I've never questioned my sexuality, my desire to be with a man. Still, when I first encountered the person who would become my husband, he was wearing makeup and a purple dress. We met at a gathering hosted by a mutual friend, a psychotherapist and expert on transgenderism. David, the man in the dress, was a 38-year-old surgeon and a cross-dresser. He - she in that moment - was intriguing. I saw beyond the external and was drawn in by David's essence - his courage, his honesty, his authenticity. We've now been married for 23 years and I'm still in love. But since David became Deborah full-time three years ago, I'm now in love with her. As my husband became a woman, I endured a transition of my own.

We married in 1991, in our early 40s, with six children between us from previous marriages. For 20 years, we thought David's transgender expression would always be limited to occasional dressing as a woman. He became Deborah for brief outings and intermittent weekends away with cross-dressers and other transgender folks, reveling in these opportunities to dress "en femme." They were fun for me too, but I always welcomed my spouse's return to the masculine role. David, however, did not.

Leslie Hilburn and David Fabian on their wedding day in 1991, and Leslie Hilburn Fabian with spouse Deborah Fabian in 2012. Credit:Bradie Allen

For years, I witnessed David's immense sadness when returning from his feminine expression. I held him as he wept. This tension also extended to our sex life. While my comfort with fantasy enabled me to support Deb's presence in our bedroom, I sometimes longed for a scenario other than pretending we were both women during love-making.

Eventually, it became obvious that David never had been role-playing a feminine character. Rather, he had been falsely portraying a male all his life. In 2009, in response to yet another bout of David's depression, I said, "I don't think another therapist or a different antidepressant will work. It's time to talk to an endocrinologist."