Here we Go Again

 

Image from Pau Casals on UnSplash.

A very short and sour post coming up:

Here we go. The convicted orange felon and his minions in Washington, DC, are in my life once again. For those you who don’t know, I am a Vietnam Era veteran who is under VA medical care.

Now, in addition to staff cuts, he has given permission to Veteran’s Administration doctors and presumably other personnel to not treat transgender patients. According to the “Guardian” here is how the unhinged executive order reads:

“While medical staff are still required to treat patients regardless of race, color, religion, or sex, new rules at the VA have explicitly removed protections based on political party affiliation, marital status, and national origin, The Guardian reported Monday. Huh? The staff is required to treat me, but they are not going to if I am trans or a democrat?

To be clear, in my long time VA medical care history, I have yet to be discriminated against in any way because I am transgender. I would hate to see that change just because the incompetent head bigot wants it to.

What I will never understand is what a total crazy man is doing in my life trying to ruin it. He has no business doing it. I guess what frustrates me the most are the transgender women I know who voted for him. Saying he would not be that bad. Well, he is, and I hope you are satisfied.

Maybe he needs his diaper changed more often since his birthday military parade was such a failure. And he decided to take it out on veterans everywhere who had faithfully served their country. Which is more than he ever did.

I better end this post now before I get into more trouble than I ever thought possible.

 

Making Gender Decisions

 

JJ Hart

Living my truth as a novice transgender woman proved to be more than I bargained for.

Like many of you, I started innocently enough as I rummaged through my mom’s clothes for anything I thought would fit me. Too soon, I found I had fallen in love with the feel of feminine clothes such as undergarments and panty hose. The biggest problem I quickly encountered was the buzz I felt when I cross dressed in front of the mirror just did not last. In the space of a couple days, I yearned to repeat the process of doing my best to look like a girl, repeatedly. I did not know it then, but my mind was attempting to tell me I was transgender and not a cross dresser. In those days, the transgender word was years away from being used or understood.

When I finally reached the age to go out on my own, the mirror remained my best friend. All the way to the point of going places where I could enjoy seeing my transfeminine reflection. I would even go to the big home improvement stores to check out their mirror selection when in fact, I was checking me out and reinforcing my feminine image in my mind. Finally, even my simple search for gender acceptance proved to be too much to take on a regular basis. I needed the public to be my reflection which mattered the most. Or I began to interact with more clerks and servers on a one-on-one basis to see their reactions. The more I explored, the more confident I became, and life became so much easier. In fact, too easy.

The first main discovery I made was the fact that women were much more interested in me than men. It did not matter, if the woman was a clerk, a server or a stranger off the street, they all seemed to share a curiosity of why I was in their world. Many times, there was too much curiosity going around on both sides, I was as curious about them as they were about me. It was about this time when I began to really live my truth as a transgender woman. I always reasoned too, more than a few strangers were drawn to me for that precise reason. They knew I was living my truth. Certainly, there were haters and bigots along the way, but not enough to slow me down. I ended up learning to stay clear of them very effectively.

Confidence was always my key as I learned to live my truth. I knew I was transgender and anyone who paid close attention at all to me, knew I was also. With that out of the way, we could get down to real life and very soon the typical stranger realized I was not the normal cross-dresser they saw on television on one of the many talk shows. I was real and not evil in any way. It worked with other women I encountered and almost never did with any men. So, I was satisfied with my results. I was kicked out of the men’s club and that was the way I wanted it. I guess you could say I was in some sort of a new layered gender reality as I tried to live my new truth.

I would be remiss if I did not bring up how intensely difficult all of this was to the progress of my mental health therapy. Per norm, my therapist said it best when she told me there was nothing, she could do about my wanting to be transfeminine. If I wanted to enough, I would make the sacrifice to do it. All my visits were pointless until I faced my own gender reality. My excuse continued to be, leaving my male life with all the comforts of the privilege I had built up was very risky, so I continued to put it off until it was almost too late and I tried suicide as a solution.

Naturally, the attempt did not work, because I am here writing attempting to help others with similar gender issues as mine. I learned I wanted to live and needed to make the right choice with my life to do it. I was stubborn and waited until the age of sixty to make the change from living a partial male life to a full time female one. All the lessons I absorbed along my long gender journey came back to help me in my final decision. I still remember vividly, when I sat alone and decided to donate all my male clothes to thrift stores and give up my male life forever. A tremendous weight immediately came off my shoulders and I knew I had made the right decision.

