Teraina E Hird - Unashamedly Me: The Story of a Transsexual Womans Struggle to Become Herself

This book is dedicated to the two most important people in my life.

Anna my partner, without whom I may have ventured down the wrong path and Chris my son, whose love and support I value so much.

Also to Jackie Proctor and Emily Dodge whose help and support in the early days of my transition saved my sanity and maybe even my life? To Emma Scully for her help and guidance and to Angela, my counsellor, who gave me the title of this book.

When I started my journey I had no idea where it would lead. It has lead to a new life, opened up new horizons and possibly a new career path, even at my age. I now have a wonderful partner, even if we do live 170 miles apart, a son to be proud of, who is fully supportive, and a whole new family, some of whom I hadnt seen for years.

I hope my story will be of interest to everyone, especially those struggling with their Gender Identity, be they old or young, male to female or female to male, but most of all to the General Public. I have written this narrative from my own position of a Male to Female transsexual and mean no disrespect to Female to Male Transsexuals.

We transsexuals are born this way; we are not mentally disturbed and present no threat to anyone. All we want is to be ourselves, as through an accident of birth we find ourselves trapped in the wrong body. We are not Gay or Lesbian anymore than any other members of the population are but we have been labelled as such, because we are different.

I had my own business when I first started living and working as a woman and several of my customers automatically assumed I was gay. As I was running a business in a very male orientated industry even the gradual change in my appearance from Terry to Teraina was more than they could cope with.

The reason for this change; that we have to present ourselves as members of the opposite gender to our birth gender and live in role for up to 2 years or more before we can have surgery. This is NOT a lifestyle choice. Nor is it anything to do with sexual orientation. Neither is this a sex change, contrary to popular parlance, although it is often referred to as such. The term sex swap is even worse as the implication is that it can be achieved almost instantly.

The correct medical term for this procedure is Gender Reassignment (although I prefer to call it Gender Realignment or Gender Correction). This is a necessary procedure to align our bodies to our brain gender. Transsexuals believe they should have been born women. Gender Reassignment is a long term commitment to becoming women, as whole and complete as we possibly can be.

We can never be natal women, never know the pain and joy of childbirth or suffer the problems of menstruation. We can only share some of ups and downs from the effects of hormones, as well as some of the emotional peaks and troughs, as we go through our transition and beyond. The period of transition and beyond can be very hard for family and friends to understand and live with, although some of us are accepted in the end.

All we want is to be ourselves, not just tolerated but accepted by society as a whole, not better or lesser than, but equal to everybody else. As for myself I feel I am a far better person than I ever was before. More tolerant, understanding and free from testosterone fuelled aggression. I am far more loving, less selfish and much more emotional. In fact I am a woman.

Mentioned in some of the following chapters are references about my denial of my true self. This is a defence mechanism protecting us from the world. I wish I could have recognised what I was when I was seventeen, as many can today, in this a more enlightened world.

What were my reasons and motivations behind this denial? I felt different about myself as soon as I could think for myself, the problem was, who or what was I? Was I a boy or a girl? Physically I was a male, as for my brain that was a different matter altogether. I felt different, but how could I be so?

With no or very little recognition of Gender Dysphoria in the 1960s, I felt I had no choice but to deny my true self. In fact the realisation that I wanted to be a woman scared me to death. My automatic defence mechanism kicked in and I set about proving to myself and the world that I was a man.

I built so many walls around myself I was lost within them. Like a prison of my own making, I immersed myself in maleness and thus became determined to be, one of the men. This led me on a path that has stood me in good stead even today. Although unqualified I can turn my hand to plumbing, plastering, bricklaying, window fitting and many other related building skills. This as well as being a good mechanic, engine machinist and skilled in operating the machines needed to carry on my business. Unfortunately my skills as a business person were distinctly lacking, having never been concerned with making money.

Motor racing was also a great release, driving as fast as one is able concentrates the mind perfectly. Its easy to forget everything else whilst preparing the car for the race and on race day the concentration is so intense that nothing else even crosses the mind.

As soon as any thoughts of dressing as a woman came into my head I threw myself into a new venture or learned a new skill. When my wife Sheila started dressing me, even though I enjoyed it at the time, I quickly found something else to take my mind off how I felt.

By immersing myself in all these things, living for almost 50 years like this wasnt so hard as it might first appear. I soon developed the knack of forcing things to the back of my mind, locking them away forever.

The downside of this turned out to a lot worse than I could imagine. The higher and more you build these walls the harder it is for them to come down. The older you get the more you retreat into yourself and the further it is to come back. That was my struggle, the counseling helped, but coming to terms with what I was, I did on my own, with a little help from my friends.

Only those who have been there can truly understand what a huge mental upheaval transition can be, especially in later life. Even though I have achieved my goal the struggle continues on occasions, although to a far far lesser degree.

The other clich that springs to mind is that of an Onion, with oneself in the middle, with layer upon layer of protective skins. Gradually peeling these layers away to reveal the true person within proved easy to start with, but gradually got harder and harder as the layers came away.

So why build these walls and layers in the first place? I have always felt that life had something in store for me. Until that happened I needed to protect myself. Well, life certainly had something in store for me. Even when I was very young, about ten if I remember correctly, I had the feeling that something momentous would happen to me one day.

There used to be an advert in those days for Sanatogen Tonic Wine that Fortifies the over Forties depicting an old looking man playing with his grandchildren under the legend Life begins at Forty I was determined I was still going to be young and beautiful when I was forty, never old and grey. Where the beautiful came from I dont know but both my Mother and Grandmother kept their good looks well into old age. Perhaps I would look like them when I grew old.

Drink was always a release for me when I was younger although drugs never really featured in my life apart from the occasional spliff. Thankfully the drink never got a hold on me; although at times I have had the foresight to realise I could become an Alcoholic and managed to stop drinking when I needed to.