The Clash of Gender Ego's

 

Image from Sherest Gupta
on UnSplash. 

Through most of my long life, I needed to deal with the clash of egos, doing battle for my existence.

On one side, I had my well-worn and battle tested male ego who was doing his best to make it in a world where he did not want to be. On the other, I had my deeply hidden feminine side who only made her appearance in front of the mirror and then went back into hiding. In other words, my male ego attempted to dominate while at the same time, my female ego was hiding, just exactly where she did not want to be.

For the longest time, to make matters worse, I did not think women had much of an ego at all. Except maybe with their appearance. As I made my way through life, I discovered how wrong I was. On several levels, As I always warn about, my male ego dictated how I dressed early in my life when I was going out in public. I fell in love with several compliments I received about my legs when I went to Halloween parties and made sure I showed them off to the extreme when I was going out for the first time. The idea was all well and good except I was doing nothing to overcome my broad shoulders and torso. I had no fashion balance, and it showed with the number of times I was made fun of in public. My male ego had failed me. I was dressing to his tastes and was failing.

It took years to do, but my female ego finally took control and slowly but surely, I began to blend in with the other women around me. For a moment, I even thought my clash of egos was over, but I was completely wrong. My male ego was very stubborn and still thought he had some sort of control over my life. He refused to believe he had lost all his male privileges and nearly got us in trouble several times before he learned the hard way what problems could exist.

One of the biggest issues was the idea of my sexuality and how it would or would not change with my new transgender life. Of course, Mr. Macho recoiled at any thought of intimacy with a man, but Ms. Self wasn’t so sure. Like many women, she had a spectrum of ideas about sex which were not so rigid and paranoid. In fact, I made a concerted effort to date a few men to see what (if any) excitement would happen. It just so happened women turned out to be much more interested in me as a trans woman, my choice was easy to make. For once, my male ego won. For the wrong reason.

One of the earliest instances I can remember of a lesbian woman approaching me happened one night at a mixer/party I went to at a friend’s house in Columbus, Ohio. At the mixer, I ended up approaching another woman and having a brief conversation before we decided to leave for a while and go to a big lesbian club to mingle even farther. We ended up having a good time that night, but since I still had a wife to go home to, I could not stay long enough but visiting with another ciswoman who happened to be a lesbian was a wonderful experience and would set the path for my future. Although, I did not know it at the time, primarily because my male and female egos were still clashing.

By now, you may be asking the question, who was winning the struggle? My woman was, even though my male self would win every now and then, it was as if he would take one step forward and two steps back. On the occasions when my second wife would catch me coming back from a night on the town, he would jump forward into purge mode. Vowing to never wear any female clothes ever again. All the time knowing there was no way possible he could ever keep his promise. I had crossed too many lines in my gender sand to go back, and the fact was becoming increasingly evident to him and my wife, there was nothing they could do. They were waiting for me to face my own reality.

Solving my final gender issue was easier said than done. My male self was hanging on for dear life until the very end, and he nearly pulled all of us down in the process until therapy and suicide came into play. Finally, I needed to pick a winner in my gender ego clash, and I was wise and picked the only way I could go. I put my old male self completely aside and begin to live a transfeminine life I had only dreamed of. I wondered why I did not pick the winning side years ago and live my truth.

 

 

Just Part of Being a Woman?

 

Image on Unsplash. 

Just part of being a woman meant several different things to me.

First, I needed to get there by being able to present well enough to being accepted by other women. Once I arrived, I was able to enjoy the benefits of living in my dream world as well as the drawbacks. The first night I had an idea I was arriving was when I began to be semi-friendly with a man I met at a venue, I was a regular in. He was part of a small, diverse group of people I mixed with often. Sadly, I followed the saga of his quickly failed marriage to another woman in the group. She was an exotic dancer with long black hair, and he was a big, bearded man who rode a Harley motorcycle. Not exactly a match made in heaven. But they went ahead with the ceremony anyway. It failed within a couple of weeks.

I really don’t know why, but from then on most of the group turned against him, except me. I felt sorry for him and could sense the hurt he felt, so we began to talk. Before long we became friendly enough to look for each other when we came in alone to socialize. I can’t speak for him, but I was in uncharted territory even talking to a man at all since I was basically scared to. Who was I to say no to this big good-looking guy who wanted to talk to me? You are right. I couldn’t. I was too shy to even ask him to see his Harley before he rode off to another job in another town and I never saw him again. How different my life could have been if I had pushed my luck as a transgender woman just a little farther.

