Denial will Eat You Up

 

Image from Annie Spratt 
on UnSplash.

Over the years, turmoil from my gender dysphoria just tried to destroy me. Much of it came from the confusion I felt early in life as I tried to figure out if I was a boy or a girl and could I ever escape the gender box I was born into.

Perhaps the worst part of my inner gender feelings came from not knowing if what I was doing in front of the mirror was really doing me any good or was just a stop-gap measure to get me by to the next time I could cross-dress as a girl. Were my limited mirror experiences all that I would find to get me closer to my lifetime goal of being a transfeminine person. On my own terms. What no one told the young me was that the rules of my life would dramatically change. No one told me then that I would take three years of my life to serve in the military and then go through many years of therapy for a manic-depressive disorder. I was just a confused kid.

As I matured and went through the unwanted terrors of male puberty, I started to feel the pressure for the first time to fight back my gender dysphoria and do the so called “right thing” and just relax in the gender box which was given to me. Somehow, along the way, I had learned the powerful/destructive male response to some problems called internalization. I learned it from my dad as he never showed much emotion at all except when he was angry with us. Most certainly not the ideal environment for a gender dysphoric child to grow up in. There was no way I felt comfortable in going to my dad and telling him I wanted to be his daughter. So, the years went by with me internalizing all I felt the best I could. 

It was not until many years later when I was honorably discharged from the Army did, that I began to feel the increasing depression which was gaining on me. I knew something was not right and I sought out my first therapist for help. From him I learned one of basic truths of therapy, you only get out of it what you put into it. I got absolutely nowhere with my first therapist when I mentioned my cross-dressing and my growing depression which was beginning to seriously threaten my life I was building as a man. He finally prescribed some medications for me which made me feel worse and sent me on my way. I did not know what I thought would happen except nothing which did and my depression over my life began to build to the point I was not happy unless I was out in the world testing out how I felt as a novice cross-dresser.

Regardless of how negative my experience was with my first therapist; I set up other appointments to see another therapist who advertised gender therapy to try to save my rapidly dissolving marriage I was with my second wife. It was with her that I discovered another two truths about myself and the world of therapy. The first was that I was much more comfortable talking to another woman about my feminine desires than a man and for therapy to do me any good, I would have to listen to what I was told. For example, I completely ignored her when she told me there was nothing, she could do about me wanting to be a woman.

On the positive side, we talked about the major depressing lapses I was having in my life and how I spent days when I did not want to get out of bed. She diagnosed me with a form of Bi-Polar depression and prescribed me medication I take to this day which helps stabilize the chemicals in my brain which caused my extreme depression. On the negative side, I was left on my own facing my own battle about who I really was when I looked in the mirror. I was still years away from solving the major question of my life. Sadly, I was wasting valuable time in my life making the decision I always knew was true. I was always a woman pretending to be a man the best way I knew.

The best idea I had was to go out into the world and see if I could make it in a universe ran by and for ciswomen. A world which operated on a separate plane than cismen. I will always be thankful and amazed at the number of ciswomen who welcomed my arrival into their world and showed me the way behind the gender curtain. Where I always wanted to be in my life as part of the girls’ club. It was only then that doing my extreme gender turmoil begin to subside and I could relax and even be happy when I was out in the world as my feminine authentic self.

At that point, I needed to pause and reassess where a life of living a lie had taken me. All I did know was the HRT gender affirming hormones I was prescribed by my Veterans Administration therapist were miracle workers for me. I have spent time mentioning the external changes such as a softening of the skin, longer hair and bigger breasts which came along faster than I even hoped for on my femininization timetable. But I spend less time mentioning the internal changes such as emotions which came about quickly too when I found out how it was to cry. It was as if my body was syncing up with my external woman in the world by saying what took you so long.

As I said, the hormones forced me to play my feminine hand and with help of my circle of women friends, it was time to permanently leave my old male past behind. Sure, not all he had done was bad, but still there was enough negative to want me to leave him in my past and forget about all the gender turmoil behind me. 

I know I get comments all the time from those of you who have not had the chance to free yourself from the chains of your closet. I hope you have the chance soon to escape into the true world you always deserve.

Thanks for reading along, commenting is always appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Putting Yourself Out There as a Trans Girl

 

Image from Sasun Bughdarian
on UnSplash.

Putting myself out there in public was probably the hardest thing I ever have done in my life.

Most of the time I was in a high-risk-high reward situation as I tried and failed miserably at presenting myself in public as a novice transgender woman. I kept on working until I put myself into the low risk-high reward category when I finally was able to pass reasonably in the world I discovered was run by ciswomen if I ever wanted to succeed. I was so far away from the world of cross-dressing/transgender parties and socials I kept going to, I was learning so much more every time I did it. I was on thin ice on my gender path and I knew it. I just hoped the ice would hold my weight. Even though I was on a crash diet to be able to purchase more fashionable clothes and look better. It was questionable. 

All along, I knew there was no way I could go halfway and make it to my dream of living fulltime as a transfeminine person. Trying to live a life stuck between two genders was no way for a person to live and when I did, the gap between the two genders was too much to overcome. My mental health suffered and I was very self-destructive and had to do something about it. The last thing I wanted to happen was that my gender dysphoria would doom my life as I knew it.

In the meantime, I did the only thing I knew how to do which was continuing to hide my cross-dressing from the world behind a wall of male macho intentions. Again, it was so hard to hide my truth that much later in life I was surprised that no one had guessed my dirty little secret when I finally cracked my gender egg and made it out of my closet for good. Another problem happened as I had to keep building a successful male life, I never wanted, I knew some day soon I would have to tear it all down and start all over again. Internalizing and putting that day off, just hurt me more as I continued to put myself out in the public’s eye.

