Niki has always said you are what you pretend to be. For most of half a century I pretended to be something I was not, macho with a flair for bravado. I had been in several tense situations pretended I was fearless when I was scared. I had spent most of my life in aviation which is a very male oriented profession (think about it the pilot sits in a cock pit.) I had been in therapy. (My therapist on our first meeting laid out the objective of counseling, that I was in fact a woman living in a man’s body and not a man with latent desires but unable to process the feelings. She then asked me if I understood. I replied in my typical style by saying you want to know if I am truly transgendered and not a homophobic gay guy)  I digress.  I was scared to start the transition, I had heard of stories where people had been fired, beat up or killed just for trying to live their life their way.  It took a tremendous amount of moxie to go into our HR manager’s office and say that I was transgendered and I was going to transition. After about what seemed like forever but in reality was a few seconds she looked at me and said we are about to see if this company means what it says about diversity. At that time I knew I had come to the right decision and the right person, that line made all of the difference.  My plan was to do things gradually and not leave on a Friday as Ron and return Monday as Rhonda but over a couple of weeks do the transition so no one was shocked.  I had a business trip planned for the next week and during that time our HR department called meeting with everyone in the plant and at our offsite locations to inform them of my transition. When In returned the HR manager let me know that a couple of people had come and wondered about which bathroom I was going to use. I was asked if initially I would limit myself to the restroom nearest my office and the unisex one in the lobby. I was called into my boss’s office and the office of the company president both of whom assured me that they understood my decision and supported me.  This was a tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders. One of the supervisors came to me and asked me to explain this ‘thing’ so that it was understandable. I told him what was between my legs was my sex and what was between my ears was my gender and in my case they did not match.  He thought that was brilliant and he could use that.

I got an appointment with a doctor to get hormones and got them started right away. My therapist gave me what is called a carry letter which basically stated that I am in therapy for gender dysphoria and should be accommodated and treated like I was a woman.

I initially went overboard like a kid in a candy shop. Somehow I mentally equated being feminine with the color pink. I had pink tops, pink lipstick, pink nails, pink earrings, etc. Niki finally said to me I was overdoing the pink. In reality I was going through a modified puberty of sorts. When I recognized what I was doing I watered it down quite a bit.  But the sensations of being able to expose to the world how I really felt inside were very much a relief.  I know there were situations where I had to be what people expected and saying to myself as I prepared for this “It’s show time” and now I did not need to think that, I no longer needed to pretend. On one of my last service trips, before I finally made the decision to transition, I was in St. Louis and was taken to lunch by several of the company’s sales and technical people. It was in August and the conversation turned to sports, more specifically college football.  I was asked which team I rooted for Michigan or Michigan State. I said neither as my daughter was going to Ohio State.  That seemed to get the attention off of me but the rest of the conversation all I could think of I don’t belong here this is not my cup of tea. If they were talking about airplanes or more specifically the advances in avionics (Aviation electronics) I could carry on but sports….

Just after I started my transition I was tasked to go to our Columbus Office. I had worked in Columbus for 8 years before I was transferred to Grand Rapids. I knew many of the people there and wondered how they would react.  There were a few people who I had no concerns about and several that I had never met.  One of the people I had no concerns about was Bruce.  Bruce is one of the most liberal people most people know, his company voice mail ends in a statement about being environmentally consciences as “a good planet is hard to find.” As I walked the halls to the Lab where Bruce was people would say hi but did not know how to react openly. When I saw Bruce there was about half a dozen people in the lab and Bruce stood in front of me and sized me up top to bottom and back to top. He then said “You weren’t all that good looking as a guy but as a woman you are damn ugly as a woman.” The room was very hushed no one knew what to say and it was totally out of character for Bruce. There was total silence for several seconds then I started to laugh and told him I knew he would give me an honest opinion.  The room relaxed and knew I was not going to be militant about things, I was who I always had been in disposition. When people get pronouns wrong and then apologize for it I tell them I lived for 50 years being called in the masculine I cannot expect you to change overnight.

Niki has said she misses Ron but loves Rhonda. I don’t see where the inner me has changed but obviously she does. I think I am not as uptight as not much of a jerk which I totally blame on my inner conflicts. I think I am easier going and more fun now that I can be me!

