changed before the laws get any worse.  Pressure can be good thing sometimes because it forces people to be vigilant about what they truly care about.  My job is what prompted me to legalize the changes that I was making.  If the pressure from my employer had not pushed me to live more authentically, then I might have still been too afraid to have done anything at all. 

The next step that one can take that one can take to combat Trump’s reversal of rights is to join groups in different fields of knowledge.  Marches are not going to do too much except express outrage and anger.  Joining groups in the legal, medical, and technological fields would be a better use of people’s time and resources.  Getting everyone’s stories out there in order to educate other will be a more tactful way that the transgender population can get all of their rights returned to them. 

The most crucial step that needs to be taken to ensure that laws regarding rights will include everyone is to stop fighting one another.   Some transgender people within the community like to police others on how to transition in the “proper” fashion.  No one needs to be fighting one another about who is truly transgender.  Everyone is in this together.  Transgender is an umbrella term.  This term includes crossdressers, drag queens, genderqueer, agender, bigender, transsexuals, and androgynous people.  One size does not fit all in the case of transgenderism.  There is no such thing as being “truly trans.”  People are either transgender, or they are not.  It is as simple as that.  The degree might vary from one person to another, but there is no such thing as being a fake transgender individual. 

If the entire country can begin to follow these three steps, then there will be no foothold for Trump’s ruling to take root.  The ruling will only have power if we remain divided as a nation.  If everyone comes together, then nothing negative will be able to have an impact on anyone.  Every person can choose what his or her destiny will be.  The hard part is having enough courage to stand by one’s convictions.    

Gender Confusion: Retold

Being transgender is one of the hardest obstacles to overcome in today’s society.  The transformation that one goes through is no small feat by any means.  One puts everything at risk when he or she decides that transition is for him or her.  The individual’s inner world will have to be expressed.  This information will be judge by someone in the medical field.  The key to a successful transition is to take things one step at a time.

The feeling that I was transgender did not start until I was around fifteen years of age.  Before this, I identified as a gender congruent male.  For whatever reason, my brain decided it would be a cool idea to try on opaque hosiery sometime during puberty.  I never actually accomplished this goal until much later.  The idea remained a fantasy for quite some time.  I never actually told anyone in person about my desires until the summer of 2002.  While I was in the shower, this individual put a skirt and top on my bed as a joke.  The only thing that this person did not realize was that she was the one being fooled.  When I got out of the shower, I saw the clothes and tried them on to see if they would fit.  Once I told the individual that brought out the clothes for me to find, she let me keep them. 

Around the spring of 2003, my desires went beyond just wearing women’s clothes.  I actually wanted to be seen as a girl in everyday life.  I had no idea where this thought came from.  I did not know what to do with this new found idea.  I developed a sense of jealousy towards the girls in my school.  I wanted to be as they were, but I knew that I could not achieve this goal no matter how hard that I tried. 

During the winter of 2004, I decided that it was time to start developing my voice.  I did not practice very often.  I only practiced for about an hour every night.  I eventually gave up after three weeks of practice because I still was not one hundred percent sure that I was indeed a transsexual.

I then decided that even if I were a woman at birth, I probably would not have been that different anyway.  That is when I started identifying as genderless individual.  This only lasted for a little over a year.  It was probably just an effort to reduce to my dysphoria.  I did not realize that my gender issues would be back stronger than ever when they surfaced once again.    

During the spring of 2007, my dysphoria returned to the forefront of my mind.  I became upset about being a guy.  I then went searching for information on the Internet regarding transsexualism.  I eventually found the huge trans community that existed on Youtube.  I ended up receiving a private message from someone in regards to a comment I had left on a video.  She and I became great friends.  This individual also became my twenty four hour therapist. 

For the next four years, I kept going back and forth on whether I was truly trans or not.  This was a very dark period in my life.  I could not find any logical reason as to why I felt fine as a male for fifteen years of my life, and then suddenly feel negative about my gender for the second half of my life.  I got so depressed about not being able to figure this out that I once said that I wanted to suck all the sin out of the world and then die.  I never had a strong Christian upbringing, so it is interesting that I used the word “sin” instead of “evil.” 

During the spring of 2011 is when I finally decided that I was going to transition.  I figured out that I would never know one hundred percent if transition was right for me until I decided to go for it.  I did not have that much to lose in the first place.  I was not close to anyone in my family outside of the immediate members.  I did not have a whole lot of close friends left.  They had all moved to another state at this point in their lives.  I did not have a job at this point, so it would have been impossible to any type of employment.  The only thing holding me back was my own doubt. 

