“Dancing on the Light”
By Pauline Wendy Phillips
In Long Beach and L.A., I had my picture taken a few times by automatic cameras/developers in drug stores. I did this mainly after getting my hair done.
Mostly, I had no actual problems in being accepted by adults as a woman. Once I got on the bus wearing a women’s navy blue Navy pea jacket, and the woman I sat beside said I needed to cut my hair “because I didn’t want to look like a girl all my life”! I didn’t know for sure what she meant, but it really angered me for a total stranger to tell me how long my hair should be and what I wanted to look like! Especially since she was wrong.
I didn’t answer her, so she looked at my feet to see how big my feet were, what shoes I wore, or both. I was sure then I knew what she meant. So I gave the jacket away and decided that in future all my clothes would have colors and designs that were obviously female.
Later, about the time there was something on the news about an Olympic star being a transsexual, I bought a new bike that had the word “Olympic” on the frame. I rode it up to a church in Hollywood to practice the organ. A couple of teen girls on Hollywood Blvd. saw me and said I was a “sex-change.” I talked as if I didn’t know what they were taking about, in general, and of the star, in particular. But they insisted they knew who and what I was!
When I waited at the bus stops in Hollywood, men would very often stand behind me rather than stand beside me or sit on the bench, as men usually did elsewhere. I figured they were gay men trying to size me up whether I was female. Or that they were women haters.
Eventually I lost enough weight to be lean. So occasionally a boy would ask me if I were a boy or a girl. And I rode a bike a lot to get around. So a few boys and girls of the highly critical junior-high age, talked to me and treated me as if I were one of them! They asked questions or made statements regarding whether I was a boy, girl, or a “he-she,” as they put it.
But adults, whether at church, neighbors, businesspersons, or strangers, have said or done nothing to show they had any problem accepting me as female, even when I don’t wear visible cosmetics. I’m not as particular in that regard as I once was. The only jewelry I wear has symbolic value—biblical, love-related, and nature-oriented. The Roman cross is an example. Also, I wear love symbols like hearts.
When I used the bus a lot, guys were constantly trying to pick me up at the bus stop, or as I walked along on the sidewalk though I was a total stranger to them! I didn’t like this. Many guys would whistle or honk their horns at me. I thought this was flattering and didn’t mind. I was not a bathing beauty nor a star. So I was sure they liked the way I dressed.
When I lived in L.A., I recall having at least six transsexuals in my apartment, two individually and four as a group. I also visited another nearby in her apartment. The transsexuals wanted me to be friends with them more than I wanted to be as I wanted to be accepted as 100% female and woman without being reminded of any prior apparent maleness. And I had enough problems of my own that I didn’t want to take on others’ as well. I failed to realize then that by listening to and helping others with their problems I would help solve and cope with my own.
I also talked on the phone with Virginia Prince, a prominent public crossdresser. She tried to convince me I didn’t need and shouldn’t even want sex-reassignment surgery—a “hole,” as she put it. She didn’t convince me in the least!
After writing two screenplays and a novel, I began researching and writing a radical libertarian book. In the fall of 1970, I was about finished with it. Late one afternoon I watched the news on TV about the Jordan civil war in the Middle East. Despite being a skeptic, freethinker, and a libertarian, I was concerned about what was going on there because of my knowledge of Bible prophecy and meditated upon the matter after turning the TV off.
Suddenly I heard an audible “voice” inside my head command me, “Write the book! Write the book!” That was all. I immediately knew what “book” was meant by The Voice because, before I had moved to Long Beach while I was still married, I had contemplated writing a book on Bible prophecy. So the very next day I quit my researching and writing on the libertarian book, and instead began researching for The Book in the Los Angeles Public Library.
And the research and writing on The Book continues to this day. In researching and writing, I regained my childhood SDA faith and rejoined that church as female by rebaptism in 1974. And my findings for The Book are now published online via AOL and CompuServe in their religion forums. During my continual research for The Book, I heard on the news about transsexuals having female brains. This prompted me to research the Transgender Community Forum. And in the process I have learned a lot more about transgenderism and gained some nice transgender friends!
