Ditching Good with Better as a Trans Girl

 

Archive Image
from Witches Ball
Tom on Left.

Ditching good with better has always been a difficult obstacle in my life. 

I always blame my parents for my feelings on doing the best I could on anything I tried. Nothing I did was good enough. If I got B's they should have been A's was a prime example. Even though I was an above average student, I don't remember ever being told I was doing a good job. I think now, their influence carried on with me in every facet of my life, including when I was a novice cross dresser and budding transgender woman. 

It all started with my appearance as a girl. When I was younger and before I went through any testosterone poisoning at puberty, it was much easier to look like a girl. But just looking like a girl was never good enough, I wanted to be a girl and enjoy their life. Or at least as I perceived it to be. I guess my parents attitude was rubbing off on me. At the time, all I could really do to further my looks was to over achieve with my meager allowance and take on a rural newspaper route. Between the two, I could sneak out to the store and buy the occasional wardrobe item or makeup I could experiment with. I was doing my best to ditch my good with better as a trans girl during my early age. If I had given the same effort to everything else I tried during that time, at the least I could have received better grades and my parents would have been pleased. 

On the other hand, my parents in no way would have been pleased if they had known I had issues with my gender. I shudder to think what would have happen to me if they had discovered me dressed in my feminine wardrobe and makeup. At the least, I know I would have been sent to a therapist during a time when even being a cross dresser was considered a mental illness. I never wanted to even consider what the worst could be. Perhaps since we were not particularly religious, Christian conversion therapy would not have been in my future. The only thing I know for sure is, I would not have had any understanding at all. All along I did the best I could and was able to hide my cross dressing with the world. How I don't really know.

The older I became, good certainly did not become enough. A prime example would be the Halloween parties I went to when I was first testing the world  I started with just trying to be a sexy sleaze of a woman thinking I would receive some sort of a validation. Several parties later, I grew more bold and wanted to see if I could be mistaken for a real woman, so I wore my business attire and then waited for reactions. Overall I was received well with strangers who did not know me mistaking me for a woman who did not have a chance to dress up for the party. I was discovering better was always best when it came to how I presented as a transgender woman in the world, under the cover of Halloween or not. 

All of my experiences led me to establishing myself in a new feminine world. I needed to try very hard to do away with all my old values to do it. My whole world became a concentration of new friends and life. In my own way, I needed to be better than the world to succeed in chasing my dream of living full time as a transgender woman. Sure I needed to look the part but suddenly I needed to be the part which meant moving and communicating as a woman. 

Ditching good for better in my transgender world was one of the best moves I ever made. By the time I was medically cleared to begin taking gender affirming hormones or HRT, I was more than ready for the results. Almost instantly I knew I made the right decision.  Since my parents have long since passed away, there is no possible way for me to communicate to them they were right. For all the wrong reasons. Their resistance  to giving me any positive feedback early in life made it easier for me to find my own path in the world as a trans woman. A place where good was never enough for me.  

Gender Expectations

Image from the JJ Hart
Archives

As I progressed through my gender transformation, I had so many expectations.

All I really wanted to be when I grew up was a woman but I had no idea of how I was going to achieve my dream. Unlike most of the major professions available to me, there were no schools I could apply to to be femininized. I just wanted to find my passion and follow it. 

To do it, I finally had to be free of the mirror and join the world. Even when I discovered that, I had to often snatch defeat away from the jaws of victory. Or I was defeating myself by going exactly the wrong way with my women's fashion, hair and makeup. At the rate I was going back then, there was no way I was ever going to exceed, or even make it, to my gender expectations.

Another problem I encountered was the complexity of the new life I was trying my hardest to live. Every time I turned one corner it seemed I had another blocking my way. I began to see life as a series of walls I needed to climb. For example, if I couldn't learn to communicate with the world, how could I ever hope to bring my dreams to life. Many times as I journeyed out into the world, I was flying blind not knowing what to expect. The whole process was at once scary yet exciting. It took me many evenings out on my own to establish myself in venues I wanted to be secure in. At the time, I was doing my best to separate myself from the gay bars I was going to where I did not enjoy being treated as a drag queen. 

It was very difficult at first to be accepted as a single transgender woman in the sports bars I was going to. Often I resorted to using my cell-phone as a prop to fend off anyone who thought I was going to be alone for any length of time. It was during this time when I started to meet a trans woman friend of mine and socialize in many venues I was fearful of going into by myself.  There seemed to be an extra amount of security when I was with a friend. When we were together my gender expectations were satisfied because I was allowed to relax and be more social in the world.

From there I transitioned into having my lesbian friends and had a chance to really blossom. All of a sudden, I did not need a man to validate my existence as a woman and they helped me climb another big wall towards achieving my dream. My experiences at lesbian mixers, roller derby matches and even professional football games helped me to come out of my gender shell fast. By doing so, I needed to free my long dormant feminine inner being so she could help me to become a new person. She gladly did so and took off tons of pressure from my gender expectations. If I did not know what to expect, she did and took charge and maybe most importantly gave me the chance to build a quality trans person. I had the rare second chance in life to learn from my mistakes as a cross dresser and a man.

I finally ran the string out and had seen all I needed to see as a transgender woman and couldn't wait for the gender affirming hormones or HRT I was approved to take to take further charge of my body. All my expectations had been exceeded and there was no way I could have dreamed of coming this far in life the first time I slid into hose and a bra when I was a kid. 

I don't completely know why I made it but I sure am happy I did. Along the way, my gender expectations were often confusing to me and impossible to explain to others. Even though internalizing my feelings was brutal, good therapy helped my mental health. Even more so if I had listened to my gender therapist years ago who told me there was nothing either of us could do about my desire to be a woman. Of course I was stubborn and did not listen. If I had, my gender expectations may have really changed for the better much earlier in life.

Buckle Up!

Image 
from the 
Jessie 
Hart
Archives

Recently, I have happened across several posts on my social media feeds from novice transgender women just beginning HRT or gender affirming hormones. 

In many ways, as I look back on my hormonal experiences, I am envious. Mainly because my experience was so exciting. Possibly because I was finally realizing my attempt to take a major step forward in my transgender transition. For years, I had dreamed of starting HRT, much to the chagrin of my second wife who was completely against it. She had always told me, she did not want to live with another woman and the hormones would take me dangerously close to doing it.

When I actually started down the HRT path, little did I know how right she would be. I was naïve and I thought my new journey would involve growing breasts and hair but never dreamed of all the other changes which would take place. My skin softened along with my facial angles which helped  my feminine presentation in the world. I could use much less makeup and do away with wearing wigs because I was fortunate I did not inherit any male pattern baldness.  