The first step I took in my transition was to develop a female voice.  I did not have any money to do anything else.  You do not need money in order to work on a voice.  Voice surgery is just expensive garbage that does not yield positive results the majority of the time.  Why pay for something that you can achieve yourself? 

The first thing I did in regards to developing a female voice was talk to my friend from Youtube.  I also downloaded a spectrogram as well as virtual voice tuner.  I learned that the female voice is between 200-230 hertz while voices are between 100-120 hertz.  Raising the pitch up to the female range was not super difficult.  Finding the correct resonance for the female voice is the challenging part.  Females have less of a bass in their voices, but the trick is not getting rid of the bass completely.  The female voice is just less of the male voice.  In order to achieve the female resonance, one needs to tighten up the base of her through and then relax enough in order to project her voice loud enough to be heard.  It is easier to show how this is done than the written word can do to explain the process.  There was a content creator on Youtube that showed the breathing exercises that she used.  I learned where the female resonance was located by breathing in through my mouth and nose at the same time.  By doing this, one will hear the breath inside her own head.  Everyone has heard her voice inside her own head before.  If one has ever been to the mountains or inside of a pool, then chances are that her ears have popped while she was in the middle of a conversation.  This can also occur after an individual yawns.  Immediately after she starts to speak, the voice will be in her head and then the ears pop.  Hearing the breath inside of one’s head is similar to those instances.  When words are spoken, the throat needs to remain someone tightened but loose enough to be projected.  When I first learned how to speak in a more feminine voice, I fell victim to the same issue that every other transsexual does when developing her voice.  I was too scared to relax my throat enough to allow my full voice to be heard.  This made things sound off.  I did not like the sound of my voice at all.  After I practiced for several months, I realized that I no longer needed to breathe through my nose in order to help tighten up throat.  I learned how to tighten my throat and just breathe in through my mouth.  Melodic intonation is the final step in achieving a female voice.  I used the Harvard Sentences in order to learn how to speak like the majority of women in today’s society.  I just downloaded a few sample files from the Internet.  The first sentence is the one I practiced the most.  This sentence read, “The birch canoe slid under the smooth planks.”  I must have recorded this sentence at least fifty times or more. 

During April of 2012, I scheduled a voice consultation with the legendary Andrea James.   I was shocked to learn that I was rather advanced in my voice progression.  I still did not like the sound of my voice, but I would have to learn to accept it as time pushed forward. 

In May of 2013, I finally obtained a job out in the work force.  I was a call center representative at my local electric utility company.  I had to go back to using my male voice for the majority of each day.  I still kept up with my voice practices at night.  Throughout the next year and a half, I noticed that my male voice had changed somehow.  While trying to speak with more melodic intonation to customers in my male voice, I realized that I was going up into the female register without even trying.  The customers never said a word about the change in pitch and resonance.  They were too busy complaining about how I sounded like a foreigner.  I was born and raised in the Baltimore area, so I have no idea why others thought I was Chinese or Jamaican.

During April of 2015, I decided to come out to my supervisor at work.  She found out from the human resources department that I would need to have my name legally changed in order to present as female.  I still had to use the men’s bathroom until my name was officially changed by a judge.  The people I would run into within the bathroom were starting to ask me if I belonged in there.  I told my supervisor as well as my human resources representative about the issue, but there was nothing anyone could do until my name change was finalized. 

The name change process is not that difficult in the state of Maryland.  Only three sheets of paperwork are required to change one’s name.  I had to fill out the petition for a name change in the most princess like handwriting possible.  I then had to fill out the paper to publish my name change in a local paper.  I then filled out part of the order for a name change that the judge would approve.  The total cost for everything came to about seventy two dollars.  The judge denied the order the first time due to my bad handwriting.  I went up to the courthouse the following week and got everything resolved.  I had someone assist me on how I could make my handwriting more legible. 

My name was legally changed as of July 31, 2015.  I was finally able to present as female at work two weeks later.  My human resources representative held mini meetings within the call center.  I did not particularly care for the presentation regarding the overview of transgenderism, but the meetings were not God awful by any stretch of the imagination.  I should have been the one to give my own presentation.  None of my co-workers showed any ill will towards me after I transitioned.  One girl hugged in the bathroom because she had an uncle that went through a gender transition as well 

Living as a transsexual has not been too horrible.  I still get misgendered from time to time, but that does not bother me as much anymore.  I know what I have been through to get where I am today, and that is all that matters.  I no longer need anyone else’s approval to be who I am.  My thoughts are what brought me to the choices that I have made over the course of my life.  Just because someone else has a different idea about how another individual should live does not make his or her perception more accurate by any means.  Everyone makes correct choices most of the time, but the consequences do not always look how he or she thinks it should.  The only poor choice that one can make is to think about negative situations that have not arisen or to choose to be so afraid of making the wrong choice that he or she does nothing at all.  I chose to do something about the discomfort that I had with my gender.  I ended up smelling like a rose in the end.  Anyone can come up on the positive side of a situation as long as he or she keeps pushing forward.  As long as a person remains active towards some end, then it will be impossible for the individual to lose.   

