Yes, it's a pure fantasy to many of us to really have our gender changed. I'm *quite* acutely aware of that. I've stated elsewhere I consider all current medical tech on that front to be not even close to what I need. Although reports of head transplant studies perked up my ears recently. :D CD is my release valve. It took me a while to realize it.
As for how things were "back in the day", my mother became an electro-mechanical engineer at Bell Labs in the early 1960s. She worked on the Apollo program at TRW, and moved into classified work she could never tell me about during the 1970s until she retired in the late 90s. Things she helped design are still out there in geostationary orbit.
And by all the gods ever invented by humanity, I hate my body hair. I check for new methods of permanent removal regularly.
