In the Wrong Room

 

JJ Hart

The first time I realized I was in the wrong room was when I was out as my transfeminine self in one of my regular venues when somehow, I found myself with a group of four men. Let me preface my thoughts by telling you the men were just having typical men type discussions on sports and work and no one was a rocket scientist.

Very quickly, after I was made to feel below their dignity to even acknowledge me, I went away with my first lesson learned. Stay out of male conversations unless invited, and even then, don’t expect your opinion to count for much. It seemed I had entered a place where my impostor syndrome was replaced by out and out rejection. I wasn’t worried about being in a group of ciswomen being worried about what to say and do, to entering a place where I was not wanted at all. I just can tell you this, I was never treated rudely by the women I faced in my first girl’s nights out as I was during my impromptu meetings with men. Which helped me to understand I was headed in the right direction on my gender path.

It could be too, that I did not give men a fair break. I was not attractive enough to be desirable, and I had not developed any sort of personality, yet which gave me any other positive characteristics. In other words, I was still an unsure new trans woman who had just left the men’s club, and it showed. At least to a transgender man who asked me out to a dinner date and later he said I was scared and nervous on our date. He was right, and I was just going through being in the wrong room as myself.

Fortunately, that feeling of being in the wrong room did not last long as I grew more adjusted to my new life as a transfeminine person. My inner self kept telling me I was in the right room at the right time as I felt natural doing it. As we all know, confidence plays a huge part in being successful as transgender women and transgender men and when I gained the confidence, I needed to say to the world who I was, there was no turning back. The more I accomplished in my new life, the more I realized that my male life was living a lie. The problem was that just deciding I was not going to live that lie any longer was not going to be as simple as just doing it. Because I had accumulated so much male baggage along the way as I fought to succeed in a world I never really wanted.

Even though I was fighting to switch rooms, the battle was never easy because of the major roadblocks which were in my way. Primarily, the roadblocks came from my second wife who was struggling to maintain her marriage to a man who did not want to be one and my male self who was fighting for his total existence. To make matters worse, my life as a man was not that bad all of the time, so the gender decisions I needed to make were so much more brutal in nature.

When I finally found myself in the right room as a trans woman, I found I needed to furnish it into what I needed to live. It was totally barren of anything I would need to live successfully, and I had to start by doing the best I could to present well as a woman and then learn the basics of survival in a world run by ciswomen. It was their room I was trying to be given admission to but not before I earned my way in.

That was when I needed to take a deep dive into myself and produce more of a one-sided effort to do something than I had ever tried before. Always before, when I was trying something new, I would get discouraged and quit, but this time I could just not and kept trying because I knew my dream of living as a transgender woman was certainly achievable. Before I did, I needed to somehow be allowed into other women’s lives and rooms to see how they lived. I was especially interested in the women who were not especially attractive because they showed me the importance looks do not have to play in a woman’s life. There were plenty of other things in a ciswoman’s multi-layered life to concentrate on other than beauty.

Since I lacked beauty, I needed to decorate my room with it, I needed to seek out other ways to do it. Such as was I treating other women the way I wanted to be treated became a main goal. A smile took me so much farther than my old male scowl designed to keep people away that I could not believe it.

Once I learned the difficult lessons of feminine decoration, I no longer had any vestiges of being in the wrong room. In fact, the deep belief that I was in the right room kept me going through out the trying times of legal name changes to the fun times of HRT therapy which sent me into the second puberty of my life. It turned out, it was the one my body was always waiting for.

Rooms are always difficult to plan for as you decorate a new one. Especially if your gender workbook is blank and you are struggling to catch up. The paintings on my walls were of my friends who showed me the way as well as my wife Liz and daughter who finally kicked me out of my old room and into a bright new one. As you can tell, they all mean so much to me.

As all of you do who follow along with my experiences and daily goals on a regular basis. Without you all, everything I do would be worthless, so thank you! And I hope the room that you are in is not a closet you are trying to find your way out of. Hopefully, you can do it soon.

 

 

 

 

My Biggest "AHA" Moments

 

Image from Valentia Conde
on UnSplash.

During the long gender path which I have been fortunate to live, I have had many “aha” moments to look back on.

The problem I had was realizing that the times in my life were something I would forever remember, forget immediately, or just refuse to understand what they meant after my own ignorance set in. For my first example, I have to go way back to the first times I was exploring my mom’s clothes and makeup. I knew something was up, but I did not know exactly what and how deep it would run with me. All I knew was my desire to be feminine in any way was deeply forbidden in my family and most of society which called it being mentally ill at the time. Through it all, even though I did not fully understand what was going on with me, I did think I was mentally ill for thinking it.

That was the good news. The bad news was I was decades away from understanding the “aha” moment that I was living the wrong life as a man all along. Even if I was warned by a therapist that I respected very much that she could essentially do nothing about me wanting to be a woman and I was on my own to save a marriage that I really wanted to save. If I would have listened to her and started my male to female femininization earlier, I would have saved myself so much inner turmoil that it would have been amazing. But I did not and stubbornly hold on to the idea I could live as a man while at the same time cross-dress when ever I wanted as a woman.

Another problem was, I had moments when my feminine world was opening to me and I thought, “wow is that what being a woman was all about.” Like the day at the grocery store when I positively melted a young bagger who was stuttering as he shyly asked if he could take my groceries to the car. Right then I knew why I had such a difficult time talking to pretty girls in school when all my perceived smooth vocal abilities just disappeared. It was a giant “aha” moment when I had the chance to reverse course and cross that gender border so long ago.  

As I held on for dear life that I was just following my hobby as a cross-dresser, slowly but surely the idea of going through another male to female transition gained on me. I went back to the times when I was thinking that just putting on makeup and a dress was good enough. I always wanted to do more like the pretty girls around me did at school. I wanted to be the one being chased for a date in my new pretty clothes any time that I could. Which turned out to be never back then. Years flew by before they ever did as I began to test the world of ciswoman as a novice cross-dresser. Then, one night out of nowhere, the thought came to me that I was done just looking like a woman again, I wanted to inter-mix with them and see if I could be accepted. If I was, from that point forward I would change my self-gender perception from just being some sort of a harmless hobby to thinking about myself as a thriving transgender woman. A super scary, but exciting thought because once I went there and was successful, I could never go back to ever just thinking that I was just a man again. A real, enduring “aha” moment in my life.

