Using yet Another Term

 

Trans Tennis Star
Renee Richards circa 1976.

Recently, I used the term “dead name” to describe my old male name which I legally changed years ago. Rather than using “dead name”, Kayla wrote in and responded by saying she uses “former tenant” when referring to her former self.

I liked the idea and decided to pass it along to all of you for your consideration. I mean it is not like we have enough other terms which have evolved and even disappeared over the years. If you are of a certain age, you probably remember when transvestite was used as a term to describe many of us with gender issues. Then there is the term “transgender” which (according to Wikipedia) was originally used in 1965 by psychiatrist John Olivien then popularized by Virginia Prince in the mid 1990’s. Which was when I began to hear about being transgender and how it applied to me.

It was not until I began to go to the old “Tri-Ess” social transgender-cross dresser mixers, did I really begin to grasp the differences in the terminology to describe myself which was becoming more and more important to me. During the earliest times I can remember coming out to anyone was in the mid to late 1970’s when I used the transvestite term rather than using cross-dresser which perhaps would have been easier for the other person to understand. At the time, I was selfish and was not so concerned about what the others thought about me as I was about preserving my male self and was not coming out to many others anyhow. I stayed with thinking I was a transvestite which was not as far along on the gender disruption order as transsexual which meant to me as wanting major surgeries to live fulltime as a woman. At my age, “Christine Jorgensen” was the first person I remember as a well-known transsexual when she published her autobiography in 1967. The year I graduated from high school, so I had a real interest in secretly trying to find a copy of her book and try to read it which I never did. The closest I ever came was finding a copy of the “Renee Richards” book “Second Serve” which was published in 1976. I found it interesting when I researched Richard’s book in Wikipedia, no reference was made to her being a transsexual woman, only a transgender one.

About that time was when I began to seriously feel as if I fit the definition of a transgender woman more than any definition, I had ever seen before. I was somewhere off in a never-never land between being the cross-dresser I always perceived myself to be and the transsexual self which was rapidly disappearing as a term.

For me, at least as I “matured” into a “transfeminine” person which supposedly first appeared in a “Tapestry” publication from Tri-Ess in 1985. About the time I was seriously looking for ways to escape my gender closet. Also the time for me when I began to have serious access to the internet and social media which over the years was to open many new doors for me as well as many new terms such as the use of LGBT at all as many more letters were added to support different gender communities. In my latest search, I found the term is up to LGBTQIA+ to include all the variations on the gender spectrum.

Then there is gender fluidity which I have known a few people who have described themselves as such over the years. In fact, we had a gender fluid person attend our support group meeting here in Cincinnati years ago who went only with their middle initial as a name and refused any of the traditional he or she pronouns. I often thought maybe I was actually gender fluid growing up on the days I wanted to be a girl instead of the boy gender I was born into.

In another support group years ago, I mentioned another group catch phrase centering around Hormone Replacement Therapy or HRT. I called it HRT and Andi gently reminded me that a better, in-depth term, would be gender affirming hormones which made sense to me and I try to use both to this day.

Now I get to throw another gender term into my years old trashcan thanks to Kayla. I will never have to use a term I always hated anyhow to describe my ascent to being a successful trans woman in a world of ciswomen. Which, for the sake of staying with the theme of this post simply means a woman who was born female and still identifies as a woman.

I suppose the meaning of all these labels simply shows what a complex community the LGBTQIA+ really is and the most important thing is that you find the little niche you need to survive in. If you can follow all these changes, you deserve all the progress you have made. When push comes to shove all these terms are just semantics and you deserve more as you enter your authentic life.

I know there are other labels I have missed. I hope I have covered the major ones that helps us all and my “dead “name is now truly dead.

 

 

 

 

Destination Unknown

 

JJ Hart and wife Liz on Right.

Through most of my life, I have taken the path less traveled to an unknown destination. Many times, I have thought I knew where I was headed, only to be faced with many stop signs in my way. It was like the night I took the night bus to Ft. Knox, Kentucky to begin my Army basic training. All I really knew was I did not want to be there and I would be in for more unpleasant situations than I wanted to count. All without my precious feminine wardrobe, heels and makeup to fall back on.

