Julia’s detailed testimony

Julia traveled several hundred kilometers to meet me. This woman from Lille once again deeply touched me with her story, her history, and her confidences. I wish her much happiness living as she secretly dreams to be.

Can you introduce yourself? Age, gender, family situation, profession, city.

Hello, which name should I use? It’s already complicated from the first line. The female first name I chose seems more appropriate in this context.

Hello again, I’m Julia, I’m 32 years old (already!), and I currently live in the Lille metropolitan area where I also work. My sex or gender? Is it important? I feel like saying no, that we shouldn’t put people in boxes because it suits me well to think that way.

In reality, deep down, I know it is. It has even been the center of my life for almost as long as I can remember. My life… I’m always trying to build it even though it’s not always easy. To summarize, it boils down nowadays to going out as a girl once in a while and spending the rest of the time in “autopilot” mode, waiting for the next opportunity.

Some colleagues tell me I’m “like a robot” and even though it sometimes hurts to hear, I think that’s the image I give to others most days: a solitary person who doesn’t talk much with few interests. That life is not mine; mine is the days when I can be a girl, and for now, that’s far too few.

How long have you wanted to feel more feminine?

Always, or almost? I think it’s always been there even if it took a long time for me to fully understand it.

I remember a year-end party in first grade when girls could wear pretty dresses while boys had to wear little suits.

Afterward, throughout all my school years, I refused to participate in other parties or carnivals. There were also all those cartoons more aimed at girls that were better not admitted to be watched at school — “you don’t watch that, do you!!!”

And yet, as a child, I dreamed and imagined being several characters from Magical Doremi or Sakura with her friend who always made her pretty costumes. Talking about all this also reminds me of Christmas or other family events. Once, someone had the idea of buying small surprise playsets for kids. Of course, there was a girls’ version and a boys’ version. My disappointment at getting dinosaurs instead of Polly Pockets like my cousin must have been obvious because my mother ended up buying me one a little later, which earned me a remark from another cousin who found them in my room later. “It’s abnormal, it’s wrong.”

Messages that society, family, and school teach us very early. We quickly understand that it’s better to say as little as possible to others and hide what we feel.

We say nothing, but we think anyway. When my cousin is given a makeup kit, I look without saying a word.

Obviously, the years pass, adolescence arrives along with its share of changes, and one of them affects me particularly: body hair.

I remember one of my school friends who was so proud to have mustache hair. For me, it was more of a trauma. I tried a few times to use my mother’s epilator to remove those horrors but without much success, making things worse.

As a child, I already didn’t have many friends, but it became even more complicated in adolescence. While others began to go out and live a little more independently, I completely shut myself off.

At home, my terrible relationship with my father didn’t help. It never took much for me to burst into tears. He would always tell me it’s because I’m weak. I’ve always been weak from his point of view. His obsession was to make me “strong.” He forced me to join certain sports clubs. I’ve always had arachnophobia. He forced me to watch documentaries about spiders to “overcome the fear.”

Since childhood, I’ve slept with stuffed animals. Over the years, the bed filled up, and they all have a name and a story. One morning, the summer I turned 14, he decided I was “too old” for that and threw them all away. I managed to save only a few by hiding them here and there (I still have them today).

Fortunately, most of the time, my father wasn’t physically violent.

Emotionally, he destroyed me day after day. Rather than feeling pain, I stopped living. I went to middle school / high school and spent all my free time in front of the TV or on the internet to escape a little.

My life remained trapped in this cycle for quite a while.

When did you decide to take action, that is, to crossdress for the first time? For what occasion? What did you feel?

My parents separated when I was 21. At the time, without a true plan, I had started university studies near the family home.

My father’s departure “broke the spell.” Life didn’t become perfect overnight, but I stopped feeling like I was under his total control.

Today, I have almost completely cut ties with him. I made some close friends at university and over time felt capable of talking to them a bit more. After my father left, I had laser hair removal for the first time, and it was a bit of a shock. The following days, I started to develop ingrown hairs everywhere.

I tried depilatory cream, razors—I always had tons of ingrown hairs to the point of having awful scarred skin, which didn’t help my morale. University couldn’t last forever, and I had to enter the workforce. But my distress made me think it would be difficult, and I’d never really thought about what I wanted to do later (I had many other problems to solve before thinking about that).

By chance, one of my university professors offered me to continue with him and do a thesis under his supervision. The subject didn’t particularly interest me, but accepting allowed me to earn a first salary, stay at my mother’s place (no rent), and use that money for laser hair removal sessions to maybe finally eliminate that hair, hoping to feel a bit better. Four and a half years of thesis, one laser session per month all over my body, from my face to my feet—that’s more than 50 laser sessions! FINALLY, it worked. I now have very little hair left, and most scars are gone, though I continue to have occasional laser sessions to maintain areas where hair still grows partially (face). At 26, almost no hair, it’s less bad but still far from satisfying.

But what more can I do? Makeup, maybe? Could I look like a girl? I doubt it; it’s not magical either… Searching on the internet, I found a makeup artist in London, Cindy, who offered her services precisely for transformations (at the time, I hadn’t found anyone in France) and I sent her an email. To sum up, it was like “I know the result will be a disaster, but can we try anyway?” I went one day in the summer of 2016, and Cindy made me prettier than I ever could have thought possible.

She also offered to lend me clothes to go out for a day, which I did immediately. It was followed by a fantastic afternoon on the streets of central London.

