Ruby from Texas' longwinded story...

[RubyNeal]

Hi everyone! I'm Ruby from Texas, I'm 58 years old, MtF (intersex actually) and have been actively transitioning since 2016. I spent the first 7 months of that year losing ~50lbs of weight and getting myself physically fit enough to be able to hopefully achieve good results from HRT, achieved that goal by end of July, then arranged for HRT and took my first dose on September 2nd, 2016. In late 2017, got a new hormone doctor and upgraded from pills to injected estradiol and progesterone for HRT and learned from my new doctor that I am an XX/XY chimera.... which explains so much!  At age 4, I thought I was a girl, didn't know the difference, at age 8 had my "epiphany" but didn't really know what to call what I was since the word "transgender" didn't really exist in 1970, but I was a bright kid and knew I needed to keep my mouth shut and not bring undue attention to myself, thankfully the early 1970s quickly became a time when long hair became fashionable and my parents allowed me to grow my hair as long as I made good grades in school, so from 4th grade(1971) onwards until high school, I made perfect grades and became known as the short, scrawny, longhaired, girly brainiac kid in school and surprisingly, despite being a small, sorta redneck town in north Texas, nobody ever gave me a hard time, no bullying, nobody ever really ever made fun of me, I was just accepted as me. I realize now that I was extraordinarily fortunate in that regard, as bullying and discrimination were usually the norm for most kids like me elsewhere. During my school years in the 1970s, I did learn that "sex change operations" were a real thing, and intended to investigate this as soon as I graduated high school and moved away  to begin college, which I did in Fall of 1980 when I moved to the DFW metroplex for college, and experimented with dressing up in public a few times. At age 18 in 1980, I was still only 5'3", 112lbs, and long hair halfway down to my butt, I got called "miss" and "ma'am" by strangers all the time, so with the right clothes and a little makeup, passing was no problem. Oh how I miss that part of those days, lol!  The word "transition" didn't exist in common vernacular in 1980, it was simply called "getting a sex change", and there was no Internet then either... there was the university library and books, magazines, and professional journals for medical practice, psychology and psychiatry.... and what I learned was that in 1980 if I was wealthy enough I could move somewhere like NYC or the west coast, hire a private doctor and take my chances, but as a poor trailer park kid trying to work my way through college in the middle of Texas, I'd better keep my mouth shut a little longer, and maybe after get my college degree and work a good job for a couple years, then I could afford to revisit my dreams before I got too old. Meanwhile life got in the way, I went thru a couple periods of denial, repression, overcompensating, etc, got into Harleys, then airplanes and when that burning issue since my childhood, and that memory of my day of epiphany from age 8 in 1970 replayed in my head every single day of my life since 1970 became un-ignorable yet I thought I was now far too old to transition, that I'd simply just wasted my life and all that was left was for me to take this thing to the grave with me, never tell anyone, and if I was lucky I'd drop dead soon from a heart attack or stroke since I completely let my health go once I hit 50. I'd never been married, never even had a successful relationship my whole life that lasted longer than a few weeks. I was alone, miserable, and tired of being alive. No one told me when to run... I'd missed the starting gun. Then when I was 53, in 2015, a certain celebrity figure who first became famous in the summer of 1976, during the pinnacle of my youth between 8th grade and starting my freshman year of high school, was in the news once again. This time not on a box of breakfast cereal, but on the cover of Vanity Fair, and while literally everyone around me is making her the butt of their jokes, the first thought thru my mind was OMG she's 65 years old, that means maybe it's not too late for me after all. I mulled the thought around in my head for the rest of 2015, as it would be a big, huge, scary decision.... and it would turn my entire life completely and unpredictably upside down, with totally unknown consequences.... but I finally realized I literally had nothing left to lose, and potentially everything to gain. It would be the greatest adventure of my lifetime, or I would die trying. So right after Christmas 2015 I made myself a New Year's resolution to lose at least 50 lbs, and get at least physically fit enough to be able to walk a mile or two without passing out from exhaustion, so January 1st, 2016 was the start of my preparations to get my body ready for HRT to have a decent chance. I was 5'7" and weighed 211 lbs, and I'm not going to say what my blood pressure was, it was quite bad..... 7 and a half months later, I weighed 155lbs, could walk 15+ miles in one day, limited by the blisters on my feet not by cardiovascular condition. My waistline went from 36" to 30" and my blood pressure was upper 120s over upper 70s... good enough! I'd been studying everything about HRT and transitioning I could find on the web. While waiting for my HRT appointment, I discovered a webcomic called "Rain", aimed more at the teens thru maybe 30s audience, but I got hooked on the story anyway and binge-read all ~ 900 pages that existed at the time, and it provided me with the education I needed to understand much of the current state of the transgender community. It also provided me with my new name, which is also only one letter different from the first name I was called by.... when I was 4 years old, so in a strange way, I have now come back around full circle to who I was over half a century ago, and things seem so right finally.

