More Euphoria

 

Image from Marcus Winkler 
on UnSplash.

Yesterday, I wrote a post describing the joys of gender euphoria and promptly received this comment from “Joey”:

“Hello JJ! I am Joey. I discovered your blog today from a link on Stana's blog, femulate.org I am a crossdresser who presents male while wearing tasteful, feminine outfits. I do feel some euphoria, primarily when I have been out in normal life while dressed pretty for a couple of hours, and all of the stress hormones go away. Only my wife and a few other people know about this side of my life, so it is stressful when I go out in public every week or two. But after the stress, it is very freeing and happy!”

First of all, Joey, welcome to the blog! Hope you enjoy it. The feelings you described were similar to mine too. I know I could not wait until I could shed my male clothes, wear something pretty and sample what the world had to offer for me that day before I had to go back to my old boring stressful male existence. Sure, I felt stress going out as a transgender woman when I first started to do it, but it was nothing compared to my male life. When I was mistaken for a ciswoman, my heart literally sang with joy, and the best part about it was, it all felt so natural. What a homecoming!

My only caution about seeking out more of the male to female femininization process is, it led me to take premature chances with my life. I did not understand all the layers that went into a woman’s life and the only way to gain understanding was by doing it. It was only then that I was given the opportunity to look behind the gender curtain to see what really went on. As I did, I was surprised to learn that many things were the same and women learn in their lives to keep certain things secret from men. Which is why both genders have such a difficult time understanding each other. For example, ciswomen have developed two basic ways of negotiating their lives which have to be understood by any novice transgender woman.

The first is the use of non-verbal communication. Women often give information to other women through their eyes and bypass men all together. I can’t tell you how many silent warnings I got from other women when I was in potential danger from a toxic male.  The second major lesson I learned was how to operate in the new world of passive aggressive women. I needed to have my head on a swivel to look for some other woman coming after me after she initially was smiling and was nice to me. I looked at both of these major changes in my life as just another way of playing the game, and the only problem I had was switching gears when I had to go back to my male life. I had built a career of being aggressive in my business and the change was often difficult for my mental health.

Even though the path went quite slowly for me several times in my life, on occasion, it sped up. Almost to the point of being out of control. My male self-had a unique way of saving his existence when it was on the brink of being taken away. Which made matters worse in my convoluted gender world. How could he continue to be so strong in his resistance when my gender euphoria was so strong when I was successful as a trans woman? I am sure you can understand my dilemma and perhaps have even been there yourself. Somehow, someway, I needed to arrive at a point where I did not define myself as a transgender woman. I defined myself as just me.

Sadly, that point did not come for many years in my life. As my male self-fought long and hard for his right to live on in the world he was successful in. Many times, I good old shot of gender euphoria was all I had to keep going if I was ever going to have a chance of reaching my feminine dream of attempting to live full time. Fortunately, for my life-long dreams, my gender euphoria turned out to be strong too, in its own way. Far past the feel of hose on shaved legs and the sound of my high heels when I walked, all the way to having the confidence knowing who I was. Acquiring the ability to look and another woman eye to eye and communicate on her level was so important to me as I needed to break the communication gap I had with the world when I started to live as a transgender woman.

I am aware that gender euphoria can be different for all of us as we follow our gender paths. Referring back to “Joey’s” comment that she enjoyed being tastefully dressed when she went out. That became so important to me too when I was able to begin to blend into the everyday world as I knew it. Out went the too short miniskirts, replaced my more tasteful denim skirts was a prime example. I was told my legs were always a fashion positive for me so I wanted to show them, but I learned moderation was the best way to go when it came to my male to female femininization process. When I did, my moderation led to a different kind of gender euphoria when I searched for the best way to find my dream.

Euphoria, I found, is also joy of living in a feminine world. Where I always dreamed, I could be. More importantly, once I got there and was living my dream, it was everything I thought it could be and I started to wish I had not waited so long to do it. Of course, thinking that way was just wishful thinking because we are given only one life to live.

I learned I had made the best choice I could and living as a woman was the way to do it.