Before I knew it I really wanted it to happen, I was becoming very androgynous and had to do something. With my hair, breasts and skin alone, it was time to begin to think about the circumstances to what I was doing. Plus, I have not even mentioned all the extra benefits of going through the second major puberty in my life. When I did, I discovered so many new things about myself such as when my sense of smell suddenly improved and my body's thermostat went away. What happened was I was cold all the time and suddenly understood women were not making it up all the times when they said they were chilly.

Then there were the onset of emotions I went through when I started HRT. Previously in my male life I had become very insulated when dealing with my emotions. Sadly, I became so callous, I had a difficult time shedding a tear when my parents passed away. Suddenly, one night, when a late summer thunderstorm moved in, I sat alone on my side porch and started to cry for the loss of my old male self. It was such a powerful moment in my life, I will never forget it. 

Of course if you are just starting down your path to femininizing hormones, there will be many peaks and valleys or ups and downs. Similar to so many others, I questioned the gender path I was taking. Was it the correct one? So, I buckled up for the ride. I'm not sure now if I was ready for the first hot flashes I went through which hit me when I was out in public and I ended up wondering if the world had noticed I was getting ready to internally combust. Perhaps back in those days, the worst part of my gender journey was I had no one to share it with. I was just getting to know the small circle of women friends I started to hang out with on a regular basis and knew they would only say welcome to their world if I brought up anything such as hot flashes to them. 

After awhile, I came to the conclusion I had buckled up for one of the best roller coaster rides there were. The best part was, for the most part, I had no idea what was coming up next. When I was approved for larger dosages under the care of a doctor, changes continued to come at a rapid pace. Under medical care, I went from pills to patches which supposedly helped with the wear and tear on inner organs such as kidneys. Life was good as I adjusted to the new hormones and I felt as if my body was telling me I was a natural for gender affirming hormones all the time. 

The very few people who knew me pre-transition said it the best, I just seemed more relaxed and happy now as a transgender woman. I never said anything but I gave most of the credit for my new found joy to the hormones I was on. HRT had helped me to sync up my internal and external gender feelings. It would have been "TMI" or too much information for the average person to understand. 

I will always wonder how my deceased second wife would have reacted to me as a transgender woman. Would I ever have paid enough dues to move out of the pretty pretty princess mode she threw me in and ascend to the woman mode she was so afraid of. I would like to think at the least we still could have remained friends.  I will never know.

At the least, your journey will be different than mine in many ways and will include many twists and turns. Just try to enjoy the journey many others will never have the chance to take.

There is Always a Transition

 

Archive
image
Jessie Hart

In an expansion of yesterday's post, today, I am beginning a post on the extra transitions we go through in life. Many are relatable to everyday life, some are not. Everyone goes through changes or transitions. For example when and if they ever become parents.

My biggest transition came when I crossed the gender frontier from viewing myself as a cross dresser I could possibly live without to a fulltime life as a transgender woman. My transition also came along when I was negotiating raising a daughter, building my career and attempting to outrun myself. Life became very busy as I struggled to find myself. I resorted to therapy to try to balance my mental health. Along the therapy path, I was diagnosed with a Bipolar depression disorder to add on to my gender dysphoria which was dominating my life. Through medication I take to this day, I am able to control my depression and my gender dysphoria became much better when I finally decided to fully leave my gender closet. 

As I lived on, maybe I should have taken up the motto, "Later is Greater" as I took my time exploring the possibilities of living a totally femininized life. My excuse is I wanted to make sure I had it all right before I risked it all and left my male self behind. Eventually, I learned from all the trips I was making out the door of our house, doing the best I could to blend into the world as a woman, transgender or not. Then, another transition was facing me head on. It was the great leap from being an experimenter to being a doer or practitioner of being feminine. I took years of watching and learning to understand what my second wife was telling me when she said I didn't know anything about being a woman. Not only was she right, she did did her best to hold me back from learning what she was talking about. There was no way she wanted to show me much about what truly being a woman was all about. Instead, she persisted in calling me the "Pretty, pretty princess."

Her failure to help me just pushed me farther and farther towards my next transition which was a huge one. The more I settled on a feminine look and style I liked, people I previously didn't know began to recognize me and I was forced to begin to build a whole new life as a trans woman. Primarily it meant I needed to communicate with the world with tools which were totally foreign to me. Trying my best to develop a softer feminine sounding tone was a real challenge along with adjusting to a society of women where passive aggressive behavior was the rule. There were too many times I suffered when I didn't perceive exactly where the attack on me was coming from. Instead of usual male frontal attack I was used to, I needed to start watching my back. Communication with the world was a huge part of my next gender transition. 

After I thought I had the communication and appearance transitions down, seemingly there was another challenge awaiting me at every turn. Who knew it could be so difficult to cross the gender divide? I was often frustrated when the smallest details would trip me up, not to mention the big ones such as the ill advised use of water balloons as breast forms. The balloons worked well enough until one exploded on me one night in a venue I often went to. Fortunately, I was on my way to the woman's rest room when it happened and it was empty. I was able to clean up,  quietly finish my drink and leave with no one noticing me, I was wearing a loose fitting top so no one saw or mentioned the one breasted wet woman on her way out of the venue. Needless to say, my next investment was silicone breast forms. 

As I near my seventy fifth birthday. transitions are harder to come by yet more meaningful These days, I mostly just present as old. Plus, my ultimate paranoia of having to go to assisted living and having my gender attacked looms large. As I always say, I need to do my best not to dwell on the future and live in the present. 

None of us control the final transition, no matter how much money or power we have. It is up to any higher power you believe in to make it happen..   

Going Through the Motions

Image from Dibakatur Roy 
on UnSplash.

Looking back at my fifty plus years of life as a cross dresser, I wonder when and how I crossed the gender barrier into being a transgender woman.

Also, how many years did I spend just going through the motion to arrive at my destination. I started with going through what I call now my mirror worship period. During this time, I couldn't wait for any opportunity I had to slip away from my boring, unwanted male life to slip into what feminine fashion and makeup I could find which fit me. Invariably, the mirror would give me positive feedback until I could come back for more. 

I am guessing now but I think approximately twenty years or so went by before I was brave enough to leave the mirror behind and see what if anything the world had to offer a novice cross dresser. On the other hand,  I know it took me longer than the two decades to figure out my truth. I was just going through the motions as a cross dresser and my gender issues ran much more deeper than just wanting to put on a dress and walk in front of the mirror. After years and years of doing the same thing, for some reason something clicked in me which made sense but at the same time was very scary.

It was the time I decided to find out if I could go co-exist with a group of women as a woman in their own territory. Previously, I had scouted out the venue I wanted to go to and when I wanted to try out my idea. It was the "Friday's" I write about often and yes I was petrified for several reasons. What if I did not make it and was ridiculed or maybe worse yet, what if I did and my life would change forever. If I did make it, I knew I could never go back to just going through the motions of being a part-time cross dresser. I was so much more. 

