Jean Vermette’s book Je Me Souviens: One Person's Experience with Male-to-Female Sex Reassignment Surgery is an unflinchingly honest account of a life lived largely in silence, and of the long, careful journey toward embodiment, integrity, and wholeness. Drawn from lived experience rather than theory, the book offers readers not an abstract argument about transgender lives, but a deeply human narrative shaped by memory, patience, spirituality, loss, and quiet courage. It stands as both personal testimony and historical document, rooted in a time when language, resources, and social understanding around transgender identity were scarce or nonexistent.
Vermette traces her awareness of herself as female not as a sudden realization, but as something that simply always was. One of the earliest memories she recounts is from the age of three, when she put on a piece of her mother’s clothing and looked at herself in the mirror. There was no sense of experimentation or rebellion in the moment, only a feeling of rightness, coupled immediately with an unspoken understanding that this truth was not something the world would welcome. That combination, of inner certainty and outer danger, becomes a defining pattern throughout her life. From that moment forward, her femininity is something lived quietly and privately, carefully hidden even from those closest to her.
As she grows older, Vermette describes a childhood and adolescence marked by emotional closeness with girls and a persistent inability to be seen as male in the ways society expected. Her friendships with girls were deep, intimate, and natural, yet they never translated into romantic relationships. She was perceived, instinctively, as not quite a boyfriend, but not something easily named either. Even without language, both she and those around her sensed the incongruity. By her early teens, she had begun to understand herself as transsexual, though this knowledge existed in isolation, without support, guidance, or any clear path forward. Growing up in the early 1960s, there were no visible role models, no accessible medical frameworks, and no social permission to speak.
One of the most painful consequences of this secrecy, as Vermette reflects in the book, was the impossibility of comfort. Fears that are never spoken cannot be soothed, challenged, or softened by another human being. Although she grew up in a large, loving Roman Catholic family, one marked by compassion even amid the turmoil of addiction, mental health struggles, and loss, she remained convinced that her truth would be the one thing they could not accept. This belief persisted despite evidence to the contrary, and it kept her isolated well into adulthood. The fear did not necessarily grow worse over time, but it never diminished either. It simply settled into place, shaping decisions and delaying life.
Spirituality plays a central role in Vermette’s narrative, and it is inseparable from her prolonged deliberation about transition. She did not rush toward medical intervention. On the contrary, she spent decades wrestling with the question of whether she should act on what she knew about herself. The question was never only whether she could transition, but whether she was meant to. She waited for clarity, for a sense of permission that aligned her inner truth with her spiritual understanding of the world. When that permission finally came, it did so quietly, almost casually, as a thought that arrived one day while she was working, telling her simply that it was time to look at the question again.
Coming out to her family was handled with the same thoughtfulness. Rather than confronting them face to face, Vermette chose to write a letter explaining what she was exploring and what it might mean, while leaving space for uncertainty. She wanted her family to have time to process before responding. The replies she received were overwhelmingly loving and supportive, a result that both blessed her personally and underscored how unnecessary her decades of fear had been, even if it felt unavoidable at the time. Particularly moving is the letter from her sister Mary, written shortly before surgery, in which Mary acknowledges her grief for the brother she was losing while also welcoming her sister with honesty and love.
The book does not shy away from the complexity of that moment, honoring both loss and affirmation as real and valid.
Vermette’s description of sex reassignment surgery is detailed, practical, and demystifying. She explains the medical technique used, the physical realities of recovery, and the demanding aftercare required to ensure proper healing. The process was painful and time-consuming, involving months of tenderness and hours each day devoted to medical maintenance in the early stages. By including these details, the book resists romanticizing surgery while also refusing to portray it as grotesque or tragic. It is presented as what it is, reconstructive surgery undertaken for a specific, deeply felt purpose.
The question many people fixate on, whether sexual pleasure remains after surgery, is addressed with both candor and humor. Vermette is clear that outcomes vary and that no guarantees are made, yet she also affirms that her own body functions well, both physically and sensually. More importantly, she emphasizes that even without sexual sensation, the surgery would still have been worth it, because for the first time in her life, her reflection matched her sense of self. That alignment brought a feeling of completeness she had never known before.
Perhaps the most profound theme in Je Me Souviens is the idea of death and rebirth. Vermette frames her transition, and particularly her surgery, as a kind of spiritual passage. Something had to die for something else to be born. This was not experienced as destruction, but as transformation, akin to a bud giving way to a flower. She suggests that many transsexual people who pursue surgery successfully share a deep spiritual framework that allows them to understand change not as erasure, but as metamorphosis. In this way, the book situates transgender experience within a universal human narrative, one that transcends gender and speaks to anyone who has ever had to let go of an old self to become whole.
In its final reflections, the book broadens outward from the personal to the political. Vermette’s life story naturally leads into advocacy, particularly around civil rights protections for transgender people. Her experiences illuminate what is at stake when legal recognition is withdrawn or denied, especially in everyday spaces like schools, bathrooms, and workplaces. These are not abstract debates, but questions that affect safety, dignity, and the basic right to exist without harassment.
Je Me Souviens is not written to persuade through outrage or ideology. Its power lies in its calm, patient honesty, and in its refusal to simplify a life that was anything but simple. Jean Vermette offers readers a rare gift, the chance to witness a transgender life from the inside, shaped by time, faith, fear, love, and ultimately, self-acceptance. The book lingers long after it is finished, not because of shock or drama, but because it reminds us how extraordinary it is for a person to finally be allowed to remember themselves.
Available via digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu
Photo via Philomena Baker from the book
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