Endocrinologist Visit Today

 

JJ Hart at a recent
Cincinnati Pride. Ohio River
in background. 

Just a shorter post because my endocrinologist annual visit is today.

The only paranoia I have is that for some reason, she will not renew my HRT medications for Estradiol and Spironolactone. You may ask why I would have any nervous energy before my virtual appointment, and it is because I am part of the Veterans Administration health care system which is always making changes.

Recently, I had another one of my medical providers “retire” and I needed to switch my care from the Dayton VA to the Cincinnati VA which is closer to me. Fortunately, I was able to make it a seamless switch and even was able to visit my local VA clinic for my initial appointment with my new therapist, which I really liked. But all of that had to do with my mental health medications which the VA puts a higher priority on than prescribing medications which have made my gender transition possible. In fact, it was not so long ago that the orange felon in Washington DC assigned a new VA commissioner who was making threatening suggestions about doing away with gender affirming therapy in the VA altogether.

To my knowledge, nothing ever really became of that statement and the rank-and-file VA employees found ways of getting around it.

Another paranoia I have is my “Endo” in Dayton is being retired too and I will have to seek out new assistance in Cincinnati which in itself is not a bad thing except when it comes to where I must go for appointments. Going to the main VA hospital downtown is always a congested mess and I always must ask Liz to take me because of my mobility issues. If I can just go to my local clinic or have a virtual appointment, there are usually no problems.

My current “endo” usually prescribes me a years’ worth of medications unless there are any changes in my Estradiol blood levels. For some reason, after years of staying the same, my levels went down quite a bit on my last test. Which is the last thing I wanted to happen. So I will have to see what she says about it because I am still undecided on switching from patches to injections at my age.

Most importantly, I am who I am, and my HRT does not define me but it surely has helped. I will never forget all the extreme gender changes my new hormones put me through and would hate to lose all I gained. Who knows, maybe I am just building bridges to climb when I don’t have to with this upcoming appointment. She will maintain the long-term stability and status quo we have built up over the years, and our annual visits will continue.

One way or another, I will let you know.

 

 

 

Life is Too Short to be Ordinary.

 

Image from Frolicsome Fairy
on UnSplash.

I saw this quote on a television show I watch regularly and it resonated as a transgender woman with me. Here is the quote: “Life is too short to be ordinary.”  I immediately thought that a trans woman’s or trans man’s life is anything but ordinary in the world we live in today.

I also thought of a few of the final battles I had with myself before I finally gave in to my feminine desires at the age of sixty and decided to try to enter the transfeminine world permanently. It was never a move I took lightly, which was probably one of the reasons it took me so long to make my final choice to join the girls’ club and leave the good old boys’ club behind.

What I attempted to do was weigh all the good and bad I had accomplished in my long life and use it to make my decision. To be fair, I did have many male experiences which I felt I needed to take into consideration as positives I would have to leave behind if I proceeded with my male to female feminization efforts. The end result was I found that I did not live an ordinary life for several reasons, and one of them was because I spent so much time on the gender path I obsessed about. The others involved just the ordinary life’s challenges that everyone goes through such as maintaining a family, a marriage and trying to be successful in a profession you can tolerate. I kept coming back to my gender issues which set me apart from the great majority of the world, in a good way.

Along the way, I had come to appreciate the difference between the two main binary genders by actually having the chance to live them. It occurred to me that I was having a chance very few humans have the chance to do and I should make the best of it and keep going. At the time, I was spending approximately half of my time in the world as a transgender woman anyhow, so the jump to going fulltime was becoming less and less intimidating to me.

One of the main final factors I needed to consider was how natural I felt living in each gender I was trying to maintain. After hours of thought and contemplation, I came to the realization I had never felt natural as a man. I had to struggle to make any long-lasting friends and it seemed all my accomplishments were for my public persona only. As I always say, I was never a man cross-dressing as a woman. I was a woman cross dressing as a man. From that, I realized I had always felt more comfortable as a feminine person and time was running short for me to grasp the opportunity to change for good. I was sixty at the time and it did not take a genius to realize I had lived more years than I still had to go on this earth.