That fleeting encounter left a deep impression on me, not because it blossomed into anything, but because it made me realize how much of life I had yet to explore. It was a bittersweet moment of clarity: I had spent so much time crafting a version of myself that fit into the world I longed to belong to, yet I was still afraid to fully embrace the opportunities before me.

In the days that followed, I thought a lot about courage to truly be brave, not just in appearance but in action. It wasn't about being bold for the sake of it, but about taking the step that felt impossible, the one that whispered promises of growth and self-discovery. And yet, even as I reflected, I knew that fear still gripped me, tethering me to the safety of the new family I was creating.

It was around this time that I began writing the blog, capturing what I could of the small victories and the quiet heartbreaks that defined my journey. The act of writing became my sanctuary, a place where I could be unapologetically honest with myself, where I could acknowledge my fears without judgment. The words became a mirror, reflecting not just who I was but who I could be if only I dared to push beyond the limits I had unconsciously set for myself. By doing so, I hoped I could help others.

Life has a way of surprising you, though. Just when you think you've missed your chance, it presents you with another, often in the most unexpected of forms. Sort of like the first night I found myself in the middle of four men discussing guy things which of course I knew quite a bit about. Not realizing exactly where or who I was, I attempted to add my comments to the group. The men paused for a moment, then went on with their conversation as if I was invisible. I learned my lesson, entering a male only domain was a big no-no and exposed my new feminine life of having a lesser IQ. 

On my very few encounters with men, I learned to let them lead the way in conversations. No matter how inane the subject matter was. A prime example was the night I always mention when my car broke down and I needed to call a tow truck. Also, to my chagrin, a well-meaning policeman showed up out of nowhere to help. Between the cop and the tow driver, they refused to even listen to the directions I tried to give to my house. Then everything became worse when I had to ride home with the driver. By the time I arrived home, I had nearly reduced myself to playing the dumb blond just to survive the trip.

Just part of being a woman just meant leaving my male self behind, which is what I was trying to do anyway. What I did not count on was how fast I would lose most all of my male privileges I took for granted when I transitioned. All cisgender women go through the same process when they grow up around boys. It just took me a little longer to get there. Or, as my lesbian friends said, welcome to their world.

Plus, there was the new magical world of gender affirming hormones to consider. The HRT certainly contributed to my internal part of life as a woman.

Riding the Gender Merry go Round

 

Image from Stanley Kustamen 
on UnSplash. 

Catching the gender merry go round when it was in mid-spin was never easy. As I always point out, I had no workbook on how to achieve my feminine desires that were available to me.

I often wondered what magical experiences were available to the girls around me but were off limits to me. What did the girls really learn about being feminine from each other? Was makeup one of them? I was jealous because I had none of the early basics of applying makeup. The closest I came when I was painting the model cars I had. I never was very good at skillfully painting cars, so I wondered how I would ever be good at painting myself. Enamored, I remember watching my mom apply her makeup as I looked for any small hints I could follow but I never seemed to learn.

Of course, there was much more to jumping on a spinning merry go round than just skillfully applying makeup. There were clothes to worry about too, and how could I afford them on the very limited budget I was on. I resorted to taking any small jobs I could as a kid to augment the meager allowance I received at home. In fact, my major source of income was a neighborhood newspaper route I took on. When I added all my funds up, I usually had enough money to buy my own makeup, panty hose and other rare items such as a pair of shoes I was lucky to find.

Once I was able to be confident in my ability to jump on the merry go round, then I needed to worry about hanging on. In the early days of my public explorations, I was having a very difficult time presenting well at all and I often was laughed at by others on the merry go round until I began to learn what I was doing wrong, and I could fill out my feminizing presentation workbook. It was a win for me when I could quit using crayons on my face and use them to color my workbook, I was less and less a clown in drag, and more and more an androgynous person for the public to judge my gender. For once, I could rightfully claim my seat along others on the merry go round because I had earned my spot as much as they did.

