Coming out again

Earlier this year I had a conversation with one of the vicars at our church and his wife in order to explain to them that I would be standing down from helping out with the children's groups.
It was at the time that I was looking to get my referral to the gender identity clinic.
Having discussed my plans with some friends they suggested that I should step down from the leadership roles that I was involved in at the time.
This I duely did but without explaining to the vicar and his wife.
Our main vicar and his wife are fully aware of what is going on and also the reasons for me stepping down.
At our church we use a cell group structure where everyone who wanted to is allocated to one of a number of small groups. The idea is that is provides people with the chance to get together with several others, grow to know them better while praying, studying the bible and socialising together. It also provides people with a support network so that when things happen the rest of the group are available to provide help in whatever way they can.
Each of the groups has a mentor who looks after several groups. The mentor is there to help smooth any issues that may arise between group members and the leaders of the group. They are also there to provide support for the leaders.
My cell group has had our main vicar's wife as mentor. Being fully aware of what is going on in my life this has made it easy for my friends who lead the group to talk to her about things.
Today I got a phone call from S, the female leader, to tell me that our groups mentor was changing and that it was going to be our other vicar that is taking over. He does not know anything about what is going on. S told me that her and her husband had been asked to go and talk to the vicar. She wanted my permission to explain what is going on.
I told S that I didn't want her to say anything as I wanted to do it myself. I'd decided months ago that I owed this chap and his wife and explanation. I'd planned on telling them after I saw the psychiatrist next as by then I would know exactly what is happening. Even though that is two weeks away now it looks like I'm going to have to explain things to them before then.
I've emailed to try and find out when they are both around and to make an appointment. Hopefully that will be this week some time.
So it looks like I'm going to be having another of these coming out conversations. I might just be getting good at doing these. At least I wont have to stand up in front of our church and explain things. That's what the vicar is there for.

Making someone happy

I had another session with Amz at the salon yesterday.
Body wax, eyebrow wax and pluck and an eyelash tint.
Even Amz acknowledged just how long my hair had grown, not the body hair but the hair on the top of my head. At the start of the year my hair was very short, now it reaches down below the bottom of my ears.

Anyway, hair aside yesterday I did something that made Amz bounce around for joy.

When I first had my eyelashes tinted I went with a brown tint so that it wouldn't be at all noticeable.
After that first time I have had my lashes dyed black. However, Amz has been teasing me by asking if I was going to go for a blue/black tint each time I've seen her.
Yesterday I yet again responded to this suggestion by choosing the basic black.
As I was putting my things back on after the bodywaxing I turned to Amz and told her that next time I come, which is at the beginning of December, I will let her use the blue/black tint.

I swear that she jumped for joy! She was so excited and happy that she said that it was her Christmas present.

After I'd settled up and was heading out I reminded her about the next session and she was bouncing with happiness on her chair. She even said that she was going to write it down on the card she keeps notes of the session on.

Yesterday was a good day as I made someone really nice, really happy. I can't wait to see what she is like when I see her next.

Letter to a me

I've just come across Josie's website and her Writing Workshop. I thought I'd have a go at one of this weeks assignments as it was something I so wish I could actually do.

Dear Me.

Its not often that a person gets the chance to give advice to their younger self. For quite some time now I've wanted to have the opportunity to go back in time and talk to my younger self and give you the chance to make different decisions in life based on my experiences.

OK, before I get into the major life changing stuff there is one thing I really want you to do.

You are working part time in a supermarket at the moment. One of the women there and you rub each other up the wrong way. You know the one, she's older than you and has children. At Christmas both of you will go to the staff party. There will be a disco and the two of you will end up dancing together. You'll bet each other that you can out dance the other. My young friend, you are going to have a thoroughly enjoyable evening and both of you are going to find that you actually like each other, the reason for you rubbing each other up the wrong way is because you are actually attracted to each other. A couple of months after that you are going to leave that job and at your leaving party you are going to chat with her and things will be going really well until your best mate gets drunk and messes things up. My suggestion to you is that as soon as you dance with her at the Christmas meal you ask her out on a date. Do it quietly so as not to embarrass her but ASK HER OUT. If you don't then you will regret it!

Right, that is that out of the way. Now to the really life changing stuff.

For a few years now you have been struggling with the fact that you want to be a girl. Everyday that you go to school you see your female classmates and you ache to be one of them. You'll remember the article in the newspaper about the boy who dressed as a girl and won the beauty contest, before been discovered and disqualified. You remember how you wanted them to want to spend their life as a girl and how you were prepared to protect them and wanted to be their partner. Well I know that you actually wanted to be that person, you wanted to be the girl so badly.

