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MARQUETTE -- Hair curled, nails polished, and with a freshly powdered face, Marissa Jayne Wolfe is primped and prepared for whatever her day brings.  Sadly, some things are to be expected.  There will be mean glares and a constant struggle.  You see, Marissa Jayne Wolfe used to be Steve Mattice.

"My body and my mind, they're at war with each other," says Wolfe.

The Marquette resident, once a man, is now becoming a woman.  She's one of the few transsexual women you will see in the Upper Peninsula.

"I've never identified as a guy, I've never been into guy things, and to be forced into that gender role, it's agony," Marissa said.  "You can't change who you are inside."

But Marissa could change her outside, and that's exactly what she's been doing gradually over the last two years.  The 29 year old has been matching her masculine exterior to what she calls her female interior.

"It's like a prison," she said.

Some 130 hours of facial electrolysis and multiple doses of estrogen later, Marissa's femininity is slowly taking shape, but it hasn't been simple.

"It's been pure hell," she said.  "Honestly, I've been spit on, I've been threatened, I've had the police called on me for using the bathroom at my job."

And her difficult journey has just begun.  Just after taping our interview last week, Marissa flew to Thailand, the so-called "capital of sexual reassignment surgery," to complete her transformation.  We've exchanged multiple emails throughout her recovery.  She says it's been physically painful, but emotionally liberating.

"I'm beyond excited," Marissa said.  "It's like starting over, it's like breaking out of this prison.  It will inspire others, and if anyone's out there who is trans or who is in the wrong body, it gives them hope, it gives them something to live for.  Hope is something everyone needs."

Marissa's hope:  her three-year-old biological daughter, who still lives here in Marquette with her mother, Marissa's estranged ex-girlfriend from when she was still a he.  When Marissa returns home from recovery, she'll begin yet another battle for visitation rights.

"I just feel like there's no one here for me except for my daughter," she said.

With her surgery complete, Marissa says her body and soul are slowly on the mend.  She'll be returning to the states at the end of August.