All Along, I was just Becoming Me

 

Image from Pea on UnSplash. 

As I always point out, becoming me was a very difficult concept to adjust to.

First of all, I needed to understand who the true me really was and work my way to the light out of my dark closet. Sadly, it took me decades to face the truth about who I really was. I was never the male I was seemingly born to be. I was born to be a feminine person, no matter what it took to get there. Which turned out to be the key term over the years, as I risked everything to discover who I truly was. As my male self was busy building a wall to his world by becoming successful in his job, my novice transgender self-needed to take a back seat and watch the clown show.

The problem was that often the clowns were not funny and just needed to stop before they caused complete damage to my life as I knew it. I was living the male dream in many ways with a good job, small family and a close knit group of friends and it was difficult to even thinking about giving it all up, but I did. Male privilege was very real to me and preparing to give it up was intimidating to say the least. Somehow, I needed to find the true me and quit being so self-destructive when my gender dysphoria hit me. In most cases, my morning mirror was to blame when I looked in it for the first time everyday and saw a woman lurking behind my male self-shaving.

I did not really begin to understand who I truly was, until I put my cross-dressing world behind me and started to explore the world as a transgender woman. Before I did though, I needed to draw an invisible line in the sand when I went out and see if I could cross it. When I did, I felt a deep sense of gender euphoria and wellness. When I did not I had to force myself to go back home, return to my cross-dresser drawing board and try again. Which I needed to do many times before I started to get it right. The important part is that no matter how down I felt on the days I was abused in public, there always seemed to be the slightest spark of hope which came from feeling good and natural as my feminine self. Suddenly, finding my true self did not seem to be so far away, if I could find the time out of my busy life to do it.

That is when I started to use every moment of my spare time in my transfeminine explorations of a terrifying yet exciting new world of cis women. Plus, if I was not exploring, I was busy thinking about it when I was working as a man. I wish I had back all the excess time I wasted in those days when I could have put the energy into my family, spouse or work. It would have made such a difference in my life. As it was, my life consisted of slowly sliding down a gender cliff. Not knowing what awaited me when I finally let go of my male self and headed towards a feminine world for once and for all. At that time, I did not realize I would have a team of gentle womanly hands to soften my fall. I still had a lot to learn about going behind the gender curtain.

Even though I was becoming accomplished as my authentic me, I found I still had many years ahead of me to continue my journey. I still had to round myself out as a new person very much from scratch. It was difficult to not automatically out my male self when I was talking to a new woman who turned out did not care about him anyhow. It was time to put him in the background and pick and choose the highlights of what benefitted me as a trans woman creating a new life. It was a different way to live and took a lot of getting adjusted to. Far beyond just worrying about my appearance and if I could use the right rest room. I needed to be on my toes all the time because just the wrong response about my past could give my whole male life away.

Once I separated the forest for the trees, I was allowed behind the gender curtain or rather followed my woman friends back there. For once, I was on the gender ride of my life. The same one I had paid so many dues over the years to be on, and once I got there, there was no way I wanted to give it up. So, as you can tell, I had a lot of help finding the real me. Women like Liz, Kim and Nikki showed me the way with their knowledge of playing in the girl’s sandbox. They all helped to bring out the true me in ways they never knew as my male past faded into my rearview mirror for good. It was the only time in my life that a mirror made the right call for me.

Needless to say, finding my true self after all those decades really opened the world up for me and made life so much more pleasant. Since I was not suffering from all the gender in-fighting I was going through, my mental health improved along with everything else. It did not hurt that the HRT gender affirming hormones I was on were making serious in-roads on how I felt internally as a trans woman and how I was viewed by the public. I felt better all around.

The only problem that I see now is how long it took me to come up with my own gender truth. If I had faced the facts long ago, I could have saved myself and the people I loved around me all the emotional stress I caused. Finding the true me cost me the most precious commodity I had. My time.

 

How Much Discipline do you Need

 

Image from Brett Jordan
on UnSplash.

One thing I learned the hard way in my transgender travels from male to female was that it took an intense level of discipline to do it. In fact, cross-dressing as a girl was the first thing I ever did in my life which took a large amount of discipline. School was easy enough and sports were something I always tried at but never excelled at.

Growing up, I was always under pressure from my parents to finish any projects that I started and do them right. That is when the struggle began. I have written fairly extensively about how I struggled with the makeup arts when I first discovered all the makeup samples my mom had stashed in a drawer beside her sink in the bathroom. Using the samples meant I would have less chance of discovery when and if she discovered someone was in her makeup.

The only parallel I always use was how I tried miserably to paint all the plastic model cars I put together. My cars never seemed to come out as well as my friends and I really did not want my makeup to be the same failure as my attempt at modeling cars was. For the first time in my life, I developed the discipline to do something about wearing makeup and I set out to become better at it. Which included being able to purchase the right supplies with the meager amount of money I had to work with. I was under a lot of pressure when I did my own shopping for feminine accessories, so I needed to make sure I did not make a mistake and buy something which made me look like a clown in drag going to the circus.

Little did I know, developing discipline in my feminine pursuits was just the beginning of a lifetime search for a transgender future. Every time I turned around, I faced a new challenge, it seemed like I first went out in the world of ciswomen. Where I needed to be better to just survive. A prime example was early in my life as a novice transgender woman, I had a difficult time of getting out of the mirror and putting a complete feminine image together for the world to see. It seemed as if every time I thought my makeup and fashion looked good, my movements and voice were totally off, and I would ruin the whole image. I just had to develop the discipline to do it all and complete myself as a transfeminine person.

Experience was the only way it happened. The more I went out into the world, the more I learned about if I could ever achieve my trans woman dreams. It was very important to me to explore all my options before I made such a huge and important decision in my life. Before long, I was sneaking out of the house every spare moment I had to live the new life I was carving out as a transgender woman. The problem was, the whole experience was terrifying while at the same time, it felt so natural. Further confusing me on which way I should go with my gender issues.

