When Paul became Paula...

I was hired to work as a draftsman for a cabinet manufacturer around 1977. This was right after a housing market slump. The company downsized to survive and the factory manager was doing the drafting by himself. Having me onboard allowed them to process more orders. Business picked up and within 2 years, there was enough work for another draftsman.
Enter Paul... who had worked for the company many years before. He left to start a family business that ultimately failed. When asked to return, he was pleased and accepted the offer. I was in my 20's and Paul was in his late 50's. He already knew the owners and upper management and I was warned about his temper. For the most part, there was no conflict between us, we each did our work and had a supervisor who processed the orders for us to work on.
Somewhere into my second year, I was promoted to assistant processing manager. That meant I was the person checking Paul's work... that's when I found out about the temper he had! He was conscientious about his work, but when I found mistake or decided to have him revise something he 'flew off the handle' as they say and there was always some confrontation needing a reason for the change. He was paid hourly, so it wasn't like I was asking him to redo something for free.

Paul was a tall slender man, divorced, kids, previous military experience and lots of tattoos on his arms. There wasn't anything wishy-washy about the guy but rumor was he was a weekend drag-queen at a gay nightclub and actually got paid to perform.

The factory manager knew Paul for many years... he was the rumor monger and it appeared he had nothing better to do in his life but to share things Paul told him in confidence and tell others. The story I heard was Paul lived his life as a man but was never comfortable in doing so. After going for some medical testing (to find a reason for his dilemma) they found (in addition to his working male parts) he was born with an ovary. That must have been the deciding factor for Paul to begin hormone shots as the first phase of the transition to be a woman!

Paul was wearing men's clothing but it became apparent he was sprouting breasts.
Nik-Nik shirts were in fashion and people in the office were gossiping about it. Soon after, Paul began treatments to remove tattoos and had to have his arms bandaged to avoid infection. After the tattoo removal came electrology treatments to remove facial hair. He would avoid shaving for a few days so the could see each follicle and treatments were only a few square inches at a time. That must have been a few weeks of hair removal sessions.
All of this was really superficial and the more serious changes were to come later.

Paul had the first surgery as in castration. I believe he took a vacation and went to Mexico for the procedure. From what I've read, many transsexuals don't get to that point. They take the shots, medicines or have breast implants and call themselves women! After the first surgery, he took another vacation for the second surgery where they removed his p*nis and used the skin to create a va*ina. He returned from Mexico, but had complications with bleeding and had to be hospitalized in Miami.
By then, Paul had the documents to legally have have his gender changed. This involved banking, drivers license, voter's registration.

One Monday morning, I arrived to the office and saw a purse on his desk. It was done. Paul had transformed into Paula. Women's clothing and mascara.

The amazing part of the whole episode was Paula had become the nicest person to deal with. It was though all the little things that annoyed Paul, didn't bother Paula.

Probably part of her therapy, Paula started to openly discuss the transformation, psychological adjustments as well as phasing out the memories of being Paul for the first chapter of her life. The part that mortified everyone was when the factory manager asked to be the first to 'bang her' when all the parts had healed.