Escalation or Escapism

Halloween image from the 
Archives. Min on right. 

During my life, I spent many uneasy moments in my transgender transition when I was caught between escalating my feminine gender craft or escaping back into my well worn, boring male world. 

The problem quickly became the more I escalated my attempts at being a girl, the more I wanted to do. More and more drama set in as I viewed myself in the mirror. Through it all, I wondered if I could ever put it all together and go out into the public as a novice transgender woman. Following years of escaping back, I finally did take a few tentative steps into the public eye. The first night I tried, I had decided to go to a small book and carry out convenience store just to see what would happen. I arrived and walked down the sidewalk near the store in a shopping center. As I tried to gather my courage to go into the store, I attempted to sneak a look at myself in the clothing store nearby. I could not really see my reflection and began to re-think my idea of going into the store I planned on. Then I decided my idea was not a good one and I headed home to escape back into my male self. 

For awhile, I felt relieved at my decision but then began to think I had taken the easy way out and if I continued on this path I would never discover if I could make it in the world as a transgender woman. Once I was able to locate and buy better fashion choices, including shoes and wigs, my mind started to change as far as escalating myself in the world. After going down a very bumpy road, my confidence increased to the point where I could try out the public again without escaping back to my safe male self. Even still, each time I did escape back, I grew increasingly disappointed in myself and very frustrated in the fact I was wasting all the time and effort I was putting into my femininization. 

Through all the ups and downs, I was slowly but surely gaining small amounts of confidence in what I was attempting to accomplish. In fact, I was scared of how intimidating the entire gender transition process was to me. Many times, I thought I was in too far over my head and was going to drown my entire existence in my quest to be a woman. Something always told me to keep going and the dream I was following would be worth it, so I continued to escalate my transition. 

At that point, one of the biggest surprises which happened to me occurred when I found out how welcoming other women could be. Very quickly I found women were way more apt to approach my feminine side and in return, I could learn how to interact with them also. There was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. so escaping was out of the question. Mainly because I was living through one of the most exciting times of my life. Why would I ever want to escape. 

Still I found I needed to escalate my gender transition. My primary example was when I suddenly had a major mental shift one night when I was going out into the world. As I was going through what I was going to wear and how I was going to do my hair and makeup, it came to me I was no longer going out to trick the world into thinking I was a female, I was going out as a full-fledged transgender woman. I had taken my escalation to a whole other level and one I never wanted to go back to.  When I turned out to be successful. 

When my male life was crashing around me, the easy answer was to keep escalating into my feminine world. Which I did with gender affirming hormones. The magic little pills I started with almost immediately began to femininize my body and my inner emotions. To this day, when I change and apply my Estradiol hormone patches, I thank the powers to be I was healthy enough to undertake the program. 

I believe now, escalating into my feminine world saved my mental health and my life. The more confidence I gained as a transgender woman, the quicker my male self evaporated away. There would be no more escaping.