One way or another, I was developing the discipline to conduct myself in the world of women with my own set of standards. I learned to dress and makeup myself to blend in where I was going and more importantly how to communicate with others around me when I got there. It took tons of discipline to do it. Especially when I was making the mistake of trying to live in both binary genders at once. I needed to force myself to make sure I was projecting the right gender at the right time mainly when I was at my job as a successful man. I can’t tell you how many times customers tripped up and called me “mam” when I was going about my male business. Secretly I was pleased but could not show it. The bigger problem I always mentioned was that the gender ping-pong I was playing took a tremendous toll on my mental health. Switching back and forth was terrible.

The only positive was that I developed more discipline than I had ever had before. When I was a man, I knew I was temporarily holding on to a lifestyle I no longer cared about and when I was a woman, I totally had bought into where I wanted to go with the rest of my life. The only thing left to do was to seal the deal and do it. And learn the fine little nuances ciswomen know how to exist in their world. Like figuring out who the alpha female is and going after her approval. Through it all, I was building layer upon layer of confidence in myself. Which I would need later when the dark period of being extremely lonely set in. The intimidating thought of finding anyone remotely able to partner with again looked very dim until all of a sudden it was not. That is when I found my current wife Liz over a decade ago and she made a believer out of my self again and I could drop all my personal defenses to ever loving someone again.

It turned out that all the work I put into disciplining myself into being a totally different person worked out for the best. I emerged from my work with a newfound lease on life as the transgender woman I had always dreamed of becoming. I proved my parents wrong. I could take on a project and see it through successfully. Just not the one they had chosen for me. I tried once to come out to my mom and was rejected and never to my dad, so I doubt they would have ever approved of what I did. Even though what I did was save my own life by shattering my gender shell.

It took a lifetime worth of work to improve my feminine discipline. Mainly because I was blindly entering a world of ciswomen I knew nothing about as my gender workbook was blank when I started. After making up for lost time, I fairly quickly caught up and entered the world as myself.

 

Time is All I Had

 

JJ Hart, Trans Wellness Outreach. 

Time is a fickle beast which sometimes comes back to help us, and other times it comes back to haunt us.

Depending on how far you are in your gender journey, perhaps you can remember your first experiences with the clothing of the gender you desired so much. Then again, I have heard from several readers who started their explorations at a much later age. Either way, time became a concrete reckoning to be dealt with. Mainly because time is a finite way of restricting all of us during our lives.

Since I have been fortunate to have been given a long/full life to live (I am seventy-six), I have seen my life come full circle in several areas. I have seen the joys of gender euphoria which kept me going when I hit the deep depression of stop signs and blind curves on my gender pathway. Through it all, I tried my best to learn from all my mistakes and successes. Little did I know I would live long enough to take advantage of everything I had learned. Or much of it as for much of my life I was always second guessing the decisions I was making. Did I make the right decision on taking a new job, or more importantly when I started to go out in public as a transgender woman and risking it all, was I doing the right thing.

What I did not take into consideration I had no real choice in what I was doing. From birth I was destined not to be the male person I was supposed to be. I had bigger and better things ahead of me if I broke the mold and was able to do it. I had the time to finally decide which path was right for me as I diligently explored the world of all the cisgender women around me. Then, a major roadblock arose when I was not allowed behind the gender curtain. The only time I was really getting out in public as a trans woman in hiding was at Halloween when nearly everyone knew me as a man. I badly needed other escape routes into the public eye if I was ever going to have the time to achieve my dream.

It turned out time was cheap in the middle years of my life as they turned out to be a blur. More and more, I began to sneak out of the house and explore the world around me as my transfeminine self. It was only then that I began to be allowed to be behind the gender curtain to see if life there what was really what I wanted. Spoiler alert, it was very much what I wanted as I even though many times I was terrified (yet excited) when I explored. I thought I had forever to do it and took my time trying to find new things to do as a transgender woman in a woman’s world. Which at times, still had me baffled about how it worked because I was still carrying around too much of my old male baggage. His expectations for the most part of how a woman acted in the world were formed from stereotypes he learned growing up as he watched women from afar and for the most part putting them up on a pedestal.

What I did not realize was my indecision to go all the way into the women’s world I was immersed in, was costing me years later on in life that I wanted back. Like everyone else I had assumptions, and mine were that I had plenty of time to research the difficult layered life of  and being a woman, when I simply did not which led me all the way to the age of sixty before I made the fateful decision to throw gender paranoia to the wind, pursue HRT, and change my life forever. While I still had the time because all the people I loved and respected in my life were rapidly passing away around me. The finality of death became a very real reality to me and if I was ever able to live my gender dream of living life as a woman, I had better do it while I still had the chance to enjoy it.

All I had was time was quickly fading away with all the people around me and I had very few people to make my own gender reveal to. For the most part, except for my brother and sister-in-law, my gender reveals were successful with most people telling me they were happy to see me happy. I guess one way to look at it is, if you wait long enough for your reveal you can be the last man standing becoming the last woman standing.

Going back to a theme which has popped up around here recently, if you are transgender you have given up all your rights to be a second-class citizen. And at least all you have going for you is that your journey has been an interesting one. From the earliest days of admiring yourself in the mirror all the way to earning your way behind the gender curtain, you have done it all.

Even though it maybe took a few years to do it, you know how difficult it has been to do it and every step needed to be carefully planned. One false move could send you back down your path and sometimes even worse than that. Ridicule by spouse, family and friends can happen at the same time your gender privileges were revoked. You feel helpless until you get your feet back on the ground to where you can continue and begin moving to a place where you always have known you should be.

For me, the time was now or never when I decided to live full-time, I had taken working on my feminine presentation, as well as being out in as many situations (good and bad) as I could. Anymore and I was just wasting my time and kidding myself if I did not pull the plug on my male life and get on with my future which I felt could be bright.

I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and for once it was not the train. I had paid my dues and was ready to live my life the way I wanted. Even though I ended up taking so long to do it, I was happy when I did. Age turned out to be more than a number for me, it turned out to be the magic time of my life.

Thanks to all of you for taking your precious time reading along!