To make matters worse, some of the other men on the bus were not so silently crying about their fates which were coming up, quickly because before we knew it, the bus arrived at the not so beautiful, winter-time hills of Ft. Knox and we were greeted by drill sergeants and loaded from the bus into our waiting barracks. In a small way, I guess I was fortunate that I had two friends who were drafted ahead of me into the Army who told me what to expect and gave me some sort of confidence that I could successfully survive whatever was ahead.

Actually, for me, basic training went fast seeing as how I was facing an extended period of my life without the feminine fallbacks I had always known to get me by. Keep in mind too that the Army in those days was deeply gender separated and there were no women to interact with anywhere where I was at all in basic training. So, I was forced to do all my interaction with other men which I had never been good at. It turned out to be a learning experience I will never forget and even gave me extra insight about how competitive men interact with each other when there are no ciswomen to show off for.

Through it all, my inner super repressed feminine self was busily recording all of this for use later on in my life. Any spare moment I had when I was doing some sort of a mundane task in the chow hall for dinner like peel potatoes, I was given the chance to day dream off to the future and think of the new car I was going to buy with the money I was saving because of Uncle Sam taking care of everything I needed. I dreamed of buying a new wig and clothes and making it a point to slowly drive past my first fiancé who had rejected me when I was drafted into the military. She thought I should have tried to get out of serving because I was a cross-dresser. Which was close enough to being gay for her to get me rejected from duty.

When my three years of military service was up and I returned to the world I knew before, I returned almost exactly where I was with my cross-dressing when I left. The only difference was when Halloween rolled around and the newly restored Ohio Theatre in Columbus was having a costumed “Spook Out” with their newly restored theatre organ providing the background sound live for the silent version of the “Phantom of the Opera.” It was an opportunity for me to jump out of my dark gender closet and present my true self to the world for the first time since I was a civilian again. For the evening, I was the long blond-haired woman in heels and a minidress which of course included my freshly shaven legs and new panty hose. Outside of the heels beginning to bother me as the evening wore on, I had a wonderful time. Especially when I had the chance to see and appreciate the other costumes.

From there, the only problem I had was thinking about waiting another long year to be able to come out of my closet and express myself as a transfeminine person. I had just spent three years of my life waiting for my freedom from the Army and I did not want to wait anymore. My solution was to open my closet door and have the courage to come out on my own and not wait for another year. I knew in order to do it; I needed to take my feminine presentation standards way beyond what I was doing for Halloween if I was ever to make it in a world of ciswomen. Certainly, I made mistakes along the way as I stumbled out of the closet but managed to maintain the balance on my heels to get by in the world.

Thanks to previous life lessons I had learned to rely on myself, my inner female finally had her chance to come out and shine in the world when I started out evenings to go out and be by myself and ended up talking to other curious ciswomen wondering what I was doing in their world. I had learned to outgrow my shyness around strangers and become a social person, so my “plan” worked to perfection. I did not have to go out anymore to be by myself and my previous unknown gender destination was becoming clearer to me.

For the first time, I was able to see ahead of myself for future reference the stop signs I would face. Such as what was I going to do about all the male baggage I had managed to build up over the years against my will. If you are trans, you know what I am talking about such as spouses, family, friends and employment to begin with. Along the way, I have written entire posts about the power of stop signs and what they mean to transgender women and transgender men. I can only say, when you have negotiated all your stop signs and reached your unknown destination, you will have reached your own little utopian space because it feels so natural to you. At least it worked that way for me.

Thanks for reading along!

Any comments are always welcomed! 

 

 

Hey You!!!! Meeting Myself in the Middle

 

Image from Adam Winger
on UnSplash. 

For me, meeting myself in the mirror was never easy to do. While the group of boys I grew up around were blissfully doing boy things without a problem, I was struggling with the idea that I wanted to be a girl.

Sadly, for the longest time, I thought that someday I would have the chance to outgrow what would become for all to call gender dysphoria. For me, I was just a kid with problems I had no idea of how to conquer. Through all this time of my life my favorite quote to pass along was when some adult asked me what I wanted to become when I grew up, I could never tell the truth and say a woman as I lied and said a doctor or a lawyer. The only thing with certain that I knew was I would get an immediate trip to the psychiatrist if I had ever told the truth compliments of my parents. 

