She Would Not say No

 

Image from Jazmin Quaynor 
on Unsplash

As my life progressed, I found my inner feminine self was certainly the dominate personality of the two binary genders I was forced to live. Seemingly, the male person I found myself trying to succeed at being was overall a dismal failure. I tried sports, auto mechanics and various other male dominated passions to no avail. The only real success I found was masking my inner feminine desires enough to keep the bullies off my back.

In the meantime, I suffered the usual gender problems others similar to me went through. Take sports for example. The long days on the football practice field were mixed in with watching the cheerleaders practice while I day dreamed about how much fun it would be to be one of them instead of yet another faceless defensive end. Finally I could take it no longer and quit the team. In many ways my "she" had won a major battle for supremacy. Of course, this was just one of many struggles to come in my life. There were the small ones such as simply slipping away in private and dressing like a girl. Which ultimately led to completing a transgender transition to a fulltime feminine life.

None of this was accomplished easily. First of all my inner "she" had to face the fact she was born into a very male body. When the very occasional feminine characteristic would creep in, my male self would try to battle back and squash it.  I think deep down all along he knew how the battle would go and he would lose. In the meantime my inner girl was growing into a woman  And the growth would require much more time and effort. All those days of simply admiring myself in a mirror just weren't enough.  More and more, she needed to get out and live.

The more she escaped, the more she wanted. Even when my wife and I came to an agreement I could spend time and money twice a week to get out and free my authentic self, it wasn't enough. Those were the days of trying to go behind her back and go out. The problem quickly became when I was living secretly more as my "she" than as my "he." The only real things which kept "he" grounded at all were my everyday macho work experiences which I was being paid very well to be successful at doing. Even with all the compromises to my life my "she" would not say no. She needed more and more freedom to express herself. Over all, the gender pressure on me nearly ended my life. I just couldn't take the pushing and shoving or ripping and tearing any longer, I needed desperately to find a way out. At that point I tried to kill myself with pills and alcohol and luckily failed. I think it was a compilation of both of my genders which caused the failure of the suicide attempt and ultimately the success of what happened later in my life.

After I tried self harm, I decided it was because of the influence of my "she" side and decided on a purge of everything feminine I was doing.  Little did I know I was doing it for my wife who would only end up living approximately six more months. Once she passed away completely unexpectedly, there wasn't much standing in my way to completely transition. Something I had been working for since early in life. Still my male side fought back because "he" still brought tons of baggage to the table. For a few more years I still had a job to worry about before I could retire and I still had to tell what was left of my family and friends I was transgender. Nothing it seemed was going to be easy. I viewed the whole process as sliding down a very slippery slope towards a very steep cliff.

Once I finally made the decision to jump, I was in my early sixties and it was one of the best decisions I had ever made. Allowing my "she" to rule my life and have the chance to live out her own life removed much if not all of the gender tension I was feeling. The final night when "she" would not say no was one of the best moments of my life. It all felt so natural.