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| Early fall Image JJ Hart |
As I look around the neighborhood I live in, I see people putting up their Halloween decorations already.
Then I began to think of the supposed “good old days” when
about this time in September that I was starting to seriously consider what “costume”
I would wear and how could I maximize its use by going to as many parties as
possible. It just did not seem fair to me that I had to wait for a once-a-year party
to express my feminine side without the fear of retribution. The worse that
could happen to me were the other women at the party asking me who helped me
with my makeup and did I really shave my legs for one night. I was learning a valuable lesson about how
curious ciswomen could be when you cross the gender highway into their lane.
Basically, my biggest decisions came as I thought about
which theme I would follow year to year if I was going to the same party. And
how creative could I be with my “costume” Ironically, my first big attempt at
dressing feminine at a Halloween party came when I was still in the Army in
Germany, when I was invited by my future wife to go to a hospital’s party. I
had a couple of other wild friends who had their costumes already picked out
and were coming as various forms of the male and female anatomy. So, I thought
it would be an ideal time to fall from my cross-dressing wagon that I had been
forced to be on for two and half years and come as a trashy prostitute.
I do not remember now how I got the clothes I needed to
complete my outfit, but I was able to put together a short mini dress, long
blond wig, hose and heels for a very effective costume. Since I still had
approximately six months to go in the Army at the time, I was happy that no one
seemed to care that I was dressed as a woman at the party.
When I was discharged from my military duty, and Halloween
rolled around, I had a different challenge to face with all the newfound
freedom I had. One thing I did was get away from the prostitute look and try to
find a way to find a “costume” like what a ciswoman would wear. In other words, I wanted to go to the party
and try to pass as another woman enjoying herself. During the first multi-party
Halloween night I went to, I think I did well. I went as one of the French
girls I had seen in Paris when I was in the Army and brought the look home with
me. I paired a all-black outfit which featured black tights, mini skirt and
leotard with my blond wig, red lipstick and topped it all off with black flats
and a black beret.
I was having a very good time entertaining myself in one of
the big local clubs I went to which was having a Halloween party when a guy in a
full mask approached me and simply said “I know who you are.” At first, I
needed to recover from his comment before he went on to say, “I know because you
look just like your mom!” Then I knew who he was and did not know whether to be
flattered or not before he did not say anything else and went on his way. I did
know I looked like mom but not that much.
From then on, I began to build my Halloween “costumes” from
scratch and only used my many trips to thrift stores to help me with items for
what I was going to wear. All I really knew was that I enjoyed my self
immensely in my new world as a transgender woman and wanted to see if I could
take it past the party scene and into reality. There would be other significant
parties I will write about later, for now I had to learn if the build up to
Halloween was totally worth it. I learned it truly was because of all the early
lessons I would need to learn if I was ever going to decide to try to cross the
gender border and live full-time as a transfeminine person.
I also realized that Halloween would be just the briefest
thrill in what would be a long life of gender discovery. Would the overall
gender euphoria of making it through the parties successfully be worth it when
I had to crash back to reality and my increasingly boring male life. Plus, I
found it was unbearable for me to just wait a whole other year to experience my
feminine side again without me going out in public. I took my gender life into
my own hands and began to explore the world in malls and outside in different venues
such as bookstores which helped me build my confidence as a novice trans woman.
I went further, quicker than I ever thought I could and forever
put Halloweens behind me as a necessity in life and more of a fun pursuit. In
its place, I would be trying to carve out a brand-new feminine life of my own. It
was the beginning of the most terrifying yet exciting time of my life. Mainly
because I was stripped of all my old male protections and had to start all over
again in a world where I did not know who to trust. Including myself because
everything I knew was changing when I left the good old boys’ club for good and
applied for membership in the girls’ club that I had so long waited to join. I
was just at a point where I needed to convince ciswomen around me that I was
serious and brought different qualifications to the feminine table. I had to
suggest I was a woman too but just had been socialized a different way than
they had been.
In many ways, Halloween was the earliest part of my
socialization process thanks to the early interactions with ciswomen (and men)
that I experienced. Immediately, I found that men I had known for years ignored
me as a potential cross-dresser or whatever they thought I was. It did not
matter. I was out of the club. While at
the same time, women I had known for years were curious about me. Lessons that
had carried with me well in the learning years to come.
That is why I will forever miss the early excitement I felt
around my early Halloween parties and why I still feel the fun I felt when I
see the neighbors putting up their decorations early. Who knows, there may be a
person in the family with gender issues also.
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