Finally, I got in so deep with me thinking I was transgender I reversed all of my gender thinking. Primarily I wasn't a man cross dressing as a woman at all I was a woman cross dressing as a man. Or, I was just going through the motions of being a male because I was born into it and was just attempting to get by until I could change my life for the better and live as a transgender woman. It represented a seismic change in my thinking on how I was going to live my life. 

By the time I was sixty, I could not take all the self destructive behavior I was experiencing any longer and decided to cross the gender frontier and live as a transgender woman. I embraced all my new gender thinking and set out to discover all I had missed by living my life as a man. Since my inner feminine soul had been observing my life and struggles the whole time, surprises were kept to a minimum. It turned out she was plotting all along how she would live once she got the chance. 

The last major step my male self gave her was going to the doctor and getting approved for gender affirming hormones. HRT just helped to further sync up what I thought I needed to be with what I actually was. Or, I thought I needed any help I could with femininizing my body to help me blend in with the world.

Of course, now I feel as if I was robbed of my life when I was going through the motions of being a man. On the other hand, I made the best of an unfortunate mistake. I gained a daughter, built a solid career and even survived my tour in the Army, so it all could have been so much worse as I battled my own gender dysphoria. It turned out, being transgender just led me into going through more motions than most people.   

A Trans Woman's Intuition

Anniversary Image 
from the Jessie Hart Archives

The world makes a big deal about woman's intuition, as they should 

I feel women as a whole have a deeper understanding of the world than men do. I have always believed women live a more layered life than men which leads to a need for more intuition. Not to mention a less secure life than men when it comes to personal security. Simply put, women have to learn at an early age the problems they could face dealing with toxic males. 

Add to all of that and you can imagine (or have experienced) the problems a transgender woman can face. We have to experience the impact of toxic men and toxic women also.  Lately it seems the anti-transgender societal atmosphere has made it a necessity for trans people to develop their internal intuition more effectively just to survive.

Early on, I was just so starved for male attention, I put myself into dangerous situations. I equated a man's attention into a validation of me as a woman. Fortunately, I was able to live through that portion of my life without any serious harm coming to me. Even though I barely escaped on occasion. I can not claim all of the credit for my escapes as I had other cis-women around me who helped. I can remember one night in particular when a man approached me at the bar in one of the regular venues I was a guest. When the server at the bar saw me and the man approach she did not say anything. Instead she just gave me a look which in no uncertain terms said to be careful. I took her advice, paid my bill and took off before he came back around to me. 

Also, toxic men are attracted to transgender women because they somehow think we are desperate for male attention. Which is the reason so many lonely trans women react to scammers on social media sites. Conservatively, I think I receive two or three scam requests a week from generals and doctors who happen to be widowed. I laugh them off and quickly block them. It never takes much intuition to know where they are coming from.

It is a different story in the real world of course. When women as a whole are warned to be so careful just when they are out to socialize. These days, women have to protect their drinks and make sure they go out with friends. Just another example of how a woman's intuition comes in handy. 

I think when I transitioned into a woman's world, gender affirming hormones aided my progression. In fact, I just answered a question from my transgender grandchild about my favorite smells. During my answer, I made sure I brought up the influence of the femininizing hormones on my sense of smell. One of the first big inner changes I experienced on HRT was the better sense of smell I realized. I am interested to see what reaction (if any) I receive. 

Most certainly I learned a transgender woman's intuition was a priority in order to survive. My inner woman, who waited so long to live her life in the world, knew it also. I learned when she took control how easy it was to let her take the reigns of my life. Early on she proved she knew what to do when she had the chance. I also learned I needed to be better than the average cis-woman. I did not have any of the benefits of growing up as a young girl. Catching up on the fly was often very difficult to do. Little did I know I could benefit from my old male life and use the lessons to help me when I jumped into the girls' sandbox.

Knowing where guys were coming from helped me to get by in the dating world on the very few occasions when I decided to enter it. I found I needed any advantage I could hold to help my gender life along. Including a better knowledge of my transgender intuition. 

 

Trans Peaks and Valleys

Image from the
Jessie Hart Archives.

Lifetime as a whole presents us with many peaks and valleys to negotiate.

Since I am transgender and always wanted to be a woman, my peaks and valleys often revolved around times when I came out as my authentic self in the world. Very early on, sadly, there were more frequent valleys than peaks as I learned to survive in the public as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. I vividly remember too many times when I came home sobbing when I was laughed at. I don't remember now how I survived the dark times and continued to move forward. 

As I did move forward, there were other peaks in my life such as when my only child was born. When she arrived, my existence changed forever. Plus, I wondered how having a new person in the world would effect my gender desires. In many ways, I thought it was poetic justice when I had a girl. For some reason, deep down, I thought I could understand a girl better than a boy.  Since my daughter turned out the way she did, maybe I was right.

A big problem I had with my peaks and valleys was staying in one place long enough to actually understand if I was doing anything right. As I constantly changed jobs and moved my small family, I gave my second wife a hard way to go when I tried to chase myself. I am amazed we made it through twenty five years. 

Another problem I had was when I needed to come down off the gender peaks when I encountered them. Gender euphoria was so rare, I wanted to hang on to it as long as I could. When I couldn't I would become frustrated and ultimately mean around my family and co-workers. 

The more I progressed in my gender transition the more extreme the effort to climb out of the valleys became. The major problem was I didn't feel increasingly secure in my old male role and at the same time, I was feeling more and more natural as my femininized self. Which again caused me great frustration when I fell deeper into my valley. At several points I was so deep, I needed therapy to help me restore my mental health. Therapy on occasion did help me climb up to an acceptable level of a peak. When I was smart enough to actually take the therapist's advice. 

It turned out my fear of heights carried over to my transgender issues. The better I became at existing as a woman in public, I was scared. Primarily because for the first time in my life it seemed to be a real possibility I could reach my dream of actually living as a transgender woman. As I looked down on my previous male life, leaving it scared me. What would I do about  losing all of my white male privileges and then having to start all over again. At the time, the only female privilege I could see was a man opening a door for me. Which I later found to be false as there were other feminine benefits I had yet to experience as I climbed my gender peak. 

Finally, at the age of sixty, I could take the pressure of the climb no longer and I decided to stop all aspects of my old male life. I was taking gender affirming hormones to take me to the next step, my mental health was improving and for once I could see my life clearly as a transgender woman. So even though I needed to take a leap of faith off a cliff and transition, I found I had others around me who provided a soft landing. It turned out, I hadn't lost anything at all. 

My up and down life of trying to live as both binary genders was difficult at times to say the least. Near the end I found I made the correct decision on which peak to climb and it was not the male one.

Transgender Shape-Shifting

 

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives

Changing your unwanted testosterone damaged male body into anything which remotely resembles a female is very challenging. 

