Positive Thinking, Inspirational Transsexual Women

Copyright © 2003-2008 Karen Serenity, KarenSerenity.com Positive Thinking Transsexual Women. All rights reserved.

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Jamie Koufman, M.D.(North Carolina), Mrs. Diane Hutchinson(New Jersey), Mrs. Katherine B.(Georgia), Michele(Holland), Mrs. Zhang Lin(China), Pop Group "Lady" (Korea), Singer-Entertainer "Harisu" (Korea)

    

    

Regular Women with Exceptional Lives!

 

 

Jamie Koufman, M.D.

 

(Before and after photos courtesy of Jamie Koufman, M.D.)  -  (Manhattan Skyline: Henri Silberman)

Copyright © 2005 Jamie Koufman, M.D., Winston-Salem Journal.

For the past 25 years, Dr. Koufman has been a surgeon (a laryngologist), a scientist, and an educator. During that same period, Dr. Koufman has been married twice, has raised and educated four, healthy, now grown sons; and has lived two different lives, one as a male and one as a female. Since early childhood, Dr. Koufman was a crossdresser; and although at some level, always wanted to be female. She did not come to fully understand and accept her transsexualism until 2001. In June 2004 she completed her sex change, and now, her life is happy and fulfilled, but her work is not over.

She have seen the world from both sides of the gender divide and is proud to be a woman. As a man, she never really understood how driven and emotionally hopeless she was. As a woman, she describes herself as more empathetic and giving than before. And during her transition she has made more friends, mostly women, than in all the rest of her life. Politically, she likes to describe herself as a compassionate feminist and as a deconstructionist.

The purpose in her Personal website is threefold. First, having transitioned “in broad daylight” at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she hopes that her story might help other transsexuals to transition in the workplace. Second, she offerers resources such as the general information about transsexualism and web links. And finally, she shares her story because she thinks that it personifies what is good in contemporary society; it is a story about optimism, personal growth, and the triumph of individual freedom.

 

(Photos: Megan Morr - Winston-Salem Journal)

   

Left photo, Dr. Jamie Koufman examines patient(right), from Tarrboro, North Carolina, at the Center for Voice Disorders and Swallowing.

Dr. Koufman typically treats patients from all over the world. - Right photo, Dr. Jamie Koufman, performs a TA/LCA myectomy,

a procedure that she pioneered. Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center was so impressed with her work that

they created the Center for Voice Disorders and Swallowing.

 

Inner Woman Emerges - Additional Photos 

by Danielle Deaver - © 2005 Winston-Salem Journal - journalnow.com

Renowned doctor, haunted by mixed feelings,

decides at 55 that it's time to change genders.

 

She was alone for the first time since the surgery.

She walked slowly into the kitchen and made some coffee. She carried her mug into the small, sheltered garden behind her room at the hotel in San Francisco, eased into a chair and looked around. She studied the flowers and the garden furniture and looked up at the ever-changing sky.

That's when the thought occurred to Dr. Jamie Koufman.

I've survived.

It hadn't felt like survival when she woke up in wrenching pain five days earlier after a 10-hour operation during which bones in her face had been intentionally broken and reset. The surgery had been the result of years of planning and hoping, but that didn't relieve the agony. It felt as if her fingernails were being pulled out - one by one.

The next day, Koufman could sit up. Her face was wrapped in bandages, and clear tubes drained blood into plastic catchalls next to her ears. Her face had been recast to look more feminine - a browline that didn't overhang, a more delicate nose, a jawline that was more rounded.

There was a steep price to be paid for Koufman's decision, at age 55, to challenge society's definition of gender by changing what many believe is a God-given aspect of a person's identity.

Family members, especially her two youngest sons, were devastated that she would undergo a sex change. Friends and neighbors would watch each painful and often humiliating step.

Koufman, a world-renowned throat surgeon at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, was also putting her professional reputation on the line. She would have to explain her sex change to the medical community in which she had worked for 25 years and to patients who must trust her enough to put their lives in her hands.

But Koufman had always been a survivor. She knew that many transsexuals either become the gender they believe themselves born to be or despair so deeply that they commit suicide. By becoming a woman, she felt, she had avoided plunging into the depths of hopelessness.

Her personality, shaped significantly by her struggle with her gender, was strong enough and selfish enough to make the 2 1/2-year journey from man to woman.

"What is the famous quote - there's a point at which change must occur. The status quo is no longer tolerable. So I asked myself the question one day, and said, 'Given a choice, if you could have one or the other, which would you prefer - winning the Nobel Prize for your work or to live the rest of your life as a woman?" Koufman said.

"Even knowing that I was going to go from being a fairly good-looking older man to being essentially a middle-age woman, which is not as cool by societal standards, I didn't care. I just didn't care."

There were more operations to come after the June 2003 facial work - she still had her male genitals, for example - and she knew that she also was yet to endure dealing with other people's reactions. But at that moment in the hotel, as she stared at the sky and the flowers, a feeling of peace flowed through her. She was a woman, with a woman's face.

"I think there was a profound change that occurred. The world stood still. It was a very spiritual experience," she said.

She had survived.

Golden child

Koufman can't remember an exact time or place when she first consciously thought of herself as a girl.

She remembers little things - walking repeatedly into the girls' bathroom at preschool, making friends with girls rather than boys, wanting to play tea party instead of war.

Most of all, the golden-haired boy, the long-awaited and only child in a large extended family whose members socialized with the Kennedys in Boston, liked to pretend that he was a girl.

Not that he told anyone, of course. It was his little secret with the mirror. Behind closed doors, he could change his body to match the picture in his mind. Jamie (his nickname as a boy) Koufman could become a girl.

"By age 7, I was wearing my mother's clothes. Her car wouldn't be at the end of the driveway before I had on a pair of her hose and heels. I didn't understand any of this."

Things got worse as Koufman got older.

