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| Image from Randy Tarampi on UnSplash. |
I discovered before I could live a dream of living as my own unique sense of womanhood, I needed to discover exactly what that meant.
I knew very early on it was much more than just applying makeup
and parading around in one of mom’s dresses. It went much deeper than that. I
wanted to be a girl as badly as anything I had ever wanted in my life.
The problem was that I was stuck in an information “never-never”
land with no internet or social media of any sort to provide key information on
what it really meant to have issues with your gender and not just throw you
aside with some sort of a mental illness diagnosis. I did know enough about
myself to know I was not mentally ill for wanting to be everything feminine. So,
I did the only thing I knew how, day dream my life away envying the ciswomen
around me.
As I grew into myself, I learned more about my dream and the
overall demands it would make upon my life. Even though I tried not too, I
still added extra male baggage such as a child, marriage and a better career to
my life. I always thought I would be better off lonely with just having myself to
depend on if I ever had to get rid of it all in my male world and start all over
again as a transgender woman. Another problem was that I was tantalizing close
to encountering other gender conflicted people who were actively following
their dreams, so I knew it was possible.
For example, I just missed crossing paths in my broadcasting
career with other trans women who were actively following their dream. One at a
small radio station I worked at in my hometown and another I ran into at a AFTN
Thailand radio/tv reunion in New Orleans. Sadly, the trans woman was so shy and
backwards, I could not even get her attention to say hello.
Everything changed when I came home to nearby Columbus, Ohio
and was invited to very diverse small parties on a regular basis. Everyone was
there, including several trans women who were headed for gender realignment
surgeries that I was able to interact with and learn from. How much exactly did
my dream entail? Going all the way like they did, or not was my major point of
wanting to know about them. The one thing I did find out was that they had
taken the time and effort to set themselves up for success in the new lives
they were undertaking. One trans woman was a firefighter getting ready to retire
and had a good pension and insurance coming to cover her surgery and another
was a very successful electrical engineer who was extraordinarily beautiful and
knew she would not have any problems continuing to work after the surgeries.
I was in neither of their classes in appearance, insurance
coverage or job security to even compare myself to them, but still my dream of
ever living as a transfeminine person would not go away.
Somehow, I needed to carve out my own individual gender path
to success if I was ever going to make it. Finally, I learned the powerful
message to just be myself and most of the rest of my problems in my male to
female femininization would fade into the background. No, I was not extra
attractive such as thedestiny transitioning transgender women that I knew but I
realized that many of the ciswomen that I knew weren’t either. It was very
shallow of me to think that all that went into to being a quality person as a
woman was just appearance, so I grew past it. My focus shifted into having more
confidence in myself as a good person that a stranger would like and away from
just how I looked. When I did, my dream began to become a better focus. Maybe I
could do it after all.
Of course, my major focus was what was I going to do with all
the unwanted male baggage (and some of the wanted too) that I was planning on
taking along on to my new life. At that point in time, my second wife was still
alive, and she had made it a point to tell me she would never want to live with
another woman, so I had to figure out what I was going to do about that major
problem. Then I also had the usual conflicts we all face such as what we are
going to do about employment and would any of our friends accept us.
For me, destiny came along and in one fall swoop showed me
the way to living my dream. My wife passed away. Leaving me alone to consider
my future about the time what was left of my close male friends died too. It
turned out destiny was giving me a clean life slate to work from when I began
to start all over. In addition, I was old enough to retire and work a little
on the side to make ends meet and the Veterans Administration health care
system which I was already a part of decided to approve gender related care or
HRT for qualified veterans which I was. Destiny could not have shown me a better
path to my dream than if I had planned it that way. I needed to pay my dues and
work through many dark, lonely days to get to the light, but it was worth it
when I did.
Finally, my dream became a focus for me when I met my future
wife Liz and other ciswomen who let me into their world. I was able again to
focus my dream on reality and make sure it was not a nightmare. Perhaps the
best part of the entire trip up my gender path was the likelihood that I would
ever make it. To say the least, my going forward was a shaky proposition to
start with and all too often, my mental gender darkness threatened to catch up
to me and my dream.
Thank goodness it never did, and my transgender dream became
a reality.
Reality for me is also to have you join in with my thoughts.
Thanks so much for doing so!