 

 

 

 

Father's Day

 

Image from Tim Mossholder
on UnSplash.

Father’s Day always brings about a set of conflicting emotions in me.

First, I remember my dad. He was a powerful figure in my life. He was a part of the “greatest generation”, served in WW II, survived the great depression and ended up being a self-made man. He ended up eventually building his own house from the ground up and retired as a vice-president of a bank he worked at for years.

The conflict came in when it came to expressing any emotions to his family. Primarily he was shy in expressing anything to my younger brother and I. He was a strong provider but a weak father figure in many ways. I think now, he was doing the best he could with what he had to work with. His generation could only give so much.

As fate would have it, my brother and I were able to overcome dad’s lack of emotional leadership or guidance. We both were very hands-on in how we raised our children. I have a daughter, and he has two sons to raise. Any of you who are regulars around here know how fortunate I am to have a very diverse and acceptable daughter. I must have done something right when I raised her.

Here is an example of what she has done to accept me over the years. From day one, when I was scared to death to come out to her by blurting out, I was transgender. She responded by doing several things including a shopping trip (which I turned down) all the way to inviting me on a trip to her upscale beauty salon which I accepted, my mantra became when I was scared to do something, go ahead and do it. Because of the amount of fear I felt on the day I went to the salon to have my long hair colored and styled.

Now here is the part of the story with my daughter gets a little messy with some folks. When I first transitioned, I went from Father’s Day to “Parent’s Day” which was fine with me. Then, suddenly, my kid started to honor me on Mother’s Day with no prompting from me. Initially, I was too embarrassed to accept such an honor but when I received the same honor from my wife Liz’s son, it stuck with me.  

  In addition to be so honored, my daughter had worked with me to pick a new legal name which would be easy for the grandkids (three) to grasp and remember. In a short period of time, I came up with a new name which was a throwback to family names of the past I had admired. My parents had given my male name as a tribute to the doctor who successfully delivered me. They had gone through three still births before me and were ready to give up and adopt a child until I came along. The problem was that my dead name was going to be very difficult to feminize so I went in an entirely different direction.

What I chose, with the input of my daughter, was to slightly feminize my maternal grandfather’s name and use it as my first name. Then, for my middle name, I chose my middle name as my mom’s first name when I buried my hatchet with her and honored her for all she did for me. If she is up in the sky looking down on me now, I wonder what she would think about my life now. Which has nothing to do with Father’s Day.

I would have chosen part of my dad’s name if it had been possible. His two names (like mine) would be too difficult to femininize. No chance for Charley to be changed to Charlene is an example. My point is that I don’t want to underrate the effort dad put into being my father. As I said, I have forgiven him because of the tools of fatherhood he received did not live up to my expectations. I guess through it all, I knew he loved me in his own way

Even though I have been removed from the Father’s Day agenda and moved into an arena I never thought possible, I still appreciate all I was given to me by my dad, even though he is long departed, he never knew he had a daughter not a son. I never had the courage to bring up the subject to him before he caught dementia and passed away. I labor under some sort of an idea he may have accepted me, unlike my mom.

Sadly, throughout the transgender world, so many trans children are never accepted by their parents. Leading the way to higher rates of transgender suicide.

Whatever is the case for you, I hope you have a great Father’s Day.

 

 

A New Day

 

JJ Hart, Dining Out. 

This post is a little shorter than the recent ones I have posted but no less important and it involves last night's trip to a restaurant venue we always go to.

It seems, every day is always a new day for me. Last night, my wife Liz met her son for dinner at our favorite restaurant where we dine approximately every other week.

As luck would have it, since the venue is large, we have had the same server several times before. About three visits ago, I wore my new Margaritaville T-shirt I bought during our winter trip to the Florida Keys. Even though I thought it was appropriate to drink a Margarita when our regular server promptly called me the dreaded “sir” word. Sadly, my Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville shirt was not feminine enough for me to pass the gender test. So, I needed to relegate it to just wearing around the house. I was sad.

Last night was different. I wore one of my most feminine lace trimmed tops and our regular server seemed a little gender confused but did not call me “sir” and I was satisfied. Also, one of my favorite things about the venue is I never had any problems with being mis-gendered by anyone. I could just relax and be myself. It was one of the first venues where I could sit and ponder the old days when I struggled to exist as a transgender woman at all. I was revitalized every time I went. Which made it a new day.

