Which Closet was It?

Restroom Photo from the
Jessie Hart 
Collection

 Is your perception of the gender closet you lived in (or live in) masculine or feminine?  Until I really began to think about it, I always thought my closet was built by my false masculine self to keep my stronger feminine inner being well hidden. I'm sure most of you faced the same problems as your old male became very proficient at laying new bricks in your closet as fast as your girl was trying to find ways to escape.

Because my girl self was the one in the closet, I considered it a feminine enclosure. I even went as far as remodeled a room in the house we were restoring as my makeover room. As I remember, I painted it a pastel shade, bought a used vanity and mirror and then decorated the walls with vintage pictures of beautiful film stars such as Marilyn Monroe. For some reason which will now be never known, my deceased wife went along with my idea of having a room my girl could call her own. Maybe she thought giving in and letting me decorate my own room would help alleviate my gender stress for awhile by allowing me to express myself.

The problem became was when (of course) just having a room for my clothes and makeup just wasn't enough.  No matter how nice it was, my new closet could not replace the allure of getting out in the world and finding out if I could exist in the world as a transgender woman. For the longest time I was able to stay in and interact with my wife or the mirror before I could stand it no longer and had to open the door of my cage and see the world for the first time. All went well when we set up new boundaries for awhile when we got together and decided once a week I was allowed to go out, rent a motel room out of town and dress as a woman. From there I could go out and explore my new exciting world. Sadly, for the sake of our relationship, none of what I was doing really helped. The more I was out of my feminine closet, the more I wanted to do. Essentially,  I was beginning to live my lifetime dream. The process felt so natural I never wanted to go back and rebuild a male closet to live in. 

In a very short span of time due to my new expanding life, my old life became shambles when I started to seize every opportunity I had to dress up and head out the door. What I was doing was breaking our agreement in regards to my gender expression and putting extra unwanted strain on our relationship. However, the more I was able to spend time out of my old male closet, the ripping and tearing of my overall life became unbearable.  In other words, the more I tried to live a portion of my life in each of the two main gender binaries all the time  the worse life became. Which eventually led me to a suicide attempt. It turned out to be just the latest in a string of incredibly self destructive events I attempted before her death from a sudden heart attack. 

I was so fortunate I was able to have a happy ending of sorts when I finally was able to escape all the negativity as well as my gender closet. In the end, it didn't matter if my cage was masculine or feminine. Only that I was able to escape all the problems which came from within the closet and live my truth as a full time transgender woman.