Note: Sorry this took so long

When I was asked to move to Grand Rapids it seemed like the logical choice.   I have always seen patterns where no one would think to look. I had been in the Army for 8 years, I had worked for National Semiconductor for 8 years and had worked here for 8 years. The pattern was not acceptable to me.  The other thing it was that the move was back to Michigan.  I was born in Michigan. My Family lived in Michigan. My in-laws lived in Michigan. Michigan had always been home. In the last 24 years I had lived in Asia, Europe, Arizona, Colorado, New Jersey, Kentucky, and Ohio but Michigan was home. When I discussed moving with my wife she adamantly refused to move.  We were offered a complete relocation package but still she refused. We discussed the prospect of me being unemployed, the prospect of living apart, and of every other considerable option – one of which involved me moving until the last two children graduated high school, then having her join me in Michigan. The marriage was not on firm ground for a myriad of reasons, some of which has been discussed previously. In reality, this was not her fault. What she had expected was a person who was male and comfortable being a male and I did not fit that role. I could think of a number of reasons why I could blame the dissolution of the marriage on her but the reality is, it was me. I was never comfortable being the macho macho man. I had always wanted to look pretty, to be more feminine, and to live in reality as a woman.

One of the mental dilemmas that I had was the fear that in becoming a woman I would lose my children, my family, and my brothers and sisters.  This was not acceptable to me, so I delayed it as  long as I could. There was also the fear of rejection by my peers and by the public in general. I would read stories where people would be beaten or killed by being gay, let alone transgendered. I did not want to have that to happen to me, as I very much don’t like to be hurt. So when I moved to Michigan, I let people around me know that I was gay, but not as many as I would’ve liked. I would go to work dressed in men’s clothing with some makeup on; then when I came home to my sparsely equipped apartment, I could dress and act in a manner that felt more natural for me – as a woman.

I wanted the world to know I didn’t know how I really felt. It seemed to me that I was really on a mental collision course. I would go home to Columbus to visit my wife and kids for holidays and a lot of weekends, so I would come back to Grand Rapids on Sunday. Then Sunday through Thursday I lived in my apartment as a woman while home. Friday after work I drove back to Columbus, spent a couple days there and back to Grand Rapids to start the week again. The journey took 5 hours each way. It was not a very restful time off work nor was it very high quality family time visiting. The trips to Columbus started becoming fewer and fewer.  Part of this was brought on by an automobile accident that left me with a not so reliable an automobile for such a trip. Over time, it became the main reason not to go to Ohio at all. It appeared to me that my lack of traveling home was never any problem for my wife, as long as I kept sending money back to Columbus. If there was a problem with one of the children, I would get called and hear about it but not be able to do anything from the distance. This was difficult for me. I was torn between my love for my children and wanting to be there but knowing it was a 10 hour round trip.

After a couple of years, I got some money together and bought a mobile home and some furniture and was able to take up residence in much nicer surroundings. I had a small yard, and what I considered to be  a very large house for one person. It was at that point in time that I met a coworker named Niki who speculated that I might be gay, but showed interest in getting to know me as a friend So we went, for lack of a better term, on a date to the movies. As we came out of the movies, she held my hand and I held hers. I think we were both surprised that it felt nice to be holding hands. Then I sort of rejected the idea of a relationship it because I didn’t want to put anyone through what I’d already put my wife, Rita, through. Finally, I told her I was gay and had no romantic interest, but I didn’t mind being a friend.

The relationship continued and we became more and more involved. Then she was in an automobile accident and needed assistance for several weeks with daily care. She was unable to live in her own apartment building due to her injuries. Her apartment building was about 300 yards from where she had to park and then she would have to climb a flight and a half of stairs to get to her apartment. This was too much, so I offered for her to move into my place for a while. I only had six steps up and the car was parked right next to the mobile home. This proved to be much easier for her mobility.

