We climb the stairs to the top, twenty flights, ten floors, and when we get there a guy sitting in an armchair says “Why didn’t you use the lift?” I suppose no-one expects the lift to work in old Soviet-era apartment blocks. Nobody expects to be on the roof either, but a short flight of wooden steps and a vertical climb up a metal ladder later we are emerging onto a wide roof area and the whole of Almaty is below us in early evening sunlight.

It was a cold day in February when I flew into Philadelphia PA. My surgery had been postponed from October due to a snafu in preparing all the documents that were needed for them to perform GRS (gender reassignment surgery) surgery on me .

There was a liberating sensation that being unchained produced; the air was sweeter, my sensations more vivid. Is this is what non-gender-conflicted people feel everyday? It was overwhelming, delicious, and I dare say addictive; I was basking in the warm sunshine of life.

I was walking down Broadway -- a small group of friends in tow – when just as I crossed West 22nd Street I heard a voice shout out, “Hey, beautiful, is that an Adam’s Apple you have”? I turned, with a grin upon my face and saw five guys in their late-20s, sitting in their compact car (no doubt part of the “bridge-and-tunnel-crowd” that descend upon Manhattan from New Jersey, Connecticut and the other New York boroughs each weekend) laughing as they waited for the light to change.

Tonight came at the right time. I needed a boost in self confidence and positivity, and wow did I get both. The two “StripXpertease erotic dance classes done at Ripley-Grier Studios in Manhattan not only picked me up, it put me on Pluto.