Set in Stone?

 

JJ Hart

When we are born, we are assigned a gender which is arbitrarily based on our genitals the doctor sees. Often, at that point, gender reveal parties are set up by new proud parents. Of course, the problem is what if the child does not agree with how the reveal was going but had no say in the process. That was exactly where I found myself.

I was born as a first son into a male dominated family, so as I grew, I learned what was expected of me. Be a success, compete for it and earn my male privilege was my only path. I was caught with no way out, seemingly, I was stuck in stone. My only path to sanity was the very limited time I had to cross-dress in front of the mirror and try to transform myself into the pretty girl I always wanted to be.

The first time I saw a glimmer of hope in my future as a transgender woman was when I started to go to Halloween parties dressed as a woman, just to see how I was perceived. Overall, I felt as if I got a fair reception and could not wait for Halloween to roll around again. I found I could not wait and began to come up with other ways to test my feminine presentation in the public’s eye by simply going out to malls and women’s clothing stores. Looking back, some of my adventures were just OK and others were brutally bad as I learned what I was doing. One of the main things I learned was presenting as a woman was not set in stone. Often, I could take advantage of the seasonal variations in women’s fashion to change up my own look, which made the fashion process so much more challenging and fun. I needed to up my diet game to fit into more stylish clothes I hunted down at the thrift stores I shopped at. I liked many of them because I could try on my potential treasures in the women’s dressing rooms with no problems.

All of this led me to believe that maybe my gender situation was not set in stone, perhaps I could find my way out of the life I was given. I just needed to be sure that escaping the stone I was in did not put me in quicksand. Or was the transgender frying pan worse than the fire. With my newfound confidence, I set out to discover the answer to as many of my gender questions as I could. I knew I felt an energy in life I had never felt before and it felt so natural that I wanted to experience more. But even with all of that, it wasn’t enough to keep me satisfied with my slow transition. The basic question remained that could I ever gain the courage and where with all to live my dream of existing as a full-time transgender woman on my own terms. Sadly. I was not going to learn that answer for years because my male life kept getting in the way.

By in the way, I mean he kept setting up major roadblocks of my proposed path such as what to do about my wife of twenty-five years and the very successful job I had worked so hard to get. I cherished both of them and did not want to let them go. I am sure, this sounds familiar to many of you in the same situation. Especially when you think your male situation is set in stone and you can’t get out.

I thought the same thing for years as my mental health deteriorated as I drank way to much trying to self-medicate my problems. The part I never understood was how I could think what was true today would be true tomorrow. Destiny for me completely turned me around during the dark days when my wife and almost all of my close friends passed away, leaving me almost completely by myself. Except for my daughter and my brother. On top of all of that, the Veterans’ Administration healthcare system, which I was a part of suddenly approved the use of HRT or gender affirming hormones for qualified veterans who were approved through a therapist to receive them. I was approved and prepared myself for my second puberty and the greatest most profound changes of my life.

Suddenly, everything I thought was set in stone, was not. I was free to live the way I had prepared for all my life had come true. I could even dare to be happy for the first time in my life. It was always set in stone that happiness could not be part of my life. Thankfully I was wrong about that. It was just a matter of learning where I truly belonged and then getting rid of that giant roadblock I was born with. My so-called gender because it turned out to be true, I was never supposed to live a male life after all. All the years of struggle and emotional pain were wasted on a fight that I was never destined to win.

As I always say, I was not a man cross dressing as a woman, I was a woman cross dressing as a man to just get by in life. I was fortunate in that my gender destiny was not set in stone no matter how determined my family around me was to keep me male, I always found a way to sneak around their backs and keep that feminine flicker of hope alive. Now it is able to burn brightly due to no small help from mainly new friends and family. Roadblocks were moved and now the path is straight and smooth as I am able to live the dream I always wanted.

As I said, remember that today does not dictate what tomorrow may bring. I always say, life can change on a dime. If you can find the dime.

 

 

 

When Gender Calls

 

Image from Brooke Cagel on UnSplash. 

