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!

 

 

 

 

Looking Both Ways at Stop Signs on my Gender Path

 

Image from Alex Azerbache
on UnSplash.

I learned the hard way; I needed to look carefully both ways when crossing my gender path from male to female. If I did not, I ran the risk of being caught in the wild world of everyday traffic around me. When I left my mirror for the first time, gathered all my courage and went out into the world, I discovered basically three groups of people.

By far, the biggest group I didn’t need to pay much attention to were all the people who were going about their lives and not needing to notice anyone else. The second group was smaller and mostly just curious. They were mostly women and were curious why a man would leave a life of privilege to want to live as a woman. Or at least try to look like one. Sadly, the most vocal of the three groups were the gender bigots, TERFS (cis women who hate trans women and want to deny our existence) or just plain haters who wanted to make my business theirs. I learned the hard way several times to take nothing for granted when I went out in the world and look both ways at stop signs on my gender path.

I also learned the hard way that no matter how good I thought I looked and moved on a certain day, someone would always see through my efforts to be a presentable transgender woman and take exception with it. Some were mean and wanted to make fun of me, and some were not but I always had to be aware of the possibility of ill-will coming my way. I needed to come to a full stop until the unpleasantness went away, and I could go about living the new life as a transfeminine person I felt so comfortable in. When my confidence began to grow to a point where I could navigate most of the public comfortably, I did not care what the occasional gender bigot thought, and my confidence turned out to be my biggest weapon against hatred against me. It was tough to do, because the confidence was so frail but somehow, I was able to do it as I became more effective in my feminine presentation skills.

It probably was because this was the time of my life when I was obsessed with every little aspect of my appearance as a woman. Every now and then, I take the time to go back and read some of my earliest posts and I am continually amazed about appearance centric my writings were woven around. Just the right amount of makeup and how I did my eyes, all the way to just the right accessories to go with my outfits were prime examples of what I was writing about. It was no wonder that my second wife delighted in calling me the “pretty, pretty princess” when she told me I knew nothing about being a woman.

Rather than discourage me, her comments spurred me on to try to figure out what she meant. All along I thought I was the ultimate student of the ciswomen around me, only to learn I had not yet scratched the surface of what I needed to learn to earn myself a spot in the girls’ sandbox. Looking back, I do think my expertise in making my feminine appearance better did help me because for the most part (except for my wife) most ciswomen knew I was serious in my journey to be let behind the gender curtain as I needed to stop on my gender path, look both ways for ciswomen, let them through and then move ahead on my own. And by the way, the “princess” got her revenge one night when my wife needed to ask for advice on which makeup to wear.

When I finally was allowed to play in the girls’ sandbox, the stop signs I routinely faced really began to multiply. I had gone the extra distance to lead my inner feminine trans person out of the mirror and into the world by doing a deep dive into the basics of makeup and appearance all the way to working diligently on my feminine movements so I would not look like a linebacker in drag in heels at the mall. All my efforts worked out so well that the world wanted to communicate with me. Which put me into shock because I was woefully short on any experience to do it. All I had ever done was speak very briefly with cashiers and was not prepared to carry on any sort of a conversation.

All I did know was ciswomen communicate on a different wavelength than men and I needed quickly to find out what it was and how to do it, so I could survive my next stop sign. Surprisingly, I was a quick learner and mimicked the women around me the best I could until I became semi-comfortable in conversations with them. Primarily, I learned that for the first time in my life I needed to listen closely to what another woman was telling me because she could be talking in feminine “tongues.” In other words, I learned ciswomen use a lot of nonverbal communication when they don’t want men to know what they are talking about and use a lot of passive aggressive words when they communicate. When I stopped at the verbal stop sign, I needed to use extra caution to make sure a smiling face was not hiding behind my back aggression when we interacted.

I survived my communication days partially from taking feminine vocal lessons which specifically helped me to use terms which were more feminine in nature and not so male orientated. Which I was used to. I said I was a quick learner, but learning fast was all I could do to survive in the new feminine world I loved so much. I found myself immersed in a labor of love that I wanted more and more of every night that I spent interacting socially with my ciswomen friends. It was like I was back in grade school again learning the basics of being a quality feminine person.