As I always say, age entitled me to a chance not to outgrow being a cross-dresser but did give me the opportunity to meet myself in the middle and start to mature into the transgender woman I am today. Before I did though, I needed to come up with an understanding of what the middle of being me really meant. What made it all so difficult was that my male life when it was going well it was very good, but when it was bad, I wanted out immediately. As I ran to my makeup, dresses and heels for comfort in the mirror.

The middle began to be harder and harder for me to find when I left the home mirror, gathered my courage and headed into the world as a transfeminine person. Many times, I could almost see and sense my middle person in the public mirrors I was still using to build myself up in places such as clothing stores in the malls and changing rooms I had started to use in all the thrift stores I was shopping to discover the latest fashion item I could wear. I was never any good shopping for women’s clothes as a man, as my feminine self-wanted to do it all and make all the final choices for herself.

In addition to fighting for the middle with my male self, I needed to fight my second wife for the rights to her husband. Like my male-self, my wife was a formidable opponent to any idea of me transitioning any further into the feminine world I increasingly wanted to live in. In many ways, she held all the gender cards because she knew I was a cross dresser when we met but never/ever agreed to me going past that point as she said she did not sign up to live with another woman. For whatever reason she never liked the transgender woman I was becoming and passed away before she could meet the finished product I had become. I don’t blame her because she just got caught in the middle of me not wanting to admit to what I always knew deep down…there was actually no middle point to me, I was destined to eventually live my life among ciswomen as an equal transgender woman.

The problem was, getting to the point of realizing all of this was easy to write about and harder to do. The biggest mistake I made was thinking my gender balance between male and female was so good that I could live as both in the world. While I maintained a long-term marriage and a good job. Trying to go all in on both genders cost me my already fragile mental health as I was still trying to do my research in the public eye about which gender direction I wanted to go. Long story short, I found without too much trouble I could carve out a new feminine life without the world questioning anything about my old male life. As I surveyed the world suddenly, I could see gender possibilities opening for me that I never thought possible before.

During this time in my life, I think I met myself in the middle too fast and tried unsuccessfully to slow my progress down until I could figure out what to do about the rest of my life. Primarily my second wife and my very lucrative job. Plus, on the other hand, I had put this gender teeter totter in motion, and it increasingly looked as if I could not get off. I kept up the old male charade I was forced to live as long as I needed to, and with the help of a few ciswomen friends, I was able to find a new middle point in my life as a trans woman. Which seemed to work well, until HRT or gender affirming hormones came my way, and the balance of my life was changed forever.

I had always viewed the possibility of me taking the gender altering hormones as a line of demarcation of me never going back to my old male life and it was. From the obvious growth of my breasts and hair to the overall softening of my skin and facial lines the changes came fast and furious and again I was forced to move up my timeline to discard (or give away) all my old male clothes and set my sights on a new bright future. Away from all the uncertainties of going back and forth between the two main binary genders of womanhood and manhood. My lifetime of juggling identities went away, my mental health improved as I entered the world I had always dreamed of my entire life that I had finally earned my way into.

The “earn” word is important here because of all the trial and error (mostly error) I put into finally facing the reality of my true gender and forever stopped meeting myself in the middle. Was it worth it? Sure, because I ended up not having any choice after all.

 

 

 

 

Who Had it Easier

 

JJ Hart

The most ridiculous understatement I ever made to myself was thinking how much easier women have it in their lives than men do.

Those were the simpler days of just envying all the girls around me for their ability to wear pretty clothes when I was stuck in my usual boring male attire. As you can tell, my adolescent thought patterns about gender were much shallower back in those days. All I knew was I was having issues with going through male puberty and all its hair and added angles to my body while the girls were adding all the curves I so desperately wanted. It was about that time when I started to further torture myself by having dreams of being a pretty girl when I just had to wake up again to the same old world, I was so tired of at such an early age.

Another benefit I saw from the outside from being a girl was on the dating front. From my ultra shy vantage point, boys had to do all the work to chase a girl but gave it no thought to be a girl with no boys having any interest in you at all. It seemed all my ideas came from the problem I had for years of not being allowed to see behind the gender curtain to go through the insecurities of a girl’s puberty. As their bodies ramp up the necessities for possible childbirth later in life.  Which leads me to this, the incredibly short period of time a ciswoman has to level out their hormones and have the chance to live a so-called normal life. First, they have to go through puberty which shapes their bodies then go through child birthing years which strain their bodies and then go through menopause to reduce all the hormones again. Not to mention all the monthly menstrual periods most women must live with too.

