Picking your Poison

 

Dinner with my wife Liz
on left. JJ Hart on right.

Before we get started on this post, let me repeat again and again a transgender woman's or trans man's path to living an authentic life is NOT a choice.

Somehow for reasons we are never aware of, we are born into it. At that point we are forced to pick our gender poison when we decide to follow our instincts and transition or decide to stay in our closets for whatever reason. 

Most of the reasons on either side are compelling and not wrong. Reasons include major implications include facing problems with employment, family and friends. When faced with any or all of these challenges make a closet a more comfortable place to be. Or is it? Do the problems ever go away? The answer of course is no and picking your poison becomes a bigger problem. In my case, I became increasingly caught between my own personal gender rock and the hard place. 

On one hand, I appreciated the unwanted but over appreciated male privileges I had earned the hard way. But, on the other hand, I increasingly felt natural and excited by the new feminine spirit I was feeling. The main problem I had was knowing deep down I could never go back to my male life but could not face my own truth and the process then began my poison. The longer I progressed on my gender path, the stronger my poison became and the only anti-venom I knew was to keep exploring the world as a transgender woman. I became so engrossed in my search on occasion I forgot my old male self altogether. In a short period of time I was facing cruel and unusual punishment. Mainly because I needed to internalize all my poison and the process was lonely and unfruitful. What about key questions such as my sexuality? What would my future life look like. 

All too soon, I knew my poison was also my strength. I just knew I had to stay on the path I was on to finally achieve my gender freedom. I was fortunate, I escaped my closet and was able to achieve my ultimate goal of earning my transgender womanhood. The entire process was not without stress and failure along the way. It was like I was living the ultimate trans woman's days out. I needed better times in my life just to survive in the world. Often I just was confused in how I was going to spit out my poison and achieve my dreams. As I said, I was on a lonely path and needed any light I could focus on to help find my way along. It was like I was carrying the darkness of my closet with me. 

As I was planning to go away and throw (or donate) my male clothes out, I needed to make sure I was picking the right poison when I found a trans woman's life was not all sweetness and light. Entering a woman's world meant I needed to be better than the average other woman just to survive. On the other hand, I found all the life I had lived on both sides of the binary gender border gave me more experience in the world as a whole which helped me to survive. 

In my world picking my poison and being able to escape my dark closet was the only way to go. Being a guy was always difficult for me and learning how to live as my authentic self was even more difficult but was so much more natural and enjoyable.