Is It Real?

 

JJ Hart. 

Every now and then I pause and reflect upon my transgender womanhood as it exists now. 

I mention often, the trials and tribulations I needed to go through to arrive at the point I am today. Similar to many of you, I went through my cross-dressing adolescence trying to shove my testosterone poisoned body into skimpy women's fashion designed mainly for teen aged girls in their prime. I would love to have back some of those days when I went out in skirts which were too short and tops which were too tight. Predictably, I attracted too much of the wrong sort of attention and had to hurry home in tears. It was real alright, and reality was no fun for me in those days. The only good thing which happened was, my inner feminine self-kept the pressure on not to quit the feminizing process and listen to her on how I should dress to face the world. Which was much different than what my male self was telling me. 

It was then I realized how different and powerful the gender world was I was seeking admission to. I learned firsthand what I had always known. Women run their own separate world oftentimes in a parallel universe to men. They have their own power struggles from cliques they form rather than the teams' men form. Perhaps, more importantly, I learned the power of passive aggression women use. Women are very good at supposedly losing the battle but coming back to win the war and a smiling face does not often mean acceptance into her clique. 

Before you think the learning, curve was all negative for me, there were plenty of positives to work with. A prime example was, I loved the passive aggressive games women played with me as I learned to have eyes on my back the whole time I was out in the early years. By doing so, I earned my way in to being able to play in the girl's sandbox. My ticket in, just happened to be from the women bartenders I came to know as a regular. From them, other strangers were able to see me interacting easily with the staff plus I was awarded rest room privileges which I desperately needed. I grew used to seeing the staff so much in one venue I went to, I was even invited to a girl's night out one time with a group of servers. Which (even though I was scared), I ended up enjoying immensely. 

The whole process was extremely real to me and more importantly, it all felt so real. It was like this is the way I should be living the whole time. I was developing a substantial feminine wardrobe and had venues to wear my fashion to. I felt for the first time in my life, I was living a real existence, and I felt so alive. It took me many years to try to live a male existence and just that quickly, I broke all the reliance I had in the male world and stayed in my new femininized world. 

It was real and I was so happy I had the chance to live it, but I need to say, the whole path had its share of bumps and emotional bruises. Plus, since I had so few believers in me, I needed to rely in myself. Often, it was a very lonely process when I went it alone. It wasn't until I began to believe in my inner female so completely, did I find out how real life could be.

Transgender Day of Visibility

 

Transgender Day of Visibility
poster from my
hometown. 

Today is the annual transgender day of visibility on March 31st. 

It is a time such as never before to attempt to stand up and be counted as a transgender woman or transgender man. Sadly, it is also the time we trans people take the most risks to do so. Stakes are becoming higher and higher against us coming out in many areas of the country, especially, here in my native Ohio. Where an overwhelmingly republican legislature in the state capital of Columbus has passed bill after negative bill against us. 

To me, my visibility is an ongoing deal. Since I live fulltime in my transgender womanhood, long ago I decided to never run and hide my feminine nature. Back when I did not have so many mobility issues, I was more of an active participant than I am today. In place of being active at all, I have tried to pick up my pace with my writing and protest with my keyboard and votes. 

Plus, I know I am so fortunate to have found and married an accepting/encouraging spouse who helped usher me into my transgender womanhood. I know so many others in the community who are so lonely. 

Wherever you happen to be in your gender transition, these troubled days present a troubled challenge to being visible. Challenges such as your presentation provide sometimes insurmountable hurdles to being more visible. Similar to a "Catch 22" of passing. In other words, you need to be seen in public to learn if you present well enough to stay out of personal danger, but it is scary to even start to get the experience to begin with.  Again, I was lucky when my time to come out meant at the worst you were laughed at and not beat up. Plus, I was able to put years of practice into makeup, fashion, and wigs when I cross dressed in my closet. If the times were reversed, I often wonder what I would have done differently, if anything. All in all, it is just another one of those life's questions I will never know.

