A flowered top and red skirt

I am normally not fond of red, but this skirt attracted me when I was shopping for clothes for my newfound gender.

These days, I wanted to be a cute older woman instead of someone sexually attractive.

All my life, I had wanted to be a regular woman, not some sort of sex object, and since my dream had come true, I stayed with my principles.

Being a woman is not an act, it is my own gender identity, and I am proud of it.

For years I had cross-dressed as a woman. That's why my hair was usually long. Unknown to others, I shaved my legs to seem more feminine and I learned to do makeup more nicely than many real women. I never dressed sexy and did not go in for leather and kinky stuff.

I simply wanted to be a regular woman.

Now, after all these years, I am the woman I wanted to be, and I feel incredibly lucky.

Happy Lauren in St. Petersburg

I was a great deal happier woman in Florida after my successful gender affirmation surgery.  (Thanks Tampa General!)

The work I was doing was significant and slightly above my level of competence. Since I had not gone to college, it was sometimes difficult to do.

But my wonderful church and my gay friends helped make my life complete. Most of my church friends knew I was a transwoman and only a few hyper-feminine, wealthy, real women were resentful of me.

A particular help in my getting over surgery was my friend Cindy, who transitioned in 2015. She helped me deal with the surgery and the year I healed.

I adored my new hairstyle and my new clothes now that I am not fat anymore. I am so lucky that all my life I have had my own hair. Which made it even simpler to pass as a female. 

What I had wanted for so many years, was true. And I was enchanted.

I was amazed as I checked the mirror and saw a mature female standing before me.

The woman in the mirror

I just came from looking in the mirror where I saw a 50-year-old woman smiling back at me. 

It was me. After 49 years attempting to be a man, I finally became a woman in 2017. The woman I had dreamed of being since I was 11-years old.

My gender identity had been a woman then, but I didn't know it. I only knew that I ached to be female for all those years.

I cross-dressed for 25 years in Florida, but it was not enough.

I lived as a woman for four years in California, but it was not enough.

Finally, gender affirmation surgery gave me the body that I had always wanted to have. Breasts, soft skin, pretty legs, a shapely body, and my own hair.

I am so incredibly happy to be a woman. Even if it did take more than half my life to make it true.

 

A more formal Lauren

Although there were few possibilities for me to really dress up when I lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, I did manage to obtain this lovely dress for a church social held to advance gay rights.

My Unitarian Universalist Church of St. Petersburg was a pleasing place to be a woman, because I was treated better than an average female. My church was a welcoming church of about 150 members. It was LGBTQIA+ friendly. 

I passed as a woman everywhere in the Tampa Bay Area, all the time, because there were many more women who looked like me in Florida. Since I didn't try to be sexy, people ignored me.

I wore this dress a few times, including when I went to a special party at the Don Cesar Resort Hotel in St. Petersburg Beach where I danced all night with a gay friend of mine.

Most of my friends, even when I was male for all those years were women and gay men. 

I had no real male friends at all. I had nothing in common with men and found it hard to like any.

Now, that I am a woman, my friends are the same.

I finally became a woman

One of the luckiest things to make my life as woman more satisfying was the fact that I had lost forty pounds in Burbank before I underwent my gender affirmation surgery at Tampa General Hospital in 2017. 

It took about one year to heal and get used to my new body after my surgery, with help from Cindy, a transwoman whose transition had been in 2015.

Starting in January 2018, one day after my 50th birthday, I began working for an online company in Tampa called Human Resources Inc. writing and editing material for large firms from my home office in St. Petersburg. 

It was my first job as a woman.

The only individual in the company who knew that I was a transwoman was the boss, Laurie Lykins, a real woman.

One pleasing thing about being back in Florida was that I was able to rejoin a great Unitarian Universalist church in St. Petersburg that welcomed gays, transgendered and all others. Several of my gay friends were still there from when I had been a man and they were deliriously happy to see me as a woman.

Finally. I am the WOMAN I had always WANTED to be.