Hi! I am Joann Prinzivalli, and this is my story. In other pages I tell about some of my experiences in greater detail, but this is my general autobiographical information.
My Story, by Joann Prinzivalli
I was born in Brooklyn in the early 1950's as a son to a nice lower-middle-class couple of Italo-American descent. My father worked for the New York City Board of Transit as a laborer in the maintenance of way department. The Board of Transit became the New York City Transit Authority in 1953, but I didn't know anything about that. My older brother died when he was a baby, and they gave me his name.
Mom was a hitter, too, but that was normal in those days in that socioeconomic and ethnic group. She used an old belt, but had a very organized methodology - the usual punishment for just about anything was five whacks with the strap, ten if you tried to run away or didn't cooperate. My aunt in Bay Ridge used a wooden spoon on her kids.
My earliest memory of crossdressing came when I was four years old - I put on Mom's slip and a pair of high heels, and some earrings and necklaces, and made a mess of the makeup and perfume on her vanity. I discovered that making a mess with the makeup earned me five whacks. So I became much more careful about it.
I still wore the high heels and dressed up from time to time. It made me feel good to do it. Until one day when I was six my father walked into the bathroom while I was wearing one of mom's slips (it looked like a full-length gown on me). He didn't say a word, but he scared me to death, and I stopped dressing up for a few years.
When I was almost ten years old, we moved to Staten Island, and I had no friends. I was a social outcast because I was different, but I didn't really know why. Well, I was unathletic, but a straight-A student (perhaps you know the type) . When we moved, I got placed in the "B" track class in the local public school (there was no room at the Catholic Parochial School in the parish). Mom made a ruckus, and had me transferred to the "A" track class. Unfortunately, that meant a very popular star athlete got moved to the "B" class, as the "A" class was full. As uncoordinated and overweight as I was, I was always the last one picked for any sports - and the entire class really resented the fact that I was the one who forced their beloved classmate into the other class. (Though I was unaware of the reason - no one ever told me about that until I was much older.)
But that was only a part of it. No, it wasn't dressing, and I really didn't realize it at the time, but I think the other children could tell I was different. This social misfit tag followed me all the way through high school.
I started dressing up again when I was 12 or 13. It seems like I remembered how nice it felt when I was small, and I wondered why I stopped. I only dressed up in the bathroom, and there was some genital rubbing I was engaging in, too. (It wasn't for another couple years until I learned that that particular rubbing was supposed to be sinful. That was rough. I actually quit doing it for a couple of weeks, and found I was making a mess in the bed in my sleep, and had these really disgusting dreams. At that point I figured that a controlled rubbing would be better than making that horrible mess. How could it be sinful? I then did a little research and decided that, as the alternative was disturbing, this rubbing stuff couldn't be sinful, or at worst it might be a venial sin - after all, I wasn't disobeying an order to get my brother's childless widow pregnant!)
It was while I was in the seminary that I learned that masturbation was a sin, and where I was able to work out that the reason for this is because of the story of Onan, which didn't involve masturbation at all. Though I could see situations where it could be sinful.
It was little while after I left the seminary that I read the autobiography of Christine Jorgensen. It disturbed me, because I had similar feelings to those Christine experienced, but they were not the same. In fact, I felt like I had both masculine and feminine aspects to my personality. At that time, I tried to convince mom to get me an appointment with a psychiatrist so I could sort out these distressing feelings. Was I a transsexual?
But I couldn't tell her why, so she said there was nothing wrong with me. One day, I got completely dressed up in the bathroom (still her clothes, though they fit me better now), and applied makeup and lipstick (though I had no wig or anything). I had the discussion with mom again about the psychiatrist, and when she demanded to know why, I opened the bathroom door. "Because you might have a daughter instead of a son!" I said.
