Living the Dream

Image of dreaming woman from 
James Forbus on UnSplash.

 For the greater part of a half a century, the thought of transgender womanhood remained a distant dream for me.

The main reason was, I spent decades denying who I really was, as my male self-sought to rule me. Sadly, he either won many gender battles or made life overall miserable for me. When he was doing it, my dream remained in place as I wondered how big my rainbow was and would I ever live my dream. In the meantime, I kept experimenting in the world as an out transgender woman. 

When I had the chance, I would do things such as attend downtown festivals all the way to watching an outdoor concert as my new exciting authentic self. I had a black leotard top I often wore with a favorite pair of flair legged silky pants and a glittering pair of black and gold sandals. I even went as far at the daylight festival I went to; I added a pair of sunglasses so I could see anyone checking me out in a negative way without them being able to see my eyes. My biggest discovery was no one paid me any real attention. In other words, I was beginning to think I could actually live out my dream of transgender womanhood. 

From there I attempted to expand my new exciting life. I completely enjoyed the time I spent living my dream and soon, never wanted to go back to my male life. When I was forced back, I hated it. Often, I took it out on my second wife and other close people around me. By internalizing my dream, I grew angrier and angrier and almost lost good jobs because of it. 

It was not until I began to spend almost all of my spare time living my dream, did I realize I could really succeed at it. Finally, I had made the transition from the mirror to the world and was ready to attempt to learn to do more. Overall, I began to have more success than failures when I learned not to push my gender envelope too far. I was accepted at several venues where I wanted to go to watch sports and drink beer plus, I gained a couple unexpected female friends when I did it. I was discovering I was closer and closer to my dream of transgender womanhood was almost here and I wanted more and more of it.

I did not think I would ever make it to my dream, but destiny was on my side and all of a sudden, at the age of sixty, I realized I was at a huge make it or break it time of my life. Either I completed my gender transition then, or I never would have the chance again. I seized the opportunity and even had the chance of meeting the cisgender woman of my dreams who accepted and even encouraged me to be a better version of myself. She told me very few humans ever have the chance to reinvent themselves, so I should strive to do it right. As I did.

At my age of seventy-five now, I still have the everyday pain which comes with age, but I try to write and walk every day to stay active. Perhaps by doing so, I can expand my dream to the fullest. 

Thanks for reading along! I hope you can live out your dream also.

Living the Reality of being Transgender

My wife Liz at "Harpoon Harry's"
Key West, Florida

Regardless of what the evil bigots think and say, the reality of being a transgender woman or transgender man, is starkly different to what they think.

Most transphobes say living a trans life is just a choice we can make at any time. Or there is some sort of magic gender switch we can throw to reverse the life we are living. If only it was the case, somehow, we all would be able to live simpler lives. We would not have to put our lives in such turmoil just to jump the gender border.

On the other hand, living the reality of being transgender can sometimes lead to a more interesting life. Especially around super fragile and toxic men who refuse to have anything to do with us. Think about it this way, transgender women have a basic understanding of men in ways cisgender women will never completely embrace. I was fortunate when I was able to form relationships with other women (lesbians) who taught me my reality was good enough to be proud of and I did not need a man to give me value. I was living the value of being trans in the best possible way. 

When I completed my second big transition from parttime cross dresser to transgender womanhood, it was a scary, surprising time for me. First of all, I did not know if I could do it at all and secondly, I did not know how to go about doing it. Finally, I decided I needed to hitch up my big girl panties and see if I could be accepted in a world where women dominated the action. That is when I ended up at the "TGI Fridays" restaurant and bar I talk about so much. I had been there as a man so many times when I saw all the women from the mall come in for a drink after their shifts and I was jealous. Badly I wanted to learn if I could somehow be a part of the feminine action.

Once I was successful, I knew there would be no going back to viewing myself as a harmless cross dresser. I was serious about being a better transgender woman and I needed to learn more on how to do it. It was about this time also when I began to consider what I thought was the next step in my femininizing progression and that was beginning gender affirming hormones or HRT. My problem was, standing directly in my way was my strongly disapproving second wife. So, I needed to put off my plans of jump starting a very serious process of battling my testosterone poisoned body. I reasoned, the better off I was when it came to my femininization, the easier time I would have in the public's eye. 

Even though I would have to wait until my second wife passed away from an unexpected massive heart attack, once my path was clear to HRT, I sought the opinion of a doctor and received my cherished meds. Once I did begin to go down the hormonal road, I thought I would be ready for the changes I went through during my second puberty. Hot flashes, along with rapid breast growth were just a few of the changes I went through quickly as my skin softened, hair grew, and I became much more emotional. 

