Another Holiday?

My Favorite Valentines. Liz on left, daughter 
on right.
From the Jessie Hart Archives.

 Following the Christmas holiday season which presents so many problems for transgender women and men, here comes yet another rather traumatic holiday. 

Both of the holidays revolve around personal relationships, to which trans folk often have lost close friends or family because they set out to live as their authentic selves. When I read all the social media posts from transgender folk who are lonely, my heart goes out to them. The entire process just goes to show how much a person can lose following a gender transition. Once again it shows how much of a choice we don't have when we set out on our gender journeys. 

I am fairly sure I didn't think of losing family the first time I looked at myself cross dressed as a girl in the hallway mirror but then again maybe I did because I was so frightened about getting caught. Maybe my fears were justified so many years later, when I did lose all contact with the brother I was afraid of exposing my secret to so many years ago.

Overall, I know how fortunate I am when certain holidays such as Christmas and Valentines Day come around each year. Through a mix of work, destiny an sheer luck, I was able to find another person in the world who accepted the authentic me. My wife Liz basically picked me up off the trash heap and made me a believer in myself again. Something which I thought was impossible at my age of sixty two. In fact, I had given up on the idea of another serious relationship in my life and felt I was doomed to live alone as a transgender woman trying to make her way in the world. 

Perhaps, more importantly, I was able to rebuild family connections which were lost. Through my daughter's in laws and Liz's family, having a Christmas with family and friends became a reality again. And, even though I had never been a big believer in Valentine's Day, it is still very nice to tell Liz happy Valentines Day and I love her and for her to return the favor. Plus, I can't forget all my bonus checks which were added to because of Valentines promotions in the restaurant business I was in.

At the least, Valentines Day only lasts for one day and hopefully you can mend the hurt you may feel from having no one to celebrate with. Anyway you cut it being transgender should not deny you a chance to be happy with another person...but it does. 

It is just another holiday designed to stimulate certain areas of the economy not hurt the ones who happen to be single when it comes around. If you are one of those people, Liz gives out the best hugs and I am sending a big one to each of you.

Cyrsti's Christmas Post Two

 As we approach the actual day of Christmas, I felt it was a good opportunity to share a few of my more impressive (I hope) holiday memories. 

In our previous post, I remembered the first night I was able to venture out into the public as a transgender woman for the first time and enjoy a major regional Christmas light display. In this post, I am going to share my first time out during a Black Friday shopping blitz at an area upscale mall.

This time, it was relatively easy to find the time to attempt to try my hand at passing on such a major shopping day as a transgender woman, or a just a woman. My wife worked at retail so she had to work and at the time, I was a restaurant general manager to I could set my own hours. I chose to come into work later in the afternoon so I had most of the day to explore another slice of life. 

For an outfit I chose the usual comfortable/blending wardrobe items. In other words, sweater, leggings, boots and wig of course. 

As I left the house, I was more concerned with seeing the neighbors than anything else. I was very secure in my looks but didn't know what to expect with the shopping experience. Since I didn't have much time or the inspiration to find a gift for my wife or others, I was selfishly just there to see if I belonged.

When I arrived, amazingly, it wasn't as difficult to find a parking spot as I had anticipated. I gathered my courage, checked my makeup in the car mirror and headed into my perception of one of the ultimate feminine experiences...Black Friday shopping. 

Once I was in the mall, I found I didn't have any thing to worry about. No one cared who I was at all. I was able to blend in, do a bit of shopping and leave satisfied I had checked off another "bucket list" item off of my Mtf gender transition checklist. 

One again, I used the Christmas experience to do it. 

There will be more to come!