I think I've changed my mind. I'm flexible, I can be convinced by reasoned argument. I wouldn't want to be considered dogmatic. So I must tell you my sewing machine has convinced me there is no alternative to SRS.

It's true, for my entire life as a crossdresser I have never had any urge to become a woman, and have said so at length and with some vigor to anyone who would listen to me blather on, but that's all over. I once again girdled my loins and sat down to do combat with my mortal enemy the sewing machine. I have made innumerable items of feminine apparel when I could get the thing to cooperate with me, dresses, skirts, blouses were no real problem. Most of them even came out well enough I could wear them in public, that is if I had the nerve.

But this time it was different. This time, in my current unemployed state, I decided to sew a pair of shorts for my male self. Somehow all of my good shorts had disappeared in the various moving adventures of the past year, and I was in no position to buy some new ones for the very hot weather we were having. Besides, it's the end of August now and the stores think it's winter, they're full of flannel shirts and such.

Things went smoothly at first, I rummaged in the many drawers of fabric and found some suitable material, located a suitable pants pattern, washed the material and cut it out. I seated myself in front of the sewing machine, newly back from repair and no longer sounding like a steam train with a bent drive rod, and hoped it would be thankful enough for the service to be good to me. I got out the directions, read them, read them again, and went through them a third them without understanding a thing. I soon realized the problem.

Up until this time I have only had to cope with a skirt. Not a difficult thing, a piece of fabric with a small hole on top and a larger hole in the bottom when you get down to the basics. Add a ruffle, elastic, or other doodads and it still remains the same. But pants, on the other hand (leg?) are a topological nightmare. I left college 25 years ago in part because advanced calculus was completely incomprehensible to me with all that stuff about morphing a coffee cup into a doughnut and spatial curves and other gobbledegook. Trying to piece together a pair of pants made me wish I had finished that course, because I truly needed it.

With the aid of a commercially assembled pair of pants and a lot of patience I was able to connect the legs in the right sequence and even get the pockets in the right place, all the while being thankful that skirts don't have pockets. I was gaining back my confidence now, and turned the page over and was once again lost in limbo. That's when I decided SRS would be simpler and more effective than continuing to sew.

Have you ever read the directions to assemble the fly on a pair of pants? Believe me, if I had Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking in the room with me they would be as completely mystified as I was. There are all these little bitty bits of cloth that have to be folded in a manner guaranteed to outclass an origami master. Then you have to sew them together an inch at a time with this overlapping that while holding the other thing still and being sure not to stitch through some piece of material whose function is completely incomprehensible. I tried, I really did, and failed miserably. Wielding my trusty seam ripper I took it all apart and did it again. By this time my wife was laughing uproariously, though she admitted under severe questioning she had never attempted to assemble a fly herself.

The second time it was a bit closer to the ideal, but the zipper was in backward. Maybe I could start a new fashion and wear them inside out? Nah, there is only one solution: SRS. And elastic. Without the bodily equipment I would have no need of a fly, a simple elastic waistband would be comfortable and effective.

Colorado, here I come.