From then on out, the only stop signs I saw were the ones I learned on my new path with women to stop at which they had done their whole lives and I was making up for in my own way quickly. The “pretty, pretty princess” had grown up, but sadly my second wife missed my progress when she tragically passed away early in life from a massive heart attack. I don’t think we could have ever stayed together. Being friends on the other hand was probably a possibility because we were together for twenty-five years of our lives. It will be forever one of the mysteries I will never solve. A giant stop sign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Participation Awards for a Trans Woman

Image from Brett Jordan 
on UnSplash.

As I traveled up my very long gender path with all its stop signs, I realized there were no awards for just participating coming my way. In fact, just the opposite was true.

Every time I was able to cross dress in front of the family mirror and not get caught, I experienced major gender euphoria but no awards because I knew I would just have to go back to my boring male life which I wanted no part of. Since my feminine self was deeply hidden from the world, there were no awards when I mastered a certain make up look or did not run my panty hose. On the other hand, I could expect some sort of gratitude when I achieved good results as a boy. I hated the total imbalance of the system I needed to live under with no available choices coming my way soon.

It wasn’t until much later in life did, I began to experience any participation awards at all. In the very beginning after trips to the big malls I was going to, even on the nights I was laughed at and scorned for my appearance, I felt at least I had tried and needed to go back to my cross-dressing drawing board to come up with ideas about what I was doing wrong. After setting aside my stubborn ideas of trying to dress sexy like a teenaged girl, and dressing age appropriate I was able to blend in with the ciswomen around me and not cause any undue attention to myself. I gave myself a bigger reward when I reached that major milestone in my life back then as a part-time cross-dresser.

Then, I became frustrated because it seemed the awards began to become harder and harder to come by as I started to overachieve as a transfeminine person seeing the world for the first time. Those were the days of trying to overcome a portion of my guilt for sneaking out of the house dressed as me by trying to do things which helped the household such as grocery shopping or better yet, trying to find my wife a garden gift at one of the nearby antique malls I went to. She was a huge gardener, and I thought an occasional gift would please her but probably pleased me more because it helped soothe my guilty conscience and gave me an imaginary award to put up on my mantle. I wish I could say I had a lot of awards, but they were very difficult to come by. Plus, my collection would be destroyed every time my wife caught me out of the house, and I became discouraged and decided to purge all my feminine belongings only to have to start all over again. Until I realized purging was fruitless and my desire to be a woman ran too deeply than just having the clothes, shoes and wigs that I had collected.

Overtime, with all the purges I attempted, I became better at keeping key items of my wardrobe I would need if (ha-ha) the urge to be a trans woman hit me again. I was not the sharpest tack in the box and still had not realized being trans was apart of me and would never just go away.

In the meantime, I continued to go out at night in the world and collect my participation awards as I learned what it really meant to be myself. To do so I needed to leave the gay bars behind that I was frequenting where they only thought I was a drag queen and try out the real world for a change where at the least I could be accepted as a woman from a different past. To do so, I needed to hitch up my big girl panties and do a deep, scary dive into the world I wanted so desperately to be in. I was growing increasingly tired of living a lie as a man and wanted out. In the beginning, I still took what I thought was the easy way out. By going to venues, I frequented often as a man and had wondered how it would be to live it as a transgender woman. It also helped that I was able to see how single women were treated in the straight places I was considering going. The last thing I wanted to do was to feel unwanted or afraid being a single woman in a venue full of couples.

After much thought and caution, I tossed my misgivings aside and considered what was the worst that could happen. My frail ego would be destroyed, and all my participation awards would be destroyed was my first thought. Then, I relied on all my new-found confidence as a transgender woman to succeed at my first big moves in straight venues in the world around me. To my amazement, I was treated well in my new world, and no one laughed at me or treated me with disrespect as I left my unwanted male privileges behind to learn what all the female privileges were all about.

I learned immediately one of the benefits was just being treated nicer. Even to the point where I was invited to staff girls’ nights out when the bartenders were concerned, I was lonely. Which I was. Better yet, one bartender set me up with her single lesbian mom whom I remain friends with to this day. Ten years later. There would have been no way that I could have made friends as easy as I did as a woman than I ever did as a man. A major reward for all the years of work I had put into succeeding on my gender path to my dream.

Another major reward I have received over the years comes from all your comments and feedback to my experiences. Originally, the idea was to write a blog (before I even knew what was one) to help others with similar gender differences so they could learn from them. Thanks to you, the idea has grown way past my expectations.

Thank you!

 

 

  

She Was Living Rent Free in my Head

 

Image from Nathan Dumlao
on UnSplash.

It took me years to realize that I had a tenant living rent free in my head all along.