 

The Power of Allies

 

Image from Peyton Sickles
on UnSplash. 

I don’t know if I could have ever made it to my dream of living as a full-time transgender woman, without the help of strong allies.

There were many times when I had hit a stopping point on my gender path and was clueless on which way to go. Mainly because I was attempting to find myself as a woman so I could continue to live after a failed suicide attempt.

I have several examples. The first of which came when I first started to go out and secretly wanted to find a social life as a trans woman because I was so lonely after my wife of twenty-five years unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack at the age of fifty. In the past I had considered myself a social person, and it hurt deeply to be lonely. At first, I went online and tried the usual methods of establishing a contact or two to date but I ran into the usual problems of inviting all sorts of trash into my life, which included many no shows when I had arranged to meet someone in public. Which was the only way I would do it for personal safety reasons.

In the meantime, I was fortunate to escape the gay venues I was going to (where they thought I was just another drag queen) and establish myself in a couple of the big sports bars I used to go to when I was a man. Places where I could drink pints of beer and watch sports on big screen televisions. Ironically, being alone in one of these venues led me directly to my first two powerful allies.

The first happened to be the mother of one of the bartenders who set up a casual date between us one night where she worked. It turned out we got along really well, shared the same interests and set up future dates, so my end to the extreme loneliness I was feeling was looking like it might me coming to an end. I was further encouraged not long after that when one night a woman came in to pick up her to go food order and suddenly slid her phone number down the bar to me, to my amazement. Not long after that, I kept the number and had the courage to call it.

From that point forward, the three of us made an inseparable trio as we watched sports and drank beer in the venues we met in. Plus, as it turned out, the two women turned out to be lesbians which put a unique perspective to my life as I was regularly attending lesbian mixers and learning any thing I could about the culture which was so new to me. As we socialized together, I was learning as much as I could about being a woman. The first major lesson I learned was that I did not need validation from a man to be a woman which was a relief because of two reasons. The first being that I had very little interactions with men at all primarily I think because I was not attractive enough. The second of which was I really did not want to deal with all the drama I knew men can bring from all the time I spent as a man. I knew how to deal with ciswomen all my life and felt more comfortable with the drama women bring. I always had more women friends than close male friends.

The two most profound allies were yet to enter my life at that point.

As part of my online searches, I did have one response from a Wiccan/lesbian woman in nearby Cincinnati, Ohio. She told me I had sad eyes from my online picture, and we slowly began to correspond by text messages before I felt comfortable enough to talk to her in person. Finally, I got over my shyness and after talking to each other I decided to ask her out on a date. She accepted, and we decided to meet halfway between our homes with friends and go to a drag show at a well-known gay bar. We ended up having a great time and decided to set up another date. This time with my other friends at a women’s roller derby event. I was in gender heaven to be able to go with three other women to one place and enjoy myself for once. My help from allies was coming through for me.

At the same time, I needed to come out to what was left of my blood family. My parents and most of the rest of the family had passed away, leaving only my daughter (only child) and my only brother to come out too. I thought at the time I would have problems with my brother and hopefully not my daughter and I was right. My daughter’s only real reaction was why she was the last to know and my brother totally rejected me by not inviting me to the annual Thanksgiving Day dinner. He sold me out to his rightwing religious in-laws, and I have not spoken to him since which has been over a decade now. I was fortunate when my allies (daughter) and Liz stepped up to help me in my time of need. Not only was I invited to one Thanksgiving family dinner, but I was also invited to two. Even though I was happy to have someplace to go for the holidays, it was quite stressful for me to meet people at my daughter’s in-laws who had known me for years as a man but also meet Liz’s dad and brother for the first time.

The best part of having all of these strong allies on my side was they expected me to be myself. In fact, I was still on the fence of living as both binary genders as I met Liz. It was not too far into our long relationship that she told me the final words to kickstart my final plunge to a feminine life. One day Liz told me what I was waiting for, she had seen both sides of me and had only seen the female side, nothing of the old unwanted masculine me. That was it, I agreed and went about giving away what was left of my male wardrobe and never looked back as I started HRT or gender affirming hormones to further femininize my exterior self.

Along the way, I tried to explain to all my ciswomen allies how much they had done for me, but they would not take any credit. They never understood how much they did to help me become the happy transgender woman I am today. And, by the way, Liz and I finally got married after eight years and now have been together for over a decade.

 

 

It's Complicated

 

Image from Fa Barboza
on UnSplash.

About a month ago, when I was being admitted into a hospital with what turned out to be pneumonia, I had to go through a very complicated conversation about my gender with the emergency room nurse.

Complicating matters is the hospital I have been to before has my gender listed correctly as female, but the nurse had heard the emergency squad driver refer to me as “he” several times after he talked to me about my living situation. When I told him I was married to a woman, somehow, he automatically assumed I was a man. Which I did not care about at the time, as all I wanted to do was recover from whatever was wrong with me. Plus, chances are, I will never see him again (I hope.)

Anyhow, the admissions nurse waded right in with the complicated gender questions. She did ask how I would like to be referred to in the pronoun department which was nice after I needed to tell her I was born as and still was a biological male. Actually, none of the conversation bothered me as I told her I lived fulltime as a transgender woman and was even married to a woman. Where some of the confusion was coming in. She accepted all of that, and we moved on to more important matters such as my medical care. Since I had been admitted to that hospital in the past, I had all the confidence in the world we could move past the complicated part of my transgender self and get on to the real work.

Since I have now been out in the world as my authentic self for over a decade now, normally questions about me don’t bother me. Except in the case of a mammogram nurse, I had several years ago who enquired if I had any “surgeries down there.” Like it was any of her business. I was upset at the question and showed it because then she went ahead and did her job of completing the mammogram. I also consider myself to be an educational curiosity to many people who have never seen or dealt with a transgender person. They have been radicalized by the recent wave of anti-trans political ads and have no way of knowing we often lead similar lives to them and are not the flamboyant style drag queens again on the ads.