In order to be a gender shape-shifter you need to become a perfectionist down to the smallest detail. Plus, seeing as how most of us transgender women got a late start in our transitions, we spent quite a bit of time playing catch up to other genetic women our age. We did not have the peer pressure or Mom's influence to steer our way into the public's eye.

Some would argue also, we trans women had to be better than the average woman to survive. We had to be on point with our makeup, fashion and accessories to look good and in addition were able to still able to blend in with a society of women who increasingly did not seem to care how they looked.

Finding the middle point of presenting well in your cross dressing shape-shifting experience was difficult to say the least. Even so, some of us would consider the process of presenting as a woman as a labor of love. In my case, I was fond of haunting all my local deep discount clothing stores until I located just the right fashion item or accessory. I remember the thrill I felt when I finally summoned the courage I needed to use the changing rooms to see in fact if I had found a "treasure" to add to my wardrobe. 

Then there was the problem of learning how to put my shape-shifted self into motion. No matter how I looked was any good if I still walked like a linebacker and communicated as a man. I remembering working long and hard on discarding my male walk the best I could and picking up the unique movement of a woman. It was difficult for me because I was still working and living a portion of my life as a man and needed to be careful not to cross over the gender line at the wrong time. Even though I secretly loved to be called "ma'am" when I was working as a guy, I still needed to be very careful to maintain my carefully crafted male image. 

I came to the point where shape-shifting became too much for me to handle and I finally tried to be approved for gender affirming hormones to aid the process. I was helped along by the knowledge I had taken my femininization process along as far as I could without the aid of medical help. Since I never was the beneficiary of any natural help with my feminine appearance, I needed all the assistance  I could find. I discovered help when I started HRT under a doctor's supervision. My skin almost immediately began to soften which helped my facial angles soften which also allowed me to use less makeup and look more natural. In addition, my hair growing to the point of not needing to wear a wig anymore, along with growing my own breasts were just the beginning of my advanced search into being a gender shape-shifting human. 

Of course my final test, was how the public was responding to the new transgender woman me. For the most part I received positive feedback by getting no feedback at all. I was able to blend in with the world as my preferred authentic self and take a major step towards being happy in life. All along I was stuck in my dream of wanting to be a woman, or come as close as I could. It was all because I finally discovered my gender was coming from between my ears and not my legs.

Looking back on a shape-shifting life was certainly easier than living it on occasion when I think back on all the failures I went through to arrive where I am today. Supposedly learning from failure is the best way to progress in life and I believe it.

Finishing What you Started

Dinner with my wife Liz on Left

My parents always pushed me to finish what I started. 

Little did they know how their priorities for me  would influence me in my future years. As I began my early years as an innocent cross dresser just trying to justify my new gender feelings. The more I went in front of the mirror, the less I could un-see what I imagined myself to be if I was an actual girl. Seeing as how I was in a shared space with myself, my imagination was key to survival. Often I spent hours at school dreaming of rushing home ahead of my family and cross dressing with the feminine clothes I managed to accumulate. I made very little money with my allowance I earned along with what I earned on my newspaper neighborhood route I took on. I think my parents were surprised when I was so good with doing my job delivering papers, not knowing the real motivation I had. Which was, I needed the money to buy more make-up or clothes if I could find them.

I was well on the way towards finishing what I started the older I became. What happened was the mirror became reality when I started to leave my closet and journey into the world. Plus, for years, I wondered if I was ever able going to attempt to finish what I started. Was it even possible? To finish, I would have to completely overcome the challenges equated with changing out family, friends and even employment. The more I went forward in the world as a transgender woman, the more sense I felt in my life as I knew it. For a change, I actually thought I could make it towards my dream goal of being a woman, transgender or not. Mainly because of the times I was actually being accepted in the world as my authentic self. From shopping, to eating out to making special trips to Christmas activity, I was doing it all. 

The problem became I became too good in my new life. I can't say it enough how natural I felt when I was finishing what I started so I kept pushing myself to do more. That meant nothing feminine was off limits for me. Except for the occasional redneck sports bar I went into to enjoy a drink and an appetizer, I did not have any major problems at all. The exception was the one venue I went to when the police were called on me for using the restroom. I never finished what I started there and never went back as I had several other venues I was welcomed at. I realized I should spend my money where I was welcomed. 

Eventually, I knew to come closer to finishing what I started, I would need to research gender affirming hormones. If I was approved for HRT, I felt I could come closer than ever before to femininizing my exterior body to match my feminine inner gender. I was medically approved and before I knew it, the hormones had produced a very androgynous body for me. So much so, I needed to move up my timetable of when I planned on going fulltime as a transgender woman. My skin was softening so much, my breasts and hair were growing so fast, I could not turn back. Perhaps, most surprisingly to me were the internal changes which were taking place. My world was softening and for the first time in my life, I could have an emotional cry. 

Even though I have been successful in mostly finishing what I started on my gender journey, as I nearly reach the age seventy five. Three quarters of a century has taught me what Yogi Berra said is true. It's not over till it's over. I never make a secret of the paranoia I face over facing my final years fighting for my gender in an assisted  living facility. I have finally been able to tell myself I will face that hurdle when I come to it.

Fortunately, I have survivors such as my wife Liz and daughter who respect my gender wishes and won't have a huge family argument when I die. A problem  I see so much of in the transgender community when a family disapproves of a person living as their authentic self. Who would have ever thought finishing what you started would be such a time consuming and difficult process. I certainly didn't when I first got a glimpse of myself all those years ago.    

Gender Stress

 

Image from Alekon Pictures
on UnSplash

Living a transgender life can often be nearly unbearable. I found it to be especially so when my male self was refusing to give up a losing cause and I was still trying to discover the wonders of living as a novice transgender woman.

In many ways, I don't blame my guy for holding on because of all the work he did to arrive at where he was in the white male hierarchy he grew up in. By jumping genders, I was risking it all. My job, my family and friends could conceivably all be gone. The pressure was on. In one way I admired the men around me who didn't have gender issues to deal with but on the other hand, I felt so alive and natural when I was expressing my transgender self. More and more, I so admired the women around me even more than the men. 

All of this envy led me to a major point in my life where I finally needed to decide my future gender. In many ways, it was my own fault because when I started coming out, I was more successful quicker than I ever thought possible. Very early on, I was just going out cross dressed to see if I could and then discovered it was going be easier than I thought to build a new life as a woman. To my surprise, strangers wanted to know me. Especially other women who wanted to know why I wanted to be in their world. At the time, I had just lost my wife and most of my close friends to death, so I was extremely lonely. Any attention I received was a surprise and welcome. 

The problem was I still had a male life to decide what I wanted to do with. Did I want to try to keep him part-time or go all the way and do away with all of my male existence. If I had just faced up to my truth, I would not have to have gone through all the gender stress I was to encounter. What happened was, I still hung on to trying to live as both binary genders nearly killed me. The stress I felt, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I couldn't keep my mind on anything else than when or if I was ever going to take the next step on my transition journey. Which, at that time, I considered to being approved for and starting gender affirming hormones. 

