Transgender FAQ

There were a lot of people who answered my fumbling and confused questions along my journey, for which I'm forever grateful. Now that I have my own experience and expertise, I feel it's incumbent on me to give back to the transgender community. These are some of the questions I answer frequently, which I'm finally putting in one linkable place, so I don't have to type so much. (I have these long purple nails now!)

These are the ones that come up the most:

If you click on the link in this list, it will take you directly to my answer.

How do you describe being transgender?

That's a real challenge. It starts with dysphoria, specifically gender dysphoria. All of us, cis and trans people, can have the usual body image issues — weight, shape, and such, but it's not the same as gender dysphoria. You can not like your body without ever thinking you're in the wrong gender. There are impossible cultural standards of beauty that can bring any woman down. Men too. That doesn't mean they want to switch genders.

Gender dysphoria is when transgender people look in the mirror and see something fundamentally wrong with the gender of the person they’re looking at. It's the result of that subtle interplay of genetics that makes our transgender brain chemistry subtly but distinctively different than cis people. It's fundamentally unsettling, even when you know what it is. It's also why cis people simply have no points of reference for gender dysphoria. Because of the differences in our brain chemistry, we're actually thinking in a different way.

If you want an analogy, find a pen and a piece of paper. When I was growing up, the nuns in the Catholic school would force left handed people to only use their right hand. Being left handed was "not natural," and their teaching and culture insisted that everyone had to be right handed.

Now pick up the pen with your "wrong" hand. If you're right handed, use your left hand, and left handed people should use their right hand. Now try to sign your name. Write a simple sentence. If you're like most people, your signature is a scrawl and the sentence is illegible. Imagine going through life like this, where every task requiring manual dexterity is a painful, difficult, slow slog. Over time, you will get better at it, but it will always be hard.

Now switch back to your dominant hand and repeat the process. It's fast and easy, natural and flowing. The signature and sentence are far more legible.

For me, being male was like using the "wrong" hand. Being female is the "correct" hand. Everything is so much easier and natural now. My gender dysphoria evaporated. I 💜 the incredible woman in my mirror. Some shrinking parts of current culture insist that I'm "not natural," but they're as terribly wrong as the Catholic nuns I knew in the early 1960s. We know better now.

How do I transition?

Having accepted your genetic truth as transgender, if, how, and when you transition is entirely up to you. While those of us who transition follow the same general path, each of our journeys is unique. There’s no mythical Transgender Agenda, no Hitchhiker's Guide to Gender, and certainly no One True Transition Checklist. You are the only person who gets to decide your transition process, based on your needs, desires, safety, and comfort levels.

We can be our own worst enemy, letting our fears and anxieties grow all out of proportion to the eventual reality. The truth is being transgender is hard, but the results can be incredible.

It takes great strength and courage to transition, but patience may be the hardest part. Estrogen is ✨magic✨, but it's slow ✨magic✨. You have to trust the process.

What about my family and friends?

There's a recurring theme in a lot of the questions I get, about partners and children. In too many cases, the transgender person cares more about the others around them than about themselves, and feels guilty about doing it. The last thing we need is more guilt, and this ratchets up the dysphoria conflict, often to an untenable, unsustainable level. This can be one of the hardest things transgender people face. It's why having a good therapist is really important.

It is not selfish to want happiness for ourselves. Our happiness is equally as important as the happiness of the people around us. We are the only person who can determine if we are transgender, and, if that is our genetic truth, then the only choice we have is how we're going to react to that truth. We are the only person who gets to make those choices — it’s our minds and bodies, so no one else gets a vote or a say in those very personal and often difficult decisions. Being transgender is hard.

I tell people to ask themselves, as I had to ask myself — how can you be the best possible partner or parent if you’re unhappy, depressed, and struggling with dysphoria? You just can’t. What's worse is that they know or can sense that you're unhappy. Long before my transition, I raised both of my kids from middle and elementary school to adulthood as a full time single parent, without any help. One of the hard lessons I learned was that they knew and understood far more about my struggles to raise them than I thought, and definitely far more than I wanted them to know.

