Becoming Involved Through Isolation

 

Photo from
the Jessie Hart
Collection

When I first decided to leave my dark lonely gender closet and attempt to live as a transgender woman, I was extremely lonely and more than a little confused. 

During that time I had lost nearly everything which was dear to me. My wife had just died, along with many of the close friends I had managed to know and on top of all of that, it was becoming more and more evident I was going to lose my restaurant which I had invested so much time and money in. During this time of extreme duress, one of my only releases from the pain was resorting to my feminine self to help me.

In order to figure out where I was going to go, I had to consider several important points. The main one of course was which venue I should go to. Previously I was taking the easy way out by going to the safer gay venues I had heard of. In some ways, they were safer but surprisingly acceptance for transgender women such as me just wasn't evident. Most of the time I was considered to be just another drag queen, which of course I wasn't. Plus, if I ended up looking similar to a drag queen, all it proved was I had a lot of work to do on my feminine presentation. Another point I failed to consider was, the vast majority of men in the male gay venues I was going to didn't want anything to do with a woman anyhow. So I was left out again. 

Since I really didn't care for the overall atmosphere, I needed to find other places to live my new reality. Finally I decided to attempt to go to places I previously enjoyed as my male self, upscale sports bars with cold draft beer and many big screen televisions to watch my favorite sporting events. The best of both worlds for me if I could find acceptance as my feminine self. 

Other than a few notable rejections when I was asked to leave a couple venues I shouldn't have been in to start with, I did find acceptance. Even to the point of gaining women's room privilege's. I was still alone in a spot where single women don't go, I still was able to be considered a regular by the bartenders who even came to my rescue when I needed it due to unwanted attention from overly drunk men. To dissuade the men even further I used my cell phone as a prop. Once I sat down and began to get settled, I then would pull out my phone and acted as if I was waiting for someone to join me. Often all of my act was wishful thinking because again I was very lonely. I was stressed because on one hand I wanted to find a friend as a woman but on the other hand, I was very troubled about the how's and why's of how  it could ever happen. Those were the days I was very confused about how my gender transition would effect my sexuality. Which turned out to be a non issue which is a topic for a whole other blog post.

Speaking of other blog posts, it was through my being alone to find someone, paid off very well for me. Through the process, I ended up finding cis-women friends who were very instrumental in my navigation of the MtF transition process. They taught me more than they ever knew. 

Possibly the route I took to my transition success is not the path others should take but becoming involved through isolation worked for me.