My First Year as a Woman

Brielle · 2023-06-11T12:00:54Z

First, a little background about me, for those who haven’t read my other articles. I am a 67-year-old trans woman, who came out only two years ago. It has been a whirlwind of changes, some good and some not-so-good. I was a lifelong crossdresser (although now I consider dressing in men’s clothing to be crossdressing since I was always a woman inside.) I grew up in a city in West Virginia, the youngest of four, in a very conservative Evangelical Christian household. Telling anyone in the 1960s or early 1970s, in this environment, that I was a girl inside would have been pointless. I would have endured some form of conversion therapy, and I might not even be here to write this article now. So, like so many of us have done, I tried to bury my true feelings and put on the mask of boyhood. I was an awkward child, a dweeb, and only associated with similar “misfits” in my school. I never learned much about “normal” social interaction and have always suffered from ADHD (without the hyperactive component), and I believe I am on the Autism spectrum as well. Somehow, I managed to find a girl, fall in love, and get married in 1981 and we had nearly 40 years of solid marriage. We have one daughter, who is a treasure, and I feel very fortunate in these respects. But internally, I felt subhuman. I was sneaking around to crossdress, believing the mistranslations in the English-printed Bible, and feeling like I was the worst sort of hypocrite, one who would one day face God’s disappointing look, if not outright banishment from heaven. I felt tortured inside and saw no way out. Even later on, coming out didn’t seem like it was possible. If someone in my family was going to have to be miserable, it would be me before I would inflict misery on others. Of course, this was the epitome of stupidity — by denying myself, I couldn’t be totally there for my family. Living half a life only gave them half of me. Things came to a head in the Spring of 2021. I was secretly dressing in women’s clothes, wig, makeup, shapewear, prosthetics, the whole deal more than ever. My wife had gone out of town to visit her family and while she was gone, I just hit the proverbial wall. I knew that no matter what the result would be; I knew I had to come out to her as a crossdresser. She deserved to know. At first, she was empathetic, but that gave way to anger and a lack of trust. Who was this person she married? How could I have kept this huge thing from her all this time? What else wasn’t I telling her? Good questions, all that I had little answers for. Even then, I hadn’t seriously considered actually transitioning. I assumed just being free to dress in women’s things at home, some of the time, would be enough to make me feel finally whole. My wife was (is) incredibly supportive but did not like the loss of body hair and seeing this stranger in her apartment. I don’t blame her reactions then or since. But the more I dressed as a woman, the better I felt. I knew then that the answer to feeling whole was to transition and go “full-time.” She realized it too, and supported my decision to seek HRT, but made it clear she would never be attracted romantically to Brielle. It felt like being a visitor in my own home. I started HRT in November 2021, starting with spironolactone (a T-blocker), then in March 2022, I began applying estradiol patches. After a few weeks, I was in a chemical euphoria — so this is what it felt like to be a whole person inside! How wonderful! Yet, as good as I was feeling, my wife was feeling the grief of a failing marriage and a disappearing husband. As if I had a debilitating condition like Alzheimer’s or ALS, the person she married was slowly fading from view. We separated in June 2022; I was unwilling to be married to a roommate; she was unwilling to be intimate with a woman. We remain good friends and the divorce has been amicable, thank God. She continues to be very supportive of my transition goals, and I continue with financial support for her. So how has this last year been for me, then? How has Brielle flourished, stumbled, and thrived? Three weeks after I started estradiol, I attended my first trans conference, the 2022 Keystone Conference in Harrisburg, PA. It is one of the nation’s largest trans and CD conference in the nation. From Tuesday morning when I drove the four hours from our home in Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, until the ending brunch on Sunday morning and the trip home, I was fully a woman. I brought no male clothing at all. This was not my first time out En Femme, as I had been active in a local Meetup group in Pittsburgh, but it was my first time traveling En Femme and the first time I had no “safety net.” It was exhilarating! I felt at home in my own skin for several days and in a 100% affirming and safe space. When I got home that Sunday, I knew I would seek out a permanent change to my gender and name. By the end of 2022, I achieved that goal, getting my legal name change and disposing of all my male clothe...

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Anonymous 35978

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November 24, 2024 12:55 am

(@Anonymous 35978)

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Brielle. Thank you for sharing your story. It is inspiring and I wish you all the very best for the future.

Hugs,
Wendy x

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Sarafina (sara)

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December 8, 2024 4:13 am

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Thank you for sharing, Brielle

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