“I Am Woman”
By Pauline Wendy Phillips
On weekends, holidays, and when alone at home, I would dress up in regular women’s dresses, skirts, shoes, and underclothes, plus cosmetics and jewelry. And I would venture out both day and night with a purse, even though I lived in an apartment complex next door to the manager and his son, with his daughter and family across the walkway beyond. Father and son were sometimes in the garage when I walked by down the alley. I watched carefully or turned my head away. And when I met the manager on his bike on the sidewalk one day, he did not show that he recognized me.
In the daytime I’d go to the park and watch the children, with their mothers, playing. And I wished I were an actual mother. I liked to wear a shiny screen-printed blouse with colorful bubbles on it. Or I’d go to the supermarket, go shopping, or just walk around. One night I took the bus to the First Congregational Church where an organ recital was held. On the way there, a man on the bus said I was beautiful! I also visited the university when school was not in session, and I used the women’s restrooms.
At first I wore a wig hat of artificial hair. But it was pulled off by a branch one night on 7th Street, which has a lot of traffic. I turned a corner and walked down a side street toward home. A man drove up, stopped, opened the car door, and asked me where some place was that he indicated, or I associated, with the gay community. I told him the general location where I thought it was. He asked me if I wanted to go with him to show him the way. I said no and walked on. I thought perhaps he had seen my wig fall off!
One day when I was shopping at the May Company wearing my female garb and wig hat, I went into one of the women’s departments. The saleslady looked rather shocked when she saw me. I was afraid she had “read” me! Then I went into the ladies’ restroom, which had a lounge. I sat down and took off my size 10 B high-heeled white shoes to cool and rest my feet. A lady came in, a saleslady, and sat down beside me.
She talked to me a little, then quickly jumped up and hurried out of the room, faster than I figured she would do to get back to work. I thought she had “read” me—not too good to happen in the restroom! So I hurried out of the lounge myself and took the elevator to a different floor. There was a security guard near the ground-floor elevator doors, but he seemed to pay no special attention to me. His job was to catch shoplifters.
So I let my hair grow long like some of the young men at school were doing, and soon quit wearing the wig hat, which was too warm anyway. When I went to the barber to get my hair cut, he commented on my short hair in front. I said I had trimmed it. So he said I ought not to cut it short in front. (When dressed as a woman, I had bangs to hide my high forehead.) So after that I got my hair cut and styled at the beauticians at Bullock’s or the shopping mall while I was dressed in regular women’s clothes.
By that time I had enlarged my bust by using a bust exerciser, from hormone therapy, and my natural female characteristics that encouraged such development. By then I wore man-tailored women’s shoes and clothes only at school and in public, except for such things as class observation and student teaching for my teacher-training classes. But on weekends when I was alone, I wore regular women’s clothes.
As for instant passability, I let my hair grow long, and wore my man-tailored women’s or unisex clothes. So by combing my hair with bangs and carrying a ladies’ colorful billfold in my hand, I could go to the post office or store and be called “ma’am” or “miss” okay! Out of habit some women clerks would say, “Yes, sir!” in answer to a question, or as an exclamation. I didn’t like it when it happened, but I didn’t let it bother me either.
While I would have preferred to wear a dress or skirt when I wore the above garb, it was okay for the circumstances till I could go full time. But after I went full time, I still wore pants. However, they were more feminine. “I was in heaven!” was how I felt, even when circumstances weren’t ideal.
I had also used a homemade clamp I had devised in an attempt at bloodless self-castration. I got the idea from the bloodless surgery method used by farmers and vets on livestock. The job was only partially successful and is not to be recommended! This raised my voice somewhat so that when I spoke up in a teacher-training class, I overheard a fellow female student comment to another in class that I would never make a teacher! Today prescription chemical castration is available. And some sex-reassignment surgery doctors will perform physical castration.
When I went to see Dr. Barbosa, I said something about trying to hide my hermaphroditism. He replied he didn’t think I could hide it, and he had given enough sex-change operations I figured he should know! After my bust developed, I had to run to catch the bus at CSULB one day. My breasts were flopping up and down underneath my shirt with no bra; the bus driver was laughing hard when I got on the bus, and I was sure I knew why. And I thought he was my apartment manager’s son-in-law!
