Transgender Fun?

 

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Collection

I am sure there has been a transphobic individual (or several) who have suggested being transgender is some sort of a phase or worse yet is pursued as some sort of a fun pastime. Perhaps for a brief time when I considered myself a serious cross dresser, the times I was able to pull out my feminine wardrobe and briefly tried to enter my dream world of being a girl/woman I was having fun too.  The problem was in a very short period of time (a matter of days) I would be back to resenting the male world I was being forced to live in. 

In those days, so called fun was difficult to come by. Perhaps a few of the Halloween adventures I managed to find fun, after I calmed down and was able to live just a moment of my true reality. In the moment it was fun to listen to the compliments I received on my pretty legs or "costume".  Again, all of the fun turned to frustration as I looked ahead to another year of hiding out in my gender closet before I could test my appearance in public. I couldn't comprehend how I could wait one more year until another Halloween rolled around. 

As the years went by and I began to understand more completely my total gender dysphoria, the more I understood the true complexity of the issues facing me. I was heavily influenced by the new friends I met when I was able to free myself up to attend special small mixers in nearby Columbus, Ohio. More precisely I was able to meet levels of people who spanned the gender spectrum from transvestite "admirers" dressed in their male clothes all the way to transsexuals who were preparing themselves for sex change surgery, as it was called back in those days. In many ways, as I explored where I fit in, I found I glimpsed my future. Examples included the rare times a few lesbians attended and I was attracted to them and a couple of times they were attracted to me. As well as the night I was put in a compromising position when a huge admirer made advances on me in a hallway. To my chagrin, my second wife had to bail me out of the situation. Sadly, what I never had a chance to do was communicate with a couple of the transsexual women I knew after their surgery to learn how life was treating them. Basically they followed the path of trying to disappear and restart their lives totally and I lost touch.

If all this learning was fun, then I had my share. I basically learned truths about myself which took any light heartedness out of my developing gender closet. I found my entire being was being questioned and I felt more natural as a transgender woman. After the term was invented and I was able to read up on it on the internet. Through it all, I still couldn't see myself as a total candidate for gender surgery as I still had too much to lose as my male self. Those days were certainly no fun as I continued to explore my femininity while at the same time trying to maintain a life as a macho male. The gender ripping and tearing nearly killed me. Thankfully I was able to replace fun with satisfaction on the days I was able to go out in the world and live a life without problems as a transgender woman. 

I would point out to all the transphobes who say somehow the entire transgender lifestyle is lived with any sort of trying to achieve fun, they are sadly mistaken. But, lives can be lived to achieve a high level of satisfaction when a high level of inner femininity is reached and a wonderful new lifestyle is found.