Ask a Tranny, Volume 1

Oftentimes, I get questions from people who are transitioning or thinking of transitioning, and I'm always happy to try to help when I can. Some of these questions are general enough that they might be worth sharing here.

And so, here's the first installment of my soon-to-be popular new segment... Ask a Tranny

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Your skin looks unbelievable. Can you give me any advice on how you got it that way? I realize it wasn't an overnight thing, but I'm really struggling to improve my skin texture, even with the effects of hormones.

- A reader from South Africa

In most of my photos, I'm wearing makeup, but yes, my skin has gotten remarkably smoother and softer. Pre-transition, I did not have any sort of skin-care regimen. As a kid and a young adult, I loathed sunblock, and I would often get far too much sun. My skin was not horrible, but I was not taking good care of it.

Here's my new routine, which I've been following for close to three years:

- Eat relatively healthy and stay active. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, lots of cardio. Good skin starts on the inside.
- No soap on my face, ever. I have facial cleanser and makeup-removal wipes.
- Wash and moisturize nightly before bed. I vary the nighttime moisturizer between anti-wrinkle cream (with Retin A - this is the only stuff conclusively proven to prevent wrinkles, I think) and olive oil with a few drops of lavendar oil (for scent).
- Moisturize every morning with an SPF 15 moisturizer. I tried several until I found one I liked for my skin. I almost always also wear liquid foundation with SPF 20.
- Minimize time spent in direct sunlight.
- Exfoliate with a gentle scrub and/or clay mask at least once a week (more in the winter)

As for products, I've read that moisturizers and cleansers from big cosmetic companies are generally best, because they have loads to spend on research. I personally like Neutrogena's foaming cleanser and nighttime anti-wrinkle cream, and Olay complete moisturizer with SPF 15. All drugstore brands.

Hormones definitely helped, too, but all changes were very gradual. I do like my skin now. Clearing the beard hair also made a huge difference in how smooth my face looks and feels, too.

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u r nuts

- J. O. (a guy who went to high school with, but who I did not know, who later found out I was trans in an alumni message board)

You raise an interesting point, J.O. No doubt you are referring to the current practice of classifying "gender identity disorder" (GID) as a mental disorder. As you probably know, that's a point of much controversy within the trans community and the medical community as well. Did you know that homosexuality was also classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) until 1973?

As I'm sure you're aware, J.O., there has been lots of talk recently about how GID will be redefined in the yet-to-be-released DSM-V. The latest wording seems to be "gender incongruence", but I think "gender dysphoria" was also proposed as the new term. Anything they call it and any way they classify it, having this condition included as a mental disorder is bound to bother many trans people and trans advocates.

I'm not sure where I stand on this, honestly. On the one hand, I am somewhat bothered by the idea that transsexualism is considered a "mental" disorder, and yet I think there's some validity to that idea. From the gist of your letter, I gather that you also see this as the case, too, J.O. Let's explore this further.

My mind and body were, in some sense, out of sync. To say this is a problem of the mind is just as valid as that it is a problem of the body, or indeed a problem of both. I have corrected my physical self to allow me to live in a way that fixes the incongruity. But whether we consider the underlying issue to be one of the mind or the body is somewhat immaterial, because either way, the only known effective treatment for the condition is to do what I've done, and change the way I live.

I can attest that (so far, knock on wood) this is a very effective treatment for me. I no longer feel like I have a disorder at all. Any problems I have now are primarily how others see me (a point you also raise very succinctly within the subtext of your comment -- thanks for that), which is neither a physical nor a mental disorder, but a social issue.

The same sorts of social issues exist for homosexuals as well, but being homosexual is not in any sense a "disorder"; it is a normal variation on sexual preference that occurs in humans and other species. There's no cure for homosexuality (nor one needed, nor in most cases desired), but there is an effective treatment for transsexuality. I think I'm probably okay with calling gender dysphoria a "disorder", and to me it doesn't really matter whether we call it a mental or a physical disorder, or both. There is, of course, a stigma that goes with the idea of having a mental condition, but maybe there shouldn't be. Why do physical conditions deserve our sympathy while mental conditions deserve our contempt? We could do a whole paper on this, or several papers, even, J.O.

Thank you for your nuanced letter. I only wish I had gotten to know you better (or at all) in high school. With you as my friend, maybe I'd have had the courage to come out back then, but for some strange reason, I thought my peers would ostracize, taunt, bully, and otherwise torment me. People like you who are not afraid to ask the tough questions foster the kind of open dialogue we so desperately need around these issues.

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Thanks for the good questions this week. If you have any others, feel free to write me at suzanne.clayton@yahoo.com. Put "Ask a Tranny" in the subject line if you like.