In 1971 my ex-wife informed me over the phone that my boys were being adopted and that I shouldn’t write to them anymore. She said she had intended to be more lenient with me, but the way my family treated me encouraged her to do the same. Also, her sister had just died. And when I learned of it, I wrote her saying I wished I could visit her sister’s husband. That all influenced her attitude. But I hold nothing against her or my family.
I was advised by the adoption agency in Los Angeles to sign my boys over without complaint. If I had taken it to court, I couldn’t have won, because of my financial status of living on disability income (because of legal blindness), and to my hermaphrodite status. So I signed my boys away with the understanding they had said they wanted to be adopted by their new stepfather.
Early in L.A. I bought a new electric portable sewing machine, intending to learn how to sew. However, because of my legal blindness, I couldn’t get close enough to the needle in the machine to get the thread through the hole. And I didn’t see any way to thread the needle otherwise. So I sold the machine at a loss and gave up the idea of sewing. My sewing is now limited to button sewing or re-sewing a small seam with a hand needle.
After I had been living full time as a woman for four years, a male lawyer who had been a classmate of mine organized the 25th anniversary of our graduation from a private religious high school. I didn’t go. I had long since lost contact with my classmates. I didn’t want to confuse anyone by appearing as female. Neither did I want to dress as male. That was out of the question! I didn’t even own any male clothes. And I wasn’t about to buy any.
For a time in the mid-1970s it was the style for women to wear long dresses. So I wore them to church. Early one Saturday morning, while I was standing at the bus stop at Hollywood and Vine to get to the church early to practice the organ for a piece I was to play, a police paddy wagon stopped there and parked. I sensed the cops were watching me. But I had a Bible in my hand and didn’t pay any attention to them. And they didn’t bother me either and finally drove away before the bus came.
The only real problem I ever had with the cops as a woman was once when I walked across the street on a red light, and a white cop was right there on his motorcycle. He drove across the street after me. When he asked me, I showed him my female ID, and then I explained my poor vision, and he didn’t give me a ticket. I even asked him his view on the upcoming election in which the black police chief was running for mayor of L.A.! So we talked awhile.
One day when I researched in the L.A. Public Library, I was wearing pants made of shiny heavy-duty nylon. From a distance, they might have looked like pajamas. At least, a cop must have thought so. When I was standing at the bus stop, he stopped his car out in the street, away from the curb. Then he walked fast on the sidewalk up to where I and a group of other people were standing. He walked through the group and past me on out into the street and back to his car without stopping. Then through the window on the driver’s side he talked on his radio (I was sure he was asking about me); then he got in his car and drove off.
Sometimes when I got on or off the bus in downtown L.A. to change buses in what became an extension of skid row, some men would say I was pretty or beautiful. Again, I figured they liked the way I dressed. I figured they didn’t see many women in their part of town dressed as I was.
One day when I lived in Pasadena, California, I was standing in line inside the bank. The lady bank manager selected me out of the line over to her desk and gave me first-class preferential treatment with whatever business I was there for. And she offered to do the same for me in the future. I figured she was lesbian. And I didn’t think it fair of her to treat me any better than anyone else. So later, after another try or two, she gave up on me.
Since my “basement plumbing” isn’t set up for typical male-female sex with me on the bottom, I’ve remained single since I was divorced, and remain celibate. I’m not really interested in men, anyway.
When my sons became of age at 18, I began to write to each of them again. I hoped they would want to renew our past happy relationship, as we had been very close. But both sons had other interests by that time. It has been slow renewing our former relationship. And it still isn’t what I’d like it to be. I still love my sons very much and wish we could be close as we once were.
Once, in a letter, I invited my eldest son to talk to me on the phone. He wrote back that he didn’t think he’d want to do that. He said he wanted to remember me as he had known me before. And neither son has offered me his phone number. So, for 27 years, I have not talked to either son on the phone—since my ex-wife prohibited me from seeing them anymore!
I sent my youngest son and my eldest son and his wife much of the information in the expose you are now reading so that they might understand me better. My son’s wife had written that her husband had told her all he knew about me. This information, along with some printed material on transsexualism/hermaphroditism, cleared up some misunderstandings. And my son’s wife wrote they appreciated very much the information I had sent.