In the days when I was busy with just being the “pretty, pretty princess” as my wife called me, she was taking me to task about never experiencing the so called downs of being a woman because I just wanted to appear as one, perfect my makeup and wear my pantyhose and heels as much as I could. For years, I went on clicking my merry way in my heels not giving much thought to what she was telling me. It was not until many years later that my heels finally led me to a path where I could finally learn what she was talking about.

Essentially, what I was able to learn from being a transgender woman and being able to live on both sides of the gender border was that both genders have their challenges. That humans are born as male and female, then get socialized (if they are lucky) into men and women. We transfeminine persons just were born into an unwanted male gender and were socialized into our chosen lives as trans women. The whole process gives us a deeper understanding of the world as we look into who has it easier in life, ciswomen or men.

Since the socialization process of being a male was what I was born into proved to be partially successful one for me, I have always thought men have had it easier. And women have it harder because they must put up with men. Even though, my gender dysphoria issues made me difficult to live with as a husband, I somehow have always found a woman to make the journey with me. Someday, I will have to write a post on the differences of my three wives during my life.

As I continued in vain to find the easy way out in my life, being a guy was the way to go as I found success in being able to bluster my way through in many situations and in others wondering how I would approach them as a transgender woman.

Finally, my gender travel took me behind the gender curtain where I could hear firsthand the experiences of all my ciswomen friends. It was not until then did I realize the grass was not always so green on the other side of the binary gender border. The only problem I did have was reversing all my experiences in the conversations we were having from male to female, so I did not out myself to my friends. I knew I was beginning to be successful when strangers outside of my circle of friends began to ask me questions on what to do about getting along with their boyfriend. I was flattered that other women had trusted me with their problems and were looking for input.

My own socialization journey had taught me that neither gender had it easier. Stereotyping here, men largely bluster and run when they can’t get their way and women are left to raise the kids and pick up the pieces. It is difficult to take such a complex subject such as gender and not stereotype something about it at some point, so I apologize.

I am sure that no matter where you are on your gender journey, you will encounter your own set of standards when it comes to the male and female genders and where you fit. It will certainly be an interesting journey with many individuals trying to tell you to stop. At that point, you must decide if maybe you have had it more difficult than either of the two main binary genders you have encountered. Many of them simply will not have the understanding it takes to approve of your journey, and you will have to move on. But, on the other hand, there could others who approve of you and even want to help. Just be careful that you know which is which.

When it comes right down to it, that girl you envied from afar in study hall, all the way to the woman whose fashion and passing privilege you admired so much both had their own problems to deal with. You just must get behind the feminine gender curtain to figure out just what they were.

 

 

 

 

When I Quit Recognizing Myself

 

Image from Vinicus amiz
Amano on UnSplash

When I thought of the subject of this post, I thought that was an easy topic. From the very first day I had a glimpse of myself in the family’s full-length hallway mirror I partially thought I did not recognize who I was looking at. Sadly, even with all the work I was doing to look like one of the pretty girls I admired so much, I still looked like my male self-wearing a dress with makeup. Most likely, the biggest problem in looking like a girl back then was the lack of access I had to my hair. I was cursed in being raised in an era when young boys’ hair style was short or shorter and a crew cut was considered a longer style. Dad took my brother and I to the barber with him every couple of weeks and we got our burr haircuts without question. If you don’t know, burr means almost no hair which was decidedly not what I really wanted on my head. I had no choice but to go along with the program, and had to use my imagination, along with a towel when I cross-dressed as my authentic self. Who was just learning to express herself. Even if it was only to be to myself.

It turned out to be years later that I began to be skilled enough to begin to match my exterior self with my feminine inner feelings. I had help from a professional makeup artist I will never forget who had the skill set to show me what I doing wrong with my makeup and the verbal skills to explain to me how to improve my life through ideas such as foundation basics to cover my beard and contouring my face to bring out the highlights I did not know I had. When he was finished, I truly did not recognize who I was looking at in the mirror. Plus, I really enjoyed all the compliments I received on my appearance from several of the attendees at the transgender-crossdresser social mixer I was attending. Once I was given that basic skill set to make myself up, I was able to start buying higher end cosmetics which flattered me even more.

