A new woman

Diana Thomas’s transgender diary

There I was one evening, sweltering in the early August heatwave, and it struck me that my feet were rather uncomkicked fortable. So I off my shoes.

Or at least, I tried to. But these particular loaffor ers were not kicking, I had to reach down and prise them off.

A gruesome sight was revealed. My feet had swollen up like a pair of rubber gloves, pumped full of air to bursting point. My ankles, normally so slender that they are on the very short list of Body Parts I Don’t Have to Worry About, were positively elephantine.

‘Mustbetheheat,’ I thought, though I’ve been to plenty of very hot places and never known anything like this. Still, I put my feet up. I bathed in cold water. I went to bed. And in the morning, to paraphrase Pink Floyd, my feet felt just like two balloons.

So then I went online and saw that, while most of the reasons for suddenly swollen feet did not apply to me, there was one that might: a heart condition.

I have experienced heart palpitations all my adult life, particularly while under stress. My father almost died at the age of 56 from a heart attack. I have been feeling somewhat short of breath ever since my cough that might have been Covid back in February and have experienced pains in my left arm and chest recently.

In the old days, this would be the point at whichicalledmygp surgery and booked an appointment. But, sorry love, appointoff. ments are It’s the Covid. So I went online and filled in the form that my GPS now insist is comwith pleted, the promise that one of them might call back. I described my bloated tootsies and then, when presented with a list of ‘Other Symptoms’, duly ticked shortness of breath and heart palsuddenly, pitations. a big red box appeared on screen telling me to call 111 or contact my GP immediately. Feeling somespooked, what I called my surgery, but after I had got past several recorded messages telling me all the reasons why I should really be filling in a form online, I was cut off. After I’d stopped swearing, I got in my car, pressed my grossly distended trotter to the metal and zoomed off to the surgery.

The only way to speak to anyone was through an intercom set into the windows of the surgery office. The blinds were down. The ladies within were hidden away like a maharajah’s womenfolk in purdah.

I pressed the bell, waited a lifetime until it was answered, gave my date of birth and the first thing I heard back was, ‘What is your name, sir?’ Then I forgot my feet and all I could feel was a sense of shame, embarrassment and bitter failure that has become all-too common lately.

I am 99 per cent certain that I pass as female in person. And once people see me as a woman, they hear me as one too… I think. But if people can’t see me and I’m talking via a phone or laptop mic, they hear and treat me as male. No matter how high I pitch my voice, or how far forward in my mouth I place it, I’m constantly ‘Mr’ or ‘sir’.

Maybe microphones pick up the chest resonances I’m trying so hard to eliminate. Whatever the cause, it’s a damn nuisance and it’s causing me serious stress and humiliation. I’ve reached a point where every time I call someone who doesn’t know me, I’m waiting to be misgendered.

Speaking of which, one of the doctors from my surgery did eventually call me. I won’t go into details, because I’d rather not be kicked off my surgery’s list, but suffice it to say that the general experience was, ah, suboptimal. And one of the things that made it so was that the doctor called me Mr Thomas. So now this telephone misgendering business is officially A Crisis.

Meanwhile, I still don’t know what’s wrong with my feet. But at least I’ve had a blood test at the surgery. The nurse who took it hadn’t seen me since I’d started living as a woman. She was thrilled by my transformation, told me I was coming along swimmingly and did my battered morale no end of good.

But still, the voice needs work. Urgently.

If people can’t see me, they hear and treat me as male… Every time I call someone whodoesn’tknowme,i’m waiting to be misgendered