All Along I was Just Me

 e

Inage from Gayatri Malhotra
on UnSplash. 

It took me decades of living to realize the simplest of all realizations…just discovering who the true me was all about.

It turned out I was so much more complex than the friends I had around me in how I felt about life. Which often help me back because I could not express how badly I wanted to be a woman. What I did was, I took the natural male response I inherited and internalized all my feelings. Naturally, the male response did not work and all it did was wreck even further my already frail mental health. If I could not cross-dress my anxiety increased and when I did my paranoia kicked in when I thought, I was getting caught.

As I added years to my life, the complexity of being a gender dysphoric person grew with the years. What did I do? I tried to outrun my problems. It wasn’t until the Vietnam War years and beyond did I learn that I would have to stop being a victim and stand up to living a life outside of the shadows of being a man. The idea of moving my family around and changing jobs all the time until I finally landed a job I wanted in a location, I wanted to be. That meant I climbed out of fast food and landed in a full service, casual dining chain which served alcohol which was exactly where I wanted to be.

With my dream job in place, I could concentrate on my feminine side by beginning to go to the small diverse LGBTQ parties I used to go to in nearby Columbus, Ohio. At those mixers, I was able to meet transgender mentors who would define my future. From them, I learned a path to my dream may actually be possible. The me I had always dreamed of was finally beginning to emerge. Much to the chagrin of my long-time second wife who actually went with me to a few of the parties. Probably, just to keep track of me. One thing was for sure; my wife never liked the trans woman I was becoming. Back in those days, I was still trying too hard to dress to impress and my wife was right, my dresses were too short, and my makeup was too heavy for her liking.

As she normally was, my wife was right about my appearance, and I tried my best to tone it down when she was around. Most of the time to no avail. I was stubborn and had to live out my so-called adolescence years of cross-dressing before I learned how to dress to blend in with my wife and the ciswomen around her. As I always say, sadly she passed away before she ever got the chance to meet the mature transgender me. I know we could have not stayed married but maybe at least be friends.

The question became, what was I doing with my time when I was discovering who I really was. What I was doing was exploring as close as I could what it would be like to live a whole new life behind the gender curtain. For the most part, I was successful as I made my way from the relative safety of the gay venues I was frequenting and jumping into the more challenging straight sports bars I was used to going to as a man. By never causing any trouble, always smiling and most importantly by tipping well, I was able to establish myself as a regular in several venues which seemed unreachable to me just a short time before. Most importantly, I was able to bring my love of sports from my male life into my female life with no problems. Which was a surprise to me.

As I did, I discovered the true me was not that far removed from the old me. Basically. I had just changed my appearance and gave up basic male privileges such as perceived intelligence and personal safety, and the best was yet to come as I was able to begin to move around freely as the new me in a world run by ciswomen. Quoting my second wife, I didn’t “make” a terrible woman after all. Primarily because I was not “making” anything. I was becoming me. Sure, I knew on occasions I could have done a better job, but I never allowed myself to be a victim and moved on back to my gender path. Which was beginning to change dramatically because I was beginning yet another  major gender related transition in my life.

First, there were the two obvious mental transitions I went through including the initial once when I realized I was so much more than a weekend parttime cross-dresser which went all the way to that fateful night at a local TGIF Fridays when I had had enough of that thought pattern and went out to be with the other ciswomen just getting off of work at a nearby mall.

From that moment on, I knew I could never go back to my old unwanted male self. But still, I felt as if something was missing in my life. It was because I was still missing the obvious transition of all as I finally realized I was never a cross-dresser or a transgender woman; I was just me.

I wish I could take credit for being persistent and intelligent that I kept on pushing to find me but I can’t. That credit goes to all the ciswomen who I became close to over the many years of struggle I endured. And yes, my second wife is included because she was the first to say be man enough to be a woman and make life easier on both of us. As we all know, many women are good at reading small lights inside of a person (unless you are fighting an unsupportive spouse) which is a point for another blog post.

I can’t say enough positive about all the women in my life who helped kick me out of my male nest and into the world of women. They knew me better than I knew me.

 

 

 

Understanding is the First Step to Overcoming Fear

 

JJ Hart (Center) on a 
girls' night out. 

Before you can overcome fear, you need to understand exactly what you are afraid of.