When I was very young, when I listened closely, I could hear the faint sound of my true gender calling me.

Please keep in mind that very early on I could not quite understand what the voice was trying to tell me. I just knew something was not right. As I grew older and started experimenting with Mom’s clothes (even to the point of shaving my legs), did I have a basic understanding of what the voice was trying to tell me. From the first view of myself in our full-length hallway mirror, I had an idea that I had arrived in the right place as I stared at the pretty girl that I had a hand in creating.

It was then that the real gender work began. The first problem I had was trying to find the private time I had to cross-dress. And once I did, when would I have the time to do it again as the gender pressure built on me every time. What I did not understand and wouldn’t for many years was that I was much more than someone who just wanted to wear pretty feminine clothing. My true gender was calling and would never be satisfied until it was properly expressed. Even though I did not fully understand the path I was on and would have to accept it over the years to come. Especially all the blind curves and stop signs I ran into. I was not prepared for all the trials and tribulations I would have to go through to even try to pursue my gender dreams which always had to do with living a transfeminine life. At that time, the phrase had not yet been invented or used, so all I knew was I wanted to be a woman with all the perceived benefits which came with it.

Jumping ahead, the benefits of living as a full-time trans woman were there but just vastly different that I thought they would be. I still had the joy of selecting and wearing pretty clothes which changed with the seasons. It turned out, some of the enjoyment was taken away when I needed to pick out an outfit every day when I gave away all my male clothes and the reality of my existence set in. I guess you could say the novelty of dressing like a woman became a necessity when my gender called.

Speaking of my gender calling, I needed to learn how to accept it when it was trying to get through in my busy life as a man. I knew who was calling all of the time, I was just afraid of facing the reality of me answering it. I ran from it until I could run no more and I had myself painted into a feminine corner of reality I could not get out of.

What I am referring to is all the nights I went out as a trans woman to be alone and ended up socializing and carving out a new life faster than I ever thought possible. Suddenly, my gender phone was ringing off the hook and demanding more and more attention. The conversations became deeper and deeper as discussions about spouses, family and jobs took center stage. At a crucial point, I needed to lose all my fears of debating the pros and cons of gender change and consider the future which increasingly looked feminine to me. I respected the world of ciswomen from all angles, and I wanted to explore my desire to fit in more and more.

Finally, my gender voice became mildly abusive and challenged me to think deeply about the life situation I was in. What was I doing by constantly fighting a situation where I felt natural and good at. For once, I put my stubborn male self behind me and listened. Sure, there were bound to be bigots and haters still on my path, but I would have to ignore them and stand up for myself. The availability of gender affirming hormones or HRT helped me a lot because the hormones softened my skin and harsh male facial angles and made it easier to present a feminine face to the public. Which in turn, gave me more confidence. For the first time in my life, my external and internal features came close to matching.

At least now, my gender voice could quit screaming and calling me stupid for the way I was trying to run my life. Then perhaps, I could answer my gender phone and think about more pressing issues such as how I was going to run my life as a successful, happy transgender woman since happiness was something which eluded me for most of my life.

During a classic “if I had known then what I know now” moment, if I had known way back in my past how deep my gender issues ran, I was so much more than someone who enjoyed wearing feminine clothes. I wanted to be a woman as my ultimate goal in life. It would have been nice too, to have other guidance to help me along in my gender dysphoria struggles. In those days, not only were there not any qualified therapists to help, but there also wasn’t even internet to refer to for information so our closets were very lonely and dark.

Certainly, the one thing missing in my closet was a phone so I could talk when gender called. Maybe it would have saved me a great amount of stress and turmoil. I say maybe because of who knows, I would have had the maturity and courage to lick up the phone and have a honest and far-reaching discussion with myself about who I really was.

Maybe, when your gender calls, there will be a real person such as a supporting spouse to talk to about your life. So many transgender women and transgender men don’t have that luxury. One way or another, pick up the phone and talk. It could be the best therapy for you.

 

 

 

Buckle Up for the Ride

Image from Inis Piazzi on
UnSplash.