By doing so, my risk situations leveled out to a point where they almost balanced each other. I was in the ultimate high-risk situation of losing essentially my whole life but at the same time conquering the higher risk of being able to carve out a new and exciting feminine life from scratch. It seemed to me that every corner I went around on my new path had different obstacles to take on as I was intimidated by the complexities of the ciswoman’s world I so badly wanted to live in. As I left the male world I wanted nothing to do with, it seemed nothing was easy to do as I had to learn everything I could quickly if I ever wanted to survive. The worst part of it was, I wanted just to keep running back to the privilege of the male life I had given up but just could not.

So, I kept putting myself out there to make a lot of bad mistakes on the way to my own form of womanhood. Like ruining hours of prep time getting ready to go out, only to discover I was moving like a linebacker in drag when I did it. Or the time when I had everything down when I went out and promptly got my heel stuck in a sidewalk crack and almost fell down. I made it to the point of being so paranoid about going out, I kept on wondering if I would ever be able to put my feminine self in motion for the world. Even though it was difficult to do, I kept forcing myself back out and getting better in my overall presentation. Making it less of a high risk that I could do it. Since I had already been laughed out of venues in the past, what was the worst that could happen to me.

Ironically, my path took me another direction right into the worse than could happen experience when I was almost molested by two men when I was alone on a dark city street and I was lucky to get out of it by giving them my last five dollar bill. It was too close for comfort for me, and I almost learned the hard way what ciswomen are raised to know about the dangers of toxic men. I started to always plan to ask for a transgender man friend to walk me to my car after that. I know I mention that experience a lot but it is my way of always warning you that when you go behind the gender curtain and transition, you lose your male privilege of personal security so be careful when you go out because it is certainly a different world for a trans woman.

For years, I kind of just drifted along in the female world learning what I could to increase my knowledge until I learned too much and found I could never go back to the male life I had before. Almost all the risk on not doing it suddenly became extremely shallow to me as the why’s I should not transition started to fade. I had put so much time and effort into my womanhood, what I was waiting for.

I had even survived the worst moments of my male life when almost everyone around me passed away, leaving me tragically lonely and sad. The only bright light I had to fall back on was the knowledge that my strong feminine self was always there for me and it would be extremely low risk to reach out and ask for her help. Even to the point of helping me find a new social circle to hang out with.

I stepped out of my dark closet again and was fortunate to find a small circle of diverse friends I could socialize with and even grow into my new HRT hormonal changes with. I stepped out of my social box and utilized the so-called straight venues I was already a regular in, along with a transgender woman friend of mine and against all odds found new friends who all happened to be lesbians. From there, I even took the risk of going online to the trashy dating sites and tried my hand at attracting someone else. At that point, what did I have to lose. After a very low-risk, high gain deal, my future wife of over fourteen years contacted me. We clicked and have been together ever since, so I am still enjoying the results of my low risk move. But I must stress, none of that success would have been possible without my determination to put myself out there and try.

Certainly, I failed quite a bit, but from failure came learning and I made it thank goodness.

As always! Thanks for reading along and all of your comments are welcome.

 

 

What Could Possibly Go Wrong

 

JJ Hart

What could possibly go wrong when you transition genders from one side of the gender border to another? We all know the answer to that question. A lot can go wrong when you start the process of traveling your long gender path out of your closet into the world.

It seems the path never gets any easier the longer you go. If you start early in life, and happens to be in an understanding family, you may be able to begin hormone blockers before you enter the hated results of the gender you want nothing to do with. And that door is rapidly closing in backwards states like my native Ohio which are doing their best to ban any gender care at all for anybody. Especially minors.

On the other hand, if you are forced to wait in life for the hormonal poisoning which goes on in puberty, you end up playing catch up your entire life as you either have to go through extensive, expensive operations to present more authentically as the person you want to be or stay the course and try to present effectively with makeup and clothing skills. Which was the path I needed to take. Plus, let’s not forget the obstacles we face when we are first considering the HRT gender affirming hormonal route. To do it right (which you should) you should seek the help of a doctor to help you along which is an unwanted expense that many transgender women and transgender men may not have the finances to cover. Then there is the extra route I had to take with the Veterans Administration of having to go through mental health screenings before they would approve my HRT at all. I was fortunate to be matched up with a VA therapist who had knowledge of the LGBTQ world so all that could have gone wrong never did.

When you male to female transition later in life like I did, many risks come along with doing it. All of us must give up almost all we have worked so hard to achieve, such as having spouses, friends and jobs reject us as we must start all over in life. What could possibly go wrong with wrecking your own life often becomes a reality.  I know firsthand of several trans people who had their lives wrecked, simply by wanting to live as themselves. It seems no one under the transgender umbrella gets a free ride out of the rain. Let’s say you are very passable but still must worry about a stray toxic man threatening you physically when he discovers your truth. It all takes what a ciswoman fears most in the world as far as sexual violence goes and takes it to a whole different level.

It is difficult to live a life when you forever are looking over your shoulder if you are transgender, but it happens. For example, when you leave what was left of your old male privileges behind, you leave much of your personal safety privilege with it. You better begin to learn what ciswomen are taught from a young age to know. Think ahead and do not put yourself in potentially dangerous situations such as dark city streets when you are alone. It happened to me before I almost learned the hard way not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It takes a strong individual to seek admission into the transgender tribe. We must go through a lot of trial and error to learn what is right and wrong on the path we are taking. In my case, often more error than trial as I had to keep going back to my cross-dressing drawing board over and over again before I was able to overcome all the testosterone poisoning I was subjected to and I learned to blend in and exist in the feminine world I had always dreamed of but then again, I kept finding out what could I be doing wrong and kept on going. Sometimes I pushed my trans envelope too far and had to lick my wounds and get back in the game.  It took me awhile to regain my confidence and get back out in the world. So far away from my privileged male life as I could get. Again, I asked myself what could possibly go wrong with what I was doing with my life.