For the first time in my life, I felt comfortable; I wasn’t ashamed of my appearance, I wasn’t afraid of others’ looks, I dared to look at myself in mirrors, and I took tons of photos. On the street, someone handed me a flyer for a nail bar, a vendor called me “miss,” so many scenes from that day forever etched in my memory. That evening, at Cindy’s, we removed the makeup, and she said, “There, back to normal.” I didn’t say anything at the time, but it hurt so much. “Normal,” meaning that this day wasn’t normal? That I was only “crossdressing” for a day? “Crossdressing” is a word I struggle to use because it implies trying to be something one is not.

I don’t feel like a crossdresser in girl mode; far from it. It’s rather the opposite. At those moments, I stop feeling uncomfortable; I feel good. It is, on the contrary, in everyday life that I feel like a fraud, ashamed to be seen by others.

Why this desire? What does it give you?

It’s so hard to answer that question. Simply put, I want to say it allows me to live. The rest of the time, I just go through life without living it. Normally, I have always avoided looking in a mirror. It’s been such a long time that it became reflexive; I look away at the mere sight of mirrors. The same goes for photos. Whether class photos or family photos, I’ve always tried to find the position or spot where I would be least visible. I have gotten angry more than once when someone took a photo of me without me knowing, without them understanding why, of course. I have one single photo of myself as a boy that I always reuse everywhere if needed. After meeting Cindy, I went back to see her and other people (this kind of “makeover” service is fairly common in England) every 2-3 months and accumulated dozens of photos of myself as a girl in these few days here and there. I’m not ashamed of these photos; I’d use them everywhere if it was up to me.

Is this desire occasional or permanent?

It’s the first thing I think about in the morning after a long time. I think no more than five minutes ever go by in a day without something bringing me back to think about it again.

During one of my visits to London, I asked myself, “And now, what?” “What do I do with my life after this?” I realized I had never really thought about what was next, either personally or professionally. On a personal level, going out as a girl from time to time is better than nothing, but it’s so little… Professionally, I embarked on higher education in a field I’m not passionate about at all without thinking things through, and it’s way too late to go back. One thing at a time: I’m trying for now to finish my studies as quickly as possible, find a job, start living alone, and then think about what’s next.

Unfortunately, a few weeks after finishing university, I had a stupid accident that put my life on pause again.

Accident, inner ear damage, tinnitus, hyperacusis. I’m half deaf; all sounds hurt (even a clock ticking) and I’m stuck in a silent hospital room for months. Doctors can’t say if it will get better. Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe my life is over, and I’ll never be able to go outside again. The most difficult is to tell myself I haven’t even really lived… except for these few days here and there in England, I haven’t lived my life and it’s too late now. After 2 months of auditory rehabilitation, I hear fairly well on the left and can tolerate quiet environments. After 6 months, I’m able to go out in town for a while. After a year, my left ear more or less recovered. My right ear never will, but that’s not so bad. The most important thing is that I can go out again. I have a new chance. I will never see the world the same way again. I realized everything can stop from one day to the next without warning, that I don’t have infinite time, and I must enjoy life while it’s possible. It took me another 6 months to find a job and move into an apartment in Lille.

The next step was to build a girl’s wardrobe and learn how to do makeup by myself. I naturally turned to people I knew in England at first, but it was far and expensive, and I went there too rarely to do it effectively.

On a whim, I searched again for help on the French side and found Jennifer’s website, with whom I made an appointment for March 2020.

Bad luck, it happened right when the coronavirus pandemic started. My life was again blocked, but at least this time, the whole world was blocked with me. Fortunately, it didn’t last, and I was finally able to meet Jennifer in July a few days ago. What’s next? Learning to do proper makeup alone, going out more often, maybe learning to love myself finally and be able to let others love me as well. Simply live.

Do you have fears regarding society, your family, etc.… any apprehensions, any discomfort?

I think whatever happens, the fears I might have about society will remain much less troubling than the distress I feel the rest of the time.

The hardest will be integrating existing relationships with family and friends into this. When I was at my lowest after my accident, I talked about it to almost everyone (family and friends).

I don’t think they all understood how important it is to me, or they refuse to admit it. My mother still regularly pushes me to cut my nails or go to the hairdresser to have shorter hair, telling me I’m “handsome” like that. Work is another place where it can be complicated. Unfortunately, I hear colleagues making tasteless homophobic jokes or more generally anti-LGBT jokes far too often.

Under these conditions, it’s always hard to imagine how people would react without taking the step. I also still struggle to handle the “ephemeral” side of makeup. Even if I eventually manage to do everything well by myself, I find it hard to accept that it still has to be completely removed at some point, and I think I’ll always struggle to accept myself “naturally.” Also, my episodes of hair regrowth after laser sessions on my face continue to come back regularly. Every time it happens, the disgust for myself returns even stronger, and there are some very difficult weeks until the next laser session.

Why did you call on me, and what have I brought you in this stage of your life, if I brought you anything at all?

France seems to be a relatively closed country on these matters. I feel it’s more a mindset of Latin countries, as opposed to Germanic countries where people seem more ready to accept. I think you have to be quite open-minded to offer your services in a country like ours.

It’s still a bit difficult for me to open up to people I don’t know at all. I seriously struggle to communicate by phone or email with someone I haven’t met yet. I force myself; I read and reread before answering. I’m really grateful that you took the time to answer my first emails and agreed to meet me for this first appointment.

We’ve only seen each other for a few hours so far, but that was already a lot. You were very kind to me, you listened to me, and you gave me makeup, especially beautiful eyes.

I hope to see you again soon for a more advanced first makeup lesson and why not, in the long term, more photo sessions / style advice as well (you’ve already given me new ideas for looks I could have in the future when I didn’t even imagine that possible).

See you very soon!

Updated 2022: The continuation of Julia’s story in 2022, and her announcement of her transgender identity to her boss and colleagues.