 

TL;DR Well, this is the place for introduction biographies,  eh? That wall of text kinda wraps up in a nutshell who I am, and how I got here, lol!

 

In summary, I'm currently 58, began preparing for transition at 53, started HRT at 54, got breast augmentation at 57 (November 2019), GRS was supposed to happen December 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic threw a bucket full of monkey wrenches into those plans, still hoping to complete that before my 59th birthday. I'm not sure if we're prohibited from including a picture of ourselves here or not, all I could find in the rules was a not saying that only photos of ourselves only could be included on comments or replies, so this is me.... 

[Jackie C.]

Salutations Ruby!

 

Your story is a lot like mine, just with the names, dates and locations changed. Well, and I got GCS before breast augmentation. I've still got some time before nature has fully run it's course. Well, crawled it's course, I've got no breasts and a super flat backside.

 

Anyway, pictures are fine, as long as they're tasteful. No shots of you in a thong and a smile for example. You might want to consider posting them in the gallery though. That's member's only.

 

So yeah, welcome to the site!

 

Hugs!

[RubyNeal]

I kinda figured that only classy, tasteful, "G Rated"  photos would be kosher for this forum.  There's much more suitable sites for me to unleash my raunchy, "no moral filters" alter-ego if I ever truly get such an alter-ego.... lol! My arthritis tells me that's probably  not such a bright at my age anymore. *sigh* ?

[Jackie C.]

Much like the mini-skirt I buried at the bottom of my dresser Ruby. At least I had the foresight to look in a mirror and say, "What was I thinking?" before I wore it somewhere public.

 

I'm not so shy about pictures now that I've been transitioning though. It's weird to be comfortable in your own skin.

 

Hugs!

[RubyNeal]

Well, I definitely have been known to dress not so "age appropriate" at times, and I'm very lucky to be able to still pull it off fairly well. I do try to dress tastefully though  when I'm wearing something purchased in the "Junior's" section.  One of the effects of my genetic chimerism is that during my teenage puberty, I got somewhat curvy hips and a wider female shaped pelvis out of my unusual genetics, since all my bones from L1 vertebrae to my toes seem to be all XX dna cells. My skin looks a lot younger than my years too.....  I've had people think I was literally half my calendar age when my makeup is on point. It kinda feels weird getting carded while buying alcohol too,  but at my age I kinda like it now!  My doctor thinks my CNS (including eyes), outer skin, and GI tract are a blend of 70% XX and 30% XY cells since all those things form from the same originating group of embryonic stem cells, and HRT made my eyes change color from solid brown to 70% green/hazel & 30% brown in a three color central heterochromia pattern, plus all the gender identity psychological tests I took score me as around 2/3 feminine and 1/3 masculine in the way I think and behave  and react  to the world around me.

[Susan R]

4 hours ago, RubyNeal said:

At age 4, I thought I was a girl

Welcome Ruby, It’s a pleasure to meet you. Very much enjoyed reading your introduction because your journey is very close to mine especially at certain points. Age 4 (and 5) seem to be critical ages among the transgender community. The epiphany you experiences at 8 years old I had at 11 but it resonates with me. 

 

4 hours ago, RubyNeal said:

...that memory of my day of epiphany from age 8 in 1970 replayed in my head every single day of my life since 1970 became un-ignorable yet I thought I was now far too old to transition, that I'd simply just wasted my life and all that was left was for me to take this thing to the grave with me, never tell anyone, and if I was lucky I'd drop dead soon from a heart attack or stroke since I completely let my health go once I hit 50.

