Transitioning Later In Life

A personal guide on transitioning later in life, helping individuals to address the physical and social challenges involved throughout the process. Exploring issues such as coming out, dealing with discrimination, body dysphoria and finding your own style, it provides support to people at any stage of their journey.

"This is my personal guide to help face who you are, accept who you are and love who you are, so you can watch your dreams and accomplishments flourish...If I can do it, you can do it too." Jillian Celentano lived most of her life not accepting who she was. Since beginning her transition at the age of 55, she has been able to live authentically as her true self. In this helpful and practical guide, she offers advice to other people who are transitioning later in life. Drawing on her personal experiences, she explores topics such as coming out to children, spouses and family, coming out at work, finding your authentic voice, experimenting with style and clothing, and stepping out in public for the first time. She explains how to deal with clocking and discrimination, body dysphoria and the importance of maintaining your physical and mental health. With candour and warmth throughout, this book will support readers on their path to self-love, happiness and acceptance.

In a recent study, ninety percent of women stated that they 'expect to transition' within the next five years. Rather than be frustrated, Rosetti argues that with thought and some elbow grease, transition is not only healthy but rewarding. Women and Transition is a step-by-step how-to guide that every woman can learn from.

If you are transgendered, the feeling of wanting your body to match the sex you feel you are never goes away. For some, though, especially those who grew up before trans people were widely out and advocating for equality, these feelings were often compartmentalized and rarely acted upon. Now that gender reassignment has become much more commonplace, many of these people may feel increasing pressure to finally undergo the procedures they have always secretly wanted. Ken Koch was one of those people. Married twice, a veteran, and a world traveler, a health scare when he was sixty-three prompted him to acknowledge the feelings that had plagued him since he was a small child. By undergoing a host of procedures, he radically changed his appearance and became Anne Koch. In the process though, Anne lost everything that Ken had accomplished. She had to remake herself from the ground up. Hoping to help other people in her age bracket who may be considering transitioning, Anne describes the step by step procedures that she underwent, and shares the cost to her personal life, in order to show seniors that although it is never too late to become the person you always knew you were, it is better to go into that new life prepared for some serious challenges. Both a fascinating memoir of a well-educated man growing up trans yet repressed in the mid-twentieth century, and a guidebook to navigating the tricky waters of gender reassignment as a senior, It Never Goes Away shows how what we see in the television world of Transparent translates in real life.

Nuanced view into the complexities of aging as a transgender person

A New York Times bestseller! A pioneering and timely study of how to navigate life's biggest transitions with meaning, purpose, and skill Bruce Feiler, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Secrets of Happy Families and Council of Dads, has long explored the stories that give our lives meaning. Galvanized by a personal crisis, he spent the last few years crisscrossing the country, collecting hundreds of life stories in all fifty states from Americans who’d been through major life changes—from losing jobs to losing loved ones; from changing careers to changing relationships; from getting sober to getting healthy to simply looking for a fresh start. He then spent a year coding these stories, identifying patterns and takeaways that can help all of us survive and thrive in times of change. What Feiler discovered was a world in which transitions are becoming more plentiful and mastering the skills to manage them is more urgent for all of us. The idea that we’ll have one job, one relationship, one source of happiness is hopelessly outdated. We all feel unnerved by this upheaval. We’re concerned that our lives are not what we expected, that we’ve veered off course, living life out of order. But we’re not alone. Life Is in the Transitions introduces the fresh, illuminating vision of the nonlinear life, in which each of us faces dozens of disruptors. One in ten of those becomes what Feiler calls a lifequake, a massive change that leads to a life transition. The average length of these transitions is five years. The upshot: We all spend half our lives in this unsettled state. You or someone you know is going through one now. The most exciting thing Feiler identified is a powerful new tool kit for navigating these pivotal times. Drawing on his extraordinary trove of insights, he lays out specific strategies each of us can use to reimagine and rebuild our lives, often stronger than before. From a master storyteller with an essential message, Life Is in the Transitions can move readers of any age to think deeply about times of change and how to transform them into periods of creativity and growth.

