Gender Identity Documentary | My Experiences of Changing Gender | Only Human

[Music] sex change it's like how do you know you're left-handed or right-handed you just you know from he to she it was my face it was something physically that needed to be changed from she to he just funny i'm more in touch with my female side now in the 21st century there have never been so many ways to choose your gender a feminine woman a masculine woman a feminine man a masculine man but for many it's the choice between life or death if you don't treat it life really isn't worth living two people one man one woman are about to transform in their lives it scares me to think about what if this were not able to happen with medicine closing the gender gap we changed lives so dramatically the demand for change has never been greater [Music] it's one of the rites of passage for when a boy becomes a man i mean i wanted to so bad when i was little but you can't really control what your body does and when a woman is becoming a man something as ordinary as shaving takes on new importance shaving is a really fun masculine ritual to do it's very validating as a man and it's one of the things that's sort of like a rite of passage in adolescence that i always wanted and i could never experience that when i was like 14. this is aidan for 24 years aiden has been living with the body of a woman but that's about to change and i look in that mirror and the face i see staring back is the face that i've always dreamed that i could have this is michael you know i got 20 or 30 years of my life left and to finally get to live it as that i've chosen is a dream it's only makeup but it makes a lifetime of difference to a man who is about to step out for the first time as a woman it's a defining moment and it is the first day of my new life that i will be michelle aiden and michael have arrived at a moment of truth in their respective lives they have made the decision to cross gender it's a really scary step to take to change from one gender to the other and then step out into the world having this surgery is sort of the last step and not only will i feel male but i will look male and i'm frankly terrified but excited at the same time i'm just so confident this is what i want to do [Music] for michael and aiden changing physical gender is not about envy of the opposite sex they don't see themselves trading in their bodies for a better model the dream is to simply become an ordinary man or woman we want to just be another face in the crowd that you don't take a second look at people look at my face and like the rest of my body and then they would definitely look at my chest to try to figure out what gender i am just to be accepted as a woman like i feel inside and not get a second glance or a second look or have anyone question what i ever was i mean i need that so badly to just be able to go out take a walk not have to worry about how i look or who's looking at me and just have like a normal life you know that's it started life as april she always knew what she wanted to be when she grew up being transgendered is uh it's like there's no gray area at all in terms of my gender and there never was like i definitely knew from my first memory that i was a boy and that has never [Music] wavered aidan is about to have chest reconstruction surgery it's a big step until now transition from female to male has amounted to heavy doses of testosterone having this operation i'm hoping to achieve just an ability to have normal life where i've always had to try to hide my chest it's really my goal to appear masculine and you know appear as a man but really in a larger sense it's just more important for me to be completely okay with my entire body which i haven't been before aidan's breasts will be removed and the chest of a man will be created from the remaining tissue it's a big drastic decision and i'm aware that it's unchangeable and life-altering and i have had sort of brief irrational questions you know am i doing the right thing and every time i've just immediately known that it is and there's just no doubt i'm not even scared [Music] there is no accurate estimate of the number of female to male transsexuals living in america it's thought to be about one in thirty thousand people but there may be many more who are invisible to those making estimates [Music] a lot of female-bodied people can live as men without presenting to the medical establishment so they don't change their bodies they don't come forward for surgery they don't get counted by comparison male to female transgenders tend to be more visible in society the best estimate is that there are between 10 to 12 000 women in the united states who used to be men considering the number of people i've met uh i would say that the numbers are probably much higher than our being actually being counted [Music] michael is waiting for his new life to begin he is 48 years old he's into his second marriage and has four children just getting married and siring children is my attempt to live to fulfill that role model that everyone expected me to be a year ago michael made the decision to become michelle it started with hormone therapy he knows gender change will come at a cost i think of all the things i can lose and it's a lot it's everything i've worked for all of my life but not being true to myself is a far worse sentence to me than losing all of that michael's left his home in the midwest to come to san francisco for the next phase of his transition hi how are you i'm