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After having my breasts removed I began administering weekly testosterone injections. My voice dropped and I began to grow a beard. At this time I began to be taken as male in social settings.

The first thing I noticed was that the cat calls from cars as I walked down the street came to an end. No longer feeling sexually threatened was a huge relief, although it also led to me to another most interesting observation. I wondered if I made an ugly boy since I no longer received daily assurance that I was sexually desirable. It actually took a while to get used to not being seen as the physically attractive sex. My gain became an unexpected loss and I began to realize there are some things on the other side of the fence that you cannot see until you cross over and stand there.

I was happy, celebrating the fact that I was no longer seen as just a piece of meat–although later I realized that now society either uses me or ignores me, because I’m not attractive enough to be a piece of meat. I’m instead just an ugly, hairy beast with a wallet and a pair of muscular arms. Or, I might say with some measure of irony, a piece of meat that doesn’t even rate a cat call.

lone_yakuza wrote:Life is obviously easier as a woman if she is attractive. That is until she loses her beauty, then she is worth pretty much nothing to most people, and even the most loyal husband will find his attraction has waned. It's the brutal truth of life.