"Adolescence is a very painful time for transsexuals because when your body starts to change,it's all the wrong stuff, it's not the stuff you want. Gee, my legs are less smooth, I'm growing a beard, I have all this stuff that I don't want. (There is) a lot of depression for transsexuals during adolescence."

But Koufman showed no signs of depression and doubt. He was smart and strong-willed, hyper and, above all, artful. He knew what he needed to do. He would try to change his desires to match how he looked.

"Around the time of my father's death I said, 'Enough, I'm not going to survive this way. I have to butch it up.' And I did.… I played football in high school, and so I did the best I could."

Koufman was convincing enough to date the head cheerleader at his school, all the while wishing that he was the one with the pompoms and the cute short skirt. He also continued to be sexually interested in other men.

As a first-year student at Boston University School of Medicine, Koufman got married, not even struggling with the decision.

"Transsexuals who don't know they're transsexuals, even those that get into therapy, believe that if they throw away all their women's clothes and live a normal life that they can do it and it will all go away," Koufman said. "I wanted to be good, I wanted to have a normal life, I wanted to have children."

The Koufmans had two sons. And Koufman continued to secretly dress in women's clothes and to seek out other men.

Surgeon of note

Koufman had grown up planning to be a lawyer like his father, Joseph. But his father died when Koufman was 16, and dealings with the father's law firm didn't go well. Disgusted with lawyers, Koufman decided to become a general surgeon, the profession of two uncles.

Medicine was not at first a calling, but it became so after Koufman found a field that was challenging and engaging - disorders of the voice and throat.

"There was no real field of laryngology before 1978. It was just coming out of the Stone Age. We could hardly examine the larynx, except with a mirror, which was what we did 100 years ago," Koufman said.

After a stint as chief resident in a Boston hospital in 1978, Koufman found a job at what was then the Bowman Gray School of Medicine, where he became the fourth person in the country to get a CO2 laser, now one of the most versatile tools in throat surgery.

Koufman was one of the first academic surgeons in the country who was a full-time laryngologist, and he was able to assemble a team of speech pathologists and experts from several other fields, such as neurology, endocrinology and gastroenterology.

Bowman Gray recognized Koufman's work by creating the Center for Voice and Swallowing Disorders of Wake Forest University. Koufman became the founder and director in 1987.

During these early years, the gender and emotional problems that had plagued Koufman faded into the background. He was simply a scientist focused on his research and clinical practice, discovering the extent to which acid reflux can damage a voice and throat and possibly even contribute to cancer of the larynx.

Koufman developed many procedures that helped people who had never been able to speak, and he moved up quickly through the ranks at medical school, from instructor in surgery to assistant professor in one year, and to full professor in 1994.

In 1986, his personal life took a turn. His marriage to his first wife ended in divorce. A year later, he married a woman who he believed was his soul mate.

Personal torment

Marsha Leonard and Koufman met when she interviewed for a job in his office, and the two eventually fell in love and married.

"And it really wasn't a gender thing. I was faithful to her," Koufman said. "I was absolutely in every way faithful to her. My vows meant something."

They lived in a house in West End after their marriage and created a combined family with her two sons and his two sons. For almost 10 years, that seemed enough.

But Koufman was still tormented by the desires that he had had since childhood to cross-dress, and it affected his relationship with Marsha, who declined to be interviewed for this story.

"I liked her, I cherished her as a friend and a co-parent, as a gentle, kind, good soul.… We weren't having good intimate relations because I was identifying with her. I couldn't help it. I went through therapy, I went through counseling. I went through all of it."

Koufman became convinced that he was gay.

He told Marsha that and left her in 1997. She began going to gay bars, dressed in women's clothing. But something wasn't right. The reception wasn't what Koufman expected.

"Once I decided I was a gay guy and went out and tried the gay world, I was promptly rejected by most men I dated, as, 'Stop shaving your legs, and, no, you can't wear that to the party; it looks like a dress. If I wanted to be with a woman, I wouldn't be gay, now would I?' I didn't fit into the gay world."

Things had been easier when he was a beautiful young man looking for men - then he had a "stop-traffic look for other men."

Some friends thought that Koufman might be transsexual. He couldn't explain how he felt.

"I used to protest that I don't really want to be a girl; I just like to be girlie sometimes. I had friends who said I was transsexual. I said 'no,' because I wasn't prepared to deal with the consequences of that," Koufman said.

It was an emotional infrastructure that he had spent years building up - a defense system to make himself believe that he wasn't - that he couldn't be - a woman in a man's body. But the system was slowly breaking down.

Koufman began researching transsexualism on the Internet, found a local support group, the Triad Gender Association, and started seeing psychologists who specialize in transgender issues.

"The final question was, 'Is there any question in your mind that I'm transsexual?' And they would say 'No, you're transsexual.' There's so many familiar refrains."

Still, Koufman had to be sure. He started to branch out, going to meetings around the country, and spending those weekends away as a woman. He would take only women's clothing, to see how it felt. He liked it.

In the summer of 2002, after a long struggle, Koufman decided to become a woman. Acting as his own physician, he put himself on estrogen and started researching how to proceed.

Koufman also discovered some intriguing research about the origins of transsexuality.

Finding an explanation

The basis of transsexuality - whether it's psychological or biological - is still being debated. The American Psychiatric Association uses the term gender identity disorder to describe transsexuality. It estimates that one in 100,000 women and one in 30,000 men seek sex-reassignment surgery - an estimate that transsexual activists say is too low.

Koufman believes strongly in a biological explanation.

He began researching that issue after attending a meeting of the Triad Gender Association in December 2002. A doctor - Koufman doesn't remember his or her name - came to speak about transsexuality and casually mentioned the connection that some people were beginning to believe existed between transsexualism and DES.

DES, or diethylstilbestrol, was a powerful estrogen prescribed from 1948 to 1971 for 5 million to 10 million pregnant women who were at risk of miscarrying. Supporters of the theory linking DES and transgenderism believe that the estrogen caused changes in the developing brains of some male fetuses.