This led to six months of therapy. At the end of this, I learned that there was nothing wrong with me, that what I was doing was perfectly normal; and that if I had any interest in girls, I couldn't be a transsexual (this last item was absolutely wrong, but at the time would have meant another disorder for me as a transsexual lesbian, as homosexuality was still classified as a disorder until 1973). And since my parents weren't the accepting sort, the shrink recommended that I be proclaimed "cured" and to just be discrete about my dressing.
I also figured that I would stop dressing once I got married, anyway. Why would I want to be girl if I was married to one? (Ah, yes, another fallacy, but I didn't realize that one until I was married for several months and the need re-emerged. Plus I was too busy trying to deny my essential femininity.)
After doing college and law school at commuter schools, and dressing only in private, I met my wife (who I remembered from elementry school) and we got married, had four children and lived happily ever after.
Well, not quite. After three years and two children, I told her about my CDing, and we even worked it into our relations together on occasion (though it was years before I learned that she didn't like it at all!). But this was "crossdressing" that involved the occasional wearing of lingerie - and I didn't do much more than that when alone at home.
One Halloween (before I told her), we were invited to a party the day before, and hadn't time to even think of costumes. I suggested we go as each other - and the only thing I needed to do was run out and buy a cheap wig! By the time we finished with her, she looked a lot more like her father than she did me. We went to show off our costumes to both our sets of parents (my mother didn't say anything, but I could tell she was thinking I was having a "relapse"). At the party, one fellow got drunk and tried to pick me up! (Well, I weighed a lot less back then than I do now!)
But at age 44, I had a breakdown of my suppression during a family argument. In the height of my rage during the argument, I came to the sudden realization that the irrational male inside me was just like my father (remember the man with the rage and the swinging belt?), and decided I had to let my feminine side out into the world, to provide the necessary balance and make me a more complete person. This cured my problem of being angry and frustrated all the time (something I didn't realize was caused by me suppressing my feminine side), but it has had the unfortunate side effect of creating marital discord.
My wife doesn't really want to be married to a woman (though I do explain to her that I'm not "just" a woman, and I'm not "just" a man). Joann is "the other woman" in her relationship, and one who seems to have captured her husband's attention. No matter how I explain the difference between sex and gender, it comes down to the fact that she can't deal with it very well.
This then magnifies all the little annoyances of marriage, and the marriage was strained.
On the afternoon of the day after Father's Day, 1999, I received a call at work. My wife moved away to an undisclosed location with three of our four children, and left me a letter from her lawyer. Perhaps I have passed through the gates of the fifth circle - "Abandon all Hope, ye who enter here!"
I am also getting politically involved. Discrimination against CD/TG/TS people has to stop.
Last Halloween, I made myself a couple of ears out of paper plates and transformed into Maxie Mouse, Minnie's big sister, and marched in the New York City Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village. I never had a social life before, except through my wife. I find that Joann is more outgoing than Joe.
The final divorce hearing took place in November 1999.
While the divorce was pending, I started taking steps toward living live full-time in my preferred gender presentation.
When I approached management at my employer in July 1999, I originally believed I would be able to transition at work at the end of August 1999. As the date approached, management asked for more time.
At the job, a few people knew about Joann. It cost me a friendship with one co-worker, whose wife thinks I am a horrible pervert, but everyone else who knows just thinks of it as just something that makes me different, but not really all that different. I only dressed up to go to the office to work on a weekend day - not during regular office hours, when I had to be in masculine mode.
In November, on the evening of Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, I spoke at a public hearing in White Plains, in support of the proposed Westchester County Human Rights law. I urged coverage for the gender-variant, and identified myself as a member of the class.
I didn't expect television coverage, but Fox 5 news featured my testimony on the 10 o'clock news, and on Good Day, New York the next morning. The Westchester cable news station carried my testimony every half hour the next day.
From that point, unknown to me, my employer was planning termination. The few clues to that were dismissed when I asked the general counsel. I was concerned enough to tell the general counsel that the transition timetable didn't have to be immediate.
