Gender Escapism

Image from UnSplash and Let's go Together

 For most of the earlier years of my MtF gender transition I literally and figuratively tried to hide behind my skirts. As I was attempting to make my way through an unpleasant male existence, when nearly anything happened to me which I considered unpleasant, I resorted to thinking if I was feminine I could escape my problems. Little did I know, or consider at the time, girls/women had their own set of problems to deal with. 

Let's take dating for example. As I was very shy to begin with, asking any girl out was a huge problem for me. From that point forward I would have rather been the pursued not the pursuer and have someone ask me out instead. Of course it never happened. Another example was when I didn't make the cut for the junior varsity football team at the very small school I attended. When it happened I immediately wanted to go back home and try on my feminine clothes in front of the mirror. In addition, my top fantasy was how it would be to be one of the school's ultra pretty and popular cheerleaders. While at the same time not taking into the amount of work the girls would have to put in to do it.

It wasn't until years later when I realized how much my escapism hurt my life. Every time I ran to hide behind my skirts turned out to be a time when I had to learn to stand on my own two feet. Once I did, I finally began to build the courage to leave my male existence behind and begin a new life as a full time transgender woman. Essentially I was following through on what my second wife told me to do. Be man enough to be a woman. Sadly I wasn't able to accomplish what she told me until after she passed away and she was never able to meet the new woman I was destined to become. Since through much of our marriage I was intensely unhappy with my gender, I believe she would be happy I made it to a point where I could be satisfied with life. 

When I did "make it" to the other side of the gender border or frontier I discovered also the many faceted problems a woman has to go through to live. Cis-women are certainly born into the high maintenance gender. From everything such as child carrying and birthing all the way to just dealing with everyday appearances and emotions, women have to shoulder the burden of life.  It's no wonder cis-men say they don't understand women (or don't want to) because on a day to day basis they don't have to deal with lives often as difficult as women have to deal with. Which brings me to the point I make over and over again. Why would any man in their right mind leave an easier gender existence and attempt to live as a transgender woman. The answer is, and always will be is because we had to. We had no choice and needed to change how we lived our lives. Most certainly, the new gender grass was not always greener but we needed to try it out anyway because it all felt so natural.  Plus, the change just had to work to save our life. 

Gender escapism didn't work for me. Finally life caught up with me and taught me to stand up for my true self and live full time as a transgender woman.