I know I was petrified of leaving my closet behind and heading out into a world where I knew little or nothing as a novice cross-dresser. It took me years to overcome most of my fears except the ones I never did. Such as going into male dominated spaces by myself as a transgender woman. For some unknown reason, that one thing has always been a problem for me and my anxiety issues about coming out in the world.

When I was younger, I always thought either I would grow out of my need to feel feminine in all ways or somehow, I would lose my fear of doing it. Of course, I learned quickly that anytime soon I would not be outgrowing my urges to cross the gender border into a feminine world. In fact, my urges were getting stronger which led to more fear and anxiety about the future of my life. Out of sheer survival, I had to find out why I was so scared.

The easy way out for me was just by thinking that making the gender jump into what I perceived as greener pastures, was the reason I was so scared. I was using the dresses and makeup I had acquired to hide behind and feel better in times of duress. I was too new at the gender game to consider ideas such as gender privileges which I was accumulating as a young man with out even knowing it. Privileges such as never having my intelligence questioned or having an innate sense of personal security were never questioned. I found I would not have to until much later in life when I began to present well enough as a transfeminine person to get by. All of a sudden, passing as a woman meant more than just having a man open a door for me. I had to take the good with the bad if I was ever going to be successful in making it to my dream of living as a woman on my own terms.

The more involved I became in my male to female femininization, the more I discovered there was no easy way out. Which frightened me more. I always equate it as me busily painting myself into new life corners as a trans woman which there was no easy escape from. Finally, I did see a brief escape from my unreasoning fear was when the transgender term was being popularized to gender conflicted people like me. There was a term which described people such as me who did not fit into the cross dresser-transvestite mold or the more extreme transsexual person. From the moment I saw the trans term, I immediately knew it described me. It certainly took long enough for a term to come along, which helped me, but it finally did.

Being able to read about other more accomplished transgender women and trans men helped me to understand my fears and why I was feeling them and the new less rigid gender spectrum terms helped me immensely. For the first time in my life, I could pinpoint why I was feeling a certain way and at the same time calm most of my anxieties. Gender diversity became my motto in life as I really began to explore the world of ciswomen for the first time. I had left the men’s club (and they knew it) and wanted to join the women’s club if they would have me. Yes, the world of ciswomen would have me which lessened my fears and anxieties immensely. Mainly because I had a better understanding of where I wanted to go.

Looking back, I do not know why I took so long to try to have a better understanding of who I really was. I could blame the usual suspects such as my old male self or my second wife who put up such a battle against me transitioning when in reality it was all on me. In the would of-should of department, I always should have faced up to the fact I was more female than male and should have not made life miserable for my wife when I did not “man-up” in her terms and become a woman. I guess I was never one to take the easy way out.

If I had taken any of the excess time I was wasting, I would have taken the time to calm my fears by understanding who I was as a person and try to build a better feminine person I learned I could be from all the male building blocks I had left behind. As I looked around at the new world of ciswomen, I was seeking admittance into, I realized they were more diverse than even I had given them credit for. And I would not be shunned for wanting to do something like wearing my favorite team’s jersey on game day in one of the sports bars I was a regular in because other women were beating me to it by wearing their jerseys It made my fears evaporate as my life became more fun again and certainly more fulfilling as I had always wondered what it would be like to cheer my favorite teams on in the venues I was used to going to as a woman and not a man.

Once I finally started to have a basic understanding of where my fears were coming from, I was able to better keep them under control. Which, in turn led me to being more relaxed with a chance to let my long hidden trans woman personality shine through.

I know it is difficult for all of you who are just getting started along your gender path to not be afraid because of what is at stake but if you are able to slow your life down to take a closer look at it…you will stand a better chance of understanding your fears and anxiety and living a better life.

Thanks for reading along and I hope my experiences can help you anyway I can!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stepping Out as Yourself

Image from Max Anderson
on UnSplash. 

Stepping out into the real world and leaving my closet and mirror for the first time was difficult for me. For lack of a better term, I was leaving everything I worked for in my male life behind.

As much as I hated my dark, lonely gender closet, I found it to be a safe place to be when I needed it the most. My ability to put on a dress and makeup soothed my soul, if only on a temporary basis helped until I needed to take another high heeled step into the real world where I so desperately wanted to be. To put it mildly I was scared to death when all my male privileges I had worked so hard to learn were stripped away and I was starting all over again. It was different when I could not rely on a menacing facial expression or an occasional bluster to get me by.

