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Image from Timelord on UnSplash |
Many times, in my life, I have found myself at a gender crossroads.
Of course, like most of you, I learned from the situations I
put myself into. As I always mention, the first one was when I needed to leave
the comfort zone I had created with the mirror and attempt to live in the world
as a transfeminine person. Initially, I was slapped down as people laughed and
smirked at me. Until I learned to own who I was, which was a huge crossroad to
negotiate.
Over the years, I began to think I had seen everything, but
I had not. My main problem was I needed to make the final decision on which way
I would go if I was faced with a making a final decision on which gender I
would ever live as. Plus, I did not know if I even could live as a
transgender woman. I kept searching and learning until I found I was not
a man cross dressing as a woman; I was a woman cross dressing as a man.
I discovered also, I would need to transition more than once
if I would ever try to make it to my dream life. Primarily when I learned it on
the night I finally decided I would quit going out as a cross dresser and
change my inner thought pattern. I was fed up with just trying to look like a
woman and wanted to feel like one and see as if I could mingle with a group of
ciswomen with no issues. I did make it with the other women and crossed another
road I knew I could never go back. I mingled and socialized with other women
and even used the women’s room with no pushback at all. It was amazing.
The next transition I need to make was when I needed to begin
communicating with other women. It was never easy and a complete learning
process. It does not take a genius to know women and men communicate on a
different level. I knew well how to do it as a man, but I was a total novice as
a woman. The first lesson I learned was I had to pause and listen to the
other woman I was talking to. As a man, I could often make the first move
and hope for the best. With women, I never did and often waited for a passive aggressive
response. The real intent behind the smile often startled me until I caught on
to the game.
All of it led me to the success I needed to this day to be
successful with other women who indirectly try to bully me in their own way. An
example was the ciswoman I wrote about in a recent post when she could not
adjust to me being a parent not a dad to my daughter. In fact, I had a reader
(Michelle) who responded to the woman and my return comment: “You handled
it with so much more grace than I probably would’ve. And Liz’s quick response?
Perfection. I’m so glad you still got to connect with your daughter and your grandchild,
that’s what really matters. The rest is just noise.” Thanks for the
comment! The woman was very noisy and was trying to bully me in her own
way.
I was just fortunate that both Liz and I had been through similar
situations, so we were ready. Somehow, the woman thought she had me over a
gender barrel with the dad comment and that was when Liz took over. The woman asked
Liz who I was to her and Liz said wife and the woman shut up.
My point it, both Liz and I had been through situations with
other women such as her before, so we were able to handle the noise and go
across yet another crossroad. By this time, I think there always will be
another road to cross as I see my gender dream come together.
As Michelle said, the world is full of noise, and we must
separate it into genders to make sense of it. Which would be another blog post
altogether. In the meantime, for all of you approaching your own crossroads, try
to feel secure on your journey and be careful. Especially these days when
depending upon where you live transgender rights of any kind are in danger.
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