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Jakkie’s Story as translated from the German in which it was first posted……..

One man’s farewell
By Martin Wittman
27 th February 2009
A father’s farewell letter contains four pages – a Word document, black and white, free of typos, and dated 7th March 2005. Its content is as personal as its appearance is official. And as simple as its message is, it is so hard to communicate to the recipient.
Dear Steve, I have never written you a letter to explain all this. I am aware that you could never understand what I am going through unless you yourself were in my position. I pray that never happens! Please believe me when I say I am very sorry.
Unwilling to give up his fatherhood
James, then 45, was running a computer store with his wife Linda, and beside the 17 year old Steve had a 14 year old daughter and a grown-up adopted son. With that letter, James had taken his leave as a man, but without wishing to renounce his fatherhood. Three and a half years later, James has become Jakkie. She is sitting in the MtF Clinic in Bangkok. Two weeks ago she underwent a gender reassignment operation, and now she has to attend twice daily for follow-up. She is tall and broad, with blue eyes, and a powerful handshake. She seems shy, her head bent forward slightly, her long brown hair falling over her muscular shoulders. The operation lasted six hours, a ridiculously short time given the almost 50 years Jakkie had been awaiting it, for the most part unconsciously.
Jakkie is wearing eyeshadow, she has three rings on each hand, lilac fingernails, and a lady’s watch, as she speaks about her previous life in the wrong body. In the corner behind her stands a bronze figure of a slender woman whose right arm has become a wing. The woman is attempting to take off, yet on her left side, instead of a wing, there is only an arm. At kindergarten, little James had wanted to wear make-up, Jakkie recalls. “No no, Jimmy, “ they had said. “It was as though I was living some kind of screenplay, and I played my role pretty well. But I was in the wrong role.” Sport, drinking beer, sex with girls – all the things that puberty bestowed upon his classmates – had no attraction for him. Whenever he gave them a try, it was just no fun. Puberty posed not the least problem for any of his classmates, “but for me it was hell.”
“I’m gender dysphoric”
Now for the facts. My condition is known as Gender Dysphoria. It refers to a feeling of discomfort with one’s own sex, and about 1 in 12,000 men and one in 37,000 women in North America suffer from it. These figures represent the reported cases, but there are thought to be twice as many actual cases. The condition is a sort of birth defect, and there are as yet no definite theories about its cause. The disturbance is called, in everyday language, transsexualism. I am gender dysphoric (GD). I hate the word ‘transsexual’ because of the perverted images that are associated with it. I see it a little differently from the medical world. I feel as though I was born a woman with malformed anatomy.
After leaving school, James did an apprenticeship as a mechanic, then quite suddenly got married to a childhood sweetheart. At work, he got to know the girlfriend of one of his workmates. She had him repair her car, and he fell in love with her. Linda was three years older than he. His ‘unmasculine, sensitive face’, as Jakkie puts it, did not bother her: quite the opposite. She already had several failed relationships behind her, and a young son from one of them. Four months after his divorce, in 1985, the pair married, had first a son, Steve, then a daughter, Jessica, and enjoyed a harmonious marriage. Sex, however, lacked passion. At some time, after a couple of years, they simply gave it up.
Fetishist? Transvestite? Homosexual?
Whenever there were big events in the village, men and women would enjoy them separately. For James, village celebrations were tedious ways of proving one’s masculinity. Such behaviour was anathema to him from an early age. Rock music and cars were the only topics where he was willing to join in. It was only in the garage that he felt as at ease as he did when he was home with the kids or in the computer store. Linda and he spent almost every day and night together. For the first few years they worked together from home, then later they had their own store. He did the technical things, she did the bookkeeping. He could talk to Linda about everything – but not about the person he was, unable even himself to put a name to it. Fetishist? Transvestite? Homosexual? One ordinary working day in January 2000, James was sitting in the store, surfing the Internet. He was looking for some software that a customer wanted to have installed on their computer.
I stumbled upon an article by a woman, Melanie Phillips, a writer, film producer and journalist, who described how she had grown up as a boy and even as an adult was a man. It could have been my own life that was being described.