Finally, it struck my stubborn head that I had been blessed to live everything but an ordinary life and I should follow my natural inclination to stay in a feminine mode. When I did, it was as if I was allowed to take a ton of rocks from my shoulders. As I assumed the life I always should have lived, I began the finishing touches of my new existence by being approved for HRT or gender affirming hormones by a doctor I read about in a local LGBTQ newspaper I saw. My body’s reaction was simple and to the point and I could hear it saying what took you so long as the changes from the hormones were so natural and immediate. In fact, the changes came so fast that I needed to move up my timeline for when I would transition completely away from my old male self.

It does not seem possible that all those gender changes were over fifteen years ago now and my world changed as positively as I ever hoped that it would. The path I took was completely personal and had its share of stop signs and blind curves but somehow, I made it. Probably because my inner self felt it was the only way to go. If working from a male background to being a transfeminine person was the way my path took me, I would gladly go along for the ride. The ride turned out to be uniquely interesting along with being extremely scary when I gave up and lost all my male privilege before I learned the essence of having female privileges.

I was fortunate that I was blessed with a healthy long life. Long enough to see the circle come around from gender darkness to light. So, you could say, my life was long enough to make it interesting and look around all those steep walls and blind curves to see what was on the other side waiting for me.

If the world would let it be, gender is just a human need on a spectrum like so many others and trans people are just trying to live their lives like so many others. And I know gender is much more than a black and white reality to all of us. You can view yourself anywhere from a weekend cross-dresser all the way to a post-op woman and all should be accepted under our complex umbrella of people. It’s just another way we are far from ordinary and difficult for the average person to understand. It is also difficult to explain to a loved one when we do not fully understand what is going on ourselves, which often takes a long time to happen.

Rest assured that even if your life may be different and/or difficult at times, I will be far from ordinary.

Thank you all for your comments, claps and new subscriptions! Without all of you, none of what I try to pass along would be worth it.

 

 

 

Courage or Something Else?

 

Image from Miquel Bruna
on UnSplash. 

Recently, I have exchanged a few comments with a reader named “Janie” and we somehow got into the subject of being courageous in our male to female gender transitions. Also, on occasion, I get someone calling me courageous on how I decided to follow my path to leading a transfeminine life.

The problem is I never considered myself courageous as I tried and tried to establish myself where I could blend in, in a world of ciswomen everywhere. Here are two examples, the first coming from “Janie.” When she said she wished she had the courage (and I am paraphrasing) to come out as a full-fledged transgender woman as a teenager. On the other hand, I wished I would have had the courage to follow my instincts and come out of my closet when I was honorably discharged from the Army and had very little male baggage to think about. I was still becoming established in the working world, had no children yet and a future wife who did not seem to care what I did. I would never again have that sort of opportunity to live a life as my authentic self without waiting on the world to catch up.

It turned out that I still had a lot of living to do before I could find my way up my path to being a fulfilled transgender woman. Sure, there were plenty of opportunities to overcome when I was petrified to try to overcome my male self and enter the world of women, but I never thought I needed an extraordinary amount of courage to do it. I always reserved that amount of praise for war heroes and first responders who ran towards danger, not away from it. I was not running towards danger; I was just doing what I had to do to survive.

Ironically, the world evolved around me when it came to gender issues over the years. You may remember when the film “Tootsie” came out and gave a realistic idea of what ciswomen go through in the world through the ideas of a man (Dustin Hoffman) living the experience. Sadly, the new look into the genders did not last until today when coming out into the world possibly did take a lot of courage after all. Lives could be wrecked when you would not be fully accepted as a trans woman with your spouse, your family, your friends and your employment. Especially today when the orange Russian asset in Washington DC is leading the charge against us for no real reason.

Getting back to the task at hand, the something else when it came to the courage question, as I said, came down to pure survival. Not some sort of a hobby of putting on a dress and makeup to attempt to look good as a woman. The problem was that I knew at a very early age just looking at my girlish image in the mirror was never going to be enough to satisfy my gender desires. I simply wanted more. To live like the girls around me I so envied in school. An idea which would come back to heavily influence my life in later years. I fought my feminine instincts hard, which ended up doing nothing more than potentially destroying my mental health and my life as I led a very self-destructive life. It seemed everything my male self-had built up, I needed to try to tear down. I would not have wished what I went through on my worst enemy. So, I set out to do what I could to save myself.