By the time she gained strength and was able to care for herself, we decided that living together worked for us. We went looking for a rental that we could share with her school-aged daughter. She moved out of her apartment and I sold the mobile home, and we moved in together into a rented duplex townhouse.. My wife, Rita, and I had not lived together for over five years by this time. All that time I had continued to fully support my family in Columbus, but now the kids were grown. It was about this time, I came to the conclusion that as long as the money was coming in, Rita would never agree to any kind of divorce. I was advised by an attorney to give her notice that I was intending to stop sending money down.    The attorney was correct in that this definitely moved divorce proceedings along at a faster rate. The divorce was painful for both of us, or should I say all three of us Rita, Niki, and me; but we got through it.

After the divorce, Niki desired to buy a house so we would have some more permanency than a rental would provide. We found a place about 2 miles from where we were living, and Niki was able to make the purchase herself, since my financial position was quite dire after the divorce. Life seemed much more relaxed, but still I had urges that were never going away. I had begun to understand that I was transgender and longed for a time that I could feel more complete and more myself. After a couple years in our new home, Niki finally said to me, “Why don’t you just go ahead and transition because I think of you more as a woman that I do as a man.” And this led me to the decision to start the transition. I will discuss my transition in my next writing, which I hope will not take as long as this post has. Writing this is an emotional journey in itself and sometimes requires time of reflection and contemplation between posts. Please bear with me in this fact.