The problem I had was once that I was becoming successful as a new transfeminine person, how could I stay there. Initially, I made up a new feminine persona to go with my new look. I wore the same wig and used my same new name every time I went out and before I knew it, I was being treated as a regular in all the venues I was testing out in the straight world I knew before as a man. Another big “aha” came when I was able to break the influence of all the gay venues I was going to which I really disliked and was accepted as me in a new world. Then I learned I could have fun doing it as I enjoyed my new feminine self so much that increasingly I did not want to go back at all to my old male world.

As I did, I began the all-important job of getting rid of all the male baggage I did not want or need anymore. At all costs, I hoped I could maintain a relationship with my daughter which I did, and if my brother did not accept me, so what. Which he didn’t and we went our separate ways as those two were the only two blood family that I had left. With all of that turmoil behind me, I was free to concentrate on my transgender future which did not include any surgeries at my age of sixty, but hopefully a chance to test out my body on HRT or gender affirming hormones. I was approved first by a doctor and then by the Veteran’s Administration to begin the hormonal treatment and positively loved it. It was as if my body was saying the hormones were an “aha” moment and were the missing ingredient to leading a fuller transfeminine life.

I am sure there were other “aha” moments which turned out to be bright light posts on my often dark and lonely gender path. Such as when my current wife Liz came into my life to love me and make me whole again by saying that she had never seen any male in me. I never realized that I had built up that much good karma to help my life along.

Thanks for reading my lifetime of gender experiences as a transgender woman. Hopefully, you can gain some insight to help you along.

 

Living the Dream before it Consumed Me

 

JJ Hart

As I crossed the six-decades portion of my life and spent at least five decades of it trying to stay under control by cross-dressing, I was trapped and had nowhere else to go.

It happened because I had embarked on such a complete path of looking like and moving like a ciswoman and my gender bucket list was shrinking due to too much use. All the trips to malls, antique stores, and thrift stores just became boring when I was passing through them with no problems. Even though I was bored, the idea of being successful as a transfeminine person still consumed me. And, to make matters worse, I was finding less challenges to undertake as I increasingly painted myself into a gender corner I had always dreamed about but never thought I could reach.

I always made excuses such as I was never going to be good looking enough to present well in the new world I was seeking when truthfully my overall confidence as a trans woman had more to do with my approval than my appearance ever did once I had went beyond the basic point I needed to be to blend in with the ciswomen around me. Life changed when I realized there were plenty of women in the world who dealt with being bigger in stature and even had broad shoulders such as I had. My realizations helped to give me the boost I needed to continue to let my so called “hobby” consume me.

The reason was that I was ignoring the fact that cross-dressing was much more than a hobby, it was becoming a lifestyle. The biggest problem was that nothing I did as a novice trans woman was ever good enough. Even my second wife did not like the person I was becoming when I took the time and effort to show off to her as I thought were my best feminine efforts. Even though I desperately was seeking her approval, it was becoming obvious to me that my inner feminine self and my wife were lining up to fight it out. I was left behind to pick up the pieces as I was realizing how consumed I was when I had one of my rare, sanctioned (by my wife) outings at Halloween in NYC when my wife decided she did not want to go with me. The night turned out to be a dream evening as I ended up going out with four other women dressed to thrill as I was and they all happened to be as tall as I was in our heels. The night even ended on a high note when I was asked to dance by a guy in the venue we went to. I turned him down because he had no idea that I had one basic difference from the other woman I came with.

Anytime I experienced such a wonderful evening such as that Halloween party, I wondered if the gender euphoria I felt was worth it when I came crashing down. I was consumed with the moment and wanted to re-live it time and time again, but I was tucked away in my male work world and could not get out. Looking back, I don’t see now how I survived the balancing act I was putting myself through. I needed to physically show up as the man I never wanted to be. While at the same time spend all my mental energy remembering the transgender woman, I was. If I could have cried during that time in my life, I am sure I would have cried myself to sleep many nights worrying about my gender dysphoria and how it always threatened to wreck my life. Even to the point of almost destroying my marriage to the woman I loved deeply when my frustrations would boil over into yet another fight about me. Some of the fights were so severe that my second wife told me I was not man enough to be a woman, or why didn’t I just go away and fix the problem and make both of us happier.

Perhaps, by this time, you are wondering too why I did not take her advice and do it. The main reason was, at that time, I was not ready to give up totally on the life we had together when I was a man and even though I was increasingly being consumed by the idea I could be the trans woman I always dreamed of, I was not ready to pull the cord and jump out of the plane just yet. Because I was still afraid of the new gender heights I was reaching and selfish enough to think my wife may still come around to accept me. For those of you who don’t know, she never did and died tragically of a massive heart attack at the age of fifty.

The whole experience sent me into a major negative tailspin which I had a difficult time emerging from. I think the only reason that I did was because I had let my feminine self-consume me, and she could not wait for the opportunity to take over and live. My life had come full circle, and all the time and effort I put into my male to female femininization came back to help me. I had already put the work into how I wanted to look with my make-up and fashion basics and was already out into the world actually discovering how it would be to carve out a new transfeminine life for my very own. I had gotten what I needed as I moved ahead towards beginning HRT or gender affirming hormones. Which were something I always wanted to try as part of my overall commitment to being as close as possible to being who I always was destined to be.

When life consumed me, I was always somehow able to accept it and even thrive with it. Even though it took me decades to do it with all the ups and downs of what I had to go through. At the least, it made life interesting.

 

So Many Ways to Come Out

 

Image from Nicola Dowie
on UnSplash.

Recently, I had a response from a young transgender man on how he should attempt to come out to the world.

First of all, thanks for the comment and yes there are many ways to leave your closet and enter the world of the gender you are trying to live among. I know too that I have many trans men who stop by and read my comments which flatters me because as we flip the gender script, often the worlds we must conquer are not that different. Gaining the female or male privileges when you feminize or masculinize yourself often are the biggest issues. After you come out to spouses and family.

