Planning a Future
A Vignette
By Maryanne Peters

Financial planning is a big responsibility, and it took me a while to realize it. When I was a young man freshly dropped out of college, it seemed as if I could make good money selling financial products. You don’t need qualifications so long as you know the product and the selling method. You have to have outward confidence and the commitment to close the deal, but it really is not about the buyer. They are just the mark. Sell them into a fund or a life insurance policy. But true financial planning is where the product buyer is your client, and your job is to find the products best suited to them.

I suppose I had what might be called “an epiphany” the first time I faced somebody who had bought a product gone bad. The fact is that the particular investment had nothing going for it, other than the huge commissions paid to dicks like I was, to sell it to the innocent and unsuspecting.

The suggestion was that I should laugh it off – suckers are born every day. I tried that, but it just didn’t work.

I decided that I needed to change my life, and I needed to change it drastically. I mean, there was not just one angry ex-customer – there were many. I had to abandon my apartment and stay with an old girlfriend, hiding out at her place, unable to step outside. She was the first to suggest that I take on a disguise.

I was small enough to wear her clothes, and she was able to find me some padding to go under the right outfit and a wig to wear. I wore the outfit just to attend to some important matters but after a couple of times stepping outside I realized that I could pass as a woman. We went out to dinner as two women friends and that confirmed it.

She was seeking a new man, and it got to the point that I could not stay at her place. I decided to get a new apartment and keep up my disguise. I was still in hiding from angry ex-clients and I could not go back to my place, so my new apartment had only women’s clothes it is. I was living full time as a woman, even at home with nobody around. Somehow it just seemed easier that way. It was never meant to be permanent.

But I needed income, and I knew all about the financial products, and not just the bad ones. I decided to set up online giving financial advice on a strict zero-commission basis. That meant that I would be turning down any payment from product providers so I was fully independent. Instead I charged the client, initially on a small percentage of the portfolio I advised them to follow. After a while I was in demand and I could charge clients a retainer in advance to give them my full attention.

The key to good financial planning is to know your client, and understand that each one is different. As a man I used to think that nobody takes advice from a woman – men know their stuff in this field and tell people what to do. But I realized that deep down I must have had a feminine side which my forced cross-dressing brought to the front. Women listen. Women understand. Women present the case without pushing. Women are good at this.

I started to make money, but more importantly I made money in the right way. I felt good about myself and who I had become. I started to value my feminine side and to build upon it. I grew out my hair and I started on hormones. It was never meant to be permanent.

My financial plans were recognized for good returns on low risk. I picked up awards for my work. I set up a company with other planners working for me, following my principles and my approach.

Time can be a funny thing. It still seems like yesterday that I was male dick, conning people out of their savings, but here I am, a wealthy and mature woman. I am not saying that I felt unfulfilled, because my work and my happy customers seems like fulfillment enough. But I did seek company outside business, first with women and latterly with men. I suppose that I found myself looking for the man I thought I should have been, and then finally I found him.

I told him that I had to go overseas for a while – just long enough to get the surgery. I suppose that I wondered whether it would be the right choice when I told him that I had been born a man, but after so long living as a woman I was ready to take the leap regardless. I wanted to be a woman for him to either accept or reject.

So now it is done, and I am making plans. It is what I do.

The End
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Author’s Note: This story arose from “a thought” sent in by Tony Ford on a notice board (Fictionmania I think?): “Consider a man finding more success in financial planning as a woman?” Not much to go on, but this story sprung from it

© Maryanne Peters 2026