KarenSerenity.com-OFFICIAL WEBSITE-Karen Serenity Positive Thinking Successful Transsexual Women Role Models for Post-Operative, Male-To-Female Transsexual Women! Gallery Page 4.

"Kentucky Woman" attending college in Minnesota, seeking her Special Man & future Best Friend.

Before one writes the story of her journey, the destination should be reached and story should be concluded. Mine is not. I do not yet know the full path the universe has set for me nor the destination of the trip. So I shall call this a post card from the road or an update on the journey – so far.

For me the path was not chosen. I fought against the path to womanhood for many years, only to find the dawn of happiness when my struggle against my path was surrendered. There is now loss, victory, difficulty, ease, sadness and joy. I have found contentment in the ongoing process of becoming the person my soul intended.

All journeys have a beginning, as does mine. My story began in Kassel, Germany. I was born into an Army family while my father; an ordinance officer was stationed in Gissen, Germany, about two miles from the Russian sector. I was cared for by a German nanny for almost three years. When my family returned to the USA, I was “electively mute” for about one year. I lived as an Army dependent for seventeen years in many different places: New England, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Formosa, France, and again in Germany. I was not the stereotypical son of a Colonel and was regarded by all as rather odd. I remember when I was seven, my father telling me that he wished he could take me to some doctor or psychologist to let him know what was wrong.

My home life stressed conformity and obligation to meet social expectations. This was to assure my father could be promoted. My behaviors left much to be desired. While my home featured much conditional acceptance, unconditional love was rarely exhibited. It was not a happy place.

As a child of four, I had a realization that I would become a girl. I believed that my penis would start to grow in when I was a teenager, and I would be a “mommy’ when I grew up. It was a rather infantile idea but that was the centerpiece of my thinking throughout my childhood. From the age of about five I dressed in my sister’s or my mother’s clothes at every opportunity when my parents were not at home. Somehow, I was able to avoid direct confrontation about this behavior (except occasionally from my sister).

When my teen years came the fantasy of the metamorphosis into female did not occur. No other idea took its place. I became withdrawn and very depressed. I withdrew to my musical talent and was a rather accomplished young trumpet player. Entering high school, I found acceptance from my family taking on more masculine activities such as sports and I continued music accomplishment. I even tried to date girls. This pattern would continue with peaks and valleys of success. Still the desire to be female was always with me and it was a yoke that caused shame and self-loathing. I would try over and over to be a “man” with temporary success and then an overriding sense of failure, then anger for not being female, followed by depression. One’s life patterns are persistent.

High school is a difficult place for almost everyone. Odd boys have a particularly tough time of it. My behaviors seemed to exaggerate my more feminine side. So to get me out of sight and to “butch” me up a bit, I was sent to a Southern Baptist military high school. It was partially my idea and I welcomed the opportunity to get away from my parents. The uniforms and the lack of access to female clothing temporarily squelched my cross-dressing. I did well academically and although the military school wanted me to go to Dartmouth, I chose University of Kentucky because it was renowned as a party school. (It was also the state university of my father’s home state, Kentucky.)

At the University of Kentucky I did what I thought I should do. I took ROTC, majored in what my father wanted me to and even had a girlfriend. But I did not apply myself academically. After a year or so my GPA (Grade Point Average) was so low my student deferment would be denied. So my parents withdrew financial support and I did the one thing that I knew to do – join the Army. I tried to be a helicopter pilot but since I am colorblind I was not selected. I enlisted nonetheless and was selected to go to NCO (Non Commissioned Officer) school.

During this time I had gotten my girlfriend pregnant and was shortly thereafter married. My daughter, the first of my two children, was born seven months later while I was a 19-year-old Tech. Sgt. At the NCO School at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was about that time I first heard or read the word ‘transsexual’. It was in a book “The Transsexual Phenomenon” by Harry Benjamin. It was like reading about myself – a surreal thunderbolt as a matter of fact. It gave a name, a word to what I had been feeling all my life. But, it is difficult to accept the reality of a revelation in one’s own life.

Now that there was a name for what I was, I felt even more isolated and more fearful of rejection from my family and from society in general. Who was there in my world to love a transsexual? The fact that I was transsexual was known to me but now in a sense had to be kept even more hidden from myself. It was a terrible conflict. My way of trying to resolve that conflict was to try to make myself into a soldier, a man, and a financial success in hopes that the transsexualism would be drowned out by accolades and achievement. I did not know then, as I now do, that the true measure of a person is to love themselves and therefore be able to love others.

I applied to OCS (Officer Candidate School) and was selected but after two thirds of the course I was washed out and assigned to Vietnam. There I served as a “boonie rat” squad leader and platoon Sgt. in the 101st Airborne Division. I survived. I was assigned back to the USA after my tour of duty to be a proficiency tester at Fort Polk, Louisiana. (Being sent to Fort Polk is paramount to being sent to hell). I liked that assignment, but when my time to get out of the service came I headed back to the University of Kentucky to finish my degree and become a business tycoon.

I did well this time in school and became a university senator and was selected as the outstanding business policy student in my graduating class. Despite the recession I was offered several jobs and chose one as a bank manager trainee in Cincinnati, Ohio. But my cross dressing had been reemerging and became a more prominent in my later years at school.

It was then that the transgender issues began to threaten my marriage. My spouse and I decided to shore up the marriage by having another child. My son was born about a year later. At the bank my career was on the slow track. I decided to get an MBA in night school, which I did. I then set out to make lots of money being a stockbroker. I did pretty good at it but left the firm I was with when an opportunity to head the retail and financial planning section of a small start up brokerage was offered. My spouse and I struggled on for several more years through buying a big house, starting a financial planning firm and a boat chartering business. It was about five years later that we made plans to divorce. The next year after that, our divorce was final.

There is no such thing as a friendly divorce. My divorce was as difficult as most divorces are. There were feelings of anger, abandonment, loneliness, defeat, shame and failure. But as there always is, there always is, was hope at the start of the rest of a life. “Tomorrow is another day.”

I should say more about my spouse. It’s been about 20 years since we divorced. In a way I still do love that person. She was put through a lot – most not of her making. She helped, supported and cared for me for many years that were more than just difficult and isolating for her. After our divorce, I did not transition immediately. It was years later, after the child support was finished being paid and she had remarried, that I did transition. I went to her for help coordinate notifying my children who then lived in Illinois and Oregon of my transition. I thought my transition would cause my children to question the basis of their parent’s relationship and, she may therefore be questioned by my children. She told me that my not transitioning for years after the divorce had been a worry to her and that she felt a sense of relief that it was now happening. You see she felt it was somehow her “fault”. She felt that she had not done enough or been feminine enough and that I might have acted out in the cross dressing because I no longer wanted her as a wife. I did not feel that. I would have stayed married if that had been possible. But as we both said, neither wanted to be married to a woman. There is little contact now and both her life and my life have become intertwined with others over the years. I do realize there were difficulties in the marriage, but that is not what I now remember only times together and the joys of our children.

By this time I had started seeing a psychologist. After spending about $100M, I wised up that the man was not helping me transition.

Apparently he actually did not accept that the treatment for transsexualism is to be changed to female (only talked to death or to poverty – whichever comes first). So I left. And as is my pattern in times of turmoil, back to school I went. While I had been going to analysis four times a week I had done a fair amount of reading about psychology and transsexualism. The field I would choose to study was psychology. The University of Kentucky in Lexington had a counseling psychology program that I thought I could handle and I was accepted into the masters degree program and later the doctoral program. It was now seventeen years later and the battle to finish my doctorate continues. More on that topic is to follow later.

