A World Class Observer

 

Image from the Jessie 
Hart Collection

For years and years I needed to be satisfied with merely observing the women around me hoping to see clues on how the women dressed and interacted in the world, among other things. All along, I thought I was doing the best I could in my observation  techniques without coming off as creepy. 

All along, I was doing all the easy things right. I noticed fashion trends and also observed which women seemed to have conquered the fashion world correctly. Some of whom managed to take fashion to an art form. As hard as I tried, I was unable to go any farther than being a more than casual observer of everything feminine. I was always stopped at the door by gate keepers who wouldn't let me into the inner sanctum of what being a woman was really about. While I was stuck on the outside looking in, I needed to sit back and concentrate the best I could on clothing and makeup. So at least I was doing something positive. Or so I felt. 

As the years went by, I worked hard to perfect my feminine image. My peak of acceptance was the night I was refused admission to a transvestite mixer in New York because I was a "real" woman. The experience was all well and good until my second wife and I became embroiled in a huge fight about it. To make a long story short my still strong male ego got the best of me in a fight and I told my wife what had happened. At that point she told me I made a terrible woman. I was deeply defeated at that point when she backed off and said she wasn't talking about my appearance, she was talking about my inner knowledge of what a woman went through in life. From that point forward my life changed as I knew I needed to discover what she was talking about. 

The path I chose was very difficult and little did I know I would spend the next decade (at least) to learn what she meant. The biggest problem I found was I was automatically excluded from entering the inner workings of how women actually communicated and interacted with each other. Even though I worked in a woman dominated industry, the basics I learned such as the dominance of women in cliques and the passive aggressive nature of such cliques was new to me. In fact, it wasn't until after I began to transition in earnest into being a full fledged transgender woman did I understand totally the basics of how women communicated without men. Quickly I learned how feminine conversations could be built on silence with just a look of the eye. I needed to toss aside the old male patterns such as full frontal attacks when life came to confrontations and aggression. 

Naturally the more time I spent in the world as a transgender woman, the more I became a world class observer of cis women everywhere. In order to survive and make myself into a better person, I needed to step aside from all my old male ways and accept the direction my dominant inner feminine self was taking me. After all, she had spent years waiting for her chance to shine. As I always write about , I was fortunate to have strong cis-woman friends and role models to help me along. They embraced me when so many others wouldn't. My observation techniques with them most certainly became world class because they allowed them to happen. I finally was learning what my wife told me concerning making a terrible woman. I found out the hard way what a terrible woman was and made sure I didn't make that mistake again.