In high school, I considered myself gay because I was in a male body and was attracted to boys. But I always dressed feminine: I had bleached-blonde hair and wore makeup, girls’ jeans, and tight shirts.

I come from small town in Indiana, where it seemed like everyone was straight and in a relationship. I was often the oddball left alone at the end of the night. I never had any sexual experiences with girls. They’d try, but I wasn’t interested. I even felt suicidal at times, because I didn’t feel like I could express my attraction or love for men.

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My first hookup was junior year of high school, with a boy from a different town who played football. We gave each other head. For the first time, I felt worthy. To have this boy hold me, to have a physical connection with someone, made me feel so normal.

I had my first real relationship at 18, after I moved to Chicago to attend broadcasting academy. (I dreamed of being a reporter, and someday having my own talk show, like Oprah.) I fell in love with a guy there who was gay, and we identified as a gay couple. We were together for two years, and I lost my virginity to him when we had anal sex for the first time. We explored a lot, and I discovered I like being on top.

But I also felt a lot of shame, because I wanted to express my feminine energy—to wear makeup, shave my legs—and he didn’t like it. One time, I came home wearing bronzer and mascara, and he asked what I was doing. He said it wasn’t cute. We had a conversation, and he told me I looked better without it. So from then on, I’d only wear makeup when he wasn’t around, and I started hanging out with friends who embraced my feminine side more than him. The distance this created eventually ruined our relationship.

We broke up when I moved to Los Angeles at age 21 to continue pursuing my broadcasting dreams. That’s when I started to express my feminine side even more.

‘Sweetie, you’re trans.’

I was out at a cheap bar in West Hollywood with friends, celebrating my first apartment in L.A., when a man came over to me and said he felt my vibe and told me he was a psychic. At first I was like, “Who the hell is this person?” but I kept talking to him. Everything he was saying to me was hitting home. I got emotional. I told him my life story, and then he told me, “Sweetie you’re trans. You’re a female in a man’s body.”

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That blew me away. It was the first time everything made sense. That’s who I was. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and would stay up at night, tossing and turning. I imagined my body on a deserted island, where no one could judge me, as both a man and as a woman. When I imagined myself as a woman, my heart space blew open.

When I was 20, I went to a doctor with a friend to start exploring the possibility of taking hormones. I got bloodwork done, and when I was cleared as healthy, I started taking hormone shots every two weeks. Right away, my breasts grew big and sensitive, like I was having puberty as an adult. My skin was softer. Testosterone is very powerful, and it used to make me constantly horny. But after each injection, there was so much estrogen in my body that the cravings for sex weren’t there.

About a year after I started taking hormones, I hooked up with a guy I’d been with several times before. Before the hormones, it was just about having good sex and getting off. But after the hormones, I felt like I needed to have feelings for him to get off. I imagined he was my husband and our kids were in other room, and the sex was so much better.

Before I started hormones, I’d feel the urge to masturbate every day, but afterward, I could go a week without that need. There were also times where I struggled to orgasm altogether. While before I was more of a visual person who needed to watch porn, after starting hormones, I could orgasm with just my imagination. I could picture a guy, fantasize about a relationship, and have sexual feelings.

Even anal intercourse felt better, because my entire body got more sensitive to touch. My orgasms were more of an emotional high rather than just being in my penis—and that’s still how I describe orgasms today.

I had to fall in love with my vagina

About 10 years ago, when I was 25, I decided to completely transition to being female. I went to a doctor in Thailand for the procedure. It’s definitely cheaper there than in the U.S., but I also sought out this doctor because he was the best of the best. During surgery, he basically built my vagina from scratch, and the nerves from the tip of my penis became my clitoris.

After the surgery, I couldn’t leave the hospital bed for five days, and then I had to spend about three weeks in a recovery facility. Most of the time I was on painkillers, drifting in and out of sleep. I took pills every two hours, so I never really felt much pain. But about a week after the surgery, I was napping and didn’t wake up in time to take my next dose. When I finally opened my eyes, the pain was horrifying and bizarre—I could literally feel that my penis had been taken apart and sewn back up. It was excruciating.

Even though I’d wanted a vagina for practically a decade, I wasn’t attracted to it when I first got it—it was just so different. I didn’t want people to touch it. It was a journey to learn to enjoy it.

