I initially titled this an ally - but after forgetting to put the space in when I typed it in google to check my spelling I changed my mind 😳

I travelled down the road last night with my children to stay at my sisters house, we both have daughters who were born on the same day and so while cousins they often look and behave as twins. (My two younger sisters who I am yet to tell about my trans feelings are twins so I really do know).  Once the kids had been sent to bed I got to sit up and have a really good catch up with my sister - I talk with her regularly on the phone and message quite often via facebook but nothing beats sitting in the same room and just offloading on one another.

She has been doing a lot of reading about being transgender and was honest enough to tell me when I mentioned feeling like a failure as a man in just about every area of my  life that she never saw me as effeminate or girly - and that simply being raised with girls naturally made me more emotionally aware. She asked if I had read about folk that have detransitioned after deciding they had made a mistake too.

I love that my sister can ask this and I know it does not come from anything other than curiosity and a desire to help. I pointed out that having girls around does not necessarily make a guy more emotionally aware, but also the fact that I have learnt to hide a lot of things very early on for instance she never knew when I was borrowing her clothes - a point she had to concede...😊 I was the Sherlock Holmes of clothing - it would be replaced in the same drawer open to the same amount and folded in the same way it had been when I took it - short of taping hairs to the door she would never have known I had been in her room. Nothing was ever out of place unless it had come from the laundry basket.

I also said that when I first started looking at gender videos and blogs I did watch a few videos but stopped because the ones I found all seemed to be from people who had transitioned when young and it wasn't so much that they did not feel trans that made them de-transition but that they could no longer take the negatives from being their preferred gender.

Though I have been sat wondering W.T.F. I am doing this week. Asking myself if all of this stress is going to be worth it - if becoming female is actually going to make me feel more like the real me or less - especially if I have to teach myself to talk differently and walk differently and wear a wig to disguise my shiny testosterone created dome... am I going to be more me or less me?

Being transgender is not THE journey for me - I have told a couple of people that trying to find out who I am now I am on my own again is where this journey started, unpicking why I felt so good being dressed as a woman and actually stopping to ask myself why I have felt the need to dress in womens clothing on and off for my entire life is how I have gotten to this point.

I said that the more I share online the more people seem to understand my thoughts and feelings and experiences and be able to draw parallels with their own lives, and while it is great to make connections with people who truly understand putting yourself under a microscope like this I think part of me was hoping that no one would have had the same thoughts or experiences and I could tell myself that I was not transgender and just stay a slightly kinky bloke forever. 

It was in this frame of mind that I turned up for my consultant's session as the beauty Spa that I had booked myself into to talk about getting my facial and body hair removed.  I had to ask directions twice as the spa is attached to a very swanky hotel in the town, but it means that reputation and service are going to be high even if the price is inflated to match their fluffy white towels...

I had a brief medical form to fill in and sat waiting for my consultant to arrive, just me - bald guy in a jacket using his male name, the twenty something year old lassie beside me and two older ladies across from me and nobody saying a word or looking at each other - the ladies soon went off to get their nails done and the lassie was then called leaving me on my own. The receptionist bless her did offer me a cup of tea but I have read online that caffeine can somehow make you more sensitive to the pain so I was doing all this without my morning coffee..

The consultant breezed in with her own steaming mug of coffee and I was shown into the room while she moaned about the lack of parking and being blocked fromher space due to a classic car collection parked outside - I made a comment about the men showing off their new toys to one another and she made the usual must be compensating for something joke and then we got down to business.

Which areas do you want done? and then why do you want your hair removed - initially I just talked about having experienced being hairless for the first time in my adult life last halloween that I just really was getting fed up of shaving, but in a few more moments she asked again why I wanted all my hair removed and so I said that I had been questioning my gender. Wow - talk about saying the right thing.

She had been pleasant before, but oh my word if this did not feel like the big reveal at a game show!

Instantly she asked a lot of questions about if I had attended the local clinic or been to my GP because she is on first name terms with the woman there and that she has lots of other girls come in and I literally got about 15 minutes of sage advice about getting all my ducks in a row before coming out - how wearing female clothing can still be done subtly without the need to wear a miniskirt and become a tart (I am paraphrasing) my response was that with the best will int the world I would not suit a miniskirt even if I wanted to!

I had to remind her that I have not even had my initial meeting yet, that I was not on hormones and was not even close to claiming sessions on the NHS - but I was there because I have never grown a beard and have always hated my facial hair and the chore of shaving so even if I never went through with transition it is a good investment to never need to shave again. There were other quickfire conversations mostly prefaced with a comment about how she probably shouldn't say anything but I said that other than my two sisters she is the first living person i have told face to face and I always appreciate honesty over back handed compliments.

From that point on I became dear and sweetie and while she still f'ed and blinded (heavily swore) her way through our meeting it was like a breath of fresh air - she volunteered to put me in touch with the local support group there and confirmed that in her opinion I am right not to say anything to my ex or my children until I am much further a long and that we will talk about make up and where and how to get my eyebrows done and all sorts of things - before eventually getting back to the sessions. Apparently I will not be straight forward - but in my life that is a constant and so I was not expecting anything less - she went through the two types of laser - IPL and NDYAG and said that IPL was like a weed clearer - it would kill of the darkest hairs but be useless against the red and white hairs that my Scottish caucasian genes have blessed me with.

The YAG laser is much more powerful and will kill off a lot more, but is far more focused and covers a smaller area, which means it takes longer and is almost twice as expensive, and then finally all that should be left would be the white hairs for electrolysis.  I talked about whether laser was a false economy as I did not want to throw good money after bad for a temporary solution and she assured me that the thermal reaction is permanent, it takes many multiples of sessions because of the growth cycles but she can keep me right and will let me know when the best times are to go in and for which treatment - The lasers have improved since she first started working with them, but if you use it on the wrong pigment type it will not get down far enough to excite the hair root inside the follicle to detonate and then pretty much just becomes a fancy way of waxing as the hair is not destroyed.

She said she had started this 30 odd years ago and was trained in Italy as the lasers she uses were not available in the UK at the time - the good news is that the YAG laser seems to be pretty good, the IPL one she knew was pointless on my face but felt that it wold work well on my chest and back hair where my Pili Multigemini is actually a blessing.

The test patches were like being flicked with an elastic band in the face repeatedly - unpleasant but not unbearable, and the smell of burning hair I already know from years of throwing hair brush contents onto open fires.. my skin just looks like I have a shaving rash which on a male is not even worth noticing.

I am going back for my first hour of treatment next Saturday - it is going to cost me an absolute fortune, but the knowledge and openness and understanding of this woman not only put me totally at ease but I was positively floating when I left.

I then proceeded to the hotel bar where I met my other elder sister for coffee and recounted my session, we put the world to rights and then I accompanied her to a different salon in the town where she was getting her shellaq nails removed - it was not an intentional thing but was again another usually all female space that I came into - after an amazing day I have then collected the children and driven home - normally I would blog abut this on my Monday, but I needed to get it down before I forget the feeling.

I may have looked and presented male for most of the day, but it actually turned out to be a very affirming Dee day after all!