Be at forty years old

Transgender people are incomprehensible and invisible to most of the Russian society. Many of them have been living, in fact, not in their body for years: their biological sex does not coincide with their sensation of themselves (with gender identity). In the 1980s, when Angela grew, they tried to integrate her into the system of prescribed norms of behavior. Then she herself tried to adapt to social norms: “be a real man”, live like everyone else. She went a long way to become herself, because she is a woman, although she was not born in a female body

The first attempt: integrate into the system

The realization that something was happening to me, it came at five years old, grandfather Brezhnev was still alive. I was completely not interested in the games of the boys, I sublimated in reading, in my dreams - about a magic wand that could change everything. I was raised in a military family, so a taboo was applied to any manifestations of emotions. The contradiction between me and the outside world was too obvious, but in those days there was no information that it could be. Adults began to urgently socialize me with boys. It was easier for me not to bring to the conflict, to obey and go.

Having become older, I myself began to try some normal boyish hobbies. There were stereotypical models: the boy must decide everything, fight with other boys, make something at the machine in the work, but the girls should not climb anywhere except study. For years I tried to integrate into the system, to become a “normal man” - and went to serve. How was it? Disgusting. I was 20, Yeltsin then announced the first call for a year and a half. I thought: it is better to go to get silent and get a military ID than to continue to run.

Life in a purely male team turned out to be hell for me. I tried not to integrate into the hierarchy, but to get up somewhere on the side. Even at that time, my intelligence was higher than that of the vast majority there - I managed to get a position related to computer technology. This caused envy, hatred of those who continued to serve in ordinary conditions. It was a terrible dream. I managed to spoil relations with my call, a physical threat of life arose. I was pulled out of there with the help of the Committee of Soldiers' mothers - they found objective health problems.

The second attempt: dressing up

I returned from the army to a completely different country-in the 93rd. What can I? Where to go? Trading to the market? I went. My new circle of communication began to form there. There was then a purely male team, let a small microsocium, but I also had this role in it: I am not in the hierarchy, I am somewhere on the side, I am a wise owl-Reiser.

In the market, I met with the saleswoman of women's linen, who herself was shaking behind the laundry in Poland. I began to buy from her. For some reason, it was not a shame for her to choose, to rummage. Men buy women's linen to their wives and friends, but do it in a completely different way than when you buy yourself, and this is very visible from the outside. She became the first person to whom I opened. At first she was wild, then she persuaded me to appear in the whole image. It was then that I realized that not all people were ready to kill for it.

Angela photo: Anna Ivantsova

Maybe you shouldn't put it in yourself? I stopped looking for ways to fight - and began to look for ways to reconcile. Before that, the whole world was broadcast to me: if you are a man, be a man. Everything else is unacceptable and incompatible with life. Then there was no thought about the complete transition: I just did not know what this is, in principle, possible. And I began to think how to adapt.

I felt like a woman. I thought for a long time that I could somehow solve this problem, limiting myself to changing clothes, there are fetishists, transvestites. It is enough for the fetishists to put on tights, experience sexual pleasure from this - and calm down. There are transvestites - for them, dressing is not about excitement, but about psychological calm and comfort that appear from complete transformation into a woman. Such people have a daily life in a male body, and on weekends and on vacation “second life”, about which no one knows. But my daily life caused such a level of discomfort that if I drank, I would sleep.

Third attempt: house, tree, son

My last, most desperate attempt to integrate was that I married. My parents pressed me, they were afraid that I would remain "not like that." I had a friend, I was interested in with her like a person: a platonic love, just a deep friendship. The desire to be like everyone else and male hormones did their job - and we began to meet.

Angela photo: Anna Ivantsova

She did not know anything about me. But she always said that I am “not like the rest”, you can talk to me. Against the background of all other males, I looked profitable. There was "something else in me." She herself said: "I have no better girlfriends than you." In marriage, my son was born.

What was a highlight at the beginning of the relationship was later the reason for the divorce: "I do not feel that I have been living with a man." After the divorce, I finally realized: the house was built, the tree was planted, the child was grown.