I looked at men’s and women’s feet, live or in pictures, when they were sitting down, together or separately, each with a leg over the other knee, and wearing flat shoes. I noticed that the men’s feet stuck straight out or upward, whereas the women’s feet pointed downward. Also, the women’s feet had higher arches and insteps, and they even wore shoe styles to emphasize these facts. I wanted to make my feet more like the females’.
So I sat down on the floor and put my feet under the edge of an armchair with a folded towel over them, then lifted the edge of the chair off the floor with my feet placed just above my toes, then held the chair off the floor till the strain was too much. This stretched the tendons, muscles, and instep skin of my feet so that they began to have more of a female look when I sat down and shortened them in the process by raising my arches and insteps.
When I got used to the weight of the chair, I did as before with my feet under the end of the couch, which was considerably heavier. I did that until it was old hat as well. Two or more times daily I would kneel on the couch or bed with my feet straight back, then I would sit on my heels for several minutes. I also kneeled on the arm of the couch for a short time daily. This all helped to stretch my tendons. Originally, I had been flatfooted. Now I’m not.
Daily at various times, particularly after a bath or shower, and before putting on my shoes, I would bend my feet downward with my hands and hold them down for a time. This helped as above.
Then I read in Dr. Joseph M. Kadans’ book, Encyclopedia of Fruits, Vegetables, Nuts, and Seeds For Healthful Living (West Nyack, NY, 1973), p. 110, that the organic salicylic acid in grapefruit makes it “one of the most valuable fruits as an aid in the removal or dissolving of organic calcium which may have formed in the cartilage of the joints….” I figured gravity would make much, if not most, of the inorganic calcium, or other inorganic minerals, in the body to settle in the feet. So I started drinking 6 oz. of frozen or canned grapefruit juice once or twice daily, or eating a serving of canned grapefruit sections, hoping this would clean out any inorganic calcium or other deposited minerals in my feet and make them smaller still. About that time I was regularly wearing moccasin shoes. My idea worked. The grapefruit sections seemed to be the most effective.
I also reduced the overall size of my feet, so they would fit better in women’s shoes and ultimately a smaller size, by using toenail clippers, preferably the flat-end kind, to cut off the callused skin on my feet, including the thick dead skin on the heels of my feet. Then I used an electric foot sander and ordinary folded rough sandpaper to smooth down the remaining dead skin on my heels. I kept this up for as long as and as often as necessary. I sometimes soaked my feet in water to help.
Ultimately, from doing the above and the feet exercises for many years up to the present time, and losing a lot of weight, my women’s dress shoe size was reduced from a 10 B to a 7½ B, if it has enough toe room! Today I wear a size 7 B casual moccasin shoe. Many years ago a male designer of women’s clothes said on TV that the average size woman’s dress shoe at that time was a 7½ B for adult women.
It’s very important for me to wear shoes in the smallest sizes possible. I suppose that is because I wasn’t allowed to wear feminine girls’ shoes as a child. I used to buy girl-style shoes in women’s sizes. But they are scarce in the catalogs now, or quite expensive. I guess that’s because girls mature earlier than they used to, and so choose women’s shoes at an earlier age.
Also, I found that drinking 6 oz. of V-8 vegetable-juice cocktail daily over a period of time reduced the growth of body, facial, and arm/leg hair. If I drank a larger quantity, it seemed also to reduce top-of-head hair, which is a no-no! Eating acid-forming nuts (peanuts, English walnuts, and filberts) helps in the redistribution of my body fat to the skin and bust areas. Also, eating oily foods that are good for the skin (olives, avocados, chocolate, cashews) helps my fat to settle under the skin and lighten it. Starchy foods and ordinary oils deposit fat in large quantities on my body, particularly the abdomen. So I eat them sparingly.
After I developed a bust, I called my sons’ attention to it, and told them that God was changing my body. Now I don’t believe He had any direct role. And when we went to the store, I carried my woman’s billfold in my hand (just like some other women who didn’t carry a purse) and asked my boys not to call me “Dad” in public. They both also had begun out of habit calling me “Mom.” And I encouraged this. I told my boys not to tell their mom about me, because she might not let them see me.
When young boys in the neighborhood would see me dressed thus in man-tailored women’s clothes and holding a billfold, they would ask me or comment to those with them whether I was a man or a woman. When dressed thus with a billfold in my hand, adults seemed to accept me as a woman and would address me as a woman at the store, post office, shoe repair shop, on the street, etc.