During those days of discovery, I learned firsthand the idea of having persistence over any idea of having courage. Survival became my goal in life as I set out to build a feminine lifestyle from scratch. Deep-down, the idea kept coming to me that I was doing the right thing, no matter how painful it might turn out to be. In fact, I went all the way back to my childhood, so I knew it was more than just a temporary rush of gender euphoria as a trans woman when I was accepted in the world. I was surviving as me with little or no courage needed. Just a liberal amount of fear on the occasions when things were not going so well like when I had the police called on me for using the restroom of my choice. It was my own fault for being in a redneck venue I had not taken the time to set up being a regular yet. Then I never had the courage to go back.

I will never try to speak for “Janie” or anyone else who regularly reads my work, but on my end, no matter how much I did not respect the work my male self-did for me over the years there are certain things I would have really missed if I had followed my instincts and come out before I had the chance to build any sort of a life. I would have missed the once in a lifetime opportunity to have a wonderful daughter and a loving wife which I was with for twenty-five years until her untimely death. We had many good times, interwoven with the bad caused by my gender issues. I don’t know if I would have ever had the courage to ever totally leave her and wished she could have been around to experience my growth into a mature transgender woman. Of course, now, I will never find out.

As you can tell, I really don’t believe courage had that much to do with my development as a transfeminine person. On the other hand, a heavy dose of persistence mixed in with the ultimate need to survive allowed me to make it to where I am today. I know I am basically just dealing with semantics anyhow so the only thing that matters is how you survive. With or without HRT or any gender surgeries or with extensive work it does not matter as long as you are happy and thriving.

Thanks to “Janie”, Christine and all of you who have taken the time to comment on my topics. Without all your input, my work would not be worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pressure Tested as a Trans Woman

 

Image from Jayson Hendrickson
on UnSplash. 

As I moved along in life, I became pressure tested on both sides of the gender border.

On the male side, I became embroiled with restaurant jobs which involved immense amounts of pressure to succeed and on my female side, I felt the same pressure to succeed when I was finally able to leave my mirror and enter the world. For the most part succeeding as a male meant more financial rewards, while the success as a transfeminine person meant more inner freedom to express myself.

Ironically, my success as a novice cross-dresser or transgender woman often came at the expense of my male self when he failed at a project in life and came running back to dresses and makeup for comfort. Even that became old though when my trans woman kept increasing the stakes in the basic battle to just be seen in public. She wanted more than the easy trips to women’s clothing stores where money was more important than gender. As she began to interact more completely in the world, the pressure to be tested time and time again increased dramatically. Especially when she had to do more than try to communicate with more than a simple “Hello” or “Thank You.” For the longest time, I was panicked and very insecure about holding any sort of a conversation with another person, woman or man.

The way I relieved the pressure of communication was simply tied to doing it over and over again until it became as natural to me as possible. I learned from my feminine vocal lessons, it was not as much about what you were saying as how you were saying it. And how I could interject little feminine vocal patterns into my speech, even though I still had a deeper voice than most women. I say most women because I immediately began to notice a few ciswomen who had lower voices but still managed to communicate in the world with no problems. All because they had the benefit of growing up around other women. As I said, the only way around my communication potential problem was to hitch up my big girl panties and begin to communicate with the world. Which in some cases was one of the last frontiers I needed to face as I climbed out of my mirror and into the world as a trans woman.

I discovered I did not really know any pressure on my initial excursions as a feminine person until the time came to use the restroom. Initially, I was very intimidated and made sure I waited until “the room” was empty before I snuck in to use it until I began to build some confidence in myself. When I did, I began to learn restroom basics such as making sure I took the time to smile and interact with any other women I may encounter. The exact opposite than what I was used to in any men’s room I used. Since I was not using the women’s room as any sort of a fun test just to prove I could, I needed to learn as much as I could about other women because of a natural need to do so. I did things such as trying to mimic the sound of “flow” when I went to the woman close in the stall next to me and of course, I needed to remember to look for toilet paper, hang my purse up and always, always stop to wash my hands as I examined my hair and makeup in the mirror. No matter how much of a hurry I was to get out of there.