Until the day after Martin Luther King Day. That's when I got fired. I thought the meeting was going to be about transition issues, even though I had gotten word that a lawyer had requested a transcript of my hearing testimony the week before the firing.
Anyway, I have experienced some of the collateral effects of being transsexual - the loss of spouse and family, the loss of some friends, rejection from my parish church, and the loss of my job. But I am not living the lie required by my living up to the societal expectations for me.
I never fit in as a male. Not as a child, not as an adult, though I got better at it over time.
I was always angry and frustrated. Now, while I am very upset over losing my job and am feeling great anxiety over finding a new job, I am able to be who I am, and not what society expects me to be - I have my self-respect. While looking for work, I have also expanded my activity on behalf of human rights for all transgendered people.
Losing my job allowed me to be full time. And after a couple months of being full-time, I realized that I will be living the rest of my life being the woman I am.
After that couple of months, I started my identity management. Then I enrolled in the transsexual program at the local medical center. (If you notice, my driver's license photos are sans glasses - it's because I don't need corrective lenses in order to drive.)
This time, there is no doubt about sexual orientation as a bar to SRS. At the same time, I am taking the whole process very slowly. I know there is no going back, but at the same time, I need to evaluate exactly how far I need to go in order to feel right about myself. There is a good chance that will mean SRS. But there is also a chance I will possibly be able to avoid surgery, if I can help it. I never liked the idea of having any sort of surgery - so call me a scaredy-cat. At the same time, I know i may have to deal with that fear in order to go forward.
At least, when I had my consultation with Dr. Osterhout back in March 2000, he indicated that I really don't need anything done - (but If I wanted it, it would run more than I can afford!)
In the meantime, I have been diligently looking for work. It's been over six months, and unemployment benefits have run out. There is not a lot of time.
I hope my life gets sorted out sometime soon. And so the saga continues . . . .
The end of the story, for now. . . but it's just a beginning, as past is prologue!
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Pictured here is a train that ran along the Sea Beach line of the BMT, one of the routes of the New York City subway. It happens to be at the 20th Avenue station, which was my starting point for adventures. My father would take me to Coney Island, or to the City to visit a museum. Dad was a very strong and scary man, but he had a gentle side, too. Unfortunately, when he would get his temper up, there was no stopping the hitting - he would swing his belt unmercifully (though he never did use the buckle).
Here I am, the Halloween I was in the eighth grade. I convinced my mother that it would be really neat if I dressed up as a girl for halloween. I had a bra, long line panty girdle, stockings and a slip on under the gypsy girl costume. (No, mom didn't know about the underthings, except for the bra and stockings.) I even fit in my mom's shoes! And since I wasn't shaving yet, the only tip that I was a boy underneath was my voice, which had already changed. I took my brother and his neighbor friends around the neighborhood, trick-or-treating. It was the best day of my life, for a long time!
I am a practicing Roman Catholic. I felt (and still feel) a call from the Holy Spirit to the priesthood. I spent three years in a Catholic minor seminary, before I made the practical decision that I could not be a priest if I was expected to be celibate. At least, that's what I told people. I was actually very concerned over gender issues, but couldn't really articulate my feelings.
While my marriage was starting to disintegrate, I joined a couple of CD organizations: Crossdressers International(CDI), and the Chi Delta Mu Chapter of Tri-Ess Chi Delta Mu Chapter of Tri-Ess (CDM). CDI has made me its vice president after less than a year, and I am also helping edit the organization's newsletter. After almost a year, I got my wife to attend a meeting of Chi Delta Mu, which runs a support group for spouses/significant others of heterosexual crossdressers. She thought the meeting was helpful, and she may go again some time. (Well, in retrospect, the fact that she abandoned the family home on the same day our family membership in Tri-Ess national came in, had to be a strange coincidence - and the next day was exactly 19 and a half years that we were married! We never made it to 20.)