On this transgender day of visibility, I hope all of you find your own way to be visible. Anything from marching in a parade, all the way to looking at yourself in the mirror, find a way to celebrate the rare, beautiful self which is you! 

A Private Journey

Virginia Prince

Being a young person with gender issues forced me into my own deep shell.

 Plus, the times I grew up in did not help. I battled having no real gender information in the times before the internet and social media. In fact, the first real indication I had there were any others who shared a similar desire to change their gender was when I discovered "Transvestia" Magazine and "Virginia Prince". Initially, I was so fascinated, I just needed to learn more.

My private journey became less private when I began to attend transvestite mixers, as they were called back then. From my well-worn pages of "Transvestia" I learned several of the mixers were within driving distance of me in my native Ohio. Immediately, I began to make plans to do the impossible dream and attend. I could not imagine what it would be like to meet in person, another cross dresser as I perceived myself to be. It all struck an emotional chord with me, and I could not wait for my first mixer. I felt, at the least, the event could help to get out of my shell and not be so private. 

Of course, I found out I was expecting way to much from my first meeting with others with gender issues. To start with, I was not prepared for the layers of participants at the mixer. Everyone from beautiful transsexuals to "cowboy" cross dressers with their hats and cigars. Somewhere, in between was me. Wondering where I should be in the group. All Virginia Prince and "Transvestia" told me was, I needed to be heterosexual in order to fit in. Prince never said anything about all the different individuals I would encounter. Long story short, I found I did not really fit in with any of the other attendees. Again, I was stuck in my own private journey.

Throughout my disappointment in not meeting more like-minded individuals to share my gender hopes and dreams with, I at least found a very few others I could socialize with. Better yet, they lived even closer to me in near-by Columbus, Ohio. One of the transsexual women had a very nice, restored home in a historic area of the city and regularly hosted her own mini mixers. Since I usually worked weekend nights, I could not make it to all of them, but the ones I could, I enjoyed immensely. 

On my visits, I even discovered others who were exploring their new gender lives as more than cross dressers since the new transgender terminology was still being explored. At the time, I knew I was not completely into, going through all the gender changing operations, but then again, if I could do it, I would love to pursue a trip into transgender womanhood.

Maybe I kept my journey private because I was just that type of person, or I just had never met many people I trusted with my deepest secrets. To this day, I think I can count on one hand, the people who know all about me. Even including my long-time therapist. My wife Liz used to harass me by asking me what we talked about, and I had a difficult time coming up with an answer. Even so, I am a believer in therapy, as it did help me to come up with coping mechanisms for my complicated gender life. 

As I look back, I have come a long way from the pages of "Transvestia" but not far enough to totally say I have ever left my private journey which was so completely embedded in me when I was younger.

Nothing but a Reflection

 

Woman in Mirror from Darius Bashar
on UnSplash.

It seems for some reason, recently, I have been obsessed with thinking about my earliest days of admiring my girl, cross dressed reflection at home in the mirror. I hope in this post I will be able to take my obsession a step further. 

I believe women have a head start over transgender women when it comes to the basic concept of being viewed in the public's eye. To begin with, women are faced with more appearance scrutiny than men. Women have to put up with the reality they are viewed more closely by both genders. Whereas men don't have to face nearly as much scrutiny. Then, being a transgender woman takes even more work to survive in the world. 

Then there is the reality of reflection between genders. Women traditionally resort to makeup, beauty spas and fashion to reflect the best version of themselves to attract men and to a lesser extent, impress other women. It is at least a multibillion dollar a year business. Now, back to me, and where I was on my path to transgender womanhood. 

