Lisa Lees - Sex Change Manual Page

LEES(7)            27 April 1995            LEES(7)

NAME

 Lees - important information about the person
 formerly known as ____ Lees and now legally known
 as Lisa Josephine Lees

SYNOPSIS

 I had what the American Psychiatric Association
 calls a gender identity problem. Simply put this
 means that my birth sex (male) did not agree with
 the gender I feel that I am (female). People like
 me are sometimes called male-to-female
 transsexuals. The recognized treatment for this
 condition is a 'sex change'. That's what I am
 doing.

DESCRIPTION

 My sex/gender mismatch is not new; as far as I
 can tell I was born this way. I have always felt
 that I was female. It has taken me forty years to
 come to terms with these feelings, so I don't
 expect other people to necessarily understand how
 I feel or why I am doing what I am doing.

 I am now completing a transition from living in
 such a way that others see me as male to living
 in such a way that I hope others will see me as
 female. The steps I have taken in this direction
 have already made me much happier. The changes in
 my appearance have been and will continue to be
 gradual. If you've seem me in the past month, you
 have a good idea what I'll look like during the
 next month.

 My transition will not have any particular impact
 on the way I do my job. I'm much the same person
 I always have been, with much the same talents,
 skills, and experience I always have had. Just
 call me Lisa. The rest will sort itself out.

 My situation is unusual, but not unique. There
 are tens of thousands of people who have followed
 this path. The vast majority go on with their
 lives without public comment or notice. (Though
 this is changing. There are a growing number of
 us who decide to be known as 'transgendered'
 instead of trying to fade into the woodwork.)

 I'm not a transvestite or cross-dresser. I'm not
 a gay male. (Not that there is anything wrong
 with being either of those, but I'm not.) I am in
 a long term monogamous relationship and that is
 not going to change. My family remains the focal
 point of my life.

 You with whom I work are some of the last ones to
 find out about this. I realize there will be some
 embarrassment and awkwardness. I'm sorry for
 that, but in the true spirit of a university, I
 hope this will be an occasion for some of us to
 think deeply about sex, gender, and sexual
 preference and what they mean in peoples' lives.

DETAILS

 The condition of 'gender dysphoria' is recognized
 in the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of Mental
 Disorders, fourth edition, (DSM-IV) of the
 American Psychiatric Association. This is,
 technically, what I am being treated for, though
 the term gender dysphoria has fallen out of use
 in favor of the less negative 'gender identity
 problem'.

 I am receiving counseling from a psychiatrist and
 hormone therapy from my primary care physician.
 None of my treatment is covered by my MSU provided
 health insurance. All costs for therapy, tests,
 hormones, electrolysis, and surgery are being
 paid by me out of my pocket. So far it's averaged
 to about $400 a month, but that will decrease to
 about $100 a month later this year. Surgery will
 be a big bite, perhaps $15k, but that won't be
 for a while.

 This is what I am going through:

 * Name change. I changed my name legally (in
   Ingham County Probate Court) to Lisa Josephine
   Lees on April 27.

 * Hormone therapy to adjust to a female hormonal
   balance. I started this in November and will
   continue as long as I live. For the first
   several years there is some development of
   female secondary sexual characteristics and
   some diminution of male ones. No large or
   dramatic changes.

 * Electrolysis (thermolysis, actually), to remove
   facial hair. I began this early this year. It
   will be completed by fall, I hope. It is not a
   lot of fun and is why my face is sometimes
   puffy or has red spots.

 * Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS). There are a
   number of surgeons around the world who perform
   several of these operations apiece each week. I
   guess you could call it major cosmetic surgery.
   The result is not perfect, but is reasonably
   functional. I have no date set for this as yet.

 The purpose of all this is not to 'turn a man
 into a woman'. That cannot be done. I always have
 been and always will be not quite either of what
 most people mean by 'man' or 'woman'. (Hence the
 subtitle of Kate Bornstein's book, see below.) I
 prefer to say that I am and always have been a
 transsexual woman. The main thing that is changing
 about me right now is that I am no longer hiding
 this. Changes like hairstyle, earrings, clothing,
 even my curvier figure, are cosmetic. They are
 just things I am doing so that other people can
 tell, by looking at me, some of what I feel.

 I don't know that anyone but another transsexual
 can really understand this. It is said that men
 do not really understand women, and vice versa.
 If so, then I am a third or fourth sex. I did not
 ask or choose to be what I am. I have, finally,
 come to the point where I can sort things out and
 do what I have to do to survive.

YOU

 One thing that is difficult for me to understand
 is how other ('normal') people see what I am
 doing. I've been wanting to fix this problem for
 close to forty years. (As a young child I would
 keep my eyes closed after waking up in the morning
 and pray that when I opened them I would be a
 girl. It took me a long time to learn that grace
 does not work that way. I now pray for the grace
 to do what I have to do to be a functional, whole,
 loving human being; and it seems to be working.)

 So just as you probably cannot truly understand
 how I feel, I cannot truly understand the shock
 and confusion that I have been told some people
 feel when confronted with this. To me this is
 considerably less traumatic than, say, buying a
 new house, or upgrading to Solaris 2. So help me
 out. It's okay to ask me, "How can you..." With
 luck we'll both learn something.

AUTHOR

 Lisa Josephine Lees

QUOTE

 Speaking the words with sweet diffidence, she said:
    "I hope none of you will care less for me
 now than you did before. I'm just the same Tip,
 you know; only--only--"
    "Only you're different!" said the Pumpkinhead;
 and everyone thought it was the wisest speech he
 had ever made.
               -- The Land of Oz,em by L. Frank Baum

SEE ALSO

 soc.support.transgendered is a Usenet newsgroup.
 I also know of mailing lists and areas on the
 major online services. The following books,
 written by male-to-female transsexuals, are about
 various aspects of gender and sexuality. I have
 oodles more information, too. :-)

 Kate Bornstein. Gender Outlaw: On men, women, and
 the rest of us. Routledge. 1994. 0-415-90897-3.

 Katherine Cummings. Katherine's Diary: The Story
 of a Transsexual. William Heinemann Australia, 22
 Salmon Street, Melbourne. 1992. 0-85561-450-1.

 Jan Morris. Conundrum: An Extraordinary Narrative
 of Transsexualism. Henry Holt. 1974 (1987).
 0-8050-0361-4.

 Martine Rothblatt. The Apartheid of Sex: A
 Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender. Crown. 1995.
 0-517-59997-X.

BUGS

 Sex and gender are tremendously complicated topics
 about which I have thought and read and studied
 widely, as you can imagine. If you think the term
 'sex change' is absurd, I can only agree with
 you. Something like 'gender role instantiation'
 is more accurate, but doesn't have quite the zing
 to it. I just wanna be me.

 I'll be happy to discuss any concerns in email or
 in person. Just let me know what is bugging you.
Looking back on this from what seems like a whole lot longer than it's really been, I'll note that I still like this message, and mostly agree with how I felt. I would now use some different terminology and be much less certain about my future plans. (I have not considered genital cosmetic surgery a sensible thing for me to do for some time now.) During my transition I spent a total of about $12,000 I would not otherwise have spent, all out of my own pocket.
You are here: lisalees.com/trans/out
----- all the colors of the rainbow! -----