ian brogan yes you too welcome welcome to our great shopping day today i'm excited good her specialty is the transgender community she'll be helping michael prepare for the moment he comes out as a woman clothing everyone has a clothing personality yeah it can be classic flirty ingenue romantic sporty and we want to get a little closer to what fits for you all right are you ready yes we have a lot to accomplish let's go let's go i have to i have to mention this first i love this color yes good you're pink i like pink too well let's see let's hold it up and look in my lifetime yes this is the bravest thing i've ever had to do you know it's 95 confidence and i'm not going to pass all the time i know that so it is to a degree you need to become thick-skinned the one issue might be as you undergo electrolysis you will notice some redness on your face sometimes wearing a salmon color or red color actually brings out the redness rather than minimizes it see i don't know about this stuff well you're knowing are you listening okay ah a sail rack ah what woman doesn't like to go to a sale rack now let's see you we think you're about a 10 in a dress size and that it depends on the shoulders on the shoulders it seems to me in my experience that it has become a crucial step for those at the initial phase of transition this is the phase when they don't know exactly how to appear in public what we're doing is giving them permission to simply experiment and explore much the way that little girls explore and we try to find what is our style in the world what are we comfortable with and get it this is very feminine and also this creates a very nice appearance or illusion of a bosom the only cautionary note is this is new to michael he has never worn the clothes of a woman in public oh that's cute is that how it's supposed to feel i've dressed up as a woman and stayed within the confines and safety of my own house but i've never been outside in the public view as a woman [Music] to qualify for chest reconstruction surgery aiden had to first meet certain requirements [Music] all of the patients that i operate on have been through some form of therapy psychosexual counseling evaluation and therapy hi hi dr michael brownstein will be aiden's surgeon for the chest reconstruction okay are you nervous a little bit not that much good i'm not good i'm glad you're not the goal of the operation really is to remove the female breast tissue excess skin and make male appearing areola and nipples by size and position so they have a basic flat male chest appearance you'll be going home wrapped in a binder and you'll have two drains one on each side of your chest don't expect the drainage to be the same on both sides it rarely is also don't expect the pain to be the same on both sides it rarely is somebody might be prompted to ask like why are you doing this to yourself it costs a good deal of money it's painful it's hard to recover from uh you're scarred for life physically i mean the scars will fade but never go away and to that i guess i can only answer that this is so important to me that i'm willing to go through all of that just to have something that i really need the staff is excellent and they're very sensitive okay oh i think aidan is a good candidate in the sense that he appears male and his mannerisms are male [Music] [Applause] the desire to dress in the clothing of the opposite sex does not make a person transsexual the way michael sees it there is a big difference between transsexual and transvestite [Music] transvestite or crossdresser is okay with their gender they want these occasional chances to live as the other gender by dressing the transsexual needs to change their body and it's a constant thing it's not something they do in episodes or in phases you know it's it's constant it's 24 hours a day seven days a week today has been a breakthrough for michael tomorrow he'll push his transition even further there are many roads to crossing gender hormones are a godsend for us estrogen testosterone laser therapy electrolysis chest reconstruction genital modification phalloplasty hysterectomy testicular implants cranial surgery and so forth those who choose the road to gender change through surgery are well aware there is no way back yeah my chest is a constant reminder you can't not look at it i can't avoid it when i'm dressing it's just out there and it's definitely a constant everyday reminder that i'm not the gender i want to be [Music] aiden is hooked on hormones the first physical or like medical step for transitioning is taking testosterone the changes started almost immediately my skin got more oily i noticed that right away and then over time i have noticed that my face has changed shape i begin growing facial hair also my muscle mass has shifted so that i'm able to build muscle pretty quickly my hips have pretty much gone away and that'll only change over time in the same way [Music] there are a lot of myths about the effects of testosterone on the body and the mind before long aiden was starting to feel like an alpha male i felt immediately a lot more dissociation with my emotions not the kind where i couldn't experience them but i could choose not to in a way that i assume is pretty masculine where if something was bothering me but i had something immediate i needed to deal with i could sort of put those you know emotions on hold to a degree that i'd never been able to before after a month or two the aggressiveness kicked in which has been good and bad sometimes i'm