Gender Evolution

 

Image from Kyle
on UnSplash.

After all these years of pursuing a male to female gender transition, I view the process as evolution.

I am biased, but I think I have been fortunate to have lived through all the ups and downs of gender dysphoria to be able to have an up close and personal look at how both of the two main binary genders live. Similar to being able to actually live on the economies of Thailand and Germany when I was in the Army during the Vietnam War. By living on the economy, I mean I received off base housing and food pay from the Army, so I went on base only to work. Seeing how other societies work did wonders for my young self.

It took much longer to do the same thing when it came to my gender issues. I knew they were always there from a very young age, but I had no help to discover what my issues really were. I needed to live my life as a transgender woman to learn what I needed to do to achieve my childhood dream of living as a woman. No being a doctor or lawyer for me, I wanted to be a woman. At the time, I was naïve and thought all I needed to do was work on my appearance in the mirror and I could reach my dreams.

As my gender evolved, I needed to evolve as a person with it. What kind of a woman would I become became a major issue. I could be a standoffish bitchy woman, or a worldly feminine being who enjoyed being herself in the world. Ironically, my male self-helped me to arrive where I wanted to be. He had over the years provided me with ciswoman role models to look up to and try to evolve into overtime. When you added a potent mix of male and female into my personality, I ended up with the perfect mix. Even though I was appearing more and more as a female, my old male self-provided me with a firm base to evolve.

One aspect I do not want to underplay is how long it took me to do all of this. As I evolved, I began to make mental mini bucket lists of things I wanted to do in my exciting yet terrifying transfeminine world. The only problem I had with making bucket lists was I was spending too much time in my male life daydreaming of the next time I could be feminine. All too often, my gender lines blurred, and I needed to make sure I kept my male and female lives separate. It was intensely difficult for me to do as I was increasingly discovering I wanted and could pursue a life as a transgender woman I always had wanted to do and still was unable to do because of the male life I had worked so hard to build. The pressure just kept on building as I continued to try new things as my feminine self. I was in an intensely lonely world at the time as I left my closet.

I evolved to a point where I was able to create an entirely new person from the two, I had left behind. I transitioned again from being a basic weekend cross dresser into an accomplished transgender woman who could blend in with the world at large. Suddenly, I went from being shy and backwards to being confident and aware of my surroundings. Which I found I needed to stay safe in my new world. It was then I found many women were curious and friendly towards me while nearly all the men ignored me. Which I had no problem with as I had evolved past caring what they thought.  They had kicked me out of the men’s club.

As I look back at this time of my life, it seems to be a blur of activity.  Since I had changed my gender outlook in the middle of my life, I was learning from watching my new women friend’s what life was all about. Primarily, since most of them were lesbians, I found I did not need the validation from men to feel good about myself as I fit in with them. Evolution felt so good, I wanted more out of my new life. Again, I was fortunate when my wife Liz approached me online and we struck up a love affair which lasts till this day. I never thought I would ever find someone to love me as a sixty-year-old transgender woman at all, but I did.

My final evolution turned out to be wonderful, and I understand now why all the gender bigots hate us so much. We transgender women and trans men have had the chance to do what they never have had the chance to do. Experience both sides of the binary gender experience. The haters will just have to work their way through it. We have evolved and they have not.

 

               

Transgender Dreams

 

Image from Maximus Beaumont
on UnSplash.

Over the years, I experienced slow progress towards achieving my transgender background which I refused to accept.

What I did to exist with my gender dysphoria was to cross dress when I could, all the way to attending Halloween parties completely dressed as a woman every year. When I did, I could judge the reactions of the public to me. Eventually though, the part-time cross-dressing and annual Halloween parties were not enough. Which led me to explore more and more the world as a novice transgender woman. Being a novice, I suffered too many bumps and bruises as my world changed from male to female. Primarily because my male ego was suffering at the abuse he was taking when he tried to give up control to my long hidden feminine self. He thought wearing ultra short mini skirts would be enough to gain acceptance into a female world.

When just the opposite happened, he needed to grudgingly give up more and more control in my life so I could progress and even briefly thrive as a transgender woman. When I started to look around at other women around me and began to blend in with them, I started to be successful in my life.  In fact, I was too successful at times when I started to be accepted in the world. I began to look for more places to go to see if I could progress my life as a transgender woman. Keep in mind, at that time, living a life as a transfeminine person was still a distant dream. Fortunately, I was receiving enough positive feedback to keep moving.