Surviving the restroom wars gave me the confidence to lose some of the pressure I felt as I entered the world for the first time as a transgender woman. From there I could move on to bigger and better things such as being recognized as a regular in the selected venues I wanted to go to. When I did, I knew I would have the backing of the staff if and when I was approached by a gender bigot or TERF (ciswoman bigot) about what I was doing there at all. In fact, I think I became the token trans woman at several venues who were proud of their diversity and safely for the LGBTQ community.

If I was a more intelligent person in math, maybe I could come up with a quotient relating to how pressure relates to confidence, but I cannot. I am stuck just trying to explain what it meant to me and what it might mean to you if you are considering a gender journey such as mine. The easiest way to describe it is that it is an intensely personal journey that is often lonely and full of self-sacrifice. Which could also describe why the path or journey is so full of pressure to succeed in so many different ways. I say that because I learned on my path that there were so many different ways to achieve my dream of living the way I wanted to as a fully functional transfeminine person. Primarily I learned I did not have to be the most attractive woman in the room to be accepted. Maybe I could make it on my personality. Which is exactly what many ciswomen do.

When the pressure was off, the pleasure set in for me and I could begin to refine who I wanted to be as I pursued a rare second chance in life to rebuild myself in the image I had always dreamed of. I was fortunate when I found the right people, cis women, to help me along in ways they never knew as I filled out the little nuances of my gender workbook. As I always say, I had no idea of how many layers women have to go through other than men just to live their life.

I don’t think I had a choice in my life to not live the pressurized existence that I lived. It was all built into the path I chose to take, and I grew used to it. As a transgender woman, often it seemed I had more than my fair share of pressure to deal with. That is why as a tribe, trans women and trans men have proved to be very resilient over the time we have populated the world. Regardless of what haters and bigots think.

 

 

My Last Date as a Man

 

JJ Hart in the long black wig
I wore to the concert. 

My last date as a man was very eventful as destiny was sending me a powerful message.

It all began a couple of years after my second wife passed away and I decided to again seek out feminine companionship from a ciswoman. Then I made a mistake and became enamored with the mom of one of my servers at the restaurant I owned. Mom was about my age and extremely attractive and I gathered up the courage to ask her out when I learned she was single. From there we went on several dates including one in her native Cincinnati. I was quite naïve and thought things were going fairly well until my daughter got me two tickets to a “Joe Cocker” concert at an outside summer festival near to where she lived in Dayton, Ohio.

I guess the idea of perhaps meeting my daughter scared her off, because after initially saying yes, a week before the concert she abruptly said no and I wasn’t to call her anymore. By this time in my life, I don’t think anything could surprise or hurt me more than what I was already going through, so I picked up the pieces of this brief ill-fated relationship and prepared myself to move on. But I had one problem, what was I going to do with the other ticket I had for the concert. Then my mind came up with a plan, why not invite my feminine self? It would be yet another test to see how successful my transition was coming along as well as soothing the ego wounds from being turned down by what turned out to be the last date I would ever have as a man with a ciswoman in my life.

At that point, I was very much still in the closet to my daughter, so I planned to pick up the tickets as my male self then go home later and get ready. Getting ready proved to be an adventure as I knew I could put together an upscale/casual outfit for the evening. I ended up choosing a black outfit with a three-quarter sleeve mesh top and wide legged silky black pants with black sandals. Topping it all off, I chose my long black straight-haired wig and sunglasses on my head as an accessory. After carefully applying my makeup, I was ready to take on the world as a transgender woman out to her first concert. I felt good and confident for a change as I left the house for the half hour drive to the concert venue.

Once I arrived, I gathered myself, checked my makeup and took off walking to the concert which was filling up with people fast. Since it was still light outside, I could wear my sunglasses to check out anyone who was staring at me without them knowing. I was relieved when no one noticed the tall, long-haired woman in black making her way through the crowded sidewalk to her seat. I even had enough time to walk up to the concession stand and order me a refreshing drink before the late “Joe Cocker” started his show. By this time in his career, he played his hits and I was happy.

I ended up immensely enjoying the concert. Even more so since I was spending unique public time with my transfeminine self. I walked away from the experience with a new-found confidence in myself to live my life the way I had always dreamed of. In a world where ciswomen ruled. And maybe most importantly, I don’t think I embarrassed myself by the way I looked.

