Exploring a Different Path: My Late-Life Gender Transition Inspired by an App | Autobiography and Memoir

Until February 28th
and March 1st
In 2021, I sent the following text as an email attachment to others:
30 people I thought were closest
friend.
The subject was:
: “It's a bomb.” I grinned at the unintentional pun and wondered if there were other people out there who would do the same. The title was simply “Lucy”.

TOn February 16th, when I downloaded FaceApp for a laugh, he burst out. I tried this application a few years ago, but something went wrong and it returned images that failed horribly. But I had a new phone, so I was curious. The gender swap feature was the biggest takeaway for me, and the first photo I used this feature on was one I had tried before. This time, it gave me a frontal portrait of a middle-aged woman who is strong, healthy, and living a clean life. She also had beautiful flowing chestnut hair and very subtle makeup. And her face was mine. There's no question about it – her nose, mouth, eyes, forehead, chin. she was me When I saw her, I felt something melt in her core. It shook from her shoulders to her crotch. I thought I had finally arrived at my calculation.

Soon, I was entering all my portraits, snapshots, and ID card photos into the magical gender portal. The first archival photo I tried was a studio portrait of an anxious, awkward teenage girl, around the same time as my first memory of gazing into the mirror and having my hair and expression styled like a girl's. The result of the transformation was the revelation of a happy girl. Other than her long black hair, little was done to transform her into Lucy. The biggest difference was how relaxed she looked.

And that's pretty much how it turned out. I was having a lot of fun as a girl in that parallel life. I passed through every era through the machine and experienced one shock of recognition after another. That would have been exactly me. Oddly enough, the app seemed to be guessing at my hairstyle and fashion choices at the time. And the less the images changed, the deeper they drove the dagger into my heart. It could be me! Fifty years are underwater, and I can't get them back.

My high school graduation portrait turned out to be an incredibly delicate almond-eyed fawn (admittedly 17 years old was the pinnacle of my beauty, perhaps that's why my male incubus soon That's probably why he grew a beard). Ten or twelve years later (unfortunately, there are very few photos of me in my 20s; I've always been camera-shy), I was a Lower East Side post-punk radical with a Dutch-boy bob and a pout. I'm a lesbian feminist.here i am sports illustrated Junkett, 33, of Arizona, looked modest in a red polka dot dress and white sweater.

There are many reasons why I suppressed my lifelong desire to become a woman. First of all, it was impossible. My parents would have called a priest and sent me to some convent. And of course the culture wasn't ready.I knew about Christine Jorgensen. [the first person widely known in the US for having gender reassignment therapy] When I was quite young, however, she seemed to be an isolated case. Most of the time, what you encountered were raunchy jokes by Las Vegas comedians and the occasional provocative tabloid article. I kept searching for images and stories of girls like me, but without much success.

Over the years, I have consumed a tremendous amount of material on transgender issues, from clinical research to personal reports, journalistic exposure, and pornography. However, there isn't much porn. It disgusted me. I researched this topic in depth, just like I did for the other books, but I had to keep all my notes in my head.

I immediately got rid of all the materials because I was afraid people would see them. Before browsers allowed anonymous searches, I used to clear the search memory on my computer every day. You may be wondering why I felt the need to go so far. Long story short, my mother regularly raided my room, read my handwriting, and scrutinized every print for possible sexual innuendos. I relayed that warning to my friends, who were also left with the idea that women would be disgusted and repulsed by my transgender identity. Most of them would probably have been sympathetic. where did you get that? This may be because as an only child of orphaned immigrants, I didn't have many female friends until my late teens, and I didn't have any female friends until I was 17.

Needless to say, I was terrible at sex. I didn't know how to act like a man in bed. I wanted to see myself as a woman in the act of love, but I had to suppress that desire while at the same time trying seriously to please my partner (because, at least at first, I almost never slept with someone I didn't love).

I was never attracted to men, but I spent enough time in gay environments in the 70s to convince me of that. During adolescence and beyond, I didn't know how to construct a masculine identity. I hated sports, stupid jokes, chugging beer, and men talking about women. My image of hell was a night with a bunch of guys. Over the years, by necessity, I have come across as saturnine, intelligent, a little aloof, a little wolfish, perhaps “eccentric” and, despite my best intentions, very close to asexual. I created a male persona.