Koufman's mother had multiple miscarriages before she carried Koufman to term. Though unable to get her medical records, Koufman said it appeared likely that Beverly Koufman had taken DES during the pregnancy, given that she was wealthy and able to receive the presumed best treatment of her day.

While doing research, Koufman also discovered a Dutch study described in the November 1995 issue of the journal Nature. Researchers had examined the brains of six male-to-female transsexuals after their deaths. Researchers looked at an area in the hypothalamus called the central division of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.

The researchers found that in the transsexuals, the area was smaller and darker than the area in nontranssexual men, including homosexual men. In fact, the area looked like the bed nucleus typically found in the brain of a woman.

It was just one study in a profession that does not give credence to anything until it has been duplicated a number of times, but it caught people's eyes. Koufman first saw the study in 2002.

The article caused a stir not just among transsexuals but in the mainstream media. The Washington Post and Time magazine ran stories about the study with headlines such as "Science: Trapped in the body of a man?"

"I saw this and thought, wait a minute, there's a lot of people whose stories are like mine, and there's a biologic basis for this. There really is. That was a huge eye-opener," Koufman said.

"I began to listen to the stories of other people, and I said to myself, 'I lied to myself my whole life.' I didn't know what to say, and I guess I can't be faulted for the lie, but I guess it's better late than never," Koufman said. "I think people seem to talk down the biologic basis of who we are, what's in our genes, what's in our brain chemistry. And so on. But for us, it's a biologic drive. It's not easily overcome. It's not overcome at all."

Journey of change

By December 2002, Koufman had put together what she now calls "a transition road map."

"I decided each step, how to do it and when, but more importantly, before that time I began to talk to people in my family. My friends, and family. And at work, and if there's one thing I have to say, it's that I think I was a good communicator starting early on," Koufman said.

She gave people information about transsexuality so that they would understand the condition. Many still didn't.

"The decision to transition wasn't made in a vacuum. I had to discuss it with my colleagues, my family. My wife was horrified."

After he made the decision, Koufman told the children.

Colleagues were surprised.

"Dr. Koufman talked to the staff before, to go into all the other details. When he was a him, he sat down with us and told us he had been having a lot of conflicts in his life, and he had talked to Marsha, and he said he felt he was trapped in a man's body," said Janet Fox, the patient-care team manager for the otolaryngology operating room.

"He was very upfront with us and asked if we had a problem with it.… He just wanted to know what our feelings were about it. Dr. Koufman was a gorgeous man, and we had trouble picturing him as a woman."

Koufman forged ahead, deciding which surgeries to have, when and where to have them done. The road map included decisions about when to tell people and how to tell patients - if he stayed at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

"I could have retired. I could have gone away," Koufman said. "But I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that for two reasons. I didn't want to abandon my patients; I didn't want to abandon my work. And I started the voice center. I wanted to finish what I started."

He had several surgical options. Some transsexuals decide to do the work that will allow them to look like their new gender, but don't have the surgery to change their genitals. Others do it the opposite way, having the genital-reassignment surgery but not the painful and expensive facial surgery.

Koufman ultimately decided to have every available procedure done - facial feminization, electrolysis, genital-reassignment surgery - a process that ultimately would cost about $100,000 and result in physical pain.

Koufman said she felt that it would be worth it.

"It was an easy decision. I didn't want to look like a man in a dress. I didn't want to look masculine," Koufman said.

It meant starting out with the facial-feminization surgery, which carried the possibility of complications to the sinuses, nasal areas and eyes in addition to the overall complications that can result from major surgery.

As the date of the surgery in San Francisco approached, Koufman became nervous. When he returned, it would be as a woman, and the world would know it. But what would happen to the brash, demanding man who had existed for 55 years?

 

(Photos: Megan Morr - Winston-Salem Journal)
 

Left photo, Dr. Jamie Koufman(left), uses a pulsed-dyed laser guided by a high resolution video-endoscope to treat

growths along the airway of a patient(right) - Right photo, Dr. Jamie Koufman pauses for a moment in her office.

 

Practicing Being Herself

by Danielle Deaver - © 2005 Winston-Salem Journal - journalnow.com

With painful and costly sex change behind her, doctor nourishes

her softer side as she works to find and understand her new role.

 

Dr. Jamie Koufman was at the top.

In 25 years in Winston-Salem, Koufman had established a reputation as an aggressive, innovative throat surgeon and a renowned specialist in laryngology. Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center had established a Center for Voice and Swallowing Disorders under Koufman's direction.

But Koufman, known for perfectionism and an outspoken manner, was uneasy. Deciding to act on a belief that he was a woman trapped in a man's body filled him with a nagging fear. People had been fired or had their professional reputations destroyed because they were transsexuals.

In January 2003, Koufman made a typically brash decision. He called Daniel and Laura Hart McKinny, a filmmaking couple at the N.C. School of the Arts, and asked them if they would make a documentary about him as he made his transition from male to female. The McKinnys were intrigued at the idea of filming a story in which the ending was unknown - would he actually go through with it? - and agreed.

For Koufman, doing a film was a natural.

"One of the reasons I was doing a documentary was I was afraid I might be fired. So, that way, if I went from being this great person to a devil in six months, I would have some documentation," Koufman said.

Koufman showed bravado and fear when asked last summer why she thought that her sex-change operation had brought her few, if any, professional consequences.

"I think they were scared of me, that they would face a massive lawsuit. There were reasons it didn't happen to me," she said, before quickly backing off.

"I shouldn't say that. I should give them the benefit of the doubt. I would say that I was an important person in the medical community, and people just didn't care."

Koufman's decision took a few people by surprise, said Stan Shapshay, a professor in the otolaryngology department at Boston University School of Medicine. Shapshay and Koufman were medical residents together and have been friends ever since.