I discovered most of the world did not care about me, even though I felt all eyes were on me as a woman. Women were looking me up and down to see what made me tick while at the same time, for the most part, men were ignoring me because I was not that attractive. I started to progress in my new gender when I began to have confidence in myself knowing the world could get over it when and if I ran into any problems I could survive. At the same time, I was improving my wardrobe and makeup skills, which helped me to improve my life as a transgender woman. All of a sudden, I realized I could achieve my dream of living in a feminine world, but I still had a long way to go.

Progression began to happen much more quickly, even though I had roadblocks on my path in areas such as communication. Naturally I knew women had an entirely different way of communicating than men. Direct communication was out, and passive indirect communications were in. I needed to learn quickly how to look another woman in the eye and try to judge what she was thinking about me.

Through it all, I had a wife and very active male life to deal with. Neither wanted me to succeed in my dream life.  At certain points of time, the noise of life around me was deafening and neither would step up to help me as I was trying to adjust to a new scary existence. I was alone. I thought. But I wasn’t, I had my long hidden feminine self to step up and help me. She took over as if she had never been forced into the background her entire life. She led me to be the person I should have always been.

I was able to progress through the final steps I needed to make to succeed. The combination of women friends, experience and hormones (HRT) provided me with the final push to shove my male self into the closet for good. Even still, the final decision to give all my male clothes away took a lot of thought. Finally, one night, I could take the pressure no longer and needed to make the move to live my dream. When I did, the pressure was off, and I had a new lease on life. Once I lifted the weight I had carried for so long, I was a new person and had progressed towards my dream. I also wondered what took me so long to make the move. Fifty years of cross-dressing and testing the world was far too long and my mental health suffered because of it.

Finally, I made the choices which should have been obvious to me all the time and decided to reach out and grasp my transgender dreams.

 

 

I am Transgender but I am Me

 

JJ Hart, Mystic Connecticut.

I received several interesting comments on my post yesterday on restroom usage while traveling.

The most interesting one said something to the point that I did not mention I was a transgender woman. I guess because I have been writing a blog which focuses on my transgender journey for over a decade now, I take it for granted everyone knows I am a transfeminine person. Which is wrong. I should never take anything for granted when I write.

The truth of the matter is I have evolved as I have transitioned from the male gender to the female gender. All I know is, everything I ever dreamed of was being able to live as close as I could to being a woman. Over the years too, I have been attacked on what I meant about being a woman with one person even calling me just another old guy on hormones. I felt the comment was humorous and the person who said it was probably jealous, and I moved on.

Much of the problem many people have with the term woman is deciding who gets to have it. Long ago, I realized women were not born into the world, females were, and women were socialized beings which is exactly what I was. I just arrived at my womanhood from a different path than they did which meant I needed to take a different road to acceptance. To do it, I quickly learned not to out myself as transgender, or even try to “fool” the public into thinking I was a cisgender woman. When I became the person, I was always destined to become, I became successful in the world. It is the primary reason I don’t mention the fact I am a transgender woman in my writings.

Plus, I don’t know what the real difference I have anymore when I describe my dealings with the real world if I am trans or not. One point I did miss out on yesterday was mentioning the help and kindness I was offered due to my mobility issues. Thanks Denise. In today’s world, it is rare to be part of strangers offering kindness of any kind. And it is important to note the men on the tour did not step up in anyway to be social, just the women. Which has very much been the story of my transition from its beginning. Women were much more able and willing to let me into their world than men ever were. Again, I was on familiar ground, and I let it all go. With my acceptance from the ciswomen around my wife Liz and I who constantly referred to us as ladies, I did not need any reassurance from any of the men. Or should I say validation.

So yes, I am transgender but more importantly I have followed a very difficult path to be me on mostly my own terms. I went through more errors than trials than I can ever mention to arrive at where I am. I had a late start to be sure when I had no feedback on appearance and building myself as a woman. I made a lot of mistakes to be sure but somehow, I made it to where I could play in the girls’ sandbox.

