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| 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!
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