Interview with Stevie Bennett - Part 2

Monika: That's such an unusual combination of factors to land on all at once. Once the Graves' disease actually took hold, how did it start showing up in your body?

Stevie: Graves' had a very peculiar effect on my hormones. Without boring everybody to death with SHBG and various other technicalities, what happened was that my natural estrogen levels went over two hundred, which is remarkable for a male not taking HRT. And my defences collapsed.
Physically, Graves' gave me a racing heart, massive fatigue and terrible skin. I just looked destroyed. I remember the day they let me out of hospital after the diagnosis, walking to the taxi rank at the nearest shopping centre like a middle-aged man going on ninety-five, literally tottering across the crossing, hoping I could get over before the lights went red. I felt awful.
Monika: And then something shifted for you emotionally, didn't it, as your body began to change?

Stevie: The medication started to correct the thyroid relatively quickly, but my hormone levels didn't seem to correct with it. At first, I just felt interested again in the world I'd been part of. And then I started to feel genuinely lovely, genuinely at peace with myself. Like I'd come home. Like my whole life had been waiting for this moment. Even writing this now, I can feel myself welling up. It was so amazing. I just felt happy at last. At long last, I felt happy.
And then it started to fade, as the medication brought things down. The second set of hormone tests came back with me looking, not necessarily male, but corrected by about thirty percent towards what I had been. And I didn't want that. I didn't want to fix it. I wanted it to carry on. So I went on a low dose of estrogen. And the rest, shall we say, is history.

Monika: Your transition happened remarkably quickly. Were you surprised?

Stevie: For me, the realisation and the action were incredibly close together. From realising I had to do something, to actually acting, was a matter of weeks. And from acting to being full time was only about six months. I went at it a thousand percent once I realised it was the right thing to do. There was simply no more time to waste.
Was I surprised? I named my publication Fast Track Femme, so the speed can hardly have escaped my notice. What I was, more than surprised, was naive. My wife loved me more than anything in the world, and I knew the statistic, that forty percent of marriages survive a transition. I naively thought mine would be one of those. But once I accepted what I was, there was nothing stopping me.

Monika: How did your children react to your transition, and has your relationship with them changed in ways you did not anticipate?

Stevie: I'm going to answer this one very briefly, because I'm incredibly private about the situation with my kids. I have three teenagers who may one day read this, and I don't want to expose them or embarrass them. What I will say is that they found it incredibly difficult and incredibly painful. I upset their lives to a degree that I had no idea was possible. The level of upset I caused was almost off the scale. And I am working very hard to make it right.

 

"Once I accepted what I was, there was nothing
stopping me."

 

Monika: When you came out, did your mother embrace you as her daughter? And do you feel any connection to her in the way you look, carry yourself, or even in your style and mannerisms?

Stevie: When I first came out to my mother, I have to say I didn't do it in a very good way, and she didn't react particularly well. I'm not going to lie, she is not a particular fan, to say the least, of people being transgender. But she loves me, and she has worked incredibly hard to get over that. She is one of the few people in my life who stayed.
As for her mannerisms, occasionally I think I can catch a slight look of her in my eye, but not really. What I have realised, though, is this: I have a sister who is younger than me, and I am far more of a dolly than she is, with the makeup and the hair. In that sense I'm probably much more like my mother than my sister is.

Monika: We both had our gender-affirming surgeries in Thailand. When you arrived at the clinic, what struck you most? For me, it was seeing so many women like me from different countries and continents. I suddenly realised, "I'm not alone." Did you have a similar experience?

Stevie: It wasn't so much the other patients for me. What struck me, for the first time in my life, ever, was the very caring, tactile nature of the people looking after me. And I had been around by then. I'd had consultations with FacialTeam, I'd been to the US and to Canada. Bangkok was different. I had my surgeries at WIH Hospital, which is a hospital specifically dedicated to transgender care, and the staff seemed really, really keen to help me, to actually want to help me. It was very hands-on, and very unlike anywhere else I'd been.
But what I really liked about Bangkok was out on the street. I'd be walking through the city, and I'd see a Thai trans woman, and she'd see me, and we would give each other a little nod. A hello-trans-cousin, hello-European-cousin kind of nod, the kind that the civilians around us wouldn't even register. That was quite reassuring about being in Thailand. So yes, Monika, same discovery as yours in the end. Not alone. I just collected mine one nod at a time.

Monika: In the clinic I was sharing a room with a girl from Italy who had her surgery one day before me. We became very close, and the bond we created has lasted until today. I also became friends with three other ladies, and we still try to meet for a little reunion whenever we can. Did you manage to form friendships like that during your time at the clinic?

Stevie: This is a really short little answer, I'm afraid. No, not really. I was on my own in a room, and I didn't really form friendships with any other transgender people while I was there, sadly.

 

"I am quite the nerd when it comes
to vocal feminisation surgery."

 

Monika: I have always been rather afraid of voice feminisation surgery. You went through it yourself in South Korea. How was the experience, and from your perspective, can voice feminisation surgery really be successful?