About two months after surgery, I masturbated for the first time. I was scared to orgasm, but when I did, it was mind-blowing. I felt it all over my body. My body vibrated in a way I’d never experienced as a male.

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My first sexual partners didn’t know I was trans

I went through the surgery at the same time as a girlfriend. Her experience was so much better than mine because she was in a relationship, and her boyfriend explored with her.

I wasn’t in a relationship, and I was ashamed to tell guys I met that my vagina was new and that I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have intercourse for a year because I was afraid.

When I did start hooking up with men, I’d usually go for anal, because I was afraid of what they’d think of my vagina. Vaginal sex can also be challenging, because my vagina doesn’t expand like a cis woman’s. I have to manually dilate it for an hour beforehand with this balloon-like contraption.

Dilating can be very painful. Right after the surgery, I was supposed to do it three times a day for 30 minutes. Now if I’m not having sex regularly, I’m supposed to do it once a day or at least a few times a week.

Because my vagina is so tight, sex is painful at first. My vagina also doesn’t get as wet as a woman’s. I use coconut oil as a natural lubricant—I even keep little packets of it in my purse.

About a year and a half after the surgery, I had an amazing connection with this guy—he was really cute, but he didn’t know I was trans. I was finally starting to accept my new body, and I remember having sex, and looking in the mirror and seeing this beautiful, confident woman. The vaginal sex hurt at first, but I remember being on top and feeling so attractive, worthy, and in my body. I remember looking down at my vagina and playing with my clitoris, and seeing who I was.

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But no matter how confident I felt, I didn’t feel that I could be honest with him. We were together on and off for a year, and I never told him I was trans.

In fact, for the first four years after I transitioned, I didn’t tell anyone new in my life about my surgery. But I didn’t like lying.



Eventually, I started to tell some of the guys I dated the truth. When I started to have feelings for them, or when they’d start to ask about high school and my family, I felt like I needed to open up. When I did, some guys would say they knew something was off—that my vagina was too tight—but others were devastated and said they had no idea. I was always surprised when men said they couldn’t tell. To me, it seemed so obvious that my vagina was manmade.

It took sex with another trans man to understand my body

I was never attracted to women, but about eight years after the surgery, I did date a trans man for about a year. I loved his vagina so much. I went down on him, and fingering, penetrating him, and playing with his clitoris taught me so much about my own vagina.

He’d take the time to go down on me for hours, and he introduced me to vibrators and strap-ons and other toys, which I’d never used before. I felt so comfortable because he was trans, and we went through a lot together. I didn’t feel as much shame as when I was dating a cis man.

I don’t have any regrets about my surgery, but…

Sometimes even now in my sexual experiences, I want the person so bad that I have this urge to penetrate them and come inside of them like I did when I was a man. It happens with feminine guys who don’t want to be masculine or take charge, so I want to be in the masculine role. With more masculine guys, it’s the opposite.

But overall, I’m so happy with my vagina, and I love expressing my feminine energy. I love the results.

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My sex life today is great

For me, the best of both worlds is receiving anal while I play with my clitoris. I still have my prostate, and my anus stretches faster than my vagina. I can orgasm with vaginal sex, but if I don’t touch my clitoris, it’s hard.

When I casually hook up, I have anal sex, because it’s easier, faster, and less painful than vaginal sex. But in a relationship, I’ll use my vagina because the guy is typically more patient. I’d love to get to a point where I’m in a relationship long enough that I can have regular intercourse that isn’t painful.

I’m dating a couple of guys right now who identify as straight. But I’m still dealing with a lot of rejection, because I think a lot of guys don’t want to take on a trans woman in the public eye. Society still isn’t ready. Guys will flirt and take me out and say they’re okay with me being trans, but they won’t actually commit and bring me home to their families.

Today, I’m very confident with who I am. I’ve gone through enough rejection in my life as a trans woman that I figure if you want me, you want me; if you don’t, your ego is getting in the way.

Billie Lee is a transgender activist and the newest star on Bravo's hit series, Vanderpump Rules (Mondays at 9pm ET/PT). A lifestyle blogger, TV host, transgender spokesperson, and model, Lee is on the board of Equality CA, a nonprofit that works toward equality for the LGBTQ community. She’s currently filming her own digital talk show coming in 2019.