An interview with Kelly Loches, a transwoman who made her transition at 50-years-old.
Why did I choose to start living as a woman at 50? I get that question all the time. The simple answer was “it’s time to be the me I always wanted to be”. I just didn’t want to live unhappily anymore. It was never a question for me of being embarrassed or ashamed of wanting to live as woman. I never will understand why it is so taboo that a man would want to be a woman.
My story really is very typical for someone who lived through the 70s and 80s. I saw gay kids attacked verbally and physically. There was no way I was going to discuss my feelings about wanting to be female when I was young. Not because I felt bad about wanting to be female, it was more about protecting yourself and even with a more accepting society today it is still dangerous 40 years later to be transgender.
My waiting til 50 was about me taking care of my parental duties. I felt that it would be problematic for my children if they dealt with my transition when they were younger. I am not saying that my decision process was exactly the way it should have been throughout my life but each of us has reasons for what we do and I accept my decisions. There are people who would and do judge me for a wide range of issues. I can’t control that and I focus on being positive in the future.
I choose to live in the light and I’m open about myself. I love the emotional freedom I can express as a woman. I smile a lot more. (I do love the clothes, the makeup and the shoes!) I love the rituals of my mornings now. I just love being me. Before I started this transition there was a question I had to answer my whole life. It actually annoyed me a lot. It has to do with my name. My whole life people would say to me “your name is Kelly? Isn’t that a girls name?” The answer for me now is “yes it is”.
I do get a lot of private messages from Trans, cross-dressers, gender fluid and whatever people decide to categorize themselves as on Instagram. The younger people usually send me messages about my appearance which is nice, we all want to be Audrey Hepburn honey!
The messages from a lot of the people my age or a little younger are ones about self-shame, loathing, fear and that the only way they can express their female selves is anonymously on social media. They love how shameless I am. I always say it has nothing to do with being shameless. It has everything to do with the fact that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a woman. They get it and say that they could never actually do what I did for a number of reasons. I don’t judge. We all have our own journey.
When I was asked to write about myself I was going to write about my childhood, and examples of all the issues transgender people had back when I was young. I decided not to go there. Those stories have been told before. And they are brutal and mean.
I want people to understand that there isn’t anything wrong with being transgender. I want people to understand that one can be happy and content and not damaged because of the decision to live as the gender you believe that you are.