For a long time she was very faithful in writing to me and sending me cards, till two children came along to take up her time. As of the end of 1995, I had not heard from her in over an entire year, even though I had written several times or sent cards. I love her as a daughter even though I have never seen her. My eldest son wrote occasionally. My youngest son doesn’t remember me as well as his brother does, but I heard from him, too. But I’ve seen neither son in 28 years! Finally, they all quit writing me.
At first, the state of California paid for my estrogen prescription. But when it quit doing so many years ago, I didn’t take a hormone prescription anymore. Instead, I ate more cream, and began eating the acid-forming nuts, all of which have phyto (plant) estrogens. I believe that regularly eating cream and acid-forming nuts, particularly peanuts, and avoiding alkaline nuts (almonds), beans (soy), and grain (millet) mostly, handles the initial rise in the pitch of my voice. After its initial rise higher into the alto range, after I partially bloodlessly castrated myself and began taking Premarin.
If my voice had naturally lowered into the bass range, or if I hadn’t partially bloodlessly castrated myself, the hormone, cream, and nuts treatment might not have changed the pitch of my voice, nor perhaps its quality. If my mother hadn’t raised me up on soybeans and almonds till I left home at age 19, I’m sure I would have developed a bust along with the rest of the secondary female characteristics I developed at the same time girls normally or eventually develop them! Nature really knows best.
Recently a magazine article for girls called my attention to one difference between boys and girls. While boys’ voices change abruptly so that it changes between high and low beyond the boys’ control, girls’ voices lower in pitch gradually so there is no noticeable change. I do not recall my voice ever changing abruptly like boys’ voices do, but gradually like girls’ voices. And even then it didn’t lower naturally (temporarily) below the tenor range (bass B flat-middle G). For a while after marriage I forced my voice down to bass F. But when I quit that, my voice gradually returned to the tenor range, and eventually to the alto range, which is natural for me.
Now for many years my voice has risen and remained higher so that it was in the lower and middle portion of the untrained contralto (alto) range (tenor F-soprano D). For some time, with no falsetto I could sing middle A 440 Hz., and sometimes B flat in the treble clef. In January 1996, after I daily applied Cortaid to my throat morning and evening for about two weeks, my voice rose a 4th so that I could softly sing soprano D!
I could then sing tenor F. And when I answered the phone, my voice sounded higher than before I used the Cortaid on my throat. Having this natural female range for many years helps to account for my voice, and for being accepted as female. It will be interesting to see how much higher my voice will rise at either or both ends of the female-voice spectrum. As of 2/2/96 I could weakly sing soprano D sharp! And as of 8/21/98 I could comfortably sing tenor G.
Cortaid contains 1% hydrocortisone, a hormone of the adrenal cortex derived from cortisone, a steroid hormone of the adrenal cortex. Both hormones are used similarly. “Female pseudohermaphrodites are genetically females, but their genitals have been masculinized through a malfunction of the adrenal gland known as the congenital adrenogenital syndrome.” (Bibliography: Jones, Howard W., and Scott, William W., Hermaphroditism, Genital Anomalies, and Related Endocrine Disorders, 2d ed. (1971); Van Niekerk, Willem A., True Hermaphroditism (1974). Grolier’s Academia American Encyclopedia–1994)
When my favorite brother died, I decided that whatever scraps mentally and physically were left of “Paul” had died and were buried with him in his grave! I had been one of his pall bearers, and I determined I would never be one again. Since that time I have not responded to the name “Paul” in person, over the phone, nor by mail. No such person lives at my address. If I recognize the caller’s voice, I let them talk; otherwise I hang up.
I wanted to change my first name from “Paul” to “Frances,” but decided on “Pauline” instead for my family’s sake, particularly my mother’s, who named me at birth. I changed my middle name from “Welcome” to “Wendy,” which neither my mother nor other family had to deal with. My name is “Pauline” by legal adoption, and that is the only first name I go by for any purpose. And I also changed my middle name by adoption. I never liked my middle name anyway and see nothing female about it. I prefer to be addressed as Wendy—as it has no connection to my birth name, and because I chose it myself. But I use both names, depending on the circumstances.
