April Ashley
I did not struggle or fret over my name, it just came to me from out of the ether of my own experience. I would say a gift from the universe if I wanted to risk sounding like some new age hippie.
I was attempting to sign up for the crossdressers.com forum, my first tentative step in reaching out to the wider trans world beyond my closet.
I needed a female name, something close to my given male name but not a feminine version of it. Suddenly….APRIL…that was it. I had been friends with an April at my old job, actually that was her last name. Great, feminine but not too cutesy, I now had my forum name.
But sometimes things like a name take on a life of their own. April was supposed to be just a place holder, an internet nom de plume. When I came out to my spouse, she asked did “she” have a name, why yes April. When I first ventured out into the real world, it was April who took that first high heeled step. When I went to get my diagnosis of GID, it was April who walked confidently into the doctors office. It is the name my new friends call me and the name I hope that old ones and family will one day embrace too.
I am becoming April and I have no regrets.
It was only later that I realized that April was the name of the first British person to have SRS. (Not sure if Roberta Cowell should also get this honor) . I am sure I must have heard her name from my days at school in the UK or stumbled upon a reference to her in my earlier pre-web surreptitious research.
Not a middle aged transitioner like myself April Ashley became a woman at age 25. She has had and continues to have an amazing life that I cannot do justice to in a mere paragraph.
Instead follow the link below to read her biography, the entire work is on line and free to read. Warning, make sure you have a couple of hours spare! Her story would make a great movie.
http://www.antijen.org/Aprilv1/
See a more recent BBC interview here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8383000/8383720.stm
“you can be who you want to be…but do it with joy…and be terribly brave.”
So retroactively I am claiming that April Ashley is my namesake, I hope she does not mind.
Hugs,
April (the other one)