driving and i just you know i get this road rage i never used to have before aidan's reaction to testosterone is not unusual it's ironic but the experience of transsexuals is helping to solve one of the age-old questions about the sexes what i found in giving hormones to people who are transgender that during their transition that surprisingly um many of the stereotypical behaviors that we have kind of struggled with and possibly denied about men and women actually turn out to be true it's surprising to me how consistent the shift in people's emotional experience and their ability to express their emotions really changes with hormones it's quite dramatic masculinity and femininity are thought by many to be learned behaviors put a girl in a dress show her how other girls act and she'll become feminine too not so says dr kohler the effect of hormone therapy suggests that the gender mold is cast before birth [Music] i think that it really has given me a window to understand the ways that men and women are really are just biologically physiologically different and to appreciate that i think that it it actually will probably help us all sort of understand the male and female dynamic if we start to look at the biology and understand the roots of our behavior okay i'm on hormones yes michael has been on estrogen for over a year it's hormone therapy for male to female transsexuals what have you noticed so far face is smoother skin is softer the body hair actually is reduced a lot and beard seems to grow actually slower about half as fast i don't know maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part i mean i do think today michael's taking the next step in his transition this will be his first session of hair removal by electrolysis it is essential to remove the beard it not only gets rid of the five o'clock shadow but it changes the texture of the facial skin as well yeah if you can imagine somebody sticking electric needles in your face i don't imagine it feels very good i'm gonna insert the probe into the follicle i'm starting you out at a good moderate [Music] to remove the hair an electrical current is passed down a needle inserted deep into each individual hair follicle that hair just slipped out no resistance it's causing enough tissue destruction so that that follicle doesn't have the cells or the papilla to cause a hair to grow in that follicle no this isn't as i thought it would be there are twelve 1270 follicles or hair pits on the beard area alone michael is facing 12 to 18 months of electrolysis to complete the treatment okay here's some ice for you and you can just hold it on the treatment area for 15 or 20 minutes electrolysis can cost anywhere between 150 to 200 for a two-hour session exactly when doing a full beard it's a lot of hair and it is a serious commitment to have it all removed and it does work michael will have to invest thousands to be beard free it is something that is expensive it takes time and commitment on your part yeah because that's what transition is all about committing to yourself and it's not just electrolysis but therapy and hormones and ultimately the surgery right so i'm committed to going through with it beautiful michael is spending two days in san francisco to jumpstart his transition to female there's still a lot of work to be done before he returns home to face his family and decide on his future wendy didn't know there was a difference between boys and girls until she was five until then she just assumed she was a boy but from that point wendy began to realize just how different she was nature goofs sometimes there's glitches i couldn't find my place because i was in the wrong place to start with but you can move forward if you know which way you're facing wendy is now lucas [Music] for years lucas felt out of step with the world and it was all because his body did not match his brain this is who i am this is how i've always been to myself and now you guys get to see it too lucas is 50 years old lives in vancouver canada and has completed his transition from female to male i've just blossomed i've i've just come into my own outside and inside i've been able to grow up in a way that i would have never been able to grow up before i've been able to take my place and and just show up for life lucas struggled with gender conflict until the age of 40. even his father had come to accept that his daughter needed to be his son he used to say i should have been born a boy but then when it became well good news and bad news dad the good news is i figured out a way to do that um you know he suddenly reverted to very sentimental feelings about his daughter understandably you know he was in his 80s and it was a stretch for him but he knew what it meant he knew that for me that meant completion in 1998 after two years of hormone therapy lucas had a double mastectomy and chest reconstruction i knew it was something i needed to have and it's it's just back to how do you know you're left-handed i just knew that i needed to do this it's something that those of us that pursue chest reconstruction takes a while to sit with your chest back or just wearing a t-shirt it's just such a foreign freeing experience [Music] five years later he underwent the most radical of sex reassignment surgeries an 11-hour operation to complete his transition to manhood well because i was a man born without a penis really and the world doesn't revolve around that but it's certainly part of it the same as if i was missing an ear or one of my hands i'd want