The answer kept coming back that everything could go wrong and I could be forced into before I was ready into the feminine world I wondered so long if I could live in. I was at the crossroads and needed to get off the middle gender ground and do something about it. I ended up again following my instincts and making the only decision I could. It was not everyday that I had the chance to reassess where I was in life. I needed a real conversation with myself possibly for the first time ever. I was surprised at how fast the conversation went as I thought why was I continuing to put myself through all the gender problems I put myself through. I was paying for all the stress without any benefits. Somewhere along the way I veered from my male path and never wanted to go back which was the most important decision of my life. It was time to attempt to find some joy because who I had become and time to build a new life from my old male self.

It turned out I was engaged for years in a long-term relationship with my feminine self. Not being closer hurt, me sometimes drastically and I had to repair them. No more internalizing my feelings for a change. I was finding out what could possibly go wrong if I did not face my truth. Shame on me for not doing it.

I faced my truth again yesterday when I went for my annual physical exam at the VA. I have been lucky to have the same doctor look at me for years now, so she has never questioned my transgender status at all. I had a lot to do yesterday, including blood work. flu shot and overall exam when things became a little sketchy. When she was listening to my heart, my doctor heard something she did not like and immediately ordered an EKG. She did not think it was anything to worry about but just wanted to send it to a cardiologist to look at. It means a lot to me because my mom passed away from heart problems at approximately the same age that I am. Now I am awaiting the results. On the bright side, all my blood work came back fine. Even my estradiol, which surprisingly, agreed to check it for once at the new clinic I was going to for the first time. It should mean I won’t have to have my blood work done when I go to Hematology next month.

What is the worst that could happen? Hopefully I can stay active and continue to lead a productive life.

Thanks for reading! Any comments are always welcome!

 

 

 

Peeling Back my Gender Layers

 

JJ Hart with "Brutus Buckeye"
In the Ohio State Student
Union. 

Following the awakening I received from the numerous Halloween parties I went to “costumed” as my authentic feminine self, I needed to determine the complex path I would take so I could survive in the world.

What I ended up deciding on was a layered effect as I learned the ropes of the feminine universe I had only dreamed of living in. Like many of you, I started slowly with trips to my closet’s mirror, cross-dressed as what I thought was a pretty girl. In essence, the mirror provided me with my first layer to build from. Since putting on mom’s clothes was a relatively easy thing to do, I needed to concentrate on wearing her makeup which was not. No matter how hard I tried at applying makeup, I somehow ended up looking like a rodeo clown in drag. Adding this layer of expertise to my attempts to be pretty were intimidating before I started to see improvement.

Once I started to believe I had mastered the makeup arts part of my new life, I needed to add a new layer and set forth to do more about doing what I could to counteract the testosterone poisoning of my recent puberty. Since there was nothing, I could do about certain aspects of my body, I needed to do better in hiding them to the world when I started to leave the closet and explore. Those were the days of crash dieting and hunting through many thrift stores for just the right fashion item I could not live without. Mirror worship came back to help me during this layer of my life when I could honestly tell myself if an article of clothing really flattered me or not. I needed to get out of my teen cross-dressing fashion years and into a more realistic look I needed to blend in with ciswomen everywhere.

Blending in brought a whole new layer to my gender existence. To my relief, women had more of a tendency to embrace who I was becoming in their world, while cismen everywhere shunned me for leaving their club.  It all was an extension of my life as a man because I had never had much of a liking being around other men anyhow. I guess it all was a precursor to the person I was destined to become as a transgender woman. Probably, more than anything else, the Halloween parties I learned from helped me to be a success during this layer of my life when I was allowed to learn the basic differences between the two main binary genders. And landing squarely in the middle of both until I decided once and for all which direction my life would take. Should I take the easy way out and stay a very serious cross-dresser or follow my instincts and achieve my dream of living a transfeminine life.

To do so, I would have to add layer upon layer to my life by taking the old male building blocks I had used to get me by and use them as a foundation to build a better future. Little did I know what I was getting myself into as I was going past the princess-appearing layer of my life. For once, I was going to have to not listen to what my parents said about me when I approached any project I took on. To put it bluntly, they always told me I “half-assed” everything that I did just to get by. To advance through the gender layers that I wanted to, I knew I could not take the old approach to life I had always taken or I simply would not make it to my dream. It suddenly looked as if it was getting closer and closer to becoming a reality.

Before I just set all the male privileges I had learned aside, I needed to see what I was getting myself into. What would I really face as a fulltime trans woman if I ever decided to cross the gender border. I was selfish and wanted to see if I could peel back all the diverse patterns of life a ciswoman goes through before I went down her path. I was lucky in that all the right gender doors opened for me as I learned the ropes of being a woman in a supposed male dominated society. To do it, I needed to learn to leave the male domination behind me and learn a whole new society which existed for and about women. But I needed to earn my way in from all the gatekeepers in my way. I learned it was not going to be easy.

It did not help that initially I was so timid when I presented myself the keepers of the feminine world and it took me the “two C’s” to overcome it. The “two C’s” I speak of are courage and confidence. I needed the courage to think I was ready for my next gender layer and the confidence to do it. Somehow, I needed to get back out in society and prove myself all over again and carve out a totally new life as a trans woman for myself. I needed to keep reminding myself that yes, I was different, but what was wrong with that. I would never be a ciswoman but my socialization as a woman came from a whole different world you would not understand unless you lived it. Surprisingly, the gatekeepers let me in and I decided right then that HRT or gender affirming hormones should be in my future to provide a major kick forward in my transition femininization journey. I had done most of the hard work peeling back the layers I needed to learn if I wanted to do it and now it was time to take the easy hormonal way towards my future. I say easy because my body took to the hormones like what took you so long and all the changes seemed so natural.

The main thing I learned along my gender path was the number of layers I would have to peel back to achieve my goal. I knew going into it that nothing would be easy, but nothing prepared me for what I was about to face. Once I did face my reality that I was feminine all along, it was clear sailing to my dreams.

As always, thank you very much for reading along and I hope my experiences can help you along your gender paths. Comments are always appreciated.

