More Transgender Survivor

As I promised, here is the second part of my "Survivor" post in which I went into detail how I survived growing up trans into my college years.

Photo by Denny Ryanto on
Unsplash

Since I have written in depth concerning my three years in the military, I am mostly going to go past the time in my life except to write how much I missed cross dressing during those days. I believe I spent the greatest majority of my free time day dreaming of being feminine again.

When I was discharged I made arrangements to meet my first wife after she was discharged approximately six months after I was. She knew I was a cross dresser and/or a transvestite so that part of my life was temporarily not a problem.  Little did I know, big changes were on their way which had nothing to do with my gender dysphoria. In a relatively short period of time, my daughter was on her way and my life would change for the better, forever. To this day she accepts me completely and has led the way to me being accepted by my three grandkids plus her in laws. Along the way she more than has made up for the lack of support I received from the last remaining member of my family, my brother.

During the earliest years of her life, my gender activities were largely restricted to Halloween adventures which were highly satisfying but all too short. Nearly all the activities proved were yes I could be seen in public and it felt so natural. I just had to figure out how to expand my time as a feminine person. Around this time also, I was stepping up my activities with friends in nearby Columbus, Ohio. One of which in particular gave me all of their feminine supplies when they "retired" and purged themselves from the group. Except for a love/hate relationship with one of the organizers who went on to have genital realignment surgery. Overall, I learned quite a bit from this diverse group who included everyone from the occasional lesbian all the way to several impossibly feminine people who were still deciding on their own gender paths. 

In many ways I was in the same situation. By this time my first wife and I dissolved our marriage and I moved on to my second wife. Before we became serious though, I let her know too I was a cross dresser. As the years progressed she remained fine with that but she never accepted me being transgender. This set in motion an on again, off again battle between us for twenty five years. Over time I have written about some of the battles when she told me to be "Man enough to be a woman."

Through it all, I was working on doing just that. Of course I loved her completely and did my best to firmly keep a camp in both binary genders. By doing so it tore me up. So much so after breaking yet another promise not to leave the house as my authentic self, she caught me and the fight was on. This time though, I couldn't take it anymore and washed down a whole bottle of anti depressants with Jägermeister.  As my therapist later told me all it would do to me was make me lethargic not kill me.

As you regulars mostly know, she got the last laugh on me by passing away at the age of fifty from a massive heart attack. Naturally, I was devastated but all of a sudden I was free to pursue my ultimate dream of crossing the gender border and living fulltime as a transgender woman.  By doing so proved to me once again how much I still had to learn.

All of this brings me to a group of women I write about consistently who took me in when I was lost and desperately lonely. Plus the all important support from my daughter. Between all of them and my partner of ten years Liz, I was able to learn the basics of creating a new person in a gender I always could just dream of becoming.

Thanks to all of them I survived and the wait was worth it.