the nearest replica as possible so that it could do what it was expected to do the operation is called a phalloplasty plastic surgeons first exercised a large piece of lucas's forearm they then fashioned it into a penis using his female genitalia to preserve its sensitivity and function finally a skin graft was taken from his thigh to repair the arm it's a difficult procedure it's intricate it's it's very three-dimensional because i mean you're changing uh completely the aspect of something it's not like putting a bone graft or or doing a nose it's a controversial operation or series of operations on a scale of one to ten probably the phalloplasty is ten being the hardest phalloplasties can cost tens of thousands of dollars tissue has to be harvested from two other parts of the body leaving scarring and its performance is not perfect my closest friends were worried about me because they were concerned that i was going to do something irreversible and it was going to again be not the right thing [Music] there are other choices for female to male transsexuals jameson green elected to have a meta-audioplasty in simple terms the surgeon creates a smaller version of a penis from female genitals if you want a phallus that has natural erectile capacity you're going to end up with a two to four inch ballast because that's what metal audioplasty can produce and that's the basic difference is size and erectile capacity [Music] lauren cameron is also a trans man he decided against any genital surgery chest modification and testosterone made him the man he is today you know we all have this gender discomfort this body discomfort in degrees and there's a whole range of people the the the guys that go for the metoidioplasties are a little bit more uncomfortable than i am the guys that go for the phalloplasties are even yet more uncomfortable than the guys that get metoidioplasties some guys who feel like me who say oh i'll never get genital surgery some years down the road might decide otherwise so it's a process you know technology is ever changing and some of us are just waiting it out we're waiting to see well god things are happening very quickly what will things be like in 10 years i might have a whole different option but for lucas his transition would not be complete until he had the whole package for me my sense of self as a man involves having all the accessories this is all about my journey and what i need to feel fully like a man i need you to sit down and face me okay gentle surgery is not an option for aiden sit up real straight right now the only thing he's thinking about is a new chest oh god pressure's on right it's all on you dr michael brownstein is one of america's leading chest reconstruction surgeons i definitely understand why my patients want this operation and i've learned over over the years to appreciate how important this is to them i feel great i feel pretty relaxed i feel a little nervous but um very confident just hopefully not too much pain is really what i'd like okay we've been cleared for takeoff so you're gonna put your tray tables in the upright position [Music] i know this procedure is irreversible and i can never go back and you have to understand that this is something that like from the day that i began puberty i've just longed for with never a day that i liked my chest and never a day that i thought it was great to have that there's no question in my mind the operation is in two stages aidan's breasts will be removed then dr brownstein will graft the nipples back onto aiden's new chest we're dissecting the breast tissue and subcutaneous tissue up to the upper extent of the breast [Music] we finished closing the incisions and then we'll mark out location for the areolar grafts try to get it as symmetrical as possible joanne you want to check this aidan's new nipple will be exactly the size of a nickel because that's what he's using to measure it i think the goal is to make the chest as natural as you possibly can and as unremarkable as you possibly can you can't avoid scars that's one of the penalties of surgery two and a half hours later aidan has a new chest so we finished suturing in the graft and the operation is complete it's very important to these patients that they have the surgery to facilitate their transition from female to male i think without it it would be almost impossible i think it's a crucial operation i'm glad to be able to do it [Music] today has been a giant leap forward for aidan his recovery will take a few weeks then he can finally be the man he always wanted to be this is oil controlling lotion that will help to control the shine i'm putting a shadow right here to help straighten out the line of the nose before becoming a woman michael has to first unlearn everything he knows about being a man god that is just huge i cannot believe you can do that with just makeup and you know it's just amazing this makes an amazing difference in your body shape and the balance it's been an intensive course with gender style counselor anne grogan back the back both facing your back and then open up your bow when first i met michael he walked very quickly he headed in a b line for products he grabbed at things it was much more abrupt movement much more linear i saw it we were walking down that aisle boy we were going shopping just like a man shop so let's go for it let's get it let's get it done with and over with this is a great kind of a piece of jewelry for you the gender makeover has covered everything from dress sense to