Maybe I was a little too over dramatic when I mentioned destiny setting in that night, but it did because never again did I set out to date a ciswoman as my male self and go through all the dating contortions I hated so much. I don’t know why but I always had felt so much more at ease when I was dealing with women as a trans woman and I never looked back.

My last date as a man was uneventful because it never happened it seemed for a reason. In the future I was able to have much better times going to places such as roller derbies with my lesbian friends where I could relax and have fun. Something I rarely did when I was trying to date as a man.

 

 

The Last Line of Defense

 

Image from Gayatri Malthroa 
on UnSplash.

Throughout nearly half of a century, my male self-fought the complete transition I made into a feminine lifestyle.

During that extended period of time, I think I tried everything possible to convince myself that I was wrong to want to play in the girls’ sandbox at all. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I “purged” many times of my feminine belongings. Leaving me with nothing but my most cherished pieces of girl’s/woman’s clothing and makeup. The makeup was easy because I knew I could always buy more. Perhaps the most precious items I never threw away were the nice wigs I was able to buy and the silicone breast forms which ironically were given to me by a fellow cross dresser who was purging also. Deep down inside, I knew I would need the wigs and breast forms again when my urge to cross-dress returned. As my own personal history told me it would.

It turned out that purging was not my last defense, no matter how hard I tried. In fact, the more I tried not to be feminine in any way shape or form, it seemed I slipped closer and closer to it. Especially when I learned I could dress to blend with most of the ciswomen around me. It was then I learned how natural I felt when I began to get it right and could feel all the gender euphoria I could feel.

What I did continually feel was my masculinity slipping away and I only used it on occasions with my wife in mixed company and when I was working in a high-pressure environment. For years, when I was out in the world experimenting living a new life, I felt as if I was sliding down a steep hill towards a transgender cliff which I had no idea of how I would be able to land.

In all fairness to my second wife, she never opposed me cross-dressing and knew about it when we got married. But on the other hand, completely opposed any idea of me becoming a transfeminine person. Between her and my male self, they made formidable opponents in my life when I thought about living as a trans woman. What made it all worse was when my wife kept saying she did not want to live with another woman and did not agree to that when we got married and I had to agree with her. Putting me in a very difficult situation in my life. I escaped the best I could by sneaking out of the house behind her back at any given time I found to test the world time and again to see if I would be allowed to go back behind the gender curtain. Which in many ways, represented escaping the last defense to staying in the male world I had.

Of course, my wife found out on numerous occasions what I was doing as a trans woman and resisted all my progress. When she did, we had giant battles which she normally won and I tried the therapy route to help me with my gender issues. Therapy helped me in many ways in my life but not so much with my deep-seated gender issues. I was expecting too much when one therapist told me if I thought our sessions would ever relieve my tensions, I would be wrong until I was able to make the final decision on if I was able to be a woman or not. At that point, I had two of the most far-reaching quotes that I ignored which were told to me. One of which was the time I was told I was the only one who could decide my gender future and the second was when my wife told me to go ahead and be man enough to be a woman. I was so sure I could do it my way and it cost me dearly. Especially, in terms of my overall mental health when juggling two genders and two lives at once became too much to handle. I did not know if I was coming or going on which day it was on how I was expected to act.

As many of you know, my second wife tragically died of a massive heart attack, leaving me with only my male self to do gender battle with. His last defenses deteriorated quickly as I became deeply unhappy and lonely and took solace in my inner female self for comfort. She stepped up big time, and very soon when I was not working nights, I was in one of my regular drinking venues seeking company. That was when I discovered I had more in common with the lesbians I met than with any man. Since most of them rejected me anyhow for leaving the good old boys club. I was able to say good riddance and go forward in my life into a world I never thought possible could ever be a part of. I had never really got along well with men in my life, and it turned out nothing had really changed. Except the way I was exploring the world. Finally, as my true self. As I was finding me after all those years of searching.

The last defense my male self-had was when my third wife Liz and only daughter came to my rescue with unwavering support for my final dive off the steep gender cliff. They made the landing very soft, and even easy. More precisely, Liz made me a believer in myself again and my daughter gave me support I needed from what blood family I had left since my brother rejected me, and my parents had long since passed away. Add in the couple of lesbians I always socialized with and I had all the support I needed to succeed in where I had dreamed of going and being accepted behind the gender curtain.