After Mother moved into a mobile home, she once introduced me to one of her neighbors when we went out to the trash bin. I later saw a lot of what I suspected were my dead brother’s women’s clothes hanging in a closet. When I commented about them, Mother offered them to me, but I declined to take any of them. They were too sexy for my taste, and I didn’t want to wear anything that reminded me of my brother in that way.
After most of my family rejected me in my female-hermaphrodite role, I was no longer invited to attend any family gatherings at Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. It was a lonely time on such days for many years, as long as I was in city-bus traveling range to them. That is the one reason I moved to Missouri to be away from them.
When Mother died, I wasn’t able to go to her funeral because my eldest brother said an unnamed member of the family refused to attend if I were there. So I dressed up as if I were going to the funeral and went to the public library that day instead. Truly, I’m a woman “of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”!
My elder sister wrote me afterward saying she saw nothing feminine about me in activities, looks, or outlook. She said she believed I would look, feel, and live better as a male. She didn’t think building an organ was a female activity. (I had invented, designed, and built an electronic organ that would play in just intonation.) Family members believe what they want to believe!
At least she admitted she might be wrong, and included some sisterly advice on dress, etc. Later she sent me an illustrated article from The Pueblo Star Journal and Sunday Chieftain, Pueblo, CO, Sunday, 1/9/1983, page 2B, entitled “Billy Cox: A prisoner in his own body.” She said she sympathized with me after reading it and reading what I had written.
Beginning some years past and for several years I studied for therapy magazines (‘Teen, Seventeen, Sassy, YM) and books intended for girls ages 10-19, so that I would learn the truth about girls’ interests, emotions, hopes and dreams, attitudes toward girls and boys, and the attitudes of boys toward girls. I also read Madamoiselle for unmarried young women.
This all has been a real eye opener and has verified what I have said all along–that I am 100% female psychologically. I identify 100% with girls or women on almost everything–except what I consider their “nonsense” about the latest fashions in clothes, cosmetics, and jewelry, or any immoral ideas. I have found no accurate likeness between me and boys or men psychologically, and hardly anything physically.
There was enough aggressive romance in me at one time to chase after a girl and ask her to marry me. But after I married her, I either didn’t know what to do with her, or lacked sufficient incentive to do what I knew from a male perspective! I had no problem with general romance–hugging, kissing, holding, cuddling. But giving flowers and being very intimate, as if I were male, were problems.
I wanted to dress and be treated as a woman, a wife, not treat a woman from a husband’s perspective. And I didn’t want to be the decision-maker of the home on many things. I didn’t really want to be a husband (house-band). I felt more like I needed someone to take care of me—rather than me take care of her. Especially since I was legally blind.
Once at a party while we were eating, a man asked me if he could dance with my wife; I said it was up to her. So he asked, and she complied. Later she said she hadn’t really wanted to dance with him.
I also read Harlequin romance novels available in the public library or by mail. One newsletter accompanying the books I got by mail said some of these novels have been used by counselors of men who have problems relating to women or to their own wives. I figured reading some of these books could help me tell if I identified mostly or fully with the hero or heroine. If I identified myself with the heroine, I was surely a female hermaphrodite, I decided. And I identified with the woman in all the stories, virtually 100%! And never with the man.
After becoming bony-lean in build, I still had a female spine curvature with female hips, waist, and rear. My height was thus reduced from 5′ 11½” to 5′ 9″. I weighed as low as 111 lbs. As of 8/21/98 my body measurements were 36″ bust, 27″ waist, and 39″ hips. I wore a 32 C bra. When I weighed + or – 115 lbs., there was a spring and lightness in my step–like a girl’s–that is missing when I weigh a lot more. So I much preferred to be light in weight. I could wear smaller clothes that way besides. But I looked better at the 136 lbs. I weighed. As of 2/2/99 I weighed 150 lbs. and needed a 36 D bra.