 

Like the Bulb which Refused to Go Out

 

Image from Christian Dubovan
on UnSplash.
 

Years ago in another life, I bought a small corner tavern in an 1860’s era brick building in my hometown with a friend of mine.

My dad aptly called the bar the place flies did not have to stop when they flew through and I had to agree. But his criticism did not stop my friend and I from trying to make it the best tavern we could. When we were bored, we started to look around in all the saved junk that ancient bars accumulated and found a vintage, part wooden beer sign we could not wait to put up, even though that brand of beer did not exist anymore.

Amazingly, the sign had an ancient filament light bulb that still worked, so we used it and it kept on working for years. Later, I began to think of that bulb and how it could describe my gender conflicted life. No matter how hard I tried, my inner gender feminine light just would not go out. Not even a three-year stint away in the Army from the external expression of me being a cross-dresser could put it out. In addition, when I was honorably discharged, I found I needed to replace my inner gender bulbs with ones of a greater wattage to illuminate my dark, lonely closet.

Brighter bulbs helped to illuminate my feminine image in my closet mirror and helped me improve my makeup art as well as determine what clothes would be the right ones to wear. My new visions of myself helped me to speed up the cross-dressing experience and I just wanted to have more. That is when I began to take chances by going out into the malls and shopping centers close to my home. It did not make matters any easier as I learned how far I needed to go to successfully blend in with the ciswomen around me. Instead of displaying a small/dim bulb to succeed, to get to where I wanted to go, I needed a brighter bulb to display myself if I was ever going to make it as a successful transgender woman

At first, I was just using my light to interact with clerks and salespersons until I built up my confidence to do more. I was moving past my early days of Halloween exposure to the world as a trans woman and I was scared to death because for once I did not have the, “well I am wearing a costume” excuse to fall back on if I experienced any pushback for my cross-dressing in public. I was not up to no good, all I wanted was for my light to shine brightly in the new exciting world I was in. Unfortunately, in my early years, you might say I was a dimwit when my light bulb flickered and I thought it was going to go out. Those were the dark days of “purging” or getting rid of almost all of my feminine belongings and pledging to myself that I was going to turn the light off for good, put it all behind me and go back to where I was as a successful man.

As I said, those were the days of being a dimwit because deep down I knew I needed that feminine bulb to survive. No matter how dim it was at the time. Ironically, every time I “purged” I discovered very quickly I would need a much brighter bulb to sustain my life when I returned to my gender reality. Then I started to work hard to see what my new reflection in the world really was as a transfeminine person. I had to be constantly on my toes with my best behavior to do it as I was learning so much from every woman or the rare cisman I interacted with. It seemed as if I had to keep a constant supply of new bulbs handy every time I went out in the world. I always mention the stripping of all my male privileges as the main way which drastically dimmed my new light as a trans woman until I could replace the privileges with the whole new euphoria of being able to exist equally as myself in the girls ‘club I so desperately wanted admission into. It finally became evident to me; to be admitted, I had to find a bigger, better bulb to improve my overall presentation. So, I would never have to start all over again with my feminine life.

After years of experimentation and trying, I made it into the girls’ club where I always should have been in my life. And I put all those years of replacing bulbs behind me. Suddenly, my gender path became well lit like a large city street which I was able to navigate easily. With the help of powerful/magical HRT gender affirming hormones which helped me sync my external selves with my feminine inner self. I really became a whole person with all the gender benefits I had ever dreamed of. My emotions became clearer as I became more sensitive to the world. Among with the usual changes in hair on my head and breast size to my chest. Probably, most importantly, I was able to quit trying so hard with my makeup as my skin softened along my facial angles which made me more passable as a transgender woman. The world questioned me less, so I was able to change out fewer bulbs as I continued to play in the girls’ sandbox for the first time in my life.

The only regret I have is that it took me so long to follow my feminine destiny and live out my truth in life. I wasted too much time and money cross-dressing my life away changing gender bulbs until I got it right. I should have taken the time to write down somewhere the number of excuses I heard from my male self why I should ignore my truth and not try to live a life as a transgender woman. But I did not and the only thing I can fall back on is when my male life was good, it was very good and very bad when it was not. It is the only excuse I have to waste all those bulbs I did over the decades of gender experimentation I did to arrive at my destiny.

Hopefully, you can do the same. Thanks for reading and comments are always welcome!

 

 

 

 

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

Image from Shifazz Shamoon
on UnSplash. 

Typically, as we follow our winding gender journeys as transgender women or transgender men, we reach points where we must decide what we are going to do next.

It is especially intimidating to see all the political anti-transgender ads on TV funded by far away billionaires such as Theil and Musk who are pouring millions into defeating Democratic candidates here in my native Ohio. Especially the ones stating that the Democrats are extremists who supported sex change surgeries for children in school. That is about as far as I want to go politically in this post, so I will move on to what really matters…each of us and how we feel.

If the so called “civilians” in our world knew what we have to go through to see results in our individual gender worlds, they may understand more what it is like to be in our shoes and being constantly bombarded with negativity. Following years of struggles (or decades) I was fortunate to have found my way into discovering who the true me really was and most of the years of turmoil went away. Even still, I needed to follow a journey of steps which led me to blind curves which I knew nothing about.

All I discovered was that I had an unique life worth living to the fullest and very few other human beings can live a life which enables them to experience both sides of the binary gender road. It meant being able to exist in a life I never really wanted to live as a man. Slowly stop it altogether and start all over to earn a place like the other gender. As frustrating as that life as a trans person can be, the rewards can still be there if you can answer all the what’s next. Since most of us begin our lives cross-dressing in front of a mirror, there is plenty of ground to cover. Because we are destined to have such a small knowledge of the gender we are seeking to become. Again, because we are stuck on the outside looking in.  