Seeing as how I chose a complicated life to live, I need to live it the best I can, and I must say, I have encountered very few haters of gender bigots in the world. Which surprises me. I judge my public gender success on the amount of “he’s” or “she’s” I get when I am out in public. Going back to the hospital, the overwhelming number of nurses and aides did not gender me at all. They did their job and just kept going. All except one day nurse I had for two of my five days who kept infuriating me by calling me “buddy.” As I was stuck with her, I saw no point in explaining how I was not her buddy, for several different reasons.

I have a lot of compassion for those people who don’t understand me if they are not evil about it or want to further take away my rights. Mainly because I try to remember how long it took for me to understand myself and even longer to do anything meaningful about it. If I don’t set my expectations of people too high, then I am pleasantly surprised when they reach my expectations of a good person who of course tries to understand complicated me.

I think too, that growing up with gender dysphoria automatically qualifies you to be more complicated than the average non-transgender person. I know for me, the daily conflict of trying to decide if I was a boy or a girl growing up was a pressure I would not wish on my worst enemy. Learning to live with it was a constant problem I needed to deal with for what turned out to be nearly fifty years before I came to my final decision on how I was going to live. What a relief it was to get the gender burden off of my shoulders and on with life. Knowing completely, I would be facing difficult, complicated life choices ahead on my path to my dream.

It turned out, my recent hospital visit was just a reminder of the life I was trying to lead. I spend too much time in my cocoon away from the public. When I do get out, I am fortunate to have my best ally Liz to lead the way. If anyone is on the fence concerning my gender, when she continues to call me she, it really helps to set the tone and pave the way for public acceptance, A prime example was the recent bus tour to Florida we took. All the interaction Liz had with the other travelers set me up for success.

If you are contemplating going down a similar path as I did, just be aware that it will be complicated but on the other hand (as Emma said to me in a recent comment, very interesting.) For whatever reason we choose this path to our dreams of living as a transfeminine person, when we keep in mind what the difficulty factor in doing it is, we are better off and well adjusted to the new world we are in. There are few human efforts as inherently difficult than crossing the male to female gender frontier. The gender euphoria is worth it though when the public reaffirms who you are and you can finally come full circle back to the person you were always meant to be. They will never understand how difficult and complicated your journey was.

When you make it interesting too, you really have been able to make your life a success. It is for you and only you to understand.

 

 

 

 

Living in the Real World

 

Image from Jacqueline Mungala
on UnSplash.

Living in the real world became a challenge to me as I transitioned from a male existence to a feminine world. The main problem I had was figuring out what was right and what was wrong as I followed my path through many blind curves and stop signs.

One thing I never thought of completely was how different my life would be if I had ever had the chance to live as a fulltime transgender woman. Sure, I was not totally naïve and thought my world would basically involve pretty clothes and being chased by boys. When I finally was allowed behind the gender curtain, I discovered how complex and layered lives ciswomen really live. Very quickly, trying to live in the real world as a novice struggling trans woman got me in over my head. I would be remiss if I did not bring up how I tried to present myself. I thought trying to look like a sexy teen girl was the way to go, and fortunately my time in that cross-dressing phase of my life went away quickly. Often with brutal consequences of being laughed out of any venue I was trying to visit.

In other words, I put what my male self was telling me about presenting as a woman in the real world behind me and started to look around to what I needed to do to blend in with the other ciswomen around me. The challenge was not only did I have to be as good as the next woman, I needed to be better to survive in the real world I found myself in. With success, I brought confidence I could do more.

The next problem I faced was what was I going to do about my deteriorating (already fragile) mental health. As luck would have it, I was assigned a qualified therapist within the Veterans Administration who knew what she was doing and was able to separate my Bi-polar disorder from my gender dysphoria issues. She provided me with permission to begin HRT which is something I had always wanted and made the real world more livable for a transfeminine person like me.

At the same time, I was trying to take every spare moment away from work to explore different venues as a trans woman. I was attempting to accomplish trying out (as much as possible) everything I would have to go through if I ever followed my dream into womanhood. What was a ciswoman’s life really like and how was it different than what I had already lived as a man. I was entering the scariest yet most exciting time of my life as for the most part I was successful when I went out. The biggest issue which eluded me, was being able to communicate effectively with the world of women I encountered. Learning all the nuances of non-verbal communication women use was the biggest challenge for me. For the first time in my life, I needed to really listen to what was being said to me and watch the other woman’s eyes at the same time to see if I could catch a clue of what she really meant.

Through this portion of my life, I had a powerful motivation to succeed as a woman in the real world. My second wife of twenty-five years had unexpectedly passed away to leave me completely alone with my gender issues. I had no spouse to worry about how to tell my truth about wanting to be a woman. Yet another terrifying yet exciting time of my life. What was I going to do about my newfound freedom. Since you are reading this post, you know what I decided to do. I started making plans to finally make the leap off the gender cliff I had thought of for some time and throw caution to the wind for the remainder of my life. I figured why not because my confidence was at an all-time high with my small circle of friends I had built up. Along with factoring in all the time and effort I put in exploring the real-world ciswomen live in because for once, I had earned my way (or forced my way) behind the so called “sacred” gender curtain.

Once I had made it to this point, after another stop sign on my transgender path, I found I still had more learning to do to really be ready to live in the real world. That is where my ciswomen (lesbian) friends came in which is a subject of another blog post. I will say, they taught me how to be validated as myself in the real world. It was another main transition to go from thinking I was a transgender woman to knowing I was just me. Which took me from cross-dresser to trans woman, back to a secure me during my lifetime. A long, often brutal journey which had a happy ending. I learned the person I had been running from much of my life was not such a bad person after all.

Maybe, most importantly, I discovered the one aspect of my life I never thought I could experience and that was having the ability to be happy. I never had a chance to learn it from my family, and I spent so much time trying to deny myself any satisfaction I could have had from a successful career as a man, there was no time to ever be happy. It turned out that when I turned the corner back to just being the true me, I allowed happiness to be part of my existence.