By far, I would be remiss if I did not mention the power of HRT or gender affirming hormones in removing any of the final defenses my male self-had going for him. I could not believe how fast the hormones acted as my body began to change, inside and out. It would take a whole post to describe all the impacts the hormones made to me. In fact, I have my annual appointment with my endocrinologist coming up this week, and with it, the chance to get refills on my hormonal patches.

Maybe I can thank her then for helping me to win my battle with my male self. Since I receive my HRT meds through the Veterans Administration, I always hope nothing changes from the top down with my ability to keep receiving a huge part of what makes me whole. I worked too long to get here.

Thanks again for joining me on my journey and I hope my experiences help you too.

Any comments, claps or subscriptions are welcome and make my work so worthwhile!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Laughing Matter

 

Image from Priscilla Du Preeze
on UnSplash. 

I am always amused when someone thinks I had a choice to follow my transgender path. Obviously, they were not there for all the trials and tribulations I had and the extreme harassment I received as I came out into the world. All the times I hurried home crying when I was stared at or glared at by the public before I was able to improve my feminine presentation to the point where I could blend in.

I did all I could to improve my testosterone damaged body by going on a crash diet and did my best to improve my skin by using moisturizers everyday after I shaved before I went to work. Why would I attempt all of that if I thought crossing the gender border was just a choice I could make. The farther I went, the more I had to do to improve. Mainly because it felt like it was the right thing to do.

Perhaps the most important sacrifice I needed to be prepared to make was losing my white male entitlements or male privileges. Even though I did not respect the growing rights that I had obtained through hard work as a male, I needed to keep in mind continually I did not really want them anyhow and there were better days ahead if I ever had achieved my dream of living as a transgender woman fulltime.

Through it all though, I wondered why all this gender turmoil was happening to me. Often when the poor, poor pitiful me aspect of my life was at it’s worse, I would “man-up” and purge myself of most of my feminine belongings. As most of us know, purging does not work for any length of time. All it did for me was make me go out and buy more makeup, clothes and shoes to express my femininity again. A total waste of money, but at least I always tried to build back better following every purge I tried. Finally, I looked back at purging as just another rite of passage I needed to through as I followed along my gender path to success, and I was able to put my transgender victim mentality behind me.

As I grew older and set in my cross-dressing ways, I knew increasingly I had no choice in how I lived my life. I was rapidly going through yet another gender transition from just having a so-called hobby into being a transgender woman. I was doing more than just shopping for more and more clothes and was trying out new ways to experience the world the way ciswomen do. I started doing a portion of the grocery shopping successfully as the new transfeminine me all the way to starting to do all my Christmas shopping in unique situations also. Just to see if I could.

At that point, the things I needed to go through to survive in life became increasingly evident to me. I would need to express myself as a woman and I had no choice but to do it. I also knew the risk I was taking when I thought about losing the male life, I had worked so hard and long to be successful at. What would my daughter think of her new dad was one of the few variables as I knew I would lose my long-term marriage and great job that I had. I needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt I was doing the right thing, and I truly had no choice but to stay on the course I was on. This is where my transgender humor comes in. Why would anyone ever put themselves through such a life full of turmoil if they ever had a choice. Or, when just putting on a dress becomes so much more than a fun experience, where do you go then?

It is no secret where I went and I had the chance to experience so much more in my life because it is exceedingly rare when a human gets the chance to experience both sides of the binary gender spectrum. The problem is we transgender women and transgender men don’t have a chance to enjoy the trip because of the pressure we put on ourselves to perform behind the gender curtain we chose. If we are not doing it to ourselves, the pressure is certainly on from the public to do it too. Especially these days with the charged anti-transgender political attitude we are seeing from the orange menace in Washington DC, and in many states such as my own native Ohio.

If we can ever get the public at large to understand we trans people never had a choice on the life’s direction we ultimately took, we would come out so much further ahead. Sadly, the path to get there does not seem to be getting any closer for many of us as the things we have to go through just keep on coming. I know for those of you who are still on your transition path or even consider it, it is a major step to take. Hopefully on the way, you can take the time to stop for a moment and enjoy how far you have come. I always thought if it does not kill me, it will just make me stronger would help me along. And on a lesser scale, the old sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me saying really applied to me also.