Where I was on my path, was I was still struggling with even having the beginners' basics on how I could reflect woman to the public at large. With the help of continued work on my makeup and me attacking the nearby thrift stores, I finally began to reflect feminine to the world. When I did, I could begin to refine my approach and relax in the world as a transgender woman or more advanced cross dresser. Mostly, that meant putting my mirror's reflection in motion. It was very difficult in the beginning, as I needed to look the women and men in the world in the eye and be myself. Humans have the tendency to explore the world through their eyes and I quickly became used to having other women look at me totally head to toe. 

All too soon, I was ripped from my mirror and living a very scary but exciting life in a new world. Very quickly, I was able to put my fears behind me and understand who was really looking at me. Men paid me very little attention because I always assumed I was not attractive enough, but on the other hand, I was really receiving much more attention from cisgender women than I had ever had before. Obviously, for whatever reasons, my reflection with other women was working well and I loved it.

I was on a remarkable gender journey as I left the mirror behind and joined the world. As I refined my feminine outlook, I needed to accomplish a couple major goals. The first was, to never not refer to myself internally as a man again. I was a she and that was it. The second was, I needed to concentrate on establishing my own feminine aura. I started to really begin to zero in on whom ever I was talking to into knowing they were interacting with a woman. If it worked or not, remains to be seen, but I kept on trying.

Projecting my aura was the last stop in my progression out of the mirror and into the world. I viewed it as taking the last vestiges of any light I had ever seen in the mirror and turn it into a bright light of hope. It was scary because I was not used to being in a such a new world as a transgender woman. Along the way, I took on my share of setbacks but kept on moving forward.

Now, the reflection I see in the mirror, is only the one I need to apply my makeup and closely shave before I go out. I have also worked hard to do away with any remaining gender dysphoria I may still have. When it does hit me, it normally happens in the morning when I first look at myself in the mirror. I finally have come to the conclusion I don't look as bad as I think or as good, I think I do with my makeup.  The middle point has become good enough for me, and the mirror has again become nothing but a reflection.

What Came First?

 

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash. 

Today was "patch" day, when I changed out my gender affirming hormonal estradiol patches, which I do twice a week. 

Every time I change out my patches to new ones, I think back to all the changes I went through when I first started years ago. Among other things, I remember how impatient I was to see and feel changes I hoped were forthcoming. I was also disappointed when I learned I would have to start on a very minimal dosage until the doctor and I could see if there were going to be any negatives to the treatment. Fortunately, there were not, and I was given progressively higher doses until I was finally assigned to an endocrinologist for more specialized treatment. At the time, the Dayton, Ohio VA Hospital did not have an Endo, so I needed to wait until they found me an outside provider for my care. After quite a bit of pushing on my part, the VA finally came through and I was set until they came up with their own Endo. Which I have to this day.

In the meantime, I was experiencing many significant changes to my body and surprisingly, to my mind. It was like my body had already been set up for the new HRT hormones and felt very natural with the changes. It is easy to write about the external changes I always mention, such as breast growth, hair growth and the overall softening of my skin. As I mentioned in a recent post, suddenly I was able to present better when I was out in public because I was able to wear less makeup and get my own hair styled and colored how I wanted it. 

Less obvious to the world, but more obvious to me were the internal changes I began to rapidly feel with the new hormones in my body. What came first was I was losing more and more contact with my old male self. I was losing my old testosterone edge and began to really mellow out. I went through puberty again and even experienced my first hot flashes as my body adjusted to the new femininized world it was in. Most certainly, my male self-had come first out of necessity, but the HRT allowed my feminine self the chance to catch up. I even learned women were not making it up when they were saying they were cold all the time, when my thermostat went crazy, and I was too. 

One of the only drawbacks I experienced was I needed to move up my life transition timeline, because changes were beginning to happen so rapidly. I could no longer wear most of my male shirts because of my new breasts and I needed to always be careful to tie back my hair when I was butching it up when I was going out. Also, my facial hair never really changed as I knew it wouldn't, but my body hair nearly completely went away, which was great.

