No Easy Way Out

 

JJ Hart doing Trans Outreach Work. 

Like many of you, I struggled for years to escape my dark, lonely gender closet.

As I beat my head against the closet walls, I stared longingly into the mirror, dreaming of the day I would find an easy way out. As I did, it became increasingly evident to me that there would be no such escape from my dominating male self. He would make life miserable for years because of my indecision.  One day I wanted to be a boy and the next I wanted to be a girl dictated how I lived.

After years of despair over my gender dysphoria, I began to see a sliver of light in my closet when I briefly opened the door to look out. At first, I was getting the door slammed back into my face when I went out in public. Too many people were laughing at me to my face or worse yet, I could hear their comments behind my back. I was sent home early many nights in tears, wondering what I was doing wrong with my feminine presentation. Following intense introspection, I discovered what was wrong. I was letting my old male self-make my fashion decisions and dressing for men instead of women who were for the most part controlling my destiny as a transgender woman. Without the support of women, I would have never made it out of my closet at all.

Even as I learned my lessons on presentation, I still found there would be no easy way out of my closet. I discovered the more walls I scaled on my path to transgender womanhood; the more walls would appear to challenge me. Mainly because I was out in the public eye so much more, and I was challenged to find the proper wig to wear all the time as well as find better fashion to augment my wardrobe. There was no way I wanted to wear the same outfit day after day when people began to recognize me. To offset the extra attention, I needed to increase my visits to area thrift stores to find bargains I could afford, and more importantly, fit me. I was obsessed with outdoing myself when it came to my feminine presentation.

It turned out, the public was noticing as I lost nearly fifty pounds and started taking better care of my skin. If I behaved myself in the world, and was friendly, I crossed the line into communicating with other women. Of all the walls I needed to climb, communication skills were the hardest to scale. The change was dramatic because I needed to change my communication from direct male to indirect female as I learned women often talk with their eyes. Thus, I needed to get better in looking another woman in her eyes when I talked with her. Often doing it as a man was a threatening option, while doing it as a woman was not optional. I needed to learn to do it. By doing so, often I could see what they thought of me. Did they think of me as a woman or sort of a man seeking admittance into their world.

Mostly what I received back was curiosity. What was I doing in their world? And I think they understood my interest in being admitted to the girl’s sandbox went far beyond just putting on a wig, dress and makeup. One way or another, the process was extremely challenging and kept me guessing every night about what I was going to experience because some nights I was tired of climbing walls. I kept looking for the last one to climb, but found I was not even close. Mainly because the gender club I was seeking to join was so complex. On the other hand, the process of totally leaving my closet and male privileges behind was still quite scary and I needed total confidence in what I was doing before I made the final jump.

My introduction to HRT or gender affirming hormones gave me the confidence I needed to keep going. Suddenly the hormones helped me to sync up my external feminine self with my internal one. It was the final shove I needed to get out of my closet and live a new life as a transfeminine person. It turned out there was an easy way to escape if only I possessed the inner strength to look for my truth. Once I did, my fragile mental health improved, and I set my sights on enjoying my family more since a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. In the end, it was all worth it, but it was never an easy trip to go on, or I could find no easy way out.