World Book Night 2022 A visionary, moving and one-of-a-kind anthology of writing on what it means to be trans today and every day. From the daily bite of anxiety as you go to leave the house, to the freedom found swimming in the wild, through to moments of queer rage and joy and the peculiar timeslip of reliving your adolescence, the stories in this collection reveal the untold lived realities of trans people to help inform, inspire and unite. Spanning a range of topics such as gender dysphoria, transphobia, chest binding, gender reassignment surgery, coming out in later life, migration and love and relationships, these unique first-person accounts celebrate the beauty and diversity of being trans and will empower others on their journey. Showcasing eight new exciting trans writers, this extraordinary collection is a powerful and heartfelt love-letter to the trans community. Jessica Kingsley Publishers will donate at least 5p per book sold to Gendered Intelligence (registered charity no. 1182558)

A leading scientist describes his life, his gender transition, his scientific work, and his advocacy for gender equality in science. Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and for his groundbreaking advocacy for gender equality in science. In this book, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017, Barres (born in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments—from his childhood as a precocious math and science whiz to his experiences as a female student at MIT in the 1970s to his female-to-male transition in his forties, to his scientific work and role as teacher and mentor at Stanford. Barres recounts his early life—his interest in science, first manifested as a fascination with the mad scientist in Superman; his academic successes; and his gender confusion. Barres felt even as a very young child that he was assigned the wrong gender. After years of being acutely uncomfortable in his own skin, Barres transitioned from female to male. He reports he felt nothing but relief on becoming his true self. He was proud to be a role model for transgender scientists. As an undergraduate at MIT, Barres experienced discrimination, but it was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated. He became an advocate for gender equality in science, and later in life responded pointedly to Larry Summers's speculation that women were innately unsuited to be scientists. Privileged white men, Barres writes, “miss the basic point that in the face of negative stereotyping, talented women will not be recognized.” At Stanford, Barres made important discoveries about glia, the most numerous cells in the brain, and he describes some of his work. “The most rewarding part of his job,” however, was mentoring young scientists. That, and his advocacy for women and transgender scientists, ensures his legacy.

In this transgender theory life story study, I interviewed male-to-female transgender participants who transitioned between the ages of 40-55, within the last 5 years, and while residing in an urban city in the Mid-South to learn more about the sociocultural and discursive influences of their gendered and embodied experiences. I utilized transgender theory as a lens to view gender transitioning. This theory holds that discourse is contrived and identity is fluid, contextual, and mulifarious and that some voices are silenced because of exclusionary societal practices and systems of belief. The longer that a person is subjected to these oppressive systems the harder it can be to move beyond them. This can make acceptance of those who transition as well as transitioning at an older age all the more challenging. I used transgender theory as my primary theory because it takes into account the unique experiences of transgender preople, recognizes that sex and gender are not one in the same, questions essential notions of gender and gender identity, and challenges the gender binary. It also purports that identifying with one's oppressed identity can be empowering and a strong catalyst for personal and social change. I used poststructuralism and queer theory in this study to examine concepts of power, discourse, and knowledge about gender. Poststructuralism and queer theory are highly skeptical of any claims of (capital T) Truths and incompatible to any asertion that one or another interpretation of reality is the only way in which it may be understood. I engaged in narrative analysis as outlined by Hole (2007) and Ezzy (2002) and creative analytic practice as described by Richardson (1994) in order to analyze the data as well as amplify the voices of the participants as they detailed their personal journeys of negotiating restrictive discourse. The data from the interviews were then turned into narratives that described the participants embodied, social, and personal experiences with transitioning. Additionally, the participants were also asked to write "Dear Counselor" letters sharing what they thought would be important for counselors to know when working with adults who transitioned later in life. .

The experience of men and women in later life varies enormously, not only along lines of gender but also due to ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and race. In this text on gender issues among the aging, Calasanti and Slevin explore these differences, their genesis, their meaning to men and women, and their treatment in the policy arena. The authors also take to task traditional research on aging and how it ignores these issues. The authors cover topics of work and retirement, body image, sexuality, health, family relationships, and informal care, among many others. The current research and nuanced theoretical approach presented in this brief book makes it the ideal text to correct the stereotypic and monolithic views of the elderly for courses in gender or aging.