About Natasha Wallis Expertise If someone is experiencing problems with their gender and wishes to develop coping strategies to move forward, stay still or cope without changing gender, I should be able to provide some help. Also anyone who needs advice on how to pass, transition, have surgeries and live successfully as a woman will get valid sensible advice
Experience I am a postoperative ts woman who has been involved in personal development, motivation, life coaching and mentoring all my life. I have had extensive FFS and SRS surgery and am a senior moderator on some well known support sites. Designed and led "Why me? Am I transsexual" and Employer/employee Diversity Training Workshops.
Publications Msn & Yahoo Support Groups on matters relating to transsexual people.
Education/Credentials BA Biology; Personal Motivation Trainer; Qualified Mediator. Mentor
Awards and Honors Small Business Award Winner 1995
Question QUESTION: I am a 40 year old male, married with kids. I have been crossdressing for over 20 years now. I am confused about whether I want to be a girl all the time. Most of the time I feel that way but at times I can fight off the feelings. I wonder if it is because of my family that I am confused. I started off crossdressing and that led to wanting to do it more and more and to having feelings of wanting to be with a guy as a girl. Is this normal.
ANSWER: Hi Kristie
Many people arrive at their 40s and feel unfulfilled and go into a soul-searching routine, looking back at what they have achieved and thinking whether the future holds more of the same.
It has been documented that people who have enjoyed say, a particular hobby e.g. motor racing decide to buy a kit car or invest in doing motor-sport or rallying as if it is a desperate attempt to recover their youth. others become reckless by leaving their partners and going on sprees of sexual opportunism with people of the opposite sex.
Others revert back to sexual preferences from their youth and leave the partners for a bisexual or homosexual future.
It holds true for both men and women and often the spur is that whilst you have been successful in employment and family, there is a nagging doubt that something in your past was never addressed properly or done correctly.
It is commonly called a Mid-Life Crisis and what you report is just that and I would strongly suggest you do not make any sharp movements with your family and how you present yourself at present, but seek help with a therapist r counsellor (I am in the UK) who has experience with working with people having gender issues.
I was 48 when I transitioned, so know precisely how you might be feeling and my life showed times in 1980, 1988, 1992 and 1995 when my need to be Natasha was strong so much that I felt I was at a crossroads but couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong. I did not seek counselling and perhaps should have done but I put my issues to the back of my mind in all those cases and got on with building my career and family.
I was lucky, I had met my wife to be in 1980 and she had no problems with my expressing my feminine side at home and occasionally at trans-friendly events and we were both convinced i was a transvestite, not least because I was a fairly crap looking one too !!!!
In effect i lived vicariously through my wife, buying her clothes and effectively using her as my test run - something that I realised through counselling. In 2001 I went to an all-male black tie sportsmens' dinner and could not cope in amongst those men and I flipped, sobbing uncontrollably on my way home but still unsure why it was happening to me. It took me precisely another 12 months before I realised that I could not cope any more as a living and presenting as a man.
This is called Gender Crash and it is got to when the risks of transitioning do not seem insurmountable as what might happen to you if you do not transition. I was at the point that to continue living as a guy was untenable and death was a better alternative.
I tell you this because for the period 1980 to 2001 I was as you described, "able to fight off the feelings" but by March 2002 I was unable to fight them any longer and could no longer cope. Effectively I HAD to transition IRRESPECTIVE of whether my wife, parents or kids approved or not.
And I must tell you that whereas the thoughts all seem rosy and bright whilst looking at the issue from a male-living perspective, transition and the potential hassle of family breakups, work discrimination and loss of friends takes you into dark dark places where you need every ounce of resolve to see it through.
Also you need to have a reality check on how you look now and how you might look in the future. I looked like a middle aged guy, handsome as a man but crap looking as a woman.
Plus points were: 5ft 8ins tall, so in the right height band, having a full head of hair and having a vocal range that could achieve an everyday voice that is female.
Negative points were an obviously male face (nose, forehead, lips, jaw/chin and long distance between bottom of nose and top of lip) but these can all be fixed with FFS (Facial Feminisation Surgery) If you want to see what is possible, go look on my surgeon's website. he did all my work.
There are no pictures of me there, but about £30k ($60k) later, I am a vibrant middle aged woman who passes exceptionally well and if I wished it could easily get a boyfriend or girlfriend every night.
Passing is VITAL otherwise you will live in a limbo of the trans-ghetto and the only dates you will get are with men or women who only want you for who you were and not for who you are. If you do not pass, people in the street may call out at you, even throw things at you and make your life hell. If you have kids and do not pass your kids will not want to be seen out with you.
That is reality darling and provided you have the will, the resources and the looks to see it through it can be highly fulfilling.