My young self, you think that you are a crossdresser but you aren't. You are going to spend the next 20 years struggling with this before finally realising that you are transsexual and have to act to become the person that you are inside on the outside.

Trust me when I say that your feelings will not go away but will get worse as the years go by. You are going to reach rock bottom emotionally before you finally start to deal with things.

I don't want to see you going through all of that. You have the chance to live the life you should have been born to, don't waste it.

Yes, if you don't change things now then you will have a good life. You'll get to travel the world a little bit, you'll have a home of your own, a wife and a son. But you will not be true to yourself or to anyone else. You'll spend a long time being who others think you should be and not who you are.

Go to your doctor, tell them that you want to be a woman and ask them to refer you to people who can help you to do that.

I can't offer you any career advice, if you follow my route then you will work on some incredible projects over the years and meet a lot of interesting people. You'll be able to do all those things equally as well as a female, probably more so as you wont be hiding who you are from your friends and colleagues.

At the moment you are also at a low point with your faith in God. That will change. If you transition to being a female it may even mean that your faith grows considerably as you wont be presenting yourself as one thing to other people but will be able to be open and honest with fellow Christians. If you end up living in the same place as I am and going to the same church then that openness is going to make a huge difference.

My young self, please don't follow my path and ended up wasting so much of your life and hiding who you really are from people. Transition now and live your life as the female that you were born to be.

All my love, and lots of hugs. The road wont be easy but it will be worthwhile.

Under the weather

Tomorrow I have my second appointment with the psychiatrist. Unfortunately I'm going to have to rearrange it as over the weekend I developed a cough which was bad enough for me to make an appointment to see my GP yesterday and also to phone work and tell them I wont be in for a few days until I'm no longer coughing.

My boss agreed with my decision as we can't afford for me to pass on whatever I've got to the rest of the team and to have large numbers of them off sick. We have a tight work schedule between now and next February and anything that impacts could cause major problems.

I saw my GP and after checking me over she told me that I had a viral infection. Well as the worst symptoms were the cough and a few aches I was happy to take a few days off work but still planned on going to see the psychiatrist as I felt I should be OK by Wednesday.

Last night things changed and after getting out of bed to grab a quick drink of water I found myself feeling chiilly when I returned to bed. Well within half an hour of this I was lying in bed soaked to the skin. Taking my temperature showed that it was just over 38 Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit). Even taking paracetomol to try and bring down the temperature didn't help too much as I spent the rest of the night going through periods of sweating.

Even though the appointment isn't until tomorrow and its only about a 30 minute drive away there is no way that I am going to drive there and back in this condition. Looks like I'll have another couple of weeks to wait until I see the doctor again.

On the brighter side I was able to update my GP on some of the other things I've been to see her about recently. I was actually quite impressed as I must have been in there for 10 to 15 minutes and she took the time to talk through everything with me and wasn't rushing me back out the door. I like my GP!

Last Wednesday I had another appointment at the hair salon. As usual it was an interesting experience.

I've recently started going to a Pilates class. This week was my second one. Apart from the woman who takes the class there are about 8 to 10 women, one guy who seems to be coming every other week and myself. After my knee playing up back in early July and my visit to the physiotherapist I've determined that I really have to get back into exercise and to do something about building up some core body strength.

Last Wednesday, after my class finished at 6pm I took a leisurely drive the 30 odd miles to Mere where the salon is. Lou was alone in the salon as usual doing a bit of tidying when I arrived. As I was 10 minutes early we had plenty of time for a chat.

Lou made us both a coffee and we sat down. The last time I saw her was before I'd spoken to my wife about transitioning and so I had a lot to fill her in on.

Last time I saw her was after my trip to Portsmouth and my drive back so that she could see what I looked like with make-up on. When I left I'd been going to see my friend L. Lou was keen to find out what happened so I told her about going to L's for a 2 hour chat and eventually getting home after midnight. Lou was pleased for me that the day had gone so well.

After that I told her about my chat with my wife, not all the details as I didn't think she needed to know about everything that happened before hand. Lou is a great listener and it was fabulous being able to talk through things that I haven't been able to talk about with others.

I told her about the two hour chat, the fact that she wanted me to hold off from telling our son, her plans to discuss things with her mum once I've seen Dr Brooks, her wanting to try to be more supportive and about my having the opportunity to really be myself the weekend after.

In order to explain some of my feelings that weekend I had told her about Sam coming over for lunch and spending the afternoon. I also told her about my conviction during that afternoon that I definitely wanted to have what was between my legs removed. We talked about a few other relationship things. She agreed with me when I said that my life is definitely complicated.