When you are on your path long enough to realize there is no turning back, you will also know you had no choice but to keep going towards your goal. It was never easy, but so worthwhile as you navigated the final blind curves, potholes and stop signs. At the least, you will know you lived a life where you had a choice and made the most of it.

Plus, certainly it was no laughing matter. 

As always, thank you for reading along with my experiences. Any comments, extra claps or subscriptions are welcome!

 

 

 

 

In Praise of Femme Lesbians

 

Image from Alexander Krivitsky
on UnSplash.

Back in the day, femme lesbians were known as “lipstick lesbians” and were usually in heavy demand from butch and super butch women in the community.

As I write this post, it brings back many unique and even pleasant memories for me. Why? It is because during that time in my life, I was desperately seeking where I fit in on the gender spectrum. As I drifted from point A to point B, I discovered the only place I really fit in was with the lesbian community. If I could only be accepted which was far from a given.

It all started with me when I was going to several mixed, male and female gay venues in Columbus, Ohio years ago. One night I was in a very crowded venue trying to get drink when I very butch lesbian offered to buy one for me. It was the first time I felt as if I was in the right place at the right time and someone appreciated me for who I was. It all started me on a path I still am on to this day with my third wife Liz who identifies as a lesbian. She was the one person and only one who had told me she never saw in male in me, but I am getting ahead in my experiences on how I arrived here.

It all basically started seriously when I started to go regularly to two small lesbian venues in Dayton, Ohio. One I was accepted in and one I was not. The one I was not accepted in showed their dislike for me in many ways, including shutting off the juke box when I played Shania Twain’s “I Feel Like a Woman”. No sense of humor at all! The other venue was the total opposite, and I even discovered I knew one of the bartenders from my male life. It was there that I had many exciting adventures into a terrifying world I did not know much about except when I was drawn to it and it was drawn to me. Going all the way back to one of the many diverse parties I went to in Columbus, Ohio when I hit it off with another woman and we took off and visited a very popular gay night spot called “Wall Street”. Since I was still married at the time, nothing happened except again I learned where I really belonged on the gender spectrum.

Through most of it, I was playing the odds, I could explore the world as a femme lesbian and still get home and cleaned up before my wife did. One night in particular was rough when a butch in a cowboy hat demanded that I sing karaoke with her, make no mistake that I am a terrible singer and wanted nothing to do with her but she was convincing and I thought of the only song that I knew to sing to was “David Allan Coe’s You have Never Even Called me By My Name.” And here I was sharing a microphone in my blond wig and tight jeans with a butch in a cowboy hat doing my best to let her do most of the singing. By the way, “David Allan Coe” just passed away recently in his eighties, and after I was done singing, I got the hell out of there when the butch said my voice was lower than hers and I never saw her again.

Other than my brief singing career, I had many more interactions with lesbian women and even my first time I was asked out to dinner came at the request of a super butch who went on to transition completely to a transgender man. Even though I was scared to death, I still managed to have a good time which set me up for future successes when I went to lesbian mixers with my friends. They were shy but I was not and ended up in several interesting situations when one woman said she should buy me a drink and take me home with her (I got the drink but did not go home with her) and the night I was caught kissing a strange woman by the pool table in a venue we were in.

Perhaps, other than the karaoke experience, the evening I was asked by my friend to be her “wing person” and approach another woman about getting her phone number for my friend. I never got that phone number, but I did get a once-in-a-lifetime experience to remember.

Being accepted the way I was by other women saved me from having to consider my sexuality at all. In fact, I was enjoying much more attention as a transgender woman than I ever had as a man when it came to other ciswomen. I think it was because I represented an alternative to many lesbian women who had experienced men in their past and did not identify as “Gold Star” women. Gold Star lesbians identify as women who have never been with a man sexually. To all the ones that did not wear their “stars” proudly, I represented a unique gender middle ground. It helped me too, when the ciswomen I encountered did not have the same sexual hangups that most men seem to carry around with them along with their fragile egos.

Maybe the best part was that I did not have any problems fitting in with my image as a lipstick or femme lesbians and was well aware of all they had in the LGBTQ community to make societal inroads which we always desperately needed. I desperately needed it too as I searched for where I belonged in life. All along I was a femme lesbian hidden behind layers of masculinity waiting to get out and enjoy the world. It was quite the coming out process for me. As I learned I could validate myself as a person without the help of a man which was exceedingly difficult for me to do sexually or mentally. Thanks to all the women I met, I never had to do it.