We can let our fears and anxieties grow all out of proportion to the eventual reality. We think we know how people are going to react, but we can't know until we tell them. My adult son is now my biggest ally, often (good naturedly) rolling his eyes 👀 at me when I’m giddy with euphoria, going on about my joy as a woman. He sees the profound improvement in my life.

Someone wisely referred to it like the safety card on an airplane. The card says to put your oxygen mask on first, then help the others. It's hard to wrap your mind around it, but you have to pull down the mask, and make the difficult decisions you know you have to make for your own happiness. Then you help the others around you.

It's important to understand that this will probably surprise a lot of people. You've been struggling with dysphoria and its effects for most of your life. You've had to question everything you thought you knew and assumed about yourself. When you come out, the people around you are going to question everything they thought they knew and assumed about you, and they'll question everything they thought they knew and assumed about their relationship with you. That's a lot to take in — but you can't know how they'll react. As I said, being transgender is hard.

I lost a couple people, two painful, and not the ones I expected, but I gained so much more. I have the support and acceptance of so many more people. My life is richer now, and I was doing pretty well before this. I'm happy, and it's hard to beat happy!

Do I need a therapist?

In the US, very probably yes, preferably one with experience in gender and LGBTQ issues. Being transgender is hard, even with a therapist, so I strongly recommend that you find one. I 💜 my therapist, who has helped me with some of my challenges.

It was a challenge to find my therapist, simply because most medical professionals haven't had or even known any transgender patients, and haven't had any training about our issues. Talk with your primary care doctor to see if they have a reference they can give you. Depending on where you're located, your insurance provider may know where you can find a therapist covered by your plan. Finally, you should reach out to local LGBTQ groups to see if they can help.

Furthermore, you may need a therapist to get past some of the archaic gatekeeping still in place. Depending on the kind of gender confirmation surgery you might want to have, you may need one (or more) letters from a therapist before the surgeon will even schedule you. For my surgery, one of those letters had to be from a therapist who had been seeing me for a year, and required confirmation that I'd been on HRT for at least a year.

Where are my breasts?

Patience is the hardest part of the early transition for a transgender woman. We know what we want to look like, and boobs are a big part of it (we hope)!

HRT teases us, too. It's not unusual for breasts and nipples to get very sensitive within the first few weeks. My sweet girl cat Pandora and I discovered this one night, when she climbed onto my chest to cuddle and started kneading my breasts. I yelled out, arching my back, sending both of us flying off the bed‼️🙀 Fortunately, that sensitivity went away after a few more weeks, but we're both still careful even today.

HRT is giving us a second puberty, and it takes time, just like it did the first time.

Most breast growth occurs in the first three to five years, slowly at first, but accumulating faster once you reach your optimal hormone levels. That took me a year of careful and patient regular bloodwork and dosage increases, roughly every three months. My breasts became interesting after eighteen months, and, after another year, I’m rocking a 40C bra. 🎉🎊🔥 This is why my amazing endocrinologist recommended that I wait for at least three years before even considering breast augmentation surgery.

There's also a genetic component to this, so it's likely you'll end up like your grandmothers, aunts, mothers, and sisters. That's why I'm content to see what develops.

It's both frustrating and weirdly affirming when they get in your way <looks down, sees cleavage> but I'm not complaining!

When will I see me in the mirror?

Later than you want and sooner than you think.

The challenge is that we "know" what we look like, because we've been looking (uncomfortably) in the mirror for decades. The changes in our transition are slow and subtle, and our memories make it hard to see them as easily as everyone around us. Then, one day, we suddenly see that new, different person, in the mirror or in a picture, maybe for a moment, and then things start to change. We see them more and more often, until they are us. If we're fortunate, we really like who we see, someone who radiates joy, always with a smile, and someone who's beautiful — and it keeps getting better as the hormones continue their work.

For me, personally, the differences are stunning. People tell me I look fifteen to twenty years younger.

Do I have to stay hidden until I "pass?"

If, when, and how you transition, including stepping out in public as your authentic self, is entirely up to you.

Too often, "passing," for transgender women, gets confused with "being indistinguishable from some impossible standard of feminine beauty." All women, cis and trans, can struggle (and fail) to reach those societal and cultural expectations. Worse, too many transgender women look into the mirror, seeking out any imperfections and anomalies that might possibly identify them as male.

