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The Family Girl #099: Made A Couple of New Friends
- Bobbie Cabot
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It's Wednesday midnight here, but I decided to post this even though it's a little late. Yesterday morning (I mean Monday morning), I met a couple of people at the office. Christine and Michael are from a different department from the one I run. Nothing major, and nothing unusual - I mean, you meet a lot of people at work. Except that these two were transgender, actually transsexual. And they actually sought me out - Christine, actually, was the one who sought me out, and she brought with her Michael. |
Christine is a pleasantly pretty girl of twenty-eight, about five-six, and is a manager in the same company I work for. She started her transition around six years ago, and, later on in the same year, she fully transitioned and had her operation in Thailand. I think she was lucky in that she didn't have a prominent adam's apple and looked feminine enough that she could easily pass for a girl (especially after she started HRT). She actually looks fairly attractive, in fact, despite not having had FFS. She doesn't really plan to have any other procedures, though she told me that she might have her brow bones fixed, maybe have some strategic liposuction, and maybe a boob job to improve the modest pair she got courtesy of the hormones. But she thinks, without these additional procedures, she can still pass as a girl, so they're not a priority, especially since she will need to go to, maybe, South Korea to get the brow operation (FFS procedures in Thailand aren't the best), and the costs in South Korea would be very, very expensive indeed.
Still, Christine said it best - if you could do something to look better, wouldn't you? She said, if she is able to save up enough, then maybe she'll seriously think about it.
Christine has actually been a fan of BCTS for a while, and logs on anonymously and reads a lot of the stories. She also read several of my stories, and my two old blogs on BCTS ("Working Girl," and "Family Girl") and (she said) these blogs gave her the inspiration and encouragement to transition herself. She had been reading my and other people's stuff on the site from time to time, and, by happenstance, Christine read a comment by a reader of one of my stories who knew my RL name and actually posted it! Either that reader didn't care or is so clueless that he didn't understand the concept of stealth and what stealth meant to TG folk who are trying to keep their TG life separate from their RL, or felt like doing a despicable Gotcha moment (thank goodness Erin redacted his post when I requested it).
Anyway, since Christine was with HR, she knew the names of many of the people in the company, expecially the expats, and she connected that name she read to me, but she took all this time to confirm the connection, and to work up the nerve and introduce herself to me...
Going back to Christine's transition... Christine did the reseach and, six years ago, began seing a therapist and an endocrinologist who worked with transsexuals. After a few months of sessions and HRT, she resigned from her job (previous to this current one) and started dressing as a girl. She didn't tell her family, and since she could pass as a girl by then, she took the plunge: she decided to get her operation in Thailand instead of locally because the procedure was cheaper there and she didn't really think that local doctors could do a good-enough job (Philippine doctors aren't known for TS operations. Although, after she had her procedure, further research and talking to transgender folk who had their operations here - she came to the conclusion that she probably would have been okay if she had it done here, but for the fact that the cost would have been much higher (Thailand procedures were the cheapest around, and they do a lot of them).
She's also worked a lot on her speech, and by speaking in an... airy and light way, and maintaining a singsong kind of speech as well as often lilting upwards at the end of her sentences, she also had a passable female-sounding speaking style (she learned to do this from an online class).
There were parallels in her experience and mine, although, with her, she never went through the same degree of financial difficulties I did (she was fairly well off compared to me, and she had her operation in Thailand besides), nor had to go through that wrenching break-up I did. In any case, I was flattered she wanted to meet me.
As I said, Christine brought with her another transsexual person, Michael.
She and Michael met here in the company (they're just friends). He also works in HR, and he transitioned about four years ago. Obviously, he is a FTM transsexual. He is much younger than Christine - he's about twenty-four - and he's actually a pretty diminutive person, though not as short as me: he's about five-three, and makes a fairly cute man. His beard does help a lot to make him not look like a girl, and though his voice is comparatively high for a man, the tone and cadence of his speech marks him to be a man.
Born-females transitioning to a man have it easier than born-males transitioning to a girl. A mastectomy, the right clothes and more facial hair does the trick. And, of course, the voice patterns.
Michael's transition only involved HRT, so he still has female plumbing. He has gone to a a doctor that specialized in transgender stuff several times, and he is okay, physically/medically, and actually gets a prescription for his meds.
They also talked about their experience transitioning, and in Manila, living as the gender you identify with is easy (well, maybe I should say easier), and most of the folks here would let you and not bother you. Michael said that the trick is to not push things especially with the provincials. Sure, your papers will still identify you as the gender you were born in, but in all other matters, you can live the way you want - live and work as a boy (or a girl) if you want, and dress the way you want, and people won't bother you nor shun you. There would be a few things that you won't be able to do - like bathrooms and such, but that is the worst of it.
But like I said, some provincials wouldn't be as tolerant. Yes, there would be some extreme examples of intolerance that you'd see in the news from time to time (as frequent as a blue moon), but they're very seldom, and definitely not like how it is in the States. Far from it.
They wanted to hear about my own experience, and I answered their questions as best I could, and I was surprised Christine knew a lot of my background already - obviously, she picked up some odds-and-ends from my blogs in BCTS - Christine also wants to meet my family, and I promised I'd ask the girls, and maybe invite them to our home and have lunch or dinner or something.
TS folk here are quite rare, but gay people are not uncommon, and I find the acceptance (or at the very least, tolerance) of most Pinoys for gay folk a wonderful thing. Most might not agree with their sexual preferences and lifestyle, but they don't hurt them, and they accept them. In my present company, there were many gay folk, and they effortlessly mix with and interact with "normals" pretty well. As for TS folk, like I said, they're pretty rare, but tolerance for them is pretty universal (except for the odd incident, like I said).
They also respected my wanting to keep my transsexualness on the downlow, so when we talked yesterday (and earlier tonight), we went to a fairly out-of-the-way restaurant to chat. Both of them told me that they expect us to not hang out all the time, and that was okay with them.
They did promise to take me to a meeting of this support group that they're members of, knowing full well that I might not want to join. I said that wasn't necessarily true, but I also told them I did want to keep my stealth status going, and they said that was fine - many of their group also wanted that, as well. Michael said that it was like Alcoholics Anonymous, where their membership to the group was kept confidential, and the group wouldn't spread the names of their members around.
Well. Anyway, I just wanted to talk about having met new friends. (FYI, "Christine" and "Michael" are aliases - I don't want to break their anonymity).
So. Bobbie in Manila signing off for now.
click here for the prev. Family Girl post
click here for the Family Girl MainPage
click here to go to the main page of The Working Girl Blogs, which preceded The Family Girl Blogs
Comments
I'm just glad you're still
I'm just glad you're still around, and even more so that you're still opening yourself up to new people.
Too many folks, of whatever 'niche', end up locking themselves away out of fear of rejection. (Doesn't have to be anything to do with sex or gender. computer people fall into this trap a lot.)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I wondered how you were doing
It sounds like you're doing pretty well, glad to hear it.
I am so happy for you
Much love to you and your precious family!
Love, Andrea Lena