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| Image from Alexander Krivisly on UnSplash. |
My gender journey has proven to me that stranger things have happened, just not to me.
What I mean is, on a scale of one to ten at succeeding in
ever living a life as a transgender woman, I would have ranked myself some
where around an eight. Meaning I was giving myself very little chance of ever
making it to my dream life. Along the way now, I wish I had kept more track of every
time I succeeded at and then passed a goal I had set for my feminine self.
In many ways, the early days of shopping in mall women’s
clothing stores was easy and gave me a false sense of hope. I was naïve and did
not realize for the longest time, I just represented as a dollar sign in front
of the store clerks, I was facing. Most certainly, I was not the first man in a
dress and makeup they had ever seen in their store and would not be the last. Regardless,
the false sense of confidence I was giving myself raised my faint hope of ever
succeeding at my dream.
As I went not so blissfully on my high-heeled way, I did
pick up bits and pieces of information I would need to survive. For once, I
thought far enough ahead to set up time away from my wife so I could slip away
and shop with the rest of the women in the malls on Black Friday after
Thanksgiving. Which had been on my trans bucket list for years. By this time, I
had experienced enough time in public as a woman, I knew things such as wearing
comfortable footwear was a must for the long trips from the parking lot to the
stores, all the way to being stylish but not overdone in my fashion choices for
the day so I could blend in well with the other ciswomen I met. Stranger things
happened and I had a great time which I will write about in a later blog post.
All of my continued success combined to make me think maybe,
just maybe I could achieve my dream life, and I could increase my scale to a
four out of ten. What helped me were the short trips I made to Columbus, Ohio
to the small diverse parties I went to where I could meet and interact with anyone
such as transsexuals on their way to surgery to cross dresser admirers who were
there just to watch. I even met a stray lesbian there one night who I left with
briefly to go to a big gay club together. Through it all, I was just trying to
see where I fit in at all. I figured if I had any success at all at
understanding where I was, I hoped I could see the light at the end of my
gender tunnel was not the train and just maybe I could live my dream.
As much as I liked the interaction in Columbus, I knew I had
to leave the relative safety of the group and try to carve out my own life as a
transgender woman in the world. Sure, I was terrified to do it but I knew I had
to overcome my fears if I was ever going to be able to move up my scale from a
five to a seven. When I made it to a lucky seven, the pressure to live the way
I wanted to really be increased. The reason for the increase came because of
the new interactive experiences I was now having with other ciswomen around me.
What I did was watch the women around me and try to learn how they were living
their life and learn my own way.
From then on, when I could see the dream life I had hoped
for was in sight, I could really concentrate on my future as a transfeminine
person. At that point, I needed to begin my preparations for what do about
telling the family close to me about my male to female gender transition, all
the way to what I was going to do about surviving financially. I was to the
point where I did not have to make it as a transgender woman, I just needed to
let it happen. I had to stay in the new moment I was in and live it for all it
was worth. It turned out my scale was worth it, all the way.
Stranger things happened to me. I may not have looked like a
ten, but I felt like one.
