Self-Made Woman: A Transgender Latina Tells Her Story
As a little boy growing up with my grandparents in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, I used to watch my aunts put on makeup and clothes for hours. I was very feminine. When I went out, people sometimes thought I was a little girl. My hair was always really nice, so my grandmother let it grow a bit long; my grandfather used to yell at me for resting on one hip when I stood or fluttering my fingers when I spoke. In school, kids called me Palomita. However, what I felt was different from identifying as gay: What I saw in the mirror and what people saw were different from how I felt inside. I was meant to be a girl. But that didn’t become clear to me until I was 18 and living on my own in Reno, Nev. One Halloween, I dressed up as a woman—black and white sequin halter dress, tights, heels, makeup and my own bobbed hair—and entered a costume contest at a gay bar. I won, and it was a defining moment for me. I felt like, for the first time, I was letting people really see me and accept me for who I was. The worst thing anyone can be is invisible, and all my life I’d felt that way. I never looked back.
After moving to Los Angeles when I was 20, I saw a transsexual woman for the first time, and I realized how far I could go to achieve my dream. I started taking hormones and saving money for surgeries. By then, I had married a man in a civil union, and he and my mom also helped me with the costs and months of recovery. They included a nose job (I had a honker, which was okay on a man’s face but not cute on a girl!), cheek and breast implants, laser hair removal for my face and chest, a tummy tuck and silicone injections for hips, butt and thighs. I had surgery to shave down my forehead bone to soften the shape, which was so painful that I couldn’t walk correctly for months. I never had second thoughts or hesitations about the changes. I had an image of Iris Chacón in my head as the kind of woman I wanted to be: beautiful, strong, and voluptuous in that way that only Latin women can be. Every surgery represented months and years of preparation and a step closer to reaching my goal. I have pictures that I took every two years, and the changes are incredible: I love my hips, my breasts. The roundness and sensuality and the curves of a woman’s body are special; men just can’t compare.
Going out in public during the early years was tricky. I remember how on a road trip to visit my mom for the first time since starting my transition, we had to stop every few hours so I could shave—this was before I had laser treatment on my face. When we got to my mom’s house, my cousin was laughing, like, “You look like uncle David with makeup!” On a serious note, I was assaulted at a club once because men that had been interested in me throughout the night found out I was transgender, and they were furious. Now I’m 38DD-29-42, and I love it when men open doors for me and give me their bus seat. They see a woman. The only thing they might think is, “Wow, that’s a big bitch!” because I’m 6 feet 2!
有時我想，女人不欣賞自己的身體，自己和自己的力量不夠。我知道，因為作為一個變性的女人，我的女性的身體已經 15年的決策。我工作非常努力建立你一直與生俱來的。
作為一個小男孩成長和我的祖父母Fajardo的，波多黎各，我經常看我的阿姨把化妝和衣服的時間。我非常女性化。當我走出去，人們有時會認為我是一個小女孩。我的頭髮總是很不錯，所以我的祖母讓它成長有點長，我的祖父用來罵我休息一或臀部，我站在飄揚我發言時我的手指。在學校裡，孩子們叫我帕洛米塔。不過，我覺得是不同的，從確定為同志：我在鏡子裡看到的和人們看到的是不同的，從我內心的感受。我的意思是一個女孩。但是，這並不能成為我清楚，直到我18歲，生活在我自己在里諾，內華達州的一個萬聖節，我把自己打扮成一個女人，黑色和白色亮片露背的衣服，緊身衣，高跟鞋，化妝和我自己的短發和服裝大賽進入了一個同性戀酒吧。我贏了，這是一個決定性的時刻對我來說。我感覺，第一次，我是讓人們真正看到我，接受我對我是誰。最糟糕的事人人都可以是無形的，和我所有的生活中，我會覺得這種方式。我從來沒有回頭。
搬到洛杉磯後，當我20歲，我看到一個變性女人第一次，我意識到多遠我可以去實現我的夢想。我開始服用荷爾蒙和存錢的手術。到那時，我已經嫁了人在民事工會，他和我的媽媽也幫我的費用與個月的復甦。它們包括隆鼻（我有一個紅客，這是好是一個人的臉，但不是很可愛的女孩！），面頰及隆胸，激光脫毛對我的面部，胸部，腹部除皺和矽膠注射的臀部，臀部和大腿。我不得不手術剃光了我的額頭骨軟化的形狀，這是很痛苦，我不能正確地走了好幾個月。我從來沒有第二個想法或猶豫不決的變化有關。我有一個形象的虹膜Chacón的在我腦海中的那種作為女人，我想是：美觀，堅固，和艷麗的那樣，只有拉丁美洲的婦女都可以。手術代表每幾個月或幾年的準備和更近了一步達成我的目標。我有圖片，我把每兩年，變化是驚人的：我愛我的臀部，我的乳房。圓度和性感的曲線和一個女人的身體是特殊的，男人是不能比擬的。
在公眾中走出早年是棘手。我記得在一個客場之旅來訪問我的媽媽第一次開始我的過渡以來，我們不得不停止每隔幾個小時，所以我可以刮鬍子，這是激光治療之前，我曾在我的臉上。當我們去我媽媽的房子，我的表弟在笑一樣，“你看起來像叔叔大衛帶妝！”嚴肅點，我是毆打在一個俱樂部一次，因為男性一直有興趣在我整個晚上發現我是變性人，他們是憤怒。現在我38DD - 29 - 42，我喜歡它的人敞開大門的時候我，給我他們的巴士座位。他們看見一個女人。他們唯一可能的思考是，“哇，這是一個很大的婊子！”因為我是6英尺2！
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