As my life changed, my gender stress magically went away slowly but surely. At that point, I knew I had made the right decision by going ahead and giving up what was left of my male life. The pressure was off and I became a happier person. At the same time, I had developed my own group of women friends who accepted me and my life was similar to a continual girls night out. I'm sure the hormones helped but life became much more bearable. It all turned out to be great timing as it was near the time my health care group (Veterans Administration) started to accept transgender veterans for HRT care which included free mental health guidance which helped me to change most all of my legal gender markers. I was extra lucky when I was assigned to a LGBTQ friendly therapist who was happy to help with anything she could. Plus lend an understanding ear when needed. 

I am not sure I could ever explain the stress and tension gender dysphoria causes to the average person who refuses to even try to understand. The most important issue to stress is that being transgender is not and has never been a choice for anyone involved. 

As I said, I would not have wished my gender stress on my worst enemy but if I did, hopefully my enemy would have  become a better person in the process. 

My Wheel had a Flat Spot

Date Night with Liz
from the Archives.

I am fortunate to have lived a long life (so far) as I am looking at my seventy fifth birthday coming up this fall. 

When you live a long life, often you are able to see many things come full circle to fruition. On the other hand, especially when you are leading a transgender life, you discover your circle or wheel may have developed flat spots. You could be moving along in life when all of the sudden flat spots show up to derail you. 

After discovering gender euphoria, at the same time I began to day dream my life away until I could cross dress and admire myself in front of the mirror again. So, no matter how hard I tried, getting back on track in a male life I never really wanted was very difficult. At that point, I held nothing but resentment at the flat spots in my life. Why couldn't I be like everyone else in my small circle of friends. Since being similar to the rest of the crowd, I needed to find away around it. At first, I survived my dark gender closet by cross dressing as often as I could, dreaming I appeared as a pretty girl. The older and more sophisticated I became, the more I needed to put effort into smoothing out my flat spots which could provide me with quite the gender jolt. 

I am not proud of the fact of the amount of sneaking around, all the way to out and out lying I needed to do to try to live a life as a transgender woman which I was finding more and more about. For the most part, I thought I was becoming quite agile at dodging the flat spots which came along in my life when all I wanted to do was run and hide behind my skirts and dresses. Each time, I found I wasn't quite as good as I thought I was when my wife caught me cross dressed again. 

As it turned out, regardless of the hell I put our marriage through, I indeed was in the middle of coming full circle in my quest to lead a feminine life. There were so many times when I was stuck in a flat spot of my wheel, I did not know how I was ever going to get out of it. My lowest point came when I tried a suicide attempt years ago with pills and alcohol. From that low point forward, my life began a slow trajectory forward and upward as I was forced to see who I truly was. Fighting to maintain a male life which wasn't worth it increasingly did not matter anymore as I femininized myself everytime I saw a flat spot coming on. 

I realize having flat spots in life is a human experience we all have to go through but (I'm biased) and think we transgender women and trans men have more than our fair share to deal with. Especially when it comes to having accepting families and friends. Or losing successful jobs and other male privileges. You name it and many of us have had the chance to lose it during the flat spots in our life as we struggle to come full circle. 

The older I became, the closer I came to seeing what a full circle could look like to me. Plus I had the feminization effects of HRT working miracles on my male body. I had been through a lot and was excited to see the work I had put into my flat spots behind me. 

Little did I know, I actually hadn't put all my flat spots behind me after all when I started to look ahead to my end of life options. Needless to point out, I am worried about my future but my goal now is to be positive about anything which may happen.

Transgender Stairsteps

Image from Reinaldo Kevin
on UnSplash

As I progressed through life, the idea of me being transgender took up more and more space. 

When it did, I had to create my own steps to arrive at the next level and negotiate all the many stop signs which impeded my progress. For awhile, I was so engrossed in my own appearance, my second wife called me the "Pretty, pretty princess." Mainly because she did not use much makeup and was not very girly herself. I did get my revenge on the occasions we were going out and she had to ask for my assistance with her makeup. It was all I could do to not say something like did she all of a sudden need the "Princess's" help but I didn't.

Little did I know, presenting the best I could as a cross dresser or novice transgender woman was just the beginning. As I was attempting to learn as much as I could about the next step I was stonewalled by my wife who did not want me to go any farther as a trans woman. Not to mention my male self, who was doing his best to derail my gender journey the best he could. It was obvious, he wanted nothing to do with giving up any of his power over me. 

With or without either my wife or my male self, my path was set and I was intent on finding and climbing the next steps towards living as a fulltime transgender woman. Now I shouldn't get  too far ahead of myself because of all the steep stairsteps I still had to climb. The first step was to determine exactly what my gender identity was. Which included my all important sexuality. Since I was planning on living a feminine lifestyle, would I be expected on changing my sexuality as well. This time of my life was very exciting and scary at the same time. When I made it to my next step, I needed to maintain my balance before I could even think about going forward to another.

Once I maintained my balance and was able to look around in my new feminine world, I loved where I was and could not wait to go on. After all, I was showcasing my new skills at blending in with other women as well as experiencing more and more communicating with other women which I went into in yesterday's post. I can safely say my communication experience was one of the most difficult things I had ever done. The next step seemed to be an impossible distance away. Somehow I made it anyways and the next move was seeking out the availability of gender affirming hormones or HRT. I did get approved by a doctor to begin the hormones and the next step was a huge one. Mainly because I had some sort of an idea of the physical changes I would be going through but had no idea of the internal ones.

All of a sudden, I was a different person. I could cry when I never could before as well as undergoing other inner changes. The step of hormones turned out to be worth the wait and all the anticipation. In fact being afraid of heights and climbing too high was worth it also. Maybe it is the excuse I can use to rationalize to myself why it took me so long to realize my transgender life long dreams. 

Before I go, I would like to wish a Happy Birthday to my oldest Grandchild who is graduating from The Ohio State University in December. My Grandchild also happens to be trans and identifies as "They/Them" and I am so proud!

Doing What is Right

 

My wife Liz on left. Mother's Day this year.

During several high profile jobs I worked at, doing what was right was drilled into me by my superiors.

Even though it took me many years to finally realize I needed to do it, I came out of my gender closet and started a new life as a transgender woman. As I write about often, I am haunted on how much better my life would have been if I had come out earlier and did the right thing.