 

 

Connecting the Gender Dots

 

Image from Beya Yurtzkuran'
on UnSplash. 

Connecting all the dots in a life when you have gender issues is never easy.

Especially so when your life’s workbook is completely blank and you have nowhere to go but to struggle. The great majority of transgender women and transgender men grew up with unapproving parents and/or no peer group pressure to shape our gender youth and help us along. At the best, the closest dots we were trying to connect were fuzzy and far away.

On the other hand, with me, my male dots were always crystal clear and easy to at least try to connect. If I was successful on a sports team, I would connect an easy dot is a great example. But if I was cross-dressing as a girl in front of the mirror, I was always confused on how I should act or feel. The only certainty I had was I knew I wanted to feel pretty.

As I progressed through life’s lessons, I learned the impact of achieving the connecting of my feminine dots while at the same time, leaving my male ones behind. Sacrifice became the ultimate name of the game. Especially when my second (out of three wives) kept calling me selfish for my complete pursuit to begin to leave my male past behind and live as a complete transfeminine person. What made matters worse was the fact that my gender dots on both sides of the spectrum were becoming clearer. I was becoming more successful as a father and as a provider as I advanced in my chosen profession, but at the same time, I became better and better at presenting myself as a convincing woman. For the longest time, my dots formed a parallel path. Heading ultimately for a collision.

I was stubborn and tried to separate the dots I was connecting until it affected my mental health so badly I could do it no longer. I was like a juggler trying to balance the two main binary genders as fast as I could and it nearly cost me my life. I was finding it harder than ever to separate my old unwanted male self from my new exciting yet terrifying new feminine self when one side began to bleed into the other. For example, when I was in a company meeting full of men, I would daydream how it would be if I was there as the only woman. Before reality would slap me down and back into the present.

Finally, I could take it no longer, and I began to give up on connecting any more of my male dots at all. I figured if I connected any more dots, it would just create more baggage I would have to deal with when I male to female transitioned. Mentally, I began to make contingency plans on what to do when I could ever connect my female dots and live out my dream. It is when I began to kick my experimentation portion of my life into high gear. I wanted to make certain as little as possible would be standing in my way as I moved forward in life. I needed to deal with the possibility I would lose contact with my wife and family then figure out what I would do to support myself financially. I was fortunate when my daughter stuck around to support me when my only remaining blood relative (brother) did not and I was old enough to support myself on an early social security retirement I earned and selling collectables my second wife who tragically passed away, and I collected over the years. So, I had connected all my obvious dots fairly well.

From there, the most challenging aspect of life I needed to face was the actual one on one daily living a trans woman has to take on. Learning the lessons a ciswoman is raised to know as she transitions from a female to a woman. Such as the shifting from white male privileges to the female privileges that I had only had the chance to dream about and not know because I had never been allowed behind the gender curtain. Once I was allowed behind the curtain, many aspects I never fully realized ciswomen actually go through became a reality to me. I was connecting my dots and maturing into the transgender woman I always dreamed of becoming. All my misconceptions about just achieving the appearance aspect of femininization faded away as I learned there was so much more to me than just trying my best to have an attractive face. It was quite the shallow existence for me as I needed to develop myself into a quality new human being that the world reacted to on a everyday basis.

As it turned out, HRT or gender affirming hormones took final care of the attractive part of my being as I went from being attractive to being the real me. Because the hormones softened my skin and facial lines and helped me to grow breasts, hips and hair. Like I said, all of which were the real me just waiting all this time for the changes to happen.

All the dots I connected were in a big circle. I went from a young boy for the first time being amazed at what he saw in the mirror (and wondering what was next), all the way to being able years later to being able to find the real me and live out my goal of crossing the gender border into a transfeminine world. I could not wait to give away all my male clothes; enjoy the new hormones I was on and live a new life. I was even able to take vacations with my third wife Liz to places I had never been before. All as my new self.

I can’t say connecting all my dots was ever fun and at times very scary, but they were always with me as I lived my life. At my advanced age of seventy-six, I am fortunate that I had the chance to find the real me before it was time for me to connect the final dot and step into the next dimension.