My name is Tara Kartya Amoretti, I was born in 1968, I’m 52 years old. I’ve lived in Auckland most of my life. I came over from the UK on a ship, with my mom and my sister, fatherless. So I was brought up around a family of women. My journey has been male to female, but as I was growing up, I didn’t know my true identity. I did not know why I liked doing the things that I would do. Even when I was young, I liked to dress up in my mom’s clothes and her lingerie. When my mum and my sister went out, my sister would always get in trouble for going into her drawers. She didn’t know that I used to do these things as I’d always hide out. I did not want anyone to ask why I am doing this. And I tried to hide these things and I did so for a number of years.

As I got older, the internet came along, and I started searching for answers and they started to come to me. I still couldn’t understand why I was having the feelings that I would have. At school I did not like doing full contact sports. I did not want to do a lot of things that other boys my age would do. And I’ve struggled with it, but I just thought, oh, okay, move on to the next thing. This went on for a number of years. I would dress up as a female under my clothes and nobody knew. I was still frazzled with finding myself: why I was doing this.

I don’t know whether or not this was because I was sexually assaulted when I was younger, when a guy took me and sexually assaulted me. What impact it had on me I’m not sure. I guess I never really felt the same after that. But then I carried on without telling anybody about it.

And here I am today. I’ve struggled with relationships, with my fetish that I had and not knowing what is going on. I just struggled through but I carried on. I was in and out of relationships, not that many, but I had a few. And when I came into one relationship and found myself doing the same thing, I wasn’t too sure what to do. So, I just, I carried on investigating and looking at things, and reading about transgender and the different walks of life and learning about hormones and whatnot. I’ve thought about it without taking any action.

I hid behind alcohol and drugs. I tried to hide from it. I wanted to bury it, but I couldn’t. It just kept coming to the surface. I wanted to wear women’s underwear and undergarments and lingerie. It was affecting my relationships. My partner did not think it was very nice and wasn’t positive, so I got rid of everything woman that I had, and tried to put it behind me. It still kept coming up. It went on for quite a few years, many years, but it still kept growing its head. It wouldn’t go away. I would envy other women, their faces, how they looked and how pretty they were.

I tried to come to terms with things and I couldn’t. I’ve done a couple of courses over two years. And by the end of those two years, I was just about 49 and decided I am going to see the doctor, and tell him how I felt. It wasn’t very successful to start up with but I managed to get it out of him on the second visit, what I wanted to say to him, because he couldn’t understand it the first time. I told him that if we started, I wanted to be a female. So I went through the proper steps. I was on antidepressants at the time so I’d see a psychiatrist, and everything else that you have to do when you decide you’re gonna go on hormones and to be a woman, including psychiatric evaluation on the things you do when you embark on this journey. Eventually I was able to start my hormone treatment, and when I did, I totally embraced who I was and wanted to be. I already thought about my new name that I wanted and has been on my mind for a long time. So, I went through to the end, I went over to Thailand. I had a few trips there. I had my voice done, that was the first step. As soon as I started my hormones, I threw away my whole wardrobe, everything that was male was gone. I started a new wardrobe. Now I’ve got so many clothes, it’s not funny. Beautiful ones.

As time went by, I had to be on hormones for like a year before I could have this surgery to look like a woman. I couldn’t wait. Then my time came and I went to Thailand to have my breasts implants and the sex change operation. It didn’t go right the first time. There were complications and I had to come home and let it heal. I had to go back again and have the operation again. I still have a couple of complications but it’s quite minor, I think. I’m getting there. It’s all there, looking beautiful. I’ve had work done on my face. I’ve had upper eyes, lower eyes, face lift and neck lift. I try to keep myself super fit for the operations. I’ve done a lot of pole dancing, ballet and stretching. To this day, I’m still on my journey to be the person I’ve always wanted to become. Here I am.