Over the years, I have read about coming outs that have ranged from just showing up cross-dressed as your authentic self, all the way to writing letters trying to explain the way you feel. As far as I am concerned, just all of a sudden showing up as a woman (or a man) has too much of a shock value and is counterproductive when you are trying to explain how you want to live to the person sitting across from you. Writing a letter may be more preferable if you feel more comfortable expressing yourself with written words rather than speaking one on one with someone. In my case, even though I did not feel comfortable talking to family about my upcoming changes, I hitched up my new big girl panties (under my male clothes) and asked to speak privately with those family members closest to me.  My first attempt at coming out was with my only child, a daughter and as I always write about, she took it extremely well. Just to show me life could never be that easy, my coming out to my only brother went off the rails quickly and we have not spoken since about 2014.

Having said that, I do caution trans women and trans men who are just coming out to family and loved ones that you are in a marathon not a race and sooner more than later, your family might come around. Plus, there is an increasing amount of information available now to explain your desire to live as yourself. If you have the chance, you maybe able to direct them towards the positive aspect of what you are doing and away from all the negative news they may see from politicians on the media ads. In my case, the split between my brother and I ran so deep when he refused to stand up for me and invite me to our family’s traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, I just can’t forgive him for that.

On the positive side, the relatively few people who knew the former me notice almost immediately that I am happier now. And if you give someone the chance to calm down and see the real you, they will respect that and the real you.

Of course, as we flip back to the negative side, there are always those family members that will try to throw religion in your face. Unless you are more of a biblical scholar than I am, I usually just give up on them.

Overall, I find the different sides of transitioning between transgender women and transgender men to be interesting. Since I was raised around the male dominated world of trying to force my way through difficult situations, I never gave much thought to trans men having to adjust to not being passive aggressive so much. Then there is always the idea of using the restroom which hangs over both of us. Even though trans men are in a new world in a men’s room where no one wants to make eye contact or speak, there is always the idea of having to still find a stall to use. Which conceivably could attract unwanted attention depending upon how well you present and how long you have been on testosterone. I know I have oversimplified the men’s room process and if you are a trans man, I am always up for ideas on restroom survival.

Flipping the script again, using the women’s room as a trans woman is something I know quite a bit about. The first thing I quickly learned was I needed to make contact and speak when someone else was in “the room.” From there, much of what I learned was either common sense such as never placing my purse on the floor and making sure my stall still had toilet paper all the way to trying to pee in the bowl a certain way to mimic the ciswoman in the stall next to me. Then, no matter how much I was in a hurry to leave, I had to always stop at a sink, check my face and always wash my hands.

Anyway, you cut it, when you have desire to cross the gender border either way from male to female or female to male, you must learn so many nuances of the moves you are making. Even though there are strict rules you need to follow, often times you will find yourself making up your own rules as you go along. It is just the nature of the ultra-serious game we play. What has worked for me in the past may not work for you and often I hear from readers who have supporters and non-supporters in the same family. The only advice I can offer is to embrace your new gender allies and hope your detractors come around.

The end result always must be it is your life to live and you need to live it to be happy. Sometimes your path will lead you the wrong way, just like your GPS does on occasion but it is not time to panic until you can get readjusted. Be patient, and it will happen.

As always, thank you for the comments I receive, often they are difficult to answer seeing as how we dealt with such a complex issue such as gender. I just hope, in my small way I can help.

 

 

Feminine Power Moves

 

Image from Gayatri Mohotra
on UnSplash.

When I first began to seriously explore the world as a transgender woman, I was stripped of all my male privileges and wondered what I could do to survive if I found myself in questionable situations.

The big answer I learned was to try my best not to get myself into questionable situations to begin with. Lessons learned at an early age by ciswomen everywhere such as trying their best not to jeopardize their own personal security from toxic men. When I first came out, I was used to going where I wanted to go, when I wanted to do it which led me into several tense situations. One from a much bigger cross-dresser admirer who had me in his sights in a narrow hallway where I could not escape and another time when I was approached alone on a dark city sidewalk by two men in front of a gay venue. Neither place I should have been to by myself, and I was lucky to escape without any real problems.

By this time, I was used to the only feminine power I had was having doors opened for me by men and I knew I was missing much more in life if I wanted to pay my dues and transition into a transfeminine world basically the hard way. Since I couldn’t afford to go through any of the expensive gender surgeries of the time and did not have any insurance coverage that would cover any facial surgeries, I needed to find ways to accomplish what I wanted to face on my own. I learned the hard way that I could do anything I wanted to if I set my mind to it. Or I passed out of sheer willpower according to my transgender girlfriend Racquel. All it really meant was I was able to work my way into living the life I wanted to live through more effort on my physical appearance through better makeup skills and wardrobe basics. The same things I noticed other ciswomen doing in the world who themselves did not really have “passing privileges.” I just came into my privileges as a woman from a different way.

Another difficult phase of my male to female feminization project was the impact of woman-to-woman communication which continually goes on in the world that men are not subject to. Or the world of non-verbal communication women often use between themselves. I even went to the extent of taking feminine vocal lessons which focused more on what I said rather than how I said it. The keys I was taught were mainly built around the passive aggressive tone’s ciswomen take such as “are you sure you want to do that” rather than the traditional male “don’t do that.” I got quite a bit of valuable gender information from the course to use on my path which was always full of male stop signs. To repeat what I just said in essence instead of giving me a stop sign, my inner feminine soul was saying do you really want to do this.

Of course, the answer always came back to me one way or another that I was on the right path, and I felt so natural doing it that I just had to keep exploring what was ahead around the next blind curve. It was at this point that I began to discover what I had suspected all along those ciswomen had more going for them than having doors opened by men. With the help of HRT or gender affirming hormones, I opened my world to a whole new universe of emotions and senses I never knew (or allowed) myself to have. I was the one who could reach for her coat without shame when she was cold when my thermostat went crazy with hot flashes at the same time. And I became the one who could cry a happy tear at the drop of a dime. If I needed to or not. It was all part of who I was as I began to explore my feminine power base I was developing.

As I always do, I cannot give myself much of the credit for doing more than just surviving in the new women’s world I was as I began to thrive and enjoy my new power base. As my new friends kept telling me, welcome to their world. I needed to be careful how I responded because I did not want to give up much about myself and shield my male past.

Thankfully, by this time I had given up all my male privileges and was excited to be settling into my new life as a transgender woman preparing to go fulltime into the world. By doing so, I needed to prove to myself that I was no longer afraid of being rejected as a trans woman. Primarily by men who resented that I had left the boys club behind to slip behind the gender curtain to play in the girls’ sandbox. Thanks, in no small way to my lesbian friends who showed me how to validate myself.