I should have known and if I had listened to my instincts, I would have done it. As it was, everytime I cross dressed as a woman I felt so natural and something was trying to tell me something big was wrong. It is no wonder, I struggled with my mental health and had anger issues when now I take all I was going through into consideration. Sadly, the person who bore the brunt of my frustrations was my second wife. Mainly because we had made a deal I could cross dress as much as I wanted as long as I kept it away from our home. I was even allowed to spend the money to go to a motel to get ready for a trip on the town if I wanted to. As it worked out, even that was not enough to satisfy my gender desires. Essentially what happened was I became better and better at my presentation skills and when I did, I enjoyed myself more and more.

As it turned out, we were similar to runaway trains on the same track. I was headed towards gender affirming hormones (HRT) and she was completely against them. Saying hormones broke the agreement we set up when we married. She was right and I ended up between the rock and a hard place before she passed away. Once again it seemed I was back to point zero again in my life but this time, I could not go back to cross dressing in front of the mirror. I was too far along towards my lifelong dream of living in a women's world to ever go back. Still, I had the problem of doing what was right and sticking with my promise to never leave the house as my transgender self. I became desperate and began to break that promise regularly which inwardly I was ashamed of.

Overall, my guy self still had enough influence to try to stop my slide into womanhood by putting up the same old barriers. Barriers such as internalizing all my feelings and trying to ignore my mounting mental health problems by drinking way too much until I could take it no longer and I went out to pursue my other new life as a trans woman. Then tried to be home before my wife and hide the whole evening from her. In the short and long term, my plan never worked because in part it was so difficult for me to remove the makeup I so painstakingly applied. I think now, most of the time she knew when I was out sneaking around and just made the decision not to press the issue.

Deep down, on my end, I knew I needed to press the issue. When I was out living my best life as a transgender woman, I couldn't go back to a life as a guy I never asked for. Doing what was right just seemed to be the fair and natural thing  to do. 

Now, if my story ended there, it would have had a happy ending but it didn't. Approximately six months before she passed away, my wife and I had a massive fight about my part time life as a woman and I decided to make one last ill-fated attempt at quitting my feminine life and purging most of my belongings. After nearly six months into growing a beard and gaining an immense amount of weight, as I tried to quit doing what was right, my wife passed away after twenty five years of marriage. Leaving me on my own to finally do what was right.

I did and decided I was not getting any younger and had followed the proper "prep" work to allow my feminine soul to take control. She did and without indicating any "I told you so." She took over my life life with goodness and control. I will forever wonder what would have happened if I had let her take over sooner because she was clearly doing the right things with my life. 

It was All so Natural

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives. 

Even though I was facing tremendous hurdles as a cross dresser and/or novice transgender woman, everytime when gender times became tough, I kept on trying. Mainly because deep down  I felt so natural when I was cross dressed head to toe as a girl my age.

Although the time I was cross dressed felt so good, the length of time I was able to do it was never enough. Had I had more knowledge back then, I would have realized I was a transgender person. A big difference to me from only being a part-time male who enjoyed cross dressing in women's clothes. As I discovered more and more about myself, I discovered I was a woman cross dressing as a man during the majority of my life. I only knew I was not enjoying or was being fulfilled as a guy. The whole lifestyle never felt natural to me. 

As time went by, I increasingly followed the natural path no matter how difficult it proved to be. More often or not, I encountered very many severe twists and turns. Again, I was encouraged by the natural moments I experienced when I finally encountered the public as a trans woman. It was like the path had big sign boards along the way with directions on how to proceed. Or once I made it to a certain spot in my new gender life, I could set new goals. The example I always use was when I started to progress past just going shopping in clothing stores where they didn't care if I was a man dressed as a woman or not (because my money was green) and began to challenge myself in restaurants where I needed to interact one on one with the serving staff.  

From there, my goals became to refine and test my restroom skills if nature called during one of my longer outings. It was during some of my restroom visits when I  really needed to feel natural and spread my gender wings. I found out quickly I needed to be able to look other women in the eye and smile even though I was very scared. 

Through it all, I lived and was able to move forward towards new enticing goals of living life as a transgender woman. It was during this period of my life when I began to seriously consider moving forward with gender affirming hormones. Sadly, my second wife was very much against any idea of me being on hormones saying if she had wanted to marry a woman, she would have looked for one. In other words, she didn't sign up to live with another woman, trans or not. I loved her deeply and no matter how difficult it was, I tried to honor her wishes until her untimely death after we had been married twenty five years. 

Her rejection of any idea of me moving forward with HRT just put an extra strain on my mental health which in turn, led to a suicide attempt. Following the attempt, I tried yet another "purge" of my feminine wardrobe which of course didn't work. It wasn't too long after my final purge, she passed away very suddenly from a massive heart attack. As I write about often, her death was the ultimate shock to my system because I was always so self destructive there was no way I thought I would out-live her but I did.

When I did, I decided it was time to live my dream of being a full-time transgender woman. I took the natural path and never looked back.  

Flashing a Trans Girl

From the Archives. Club Diversity
Columbus, Ohio.

Before you think I am preparing to write a post about me "flashing" another person. No my skirt was not too short or anything else on that occasion. I was wearing my typical fall fashion, boots, jeans and sweater. 

In truth and as boring as it may seem, the only person  who was flashed was me and I don't think anyone else noticed. At least, I hoped not. As it was, my flash occurred just after I increased my dosage of gender affirming hormones. On the evening in question, I was out doing what I normally did, trying to enjoy myself with a drink at one of the venues I regularly went to. 

Suddenly out of the clear blue sky, I felt my face flush and I felt as if I was internally combusting. As I attempted to slyly look at the patrons around me, I was surprised and please to note, no one was rushing towards me with a coat or blanket wanting to put out the flames. Then, as quickly as it came on, my first hot flash as a transgender woman was over and I went back to my drink. I can not say the whole experience was as unpleasant as much as it was unexpected. Up to that point, my gender affirming hormones had ushered me into the second puberty of my life...a feminine one. 

While I could not go back and totally erase all the unwanted benefits of my first puberty which I called testosterone poisoning, my new HRT could help me into a new world. As my breasts and hair grew, my skin softened, along with my facial contours. Not having to wear wigs anymore as well as using less makeup helped my feminization in the public's eye as well as giving me a new found confidence. What I missed the most was having anyone to talk to about my second puberty. When I did bring up the facets of changes I was going through, my female friends just said welcome to their world. Little did they know how long and how much I wanted to be in their world. 

Up to the point of my flash, I had never cried in my life, even during the passing of both of my parents. The best way to describe the new me who could cry was when my testosterone was driven down, the hard edges were taken off my life. All of a sudden, my first good cry occurred one evening when a thunderstorm rolled through my Ohio town and I quietly mourned the loss of my male self. I took no real pity and for the first time, I was able to understand the difference between a good cry and a bad one.

As you can imagine, I was elated with the results of my second puberty in life which did not occur until I was in my sixties. Even though, if I had it all to do over again and transition earlier, I would not have wanted to miss out on the times of accomplishment and fun I had carved out as my old male self. He had taken me a long way in life on a basically successful journey which gave me highlights of having a daughter who supports me to this day, all the way to living with wives/women who helped me unknowingly be a better transgender woman. 