"I think there's certainly people out there who are less accepting and view this whole transition with some suspicion in that maybe there is some instability and this would affect Dr. Koufman's ability to function, but I'd say they are in the minority. I'd say we all have great respect for Dr. Koufman's abilities. People who are her friends are happy that she has made the choices she had to make," Shapshay said.

Sally Shumaker, then the associate dean of faculty affairs at the Wake Forest medical school, had been in her job for two weeks in the winter of 2003 when Koufman told her about what was happening.

Shumaker was aware of Koufman's international reputation as a surgeon.

"I also wanted to learn as much as I could about transitions, sex changes, and how we could make this environment as comfortable as possible for her to make this change," she said.

The administration never officially discussed Koufman's decision, Shumaker said.

Today, Koufman called the administrators visionary for how they handled her change. She said she believes that they wanted to show the world that the medical center is liberal and fair enough to handle this type of experience.

Koufman said she is glad that she did the documentary, even though she ultimately didn't need it for job protection. She hopes that the film, which will be shown Saturday night as part of the RiverRun International Film Festival, helps more people understand transsexuals and what they go through.

"When they see what it really is, someone who has the money and everything else, it is still brutally difficult. When you see me in this documentary, you will not see all pretty stuff. You'll see parts that are difficult, on the edge of giving up," she said. "Pretty beaten up emotionally and physically - and I have a lot of resilience - and it was very difficult at times."

Learning a new life

By July 2003, Koufman had a woman's face and wore her hair in a short, fashionable bob. The parts that weren't feminine - she still had male genitals - would be fixed by more surgery in the next year.

She returned to work at the medical center after her usual monthlong sabbatical. She always took the month of June off. In 2003, she had used the time to have the facial-feminization surgery.

She would have to live as a woman for a full year before she could have the final surgery to alter her genitalia.

Even though she had long dreamed of being a woman, she felt like a neophyte that first summer. She had cross-dressed throughout her life, but she had never had to assemble a female wardrobe for work, or put on makeup that would carry her through a professional day.

She would have to learn to be a grownup all over again.

One of the first things she did after she recovered was shop.

"Which place didn't I go to? I went to the Gap. I went to Old Navy, Dillard's," she said. "I must have spent $3,000, $4,000, and I wasn't buying expensive stuff."

She had to think about how she walked, even though she was used to high heels from her cross-dressing.

She made some mistakes. A black bra - instead of a camisole or nude underwear - worn under a thin black blouse brought complaints from other people at the medical center that she was dressing inappropriately.

The complaints made it clear that people were watching her.

"People didn't believe it. People were afraid; people were angry. People said things like 'I can't deal with this,'" Koufman said.

Of all the people affected by her change, Koufman said, her patients seemed the least upset. Only one patient, Koufman said, left because of the sex change. Other patients among the thousands who have seen Koufman may have quietly stopped because of the change, or because she was out of work for five out of 18 months in 2003 and 2004 as she underwent her surgeries and recuperation.

Koufman had created a two-page disclosure letter that explained what she had done and why. She handed it out to hundreds of patients every month.

When patients came to see her, a nurse gave them the letter to read before they saw Koufman.

"Then when I went in, I'd say to the patient, 'Are we OK, do we have to talk about this?'" Koufman said. "My perspective was, look, people don't come to see me for anything having to do with my personal life, and I realize that, but they do have a right to know why I look different."

The letter gave the patient information about how to contact Shumaker with questions.

Shumaker said she received just one inquiry.

Some patients had questions, Koufman said, but not many. There was one group that reacted more than others - the clergymen whom she treats.

"When a patient came to me, a religious person, and said, 'God doesn't make mistakes and you were made a man.' I said, 'God doesn't make mistakes and God made me transsexual.' And that seemed actually to satisfy," Koufman said. "I think a lot of clergy have taken the position God has a special plan for you, and I believe that is the case."

Mixed problems

There are some reactions by some people that Koufman has not been able to avoid. She does not like to talk about the feelings or reactions of family members, but she admits that they were devastated by her decision and remain extremely uncomfortable.

"Both of my kids still have some problems with this. They can't say, 'Hey, my mom and dad are going to join us for dinner.' What are they going to say, 'My mom and my transsexual-now-a-woman dad is.' Who wants to explain that all day?" Koufman said. "It's hard for them. They lost their father."

Her ex-wife, Marsha, has agonized over what the decision has done to her two sons. Marsha Koufman declined to be interviewed for this story.

And though Jamie Koufman has found a measure of peace and almost total self-acceptance through the change, she now laughs, somewhat ruefully, when talking about her hopes for looking like a "taller, sleeker Britney Spears" after her transition.

"I'm a little pissed that I didn't get to be that drop-dead gorgeous 18-year-old who comes flying out of the mall in little minishorts with a flip of the hair and every male of every species in a three-mile radius stops in his tracks. I missed that phase, sorry to say."

In an ironic twist for a specialist in voice disorders, Koufman also has had to realize that she will always be unhappy with her voice. There are few surgeries that she endorses to feminize the voice, though she is working to develop some. Today, Koufman's voice, while feminine, is husky; she said she's taken voice lessons to make it more acceptable.

She also lost some of the anonymity that she had outside of the medical center.

"If I show up, 30 people will say, 'That's the doctor who had the sex change.' It's almost a type of celebrity, which is of course not necessarily the kind you want," she said last August.

But Koufman is not hiding from publicity. Besides the film to debut this week at RiverRun, she is moving into becoming more of an advocate in the transgender community.

Surgery and its aftermath

Koufman had already gone through most of her transition - learning how to live as a woman, telling people she was a woman, and finding out about some of the more annoying aspects of being female - before she had the final surgery that truly made her a female.

She had the genital-reassignment surgery on June 8 of last year in Trinidad, Colo., after carefully researching the centers and doctors offering the procedure. It was of shorter duration and easier than the facial-feminization surgery. She spent three days in the hospital, then went to a local hotel set up for people recovering from such surgery.

