Metamorphosis

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

I had been to my GP and bared my soul to him, telling him I knew beyond all doubt that I was actually a woman, in spite of appearances, and he had promised to find out who to refer me to to help me move forward as a woman. He was as good as his word:

A month after my previous appointment with him, I went back to the Practice and after greeting me warmly, he told me that he had found NHS experts based at Charing Cross Hospital in London, and he arranged an appointment for me.* He was a wonderful GP (he is now retired) and is a wonderful man, and had looked after three generations of my family.

By then, I had already been making tentative steps towards transitioning socially and had the makings of a new wardrobe. I had even been out en femme several times in the dark of night to discos held by the local LGBT group and once to a fancy dress party with a group of friends— I hadn’t got a ‘fancy’ dress or, come to that any dresses at all to start with, but a good friend gifted me one she no longer wore. Mind you, I dare say that I was not particularly decorative in those early days! I was now able to start telling people that I was going to see a specialist and to tell them why; some people were more surprised than others but most were supportive.

Come the day of my first appointment, a good friend and I caught the coach to London Victoria, and after we’d had lunch and crossed London and found our way to the hospital, I rather nervously walked into the Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) when I was called through. I had a long conversation with the specialist then, and after a later appointment we agreed that I would transition socially - that is to say, I would start to live full-time as a woman, which would be the start of my ‘life test’ — a two-year period (I think it’s down to one year now?) where I was assessed as to how well I integrated into society and how successfully I lived as and supported myself as a woman.

Between Christmas and New Year that year, I did just that — female clothing only, a formal name change, notifying my landlord, Local Authority, bank, utility companies and other bodies who needed to know…

As I left the house in female clothing in daylight for the first time one day that week to buy that a newspaper, two of my neighbours were having a chat with each other. They saw me and simply said "Good morning! What do we call you now?" I told them my new name and they smiled and again said good morning, adding my new name.

When I went to the pub to meet a group of my friends that evening the bar fell silent as I walked in, which was a *horrible* feeling. My friends very quickly 'rescued' me and fed me a calming Merlot; the evening went swimmingly after that as I caught up with everyone and answered a lot of questions. That was the night when it felt, in terms of my life, that the sun was rising. Over the following few days, even with an emotionally-bruising visit to my family, I truly knew that, at long last, I was living as me. I was being seen as, or at least it was being understood that I was going to be, the woman I’d always known I was. I simply cannot describe the happiness and sense of peace that gave me.

My job had disappeared a week or so previously, as my employers ‘had an issue’ with my transitioning (although they had known well in advance), but that really came as no surprise. A few weeks later, I started my first (temporary) job as myself, which was a lovely feeling — as was the acceptance from the people around me there. Within a few months, the specialist had started me on hormone therapy and I was well on my way. Also, my GP had referred me for speech therapy/voice training and for electrolysis so a lot of things were happening at once and physical changes were well and truly taking place. It was amazing but emotionally very intense in a good way. The major things I was prepared for but, for instance, I had not expected biscuit crumbs to fall down into my cleavage; then again, I had never actually had a cleavage before. I soon learned.

Yes, there were still sometimes bad days when I felt utterly humiliated by having the wrong bits, or it seemed that surgery was forever away, and that I’d never settle down with anyone or… Whatever. These bad days decreased over time.

By the end of my first year as me, I had also completed [cliché alert] a secretarial course which led via a placement to a permanent job with supportive employers — in those days it was a requirement to tell them about my having transitioned. I had had warm acceptance from friends, neighbours, and colleagues, bitter opposition from family members of a particular faith, and occasional cat-calls and abuse in the street from teenagers. I had been called ‘sweetheart’ and/or ‘love’ by male bus drivers and shop assistants many a time — and I still melt when it happens now.**

A view of Westminster Abbey — which has become a familiar sight. I took this one from inside the QEII Conference Centre a few years ago. If possible, I used to ‘do the tourist bit’ before or after an appointment at the GIC.

Fast forward another year, and a good few more trips to London for appointments at the GIC, I was referred for what we now call gender reassignment surgery. My life test for referral was complete, but I could still have been removed from the surgical list if the clinic felt I was falling short of their standards of success. I’ll gloss over the details of my initial appointment with the surgeon (trust me on this: You really don’t want to know!) but I will say that even after acceptance for surgery, there was a four-year waiting list for it. Life processed steadily.

One day, a letter with an NHS postmark dropped though the letterbox. I had recently met someone rather special and we were both thrilled to see that it was my surgery date and pre-surgery instructions!! Six weeks later, I walked up Fulham Palace Road, through the hospital door and to the admissions office. It would be twelve days before I walked back of that door.

*Rather frighteningly, the current waiting list for a first appointment at that Gender Identity Clinic is measured in years rather than the months. I was very fortunate that the waiting list then was only a couple of months.

**Also, the term ‘Lovely’ as in ‘Good morning, Lovely’ seems to have spread across the country recently. I think it originated in the West Country, but I wouldn’t like to swear to that.