makeup voice work to body movement so women tend to walk like that by the conclusion of the salon today i saw michelle standing back being softer taking her time learning to be a little more conscious of herself in the world and how she moves through the world you have wonderful natural body movements and you've picked it up very very rapidly quite frankly much better than i expected this is just reaching inside yourself and letting the softer side come out right it's michelle's on the outside there she is you yes [Music] the physical differences between men and women begin with the face i think with surgeries you tend to want to change your face first because that tends to allow you to pass easier in public [Music] for many male to female transsexuals the defining moment in their transition is facial feminization surgery facial feminization surgery is a surgery to change a masculine skull uh to a female skull getting rid of the masculine characteristics and when one does that the feminine face shows through elizabeth underwent a series of facial surgeries two years ago to complete her transition to female as i was transitioning i realized that i was a very very very ugly man in a dress there was no doubt about that and i tried my best to to do what i could to improve my looks and i did the best i could with what i had so that's why i decided to go to dr osterhal elizabeth was one of dr douglas osterhout's star patients [Music] in feminizing elizabeth sculpt we cut away the prominence of the forehead my nose gave me a nose job we set the nose back into a female position redesigned my chin my jawline we reduce the chin by taking out a piece of bone in the middle and i've also narrowed it it's very wide and also reduce some of the muscles in my cheeks facial feminization is a major surgery it takes longer to transform a face than it does to transplant a heart between 8 and 12 hours under the knife to achieve this i can't guarantee beauty but i think what we can deliver is femininity what i want for them is that they're lying in bed at seven o'clock on saturday morning the doorbell rings they've done nothing for themselves they've tossed on a non-gender bathrobe they go to the front door and the person says i'm sorry to bother you ma'am but i want them to be that female i want them to be obvious female no matter what they're wearing what their cosmetics are what their jewelry etc for elizabeth facial feminization was the breakthrough in gaining acceptance as a woman even more important than sex reassignment surgery [Music] just to be quite honest with you i mean my srs surgery was something that was great but to me it was like removing something that just didn't belong there it wasn't an enlightenment issue it was just simply something that needed to be done but changing my face was by far the most enlightening moment of my life it was something that made me who i was that's what gave me my start on life i'm just ready for this to come off for sure this is aidan's first checkup with dr brownstein since chest reconstruction surgery a week ago do you have much pain yeah more like discomfort no real pain okay now the graft is fine okay pink in another four to six weeks aiden can resume his gym work adding muscle to the cosmetic transformation that dr brownstein has achieved very good check it out [Music] all right wow [Music] my shirt actually fits the way it's supposed to now that's cool the first time i looked in the mirror was like an amazing feeling i had thought a lot about what would i look like once i finally had the surgery and like you know what would my new dimension sort of be but the first time i saw my like totally flat chest i was like just amazed i was like this can't be real this can't really be me this is the high point of aiden's transition so far now it's michael's turn to step up [Music] how's your trip in so far it's been very exciting uh very hectic but i've learned now that michael has made the decision to become michelle a necessary part of his transition is therapy would you like to tell me a little bit about what's going on yes the point i'm at now in my transition is getting close to the point where i will go full time it's also the point where the important people in my life may have trouble accepting me sex change is not just about one person becoming another it affects all the people who have formed meaningful relationships with michael who are they who's in your family i have i have four sons a wife the hardest part is how this transition affects family and friends co-workers because if for an older trans person such as michelle you have a whole life built in the male gender role so to transition her whole life and bring along all the other people in her life can be very difficult michael's wife will have the greatest difficulty dealing with the change the primary concern at this point anyway is with your spouse and your children who are living at home i would assume right i'm very scared we're talking about a marriage of 20 years it's my second marriage but it's she's the love of my life my soul mate and i don't want to lose her but at the same time if i don't take care of my own needs there will be no michael for her to love there will be no one there you know i'll just be a shell if i'm even around so she would prefer that you stay male yes and she could keep her husband right okay yeah she she's heterosexual she's heterosexual so it's to her credit she's made a lot of concessions and ver has been very supportive you know but i know