This paragraph was my life. Like you, not a day went by where it didn’t affect me. I thought I’d die with the secret (even though I was in denial about who knew). I always worried if it ever got out I would live my life and be forever known as ‘the crazy uncle’ or some other derogatory. Also, I’m very familiar with ‘giving up’ and no longer caring...then letting yourself go. Depression or gender dysphoria can really do a number on us not only mentally but physically as well. Congratulations on losing the weight and getting healthy. That takes so much effort and mental stamina. Then on top of that you finally accepted yourself and starting moving forward.

 

I was wondering if you had something specifically earthshaking, some event that started you on these major changes? Perhaps the timing alone with New Years and your mindset at that time was enough of a push for you to get things going.

 

I‘m happy for you and very glad you found us and decided to share much of your story with us. I look forward to reading more down the road.

 

Warmest Regards,

Susan R?

[RubyNeal]

5 hours ago, Susan R said:

 

I was wondering if you had something specifically earthshaking, some event that started you on these major changes? Perhaps the timing alone with New Years and your mindset at that time was enough of a push for you to get things going.

 

Actually not really...... after wondering if I could really do it and mulling it over in my head all summer and fall of 2015 while studying everything I could find on the Internet and then another hollow and empty holiday season at the end of 2015, a New Years resolution just seemed like a logical starting point ro begin working on regaining some semblance of health..... at that point I really didn't have anything to lose and if I dropped dead of a heart attack or stroke once I began seriously restricting my calorie intake and began walking and exercising, well that seemed perfectly acceptable too. The first few weeks, the hunger pangs were intense, then I discovered dill pickles have zero calories and fill the stomach up. I'm sure my blood sugar levels were all messed up too when I started walking to get fit, I couldn't even complete one mile at first... In fact the first few long walks I forced myself to complete, I nearly collapsed and was so dizzy I could barely make it back to my car when I finished first one mile at a time, then two, then three as the weeks turned into months.... then before I knew it I could handle a 5 mile brisk walk, then I doubled that to 10 and with daily calories at 1500 or less, I'd put myself into deep ketosis and the pounds melted off. I had to buy smaller jeans and shirts by summertime since my old clothes fit like a tent. I made my weight goal by mid July, and flew my little experimental airplane up to Oshkosh Wisconsin for one last time, because I knew I needed to sell it and give up flying.... I had more important things to focus on. It was my 10th EAA Airventure in a row camping in a tent beside my little plane on the field alongside the thousands of other pilot/campers, and I was able to walk up and down the whole length of the airport grounds probably around 15 total miles per day for 4 days in a row before my feet were too blistered to walk any more and it was time to fly home, put the plane away in the hangar and advertise it for sale, and get down to business transitioning. I too had lots of worries about what people would think, but was past the point of cRing about that. Fortunately all my nieces and nephews accepted their new Aunt Ruby 100%, in fact they like her better than they did their old Uncle Neal..... yeah, I reused my old first name as my new last name.... for a specific reason. My birth middle name was Rudolf, aka Rudy, and until I began kindergarten and first grade in public school, my mother always reversed the two names and used them together.... from the time of my birth, thru until age four to five years old I was "Rudy Neal"... a good old southern style two-name, sort of like "Billy Bob" or "Peggy Sue", but by the time I entered public school we were required  to go by the names on out birth certificate, and in order. Nicknames or going by a legal middle name was against the school rules, so I had to learn a new first name for myself, that I'd always thought originally was my middle name. Half a century later, while reading that webcomic "Rain" after returning home from Oshkosh, and having no idea what name I was going to pick for myself, there is a character in the story named Rudy, who much to the chagrin of his friend Rain, a transgender girl going thru her senior year at high school in a brand new city and school where nobody knows her, and her first year of "RLE", Rudy shows up at the big halloween costume party as "Ruby" and risks "outing" Rain. My 1970 epiphany when I was 8 years old??. Well, that was Halloween of 1970, a Saturday and my parents were away for the evening and us kids had a babysitter, so I asked my sister (3 yrs older) to help me dress as a girl to go trick or treating, so she loaned me her easter dress and she, my next door neighbor puppy love girlfriend (also 8 yrs old) and her older sister fixed me up and I went trick or treating as a princess. That evening, a supernova exploded inside my brain. That was my epiphany. From that moment onwards, I "knew". I didn't have a name for it (transgender) but I knew who and what I was, and it certainly wasn't "normal" at least under 1970 standards. That's the memory I've replayed every day for the past half century. So when the Rudy character in the Rain webcomic dressed up and chose Ruby for a name, my fate was sealed. I have no earthly idea how so much serendipity can converge all at once at one point and place in time and space, but I knew right then what my new name shall be and who I was from then onwards. I was Ruby Neal... one letter different from my original name I knew myself to be called. The circle had come back around completely, almost exactly fifty years later.  For a middle name, I used the name I was given from Halloween evening of 1970... Ruth. So there's another chapter of my bio, lol!!! ? And I sure hope I picked a good one, because it's a done deal, legally changed and everything now, including new birth certificate (yes that's doable in Texas).  Oh, and my sister who loaned me her Easter dress in 1970..... the only person I confided my secret with all those years ago... at Christmas time 2016, I'd been on HRT barely 4 months, no changes were visible yet. I was so afraid of how she might react, it had been literally four and a half decades since I'd confided my deepest secret with her, but I came out to her anyway... all I could really say was that I had started taking hormones and asked if she understood what I was trying to say.  She hugged me and we both started crying. I forget the exact phrase she said, but it was basically to the effect of "What took you so long?" She immediately listed my new Facebook account on her profile page as her little sister. She's planning on traveling with me when I get my GRS surgery and taking care of me for the first few weeks of recovery until I can drive and get around again.

