I Almost Waited too Long to Transition

 

Image from Lizgrin F 
on UnSplash.

I almost went too far when it came to not deciding to transition from male to female in my life.

During the previous half century of cross-dressing my life away in the mirror, I put off making my final decision so many times. One of the main problems was, I was sixty years old and was forced to consider my mortality, which I had always taken for granted. Plus, another issue I had was feeling just a little too comfortable with all the male privilege I had struggled to build up in my life. Often it seemed, destiny had stepped into my life to guide it a certain way because I was very self-destructive and selfish. So much so that my mom always said I had a guardian angel riding with me when I did stupid things behind the wheel. All along, of course, I was trying to hide the pain of hiding who I truly was.

On the other hand, I was basically an impulsive person who felt all rules were temporary and could be worked around. Such as my time in the Army when I was able to land a job with the American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS), which was nearly impossible to do. In the meantime, I was facing the biggest struggle of my life as I needed to figure out what I was going to do about my gender issues. It was always the elephant in the corner of every room I was in.

What I decided to do was research as much as I could my dream goal of living a life as a transgender woman. When I did, my very real struggles began. Early on, nothing came easy on my gender path. I was being laughed at when I went out in public as a novice until I got it right. As I fortunately exited that portion of my life, I was able to see more clearly what I was up against, and it was daunting. I had very little idea of the layered lives ciswomen lead as compared to men. When I realized what I was up against, I needed to set my transition timetable back. And to make matters worse, my male self was becoming increasingly successful in his life. Building up a solid base of marriage, family, friends and job. How could I ever replace all of that and when could I do it.

The only recourse I had at the time was the worst one I could consider. Internalize my deepest gender thoughts and keep trying to attempt to do the best I could to survive a life caught between the two main primary genders. Three days as a trans woman and three days as a man was killing me and I tried to no avail to take the extra day off to relax. It turned out I could not because all I thought of on my supposed day off was what I was going to do the next time I went exploring the world as a transfeminine person. Which brings up a good point, during this time of my life, any thoughts I had that I was just a cross dresser were slipping away. Only to be replaced by the fact that I refused to accept. I was more a woman of my own making than I ever thought.

One way or another it was in my fifties when I began seriously researching the word transgender and what it meant to me. I was happy when I finally found the terminology which applied to me but again what was I going to do about it. I was not getting any younger. I still made the worst of all possible choices and continued my path of least resistance. At least that is how it appeared to the outside world which I was effectively hiding my efforts of femininizing from them. I had won my award as a strong male role model with a good marriage, family and job, and now I wanted to give it all back for a radical gender change into womanhood.

When my sixtieth birthday rolled around, I finally decided I needed to make a major change before it was too late. I went to a doctor and took the steps to be approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT and the real changes started. As good as I felt though, I could not shake the sorrow I had from moving permanently away from my male life. Even after my mental health improved.

Finally, I realized I had waited too long for the change and should have had the courage to do it long before I did. But at least I managed to make the major gender change I did before it was too late. And what about my elephant who was my constant companion? I set it free.