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| JJ Hart. Frozen in Florida |
So many times, when I was caught between my genders, I learned everything was Ok, until it wasn’t.
A prime example would be when I was coming home from a night
in the gay venues I was frequenting and my car decided not to start when I was
twenty miles away from home. Then I needed to figure out how to get the car
home before my wife came home and took off all my make-up acting like nothing
had happened. What I did was call a towing company and get the car towed back
home as I sat in the cab with the driver, trying my best to present as a blond
woman just trying to get her car home. Somehow, I did make it that night and
learned to never take that car again when I went out on such a pressure packed
adventure.
Sadly, I needed to learn the hard way as I followed my
gender path through many blind curves and major potholes. I would usually start
out with a final look in the mirror thinking I made an attractive woman from the
testosterone poisoned male I had to work from. Confidently, I moved ahead to whichever
venues I decided to go to that night. And the stakes were raised significantly
when I decided to leave the relative safety of the gay venues behind and
attempt to see how I could do in the straight world of big sports bars. It
turned out, if everything was going to be OK, I would find out quickly.
Normally I found everything was going to be OK, except on
the nights I encountered problems using the women’s restroom and I ended up
having the police called on me. That turned out to be more embarrassing than
anything else because the cops had better things to do as I was just sent on my
way. A more embarrassing night came along much later when a group of drunk guys
decided it would be fun to play “Dude Looks Like a Lady” about five times in a
row on the juke box. Which ended me getting asked to leave by the manager, even
though I was a regular. Well, liked by the staff, who actually tracked me down
at a close venue not long after and asked to come back. Telling me, the manager
who told me to leave got fired. I was flattered and accepted my welcome back
because everything I thought was OK, actually was.
Other times, I was not as fortunate as I began to learn the
basics of being allowed to play in the girls’ sandbox. Learning the
time-honored tradition of passive aggressive behavior which ciswomen practice
so well, proved to be a challenge. I was used to taking another man at face
value most of the time until he proved himself unworthy which did work with
women. I learned a smile could be hiding something much more sinister.
Resulting in claw marks down my back. Once I did, again everything really did
turn out to be OK and stayed that way for the most part.
In no way, do I want anyone to think this gender male to
female feminization project was a quick one. There were so many nights when I
hurried home to return to my old unwanted male self that I wondered what I was
doing. I was risking so much on what often seemed to be an empty dream of someday
being able to live as a fulltime transgender woman. What kept me going was the deep
feeling I had that when I was my feminine self, I felt so natural and I felt as
if I somehow was home. And someday, all the setbacks I had would just disappear
and everything would truly be OK.
Through the magic of gender affirming hormones (HRT), and
strong ciswomen role models, I was able to weather the transition storm I was
going through. I knew everything was going to really be OK when I found I could
validate myself in the world as a trans woman without the validation of a man,
or anyone else. The whole process was so much more complex rather than just
looking like a woman. I needed to be my own woman, on my own terms so I could
exist on the path I had always been on. Even though sometimes I did not realize
it myself. Those were the days of feeling like a failure when a group of
teenagers laughed at me for how I looked. Rather than staying and trying to do
better, I had to run home crying and go back to my cross-dressing drawing
board. Seeking the idea that everything was going to be OK, even though it was
not at the time.
As I said, what kept me going was a small spark of feminine
energy deep down inside me. Knowing for sure, being the woman I dreamed of
being was going to be an incredibly complex gender journey to make. Just
lacking the communication skills, I needed to survive in the world as I went
one on one with other women made my life a scary one. Since I was shy to begin
with, I needed to start from scratch in a new world and work hard to gain an
equal footing as a novice trans woman trying to make it alone in the world until
I was able to make new friends.
The new friends I made helped me to cushion when I got into situations
when everything was OK until it wasn’t. During those times, I could fall back
into the group and learn from what was going on. Every learning experience became
so important because I could make sure to never try that again. Even what was
left of my stubborn male self-learned the misconceptions he had about how women
truly lived and did he really want to let go of his life for good.
When he did, I found that everything was going to be OK and
it always was.