While in school I found the techniques and skills of doing psychotherapy easy to learn and the quantitative aspects of the discipline were comfortable for me as well. I also found employment in the field in Lexington, Kentucky and was having a reasonable good time. My cross dressing continued and my transsexualism had to be well hidden. Transsexualism was and is, for many practitioners, a taboo that can not be overlooked. One way of hiding my activities was to stay busy to the point of exhaustion. Taking a full class load and working seventy hours a week at various part time jobs kept me exhausted. After three years I was not able to keep up that pace and as I cut back my work hours, my cross dressing reemerged and I found myself taking more risks of being caught. I wonder at this point whether I wanted to be “caught” to bring the festering pain to a head, for the burden and isolation of my secret were yokes even Atlas could not have lifted. I was beginning to realize somewhere in my soul that no matter how far or how fast I ran from myself this issue would have to be dealt with, and the dragons of shame and guilt would have to be vanquished. Still there was paralyzing fear. The price of fear is turmoil.

But there were planes to catch and bills to pay, so upon finishing my internship at the Lexington Veterans Administration, I found a job in Mobile, Alabama. It was a good job as it was described but soon it became evident that that there was little if any chance of breaking into the range of management that I thought would even temporarily quell my discomfort. I remember one day in Mobile during therapy with a young gay man who asked me, “What’s wrong, why am I so lonely?” I replied, “Well one thing is, you’re a gay guy – in Alabama!”

As I drove home that night in the sweltering heat and humidity of the Alabama spring those words came back on me as I thought to myself, “You’re a transsexual – in Alabama!” That and several calls from a recruiter had me packing back to Kentucky in a matter of weeks. But I had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, or should I say into Hazard, Kentucky. But you can never leave personal conflicts behind.

I state for the record, I love Kentucky. No other place on earth feels like home. No other place I have ever been has called me to return so strongly as has Kentucky. I feel a sense of homecoming just crossing into the state. No other place have I found the peace that I find in the hills, mountains and fields of Kentucky.

Hazard is a small town in southeastern Kentucky and where the last stand of my masculinity was to take place. I had found a position at the psychiatric center there as a unit psychologist. It was a wonderful position. The team of psychology staff members were cordial and welcoming. But I was alone emotionally and continued to be depressed. I tried to find a mate there and dated several of the nurses, but there was no relief for the constant discordance in who I was physically and who I felt more than ever I should be. It was not about money or power. It was about me and my own internal conflict.

Virtually all transsexual people I have met tell of a moment of absolute clarity in their lives when the decision to transition is made. It is a moment when all doubt clears and the path to womanhood before them, however difficult, is truly undertaken. My moment came at the end of a gun. God was about to give me my opportunity. When God talks – you better listen!

Deep in the Red River Gorge, not far from Slade, Kentucky, is a path through the woods. Several hundred feet off the path is a tree that fell down years ago. Perhaps a gust of wind during a thunderstorm became strong and the power of nature toppled the tree over. Or possibly the rain soaked soil holding the roots of the tree gave way one spring. I believe God put that tree there for me. It is my thinking tree, my crying tree, my praying tree.

I went there one Wednesday afternoon in the early spring. There was a storm. The wind was blowing to the point that the big trees were creaking and waving back and forth violently. Little bits of bark, dried leaves and pine needles that had stayed on the trees through the winter were blowing off and falling from the trees not yet supple from the summer growth. It was cloudy. Rain began to fall. I welcomed the rain to hide and wash away my tears. I sat there straddling that fallen tree with my head in my hands crying in emotional pain that burned my chest and made it difficult to breathe or catch my breath. I had decided to commit suicide that night.

I remember now that it seemed reasonable at the time. While driving home I went through how my life insurance and property would all be settled. My body would be a real mess. When I did not show up for work eventually someone would be sent to find me. It would be their problem from then on. I felt a little guilty about that. Maybe they would cremate me. I wondered if the members of the Lion’s Club would say a few words in remembrance of me before the rush to the line for the buffet at the following week’s meeting. I would not be around for it. There would be no more conflict, only the emptiness of a tormented soul laid to rest. It had to be better than what I was experiencing. It could not be worse in Hell.

That evening I got out my gun and loaded it with six .45 hollow point bullets ( I don’t know why I thought I needed six). I would wait for the sun to go down. I practiced putting the gun to my head, my chest and in my mouth. The mouth would be sure. I tried holding the gun upside down with my index finger on the trigger and holding the gun upside down with my index finger on the trigger and holding the gun right side up using my thumb on the trigger. Then a strange thing happened. I became aware I was hungry.

I went to the kitchen and thought about what I wanted for a last meal. It seemed that I did not have anything worthy of a last meal. Didn’t even convicted murders get a steak dinner or something the night before their execution? But a transsexual, what could they have? All I had was spaghetti, but I did have some red wine to go with it. I started to cook. I set the table.

“Dinner for one, Sir?” the word ‘Sir’ seemed so strange. Could I not be honest with myself – even in my final hours? As I placed the plate of spaghetti on the table, poured the wine, and sat down, I started to cry. I did not want my life to end as a “Sir.” All my life I had dreamed of being a woman, and there I was – a “Sir.” I cried so hard that my face went into the spaghetti. When it did I was both laughing at myself and crying. It’s hard to laugh and cry at the same time. As I wiped the spaghetti sauce from my nose, mouth and chin, I remembered a question I used to ask the suicidal inmates at the jail where I had worked. “Do you want to die, or do you want to live differently?” I started to pray – real hard – the kind of prayer based in desperation and only the thinnest strand of hope. I don’t know if it was a thought or a sensation, but the message came in to me, “I will look after you”. I moved the plate of spaghetti and laid my head on the table to cry. I woke up several hours later with a stiff neck and a certainty that I would become a woman. Never since has there been doubt. Clarity is a blessing.

There is a saying that I have heard. It is: “I’d rather be the ugliest girl on the beach than not be a girl on the beach” – I was an ugly girl, but I was headed to the beach. It is a big task to change one’s sex. It takes money, time, patience, courage, and lots of information. The last item, information, is one of the things that is more available nowadays than at anytime before in history. The internet can tell you about almost anything. It was not long before I learned what was needed in terms of hormones and where to get them even without a prescription. There were some other details to take care of like my weight, my carriage, my facial hair and my voice. I was a large man and I was over 100 pounds away from the weight I thought would be best. That summer I undertook to loose the weight by dieting and walking. Every night I came home from work and went for a walk of 4 – 5 miles before eating. I made myself promises that when I would loose a certain amount of weight I would start the next phase of my program. Later that summer the day came that I was to procure and start hormones. When the box from New Zealand arrived I was excited and apprehensive of the effects. How fast would they work? That night, as I took my first estrogen pill and jumped into bed, I dreamed of the effects I wanted on my body. I also reflected back to the night I almost killed myself. I had truly started my transition. I was glad to be alive. I was starting to love being me. Accepting yourself is a great feeling.

The titty fairy did not make rounds that night, at least not to me. It would be months before anything noticeably changed. That is where the needed patience comes in. but some good things were happening to my body internally. For years I had taken medicines for high cholesterol, for borderline hypertension and for depression. The walking had lowered my weight by about 80+ pounds, I no longer was depressed, blood pressure was quite low and the cholesterol which typically was 300 – 400 with lipids of 600+ were now in the normal range. My doctor was a person of about my age who had just finished residency at the hospital where I worked. When I went to him for a checkup he wanted to know what was going on. I explained about the diet and walking – and I told him I was taking hormones. After admonishing me about the dangers of taking unprescribed medicines for other countries, he allowed that the effects were good. I simply told him, “My body wants to be female”. He explained that in that area of the country it would not be prudent for him to prescribe the hormones nor for me to fill hormone prescriptions there. He asked me to find an endocrinologist who could handle that part of my treatment. He was a good doctor and a good person. I was about to meet some more good doctors and good people. Thank God for good doctors. Thank God for good people.