I had survived all the lessons I had learned as I followed my path to a brighter, more authentic gender future. Living in the real world was not such a bad thing after all. My only regret is that it took me so long (all the way till sixty) to have the courage to face my truth so I could live as I truly was.

 

 

 

I Could Never Say No

 

JJ Hart with two Special People who 
made it Impossible for me to say No.
Liz on left, daughter on right. 

I discovered early in life that saying no to cross-dressing as a girl was something I could never do.

I tried many times, but I was a miserable failure as the pressure would build to run to my makeup and wardrobe to look at myself in the mirror. I even went as far as trying to shave the ugly unwanted hair off my legs with my mom’s electric razor. When I did, the world seemed to come together for me…for a while. Like clockwork, I could almost predict when the pressure would start to build again to cross-dress. Like most of you, I even purged or threw out most all of my feminine belongings in a wild rush which felt so good at the moment, until my old urges came rushing down on me. Saying no was just not an option.

For a while, I thought being feminine to the point of living as a transgender woman fulltime was always going to be just a dream. At other times, I thought that some point in my life I would just outgrow my gender urges and revert to a fulltime male life, no matter what my brain was telling me. I guess you could say, sometimes I thought a permanent purge would be in my future. I was kidding myself. That permanent purge never came as I tried many times to no avail. It seemed each time I tried to say no, my urges to follow my transgender needs came back even stronger. This time fueled by the positive feedback I was receiving when I was able to present better going out in public as a novice trans woman in a world of ciswomen. Just entering their world was much more difficult for me than I ever thought possible.

One of the problems was my old male self and my second wife did not participate in my dreams. It was far from my wife’s fault because none of what I was doing was anything she signed up for when we got married. She tried to help as much as she could, but my dream was growing so fast I could not control it. I started out the marriage as a cross-dresser and now I was into a transgender woman, and I did not have the courage, or knowledge to explain it. I just knew, I could not say no to pursuing my dreams. I am sure all she saw was her man slipping away. Sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly and I understood why she did not like it.

As I said, I really always knew saying no was not an option in my pursuit of a transfeminine life when I really went out into the world and found myself in the middle of new friendships who knew nothing of my past. growing Just trying to look the part of a woman faded away as I always thought it would when I found myself at the point of wanting to be that woman. Doing my best to communicate with the world on their terms. As I continually searched my soul for guidance on the path I should take, the answer always came back the same. Follow your instincts and do what you need to do to feel natural. With input such as that, why should I ever say no to myself again.

Finally, I reached the point of no return in my life when I needed to look at myself in the mirror to see who I really was. With no makeup at all one morning, I had a chance to see the real me and the words my wife Liz said to me came through loud and clear. There was no male in me and for once everything with a “no” word in it made sense. Plus, I was mentally exhausted from fighting myself all my life. I had enough, and it was time to make my final decision.

When I replaced no with yes, my life opened up to new horizons I never thought possible. Yes, meant I could be the long-hidden self I could never find. If you are on a gender path of your own, I hope you can do a better job of facing your truth than I did. I kept saying no too long and missed a significant amount of my life trying to outrun myself. On the other hand, changing a gender is a huge move, and one that cannot be taken lightly. You have to get to the point where saying no is not an option to you anymore.

 

 

 

The Power of Fear

 

Image from UnSplash.

The power of fear has always been a major factor to be dealt with as I made it through life.

At the beginning, I always used to run from fear by heading home to my makeup and skirts. Then, when that did not work as well, I needed to find another way to deal with the stress my fear brought on. All of a sudden, the extra feelings I brought to the whole cross-dressing experience began to be intertwined with the fear I felt about having my deep dark secret discovered. Every time I was not discovered, the relief I felt was intense.

As I grew older, the stakes I felt grew bolder when I took my image in the mirror public and into the world. The more I attempted to do it in public, the more my fear of discovery grew right with it. I guess it was because at the same time, my male life was flourishing and it was becoming riskier to give it all up, no matter how self-destructive I continued to be. I operated with the idea that if I had nothing to lose in life, it would be easier if I was discovered and life as I knew it came to crushing down on me.

My prime example of turning abject fear into success came from the night I decided to try going into one of the big venues I had visited as a man but this time as a woman. Something clicked in my mind, saying I was no longer a cross-dresser, I wanted more, like a ciswoman in the world doing the same things I had done as a man. Before I did though, I needed to see if I could even cross the threshold in the TGIF Fridays I was going to, to try to find a seat at the bar. Sure, I could have chosen a table instead, but I wanted to go all out and try to look for more interaction at the bar instead.

As I sat in the car, before I went in, I was literally so scared I could hardly breathe. I don’t remember how many times I checked my hair and makeup in my car mirror. Finally, I had enough, hitched up my big girl panties, took a deep breath and headed for the venue’s entrance. Deep down I knew if I was successful, I was facing yet another major transition point in my life and I knew I could never go back. Spoiler alert, I worked my way through all the fear I was feeling and managed to have an enjoyable time with the rest of the women just getting off work at a nearby mall. Even to the point of ordering another drink. Plus, I was right, I found my life could never go back to the male existence I was forcing myself to live. I had discovered new transitions as a transgender woman in the world.

More importantly, I discovered fear of what I was about to do in my new exciting world just came with the territory. It became as much a part of me as a well-worn set of panty hose when I went out into the world. Eventually, I just learned to live with my misgivings about giving up all my male privileges I had earned in life. Another example came much later after I had completed my male to female femininization, even to the point of starting HRT, or gender affirming hormones.

It happened one hot summer day when my future wife Liz suggested we go to one of those auto junk yards where you pick your own parts. We needed a side mirror for one of our cars and it would be much cheaper if we could find one there. All of a sudden, my old fears materialized about going back into a male-dominated environment. Again, I remembered the old days when I battled fear all the time and I had to keep reassuring myself I was not back in the not so good old days, and I would be fine. It turned out, all the fear and trepidation I felt about going was wasted because the men at the junk yard barely noticed me as they went about their business and we found a mirror for our car.

