Scared to Death

 One idea I do my best to dis-spell is the idea my Mtf gender transition has been anything but easy. I believe some people are led to believe it was from many of my posts. Most certainly I experienced more than my deserved share of quality experiences but on the other hand many of the experiences required me to be extremely courageous to even attempt. Plus, if the truth be known, some should not have been attempted at all. 

I believe the  most scared I have ever been happened the first night I had determined I was not going out as a cross dresser. I was going to try as closely as I could to see if I could be accepted as a feminine person. If not a woman, the closest I could come. Over the years I have not been shy writing a description of the evening. To make a long story short for those of you who may remember, I ended up sitting in my car in the venue's parking lot a half hour before I could summon the courage to go in. Once I finally decided to go forth with my plan, I knew all I had to do was get past the hostess stand and grab a seat at the bar. 

Furthermore, my grand idea was to dress as a professional woman to blend in with the other women who frequented the place when they were done with work at a nearby upscale mall. For the evening I chose my black pantsuit, black flats and long over the shoulder straight blond wig. To finish my look I did my best to add a tasteful reasonable makeup application. 

Photo:
Jessie Hart
Collection

As I wrote, my plan was just to find a seat at the bar which had seating on three sides with two big ornamental wooden posts at the front of the bar. I was lucky, I managed to secure one of the only seats remaining by chance next to one of the posts. I remember sliding into the bar stool and all the while wishing I was invisible. Of course I wasn't and very soon I was waited on by what turned out to be a very friendly bartender who turned out to be one of my regular servers as I returned many times over the years. 

Surviving the first experience only emboldened me to try more. The problem was, the more I tried different venues to see if I presented well enough to get by, the more I found just weren't accepting. In a couple I was asked to leave and even had the police called me in one place. None of it was easy as I explored the world. 

The world though was different back in those days. The public was more likely to be more vocal to their resistance of having  a transgender woman in a non gay venue. In fact, it was difficult to be accepted as anything more than another drag queen in many male gay bars. To make matters worse, the term "transgender" was new too.

As I look back on my explorations I wonder what drove me forward. My best idea is I was driven internally by the strong desire to explore living a feminine life. The more I lived, the more natural I felt so I knew it had to be right.

I can't stress enough how good it feels to have managed to survive all my life experiences and come out the other side, alive, well and living full time as a transgender woman. I also can't stress enough how frightened I was on so many occasions when I was exploring my journey. My message is to try to relax and enjoy your own gender journey. It can be so worth it to be yourself.