REALITIES
Where sex reassignment is concerned four basic things must be realised:

• you almost certainly do have to tell people;
• you will have to tell everybody who already knows you, eventually;
• you don’t have to tell them everything;
• the order of whom you tell is important.

People who are closest to you do have to find out eventually. Explaining your feelings helps to clarify what is going on in your mind for those around you and for yourself. Keeping your feelings hidden from people close to you is a mistake because they will soon know something is troubling you and will probably be more hurt by secrecy and deception than by honest discussion. However, explaining one’s feelings doesn’t mean doing so every day, for hours at a time. A common error best avoided is overkill. When a large, traumatic situation looms in anyone’s life it is natural for them to want to talk about it, but the trauma is not so enormous for anyone to whom it is not happening directly. They won’t have the same urge to discuss it relentlessly.

The leaflet, TearS explains the facts about transsexualism and its treatment in lay terms and has helped many people in this situation. A qualified counsellor can also help if you find it difficult to communicate, but do ensure s/he knows the realities of the condition. It is not a situation anyone can find them self in: any old counsellor will not do.

If you have children, it is usually best to tell them as soon as you have shared everything with your partner and, in any case, long before you change your mode of dress, or experiment in doing so. If they walk in to find you wearing different clothes before you say anything of your situation to them, they may be shocked. Pre-adolescent children tend to be influenced by the reaction of the other parent, following their lead. Younger children find it much easier than adults to adapt to all kinds of situations. If you can wait until they grow up, question your identity much more profoundly: clinical conditions cannot be put on hold until convenient.

Never let your children discover your condition through a third party. Children are immensely strong and flexible but hate deception. If you think they might make a big deal of it, this can mean you are who is doing that. Care is needed here because young children are seldom as bigoted as adults and to automatically assume them to be bigoted teaches them to be so.

It is best not to tell them more than their age can cope with. Keep in mind that you remain their parent, whom they look up to. You may be about to shake up their social perception of you; they still need the love and security you provide.

Adolescents going through their own sexual identity discoveries need particular tact and careful explanation. Explain, don’t make demands; don’t get angry at any reactions; give them time, lots of it, years if necessary, but do not lose touch with their needs and emotions.

IMPORTANT TIP
No matter who the other person is, always bear in mind how many years it took you to come to terms with your own transsexualism.

AT WORK
Assuming you are employed and remaining with the same employer, people with whom you work need to know next. It is often best to start with close colleagues who will hopefully be supportive when you tell the next person: your boss. And it is usually best to tell the boss as soon as you have told close colleagues. The point is not to let your superior hear by rumour and call you, and not to let your close colleagues hear about you from your superior first. The point is that the only person who can get your true story right is you. If someone in your place of work asks you about ‘this rumour they’ve heard’, don’t lie, but do prevent yourself from going into graphic detail. Lying to someone else encourages them to tell lies about you. Making a big deal of something encourages onlookers to make a big deal of it.

Begin by talking about sexual identity, making sure you are well informed before doing so. People are often more interested in the alienation experienced during the years before treatment. One really ought to explain this if one wants others to understand why treatment is so very necessary. Explanations are best kept short: not many people like unsolicited lectures.

Something that onlookers do not always appreciate unless it is specifically explained is that one’s medical history is confidential, that what they are being told is privileged information, and that nobody likes their personal life being discussed on grapevines. A handy way to explain this is with the time honoured third-party mode like this; "I did hear about one person who thought they were explaining their situation to friends but who discovered they were not friends at all - unless friends have no respect for each other. They broadcast the information to all and sundry!"

Once you have people listening seriously, encourage them to ask questions as this helps you to find out what they don’t understand. People can be very supportive, but not before you explain what it is they are supposed to be understanding! The nearer they can be to comprehending, the more supportive they will be, but do avoid over-kill; they don’t want or need endless sob stories.

It is not wise to bare one’s soul to all and sundry. Leaving oneself some privacy will encourage much more respect.

Good rules of thumb are: don’t tell anyone your life story, nor everything all at once, and don’t be side-tracked into discussing your private sex life nor any possible surgery. Questions about those, except from very close and loving people, usually betray lascivious curiosity and voyeurism. Letting onlookers get away with too much encourages them to take more and more liberties.

You might be coerced to leave your place of employment due to ignorance and prejudice of employers and colleagues although many people are at last becoming aware of the true nature of transsexualism. Should such pressure be brought to bear, don’t react thoughtlessly. In the UK there is now considerable legal protection against discrimination in this situation. The best advice would be to stay calm and head straight for the Press For Change web site at http://www.pfc.org.uk/ where a wealth of information to help you can be found.

OFFICIALS
Once you are certain you are on the right road, there are many authorities to tell of your change of name, when it occurs. This is your own responsibility. Don’t do it until you are very sure of what you are doing, otherwise you may find yourself writing to all the officials again to change your name back again.

The companion book, CHANGE OF NAME, gives step-by-step details of the procedures, including a Statutory Declaration form which will avoid the fee charged by a solicitor to draw one up from scratch.

OTHER PEOPLE
There are all sorts of people whom one meets less regularly, especially distant relatives and friends; the best way to inform these is by letter. This is fairer to you because it is less stressful - you have enough stress to deal with already - and fairer to them, giving them time to think, without you looking at them for a reaction. Sit down quietly and write a couple of short paragraphs to re-use for each person, briefly explaining the condition, and what you are going to do. Focus on it as a medical problem, but omit any reference to surgery. Other people you meet in everyday life, e.g., neighbours, the postman, the milkman and shop-keepers, may require very brief verbal explanations.

