My friend is a woman
My friend is a woman
How I, as a straight woman, try to deal with my friend's transition from man to woman.
“I want to be a woman.”
These words are still engraved in my memory as if he uttered them yesterday. In reality, he told me them at the end of last year, somewhere early October 2019. I fell from the sky. Of course I already knew that my friend was not a cliché machoman, and let that be exactly what attracts me so much about him. He is also autistic, because of which he can not always name his feelings and emotions, this is called “alexithymia.” We've been together for almost four and a half years now, and in the meantime, you know a thing or two about each other. For example, he told me that he used to wear dresses of his sisters for fun.Not a big deal, you might think. My mother had shortened and taken one of my father's overalls so I could walk through the mud with overalls and rubber boots and play farmer. However, what my friend never told me is how he felt when wearing those dresses, because he could never explain his emotions. Now this is still difficult for him, but with the help of a psychologist and sexologist, he slowly but surely comes out. He felt “right “when he wore those dresses, like he had to wear those dresses, and he always would. But he was born a man and his parents always raised him like that. My friend has a mustache, a beard, broad shoulders and a heavy voice. Nothing about him has ever made me - or anyone around me - suspect he's transgender.
First appointment with the sexologist.
On October 14, he had his first appointment with a sexologist attached to a hospital in our region. That was a very difficult day for me, because my head told me he'd come back from the hospital as a woman. No, no, no. His sexologist helps him to (re) discover his orientation, his gender and who he wants to be. The appointments were supposed to come monthly. My friend has a counselor who helps him because he's autistic, and she's been with him once to the sexologist. I haven't dared to do it so far. After his penultimate appointment with the sexologist, he comes home and says, “I can start hormone therapy, it's really going to happen!” I can tell you that I felt terrified that day, and I had one panic attack after another and systematically hid it all from my friend. To this day, I still have panic attacks, although thanks to my new antidepressants, these are a lot less frequent.
To the endocrinologist.
At some point, my friend's autism supervisor is sitting with us, and she says to him, “Oh yes, I have mapped out our train and bus routes to get to Mortsel”. I fell all the way from the sky. When I asked why they went to Mortsel and when, the counselor looked at me amazed. She thought I knew they were going to Mortsel together. No, no. Apparently, there's an endocrinologist. I had NEVER heard the word in my life, but apparently this is also called a 'hormone doctor', who is very concerned with diabetic patients, but also with people with hormone problems or, in this case, transgender. My throat was kind of pinched. Hormones already? A thousand and one questions popped my head in, and most of them are still there.
The first hormone pill.
Yesterday it was then time: he was allowed to pick up the prescription for his hormones from the GP. He then did this and he immediately went to get the medication from the pharmacist. Yesterday he also immediately took his first two doses. I am terrified. Realistically, I know that no changes will be noticeable for the time being, but they will actually be there. For him, of course, it was great. He loves this whole process, he will finally become who he wants to be and he hopes to finally be truly happy. And I'll give him that. How hard I give him that.
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