As I said, there were no drawbacks when I left my male world internally. I never missed the actions of my male self who always seemed to be on edge. I became very introspective on what I was going through and could even began to be able to cry for the first time in my life. It was then I learned there were different sort of tears. Tears of sorrow and tears of joy were quite possible. 

I had no choice, my male self-came first and I ended up trying decades of cross dressing to fight him. But as I changed, gender affirming hormones were a huge part of it. In many ways, HRT was the deciding factor in finding my way into transgender womanhood. 

It turned out the second part of my life turned out to be so much more fulfilling than the first part. Even though I was frustrated at times that I waited so long, it was worth the wait. Especially when I learned the hormones did not change my sexuality. I was still attracted to women, and I found some were attracted to me as a transgender lesbian. It was all so exciting and new, I could not get enough of my new life and it did not matter what came first.

Seasons Change

 

Image from Jamiethlene Reskspe on
UnSplash.

It appears that Spring has quit teasing us here in Southern Ohio and is finally here to stay. Spring teases us every year, so it is no real surprise when it happens. We can go from summer like weather to winter in one week. 

What it means is wardrobe adjustments which account for cooler mornings and warmer afternoons have to be made.  Plus, I always use the unique seasonal changes here to completely go through my clothes to see what will stay and what will go.  From nearly the very beginning of my love of everything feminine, I had admired how girls and women had the opportunity to completely change their fashion with the seasons. Putting aside all the challenges I had with having any resources at all to buy new fashion, I still did my best to meet the seasonal change challenges. 

My biggest challenge this year is coming up in the middle of April when my wife Liz and I have been invited to my daughters in laws house for a lunch get together. I am planning for it already and am planning to wear a two-piece lightweight top I just purchased for our trip to the Florida Keys. I will pair the top with leggings I have and hopefully will be dressed well enough to blend in with the rest of the women who will be there. Sadly, I don't think my transgender grandchild will be there because they (pronoun of choice) will be hiking the Appalachian trail with their partner. I will have to find out from their mom if they still are going to have a job as a civilian nuclear engineer with the US Navy or did the orange felon's threat against transgender women and trans men destroy any hopes of having a job. 

In the meantime, it is opening day in Cincinnati for the pro-baseball Reds, which has a huge parade and is close to a complete local holiday. Since the parade is televised during the afternoon, and I really don't care much for parades, it will give me a chance to get started with my spring wardrobe assessment. I know right now, I am setting fairly well with my collection of light weight tops and T's. Especially when I added a few select T Shirts from my trip to Key West, Florida. I purchased a very colorful T(shirt) from "Harpoon Harry's" where we ate lunch and later made a special stop in Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" shop where I picked up another shirt to add to my collection. My second wife and I were huge fans of Jimmy and when he passed way, another of my bucket list items went with him.

Watching Buffet's famous Cincinnati summer riverside concerts were always a hit with us, but little did my wife know how badly I wanted to be one of the women watching the show. My transition took so long, I sadly never made it. 

Now, I hear the birds chirping and a pile of clothes awaits to be sorted to be worn or donated. It has always been a labor of fashion love for me to go through the seasonal changes which made being a woman much more fun for me than being a boring man. Even though, sometimes I think the fashion experience is shallow in nature, it has always been fun to me. 

Especially, when I can shed the boring dark colors of winter and become a part of the new bright spring flowers and budding of the trees. Everything I wanted to do when I started my path to transgender womanhood. It also time to put all my sweaters away and turn another page towards my future and bright as a new season.

 

The Light in the Mirror

 

Image from Alessandro 
Bianchi 
on UnSplash.

I spend quite a bit of time here attacking my mirror when I was growing up.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion some of my negativity could have been wrong. First of all, I was fortunate to have a beautiful full length mirror dad installed at one of the ends of the hallway in our house when I was growing up. When no one else was home, I would spend as much time as I had admiring myself in the hallway mirror. As I did, I could always see a brief dim light in the mirror when I viewed my feminine self for the first time. Even when I knew, the light would have to be extinguished soon, and I would have to go back to my unwanted male world. 