I should have known from day one when I was going through my mom’s clothing that she was here to stay. In fact, she increasingly demanded more and more space in my head to justify her life as a cross-dresser or transvestite as we were called back then. I would need to wait several years for the transgender term to even become popular in our gender diverse society.

Also very early, I realized that the small closet I gave her to exist in just was not going to be enough. When she succeeded in expressing herself in the world in the smallest of occasions, she wanted to increase her space in my head. Prime examples were the days in school during study halls when I should have been actually studying. But I wasn’t as if I was having too much fun envying the girls around me who I desperately wanted to be like the next time I had the rare chance to be by myself and cross-dressed as a pretty girl in the mirror. And I realized I did not want them sexually as much as I wanted to be them physically and mentally.

It was during that portion of my life that I completely did not have any idea of how much rent-free space my evolving trans woman needed for her share of my head. Now I want back all the time my male self-spent fighting her for my life as I lived it. The gender ripping and tearing was certainly no fun, as both genders in my head fought for their right to survive. For awhile I tried the old male fallback of just try to ignore my number one problem in my life and she would somehow just disappear. When, in fact, the opposite was happening. The thrill of putting on a dress, hose and makeup would go away, and in its place, I would have a deep-seated feeling of just doing what was coming to be just natural for me. It was increasingly evident that I would need more space for my rent-free tenant to operate in as she went out to explore the world as a novice transfeminine person.

Following more than a few rough patches when she was going out in the world, my woman began to understand the sacrifice of her male ways it would take to survive. She became more serious and began to work on the basics such as presenting herself convincingly in the world. I went on a crash diet and succeeded in taking off enough weight so I could go down a size or two in the world of women’s fashion and I could find and wear stylish clothes for a change. Along with that major move, I began to take extra better care of my skin. Using a good moisturizer following every shave. Which paid off by not having to use so much foundation makeup and I could look so much more natural as if I was not trying so hard to look like an attractive woman. The trips I started to make to the department store makeup counters for guidance certainly did not hurt my progress either.

I was learning the hard way that I could not cut any corners if I was to be successful in my quest to present successfully in a world of curious ciswomen. I needed to give my rent-free tenant the opportunity to expand her space in my head and the finances to do it. I would be spotted a mile away as a man trying to be a woman if I used cheap makeup and did not do my best to shop for (and try on) clothes that fit me and even flatter my testosterone poisoned figure that I could do very little about. I did learn from my observations of the ciswomen around me that there were women of every shape and size that I could copy from and be successful. Which gave me the positive energy to carry on and pass as a trans woman friend of mine said, “Out of sheer will power.”

Even though the progress of my rent-free tenant was not moving along as fast as she wanted, there were still major obstacles in my way to deal with. Such as what would happen to my twenty-five-year marriage, my relationship with my daughter and the problem of finding a new job as a trans woman in the world. To be sure, all were major obstacles to deal with, so my tenant would have to be patient as she was beginning to understand she was the only tenant left in my head with any power. My male self was just going through the motions of life to keep a job and the outwardly show of male privilege in my life.

Finally, it was time to go on gender affirming hormones and allow my tenants to switch places. My previous rent-free tenant had earned her right to live as the dominant person in my life and my male self was left to pick up the pieces. I should say baggage more than pieces, because that is what he left me to consider in my new feminine life as a fulltime transgender woman. It was difficult to do, but I was able to keep several of my main male building blocks of my life such as my will to succeed and a deep-seated desire to bring my hobbies with me such as my love of sports. Which I learned was alright when I made ciswomen friends with the same passion for sports that I had built up over the years of my life.

While I certainly would not recommend a life like mine to anyone. Letting someone live rent free in your head for all those years was never easy. Perhaps, the only positive was, having all that time to learn the world as a trans woman gave me a stable basis to work from. That is my excuse, and I am sticking to it.

 

 

Transgender Challenges

 

Image from Beta Builders
on UnSplash. 

For me, the challenges of being a transgender woman ran deep and came often.

The first challenges I faced were just keeping my small collection of feminine belongings secret from my younger brother and parents. From there, my dealings with my cross-dressed self and the world only would intensify as I grew up. Very soon, the move from closet to the mirror would not be enough to satisfy my gender curiosity, and I began to leave the house when I could dress in my clothes and makeup for small walks to our rural mailbox. As puberty took its toll, finding anything to wear became my biggest problem because I was outgrowing my short mom’s clothing. She was only five foot two.