On the other hand, I helped myself completely when I started gender affirming hormones. When I did, I was able to sync up my inner and exterior selves and have a better understanding of what the world really meant to me. I was so much more than just an old guy on hormones, I was an old guy who was going through some amazing changes as my skin softened, and my hair grew long enough to have it professionally styled. More importantly, the inner changes I went through were more profound as I discovered emotions and senses, I never knew I had. Such as becoming sensitive to temperature and smells as never before.  The whole process opened a new world for me and at the same time gave me more confidence in being me.

It was not until then did I realize how far I had come. To be sure, there is a thin line between me being transgender and just being me. If someone decides to dislike me because I crossed the gender border, it is on them, not me. All I know is, the whole amazing trip made me a better person.

Finally, thanks for the thought-provoking comment. I hope I have answered your question. I am a transgender woman but I am also just me.

 

 

Restroom Adventures

 

Image from CDC on UnSplash

Since my wife Liz and I went away on a trip to New England for so long, I have several restroom adventures to share.

The main one I did not think of was what would happen when I needed to seek out an open handicapped stall to use because of my mobility issues. I needed all the help I could get to make my way around to get to the toilet.

The first big issue came in Boston, where I was not expecting any difficulties. The first problem came when the only elevator down to the restrooms was broken and I had to try to use a steep set of stairs to make it to the restrooms themselves. I guess I looked unsteady enough for a younger man to offer to help me down the steps. But I made it alone. Then I found the handicapped stall and it was empty. The only bad part was the lock on the door was very flimsy, but by that time, I had no choice but to try it anyhow. In the beginning, all was good, and I finished my business with no problems. Then I heard a mom and young daughter enter the room. At that point, I tried to pull up my leggings and get myself together before BOOM, the kid barged through my stall door before her mom could stop her. Fortunately, I had my leggings almost all the way up as the mom pulled the kid out of there and all was alright. I went ahead and washed my hands and swiftly exited the restroom with a slight smile on my face.

Another one of the positives which happened on the trip was I got a chance to work on my voice again. It turned out I needed a passable voice to get me by in the restroom which on occasion was really crowded. Several times I had to respond to someone inquiring if the stall was occupied. The last thing I wanted to do was respond to another woman asking if the stall was occupied with a man’s voice. I did well enough I guess because no one ever questioned me on it.  Which gave me extra confidence to carry on other conversations with other women on other topics.

No matter how many rest stops the bus made, there still were times when I had to use the toilet on the bus. It was times like these when I was happy, I could sit down to pee. If you ever tried to negotiate moving around on a motor coach, you know what I mean, At the least you have to be very careful and at the worst, you have to be really careful to check the seat before you sit down. Even though I have to give the Amtrak train we took from Boston to Maine passing marks for timeliness and comfort, the restrooms left a lot to be desired and in fact, one seemed to be flooded and out of use. Fortunately, I did not have to go and let another woman take my spot.

Similar to so many other bus trips we have taken, in a relatively short period of time I was accepted for myself and no indication of any pushback of any one on the tour except that one guy on the first day who made the point of pointing me out to his wife From then on, I ignored him and everything was OK. It seems there always needs to be at least on hater these days wherever you go sadly.

Traveling while transgender will always carry extra baggage and we did not even go on modes of transportation such as flying which brings with it a whole other set of potential problems. Once I conquered my rest room fears, I was able to bond with the other women on the trips, and all turned out to be a good move. I made it through mentally and physically, so we have another trip planned. The whole process keeps me challenged and aware of my transfeminine being alive and well. Which is what I need at my age of seventy-five.

The restroom adventures just turned out to be the icing on the cake, it even got to the point when other women were helping me to the restroom. I needed all the cisgender acceptance I could get to build confidence. In fact, I found myself in situations where I was in danger of outing myself. Which is a topic for another blog post. 

Back from Vacation

 

JJ Hart at Faneuil Hall, Boston.

My wife Liz and I’s vacation from Ohio to New England was wonderful.

Of course, there were many highlights which I will try to remember and pass along also. but first I needed to conquer my fears of getting along with any potential problems with a stray gender bigot on the tour. I was afraid of losing my restroom privileges. I really don’t know why I feel this way because this was the sixth tour with Liz, and I have been on with no problems. I guess paranoia runs deep.