As I grew up and began to explore the world for the first time as a beginning cross dresser, I made plenty of mistakes the mirror did not tell me about. In fact, the mirror light shone brightly and told me I looked great when in fact, I looked just the opposite. I was presenting as a clown in drag with no one to warn me. For a long time, the light in the mirror nearly went completely out as I was rejected in public time and time again resulting in a deep depression for me.

I kept trying though, and the light began to come back on. I lost weight and began to find styles of women's fashion which flattered my body shape and finally began to present better. Especially when I was making the mental transition to novice transgender womanhood from cross dresser. To do it, I needed every break I could muster. Plus, I needed to turn up my light in the mirror, and let my femininized light shine through, so I could see her better. 

The extra light turned out to be all I needed to become more skilled at my makeup art and do the best I could with my testosterone damaged male face. With a little help from a professional makeup person, my light in the mirror grew even brighter, and more importantly, I could trust it. With trust came confidence which equated to more acceptance as a transgender woman in the public's eye. All of a sudden, my lifelong dream to lead a feminine life was within reach. If my light in the mirror stayed on. 

It did and I was even able to turn up my light to a brighter level with the addition of HRT or gender affirming hormones. Among the many other positive changes I went through was when the overall texture of my skin softened. Which meant the male lines in my face softened and I could use less makeup. Specifically, foundation. I quickly learned with more femininized skin and being able to wear my own hair, I was suddenly more presentable to the world. 

Looking back, I may have been too quick to judge my light in the mirror. It just took a little longer (along with the rest of me) to become more situated with living a new life away from my old male self, and perhaps it was my fault for not switching to a brighter bulb sooner. Plus, I was fortunate in that my light in the mirror did not burn out altogether. 

 

Preparing to Lose

 

JJ Hart speaking at a Cincinnati Trans Wellness 
Conference.

When I first began to explore my transgender womanhood in public, I was rejected so much, I was totally dejected by the whole outcome.

The only thing which kept me going was a deep feeling I was doing something right in my life for a change. Plus, I did experience very brief moments of gender euphoria when for once, I had my feet on the ground and was able to blend in with other women in the world. One night I remember in particular was when I dressed in my best oversized fluffy sweater and short black mini skirt and set out to do a portion of the family's grocery shopping. After shaving my legs and brushing out my favorite wig, I set out for the store which was not too far away. 

Once I arrived at the store, it was early, and I was relieved to see it was almost empty when I went about doing my shopping. Just to prove I could, I picked out a few items I thought we needed and headed for the checkout line where one woman and a young male bagger was working. As I was unloading my cart, I slyly caught the bagger looking me over and when I looked at him, he quickly blushed and looked away. Then I looked at the checkout lady who just gave me a knowing smile and asked if I needed any help taking my items to the car. It was the first time in my life I allowed myself a brief moment to think I looked good enough to fluster a young man. I carried the experience forward with me for weeks because it gave me such good confidence in my new feminine world. 

As we all know, confidence is so important to those of us working our way down our gender paths. It does not matter if we are experienced cross dressers or transgender women, having a healthy sense of confidence in ourselves helps our progress in the world immeasurably. People are like sharks and can spot a weakness in another person a mile away. Even though my newfound confidence was still very fragile, I could feel it growing. Which was all that mattered to me. 

From there, I tried to experience living more of my life as a novice transgender woman doing things a cisgender woman would do. Again, doing a portion of the grocery shopping was an example. Looking back on it now, I am surprised my second wife did not question what I was doing but she never did. Through it all, even though I was being successful for a change in my cross dressing or transgender experiences, somehow, someway I still prepared myself for failure. I suppose it was because I experienced so much failure earlier, I still expected it. 

