Master of Myself

Transgender Flag from Lena Balk
on UnSplash. 

Or would have it been proper to say, Mistress of myself?

Probably so, as one way or another, I really struggled to arrive at where I needed to be to achieve my goal of transgender womanhood. Often, I write about how many nights when I came home in tears following being laughed at by an unfeeling public. Looking back now, I have a difficult time wondering what kept me going along my gender path. 

I suppose the little flashes of gender euphoria I experienced kept me going. Such as when I was accepted in malls and clothing stores before I realized all the clerks were seeing was my money, not my gender. Before long, the more experience I put behind me as a cross dresser or novice transgender woman, slowly the path was smoother and the happier I was becoming.

Then there were the small mixers I went to in nearby Columbus, Ohio. When I attended, I was able to see and meet all levels of the LGBTQ community. From admirers to transsexuals to lesbians, they all were there. It was one of the mixers where I was cornered by a much larger crossdresser admirer who was trying to take advantage of me and could have until I was rescued by my second wife. It was also there when I had my first encounter with a curious lesbian, and we left the mixer to visit a bigger lesbian bar. At that point, I was still heavily questioning which way my life would go. What kind of a path was I on and did I control it at all. 

In order to gain control, the only thing I could do was try to gain more and more experience as a transgender woman to learn if I was headed in the right direction with my life. So much was at stake and the pressure was on to make the right decision. In the meantime, I continued to follow my path and learn if I could indeed flip my gender script and attempt to be truly happy for the first time in my life. Perhaps, discovering the truth about myself, would finally provide me the missing link I was seeking. Of course, just dressing to appear as a woman did not solve the problem. As I gained confidence in the world, the world wanted to know more about me. The whole process opened up a whole new range of life opportunities. Such as how was I going to learn to communicate as a woman, all the way to adjusting to a whole new world of passive aggressive women. 

Again, it took a while for me to regain control of my life. Of course, attempting to change genders into my authentic self was a seismic shift in my life. On one hand, my authentic self-felt so natural but on the other, the entire process was so scary. So, I took my time before I started taking gender affirming hormones, so I burned all my gender bridges behind me. Looking back now, I wish I had done it all sooner and taken better control of my life.

I did not however and ended up not transitioning until I was in my sixties. Once I did, there was no looking back and I became the mistress of myself. Finally.