there's a limit to how far she'll go you know if i transition all the way fully then that marriage will be over and she's told me that not of not a very good situation but i don't have a choice and i can't blame her for the way she feels [Music] finding a partner is one of the many complications about being transsexual i mean look at me if i'm considering dating someone you know there's no road map for when do you tell how do you tell and i guess for some people if you tell there's no there's no road map for how what's the right time if you tell too soon uh you're being really presumptuous and if you wait too long then you're risking someone feeling tricked it's a real scary thing to become intimate with another person and i think those of us who don't have gender variants or who don't have transsexual bodies um often gloss over how scary that intimacy is and i think this is another almost virtue in a way if we turn it around and look at it from a different perspective that transsexual people really have to get serious about that intimacy because it does mean being vulnerable and we know it whereas other people get to forget it [Music] just because someone is changing their physical gender doesn't mean they were gay to start with a recent study showed that one in four men who transitioned to female remain sexually attracted to women you're talking about sexual orientation which is totally different than gender i don't know at this point if my orientation will change as a male i'm heterosexual and i am attracted to women and as far as i know that attraction has stayed the same but it's i'm not sure the statistics but i believe that about half of us after we go through transition actually switch so we're still heterosexual but now we're the other way lucas is also a sexual paradox it's funny i'm more in touch with my female side now whereas before you know i was walled off there was a part of me that was walled off you know the the myth of the the testosterone producing a tough hide is certainly not my case at all anything but [Music] when a female lucas was lesbian now transitioned to a male his sexual preference has shifted lucas is now attracted to men all to say it's allowed me to uncover parts of me that i never would have tapped into before and it's freed me up it's brought me into the present day now i can relate to someone on their own grounds and on my own grounds instead of my the ghosts from my past manipulating my emotions for me oh really the love of rob's life is elizabeth so we met and uh just kind of like real casual we sat at the bar had a couple of drinks and and that was pretty much it it kind of took my breath away at first i was like i can't believe that this person has any interest in me at all rob knew from the start that elizabeth had a past but he wasn't prepared for when she told him that she was once a man called lee shocked i mean i knew but i didn't believe it just by the pictures and seeing her in person and everything like that i couldn't see it i still can't see it [Music] it was amazing that she didn't sound like a guy didn't look like a guy didn't never it would have never dawned on my mind that she used to be her former self elizabeth completed her gender change two years ago the rest of her life is now taking shape [Music] i want to have somebody in my life for the rest of my life someone i can grow old with we can play jokes on each other just have a great time we can hug each other when we need to you know sure somebody actually when you go to sleep at night they're there beside you a group of transsexual women was surveyed about sex after surgery nearly half said they had successfully kept their previous gender a secret from all sexual partners more than half were living in permanent relationships [Music] she used to be a different person everybody used to be a different person at some point in their life and some point in their life they made a change hers is probably more drastic than anybody else would attempt to take but i feel very lucky as beautiful as she is and compassionate and loving as she is i just didn't think i could find somebody like that okay so what i could do actually is i could just email you both those contacts lucas walter now works as a community counselor with the transgender health program in vancouver canada they could hook you up to whoever your lives are are based on your gender you you have a wife or a husband or kids or you know it's your social standing it's all so gender oriented there's no good time to change there's no good time to tell everybody that in fact you know you're not this you're that it was his own experience of receiving help that set lucas on this career path i went to my doctor and i was so scared to say it out loud you know it's not as bad now i suppose in major centers but at the time there was just such a huge stigma around the word transsexual but i talked to my doctor who didn't know anything about it much but she said well there's a there's an internationally renowned gender clinic right here in vancouver so i finally went in to talk to them and you know there's a certain there's a certain air freshener that they use in that building and to this day when i smell it uh i can't i get emotional because i when i walked in there it's like i was going home to go into a place where i know there's people who can help me get to myself who understand and they're not going to be alarmed or disgusted or concerned about my mental health they're going to understand and they're going to