Stepping out into a new feminine world for me meant I needed to immediately begin to work on building a new personality which would grow with me as I worked my way towards my dream goal of living fulltime as a transgender woman. This was the same period of time that I was obsessed by my feminine appearance, so I had a lot on my mind. As I struggled day to day about what gender I was going to be. All too soon, life meant so much more to me than buying a new dress or skirt all the way to how I needed to change my old male movements when I wore them.

As I was forced by being in the public’s eye, I needed to understand exactly what I was getting myself into. So much more than the pretty clothes that I saw the girls around me wearing. If I needed to be more like them, I had miles to go on my gender path to get there. All I knew was at that time, most of the ciswomen I encountered were nice to me. Every little bit helped me learn what my future could be like if I kept stepping out and away from my old male past. Plus, problems kept occurring with my second wife and my male self who saw the changes in me as a threat to their future lives. My second wife saw her husband slipping away and my male self-saw his whole future gone if what I was doing continued.

Through it all, I was able to establish myself as some-sort of a successful cross-dresser before I transitioned into a transgender woman one fateful night when I thought enough was enough and I had to do more to continue up my gender path. Before I became lost entirely and had to reassess where I was. What I learned was that I was actually further along towards my transfeminine goal than I thought I was. I learned the hard way when I was able to be successful when I went out for the first time to enjoy a drink with a group of ciswomen from a nearby mall who just would go out and socialize after work. It was something I always had wanted to do as a transwoman, and I was amazingly accepted into their circle. I guess you could say that night I really stepped away from my old male self and loved it.

Before I knew it, my new shiny shoes (flats this time) were stuck in gender quicksand as I had stepped into a place that I never wanted to get out of. One thing was for sure, if anyone came along with a rope trying to rescue me, I would have turned them down. I was having too much fun challenging the world as my new transgender self to ever turn around and go back to a boring life as a man that I had stepped away from.

Sure, there were still many times that either I was scared to death of where I was going or was out and out rejected by the world, but those times were getting fewer and fewer apart. I was headed towards my dream goal which was slowly coming into focus as a doable project. I say project because I had never attempted such a thing as jumping the gender border to slide behind the gender curtain in my life. When I finally accomplished my goal of being allowed to exist in so-called women only spaces, I certainly was not going to give up all that I had earned.

By this time my second wife had passed away, and my old male self was seeing the writing on the wall, and his days were numbered too. Which left me all alone to make my key life choices. Still after much thought and consideration, I finally gave in totally to my feminine side, and I set out to build a different yet better life with my new ciswomen lesbian friends. All of them helped me round out and refine the woman I always wanted to be. Most of the work I had already put in, so I did not have that far to go. Mainly the only place I needed to go was with my dealings with men. Even that turned out to be relatively easy because most men left me alone because I was not attractive enough or just wanted me as some sort of a fetish object. All my problems went away when my lesbian friends taught me I did not need a man to be validated anyhow.

As stepping out as a transgender woman in the world became natural to me, a whole new universe of life came alive for me. Especially when I was approved for my long-term dream of starting HRT or gender affirming hormones. Something that my second wife always recoiled at the idea of, but on the other hand, my current wife Liz loved. The essence of being on my hormones just carried over into me stepping out into a new world with confidence I had never known before.

 

 

 

Your Lines in the Sand as Gender Markers

 

Image from Sonnie Hiles
on UnSplash. 

For the longest time, I set new lines in the sand as I progressed along my path as a novice transgender woman.

Sometimes, the lines were very faint, and I had a difficult time seeing them. All the way to deep trenches I needed to leap across. It all depended on what I was doing at the time. For example, when I was just dressing in mom’s dresses and putting on her makeup, the lines were very faint and easy to cross. In my mind, I was a boy one moment and a girl the next. A very black and white way to view myself, or so I thought until I grew older.