These days, since I have been out in the world for over a decade now, almost all my lifetime fears and anxieties about being a woman have passed like I do most of the time now. Mainly, I pass now as old which there is nothing I can do about. There are times when I do miss the adrenaline flow of being afraid propelled me into the world as a novice transgender woman. I do think, however, that conquering my gender fears came from my days in Army basic training when everyday we needed to fight to make it through. Then somehow, I used it all to help me be a better woman. Before I became a better man at the very end before I transitioned because I was allowed behind the gender curtain to get a look at how ciswomen live.

The end result was that fear helped me battle through the conflicts I felt because of gender dysphoria. It sounds different I know, but that is the way it worked for me.

 

 

 

In the Snake Pit

 

Image from Jeff Turnale
on UnSplash.

Before I made my male to female transition, I always assumed men were the fiercer competitors, mainly because of work and sports.

Once I made it behind the gender curtain to play fulltime in the girl’s sandbox, I found that my idea of gender competition was not true at all Ciswomen compete every bit as hard as men just in different ways and about different things. A well-worn example could be that women compete in the visibility arena all the time, and that may be true to an extent as ciswomen lay down certain fashion perimeters women have to live by to not cause undue attention. Such as wearing skirts and dresses too short or having non-age-appropriate hair (which I have) for my advanced age. At my age, I have decided to keep my hair the way it is because number one, I like it, and number two, I don’t really care what other ciswomen think of me.

Over the years, I have discovered that ciswomen compete as much as men for the chance to be attractive and attract male attention. In fact, I have a couple of examples where I was caught on the wrong side of female wrath. One of which occurred one night when my wife Liz and I were out in a LGBTQ friendly venue in downtown Cincinnati. During our visit, I needed to use the women’s room which happened to be downstairs in the ancient building the venue was located in. When I made it to the room, I found it to be a crowded two stall affair with several other women already there. As I went in one woman in particular glared at me as I made my way to the only open stall which was left. I excused myself as I went around her and took care of business, feeling better about myself.

As I came out of the stall and headed for the sink to wash up, I needed to almost move the woman who glared at me. She took her time moving and I noticed she ended up slouching below the electric hand blower/dryer on the wall, and I saw my chance for revenge. After washing up and checking my makeup and hair, I took my time moving to the hand dryer and casually turned it on which ruined the woman’s hair completely. After my payback, I gave her a little smile and left to tell Liz what had happened.

The next example I have of an irate ciswoman, took me totally by surprise in a venue in Dayton, Ohio where I was a regular. That night, my friends were not with me, so I was by myself when a couple sat down beside me. Before long, the woman started up a conversation the usual way, complementing me on something I was wearing. We struck up a little conversation about life without much input from the man she was with. I could not tell if they were married or not. Anyway, before long she excused herself to go to the woman’s room leaving just the man and I together and he started a conversation with me by the time she returned. For some reason, she must have been extremely jealous and thought I was competing for her man because the smile went away and the claws came out. To make a long story short both the man and I had claw marks up and down our backs before they quickly finished their drinks and left. I learned the hard way to make sure I never got between a ciswoman and her man.

The most profound level women compete on is with their passive aggressive behavior. They can be competing just as hard as men, just with a smile on their face. It is a learned attitude most ciswomen learn from their youth because of not being able to physically compete with men. Although I think some of that attitude is changing in some cultures where I see many girls fighting among themselves these days. But for the purpose of most all transgender women, our view of the feminine world does not change as we do when we go from aggressive male worlds to passive aggressive female worlds.

Outside of confronting two women in a rest stop woman’s room a couple years ago in Alabama, I don’t think I have ever found myself in a feminine snake pit ever. The two women I encountered were studying me way too closely and talking aggressively between themselves after they saw me, so I washed up and quickly headed for the exit before I had any other problems.

My best advice is to look ahead at your surroundings to not get caught in a feminine snake pit. My worst-case scenario happened when I had to go one on one with a woman in a bathroom in a venue where I had never been questioned before. She was screaming at me that I was a pervert. When I finally could get a word in, I asked her by chance what she did for a living and I saw my chance for revenge creep in. She said she was a hairdresser, so I asked her for a card so I could report her to the very powerful local LGBTQ establishment in Dayton. With that she stormed out and left me alone.

Even though being in the snake pit with other women was no fun, I looked at the entire experience as a rite of passage into the girl’s sandbox. If I could not survive the pit, how could I ever survive my chance to play behind the gender curtain. All my years as a man had taught me to beware of where the frontal attacks were coming from, and if I was ever going to make it as a transgender woman, I had to expect not everyone would accept me and be ready for it. I just never realized how close together the snake pit and the sandbox were going to be.

 

 

 

Nothing Easy but the Hard Times

 

Image from Anthony Tran
on UnSplash.

Finishing up yesterday’s post about having a medical appointment with one of my medicine providers Regina, my worst fears materialized. After years and years of seeing Regina, she is retiring and I am being shuttled to another provider at the Veterans’ Administration here in Cincinnati, Ohio. Now I have only one more time to see her before a significant part of my life begins to shift.

I think my shift will continue when I see my endocrinologist on May 7^th. She is the only remaining tie to my old providers in Dayton, Ohio VA where I used to live and this visit is ultra important because I will have to ask to have my Estradiol patches prescription renewed. As I said yesterday, I am thinking about changing from the hormonal patches to self-injections which is not a big problem with me, but will it be with the “new” VA I am beginning to experience. If I am told I must get a new endo doc in Cincinnati, what will I have to go through to get my HRT, or will I have problems, is my paranoia. Time flies when you are worrying and before I know it, the time for the appointment will be here. I guess I was born to worry, and nothing is easy but the hard times.

I guess worrying fits right in with being transgender. Early in life, all I did was worry about getting caught when I cross-dressed in front of the mirror. I had plenty of hard times as I worried about my slightly younger brother discovering my feminine secret and telling my parents who would have promptly sent me off to a psychiatrist who knew absolutely nothing about gender dysphoria back in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s. At that time, I was mistaken that several of my main worries would take care of themselves as I became older. One of course was me wanting to be a woman, and the second one was what was I going to do about the military and the Vietnam War. To make matters worse, I was worried about them on several different levels. One of which being I could just relax and both the war and my urge to be feminine would just disappear.