When I left home in June of 1971 I entered the Army and everything in my world had changed. The Army in 1971 was very strict as to how you dressed, how you had your hair, and how you kept yourself. From the time that I entered basic training to my arrival at my duty station in Germany was six long months. Most of the time during training my time was occupied by stuff that was dictated to me by superiors. Once I arrived at my station in Germany it was Christmastime and non ordinary operations the routine so we worked for four hours a day and took the rest the day off.
I was in an area that had 29 Americans total. We were attached to the Belgian Air Force. All of our transportation and support came from the Belgian Air Force. I was without my family and in another country. In Europe they were much more open about a lot of things an I became aware of non-traditional lifestyles. I read about gays in Europe and how open people were. This intrigued me but also repulsed me, I wanted to know more but it was against everything I had been taught.
The next August I came back to Michigan and got married. We had our first child in Germany in April. In September of 1973, I was transferred back to the states to go to electronics school. After six months of training in aviation electronics (avionics), I was sent to Ft Carson Colorado for another six months and then on to Korea. In Korea, one of the major businesses around military bases is ‘ladies of the evening’. For a relatively small fee you could spend the night in a woman’s room. I resisted for several months but finally succumbed to the urge. What people did not know is that once we retired to her room there was no sex. I just put on whatever her makeup was and slept.
While I was in Korea there was a brief stint, about six weeks’ worth, in Southeast Asia. And when I returned to Korea about a week after the fall of Saigon my second child, a daughter was born. I would not get to see her until that September when I came home for a brief leave.
Then I was reassigned back to the United States in early December 1975. I was stationed at Fort Huachuca Arizona. It was in the first month or two that we were there that I was caught by my wife while painting my nails. This would escalate to the point that she would refer to these types of behaviors as, “doing my own thing”.
From that point on things went a little off kilter in the marriage. In February 1976 I had my first gay sexual experience. I reasoned that I was not gay because I did not think of myself that way, and it was against the rules. I had kept telling myself that all of this was just a phase. It was not my lifestyle because my dream – my hope – was to be the perfect family. I wanted the husband, wife, children, picket fence, and a leisurely life. The longer I lived the more I struggled to maintain this façade. All I will say is that sex with a man is very different from sex with a woman. But that is another different story.
Military life was a total change after the gay experience. I began to look at things in a much different light. After my stint in Fort Huachuca, I ended up at Fort Hood Texas. At the time Fort Hood was the largest military installation in the free world. Needless to say there was a very large if not silent gay population. There were at least two gay bars in the town just outside of Fort Hood. I went to one a couple of times and somehow felt uncomfortable there but one of the bartenders and waitresses whatever and I had several Stations about things.
One day I was invited over to a friend’s house where I met his wife and family. His wife was the woman I had talked to at the gay bar and with the utmost of professionalism she never let on to her husband that I’d been there. He, on the other hand, let me know that she was a bartender at a gay bar. Believe it or not there were gay bars in Killeen. I felt awkward acting as if I had just met someone with whom I had had some very personal conversations. This was probably the biggest mental struggle I had ever encountered. I had, in the past of course, known not to say how I really felt about things. But now this was a person whom I met and was now to be included in my internal web of deception. This did not feel right, but I let it go. After eight years it was time for me to live. It was time to leave the military. I was on a collision course that could cause problems. I was not happy in the job I was doing and did not want to continue that. In June of 1979 I reentered civilian life.
In the civilian world, I got a job where I was a field service engineer working for a company that made computers for grocery stores. This required me to sometimes come in at three or four in the morning when activity in the store was at a minimum. I would be met by those people working the graveyard shift and by 5:30-6 o’clock in the morning the bakery and cashiers were coming on the job. These were often women and I would strike up conversations with them and sometimes I was made as not being on the straight and narrow . This led to some interesting conversations.
My job took me from Detroit to Toledo to Columbus, Ohio. In all of the cities the routine remained virtually the same. In Columbus, I was promoted to supervisor and had several field service engineers working for me. Because of my crazy hours – I was out at night or early in the morning and got home in the early afternoon, I was alone in the house since the kids were at school and my wife was at work. This allowed me plenty of time to dress and then undress before anyone came home. After about two years I had an ethical conflict with my boss, who was a we should be billing the customer more and I was arguing that the customer should not be charged for our mistakes. This led to an impasse that was only resolved when as a result of them demoting me/or me quitting . I quit.
I spent the next eight weeks looking for a job. It was probably the most fun summer of my life. Every afternoon, weather permitting, the kids and I would head to the beach. We would be there for a couple of hours and then go home and have dinner. My wife, who got off work at 2 PM most of the time, joined us. So my life was – get up in the morning, look for a job and go swimming. In August of that summer I got hired by an avionics company. In the military I had worked avionics, and loved aviation. I was back where I belonged.
I started out as a bench technician but, because of my prior experiences, I did not need a lot of the basics of avionics. This was an avionics manufacturing company so we had sales people, production people, and the service department where I worked. It was a nice small company. I was like employee number 51. I went to work and became quite popular – not just in my shop, but also throughout the plant. One of the other bench technicians wanted to ‘out’ a coworker but did not want to confront her directly, so he came up with this idea. The idea was to ‘out’ me.
It was not a well-thought-out plan. And I was not really made aware of it in advance. He simply said, “Okay Ron, why don’t you just admit it and come out of the closet?” I was panicked. I didn’t know what to say. I understood almost immediately what he was trying to do, but do I deny or admit? What do I do at this point in time? If I deny, which is what he was expecting me to do, this would induce the lady he wanted to ‘come out’ to talk to me about it. On the other hand, I felt in overwhelming need to not lie and therefore admit the truth. I knew that my desires were not heterosexual and that my understanding of the gender binary meant that I was gay. As I said before I was very naïve. So, after he repeated the question a second time, I finally said, “Yes. I’m gay.” This was shocking to the six or seven people in the shop.
I found out later that the news spread throughout the building almost immediately. Within a day or two everyone was secretly talking about me. Later I heard a story, that I able to confirm, that me being gay was even the discussion in a management meeting. We proceeded on with people knowing that I was gay. In fact, at one point a new hire told me I was part of the new employee briefing, in that whoever was giving the new person a tour of the building, the tour leader would point to me and say, “He’s gay.” So the idea of it being a secret was no longer true, at least for the people at work.
The company then was purchased and our smaller company was merged with a larger corporation. So, we expanded. When we expanded, the service department expanded from five technicians to 13 technicians. We moved into a brand-new building and had to reorganize everything to accommodate the company we were merging with. I became a shop supervisor. I was able to work on any bench, and understood the equipment totally.
Then again, in 1994, our corporation decided to merge us with a part of the company in Grand Rapids, Michigan. During that merger, production and service would move to Grand Rapids, Michigan and engineering would stay in Columbus, Ohio. I was asked to move to Grand Rapids in the capacity of field service/customer service technician for the products being transferred to Grand Rapids.