In many ways, for a while when I did not recognize myself in the mirror, it scared me. Because I was losing touch with all my male past which had made me…me, for my entire life. I was shocked the first time I lost some of my basic male privileges I had always taken for common I would have such as my intelligence when I talked to men and my personal safety when I found myself in contact with a toxic one. Quickly, I needed to come up with a plan to support my new life as a transgender person without the old ways which I had been successful with until I could develop new ones.

Of course, too, there were my usual problems dealing with gender dysphoria when I thought I had done a wonderful makeup job only to see my male self-looking back at me in the mirror. Then, to add insult to injury, if I was being successful in navigating the world as a transgender woman, my impostor syndrome would set it. Impostor syndrome to me made me feel as if I was an impostor in the world of ciswomen and should not feel as if I belonged there at all. Who knew, just being a trans woman would bring all the baggage with it. When I ceased to recognize myself, I learned all the rest the hard way.

Even with all the new roadblocks, I began to do more than just survive in the new feminine world I found myself in. I began to thrive as I started to carve out a new exciting life where no one knew anything about my past as an unhappy man. I never let on to my past except to let strangers know I had been married in my past and had lost my spouse to a heart attack without ever mentioning which gender she was. As well as mentioning I did have a daughter when it came to family discussions. Technically, even though I did not birth her, I was in the delivery room for her birth which was as close as I could come with the circumstances I had to deal with.

Finally, I arrived at the point when I cherished the times when I did not recognize my old self and hated the times when I could still see his image slipping through when I looked for the first time in the morning in the mirror before I had a chance to put on any makeup. Rather than feel anymore of the pain of gender dysphoria, I got to the point of thinking I was stuck with what the world had given me as far as my appearance went. The idea I used worked well because I felt I never looked as bad as I thought and certainly not as good as I arrived at the point where I was erasing my male self for good.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the role gender affirming hormones or HRT played in all my progress in my lifetime male to female femininization project. While the hormones did not make me anymore or less of a trans woman. They certainly made me feel the process more. Almost immediately, as my skin began to soften and my breasts began to grow, I began to feel emotions flow through my body that I had never felt before in my life. My facial angles also began to soften, allowing me to do less contouring with my makeup when I went out was one of the good things which happened. Along with me not recognizing myself when all a sudden it was me who was reaching for her coat saying she was too cold in a venue, and I was not making it up.

I guess you say I covered about as much ground as I could erasing my old male self without going through any major (or minor) operations. But I did make it to the point where I did not recognize any of my old self anymore.

 

 

When Nothing Else Mattered

 

Image from Klara Khokhlova
on UnSplash. 

Perhaps, similar to many of you, you have been described as selfish when you pursued your gender desires. I know, I was by my second wife as she told me many times my desire to be a pretty cross-dresser in my life was not all about me.

During this time of my life, sadly or not, all my spare thoughts and time dedicated to my cross-dressing activities, so yes, it was all about me. I did my best not to be that way, but I was failing miserably. Especially when I figured it out, I could leave the house as me and do a portion of the household chores such as grocery shopping. I figured by doing so, I was helping my wife and at the same time helping myself.

The more proficient I became at doing my new portion of some of the weekday household chores, the more I felt that nothing else mattered to me than my quest to explore my inner femininity. Increasingly, I broke the rules and made excuses to leave the house and explore the new, natural and exciting world I was experiencing.

As years always do, mine flew by in a blur as I became more proficient in perfecting my feminine appearance and it began to be more apparent to me that the life as I was living as a man would have to be sacrificed at some point if I wanted to pursue my dream goal of living as a transfeminine person. That is when I began to fall back on my ill-fated male habits of internalizing all my feminine feelings. Hoping that eventually, they would just go away. Compliments of my latest purge of my cross-dressing belongings.

Very soon, it became evident that all the purging in the world would not rid me of my deep-seated gender issues and nothing else began to matter, not even the massive fights my second wife and I were having when she caught me out of the house as myself. I would go to any extent possible to try to mend the wounds from my breaking the promises not to ever go out again unattended, all the way to promising I would go to a therapist in Columbus, Ohio who specialized in gender care to attempt to solve my “problem.” Even then, I would not listen to the therapist who told me that my gender issues were not a “problem”, and there was nothing she could do about them. I made the mistake again of thinking there was something radical I could do about how I was attempting to live my life. I could keep trying to sneak out of the house and try to learn more about my possibilities of living life as a transgender woman, while at the same time continue to live with my wife. She always know I was a cross-dresser but was completely dead set against me going any further towards being approved for gender affirming hormones (HRT) and living as my authentic self.