I am biased I know but I think negotiating a full-fledged trip through the gender frontier from one side to the other side is one of the most difficult things a human can do.

Unless you are blessed with an overabundance of feminine qualities and characteristics, you very much start out from point zero with your femininization project and it shows. I am an example as I thought I looked good with my tight clothes and makeup which would have looked good on a clown in drag in the circus. In all fairness, it took me awhile to catch up because my gender workbook was blank and I had no one to help me fill it out. No overly concerned mom to tell me what not to do with makeup and no peer group of girls to coach me along. It was all me, and it showed. Except in the mirror which kept on lying to me by telling me I was a pretty girl.

It wasn’t until I began going out into the world did, I find out how wrong the mirror was. Numerous times, just after the mirror told me I looked great, I was bounced by an unforgiving public back to the safety of my closet. Through it all, some people were so cruel with their comments, they sent me home in tears. It was during those dark days when I really had to buckle up and decide what I was doing was right. Somehow, deep down inside, I knew I was right and I needed to figure out what exactly I was doing wrong when I cross -dressed and went out.

What happened was, I had the where with all to look around at all the ciswomen around me and notice what they were doing. By doing so, I noticed a few of the women were as big as I was, so size was not the issue which was dooming me to being laughed at. It was how I moved and how I interacted with the world which mattered. Plus, it helped that my makeup skills had begun to dramatically improve. I quit feeling sorry for myself and started to fill out my own gender workbook without being a victim. Because I was stuck with a testosterone poisoned body and somehow, I needed to work my way around it.

I started by going on a diet which I lost fifty pounds on and started to take better care of my skin after I shaved, so I used less makeup and found less was actually more. At the same time, I began to haunt the local thrift stores for just the right piece of clothing which I could buy which flattered my new slimmer figure. I still had my male torso with the broad shoulders, and I had to dress my way around them. I discovered new favorite outfits with loose flowing tops combined with denim skirts that worked really well for me.

Little did I know, all this progress I was making was placing me on a one-way track towards an on-coming train. And that train was how I was going to communicate with the world which suddenly accepted me? I was extremely shy and had a difficult time communicating with the world anyhow and now I had to add on a new totally foreign language to deal with, the language of ciswomen. Initially, I was too petrified to say anything but then slowly gained the confidence to shyly join in conversations. It was so new and difficult that I needed to really buckle up to do it. I found if I did not, I would destroy everything I sat out to do by appearing mean or worse yet, bitchy. The last thing I wanted.

Once I buckled down and put my fear of communication behind me, my world opened wide with new vistas of gender enjoyment. It turned out that what I said was more important than how I said it and with that knowledge, life became easier as a transgender woman in the world for the first time.

No matter where you are in your gender journey, look ahead and not behind you. Sure, you can learn from the past, but it should not dominate you and stop you from proceeding along your way. Keep in mind, you are on a very difficult journey with major life risks at hand such as spouses, family, friends and jobs. Also beware of the trap I fell into when my second wife accepted me as a cross dresser but then completely rejected me as a transgender woman. She was correct in thinking there were vast differences between the two. Just putting on a dress and makeup just did not solve any of my gender problems anymore. I increasingly wanted more of life in the feminine world and was buckling up to get it by wanting to be approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT. I was eventually approved for the dramatic changes the hormones made but sadly my wife passed away before she could experience any of the changes with me.

In my long life, it has been a rarity for me to experience firsthand any trans woman or trans man who has had a smooth, uneventful journey.  So, if you are just considering starting, or just beginning your gender path, it is best to prepare for a bumpy ride, so buckle up tight for the trip. Undoubtedly, it will provide you with setbacks and surprises you never expected. Like I always say, the gender trip is like a rollercoaster at a big amusement park, it is worth the price of admission if you let it be. As I said, just be sure to buckle up for the ride of your life. It is one most humans never get to take.

Think of it this way, make your buckle part of your fashion accessory and everyone can admire it.

 

 

No Matter Where you Go...There you Are

 

JJ Hart, Cincinnati Pride, 
Three years ago.