Then, I began to think about what I was doing and came up with what I was really prepared to lose. Since I had advanced to the point of passing in my presentation, was I prepared to lose more and more of my male world. As much as I did not like it, through out and out effort, I was able to carve out a decent male life, and I needed to decide if I could make it without my spouse, extended family, friends and job. What was I prepared to lose?

Long story short, I decided I felt so good in my new transgender womanhood, I decided what I could lose, and it was everything. I should say, I risked it all for a better life and I had very few things to lose when I tried it. My wife and close friends all had passed away and it turned out my all-important daughter came all out to accept me. So, I was very fortunate. 

All along, I was still prepared to lose, it never really happened to me. I can't take much of the credit because I put myself out in the world and good women responded. They were all I needed to restore more of my inner confidence and start a new life.  

Knowing the Rules before You Break Them

 

Image from Milan de Clercq 
on UnSplash

I had a very good idea of what it would take me to survive in a male world before I decided to see if the grass on the other side of the gender border would be any better or greener.

Growing up in a very male dominated family with the only girl being my mom, provided me with a so-called brightly lit path to my future. I was fortunate in some ways to have a larger male body to keep the bullies away as I played sports such as football and baseball regularly.  Of course, I came to dislike my body completely when I went through male puberty and had a difficult time finding any new fashionable girls' clothes to wear. 

When I went through the hated male puberty, the rules of the road so to speak, became clearer and clearer to me. Coming from a white middle-class family with two working parents in the 1950's to mid 1960's gave me a work ethic I used to scrape together the meager funds I needed to buy my own makeup and a few fashion accessories. I knew I could not ask my parents for the money because they would want to know what I needed it for. Any hint of femininity on my part would immediately break all the rules and would result in trips to a psychiatrist. Even then, I knew going to a therapist who knew nothing about gender issues would be a disaster. 

I knew the rules and played the game of male gender the best I could. I found good hiding places for my femininizing fashion and makeup while at the same time, dreamed of the day I could buy a nice wig. In those days, I was able to get by with a mirror who never lied to me by telling me I was a pretty girl. The feelings of joy or gender euphoria would continue several days before the pressure built up on me to cross dress again and again. When I began to realize I was just scratching the surface of my gender issues, I became quite good at knowing one of the primary male rules taught to me as a kid. If you did not like something, internalize it until it went away.

The problem I had was, my desire to be a woman never went away and it was so much more than just being a phase. From the darkness of my closet, I had what turned out to be a distorted idea of what womanhood meant to females everywhere. I only saw what I considered the good part was. Such as no military service and being able to enjoy the wonderful world of woman's fashion. I left out the challengingly part of women's lives such as child raising and toxic men, to name a few. As I was able to cross the gender border, I did realize the grass was not always greener and had I truly been a birth daughter to my mom, extra pressure to conform to her standards would have increased. I am certain she would have pushed me to go to the same university she did, all the way to pledging the same sorority.  I would have again been breaking rules. Just of a different sort.

When I arrived at a time when I was drafted into the military, I was forced into being a follower of rules more than I ever had in the past. Conforming to new Army standards to survive at least kept most of my mind off of my gender issues. I needed to put my desires aside and just dream of the day I could be free to be a transgender woman in my future. It was difficult, but I did it.

By the time I was honorably discharged three years later from the Army, I was able to settle back into the life I had before without one big exception. Without military service looming over my head, I could concentrate on my future. When I did, it became increasingly evident to me, there was a possibility I could break all the gender rules and achieve transgender womanhood. It was still going to be a decades long journey from there, but I was encouraged for once.

Of course, once I began to explore the world as a novice transgender woman, I found a whole new set of rules to deal with. To make matters worse, I had no knowledge of many of the rules I was about to break before I did them. The workbook I was using was blank and I needed to write the rules as I needed them. 

Again, I was fortunate, and I survived when I broke the rules, but I learned quickly since I was free.  Then as I safely continued along my gender path, I found I could make it safely to my dream. Mainly because I knew the rules from both sides of the binary gender and I was a better person for it.