Hormones really changed my reality of what it meant for me to be transgender and while I realize the meds aren't for everyone medically, they were for me.

If the world we live in would just slow down for a moment and understand the reality of being transgender is not so much different than the average human, we would be in a better place.

Losing Through Winning

 

Image from Humphrey Muleba 
on UnSplash. 

Sometimes during our lives, we have to lose to send ourselves forward into a better place.

It seems, transgender women and transgender men have so much more to lose when they transition across the gender border. As I often mention, we have to consider spouses, extended family, friends and employment as we grow into our unique authentic selves. I spent years in anguish trying to determine what to do about the two women fighting about my life. I mean my strong inner woman and my equally as strong wife of twenty five years, both of whom, I loved dearly. 

It turned out, the only loser was my male self, and he was not going down without a fight. When I was stuck between genders, my mental health suffered greatly. Even leading me to a suicide attempt when I did not think I could make a decision and could not take it any longer. I was attempting to live my regular working life as a male and the rest of the time as a transgender woman, and it was tearing me apart. The gender nightmare I was going through, I would have not wished on my worst enemy.

Finally, I decided I needed to lose one of my genders attempting to run my life. Due to an ever increasingly deep down feeling I was doing the right thing; I chose to go deeper and deeper down the gender rabbit hole and pursue my transgender womanhood. When I did, an unbelievable exciting, fulfilling new life opened for me. All of a sudden, I was being invited behind the gender curtain to girl's night outs and even accepted a gift from my daughter to have my suddenly longer hair styled at her upscaled salon. Looking back, I think my hormonal estrogen level increased significantly that day due to osmosis. Suddenly I learned why all women value so much their time at the beauty spa's. I was learning again why I could never go back to the male world I was losing.

As I looked around, what else did I have to lose? My wife had passed away, I closed my restaurant, lost most of my close friends to cancer, so I had nothing but a temporary fast food managerial job I hated to get me by until I could take an early retirement. Plus, I was on gender affirming hormones (HRT) by then, and my body was femininizing fast. My wins were rapidly overtaking the losses in my life. 

During the space of approximately five years, I had walked through the gender door perceiving I was little more than a parttime cross dresser and came out the other side as a full-fledged happy transgender woman. My male self-had totally lost and it was time for me to enjoy the win with my new women friends around me who taught me more than they ever knew about valuing myself. 

As with the rest of you who have gender transitioned, or are seriously considering it, I am sure I don't have to tell you what a big decision it is. First you need to accept yourself, then see if others will accept you too. Once you do, you can begin to win and put your losses behind you.  

Comments

 

Image from Bruno Acquire on UnSplash. 

In regard to yesterday's post concerning the Veterans Administration's announcement they were not going to cover gender affirming hormones, prothesis's, and even mental health treatment for new veterans suffering from gender dysphoria anymore. 

In my rant, I said, among other things, how much I disagreed with the move, even though it did not affect me. The VA said, those already receiving gender related care could keep getting it. Which, of course, means me. 

One huge problem I did not mention in my post was pointed out by Denise, who pointed out, the VA's decision to shut out trans women being discharged into the world to fend for themselves was just a smaller part of what the orange felon's presidential administration is trying to do to erase the rights of all women in our country today. Since transgender women are a unique form of women, our rights as women are being taken away too. Which gives me yet another chance to wonder why any clear-thinking woman, trans or not, would have ever voted for the felon at all. And I will leave it at that.

On another subject concerning a post called "Why Me?' a reader wrote in with this comment:

"Over many decades I often asked myself both “why me” and “why not me”. For decades I limited myself to underdressing…. something I told myself was just a (hopefully) harmless kink, out of the fear that if I explored further, I would irreversibly descend that slippery slope. I in my early 50s I finally allowed myself to experiment with makeup and women's clothing beyond underwear. I still vividly recall the moment when I looked in the mirror and saw myself for the first time. In that instant, I may have even said aloud, “I can do this!”

There have been subsequent periods of self-doubt, of course. Still, every day I find that I look forward to seeing myself and engaging with the world as a woman."

Thanks to both of you for the comments! I found many of your ideas to be very profound and meaningful. Plus, I had "aha" moments when I realized I had left all women out of the current political agenda and the moment when I too had realized when I was successful in public as a novice transgender woman that "I could do this", and it felt so natural. Deep down inside, something snapped, and I felt as if I was home.