Today is the precise 5th anniversary of when my wife and me separated and it hurts still, for I loved her dearly. Less than 3% of wives stay with their transsexual partners over a 4 year period, so the stats are not in your favour. Naturally, most wives are straight and do not want to be seen as "lesbian" but to be honest, transitioning at home is bad news for you as well as her and the kids. My kids were 4 and 6 when I transitioned and we were all careful where we went together in the early stages, not least because I was visibly a transsexual woman. I avoided going to the school and despite extensive counselling my ex wife, now remarried, could not go on the journey with me.
Five years on life is very different. My kids and me were out in the gym yesterday and I ended up chatting with a woman in the pool who had a boy the same age as mine who was oblivious of my past, referring to my "ex-husband". It turned out his boy had even been to a birthday party at my house 6 years earlier but it never clicked with her. My kids are happy to be out and about with me now and refer to me as mum.
This last 5 years were hard, really hard, and I had to use every strength I had to survive, every part of my post-divorce finances and the will to get better every day.
I can recommend a few sites which might help you further but please be aware, you will not be transitioning into a "girl", you will become a 40 year old WOMAN. Once you begin on hormones, your erections will cease and your libido decline (until after your SRS). You will no longer want to use your penis for sex and will wish for a vagina. You will have to battle with weight gain from the hormones and the fact you will not feel able to go to the gym resenting as an in-limbo person, neither all man or all woman.
Post-SRS you will have to recover, dilate a lot and on dates at some point tell the person you are with if you like them a lot that you were "not brought up as a girl" and then cope with the rejection and sometimes abuse your previously keen date displayed.
It sounds different how I put it, but if you really CANNOT cope as a man, this is your future.
If I could go back 5/6 years and have a second shot at this, would I do it again? Sure, maybe do things relating to my divorce better, maybe have FFS sooner, but no, I am happier than I ever was as a guy and whilst I have lost my wife and the support of my parents, my kids, now 9 and 11 think I am a great mum and prefer me as I am now.
Ask questions by all means and please tell me how you feel after reading this but please please please get some counselling. Only transition if you HAVE to though. I had no choice, the ts time-bomb set off as a foetus was inevitable.
You can also do the fun to do COGIATI test which can help, but is not overly accurate, to determine where on the gender scale you really are at present:
One thing I suggest you do NOT do is tell your wife of these feelings without first discussing things with a therapist or counsellor for some time. Once the genie is out of the bottle it cannot be put back inside and you will have to live with all the consequences. So avoid anything that cannot be reversed.
Hugs
Natasha
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Thanks Natasha...I think my problem is not that I am unsure of what I want rather coming to terms with it. I am sure that I want to be female however coming to terms with it since I have a family is hard to do. My family means the world to me and I would never want to hurt them in any way. As for what I would go through I am aware of it having spoken to several therapists already. My biggest concern right now is not only the feeling of being female but wanting to be with men. which I have already done. I am so confused
Answer Dear Kirstie
Transitioning so you can "be with men" as one of the main reasons is illusory and I hope you will let me explain why. You recall I said that only 3% of all marriages survive transition and beyond? Well, the sort of guys who fancy transvestites and also preop TS women are only really interested in you because of who you WERE and not who you are. They are interested sexually in you but only anal sex and get turned on with you having a penis. A TS woman would be horrified to imagine that these men are only after you for that but due in the main to loneliness they delude themselves into believing what the so-called boyfriend tells them that they will be "together forever" yada yada yada.
Oddly, some of these guys will stay with their soon to have SRS girlfriend and even be with her for her surgery and a few months after during recovery. BUT soon after SRS he begins to not answer calls so often and eventually the relationship is at an end becuase deep down the guy is a gay man who just cannot bring himself to accept he is gay. When faced with a vagina, he cannot even come to terms with that on the supposed woman of her dreams and so leaves her. Only about 1% of relationships between a gay non-trans and transitioning former-gay-male or a male admirer and a pre-op ts women survive beyond the first year of SRS.
So all a postop women has available to her are lesbian women and straight men and you will have to believe me when I tell you that getting either in your bed is tough but having a LTR is night impossible.
It is easier with lesbian women because they are used to discrimination due to their sexuality but I know how a non-trans lesbian partner can end up being victimised and discriminated against by her lesbian friends since the lesbian community has a large minority of man-haters and in their judgement we remain men.
Straight men are fine if you can pass perfectly. I go on dates with guys regularly and do not tell them of my past but as I said earlier today, as soon as you tell them, whoist on that date thry might stll seem keen due to residual turn-on effects, by the morning you will have received a "thanks but having slept on it, I think it best we do not see each other again". And that is something all of my straight ts friends also report. Of course, you could not tell them but eventually it has to be told, not least because you do not bleed like a natal female and cannot bear children. Further, if you invite the guy to your house, there might well be some tell-tale signs of your past.