When Koufman was alone, she got a full-length mirror and finally saw what she had waited a lifetime to achieve.

"I tried on a pair of stretch capri pants so I could admire my new crotch contour,'' she said.

On the way home, things became more difficult. Koufman was miserable during her layover in Chicago.

"My hormones were all screwed up," she said. "I cried the whole time we were in O'Hare."

Things were still difficult when she got home and an unexpected problem arose. The medicine that she had been taking for a urinary-tract infection after her surgery made her tendons more vulnerable. Koufman ended up tearing the Achilles tendon - the area between her foot and calf - on her left leg. She spent the first several weeks in a cast and using crutches and a mechanical Hovercraft to get around the medical center.

She also found out how time-consuming womanhood can be. She was spending as much as two hours a day - made a little longer because of the cast on her leg - doing her hair and makeup and getting dressed. For the first six months, she also had to spend 30 to 60 minutes a day on exercises that would ensure her new female genitalia healed properly.

But she said she felt free and happy.

"With gender-reassignment surgery my transition, which has been a deeply introspective and personal journey for me, comes to its conclusion. I've done it. My gender is forever changed. I am ready to go on with my life," she said. "This transformation has been so profound that I cannot help but feel that it is about more than gender."

Politics and advocacy

A few months after her surgery, Koufman created a Web site, www.inbroaddaylight.net, and she has become a sort of folk hero in the transgender community.

She gets e-mails from all over from people asking for emotional support and medical advice.

"In view of the fact that even though I'm a stranger, I'm not a stranger. I mean, I get a lot of letters - they're like fan mail, I guess - from the Web site. But they say, 'I will never be able to do what you've done,' and it's still good to see it. That's a hard message," she said. "You get some of these angry, like, 'You know, who do you think you are just because you have a bunch of money you can do this and the rest of us poor transsexuals can't afford to do what you've done,' and that hurts, too."

Koufman also is admired among transsexuals for her willingness to talk.

"What Jamie's doing has a tremendous potential to help as well," said W. Meredith Bacon, a political-science professor at the University of Minnesota at Omaha. Bacon is one of the few academics in the country who studies transsexuals' behavior - specifically, who they are and what their political concerns are. "She is an invaluable member of the transsexual community. She is respected and looked up to as somebody who took control of her own life, as somebody who was honest about who she was when it came time to make a decision."

Koufman said she also counsels people who are close to home, including some colleagues at the medical center who believe that they are transsexual.

She has been speaking out about the transsexual experience. She appeared in The Vagina Monologues at the Arts Council Theatre in Winston-Salem last month. The monologues are a series of skits and speeches designed to increase understanding of women and to raise awareness about violence against women. Koufman was a co-producer of the show and was invited by other transsexuals to participate in a skit written for transsexual women.

She said she has made many friends among transsexual women, and flew to Colorado to help one through genital-reassignment surgery. Since her surgery, Koufman, who likes to cook, said she has people over to dinner, goes out to brunch, watches movies and relaxes more at home with friends.

"I think what I discovered is that the guy I was was driven to do things, to buy things. I cut back on my practice. I don't see as many patients. I spend more time with people. I don't make as much money. My patients are happier. I connect with more people, and I have made more friends in the past two years than I have in the rest of my life."

Colleagues said they have noticed the difference.

"I think there's been a 180-degree change in Dr. Koufman. I worked with Dr. Koufman for nine years, and Dr. Koufman is world-famous because of the voice center. Before, Dr. Koufman was all business," said Janet Fox, the patient-care team manager for the otolaryngology operating room.

Koufman is more personable now, with her staff and with her patients, Fox said. She asks her staff how things are going in their personal lives and touches them more in caring gestures.

"It's almost as if Dr. Koufman is a totally new person now. And we're just crazy about her. We just love her to death," Fox said.

 

Jamie Koufman, M.D. © 2008

Jamie Koufman, M.D. in 2008.

A woman's life

At the end of her long journey, Koufman said she has no regrets.

"Basically, I'm happy. I needed to do this," she said. "I'm just as assertive as I ever was, but I'm not as aggressive. I'm much more at peace with who I am, I'm a much more gentle person."

And she remains hopeful that her family will come on board.

"When you're in your 50s and you transition, you have a whole bunch of people who have to come with you. It's not like I'm a little young thing," she said. "Just like Winston-Salem is different and will be different in two years, so will my relationships. There's a lot of family stuff that hasn't evolved yet, and that's difficult. My family still hasn't reconciled who I am and where I am yet."

There is something else she lost. People outside the hospital seemed to treat her differently.

Koufman said she saw the change almost as soon as she began looking and dressing like a woman. Taxi drivers in Washington, where she has a clinic, were not as respectful. It was harder to get the attention of a maitre d' in a restaurant.

Koufman recalls a day when a company representative went to speak to people in the otolaryngology offices. The representative had set up a lunch, and people who worked in the office were walking into the room to eat and to hear his sales pitch.

"He was new, and every time one of the residents - you know, squeaky shiny clean doctors in greens and a white coat - every time one of them came in, he'd pop up like a jack-in-the-box. You know, 'Hi! I'm John from so and so,'" Koufman said.

"I came in, a middle-age woman, right, so I'm going to be a secretary or a nurse. There was no jumping up when I arrived.

"So I made myself a plate; I sat down and began talking with the residents. The residents got the message and said, 'Oh, John, this is Dr. Koufman. She runs the voice center.' Well, all the sudden, I got a jump-up."

It made her think about women's power, she said, and how she had treated women herself.

"It wasn't that I was exactly a sensitive man; I was pretty much a bully myself. I had an agenda and I wasn't too worried about other people's feelings," she said.

Koufman said she has been amazed to now see so clearly the difference in how society treats men and women. It's something that she thinks about and talks about frequently.

