A new wrinkle

It was a warm Saturday in Monterey and there were about 10 of us in group session with our therapist. Half of us were F2M's and the other were M2F's. As we sat across from each other talking about our lives and what would be in store for us in the future our therapist told us something that has continued to haunt me until a few weeks ago.

Now this is back in 2004 and a lot has happened in the intervening five years. As I sat there a partially made female very comfortable in dressing and being out as a woman, but still having a male responsibility on my work days, I thought about the comment our therapist told to all of us.

What he said was this. "As you continue to grow and live in the opposite gender, you will find that your core values on how you see yourself will change". For me as a former heterosexual male, meant that would I be seeking a Gay relationship with a man? And this comment raised a few eyebrows among the crowd.

Going forward five years, it is now early February 2009. My body has changed, I am about 11 months post-op and have gone through my own transitioning from male to a woman and generally I consider myself as a woman, not as a Transgendered or a Transsexual, but a "Post-Menopausal" female.

Getting up in the morning, dressing in front of the mirror it is not hard to see a definite change at my smaller female waistline, breast that are proportioned for my body and my new vagina. I now understand the implications on what it means to be physically female; but then there is that feeling that I am not complete, that even though I have a stable marriage and love my wife, I am missing out and probably will never know "what" it truely means to have a relationship with a man.

It isn't a thought anymore; but a statement. Will I go through life as a completed woman and never enjoy the feel of a man as he makes love to me, for now it is yes. But then strange things are now coming into play.

I now find myself being on two different female hormones and in November and at work I started to have a very small sexual fantasy that is originated by a bed. I am starting to feel a bit hot, but dismiss this as working very hard or the heat on our floor is up too high. Which brings a bit of laughter from my supervisor who is a Registered Nurse tell me that I am having hot flashes.

But this one ongoing fantasy of having sex with a 30-55 y/o version of that 90 year old resident in that bed gives me pause. It is the only apartment in the entire floor of 31 apartments that I have trouble with. This fantasy only last for a few moments, but in this fantasy I find my clothes being ripped off my body and my undergarments being pulled off as this younger male penetrates me.

I don't know why this is happening or why I am having this one particular fantasy, but in December at our yearly group Christmas party, I am telling my therapist this and he started laughing by telling me that these feelings and ideas are what normal women have, normal sexual fantasies and also he tells me "Cameron You're horny". So the fantasy subsides, but is still there.

With that in mind, it is now early February 2009 and feeling that I need to see old friends at an upcoming Transgender conference I call a few friends that are going to see if I can stay in their room while attending the conference. I'm thinking that I would be going to a few seminars, participating in the few shopping excursions, dressing with the other girls, meeting new friends, then go home to my family.

But what I did not expect was another email from another friend who will be attending the conference, but coming up a day earlier to set up his booth at the conference. What started out as a normal email by him telling me that he would love to have dinner with me and to talk about old times, became in 72 hours a torrent of emails that went from PG to X-rated.

We started talking about sex and suddenly I now find myself in the enviable position of possibly having sex with a man an sleeping with him in his bed for two nights.

Now I am in a quandry, I now find that this sudden unexpected present has now changed my views on my personal core values. Since I am now female and not a male the thought of possibly enjoying sex with a man is something that I want to pursue.

And that prophetic warning to us has now become reality. What our therapist had also told us is that this is not about GAY sex, but a coming full-circle in our genders to see if we as in my case a woman can have a relationship with a man.

I think now, that as I grow into my new life as a woman, that this thought is now someting that is important and I want to feel that touch from a man and to have that man love me as a woman.