Perhaps the biggest problem was I was not sure what my authentic self really was. I knew I loved my second wife as much as the day I married her years before, but I really was not sure of how deep my transgender issues were going to run. Plus, all the research I was doing into a new life, jeopardized my old life which at times was not so bad because I was accumulating all the male privileges such as wife, family and job that I did not necessarily want to get rid of. The whole situation just mentally tore me up as I did not know what gender I was going to be from day to day. Was I going to try to be my true self or go out into the world again and “act” like the strong man I was not.

It all led me to feeling completely detached from the world and wanting to end it all because I felt so worthless to everybody. Fortunately, after I hit rock bottom, I got help from a good therapist and was prescribed medications which helped my on-going Bi-polar disorder and anxiety. It turned out my anxiety was triggered in many ways by my gender issues so that was easier to solve, but my depression was not so my new meds really helped. Giving credit to where credit is due, my help came through the Veterans Administration health care system and as luck would have it, I was teamed up with a therapist who knew what she was doing when it came to depression and LGBTQ care.

By this time, my second wife had tragically passed away from a major heart attack leaving me totally alone with my thoughts. Quickly, since nothing else mattered, I took the path of least resistance into my own form of womanhood. All those dues I was paying as a cross dresser working with my appearance came back to help me when I could hit the ground running in my heels (not really) and concentrate on rounding out my persona of the trans woman I wanted to me in the world of alpha cis women around me. I was able to see and learn from what they did to make their lives more fulfilling as women, and I wanted to do that too. I was having fun while at the same time was secretly learning everything I could from the ciswomen around me.

Most certainly, nothing else mattered when I sought out approval for my gender affirming hormones from a doctor I found in an LGBTQ newspaper. Along with the hormones, I was putting my new life together by legally changing all the gender documents I could with the VA and in the civilian world. Very soon, my old male life was in my past and my “dead” name faded away.

The only thing that did matter was building a new life with my third wife Liz, a lesbian ciswoman who accepted me for what I was. I could not let a second chance such as that pass me by.

 

 

Gender Evolution

 

Image from Hoite Prins
on UnSplash. 

Sometimes I think I give the wrong impression when it comes to my reactions to cross-dressing as a whole.

In reality, the last thing I want to do is put myself up on some sort of pedestal because I have survived my own personal gender wars and evolved from a young boy experimenting in his women’s clothes to living full-time as a transfeminine person in the world. After all, I was the one who spent nearly four decades cross-dressing my life away trying to make a final decision on which way my life would take me. So, saying “just a cross-dresser” would be totally wrong for me to do. In fact, cross dressing saved my life from taking off the overall pressure I was feeling from living my gender conflicted life. Just the slightest glimmer of hope I got from the mirror was all I had to get by and I used it to the max.

As I look back from the journey I took from wearing my mom’s clothes when they still fit me, all the way to getting rid of all my male clothing altogether (except my Army uniform), it was quite the lifetime of evolution. Sadly, not all the times were good, but they were all deep learning experiences. Such as all the times I was dressing to thrill myself. Not to properly attempt to blend in with the ciswomen around me. Very difficult lessons to learn as I needed to put my faux teenaged cross-dressing years behind me quickly if I ever wanted to be a success. I was far from being a teen girl since I was in my thirties with the testosterone poisoned body I was working with. I needed to evolve and do it fast if I was ever would be able test the idea I could survive as a transgender woman, leading a successful life.

Suddenly, out of the clear blue sky which was my existence more or less back in those days, something mentally clicked in me as I was preparing to go out into the world one night. As I slipped into my panty hose and heels, put on my makeup and wig, my whole thought pattern changed. I was no longer trying to just go out and successfully present well as a look-a-like ciswoman, I was going out to fit right into their community as a novice trans woman. The thought hit me like a thunderbolt and scared me to even think that way, but I could feel my life making a seismic shift for the better. If I could be successful, which still was a big question.