Somehow, I beat the challenge of keeping my deep gender secret to myself and kept up my routine of taking every spare moment to satisfy my desire to be a girl. Of course, it took me awhile to come close to perfecting anything which came close to being acceptable when it came to applying makeup and even shaving my legs. Which I was probably sneaking around and doing before most of the girls I was around who I envied so much. As it turned out, the magic of makeup really escaped me until I had the courage to accept the challenge of having a professional makeup artist do my makeup (and explain what he was doing) at a transgender-cross dresser social I was attending in Columbus, Ohio years later. The makeup pro taught me the basics of foundation, contouring, eyes and lips among other helpful tips. All the compliments I received showed me I was indeed on the right path I had chosen in life, and I could at least expect to fit in with other ciswomen in the world on a regular basis.

Then, as I always point out, the real work and challenge of what I was setting out to do set into my life. At the same time my male counterpart was beginning to establish himself as a successful person in his chosen career. As much as my self-destructive personality kept trying to tear down all he accomplished, it never worked, and he succeeded anyway. Which meant he was increasing the amount of potential baggage I would have to account for if I was ever going to reach my goal of living as a successful transfeminine person.

What hurt me was when I miscalculated what it was going to take to live the life I always dreamed of. The challenge was making the jump of just looking similar to a ciswoman, all the way to having a basic idea of how she lived her life. A great example of how my cross-dressing fun and games became very serious when just after I decided to go full time as a trans woman and had given away all my male clothes, my wife Liz’s dad passed away and I needed something appropriate to wear to the viewing and funeral. I was fortunate that I had several items of clothing in black, so I could be properly dressed for the occasion. A long way from the day-to-day life I was expecting to challenge me as I went through my male to female femininization project.

It turned out to be a huge step in my life when I finally accepted the challenge to live the life, I was always destined to live. I was no longer the lost kid in the mirror desperately cross-dressing his life away dreaming of a world he could not be part of. I was a full-fledged adult with a rapidly clearing view of the challenge ahead if she wanted to survive. Perhaps you noticed I used the “she” pronoun as I increasingly adopted it as my referred self. It made me feel more complete as a transgender woman. If I did not believe in myself at this point of my life, how could I convince the world who I was anyhow.

The next big challenge to me was seeing if I could be approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT which I am still on (thankfully) to this day. Before I did anything with the hormonal challenge, I knew I would have to seek out a doctor’s approval to see if I was healthy enough to do it. I was able to find an ad for a doctor in nearby Dayton who said he specialized in hormonal care and I made the appointment which would change my life forever.

In our first meeting, the doctor gave me a brief physical, asked me a few questions about what I knew the HRT would do to me and started me on a minimum dosage to see if there would be any ill effects. There were not, and very soon I was on a larger dose of the magical hormones my body seemed to take to naturally and the changes to my body were on. In fact, the changes began to happen so fast, the challenge then became to move up my timetable on when I was going to give up what was left of my male existence. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide my growing breasts, softening skin and long hair from the public and all the internal changes such as emotions from myself. I finally had enough and embarked on the greatest challenge of my life at the age of sixty. I put nearly half of a century of a part-time cross-dressing life behind me and never looked back.

Destiny helped me too, when the Veterans Administration health care system which I was a part of began to treat gender dysphoria in veterans with hormonal care. I needed again to go through the approval process and made it again as it seemed as if the challenges would never end. It was worth it because it tied me in with the VA’s mental health system for my depression and anxiety issues. As luck would have it, I was paired up with a mental health professional who I was with for years and helped me with all my issues such as having my legal gender markers changed within the VA and society at large.

I guess the challenge of any first-time experience can be traumatic for any human being. It just seems unfair that transgender women and transgender men have more than their fair share of challenge.

 

 

 

 

The Original Witches Ball as an Up-and-Coming Trans Woman

 

JJ Hart.

Back in the day, the Cincinnati area used to host what was called the “Original” Witches Ball around the Halloween season of course. It was called “The Original” because several copycat dances had sprung up attempting to copy the success of the first one.  Of significance to me was the ball that year was actually the third date my wife Liz and I had been on. Our first two dates had been to a drag show and a Renaissance festival, so another themed date would fit right in until we got to know each other better.

