Fairfax, VA, USA. Men and women born transsexual become what they always have been. Hormones and surgeries allows them to make whole what was born apart. It’s only the world and society that sometimes has trouble wrapping their minds around the variety of human sexuality.

Men and women of a transsexual history are who God intended us to be before sperm and ova and the human genotype went off message in our mother’s wombs. Life is messy — as is gene expression.


We are who we are and stand before you as would any other woman or man, demanding no dispensations or special treatments and not expecting any government handouts. We work for our living. Sometimes as mothers, sometimes as nuclear scientists, sometimes as truck drivers. We are the men and women that the world doesn’t see because our post-operative lives are little different from any other woman’s or man’s.

But you had an operation! So? You cut off your …

I do not claim divinity

And I've certainly never claimed my soul was pure. Far from it.

I've never even claimed to have all the answers, just some of them that seem to hold fast and true.

A warning, however, you mustn't always believe what I say. Don’t take me at face value.

Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no real answer. And as of yet, I do not know why the universe goes to all the trouble of existing.

Non-existence is so much less turbulent.

But I do know some things to which both experience and science provide answers.

What do you call two post-op male to female transsexuals?

Women.

So then what do you call two pre-op male to female transsexuals?

Women.

But ….?

Exactly.You have a problem with that? Uncross your legs and man up. The world is far different from the one your parents’ probably taught you. Besides, I kept much more of what I had than the surgeon removed. Most male to female post-ops still reach orgasm when their clitoris is properly stimulated.

You do know that women have clits, don’t you? And vaginas that accept a wide diversity of penises, even the small ones. But we do pee sitting down like most other women, if that’s what you mean. Writing my name in the snow is much more difficult (but not impossible, I’m told.

Defining your life by the size of your penile erection is only important to those males who forever remain adolescents. Very few actual men worry about such things. It’s the motion, not the meat after all.

So how deep are your girl parts?

If you mean my vagina, seven inches or so before stretching. Most men, of course, do not stretch that deep no matter what you may have heard.

Your breasts, they’re implants right?

Nope. Naturally grown in America the old fashioned way. If they were good enough for my mother, they are good enough for me. I have breasts lined with blue veins and nipples that come erect when I am excited or in the cold. If I were to give birth, my breasts most likely would produce sufficient milk for my baby.

And yes, men stare at my breasts. Even the ones who knew me in a previous incarnation. I think the male gaze is a hardwired, involuntary reaction to help perpetuate the species.

Do you miss testosterone?

No. Next question?

What were the exact words your female internist said the first time she gave you a post-op physical?

“You’ve got a pussy!” Well yeah, that’s why I paid my surgeon the big bucks.

I bet that was just on the outside. The easy part. What did your GYN say the first time she did an internal?

“Damn. Who was your surgeon? I can’t tell the difference.”

The human vulva is composed of the labia majora, mons pubis, labia minora, clitoris, bulb of vestibule, vulval vestibule, and the opening of the vagina. Connected to the opening of the vagina is the actual vagina itself. I have all of that. What I don’t have is a cervix, uterus or ovaries and, on internal inspection, look like a woman who has had a hysterectomy. In twenty-five years I expect we will have the science to provide a replacement uterus and ovaries to any woman who needs them. But for now, the science just isn’t there.

You mean you would really want to have babies, if you could? Carry them inside your uterus for nine months? Go through the difficulties of child birth?

Yes. To feel my baby suckling at my breast … changing diapers, caring for them when they are sick, all the things that are necessary to raise a child through to independent adulthood. I am not now nor have I ever been a weekend party girl. My Sicilian blood and family runs deep.

What was the last thing your GYN said to you?

“Put your feet in the stirrups and slide down.” No, actually it was — Y ou might feel some discomfort.” No, that’s not right. The actual last thing she said was “You need to schedule a mammogram.”

I have annual pap smears and mammograms as Kaiser Permanente diligently reminds me. Well that’s not entirely true either, is it. My GYN’s really truly, last question as I left was “Where do you did get that skirt?”

“J.Jill’s” and then we compared notes, partners, and the perils of dieting as I scheduled my next appointment.

But what about the Transgenders?

When do they ever want to schedule a pap smear?

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