I am not shy about writing about one of the most exciting nights of my life went I went to mingle with a group of professional ciswomen who worked at a nearby mall. I don’t know what scared me worse, the fear of being recognized as an intruder and embarrassed or the fear of knowing if I was successful, I could never go back to the male life I was starting to evolve away from. I just know I was so scared I thought I would need an oxygen tank to help me breathe when I went in the venue to mingle with all those young attractive women.

You can probably guess what happened from there. I was very successful and knew my future as a cross-dresser was behind me as I had evolved into a novice transgender woman. Complete with two new straight venues I had established myself in as a regular. Something I never thought possible just a few months before when I was frequenting gay venues getting mistaken for just another drag queen. I should be more appreciative towards the reaction I received from the gay community because their attitudes sent me flying to places, I knew and enjoyed as a man. If I had evolved enough as a trans woman to do it.

At that point, my evolution into being allowed behind the women’s gender curtain was forced fed to me quickly. Mainly from other women who I met and wanted to help me adjust to the world I so desperately wanted to be a part of. Sometimes, I was overconfident and was sent back to my gender drawing board when I tried to go too fast, too soon but I never had to go back to the days when I was learning to adjust to the world outside my closet as a cross-dresser. Every angle I pursued in the world seemed to be new and exciting as I learned my feminine lessons well. You might say, I was the ultimate gender sponge because I was finally realizing my gender light at the end of the tunnel was not the train and a good life as a transfeminine person was certainly possible if I kept evolving. All the years of worrying about my future I had wasted in my life were just that…wasted and I needed to move on.

Better yet, I learned the world of ciswomen I was evolving into was worth every bit of the work I had put into it. Sure, I did encounter a few haters, bigots and TERF’s (ciswomen who hated me) but with my newfound confidence I had evolved into, I could quickly ignore them and get along with my life. If I got to the point where I ever needed my new friends to step up for me, they would but I had made it to the point where I could fight my own battles if I needed to.

In many ways, I see the evolution of transgender women and transgender men as the future as now the genders seem to be blurring for the younger generations. Maybe when the old white men finally die out, their bigotry will die out with them. Right now they are scared of the potential a trans tribe carries to understand what goes on both sides of the gender coin and we will be allowed to evolve back to where we were with native American cultures which honored us. But that is an evolvement topic for another time.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Visiting the Vampires

 

Image from Mike Lloyd
on UnSplash.

Today was a rushed visit to the Cincinnati Veterans Hospital for bloodwork before they shut down for a week to switch over to a new digital system that we all know will cause new headaches.

Most all my bloodwork can be done at an off-site closer clinic to my house which does not require a trip downtown into a very congested area. Plus, with my mobility issues, it makes the entire process of going downtown for specialized work very unpopular with me and my wife Liz who must do all the driving.

The specialized test I needed to get done before the shutdown June fourth was for my Estradiol blood levels. For some reason, my levels had dropped nearly fifty points from a level they had been at for literally years. For that reason, my endocrinologist requested another test of my HRT levels. When this level comes back, if it stays low, it will be interesting to see what ideas she has, such as maybe doing away with the patch system and switching to injections which for no real reason, I have always stayed away from.  I am not afraid of needles; I am just lazy about the possibility of giving myself injections. One way or another, I will have to jump off that bridge when I come to it. I think my hormonal levels have jumped back up because of an overall increase in the fullness of my breasts, so I may be jumping to conclusions I did not have to.

Past that, we were able to beat the rush this morning at the VA because the vampires (blood lab people) open up at six thirty and we were able to get an early start and be there before seven. For the appointment, I chose a three-quarter sleeve feminine lace trimmed blouse, leggings and flats. Along with a light application of makeup which seemed to work because I was not misgendered at all and was actually smiled at by several men who passed me by on the way to the second-floor labs. I will take that as a win everyday since I have had mixed results over the years at that hospital. Usually, the smaller clinic I go to is better because they know and remember me, but they just could not do the specialized Estradiol test because they needed to send it out for testing.

Now I play the waiting game (which if you were in the military, you know what I am talking about) before I can get the results back. I doubt if it will be very soon because of the overall system disruptions which are coming up.

This is a short post today because it is my transgender grandchild’s birthday today who is working up in Maine and I have to send them birthday wishes plus a small gift. Happy Birthday “A.”