Instead of growing away from my cross-dressing years, I ended up growing into them by finally coming to a better mastery of the feminine clothes I wanted to wear and maybe more importantly, the artform of applying makeup which was a very deep line to cross for me. If I had worked as hard on my studies and sports than I did on my femininization projects, I would have certainly made the dean’s list every year and starred on the school’s football team. I was mentally built differently because of my gender dysphoria and could not decide for the longest time which gender path I wanted to follow because the feminine path was primarily there for an escape. When my male life became too stressful, I could shave my legs, slide carefully into my pantyhose which I had purchased myself from jobs I had worked and put on a dress and feel better instantly.

Even though I did not want it to happen, I began to build male privileges from doing a good job raising my daughter as a father and working jobs I was promoted at. When I did, I knew I would have a lesser chance of having just a small line in the sand to jump across if I ever needed to. Little did I know, how much both of my efforts would come back to help me in my later years when I encountered severe gender obstacles as I went behind the gender curtain as a transgender woman. I should say finally went behind the curtain since it took me decades to do it.

The problem arose with drawing more and more lines in the sand that my life as a transfeminine person became more complex quicker than I ever imagined. Often, I have described what I went through as sliding down a deep slope grabbing onto whatever I could to maintain the male life that I had. Just to watch it slip away. It led me to falling off the deepest cliff I could have ever imagined when I put away all my male clothes for the last time, went on HRT or gender affirming hormones and put my male life behind me for the last time.

By this time, even my stubborn old male self was admitting he had made a mistake by holding on as long as he did. All the covering lines in the sand I was about to cross with his own ideas did not work, as I was able to negotiate all the challenges thrown at me by ciswomen in the new world I was in. In many ways, I had come full circle when I learned how valuable all the building blocks, he had given me, just gave me more resolve to be a better trans woman. The daughter I mentioned earlier came around to be my earliest and strongest supporter so all the time I put into being with her when she was young came back to help me. Then there was my employment in the restaurant industry which turned out to be very lucrative for me in several ways. The first was with money and the second was with the opportunity to work closely with groups of varied ciswomen. In many ways, I learned what they faced in their lives gave me insight into what I was going to face when I joined their world.

For example, I learned what alpha females meant to the group of women as a whole, and if I could gain their support after I transitioned and joined their world, it would be very valuable to me. In many ways I found that good strong alpha ciswomen from super butch lesbians on down could do to help me erase my lines in the sand. I can’t begin to say how much they helped me. Even my second wife who was an unapproving alpha woman to me was a role model and taught me more about her life than she ever knew. Before she passed away tragically at the age of fifty from a massive heart attack. So, she never got the chance to meet the mature transgender me after I had crossed all the lines in the sand I needed to cross to just survive.

From all sorts of ciswomen, I learned that women come in all shapes and sizes with various levels of support of the transgender community. Many support us from afar and it would be different if it was their husband seeking to make his own line in the sand and become a transgender woman. On the positive side, there is now more information available to spouses of trans women to understand what seemingly a glaringly selfish path is to go down for their husbands. Especially with the husbands who have gone to great lengths to hide their gender passions from their wives for many years. When I step back and look at all the relationships which have ended over the years because of gender dysphoria, I try to wonder what would have happened if my wife was the one who wanted to draw his line in the sand and said enough is enough. I can’t take it any longer.

Of course, now I am biased and think I would have accepted my former wife bringing home another woman to get to know. How would my old male ego react? I am ashamed to say it now, but my old male self would have had to force the issue and solve it once and for all in his favor. Drawing his own line in the sand.

If you are at the point of drawing a new line in the sand for yourself, make it an achievable goal so you do not get discouraged. Finally, stay flexible with your lines as you know some will be deeper than others. If you do, you will stand a better chance of success.

 

 

Loving the Skin You are In

 

JJ Hart.

Loving the skin, you are in is often difficult for a transgender woman or transgender man. In fact, we often come to hate the skin we are in. 

We start early in our lives boxed into a gender we were born into but never felt comfortable with. Many of us go through times of discomfort as we try to sort out who we really are. We have many questions such as are we going through a phase, is it just a fetish and someday will we somehow outgrow our desire to be the gender we always wanted to be.

In my case, it took me decades to accept the skin I was in and to learn to live it in the world as a transgender woman. Recently, I was reminded of my past when I attended a virtual LGBTQ support group meeting at the Veteran’s Administration. Normally it is a very tight knit group of the same people who come every week, but this week we had a new person who joined us who was coming out of her gender shell and slowly learning to live a life as a transgender woman. During the session, she asked if anyone had any advice on dealing with public in general and the police in particular when you are out in the world.