In many ways the process taught me how far I have come in living my gender dream, but in so many ways can not give up or relax the process. Even though I don’t wear a lot of makeup, I need to make sure I wear the basics every time I face the public. No pun intended. The moment I let my guard down; I could be reverted to the “sir” word I worked so hard to put behind me.

In many ways, when I transitioned from a cross dresser to full time transgender woman, I knew every day would have to be the new normal for me. There would be no more planning ahead three days or so for the special days when I could face the public as a transfeminine woman. I would be doing it every day. I went into a major wardrobe expansion mode. Just to keep up being in a new gender world. As soon as I dropped my guard at all, I would risk slipping back into the world I waited so long and worked so hard to get out of. Fortunately, I was very paranoid about doing it and I was able to translate my fear into positive feelings about what I was trying to do.

There were many steps backwards on my journey to discover how uplifting and pleasurable my life could be at the age of sixty when I seriously began my transition. The longer I was able to live this new life, every day turned out to be exciting and I was less vulnerable to outside threats to going back to my ingrained old male life. Eventually, life took care of itself as I found new friends and part of my family accepted me. I was able to live long enough and escape the self-destructive behavior I exhibited. Life was just a huge circle, and I was on the slippery side of the circle. I could risk everything to selfishly live my life and make everyday a new one. Or stay the same and wither away.

Naturally, making every day a new day was a challenge. Waking up every day addressing a new life was all I asked for and all I ultimately received. It was who I really was and proved to be a wonderful overall experience of gender transition.

The Clash of Gender Ego's

 

Image from Sherest Gupta
on UnSplash. 

Through most of my long life, I needed to deal with the clash of egos, doing battle for my existence.

On one side, I had my well-worn and battle tested male ego who was doing his best to make it in a world where he did not want to be. On the other, I had my deeply hidden feminine side who only made her appearance in front of the mirror and then went back into hiding. In other words, my male ego attempted to dominate while at the same time, my female ego was hiding, just exactly where she did not want to be.

For the longest time, to make matters worse, I did not think women had much of an ego at all. Except maybe with their appearance. As I made my way through life, I discovered how wrong I was. On several levels, As I always warn about, my male ego dictated how I dressed early in my life when I was going out in public. I fell in love with several compliments I received about my legs when I went to Halloween parties and made sure I showed them off to the extreme when I was going out for the first time. The idea was all well and good except I was doing nothing to overcome my broad shoulders and torso. I had no fashion balance, and it showed with the number of times I was made fun of in public. My male ego had failed me. I was dressing to his tastes and was failing.

It took years to do, but my female ego finally took control and slowly but surely, I began to blend in with the other women around me. For a moment, I even thought my clash of egos was over, but I was completely wrong. My male ego was very stubborn and still thought he had some sort of control over my life. He refused to believe he had lost all his male privileges and nearly got us in trouble several times before he learned the hard way what problems could exist.

One of the biggest issues was the idea of my sexuality and how it would or would not change with my new transgender life. Of course, Mr. Macho recoiled at any thought of intimacy with a man, but Ms. Self wasn’t so sure. Like many women, she had a spectrum of ideas about sex which were not so rigid and paranoid. In fact, I made a concerted effort to date a few men to see what (if any) excitement would happen. It just so happened women turned out to be much more interested in me as a trans woman, my choice was easy to make. For once, my male ego won. For the wrong reason.

One of the earliest instances I can remember of a lesbian woman approaching me happened one night at a mixer/party I went to at a friend’s house in Columbus, Ohio. At the mixer, I ended up approaching another woman and having a brief conversation before we decided to leave for a while and go to a big lesbian club to mingle even farther. We ended up having a good time that night, but since I still had a wife to go home to, I could not stay long enough but visiting with another ciswoman who happened to be a lesbian was a wonderful experience and would set the path for my future. Although, I did not know it at the time, primarily because my male and female egos were still clashing.

By now, you may be asking the question, who was winning the struggle? My woman was, even though my male self would win every now and then, it was as if he would take one step forward and two steps back. On the occasions when my second wife would catch me coming back from a night on the town, he would jump forward into purge mode. Vowing to never wear any female clothes ever again. All the time knowing there was no way possible he could ever keep his promise. I had crossed too many lines in my gender sand to go back, and the fact was becoming increasingly evident to him and my wife, there was nothing they could do. They were waiting for me to face my own reality.

