April 29, 2002 I would like to thank the countless friends, fans, family, and supporters who have been so helpful and encouraging as I go through the most profound time of my life. How does a whole person emerge after a lifetime of living in fear? Gender Identity Disorder is a relatively new term but it is a condition that has been identified in all cultures, races, and economic strata since man began recording history. People are born with G.I.D., it is not something you learn or decide to acquire. There is no "cure''. People who are identified with it display various ways of coping, ranging from transvestitism to Sexual Reassignment Surgery. My path is leading to the latter. There are many theories as to the cause, suffice to say that there has never been the amount of research done on the subject as say cancer or heart disease. Sexuality and gender are subjects that have repeatedly been neglected by medicine and theologians alike. If the cause were found out to be biological it would upset a whole lot of apple carts! In my case I'm convinced that I've always been hormonally challenged. My struggles date back to my earliest memories. Being born in 1953 wasn't very conducive to openness about my feelings of being different. I learned to hide my true self at an early age. Growing up with this knowledge was not easy, as my fears kept me from confiding in the very people I loved most. It wasn't until I reached my twenties when I began to realize that there were other people like me, that there wasn't something horribly wrong. My shame dissipated.  I began to share my secret self with others. But career and marriage beckoned and fear won out. I became private again. In hindsight I often wonder what life would have been like if I had been able to get help at an early age, to have started hormones and transition before puberty. I would have grown up with less facial hair, a slighter skeletal structure, certainly not a receding hairline! And I would have had the chance to learn feminine graces, socialize and relate as the girl I always knew myself to be. But the cost in that scenario would have been that my musical career probably wouldn't have happened. My gender dysphoria caused me to lose myself in music, to practice long hours, driven to improve. It gave me a place to go where I could completely immerse myself without thinking of gender. At the time I came of age in the Jazz music world there were (and still are), so few opportunities for women that even if I did transition and had played music, my successes would have been slight. Playing music still is the most important thing in my life. There were only a few times when I was driven to despair over my transsexualism. Most of the time I just went with the flow, even learned to enjoy certain masculine traits, especially playing baseball. But I had created a little actor for my public persona. I wasn't always flawless. There was a lot of taunting when I was of elementary school age. High school was very traumatic, I reached some lows in my early twenties (until I started studying seriously), and mid-life has been most difficult. It's not like I've always been suicidal or depressed, there were lots of good times too. But time is short and I need to focus. At this point in my life I've come to the decision that it's time to find peace within me, to become happy with myself, not live for what other people want me to be. I started counseling the winter of 2001 at the L.A. Gender Center with Marie Keller M.F.C.C. She's been very important in helping me get over fears and misconceptions. I would recommend counseling for anyone dealing with this condition, you need the expertise of someone who's had vast experience in diagnosing and treating G.I.D.  Self-diagnosis and especially self-medicating can ruin your life. It takes a caring professional to guide you on the right path. Marie referred me to other medical professionals. My hormone therapy started in September of 2001 and I transitioned in my former hometown of Philadelphia November 21, 2001. For the most part it's been a wonderful journey, I'm so lucky to have some incredible friends! Thanks to Doc Severinsen I've been able to show that I'm still a competent player, a somewhat stable person and not all that bad looking! I've returned to doing clinics and have been received very well. Boosey and Hawkes has retained my services as an endorser of both Paesold and Hofner basses, and I've added Acoustic Image amplifiers and The Realist pickup to my list of endorsements. Not bad for a girl! Now it's time to write new chapters in this saga. Jennifer Jane Leitham April 30, 2002