I am not good at giving much advice in situations such as that, so I mainly kept my ideas to myself. Such as the fact that I have had few interactions with the police over the years and those have been mostly positive. Even the ciswoman who called me a pervert once in a women’s restroom, did not call the cops on me. Leaving me with the time I was in a venue I was not a regular in and two women at the bar made it a point to call the police on me after I had used the women’s room. All that happened was I was stopped on the way out by a female cop who told me not to do it again and I went a short distance up the road to one of my regular venues where I knew I would not have any troubles. To make a long story short, I was sorry, but I did not have much of any ideas on a magic cure to dealing with a potentially unaccepting public. You just must develop a thick skin and complete confidence that you are doing nothing wrong and you can make it.

Another problem I have with giving any trans person advice is that I came out seriously so long ago and times have changed. You see reports of so many toxic men harassing ciswomen these days which were barely seen in the days when I was trying my hand at being a single woman at a big sports bar. Plus, I am lucky to live now in a fairly liberal part of Cincinnati where the public at large does not notice me, or care. I am allowed to exist in the world as my true self in my own skin for the first time in my life.

I was fortunate to be one of those trans women who could get out of her gender closet and exist in a stable world where I could flourish and share my ideas about my femininity. Hopefully the new member of the support group will stick around long enough so that I will be able to share thoughts with her about appreciating her own skin. Another problem too is that the group time is at a premium, so I am reluctant to take too much up with my thoughts. Such as, if she is already out enough to wear feminine clothes and paint her nails, what is she waiting for. Maybe she is waiting for someone to come along like I was and kick me out of my closet for good. Which is what happened to me when I was miserable trying to juggle living in both genders, and my future wife Liz told me that she had not seen any male in me at all

Destiny really set in with me when my daughter came on board with knowing the true me by saying among other things that I looked so happy. I mentally added, because for the first time in my life I was having the chance to live in my own skin.

Even with all the positives I was dealing with, I still had to get out into the world and live my new reality. I always had some sort of an idea that ciswomen live more of a complex life than men do, but I had no idea of what I was walking into in my new high heeled shoes. Primarily learning to deal with curious ciswomen and their passive aggressive behavior and potentially drama-filled toxic men filled my evenings when I was going out in my new skin in the world as I knew it. Through it all, I needed to adjust my way of thinking quickly and radically away from the old male way I viewed the world.

What kept me going was the fact that I felt so good and natural in my new transfeminine skin. Deep down I felt this new life I was living was always the way things should have always been for me until the cruel joke of being born a biological male set in. It was something I would have to battle for my entire life.

As far as the physical part of having a new skin, it was way past time for HRT or gender affirming hormones to set in and help me. When I was approved for my life improving hormones, it was like my body was telling me I should have been on them all along. As my overall body skin softened dramatically, along with bigger breasts and longer hair.

The best part of adding hormones to my body was the fact that my emotions set themselves up to better appreciate the whole process. For the first time in my life, I could cry tears of joy which I did when I began to live my life in my own skin. I certainly loved it.

 

 

 

 

 

What Female Privilege Means to Me

 

Image from Barbra Burgess
on UnSplash.

This post came about from a comment I received from an Australian woman called “Rachel” who asked what I thought female privilege really was, or how would I describe it. From her profile, I assume she is a cis-woman.

Thanks for the great question, Rachel, and I hope I can give a realistic in-depth answer.

To begin with, back in my earliest days of parading around in front of the mirror in mom’s clothes and makeup, all I wanted to do was experience wearing more of the pretty clothes the girls around me were wearing and that was my gender universe. In those days, female privilege simply meant to me was the right to wear the pretty clothes I wanted.

As I grew up and into a more intensive look at which gender I wanted to live as, the feminine one began to take on a much more complex vision of my potential future. If I was going to be able to arrive at my goal of living a fulltime life as a transgender woman, I had to know what if any privileges came with my choice. Which I knew would mean giving up a substantial amount of male privilege I worked so hard to gain and maintain.