Gaining access to your new life can take many paths. Sadly, many involve marriage, family and friends we do not want to give up but have to. The ways to announce your true self to the world can be done in several ways. Some just pull the band aide off, cross-dress and say here I am to the world, while others write letters and others still try to soften the blow by providing positive feedback from the internet or social media. Sometimes, I think I chose the most painful way of all as I tried to maintain my marriage to a woman I loved deeply while I knew all along that my truth was going to slip sooner or later. To make matters worse, she knew I was a cross dresser from the beginning and accepted it but told me time and time again she would draw the line at any moves I would ever make to going the transgender route and taking HRT hormones. She did not want to live with another woman. An answer I could never debate.

I guess you could say, I wanted the best of both gender worlds as I tried to do better and better in the male world I learned to survive in, while at the same time work very hard on my makeup and wardrobe to appear more realistic as a woman. All I was doing was creating severe friction within the marriage and within my head. If I was not thinking about work, I was thinking about how I could improve myself as a novice trans woman. Which I was just understanding that is what I was.

Without fail, I would get moody and nasty when I did not get my way and be able to cross-dress when I wanted which led to more friction within the marriage and more fights. In the heat of battle, my wife told me a couple of things I should have reacted to sooner. One of which would have been difficult for me to do and the other I should have been doing all along. Being called a “Terrible woman” was one thing I did not understand until I had the chance to live my truth as a transfeminine person and the other time she told me, “Why didn’t I be a man and live like a woman.” She was right, I should have done it. No matter how painful it would have been for me to carve out a new life for myself during that portion of my life when I was in my thirties.

Another problem was the sizeable male ego I was still carrying around with me. He wanted me to look and act a certain way as a novice trans woman which my wife did not like. Which led to more fights. The only revenge I ever got on her was the night she was forced to ask me for help on her makeup when we were invited to an upscale business dinner. At least the “Terrible woman” was better at makeup, I guess.

The thing it took me years to understand was that it was never about looking terrible as a woman, it was all about being socialized as a ciswoman. Sadly, my wife passed away before she could ever get to know the new improved feminine me. It took me until I was in my fifties to begin to get admission into the Girls’ Club and fully understand more about what my wife was talking about all those years before. I was suddenly on the verge of knowing where I wanted to go from that point forward. As every part of my being was telling me I was making the right decision about my life and should go for it.

I would not recommend taking the amount of time I took on my gender path before I made the final decision to live a life I always thought was going to be a dream. I think now there would have to have been a better way or like my second wife said, “Be man enough to be a woman.”  At the same time, I had my reasons for not doing it when I did which I will discuss in-depth on another post.

In the meantime, I hope you have a clearer understanding of where you want to get to in the everchanging world of trans women and trans men.

Thanks so much as always for reading along and I hope somehow, I have helped you on your gender journey. Comments are always appreciated!

 

Torn Between Two Lovers

 

Image from Hanna Lazar
on UnSplash. 

There is nothing romantic when you are being torn between two lovers if you are a transgender woman or a transgender man.

For me at least, I would never have wished for the ripping and tearing I suffered from the gender dysphoria I suffered from on my worst enemy. Waking up each morning wondering which gender I would be today was certainly no walk in the park. if I did take a walk in the park, it would be a mental one, and I would be chased by my demons.

As I write about extensively, I was stuck in my dark lonely gender closet as I felt as if I was the only one in the world who felt the same way I did. It was back before the internet and social media days and any information on gender issues was difficult to come by or out and out false. For the longest time, I just did not know where I fit in the world as a man who wanted to be a woman.

The tearing became even worse when one of my identities started to surge ahead of the other. It happened when my daughter was born and I had to get much more serious about how I was going to build a career as a man. Only to be ripped back when I viewed myself as a trans woman in front of the mirror. I only had the annual Halloween parties to get out of my closet and see what the world would be all about if I had the chance to live my dream of going full-time.

The thing about dreams is that they are a long way from reality. Reality meant I needed to go a very long way to learn about what I was trying to achieve. Back in those days, the term transgender woman was brand new and barely used, so I was surprised when I discovered it and it fit me so well. Keep in mind that I could only refer to myself as a transvestite because I knew I was not ready to use the transsexual label then or ever. If I had the will power to go through the major gender realignment surgeries of the time, I certainly did not have the insurance coverage or the financial resources to do it myself. Again, I was just stuck between two genders, but at the least I had a label now for who I was.

The ripping and tearing managed to become even worse when I began to improve my feminine presentation to the point where I could blend in with the world of ciswomen around me. Every time it happened, my male self would become upset because he was losing his hold on my life. As it was becoming increasingly evident that someday, I would have to choose between my two very serious gender lovers.

At the same time, I was trying everything to maintain my already fragile mental health by going to therapists. By doing so, I was able to learn what being bi-polar depressed meant and why I was suffering from it. All along, I was blaming my severe depression on my gender issues when I had other often more pressing issues. At the same time, I was ignoring facts from my therapist that she could do nothing about me wanting to be a woman. It turned out to be my truth that I refused to follow. Instead, I tried to move on. Going the wrong way on a one-way gender street. Dodging the sometimes-toxic public became too much of me until I began to give up totally on my male side and concentrate on living my dream of being a transfeminine person.

I never labored under the idea that my life in the world as a trans woman would be easy but I never bargained for the complexity of the new life I was facing. It seemed that every time I was able to overcome one obstacle on my path, something new would appear to take its place. Like never before, I had to really listen to what people were telling me, so I would miss nothing in the conversation. I found that trying to live in a world of ciswomen meant more than just looking the part. I needed to be the part too. Always before as a man, it was easy for me as a man to zone out in conversations and then catch up when I wanted to, but impossible when I began communicating one on one with other women.