After a while, the spinning became too much for me and challenged my fragile mental health. The biggest problem I had was my refusal to face myself and my innermost truth. I was never a man cross dressing as a woman; I was a woman cross dressing as a man my entire life. The basic thought of who I really was consumed all my spare thinking. I am amazed now how much I still accomplished in my life as I suffered my mental duress. At times, it seemed my merry go round was spinning completely out of control. Plus, at the same time, I kept accumulating extra male lifetime baggage I did not really want. Sadly, the life I was living kept me from making very many close friends because I just thought I was knowing them under some sort of false pretense. I wasn’t the man they saw before them; I was a fake. Which I hated and added to my problems.

I finally came to the point where I needed to either slow down my merry go round or get off altogether. I just couldn't take it any longer. I certainly was not getting any prizes for putting myself through the anguish of staying on. I had given my ride the best shot I could, and I needed to grow in my transgender womanhood. I had tried my best to outrun and out drink my gender issues, and it was time to face the reality of who I was.

When my merry go round glided to a stop and I was able to look ahead to the new life I was about to enter. I was excited to see and live my feminine reality. I had filled out my workbook and paid my dues and was ready to go. The next time I was at an amusement park I could really enjoy the experience as a transgender woman. If anyone in the world did not like it or approve of me, I didn’t care. I had spent a major portion of my life thinking I was in the wrong. When in fact, the bigots were the ones in the wrong and they were the riders who needed to get off the merry go round first.

Tomorrow Sometimes Comes

 

Image from Mark Attree on UnSplash.

I finally knew tomorrow was here when I started gender affirming hormones or HRT as it also is known as.

It was always my dream to try hormones as a natural progression towards my ultimate transition. By the time I sought out medical care to help my hormonal goals, I had pretty much exhausted my old cross dressing bucket list of situations I could put my femininized self into. I even went as far as pushing myself into situations I should not have been in. But I learned how far I could go.

Through it all, I still did not know how far I could go or have to. Would something come along to change my course or ultimately change my mind. It turned out, hormone therapy turned out to be the salvation to my problems I thought it would be. Quickly, I moved from a minimum dosage to an amount of the meds which would really produce changes. It was as if my body was taken to the HRT as naturally as it could and provided me with yet another what took you so long as I suffered through changes such as my first hot flashes as I was going through puberty again. What took you so long, echoed through the recesses of my mind.

The biggest problem was I was going through all these dramatic changes alone. All my Ciswoman friends would just smile knowingly and say welcome to their world if I brought anything up. So, I did not. I brought back my old unwanted male art form of internalizing my feelings once again. In my mind, it was a shame I could not share the beautiful changes I was going through with no one else. This all happened before my current wife Liz, and I became serious a decade ago.

I continued to realize my tomorrow was here when I was forced to stop wearing male clothes all together and donate mine to the area thrift stores. My protruding breasts were the first thing which gave me away, along the fact my rapidly growing hair was already long enough to wear in a ponytail. My body was telling me it was time to put all my male privilege aside and face the world as a transgender woman. Which meant several things. The main one was I could no longer pick and choose where I wanted to do and how I wanted to dress as a casual cross dresser. Everyday was important and I needed to plan ahead if I was ever going to be successful in finding and living my dream of living as a woman. After going through the motions for nearly fifty years, tomorrow was here.

Fortunately, by this time in my life, I had developed a strong set of allies who had only ever known the new me, so I did not have to worry about my old male self-coming into play. My friends, along with my daughter and Liz formed a strong bond for me and I was able to experience uniquely feminine experiences such as beauty salons with them. In many ways, they made up for the female peer group I never had growing up. My daughter even asked me to speak in front of her temple for my oldest grandsons Bar-Mitzvah not long after tomorrow came and Liz took me on traveling tour excursions as a transgender woman I would have never done without her. You could say, once I got started, tomorrow came crashing down on me. I was receiving what I had asked for all those years. Destiny was telling me, you wanted it, now you got it.

Of course, then I found how the life of women everywhere is more layered and difficult than a male existence. My daughter and I are prime examples when we needed to work together to explain my gender transition to three young grandchildren. We came up with a new name for me which reflected a family background, and the remainder of the process was amazingly easy.

Ironically, my brother came along to ruin my good karma by refusing to back my transition with his wife’s family who are a bunch of right-wing haters. I guess I need to see how the other half lived when it came to the transgender community personally.