I always thought no matter where you go, there you are was meant to be a humorous statement, until I lived it during searching for my transgender roots.

Often, I have written about the time and effort I put into moving myself and my family as I switched jobs flutily trying to find my dream of having a feminine future. Sadly, it seemed, after a short time, I was back to where I started. Spinning my tires and getting nowhere. That person I was looking at in the mirror just would not change. When that happened, I would start taking bigger and bigger chances with my future probably hoping someone else would discover my deep dark gender secret. No one except my second wife ever did to any extent, so I was forced again to face my gender dysphoria on my own.

The problem was I was not ready to face my truth as one therapist told me that I was the only one who could make the final call on my gender needs. Would I be a man or a woman was a dauting idea for me, and for the longest time, ran from my decision.

What I tried to do was research how it would be to be a woman in the world I was in. Again, hoping I would receive a magical answer on which way I should go. As close as I came was the days which I was able to pass as a presentable ciswoman. I started doing things such as specific duties such as going to the grocery store, for example, where I was able to literally melt a teen grocery bagger in my big fluffy sweater and mini skirt which was the fashion of the day. It was eye opening because it was the first time I had ever had that sort of a reaction from a male at all. Ironically, all it did was make me feel good about my feminine self for a short time as I prepared to enter the world. No matter where I went, there I was.

Where I was, was a spot where I needed to face reality. Was I going to listen to my wife and never go out explore the world as a woman or stay at home and pass the time drinking and dreaming of the next time, I had the courage to go out. Every time the call to go out came up I had to answer to save what was left of my mental health, and I hit the road doing slutty things such as flashing semi-trucks in my miniskirts. Somehow, I was under the mistaken impression it all gave me validation as a woman. It did not and I outgrew the temptation quickly and went back to doing weekly chores such as trips to the grocery stores.

It wasn’t until much later in my life when I started to truly understand where I should be in the world. I left the gay venues I was frequenting and started exclusively going to the lesbian and straight bars all together to see if I could make it in a world that I enjoyed. In those cases where I went, there I was and I liked it. The world was a blur of excitement and trepidation as I tried more and more venues to see if I would be accepted, and I found in some I was.

Before I knew it, and had the where with all to acknowledge it, I was moving from the transgender woman image I had of myself. I was slowly becoming the best version of me, and one I had dreamed of my entire life. Being just me meant that for once, no matter where I went, there you are meant something basic to me. Getting there was never easy and I took a lot of chances, but I made it through many storms and high winds to make it. Looking back, I don’t know how I did.

Being just me brought me deep satisfaction and allowed me to allow myself to let my feminine side rule my world. There was nothing I could do about always being a transfeminine person, but being a quality version of me was going to be a work in progress as I meshed all my virtues together. The problem then became recognizing exactly what my virtues were and what I could take from living on both sides of the main gender binaries, male and female. I needed to look at the process as a blessing that few humans get to go through rather than a curse that most haters and bigots said it was.

When I took my life firmly in control and was able to surround myself with strong allies, finding out where I was stepped out of the mist and into the sunlight. In the bright light, I found I could be a nice quality person that people responded to as me, not because I was transgender.

At that point, no matter where you go, there you are became very real to me because I had landed squarely where I wanted to be. Sure, I took a long winding path to get here, but now I am finally proud to say I am just me. Certainly, I would not recommend all the running and drinking I did to anyone else but hopefully you can find your own path which brings you to the stage of just being you. And sometimes, all the things we do to survive our gender issues make for a more interesting life than most people have. At least it worked for me as I made my way through the no matter where you go, there you are phase of my life. Which turned out to be most of it. Hopefully you don’t have to take fifty years like I did to have the courage to do what is right for you.

 

More Euphoria

 

Image from Marcus Winkler 
on UnSplash.

Yesterday, I wrote a post describing the joys of gender euphoria and promptly received this comment from “Joey”:

“Hello JJ! I am Joey. I discovered your blog today from a link on Stana's blog, femulate.org I am a crossdresser who presents male while wearing tasteful, feminine outfits. I do feel some euphoria, primarily when I have been out in normal life while dressed pretty for a couple of hours, and all of the stress hormones go away. Only my wife and a few other people know about this side of my life, so it is stressful when I go out in public every week or two. But after the stress, it is very freeing and happy!”