In a nutshell, very few humans have the opportunity to go back and try again. By going through a second puberty and flashing myself, I had the rare chance to not screw it up and be a better person. While I consider my hot flash learning experience as one of the top moments in my life, I also consider the process part of my passage into my unique womanhood. Not unlike having a mammogram. I am just glad, no one else noticed I was on fire one minute and reaching for my coat the second because my thermostat was broken and I was freezing. All part of my second puberty.

See, I told you this post wasn't going to be part of a sensual flash in anyway. Sorry! 

Transgender Reconnections

 

Image from the
Jessie Hart
Archives

As I followed the path to a transgender transition, I made several important reconnections. 

Little did I know or realize how many twists and turns I would take before I found my truth. Most importantly I needed to realize I was not a man cross dressing as a woman, I was the reverse. A woman trying to make it as a cross dressed man in life. Because of that, nothing seemed to quite fit in my life as I struggled to survive in an unwanted male world. As I attempted to outrun all my problems,  I drank alcohol to excess as well as moved around and changed jobs way too much. I was always running, searching for my transgender reconnections. Sadly, I searched for nearly a half a century before I was able to have any success and connect with my authentic gender self.

During all those years, I was teased with success as I left my cross dressing mirror and slowly entered the world as a novice transgender woman. Along the way, I made all the mistakes I could think of plus some I could not have imagined happening. In my haste to reach the conclusion to my reconnection, I needed to first discover what it was. Through it all, my inner female was screaming at me for more and more attention but my male self did his best to play all his cards and hang on. The game they were playing wrecked havoc with my mental health and I sought out therapy for help. As with anything else, therapy is what you put into it and I went through several very good therapists as well as a couple not so good ones. Then there was the problem of me listening to what they had to say to start with because my male self was telling me therapy was just a waste of time and money. On the other hand, my female self saw the benefits, especially if the therapy process was slowly opening her world at all. 

Sometimes too, reconnections were tantalizingly close. There were so many days or nights when I could relax and enjoy a glimpse of what a life as a transgender woman could be like. The more reconnections with a feminine world I could make, the more natural and better I felt. Probably, most importantly, all of the gender progress I was making was because I believed in myself and my confidence was building. I had escaped the basic confines of the wardrobe and makeup challenges and made it to the one on one communications I was suddenly faced with as a trans woman. It was during this point of my transgender reconnection process I learned the most. Mainly because, I was relaxing and letting my long hidden female self take over. It turns out all those years of having to quietly sit back and watch my male self struggle enabled her to be a better person when she got the chance. 

When I reconnected with my female self, I was able to be a full person again and I knew one of my therapists said it right when she told me there was nothing either of us could go about me wanting to be a woman. If I had followed her advice and set out to discover what my second wife had told me all along, I would have taken the time and really looked into what a women's world was all about. Other than the outward appearances of fashion and makeup. It was the biggest reconnection I couldn't make until I had earned it by actually adopting and living a life as a trans woman. Even to the point of beginning HRT or gender affirming hormones. 

In many ways, the new hormones were the final piece of the puzzle in reconnecting my transgender self to the world. Physically and emotionally I was ready to face the world as a united human being.  

Trans Girl Secrets

Image from Ben White 
on Unsplash.

Secrets became a very important part of my life at a very young age.

It all started when I viewed myself in women's clothes  in front of the mirror for the first time. I realized my life would never be the same again. Plus I also knew my desire to be a girl would not be well received by my family at all. It was in the late 1950's and early 1960's when cross dressing was still considered to be a crime where I lived near Dayton, Ohio. In those days any sort of gender dysphoria was thought to be a mental illness. Even then, I couldn't see the act of cross dressing in women's clothes to be an act of mental illness. 

What happened then was I needed to go into a dark secretive closet, I would not come out of completely for a half a century. Along the way, I included very few outsiders in my secret. Four or five to be exact. I did not even include myself in my secret. What I am referring to is the fact I wanted to do much more in my life than just cross dress as a girl, when in reality, the reverse was true. I was a woman cross dressing as a man the entire time and I was indeed transgender after all.

Predictably, one secret leads to another and another and in my case led to lies being told later on. My dishonesty came when I refused to admit to myself who I really was and took out my frustration on those closest to me. I became a very unpleasant person to be around when my gender dysphoria was at its worst. Even to the point of me losing a job because of what I was going through. It was like I was setting myself up for failure at every turn in my life as I waited for more and more people to discover my secret. 

The longer my secret was hidden away and on the other hand, I was desperately trying to discover a new feminine world as a transgender woman, the heavier my secret became. I attempted to hide all my transgender activities from my second wife and was reasonably successful. I say reasonably because I would do more and more as a trans woman until she caught me and the gender battle between us would continue. She was wiser than I was when at one point she told me to just leave her and live a life as a woman. That made her the second woman in my life who I should have listened to when they told me the same thing. The first was my gender therapist years before. 

Sadly, my male self was not ready to give up the strangle hold he had on my life and encouraged me to do the male thing and try to ignore and internalize all my struggles. Of course in the end run, the only thing which happened was the pressure just kept on building as I managed to keep my secret. However, no matter how hard my male self tried to protect his domain, he was slowly sliding down a cliff of no return. Finally, with the help of several close friends I made the gender leap of faith. I gave away all of my male clothes, started gender affirming hormones (HRT) and never looked back. 

Perhaps the best part of not having to protect my secret and not live a lie was my new friends never knew my old male self at all. My inner feminine soul was finally free to live her life. When she did, she became the third woman in my life to tell me the same thing.

The only secret I really ever had was I was never really a man at all. 

Opportunity Knocks

 

Civil War Cemetery image
from the Jessie Hart Archives
 

In my life I have found several really rare times where true opportunity actually knocked on my door. 

As I indicated, the situations were exceedingly rare and required split second decisions on how I was going to proceed. Possibly the first main one happened when I went with the "A" list trans women from the cross dresser - transgender mixer I was at in Cleveland. It was the night I gathered my courage, put on my big girl panties and was able to enjoy a professional makeover at the mixer. The result was I looked better than I ever had in my life and really wanted to claim my spot with the other impossibly feminine women in the room who were planning to continue the meeting with going to gay venues afterwards. At the second venue we went to, for the first time in my life as a woman I was approached by a good looking man who wanted to socialize. Since I was in a city I knew nothing about and with acquaintances who were about to call a taxi and leave, I decided to turn his advances down and leave. I often wonder what would have happened if I had stayed. What sort of opportunity if any, did I miss?

