Here is a diary of events as they have happened, or are due to happen.
December 1999...........Went to see my doctor, told him about my feelings, god I was nervous about it, but he made me feel at ease straight away, he wasn't judgmental at all, and said that he would help me in whatever way he could. I already knew at this stage what I wanted, and how I felt about myself, that I was a woman trapped inside a male body, that I was inflicted by a cruel twist of nature at birth, and I was already living as a woman at this stage.
May 2000..........Had my first appointment with a psychiatrist at my local hospital, she told me that I am a good candidate for referral to a Gender Identity Clinic, and also for recommendation for Surgery.
August 2000......We were featured in a magazine article, this caused us some problems as there wasn't even a mention of the fact that I have Gender Identity Disorder, a recognised medical condition.
September 2000.......Changed my name by deed to Miss Sally Ann Dixon, starting to feel more at ease now, settling into my new role very well.
December 2000........First appointment at the Gender Identity Clinic, Charing Cross Hospital, London. It went well, I found that the best way to be was yourself, just be totally honest with them and they are more willing to help you.
Christmas came and went without much to write about, living full time is getting much easier now, I go out to pubs and clubs etc. and no-one gives me any problems, they either do not know, or do not care, same as when I go shopping, or for a walk around the town.
February 2001........Got my passport, has the new legal name on it, and they have indicated the gender as female, this is a very big step for me. Also, we met some new friends, a couple from the Oxford area, one of whom also had gender identity disorder, our situations are pretty much the same, so it's nice to have someone else to talk to who understands, it also looks as though we shall be moving to Oxfordshire, I have the possibility of employment there as well, and will be a new start in life, something which I think we shall benefit from. I have also got pretty involved with a Transgender Chat Room, and I spend a lot of my time there chatting to others in similar circumstances.
April 2001........Have got my second appointment for Charing Cross, hopefully I shall be starting the hormone therapy on or around this date. Also have got an appointment with the Speech & Language Therapy Department at my local hospital, so I shall be concentrating on what I think is probably the biggest hurdle of the entire transition, getting my voice to sound like a natural female, this will help to boost my confidence greatly.
October 2001.......Well, this is the first time I have had the chance to do any updating to this web site, have been really busy with one thing or another, so I shall try and fit in everything that has happened to me over the last 6 months (and a lot has happened) !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am now on the hormones, Ethinyloestradiol, and can report that the effects are quite pleasing, there has been a significant development in the breast area, and my body is now changing shape, my hips are becoming more feminine looking, and my bum has become more rounded. I was having speech therapy for a little while, but had to stop this as we have now moved to the Crawley area, and things are going pretty well for us now, I am in full time employment, and have been accepted and get treated as a woman, which is great, I am settling well into the new role, and feel that I am, at long last, making a move in the forward direction, rather than backwards. We had a sad occasion on June 17th, (fathers day), my mother sadly passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, this has affected all of my family and myself, and now we are looking after my Dad, who lives not too far away from us. I am due to go back to Charing Cross again in November, which will be my 4th visit, I am hoping that it wont be too much longer now until I get some idea of how long I shall have to wait for the surgery.
May 2002.............Once again, this is the first time I have got round to doing any more to this website, so obviously, there is a lot to tell you, so, where do I begin ? Well, it is almost a year now since Mum passed away, and it still isn't any easier to come to terms with or try to accept, but they do say that time is a healer, and as I progress I shall let you know if this is true or not, at the moment I have to sway towards not believing this. Well, it has been 13 months now since I started the Hormones, and the effects are staggering, not just in the breast development stage, but also in the changing of the body shape and the skin texture, my bum is getting much more feminine in shape now, but, alas, as expected from the hormones, my weight has increased, so, it's a strict diet for me these days, (no chocolate at all).
We have now moved back to Crawley so that we can be nearer to my Dad, and the rest of my family, and things are doing pretty well now, still no luck finding a job, although I was working last year for 3 months, but due to health reasons I left there, but while I was there, everyone knew that I was a Transsexual, and were really great about it, just treated me as another member of female staff.
I feel now that I have settled fully into the role of womanhood, and I really can't wait until the day I am able to have the surgery to remove what I can only consider as a "Cruel Birth Defect", this will be a very big milestone in my life. I still help the Beaumont Society at times, but not as much these days, although I still consider them to be a valuable source of help and information to anyone who needs it.
Another sad occasion was that earlier this month, we got the sad news that a woman friend of ours had passed away, this was the woman we met from Oxford last year, but I am sure that God is with her now, looking after her, as she suffered from various illnesses during the past few years or so.
I am hoping to start Laser Hair Removal soon, and hopefully I will be able to get NHS funding for this.