I studied poetry writing at CSULB. So I wrote the following poem when at the university—based upon my research and my experience—but didn’t submit it in any poetry course:
TRANSVISION
He saw herself
in the mirror
femininely dressed,
with pink lips,
symbolic jewels,
and shiny tresses.
She smiled through the glass
at his sad, stubbled face
with eyes that leaked
the anguish within.
Yet, he must remain
what she’s not.
An electrologist’s needle,
a feminizing dose,
a plastic knife, could
change the scene.
But no, without real money
he’s left alone,
even by family,
to hack out for herself
a mutilated life
without much hope–
depression, deviled booze,
drugs, suicide–
except for friends, and God.
—Wendy Phillips, 1967; amended 1996.
I got my name changed on my credit cards, checks, and utilities, and legally with the state, and later on my disability income. I could change my name in California by adoption without having to go to court or have a lawyer, providing it was not done for illegal purposes. As I recall, I only had to file a form with the state, pay a small fee, and post a notice in a local newspaper. So I posted it in a throwaway paper least likely to be read in my neighborhood.
At first I got a second Social Security card with a new number and my female name. Later I changed my name on my old card, using a change of name form. When I tried to change my name at the university, they wouldn’t do so on the information I gave. I quit soon thereafter. I drove an electric golf-cart type vehicle I had bought from my brother, which required a driver’s license. I sold it.
My 10-year-old eldest son saw me pluck hairs from my face with tweezers. So he liked to pluck hairs from my face thus while he sat on my knee—with the excuse that there was nothing better to do. When I put on a dress or skirt and regular women’s clothes the last time my boys visited me, I looked and felt like a mother. And when I held them on my lap when dressed thus, I had a feeling of such peace, happiness, and contentment as I had never felt before nor since! The closest to it was many years later when I held a girl around 10 or 11 on my lap in a car. I felt very protective toward her and was prepared to grab her quickly if the car braked suddenly.
I decided it was time to tell my family and ex-wife about my hermaphroditism. I had read an article in the Long Beach Sunday newspaper about Christine Jorgensen, the first known transsexual to receive sex-reassignment surgery, whom I already knew about from my library research. The article said her love life hadn’t worked out as she wanted it to. I assumed my ex-wife had seen and read the article, and I called it to her attention. I believe I sent her my copy to be sure she knew about it. She admitted she had read it, but she was still surprised at my revelations about myself. She told me over the phone later that my sexual relations with her had been “all right.”
When I informed my family of my hermaphroditism, I told my brother some details first. So I wrote him a letter explaining the fact that I wore women’s clothes, and that sometimes when he would stop by my place when he was in Long Beach, I didn’t let on that I was home nor let him in because I was dressed in women’s clothes. My brother knew my wearing women’s clothes was because I was a hermaphrodite of some kind. The next time he dropped by in Long Beach, I let him in even though I was dressed in women’s clothes, including shorts. He wouldn’t look at me while he talked, which was hard for me to take.
When I wrote the various family members about my hermaphroditism, including this brother again, he told me he told Mother and our eldest brother and others that he thought the members of the family were involved in me being what I was. While they had their part in the matter, I couldn’t really agree to any great extent with his idea, as I knew my female sexual status was not basically an acquired status, but an inborn one by inheritance.
Since so many members of my family were educated or had been employed in the health field, I thought they would be more understanding than the medical books said other family members had been before. With both parents as chiropractors, a brother who was also one, a brother-in-law who was an M.D., an uncle who was an M.D., and two sisters who were RNs, plus an aunt and male cousin as nurses, I thought I’d be safe.
So when I wrote them, I was utterly shocked at their response and consternation. I had been told repeatedly throughout much of my life that I was a sissy, pantywaist, crybaby, weakling, tenderfoot, or other such terms that I thought they would be prepared to face the reality of what I am. So I was unprepared emotionally for the opposition I received and their avoidance of me.
After I notified my mother of my real sexual orientation, she mentioned Uncle Paul again, and showed me his picture to show me I didn’t need to dress as a woman even if I felt like one. But to me it proved all the more that I did! To whatever extent my female sexuality is inherited, I probably got it from my grandma’s branch of the family. Some family members seemed ready to accept me, but then others would interfere.