Somehow, I managed to give myself extra time to drain the remnants of my old male life drain away before I went all the way and gave up all my male clothes. Which was the symbolic way of me finally severing my male past altogether. As difficult as it was to give up all those decades of struggling in a life I did not like, the relief of doing it was amazing.

Before I knew it, I was enjoying everything I could in the new transfeminine life I had only ever dreamed of. I was fortunate that I was able to live through several severe gender-based self-destructive incidents that I paid my dues on and was able to move on to find a whole new set of powers.

It turned out that I was simply giving too much trust to male powers I was born into and never had a chance to do anything about it. When I did, I seized control of my true powers and never looked back.

 

 

 

 

 

The Power of Pride

Image from Brian Kyed
on UnSplash.

Once again, it is Pride month. Time for celebrations around the country and sadly also time for all the transphobes and homophobes to come crawling out from under their rocks to try to protest.

Over the years, I was a regular participant in Pride marches in Ohio. Primarily the large ones in Columbus and Cincinnati. Very early on, I did not feel as if I had a substantial place to celebrate the “T” in the LGB celebrations. The closest I came to who I was when I saw a group of drag queens or weekend cross-dressers painfully trying to navigate the sidewalks in their sky-high heels. I did not have anything against any group; I just didn’t fit.

Fortunately, over time, things began to change for the better as I began to see more representation from all aspects of the transgender community all the way to parade grand marshals instead of the usual collection of drag queens. It was then I began to enjoy people watching to see all the many layers of rainbow life come together at a big party.

I had different things happen along the way too, like when my future wife Liz made me a shirt that said, “I was a transgender soldier, I fought for your right to discriminate against me.” I wore it into a Veterans Administration exhibit and received too many uncomfortable looks to be happy at the reaction, so I moved on.

Then there was the time that one of the main restrooms was out of order at a Cincinnati Pride which funneled all who needed to go into one restroom. I thought it was funny that all the TERF’s in the crowd who were anti men (and trans women) had to use the same restroom as everyone else. Everyone else except a stray hornet or two took it all in good humor and even went to the extent of passing extra toilet paper up and down the line. For once I was happy that if I was forced to, I could still use a hated urinal since I still had the proper equipment. I did not have to because the men’s room was the one that was closed.

That was the year Liz, and I went on a Pride Pub crawl when there were many more gay venues in the Cincinnati metro area. For a small fee, we were able to ride on a bus to quite a few venues and had a great time. Especially since by the time we finished the route it was raining. Since it was the summertime of the year, I decided to wear my blue tank top, denim mini-skirt and sparkly flip flops (because it was so hot and humid) I was ready for the weather. By the time we were done, we were drunk, soaked and happy we let someone do the driving for Pride as we finished up in a gay country themed bar doing Jello shots. It was one of the Pride evenings I never wanted to end.

I had other fun times when I went to Ohio’s biggest Pride with my lesbian friends in Columbus. Again, I enjoyed my company and the people watching I was doing and I did see other transgender women in the vast crowd. For effect, I wore the trans military themed shirt Liz made me again, but I just wore jeans and flip flops to go with it because I certainly wanted to be comfortable for all the walking I knew was ahead. Ironically, I could have worn much less since by this time, the HRT gender affirming hormones I was on had provided me with a well-formed set of feminine breasts and I could have bought me a set of pasties and joined the lesbian “tit’s out” crowd. But I did not go to that extent to expose myself to the world.

Along the way, I did manage making it to smaller Prides in places such as Yellow Springs, Ohio a very mellow, liberal diverse village who always manages a wonderful celebration of the LGBTQA+ world. One night in particular, I really wanted to see a famous local drag troupe (The Rubi Girls) perform. As luck would have it, I found a seat at the crowded bar next to a ciswoman who was dressed as “Debra Winger” from the “Urban Cowboy” movie, complete with the black cowgirl hat. Through our conversations, I never did find out if she was the real “Debra Winger” or not. Who knows, maybe I should have asked for an autograph but did not want to embarrass myself. As it was, I stayed through the show and donated what I could afford to the “Rubi’s” who at that time had raised over a million dollars for Aids research.

These days, the world has shrunk for me, and I must watch and envy the Pride celebrations from afar because our LGBTQA+ community has a lot to celebrate such as our resistance to and visibility from the politicians who want to crush us. It is sad that Pride encourages all the keyboard cowards to come out of the woodwork in their mom’s basement to harass us. I just hope my writing in such a small way keeps me visible when I can’t be because when I was younger and healthier I enjoyed the Prides I went to.

I also hope the crazies are kept under control wherever you go to celebrate your Pride because you deserve the chance to do it. In Cincinnati alone, later this month, they are expecting a turn out of three hundred thousand people.

I have resigned myself to the fond memories I have of Pride with the close friends I made around me. Together, they made the celebration so much better than they ever knew. Even if you are just beginning on your gender journey, you can celebrate Pride too. Since you are starting to face the long and difficult process of answering many highly personal questions. As you do, your Pride may become a better place to express yourself with others who accept you. I found it to be an amazing experience.

 

  

Stepping off a Gender Cliff

 

Image from my first salon
visit 12 years ago.

As I slowly began to become part of the world as a transgender woman, I felt as if I was sliding down a steep slope towards a deep cliff which I could not see the bottom.

Not being able to see the bottom of the canyon I was facing was probably the scariest part of coming out as my authentic self and being allowed to be behind the gender curtain with ciswomen around me. Along the way, I worried about the smallest things such as my appearance, all the way to how I sounded if I had needed to talk to someone else. Many times, in an emergency only because I was so unsure of myself as a novice transfeminine person. Sadly, I learned the hard way that as weak as my communication skills as a trans woman were, not communicating at all with other women was worse. Because not saying anything made me come off as being somehow stuck up or worse yet, bitchy.

Through it all, I came off sliding slowly down my gender path as I ignored several stop signs thrown up by my male self or my second wife who knew she was in danger of losing her husband altogether. For most of my journey at this point of my life, I was in the dark and used that as an excuse of why I had just ignored or run the stop signs I was facing. Whatever the case, I was living an exciting yet scary time of my life.