July 2002............Well, here we are, once again. I have had a couple of jobs, but nothing secure, I have signed up with a couple of agencies, so you never really know where you will be at any time.
Latest news: my Dad has now moved away from Crawley, so I don't get to see him as much as I would like to, but we stay in touch by telephone, and when he does come to Crawley, he always pops in for dinner.
It is almost 4 years now since I started living exclusively as a woman, and although most of this time has been fairly easy, I have had one or two difficult stages to deal with, but I guess that's just life, we all have hurdles to cross and steep hills to climb, the hormones are working well for me and I have not had any noticeable problems with them, breast development is definitely coming on quite well now, my bra size is 38C although I can just about manage to get into a 36C at a push, but then, you don't want to squash them and hide them do you ? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, after a long break away from updating this website, here are some more events as they happened, where possible, I have added the dates, or approximate dates, and I have tried to get everything into chronological order:
I booked into Charing Cross Hospital today at 2.00pm, after the initial booking in procedure I settled in ready for the BIG day on Monday.
Today is the BIG day, my SURGERY DAY !!!!!!!!!!!
I won't go into a lot of detail here about my stay in hospital, this is all available for you to read in my "Diary From My Hospital Bed", which is a day-to-day diary that I wrote during my 10 day stay at Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith, London, UK
Tuesday 17th October 2006
I shall start here by apologising for the delay in updating this section, in fact, the entire website is going through an update as soon as possible, time permitting.
It is now 2 years 3 months since I had my surgery, and a lot has happened since this time. I have moved location yet again, and I am almost right on the southern tip of the UK. Myself and Sheena are still living together, but more as best friends than anything else, and apart from the usual hiccups of life, things are going fairly smoothly now, and I just try my best to get on with life and everything it decides to throw at me.
I had a surprise last year on my birthday, I got a card from Dad, and I opened it at about 2am, it was a beautiful card with the inscription on the front "Birthday wishes dear daughter", and he had written it to "Sally", now, whenever I speak to him on the phone or in person he refers to me as "Sal", he also refers to me to others as "She" and "Her" etc. so fantastic news, I have to say, when I opened that birthday card, I burst into floods of tears, and I have kept the card to this day, I wanted to ring Dad there and then, but decided that wasn't a good idea, so I rang him later that day, and the conversation became rather emotional, that card meant more to me than anything in the world.
I can't think of much else to write at this time, but I promise I will try and spend more regular time updating the site.
Wednesday 8th August 2007
Been a while since I have had the chance to do any updating to this site, but here is a little bit about how my life has panned out now:
I have been working in a factory for just over 4 months now, and within the first week I told my boss that I am a Post-Operative Transsexual, he was very shocked, he said that he would not have known unless I had told him, but I felt that I needed to reveal this in case the company asked for my birth certificate for pension schemes etc.
I have also decided to tell a few of my co-workers about me and they were equally shocked, but all are great, I have made some really nice friends in there, which is all important to me because it can be difficult to make friends with people once they know about you, it is amazing at how some people can react, you can all too often get shunned by people, and they don't take you seriously, but I am pleased to say that just about everyone at work are really nice towards me and just treat me as another one of the girls there.
Sheena & myself are still living in the same flat together, and things are pretty much the same, we are good friends, our divorce will be finalised in about 6 weeks time, then I can apply for my new birth certificate (Gender Recognition Certificate), which should make life somewhat easier, means I will not have to reveal my birth gender to anyone official should I choose not to.
Dad came to stay with us last weekend and he has really got used to me as Sally now, there is no awkward feelings anymore, he just accepts me as his daughter.
I have had a bit of a health scare recently, I went to the doctors because I had a chest infection, and they took X-ray's, the results have come back and they have found a shadow on my lungs, I went to see them at the start of this week and he said that although he doesn't think it is anything too serious they have put me on a course of antibiotics, and I have to go to the hospital in 2 weeks time for further tests to see if it has cleared up or not, fingers crossed it is just the remains of the chest infection, but it has made me realise now just how precious life can be, I have set a date to quit smoking, so will let you know how it goes, I have been given tablets to help me with the cravings so I am hoping they work, I also intend to grab every opportunity that comes my way with both hands now, whatever they may be, I do not wish to go to my grave thinking "what if ?"
Dave & Sue have moved down to this area now, and hopefully Dad will be moving closer to us next year as well, it will be nice to have more family closer to me, especially Dad, I do worry about his health and if he is closer then I can get to him faster should he need me.
I have an addition to the family now, my 2 pet cats, Sooty & Sweep, they are beautiful and both are real characters, getting into scrapes, why is it that I never seen to have my camcorder to hand when I need it ?
Sooty Sweep