When I notified my family of my female status mentally, emotionally, and physically, Mother told my elder sister that after they had talked with me about it, she was sure it would all pass away like a nightmare! But all they or anyone else said against my position didn’t change a thing. The youngest of my three brothers said that he had felt none of the feelings I had about femaleness, as if his experience should be mine. But it wasn’t. A brother-in-law, a school psychologist, wrote me, and had my sister type up his letter (with her admitting having reservations) to say I had disgraced the entire family! Much later they calmed down enough to visit me once.
My ex-wife consulted a doctor about my case, and he advised her not to let me see my sons anymore, with the argument that they needed a good father figure, which they were already getting via their nice stepfather. She herself felt my boys couldn’t have two mothers. Since she had full custody of my sons, I bowed to her wishes; but I never could see any logic in the idea, since because of divorce and remarriage many children have both two mothers and two fathers.
I was so depressed with the situation that I finally gave up my student-teaching program and quit the university. By that time I had become a skeptic, freethinker, and a libertarian. I moved to Los Angeles and lived and dressed as a woman full time. One reason for moving there was because while shopping in the women’s dress department at Sears in Long Beach, I saw a short woman who reminded me of my ex-wife.
Being legally blind and not having seen her for a long time, I wasn’t sure. But I figured that eventually we would meet. And I didn’t want to meet up with her, given the way she felt about me. The official reason for moving was to write novels and screenplays, which I did, without them being produced or published. Virtually no women’s screenplays were produced, anyway!
When I told my landlord I was moving, his daughter and husband said they wanted to measure for carpeting, letting me know when. So just before they came, I took all my female clothes out of the closet and hung them on a clothes-drying rod over the bathtub, carefully closed the shower curtain, then opened the door wide against it. When they came to measure, I stood in the bathroom doorway out of the way, primarily to make sure they didn’t use any excuse to enter the bathroom.
Earlier I had sold everything I had–books, bookcase, console stereo, TV, etc.–that I couldn’t ship as packages to L.A. on the greyhound bus, check as baggage, or carry with me on Greyhound. I couldn’t afford to pay either regular furniture shipping or storage charges on disability income. And I didn’t think my eldest brother, who had helped me move to Long Beach, would want to help me move to L.A. as a woman.
When it came time to move, I dressed as female, took the intercity bus to L.A., and checked out apartment ads in the newspaper. Then I went back home after knowing the possibilities in a good part of town. I had the landlord’s grandson give my apartment key to his mom or the landlord both of whom were working in another apartment building. Dressed in man-tailored female clothes, I took the city bus to the Greyhound station in the afternoon. In the ladies’ restroom in the station I changed my clothes to more feminine clothes and shoes, and I applied make-up.
Thus dressed I took the Greyhound bus to L.A.. From prior interstate bus travel I was familiar with the Greyhound bus station. I chose it to get to L.A. finally because of its package/ baggage/ luggage-holding facilities, and its lock boxes to hold what I checked out that I couldn’t take on a trip on the city bus. In L.A., I took a taxi to a hotel that had a YWCA hotel section and got a room with private bath for one night.
I might have avoided this extra expense. But I wanted the experience of staying in a hotel as a woman! And didn’t know when or if I’d ever get the chance again. In the morning I returned to the Greyhound bus station and put my luggage in a lock box. Then, via the city bus, I found an apartment I had previously seen advertised. After a few trips on the bus with what I could carry, I finally got all my meager remaining possessions and clothes to my new apartment.
Living full time as a woman was more important to me than having the goods I’d sold, including my expensive console stereo with 15″ speakers I had assembled myself from electronic and cabinet kits! There really wasn’t room for it anyway in the bachelorette apartment I rented, which had a desk I needed for writing. Thus I began my life full time as a woman and notified my family where I was and why. At first, I didn’t even have a radio.
When I moved and notified my family of my new address, my eldest sister, a nurse, came to see me. She looked through my clothes hanging in the closet. I was sure it was to see if I had any male clothing. But none was visible, because when I moved, I had put all my male clothing in a bag or suitcase and put it up on the shelf in the closet. I figured my sister would have demanded I wear male clothing if she had seen any! Shortly thereafter, I gave all my male clothing and shoes to the Salvation Army.
When I applied for a job, dressed somewhat fancy, the man who interviewed me asked me over the phone if I had any more clothes. I had very few. I didn’t take the job. When I applied for a job at an employment agency, the interviewer asked me if I could pass a medical examination. I said I thought so. He looked at both my ears where I wore clip-on earrings. So I gave up looking for a job and wrote novels and screenplays instead. My mother gave me an old small portable typewriter she had, so I used that for my writing.