One major problem is explaining your kids away. These guys of course assume you are the children's mum and cannot understand why they do not live with you (if they are under 16 - mine are 9 and 11 remember). So their brains crank into action and they begin to wonder why your kids are not with you. What is wrong with you? Are you a bunny boiler?
I do not know how old your children are, Kirstie, and perhaps you can tell me in a reply. If they are under 10, you have a good chance of keeping them and maintaining contact since prejudice and discrimination has not quite kicked in. Beyond 11 your kids are more than likely going to be embarrassed at the very least about you and would want you as far away as possible. When you first start taking hormones, you start on a second puberty yourself, so you can imagine how a son or daughter going through the same thing will react to their 40 y/o dad. Also they will worry they will become a figure of ridicule and might fear being bullied if the truth becomes known. And if you live at home then threy will not be able to invite their friends round for tea or sleepovers for fear you will be there.
Of course, some children have grown up knowing that their dad cross-dresses and wives, like my ex, are rleaxed about your needs for female expression, but you do not say where you and your wife and kids are at on this very important issue.
Do you recall my covering the issue of Mid-Life-Crises? Well it might well be that you have realised that you enjoy what might be commonly called "bum-fun" with a man. It could very well be you are realising you are bisexual and not straight and you are trying to rationalise this by imagining it would be easier as a woman.
As I have told you above, the men who seek you out now are gay men who w3ant you for who you are now, not who you will become if you transition and then have SRS.
You seem able to "hold-on" for your family's sake and if that is possible, please do so. ALMOST EVERY transitioning woman loses their wife and MOST find that she turns on you big style for "lying to her" "all these long years" etc. How does she seek retribution?
1: by divorcing you in an acrimonious fashion and squeezing you until the pips squeek.
2: Seeking to humiliate you with your peers, at work and in your community so as to isolate you.
3: Turning the kids against you
4: Establishing alliances with your side of the family to ensure you are totally isolated.
5: In some cases is prepared to lie in order to get her own way and hurt you more.
Tell me more about your family, age and gender of the kids, how old your wife is, whether she works (self sufficient) and how aware she is about your need to express your femininity and how supportive she is. How do you expect your and her parents to be with your "revelation". Where in the world are you? Will your job be protected by anti-discrimination legislation if/when you decide to transition? What sort of job do you do? How tall are you? Do you have your own hair? Have you the financial resources to pay for FFS and SRS? Have you begun the process of facial hair removal? Could you live on your own without your family, your parents, your existing friends, with a lower prospect promotion at work and without a long tern relationship with a man or a woman?
Can I also ask you to imagine carrying on as you already have been doing, taking a small hormone dose to keep the erections at bay but remaining as a husband, father and male-presenting man but where you have agreed weekends away from your family where you can live and play as a woman and have male company (but please be aware, only male "admirers" )?
I had no interest in guys pre-transition and not much pre-SRS. I still do not fancy guys as much as women, so for me I did not have to factor in those needs for sexual activity beyond my marriage. Indeed, if you are already cheating on your wife by going with men, then how do you feel about that? What would your wife do if she found out or does she already know? You will certainly have less male company as a transitioning preop and even less as a postop ts woman.
In fact, remaining a TV or a non-op "occasional" ts woman, albeit taking a few hormones would give you the best of both worlds without the hassles of losing your family and possibly your job. I have two friends who are coping this way and have done so for 5 years now. One is even postop. Both survive in a precarious sort of way but since they do not have the luxury of looking non-male, they so not pass that well and so will forever be seen by the mainstream ts community as a little suspect and by the world at large as a little odd.
I am painting a purposely difficult set of scenarios in order to help you feel less confused. by all means please reply to my questions, wherein I might be able to help you further.
In the meantime, I assume you have already read this quite optimistic article, the only study ever undertaken by a psych on children with ts parents:
Sadly Prof Green was until recently the head of the UK's main public health funded Gender Identity Clinic and had a reputation for being a very biased and rude person. He was a n avid transvestite and held the mistaken belief that very few of the women presenting for treatment were actually transsexual women.
I went the private route and found a more understanding faciliatator as opposed to a gatekeeper who actually prescribed hormones in my day at least as a diagnositic tool. His premise was to take hormones befotre making the irrreversible step of burning all your bridges and transitioning and changing your name. he found that only 30% of patients returned for a second appointment leading him to believe that the 70% who did not return were either turned off by the libido-depressing hormones are therefore happily transvestite OR just were not yet ready to embark on this traumatic journey at that time.
I look forward to hearing more from you if you so wish it.
Hugs
Natasha
PS: please do not forget to rate my advice, it helps to make it all worth while.