As I made to the presentation level where I could at least survive on a basic level as a trans woman in the public’s eye, I started to wonder where all the feminine privilege I expected to gain really was. Let us face it, just having doors opened for me by a man was not much of a benefit to become excited about. Then, on the negative side I was greeted by men with a decreased respect for my knowledge of the world, or the intelligence I had gained in my life. Or the time I was nearly sexually assaulted when I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time by a cisman who was much bigger than me. I did not take into consideration how my personal safety privileges had changed when I crossed the gender border.

By now, Rachel, or any other ciswomen who read my experiences are thinking one of two things. The first being that I am preaching to the choir when I write about just a few of the major challenges modern day women face. Or better yet. Why would I leave a comfortable life as a man to attempt such a major challenge as crossing the gender border from male to female. At the time I was attempting most of this and would try to bring my challenges up to my ciswomen friends, many times they would smile knowingly and say welcome to my world.

Little did they know how badly I wanted to be a part of their world. To the point I was prepared to give away all my unwanted male privileges I had gained. Somehow, I knew there had to be more female privileges than what I had seen or experienced so far in my life.

So, here it was Rachel, just staring at me in the face. My biggest feminine benefit of all was just having the weight of a male life lifted off my shoulders. I could now experience a little of what ciswomen take for granted in their lives, good or bad. Especially when I was approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT. It was then that the feminine side of my long-hidden life began to live and flourish. As access to my emotions increased, so did my feelings of the world around me. Such as temperature, smell and touch. Again, things that women who had them their entire life took for granted.

Through it all, it was an exciting journey, and I was willing to take the bad with the good when I was allowed behind the gender curtain for the first time in my life. From my lifetime of observations of women around me, I knew it was never going to be easy, but I just had to try anyway. It was like a little voice deep down inside was telling me it was time to push all my poker chips into the middle of the table and give my new transfeminine life a try.

Plus, all the self-destructive years of trying to live a male life were taking its toll on my mental health. Not unlike a woman’s biological clock, I had reached the “double nickel” (55 years old) stage of my life, and I had reached a point of do it or not when I came to determining if I should live out my dream of living as a fulltime transgender woman or not.

I took the chance that the good would outweigh the bad for me if I weighed the privilege battle and decided to take the feminine underdog. From then on, the pressure was off my life as I knew it, and I learned the true benefit of female privilege.

Thanks again Rachel for the question/comment and I hope I was able to answer it for you. All I ever really wanted to do in my life was to be a woman in my own way, and explaining my reasons why. Feel free to comment anytime! I always appreciate your input.

 

Every time I Looked Around...

Image from Mahrael Boutros 
on UnSplash

Until I began to become used to the new feminine world I was beginning to navigate as a transgender woman or cross dresser in those days, it seemed as if everyone was looking at me.

I was not used to the fact that both main binary genders look at women. Even though they do it through vastly different lenses. Men of course have the tendency to add a sexual aspect to how they view a woman and other ciswomen often compare other women to how they look and how much work did the woman put into her presentation. As any beginning cross-dresser learns early, it takes a lot of work and effort put into a quality feminine look. Especially when you are making the leap from presenting looking like a man with your testosterone poisoned body, all the way to being able to blend into the world of ciswomen effortlessly.

I know with me, before I could begin to blend in with my new world, I needed to shake all the cobwebs of male feelings I had about doing it at all. For the longest time, I listened to my male self on how he perceived women in the world as sexual objects and tried to influence the way I was presenting myself. What happened was, I was dressing too tight and too short in my clothes and attracting too much unwanted attention. Not only was everyone looking closely at me, I received negative feedback because I was doing it all wrong. I was fighting a losing battle with the age that I was and the body shape I had to stubbornly realize I could not go on that way and hope to ever try to live my dream of being a fulltime transfeminine person.

Then, I went back to my cross-dressing drawing board to set out a whole different way of trying to present myself. Out went the way too short skirts and dresses and in came more manageable denim skirts and oversized flowing tops designed to cover my broad shoulders and lack of hips. I even went to the extent of going on a crash diet so I could find clothes in the thrift stores I was haunting that fit me. Along the way too, it is worth mentioning, I started to take much better care of my skin after my daily shave which helped me to wear less makeup. If everyone was going to look at me, I needed to give them my best effort.