In my tour of duty in Vietnam I learned that you never go out on a patrol alone and you always need a good point man. The point man is the first in the column of soldiers moving in line. The point man is the person who looks for ambushes and finds hazards in a trail. It is a very dangerous position because the point man is most likely to set off booby traps and usually gets shot at first. Transitioning is the same. You never want to be alone and you want an experienced person walking point.

Beth Anne (r) with her "big sister" Susan.

You never want to be alone and you want an experienced person walking point.

The person who walked point for me was my “sister” Sue.

Sue is a little younger than I. She started her transition about 6 – 8 months before I did. Over the years since we met she has been more than just a friend. She is the one who walked “point” for me. She has been indispensable as a resource and consistently there for me when things were difficult. I met Sue on the internet. She was from Cincinnati and knew of the therapists, doctors, support groups, electrologists in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. I wisely followed her lead.

Through Sue I met my psychologist, Dr. Barbara Brewer, a kind woman who could periodically “kick my butt” (a rare ability) for being tangential in therapy or incomplete with parts of my transition. Through Sue I found the best endocrinologist in the world, Dr. Francis M. Collins. Dr. Collins (located in Cincinnati, Ohio), was also kind and very knowledgeable about transitioning T-girls. He too admonished me or should I say scolded me about taking unprescribed hormones then guided and tested me to bring what I was doing in line with standards. Through Sue I found a Cincinnati based support group for transitioning persons. Thinking back, I was fortunate to find Sue. True friends are a rare gift.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Hazard, Kentucky the head of the psychology department was a wonderful person but after years of conflict decided to leave. A new person, who was not properly credentialed as a psychologist was hired to clean the department out and did so within little more than a year. One hundred fourteen percent turnover in thirteen months. I was then the longest employed psychology person there when was told I could no longer work there since I had not completed my Ph.D. after scampering around for a way to make money, it became clear that Hazard was not the place to be. All my doctors and treatment team were in Cincinnati. So it made sense that this was my opportunity to do a geographic transition to Cincinnati. No one there would care what I was and the clean break would give me the opportunity to establish my new identity. I went to stay with Sue. I began a new life in Hamilton, Ohio. God had told me to get the hell out of Hazard. I obeyed.

What’s in a name? I have thought of myself as Beth for years. I remember the first “Beth” that I knew. She was my first grade teacher. Her last name was unpronounceable so we called her Miss Beth. In many ways she was a model of what I thought a woman should be. She was beautiful and had the kind of softness that femininity aspires to. I wished so much to be like her. Beth is also a very indirect version of my prior name which shall never hence be spoken. “Anne” is from a person I knew while at the University of Kentucky. The southern form of many women’s names is to use the first and middle names at all times, which is how I prefer to be called – Beth Anne.

Changing one’s name is a big step for many Trans-girls. I needed to change my name legally so I could get a job. I headed to Kentucky across the river and went to the Boone County courthouse. Officially I have been a resident of Boone County, Kentucky USA living with a Trans-man there. Boone County must be the best place to have been though I did not know it at the time I set up my residence there. I simply walked in, told them I needed to change my name. The clerk handed me some forms, which I filled out and paid my $34.00. I was expecting that she might say we will hold a hearing in a couple of weeks. Instead, the court clerk asked me to sit down if I had a few minutes, and she would have the judge sign them right now and give me some copies, certified them, walked back over with a smile on her face and said, “Here they are Beth.” I was so happy I just said, “Thank you so much!” and left with a big smile on my face. Beth Anne had been brought into legal existence in about 18 minutes.

In Kentucky there is a law that says if you change your name and have a driver’s license, you must change the license within 10 days. I was so overwhelmed at my good fortune in changing my name that I did not even think of changing my license the day I changed my name. So, later that week, back to court I went. This time, to the license office. I waited patiently but nervously in line. When my turn came I got the normal, “How can I help you?” I explained that I needed to change the name on my license and produced the name change document. She said that she would need my old license, which I gave to her. It was because I looked nothing like the picture on the license, that she noticed the names. After several times of looking at me – then the name change – and then at the old license, her comment was, “Oh Dear, this has to be changed.” I just smiled. She went back to the counter and had a pow wow with four other clerks, each of whom took several looks at me and then rejoined the rather intense conference. I remember thinking to myself – keep smiling! The clerk came back over and started typing on the license form, then directed me to the camera where my picture was taken twice. After several minutes of developing and laminating she handed me my new license. It said: Beth Anne, and in the box marked ‘sex’ – F.

“Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?” (Shakespeare)

BETH ANN • Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

Sincerely seeking a nice relationship with a special, compassionate, cultured man. This educated woman enjoys simple activities like walks in the hills, on a beach, under a clear starry night sky at 2 a.m., country cooking, non-scary movies, get together's with friends & intelligent conversation. I'm 56 years old, 5' 11", 165 lbs. with light auburn hair. I'm currently attending college to achieve my lifelong goal of obtaining my Ph.D., working as a mental health care professional. Send EMAIL.

Beth Anne's extraordinarily challenging life story of enlightenment is an emotion filled, captivating account of her mid-life transition into womanhood. She is a good listener, possesses an openly warm, welcoming, compassionately loving personality, and is always emotionally available to her many friends. Beth Anne continues studying for her Ph.D. and is open to dating a nice man within the greater Minneapolis, Minnesota area. She continues seeking to find her future, accepting, special man to lovingly share her new completeness. Beth Anne's fascinating, difficult journey presents as a "motivational light of inspiration" to others who may follow along her similar life's path. - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

Annie and her darling husband were married in the Northwestern USA in 2003. They enjoy a deep and spiritual love, sharing many wonderfully supportive friends! Annie currently works as a computer technology consultant. She was initially introduced to her future husband, by her very own sister!

To paraphrase Annie...True love and a happy, functional marriage is totally possible for TS Women. She sees the truth of the maxim, "the greater the risk, the greater the reward."

Annie states on her personal website, "I was terrified I was throwing my life away at times...but now I am very glad that I had the courage to keep going."

Annie is a highly intelligent, skillfully talented, most gracious, thoughtful woman. She is a loving wife, best friend to her husband and a successful, shining example of the constructive effects of positive thinking. Annie courageously and generously continues sharing her own challenging, enlightening story of hope, optimism and love through her informative personal website. Annie's story profoundly inspires and continues touching many lives. - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

THE BEGINNING.

I was born during the War years in Schenectady, New York. My birth certificate said male but that is not true. You see I believe what really happened (from what I have been able to read on the subject) is that around the second or third month of my mothers pregnancy somehow there was a hormonal imbalance in this stage of development . That event forever changed the course of my gender. It is extremely important to understand that I love my mother and father and do not in the least hold them accountable. Its just something that happened.

My discovery came at age 11 (I think). I moved to Norwalk, Connecticut in the early 50’s. Yes I think it was right around the time that the news media broke the story about Christine Jorgensen. Although I can’t say for sure that the two events (my discovery and the news of Christine Jorgensen) were connected, I know that I used Christine’s story as the time of the start of my journey.

