Why so late?!

I'm sitting outside a café in Stockholm and feeling frustrated. All those lovely young girls walking by, and me an old cougar of 60. And I have to wait untill next spring before I can make love to a woman the way I want to - as woman to woman.

The main thing that I'm thankful for after all those years as a man is my daughters. So why the hell did I wait so long? I'm very good at repressing things that might be difficult and when the idea of a sex change surfaced I pictured grotesque trannys with beard stubble and knobby knees. My way of dealing with it was mainly to questioning the traditional gender roles. Something that came easy for someone of my generation and on the far left. Mind you, it wasn't always that easy. I remember an occasion in the fall of 67, when I got laughed at because I suggested that we should form groups to tackle the role of males and how we should attack and change them. Not even the proto feminists took me seriously.

I was, to put it mildly, a problem child from my teens and way up in adulthood. I realize now that much of it was my repressed need to change sex. I used to run away, to Stockholm, Copenhagen and the Netherlands among others. I wasn't running away from anything, no abuse or bullying or anything like that. I was running towards something. Some change. Unfortunately I had no clear picture of what that something was. It's a miracle that I didn't get hooked on drugs or booze.

I've had more, much more, than my allotted share of sex partners through the years. And I like to think that most of them were very satisfied. In a big part due to the fact that I wasn't that interested in just penetration, the old in and out. Without realizing it what I wanted was sex woman with woman. Hence my concentration on her lust with tongue, finger and hands. I'm proud to say that I discovered the G-spot before I've ever heard of it. ;-)

As usual I'm rambling. I've already forgotten what I intended with this blog instalment. So let me tell you of some observations regarding my hormone regime. I'm on an oestrogen gel, Divigel, which I take 2 mg in the morning and 1 mg in the evening. At the start of the therapy i also took an anti androgen, Cyproteron, 50 mg morning and evening. After the bloodwork showed very high liver values I quit them. But recently I've started Cyproteron again as I thougt I detected a decrease in my feminization, no more growth of breasts and a corsening of body hair. I'm pleased that my tits have started to feel painfull again and also a slight growth. But I'm going to have the blood work done again soon. I don't want to end up in hospital before the big operation, probably sometimes next spring.

But what I hadn't really expected was some mental changes. OK, that my tear ducts sometimes open for the slightest, and sometimes silly, reason I sort of expected. But not to that extent. When I watched the end scenes in Tipping the Velvet I sobbed loudly and could hardly see the screen. On a more serious note, when I watched the video of Neda being murdered and dying in front of the camera I cried for almost an hour, and then on and off during several days.

My taste in food have altered drastically. Before the hormones I was like the Cockie Monster, I could eat a package of cockies in no time. A Schwartswald cake went down in 20 minutes. Now I hardly miss them at all, I prefer more "healthy" food (thanks Öyvind and Mojj for the wild boar wok Saturday evening).

I also get more of an emotional reaction to babies, cats and cute dogs. Probably something to do with oxytocsins.

My Birkenstock sandals have given up on me, can't walk in them without my feet hurting. Can I be a lesbian without Birkenstocks? :-) Is it OK with Ecco?

Well enough ramblings from me for now. But Godess how I long for a woman/woman relationship.

To pass or not to pass

On several mailing lists I'm on there have been a lot of debate about passing. How to pass and how important it is to pass. So here is my take on some aspects of passing.

Of course we all like to pass as born women, and preferably beautiful ones. (Don't all girls want to be pretty?)

We all have different aspects that makes it dificult to pass. In my case it's mainly my voice (very low), my height (187 cm 6' 1½") and a more or les bald head.

The baldness is easily corrected with a wig. And as I am diagnosed as transsexual the Swedish state lets me buy wigs for 2000 SEK, about 250 USD, each year. That about covers the cost for two syntetic wigs a year. (At the time of writing I'm curly brunette.)

I'll be returning to the subject of benefits for transsexuals in Sweden in a later blog.

As soon as I open my mouth it's obvious that I was born male. That will take a lot of traing to correct. But I will soon get my first regular appointment with a speach therapist. And in two previous visits with her she concluded that I have the range to achive a low female voice.

Height is not much I can do about, but i console myself with the fact that Venus Williams also is 187 cm. :-)

A year or two ago I was very pesimistic about ever beeing able to pass. But now I think that I do it most of the time (exept when i speak). So what has changed? I basically look the same. I think it boils down to some basics.

I don't use any exagerated supposedly female ways of bodily expression. That would just make me look as a drag queen. What those expressions are vary from culture to culture. But widely swinging hips and permanently "weak wrists" is a dead give away. A study of women around you will give you clues what to do. I've found that shoulders held back, a straight posture, chest out and head held high will do a world of good re passing.

Make up is another area where it's easy to go overboard. A night club make up when you just nip down to buy some fags and danish is overkill. I just put on some mascara and lipstick. Liptick, if chosen with care, is a great help in passing as no men use it. They may use foundation and/or mascara but never lipstick. So the painted lips are a strong site that a person have a woman before them.

How you dress is also important. Mainly you have to find a style that is you and that suits your body. The British stylists Trinny and Sussanah are great guides in this area. If your local TV-station don't carry them there are lots of .torrents out the there. I can recomend piratebay and the Box. They have also published some exellent books. I don't give a damn about dressing "age appropriate", at the moment I'm wearing black leather trousers and a black T-shirt with the text " When the Godess made this body she was showing off". When I say that I don't give a damn I don't mean that I'll ever wear litle girl clothes or try to look as a cheerleader, that would only look silly on a 60 year old Golden Lady.

On a preliminary consultation with my plastic surgeon (If I wasn't lesbian I would "swoon", imagine a younger and much more handsome Dr House without the bad manners.) he made comment that I could easaly pass and mainly because I didn't seem to care what others were thinking.

And I think that this is the main key to passing:

Be proud of who you are - a "self made" woman. You have every right to expect people to respect you for the person you are wether they clock you or not. And if they don't it's them that have problems with their attitude.

Now I'm off out into the spring to buy a book: Ruby Fruit Jungle.

Love
Caisa