Of course, my male side always hated losing, and every time my female side showed any victories, he hated it and fought back harder. As he was trying everything, he knew how to maintain what was left of his life. To placate him, I would try to do as many male things I could such as drinking with the few true male friends he had left. The problem was even he was beginning to feel alienated from his old friends as they started to pass away from cancer. At the same time, my feminine self was very successful in carving out a new life she could sustain as well as feeling so natural doing it. It was becoming obvious as the ripping and tearing (and even a large part of my depression) began to go away that I had chosen the right path to take on my gender journey.

At the same time, I began to consider attempting to get approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT. First through an independent doctor and then through the Veterans Administration healthcare system which had just approved it. It was as if the long-closed doors which were preventing me from living my transgender dream were suddenly swinging wide open. From then on, the only ripping going on was over what male baggage I could not take with me into my new life. My male clothes were given to charity as I built up my wardrobe for a new everyday experience as a transgender woman. It was a terrific weight off my shoulders.

My hope for you I that you can overcome your inner turmoil faster than I did by facing your truth. Thanks for reading and commenting!

 

 

I Wish I Knew Why

 

 

Image from Jon Tyson
on UnSplash

It has been a while since anyone has asked me when I knew I was transgender. In fact, it was several years ago when one of my grandkids was coming out to my daughter as being trans.

My daughter then asked me if I had always known, true? I told her yes that was true except in the exceedingly early days of my life when I knew something was wrong with me but I just did not know what. As I grew older and I experienced that first magical visit to mom’s clothing drawer did I truly knew what the problem was. I really liked the feel of mom’s clothes and that was only the beginning as I wanted to be a girl full-time sometime in my life. Just the buzz of wearing feminine clothes was never going to be enough. So, I set out on a long journey to see if I could ever achieve my dream.

When I was able to begin to interact with others with gender issues, I found early on that it was not going to be the end to my questions that I thought it could be. For example, I was too much girl for many of the cross-dressers I met and not enough woman for the then called transsexuals I encountered in person at the social/mixers I traveled to. The closest ones initially were nearly a two-hour drive away before mixers were then set up in a nearby central location for me. It was then that I was able to meet others who identified as true transgender women and I fit in perfectly with them. Finally, I began to have answers to my identity as a person.

Of course, I needed to take all sorts of side journeys as I sought out the key to why this transgender world had chosen me. In my research I even came across the theory that the drug “D.E.S” which was given to women with a history of problem pregnancies around the time I was born, could conceivably be linked to a person having= gender issues later in life. Because to ensure the fetus went full term in the womb, the womb was flooded with estrogen to aid the birth process. I thought “D.E.S.” might fit me because my mom had suffered through three still births before I came along. Ultimately, “D.E.S” stayed just as it started with me. Another solution to an extraordinarily complex gender problem with no concrete answers.

Then there was the victim mode I wrote so much about when I went through a poor, poor pitiful me time of my life. I could not understand why I needed to be stuck with all the gender issues I had when no one I knew had them either. To this day, I envy men who have been able to go through their lives as men without the added distraction of wanting to be a ciswoman. Finally, I made the difficult turn considering my overwhelming desire to be feminine as a good thing. Because it set me off from society as a unique person with a look at both sides of the gender border. Removing my victim mentality made all the difference in the world to me as I began to look ahead for the possibilities which laid ahead. Rather than always looking over my shoulder and dwelling on the mistakes I had made.

The more success I experienced when I first was able to carve out a new life for myself as a transfeminine person, the more the wish I knew mentality I had lived with my whole life began to fade away. From that point, I went into my confidence mode because without it, I was powerless to do anything I wanted to do as a trans woman. I found that as long as I held my head high and did my best to be a quality person in the world, the more people left me alone since humans are like sharks. They sense blood in the water, and I was not adding any of mine. Confidence also allowed me to try different things. To judge if I really wanted to jump the gender border and give up living life as a man altogether. Even though it was the most difficult decision of my life, having even a sliver of hope that I could live my dream that propelled me forward to a gender tipping point that so many ask about.

This time, I could tell anyone who asked why I decided to leave a successful male life to take on a decided uncertain one as a transgender woman. The answer I always gave was deceptively easy. I had reached my own gender tipping point where I was living more as a woman (and feeling natural doing it) and less as a man as I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable doing it. By doing as much research as I had, I had given myself no choice as what I should do. When became now and that was the time, I decided to take the next step and pursue gender affirming hormones or HRT to sync my inner mind with my external body the public saw. I knew it was the point of no return for me as my body took to the new hormones magically.

I knew from there that all my explorations as a trans woman pus the addition of HRT allowed me the most powerful female privilege of all. The power to finally be myself. The wish I knew why I was different my whole life was answered with a resounding yes, I did know it all along and refused to face my own truth. I was living a counterproductive life as I was going overboard trying to be successful as a man when I was a woman forced into her shell all the time struggling to get out. The best part was when she said I told you so, as she destroyed what was left of my old male ego.

I finished strong when my why me became a why not as I had the chance to live my feminine truth among the ciswomen of the world.

Thanks for reading along and I hope you will discover your why me in life! Comments from you are always welcomed.

 

 

 

 

When My Tomorrow Became my Today

JJ Hart

My desires to always look like a pretty girl early in life led me to always be a tomorrow person.

 I always thought that somehow tomorrow I could get a real wig, nicer clothes and more makeup which would help with my feminine transformation. I guess you could say that the whole process made me into quite the dreamer as I sat in school and envied the girls around me in their pretty clothes I could not have. At least today but maybe not tomorrow if any of my dreams came true.

Soon I discovered that dreams never came true on their own and would take an enormous amount of work on my part to make a dream happen. Especially once as complex as crossing the gender border to live a transfeminine life. I often wonder if I would have had an ounce of foresight into how difficult I was going to have it; would I have ever undertaken such a crazy path to begin with. One which would completely consume all the spare energy I could use.

