Tony, 67, San Diego, CA, 2014, from the portfolio To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults
Interview Text
I was a teenager back in the ’60s. Especially in high school and around other kids, I always had a gender problem. I was born female, I lived as a female, but I’m really a man. I always knew that I was a boy growing up, but I had to keep my male side separate.
Let's see, my son was born in 1972. I was married twice, had a bad lesbian relationship because, you know, she was one of these lesbians that didn’t want to see a female becoming a man. It was when I was first married that I still had to be this female in public, but I just didn’t want to be. I hardly identified with it and I was pretending. But when everyone was out of the house, there I was in men's suits, acting out, privately.
Being diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder has helped a great deal, but I’m still fighting off the people, especially my family. I said to myself, “You know, I’m sixty-three and this has to stop. I’m going to go for it.” So at the age of sixty-three I decided that I just wasn't gonna go on living this way, living female. I was more comfortable living male and I wanted to do the whole total package. Tell the young people going through transitions to never give up. If they want the total package, never give up. I went through periods of giving up, but I had to push myself.
They say that when you go through the testosterone one of the symptoms is that you’re an adult and an adolescent at the same time. I feel that I’m still going through adolescence. I just want to do everything now as a man. This is who I am and I just want to get in everything, you know, like bungee jumping, like going on a rollercoaster again! I want to take care of and appreciate what life is offering me as a man. I’m living the life that I lost.