At the beginning of the tour, I passed another couple on the way to the restroom. Then I got the nudge from the man to his wife to look at me which I dreaded. At dinner that night, we needed to sit in parties of four and no one wanted to sit with us. By this time, I was not feeling good about the rest of the trip and to hell with these other people.

At that time, things started to loosen up as I began to engage with most of the other women. When I did, everything turned out to be in my head. As I began to actively smile and engage with the other women on the trip, they engaged with me. So much so I encountered two occasions when I needed to back off my interactions before I indirectly outed myself. It turned out that one other woman who appeared to be my age told me she was from the same hometown I was from and even went every summer to the same fishing camp for vacation. I was going to ask her what high school she went to, but then I thought better of it because my mom taught at one of the three high schools in town and it was a possibility she could have had mom for a teacher and knew she only had two sons. The other interaction was with a German man who was from Stuttgart, where I was stationed when I was in the Army. I did not want to go deeper with him either and never mentioned I was in the Robinson Barracks area of the city when I was there. One way or another, it turned out to be a small world with those two.

After I had conquered my socialization fears of others reacting to me being transgender, I was able to relax and enjoy the wonderful scenery of upper New England in states such as Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Liz and I even had great train experiences from Amtrak, a lake dinner train, and the cog railway which went up Mt. Washington. We were fortunate to have great weather all the way including our trip to the peak.  

Since I needed to take my mobility device with me, which is a cross between a walker and a roller, I learned the importance of finding handicapped accessible areas which there were many. In fact, my mobility issues overcame my misgivings of my being the only transfeminine person around. I was just being me. I only lost the first day of worry before I gained my confidence back that I had as much right on the trip as anyone else.

As I said, we had a great time and enjoyed the diversity and beauty of New England and Boston. I will have several side stories to share with you about Boston and Harvard themselves in separate posts. As well as a post about the unique rest room challenges, I faced.

Thanks for sticking with me in my absence.

'Cation

 

Headed for Maine!

I will be off-line for approximately the next ten days because my wife Liz and I are headed off from our native Ohio on a bus/train tour of Boston and New England.

Mixed in with all the planned activities are my usual paranoias with acceptance and restroom usage. It helps we travel this time through more liberal minded states, rather than the deep south where we went last trip we took. For the record, this is our fifth trip with this company, and I have had no issues with what bathroom I was using, so you would think I could quit worrying about it. But I can’t completely. I just want to relax the best I can and enjoy activities such as a lobster bake (lobsta!) as well as other fun things to do in Boston up to Maine.

Sadly too, I need to rely on having an accepting driver who will help me unload my collapsible rolling walker so I can get around easier. The last driver we had helped me totally and his tip reflected it.

I am also looking forward to having another “lobsta” roll with butter along with a Maine Whoopie Cake which I had when we went up there a couple of years ago.

Most of all, I will miss checking in with all of you every morning with my ideas with how my life as a transgender woman came about. I could take my laptop along but decided against it. Primarily because I think a break will help me clear my mind and do better when I get back. Plus, I know pictures of me are not my strong point, and we are trying to get better on this trip. Maybe I will have more to share with you.

See you in ten days!

Gender Blockers

 

JJ Hart, picture taken after mixer.

Gender blockers often came fast and furious at me as I lived my life.

First, I needed to figure out how to camouflage my big boned testosterone poisoned body so I could present well enough in the world to get by, once I arrived there. Which in itself was a big enough hurdle to face. Then I summoned the courage to go out of my closet and into the world, I learned the hard way how much further my trip would take me and how many people would try to block me.

At the beginning, it was never easy, especially around teen girls who always seemed to figure me out and have quite the giggle at my expense. Often, it took weeks for me to recover, go back to my cross-dressing drawing board and try the world out again. Fortunately, these were the days when I was attending the cross dresser-transgender mixers and parties in nearby Columbus, Ohio. At these events, often I was able to compare myself to others around me with the same gender issues and see how I was doing with my presentation.  Also, I left the diverse parties I was going to by discovering a deeper understanding of where I possibly was going in my life. I was learning I was so much more than just a man with a hobby of looking like a woman. I kept going back to the fact that increasingly I wanted to be a woman. It was my dream.

