| Hi! My name is Chris, and
I am a 30-something non-operative male-to-female transsexual living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
I was born in Toronto, and moved here when I was eight or nine years old. Aside from unaffectionate parents, I had a fairly normal childhood, but it was about the time I moved here that I started looking through my mother's belongings, typically clothes and makeup. I suppose for many years I would have been considered a cross-dresser or transvestite but by the time I was in my mid- to late-twenties I needed to do more. I got in touch with Gender Mosaic here, they are a transgender social and support group, and I went out for the first time completely "dressed up". I socialized with them for about a year or so and then because of my personal socializing issues, I stopped.
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| For more than ten years after that, the only thing I ever did was maybe dress up to go to a Halloween party. By the time I was thirty-four, I was unemployed for the fourth time, depressed, and had to do something. I started getting counseling with a psychologist. It was slow going through my personal problems, but after a couple of years, I had realized that I wanted to start doing more, start living life more, and slowly I began transitioning. Usually it was just dressing up and going out for a walk, or maybe buying something at a store, but very slowly with counseling and time, I spent more and more time living a female life.
I got a new job, where after three years I never transitioned, though I continued in my personal life, to the point where I was full-time everywhere outside of work. After three years, my last contract was not renewed and I became full time overnight. That job ended in June 2005, and by the beginning of August, I had acquired hormones and began taking them.
It was about this time that both one-on-one counseling and group therapy really showed me how much my life had changed. I got involved with an online community in Montreal, and started visiting there often, making new friends in the process. Being out of work allowed me all the time I needed to be as comfortable as I could get at my own pace, and the changes in my life really started to be reflected back to me. I got compliments about who I was, I went to parties, and people considered me a good friend, even after only a few months. I've said repeatedly that although I still have major issues to deal with, I have never been happier in my life.
The typical transsexual person's story seems to go something like this: I knew at an early age that something was wrong, I was different, I never felt right with who I was supposed to be compared to who I was, I tried to deny it, I thought I was sick, when I came out I lost some friends and family, transitioning was the best thing I ever did, it was hard and painful but I would never go back, etc. This is not my story.
My parents were emotionally unavailable for me, and subsequently, I was not able to form close relationships with anyone. I feared everyone and what they might be thinking of me. I'm not sure I was ever ashamed to be transgendered, but I sure was afraid of what they might think of me. I never really thought about why I did anything, other than why I was depressed, or wondering if what I had was all there was to life. Therapy taught me that expressing myself was the only important thing in life (and with luck, you learn from it, and everything thereafter takes care of itself). So expressing myself fully, including being transgendered, was to me the route to happiness and out of depression. I think simply not expressing my feelings or myself was the root of it all.
Christina
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