A yellow blouse with large roses
Through the clinic window you can see cars and Tuk-Tuks driving through the puddles, but here indoors, everything is peaceful and clean. In Bangkok, it’s 30 degrees. Jakkie is wearing a yellow blouse with large roses on it, shorts, and leather sandals. She has many a time had to speak of her ‘dishonest life’. It had always before been a situation report and never, as now, a retrospective. Jakkie trembles with emotion. Her voice is too bright for a man, too deep for a woman. Following on from the sudden relief of “at last finding the answer to a question I had never even been able to pose,” came the fear of “but what did that mean for us?”. One month after his discovery, he spoke with Linda. She was shocked, felt betrayed, and wanted a separation. The greatest concern for both of them was the children. “She and I were both wrecks,” says Jakkie. But Linda finally accepted it. She would rather live with Jakkie than be without the person she loved.
I shielded Mom from many of my feelings: from the fear of losing everything, from the shame of being different, that something was not quite right. In April 2003 I took a big step toward solving my problem. With the exception of the love and the comfort of your mother and my best friend, I am walking this path on my own. A year and a half ago I began hormone treatment as part of a gender reassignment process. That’s to say, I’m taking prescription medicines that reduce my male hormone (androgen) levels to the normal level for a woman and raise my female hormone (estrogen) levels to slightly above the normal female level. The hormone change will redistribute my body fat (make ‘edges’ into ‘curves’), I’ll acquire breasts, my skin will become softer, and so on. I will change my name and be called Jakkie Lynn, and you can call me what you like (‘Dad’ is my first choice because that’s what I am, and always shall be).
Humiliated, disowned, rejected
Linda spoke with James’s parents. He had been adopted as a four year old, and raised in a protective and pious Greek Orthodox family. If he could be happy as a woman, they said, then he should do whatever was necessary. How lucky I really am, says Jakkie as she wipes away tears along with some makeup, and goes on to describe conversations with fellow patients whose families had humiliated, disowned, and rejected them.
The threat of loneliness had also been James’s greatest fear. Yet friends had stayed with him – except for one, James’s Best Man. “This is just wrong,” was all he had said. Among the family, the only one to distance themselves was Linda’s son, whom James had adopted. He would no longer speak to James, nor did he wish to read a letter from his father. “He thinks I’m crazy,” says Jakkie. And because his adopted son had a girlfriend named Jamie, James chose another name. He named himself Jakkie.
She wants to be special
Jakkie – not Jackie – because it had to be something special. Jakkie lives in New York. Not the world-renowned metropolis New York, but a little village in upstate New York. It has some 1,500 inhabitants, and with each passing year there are fewer. The village has eight churches. Once, a woman burst into the store quoting holy scripture. What James was doing, she cried, went against the word of God.
Out in a dress
Jakkie had no wish to flee. Instead, she began carefully to alter her appearance, grew out her hair, and wore transparent nail lacquer. Once she put on a dress and went out into the street. A few minutes later, she ran back home. Linda at first was unable to look at James in a dress, but she got used to it. And Jakkie became bolder. She went out dressed in public. Soon, her ‘debut’ was on everyone’s lips. And soon she was introducing herself to strangers as Jakkie. She corrected customers who addressed her as ‘sir’, at first timidly, but in time more assertively.
Jakkie searched the Internet for experiences of people with GD who had undergone surgery, and came again and again upon references to Thailand. It is a country well known for its tolerance, and famed for its inexpensive surgery. Jakkie’s treatment would have cost $42,000 in America, but in Thailand it cost only about $15,000. For most healthcare tourists, the journey is well worth it, though for some it turns out to be a nightmare. But even the horrific photos to be found on the Internet alongside complaints from maltreated patients were not sufficient to deter Jakkie from her decision. She had no choice.
In Thailand, everything is very simple
The conditions for having a gender reassignment operation carried out in Thailand are easy to fulfil. Patients must have been taking hormones for one year (they must be discontinued prior to surgery). They must be physically fit for surgery, and be able to show a letter of recommendation from a doctor or psychologist.
I went back to my psychologist (having not seen her for three years), and she decided that I had assumed my new gender role and was ready for the next steps.
“My family had suffered enough”
But where was Jakkie to get the money from? From the children’s college fund? Should she take out a mortgage on the house? Take jobs that would keep her from working in her own store? “My family had suffered enough.” So she bought cars, spent time after work repairing them, and then re-sold them. It took years for Jakkie to save up the money. It was on 13th May 2008 that her psychologist wrote her final assessment: “I believe that she understands and accepts responsibility for the physical, emotional and social changes and for the contra-indications associated with surgical gender reassignment.” With the assessment letter in her bag, Jakkie flew to Bangkok and entered a hospital for the first time in her life.