 Most likely, the second opportunity I did take advantage of was when suddenly I decided I had had enough of cross dressing and wanted to follow my gender instincts even further. It was the night I was determined to go out and blend in with a group of young professional women at an upscale bar/restaurant I had frequented several times as my male self. More than anything else, I wanted to see if I could blend in with the group as a transgender woman and enjoy myself. Perhaps what I remember most about the evening was how scared I was as I waited in the parking lot constantly checking my hair and makeup before I gathered the courage to go into the venue. As it turned out, opportunity did knock that night. I enjoyed myself after I could take a normal breath again and I knew my life as a casual cross dresser was gone forever. I needed new horizons to conquer as a novice transgender woman.

As I settled into attempting to find my way as a trans woman in the world, I tried to try different venues and situations to deal with. Some were successful, some were not. The ones which I can remember the most were the times I tested going to more or less red-neck country venues. I quickly discovered I wasn't welcome and moved on quickly but not before the cops were called on me a couple of times. No opportunity to succeed in those places for sure and I never went back.

Perhaps the biggest opportunity which came knocking at my door was when I had the chance to begin gender affirming hormones or HRT. At my age of sixty, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to harm myself, so I took the proper precautions and sought out a doctor to prescribe the medications I had waited for so long. Fortunately for me my health proved not to be an issue and I was given minimum dosages to get me started. Seemingly, my body took to the hormones like I always should have been on them and new changes started almost immediately. In no time at all, I was moved up to a higher dosage and my new changes took over my body. So much so, I needed to move up my transition timetable when my hair started to take off and grow along with my softening skin and protruding breasts. 

Then, the most unexpected opportunity happened when I met my current wife Liz on line nearly fourteen years ago. At my age and transgender history, I was prepared to spend the rest of my life alone and especially never expected to ever be married again. Opportunity was telling me to never say never and here I am.

I have a very hard head however and many times opportunity had to knock loudly to get my attention. Often because I was stuck with life changing conditions where I could lose everything. I tried to fall back on my inner self and hope for the best and finally I let her lead me the right direction. 

Being Afraid to Try

 

Image from Jas Min on UnSplash

Since it took me nearly a half a century to fully leave my dark lonely gender closet, I have to assume there was an extraordinary amount of fear which was holding me back.

As life progressed for me and I became more and more entrenched in a male lifestyle I never really wanted, it was harder and harder to let go. I had a family and spouse who I loved plus a job I was progressing in. So it was not an easy decision to give it all up. 

It all finally came down to what my wife told me after one of our gender based arguments. She told me why didn't I man up and become a woman if I was so enamored with the idea. Had I followed her advice, I would have saved both of us so much turmoil over the years to come. By now, you know the story. I was stubborn and tried to live with one foot in the male gender world while at the same time learning if indeed I could live as a transgender woman. 

Through it all, even since I was taking small steps in my gender journey, the fear of not being able to make it as a full time transgender woman kept creeping back into my life. My scope became so much larger than just admiring myself cross dressed in a mirror to attempting to try the world in costume as a woman during Halloween parties. What kept me going was I felt so natural as my feminine self and then wanted to experience more and more. 

I write extensively about my experiences as a novice transgender woman. Even if I was petrified to try new experiences in the world, I pushed myself to still do them as my age was catching up to me. I wasn't getting any younger and all of a sudden, family and close friends around me began to pass away. Making my mortality even more of a reality than my gender dysphoria. Finally, when I reached the age of sixty and was exploring my life increasingly as a trans woman, it was time to act and put my fears behind me. Realistically, I knew I wasn't going to have a better chance to transition so I better do it. Setting all my fears aside and living in a feminine world turned out to be the best move I could make. I lifted a ton of weight from my shoulders when for the most part, my life restarted again. It was around this time when my new gender affirming hormones (HRT) were starting to change and control my body. Along with developing breasts and softening skin, my whole world softened and I felt emotions I never knew I had.

Now, I am so glad I wasn't afraid to try. My only disappointment is I waited so long to do it. Fear finally turned out to be a powerful motivator for me as it turned potential panicked situations into  successes. Rest rooms were a prime example of success or failure. 

This blog itself is another example. Way back when I was given the idea to write about my new experiences in this world, I didn't even know what a blog even was. Now with well over seven thousand posts and four million hits, it is time to stop and thank all of you for taking your time to stop by Cyrsti's Condo to visit. I have always embraced and enjoyed your participation and all I can say is I am humbled and flattered. 

 

Tenacity of the Transgender Tribe

From the Jessie Hart Archives. I am
in the middle of two friends.

It's no wonder so many women don't trust a transgender woman's desire to play in their sandbox. In my case, it took me years to understand what my second wife was trying to tell me about being accepted as a woman in any form. It took more than just appearing convincingly as a woman to come closer to being one. I was far away from paying my dues and for the most part, she was against me doing it. So, I needed to step out on my own to discover the world on my own. Thanks to all the years of practice in front of the mirror with my makeup and fashion, I had a fairly good basis to work from as far as my appearance was concerned. The only real problem I had was living through my faux fashion adolescence when I tried and failed to dress as a teen girl. Once I made it through that point, I was able to blend in with other women  my age and discovered I had an easier time in the world.

The more I explored, I found I needed more and more tenacity to reach my goal of learning what living the life of a transgender woman could or would be like. At this point the true struggle began. Just learning how to communicate with other women on their level turned out to be the main problem. I learned the hard way women communicate on more levels than verbal ones and often say things of a passive aggressive nature such as, you look good...for a man dressed as a woman. Or they were just trying to find out what you were doing in their world. On too many occasions as I was learning my way around the sandbox, I ended up suffering serious claw marks up my back. Another way to put it might be to equate the acceptance process with trying to jump on a moving merry-go-round and claim the prize without doing any of the work such as having periods. Rejection was not rare. 

It was on nights such as those, I went home in tears wondering if my whole transgender dream was worth it. On those occasions, something told me it was and my tenacity kicked in. Even with more explorations to do. I just had to continue until I got it right. Finally I did and I moved along to adding gender affirming hormones or HRT to my list of exploring ways to better femininize myself. Perhaps then and only then did other women see I was paying my dues to be admitted to their world. I had the tenacity. 

As I reach the age of seventy five, I think now, more than ever before in recent history the tenacity of the transgender tribe of women and men is being tested. Here in my native Ohio, the gender bigots in the state legislature are once again trying to push anti-transgender restroom bills in the statehouse. Hopefully, once again, more rational minds will rise up and reject the measure. If not, I wonder how the whole law will affect me using the restroom which matches my transgender status in the future. Needless to say, I am scared.  I mean how will such a law even be enforced if I am just trying to go to the bathroom. I don't want to even know. All I do know is I won't go back to using men's bath rooms after more than a decade using the women's room. 

Finally, what the bigots don't realize is, the trans tribe has been around forever and is not going away. We just need to move forward as a group to fight. Once the bigots see we are not going away, they will have to find someone else to harass and our tenacity will prevail.