When I came out to my daughter nearly a dozen years ago, I finally had lost my grip on the small trees and vines I was holding onto during my steep descent into trans womanhood.  She surprised me by promptly supporting me and her only question was why was she the last to know, when in fact she was the first to know I was much more than a part-time crossdresser (as my first wife and her mother thought), I was actually a transgender woman who was afraid to admit it to the world.

Since my birthday was right around the corner, my daughter volunteered as a gift to me to take me to her hair salon/spa for a haircut and color makeover on my hair which had become long enough to work with. Even though the whole idea scared me to death, I took her up on the offer and she made the appointment which would forever change my life.

Before I knew it or could even entertain any thoughts of backing out the day was upon me and the next thing I knew I was with my daughter and her stylist looking at seemingly endless color and style combinations that I needed to choose from. Plus, I had to walk past a endless line of women in chairs who had nothing else to do but give me their undivided attention as I walked by, nervous as hell and trying my best not to show it. Fortunately, I had a complimentary glass of wine to calm me down as I chose a highlighted blond/red cut which all of us thought suited me the best.

Once I was done and allowed to see myself, I have to say I was impressed and knew why ciswomen everywhere put so much emphasis on taking care of the hair through salons everywhere. As I left, I felt as if I could skip my daily dose of gender affirming hormones because the estrogen was so thick in the air in the salon. As I said, it all added up to a day I will never forget thanks to my supportive daughter I could never thank enough over the years as she helped me pick out a new legal name change that my three grandkids could easily grasp. Ironically, the middle grandchild who was in the fourth grade had a teacher who was an out gay teacher in the school system and had my grandchild as a student. Then my daughter needed to explain the difference in their gay teacher and their transgender grandparent. As you can tell, diversity ruled in their house and went full circle when my oldest grandchild came out as trans.

As it turned out, I had nothing to fear from sliding off my gender cliff because it turned out I had built such a group of supportive people to help me when I fell. Of course, I always have to mention my future third wife Liz who along with my daughter turned out to be my best allies during my male to female feminization project. In fact, it turned out they knew me better than I knew myself and showed me the way to success. Liz in particular always told me that she never saw any male in me at all. Which in many ways provided me with the powerful shove down my gender cliff into a world I always should have been part of in the world of ciswomen. I don’t know what I would have done without the guidance of women such as Kim and Nikki also. I just know I probably would have kept up the male charade I was living longer than I did.

Perhaps the ironic part of them providing me a safe landing was when all the ciswomen refused to take any credit. The only response I ever got was welcome to our world when I tried to share stories about my first hot flashes, so I learned to keep quiet and learn how to protect myself when the expected gender crash happened. Because of women such as Min and Kathy, their initial invitations to their girls only nights out helped me to learn what life behind the gender curtain was really all about.

If I had known all I had learned earlier about being a transfeminine person, I would have definitely taken the plunge down my cliff earlier than I did. Not much I can do about it now as I am very much where I wanted to be and the plunge was not too bad after all.

 

 

Using yet Another Term

 

Trans Tennis Star
Renee Richards circa 1976.

Recently, I used the term “dead name” to describe my old male name which I legally changed years ago. Rather than using “dead name”, Kayla wrote in and responded by saying she uses “former tenant” when referring to her former self.

I liked the idea and decided to pass it along to all of you for your consideration. I mean it is not like we have enough other terms which have evolved and even disappeared over the years. If you are of a certain age, you probably remember when transvestite was used as a term to describe many of us with gender issues. Then there is the term “transgender” which (according to Wikipedia) was originally used in 1965 by psychiatrist John Olivien then popularized by Virginia Prince in the mid 1990’s. Which was when I began to hear about being transgender and how it applied to me.

It was not until I began to go to the old “Tri-Ess” social transgender-cross dresser mixers, did I really begin to grasp the differences in the terminology to describe myself which was becoming more and more important to me. During the earliest times I can remember coming out to anyone was in the mid to late 1970’s when I used the transvestite term rather than using cross-dresser which perhaps would have been easier for the other person to understand. At the time, I was selfish and was not so concerned about what the others thought about me as I was about preserving my male self and was not coming out to many others anyhow. I stayed with thinking I was a transvestite which was not as far along on the gender disruption order as transsexual which meant to me as wanting major surgeries to live fulltime as a woman. At my age, “Christine Jorgensen” was the first person I remember as a well-known transsexual when she published her autobiography in 1967. The year I graduated from high school, so I had a real interest in secretly trying to find a copy of her book and try to read it which I never did. The closest I ever came was finding a copy of the “Renee Richards” book “Second Serve” which was published in 1976. I found it interesting when I researched Richard’s book in Wikipedia, no reference was made to her being a transsexual woman, only a transgender one.

About that time was when I began to seriously feel as if I fit the definition of a transgender woman more than any definition, I had ever seen before. I was somewhere off in a never-never land between being the cross-dresser I always perceived myself to be and the transsexual self which was rapidly disappearing as a term.

For me, at least as I “matured” into a “transfeminine” person which supposedly first appeared in a “Tapestry” publication from Tri-Ess in 1985. About the time I was seriously looking for ways to escape my gender closet. Also the time for me when I began to have serious access to the internet and social media which over the years was to open many new doors for me as well as many new terms such as the use of LGBT at all as many more letters were added to support different gender communities. In my latest search, I found the term is up to LGBTQIA+ to include all the variations on the gender spectrum.

Then there is gender fluidity which I have known a few people who have described themselves as such over the years. In fact, we had a gender fluid person attend our support group meeting here in Cincinnati years ago who went only with their middle initial as a name and refused any of the traditional he or she pronouns. I often thought maybe I was actually gender fluid growing up on the days I wanted to be a girl instead of the boy gender I was born into.

In another support group years ago, I mentioned another group catch phrase centering around Hormone Replacement Therapy or HRT. I called it HRT and Andi gently reminded me that a better, in-depth term, would be gender affirming hormones which made sense to me and I try to use both to this day.

Now I get to throw another gender term into my years old trashcan thanks to Kayla. I will never have to use a term I always hated anyhow to describe my ascent to being a successful trans woman in a world of ciswomen. Which, for the sake of staying with the theme of this post simply means a woman who was born female and still identifies as a woman.