I later took more electrolysis treatments at the May Company after I got its credit card. I quit that when the woman working on my underarm hair commented that I needed some work on my face. It cost me too much, anyway. And ever since, I have plucked whatever scant or fine facial hair appeared, and shaved scantily and rarely on my face, and not much nor often elsewhere.
I got my hair cut, shaped, or curled in L.A. in the beauty shops at the May Company, Montgomery Ward, and later Penney’s. Usually women worked on me, but occasionally a male. I preferred the women. Once I got a permanent at Wards. Some of the chemical got on my right ear and permanently damaged the skin. So I never got another one.
Eventually I let my hair grow as long as it would, curly straight, and only had it trimmed. Now I usually trim it myself. Now it’s the longest it has ever been, down below my breasts to my belt in front. In time, its color went from dark brown to brown-blond. As a child, it was blond. For a time I dyed my hair blond. But I got so much male attention I wasn’t prepared to deal with, that I quit. The dark brown soon grew out where I parted my hair, anyway.
I not only wanted to live and dress as a woman, but I wanted my family to accept me and thus be able to attend family gatherings as a woman. Because of the rejection I received from some family members, I felt like committing suicide! I would look out the window of my eighth-floor apartment to the parking lot below and think about jumping out the window. But I was held back. Or, when on the stairs, I would look down the open center of the stairwell and think about jumping over the banister to my sure death eight stories below. But I was held back.
When I visited my mother, I came to the front door as did my eldest sister and left the same way. Once at the door when I was leaving, I told my mother I felt like committing suicide. She looked at me for a bit saying nothing, then replied, “Well, you’re doing what you want now.” She just didn’t understand.
Once when there was a car accident at the nearby corner, and we both went to see it, Mother introduced me as Pauline to her next-door neighbor lady who was also there. Later she said I shouldn’t come to the front door when I visited her but walk up the driveway and go into her chiropractic office, which was connected to the back of her house.
Once when I did that, I saw a man I knew come out of the office. When he spoke, I just shook my head and acted as if I didn’t know him. Later, when he came back as a patient and told Mother about seeing me and that I looked familiar, she said she told him I was a “very distant” relative. Then she told me she later felt terrible about saying that.
When I started living full time as a female, I went anywhere I wanted to go, day or night, that I could afford. And I went mostly alone. I bought a swimsuit and went to the beach—and experienced guys being interested in me!
I visited very many shopping centers. I dealt with store clerks “as if I owned the place.” I researched many libraries. I visited with the people (females) in my eight-story apartment building, both in their apartments and in the lobby. One old man in his nineties got me to go to his apartment on a business deal. But it didn’t take long to see he had more than real estate secretarying on his mind! So I left.
I studied photography by home study and bought professional camera equipment and went a lot of places on the bus with it and took a lot of pictures–at the beach, observatory, county fair, museums, around town, skid row. I finally gave up my picture taking as I had difficulty focusing because of my poor vision. That was before auto-focusing cameras were common or inexpensive.
I went to organ recitals and other music programs. I went to day and evening meetings. Sometimes somewhere I’d meet someone I knew, and they’d give me a ride home. Or they’d see me at a bus stop and give me a ride. Guys would sometimes give me a ride home from church or other meetings. I spoke from the platform and in classes. I tried many things or clothes and shoes once at least just to experience them as female.
I was usually courageous and brave, and when I really wasn’t, I acted as if I were! I’ve done just about anything any well-educated, talented, religious woman would do.
When I rode the bus anywhere, I liked to sit behind the driver and talk to him or her. And they liked to talk to me. Once when I wore hot pink hot pants over pantyhose, a Lions’ Club man talked with me at the bus stop at midday and asked me to go for coffee with him. I declined his offer. When I refused, he asked me why I was dressed that way. I said I was going to see my mother.
Another time when I was dressed that way, on the way back home after visiting my mother, I sat behind the black bus driver and talked with him as I often did to drivers. He was really friendly and later invited me to lunch at the end of the line at the bus terminal. I declined him, too.
Copyright 1996, 1998, 1999 by Wendy Phillips
Pauline Wendy Phillips was an intersex Seventh-day Adventist who was living in the Midwest at the time of writing this story.