Solving my final gender issue was easier said than done. My male self was hanging on for dear life until the very end, and he nearly pulled all of us down in the process until therapy and suicide came into play. Finally, I needed to pick a winner in my gender ego clash, and I was wise and picked the only way I could go. I put my old male self completely aside and begin to live a transfeminine life I had only dreamed of. I wondered why I did not pick the winning side years ago and live my truth.

 

 

Just Part of Being a Woman?

 

Image on Unsplash. 

Just part of being a woman meant several different things to me.

First, I needed to get there by being able to present well enough to being accepted by other women. Once I arrived, I was able to enjoy the benefits of living in my dream world as well as the drawbacks. The first night I had an idea I was arriving was when I began to be semi-friendly with a man I met at a venue, I was a regular in. He was part of a small, diverse group of people I mixed with often. Sadly, I followed the saga of his quickly failed marriage to another woman in the group. She was an exotic dancer with long black hair, and he was a big, bearded man who rode a Harley motorcycle. Not exactly a match made in heaven. But they went ahead with the ceremony anyway. It failed within a couple of weeks.

I really don’t know why, but from then on most of the group turned against him, except me. I felt sorry for him and could sense the hurt he felt, so we began to talk. Before long we became friendly enough to look for each other when we came in alone to socialize. I can’t speak for him, but I was in uncharted territory even talking to a man at all since I was basically scared to. Who was I to say no to this big good-looking guy who wanted to talk to me? You are right. I couldn’t. I was too shy to even ask him to see his Harley before he rode off to another job in another town and I never saw him again. How different my life could have been if I had pushed my luck as a transgender woman just a little farther.

That fleeting encounter left a deep impression on me, not because it blossomed into anything, but because it made me realize how much of life I had yet to explore. It was a bittersweet moment of clarity: I had spent so much time crafting a version of myself that fit into the world I longed to belong to, yet I was still afraid to fully embrace the opportunities before me.

In the days that followed, I thought a lot about courage to truly be brave, not just in appearance but in action. It wasn't about being bold for the sake of it, but about taking the step that felt impossible, the one that whispered promises of growth and self-discovery. And yet, even as I reflected, I knew that fear still gripped me, tethering me to the safety of the new family I was creating.

It was around this time that I began writing the blog, capturing what I could of the small victories and the quiet heartbreaks that defined my journey. The act of writing became my sanctuary, a place where I could be unapologetically honest with myself, where I could acknowledge my fears without judgment. The words became a mirror, reflecting not just who I was but who I could be if only I dared to push beyond the limits I had unconsciously set for myself. By doing so, I hoped I could help others.

Life has a way of surprising you, though. Just when you think you've missed your chance, it presents you with another, often in the most unexpected of forms. Sort of like the first night I found myself in the middle of four men discussing guy things which of course I knew quite a bit about. Not realizing exactly where or who I was, I attempted to add my comments to the group. The men paused for a moment, then went on with their conversation as if I was invisible. I learned my lesson, entering a male only domain was a big no-no and exposed my new feminine life of having a lesser IQ. 

On my very few encounters with men, I learned to let them lead the way in conversations. No matter how inane the subject matter was. A prime example was the night I always mention when my car broke down and I needed to call a tow truck. Also, to my chagrin, a well-meaning policeman showed up out of nowhere to help. Between the cop and the tow driver, they refused to even listen to the directions I tried to give to my house. Then everything became worse when I had to ride home with the driver. By the time I arrived home, I had nearly reduced myself to playing the dumb blond just to survive the trip.

Just part of being a woman just meant leaving my male self behind, which is what I was trying to do anyway. What I did not count on was how fast I would lose most all of my male privileges I took for granted when I transitioned. All cisgender women go through the same process when they grow up around boys. It just took me a little longer to get there. Or, as my lesbian friends said, welcome to their world.

Plus, there was the new magical world of gender affirming hormones to consider. The HRT certainly contributed to my internal part of life as a woman.

Riding the Gender Merry go Round

 

Image from Stanley Kustamen 
on UnSplash. 

Catching the gender merry go round when it was in mid-spin was never easy. As I always point out, I had no workbook on how to achieve my feminine desires that were available to me.

I often wondered what magical experiences were available to the girls around me but were off limits to me. What did the girls really learn about being feminine from each other? Was makeup one of them? I was jealous because I had none of the early basics of applying makeup. The closest I came when I was painting the model cars I had. I never was very good at skillfully painting cars, so I wondered how I would ever be good at painting myself. Enamored, I remember watching my mom apply her makeup as I looked for any small hints I could follow but I never seemed to learn.