help me get where i need to go even now so many years later it's been 8 10 years later it's still a very moving thing for me to recall sex reassignment surgery takes a toll both physical and financial on the body but it's the toll on relationships that lucas has to prepare his clients for because it just upsets everybody's apple carts and people do do that families do stay together and families do fall apart but they don't call this a hero's journey for nothing i never thought i could look this good ever in a million years this is great and this is what i get to wear the first time out which is even better this is the moment when michelle's life begins she's about to step out in public for the first time i guess it's a little bit of a of a big first step but uh it feels good you're ready yes i am ready i think so look out world here she comes here she comes i don't feel ashamed anymore i feel like myself completely and i feel confident and i'm ready to go out and be this way this is how i would like to appear and for the world to treat me every day as a woman just an ordinary woman [Music] two days ago michael arrived in san francisco it's been an intensive 48 hours gender makeover finding the inner female and bringing her to the surface yeah it's basically the first time in my whole life that i have felt like the outside match the inside and i won't say it's the best very best day in my life i think that was my wedding day or when i had my kids but this was for me and it is the first day of my new life that i will be michelle good evening ladies hello how are you i'm doing very well how are you when the waiter announced our presence hello ladies that was a wonderful feeling that i don't get very often to be recognized as a woman and that's what this whole thing has been about it's a mouthful aidan has also arrived it's been three weeks since chest reconstruction surgery life since the operation has been pretty good it has been pretty easy to just assume like a male role and just sort of fit into that a lot easier than i thought it would be it sort of comes naturally to me i definitely don't regret that my breasts are gone there hasn't been a single second where i've wished i had them back or questioned if this was the right thing to do or like sort of mourn to that sort of part of my body disappearing [Music] since i've had surgery nobody has looked at me funny or even thought that i might be anything other than like biologically male and i haven't felt anything other than like a real man whereas before i definitely didn't feel that way and i don't think anybody really thought i looked like a man michelle has taken the biggest steps so far in her transition the rest of her journey will be a great deal harder i'm very confident i know i have a long ways to go many more obstacles to overcome but i now have a real basic confidence i think it's a big booster to get get me through transition [Music] tomorrow she'll return to her wife and kids to resolve the life of michael for their sake she won't hurry transition but after this weekend it's now only a matter of time before she'll be michelle every day i'm thankful for what i accomplished as a man and my family and my kids but i know things will change in the future and the future is going to come and i'm going to march on i think michelle is actually quite prepared i think none of us can anticipate what's going to happen particularly with something as profound as the gender shift and the impact that it has on other people it's my life it has to work i only have 20 or 30 years left on this world and i want it to be right you know i've already spent 40 some years in their own body so it's it's imperative it's me aidan has now entered a man's world but he's seeing it through the eyes of someone who once lived as a woman [Music] i think that transgender people have a totally unique perspective i really wouldn't trade it but it's just amazing to be able to think about things the way i used to relate to them as a woman and now as a man or how people relate to me in the coming years aiden will continue with hormone therapy he has no plans to undergo further sex reassignment surgery this is like probably the most important step i'll ever take having things that i still want to achieve ahead of me job change go back to school i can sort of do them with a clear mind before it's always conflicted always sort of just like there's some conflict i couldn't quite put my finger on for the first time in his life aidan is looking at the future with confidence from this point forward it's just about being who i am and not trying to be something or wanting to be something but just being who i am for aiden and michael transition is not about changing their sex it's about affirming their gender bringing their bodies in line with their brains lucas called it a hero's journey it's a journey from which there is no turning back [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Only Human

Views: 1,001,058

Keywords: Only Human, acceptance and tolerance, challenges in life, emotional journey, everyday heroes, gender dysphoria, gender fluidity, gender identity, gender spectrum, human emotions, individuality celebration, personal stories, personal transformation, self-acceptance, self-realization journey, support for LGBTQ+, transgender journey, transgender representation, transitioning process, transsexual experiences, unique qualities

Id: K_YDHAxbTmk

Length: 50min 10sec (3010 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 04 2020