AT SEVENTEEN

I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on ones more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth.

And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say come dance with me
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn’t all it seems at seventeen.

A brown eyed girl in hand-me-downs
Whose name I never could pronounce
Said, Pity please the one who serve
They only get what they deserve.
The rich relationed hometown queen's married into what she needs
A guarantee of company and haven for the elderly.
Remember those who win the game lose the love they sought to gain
In debentures of quality and dubious integrity
Their small town eyes will gape at you
In dull surprise when payment due exceeds accounts received
At seventeen.

To those of us who know the pain of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me.

We all play the game and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say, Come dance with me
And murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me
At seventeen.
- Janis Ian I was born in the midwest to a Victorian mother and a father who we later discovered was manic-depressive. My earliest gender-conscious memory was that of lying in the bath, wondering why this ugly thing stuck out of the front of me, and thinking that it was an imperfection in an otherwise very nice physique. I must have been three or four.

The rest of the time I considered myself male, but wished that I would wake up one morning as a girl, to spend the rest of my life as a female.
I always wanted to go out out as a girl, but I had short hair, and didn't have the boldness to try to pass as a short haired girl. Eventually after I left home, grew long hair, and finally went out on Halloween dressed as a woman, with my wife.

I went out to another Halloween party a day or two later at a nearby nightclub (it was a long Halloween weekend with parties on several nights.) I started talking to an inebriated young woman, and we danced. It was fun, but I was nervous, and slipped away before it got out of my control. Since then things have escalated, until eventually I started to change my gender.
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I've been married to a wonderful, beautiful woman whom I still love dearly, and we are still close friends, though we're now separated. She is largely responsible, thru her gentle, and sometimes not so gentle prodding, for revealing my true inner self to both of us. Thank you, my dear.

I've been playing slide & lead guitar, harmonica, bass and singing professionally for over 28 years. I've recently been working on Bessie Smith's and Memphis Minnie's vocal styles, and sing on the streets and in clubs. The Blues Bitch has arrived!

In September 1998, I made connection with a therapist who approved me for HRT in December. She helped me realize that the depression from which I've suffered for many years is mostly gender dysphoria. I have the need to be feminine in appearance, to match my inner soul. Otherwise the best I could hope to be would be the same maladjusted man, and spend the rest of my life wishing that I had taken this step when I had the opportunity. I had final reassignment surgery in 2001. As a TS, I know I will never really be a natural-born woman, but I now am female, and seem to pass almost all the time. This shot was taken in 1999.
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Lili's Transformation
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