"I think people like me who have seen the world from both sides of the gender divide do have a unique perspective to share - which is that women do get marginalized in my opinion in a variety of settings simply because they are women," she said. "I think that women are going to become truly equals in the next 100 years or so. They're not equals now - they're really not. I get marginalized 10 times a day."

 

In 2007, Dr. Jamie Koufman relocated to Manhattan and founded the Voice Institute of New York where she is it's current director. Her openly publicized, successful life transition is helping pave the way for many other trans-women in and out of stealth who may feel similarly.  Dr. Koufman's tremendous courage and altruism is deeply inspiring.  She is providing a brilliant, hopeful guiding light for many.  - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

 

 

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Mrs. Diane Hutchinson

 

  

Copyright © 2008 Diane Hutchinson, Karen Serenity, KarenSerenity.com Positive Thinking Transsexual Women. All rights reserved.

Mrs. Diane Hutchinson and her Husband Nick on their Wedding Day, June 29th, 2002 in New Jersey, USA. Diane currently resides in New Jersey, is successfully now self-employed, after a going through a painful and challenging personal transition. She is simply delighted to be living her new life with her her two bio sons, her loving husband Nick, and her new step-daughter.

 

 

• Mrs. Diane Hutchinson's On-Line Transgender Artifacts Museum •

     

• A Fascinating Collection of Transgender History & Memorabilia •

 

Diane Hutchinson is a realistic role-model for the 21st Century.  She has successfully overcome many difficult and challenging life obstacles in her search for peace of mind, love, fulfillment and happiness.  Diane has my support, respect and my admiration.  May the Great Spirit always shine through her lifetime   - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

 

Send EMAIL to Diane!

Visit Diane's WEBSITE!

 

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Mrs. Katherine B.

Photo: Jerry Montgomery

Copyright © 2008 Karen Serenity, KarenSerenity.com Positive Thinking Transsexual Women. All rights reserved.

 

Copyright © 2008 Karen Serenity. All rights reserved.

Elegant Grace Katherine, and her handsome husband Jay on their Wedding Day (1988), in Atlanta, Georgia USA.  Sadly, Jay prematurely passed away in 1990, at age 39.  Katherine remarried in 1995 and currently resides in the State of Georgia with her loving husband.  Grace Katherine had her SRS at age 23.  Throughout the 1980's and 1990's she generously assisted, inspired and positively influenced many transitioning M2F(Male-to-Female Women) throughout the South Central United States, including the author of this website.  She's a most lovely and powerfully affective example of a motivational role model, successful woman and marvelous mentor. 

 

Katherine was one of my favorite early trans-female role models.  She most beautifully, profoundly and selflessly assisted many aspiring women along their challenging life paths.  Thank You So Much for your inspiration, humor, insight and sage southern wisdom, dear Grace Katherine.  Many will never forget your sweet kindness.  - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

 

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Michele

Copyright © 2008 Michele & Peter, Karen Serenity, KarenSerenity.com Positive Thinking Transsexual Women. All rights reserved.

 

Copyright © 2008 Michele & Peter, Karen Serenity. All rights reserved.

World travelers Michele and her husband Peter in Amsterdam, Holland!  Michele had her SRS in 1975 at the age of 16 and is a loving, devoted adoptive mother of Three children!  Michele's now a Grandmother and a most intelligent, savvy, loving, fun, compassionate, giving, thoughtful, caring woman.   She speaks English, Spanish and French.

       

Her personal website is so creative, informative, clever and simply adorable.  Michele always amazes and delights people with her creativity, honesty, cleverness, and bright, positive spirit.  Her spontaneous enthusiasm, optimism, and genuine zest for life is contagious!  Michele's optimism really shines through in every one of her most lovely images. Her pretty eyes show her easy comfort and playful soul. 

Michele is now personally & discreetly designing Homepage Websites for other trans-women to share their story with the world.  Please visit her professional website design company STUDIO WORKS today.

 

Michele is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside!  This pioneering pathfinder's happy success is a true reflection of her inner life's passion for living and sharing with her loving husband and adoptive children.  - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

 

Send EMAIL to Michele!

Visit Michele's WEBSITE!

 

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Zhang Lin(with her husband Yang Qicheng)

First Transsexual Woman to Marry in China. (May, 2004)

First Chinese Transsexual gets Marriage Certificate

Transsexual's Wedding mirrors Social Changes

 

 

Changing mores of China.

Copyright © 2005 PETER HARMSEN, Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd.

Rural China becomes the unlikely stage for a transsexual’s wedding. 

WHEN Zhang Lin was carried in a bridal sedan chair down a 300m dirt road to her future husband’s home, she was no different from generations of Chinese women before her. Except that until a year ago, Zhang was a man. 

Thousands of farmers watched with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief as the 38-year-old bride and her groom Yang Qizheng, four years her junior, celebrated their wedding last weekend deep in China’s conservative countryside. 

“It’s a bit strange,” said Liu Guifa, a peasant woman who had come to the village of Fenghuang in south-western Sichuan province to witness the country’s first public wedding of a man turned woman through a sex-change operation. 

The sponsors of the elaborate and costly ceremony, Zhaode Trading Co, based in the provincial capital of Chengdu 80km away, had hoped for sunshine. 

Instead, they got pouring rain, turning the unpaved roads into pools of grey mud, sticking in large lumps to the pants of the guests squeezed into the narrow courtyard where the wedding ceremony was to take place. 

The weather did not prevent journalists and cameramen from as far away as Shanghai from attending an event that has seized the imagination of a public awed by the frantic pace of social change. 

“I’m so happy,” said Zhang, dressed in a white Western-style wedding gown and beaming with marital bliss. “People care for me.” 

A boisterous mood greeted Zhang, the owner of a hairdressing salon in nearby Shuangliu city, on her arrival at her new home. 

As the sedan chair appeared in the distance, the crowd emitted a deafening roar, knocked over stools prepared for the wedding banquet and trampled each other’s shoes into the mud in a desperate stampede to see the celebrity bride. 