A common mistake is to apologise for being born transsexual. One would not apologise for having any other congenital condition. Because one can only apologise for something about which one had a choice, apologising for transsexualism has the effect of subconsciously transmitting to the onlooker that one's circumstances are chosen. They are not and, truth be told, much of the rest of society should apologise to trans people for its attitude towards them.

TIMING
If employed it is helpful, if possible, to get all the initial explanations out of the way and then take one’s annual holiday regardless of the time of year, returning dressed in the clothes of the now correct sex for the year-or-more trial period. There is no choice but to be prepared for all kinds of reactions, both kind and unkind. If you are not very thick skinned at the outset, you certainly will be by the time reassignment is completed. The two-faced snake is very common in the Western world.

KEY ISSUES
It is neither necessary nor a good habit to weary everyone with all your trials and tribulations. Coming to terms with you dressed differently is quite enough for most people.

Tell the people you trust first, then if they are asked about you by others, they will hopefully give a fair rendering of what you have said, suppressing misunderstandings. Only another sufferer can fully comprehend what any medical condition is really like; don’t try to provoke people’s sympathy by whining about your past or by playing with their emotions. Just as you would probably like them to understand what it is to be you, so you must try to understand what it is to be them, on the other end of the unusual experience of watching somebody having to turn Topsy Turvy.

Hormone tablets can have side effects including lassitude, irritability, drowsiness, headaches, and depression. Although these are not experienced by everyone, it is sensible to inform people who are nearest to you that because of the tablets you are taking, you may not always be your usual self. (You cannot accurately decide whether or not this happens to you: only onlookers can do that.)

Leave out any talk of surgery: the thought of it often makes people who are happy with their sexual identity feel ill.

Try to radiate happiness. Going around with a long face is not the best way to keep or gain friends. If what you are doing seems not to make you happier, people will wonder why you are bothering to do it.

A journey best missed is the one down Negative Lane. Rather than looking at things from beneath, in a negative fashion (my cup is half empty), it is better to make a definite effort to look at them from above (my cup is half full). Whilst nobody can deny there are a great many ways in which being ts does adversely affect the sufferer, the situation does have advantages.

Having been forced to see both sides of coins intimately, one knows more about the emotional differences between men and women than does any never-ts person, which can be beneficial. The shaman in the wilderness probably does less soul searching than does the trans person during their reassignment years with the result that perhaps the latter knows more about their self spirit than their never-ts coevals can ever know about their own.

These experiences help one to see idiosyncrasies in societal mores that never-ts people cannot see. Being better prepared, one can cope with them better than others can. One is likely to lose some friends but the friends one has by the end of reassignment are real friends. If reassignment does anything unexpected, it rams patience into one and that alone is worth its weight in gold; aren’t most of the world’s troubles to do with impatience?

On the subject of patience, it cannot be over stressed that every ts sufferer has no option but to learn to be as patient with others as they would like others to be with them self. This can be very difficult to get right initially. Getting it right helps. Getting it wrong leads to loneliness.

NOT JUST YOU
Onlookers who, in ignorance, ‘disapprove of’ anyone being born trans tend to be self-centred. However, in common with other major human conditions, the process of recognising and being treated for transsexualism can make one appear self-centred and obsessive, as if hanging on tooth and nail to one’s ego while the physical self changes. This can make one seem aloof and boring which can be very upsetting for people close by. Don’t worry, your personality won’t go away. Make a conscious effort to be attentive to other people for their sakes rather than your own. They have to get used to you. Taking an interest in, and helping, other people encourages them to reciprocate.

Think out your telling carefully and do it thoughtfully; this makes acceptance easier for other people and for you and, hopefully, will contribute to society’s understanding of the condition too.

THE ONE ROOM SYNDROME
The aim in treating any clinical condition is to improve the sufferer’s quality of life. This is not achieved by sitting alone in the same room, day after day, flipping television channels, withdrawn from society. The aim is not only to be of the world, but also in the world.

Another murky mess to avoid is that of becoming ‘professionally ts’, only ever talking on the one subject. If you have no hobbies, now is the time to find some. Neither is it a good idea to use "liberation" as an excuse to only reassign one’s sex superficially. If one is serious about reassignment, shouldn’t at least some of one’s hobbies, mannerisms, conversation, dress, and appearance reflect one’s true sex?

SUCCESS IS A STATE OF MIND
Perceiving oneself as transsexual first and a person maybe, invites disaster and negates the whole point of reassignment. How onlookers react to any person largely depends on how one reacts to one's self. If you see yourself as an oddity, so will other people. The more clearly and blatantly you view yourself as being simply another person, the more others will agree with you. You would not consider yourself as "a tonsillitic"; what would be the advantage in perceiving yourself as being "a" transsexual?

Transsexualism is a human condition, not a person. Since people don't like diseases, labelling one's self for a disease (by referring to one's self and one's peers as "transsexuals") has the subliminal effect of telling others, "don't like me, don't like us, we're a disease".

Reassignment is like a rebirth, as if replacing the one that went wrong. It can, incidentally, be an opportunity to put one’s whole situation into a better light. Only you can ensure that you do so; if you don’t, then what is the point in your treatment?

Of all the people who have been through reassignment to date, the most successful, happy and fulfilled see themselves as people, not "transsexuals". One cannot, anyway, be ts post-operatively; the body and mind are then compatible. In effect one is "cured" (for want of a better word) as far as can be achieved.

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