Dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, & legal protection of individuals in the process of correcting the misalignment of their anatomical sex, & supporting their transition into society.
Springfield, VA, USA. In my ancient days at university, back when we did math in our heads or used a slide rule (gather round children it was a time when there were no hand held calculators and computers were large exotic creatures that spoke Fortran and COBOL), so long ago that the revered shrinks were two — Freud and Jung — and Carl Rogers was the hot pop-psych guru.
I was a psychology minor with a double minor in education, eventually earning a grand total of 30 semester units in psychology (that would be something like 4000 quarter units, I guess).
All of this was accomplished while completing a BA in English, a Masters in Rhetoric, and a Secondary Teaching Credential and doing my best to avoid the draft and participation in the Viet Nam War.
As a matter of course, I learned how the Rorschach works [1] and other devious mechanisms of psychological deviltry intended to dissect the human mind. The mind professors taught me the difference between what was considered normal and the people they would really like to
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When I met my Shrink (and he met me), I told him up front that I had been part way up the mountain (not mentioning what I had learned on my own), promising I would try to respond spontaneously to his questions and not run my thoughts through a pre-amp filter. Then I mentioned that he was sitting at the proper shrinking distance — close enough to the patient to seem friendly, far enough away to retain distance and authority — and off we went, traipsing through the twists and eddies of my psyche. [3]
Meanwhile, back in school, I had learned that all psyche’s were divided into ego, super ego, and id. Sometimes the Prof’s depiction was a trisected triangle, other times three circles like a Venn diagram: it was all the same.
Then there was Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs resembling a ladder leading to maturity [4] (or sometimes it was a pyramid — same deal). At the bottom were physical needs (breathing, eating, sleeping, sex) and, as each need was filled, you move up to the next one: safety, love and belonging, self-esteem, and finally, at the very top, self-actualization (morality, creativity, problem solving, etc.).
I forgot all of that so I could become a virgin patient on whom my therapist, well trained in the art, could cast his magic. The only thing I remembered was that sometimes, a cigar is just cigar.
But I didn’t want no cigar.
Hi, my name is [insert totally inappropriate male praenomen].
I am a pre-op transsexual
(not knowing that within years I would adopt HBS terminology after the transgenders appropriated transsexuality to describe men who liked to wear dresses but didn’t want no stinking operations).
And we were off, me filling in background, him asking questions crafted to solicit the answers he was looking for.
Married?
Yes, but planning to divorce.
Children?
Three. I’m waiting for the oldest to turn 18 before I leave, before I transition.
What did you know and when did you know it?
I was girl, as far back as I can remember and had the words. Certainly by three or four, if not earlier.
Work? (Possibly concerned with how I was paying for this).
Pentagon. Career Civilian.
Goal?
Divorce. Transition. Sex Reassignment Surgery. Life.
It was like confession, but without the lecture on your sinfulness and the penance. Of course, the monsignor never charged me $150 a visit for absolution.
When my hour was up, I left The Room. There was a waiting line outside the confessional.
Who were all these people?
What did they think they knew and when did they think they knew it?
Wonder what THEY are here for.
Wonder if anyone recognizes me.
This went on through several years and more until I was well divorced, well transitioned, and well post-op.
The funny thing is, my therapist and I both knew the questions we would ask and the answers I should give. We both knew that we both knew.
If you are a Male to Female pre-op, you probably shouldn’t be reluctant or nervous talking about Sex Reassignment Surgery. Nor should you ramble on about how well you fit in with all the other boys when you were a child or how you could barely wait for football [5] to begin each fall because of how much you like the violent physical contact.
There is a range of variance among HBS men and women, but if your answers wander too far into stereotypical responses for the sex you say you want desperately to leave, you are pretty well guaranteed your therapist will want to see you for a long, long time before he gives you that letter confirming the diagnosis [6]. Finding the best appropriate answers are not difficult in the age of internet and 24-7 total access:
You self-identified as HBS at an early age.
Failing early self-identification, you had a sudden awareness later in life what your real problem was all along.
You felt lost in the world of boys (or girls as the case may be), unable to fit in, unable to understand what they were thinking or why they thought that you should think that hitting each other at random and burping was hysterical fun [7].
You had desperate thoughts of suicide when you realized you might never be able to be who you actually are [8].
You have made your decision, you have carefully considered your life choice, and here you are at the therapist’s office starting through the HBS protocols [9].
Somewhere in here a good therapist will ask you who you have told about your decision and when you plan to tell the rest of the people you need to tell. [10] Telling your spouse is always a good place to start. Then parents. Then any children that may be involved. Then friends, neighbors, grandparents …. All leading down to when are you planning to tell your boss and co-workers. [11]
If you can’t figure out what the answers should be, you possibly aren’t an HBS man or women, at least not one close to transition. Before you ever see a therapist, you should probably have figured out the questions yourself — hell, you should have already asked yourself the questions and answered them to the best of your knowledge (it’s the therapist’s job to help you fill in the gaps).
You can try to fake the answers, or adopt a list from some website that thinks it was helping you, but if the answers aren’t your own, a good therapist will see right through you. A bad therapist will just take your money until he has enough and sign a letter authorizing you to go cut yourself up.
It’s your money, and it’s your body, and your single chance to do things right.
Me?
I’d rather work on learning the answers on my own.
[1] The Psychs are looking for original answers to inkblots, the more the better, as well as the more routine responses that show you are normal as opposed to a list of red flagged responses that indicate you might be a threat to society or yourself. I can’t give you a definitive list of red flagged no-no’s but, if you see a girl getting tortured or a puppy being shot, perhaps you shouldn’t mention it to your shrink.
[2] They also taught me how to run white rats in a Skinner Box but that’s a story for another day.
[3] Ideally you should see your psych once a week, but I was paying for treatment myself (Kaiser Permanente specifically excludes HBS [transsexuality]) and I could only afford visits every other week.
[4] Stargate SG-1 called this “ascendancy.”
[5] American Football, not soccer.
[6] Or he may give you a diagnosis you don’t want, say Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Bi-polar.
[7] If you are a Female to Male HBS, I guess you were wondering why all the girls thought playing with dolls was such fun when you would rather be outside getting hit by the other boys.
[8] But never actual suicide attempts (shows mental instability).
[9] If you haven’t asked someone already, this is a good place to ask your therapist if he knows an Endo experienced with HBS men and women (he does) and a good source of inexpensive hormones (he doesn’t).
[10] A bad therapist will ask for payment for the session.
[11] And what is your schedule for transition?
Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is the Co-Founder & President of TS-Si, Inc. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates.
Lisa welcomes your comments. You can use the public form below or send private correspondence via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
In the theory of gender I began from zero. There is no masculine power or privilege I did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot escape her hormonal identity.
![I learned how the Rorschach works [1] and other devious mechanisms of psychological deviltry intended to dissect the human mind.](http://ts-si.org/images/stories/RorschachWoman.jpg "I learned how the Rorschach works [1] and other devious mechanisms of psychological deviltry intended to dissect the human mind.")
The mind professors taught me the difference between what was considered normal and the people they would really like to 
Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson
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