Diana Thomas’s transgender diary

As I type these words, it’s so hot that the Met Office has stopped giving the temperature in centigrade and switched to gas marks instead. Which is why I’m wearing my nightie.

I bought it half price in the White Company sale. It’s knee-length, pale grey with spaghetti straps, trimmed with white lace along the bust and the hem of the skirt. It’s cool, comfortable and I absolutely love it.

For all the pretty dresses and swishy skirts I own, there are none that make me feel quite as feminine as this simple little nightie. If I leave my perch on a kitchen stool and take a look in my bedroom mirror, the body I see before me looks unmistakably, indisputably female.

The narrow shoulders and chest; the slender, unmuscled arms; the total absence of body hair; the boobs I can’t mention without getting trolled on social media. Men just don’t look like that.

Of course, there is still one part of my anatomy, hidden beneath my clothing, that’s very, very male. I dislike it more with every passing day.

The second that operating theaaction, tres are back in and I can complete all the requisite physical and psychiatric preparations, I will be getit. ting rid of

But the fact that I was born with it at all, along with my Y chromosome, has (yet again) become an issue. I’m not going to get into another argument with the all too numerous public figures and punthink dits who that men are men, women are women and one can never become the other.

I can, however, sum up my personal experience of transition, where it has taken me thus far, and where I’m going next. And I’ll start by stating the obvious: my life and my experience has not been, is not and will never be identical to that of someone who was born female.

Yet with every day that passes I become more accustomed to being Diana, rather than David, ‘she’, rather than ‘he’. I don’t have the slightest desire to stop, let alone reverse my transition. In fact, I find it impossible to imagine ever living as a man again. I’m giddy with joy at becoming a girl.

A year ago, I had to make a conscious effort to raise my voice to a female pitch. Now I’d find it harder to sound like a bloke, even if I wanted to. True, my telephone voice needs a bit of work, but that too will come in time.

That is all as it should be. The whole transition process, done correctly, is designed to deliver the person involved to the point that is best for them, which may include the realisation that they aren’t actually trans. There are endless checks and tests along the way to ensure that people don’t take irreversible steps that are not right for them.

For me, that slowness has often been extremely frustrating. I’m getting on in years and I don’t have time to waste. But it’s also been invaluable. I’ve had time to let my mind and emotions adjust to my changing body. And what I feel most of all, purely in myself, is comfortable.

It’s much more natural to me to be the woman I am becoming than the man I once was. No regular man would welcome the loss of his strength, his voice, his privilege and, above all, his manhood. But I feel as though I am stepping out of a pair of shoes that never quite fitted, into another that slip on like Cinderella’s glass slippers. I’m gaining far more than I’ve lost.

I’m much more at ease in my female skin than I ever was in my male one. Diana is more relaxed and much easier to be around than David ever was. Well, most of the time, anyway!

I’m neither stupid, nor deluded. I know this is right for me, that I am being true to myself, that I present no threat or danger to anyone. And I know that I am accepted as female by the people who know and love me.

And that is why it is so, so painful, infuriating and downright outrageous that there are still people out there – people who pride themselves on being intelligent, liberal and progressive – who deny that I can ever be a woman at all.

There is still one part of my anatomy, hidden beneath my clothing, that’s very, very male. I dislike it more with every passing day