Needless to say, both of them never went away. The war went on and on for years, and my desire to be a woman just intensified as I had more public experience when I gathered the courage to leave the mirror and go out into the world. Which I was starting to do before I entered the military, which in many ways just made matters worse. Certainly, I felt nothing was easy but the hard times as I tried alcohol for the first time to dull my pain. It was the beginning of a long one-sided love affair with alcohol I had which fortunately I won before it was too late. I took me much longer to realize my desire to be a full-time transgender woman was not ever going to go away and I would have to do something about the hard times I was experiencing by acting.

Acting meant I would have to put my male side behind me for good and plan for a radically different feminine future. That is when I truly found nothing ever would be easy in life but the hard times. So, for the first time in my life, if I ever wanted to achieve my dream, the path was clearly there to do it. Like a runway for jumbo jets lit up at night. All I had to do was learn how to land the jet.

At that point, I was rather confident that I could do it. Afterall, I had spent all those years cross-dressing and perfecting my feminine presentation, so what could go wrong. It turned out plenty. As I was completely lacking in rounding myself out as a transgender woman capable of holding her own in a world full of competitive ciswomen. I discovered I was completely not ready to communicate in a world where I needed to be better than the next woman to be accepted at all. Just presenting better as a trans woman was just the beginning I found, and I started to worry all over again.

This time, all my worries turned to action as my new life became a blur as I started to carve out a new, more complete path to my transfeminine dream. I could not believe it was me becoming a regular in venues I used to go to as a man and had wondered how it would be to visit them as a woman. I used to blame my second wife for holding me back, but learned it was all my fault, and I was just being a victim.

I think being transgender automatically brings a lot of worry with it. We are subject to violence, job and medical discrimination among many other negatives. When you add all of those to already problematic everyday lives, that everyone has, it is no wonder transgender suicide rates are so high. Which proves my point that nothing is easy but the hard times when you are trans. Reality comes when the attraction to all the pretty clothes begins to fade and the daily life of a woman sets in. A woman’s life is a many layered existence and one you have to accept when you transition.

By accepting the challenge, you made yourself, you have decided to set out and build your new life from scratch. There will be many times when you think you have bit more than you can choose, but after you have been successful, you can feel the pride and for once knowing that the hard times were ever easy but somehow you made it through to living your dream of living and thriving in a feminine world. You should be proud of your accomplishment.

 

 

 

Off...to see the Doc.

 

JJ Hart, back row on left. Girl's night out. 

This is going to be a short post this morning because I have a virtual Veterans’ Administration appointment this morning with the person who checks in and monitors my depression and anxiety medications every three months.

Every time I need to check in, my anxiety goes up because I think this could be the last visit I have with my long-time host Regina. I am afraid of VA cuts by the orange menace in Washington who is trying to get our country into WWIII just because of his involvement in the Epstein files.

Getting back to Regina, she has been with me for years and understands the fact that I am transgender, and more importunately, it has nothing to do with my depression issues, or anxiety for that matter.  She is very careful not to misgender me.

Perhaps, more importantly to me, is my endocrinologist visit which is coming up in approximately a month. The problem is that I am running low on my Estradiol and will need another set of refills. When I talk to her, I am considering asking about switching from the patches I have been on for years to injections because the last time I had my blood work done, my estrogen level was so low. I will have to see what she thinks. Then, there is the fact that the VA keeps making noise about doing away with all HRT therapy in the future, which compounds my problem.

Past that my rescheduled mammogram is in the latter part of April and of course that is in person. I would never say that having a mammogram is enjoyable, but I will say that it is a rite of passage into womanhood for me and always has been.

I guess, multiple medical appointments are part of getting old and I should just accept them for what they are, a chance to stay healthy. Plus, I am fortunate that the VA is going to more and more virtual visits which saves me the time and money to drive to appointments. I must take the good with the bad and not risk being misgendered in the waiting room every time I go. Or at least not being glared at, which sometimes is just as bad.

Now I must get ready for my appointment with Regina, I just hope she is still there.

 

Set in Stone?

 

JJ Hart

When we are born, we are assigned a gender which is arbitrarily based on our genitals the doctor sees. Often, at that point, gender reveal parties are set up by new proud parents. Of course, the problem is what if the child does not agree with how the reveal was going but had no say in the process. That was exactly where I found myself.

I was born as a first son into a male dominated family, so as I grew, I learned what was expected of me. Be a success, compete for it and earn my male privilege was my only path. I was caught with no way out, seemingly, I was stuck in stone. My only path to sanity was the very limited time I had to cross-dress in front of the mirror and try to transform myself into the pretty girl I always wanted to be.

The first time I saw a glimmer of hope in my future as a transgender woman was when I started to go to Halloween parties dressed as a woman, just to see how I was perceived. Overall, I felt as if I got a fair reception and could not wait for Halloween to roll around again. I found I could not wait and began to come up with other ways to test my feminine presentation in the public’s eye by simply going out to malls and women’s clothing stores. Looking back, some of my adventures were just OK and others were brutally bad as I learned what I was doing. One of the main things I learned was presenting as a woman was not set in stone. Often, I could take advantage of the seasonal variations in women’s fashion to change up my own look, which made the fashion process so much more challenging and fun. I needed to up my diet game to fit into more stylish clothes I hunted down at the thrift stores I shopped at. I liked many of them because I could try on my potential treasures in the women’s dressing rooms with no problems.

All of this led me to believe that maybe my gender situation was not set in stone, perhaps I could find my way out of the life I was given. I just needed to be sure that escaping the stone I was in did not put me in quicksand. Or was the transgender frying pan worse than the fire. With my newfound confidence, I set out to discover the answer to as many of my gender questions as I could. I knew I felt an energy in life I had never felt before and it felt so natural that I wanted to experience more. But even with all of that, it wasn’t enough to keep me satisfied with my slow transition. The basic question remained that could I ever gain the courage and where with all to live my dream of existing as a full-time transgender woman on my own terms. Sadly. I was not going to learn that answer for years because my male life kept getting in the way.