I am an only child. At the time both my parents worked and so I had complete freedom of the house when I came home from school. My bedroom was on the third floor. There also was a space bedroom as well as a storage area for off season and discarded clothes which were mostly my mothers (Yes, I know you already guessed that).

I don’t remember how or why I became curious about her cloths and started looking through them but I did. Obviously one of them attracted my interest enough to want to wear it. And so I did. I’m sure I looked at myself in a minor and fell in love with what I saw. The reflection was that of a girl. No wig, makeup, shoes, undergarment (all that would come later) but the image was so powerful that it would someday change my life forever.

Although the event was to changed my life, I didn’t know anything about what it meant at that time( and even decades later, until the 1990’s, I still didn’t know). All I knew was that like a narcotic I loved what I saw in that minor. I progressed through the years into wearing my mothers undergarment, shoes and makeup. Then buying these things on my own and yet at times becoming so disgusted with myself that I would throw all my treasures away.

You see at that time I WAS ALL ALONE. There was no one I could trust well enough to talk to about this. There were no books, articles or stories about this subject (except for Christine Jorgensen’s story in the papers). There was nothing about this subject on television, radio or in the movies. The only computers in existence at that time took up a large house.

Thus I just went through junior high school, high school and college ALL ALONE.

From age 11 on, I followed the same cycle of dressing up as often as I could, eventually getting frustrated with myself, throwing away my clothes and then starting all over again. This process sometimes took years, other times months but it was always the same.

Unlike many others who have gone through the same experience that I went through, I kept my secret so well hidden that I was never teased, involved in school yard fights or treated in any way other then that of being another guy. I was involved in the theater, I ran cross-country and was the basketball manager in high school. I was on the soccer team and joined a fraternity in college among many activities. On the outside I was just an average guy (oh how I hate that word).

In my senior year in college, I met my wife to be and I really believe that if I didn’t tell her about my other gender it would go away after we were married. I believe that so much that I never told my wife about my gender disorder until April 23, 1999. Of course as a result we are now living separately.

Stupid you say. Well I definitely agree! But at the time I met my wife I didn’t know a thing about this subject. Anyway I got married and had a very happy marriage, raised three beautiful children, had a successful business career and a second avocation in selling baseball cards (anyone interested in buying cards?). I had everything I could reasonably hope for (except one thing...I wanted to be a girl).

During the first eight years of married we moved seven times and had two of our three children. Therefore, dressing up was far and few between. It was after finally settling down in the Boston, Massachusetts area, that in the 1990's I began to explore what the world of transgender (by then the word had been invented).

I visited adult book stores but only found books, magazines and videos on “forced dressing”, which quite frankly wasn’t the direction I wanted to go. It was only through personal ads that I began to meet or at least correspond with others. Most of the people I wrote to or met weren’t interested in going in the same direction I was but through trail and error I eventually began to meet people, read stories, books and articles about the same subjects I was interested in.

COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET.

And so it was on Friday night March 8, 1996, I got dressed at home and visited the Burlington, Massachusetts Mall. I only spent 45 minutes walking around the mall. I only window shopped. I didn’t speak to anyone nor did I buy anything. Amazingly no one laughed at my clothes, no one teased me, no one shouted "look at the guy in girls clothes". I was treated just like any other women at the Mall. In other words, right from the start, I blended in.

I was so pleased with my performance I went back to the same Mall the next day and did the same thing over again except that this time I had something to eat in the food court. The following two days I visited two other Malls and gained so much confidence in myself that I have never looked back.

Until I went full-time I kept a journal. The journal kept tract of the days I went out, the number of hours I was out, the weather conditions, the type of clothes I was wearing and of course what I did. I even kept tract of my purchases and my trips to the ladies room. Here is a general idea of the number of time I dressed up and went out: 1996-35 trips totaling 212 hours; 1997-102 trips totaling 568 hours; 1998- 95 trips totaling 585 hours. In 1999-82 trips totaling 444 hours up to October 12, 1999. I stopped on October 12, 1999 because I started working as Karen and there wasn’t any need to continue the journal at that point since I was Karen almost all the time by then and the journal stated to get too repetitious.

Once I began going out as Karen in 1996 it was fun going on various shopping trips to stores but eventually that novelty worn off. Although I still go shopping (food shopping), I realized that I wanted to do more then that. I wanted to do everything (out in public) that any other women does. Therefore, I started going to the theater (by the way, some women NEVER go to the movies alone but their are plenty of other women who go to the theater alone), to business conferences, lectures and meetings, to the beach, on day trips to such places as Cape Cod and Newport, Rhode Island. I even joined an social organization. Many of my adventures were published in the Tiffany Club of New England’s monthly publication called ROSEBUDS.

UPDATE: Recently, I've really gotten away from TG groups and have been looking for mainstream women type organizations to join. I've been to several women clubs, organizations and conferences and I really enjoy the people I've meet and the subjects discussed. There are two groups that I've focused in on and with one I've not only joined and gone to meetings but am on the Board of Directors. I can't tell you how wonderful I feel to talk to other women about all kinds of women related subjects. The only problem I have it that I have no past as a women to talk about. As a result it limits my conversations to present day topics. It's OK because I don't want to make up a false past.

Here is the ironic thing. The more I went out in public the more confidence I gain and the more believable I was. Many times I’ve said to myself, "how stupid other people are to not see me as just a guy in girls clothes". But eventually it dawned on me that other people were not only seeing me as the women but believing that I was a women. Other people really couldn’t tell that I was anything other than just another women. I was becoming what I always dreamed about all my life. A women!

By now I’m sure your saying, “let me see this gorgeous hulk of women.” Well before I go any further, please let me describe myself. I’m 5’6 1/2”, 135 lbs. blue eyes and brown wavy hair (fortunately I have all my hair and plenty of it). I stopped wearing wigs in early August, 1999 (another ROSEBUDS article). I’m in my late 50’s definitely NOT a glamour girl. In fact all I want to do is just blend into the crowd. I do not wear hi heels, mini shirts, flashy makeup or jewelry. “Plain Jane,” would best describe me. But I don’t care because other people now accept me for what I am and show no signs of treating me in any way other then who I now am.

By the late Fall, 1998 it was becoming more and more obvious that when I went out as a women I was happy and feeling satisfied. When I went back to my other gender I was increasingly less happy and frustrated. I know by that time I could be a full time women. I started to develop an action plan of how to go about beginning the transition.

Since I kept my secret so well hidden, there was no one in my immediately family that knew anything about Karen. Therefore, the first step was to tell my wife about the other me. Although the plan was very simple and logical it took me nearly six months and only with the great help of a gender friendly therapist that I was able to not only tell my wife about myself but also my children and my mother. By the end of April, 1999 everyone in my immediate family knew about Karen. Their reaction was to put their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing ever happened.

My wife at first didn’t even want to see pictures of me but slowly has turned around. My mother at 84 has seen pictures of Karen and talks about her (sometimes), however, I want to go very slowly with her due to her age. I want her love and support. My children have seen pictures of Karen but are not interested in meeting her. I hope, like their mother, they will come around.

During the summer of 1999, I decided that in November I was going to tell my boss at work after Karen and that on January 3, 2000 I would begin transitioning at the work place. Unfortunately, my big idea blow up in my face on the Friday before Labor Day, 1999. That was when my boss brought me into the office and told me I was “Laid-Off” effective immediately. Also, there was no other place in the company that I could transfer. Over the weekend I decided to rework my resume using Karen’s name and apply for Human Resources jobs (that has been my field of work for over 30 years).

