The wrong trousers

David Thomas’s transgender diary

I was a late developer. On my 15th birthday I was barely 5ft 3in, a chubby, bespectacled swot who had barely grown at all since the age of 12. The other boys looked down on me in every possible sense.

By my 17th birthday, I was 6ft tall, a lanky string bean who could run fast, attract girls and look his classmates in the eye. It was a miracle. In two short years, I’d gone from nerdy Peter Parker to swinging Spider-man.

Among my newly discovered superpowers was the ability to eat. Obviously, I had consumed food before. What changed, however, was the sheer amount that I could suddenly wolf down.

A typical day would begin with a hearty cooked breakfast before moving on to a couple of large, jam-filled doughnuts and a mega-mug of milky coffee, with at least two sugars, for elevenses.

Lunch was followed by the day’s sporting activities, after which mid-afternoon refuelling was required: something like, say, an entire tin of Buitoni ravioli. Three hours later, I’d consume a large dinner.

As I headed towards A-levels, eating five meals a day, I weighed less than 10 stone. When I got to university, my capacity for calories increased, if anything. Cambridge was freezing for almost all the academic year, we went everywhere by bike, and for two of my three years there I was rowing in a college eight.

We’d often train first thing in the morning. Get out of bed at dawn, run more than a mile down to the boathouse, do three or four miles of hard rowing on the Cam, then run back.

I can picture myself after a training session, sprinting across the marketplace, left on to King’s Parade and back in through the college gates. Twenty years old, barely out of breath, completely oblivious to the extraordinary gift of being that young, that fit, that blessed with all the possibilities life had to offer. I was probably just planning my breakfast. Three Weetabix, followed by the full English, and four slices of toast, slathered in butter and marmalade, would just about see me through to lunch. Aside from coffee and a snack between lectures, that is.

By now, I had put on a little muscle. I was heading towards 11 stone, but you could have weighed the fat in ounces. The same could be said for the other seven lads in the boat. Any fit, active, testosterone-powered young man is essentially a furnace for burning calories. It’s a gift that infuriates their female contemporaries. But it doesn’t last.

I spent 10 years as a fiendishly ambitious yuppie, editing magazines, with expense accounts to match. I still went to the gym. But I went to The Groucho Club more often. Then I moved to the country and was a work-at-home dad for another 15 years, having three meals a day and wine every night.

My weight ballooned past 13 stone, my waist headed towards 38 inches. At the age of 50, I took myself in hand and made an effort to exercise again.

The poundage came down a bit, the waist shrank back to a respectable 34 inches. For a man of my age, I was in pretty decent shape. But we live in a world of cruel double standards. It’s not the same for women.

I’ve drastically downsized my living quarters over the past five years. Now I need to downsize my body. This is partly vanity, but it’s mostly self-preservation.

I don’t want to stick out, to be plainly, visibly transgender. Granted, I could try not writing a column, with photos, in a national newspaper. But that hasn’t yet got me spotted on the street. Looking like a geezer in a frock, however, will.

The female body curves in, as well as out, so the solid, straight, masculine thickness in my torso has to go. If I can get my weight a few pounds below 12 stone and my waist down to 30 inches, that will make a real difference – and my clothes a lot more comfortable, too.

I’m not doing anything drastic. My three-point plan is: 1. Cut down on junk calories, viz: chocolate, ice cream and red wine. 2. Reduce portion sizes. 3. Increase exercise. Less sitting on my butt, more hill walks and hula-hooping.

Still, it seems much harder to lose weight these days. I’ve lost my calorific superpowers. I’m not just older, I’m no longer hormonally male.

My body’s getting orders to lay down fat from all the oestrogen in my veins. I look at a biscuit and it ends up on my hips. Now I know how those furious girls felt, all those years ago.

For a man of my age, I was in pretty decent shape. But we live in a world of cruel double standards. It’s not the same for women