For a small minority of us, that can be important, if you live in an area where it's not safe to be transgender. Safety is important, being transgender and a woman. We no longer have the "male privilege" of walking around somewhat obliviously. It's an eye-opening shift in how I see the world.

For the vast majority of us, I say "look around at other women when you’re out in public." Each one is unique, across a wide range of heights, weights, appearance, dress, and more, with flaws and imperfections they see when they look in their mirrors. People don’t question who and what they are — because they’re not looking very hard, or at all. If you, as a transgender woman, can walk around in public, unseen by most, seen by a few who just see you as another woman, and are treated as a woman by the people you actually interact with — then you clearly "pass," despite what you think when you look in your mirror. I see so many beautiful but insecure transgender women asking if they pass, or what "clocks" them, or how they can improve, when the vast majority of people who interact with them are just going to see another woman out and about on their errands. If you're on transgender social media, you'll see a lot of "I went out femme and the world didn't end!" posts as proof you don’t have to be perfect to be in public.

That’s how I choose to live and it’s wonderful!

The challenge is that the tiny number of negative interactions stick with us far more than the positive interactions that happen far more often. Someone gives us a look? It sticks. Someone else genders us correctly, smiles at us, just treats us as a woman — it doesn’t really stick with us — even if it happens all the time.

Yes, there is a tiny, shrinking minority of terrible vocal people screaming for attention and throwing tantrums in a (too) slowly growing wave of acceptance. They see us as an easy target for their hate. Most people are better than that. If the ignorant bigots have a problem with us, it’s their problem, not ours.

Statistically, there are several million transgender people in the US, and tens of millions who fall into the LGBTQ spectrum. Worldwide, there are many tens of millions of transgender people, and well over a billion LGBTQ people — and all those numbers are growing. We're here, we're queer, and we're not going anywhere!

What do I wear? Where can I get clothes that fit?

First, you need good measurements. There are many sites, like this Good Housekeeping article, that describe how to do this and the measurements you need. For bras, A Bra That Fits will get you in the right ballpark.

Second, there are many places you can go online. Amazon makes returns easy, which can help when you’re first starting out. I 💜 Torrid, which is where much of my wardrobe comes from. My local Torrid store is wonderful, even in my earliest days being out. Now they all know me whenever I go in, so there’s a lot of girl talk. Torrid is also great for larger, wider shoes — almost all of my (too?) many pairs of shoes comes from them. (What am I saying — I can’t ever have too many shoes! 🙀🤣) After my breasts really began to fill out in my second year on HRT, I went to them with the ABTF size recommendation and said “Is this real?” They did a professional bra fitting to verify that I was a surprising 40C! 🎉🎊🔥

Rip resistant Sheertex tights are expensive, but they seem to last forever. I watch for their sales to replace the occasional ones I wear out. I wish more stockings and pantyhose were like their tights.

Some people will recommend Shein, but I found their work cheap and the clothes didn't last. I'd much rather buy from Torrid (on sale) because I know that they're comfortable and cute, I will get a lot of wear from them, and I can throw them in the wash and know that they'll be good when I pull them out. Torrid has regular sales, and, if you're registered with them, they'll throw even more discounts at you.

Third, pay attention to the size charts from the seller and customer reviews of sizing information, which is critical on Amazon. Women’s sizing varies a lot, much more than you’d think. Many brands run smaller, requiring you to order one size (or more) larger. Rarely, they'll run large.

Fourth, pay close attention to the laundry instructions. I don't buy "hand wash only" clothes. I want something I can at least throw into the washing machine on a cold, delicate cycle. Most of my dresses are hang dry only, so I can't throw them in the dryer. I have a garment rack in my bedroom for that. You'll want a couple lingerie bags to wash bras and tights in safely, so they don't get tangled up in the machines.

Fifth, these tips might be helpful to start, but give yourself permission to experiment with your style. Try things that appeal to you, because you never know where you might end up. I was surprised to learn I had a passion for fashion — I'm always in a dress and don't even own pants any more!

I joke that I've purchased more clothes, shoes, and jewelry in the last X months than I did in the X years before that, where X = the number of months I’ve been on HRT, currently 37!

What do I do about my hair to make me more like my authentic gender?