First of all, Joey, welcome to the blog! Hope you enjoy it. The feelings you described were similar to mine too. I know I could not wait until I could shed my male clothes, wear something pretty and sample what the world had to offer for me that day before I had to go back to my old boring stressful male existence. Sure, I felt stress going out as a transgender woman when I first started to do it, but it was nothing compared to my male life. When I was mistaken for a ciswoman, my heart literally sang with joy, and the best part about it was, it all felt so natural. What a homecoming!

My only caution about seeking out more of the male to female femininization process is, it led me to take premature chances with my life. I did not understand all the layers that went into a woman’s life and the only way to gain understanding was by doing it. It was only then that I was given the opportunity to look behind the gender curtain to see what really went on. As I did, I was surprised to learn that many things were the same and women learn in their lives to keep certain things secret from men. Which is why both genders have such a difficult time understanding each other. For example, ciswomen have developed two basic ways of negotiating their lives which have to be understood by any novice transgender woman.

The first is the use of non-verbal communication. Women often give information to other women through their eyes and bypass men all together. I can’t tell you how many silent warnings I got from other women when I was in potential danger from a toxic male.  The second major lesson I learned was how to operate in the new world of passive aggressive women. I needed to have my head on a swivel to look for some other woman coming after me after she initially was smiling and was nice to me. I looked at both of these major changes in my life as just another way of playing the game, and the only problem I had was switching gears when I had to go back to my male life. I had built a career of being aggressive in my business and the change was often difficult for my mental health.

Even though the path went quite slowly for me several times in my life, on occasion, it sped up. Almost to the point of being out of control. My male self-had a unique way of saving his existence when it was on the brink of being taken away. Which made matters worse in my convoluted gender world. How could he continue to be so strong in his resistance when my gender euphoria was so strong when I was successful as a trans woman? I am sure you can understand my dilemma and perhaps have even been there yourself. Somehow, someway, I needed to arrive at a point where I did not define myself as a transgender woman. I defined myself as just me.

Sadly, that point did not come for many years in my life. As my male self-fought long and hard for his right to live on in the world he was successful in. Many times, I good old shot of gender euphoria was all I had to keep going if I was ever going to have a chance of reaching my feminine dream of attempting to live full time. Fortunately, for my life-long dreams, my gender euphoria turned out to be strong too, in its own way. Far past the feel of hose on shaved legs and the sound of my high heels when I walked, all the way to having the confidence knowing who I was. Acquiring the ability to look and another woman eye to eye and communicate on her level was so important to me as I needed to break the communication gap I had with the world when I started to live as a transgender woman.

I am aware that gender euphoria can be different for all of us as we follow our gender paths. Referring back to “Joey’s” comment that she enjoyed being tastefully dressed when she went out. That became so important to me too when I was able to begin to blend into the everyday world as I knew it. Out went the too short miniskirts, replaced my more tasteful denim skirts was a prime example. I was told my legs were always a fashion positive for me so I wanted to show them, but I learned moderation was the best way to go when it came to my male to female femininization process. When I did, my moderation led to a different kind of gender euphoria when I searched for the best way to find my dream.

Euphoria, I found, is also joy of living in a feminine world. Where I always dreamed, I could be. More importantly, once I got there and was living my dream, it was everything I thought it could be and I started to wish I had not waited so long to do it. Of course, thinking that way was just wishful thinking because we are given only one life to live.

I learned I had made the best choice I could and living as a woman was the way to do it.

 

 

Gender Euphoria is Real

 

Image from Simona Todarova
on UnSplash. 

Looking back at yesterday’s interaction with the woman who referred to me as “she” when talking to her husband, I knew that gender euphoria was real.

