Transition? Transition what?

I am open and honest about the fact that I am transgender. I have nothing to hide and I'm not embarrassed about who I am. So I am always happy to answer questions about my transition. But there is a small problem with that. You see, I never transitioned. I never went from being male to being female. That would assume that at some point I was a man and I never was. My outward appearance was that of a man, but it has nothing to do with whether or not I was male or female.

So when you ask me about my transition you are not asking about my gender  at all. You are asking about my appearance and the change that took place. Let me try to answer that question for you. Imagine that you were in a play that was 48 years long and you played a specific role in that play for all of those years. Then all of a sudden the play ended and you no longer had to fit into that role. You take off the costume that you wore, you put on the clothes that represent you and you wear your hair the way you feel it looks best. That was my transition.

Herein lies a very large problem with society in regards to the transgender community. Most people don't seem to care about the transgender person. All they seem to care about is what that person looks like. Does that transwoman have real breasts? Does that transman have enough facial hair? Is that one masculine enough, is that one feminine enough, why can I not tell if that one is male or female? The real question should have nothing to do with how I present myself. The real question should be in how you perceive my presentation.  

Yes, there are physical things that I have done to transform my appearance. I am still doing those things. But try to remember that my transition is on the surface only. The person I am, the woman that I am has never changed. The little girl in the boy suit became a woman in a man suit. Then one day I took that suit off. And along with shedding the suit I tossed off all of the baggage that goes with it.

There you have it. I do not identify as transgender because my gender never changed. I identify as a woman because I have always been one.