One thing I could not hide was I was a big woman, and I needed to not be ashamed of it but to understand there were plenty of other ciswomen in the world who were the same size as me. So, I began to look for them to see how they moved about in the world. Even though I was right around the six-foot tall mark, I could still wear my cherished high heels. Even with jeans and a tight top which accented my new properly proportioned silicone breast forms I was gifted by a cross-dressing friend who was purging all his feminine belongings at the time.

Amazingly to me, my life as a newly realized transgender woman begin to come together for me. I started to be able to move around in society without causing undo attention while at the same time completely enjoying myself. I even went to the point of buying sunglasses which hid my eyes so I could watch others to see if they were watching me. It was a great way to judge how well I was doing in my ongoing challenge of who was watching me and who was not. I learned I was not attractive enough to attract much cis male attention but attractive enough to be sized up in the public by the ciswomen I encountered. Most importantly, I was getting used to the attention I was receiving and often I wondered where it was if I did not receive it.

The way I began to see the attention I was receiving was I craved it because of all the hard work I had put in to being an attractive woman anyway I could. Positive attention was feedback that I was doing something right and the very little negative feedback I encountered could be overcome easily because of my new overall confidence. Which became my number one accessory I needed when I found myself in shark (human) infested waters with potentially dangerous people. My new training as a trans woman taught me to look ahead and do my best to not put myself in dangerous situations in the new world I was in stripped of my old male privilege of personal safety. Very quickly, I learned the problems of being a lone woman in a poorly lit deserted area.

I was able to test my passing privileges when I transitioned away from the gay venues I was going to and tried my best to become a regular patron in many of the very same big sports bars I used to go to as a man. It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be and I was not noticed much at all by cismen or ciswomen. Even though, on occasion, another woman at the bar would take the time to talk to me. I think more than anything else out of curiosity. Why would an ex-man such as me want in her world was the major point women of all sorts were trying to find out.

As I said, I began to crave and even expect the attention I was getting as the only transgender woman in the venue. Except on the nights that my trans woman friend Racquel met me there. We ended up having about five venues we went to that accepted out business with no problems. I also went to monthly lesbian social mixers with my two friends in many of the same places and I was overjoyed when another lesbian approached me. I guess you could say I was causing the right kind of attention.

Getting out and learning how to know and appreciate the right amount of attention even carried over to an on-line relationship I stumbled into with my future wife Liz who contacted me from an ad I had placed on a woman seeking woman dating site. Fourteen years later we are still together, so I guess I looked in the right place for attention.

Thanks for giving me your attention for my experiences! Any feedback or responses is always welcome.

 

 

 

 

The Vampires Approved Me

 

Image from Mike Lloyd 
on Unsplash. 

Yesterday I needed to visit the Veterans Administration vampires to have my blood labs done. Fortunately, I could just go to my local branch office to get them done and not have to go to the congested mess which is the downtown Cincinnati VA Hospital.

I chose yesterday to go because it was a beautiful early August day here in Ohio with coolish temperatures and bright sunshine for the relatively short drive I needed to make to get there. For the occasion, I decided to wear my new Libra themed tank top with leggings and my new tennis shoes. After a close shave, a lite coating of makeup, and lipstick, I brushed out my long hair and was ready to go. Actually, compared to the few other ciswomen I encounter at the VA, I was nicely dressed and ready to face the world as a transgender woman.

When I arrived at the VA, it was a very uneventful visit as no one seemed to notice me for anything other than who I was, an elderly woman who did not have to wait long to be seen and have my blood drawn. Since I was emboldened by the experience, I decided to stop by my wife’s Liz and I’s favorite coffee shop to pick up some breakfast sandwiches and coffee. My morning continued to go good as their drive-through was nearly empty and I was greeted cheerfully. Before I knew it, I had my order and was headed home. It is the coffee shop we go to which has the big LGBTQ flag on the wall, so we always try to support it.

The best part was that only a couple of hours later, the doctor who wanted the bloodwork done received the results and everything came back OK. Which means I am clear with the vampires until I have my Hematologist visit downtown this fall. It is important mainly because it is when I have my Estradiol levels checked. It is certainly no fun going downtown and having to find a parking place and walking but there is nothing I can do about it.

In the meantime, I took my brief moment of gender euphoria and enjoyed it for what it was…a brief moment to be the person I always wanted to be. I was just being me basically for the first time in my life. Now all I need to do is string together more of these moments to make them my reality.