When I talked to her, I was rewarded with being the total feminine package with no doubts including impostor syndrome to ruin the experience. In the past, I would have waited for something to come up to tip off I was transgender. Yesterday, as I said, nothing like that ever entered the conversation. Maybe it was because I got the ball rolling when I sat down beside her in the waiting room. Smiled and said hello. It is difficult for me to do with strangers because I am so shy. I guess finally I am getting the confidence to step out of my shell and do better socially. It helped too, because it turned out we had the same last name and originally came from the same hometown which helped us find something to talk about to pass the time.

All in all, it made for a very pleasant waiting experience as almost all of the people sit and glare at each other. It also made up for the essentially genderless experience I had at the coffee shop when the interaction did not seem to go either way with the young girl who was waiting on me. I was friendly and she was friendly and we both went on our way. If I had my choice, I would have preferred that the barista in the coffee shop would have referred to me as “she” also, but at least she did not use the dreaded “he” pronoun when referring to me. Or even worse, “sir.”  Which would have ruined my morning for sure.

The nice thing about gender euphoria is that it lasts for a long time, and I feel all the work I put into being a transgender woman was worth it. It seemed, despite my best efforts, someone in public would break my feminine façade and call me by a male pronoun. Which brings up the worst thing about euphoria which is so fragile and can be broken in a moment. Then it takes weeks to build up again.

It took me years to realize the power of confidence in my transfeminine life. Sometimes, I felt as if I could rule the room in my high heels, and other times, I just wanted to be left alone and disappear. Probably the same as any other ciswoman felt. In fact, I could see it in the women I studied. Some walked into a room with all the confidence in the world, while others seemed to be so timid. Of course, I did my best to copy the assertive women who I secretly envied because their gender euphoria was so real.

For the longest time, before my ankles gave up, all I wore was high heels because I thought the shoes gave the woman a sense of power with women and men. I knew men were conditioned to look when they heard the click -click of heels coming towards them on a hard floor. Women, on the other hand were forced to respect the woman wearing the highest heels if they liked it or not. Euphoria or envy runs deep with ciswomen it seems. Sometimes it provides a major point of competition between women if they are competing for men, or just appearance.

I am spoiled to have two powerful gender allies around me almost all of the time. My wife Liz and daughter are always quick to provide the correct pronouns for me when a stranger struggles. That way, when the stranger struggles to find the correct pronouns, they always have a reminder, and I leave with my gender euphoria intact.

One way or another, gender euphoria is as real and powerful as dysphoria and often provides transgender women and trans men with a brief flicker of hope when our closet needs a light to keep going in a world which is increasingly hostile to us.

Hopefully, that is you and even if you experience negativity in the world while you are on your gender path. That light ahead is a green light and you can keep going. Always remember, a transgender journey if a marathon, not a race. You don’t always know what is around the next corner but gender euphoria can help you get there.

 

 

 

My Appointment Went Well

 

JJ Hart.

Today was my follow up appointment after my hospital visit with my Veteran’s Administration primary physician.

I have been going to the same clinic for nearly eight years now and have experienced many ups and downs in how I am treated by the staff and fellow patients. I started out with many negative stares and even bad comments from staff when they went out of their way to call me “Sir.” Almost to the point, I was ready to report on one lady who insisted on misgendering me to the higher ups. But, by the time I came back, she was no longer there.

Over time, I became accepted by everyone as my confidence continued to improve. So much so that today, I actually had the courage to sit down next to another woman who was there with her husband who happened to have the same last name as me. When he finished his appointment and came out into the waiting room, the woman I was talking to made a point of saying we had the same last name. The best part was when she said about me that “she” (me) had the same last name. I naturally loved the fact that she recognized me for who I really was.

Other than that, the appointment went well, and all the traces of the pneumonia I had were gone. Plus, all my current vitals were good and even after that point, I received a pneumonia vaccine and a new portable blood pressure machine I can use at home.

The only drawback to the entire morning was when I went to our favorite coffee shop when my appointment at the VA was over. The bad point was the drive through was closed for some reason and I needed to take my immobile self and go into the shop to order. They were struggling, but I was patient and stayed until the staff got my order right. While I was placing and picking up my order, I was not in a situation where I was gendered at all, so I escaped with a neutral in that visit and headed home with our breakfast and coffee.

