“It’s the length and intensity of the treatment necessary that makes electrolysis such a test of endurance for the transsexual woman. 200 to 300 hours. 2 to 3 hours a session. 32 needles every six to eight minutes. $15 – 20,000 by the time she’s finished. I lay stretched out on my back. After a while the pain builds up, wave after wave, like contractions. I breathe my way through them. I think, “These are my birth pangs. Paula the mother giving birth to Paula the daughter.”