Of course, there was much more to jumping on a spinning merry go round than just skillfully applying makeup. There were clothes to worry about too, and how could I afford them on the very limited budget I was on. I resorted to taking any small jobs I could as a kid to augment the meager allowance I received at home. In fact, my major source of income was a neighborhood newspaper route I took on. When I added all my funds up, I usually had enough money to buy my own makeup, panty hose and other rare items such as a pair of shoes I was lucky to find.

Once I was able to be confident in my ability to jump on the merry go round, then I needed to worry about hanging on. In the early days of my public explorations, I was having a very difficult time presenting well at all and I often was laughed at by others on the merry go round until I began to learn what I was doing wrong, and I could fill out my feminizing presentation workbook. It was a win for me when I could quit using crayons on my face and use them to color my workbook, I was less and less a clown in drag, and more and more an androgynous person for the public to judge my gender. For once, I could rightfully claim my seat along others on the merry go round because I had earned my spot as much as they did.

After a while, the spinning became too much for me and challenged my fragile mental health. The biggest problem I had was my refusal to face myself and my innermost truth. I was never a man cross dressing as a woman; I was a woman cross dressing as a man my entire life. The basic thought of who I really was consumed all my spare thinking. I am amazed now how much I still accomplished in my life as I suffered my mental duress. At times, it seemed my merry go round was spinning completely out of control. Plus, at the same time, I kept accumulating extra male lifetime baggage I did not really want. Sadly, the life I was living kept me from making very many close friends because I just thought I was knowing them under some sort of false pretense. I wasn’t the man they saw before them; I was a fake. Which I hated and added to my problems.

I finally came to the point where I needed to either slow down my merry go round or get off altogether. I just couldn't take it any longer. I certainly was not getting any prizes for putting myself through the anguish of staying on. I had given my ride the best shot I could, and I needed to grow in my transgender womanhood. I had tried my best to outrun and out drink my gender issues, and it was time to face the reality of who I was.

When my merry go round glided to a stop and I was able to look ahead to the new life I was about to enter. I was excited to see and live my feminine reality. I had filled out my workbook and paid my dues and was ready to go. The next time I was at an amusement park I could really enjoy the experience as a transgender woman. If anyone in the world did not like it or approve of me, I didn’t care. I had spent a major portion of my life thinking I was in the wrong. When in fact, the bigots were the ones in the wrong and they were the riders who needed to get off the merry go round first.

Tomorrow Sometimes Comes

 

Image from Mark Attree on UnSplash.

I finally knew tomorrow was here when I started gender affirming hormones or HRT as it also is known as.

It was always my dream to try hormones as a natural progression towards my ultimate transition. By the time I sought out medical care to help my hormonal goals, I had pretty much exhausted my old cross dressing bucket list of situations I could put my femininized self into. I even went as far as pushing myself into situations I should not have been in. But I learned how far I could go.

Through it all, I still did not know how far I could go or have to. Would something come along to change my course or ultimately change my mind. It turned out, hormone therapy turned out to be the salvation to my problems I thought it would be. Quickly, I moved from a minimum dosage to an amount of the meds which would really produce changes. It was as if my body was taken to the HRT as naturally as it could and provided me with yet another what took you so long as I suffered through changes such as my first hot flashes as I was going through puberty again. What took you so long, echoed through the recesses of my mind.

The biggest problem was I was going through all these dramatic changes alone. All my Ciswoman friends would just smile knowingly and say welcome to their world if I brought anything up. So, I did not. I brought back my old unwanted male art form of internalizing my feelings once again. In my mind, it was a shame I could not share the beautiful changes I was going through with no one else. This all happened before my current wife Liz, and I became serious a decade ago.

I continued to realize my tomorrow was here when I was forced to stop wearing male clothes all together and donate mine to the area thrift stores. My protruding breasts were the first thing which gave me away, along the fact my rapidly growing hair was already long enough to wear in a ponytail. My body was telling me it was time to put all my male privilege aside and face the world as a transgender woman. Which meant several things. The main one was I could no longer pick and choose where I wanted to do and how I wanted to dress as a casual cross dresser. Everyday was important and I needed to plan ahead if I was ever going to be successful in finding and living my dream of living as a woman. After going through the motions for nearly fifty years, tomorrow was here.