The night I realized I could do it and felt at home in the company of women was and is so special to me. Just one of the reasons it disturbs me so much to see what is happening today with our rights continue. 

Speaking of continue, I love all your comments and wish I could answer them all, here on the blog in a public setting. Needless to say, I do the best I can!

Also (something I don't say enough) thanks to all of you who find the time and effort to read along on a regular basis. It makes it all worthwhile to me!

Go Away!!!

 

Image from Military. Com

Well, the long arm of the felon running the country has reached all the way down into my life again, seemingly so soon after he got into office. 

Recently, the Veteran's Administration issued a new directive stating all healthcare for transgender veterans would be halted. For those of you who may not know, I am a transgender veteran who benefits from VA healthcare. Which means, I receive my gender affirming hormones from the VA. The meds are not free, and I pay a co-pay. In addition, for years, I took advantage of free mental health services which helped me immeasurably when I was beginning my transition. I was lost and needed the help. 

Of course, I was initially really upset that once again the felon attempting to run the country should be running my life for me again. At the age of seventy-five, I live a quiet life with my wife Liz and our two cats. I am not out to hurt anyone, so why should tRumpt be screwing around in my life. For sure, I knew it was coming when he was elected along with so many other politicians who used the transgender minority to raise false fears about us. After speaking to Liz, we immediately began thinking of ways to procure my hormones which made me feel better.

This morning as I began to research the directive, in typical government double speak, I read the VA would stop providing crucial care for new gender dysphoric patients. Which of course leaves me out but not all my transgender sisters and brothers who need help with their gender issues after being discharged from the military and I feel for all of them. Here is a statement concerning the problems which will be created by ceasing care:

"VA's rollback of crucial protections, specifically the elimination of Directive 1341, is a direct assault on the well-being of vulnerable LGBTQ+ veterans, jeopardizing their access to essential care," Rachel Branaman, executive director of Modern Military Association of America, said in a statement."

Every Friday, I attend a LGBTQ support group meeting virtually at the Dayton, Ohio VA, and this Friday I hope to find out more about this latest attempt to erase the transgender population. Already, the workers who are left in the offices have been told to remove all flags from their offices. Which as we all knew, meant all Pride flags. 

I hope to learn more then before I have a crucial May appointment with my Endocrinologist who dispenses my gender affirming hormones. 

In the meantime, you trans women who wrote in and said the felon would not be that bad are enjoying all the benefits of his lies. Even you cross dressers in your closet should beware. 

Why Not Me?

 

JJ Hart at Club Diversity
Columbus, Ohio

When I was very young, I had the tendency to hide behind my skirts when I needed to deny any masculine pursuits at all. 

Any time I failed, I ran home to see if I could lock myself in the bathroom and apply makeup and try on any of mom's clothes which still fit. I had a dream of finally making it to my own transgender womanhood when I grew older, but I had no idea of how. Back then, little did I know, the journey would take me over fifty years to complete and the path would be so curvy and full of hurdles. If I did, I wonder if I would have ever attempted to try it.

Of course, I started out innocently enough as a cross dresser in a mirror. My reaction was a double-edged sword. One side of the sword told me I was not doing anything really wrong, while the other side wondered if I was the only one in the world doing it. If that was the case, being a transvestite just could not be good. Right? All I had to rely on was my instincts which told me I was on the right path. So, I persisted and stayed on it. Since the only real feedback I had was from the mirror, I needed to rely on it when it was telling me I had advanced on from the clownish drag makeup stage I was into a more acceptable feminine form. At the time, I equated it with painting model cars which I was never good at and I was so proud when I thought I had conquered the basics of makeup. Even to the point of purchasing my own from the newspaper route I had when I was a kid. When my friends were buying model cars, I was buying makeup and loving it. It was not until many years later, would I receive the instruction I needed to really understand the art of makeup, but I was getting by at the time.

Clothes and hair were a whole other problem I needed to try to conquer at the time. With the very limited budget I was on, there was no way I could afford a nice wig all the way to my college years, when I was working a better paying job. In order to buy a wig, I needed the help of my fiancé who bought it under the idea she would possibly wear it. The wig was long and blond and was my cross-dresser's dream and luckily, she hated it, so I inherited it. Even with the abuse I put it through, the wig lasted for years before I needed to finally retire it. Clothes were another problem because again I did not have much money, and these were the days before larger sized women's fashions became available in a younger style. It was not until years later, when thrift stores became abundant, did I finally become fashion independent. 