Stevie: I am quite the nerd when it comes to vocal feminisation surgery. In fact, I actually wrote a long article about it recently. I had VFSRAC with Dr Kim at the Yeson Voice Center in South Korea. I chose it because I'd been through the clinical data on the outcomes, and it is considerably better than some of the older techniques, although Wendler glottoplasty is a particularly fine technique too. It's not going to solve everything, and it's not going to mean you instantly have a soft and beautiful voice, but the data on VFSRAC was pretty impressive to me.
And then there was a twist. I had a congenital issue with my vocal folds that was only discovered the day before the surgery, which meant voice training alone was never going to work for me. It turned out I had a tremor I didn't even know about, and I'd spent my whole life creating huge amounts of pressure in my vocal folds to mask it. So for most people, surgery is one option among several. For me, it was the only one.
Monika: So, going back to my original question, can it really be successful?

Stevie: Can it really be successful? I think voice surgery can be incredibly effective, if it's the right surgery. But you still have to put the work in afterwards and learn to use it. It's like they recreate your instrument, and you have to relearn how to play it. And I'm still learning as we speak.

Monika: Recovery is rarely as glamorous as the photographs afterwards suggest. What was the most unexpected, frustrating or even funny part of recovering from your surgeries?

Stevie: I have a few, actually, one per country. The first was in Turkey, where I'd had a BBL, an extended tummy tuck and some liposuction. The day they took the drains out, I thought, I'm free, I can finally leave the hotel and go to the shopping mall in Istanbul. So I put on a pair of nice tight white jeans and a snatched little top, and I felt great. What I didn't realise was that when they take the drains out, all that fluid has to go somewhere. And all of the fluid around my groin, red with blood, started gushing out all over the front of my white jeans. I thought, well, at least I know what it feels like to be a woman having a period in public now. I grabbed my handbag, held it over the front of me, and jumped in a cab back to the hotel.
Monika: And the second?

Stevie: The second was when I was released from hospital after my FFS. The surgeon told me to keep the compression mask on over my face and chin for most of the day. Me being me, I went out for a meal, completely ignored that, and kept it off for three hours. By the time I got home, my chin looked absolutely enormous and was filled with fluid. I looked terrible.
And the third was after my vaginoplasty, when the surgeon told me I could go for short walks. Me being me, I walked across a six-lane highway to yet another shopping mall. I looked down, and my feet had swelled up to the size of balloons.
So no. Recovery is not glamorous. And apparently I cannot be told.

 

"It's like a fairy came down
and did some magic on me."

 

Monika: You look like a million dollars. Do you enjoy being complimented on your appearance now, and has it become easier to believe those compliments?

Stevie: Thank you for that, I really appreciate it. It is starting to get easier, and I am starting to believe it. I was out in the centre of Cork a few weeks ago, talking to a group of women who had taken a shine to my chihuahua, and they kept saying to me, you must realise you look absolutely amazing. And I said, I don't realise, this is all new to me, I haven't had years to appreciate this, it's only just arrived.
But yes, I am starting to accept it, and to feel comfortable with it, and to accept the attention that comes with it. It feels absolutely lovely. It is like an actual dream come true. It's like a fairy came down and did some magic on me.

Monika: Has your idea of femininity changed since transitioning? And I have to admit, I was probably guilty of this myself, thinking that we somehow need to look as feminine as possible to be seen as women. Is there anything you once thought you needed to do to "look like a 100% woman" that you now realise you simply don't care about?

Stevie: I think that level of maturity, of not needing to be one hundred percent dolly all the time with a face full of makeup, takes a while to arrive, and I don't know if I'm even there yet, if I'm being honest. But I did go out the other day without a face full of makeup. I'd have preferred to have it on, but I didn't have time, and I just went. And I thought, you know what, I look okay, it's fine, I don't need it.
And there was another moment a while ago that helped. I picked up a virus in Thailand the last time I was there, which turned into viral arthritis and put me in hospital in Cork for three days. So there I was, no makeup on, looking ill, lying in a hospital bed, and all the women in there kept telling me my skin was amazing and I looked great. That gave me real confidence. I had never once left the house without makeup until then. Although I'll be honest, it does still feel better with a full face on.

Monika: Do you remember the first piece of clothing, pair of shoes or beauty product that made you think, "Oh, I really enjoy being able to do this now"?

Stevie: I remember it very, very precisely. It was the first day I was full time, and I went to a shopping centre. I went into Next, then into River Island and Zara, and for the first time in my life I walked around picking up clothes and trying them on in the changing rooms. Until that day, I had bought everything online. And to my massive surprise, I'd picked up size fourteens and needed to take most of them back for twelves, and considering I'm five foot ten, I was pretty impressed by that. It felt absolutely lovely. It was a hell of a day.
And then I got home that night, to the family I was still living with, and it turned into probably one of the worst days of my life. For every amount of joy I got, I got an equal amount of pain. But yes, I remember that day. I will never forget that day. I said to myself, this is the day I have waited decades for.

 

"I had never once left the house
without makeup until then."

 

Monika: And has there been a moment when someone treated you completely ordinarily as a woman, without knowing or apparently caring that you are transgender, that stayed with you?

Stevie: It increasingly happens all the time now. People from the past still slip up and call me he sometimes. But there aren't many people from the past left. I suppose that's the one upside of the entire world I lived in rejecting me and having to start from scratch. Increasingly, it's just becoming less and less of a thing.
In fact, I was out in Cork a couple of weekends ago, and a bunch of women who had just been to an ABBA brunch got chatting to me and said, join us. And it was only after fifteen minutes that I said, you do realise I'm transgender? And then that became the story of the afternoon for a little while. But yes, I just get treated like one of the women a lot of the time now, which I never thought would be the case.

 

END OF PART 2

PART 3

 

All photos: courtesy of Stevie Bennett.

© 2026 - Monika Kowalska