I have decided to break my pre transition time into two post the the first from birth to July 1971 or the Port Huron years and the second the adult years.
I can remember in kindergarten and my mom saying “you are so handsome.” I was repulsed by the word, ‘handsome’. I didn’t k now why but I was. I did not understand why, I just knew it made me cringe. I had the fortune of going from first to fourth grade in a four classroom building, and had the same classmates for all four years. This was comforting in that we basically went through those four years together. We had developed friendships that went from year to year. We knew our classmates as well as we knew our family. The people you went to second grade with would be the people that you went to third grade with. In the summer between the fourth and fifth grades we moved to the south side of town. I then went to an elementary school that had five fifth-grade classrooms, and I knew no one in class. That did not stop me because of my familiarity with the people I had gone through the last four years with. I was very comfortable being myself. I made friends and I enjoyed a lot of really good times. Things were beginning to change and I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that other people were not experiencing things like I was . This was in preparation of my perfect storm – middle school, puberty, and no longer fitting in.
Sixth grade was where it all fell apart. I had a teacher who had very strong beliefs about what a boy should be and should not be. All of my life I had long fingernails, but in the sixth grade my teacher did not believe that boys should have fingernails longer than the tips of their fingers. Her way of making this point was to cut my fingernails in front of the entire class. I was embarrassed to say the least. But I hated having short fingernails. She didn’t believe that if you had pants that required a belt, you could wear them unbelted. So one day she brought in a piece of rope and tied around my pants – again very embarrassing! It was at this point that puberty started to affect me. My grades dropped and at a parent-teacher conference my teacher suggested that I go to a mental health and child guidance clinic.
So every Wednesday afternoon for the next two years I went and saw a counselor. I don’t know what the outcome of that was, but the cost alone was not producing any positive results. My grades continued to drop, and so it was determined that I should quit going. I don’t know what they discussed with my mother during those sessions. I just know the results were not what people wanted. It was about this time that my grandmother was no longer able to coherently live on her own day-to-day. My parents put her in a nursing home and my dad and I were heading to grandma’s house to clean it out. I said something in the car I don’t know what it was I said. I don’t know how I said it. But my dad pulled the car over and told me he, “wasn’t going to raise a f#*king queer”. I have since realized his reaction was fear for my safety. He understood that homosexuals were put in insane asylums and given electroshock therapy, and he wanted me to avoid that if at all possible. Keep in mind we’re talking 1963 to 1964. Much of what we know today was not widely spoken of as fact back then.
One of the more restrictive policies at the time was that ‘boys’ had to take shop and ‘girls’ took home economics. I wanted to take home economics. This was reinforced in the seventh grade when those who were in home economics, got to wear what they made in the sewing portion of the class. All the girls had made jumpers and wore them on the same day. I really wanted to make a jumper and wear it at school. But I was forced into taking shop, which I hated.
I really did want to learn how to cook and how to sew. I did not think of it as ‘girly’ things or ‘sissy’ things – just stuff I wanted to do. It was in junior high school that I learned rather quickly to parse my words so I did not say anything that would get me attention for the wrong reasons. I began to realize that my way of thinking was not in line with the other guys. In classes where we were working I was very comfortable. Between classes and at lunch, I had to be very careful. I took beginning band two years in a row. I could not make the right music either time.
In the seventh grade when we went into the band room, we were required to go into the instrument room and get our instruments. I did not need to because I played the tuba and it was set up on a special chair. But for some reason, I went in just like everybody else on one day. One of the eighth-graders grabbed my head and put it between his legs and laughed. I knew that I should be embarrassed, but I did not understand why. As I said earlier, I was naïve.
It was also in junior high school that in one class, I found myself repulsed by the guy who sat behind me but I was also strangely attracted to him. I came to realize later that I had a crush on him. I successfully avoided taking gym. For some reason I took it in sixth grade but was able to avoid it in seventh and eighth, which made me just happy.
I felt awkward through most of my junior high school years. My mother said that I retreated into my shell. I was not outgoing, or at least not out going as I had previously been. I came home and went right to my room. I did not want to talk about my school day. History class was a joy, English was a nightmare. The worst words I could hear about any given test was the phrase, “Spelling counts.” I knew I would not get the grade based on my knowledge but based on my inability to spell. This allowed my teachers and parents to determine I was lazy. They seemed to know I had the basic intelligence, but suspected that I didn’t put in the effort because my English was atrocious & my spelling was miserable.