An absolutely amazing thing happened to Karen. In the next three weeks I sent out 21 resumes for various HR (Human Resources) jobs. Four people called Karen up for job interviews, one of which offered Karen a job. Actually I had to cancel three other interviews I setup. This never came close to happening to that other guy. The one thing I had to do when it was becoming obvious that companies were interested in me was to square away my job references. This mean that I had to tell my last two supervisors about what I was doing and ask them if they would give a reference to me using Karen’s name and being very careful about the pronouns. Both people were more then happy to help me. Here I was very, very lucky. If one or both people didn’t want to cooperate I would have had a serious problem. The company that offered me a job did indeed check references and all went perfectly.

LIVING MY DREAM COME TRUE.

Starting October 12, 1999 I began my new job and I am using this date as the beginning of my transition. As I go on with this account of my life I will get more specific but generally speaking I get up in the morning, run about 3 miles, showered, dressed, eat breakfast, go to work, come home from work, do errands, go to social events, watch TV and go to bed. Sounds familiar? Yes, I am doing the same thing you are except I am Karen and I couldn’t be happier.

Around the time I got the job offer, my wife told me she couldn’t live with Karen living and dressing around the house. So I started looking for an apartment which I found an eventually moved into on December 17, 1999. It is a nice 3 room apartment, only a town away from my house. It's in a 8 apartment building and is fairly quite and peaceful (we even have a police officer living in the building). While I was waiting for the apartment to be ready I used the Tiffany Club as my place to dress.

The nice thing about my wife is that she actually helped me move furniture into the apartment On Sunday, December 19, 1999 she met Karen for the first time. She has taken this transition better then I could possibly imagine except for not being around the house.

Once I got a job working as Karen I know I had to begin the legal actions. One, on October 29, 1999 I got a court ordered name change. It was the easiest thing I ever did. The process took me about 15 minutes. All I did was make an appearance at the county court house and together with $60.00, an original raised sealed birth certificate and the change of name form my name was changed. Two, that same day I went to the Social Security Administration office in Boston, Massachusetts and in 5 minutes I began the paper work to change my name with Social Security (About a week later I got my new SS Card in the mail). Three, I then went to the Registry of Motor Vehicle. I wanted not only to change my name my most importantly my gender on the drivers license. This process took about 40 minutes but in the end I walked out of the building with a new drivers license in my new name AND gender. Four, I finally began changing my name on my bank accounts, investments, titles, credit card accounts and even my undergraduate degree from Boston University. By now I am so legally Karen my own mother couldn’t find that other person.

One last thing to tell you before going up to date is about hormones. You see in the three and a half years that I went out, all I ever did in preparation was to shave and put on make-up. On October 28, 1999 I began taking prescribed Premarin. My doctor started me off on .625mg daily. Then a month later it was doubled to 1.25mg.

On December 25, 1999 it was doubled again to 2.5 mg and finally on March 1, 2000 it was doubled once more to 5mg daily. I feel fine and I guess I’m starting to reshape myself but its very slow and gradual process. The only thing I can tell about is my breast. I’ve grow to a A cup size and my nipples are sensitive. Other people have told me that its a good two years before I can actually see some definite changes.

My Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS) in Montreal, Québec Canada took place on April 23, 2002. I feel it's got to be the bravest, most courageous thing I have ever done in my entire life. What makes it so special is that finally my mind and body are one. Now, I’ve got my drivers license, US passport and birth certificate to prove it. No more closets, no more self-doubts. Sometimes I just want to shout to the world that I am a WOMAN!

Karen's personal story of transition is full of bright optimism, joyful happiness and shinning hope for her future. I gratefully thank her for contacting me and selflessly volunteering to share her enthusiastic biography to enlighten and help others on this "positive thinking" website. - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

In February 2002, Margaret Stumpp transitioned at age 49 from male to female, while simultaneously maintaining her position of Senior Vice President with Prudential Financial, where she functioned as Chief Investment Officer for Quantitative Management Associates - a wholly owned investment management subsidiary of Prudential.

Margaret Stumpp was the first openly out transsexual at Prudential a firm of over 60,000 employees. In addition to remaining in investment management, she also continued to be actively engaged in investment research and her work has appeared in a number of academic journals including: The Financial Analysts Journal and The Journal of Portfolio Management and The Journal of Investment Management.” Margaret Stumpp received a BA in Economics from Boston University and Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University.

In addition to maintaining her professional career after changing genders she also made numerous presentations to corporate managers across the U.S., aimed at increasing the awareness and acceptance of transgendered people within the workplace.

Adam Geller of the Associated Press, chronicled Margaret's transition in an award-winning article.

By June, people in the Quantitative Management department were trading whispers across the rows of cubicles.

What's wrong with Mark Stumpp? Why had he dropped so much weight so quickly? Was he sick? Nobody knew.

One day after lunch, Stumpp handed a small, framed snapshot to Jim Scott, his friend and co-manager in the department at Prudential Financial Inc. for 14 years.

“Do you know who that is?” Stumpp asked.

Scott glanced at the picture of a tall woman with blonde bangs and shook his head. He'd never seen her.

“That's the person you're going to be working with a year from now,” Stumpp said.

Puzzled, Scott looked at the photo again, then back at Stumpp. The lady in the photograph, Stumpp said, is going to be me.

Prudential's QM department manages billions of dollars of other people's money. It's a business that relies on a nurtured image of solidity, on the value implicit in longtime relationships.

And so, as word of Stumpp's intensely private decision spread through Prudential's Newark headquarters, people realized this wasn't going to be about just him. It was going to be about them, too.

Stumpp was uncomfortable in Mark's body as far back as memories reach. Deep inside, at the nexus of body and mind, something felt terribly wrong.

“A malaise of the soul,” Stumpp says.

It is called gender dysphoria, a condition characterized by intense feelings of being the wrong gender. No one knows for sure what causes it.

Since the 1960s, thousands of people have quietly undergone hormone treatment and surgery to change gender. Most dropped out of their previous lives, resurfacing somewhere else with new identities.

Today, “more and more people are recognizing that this is not something that they have to be ashamed of,” says Eli Coleman, director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota.

So perhaps it was just a matter of time before it happened at Prudential, a company with 61,000 people on its payroll. But in 22 years at Prudential, the last half working on personnel issues, Ron Andrews, a vice president of human resources, “had never encountered a more difficult issue.”

“What was difficult about this,” he said, “is I didn't know anything.”

Stump, 51, had a reputation as one of the office's “class clowns.” He dropped jokes into the middle of meetings, walked around the office without shoes, wore jeans when everyone else wore a suit.

But he was an acknowledged expert in the serious business of making money grow, and his department, a group of about 35 people, manages $32 billion on behalf of client pension funds and other institutional investors. Prudential's own $8 billion in pension funds is managed here.

“My business is about trust,” Stumpp says, and he knew trust would not be enhanced people saw him “turn into a girl.”

So for years, Stumpp postponed gender reassignment surgery. But in 1999, after seeing a therapist, he started taking estrogen and undergoing electrolysis — all part of a still reversible journey into what it might be like to be a woman.

It was two years before his co-workers began to notice he was changing — and to worry. The hormones were reshaping his body. Enlarged breasts could be hidden in loose-fitting shirts, but there was no way to disguise the disappearance of muscle.

In the summer of 2001, the few executives at Prudential who knew what was going on realized that the problem wasn't that Stumpp was changing his gender. It was that he was coming back to work afterward.

It was one thing to figure out how the QM department would go on without Mark. It was quite another to figure out how to continue with someone named Maggie in his place.