All in all, I am happy that the visit to the VA went as well as it did and I think my next in-person appointment I have is the mammogram I needed to reschedule for April. Other than that I have the virtual VA appointments I regularly have scheduled, hopefully my calendar will continue to be clear.

 

Just Stay Out of My Lane

 

Image from Navid Solrabi
on UnSplash.

One of the many delights I encountered when I set out on my male to female femininization project was the amount of attention I was receiving from the ciswomen around me.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I received very little attention from men, probably because I was not attractive enough. Even still, there were the occasional experiences when I let men into my lane out of pure curiosity. I wondered how it would be to be treated as a woman by a man on a date.

Curiously, my first date to dinner was from a lesbian who went on to transition into and live as a trans man. Later on when we talked, he always chided me about how scared I was that night. I never told him, but one of the reasons was I felt he could physically overpower me if he wanted to. One way or another, the evening was so different that I never forgot it.

Other men I ended upgoing out with in my exploration days mostly ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time to ever get serious. Take for example the big, bearded man who I grew close to after his ill-fated wedding to another exotic woman I knew. While others in the group we were a part of either shunned or made fun of him, I was the opposite, an understanding shoulder to talk to. It was so new and different to me and it felt so natural and good that I could react to a man that way. Before I knew it, he transferred out of town on his job, and I never saw him again.

The only other man of note that I enjoyed my self with was Bob, who I was able to go out with only one time because again I was in the wrong place at the wrong time to seriously get involved. Since he lived far away and was just traveling through where I lived in Ohio, we were able to set up a date in a regular sports bar I went to near Dayton, Ohio. Long story short, I let him in my lane and for the first time in my life felt like a woman on a date she enjoyed. We talked, laughed and he even sang karaoke to me. All too soon the magical night was over, and we went our separate ways after a long passionate kiss, never to meet in person again.

For some reason, I continued to be drawn to ciswomen, and them to me. I primarily think it was because most women were curious about me. What was I doing in their world and how different was I. Since women are fortunate to not have the sexuality hang ups men have, I found all but the most hard-core lesbian haters were intrigued by me. I think too, the honesty I portrayed in my life helped my appeal with the women I met who had encounters with men in their lives such as having kids. What worked for me was, I did not have to consider changing my sexuality around and I was used to the specific gender drama I would be facing with women, not men. Who of course I understood too but they did not want anything to do with me, so why bother. I was much more than a fetish object.

I was also having the time of my life as I escaped the extreme loneliness I was feeling after my wife passed away by going to lesbian mixers with my friends. I found that often I was the one doing the mixing as sometimes I was the one out of three of us who was hit on. I was in the lane I wanted to be in for sure. Plus, in many ways, I am still in that lane, as I formed a long-term relationship with one of the lesbians I met and we are still happily married to this day.

From my wife, I have been able to fill in many of the blanks I had in my gender workbook growing up as an unwilling boy. I learned not everything was pleasant as a young girl when I learned the reality of what went on in life with parents and friends. Not being allowed behind the gender curtain when I was young really took a toll on me. It took me years to catch up to what all cis women already knew, and they always made gentle fun of me and said welcome to our world. What they did not know was how badly I wanted to be in their lane.

Now that I have been in their lane for years, I have grown quite comfortable and confident in my surroundings. In fact, I feel as if I have spent my entire life here and most of my male life was a bad dream that I needed to live through to arrive at where I am today. And even though I struggled through much of my male existence, he still taught me how to be strong when I needed it. To maintain the strength to keep my lane the way I wanted it in a transfeminine world.

Even though I had many close calls and bumps and bruises along the way, my interactions with women and men let me choose the lane I wanted to be in. I consider myself to be fortunate in that I survived one of the most difficult transitions a human can undertake. Changing one’s gender is a basic human need and is never easy to change. Before you know it, you can find yourself in a bumper car-like zone and need to get out. I was especially successful when I finally chose my lane and stayed there. No more switching back and forth which was hard on my already fragile mental health. Plus, I felt good when I had the confidence to keep others out of my lane so I could experience it on my terms with no more blind curves and huge hills to climb.