I did not understand the word ‘study’. If I had read it, I knew it – I just couldn’t spell it. So, when someone asked, “Have you studied for the test?” my answer was always, “No.” I did not know what studying was. I read it, I knew it. But then when I did less than great performance, it was assumed to be because I hadn’t studied because I was lazy. This stigma stayed with me through high school. Even in college I never studied, if I read something, I knew it. If the exam was oral, true/false, or multiple choice I aced it; however, if it required written answers or worse yet essay, I failed miserably.
Today people claim, and I don’t deny it, that I have a photographic memory. If I read something, I know and remember it. The problem is sometimes what I read is not what is written. It’s that dyslexic thing again. Nonetheless, telling me I was lazy was not a good reinforcement (as we would say today), but it was what it was.
High school was a time where I really began to want things for me to be more like normal people. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to have a social life. But every time I tried, it blew up in my face. Everyone had a girlfriend. I wanted a girlfriend, that is, someone who I could socialize with and be considered normal. When guys in high school looked at girls they were noticing bodies and physical features. I noticed their clothes, their makeup, and how they would all fit together.
When I was in high school, the micro-miniskirt was in fashion. The dress school policy was that no skirt could be more than 4 inches above the knee. Guys would come in and say, “Do you see the skirt on so-and-so, noticing how much leg was exposed. I was not into seeing how much leg was exposed, I was into the style. How it would fit and did it look right I knew that I was not thinking along the same lines as the other guys. I was thinking weird kinds of thoughts compared to everyone else. This is how I knew that I had to watch what I said every time I tried to socially engage with my peers. I would end up wanting to get out of the situation as fast as I could. I would say something that would be totally stupid in everyone else’s mind.
I was miserable. To make matters worse, at about age 15 or 16, I started getting up early in the morning before anyone else was awake and going downstairs. I put on one of my mother dresses, her only pair of high heels and her lipstick, which was the only makeup that she. I would then sneak downstairs in the basement and sit on a couch and read, or think, or just be comfortable with myself for between 20 and 30 min. I had to put everything back before anyone else awoke.
Typically, the next person awake was my mother. Lucky for me she would of course go downstairs to the only bathroom we had in the house and do what she did in the morning to get ready. So I had time to return her shoes and dress to the closet. But before I went back up to the first floor, I would have to take the lipstick off. This was accomplished by me wiping my lips off with one of the towels in that dirty clothes barrel at the bottom of the laundry chute. Here is where either my naïveté, or stupidity depending on how you look at it, worked. My assumption was that once I wiped the lipstick off no one would know. However, I’m sure that when my mother did laundry she would notice lipstick on the towels. She never said a thing. But she knew, and I believe she knew who.
Anyway I would get up then go get dressed and go off to school or work or whatever I was going to do for the day. I was blissful in the knowledge that no one knew that I spent time in a dress and heels in the wee hours of the morning. It was not until years later that I figured out my mother knew because of the ‘lipstick’ evidence I left behind.
This went on at least three or four times a week during my junior and senior years in high school and my one year of college. So, while I would have at the time denied that this was pointing to non-straight male behavior it was, in fact, a very large sign. I would go to school and act ‘normal.’ The cool thing about people that age is that they are all so tied up in their own stuff that, no one would have thought that this was going on.
I gravitated toward female friends, but none in the terms of a girlfriend. I was in the adult church choir and one day a very good-looking high school freshman who was also in the choir started a conversation with me. We talked about a lot of things and she asked me if I wanted to go out with her. I was so excited about this that I immediately said, “Yes.” I went to her house and her father drove us to the auditorium where the movie was at. It was once we were there that I found out I was the diversion. She was there to meet her real boyfriend who was black; and her parents would never have approved. . That relationship lasted just one date.
I was not ready to come to the terms with the knowledge that, in reality, I was not going to be your typical ‘manly’ kind of guy. I have said on many occasions that there were signs all over the place. I just didn’t know how to read them. In my senior year of high school, I started dating the woman whom I eventually would marry, and with whom I would father five kids. She had graduated from high school and was in college. So we dated and went to my senior prom, and then attended college together – even had one class together.
In college I had a class where there was one woman who wore mid-calf skirts every day. I was totally enamored with her clothing choices. I cannot tell you what she her face looked like – just her clothes. I cannot tell you what her body type, was but I do remember the clothes she wore. At the end of my freshman year academically I was going nowhere, so I made the decision to leave school, join the military, and see if I could get things in the proper order.