 

Oh, and the Halloween of 2016.... 46 years exactly after that fateful day, one of my pilot buddies threw a big costume party. I'd never dressed up as a girl for Halloween since 1970. When I showed up at my friends party, yeah you guessed it. Heads kinda exploded at the party that night, I don't think they took me very seriously then. Oh, lordy they're all taking me pretty seriously now ??‍♀️?

 

 

Quote

 

 

[Susan R]

1 hour ago, RubyNeal said:

my next door neighbor puppy love girlfriend (also 8 yrs old) and her older sister fixed me up and I went trick or treating as a princess. That evening, a supernova exploded inside my brain. That was my epiphany. From that moment onwards, I "knew".

Ruby...what an incredible event! I understand this and how much impact it can have on your life. I was a few years older when it happened to me but the result was the same. It never leaves you. At 4 year old, you can’t really put much together as to what is going on inside until something wonderful like this happens. 

 

2 hours ago, RubyNeal said:

it had been literally four and a half decades since I'd confided my deepest secret with her, but I came out to her anyway... all I could really say was that I had started taking hormones and asked if she understood what I was trying to say.  She hugged me and we both started crying. I forget the exact phrase she said, but it was basically to the effect of "What took you so long?"

This part of your story is so up-lifting. You’re sister sounds like a amazing person. I’m glad you had someone like that to share this news about yourself with because it’s so important to have an ally at that time of your journey. Coming out is such an ‘up and down’ emotional period too. I’m glad it went as well or better than you expected.

 

2 hours ago, RubyNeal said:

I'd never dressed up as a girl for Halloween since 1970. When I showed up at my friends party, yeah you guessed it. Heads kinda exploded at the party that night, I don't think they took me very seriously then. Oh, lordy they're all taking me pretty seriously now ??‍♀️?

I love it. That party sounds like so much fun. What a great memory!

 

You’ve lived quite a life so far and I certainly enjoyed reading it. Thank you for sharing  more of yourself.

 

My Best,

Susan R?

[ToniTone]

Hello and welcome Ruby! Your story is really sweet, thank you for sharing it.

 

You used to be a pilot, that's amazing! I'm a bit of a flight enthusiast myself. Half a lifetime ago I was training for single engine certification, flying Cessna 152's and Piper Cherokees. Didn't think I'd be able to make a career in aviation, dropped out and went to art school instead ?

 

~Toni

[Oh_Kay]

Hi Ruby,

 

Thank you for sharing your story. That question your sister asked "what took you so long?" is an amazingly important question. I bet we all ask ourselves that question.

 

Kay

[RubyNeal]

On 5/13/2020 at 9:00 AM, ToniTone said:

Hello and welcome Ruby! Your story is really sweet, thank you for sharing it.

 

You used to be a pilot, that's amazing! I'm a bit of a flight enthusiast myself. Half a lifetime ago I was training for single engine certification, flying Cessna 152's and Piper Cherokees. Didn't think I'd be able to make a career in aviation, dropped out and went to art school instead ?