Another reason for my repression was the feeling that if I changed my gender, it would erase everything else I wanted to do in life. I wanted to be an important writer and I didn't want to be pigeonholed into a category. If I were transgender, that fact would be the only thing anyone would know about me. Over the years, transgender people have become increasingly visible in the media, and coverage has become a little less cruel. I lived in New York City, so I saw a lot of transgender people. I had been friends with photographer Nan Goldin for a while, but he never spoke to me, even though I'm sure he would have understood what I was saying.

Sometimes I would hear rumors about this or that person being “dressed up,” and as a result, I became forever uncomfortable in their presence – out of envy, of course. My office in the late '80s and early '90s was located a block away from Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, where I attended Wigstock, the annual Labor Day drag festival. I never looked into it. It was also half a block away from the Pyramid Club, which was the epicenter of New York's drug scene at the time, but I've never been there either. At the time, there was a black menu board on the sidewalk outside the club that read, “Drink and Be Merry.” I shivered every time I passed there.

I was scared to face what I was facing now. I wanted to be a woman with every fiber of my being, and even though that thought was pasted on my windshield, I still trained myself to do it and see through it. Now that the floodgates have opened, I’m falling in love with the idea in a new way. The first time I uploaded a photo to her FaceApp, I felt my core melt into liquid. Now I feel a pillar of fire.

But that shouldn't mean steely determination. The idea of ​​transition is both infinitely fascinating and infinitely frightening. If you take and edit at least one selfie every day, your photos will feel more and more true to life. With a little makeup, some estrogen, and a really nice wig, I could probably look exactly like that. But will the fact that I can't grow my hair make me feel like a fake forever? And he will be 67 years old soon. What if I look grotesque? Or am I just pathetic?

It's a big decision that affects every aspect of my life. As a result, will you accidentally destroy something important in your life? I'm hoping that some situation will force me to migrate. Maybe my therapist is saying it's important for my sanity. Anyway, I'm going to start here by writing it down – something I've never done before – and sending it to a very small number of people I trust and think will understand. My name is Lucy Marie Santé, just one letter added to my dead name.
February 26, 2021

TThe hat was written in a whirlwind. Every time I think about the chronology, I am amazed again. The first manifestation of her FaceApp occurred on his February 16th. Ten days later, I came out to my therapist, Dr. G, and he didn't blink, just told me he thought transitioning was a logical and good idea. The next evening, after I finished writing the letter, I came out to my partner Mimi, which was the hardest thing
for them to do. And the next day I came out to his son Rafael. The secret fortress I had spent nearly 60 years building and fortifying fell to pieces in a little over a week.

The response was immediate: emails, phone calls, text messages. There was a range, but everyone was kind. Some people said, “It's unexpected, but not surprising,'' “I'm surprised, but not surprising,'' and “It's shocking, but not.'' On the other side, there were several people who reacted as if they had been hit by a train. there was. Other method. They tend to be primarily men who, over the course of years of friendship, have come to think of me as a kind of mirror or double, and that reevaluating me means they need to reevaluate themselves. Did. All of the
people on the “not surprised” side were women, as were the three people who wrote that they had tears of happiness in their eyes after reading my letter.

Of course, I was prepared for some sort of backlash, expressed calmly and thoughtfully, but it never really came, either then or later. Most reactions were, “Yay, go for it, you'll do it.”

Well, as I write this article, I am about to enter my 18th month of hormone replacement therapy. I am legally Lucy, I identify as a woman, and I have feelings for everyone in my life, no matter how far away. I'm completely normal and the same person I've always been, but I'm also a completely different person. I feel more socially secure than ever before. I've gotten a lot of stares, but I've never felt any aggression. Because I'm not a threat. I'm old, white, and reasonably privileged.

I can honestly say I have never been happier. The shadow of me that once hid under the floorboards has finally taken up residence within myself. In fact, I feel free from the neuroses that have been bothering me all this time. Of course, you can and will get sad for a variety of reasons, but at least depression has been avoided for now. Of course, I wish I could have transitioned in my teens, twenties, or at an earlier age than I did, but in return I was left in peace and able to embrace my changes within the life I had already constructed. It has survived all eras. censorious
elders. I really like myself the way I am. I turned out better than I ever imagined, better than I feared.

I am more aware of others and find it much easier to take out emotional issues on others. In various situations, I often experience a kind of calmness, a general sense of correctness about the world. I no longer hate myself or feel sorry for who I am. I walk with pride. Thank you for using whatever force you had to crack my egg before it was too late. I was saved from drowning.