The first problem I had to conquer in my feminine life was my often-frustrating attempts to look like a woman and not some sort of a clown in drag at the circus. I found I was setting the bar way too high in my appearance standards as there was never going to be a day when I could match the prettiest women I envied. I just needed to blend in with the rest of the ciswomen in the world just going about their everyday lives. It took me many painful attempts at presenting properly as a trans woman before I got it right and was able to move around in the world without causing any undue attention to myself. When I did, I was happy to stay in the present until my brief gender euphoria went away. As I crashed from the euphoria of living as myself, I was bitter, nasty and tried to take my frustrations out on the world of ciswomen around me. Why could not I be like them and live in their world held me back in mine, so I kept dreaming about the next time I could I could live my dream in the world fully cross-dressed as a woman.

The good part was that all along I was becoming better in my presentation as a woman and was finding it easier to cross the gender border. The bad part was once I did it, I wanted to stay and not go back to the male I was living. It was then that my todays became longer, and my tomorrows seemed further away. My new mentors became the established transgender women I had met at the socials I was going to in nearby Columbus, Ohio. They had crossed border and were living successful lives and I wanted to learn more about how they did it. What I learned was that every trans person’s journey was different and it was rarely ever easy. All I ever knew was that every time I was accepted into their circle, I felt natural and wanted to learn more about them.

As I look back on it, the one thing the mentors had on me was their natural beauty which I never had, so I had to keep putting my tomorrow off until I found out I could do a male to female transformation my own way. Or out of sheer willpower as I had a transwoman friend of, mine tell me in a straight bar we were in one night. By this time, I had given up on any natural feminine beauty I might have and made my tomorrow become my today by using other strengths ciswomen bring to the table when they don’t happen to share the extreme passing gene that some women have. They go on to lead fun and fulfilling lives by tuning out all the demands to be beautiful they hear. That is what I had to do because for sure ciswomen come on all shapes and models and I could certainly find a group I could fit in with. Which in my case, happened to be lesbians.

I was really seeking out the company of lesbians so to speak; I just happened to stumble across their culture at a small lesbian venue I started to go to as well a through a bartender at a big sports bar I used to go to who introduced me to her mom. Through it all, I knew the next step for me was to become more feminine by using HRT or gender affirming hormones. My approval to take the hormones focused my tomorrow so much I could not wait to get there. I changed during the time I was socializing with my new lesbian friends who took me to watch sports as well as big lesbian mixers. I was having the time of my life as my tomorrow was rapidly becoming my today.

Maybe most importantly, my friends helped me to validate myself as who I was really was as the subject of my past life as a man never came up. They did not want to know, and I did not want to bring it up as I was just appreciating my spot in my new present as a transfeminine person.

The final touches in my today came when my daughter accepted me totally and I met my current wife of over a decade Liz. They helped rid myself of any lingering doubts of how I should live my life. Over my gender cliff I went into their soft arms and my gender tomorrow was gone for good.

My only passing regret was that it took me so long to face up to who I was always was as a full-fledged human being. There was no way I should have let it go as long as I did, I should have let tomorrow be my today. I was all wrong as I tried to cross-dress my pain away. My excuse is I was jinxed all along into leading a backwards gender life thinking I was a man trying to be a woman rather than the other way around. That way, I would have never let my todays and tomorrows get mixed up the way they did.

 

 

It Was All That and More

Tim Curry in the 
"Rocky Horror Picture Show"

It took me decades of living to finally achieve my dream of slipping behind the feminine gender curtain and staying there permanently. When I summoned the courage to do it, my feeling of gender euphoria was deep and permanent.

It turned out that all the dreams and hopes I had ever had over the years came to fruition. Largely with the help of a few key women friends, I was kicked out of my old male nest and  into their embrace.  It was more than I ever asked for and I thought ever deserved because I was raised never to be happy or satisfied with anything I ever did. It could be too that I was happy because of all the work I put in to achieving my transgender goal was working.

Along my gender path, I discovered many blind spots along the way. Several of which almost derailed my attempts to reach my goal altogether. Examples included the times when I was out in the world as a crossdresser and almost was attacked by two men on a dark urban sidewalk outside of a gay venue in Dayton, Ohio I had just left. Or the time I was cornered by a cross-dresser “admirer” who was much bigger than I at a social mixer in Columbus, Ohio. Both were sudden reminders of how different a world I was in as a trans woman when all my personal security was taken away.  Following both of those unfortunate interactions, I learned the hard way to go slowly around any future blind curves I was facing.

It was about this time when I discovered that being able to make it behind the gender curtain was going to take much more than I thought. Mainly because even if I knew ciswomen operated on a whole different wavelength than cismen, I had no idea as to how complex the differences in life went between the genders. Suddenly, I realized why men said they never understood women. It was because women had set their worlds up that way to protect themselves from potentially toxic men. Which I needed to be particularly careful of since I was spending a lot of my life consuming alcohol in venues as a novice single woman. One night comes back to me as a strong learning experience when a toxic drunk man approached me and attempted to start a conversation. Quickly one of my woman bar tenders approached me and with out a word warned me to stay away from him. From then on non-verbal communication became a part of my learning experience when I dealt with other women.

Finally, I got to the point where I could navigate all the blind gender curves I was facing and was even up to the challenge. It became the all that and more time of my life. Sure I had my setbacks, but overall, I was successful except for the night a group of drunken men kept playing “Dude Looks Like a Lady” on the jukebox in a venue where I never had any trouble entertaining myself before. Finally, the spineless manager came up to me and said I needed to leave so I picked up my purse and headed up the street a couple blocks to another venue I was accepted in. It took a month or so but one night when I was back in that venue, one of my former bartenders from the venue I was kicked out of found me and gave me a personal invitation to come back. It seems “Mr. Manager” got fired for drug abuse and I had indirectly got my revenge because I never saw the drunks who harassed me that night again. Revenge was certainly sweet.