Often, my dream was shattered by a number of outsiders. While my wife was very supportive of me as a cross dresser, she completely drew the line at any suggestion I was transgender and had nothing to do with me starting HRT. Then she would team up against me with my male self who was beginning to feel threatened with losing his world. Mainly because I was beginning to have an idea of how my gender dream could become a reality. If my male self was becoming successful in conquering all the blocks and hurdles, he ran into, why could not my feminine side do it too.

At times, my male to female transition process was allow and tedious, and at other times fast and exciting. Frustration would set in when I would try to spend three days a week concentrating on my transfeminine side of life, only to have to revert back to my old male side the remainder of the week. Including my job which was male dominated. The whole back and forth gender life destroyed my fragile mental health and made my life hell, except when I was in my transgender phase. I had too many plates in the air which I was trying to keep spinning. Sort of like trying to keep several girlfriends happy at once.

I could finally take it no longer and needed to try to start removing my roadblocks one at a time. I began with the social roadblock. Could I actually begin to carve out a brand-new life as a transgender woman where no one knew of my past. To my surprise, I found I could. Probably because when I got past the point of thinking I was trying to fool anyone into thinking I was a cisgender woman, I just became me, and I was good enough not to scare anyone away.  One roadblock cleared. The next thing I needed to figure out was how I was going to support myself. Because transitioning on the job was out of the question, I needed to find a different answer. I took so long to do it, the problem solved itself when I got close to a point where I could take an early Social Security retirement and then sell the many collectibles my late wife and I had collected to survive.

With all the gender blockers to my dream out of the way, I needed to push my own feminine self-improvement program ahead. It meant seeking out an understanding doctor to prescribe me gender affirming hormones. When I did, I was able to see and sense a noticeable difference in my external and internal self. My skin softened and my hair grew so I could use less makeup and leave my wigs behind for good. All of which helped me to present better in public. Internally, I could not believe all the changes HRT was helping me with. I was more emotional as my world softened. For the first time in my life, I could cry tears of sadness and even joy.

From then on, I had paid all my dues and was ready to settle into the dream life I never thought I could obtain.

Finally, as a serious side note, it is 9-11, never forget.

Change was Coming

 

JJ Hart

As I grew into myself, I learned the truth. Change was coming if I liked it or not.

Change was one of the reasons I loved the fall season so much. As the weather cooled off and football came on, I could go through my feminine wardrobe and see what I could keep and what had to be discarded. Plus, I can’t forget Halloween which of course is the cross dressers’ national holiday in October.

Sadly, as the leaves began to change and fall from the trees, the whole time was bittersweet for me. The worst fall I could remember was when I was on a six-month delay to join the Army and I was working at a small radio station in Bowling Green, Ohio. If you are not familiar with that part of northwest Ohio, it is very flat to the point that any hills are manmade. One night, I was just driving around feeling sorry for myself as I looked ahead to Army basic training and I was so sad as the leaves blew in front of me. If I could have cried, I would have, but tears were nearly impossible for me in my male pre-HRT days. Similar to everything else in those days, I internalized my feelings and tried to move on as deep down I knew change had to happen.

During that time, I almost outed myself to my roommates in the apartment I was staying in until I left for basic. On one trip home, I brought back one of my favorite outfits along with a wig and makeup to Bowling Green. One day when I left, I assumed I had hidden my belongings well enough to not be discovered but I was wrong, and one night when I was preparing to surprise a male visitor to the apartment, after I went to work of shaving my legs and face, I checked for my clothes, and they were gone. I certainly thought, for a while change was coming then it was not. No one said a word to me and very soon, I was off to play soldier anyway so nothing else mattered.

Back in those Vietnam War days, basic training was an intense team building experience when a few drill sergeants needed to try to get a bunch of raw recruits ready for possible combat. During this time, the only way I could keep my girl self-alive was to bury her deeply in my subconscious mind, So, when we were on long forced marches around Ft. Knox, I made sure I thought about the well-being of my girl and the changes we would go through after my military service was finished.

Looking back at the three years I served; the time now seems like a blur and when I was discharged, I came really close to making a big change then by picking my future wife up at the airport cross dressed as my transfeminine self. I even went as far as hinting as such when I wrote her a letter. (Remember those?) Again, my male self-won out and I decided not to, and my big change had to go back to coming again. I did not have the courage yet to face my gender truth and took the easy way out and went back to accepting all the male privileges I had earned.

