Why When How

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It's been awhile but every now and then someone asks me how I knew I was transgender. 

The question should be when did I accept the fact I always knew deep down but refused to accept...I was born to be feminine and could not rest until I achieved my goal. In fact, I tried to hide my goal from myself for the largest part of my life.

Even though I was forced to pursue such ultra macho activities such as playing sports, working on cars and completing my military obligations, I made it through. Like so many others, I was drafted into the Army but ended up serving three years instead of two to have a better chance of not going to Vietnam to war. I was honorably discharged in 1975 and would proceed to become a father for the first and only time in 1976. Through it all, I tried my best to ignore my biggest inner truth by trying to drink and run away from the fact I was transgender. 

When I gave my male self his best shot to succeed the more I became increasingly miserable. All the drunken nights did nothing to relieve my gender tension the next day. The only time it did help was when I came out to a close group of friends as a transvestite as a cross dresser was known back in those days. Fortunately for the rest of my Army "career" nobody outed me any further which would have resulted in an immediate dishonorable discharge.

As October and another Halloween is upon us, it is time to focus in on how important the day was to become to me. Halloween proved to be the beginning of my "when" on my path to coming out as a transgender woman. As I will pass along in future Cyrsti's Condo posts, I will detail how important Halloween became to me. In the meantime when started to become so real when I was thinking about my future and how it meshed with the possibility I was transgender. Even though I was working on the when, I still didn't have much of an idea of why I was facing my gender issues at all. At the time I was subjected to extreme bouts of gender dysphoria when sometimes the mirror showed me my old male self and others when it showed me glimpses of my inner feminine self. 

As I moved on, the "how" of what I was trying to accomplish began to weigh heavily on me. After all, I had a lot to potentially lose if I attempted a male to female gender transition. What about my family, friends and finances when my life faced such a radical change. To say the least, the how was very intimidating. What happened was the doors to change opened wide due to lifestyle changes I could in no way predict.

In the short space of two years, my second wife suddenly passed away. Since she was the major force in not starting hormone replacement therapy, I could now research if I could do it. Ironically, soon after I was approved health wise by a doctor, the Veterans' Administration healthcare system which I was a part of began to approve and administer hormones to trans veterans. As far as family went, my only daughter became my biggest ally while I lost all contact with my only brother. And the final how took care of itself when I was able to take advantage of early Social Security retirement. So I didn't have to worry about coming out at work. So almost all the why, when and how's were in place, except the why which I have never quite figured out to this day. Truthfully, I probably never will. 

The whole gender process was just something I was born with and should have come to grips with much earlier in life. If I did, I could have saved myself countless hours of stress and thoughts over why I had to be the one who was different. Once I arrived with the knowledge I was different, I embraced it all and moved on to a better future. 

Finally, I don't say it nearly enough but thanks to all of you who read and comment on all of my posts. Your participation makes it all worthwhile to me.