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| Image from the Jessie Hart Archives |
Over time, I began to consider the chaos being transgender caused in my life.
Looking back, I wish I had just a portion of the time back I wasted as I worried about how I was going to deal with all my gender issues. Every time I was able to set aside precious time to cross dress as my feminine self, I was only able to feel better for a short time before reality set back in and I started to resist my same old unwanted male self again. When it happened, I would become a terrible person to be around. Even to the point of losing jobs because of my actions. Needless to say, this portion of my life was very self destructive.
What I ended up doing was trying to outrun my gender issues which in my case I describe as gender dysphoria. I tried by changing jobs (which often involved moving) often and drank entirely too much alcohol as I attempted to out macho all my male friends while at the same time dulling my pain. Fortunately, I was able to stop my alcohol abuse in time to lessen any further chance of lasting damage to my body.
Backtracking a bit to all the moves I subjected my second wife to, we picked up and moved from our native Southwestern Ohio to the metro New York City area to run a fast food franchise. Perhaps an ulterior motive was to move to a much more liberal community which would provide more potential possibilities for my cross dressing gender expressions. After surviving almost two years, it was time to move again, as we returned to our native Ohio. As it turned out, yet another move awaited both my wife and I as I accepted a job to open fast food venues in Southern Ohio which turned out to be the exact opposite living situation than we faced in New York. We ended up renting a very rustic house in a rural area where we heated with a wood stove and utilized a cistern for our drinking water. Even still, I found ways to learn more about my gender challenges as I traveled into the nearest town.
Ironically, during this point of my life, I fueled my gender chaos by being successful with my feminine presentation. It was around this time when I started to begin doing the grocery shopping for the family as well as sneaking in quite a bit of shopping for myself. In essence, I leaned I could be on the right track thinking I could follow my secret dream of living as a fulltime transgender woman. Little did I know how much chaos would lie ahead as my future played out.
Recently I heard a comment which describes a large portion of the chaos I was to face. As I write about often, my deceased second wife knew and didn't object to my transvestite or cross dressing desires but never approved of me beginning hormones and starting to live more and more as a woman. As I headed down a path to no return with my gender desires. The comment involved the concept of emotional cheating and I immediately applied it to me. During my twenty five year marriage to my wife, I never physically cheated on her with anyone. However, as I became increasing involved with learning to exist in a feminine world, I started to sneak around behind my wife's back to live my new life. I wasn't proud of what I did but my only excuse was my chaos was so severe I could only do what I needed to do to survive. As I emotional cheated.
All I know for sure, living through gender chaos is no joke and proves once again being a transgender woman or trans man is not a choice. Any transphobe who says it is needs to walk in our shoes for just a short time to see our truth.
