(Above) A stellar
photo spread of 14 well-known transwomen published by C*ndy
Magazine in 2014
I started to develop this website in 1999 when I was trying to decide whether to transition. It was a summary of the information I collected regarding various aspects of male-to-female transsexualism, now usually referred to as Gender Identity Dysphoria (GID). The turn of the millennia was an extraordinary period which was truly transformational for transsexual women. By 2000 the Internet had hundreds of small websites [admittedly often amateurish] published by transgender women on free hosting platforms such as Geocities, which collectively were a mine of both helpful information and some misinformation. Fast forward 20+ years and these time-consuming websites are sadly long gone - replaced by thousands of social media accounts showing flattering photos posted on Instagram and Facebook, or easy to make videos on YouTube and TikTok. The titles of these posts, pictures and videos are heavily focussed on getting lots of views and likes, but the content is often very benign - or get banned! Decades after its launch this website is now largely historical in nature, but I hope that it still contains some information that may be useful and helpful. There have been no major changes since my sex-reassignment surgery (SRS), aka gender confirmation surgery (GCS) in 2004, although I occasionally make small updates, corrections, or additions in areas of particular interest to me. I have also removed some pages and information of a personal nature, and deleted or reworded some text that would now be considered very controversial and potentially get the site suspended. Views and opinions about sex and gender that were the norm in the 1990's are often no longer considered acceptable and I apologise where offence is still unintentionally caused.
Terminology The articles often use words such as transsexual and transwoman, which have largely been replaced by the term transgender. The prefix trans is a Latin noun meaning 'across', 'beyond' or 'on the opposite side'. The articles use trans in the context of people making changes to their physical characteristics (hormonal and surgery) and lifestyle to match this to their gender. A significant development since c.2014 is the use of the prefix cis, e.g., in words such as ciswomen, cisgendered and cissexual. Cis is actually another Latin term, meaning 'on this side', and is increasingly used in the context of women (usually but not always genetically XX) who were assigned a female gender at birth, and whose bodies and their personal identity have always agreed with this. It does make sense as an alternative to awkward phrases such as "genetically XY women" that I have resorted to in some articles, and I've been using this when revising text. I support the substitution of the term Gender Confirmation Surgery (GCS) for the very inaccurate term Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) that dates to the 1950's, but due to age of the articles some still extensively use the abbreviation SRS.
It's impossible exaggerate how much things have changed since 2000. For example, in 2020 I was watching TV when two of the commercials in a prime-time ad break featured female models whom I knew were MTF transgender. Twenty years ago, either ad would have resulted in a major newspaper story! Now alerted, over the next few weeks I spotted advertisements in magazines and newspaper supplements featuring transwomen working as models promoting shampoo, perfume, make-up and even lingerie. In 2000 there were about 60,000 post-GCS women in the entire world - and most had used a few dozen surgeons whose individual merits were intensely debated within the trans-community. Fast forward to 2020 and a million post-GCS women might be an under-estimation. Thailand has overtaken the USA as the 'market leader' due to the low price and generally high quality of the surgical procedures performed there. Small clinics in Thailand have grown into specialist hospitals which each conduct thousands of gender confirmation procedures annually (over 90% on foreigners), with a surgical 'production line' operating on up to ten patients in a session. One Thai surgeon, Dr. Kamol, claims to be performing 2,000 MTF operations a year - equating to about half of all operations performed annually, world-wide, at the start of the millennium! Because of the huge increase in the number of transwomen, they are no longer "freaks" that occasionally appear in an afternoon television show or a tabloid newspaper expose. Most people (particularly in younger age groups) now personally know someone who is transgender - a family member, classmate, friend, work colleague, etc. This is changing attitudes to the extent that going deep stealth after transition is no longer the goal of every transwoman who can pass convincingly as a woman.
Other major developments since 2000 include:
Another significant change is that in late 20th century, Gender Identity Disorder was a condition that was primarily associated with men. In 2000 male-to-female (MTF) surgical procedures out-numbered female-to male (FTM) procedures by roughly 3-to-1. Whilst transwomen still dominate public attention, there has been a quiet but dramatic explosion in the number of FTM operations. By 2020 many clinics were performing more FTM than MTF gender confirmation operations. The transition and subsequent surgery of actor Elliot (previously Ellen) Page belatedly woke up the media to the fact that not all transgender people are transwomen. If current trends continue then by the mid-2020's there will be more post-GCS men than women, although I suspect that very few people would guess that if asked.
At the end of the 2010's the transgender bandwagon was on an immensely successful roll. For example:
Backlash The huge successes of the pro-trans activists over the last decade has perhaps led to the pendulum swinging too far. There is an increasing backlash from the c.99% of the world's population who are not transgender at having to conform to the views of a small minority. For example in the UK against:
I'm also concerned by the increasing backlash against transwomen because a few men (I can't find an alternative word) have abused the legal rights that it took decades for us to win. In another example, I occasionally swim at a local pool during a women-only session as the time is ideal for me, but I now must sign for entry a form whose small print says that "people who are not having menstrual periods can be excluded".
Finally ... I'm always delighted to hear from readers, contrast experiences, and perhaps attempt to answer any questions. I can no longer provide a convenient link due to the bombardment of my inbox by spammers, but my email address is shown at the bottom of the page. Important
Notes: |
Copyright: All the articles are written by myself and I claim copyright. I grant permission to reproduce for non-commercial purposes if "Annie Richards" is acknowledged as being the source. Note that I'm not the copyright holder of most of the photos and graphics. Some were supplied to me by the owner for use on this site, others I have taken from publicly available magazines, newspapers, websites, blogs, etc. Fair use for non-commercial purposes applies in these instances. Finally, I can't supply "Hi-Res" copies of photos, if only because many date to around 2000 when a 640x480 image was considered "Hi-Res" and a 1MP digital camera cost $500! |