By in the way, I mean he kept setting up major roadblocks of my proposed path such as what to do about my wife of twenty-five years and the very successful job I had worked so hard to get. I cherished both of them and did not want to let them go. I am sure, this sounds familiar to many of you in the same situation. Especially when you think your male situation is set in stone and you can’t get out.

I thought the same thing for years as my mental health deteriorated as I drank way to much trying to self-medicate my problems. The part I never understood was how I could think what was true today would be true tomorrow. Destiny for me completely turned me around during the dark days when my wife and almost all of my close friends passed away, leaving me almost completely by myself. Except for my daughter and my brother. On top of all of that, the Veterans’ Administration healthcare system, which I was a part of suddenly approved the use of HRT or gender affirming hormones for qualified veterans who were approved through a therapist to receive them. I was approved and prepared myself for my second puberty and the greatest most profound changes of my life.

Suddenly, everything I thought was set in stone, was not. I was free to live the way I had prepared for all my life had come true. I could even dare to be happy for the first time in my life. It was always set in stone that happiness could not be part of my life. Thankfully I was wrong about that. It was just a matter of learning where I truly belonged and then getting rid of that giant roadblock I was born with. My so-called gender because it turned out to be true, I was never supposed to live a male life after all. All the years of struggle and emotional pain were wasted on a fight that I was never destined to win.

As I always say, I was not a man cross dressing as a woman, I was a woman cross dressing as a man to just get by in life. I was fortunate in that my gender destiny was not set in stone no matter how determined my family around me was to keep me male, I always found a way to sneak around their backs and keep that feminine flicker of hope alive. Now it is able to burn brightly due to no small help from mainly new friends and family. Roadblocks were moved and now the path is straight and smooth as I am able to live the dream I always wanted.

As I said, remember that today does not dictate what tomorrow may bring. I always say, life can change on a dime. If you can find the dime.

 

 

 

When Gender Calls

 

Image from Brooke Cagel on UnSplash. 

When I was very young, when I listened closely, I could hear the faint sound of my true gender calling me.

Please keep in mind that very early on I could not quite understand what the voice was trying to tell me. I just knew something was not right. As I grew older and started experimenting with Mom’s clothes (even to the point of shaving my legs), did I have a basic understanding of what the voice was trying to tell me. From the first view of myself in our full-length hallway mirror, I had an idea that I had arrived in the right place as I stared at the pretty girl that I had a hand in creating.

It was then that the real gender work began. The first problem I had was trying to find the private time I had to cross-dress. And once I did, when would I have the time to do it again as the gender pressure built on me every time. What I did not understand and wouldn’t for many years was that I was much more than someone who just wanted to wear pretty feminine clothing. My true gender was calling and would never be satisfied until it was properly expressed. Even though I did not fully understand the path I was on and would have to accept it over the years to come. Especially all the blind curves and stop signs I ran into. I was not prepared for all the trials and tribulations I would have to go through to even try to pursue my gender dreams which always had to do with living a transfeminine life. At that time, the phrase had not yet been invented or used, so all I knew was I wanted to be a woman with all the perceived benefits which came with it.

Jumping ahead, the benefits of living as a full-time trans woman were there but just vastly different that I thought they would be. I still had the joy of selecting and wearing pretty clothes which changed with the seasons. It turned out, some of the enjoyment was taken away when I needed to pick out an outfit every day when I gave away all my male clothes and the reality of my existence set in. I guess you could say the novelty of dressing like a woman became a necessity when my gender called.

Speaking of my gender calling, I needed to learn how to accept it when it was trying to get through in my busy life as a man. I knew who was calling all of the time, I was just afraid of facing the reality of me answering it. I ran from it until I could run no more and I had myself painted into a feminine corner of reality I could not get out of.

What I am referring to is all the nights I went out as a trans woman to be alone and ended up socializing and carving out a new life faster than I ever thought possible. Suddenly, my gender phone was ringing off the hook and demanding more and more attention. The conversations became deeper and deeper as discussions about spouses, family and jobs took center stage. At a crucial point, I needed to lose all my fears of debating the pros and cons of gender change and consider the future which increasingly looked feminine to me. I respected the world of ciswomen from all angles, and I wanted to explore my desire to fit in more and more.

Finally, my gender voice became mildly abusive and challenged me to think deeply about the life situation I was in. What was I doing by constantly fighting a situation where I felt natural and good at. For once, I put my stubborn male self behind me and listened. Sure, there were bound to be bigots and haters still on my path, but I would have to ignore them and stand up for myself. The availability of gender affirming hormones or HRT helped me a lot because the hormones softened my skin and harsh male facial angles and made it easier to present a feminine face to the public. Which in turn, gave me more confidence. For the first time in my life, my external and internal features came close to matching.

At least now, my gender voice could quit screaming and calling me stupid for the way I was trying to run my life. Then perhaps, I could answer my gender phone and think about more pressing issues such as how I was going to run my life as a successful, happy transgender woman since happiness was something which eluded me for most of my life.

During a classic “if I had known then what I know now” moment, if I had known way back in my past how deep my gender issues ran, I was so much more than someone who enjoyed wearing feminine clothes. I wanted to be a woman as my ultimate goal in life. It would have been nice too, to have other guidance to help me along in my gender dysphoria struggles. In those days, not only were there not any qualified therapists to help, but there also wasn’t even internet to refer to for information so our closets were very lonely and dark.

Certainly, the one thing missing in my closet was a phone so I could talk when gender called. Maybe it would have saved me a great amount of stress and turmoil. I say maybe because of who knows, I would have had the maturity and courage to lick up the phone and have a honest and far-reaching discussion with myself about who I really was.

Maybe, when your gender calls, there will be a real person such as a supporting spouse to talk to about your life. So many transgender women and transgender men don’t have that luxury. One way or another, pick up the phone and talk. It could be the best therapy for you.