As I said, my tomorrow waited long enough to arrive, which was my fault and could only be described as an exciting process when it got here. At least though, I did not crash and burn following a bumpy landing on the runway. I was able to still have enough time to live the life I had always dreamed of in my transgender womanhood. My tomorrows proved to be worthwhile as I lived them out.

 

 

 

 

 

Gender Participation Trophies

 

Image from Vicktor Forgacs
on UnSplash

In the gender world, there are very few participation trophies available to anyone for simply showing up. But are there?

Early on, before I decided to allow the public to award me participation trophies, I let the mirror do it and they were always right. I was an attractive girl when I wanted to be and there was a trophy for me to hide away with my belongings, or at least for me to mentally hide away from prying eyes.

In the meantime, my male self was attempting to win as many trophies as he could because he was not very good at athletics or whatever else he was trying. As hard as he was trying, total success seemed to always evade him. What happened was, both my binary genders experienced deep frustration, and I felt less as a person.

It was not until much later that I began to be successful and win a few participation trophies, specifically as a transgender woman. Her success though just created more problems for me as he feared she would take over completely, and what would become of all his hard-earned male privileges. There was a life at stake and could not be taken lightly. No cheap shiny participation trophies to proudly place on the gender shelf of life.

After I had learned the basics of blending myself into the world as a woman, I needed to be careful of the trophies which were being presented to me. I learned the hard way; not all women were forthcoming in their friendship and acceptance in their world. Many days with other ciswomen in the world. I thought I had won a participation trophy, only to have it passive aggressively pulled away. Quickly, I learned to be more careful. Life just wasn’t as easy for me when I had left the male world I was used to, and all aggressiveness was a frontal blow you could prepare for or retreat from. As with everything else, my life as a transgender woman was going to be more difficult than I thought. There would be no more running home to the mirror to hide. If I wanted to obtain more gender trophies, I would need to journey farther and farther out of my gender closet to do it.

The first inkling I could came on the night when I was drinking with a group of single professional women at a nearby TGI Fridays venue. As the bar area quickly began to fill up with women, nobody said anything out of the way to me, and I felt as if I fit right in. As a woman. I had known in advance to dress professionally, which helped me to overcome the fear I felt. So, I fit right in. When I safely made it home that night before my second wife did and removed my makeup, I gave myself a participation trophy. Mainly because, I knew I had crossed a line I could never go back to. My cross-dressing desires were much more than just a simple, innocent past-time. I knew deep down I wanted more as I pursued my own transgender womanhood.

More meant going back to Fridays and establishing myself as a regular, as well as other nearby competing venues which were happy to serve me and take my money as a trans woman. For the most part, I was compiling more trophies than I could count as I did more than surviving in my new world, I thrived. I learned too how difficult I would have it, if I continued the gender path I was on. Now, each trophy was harder and harder to get because each time I received one, it seemed the stakes were higher and higher. I was risking my twenty-five-year marriage, my family, friends and job, and I deeply felt the pressure.

At some point, I knew I would have to decide to throw out all my old male trophies and move on, but I was afraid to do it. I compared it to looking down at a steep gender cliff and wondering what would happen when and if I fell. All the trophies in the world would not save me but only real-world friends would.

Fortunately, I had those friends who had found and accepted me and made my gender landing very soft. In essence, all those new friends were initially trophies I cherished completely. They turned into the real thing over time, and I was able to carve out a life. Then I could throw out all my female trophies for good and live a realistic, genuine life as a transgender woman. My trophies became as fake to me as most of the people I met along the way, and I was able to throw them all away.

 

 

Self-Destruction

Image from Abbot on
UnSplash.

I was very self-destructive over the years, and I am frankly amazed I made it to the age of seventy-five in one piece.

I think my self-destructive behavior began when I was forced into a gender mold which was deeply foreign to me. When I was very young, I did not know exactly what was wrong, but something certainly was. I was somewhat older when I had my first inkling of having a condition I barely knew how to pronounce. I was gender dysphoric. As a teenager, many mornings when I woke up for the day, I did not know if I was a boy or a girl. Not a good place to be.

My first object of destruction was the car. With it, I found I could seriously injure myself and sadly others. I could race my brother with a car and go way too fast at night for the road conditions. Many nights when I came home late and lonely, my mom was waiting up and, on several occasions, told me the angel riding with me was my grandmother. She may have been right, when I wrecked one of my cars going too fast and ended up rolling it several times into a house. Very easily, I could have been killed, along with my brother. But my brother and I walked away without a scratch. Even though the car was totaled.