I suppose the meaning of all these labels simply shows what a complex community the LGBTQIA+ really is and the most important thing is that you find the little niche you need to survive in. If you can follow all these changes, you deserve all the progress you have made. When push comes to shove all these terms are just semantics and you deserve more as you enter your authentic life.

I know there are other labels I have missed. I hope I have covered the major ones that helps us all and my “dead “name is now truly dead.

 

 

 

 

Hey You!!!! Meeting Myself in the Middle

 

Image from Adam Winger
on UnSplash. 

For me, meeting myself in the mirror was never easy to do. While the group of boys I grew up around were blissfully doing boy things without a problem, I was struggling with the idea that I wanted to be a girl.

Sadly, for the longest time, I thought that someday I would have the chance to outgrow what would become for all to call gender dysphoria. For me, I was just a kid with problems I had no idea of how to conquer. Through all this time of my life my favorite quote to pass along was when some adult asked me what I wanted to become when I grew up, I could never tell the truth and say a woman as I lied and said a doctor or a lawyer. The only thing with certain that I knew was I would get an immediate trip to the psychiatrist if I had ever told the truth compliments of my parents. 

As I always say, age entitled me to a chance not to outgrow being a cross-dresser but did give me the opportunity to meet myself in the middle and start to mature into the transgender woman I am today. Before I did though, I needed to come up with an understanding of what the middle of being me really meant. What made it all so difficult was that my male life when it was going well it was very good, but when it was bad, I wanted out immediately. As I ran to my makeup, dresses and heels for comfort in the mirror.

The middle began to be harder and harder for me to find when I left the home mirror, gathered my courage and headed into the world as a transfeminine person. Many times, I could almost see and sense my middle person in the public mirrors I was still using to build myself up in places such as clothing stores in the malls and changing rooms I had started to use in all the thrift stores I was shopping to discover the latest fashion item I could wear. I was never any good shopping for women’s clothes as a man, as my feminine self-wanted to do it all and make all the final choices for herself.

In addition to fighting for the middle with my male self, I needed to fight my second wife for the rights to her husband. Like my male-self, my wife was a formidable opponent to any idea of me transitioning any further into the feminine world I increasingly wanted to live in. In many ways, she held all the gender cards because she knew I was a cross dresser when we met but never/ever agreed to me going past that point as she said she did not sign up to live with another woman. For whatever reason she never liked the transgender woman I was becoming and passed away before she could meet the finished product I had become. I don’t blame her because she just got caught in the middle of me not wanting to admit to what I always knew deep down…there was actually no middle point to me, I was destined to eventually live my life among ciswomen as an equal transgender woman.

The problem was, getting to the point of realizing all of this was easy to write about and harder to do. The biggest mistake I made was thinking my gender balance between male and female was so good that I could live as both in the world. While I maintained a long-term marriage and a good job. Trying to go all in on both genders cost me my already fragile mental health as I was still trying to do my research in the public eye about which gender direction I wanted to go. Long story short, I found without too much trouble I could carve out a new feminine life without the world questioning anything about my old male life. As I surveyed the world suddenly, I could see gender possibilities opening for me that I never thought possible before.

During this time in my life, I think I met myself in the middle too fast and tried unsuccessfully to slow my progress down until I could figure out what to do about the rest of my life. Primarily my second wife and my very lucrative job. Plus, on the other hand, I had put this gender teeter totter in motion, and it increasingly looked as if I could not get off. I kept up the old male charade I was forced to live as long as I needed to, and with the help of a few ciswomen friends, I was able to find a new middle point in my life as a trans woman. Which seemed to work well, until HRT or gender affirming hormones came my way, and the balance of my life was changed forever.

I had always viewed the possibility of me taking the gender altering hormones as a line of demarcation of me never going back to my old male life and it was. From the obvious growth of my breasts and hair to the overall softening of my skin and facial lines the changes came fast and furious and again I was forced to move up my timeline to discard (or give away) all my old male clothes and set my sights on a new bright future. Away from all the uncertainties of going back and forth between the two main binary genders of womanhood and manhood. My lifetime of juggling identities went away, my mental health improved as I entered the world I had always dreamed of my entire life that I had finally earned my way into.

The “earn” word is important here because of all the trial and error (mostly error) I put into finally facing the reality of my true gender and forever stopped meeting myself in the middle. Was it worth it? Sure, because I ended up not having any choice after all.

 

 

 

 

When I Quit Recognizing Myself

 

Image from Vinicus amiz
Amano on UnSplash

When I thought of the subject of this post, I thought that was an easy topic. From the very first day I had a glimpse of myself in the family’s full-length hallway mirror I partially thought I did not recognize who I was looking at. Sadly, even with all the work I was doing to look like one of the pretty girls I admired so much, I still looked like my male self-wearing a dress with makeup. Most likely, the biggest problem in looking like a girl back then was the lack of access I had to my hair. I was cursed in being raised in an era when young boys’ hair style was short or shorter and a crew cut was considered a longer style. Dad took my brother and I to the barber with him every couple of weeks and we got our burr haircuts without question. If you don’t know, burr means almost no hair which was decidedly not what I really wanted on my head. I had no choice but to go along with the program, and had to use my imagination, along with a towel when I cross-dressed as my authentic self. Who was just learning to express herself. Even if it was only to be to myself.

It turned out to be years later that I began to be skilled enough to begin to match my exterior self with my feminine inner feelings. I had help from a professional makeup artist I will never forget who had the skill set to show me what I doing wrong with my makeup and the verbal skills to explain to me how to improve my life through ideas such as foundation basics to cover my beard and contouring my face to bring out the highlights I did not know I had. When he was finished, I truly did not recognize who I was looking at in the mirror. Plus, I really enjoyed all the compliments I received on my appearance from several of the attendees at the transgender-crossdresser social mixer I was attending. Once I was given that basic skill set to make myself up, I was able to start buying higher end cosmetics which flattered me even more.

In many ways, for a while when I did not recognize myself in the mirror, it scared me. Because I was losing touch with all my male past which had made me…me, for my entire life. I was shocked the first time I lost some of my basic male privileges I had always taken for common I would have such as my intelligence when I talked to men and my personal safety when I found myself in contact with a toxic one. Quickly, I needed to come up with a plan to support my new life as a transgender person without the old ways which I had been successful with until I could develop new ones.