Just a short post today to let you know where I have been and I will be back with you with a longer post tomorrow.

Letting Tomorrow take care Of Itself as a Transgender Woman

 

Image from Valentina Conde
on UnSplash.

Since I was always a person who had a difficult time living in the present, tomorrow always loomed large in my mind.

I think it all started when I began to rebel against the masculine world I was being forced to live in and always thought tomorrow could be better. It turned out that all the wishing and hoping I did for a better tomorrow turned out to be wasted time and energy, I finally needed to take matters into my own hands, stay in the present and do something about me being stuck in my dark, restrictive, gender closet with only a mirror to help me.

It took a quantum shift of thinking on my part to even thinking about how I could change my life. First of all, it was nearly impossible for me to quit daydreaming about the next time I could cross-dress in my mom’s clothes and try on her makeup. Any time I was not actively being engaged in male activities, I was hoping that soon I would be glimpsing a view of me in a favorite miniskirt I had found by accident at school outside of the girl’s locker room. If the girl who left it behind did not want it, I certainly did before a janitor found it and threw it in the trash. I was overjoyed to add it to my small but growing feminine wardrobe at home. Hopefully away from any prying eyes who may find it.

Somehow, I managed to hide my “treasures” away and add to them with my own meager funds I had earned from my rural newspaper route and from chores I was doing around the house. I will never forget the excitement I felt when I found a pair of women’s shoes that fit me in the department store where I was sneaking in to buy my makeup and panty hose. The whole process made me feel good because for once I was not relying on anyone else to help my cross-dressing along. It all was just me, and I was in the present doing it.

As I moved along in years and experience, I increasingly wanted to break out of my dark closet to see if I could exist in the world, in the present for once as the person I was coming to believe could be my true self. I learned the hard way that the public would not be as forgiving as much as my mirror was as I was treated quite rudely the first several times I went out. Even in places I should have had no problems in such as the big shopping malls back when they were popular. I couldn’t seem to dodge the giggles and stares I got from the teen girls before I learned to stay in the present, be who I was and begin to blend in with the group of other ciswomen in the mall. I learned the hard way to dress for them and not rely on some sort of trashy look that appealed to men. Which was getting me clocked as a man in drag every time.

All this new reality was teaching me I could indeed enjoy the present when I was out in the world. But not enough to keep me there when I was back in my unwanted male world. I have always wished I could get back just a portion of the time I wasted daydreaming of how it would be if I was the only ciswoman in a business meeting I was in. I know I could have been more effective…if I could have been accepted. Which I would not discover how difficult that would be until I got out further in the world as a transgender woman. I will always remember how I was shunned by a small group of men I somehow became involved in a discussion with when I first came out of my shell. Quickly I discovered, as a woman among cismen, I would have to fight for my right to be heard on an equal basis.

The more I was out in the world, the more I was forced to stay in the present. If I did not, I could find myself slipping back into old male habits which would give my past away much sooner. Such as not employing my old “stay away” male scowl and replacing it with a much more pleasant feminine look which said I was happy to be here. Which got me by. Other areas of just being a woman I needed to concentrate on was how I moved around in the world when I was still trying to juggle being in both worlds of male and female. One day I needed to be feminine, and the next masculine ended up taking a real toll on my mental health as I did not know somedays what present I was supposed to be in.

Plus, the one aspect of being in the now as a transgender woman was the one I always mention, communication. As I was blissfully (sometimes) going along my gender path, suddenly more and more ciswomen wanted to know about me and were curious why I would be in their world. I was totally blindsided when I needed to start and participate in entire conversations with other women who appeared in my world. I discovered communication went way past just how my voice sounded into exactly what I was saying and how fast I could pick up two uniquely feminine communication aspects. Non-verbal communication and passive aggressive behavior. The normal ciswomen who interacted with me ended up using all their skills to size me up and often it turned into quite the contest that I needed to stay on my toes to get through.

Eventually, surviving all the gender wars I went through, made me a better, more well-rounded trans woman who could hold her own in the world. Primarily because I had built up the confidence to do it, and it became my number one accessory. So, what if my makeup or walk wasn’t exactly correct, I knew who I was and it showed. There was no blood in my water for the human sharks around me to come after.

All those years of trying to get into my present and stay there finally paid off for me, but only after I had paid all my dues.