Someone was going to have to explain this delicate situation in Prudential's executive offices, to the company's clients, to the marketing and sales representatives who vouched for Stumpp's research.

Bringing it all together was Andrews' job.

Throughout the summer and into the fall, Andrews worked his way down a list of people who needed to know, figuring out not just who they would tell in turn, but how they would do it.

In one monthslong thread of calls, meeting and memos, he, company lawyers and sales managers drew up a list of 30 clients that relied on Stumpp's research and investment strategies.

They decided that a Prudential customer relationship manager would contact each one to explain who would soon be handling their money. And then Andrews and his group wrote a script — not word for word, but an extended outline with “key communication points.”

“We wanted our clients and our customers not to hear this from some sort of grapevine,” Andrews says. “We wanted to make sure they heard it from us.”

In the QM department, though, Stumpp's story was still known only to Scott and another employee, Stacie Mintz. So, after Stumpp left on an unexplained medical leave in January 2002, Scott called the homes of everyone in the department.

“I need to talk to you about Mark,” began each conversation.

Next morning, in the parking garage, Mintz ran into the co-worker she thought most likely to have a problem with the new Stumpp.

“Isn't that amazing about Mark?” Mintz said, and then held her breath for the answer.

“Well, if it makes her happy, it makes her happy,” the worker replied.

A few days later, on Jan. 8, a two-page memo arrived in the e-mail box of everyone in the department.

“From: M. Stumpp”

“Subject: Me.”

The note poked fun at the situation, but also appealed for understanding. And it emphasized that returning to work was something Stumpp had a legal right to do.

“This will be new ground for all of us,” Stumpp wrote. “However, if September 11 taught us anything, it was that life is far too precious and short. Each of us must strive to be at peace with ourselves.”

She signed the note “Margaret.”

The note leapfrogged around the company, and soon employees started e-mailing back. Many, including some top executives, expressed support. A few of the women offered to help Stumpp pick out clothes.

Some took more convincing. In the weeks before Stumpp's scheduled return date — Monday, Feb. 4 — Mintz says it felt like there was a line of co-workers at her door, mostly concerned about how to act when Mark walked in as Margaret.

Stumpp, recuperating at home, offered to return at first in men's clothes if it would make people more comfortable.

No, his fellow workers replied, if you're Maggie, then come back as Maggie. We're as ready as we'll ever be.

Maggie Stumpp made it to the fourth floor before nearly everyone else that first morning back. Her co-workers walked in and there she was, joking about the joy of being thin, of having to wear pantyhose, of how hard it had been to find shoes in her size.

“It was awkward, but ... it was kind of a relief to have it all out in the open, and to have all the questions about what she was going to look like answered,” Mintz says.

It was a beginning.

One of the first trials came a few weeks after Stumpp's return, when they took a call from a longtime client, a labor union whose members' reputations did not gibe with her heels and pantyhose.

The union officials asked to meet Stumpp to reevaluate her suitability to continue managing their business. The department braced to lose the account.

They met over dinner at a steakhouse. The first few hours were spent discussing the stock market and the economy, smoothed over by a couple of drinks. Gradually, the men's doubts appeared to ease.

“You know, you really don't look so bad,” one leaned over to tell Stumpp. She chalked it up as a compliment. Prudential kept the account.

Inside Prudential, however, there were still some tensions. To ease the uncertainties of some female colleagues, Andrews set aside a small bathroom for her for six months. After that she could use the women's room.

Six months and a day after Stumpp returned, a female employee protested Stumpp's presence in the adjoining stall of the women's room.

“Grow up!” Andrews told her, intentionally setting a tone. While the company did not expect all its employees to accept Stumpp personally, they would be expected to do so professionally.

There are still moments when Stumpp feels the stares, imagines that every woman at Prudential is rating her performance. There are inevitable stumbles and awkward moments.

“The hardest thing is the pronouns,” Scott says. “It just drives me crazy.

Earlier this year, Mintz was digging around for an article that Jim Scott, Mark Stumpp and a colleague wrote in 1999 for an industry magazine. When she found it, she did a double-take. At Scott's discrete request, the article had been newly credited to Margaret Stumpp.

Stumpp isn't pretending such changes will erase the past. She's not denying a life as Mark, but she is eager to move on as Maggie.

There are times now when the phone in her office rings and the voice asks to speak to Mark. And depending on the nature of the call and her mood, she relishes a certain answer.

“Oh, him,” Maggie Stumpp says. “We got rid of him a long time ago.”

INTERVIEW: Margaret Stumpp talks about transgender
By Susan Jordan - The Empty Closet

Margaret S. Stumpp, PhD. is Chief Investment Officer for Quantitative Investment Management Associates (QMA) – an investment management subsidiary of Prudential Financial. In that capacity, she oversees the investment of approximately $50 billion across a myriad of asset categories. She will be keynote speaker at the Gay Alliance’s Equality Leadership conference on Oct. 21, 2005.

Margaret, better known as Maggie, manages, or oversees management of, large asset pools for institutions around the world, including corporations, endowments, public entities and mutual funds. She also directs research on investment strategy and portfolio management and has published numerous articles in publications including The Financial Analyst’s Journal, The Journal of Portfolio Management, Journal of Investment Management, and Award Papers in Public Utility Economics. Margaret has appeared on CNBC and her research and opinions have been covered in print media around the globe including such publications such as the NY Times, The LA Times and Forbes magazine.

She is an avid windsurfer and has appeared on the pages of Windsurfing Magazine and American Windsurfer. She is also a member of AIMR, NY Society of Security Analysts and several portfolio advisory boards, and is a student mentor with the Financial Women’s Association of NY (FWA). She says that she enjoys gardening, travel and, occasionally, plumbing, and that she has not (yet) been indicted by Eliot Spitzer.

Question: At what point in your life did you realize that you are transgender, and how long did it take you to come to terms with that knowledge and decide to transition?

Maggie Stumpp: Like many transgendered people, this is something I’ve coped with as long as I could remember. I remember going to bed every night hoping that I’d wake up the next morning as a girl. Curiously, this realization occurred at a very young age – well before I had even heard the word sex, or knew what it meant. In that sense, it took over 40 years to transition.

This is something that most transgendered people fight all of their lives and for some, like me, the emotional burden becomes too much to bear and we simply must change genders. Until the advent of the internet, there was very little information concerning transsexuality and most therapists – certainly the ones I consulted with – were utterly unaware of the subject and equated it with being gay and in denial. Fortunately, people are much more aware now than when I was young and many transition at younger ages.

Question: What was most helpful to you during this process? And what were the greatest obstacles?

Maggie Stumpp: Probably the internet. The ability to discover and communicate with others like myself and to find serious research and specialists in the field was invaluable.

The greatest obstacles had to do with my own insecurities regarding the consequences of my decision. I needed to be established enough in my career and needed to be able to convince myself and those close to me that this was not an irrational decision, but rather something that had been thought through and carefully considered.

Question: Do you think sexual orientation is relevant to gender expression? If so, do you regard yourself as lesbian, bisexual or heterosexual?

Maggie Stumpp: Despite what some individuals would like to believe, there is no evidence that being transsexual has any relationship to sexual orientation. It’s been said that being lesbian, or gay, is about who you love, while being transsexual is about who you are. The sad truth, however, is that transgendered people, especially transsexuals, often live very lonely lives. Neither men nor women find us attractive and there are very, very few people who are willing to have us as partners. Under those circumstances, sexual orientation takes a back seat to the need for love and companionship.

