I am 16, going on 17.... except I'm 51

Going through adolescence in your 50's is something very few people enjoy. Rather more do it though. It's probably easier than doing it in your 30's... as Madison found out....

Men searching for a long-term transsexual partner soon discover that finding one can be paradoxically difficult, since Adult (i.e., fully transitioned) transwomen often appears as any other woman in society. The same cannot be said, however, of their Pubescent counterparts – those “newly born” transsexuals just beginning their lives as women.

Thanks to their high visibility, these “young” women have come to represent – perhaps unfairly – the Public Face of Transsexualism to most people in the mainstream.
...
Contrary to public perceptions, most Adult transwomen bear little resemblance to their former Pubescent selves. Having largely cured their dysphoria and settled into their new social roles, they no longer call much attention to themselves and, after awhile, simply vanish from view.

And some of us skip a few steps along the way. We're old enough to.

In the transsexual world, the youngest women are sometimes the most mature, the most beautiful are sometimes the least feminine, and the most successful are sometimes the most irresponsible. It’s an alien world in which gravity pulls upside down, and magnetic North – especially during Puberty – is a perpetually moving target. Indeed, non-transsexuals often have a hard time even imagining life on such a planet. Just consider:

Virtually everything a Pubescent transwoman now knows – every romantic “truth” she’d learned, every social convention she’d mastered, every relationship she’d forged prior to transitioning – now belongs to a dead man. No matter what her current cup size may be or where she learned to smile with such smoldering sophistication, that hot girl sitting at the bar may very well be, for all intents and purposes, a 16-year-old girl socially, psychologically, emotionally and hormonally. And the more attractive she is, the harder she’ll have to work to unlearn those early male lessons. And you thought traditional Puberty was tough.

"Smoldering sophistication"? I must have cut that class. And maybe never having been a girl, hot or otherwise, only a middle-aged woman means I've avoided a lot of issues.

I can't decide whether to be grateful or not.

Drunk on hormones and flattering sexual advances (I wish - ZEB)– and with and new opportunities, desires and freedoms lurking around every titillating corner – we transwomen make poor choices, humiliate ourselves, get into trouble, abuse whatever feminine powers we’ve acquired, and come dangerously close to wrecking our own lives – all while trying to manage our “adult” careers, financial responsibilities, physical transformation and the few relationships we haven’t screwed up already. It’s a pretty tall order, and precious few of us are up to the task. When you suddenly find yourself occupying both the body and the life of a thirtysomething-year-old woman, survival has as much to do with luck as anything else. I, for example, experimented with drugs, group sex, BDSM, exhibitionism and escorting, to name but a few of my own transgressions.

OK, maybe I am grateful. Or maybe not, because I've always been rather staid, stodgy, prim and proper. I was never that kind of girl, not even with all my inhibitions removed - as they were when someone spiked my drink at a party when I was in my 20's. (I've never been to one since - just a rather sophisticated cocktail party, once, after transition). Had I transitioned at age 27, rather than 47, I don't think I would have been much different. Not more so than many girls of 16 these days, anyway.

Despite the obvious differences, transsexual Puberty is nonetheless quite similar to traditional puberty as experienced by most teenage girls in Western society. All the usual suspects are present: high levels of estrogen (Oooh Yeah! - ZEB), a new body hell-bent on exploration (well... thinking about it anyway... ZEB), burgeoning physical beauty (*Sigh* Well, at least I no longer look male - ZEB) and feminine sexuality (NO comment! ZEB), desire for adventure and excitement, giddy innocence and, of course, a healthy disregard for anything remotely resembling responsibility (well, yes, to all three - ZEB). The greatest difference, as you may have guessed, is that transsexual girls are, for the most part, entirely free to do exactly as they please – financially, domestically, geographically and sexually. Unfortunately, what they “please” is not always in their best interest ... or their reputation’s.

Thankfully, this only lasts for a year or so, assuming we survive it. A few of us don’t for obvious reasons.

It's been 4 years since my transition. I guess I'm developmentally retarded. Either that, or it's the flickering flame that burns the longest... Also, I'm married, and while neither of us are lesbian, that rather puts a cramp in one's dating life (for both of us). I've already found the great love of my life, a long-term relationship with a guy is something I neither need nor want, while a short-term one would be too shallow. I'm also parenting my child, and attempting a PhD in whatever spare time I have left after that. A social life is something I may dream about, but have no time for.

Somehow though, I'm never bored. Fancy that?