Find a good stylist. I 💜 Erica, my amazing hair goddess. She works her ✨magic✨ every time I see her, and she has carte blanche as she does so. I've known her forever, and she was the third person I came out to, so that she could feminize and colorize my hair as I figured out what I wanted to look like. She makes me 💜gloriously💜purple💜, currently with 💙cobalt blue💙 streaks!

Others have recommended Strands for Trans as a way to find local stylists.

Do I need laser or electrolysis for my body hair?

That depends on the kind of hair you have. Laser works on dark hairs, electrolysis on gray/white hairs. If you're like me, you have both, so you need to do both.

You'll want a lidocaine numbing agent to rub all over the areas to be zapped. You can find it over the counter. I got mine from Amazon. There are stronger, prescription strength lidocaine creams, but you'll need a doctor to get those.

Hair removal can be a gating factor for certain types of bottom surgery. If you're even thinking about it, talk to the surgeon's office to find out how much hair removal you'll need. If you’re even thinking about doing bottom surgery, do the hair removal now. I also find it a lot more hygienic to be bare down there.

What do I do about my nails?

That's entirely up to you. Mine are bright purple, fingers and toes!

There are three main types of nail polish — simple liquid, gel, and acrylic dips:

I've been going to the same nail salon and manicurist for quite some time now. I have regular appointments. Be sure to bring cash to tip.

Do I need a mammogram?

Breast cancer is a 🤬 and it runs in my family. One of your new responsibilities as a transgender woman is your breast health. You're going to have to talk to your doctors about getting regular mammograms. Even if you don't have that kind of family breast cancer history, your health matters, and regular mammograms are part of good medical care. Standards are changing, experts are recommending starting annual scans sooner for some, so it's also important to keep up with the latest guidelines.

For me, as a transgender woman, my first mammogram was affirming and weird all in one literal mashup. Things I wish I knew before going in:

Talk to your primary care doctor. You may have to educate them, because they probably haven't had many transgender patients. You have to do your homework.

Do you regret not transitioning earlier?

There are a lot of decisions that might have been different had I understood all of the signs of the first sixty odd years of my life, but I didn't know. I did the best I could at the time, and that's all we can ask of ourselves. Since I can’t change those decisions, I have a choice: I can expend precious time and energy lost in regrets, looking backward, or I can spend that precious time and energy in the here and now, looking forward. That choice is easy for me — I’m finally living an amazing life as the incredible woman I was always meant to be, so why do anything else?

In retrospect, the things I could regret the most were the things I didn’t do. The better choice has always been to do the things that seemed like big risks, stepping outside my comfort zone.

I will say this. I raised both of my kids from a young age through adulthood as a full time single parent. Even if I had the ability to go back in time and change things, I would never give up my kids. My "Mom" genes are intense.

What is it about transgender women and pickles?

I used to loathe pickles before my transition. Now, I can’t get enough of them! 🥒😋 My absolute favorites come from Rein's Deli, in Vernon, Connecticut. I always stop there if I'm heading south for a LARP. I have been known to drive there, in heels, just for pickles and dinner.

Some theorize it's the salty taste, which helps against the effects of spironalactone. Others say it's a new attraction to the shape...

How is your sex life? Is it like in porn?

Ugh. You'd be surprised at how often this very personal question comes up. It seems to be the result of men getting all of their information about transgender women from pornography.

The transgender women you see in porn are not representative of the vast majority of a typical transgender woman's transition and life. It’s certainly not my life. HRT typically has two components — estrogen and something that minimizes the amount or effects of testosterone. (There are several approaches.) The latter has a significant impact on your reproductive capabilities and performance. This is entirely dependent on the approach you take, in consultation with the medical professionals assisting your transition. It's really important to have a good endocrinologist who understands the implications of your specific treatment and any interactions with your other medications. They can explain your best options, so that you can choose the one that’s right for you.

I understand the sexual implications of my HRT regimen. It was entirely my choice, informed by doing a lot of research, asking my amazing endocrinologist a lot of questions, and listening to her recommendations.

Suffice it to say, my sex life is satisfying and orgasmic, but also completely different from transgender porn and even my personal experiences earlier in my life. I am not complaining in the least! 🔥