Some say that when a woman sits up straight in a chair, a cat should be able to crawl between her back and the chair back. This is because the typical female has a protruding rear. And a cat can crawl between my back and a chair back when I sit up straight!
I wore a size 6 or even smaller in Misses dress. Originally I wore Tall sizes but have not for many years. The regular Misses, or even Petite sizes with a crumpled waist, fit me better. The clothes designer mentioned earlier had said the average women’s dress size then was size 14. I prefer clothing of floral, fruit, hearts, or cats design in preference to solid colors.
Because of my petite horizontal build I can wear some clothes in big-girl sizes, and I do. They’re usually not only cheaper than Misses sizes, but most of the cute clothing is now only made for girls since most women work outside the home. But I can remember when more women stayed home, and their clothes were much cuter then than they are now.
The physical size of the clothes I wear is very important to me—the smaller the better that will fit! I guess that is because I wasn’t allowed to wear feminine girls’ clothes as a child. So fortunately my wishes in that regard can be fulfilled. Both sexes of all ages have expressed appreciation for my clothing and shoe choices in color or design.
I saw advertised a “Personal At Home Ear Piercer,” with 14KT gold ball earrings included, by Inverness. With it one could pierce a child’s, a friend’s, or one’s own ears. It was advertised as 100% safe and 100% sterile. I bought it from Sears and pierced my own ears. Being legally blind, I didn’t do a perfect job. I knew some beauticians pierce ears for a reasonable sum, and that some M.D.’s pierce ears for a higher fee. The reason I pierced my own ears was mainly because I had heard of the possibility of one getting AIDS from the process when done with ear piercers that had been used before and not properly sterilized!
Once a few years ago I wasn’t careful enough when taking off my top, and actually tore my earring from my left ear, leaving a tear in the lobe. Today the tear isn’t nearly as long as it once was. So hopefully in time most or all the tear will disappear. Ear tissue grows slowly.
I see the difference between sleeping as a woman and as a man is that a woman will normally dream dreams in which she is a woman, whereas a man will normally dream dreams in which he is a man. A transgender may have a combination of the two. Now (in 1999) in my dreams I am a woman, with female romantic ideas. If I’m interested in a woman in my dream, or her with me, I may call her attention to the fact that I’m a woman. However, it’s natural for me, as a hermaphrodite, to be interested in females. Especially after being lovingly married to one for eight years.
After many years, my only living brother, a chiropractor, and his wife contacted me only when our eldest brother died. My youngest and favorite sister, whom I played with very much as a child, and later went around town with, is a nurse married to an M.D.; she has completely rejected me. I’ve sent her many cards and letters throughout the years, and she never responds. Once I sent her pictures I had taken of our mother and sisters, and she sent them back without explanation. I write occasionally to my ex-wife, whom I still love in the back of my mind, but she never answers either.
I think my crossdresser brother’s and my cases are both part of our inheritance from our grandma’s branch of the family which very sissy Uncle Paul came from and whom I discussed earlier. This inheritance may account in part for why our eldest brother never married even though he was a normal man.
My youngest brother had asked his wife to do things which she thought he, as the man of the family, should do and not use his poor vision as an excuse not to do. I did similarly when married and used my poor vision as the excuse. So perhaps his behavior in that regard may likewise be traceable to Grandma’s branch of the family. He told me he was free from any female characteristics, but one’s inheritance affects one’s behavior.
When I sent my siblings the original copy of this discussion, my two living brothers, my youngest sister, and my sister-in-law did not respond. My eldest sister, an R.N., called me on the phone, saying she had already studied all about the matter at the university, and that there was nothing I could tell her about it that she didn’t already know.
She still called me by my birth name till I insisted she not do so. I recall her saying she threw my discussion of myself or of my crossdresser brother or both into the wastebasket, saying I was not to send any more stuff like that! Then later, when I sent her two news releases about transsexual brains being female, she wrote back that she already utterly knew all about the subject long ago.
Eventually my psychologist brother-in-law, who is married to my elder sister, and I were fully reconciled. He wrote me to that effect and once came to visit me over the weekend on a trip he was taking. We talked a lot. He said he, as a psychologist in a public school system, had learned a lot about sexually related problems. I considered him a genuine friend when he left!