Of course, too, there were my usual problems dealing with gender dysphoria when I thought I had done a wonderful makeup job only to see my male self-looking back at me in the mirror. Then, to add insult to injury, if I was being successful in navigating the world as a transgender woman, my impostor syndrome would set it. Impostor syndrome to me made me feel as if I was an impostor in the world of ciswomen and should not feel as if I belonged there at all. Who knew, just being a trans woman would bring all the baggage with it. When I ceased to recognize myself, I learned all the rest the hard way.

Even with all the new roadblocks, I began to do more than just survive in the new feminine world I found myself in. I began to thrive as I started to carve out a new exciting life where no one knew anything about my past as an unhappy man. I never let on to my past except to let strangers know I had been married in my past and had lost my spouse to a heart attack without ever mentioning which gender she was. As well as mentioning I did have a daughter when it came to family discussions. Technically, even though I did not birth her, I was in the delivery room for her birth which was as close as I could come with the circumstances I had to deal with.

Finally, I arrived at the point when I cherished the times when I did not recognize my old self and hated the times when I could still see his image slipping through when I looked for the first time in the morning in the mirror before I had a chance to put on any makeup. Rather than feel anymore of the pain of gender dysphoria, I got to the point of thinking I was stuck with what the world had given me as far as my appearance went. The idea I used worked well because I felt I never looked as bad as I thought and certainly not as good as I arrived at the point where I was erasing my male self for good.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the role gender affirming hormones or HRT played in all my progress in my lifetime male to female femininization project. While the hormones did not make me anymore or less of a trans woman. They certainly made me feel the process more. Almost immediately, as my skin began to soften and my breasts began to grow, I began to feel emotions flow through my body that I had never felt before in my life. My facial angles also began to soften, allowing me to do less contouring with my makeup when I went out was one of the good things which happened. Along with me not recognizing myself when all a sudden it was me who was reaching for her coat saying she was too cold in a venue, and I was not making it up.

I guess you say I covered about as much ground as I could erasing my old male self without going through any major (or minor) operations. But I did make it to the point where I did not recognize any of my old self anymore.

 

 

Visiting the Vampires

 

Image from Mike Lloyd
on UnSplash.

Today was a rushed visit to the Cincinnati Veterans Hospital for bloodwork before they shut down for a week to switch over to a new digital system that we all know will cause new headaches.

Most all my bloodwork can be done at an off-site closer clinic to my house which does not require a trip downtown into a very congested area. Plus, with my mobility issues, it makes the entire process of going downtown for specialized work very unpopular with me and my wife Liz who must do all the driving.

The specialized test I needed to get done before the shutdown June fourth was for my Estradiol blood levels. For some reason, my levels had dropped nearly fifty points from a level they had been at for literally years. For that reason, my endocrinologist requested another test of my HRT levels. When this level comes back, if it stays low, it will be interesting to see what ideas she has, such as maybe doing away with the patch system and switching to injections which for no real reason, I have always stayed away from.  I am not afraid of needles; I am just lazy about the possibility of giving myself injections. One way or another, I will have to jump off that bridge when I come to it. I think my hormonal levels have jumped back up because of an overall increase in the fullness of my breasts, so I may be jumping to conclusions I did not have to.

Past that, we were able to beat the rush this morning at the VA because the vampires (blood lab people) open up at six thirty and we were able to get an early start and be there before seven. For the appointment, I chose a three-quarter sleeve feminine lace trimmed blouse, leggings and flats. Along with a light application of makeup which seemed to work because I was not misgendered at all and was actually smiled at by several men who passed me by on the way to the second-floor labs. I will take that as a win everyday since I have had mixed results over the years at that hospital. Usually, the smaller clinic I go to is better because they know and remember me, but they just could not do the specialized Estradiol test because they needed to send it out for testing.

Now I play the waiting game (which if you were in the military, you know what I am talking about) before I can get the results back. I doubt if it will be very soon because of the overall system disruptions which are coming up.

This is a short post today because it is my transgender grandchild’s birthday today who is working up in Maine and I have to send them birthday wishes plus a small gift. Happy Birthday “A.”

 

  

More Serious Stop Signs

 

Image from Steve Lieman
on UnSplash.

“Tia” wrote in yesterday and commented on my recent “Stop Sign” post. She wanted further insight into what my biggest stop signs were and how did I get through them.

First, thanks for the insightful comment, Tia and here are the answers as I remember them now.

By far, my biggest stop sign was put directly in my path by my second wife. As I was stuck between the rock and the hard place with her because of the transition I was slowly making from cross-dresser to transgender woman and my wife. Rightfully so, my wife pointed out I was breaking the marriage covenant we had and she did not want to be married to another woman. The last thing I want to do here is make her the bad person in all this gender turmoil because she knew and accepted my cross-dressing before we got married.

She even went as far as attending the social activities I went to in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio and supported my efforts to leave the house to explore the world as a transfeminine person for the first time by backing me with money for motel rooms to get ready in. The only real stop sign I had was to agree to never leave the house dressed as me. Was it enough for me? No. I blew right through the stop signs and started to throw caution to the wind and go out into the world like the authentic me. Regardless of the heavily populated area of town, we lived in.

I kept on doing this until I was caught time and time again by my second wife and could not lie my way out of me breaking our agreement. I resorted to even going to therapy for help which never actually came. Mainly because I was not doing anything wrong in my struggle to just be the inner female I always thought I was. I even had a therapist I respected totally tell me that and I just ignored her. Thinking I could balance my gender issues and fight on to maintain the status quo. By ignoring the stop signs I was facing, I was just making my life worse and not helping our relationship in the long term which I will get back to later. Because, as it turned out, there would not be a long term relationship anyhow.

In the meantime, as I became more serious about the possibility of living out my life as a transgender woman, I began to see other stop signs ahead. They were major signs too such as how I would support myself in the world without my wife and perhaps the rest of my family. Obstacles which face nearly all transgender women and transgender men as we attempt to cross the gender border and live out our lives as normal everyday citizens. It is difficult to end one life, pick up the pieces and start over again. Something I wish all the transphobes who try to attack us would try to understand but that is a whole other topic.