As my feminine life was coming together, slowly I began to realize transgender womanhood may not be such a reach for me after all. I was beginning to explore all facets of the world as a trans woman and it all felt so natural. The more I attempted and succeeded at in my new life, the less I wanted to go back to my old, boring male world. So, I did not.

I was on a slippery gender slope my path had led me to, and all of a sudden, I did not fear it anymore. Somehow, I knew there was a soft landing out there for me. The stop signs were gone, and I knew at the age of sixty, if I did not try to live my transgender dreams, I would never have the chance and would forever regret my decision. From there, I decided to follow my heart and seek medical help to begin gender affirming hormones or HRT. The hormones forever sealed my trans life, and I never looked back. I always felt my body was looking for the hormones the whole time. Again, a scary gender transitional moment felt so natural. 

Why not me, turned out to be why should not it be me? 

Gender House of Cards

 

Image from 
Nathan Dumlao
on UnSplash.

As I progressed along my gender path, I regularly built houses of cards.

I became used to showing my cards regularly when I was a novice cross dresser. Sadly, I was coming off too often as the joker. I can't mention enough how I was the victim of the beginning cross dressers' curse. I was trying to dress as a teen aged girl when I was a wide-bodied male just trying to survive in a new exciting yet scary new world. My life existed by taking a step forward and another two steps back. Gender euphoria was very rare in my life, so I needed to cherish it when it came about. 

In order to make up (no pun intended) from the long lapses of gender euphoria, I needed to step back and try to build my house of cards with a better, more solid foundation. Every time I was rejected, I had to resolve myself to go back to my cross-dressing board and work harder on something like I had never worked so hard on before. Finally, my efforts paid off and I began to blend in with the public with less effort. I was ecstatic and I readied myself to move forward play more cards. Did someone say success breeds success? If not, I will, and it happened to me. I gained the all-important confidence I needed and headed on up my gender path.  

I proceeded to keep building my house of cards against all odds, I realized who I truly was. Much more than a relatively innocent parttime cross dresser and much more of a transgender woman. It seems like such a small difference in thought pattern could make such a huge difference in my life. Suddenly, it seemed the world opened up for me and I thought I had found the missing card I had always been looking for.  

Having said all of that, I knew I would have to set out to build a whole different house of cards. No longer did I want to just look like the women around me, I wanted to be treated as an equal. Which seemed to be an impossible dream. When I was successful in hanging out with other women, I developed a whole new set of confidence and began to relax and enjoy the experience. I was at home with myself for the first time ever. Perhaps the best result was, my house of cards was being built so much stronger and more resilient to the outside world. 

From then on, the race was on to enable my inner feminine self to play her own cards. When she finally did, she was extremely successful and made the best of her situation. Plus, she was able to build upon the mistakes of her male counterpart and never having to play the joker. Then my wife Liz came along and re-enforced my new transgender womanhood, while at the same time rapidly building my house of cards. When I experienced a collapse, Liz was there to catch me. 

I am sure you agree, building your own gender house of cards is not an easy task to complete. You need to show an uncommon level of patience when your cards collapsed, and you needed to start all over. It shows how difficult a transgender life can be. Especially in these difficult times.  

Gender Masks

 

Image from John Noonan
on UnSplash. 

In life, both genders learn early on what masks mean to their existence.

Think of it, at the earliest age, babies have only very limited ways to show their pleasure or anger by smiling or crying. Of course, as we advance through life all of it changes. I could be biased, but I think women in life have an advantage by using masks. 

While boys are squaring off on the playgrounds at school, girls are learning the basics of makeup, if their moms allow it. In many ways, makeup for women provides them with their ultimate masks. Anything from false eyelashes to skin foundations to wigs are permissible. It is not unheard of for a man to wake up to a totally different looking woman after a night out on the town. 

Makeup is not the only way women use masks effectively. I learned it the hard way several times when I was first out in the world as a transgender woman that a smiling face does not necessarily equal acceptance in the world. There were many times I relaxed too early in a situation with another smiling woman and ended up getting stabbed in the back. I fell for her friendly mask and paid the price. The whole process with women with me went back to feminine passive aggression versus the old direct aggression I was used to with men. Eventually, I came to consider the process as just another rite of passage into the world of women and I quickly became much better in being able to see what was going on behind another woman's mask. 

