The Telegraph: Column on the Journey to Womanhood ("60 year old dad")

[theOtherPamAyres]

It's a Premium Article in the Telegraph's family section.

The children are gone, the career was spectacular and now David Thomas is going to tell Telegraph readers about the journey to womanhood - without having experienced all the milestones and rites of passage that female children go through.

It would be marvellous if the Telegraph could also locate a woman in her 60s, with an empty nest and contemplating retirement, and with the same compulsion.

It would be fascinating to compare their journeys. There must be loads and loads of women lining up to change their circumstances so radically, surely? Unless, of course, the phenomenon is a male thing?

For completeness, it would be great to have a column from the spouses of late transitioning, formally heterosexual, men and women.

www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/decided-become-woman-60-year-old-dad/

And wouldn't it be amazing if David and other 'transitioners' could explore their less blokey side, sexuality or whatever without claiming womanhood.
I'm so fucking sick of this.

"What that means is I’m still legally male;I more or less have a male body. I was raised as a man, educated as a man and lived as a man."

At least he admits this at the moment.

This concerned me though:

“I want to be standing in the queue for the ladies, thinking I never used to have to do this, and the only reason the woman next to me is looking at me is because she likes my handbag.” In other words, I simply want to blend in. And I’ll just be more me than I was before. The real me."

In pursuit of which he's spending tens of thousands of pounds on facial feminization surgery and laser hair removal although he's not sure whether he'll get his penis removed.

Brilliant. One more man attracted to women with fully intact genitals gaining access to female only spaces.

THE REAL ME !!!
Och just one and spare us the story

Couldn't see the whole article, but if some white dude was spending thousands on tanning / making his skin darker and talking about his 'journey to becoming a black man' do we think he'd get the same press attention? I think not.

I find this very deeply offensive, as a woman who's spent 33 years so far menstruating and whose daughter is about to start. Fuck right off. Woman is not a costume, it's biology.

I think the paper may have overestimated readership interest.

I meant to say just do one 😂😂

Fed up with them stories about real me’s

Glad I couldn’t read but got the tone of i5b

My mum's a subscriber and "sick to death of all these transgenders"

She's middle class Tory and believes there are two sexes and that people can't change their biological sex.

She's not going to be interested in this bloke's "journey"

Oh dear. I don't think that's going to go down well.

There will be plenty of people who recognise this person's yearning for the basques worn on the Rocky Horror Show, for what it is.

Still, sunlight is sunlight

Does he have a wife? If so, it would be interesting to have her posting anonymously on the Trans Widows thread each week, mirroring her husband's "journey"....

Journey to womanhood my arse

You are a 60 year old guy

You will still be a 60 year old guy until your birthday then you will be a 61 year old guy

Bloody insult

No wife reading between the lines he was a completely unpleasant person to live with and they split up a couple of years ago

But now that he's allowed to do what he wants apparently he's becoming a much nicer person

He has a lady brain because of something that happened to him in the womb don't you know

"It’s not a delusion. It’s how you are. The NHS guidelines say that no one is sure of the exact cause of dysphoria, but it appears to be linked tohormonal issues in the womb. The hormones working on your brain don’t give the correct dosage, so your body is physiologically one sex, but your “brain sex” is the other. You’re born differently wired.’

I see he is going to be writing regularly about his "journey" in the colour supplement. I find it a strange sign-up considering the Telegraph has become incredibly pro-woman in recent months. It's running a lot of the transgender v women stories, from a sympathetic to women angle and has two major campaigns running as well - "Women in Business" which is very pro women and massively increased coverage of women in sport, including complete supplements and surveys on harassment, opportunities etc. - again very pro women. Perhaps they feel they need a pseudo woman for balance

Oh dear

There are so many arenas in which one could have as a life-goal fitting in with other women: a knitting club, for instance. Charity work for the elderly or ill. Women’s art or film appreciation classes or groups. Taking courses, even, in women’s history. Fundraising for and building women’s refuges.

I find it so interesting that for many transitioning males, these other arenas of female experience get barely a mention. I don’t think I’ve ever read a TW saying something like, “I felt so validated when the other women liked my thoughts about Wollstonecraft.”

No. It’s always about using the ladies loo — as a GOAL. As if using a toilet is THE height of female life instead of, simply, a necessary part of being human women tend to so that we can do all the things that actually create meaning in human life. The ladies loo is a kind of Everest that must be scaled.

Or, I suppose, a foreign land in which one’s flag must be planted so that the land can be claimed.

Without that element of attainment, wouldn’t we all find pathos rather than celebration, in the fact that a person’s life-goal had reduced to using a toilet?

'I want to be standing in the queue for the ladies, thinking I never used to have to do this,'

And coming up with ways to correct the unequal toilet access that is a constant Pita for women and in some cases prevents them doing stuff...

Yes?

No.

Thinking about handbags.

I see he is going to be writing regularly about his "journey" in the colour supplement.
I predict he'll be gushing about his clothes-shopping trips, his make-up lessons, his voice feminisation lessons, the girly hijinx he gets up to on nights out with his besties, the problems with walking in high heels etc.
Well, at least Telegraph readers will find out what autogynephilia looks like!

I wish these people could have a moment of self awareness and actually hear themselves. There is no journey to womanhood for a male and especially a male who is in the latter years of a journey through manhood.

Whatever he chooses to do with his newfound feminine side I can guarantee it won't chime with the life experiences and choices of actual 60+ year old women.

Without that element of attainment, wouldn’t we all find pathos rather than celebration, in the fact that a person’s life-goal had reduced to using a toilet?
Thank you, thank you BickerinBrattle!

A lot of these journeys read like a midlife crisis to me. Except instead of the man running off with his secretary he is spending thousands of pounds trying to turn himself into the secretary.

The utter self-absorption is something to behold.

Well, at least Telegraph readers will find out what autogynephilia looks like!
Maybe that's the intention

You’re welcome, GrumpyGran !

I think this journey series will provide quite an interesting read.

Even more interesting if parallel to it the Telegraph were to run a series about a woman’s journey to create beneficial material change in the world or even to create a piece of art.