Fortunately, by this time in my life, I had developed a strong set of allies who had only ever known the new me, so I did not have to worry about my old male self-coming into play. My friends, along with my daughter and Liz formed a strong bond for me and I was able to experience uniquely feminine experiences such as beauty salons with them. In many ways, they made up for the female peer group I never had growing up. My daughter even asked me to speak in front of her temple for my oldest grandsons Bar-Mitzvah not long after tomorrow came and Liz took me on traveling tour excursions as a transgender woman I would have never done without her. You could say, once I got started, tomorrow came crashing down on me. I was receiving what I had asked for all those years. Destiny was telling me, you wanted it, now you got it.

Of course, then I found how the life of women everywhere is more layered and difficult than a male existence. My daughter and I are prime examples when we needed to work together to explain my gender transition to three young grandchildren. We came up with a new name for me which reflected a family background, and the remainder of the process was amazingly easy.

Ironically, my brother came along to ruin my good karma by refusing to back my transition with his wife’s family who are a bunch of right-wing haters. I guess I need to see how the other half lived when it came to the transgender community personally.

As I said, my tomorrow waited long enough to arrive, which was my fault and could only be described as an exciting process when it got here. At least though, I did not crash and burn following a bumpy landing on the runway. I was able to still have enough time to live the life I had always dreamed of in my transgender womanhood. My tomorrows proved to be worthwhile as I lived them out.

 

 

 

 

 

Gender Participation Trophies

 

Image from Vicktor Forgacs
on UnSplash

In the gender world, there are very few participation trophies available to anyone for simply showing up. But are there?

Early on, before I decided to allow the public to award me participation trophies, I let the mirror do it and they were always right. I was an attractive girl when I wanted to be and there was a trophy for me to hide away with my belongings, or at least for me to mentally hide away from prying eyes.

In the meantime, my male self was attempting to win as many trophies as he could because he was not very good at athletics or whatever else he was trying. As hard as he was trying, total success seemed to always evade him. What happened was, both my binary genders experienced deep frustration, and I felt less as a person.

It was not until much later that I began to be successful and win a few participation trophies, specifically as a transgender woman. Her success though just created more problems for me as he feared she would take over completely, and what would become of all his hard-earned male privileges. There was a life at stake and could not be taken lightly. No cheap shiny participation trophies to proudly place on the gender shelf of life.

After I had learned the basics of blending myself into the world as a woman, I needed to be careful of the trophies which were being presented to me. I learned the hard way; not all women were forthcoming in their friendship and acceptance in their world. Many days with other ciswomen in the world. I thought I had won a participation trophy, only to have it passive aggressively pulled away. Quickly, I learned to be more careful. Life just wasn’t as easy for me when I had left the male world I was used to, and all aggressiveness was a frontal blow you could prepare for or retreat from. As with everything else, my life as a transgender woman was going to be more difficult than I thought. There would be no more running home to the mirror to hide. If I wanted to obtain more gender trophies, I would need to journey farther and farther out of my gender closet to do it.

The first inkling I could came on the night when I was drinking with a group of single professional women at a nearby TGI Fridays venue. As the bar area quickly began to fill up with women, nobody said anything out of the way to me, and I felt as if I fit right in. As a woman. I had known in advance to dress professionally, which helped me to overcome the fear I felt. So, I fit right in. When I safely made it home that night before my second wife did and removed my makeup, I gave myself a participation trophy. Mainly because, I knew I had crossed a line I could never go back to. My cross-dressing desires were much more than just a simple, innocent past-time. I knew deep down I wanted more as I pursued my own transgender womanhood.

More meant going back to Fridays and establishing myself as a regular, as well as other nearby competing venues which were happy to serve me and take my money as a trans woman. For the most part, I was compiling more trophies than I could count as I did more than surviving in my new world, I thrived. I learned too how difficult I would have it, if I continued the gender path I was on. Now, each trophy was harder and harder to get because each time I received one, it seemed the stakes were higher and higher. I was risking my twenty-five-year marriage, my family, friends and job, and I deeply felt the pressure.

At some point, I knew I would have to decide to throw out all my old male trophies and move on, but I was afraid to do it. I compared it to looking down at a steep gender cliff and wondering what would happen when and if I fell. All the trophies in the world would not save me but only real-world friends would.

Fortunately, I had those friends who had found and accepted me and made my gender landing very soft. In essence, all those new friends were initially trophies I cherished completely. They turned into the real thing over time, and I was able to carve out a life. Then I could throw out all my female trophies for good and live a realistic, genuine life as a transgender woman. My trophies became as fake to me as most of the people I met along the way, and I was able to throw them all away.