As my relationship with other women grew, the better I became at perfecting my own mask. I started at an early age attempting to perfect my art of makeup. It was all I could do to stop looking like a clown in drag. I stumbled along at my mask efforts before I made it into asking for and accepting professional makeup help. I happened into it during a cross dresser, transvestite mixer I was attending. Part of the mixer was given over to several professional makeup artists who offered free makeovers to anyone who wanted them. I gathered my courage, hitched up my big girl panties and stepped up for help. When the help I received was complete, I could not believe the change. The guy doing my mask had totally removed my old mask and designed a new one. The changes were so dramatic, I even received an invitation to go with the so called "A" list transgender women when they went out to bars after the mixer. To make matters even more dramatic, I was the only one approached by a man in a bar to stay for a drink. For many reasons, I did not stay and drink with him, (another story) but the point was made my mask could compete for a change with the "A" girls who the man ignored. 

The best part of finding my new mask was being able to keep it. The professional makeup guy managed to explain everything he was doing to my face and wig, so I understood it and could replicate it over and over. Once I had my mask, I was able to take advantage of it the same as any other woman would. In fact, more so, because I felt to succeed in the world as a transgender woman, I would need to be better than the average cisgender woman who had been born with a built-in mask advantage. 

Fortunately, I was able to step back and look at my new gender mask from a positive perspective and what it meant from view of a novice transgender woman. When I did, my life radically improved for the better and I understood how masks really worked in the world.

Let the World be your Classroom

 

Image from Aleksandar Andreev on
UnSplash.

It certainly is difficult to reach a space in gender time when you can relax and let the world be your classroom.

First of all, you need to acquire the confidence in yourself to view what other women around you are doing. Personally, I took the stairstep method on my gender path to finally acquire the stability I needed to grow into a stable transgender womanhood. Literally, for years, nothing seemed to come easy for me. I was very good at taking one step forward in my new world and then taking two steps back when I was rejected by the public. It was similar to the day when I thought I was on point with my fashion, makeup and wig. I was confidently walking down a mall sidewalk when one of my heels became stuck in a small crack in the walk and I almost fell. What were the odds? 

It was like the transgender gods were telling me I needed to keep learning and maybe what I just went through had happened to many other women in the past. I rapidly learned from then on to keep an eye out for any potential sidewalk issues. I was stubborn and slowly I kept acquiring the basics to stop looking at myself so much and begin to look around at what the other women around me were doing. They became my classroom at work where I worked with many women and out in the world with a group of strangers. Once I was allowed behind the gender curtain, I began to learn a lot. 

My first big lesson was women ran their world separate from men quite well. Women had their own forms of communication and style. The more accomplished women were the ones who were good at letting men think they were getting their way. I never really had to learn about dealing with men because the great majority of them left me alone. So, it was women I needed to worry about communicating with. Initially, I had few problems with other women because I was dealing with store clerks who did not care or were just interested in my money. It was not until I began to explore other facets of the world as a transgender woman did, I begin to learn the actual basics of looking another woman in the eye and talking to her. I even made it to the point where I initiated the conversation with such basics as a compliment on a dress or a piece of jewelry. When I did, I "broke" the ice so to speak and made it OK for the other woman to talk to me.

My second big lesson was there were actual alpha females who I knew from work. They were the ones who did an amazing job of balancing supervising others at work and still running a family at home. I realized, once I received a vote of support from an alpha female, I was in good shape. The whole process brought into focus how much I was able to learn from the women I worked with and secretly looked up to. I say secretly because I worked for a very male dominated company, and I did not have the support to provide the women what they needed to totally thrive. I simply was not that far up that ladder. 

As my classroom expanded, I began to write this blog, over a decade ago. Every once in a while, I go back and look over a few of my original posts. I noticed a big shift in the blog over the years. Initially, my posts revolved around how I looked and how I arrived where I was in life. On the other hand, currently my writings involve what is happening in the world now and how I arrived where I am now. Or, how I got to the point to stand in my gender space and be proud of it. What does remain constant here is all I set out to do was help others with the same gender issues I had. It just took a classroom to do it. Something I never considered when I was trapped in the dark confines of my own gender life. 

For the most part, I can now relax in the world and look around for any possible other reactions which are happily becoming increasingly rare. The classroom has gone full circle into a space I enjoy. I like going out to eat and even the LGBTQ peer support group meetings I attend virtually. They give me a chance to put on a little makeup and nicely brushout my hair. Every little bit helps in the world of a transgender woman or cross dresser.