Perhaps the highlight of the witches’ ball was the venue itself. It was in a huge vintage Victorian house which had been expanded in the past to include an auditorium with a balcony and stage. For the evening, I thought I would go all the way in black with a hand-picked outfit guaranteed to be fun and just a little on the sleezy side. I went with a short black sleeveless minidress with black panty hose, a sequined net shawl and black heels. Since I was not quite to the point where I could style my own hair and wear it, I decided to wear a long curly black wig I had purchased a long time ago. For the party, we were even able to reserve a nearby hotel room so we could get ready and spend the night without having to worry about driving since it was within walking distance.

As I was to discover later in the evening, the only mistake I made in my outfit was the high-heeled shoes I chose to wear. As the night wore on, so did the strain the shoes put on my feet. Fortunately, I was able to kick them off at key places in the venue which had carpeted floors. I guess you could say I paid the price for fashion the night of the witch’s ball. Other than that setback, I had a wonderful time with Liz enjoying the entertainment on the main stage. The costume contest (which I did not enter) and all the exotic belly dancers who performed during the evening in another part of the venue.

All too soon the party was over, and my head was still spinning over all the wonderful costumes I saw, all the vendors with their merchandise and even getting an introduction to the “Captain Jack Sparrow” impersonator who complimented me on my “costume.”

I was hoping the alcohol I consumed would dull the pain in my feet for the walk back to the hotel in my heels, but it didn’t and off came the heels and on came the sidewalk in my panty hose for the short walk back. For all the fun I had, the brief pain was worth it. Little did I know at that time, I would be able to return to the witches’ ball in the future in a much bigger role as a behind the scenes organizer. And Liz and I would be able to cement our relationship with other entertaining dates.

It turned out that the witches’ circle Liz was already part of when I met her wanted to try to take on the huge task of organizing and putting on another annual ball. The first thing they needed to do was negotiate a rate for the same venue, which was crucial for the success of the event. Since I enjoyed being part of the group putting together another ball, I was given the opportunity to set up a vendor’s table to sell cookbooks and other crafts the group had put together. The fact was not lost on me that I had transitioned with all of them from a transgender woman to just another integral part of the group. Or circle that it was referred to.

 We only managed another couple of balls in the original venue it had was so uniquely designed for. Old and spooky to start with, it was simply ideal for what we wanted it for but the newer future places just did not come up to its standards of uniqueness, and the attendance began to decline. I did add an image showing what I did wear to the last of the old-style Cincinnati Witches Balls. I chose my black silk pants with a red sequined sleeveless top with my own hair this time around topped off with an oversized black hat you can’t see in the picture. Furthermore, I learned my shoe lessons this time around and wore a pair of sensible flats. The only positive I got from researching where we could have our next event was being invited to visit possible venues. Many of which were in Cincinnati brew pubs which meant I could sample some good beer.

These days, the Witches’ Ball event still hangs on in a vastly smaller form as it is held now only in a local bar. I, however, will always remember what the event meant to me. I was able to express myself for the last time in a hyper-Halloween atmosphere where I attempted to dress as a sexy woman and this time with a date who would become my wife later in life. From then on, I transitioned male to female into a world I had only dreamed of and any work I did on the ball was from my new viewpoint. Not to mention, I really appreciated the lack of special attention I received just because I was a trans woman in a group made up primarily of ciswomen and a few men.

I would have never thought just going to such a special venue for an outstanding event would lead to such far-reaching circumstances for me. It proved once again how life can be a strange but wonderful set up of possibilities which are there for you if you can ever set out to achieve them. For many of us that is the problem which hurts us in life. If it is something you can’t overcome.

Thanks for reading along and adding your comments. It makes it all so worthwhile for me!

 

 

Memorial Day 2026

 

Image from Richard Sagredo
on UnSplash.

It does not seem possible to me, but another Memorial Day has come and gone. A time to remember the weekend means so much more than just another day off to observe the official start of summer.

Being yet another survivor of one of our countries’ endless foreign wars makes me feel resentful that so many lives were wasted. My time to serve came during the Vietnam War and I was proceeded by several soldiers I knew who never made it back home without paying the ultimate price with their life. That is what Memorial Day means to me, and it should always be a solemn observance for all of us.

Then, what about all our transgender brethren who served in those thankless wars who died without ever having the chance to live a life as their authentic selves. Many enlisted to prove their manhood and ended paying the ultimate price in combat. They need to be remembered too.

I know this is a very short post by my standards, but I just wanted to pass along my deep felt thoughts on this special day for me. The day which is not for all veterans who served. Just for the ones who gave it their all.

Take the time today to remember them all.