Solution: hormones

For 15 years I worked in the warranty department of a large trading company - again a male team, good money. And in one year, I had a microstroke twice. After the second, I thought: I owe nothing more to anyone and now I can start living for myself. This is the third time this will happen, I will die, lie on the bed - what will I think about? Horseradish with him that did not live her life, but was herself on vacation? The main thing is that the boss liked how I look that my colleagues considered me a peasant? This was the last straw.

When I started the transition, I did not have information about all its subtleties. I began to take the first hormones on my own, without doctors, without imagining what it was. I was 40. Looking at the reflection in the mirror was terrible - every day everything is worse. I had a thought: let me die in three years, but I will die happy. Because I did what I needed, and not what others want from me. I was preparing at 43 years to die. Now I am 47.

There were no specialists then, and even now in Russia the endocrinology of transsexuals is not taught. There are a number of enthusiasts who at their own expense and at the expense of patients are developing the necessary experience. There are such among surgeons too. We are still experimental rabbits. Voluntary.

I sat on the forums on the Internet, as a result I found a newsletter conducted by a transsexual-not a doctor, a software engineer. But she studied the problem so deeply that she was more savvy than any professor. I learned a lot from there, I was able to adjust the drugs and their dosage. And I realized that it is not necessary to die that these are all the horror stories of incompetent doctors.

Angela photo: Anna Ivantsova

The main in the transition is self -awareness. I didn't want to see a man in the mirror. But I never wanted to be a caricature of a woman, although we understand that a set of chromosomes cannot be changed. Paul correction is a correction of appearance, leading to external mimicry. Now, without false modesty, I can say: while I am silent, people do not scorch me if they do not specifically look at me. If you say: “This is a former man,” of course they will answer: “Ah, yes, this is immediately visible.” If you do not say, 99 percent of questions will not have any questions. If you wrap me in a burlap, tighten my hair into the tail - even then I see a woman in the mirror. Yes, not a beauty, not queen, but what is.

When I do not look very good, I have no thought, will they take me for a man, but only think: "Damn, the nail has broken, we need to sign up for correction." Of course, my body is my business. But rolled nails, excuse me, this is lead, unshaven armpits are lead. Here's my legs - it's okay, in winter I also do not always shave. I realized that I was old when I thought: “Damn, arrow on tights! Come on, it will go under jeans! "

It turned out to be more difficult with the voice. There are methods for developing a voice: I know a girl who, on the phone, does not even think to take for a man. And before, it was a boyfriend, in which there was nothing female, except for some slipping intonations. Training help someone, but I don't. When people first see me, and then hear me, they perceive as a norm. Perhaps something is suspected, but they are very tactful and do not say.

Result: reaction

I’ve been a full-woman woman for three years. I changed the documents at the beginning of this year. Angela's name was my classmate at school. After the fifth grade, she went on vacation by a girl, an angular boy - and returned to the princess, and blossomed. I so wanted to be like her! It was not just the ideal for me, but the subject of such fierce white envy. The transformation process began to be associated with this name.

The fact that I am a woman is not a choice, this is predetermined. The choice was to implement this predestination. I had a choice at the moment when I took the first tablet and removed the first hair on my face. The choice was whether to stay in a large company, in a good position, to hide yourself and cry at night in a pillow from what is happening - or finally become yourself.

A year after hormone therapy, men have not noticed anything in the team yet. This is a property of the human psyche: when the changes occur before our eyes, but small ones, people do not immediately understand that something is wrong. And here is the seventh of March: we work as a regular mode, but customers begin to congratulate me on the upcoming holiday - although I didn’t have women's clothing, just hair in a ponytail, nothing gave me a “Soviet intelligence” ... “Did they conspire? This is Palych, there is nothing unusual! He always looks like this cheburashka. ” The first several times men talked, and then somehow thought sharply.

Angela photo: Anna Ivantsova

Then everything became clear to everyone. But - as in the time in the American army was the rule of Don 'Ask, Don' Tell. Everyone made the face with a brick and continued normal working relations. Except that several times unconsciously, the door will be opened in front of me, they will help to convey the severity ... and not because I am the boss.