Question: Was coming out to management and co-workers a lengthy process requiring much education from you on trans issues, or were management and co-workers knowledgeable and accepting from the start?

Maggie Stumpp: Everyone was clueless. No one had even considered the possibility that someone would transition at the firm. While I was having surgery, one executive who co-managed our organization called every employee I worked with individually to explain the circumstances and to give them an opportunity to ask questions. That individual approach helped a lot. People eventually informed themselves and all I needed to do was to provide a few literature references and not do anything completely stupid. I’ve discovered that in many transitions, associates can be tremendously understanding and supportive.

Question: What would you suggest to people who are considering transition? Where can they find reliable sources of information?

Maggie Stumpp: My strongest recommendation is to only transition if you absolutely have to. The financial and emotional toll associated with taking this path can be incalculable. If you must transition, be very secure in your job and be fully aware of your employer’s diversity policies. I’ve seen far too many people lose jobs and entire careers because they left an employer to transition off-the-job, only to discover that very few firms are willing to hire a transsexual. I’ve seen others lose jobs because they transitioned too early and were utterly unprepared.

Although this is a sad commentary on society, people who appear “different” have great difficulty getting and keeping employment. Transgendered people should be fairly far along in the process before publicly announcing their intentions to transition. Curiously, this does not involve reassignment surgery, as we don’t publicly display genitalia. Rather, it involves superficial things like hormone treatment, electrolysis, hair, voice lessons and cosmetic surgery. Most of these can be fully addressed while one is still in the old gender.

Question: Are there any books or websites that you especially like?

Maggie Stumpp: While there are a number of excellent biographies (Donna Rose’s book, “Wrapped in Blue,” is among them and is generally available), HRC’s workplace has an excellent resource for individuals and firms involved in workplace transitions: www.hrc.org/Template.cfm?Section=Work_Life).

Also, Lynn Conway has a gallery of successful trans people at her TS Women's Successes website and I’ve found her gallery to be a very useful tool with employers who have only seen trans people on exploitive TV shows like Jerry Springer and think we’re all drag queens, or clowns in dresses.

Question: Since transitioning, have your thoughts on women’s rights changed (i.e. in relation to pay inequities, the glass ceiling, etc.)? Do you feel you have lost power in some sense through foregoing a male identity?

Maggie Stumpp: To some degree. Some people in business who don’t know me have treated me like a bimbo and that can be an eye opening experience. However, there are other important and more subtle issues. For example, women work together in a different way than men do. That is a social skill that must be learned and there can be a problem with behaving too “male-like” under the wrong circumstances.

Question: Would you agree that transgendered people have always been part of the LGB community, albeit invisible/unacknowledged? Would you identify as “queer”?

Maggie Stumpp: The term “transgendered” encompasses an incredibly diverse group of people – some of whom wouldn’t even self-identify as transgendered. It includes effeminate men and assertive women, drag queens, cross dressers, transsexuals and many others. Issues vary widely across the transgendered spectrum.

Regardless of sexual orientation, or even gender affiliation, however, the transgendered have one thing in common: those who hate, hate all of us equally. People often forget that the general public perceives the entire transgendered population as “gay.” Regardless of sexual orientation, it is often the effeminate male or the assertive woman who is the target of violence and discrimination. Everyone should realize that the violence that is directed at transgendered people would be directed at anyone in the broader GBL community if they were as easily identified. Transsexuals, for example, were among Hitler’s first victims.

I don’t identify as “gender queer,” I simply identify as Maggie.

"Life is far too precious and short. Each of us must strive to be at peace with ourselves.”
~ Margaret Stumpp

Dr. Margaret Stumpp is a stellar example of the remarkable effects of "Positive Thinking" and following one's own God given dreams. Her inspirational personal story and altruistic campaign to educate and enlighten humanity is having a dramatic impact on conscience raising throughout our world. She is a most courageous, intelligent, dedicated and sharing woman. - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

Mrs. Roxie Lynn Howard married a nice man in 1998, ten years after starting estrogen hormones. She is active advocate of transsexual rights and regularly participates in support of affirmative, national and state, transsexual legislation. Roxie Lynn is a successful author, loving mother and wife.

(Roxie Lynn Howard's variation of Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh's lyrics The Impossible Dream).

Mrs. Roxie Lynn Howard is an exceedingly bright, witty, enthusiastic, giving, nurturing woman. Her popular, appealing personality has gained her many true friends. Roxie Lynn is always there with an outstretched helping hand for those who are in need. I'm so delighted she's personally volunteered to be listed on this website to assist others. - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

When I was born in my small northern Indiana town in March of 1950, the doctor took one look at the male genitalia and announced to my parents, “It’s a boy!”

The first time I remember feeling different from other children was when I was four years old. I knew I was different from other children at that early age, but had no comprehension as to how or why. It was when I was four that I remember going to the breakfast table at my aunt’s house with my cousins (all girls), and I was wearing a dress. I proudly announced that, “all of the girls were there.” I also remember once when I was about six years old asking my first step-mother when it would be my turn to be a girl. She crushed me when she said, “You will always be a boy.” Throughout my teenage years, I continued to dress as a girl in private. It was as if I were driven toward being the best girl I could be, if only for myself. While, I was never actually caught dressing as a girl my second step-mother constantly corrected me during my teen years. She said things like, “Don’t stand like that…girls stand that way,” and “Don’t you know girls hold their books like that, not boys?”

I quit high school at sixteen even though I was in a college prep program, and was doing well academically. In my sophomore year my body began to go through the normal changes associated with a male at this life stage, while my mind was screaming, “No, I should be like all the other girls!” I just had to get away from all of my peers who seemed to have no incongruence with who they were. It was a very painful period in my life.

Just before my eighteenth birthday, I enlisted in the military in an effort to purge Paula from my being and to finally be a “man.” I earned a high school GED in March 1968 from Western Michigan University and enlisted in the Navy in April 1968.

When I was twenty years old, I discovered a copy of The TRANSSEXUAL PHENOMENON by Harry Benjamin, M.D., in the Base Exchange. I was ashamed to let anyone know I was reading it, so I didn’t buy it. Instead I went there every day at lunch time and read parts of it, until I read it all. I knew then what I was “blessed” with, although at the time I felt it was a “curse.” Today, I know that I have been blessed in life.

In an effort to be what society demanded of me, I married for the first time in 1971. Our marriage somehow managed to produce four wonderful sons, including a set of twins, even though our physical relationship was somewhat limited. Our marriage began to fall apart for several reasons. We were married far too young, as she was only seventeen. Also, she needed someone more manly and sexual than I was able to be.

In 1974, I went to a local high school, and took courses to graduate with my high school diploma. I attended college while maintaining a full time job with the Navy and between 1981 and 1987 earned three college degrees.

BS, Liberal Studies 1981
MA, Management 1984
PhD, Management (Honors) 1987

My professional career also took off with all of the work I poured into it. I was selected for commissioning from the enlisted ranks in 1981. I was promoted to Lieutenant (Junior Grade) in 1982 and to Lieutenant in 1984. I was a stereotypical “over-achiever” because I was always trying to prove myself a man, especially to me.

I began a demanding work and school schedule, as I was convinced that if I filled my time with other things, there would be no room for thoughts of “Paula.” This was based on my perception that I would be too exhausted to be bothered by these thoughts. I still had not come to realize that being transsexual wasn’t something I did, it was who I was!