  

Transitioning at Work

Transitioning at work can be one of the scariest things that an individual can face.  One faces the possibility of being ridiculed to no end.  The loss of employment is also an issue that one might have to deal with if he or she comes out as transgender.  I was lucky enough to actually have an employer that was somewhat sensitive to needs of transgender employees. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I came out to my supervisor via text message because I was too afraid to tell her the details in person.  This was a very cowardly decision on my behalf.  I was told by the human resources department that I would have to get my name legally changed in order to present as my true gender at work.  I then jumped through all the hoops necessary to change all of my identification documents.  After this was completed, the human resources department said that they would hold miniature meetings to let everyone in the call center know about the change that I was going through.  I was present for every one of these meetings.  I found it a bit annoying how the representative from the human resources department kept trying to explain how transgender individuals feel through the use of a Power Point presentation.  Feelings cannot be summed up by statistics from the Internet.  I should have been the one to explain the issues transgender people face regarding coming out to others.  These meetings only lasted about an hour.  Everyone then went back to work as if nothing had ever happened. 

I was now entitled to use the women’s bathroom on a regular basis.  No one ever complained about me using the bathroom whatsoever.  One person actually gave me a hug and was inspired by my courage to transition.  She told me that she had a sibling that went through the same thing.  I was quite shocked to see that most people were supportive of what I had done.  Life seemed to get a lot easier from this point forward. 

No one ever knows how a situation will turn out until it arises.  Most of the fears that people experience are just images that are built up in their minds.  Reality is never as scary as the perceived horror.  It has been said that people need to face the consequences of their actions, but what I have learned is that consequences are already put in place once an individual gives energy to an idea.  People do not pay the price for their actions.  They pay the price for their thoughts.    

Legally Female

(Please read "The Power in a Name" before reading this post.)

After getting my name changed in July of 2015, I thought it was time to get my other legal documents changed as well so that there would not be any confusion down the road.  Changing one’s name was a pretty simple process.  I hoped that altering documents such as my social security card and my birth certificate would not be too difficult. 

I got my social security card changed in the middle of August 2015.  Social Security only required the paper showing my legal name change and some basic information from my doctor in order to issue a new card.  The card came in the mail less than a week later.  I expected a longer wait time due to the fact that any federal organization takes forever to notify anyone about anything. 

The next big hurdle I faced regarding legal documentation happened in October 2015.  I went down to the Department of Vital Records to get the information on my birth certificate changed.  The department branch in Baltimore County is located inside of a shopping mall of all places.  My case was pretty cut and dry.  I forgot to get a letter from primary doctor stating that I had been on hormones for a year and a half.  I almost left the department without getting my gender marker changed.  I was lucky that I the representative who took my case went out on a limb and decided to call my doctor to confirm that I had been on hormone therapy for a year and a half.  I ended up paying fifty dollars for two copies of my birth certificate.

I was quite shocked at how easy it was to change all of my legal documents.  I have heard about horror stories in other states, but nothing seemed to be too terrible in the state of Maryland.  All I needed was paperwork showing that my name had been changed by the court, and that was it.  There were a lot of minor bureaucratic errors trying to reach the person in charge of changing the information on my documents, but those are going to exist no matter what the issue at hand may be.  All anyone can do is keep pushing forward regardless of what kind of obstacles get in the way.  Once one accepts the challenges that come with going through a gender transition, then everything else will eventually fall into place.  Winning is guaranteed as long as an individual’s outlook remains positive. 

The Beginning of My Physical Transformation

The year 2013 was not a very big year for anything transition related.  I was still unemployed for the first half of the year due to the poor job market.  I finally scored a position as a call center representative at my local utility company. 

Shortly after I became employed, I bought an epilator online in order to remove unwanted hair on my body.  This experience was not that great.  I did not realize the huge downside to removing hair using this device.  An epilator is just a bunch of tweezers on a motor that spins around in circles.  Bleeding happened quite often after an epilation session.  I actually let my beard grow so that the tweezers could grab onto the hairs on my face and pull them out.  This plan was not intelligent by any means.  It is one thing to pull hairs from one’s arms or legs, and it is another to pull hair off one one’s face.  The pain felt in both areas was night and day.  The rest of the year came and went in a flash.