I was just reckless as I entered my military years as I was frustrated and lonely as I grasped at any straw to solve my gender issues. Never pausing to realize the answer I was seeking was as close facing my own inner self. For more years than I like to admit, I feared facing the truth about myself and stayed on my self-destructive path. That made two paths I was on. One on my gender issues and the other me trying to hurt myself.

To dull the pain, I resorted to self-medication with alcohol. Drinking vast amounts of beer helped me to forget my male self on one hand and made me too brave on the other hand. On nights I drank, I could see one path from the other. So, I went back time and time again.

Then, my time in the military just made my habit worse as I was in an atmosphere of supported alcohol abuse. I found I had to finally rid myself of my destructive ways when I hit rock bottom and attempted suicide. Simply, I was tired of fighting my overwhelming desire to be a transgender woman and the possibility of hurting the loved ones around me. Most importantly, I felt as if the world would be a better place without me.

Once again, my guiding angel was with me as I failed in my suicide attempt with pills and booze. Maybe it was her who finally convinced me to face my gender truth. I was born into the world as a male which was completely wrong. My vibrations were always female deep down inside and those vibes were deeply felt. Still my male self-refused to give up all the privilege he would lose and did his best to stay the course he was on. All he did was to prolong the certainty of my life. When he gave up and I could pursue the deepest truth of my life, I committed myself to moving forward into my transgender womanhood.  

With commitment came a deep-down of satisfaction and happiness I had never known in my life. I was fond of blaming my parents for the lack of happiness I experienced when I was growing up. When, in fact it was me who was at fault. I was not honest with myself, and it hurt me. I couldn't follow my dreams, and it hurt me. The deepest cut of all came with the dishonesty I felt. I was raised to be honest, and chasing my gender dreams curtailed my honesty with the world when I was busy hiding all the time. Perhaps, most frustrating of all came when I could not outrun my issues. First, I attempted to pass myself off to me as a harmless cross dresser and, when that did not work, I faced the possibility I was transgender. A big leap for my honesty.

It was the first time in my life; I could face my truth and live honestly as myself. With new women friends and my wife Liz pushing me on, I was able to restore my confidence as a woman as never before. My progress was so much more than my appearance and reached deeply into living a fulltime life as a transgender woman. My gender journey of a thousand miles did begin with a single step and I took mine.

Sometimes I wish I had made the journey sooner but then again, all of us only have one life to live and I was able to live mine.

 

 

 

Gender Selfishness

 

JJ Hart, Key Largo, Florida.

Often as I discovered my transgender womanhood, I felt extremely selfish. Who was I to sacrifice my male life with others just to cross dress in the mirror for me.

At the time, I regarded myself as a clown in drag and ugly in every way possible. With those thoughts, how could I even think I could succeed of my dream of living as a woman someday. To have any success at all, I needed to be selfish and forge a one-way path to feminize myself.  

Defining selfishness was a problem also. I went from thinking I was merely in a phase, all the way to finally realizing I was a full-fledged transgender woman. Along with all the responsibilities of living a new life. I needed to face the reality of knowing every step I took would be different and others close to me would have to come along for the ride. Or be left behind. Mainly, I am referring to my second wife, who for several reasons drew the line at helping me femininize myself. The number one reason was one I had to totally agree with, which was she did not want to live with another woman and specifically one she did not like.

Through it all, I tried to discover why she did not like me. Since she has long since passed away, I can’t ask her for an honest answer. My best guess is she did not the amount of makeup I wore and the wardrobe I had acquired. Plus, she especially hated the idea of me leaving the house cross dressed as a woman anytime she was not around. Essentially, I was cheating on her with myself. I was the other woman. Naturally, I was torn too, as I just could not stop exploring the new world, I was excited to find myself in. All my efforts just put me in the cross hairs of my mental health. I was selfish and put myself in risk of losing a marriage of twenty-five years and give up the chance of living my dream of living as a woman. These days I make no secret of trying to take my own life with an ill-advised suicide attempt. I thought there was only one person who could truly help me, and I had burned that bridge with her. So, I was trapped.

