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Pam Benetti

Jason A. Michael

Pam Benetti does not remember her childhood with any great fondness. As a little girl in a little boy's body, Benetti realized when she started school that something was seriously wrong.
"From kindergarten onward I knew that I was not the same as the other kids," said Benetti, recalling that throughout her school years her attempts at trying to align her exterior self with her internal emotions were eternally rebuffed. "I was rejected almost universally. And I basically threw all the energy that I would have thrown into sports and socializations into things like writing and arts and music."
Being trans is hard enough in any city, but in a small town it's virtually impossible, a challenge so great that it makes the television series Fear Factor look like Romper Room.
"Actually, I came out twice," said Benetti. "The first time that I tried to come out I was 19, and although my mother was very supportive my father wasn't. And at the time we lived in Muskegon, so there were no gender clinics and I had no idea what to do with it and I had such a negative reaction from my father that I basically stuffed it back into the closet for 14 years."
But she couldn't keep it there forever, and eventually she let it, and her true self, out for air once more.
"The second time was shortly after my dad died and all the stuff that I had been stuffing came out," she said.
Benetti knew she had to do something, but what exactly that was, she wasn't sure.
"There was an online source when I first came out," she said. "My only source of support was online. And to that I would have to credit Jennifer Diane Rietz."
She knew from experience that the answers she was seeking would not be found in a gay bar.
"When I was 19 in Muskegon I went out to the gay bar and I met a bunch of drag queens," explained Benetti. "There was a fairly large communication gap there because they could not understand why I wanted to do this all the time, why I wanted to live like this, why I couldn't just be happy doing shows."
Benetti felt that she had been putting on a show for her whole life, and that it was now time to start living the truth.
"The first person that I actually met in the flesh who was trans like me, her name was Alexis," said Benetti. "She wasn't beautiful, she was just plain and that was when it started to dawn on me that this really was possible to actually change sexes, to transition from male social roles to female. It was very liberating because up until that time I was sort of feeling futility, sort of how do I get from here to there? Until I actually saw someone who had done that in the flesh, I didn't really believe that it was possible."
Still, knowing something is possible is not the same as knowing how to do it, and Benetti stumbled more than once.
"It was up and down," she recalled. "I lost all of my friends, all of my family, several jobs, several places to live. But the end result is that I can stand to look at myself in the mirror today and not feel ill.
At 38, Benetti is helping to educate others about trans issues, and she feels that both the straight and gay communities could do with some sensitivity training.
"There's nothing you can really compare this to so everyone assumes it's something sexual and that's not necessarily so," she said. "In order for people to really fully understand what this is about I think they should all go for an hour of electrolysis and I think that would do away with the idea that it's just some passing fancy that's being driven by some sexual motivation."
Benetti is also concerned that upcoming trans kids should not have to undergo the ordeal that she did and waste any extra decades in the closet. Her advice to them is simple.
"Obviously the first thing is go find a therapist that's understanding, even if you have to move to do that," she said. "In my case, in Muskegon, I basically picked a therapist and educated her about gender issues. I think that's very common in smaller areas or rural areas. The other thing would be, I mean, be prepared to move and to rush slowly. When you become aware that you have gender problems the tendency is to go full steam ahead and if you do that without being aware of things some people have actually gone too far and realized they've made a mistake after they've done things that were irreversible.
"I think the biggest thing that anyone can do is to accept individual responsibility for themselves," Benetti continued. "People may not be responsible for having gender dysphoria but they're responsible for doing something about it. That takes some research and patience and it's important to be building self-esteem during that phase, too."
Benetti does not reveal which phase she is in at the moment, i.e. her surgical status – "I don't tell people that unless they're a lover or a doctor because really no one else needs to know" – but she is open about her future goals.
"There are a few cosmetic things that I would like to have done still and from there I think I might want to move to Vancouver, British Columbia. A month ago I would have said move to Alaska and marry a lumberjack and lead a quiet life, but I've gotten attached to living near a city and as cities go I hear Vancouver is very nice. But that's a long-term goal."

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