In February 2014, I finally decided that it was time to start hormones.  I saw my primary doctor, and he told me that he did not know a whole lot about hormone replacement therapy.  I could either go down to a few doctors in Baltimore City, or I could go to a place in the county known as Chase Brexton.  I opted to go to Chases Brexton because it was not too far from where I worked.  I saw the doctor responsible for trans care, and she told me that I would have to make Chase Brexton my primary care provider so that I could be put on hormones when the time came.  I had to get some bloodwork done before a full dose of hormones could be prescribed.  My health insurance provider did not accept anything from the company Labcorp.  Chase Brexton did not have a relationship with Quest Diagnostics at the time, so I had to get all the medical codes for each test translated so that the company would perform the tests.  This bureaucratic issue with bloodwork made quite angry.  I went home crying the first time I was told that the nurses at quest could not perform the blood tests my primary doctor needed.  I thought I would never be able to start hormones, and that I would remain masculine forever. 

Starting the physical transformation process of transition will always be a trying time for anyone that desires to go through the process.  As long as the individual keeps pushing forward, then he or she will be successful.  The best things in life are the things that take of lot of effort.  All of the things obtained easily will not last very long by any means.  It is not always necessarily the end result that is the most important.  The road one travels is where all the character building takes place. 

Standing up for my Beliefs

(Please read the entry title "Does a Phoenix Have a Gender" before proceeding to this entry.)

I felt extremely nervous about my first session with a gender therapist.  What if she told me that she thought I was not “trans enough” to transition?  I do not know how I would have handled that kind of rejection, but kept the appointment anyway. 

I saw my gender therapist for the first time in June of 2011.  The first session was your typical session that happens at any first visit.  I was asked when my gender confusion began.  I told her that my issues began around the middle of my teenage years.  My feelings came out of the blue for no reason whatsoever.  I told my therapist that I had no clue how these feelings developed or why they came out in my teenage years.  The therapist responded by telling me that my story was not as uncommon as I thought it was.  I felt a lot better about myself after the first session was over.  My father told me that he wanted me to “stay as male.” 

I did not see my therapist too often during this time period due to a lack of money.  I probably only saw her about a total of seven times in four years.  I figured out the majority of my issues on my own anyway.  If I would have seen a therapist earlier in my life, then I might have needed more sessions, but that was not the case. 

One of my major concerns was trying to please my father and still do what I wanted at the same time.  I actually flipped out on my birthday in the year 2012.  My father kept asking me why I always sounded so angry with him.  I finally let him have it.  I told him the reason that I was angry was because he would not accept me as Lauren.  My father then told me that my gender issues were a farce.  He also accused me of always going against the norm.  My father told me that he did not have to accept my disability whatsoever.  He could have just walked out on me, and that was that.  I was also to blame for the reason that my nephew never came down to visit us.  That theory was obviously complete garbage.      

I was not going to hide my feelings about I was from my father any longer.  If he did not like the decision that I had made, then that was a problem that only he would have to do with.  I knew who I wanted to be, and no could stop me regardless of how hard he or she would be willing to try.    

Does a Phoenix Have a Gender?

(Please read "My Descent into Darkness" before continuing to read this post)

During the spring of 2011, I finally decided to start on the path to transition.  I had just graduated college a few months earlier, and I was in the process of trying to obtain some type of employment.  I got tired of being so down about not knowing what to do about my gender issues.  I decided to go ahead and shoot for the moon.  I was not one hundred percent certain of my transsexuality, but it was obvious that I was not comfortable living as a cisgender male

The first step in my transition was to develop a female voice.  I did not have the money to do much of anything else at the time.  I was also too scared to tell my father that I was a transsexual.  I remember when I came out to him as a crossdresser.  He was very angry that day.  How would I come out as trans to him? 

I started researching techniques online regarding developing a female voice in May of 2011.  I downloaded a spectrogram and a voice tuner to help me get the correct pitch of a female voice.  It turns out that a female voice is only about an octave higher than the voices of most men.  The average male voice vibrates between 108-121 hertz while the average female voice vibrates between 200-230 hertz the majority of the time.  There are also a few other factors that play into the female voice as well.  Resonance and melodic intonation also are very important aspects to developing a feminine sounding voice.  Resonance has to do with how much bass a certain vibration holds.  Most female voice tutorials always emphasize getting the bass out of one’s chest.  The only issue with this piece of knowledge is that all voices have some element of bass to them.  If this is true, then how it is possible for a person under the influence of male hormones supposed to develop a natural sounding female voice?   Melodic intonation is all about patterns of speech.  Women tend to speak more melodically than men a good majority of the time.  The only thing that one has to watch for is going up at the end of every sentence, and speaking with false emotion. 