Back in those days, acceptance came easier for me than I ever thought possible when I left the restrictive gay venues I was in and began to explore the world as my true self. It was probably because my confidence kept growing every time, I was successful in going out. I needed to come to the point where if anyone had a problem with me, it was their problem not mine and happiness was just around the next blind curve and I just had to see around the curve to discover it because I was still so stubborn to continue to hang on to what was left of my marriage and my male life. Then sadly, destiny set in and I lost my second wife to a massive heart attack and three of my closest male friends to cancer in a two-year period. Leaving me desperately alone and searching for answers.

As I said, destiny set in and I went full circle into a transfeminine future complete with new friends, wife and life. I changed for good when my third wife Liz told me she had never seen any male in me at all, so why did not I just give up the charade I was living with one foot on either side of the two binary genders. It was as if I had paid my dues living as a man which was a lie and it was time to move on into my new world which included the magic of HRT. Which really helped to soften my view of the world as well as my own body as I synced my mental processes up with my external public presentation.

I never recommend anyone take as long as I did to follow their male to female (or female to male) trips across the border. But then again times change and hopefully the gender pendulum will swing back in our favor from all the ridiculous attacks from a certain orange president in Washington and his blind followers. Regardless of what happens though, crossing that border and finding your way behind the gender curtain will never be easy. So buckle up for the ride of your life.

Over the days which have recently passed, I did mention the death of music and world icon “Dolly Parton” but neglected to mention “Tim Curry” of film fame for his role in the 1975 cult movie classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” which helped to re-define the boundaries of gender for all of us. He was 80 as was Dolly and will be missed although his work will live on forever.

 

 

I Wanted it All

 

Image from Sindy Sussengut
on UnSplash.

During my gender journey through multiple transitions from cross-dresser to transgender woman, I have been selfish and wanted it all.

It all started very early when I was experimenting with mom’s clothes and makeup when I had the first idea all that I was doing may go deeper than just wearing feminine clothes. I did not have the terminology or knowledge back then to work my way through it, but in reality, I was discovering I was more transgender than anything else. In the years to come, that would be a major point to think about along my gender path.

As I grew through my first two marriages where both wives knew of my cross-dressing desires, my first wife was far less demanding than my second and on numerous occasions during fights we were having about me, my second wife rightfully pointed out that our relationship was not all about me. Since I was in the middle of an obsession with my appearance and all things related to makeup, as I said she was right and I was needlessly selfish about our relationship. She was far wiser than I and knew even at that early time in our marriage, her husband was slipping away.

Even though I loved her dearly, I still could not stay away from the powerful draw of wondering if I could ever achieve living fulltime as a transgender woman. Deep down, I knew my second wife would never come with me on my journey as she made it abundantly clear she never signed up to be married to another woman.

With a lot of work and repetition, I did finally get better with my wardrobe and makeup and then needed to figure out how to sneak out of the house and get into the world. It basically meant my imagination had to go into overdrive as I tried to think of reasons I needed to explore the world as my new true transfeminine self. Even if I was not sure what the word meant back then. I went as far as going to the grocery store for my wife who was working on the days, I was off and combined the trip by going to a nearby big box store to shop for panty hose and makeup. My biggest takeaway came when I noticed very few people were noticing me and I started to think I wanted to experience more. My restless feminine spirit was dominating me again.

At the same time, I was doing all of this, I was still searching for my dream job in the commercial restaurant business and after switching jobs and locations several times, I finally did. As I finally broke free of my fast-food background and landed a job with “Chi-Chi’s” Mexican Restaurants in the Columbus, Ohio area where I had ties to. It was a win-win situation for me because I was back home again and could start to interact with the diverse small LGBTQ group that I had known from years previous. This was the tight knit group that had several transgender women who were on their ways to gender realignment surgeries, and I could pick their brains on what it meant to do it. Even though, I did not have the resources or the willpower to consider such a radical move for me in my future, Just being considered as an equal in their group was good enough for me…then.

I say “then” because in life everything rarely stays the same. As I continued to break the vows I had with my wife, I kept going out to venues from the house and began to actually carve out a life as a transgender woman with people who had never known my male side. Wanting it all was staring to mean so much more to me than ever before as my male life began to slip away from me and wanting it all increasingly meant an ongoing break with my long-term marriage of over twenty years. Because she was not giving into her demands, and I was discovering just what mine should be if I was willing to risk it all to live my dream life. Sadly, it would have to be all me to do it as I tore down everything I had worked for as a man to start over in a woman’s’ world.

Sure, I was scared to death as I decided to keep concentrating on the feminine me who had waited so long to live her life. But the whole process and path I was on felt so natural, I decided to be selfish and continue it. By proceeding along the path I was on, I needed to take several abrupt detours when I had problems with deciding my sexuality all the way to just basically communicating with the remainder of the world I was in. Which I discovered was made up of ciswomen not so unlike my second wife. Many were strong and sure of themselves and set up forms of communication which were totally foreign to me as I was coming from a male world. Suddenly, I needed to adjust to forms of non-verbal and passive aggressive communications which were reserved for use when cismen were around.

Perhaps my best selfish move I made was to be approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT which enabled me to come closer to my transgender mentors of so long ago. Since I had ruled out any surgeries, the changes from the hormones would be as far as I could go to sync up my female mind with my male body.

By this time, my wife had passed away and there were very few people left who knew the old me at all. So, I was mostly all-alone with my new emotions and bodily changes such as hair, breasts and hot flashes. When I reached out to any of my lesbian friends, all they would say was welcome to their world. Little did they know how badly I wanted to be there. I was rewarded by the fact that the people who knew the male me told me they thought I was much more relaxed and happy now.

Since I can now love more deeply than I ever could as a man, my life has come full circle to encompass feelings I never knew I had before. All because of my selfish one sided past to get here. I wanted it all and finally was able to find it.

Thanks for reading along and I would be remiss if I did not mention two things. Thanks to Grace Ann Hansen for publishing my stories in her “Empowered Trans Woman” site!

And sadly, I would like to mention the passing of a true icon, Dolly Parton who was a staunch ally of the LGBTQ community. She will be severely missed.