 

Choice? What Choice

 

JJ Hart on Mt. Washington

What angers me more than anything else is when some hater or gender bigot says we transgender women or trans men ever had a choice about who we were destined to become in life.

In my case, at least, deep down I always knew I had something wrong with me. Even if I could not quite put my finger on what the problem might be. It was not until I got the first glimpse of myself in the mirror in pretty girls’ clothes did, I know for sure what my issues were. Then, the issue became what I was going to do about it. At that point, I had no choice but to continue doing was I was doing. Cross-dressing in front of the mirror. Being the pretty girl in my mind was just too much to pass up as I worked continuously towards improving my makeup skills and to do what I could to acquire more articles of women’s clothing which actually fit my fast growing, testosterone poisoned frame. I was the last person to see the results of puberty as a positive development.

As I learned in my latest LGBTQ support group meeting yesterday at the Veteran’s Administration, the legislative bigots have effectively blocked the use of puberty blockers for all young Ohioans. One of the lesbian mothers in the group was seeking blockers from her doctor because her young daughter had started puberty at the age of ten and she wanted it to be put off for a couple of years. The group member was told no, they could not do that in Ohio anymore. Yet another win for the Republican majority in the house legislature who felt they could overrule a parent’s choices.

Back when I was young, no one knew what puberty blockers were anyhow and we all went into our tweener years with no choice at all to how our bodies were going to turn out. The only positive I saw from the changes I was going through that I had no choice over were the extra muscle and size I was adding which helped me to keep the bullies away.

When I began to go out in the world as a novice transgender woman, I began to discover I did have other choices when it came to becoming what it meant to be myself. It all started with what I would wear fashion-wise to fit in with all the ciswomen around me and then expanded to how I would interact one on one with the world. It was all so new and exciting that the world was a wonderful blur at that time in my life. I could pick and choose if I wanted to go casual in my jeans and sweaters or professional in my pants suit and heels when I went out. Depending on where I was going of course. All my choices gave me feminine privilege choices I had so envied for so long. The only problem came when I needed to go back to my old boring male world. I was depressed for days.

The most important thing to note is, all along I never did want to go back to my exclusively male life where all I did was work, drink and watch sports. I had the unique choice to attempt to carve out a female life, and it felt as if I was taking the right path in life to do it. But if someone was holding a gun to my head and telling me I had no choice but to give up the new life I was leading, I would have said go ahead and shoot me. That is an example of how powerful the true lack of choice about my gender was with me.

Unless you have had the transgender experiences I have had, I don’t really expect many other people to understand. But I do expect them not to try to take away my right to live my life the way I want. I used to think that was part of being an American was all about until the transgender community was barraged last year alone with over one-thousand anti trans bills across the country. Through it all, many of those seeking to wipe us outthink we had a choice to uproot our lives and change completely. No more spouses, family friends and employment we were used to, because we had a choice. We did not want to change our lives so completely, we needed to.

As I look back at over fifty years of upheaval in my life due to transgender issues, it is obvious to me that I never had a choice. Regardless of what the bigots said, and they should not be able to use the choice word against me in potential anti-transgender laws everywhere.

Choice is one of the issues all trans women and trans men share. We all have the powerful drive to succeed, and it will never go away no matter how hard the haters try. We have always been part of the fabric of the world and always will be. The difficult part is that we follow our paths to stay on the course until we get a resolution we can live with.

In the meantime, survival is not a bad way to go until you can not take it anymore, then depending on where you live, a cautious peak into the world might get you by until you can do more. Sometimes, you can check with nearby LGBTQ organizations for resources near you. Many of which are on-line to help you find an outlet to talk with others with similar gender interests.

Even though you never had the choice to live your life the way you wanted to, where there is a will, there is a way to live out your gender choices on your terms. You just have to find it to begin to truly live out your own choices which you never really had.