Now we come to my early college years. I was 19 and I left home to start my first year of college. That first year I lived in a commercial, off campus dormitory and had 3 assigned roommates, with only 2 bedrooms. Thus, I simply could not risk having any of my comfort clothes with me and I had to hide away entirely again. This just added to my existing depression, and my studies suffered greatly. I skipped a lot of classes, often either just staying in bed or spending my time at a video arcade playing games all day. I even stayed in bed on the day at the end of second semester when my physics teacher took the class for a tour of the nuclear fusion reactor on campus, despite actually being a physics major.

The second semester opened up a bit for me, though. 2 of the people moved out and I had my own private bedroom at that point, so at the end of Christmas break when I returned from being home for the holidays, I brought all my clothes with me. At that point there were so many of them that they actually filled a large moving box. How I hid them from my parents successfully I’ll never know. So I was now free to dress as myself when no one was home, or at night alone in my bedroom, and this was a relief for me, though my depression still kept on getting worse.

There was one bright memory, though. It was a powerful moment of gender euphoria that I will never forget. I was, and am, a fan of the music of Philip Glass, and he had just released a new album called 1000 Airplanes On The Roof. I bought a copy of it and took it back home. That night, after I had turned in for the night, I shut my bedroom door and got dressed is a nice shirt and a pair of shorts and sat down on my bed to listen to the music on headphones.

Now, Philip Glass’ music often employs repetition in its structure and very simple melodies, which makes it a very meditative thing for me to listen to, and this new album was not an exception. As I listened to it my mind relaxed, my body relaxed and I began to enter a meditative mental state. And then, like that time in the gym in junior high school, my perception of my body shifted. I no longer felt the Thing between my legs and I became convinced that I could feel myself having a vagina like any other woman. This sent me over the edge into a state of ecstasy that I will never forget. I sat and listened to the music in a state of bliss unlike anything else I’d ever experienced. Even after the music ended the euphoria stayed with me the rest of the night.

Sadly, apart from that one experience, most of my first year at college was characterized by extreme depression, that would only get worse in the second year. That second year, though, I got together with a high school friend and we rented an apartment together, so once again I had my own bedroom and I could have my clothes with me. I even just hung them up in the closet and simply kept the closet door closed for times my roommate came into my bedroom for some reason. And he was often gone on weekends, so that I actually had quite a bit of time to be myself and live freely.

Towards the end of the year though, in the Spring, I one day found myself with another free day and I decided I was feeling good enough and confident enough in my hair and make-up that I should try something different: going out in public. I settled on going shopping at a nearby mall. So I got up early in the morning, got dressed and snuck out of the apartment hoping that none of my neighbors would see me.

The first thing I did at the mall was I hit a shoe store and bought a pair of Mexican sandals. They were very popular at the time among young women and I wanted to get in on the trend. I also simply didn’t have any decent women’s shoes at the time. Sadly, I got them a size too big and the back of them rubbed against my tendons and caused some bleeding, so I had to go to a pharmacy to get bandages. Oops!

Lesson learned and tendons now protected, I got down to the main course. First, I spotted an ear piercing booth and got my ears pierced for the first time ever so I could wear real earrings finally! That sent me over the Moon with joy and I walked away with the biggest smile on my face. Then I started browsing in the clothing stores and eventually found a dress I liked in a popular style and that I could afford, so after trying it on in the changing room to make sure it fit, I bought it.

At this point I was feeling ecstatic because everything was going just right. No one had even so much as blinked an eye at me. They just treated me like any of the other women shoppers I saw around me. And then it hit me. This was right. This was who I was supposed to be. Being a woman wasn’t just some daydream or wishful fantasy, it was something I actually needed, and something that I could actually do! And I started crying. Tears of joy at realizing who I was, and also tears of fear about the unknown future.

I went home that day and spent the rest of the day on Cloud 9, and I started my first diary that night. I wrote “[deadname] died today. He is no more. I occupy his body now. I am Elizabeth [lastname], and I am a woman.” (I did not end up keeping the name Elizabeth.)

The next day I went to one of the libraries on campus to try and find out more information on what I needed to do to really become a woman. I knew the word “transsexual” but I had avoided actually learning anything about transsexualism while growing up – it hit too close to home for comfort, I think. But in the card catalog (there were no computers in the library at the time) I found some information to get me started.

I devoured what I found and though some of it shocked me, such as the diagrams of surgical procedures, I was hooked. I finally had a word to describe the way I felt. I was a transsexual. That night I started trying to look for groups or people who could help me. Alas, there was no category for transsexualism in the phone book.

I did not sleep that second night more than about 3 hours. I was starting to freak out. I desperately needed someone to talk to and to confide in, but I had no place to turn. So I screwed up my courage and decided to tell my roommate. When he got home I asked him to come in my room, and to please stay calm. That was the first time someone I actually knew ever saw my dressed as myself.

I was terrified! I even thought about suicide before talking to him. But he handled it well. In fact, he agreed to let me dress as I wanted to around the apartment. I was so relieved by his reaction that it lifted all the worry and anxiety from me and I felt happy again.

That very night I decided to wear my new dress and go to see an opera being performed by the music school at the university. Once again I felt completely accepted by the people around me, and I even got to experience something I considered a right of passage: a long line to use the women’s restroom. That was very oddly gender affirming. When I got home, my roommate was watching TV and wanted a Coke, so I offered to go get him one. WIthout changing clothes I went to a nearby store for it and again felt perfectly comfortable and accepted being myself in public.

The next few days were a whirlwind. That first day after my mall trip, I changed my new earrings out for small pieces of paperclip so that no one would see me wearing earrings, but on the second day I decided to throw caution to the wind and just started wearing my earrings everywhere. The people I knew accepted it without criticism. I wrote a letter to my mother, too, asking her about what she remembered from my childhood. I specifically mentioned how I looked girlish as a young child as an example of what I was interested in. I also asked her to just please write me back instead of calling me.

She didn’t call. She showed up on my doorstep instead. I rushed to change clothes before letting her in. She made chitchat for a bit and then brought up the letter. I was too scared to tell her the truth right away, so I told her that I was a transvestite. She didn’t react much, but said she and my dad suspected it, and also thought I might be gay. She stayed in a hotel that night and the next and my dad also came over to join us for a day. I finally told them that I was considering a sex change operation (that’s what it was popularly known as at the time) and my mother in particular was a little shocked, but they still didn’t attack me and we all went out to dinner. My mother even gave me a bottle of perfume!

In the end we agreed that I would transfer to a university in my home town for the third year and that I would come back home to live with them and they would help me find a psychologist to talk to about everything I was feeling.

Next: finishing college and starting my life.