As I entered my thirties, still determined to eliminate all feminine feelings and lead a “normal” life, I married for the second time in 1980. In April 2005 we celebrated 25 years together, although the transition eventually caused us to no longer live as a married couple. We managed to stay together through the transition, but were never able to be more than roommates and good friends and eventually we separated. We remain good friends today, and have many years of shared memories.

My forties mirrored my thirties and the over-achieving continued. My career continued to flourish because of all this effort. I was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in 1991 and to Commander in 1996. In 1999 I was selected for the premiere job to make me competitive for promotion to Captain, which I declined as my life was pulling me a different direction. I was voluntarily retired from the Naval Service on September 30, 1999 After 31 years and 6 months of active duty.

Between 1968-1999 my Navy service included:

Thirteen years in the Navy enlisted ranks as an Aviation Electrician’s Mate working on fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft. I also spent a tour in South Vietnam as member of a helicopter gunship squadron and as a member of a Military Police unit.

Eighteen years as a Navy officer designated as an Aerospace Engineering Duty-Maintenance Officer.

Major Navy positions assigned:

Pacific Fleet F/A-18 Type Wing Maintenance Department Head
Pacific Fleet F-14 Type Wing Maintenance Department Head
Carrier Air Wing TWO Maintenance Department Head
Pacific Fleet Senior Maintenance Inspection Team Leader
Fighter Squadron ONE Maintenance Material Control Officer
NAS Kingsville Intermediate Maintenance Production Officer

Major Military Awards:

(3) Meritorious Service Medals
(4) Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medals
Navy Achievement Medal
(3) Good Conduct Medals
Enlisted Aircrew Wings
Numerous Campaign and Service Medals

While in the navy, I spent time in California, Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Alaska, Japan, Okinawa, Korea, Singapore, Philippine Islands, Guam, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Midway Island, Johnston Atoll, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Also, I served on six different aircraft carriers, and was part of five different staffs

It was becoming clear to me that I was never going to escape being a woman with a transsexual history. I still experienced difficulty believing I would be able to function in the world as a woman. That would only be possible in my mind…wouldn’t it? At the age of 49, I reached a personal decision. I had raised my children and completed a successful career in the Navy. I had reached the breaking point, where if I couldn’t be “myself” and stop living the lie, I did not feel I could go on at all. I wasn’t ready earlier, because before I could move forward with a transition, and expect others to accept me, I had to accept myself.

Moving into my fifties has been quite different from the previous four decades. I was finally able to begin to be who I was always meant to be. I accepted a new position with a company in northern Virginia in June 2000, first ventured into public dressed as a woman and attended my first transgender support group in July 2000. I began therapy in August 2000, nearly always dressed as a woman. I also began laser treatments for facial hair removal in September 2000. I started Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) in January 2001 under the supervision of an endocrinologist.

I accepted a new position in Texas and moved there in April 2001. I began electrolysis for facial hair removal that same April. I began individual and group therapy sessions in Texas in June 2001. On July 18, 2002, I went before the District Court in Weatherford and had both my name and gender legally changed.

It was after living and working in Texas, for 1 1⁄2 years, that I began my Real Life Test (The period of time living full-time required prior to receiving permission for surgery, designed to ensure one can function in society in the new gender) in August 2002, and returned to work full time as a woman in September 2002. I transitioned on-the-job at a large aerospace company. I work as a Systems Engineer and the company has been very supportive of me.

Their early decision to consider only my professional qualifications and not become tangled up in gender identity issues was commendable. In the three and a half years since going full-time at work, I have retained my position as a lead for an important part of a program, received performance awards, pay raises, and undergone an investigation by the federal government for a high level security clearance that was granted in April 2004.

I underwent Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS), which I believe to be merely surgery to correct a birth defect as my gender has always been female, on March 9, 2004, flying home from Miami on my chronological 54th birthday (March 21st). Today, I am out to most that care or have a need to know and for the first time in my life…I am proud of whom I am. While I have no choice about who I am down deep inside, I do have choice in how I present my inner self to the world. I have chosen to live as Paula, a happy well adjusted, lesbian woman who happens to have a transsexual history.

Although, some say I have had an interesting journey to be where I am today, it is not unlike many other stories of successful transsexual women as they too searched for happiness and contentment in their lives.

Negatives in My Life:

My teen years were a very painful period in my life.

My spouse of 25 years and I eventually acknowledged where our relationship “transitioned” to and separated.

My sister hasn’t spoken to me since June 2002 because she “can’t accept me as I am.” I steadfastly hold to the idea that she will one day, and we will be able to grow as sisters. Although this perspective is viewed by some as painting a rosy picture, I remain optimistic.

Two weeks following my return to Fort Worth following surgery, I was referred by my PCP to an urologist. I had developed an abscess behind my urethra. The urologist walked into the examining room where I was already in the stirrups, looked at my chart, and stated “I wish someone had told me you were transsexual, I don’t think I can help you.” He then left without helping me, and his office charged my insurance company over $200 for the office visit. I wound up flying back to Miami to have the problem taken care of.

Positives in My Life:

I am myself…an intelligent, caring female member of our society.

My step-Mother decided immediately upon learning of my transition that she had another daughter. There was never any doubt in her mind.

My sons are all accepting and caring of me today as a woman.

My extended family has shown great support for me since learning of my transition.

My former spouse and I have been able to maintain a friendship. Only time will tell if this remains true, but it is true today.

Most of my former Navy and Marine Corps friends have remained extremely loyal and supportive of me. In September 2005, I attended a Naval Aviation Convention in Reno, Nevada and renewed many old friendships. Perhaps 2-3 former “friends” chose to distance them from me there, but that was the exception.

The Ultimate Positive in My Life:

I have a beautiful and talented new partner in my life. We look forward to spending the rest of our lives enjoying everything we have been blessed with, especially each other.

Horses have been a passion for me for more than 14 years. My spouse had owned horses and competed in barrel racing when younger, but I was 40 years old the first time I became involved with them. Now, I will always have them as part of my life. We raise quarter horses, paint horses, and we also have one mustang that we adopted from the Bureau of Land Management. They are beautiful animals, non-judgmental in nature, and a pleasure to be around. This is the latest addition in our lives. Her name is “Shy” and she was born on January 28, 2005. She is a darling black and white paint with beautiful lines.

We extend much heartfelt appreciation and thanks to "Paula R." She recently contacted me and has generously volunteered to have her challenging story listed here as part of her personal approach to educate and help others. Her over three decades of loyal, distinguished service while proudly serving in the United States Navy, stands as positive testimony to her courageous sacrifice and dedication to purpose. Her action-oriented, intelligently and determinedly planned successful transition, provides such marvelous inspiration and possibility of hope to many who read her moving, motivational life story. - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

She is very beautiful, with all the grace that a woman should have. At the age of 24, this lady has a marvelous feminine sculpted body, with very long legs. She has stylish manicured hands that express more her story than her words only would do. The long nailed fingers drum on the glass table when trying to recall an incident, and all fingers are gracefully spread wide open when talking about how much fun she had in the boxing rings in Thailand.

Meet Khun Parinya Charoenphol, better known in Thailand as Nong Toom. She was in reality, physically born as a man, but with the a woman inside her body.

BORN the fourth of five children, Nong has three brothers and a sister. Her parents are farmers with a modest plot of land in Chiangmai in northern Thailand. She says that, as a child, she would carefully cut out drawings of ancient Muay Thai movements from kickboxing magazines, paste them in scrapbooks and then plead with her Muay Thai master to teach her how to execute the complex and intricate techniques. Indeed, much of her childhood was spent preparing for life in the ring.

Apart from her insistence on wearing lurid red lipstick while kickboxing – she started doing so a