“Please make room,” shouted an exasperated manager from Zhaode Trading Co, his white shirt in silhouette against a banner advertising electrical machinery sold by the company. “Show some respect for the newlyweds.” 

Respect was sadly lacking a year ago when Zhang decided to become a woman so she could marry Yang. 

And even though the Chinese Government gave its green light to the marriage, acceptance came only grudgingly from a society steeped in Confucian values about family and sex. 

“In the beginning, when I wanted the sex-change operation, people didn’t understand,” said Zhang, only her voice betraying her former sex. “They said all kinds of things, asked me why I didn’t want to remain a man, called me a weirdo.” 

For Zhang, the road to her countryside wedding was a difficult one, even though from her earliest years she felt that she was a woman at heart. 

“When I was a child, I liked to dress in girls’ clothes and put on make-up. I liked to do girl things,” she said. “My parents didn’t approve and wanted me to change. But I simply couldn’t.” 

Pressured by her family and surrounding society, Zhang tried to live up to the ideal of a Chinese man, even marrying a woman in an awkward and ultimately vain effort to fit in with social mores. 

 

A promoter for Zhaode Trading Co, sponsors of the wedding

ceremony, standing beside the crowd awaiting Zhang Lin's

arrival  in her husband's home village in Chengdu.

 

The fact that, for all the taunts she has had to endure, Zhang can now live out her dreams reflects just how much China has changed, observers said. 

The roots of these changes stretch back even before the reform era, to the early years of Communist rule and the ultra-radical 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when millennia-old norms were smashed and some never restored. 

“The Cultural Revolution broke down many taboos and led to more openness and a more liberal attitude towards sex,” said Joseph Cheng, a China watcher at City University of Hong Kong. 

Today, the Chinese countryside is irreversibly transformed and is catching on to new trends almost as fast as the big cities. 

“Eighty percent of the men here go to the cities to work,” said Huang Xuefeng, general manager of Zhaode Trading Co. “They encounter many new ways of thinking, and when they come back, they make the local farmers change, too.” 

Amid the rustic affection showered on Zhang last weekend, everything was not perfect. 

Her 13-year-old daughter from her previous marriage could not attend her wedding and may be gradually slipping out of her life. 

“My daughter wants to live with me and my husband, but her mother won’t let her,” Zhang said. “All we want is a chance to raise her.” 

Zhang’s urge to establish a nuclear family on her own terms could yet collide with surviving Chinese mores. 

Although many of the attendants at her wedding approved of transsexual matrimony, they would not welcome it in their own family. 

“People here don’t really understand what’s going on,” said He Liying, a woman hugging her 10-year-old daughter Chen Ting as she waited for the bride to appear from her wedding chamber. 

“I can kind of accept this kind of marriage, but if my own daughter wanted a sex-change operation, I would definitely oppose it.”

 

Ms. Zhang Lin's groundbreaking story of hope continues to motivate and inspire. Zhang Lin is an incredibly courageous, intelligent, attractive, pathfinding woman and positive role-model for many.  - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

 

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Pop Group "Lady"                                                                                          

March 27th, 2005 - Copyright © 2005 The Chosun Ilbo & Digital Chosun Ilbo All rights reserved.

 

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Singer-Entertainer "Harisu"

       

In late August, 2005, the Korean diva was in Malaysia to sign a three-year contract with Hock Star Entertainment, a local film production house. Under the agreement, the company will secure advertising and endorsement deals for her.

In September 2005 , Harisu released her compilation album, Foxy Lady, comprising 16 Korean and three Mandarin songs, distributed by Acclaim Music in Malaysia. She will also star in her first Malaysian horror film, Possessed in late 2005.

Harisu, who is also known as "Kylie Minogue of the East", talked about her life as a singer and actress, and her hopes for the future.

You sing three Mandarin songs in Foxy Lady? - I'm not fluent in Mandarin. I had a tutor who helped me in the pronunciation of the Chinese words. Now, it's okay.

Tell us about your role in the movie, Possessed. - We haven't started work on the movie yet. Can I tell him? (Harisu looks at her manager.) It's a horror movie. My character is a singer from Korea who comes to Malaysia to perform. During her stay here, she is possessed by an evil spirit.

You are also known as "Kylie Minogue of the East". - The Taiwanese recording company gave me the label. It feels great to be compared to Kylie. She's a superstar.

What do you think of Malaysian men? - I thought that all Malaysian men have dark skin. Actually, a lot of you guys look like people in China. It's as though I'm in China.

What would you say is your biggest achievement to date? - The recognition that fans in Asia have given me ... be it for my acting or singing career. That is the most precious thing to me.

Do you prefer acting or singing? - I like both. I enjoy all my work, including modeling, too.

How do you deal with rumors and gossip? - Of course, I used to get upset previously. But they (the rumors) are not true. I don't care anymore. I just ignore them.

If you were not an entertainer, what would you be? - I will still want to be an entertainer.

When you decided to be a woman, what was your family's reaction? - There wasn't any reaction at all. When I was young, I was already "Hirasu". They treated me as their son. I am still me. It's just that I have changed my sex.

What do you think is the secret of your popularity? - I just be myself. I'm in this line to earn a living and to take care of my parents, family, myself and my company's staff. I just give my best at work and do things my way.

What's your advice to those who want to follow in your footsteps? - For those who feel trapped in their bodies, destiny is in their own hands. It's like if your ambition is to be a teacher, you attend a teacher's training course. If you want to have a sex change, it's your choice. For those who want to be an entertainer, they have to work hard at it.

- Staying beautiful

How do you reward yourself? - Sometimes I go for a massage. I don't go for facials. I enjoy playing the Play Station to relax my mind.

How do you keep fit? - I do yoga and pilates.

What about your skin care regime? - (She laughs). I just wash my face with an ordinary cleanser. I don't apply moisturizer.

Do you take a long time to get ready before you go out? - No. I don't apply make-up unless for work.