The gender reassignment surgery will make my male genitals into female ones. After this operation I will be a woman for the rest of my life. My values and my attitudes will not change.
Does God approve of what I am doing?
In the waiting room of Dr Kamol Pansritum’s practice, there are virtually only foreigners to be seen: young girls returning for follow-up; sturdy men in women’s clothes and beard growth. On the wall hangs a poster of a former patient, winner of the Miss Tiffany award, a Thai beauty contest for GDs. Fifteen million viewers had marvelled at her victory on television.
I know you don’t believe in God, but I do, and that’s why I must ask the question. Does God approve of what I am doing? Am I not altering something that God made wrong? The only thing I can say is: would you deny a cure to a child who came into the world with a curable birth defect?
Labia made from scrotum
Jakkie is in the clinic for follow-up, but Dr Kamol is nowhere to be seen today. He is operating and must not be disturbed. Everyone adores this ‘phantom’. He’s an artist, they’ll say, a worker of wonders. More than 100 patients come to him each year. Dr Kamol shaves down their Adam’s Apples, plumps up bottoms, adjusts cheekbones, castrates, frees women from their wrong bodies. Jakkie’s operation was a routine procedure. Dr Kamol separated part of Jakkie’s glans, together with blood vessels and nerves, from the penis. He removed testicles and erectile penis tissue, separated out and shortened the urethra. Then he replaced the blood vessels and nerves of the glans, forming them into a clitoris, inverted the penile skin, and converted a hollow space into a vagina. The prostate was left in place, as it lubricates the vagina. Finally he fashioned labia from the scrotum.
In addition, he moulded a new nose for Jakkie and modified her upper lip. Jakkie did not go for silicone breasts, her own bust having grown to a C cup as a result of the hormones. For Dr Kamol, the priority was function rather than esthetics, though Jakkie didn’t agree with that. She wanted a woman’s body, even if she could not feel it. The nerves of her clitoris function mighty well. “Maybe now I would sleep with a man,” says Jakkie, “if it weren’t for the fact that I’d be betraying Linda by doing so.”
Linda had already changed the sheets
What shall I tell our grandchildren? I don’t know; the truth, I think. Probably it will make no difference to them since they would not have known me any other way. If they liked me before, then (I hope) they’ll like me after, as everyone else has.
Three weeks after the operation, Jakkie leaves Thailand. She is anxious, particularly about seeing her wife again. Linda is waiting for her at the airport in Syracuse. The journey home takes two hours, and neither of them speaks much. “At home, Linda tells me, we will be sleeping in separate rooms from now on,” writes Jakkie in an email. Linda had already changed the sheets and turned the mattresses.
Was James too naive at the time he wrote these lines?
Jakkie cries the whole night, before knocking the store into shape again the next morning. The business couldn’t be going better. Physically, she’s feeling brilliant, she writes. Gone are the days when she hadn’t dared open her eyes in the shower. Right now she is trying to have the ‘M’ for ‘Male’ removed from her birth certificate. Jakkie doesn’t know how this might affect the official status of her marriage to Linda – this is a legal gray area. She is more concerned by Linda’s remoteness: the marriage risks breaking down, regardless of the documents.
You will find me perhaps happier, nicer and more emotional. Certainly, I will be leading a more honest life, with the inner and the outer me finally matching up.
Was James too naive at the time he wrote these lines? Jakkie’s life is no less characterised by contradictions than was James’s. Since her return she is taking the hormones again, though now she is experiencing the side effects. Although she feels at ease in her body, she feels depressed and confused because of Linda. What should be a beginning threatens to become an ending.
But one bitter cold day, as they are both on their way to bed, Linda asks if she might spend the night in Jakkie’s room, as it’s warmer there. Since that night, they are both sleeping in the same bed again. Everything is as before. And nothing is as it once was.

Text: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Translated by Suzzy Mackenzie.

Recently I came across this item written by Jillian, a girl I met whilst on holiday in Canada last year (2009). I kept it for sentimental reasons at the time but now I have found it again I thought I might share it with you.
Jillian was a couple of months away from her operation when we met and is now enjoying her life as the woman she knew she was all her life.

On the Town

Shirley Anne has quite the sense of humour, as the citizens of Quebec who cross her path are learning. Today, Shirley Anne, her friend E and I visited St. Sauveur — in the Laurentians north of Montreal. It is very much a resort area, particularly in the winter when its many ski hills are in operation. But it is popular all year round, with arts festivals, the current Saka horse show and so much more. And it’s teeming with boutiques and fine restaurants.