Despite my poor vision and partial colorblindness, I have a sense of and appreciation for beauty. So now I’m attracted to pretty women who are younger than me. But since I’m an intersexual, I’ve never admitted to myself or others than I’m lesbian. I have no adequate explanation for my feeling. And they’ve never been strong enough toward males to consider me as bisexual.
For a time I was attracted to handsome men. But did nothing about it because my “basement plumbing” is not in proper working order for that! So being safe, I befriended married men at church or as neighbors whom I had reason to believe wouldn’t be any threat to either me or their families.
I once had a crush on a young engineer who lived next door to me in the apartment building. He got a new car soon after he started work here at Chance. I made a fool of myself by writing notes to him and posting them on his door. His girlfriend or new wife moved in with him, and then they moved away. I felt bad both about learning he had a girlfriend/wife and about him moving away. I hardly ever think about him anymore now. So it wasn’t anything really serious. I was reading romance novels and I figure that had a lot to do with what I did and felt.
Because of a skin-infection problem some years ago I regularly applied Cortaid cream to my skin. It made the hair on my arms, legs, and pubic area grow more sparse, finer, shorter, and lighter, except for a few stragglers.
More recently I began to apply Cortaid daily to my scrotum and penis area, as I had done before to my throat. It softened and shrunk my scrotal/penis skin and softened and reduced the size of my testes and small penis to almost nothing! It also reduced hair growth more both in the groin/pubic area and on my face. I still pluck a few hairs now and then. But there’s virtually little need to shave!
This treatment, particularly along with the application to my throat, put more fat on my lean face, making it look younger and more feminine. At first it also made me want to flirt with the men at the post office, hardware store, and supermarket the next time I went to town. Nothing sexy, just friendly—to make them smile, chuckle, or laugh. I felt more like a woman than I had in a long time! But in time, that died away.
In the women’s panties/briefs section of a large mail-order catalog such as Penney’s, you can see that many of the women models have some protrusion in the vaginal area. Now my protrusion is no more than theirs, and generally less when wearing panties!
A few years back, as mentioned, I tore an earring from my left ear. So I wore only one earring for quite some time. While walking in the park, a teen boy drove by. I overheard him tell his girlfriend I looked like a transsexual. The word got around. And when I met kids of varying ages who went to the park, some would ask questions about my sexual status. I tried to ignore them all as much as possible.
Once, when riding my bike, two boys followed me home on their bikes and carried on foolishly. Some girls learned where I live. They came by several times on their bikes and later in a car, banging on my door and asking questions. One girl even took my picture! Later they started coming by at night around midnight, once even later, banging on my door or window, and calling my name or asking questions, or making remarks.
Most of the kids who gave me a hard time seemed to live on the “wrong” side of the tracks. They didn’t have enough money to do much other than get into trouble or bother people. I once rode my bike through that part of town to the SDA Community Center that provides food and clothing for those in need, to give them my clothes and shoes that were in good condition but which I no longer wanted. Several elementary boys on bikes gave me a hard time by asking sex questions and making crude remarks. One asked me if I had a “whistle.”
In the light of the above, my physical characteristics, and my latest research, I realize I’m more than merely what some would call a transsexual psychologically, or even physically. My condition is also fully biological. I have a female brain. I’m a 100% female-oriented hermaphrodite or a female pseudohermaphrodite. There’s no doubt in my mind about this! The exact definition is immaterial since both are genetically female.
I am what nature made me to be, and of myself I can be nothing else. And naturally, I have no desire whatever to be male, any more than a typical genetic female would. I’m only following as best I can the medical treatment prescribed for such persons as myself to the extent I have knowledge, opportunity and can afford, rather than commit suicide as many in the transsexual class have done, especially those who can get no help, have no friends, or have no hold on God.
Those who get help can be constructive citizens and contribute to society, and to a church if they are religious. Without such help they may seem to be virtually useless to themselves or to the world after their problem manifests itself in all its force. And it grows on a transsexual or hermaphrodite mentally, and very often physically–just as a girl, even a tomboy, gradually matures into womanhood.
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.