Shirley Corning:  

A Trantastic Story After about 60 years of making one marvelously erroneous assumption after another I finally figured out that what I had wished for when I was barely 3 years old was exactly what I dearly needed and wanted all my life. I just wanted to be one of the girls. I was a good boy and a conformist always seeking approval by being good. You knew me in high school as Gordon, a tall geek, too timid and withdrawn to take the initiative as a rule but friendly enough once engaged. My best friend all through high school was Chuck Pembroke who eventually ran off with my girlfriend of 2 years, Dee Chapinski, and married her, a move that turned out to be a big mistake for him and a luck out for me. She became a holy terror, cheating on him frequently and drank herself to death while morbidly obese in the nineties. Met Marie in 77, married and had our only child, Mariann, in 78. Marie had 3 children from a previous marriage and we raised them all. Went back to Moorpark College and went into information systems becoming a senior programmer/analyst. Was making $104,000.00 a year when I quit in 2005. Thought of myself as a typical heterosexual cross dresser going out as Shirley about once a month from 1990 to 1997. Withdrew in June of 97 even more depressed than I already was when I finally realized just cross dressing wasn't enough. I really wanted to be a woman. Didn't get dressed and go out again as Shirley until May of 2011 which was the start of going out monthly again. I was at a salon as Shirley on March 15th, 2012, when the totally unexpected happened. I felt so comfortable in the feminine role as Shirley, as natural as a duck taking to water, so very happy and so accepted that suddenly I didn't want to go back to be being Gordon, the miserable and depressed man. I felt like I couldn't. The very idea of going back invoked extreme emotions ...Expand for more