Sex change operation

Many of my regular readers will have noticed that this blog has been somewhat spartan on entries of late. This is due to a long and ongoing process of surgeries I have had that have culminated in the state of South Carolina awarding me a female driver's license. Yes, folks, I have been transitioning for years and have had all the gender reassignment surgery.

I wasn't initially going to write this article as it has so little to do with actual photography. I decided to in the end because it was about me and I write this photography blog and am the photographer.

This is not a sudden move. There has been a gradual realisation over the years that I'm not a man but a woman. From the time I arrived in the US over a decade ago, I've been free to experiment and develop as a person just as I have been free to experiment and develop as a photographer. Indeed you could say these two lines of development both parallel each other.

Well, back in 2009 I first saw the doctor about the issues and he suggested that I would be better as a woman. My immediate response was a particularly Southern "Bless your heart" for I have been in the South for most of the previous 5 years. He booked me in to sea a psychiatrist who ineed (bless his little heart) tell me that I really am female trapped in a male body.

Roll on a few years, hormone theraphy, breast implants, facial hair removal, body hair removal etc and I could walk down the street in heels, hose and a skirt and men in the streets opened doors for me, tipped their hats and picked up things that I'd dropped.

Last week I had my new driver's license back. The name on it (I changed my name) is now female. I suppose it means I'll have to change my online name now from Zephod to Trillian. I am now a bona-fide woman with bona-fide women's feelings, passions and interests.

Fake nails now have a meaning for me as I wear them daily. Life is good. Welcome to the world of womanhood this April 1st.