Do you think women are envious of you? - I don't know.
 

- Soundbites

Do you consider yourself a role model? - I don't think I am a role model.

Do you have a boyfriend? - I used to. Now, I am so busy with my career that I don't have time for one.

Do you plan to get married? - Of course, someday. But now career comes first for me.

 

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South Korean transsexual entertainer Harisu ties the knot.

Copyright © 2007 The China Post, Reuters. All rights reserved.

South Korean transsexual entertainer, whose sex change helped the country to change its family registry laws, was married on Saturday, May 19th, 2007. The 32-year-old male-to-female singer, who goes by the stage name Harisu, married her 27-year-old rapper boyfriend, Micky Chung, at a ceremony attended by many of the country's top celebrities.

The surgeon who performed Harisu's sex change operation in 1995 acted as the ceremonial head of the wedding. The couple will spend their honeymoon in Koh Samui, Thailand. "I will become a wife who cooks well and is sweet, sexy and like a friend," Harisu told a news conference before the wedding. "We will adopt two boys and two girls."

 

(Photo: Copyright © 2007 The China Post, Reuters. All rights reserved).

   

Groom Micky Chung with wife Transgender celebrity Harisu on their wedding day. The couple married May 19th, 2007.

 

Transsexualism became a hot topic in South Korea after Harisu was granted a petition by a lower court to change gender in the family registry in 2002.

In June 2006, South Korea's Supreme Court ruled transsexuals who have had medical treatment such as sex change operations can legally change their sex in their family registry, a crucial legal document for citizens.

The family registry and unique personal identification numbers associated with it form the basis of almost all aspects of South Koreans' lives, from getting a job, claiming medical insurance, and even subscribing to a mobile phone service.

 

Harisu represents such a lovely, affirmative, motivational role-model for many younger transitioners.  May her "star" continue shinning her warm, welcoming, accepting beacon of hope and inspiration to those searching souls who may follow.  - Mrs. KAREN SERENITY

 

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Copyright © 2003-2008 Karen Serenity, KarenSerenity.com Positive Thinking Transsexual Women. All rights reserved.

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• COPYRIGHT

All Information presented on this KarenSerenity.com Website is Copyright © 2003-2008 Karen Serenity, KarenSerenity.com Positive Thinking Transsexual Women, Regular Women with Exceptional Lives!, Karen Serenity Report, Seek the Positive in all things and you will find it, Heal the World with Your Love.  All rights reserved.  Copyrighted materials are reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of U.S. copyright law (17 USC 107). Such use is intended for nonprofit educational purposes only. All rights remain with the original copyright holder. Trademarks and brand names listed on KarenSerenity.com are the property of their respective holders.  All information and contents contained within this KarenSerenity.com website is subject to change without advance notice.

 

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We thank the many outstanding women who are listed on these webpages.  It's our sincere hope that all visitors will respect their personal privacy, anonymity, lives, and space.  The brave, dedicated, positive thinking women listed on these pages have overcome extreme difficulties, hardships, pain, and loss, to achieve their current joyful, loving, spiritual, fulfilling lives.  Reading and learning about their personal challenges and triumphs, you begin to understand the great trials and self-sacrifice these genuinely courageous women have undergone in order to have achieved the successful lives they are presently experiencing and enjoying.  As time progresses, a percentage of the women listed on this KarenSerenity.com website may desire to move into low-profile Stealth living, and may decide leave this website.  At the same time, other women having inspiring, interesting stories to share on the Internet may decide they would like to be listed here for a while, and will be added to this Website.

 

• WEBSITE DEDICATION

This "Positive Thinking Transsexual Women" Website was created in honor of and dedicated to these courageous, altruistic, real-life role models:  Phoebe Smith(Georgia), Sister Mary Elizabeth (Joanna Clark)(California), Lynn Conway(Michigan), Christine Jorgensen(California), Terry Noel(Kentucky), Wendy Carlos(New York), Mrs. Jane S.(Maryland), Karen Ulane(Illinois), Jerry & Lynn Montgomery(North Carolina), Renee(North Carolina), Katherine(Georgia), Jennifer(Florida), Kim Elizabeth Stuart(California), Sarah Shaker(California), Mrs. JoAnna L.(USA), Michelle E. Koorsen(Indiana), Catherine, a loving adoptive mother in deep suburban stealth (Virginia). 

Sincerest appreciation and gratitude to: F. Jay Ach, M.D.(Cincinnati, Ohio), Kayla J. Springer, Ph.D.(Cincinnati, Ohio), Richard T. Marnell, M.D.(Cincinnati, Ohio), Margaretha Willemina "Ina" Langman, ps. dra.(Charlottesville, Virginia), Francis M. Collins, M.D.(Cincinnati, Ohio), Milton T. Edgerton, M.D.(Charlottesville, Virginia), John G. Kenney, M.D.(Charlottesville, Virginia), Mindy L. Hitchcock(Southfield, Michigan), Lesley Gore(New York), Paul Walker, Ph.D.(San Francisco, California), Leo Wollman, M.D.(New York), Michael Stone, longtime friend/technical advisor (Cincinnati, Ohio), and the persons who introduced me to positive thinking, Earl Nightingale ("The Strangest Secret"), Zig Ziglar(Texas), and John H. Ilhardt(Ohio), a top performing Cincinnati Allstate Insurance sales agent during the 1960's and 1970's.  Thank you all so much for your friendship, love, kindness, support, encouragement and inspiration.  ~ Mrs. Karen Serenity

 

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Any additional legitimate contributions or confirmed submissions to these pages(i.e. photos, stories, biographies, interviews, information, articles, website links, data, etc.) will be gratefully accepted, acknowledged and welcomed.  If you're a Post-Operative Female who'd like to share your own hard won "Transitional Life Story" of challenge, struggle and triumph to assist & benefit others here on this equal opportunity website, we sincerely welcome women who've successfully transitioned and would like hearing from you.  

 

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