Is Purging Just a part of a Trans Journey we Need to Go Through?

 

Image from Shayan Rostami
on UnSplash. 

I received several wonderful comments to my “Purging” post yesterday including people such as Jeanie who has had gender issues for years such as me.

Here is the comment and we will go from there: “I just purged last Thursday. I wanted to see if there was a strong enough "desire to reacquire". I'd go months with the stash behind insulation in the basement under a bay window without dressing. It might be I was too chickenshit”.

Thanks for the comment! And it got me to thinking about all the ways we cross dressers or novice transgender women went to hide our small collection of feminine wardrobe and makeup from our family. As a kid, I even went as far as hiding my stash in plastic garbage bags in a hollowed-out tree in a neighboring woods. Where I hoped no one would ever discover it. In addition, I had two other small hiding places in the house I could go to if I was suddenly free to cross-dress in front of the mirror. The entire process added to hiding my gender issues in plain sight. Almost, as all along, I was desperately trying to escape being caught and being sent on an unpleasant trip to a psychiatrist who would have most assuredly pronounced me mentally ill. Which was the norm for mental health professionals back in those days.

Since I never completely purged my feminine stash ever, maybe I was too chickenshit to do it (as Jeanie said). Or, as I struggled throughout my life with gender issues, my own “desire to reacquire” would return to rule my life. As it turned out, I was never strong enough to purge totally. Which looking back should have given me a clue to who I really was, a woman cross dressing as a man. Deep down, I knew, every feminine item I had worked so hard to acquire could not so easily be thrown in the trash. It would ultimately come down to me wondering how much different I would look in the mirror if I had not thrown out my previous stash.

At first, it all got worse before it got better when I entered my strong going out in the world as a novice transgender woman with my second wife. Fortunately, when I was restoring the old house, we lived in, I was able to build in a closet we rarely used. So, I found a place to hide the many thrifts store finds I had made and purchased. Also, by this time I was in a place where I did not care what my gender foes thought. I was building my future public persona, so I needed to look my best. Essentially, I entered the “don’t ask, don’t tell” phase of our relationship when my wife never said a word about my increasingly large wardrobe. She knew, I knew I was never going to purge again. Which turned out to be not true.

Just before she passed away, I decided to throw away “most” of my wardrobe and makeup and even went to the extent of growing a beard. Which I considered the ultimate purge. Even as I did it, something told me to keep my favorite outfit, wig and shoes because I never could be sure when I would need my old friends again. Tragically, six months later I did when my wife passed away and I turned inwardly to my feminine soul for comfort. When I did, I was able to shave my beard and hit the ground running towards a new life. Or, should I say, heels on the ground.

One way or another, I was happy I was not strong enough to totally attempt to purge away my feminine life. It was time to open a new chapter, even if I was sixty, as a transfeminine person. It seems many of us, with gender issues are doomed to a life of denial. We try to sooth our transgender or cross dresser sides by trips to our mirrors until we are caught, or in a relationship which even makes it worse. We begin to feel guilty about many things such as forsaking our ingrained male habits, all the way to feeling selfish for wanting to do something as radical as changing our genders for ourselves.

A lifetime of purging falls right in line with all the other pitfalls we encounter on our gender journeys. We must be strong enough men to make it to transgender womanhood and purging is just another experience we have to go through.

As always, thanks for reading along with my writings and experiences! Your comments mean a lot to me also. They help me to know if I am headed in the right direction. Please keep them coming!