Our first stop in St. Sauveur today was at the renowned Pagé bakery on Rue de l’Eglise. It’s full of delicious breads, pastries and other yummies. Of course, I’m watching my figure, so declined the calorie splurge, but my two guests indulged in something sweet. While they were choosing and munching, I strolled across the street to the local Catholic church, which was open to tourists. I sat in a pew for a little while and prayed. It’s a pretty rural church, though not anywhere near as ornate as Mary Queen of the World Cathedral in Montreal (my fave). Still, it’s a quiet place for reflection . . .
Next door to the bakery is a medieval clothing shop I very much wanted to visit. So, once Shirley Anne and E had finished munching their pastries and I was done in the church, into the shop we went to look over the creations of gifted designer Anne Larochelle. Well, you gotta know that we didn’t leave the shop empty-handed. Shirley-Anne bought a beautiful full-length medieval-style coat, while I bought a black medieval-style skirt (50 percent off) — with slits on the sides to show off a bit of leg! Even we medieval gals like to provide a peek, yes? Smiles . . .
By this time, Shirley Anne and E were thinking they would like a drink in “a pub.” And “pub” we found not far away, on Rue Principale. Shirley Anne and E made themselves at home immediately at the bar, and Shirley Anne was soon regaling the locals there with stories and her humour.
I don’t drink alcohol (bit of wine once in a while), so decided to check out some of the boutiques while my pals relaxed in “the pub.” Lordie, there are soooo many nice boutiques in St. Sauveur — and there were so many items I would have liked to have purchased. Sigh . . . But I exercised amazing control over my shopping urge (addiction). I ended up buying a very long silver necklace with silver leaves and dangly matching earrings for a mere $30 (plus tax). Hey, I could have spent thousands on some of the beautiful jewelry and clothes I saw there . . .
Back at “the pub” with Shirley Anne and E, I discovered them in full gaiety mode with the locals, who had suggested a restaurant at which we might dine. So off we went . . . to Restaurant Le Rio on Rue Principale, which opens for dinner at 5 p.m.
Well, where to begin? With Shirley Anne’s sense of humour? Or with the owner who came to our table to greet us (and who had my heart fluttering) . . . Sigh . . .
First things first: the menu. Shirley Anne and E chose to have rib-eye steaks. Shirley Anne went the table d’hote route and had some delicious deep-fried mushrooms (yes, I had a taste) and soup as entrees. I passed on the table d’hote and chose a tilapia filet meuniere from the fish menu. The fish was cooked in a tasty thin batter and was served with homemade fries, garden salad and rice. The portions were huge — too much for a weight-conscious girl like me. But it was delicious, even if I did leave some of the fries and most of the rice on my plate.
Now to Shirley Anne’s sense of humour: Not only was our French Canadian waitress excellent at her job, but she was also a good sport. Shirley Anne kidded her — kindly — with odd British-isms and such whenever the young lady came to our table. I told Shirley Anne that the young lady deserved an extra special tip . . .
I was quite touched when the owner came to greet us before our dinners arrived. He chatted with us for a while, thanked us for coming . . .
Not too long after our dinners had been served, the chef paid us a visit: “Is everything to your satisfaction,” he asked. When we told him everything was excellent, he replied, pumping one arm in the air: “Wonderful! I still have a job!” Another sweet guy. Sigh . . .
Not too long afterward, the owner returned to ask if all was well. Shirley Anne told him everything was terrible — kidding, of course. Oy. That British sense of humour . . .
And the restaurant owner was sooo nice . . . sigh . . . When he found out I live in Ste-Adele, he urged me to come back to his restaurant . . . Smiles . . . (Did I say I was off men? Oy.)
Well, to make this very long story a bit shorter, the food, the service, the welcomes were wonderful at this restaurant, and I recommend it to my readers.
And off we went back to my house . . .
As is always the case for me these days, everywhere I went today, I was called “madame.” Obviously, that is how the world at large sees me, and it feels so good. All those people today helped me shake off a depression that had set in during the past week. My prayers in that small church were answered.
Shirley Anne and E are in Montreal until the 20th of this month, so if any of the local regulars who frequent this blog want to see them, write to me and I’ll give you their contact info.
Cheers
Jillian

Shirley Anne