The owner of our office was a fierce homophobe. A conversation came to my dismissal. [Direct] boss pulled me to the last: “But he is good. Well, it happens, let's hide it, we won’t show it to people, but someone needs to work. ” I was given the conditions: get a haircut, bring yourself into a normal look. I quit. It is amazing that I managed to hold out for so long. I had very smooth changes. I am surprised that at my age it worked at all.

I told my mother what was happening. We sat, cried. She understood everything - you can’t hide it. And since childhood-on something I still pierced. Father did not believe until the last, convinced that this could not be with his blood, with his family. Then he began to just ignore the fact of the transition, even when I already changed the documents. When I came home, he closed in his room, hid from me. Or, perhaps, in order not to accidentally kill me. He did not come to terms with this fact. Now he is in my black list on the phone. He has a birthday today. And he will not wait for me to call him, congratulate him.

We began to communicate with our son only when he grew up, just from the moment of the transition. We never became friends. Sometimes we correspond, calls me Angela. But he did not even tell me that he would marry and leave for another country. We practically do not communicate with his mother.

Consequences: stereotypes

This is from the category of beautiful fairy tales: when someone makes the transition, it remains in the same place, in the same position. I have no higher education, employers have always looked at my knowledge, skills, I worked in engineering positions. I lost my job-and I had to look for something for survival. Now I work in a taxi, there was no other choice.

I am not a taxi driver or a taxi driver - I am a driver. There are no men and women on the road at all, there are drivers on the road. Avtoledi generally infuriates me: "Auto -ladies on a foreign car crashed into a car jacket on a domestic car." I was once a compliment that I drive like a man. I say: “I drive like a woman who drove awesomely. Men have nothing to do with it. ”

At my work, the principle "Do not ask, do not tell me again." My colleagues know nothing about me. I somehow overheard the conversation of drivers and mechanics: “Yes, I was not lucky, of course, to a woman with such peasant.” We have twenty percent in our park - women, among us the smallest turnover. Most more than 35: children have grown up, free time has appeared. There is no schedule - the mistress herself.

Angela photo: Anna Ivantsova

There is positive discrimination, yes, I use it. In the park, my car is served without queue and swearing with me less. Such a traditional education in our society: women are required less. I am comfortable with this: you can do what you want, not what they demand. The attitude "well, it is beautiful" allows you to get a discount. If you are a man - without options: “You can’t cope? Goodbye!" From the man, they expect him to grit his teeth and will fight to the end, and not sit down: "I can’t, I have paws."

But there is also the reverse side of this discrimination: most often young girls are blunting on the roads. She created this cork not because she is a girl, but because she is a bad driver. And the driver is bad, because she made discounts in a driving school. This is a vicious circle. How to deal with it is completely not clear. Our whole system gives rise to confirmation of stereotypes about women.

Now: acceptance

In my view, society should function differently - without discounts on the chromosomal set. I do not understand the principle of interaction between people "You give me everything, and I am sex to you." There are cases when gender men begin to use their advantage, demanding something from women only because they have them. “You have to match me, you must serve me. I’m a man at least where, I’ll just whistle - everyone will run up. ” It is wrong to demand something from a person only because you have one or another gender. Correctly demanding something special on the basis that you are something special for this person.

Angela photo: Anna Ivantsova

From the point of view of our state, such as me should not exist at all. We shake the foundations and contradict the main values. I am a living example of the fact that shemales are also people and that you can live like that. Looking at me, some Vasya can take root in his opinion-and become Lena. Therefore, just in case, it is better to burn me so that Vasya looked at what it is fraught with, and gets a child, lived the life required of him.

I envy youth, who now has access to information, which I did not have. The more civilized society is more advanced, the more gender stereotypes play a lesser role in it. It's time to accept that people are not binary.

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The material was prepared in cooperation with the social project "Vowel" . This project gives a voice to women who live, guided by their own principles and ideas, and not imposed on prejudices. All of them are different - they themselves choose where and how to live, they can devote themselves to a career or family life, to match the gender stereotypes or not.

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