Developing a female voice was one of the biggest hurdles I faced as a transgender individual.  This is probably the biggest mountain to climb for anyone in the trans community.  I cannot believe I chose this challenge to kick of my transition.  I always have taken the hard parts of life first.

I eventually told my father about my gender confusion in June of 2011.  He wondered why I was being so stupid.  He used my college career as evidence for why I was too smart to have gender issues.  I told him that I wanted to see a therapist, and he eventually agreed to my proposal.  I was surprised that I was brave enough to see a therapist regarding my gender issues.  I was scared that he or she would laugh me out of his or her office.  I searched for a gender therapist online in the Baltimore area, and I found someone within five minutes.  I sent her an e-mail, and she got back to me the next day. 

After ten long years of questioning myself, I finally decided to do something in regards to my gender issues.  The pain that I felt for quite a few years was starting to turn into happiness.  I was going to hit a lot of bumps down this road, but at least I was satisfied with the choice that made.            

The Beginning of my Gender Adventure

Being insecure in one’s gender is a tough thing to handle.  Because gender itself is a spectrum, it can be difficult for an individual to know how he or she wants to identify him or herself.  There is no gauge as to what a person should do based on perceived categories of identification.  The main concern should be how one feels about him or herself.    

My feelings about gender sprouted out of nowhere back in the winter of 2001.  I only had an interest in wearing women’s clothes back then.  For some unknown reason, I had a strong desire to wear pantyhose.  I first got my hands on some clothes in the summer of 2002.  My father’s girlfriend at the time gave me a black top and gray skirt to try on as a joke.  Once I told her that I actually put on the outfit, she let me keep the clothes.  I also scored some dresses a little bit later on that year as well.  I only identified as a crossdresser at this point in time, but that was going to change a few months down the road. 

I was in my senior year in high school during March of 2003.  My feelings about my gender started to get worse for a reason that I could not explain.  I started to desire to actually be a girl instead of just dressing like one.  I looked at other girls in my classes with envy.  I even volunteered to read the lines to Lady MacBeth in English class.  I acted the same as always, so no one ever knew how I was feeling on inside.  The same thing occurred every week.  I would go to school, and then come home only to sleep in a dress.    

After high school ended, I went on to community college.  The desire to be a girl was still inside of me, but I somehow figured out how to deal with it.  In February of 2004, I came to the realization that I was a transsexual.  I started to develop a female voice around this time.  There were not a lot of free resources on the Internet.  I was lucky enough find a website that had a few techniques used to develop a female sounding voice as well as voice samples from other transwomen who seemed to have mastered the skill in a short time.  I was still wavering back and forth on whether to transition or not, and I eventually gave up finding my female voice.

My gender issues seemed to have plateaued between 2005 and 2006.  I did not feel bad all of the time.  I thought I would just try being genderless since I wouldn’t have been that different if I was born a gender congruent female anyway.  I was rather happy that I found some way to cope with my issues.  I did not realize that the peace of mind that I obtained during this time period was only the calm before the storm.      

Overview of My Experience Being Transgender

Being transgender can be quite a difficult thing to overcome.  Everything depends on the severity of dysphoria that is experience by an individual.  Things can get rather confusing when a person decides to make permanent changes to his or her life. 

Many people will hold onto doubts as they go through the process known as transition.  No one really knows how far he or she wants to go until well into transition itself.  I did not know I was transgender until about the age of sixteen or so.  I was happy wearing women’s clothes for a little while before my feelings really started to develop.  I remember staring at other girls in high school wondering why I wished I could be like them.  I was only into clothes, so why did I feel the need to be seen as a female in school.  I eventually started developing a female voice.  I decided to give up on this path in the mid-2000s because I was not sure I wanted to go through transition.  I then thought I could identify as genderless and be fine.  That did not last. 

I eventually began to feel worse and worse towards the beginning of the 2010s.  I decided to do something about my pain in May of 2011.  I started to develop a female sounding voice once more.  I stuck with it this time around.  I started hormones at the end of March in 2014.  I then started dressing as female, and got all of my documents changed during 2015.  I have not had any regrets regarding my decision to transition.  I have become a better person because I am living more authentically than I ever had before. 

I wish to share with the world my experiences being a transgender individual.  I hope to shed light on the details regarding transition.  I also want to give information on what it is like to live as a transgender individual after all the major changes have taken place. My journey has been full of surprises, and I would like to share the knowledge I have acquired throughout all my travels.