Pure destiny helped me to negotiate the other major stop signs I faced with the attitude that if others could complete a male to female transition, why couldn’t I. Life became a circle for me as I went through the darkest period of my existence before I was able to pay my dues and take advantage of the new world I was in. The most tragic part was losing my wife to a major heart attack. I never ever thought she would ever die before me with the stressful lifestyle I was leading but I did, which led me to wonder what I would do about the biggest stop sign of all in my life. In the new darkness as I searched for my new path which had existed so long. All I needed to do was remove the stop sign and continue to live.

I also found I needed to do a quick look into who was important to me in my life and who I could afford to lose if I crossed the gender border. In my darkness I guessed my daughter who would support me and my only brother would not. Which was exactly what happened. It has been over a decade since I have talked with my brother, and my daughter has become one of my biggest supporters. My parents had long since passed on so I did not have to worry about coming out to either of them. Even though I did try to come out to my mom years ago and was rejected. I took that stop sign down and forgot about it.

It seemed, once I got used to taking down my gender stop signs the easier it got. Although that was not necessarily the case. Destiny stepped in again and provided me with an age excuse when it came to how I was going to support myself. I was fortunate to have worked a good job with a good wage which helped my Social Security retirement payments. I turned out if I was able to sell the collectables my wife and I had collected over the years, I could retire and support myself. Which saved me having to look for a job as a new transgender woman.

Of lesser importance was when the Veterans Administration started to provide care for gender conflicted veterans such as me. I jumped at the chance for lower cost HRT meds and the mental care to get them. The mental care provided me with a qualified therapist who helped me with the legal documents that assisted changing my legal gender markers within the VA and the public sector.

Perhaps removing the biggest stop sign of all that remained was discovering a loving relationship which I could cherish for the rest of my life. That person of course was my wife Liz who discovered me on an online dating site. I was always a social person and had resigned myself to a life of being alone before I met Liz and we are still going strong over fifteen years later.

I hope all of this answers the questions Tia and all of you may have had about my transgender stop signs and how I handled them. Some stopped me for years while others I simply rolled through or ignored altogether but one way or another I made it. As always, all of your comments are appreciated!

 

 

 

 

Transgender Challenges

 

Image from Beta Builders
on UnSplash. 

For me, the challenges of being a transgender woman ran deep and came often.

The first challenges I faced were just keeping my small collection of feminine belongings secret from my younger brother and parents. From there, my dealings with my cross-dressed self and the world only would intensify as I grew up. Very soon, the move from closet to the mirror would not be enough to satisfy my gender curiosity, and I began to leave the house when I could dress in my clothes and makeup for small walks to our rural mailbox. As puberty took its toll, finding anything to wear became my biggest problem because I was outgrowing my short mom’s clothing. She was only five foot two.

Somehow, I beat the challenge of keeping my deep gender secret to myself and kept up my routine of taking every spare moment to satisfy my desire to be a girl. Of course, it took me awhile to come close to perfecting anything which came close to being acceptable when it came to applying makeup and even shaving my legs. Which I was probably sneaking around and doing before most of the girls I was around who I envied so much. As it turned out, the magic of makeup really escaped me until I had the courage to accept the challenge of having a professional makeup artist do my makeup (and explain what he was doing) at a transgender-cross dresser social I was attending in Columbus, Ohio years later. The makeup pro taught me the basics of foundation, contouring, eyes and lips among other helpful tips. All the compliments I received showed me I was indeed on the right path I had chosen in life, and I could at least expect to fit in with other ciswomen in the world on a regular basis.

Then, as I always point out, the real work and challenge of what I was setting out to do set into my life. At the same time my male counterpart was beginning to establish himself as a successful person in his chosen career. As much as my self-destructive personality kept trying to tear down all he accomplished, it never worked, and he succeeded anyway. Which meant he was increasing the amount of potential baggage I would have to account for if I was ever going to reach my goal of living as a successful transfeminine person.

What hurt me was when I miscalculated what it was going to take to live the life I always dreamed of. The challenge was making the jump of just looking similar to a ciswoman, all the way to having a basic idea of how she lived her life. A great example of how my cross-dressing fun and games became very serious when just after I decided to go full time as a trans woman and had given away all my male clothes, my wife Liz’s dad passed away and I needed something appropriate to wear to the viewing and funeral. I was fortunate that I had several items of clothing in black, so I could be properly dressed for the occasion. A long way from the day-to-day life I was expecting to challenge me as I went through my male to female femininization project.

It turned out to be a huge step in my life when I finally accepted the challenge to live the life, I was always destined to live. I was no longer the lost kid in the mirror desperately cross-dressing his life away dreaming of a world he could not be part of. I was a full-fledged adult with a rapidly clearing view of the challenge ahead if she wanted to survive. Perhaps you noticed I used the “she” pronoun as I increasingly adopted it as my referred self. It made me feel more complete as a transgender woman. If I did not believe in myself at this point of my life, how could I convince the world who I was anyhow.

The next big challenge to me was seeing if I could be approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT which I am still on (thankfully) to this day. Before I did anything with the hormonal challenge, I knew I would have to seek out a doctor’s approval to see if I was healthy enough to do it. I was able to find an ad for a doctor in nearby Dayton who said he specialized in hormonal care and I made the appointment which would change my life forever.

In our first meeting, the doctor gave me a brief physical, asked me a few questions about what I knew the HRT would do to me and started me on a minimum dosage to see if there would be any ill effects. There were not, and very soon I was on a larger dose of the magical hormones my body seemed to take to naturally and the changes to my body were on. In fact, the changes began to happen so fast, the challenge then became to move up my timetable on when I was going to give up what was left of my male existence. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide my growing breasts, softening skin and long hair from the public and all the internal changes such as emotions from myself. I finally had enough and embarked on the greatest challenge of my life at the age of sixty. I put nearly half of a century of a part-time cross-dressing life behind me and never looked back.

Destiny helped me too, when the Veterans Administration health care system which I was a part of began to treat gender dysphoria in veterans with hormonal care. I needed again to go through the approval process and made it again as it seemed as if the challenges would never end. It was worth it because it tied me in with the VA’s mental health system for my depression and anxiety issues. As luck would have it, I was paired up with a mental health professional who I was with for years and helped me with all my issues such as having my legal gender markers changed within the VA and society at large.

I guess the challenge of any first-time experience can be traumatic for any human being. It just seems unfair that transgender women and transgender men have more than their fair share of challenge.