 

~Toni

 

Well, technically I still am a pilot... I just don't have a current medical (or "BasicMed" the new substitute for a 3rd class medical) or a currently BFR. The last time I piloted an airplane was on January 1st, 2017 when I took my friend's Vans RV-8 (which I helped build about a third of...l I installed all the wiring, electrical stuff, avionics, flight instruments, etc) up for a quick pleasure flight since I'd just sold my RV-6 a couple weeks before Christmas 2016.

 

I started lessons in 1998 in a Cessna 150, then took one lesson in a Cherokee 140, then took a break until early 2000 after my mother's health deteriorated shortly after JFK Jr. crashed and she passed away in summer 1999. i resumed lessons in early 2000 in a 1972 Cessna 172L model that was painted bright yellow with a big swoopy dark blue Orca-like pattern on the belly and lower fuselage, that we affectionately called "The Flying Banana". I passed my checkride in that plane in August 2000, then bought my first plane in March of 2001... a 1966 Piper Cherokee 140 and flew that for 10 years (including selling it once and then buying it back a couple years later). Then after helping build several Vans RV series experimentals with friends (RV-4, RV-6, RV-7, RV-8, and an RV-10 4-seater) and the owner of the RV-8 tossing me the keys to his freshly built, and just barely had the 40 hours Phase 1 initial test period flown off, $110K hotrod toy.... and said "Fly it to Oshkosh" in 2010, and after returning said "Fly it as much as you want, just make sure it's full of gas before putting it away back in the hangar" and flying it to Oshkosh again in 2011... I only put a meager 16 hours on my poor old Cherokee in 2011 (and almost 70 hours on my friend's RV-8, lol), so I put it up for sale and sold it again to start looking for an RV of my own. Going +200mph on 7 gallons per hour beats the heck out of only going 130mph and burning almost 9 GPH..... I had the RV fever, then in early 2012, a beautiful, perfectly constructed RV-6 came up for sale at our airport, that I watched being built during the first few years I owned the Cherokee. The owner/builder was a retired GE field service engineer who took care of all the GE CT scan, XRay and MRI systems at hospitals and imaging clinics all over the region, and he was the most nitpicky perfectionist SoB I've ever met in aviation... exactly the kind of person you'd want to have built a kitplane you're gonna be betting you're own bacon in while poking holes in the sky at 200mph. This RV-6 was one of the earlier "slow build" kits where you had to drill, de-burr and dimple every rivet hole by hand yourself as the builder..... over 16,000 rivet holes total, and set each rivet individually, and almost every single one was perfect. I bought the plane in April 2012 and during the 4.5 years I owned the plane, and did all the maintenance work on it myself since that's legal on an experimental, I learned every square millimeter of that plane and only found 4 rivets that were less than perfect. I put 250 hours on it in the time I owned it including 5 trips to EAA AirVenture at Oshkosh, and two trips over the Rockies to the mountain backcountry airstrip of Johnson Creek Idaho and back to Texas. I could make it from Wichita Falls TX to Oshkosh WI in 5 hours 15 minutes, burning a total of 55 gallons of avgas and that included one fuel stop about midpoint near Kansas City. The Cherokee took over 8 hours and burned almost 75 gallons of avgas. In the RV-6, I could be rolling down the runway in Texas at a little after 6:30am and be setting up my campsite on the field at Oshkosh by 15 minutes after 12:00noon.... it took a little over 15 minutes after landing there for the ground crew motorscooter folks to escort me to taxi from the runway to the homebuilt aircraft camping area. But as 2016 progressed and I knew I'd met my weightloss and fitness goals prior to July and AirVenture week, I knew that would be my last Oshkosh trip. I had bigger fish to fry on my agenda, and the airplane had to go, and my wings would be hung up and put on hiatus until..... ???
I do want to fly again someday.

 

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return" -- Leonardo daVinci (actually not really but we like to think daVinci would've said that)

 

I wrote that same quote into my  pilot's logbook the day I passed my checkride.
 

Blue and white plane was my Cherokee 140, little red and white side by side 2-seater with checkerboard rudder was my RV-6, the red and white tandem 2-seater is my friend's RV-8 I helped build.

[ToniTone]

That is so cool, thank you for sharing! 

 

[ToniTone]

You look lovely btw! And you look happy in that photo. ?