It was not until I became a parent and had reached my thirties did change to me become a real priority. I will always remember my thirtieth birthday being my hardest because I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do with my life. Sure, I had employment and financial issues to be aware of but again the underlying big elephant in the room was what changes would have to happen with my gender. I knew it was never going to be easy to present well as a woman, and I needed to work extra hard to earn whatever passing grades I could achieve in the public’s eye. Once I made the mental changes to proceed, much of my work became cosmetic in nature.

I was able to move the elephant aside and set about learning what it would take me to really live life as a transgender woman and not just be the “Pretty, pretty princess” my second wife called me. As change set in, I learned very few trans women or women at all live the life of a princess and I had a lot of work to do to put my male life behind me.

The last major change I put myself through was the hormonal one when I started gender affirming hormones. The HRT allowed me to sync up my external and internal selves and live a more productive life as a transfeminine person.

Dressing for Success

 

Image from Mohammad Nadir
on Unsplash. 

During my earliest days when I was forced into being a boy, anytime something negative or even challenging happened to me, I would run home and seek solace in my soft and colorful feminine clothes.

Soon I called the cross dressing I was doing, dressing for success. Mainly because I felt better as I did it. The sad part was, very soon the feelings of gender euphoria went away, and I was back in my unwanted male world where I was expected to succeed. During that time in my life, I was able to barely keep my head above water and still slowly improve my feminine basics in such things as the makeup arts. I guess all those hours of watching my mom apply her “face” as she called it, came back to help me. This was the 1950’s when women took their appearance much more seriously than today. All women were expected to dress for success.

As I barely stayed afloat with my cross-dressing challenges, it soon became more evident to me that there was much more going on with me than met the eye in the mirror as I tried to appreciate myself. It was about that time, when the internet showed up, and I was able to research terms such as gender dysphoria and transgender. Suddenly, I discovered who I might be and certainly found I was not all alone. It all started to make sense why my urge to cross dress never really seemed to go away. It was always with me in the back of my mind.

Soon, as I joined the world as a novice transgender woman, dressing for success largely depended on if I could go out into the world and blend in. I began the easy way by trying my hand with shopping mall clerks who for the most part were only nice to me for the money I needed to spend so I could be more fashionable and feminine. From there, I branched out to challenge myself by stopping to eat lunch and face servers one on one to see how I did. I did well, and very rarely did I have to run home and wonder what I did wrong and go back to my gender drawing board. I did not realize it but what I was doing was replacing my mirror time with time in front of the public. A very valuable learning experience as I discovered venues such as coffee shops, bookstores and even antique malls where I could shop and relax.

Each experience helped me to learn more about myself as a transfeminine person and then dress for success from it. To quit being so flamboyant with my wardrobe and wigs became my new goal as I was settling into my new life. People began to know me quicker, so I needed to be better in my approach to dressing for success. I learned I did not have to lose any of the enjoyment I experienced as a trans woman; I just needed to follow the lead of the cisgender women around me. I did not necessarily have to dress down for the grocery store and up when I mixed with the professional women out for a drink, but it helped me to feel better and relax. Plus, heels and hose would have certainly not worked when my lesbian friends, and I got together.

At times I even took my dressing for success to the extremes to be able to judge what the public was thinking of me. I used to wear my best sunglasses so that strangers could not see my eyes and tell I was looking at them, but were they looking at me? And one of my favorite “props” to use when I went out to be alone was my cell phone which I always had handy when I turned out to be the only woman at the bar. That way, I was trying to show anyone else I had someone else on the way, and I was saving their seat.

To be sure, dressing for success as a transgender woman was always a more complex process than doing it as a man. From undergarments to accessories such as jewelry, wigs and purses, women naturally lead a more layered life which can be reflected in the way they dress. I certainly had many more compliments on my outfits as a woman than I ever did as a man. Primarily, it was because it was something men never do and often, many cisgender women used compliments as simple conversation starters when they were curious about me.

As with all cisgender women, dressing for success is something transgender women must learn. The problem being we come from such a vastly different background to do it. Almost none of trans women had the benefit of peer pressure and a mom to guide us through the initial makeup process. Our workbooks were blank when we started our gender journeys. Playing catchup was not a fun game to play for me as I found making up my face was different than painting model cars. Most certainly, dressing for success was a lifelong experience for me.