While we talked I explained that although I had agreed not to tell my son just yet and was willing to wait a bit, I still want to carry on transitioning. If I hold off now then I fully expect the doctors to make it even more difficult for me to do later on. I really don't want to have to go back to square one and start the process again in a couple of years time. To be honest I'm not even sure that I could manage to hold out the four to six years that the wife would want me to. If I did manage to hold out that long then what would my son think about me keeping such a secret from him for that length of time. If I do that then I'm going to be nearly 50 by the time I start transitioning properly. I really don't think that I can wait that long.

I am so glad that I have Lou to talk to from time to time as other than her total enthusiasm for styling my hair and wanting to take me out shopping, she has no vested interest in what I'm doing.

After chatting for nearly half an hour over coffee we got down to the real business of sorting out my hair. A little while back Lou had got me a pair of hair straighteners. Really dinky ones. She told me that I had to bring them with me last time but I ended up leaving them in the car, although I didn't know it at the time. Lou had given me strict orders to remember them this time.

While sorting out my girl things the other week I found a pair of GHD hair straighteners that I'd bought the last time I grew my hair out. These are full size ones, exactly the same as Lou uses in the salon. Well, seeing that I had my own full size straighteners she took the smaller pair back as she can use them in the salon.

Lou got to work straightening my hair and it was lovely to see it looking so long. She trimmed the ends to make sure that they were tidy. Having done all that she looked at me and said that she was so tempted to cut some shape into my hair but wasn't going to. If she started cutting any style into it then I would end up with a bob. Since I still have to go to work as a male for the time being, turning up with my hair in an undeniably female style would start people talking.

Of course I was also tempted to let her get cutting but as there is no way to hide a hairstyle like that then we had to leave it for now. However, she raised the issue of possibly adding some highlights to my hair, something I like the idea of so next time that is what we are going to do.

Once again I had a fantastic time with Lou. One thing did come up though which I missed the opportunity to comment on but fully intend to ask about next time.

When I walked into the salon Lou greeted me as normal. She then went on to say that she loved the rope pictures. I had to think what she was talking about for a moment before realising that she was talking about the bondage pictures that I had taken in Portmouth. Lou didn't say anything about the pictures of me dressed in the clothes that I'd worn to go for the walk to the cemetary and back or even to wore the rest of the day, just the rope pictures.

As she's not seen the pictures that Jo took I'm going to take all the pictures that I've had developed along to my next appointment so that she can see them all properly. When I do I might just ask why she liked those specifically.

Second Appointment with Psych

Next Wednesday I have my second appointment with the psychiatrist in Taunton.
Having done what she asked and talked with my family it will be interesting. Especially after talking with my wife about my plans and how we are going to handle things because of our son.
I've got the whole day off so will have a couple of hours to go over whatever happens during the appointment.

I' ve just bought some new nail varnish. Its a beige/toffee colour and is almost the same colour as my skin tone. I'm thinking of wearing that to the appointment. In fact I'm actually wearing it now but will probably clean it off this morning in case my son notices it.

Bouffant Hair

I've been growing my hair longer for quite a bit of this year so that I can ditch the wig and go with own hair instead.
I've had a few comments from people about getting haircuts and its length in general. Today topped it all.
After showering this morning I dried my hair but didn't have enough time to run the hair straighteners through it properly or gel to hold it in place properly. As a result I left the house and went to work with my hair having a bit more volume to it than normal.
Everything was fine until I had to have a chat with my boss, V, at her desk in our open plan office. Very quickly I was feeling as if I'd gone bright red.
Last Thursday I left work early as a couple of early mornings, one driving to Heathrow and the other rescuing a neighbours cat from two foxes that were trying to eat it, left me incredibly tired. On Friday I phoned in and said I was taking the day off.
This morning I sat down to discuss some work with V and she immediately said "Good morning, slacker". J, who sits next to her turned around and said with some astonishment "Slapper, why is he a slapper". V and I looked at her and I mouthed "slack er".
Well I've been called a few things but never a slapper.
At this point I could actually feel the colour starting to rise in my face as I was now the centre of attention for those within earshot.
V then looked at me and said "having a bit of a bouffant day today", drawing attention to my slightly more voluminous than normal hairstyle. I muttered something about having washed it and now haaving a bad hair day, while feeling like my face was going to burst into flames.
I'm just glad that V didn't make any comments about me blushing as that really!
Of course that fact that someone has described my hair as bouffant really made my day!