 

  

More Serious Stop Signs

 

Image from Steve Lieman
on UnSplash.

“Tia” wrote in yesterday and commented on my recent “Stop Sign” post. She wanted further insight into what my biggest stop signs were and how did I get through them.

First, thanks for the insightful comment, Tia and here are the answers as I remember them now.

By far, my biggest stop sign was put directly in my path by my second wife. As I was stuck between the rock and the hard place with her because of the transition I was slowly making from cross-dresser to transgender woman and my wife. Rightfully so, my wife pointed out I was breaking the marriage covenant we had and she did not want to be married to another woman. The last thing I want to do here is make her the bad person in all this gender turmoil because she knew and accepted my cross-dressing before we got married.

She even went as far as attending the social activities I went to in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio and supported my efforts to leave the house to explore the world as a transfeminine person for the first time by backing me with money for motel rooms to get ready in. The only real stop sign I had was to agree to never leave the house dressed as me. Was it enough for me? No. I blew right through the stop signs and started to throw caution to the wind and go out into the world like the authentic me. Regardless of the heavily populated area of town, we lived in.

I kept on doing this until I was caught time and time again by my second wife and could not lie my way out of me breaking our agreement. I resorted to even going to therapy for help which never actually came. Mainly because I was not doing anything wrong in my struggle to just be the inner female I always thought I was. I even had a therapist I respected totally tell me that and I just ignored her. Thinking I could balance my gender issues and fight on to maintain the status quo. By ignoring the stop signs I was facing, I was just making my life worse and not helping our relationship in the long term which I will get back to later. Because, as it turned out, there would not be a long term relationship anyhow.

In the meantime, as I became more serious about the possibility of living out my life as a transgender woman, I began to see other stop signs ahead. They were major signs too such as how I would support myself in the world without my wife and perhaps the rest of my family. Obstacles which face nearly all transgender women and transgender men as we attempt to cross the gender border and live out our lives as normal everyday citizens. It is difficult to end one life, pick up the pieces and start over again. Something I wish all the transphobes who try to attack us would try to understand but that is a whole other topic.

Pure destiny helped me to negotiate the other major stop signs I faced with the attitude that if others could complete a male to female transition, why couldn’t I. Life became a circle for me as I went through the darkest period of my existence before I was able to pay my dues and take advantage of the new world I was in. The most tragic part was losing my wife to a major heart attack. I never ever thought she would ever die before me with the stressful lifestyle I was leading but I did, which led me to wonder what I would do about the biggest stop sign of all in my life. In the new darkness as I searched for my new path which had existed so long. All I needed to do was remove the stop sign and continue to live.

I also found I needed to do a quick look into who was important to me in my life and who I could afford to lose if I crossed the gender border. In my darkness I guessed my daughter who would support me and my only brother would not. Which was exactly what happened. It has been over a decade since I have talked with my brother, and my daughter has become one of my biggest supporters. My parents had long since passed on so I did not have to worry about coming out to either of them. Even though I did try to come out to my mom years ago and was rejected. I took that stop sign down and forgot about it.

It seemed, once I got used to taking down my gender stop signs the easier it got. Although that was not necessarily the case. Destiny stepped in again and provided me with an age excuse when it came to how I was going to support myself. I was fortunate to have worked a good job with a good wage which helped my Social Security retirement payments. I turned out if I was able to sell the collectables my wife and I had collected over the years, I could retire and support myself. Which saved me having to look for a job as a new transgender woman.

Of lesser importance was when the Veterans Administration started to provide care for gender conflicted veterans such as me. I jumped at the chance for lower cost HRT meds and the mental care to get them. The mental care provided me with a qualified therapist who helped me with the legal documents that assisted changing my legal gender markers within the VA and the public sector.

Perhaps removing the biggest stop sign of all that remained was discovering a loving relationship which I could cherish for the rest of my life. That person of course was my wife Liz who discovered me on an online dating site. I was always a social person and had resigned myself to a life of being alone before I met Liz and we are still going strong over fifteen years later.

I hope all of this answers the questions Tia and all of you may have had about my transgender stop signs and how I handled them. Some stopped me for years while others I simply rolled through or ignored altogether but one way or another I made it. As always, all of your comments are appreciated!