I was at the grocery store the other day and the cashier asked if I knew Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner. I answered, “not personally.” As much as I think I pass, my voice typically gives it away but I know this young 20 something young lady had ‘made me.’ She then asked if I did my own nails and makeup. I replied, “No and yes.” She was fascinated with Caitlyn and wanted to ask a million questions, much to the chagrin of the customers behind me in line. She asked if I minded her questions and I said no, I am always willing to educate anyone who is genuinely curious. She then wanted to know my whole history and I said there was not enough time but that. I started my transition about 11 years ago but there was much more to the story. I did say that Caitlyn Jenner started a conversation but is not like 99% of transgendered people. Caitlyn was living as a man on January 1^st and within 6 months is on the cover of Vanity Fair. She had the resources to undergo a 10-hour surgery for facial feminization, and a closet of designer clothes.

Thus it is a Segue for my story.

If I compare my story to that of Caitlyn Jenner there are similarities, just like there are similarities to Kristen Beck, and many others who have transitioned later in life. I am within 3 years of Kaitlyn’s age. I would like everyone who knows me to read this – all of it. Most will not, but I do have to write it so it is understood. Many people have thought this was a spur of the moment thing but I want anyone who wants to know this has been a life long struggle and people besides me need to know.

I started out young and naïve. My assumption early in life was that I was just like everyone else. I must admit I had a great childhood, wonderful parents and great siblings. My parents were amazing! I did not know we were poor the whole time growing up. My parents never went to high school, but they had a whole lot of intelligence and challenged us to always do more and to know more. My father would have discussions at the dinner table about current events and engage us in them. Then when we started to understand his opinion on the subject, he would change it 180°. From that I learned to look at and understand both sides of an argument. Only then can you know your opinion fully expresses your belief given the facts you know. My mother read to us every night usually from the same book so we got to know the stories pretty good.

I had one older brother and 9 younger siblings. As I said, I was just like everyone else. My older brother, Dan, was my mentor of sorts. He blazed the trail of life and I got to follow along a couple of years later. I remember doing most things with Dan. We went to an elementary school with just 4 rooms – Grades 1-4. So when I was in first grade, he was in third. When I got to Jr High School (6^th grade), he was in 8^th. When I got to be a freshman in High School, he was a junior. But more importantly there were activities outside of school we did together. We were on the same baseball team; we were in scouts together; and we were on the swimming team together. We learned how to play chess together (from someone who did not quite know all of the rules correctly)

My next younger sibling was my brother, Gary. There was a certain amount of sibling rivalry between Gary and me. I’m sure Gary never recognized it. Gary was charismatic, musical, and told everyone he was going to be President of the United States. This endeared him or should I say made him very popular amongst the adults. So at this point, historically speaking, I felt like John Adams – right between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The more I tried for the status of Gary or Dan, the less I succeeded. I tried to be witty, but it just didn’t have the same effect as when those two were witty. Another drawback for me, if you will, is that I’m dyslexic. It was not something that was being diagnosed at the time, but it prevented me from excelling in several academic areas including spelling, English, and math.

All that is written before this paragraph is a brief explanation of everything in my life with the exception of my gender dysphoria. What follows is my story of the gender dysphoria which, like dyslexia, was undiagnosed in those years. In both cases, knowledge of both the dyslexia and the gender dysphoria were not widely known. When I approached what we now call middle school (it was junior high school back in the day), a perfect storm was coming. I realized that I was not like everyone else. The dyslexia became more pronounced, so I went from about a 3.0 grade-point-average to about a1.7.

Here is my story broken into several chronological sequences. My next posting will be from as far back as I can remember to when I started my transition. The installment after that will be the story of my transition to date the highlights and hopefully funny sometimes like I said I was very naïve. After that I will post things about what is going on and maybe report things I have put on the web elsewhere, it will not always be about being transgendered but it will always be from me or at least my point of view. So sit back and enjoy the flight!