Fortunately, with the help of a good therapist, I found my way out of the darkness I was in, and she helped me to understand the gender situation I was in. I started to take it for granted I was selfish, but I had to be to save myself and my mental health. At that point, I knew I would not have wished the period of life I just had went through on my worst enemy. My dark closet was even becoming darker even though I was beginning to explore the world as a woman. Transgender, or not because often gender borders were blurred. To focus on it, I needed to be more and more selfish in my life and every spare moment and thought had to be involved in feminization.

By this time in my life, my biggest hurdle was overcoming the loss of my second wife. Sure, she resisted losing me to another woman, but I still loved her dearly, and we did have many good times together. What happened was my long ignored inner female stepped in and immediately took over. She exposed us to many new social interactions to see what would happen and if when we conquered it, we immediately moved on to often more delicate social situations. She was really into testing me to learn how serious I was about the transition I was considering.

One of the main tests was when we decided to seek out gender affirming hormones. To do it back in those pre–Veterans Administration days, I needed to find a doctor to approve me. It was not given since I was nearly sixty at the time and had to have a health exam before I was given permission. I was approved for a minimum dose and soon was allowed to pursue a life changing hormonal program. Overall, the hormones turned out of be a wonderful gift to my inner self and allowed her to sync up her old male external male self with her strong feminine self to make a more complete human being for the first time in my life.

It turned out, my life of being selfish was the only way I could escape the male life I was born into. It was amazing how quickly my mental health recovered and for the first time in my life, I felt happy. The weight taken off my shoulders was amazing.

 

Friday on my Mind

 

Image from Kelly Sikkema 
on UnSplash. 

It is Friday and the day my Veteran’s Administration LGBTQ group meets…maybe.

I say maybe the orange TACO in Washington is still attempting to cut back staff at the Dayton, Ohio VA where the group is located. I became semi-concerned last week when the moderator did not end the meeting the way they always do. I wondered at the time if they were not telling us something. Then, this week, my fears grew when I received none of the advanced reminders for the virtual meeting. It is the only support group I have really enjoyed, so I would hate to see it go. Especially to someone like tRumpt. We shall see. Happily, my fears were put aside for another week because I just received my call in texts from the VA.

Also, summer has finally arrived here in Southwestern Ohio and with it, my chance to go through my wardrobe and pick out the items I can wear. The problem I have is, I am not supposed to be out in the sun because it increases the iron levels in my body past an unhealthy point. Since I have tried to increase my walks by a substantial amount, finding any long-sleeved tops which are lite weight and comfortable for my walks, is difficult to do. Having the neighborhood see me in the same couple of long-sleeved shirts in hot weather may be enough to attract unwanted attention.

Speaking of unwanted attention, I made a comment about pre-opt transgender women using women’s locker rooms to shower and change in. My example comes from a protest a couple of years ago in Xenia, Ohio which is a conservative little town not far from me. I had a comment from Pammie asking me why I chose only “pre-opt” and not “post-opt” trans women in my comment. First, thanks for the comment and my answer is a difficult one to write.  Because in many ways it will make me seem like a hypocrite.

How? Because I believe gender is between the ears and sex is between the legs but not too much of the rest of the public. It’s no wonder the trans woman was told to leave when she was in the women’s locker room, naked. Perhaps also, I could not imagine showing my body in a semi-public space for all other women to see. If they had any questions, I was a transgender woman, my nudity would wipe out any questions since I am pre-opt. Which means, I have had no gender surgeries. I think also, post opt trans women should feel more comfortable in their bodies. But that is up to them! I hope that answers the question.

On a positive note, my wife Liz and I are going through with plans to take a tour this fall up through Boston to Maine. The trip includes riding Amtrak as well as a couple of other dinner trains. Since I am a huge rail fan, I cannot wait for the trip. Hopefully, this time, I will not catch Covid and end up in a hospital far from home. Which is what happened to me last winter when we went to the Florida Keys.

Closer to now, my daughter is planning a big graduation party for the three grads in her family which Liz and I have been invited to. In addition to the graduation of my oldest grandchild from Ohio State, my son-in-law is graduating with a MBA from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and my youngest grandchild is graduating from high school. I feel old! But seriously, I am obsessed with what I am going to wear. I am thinking about wearing my yellow print maxi dress which would be very comfortable and would fit well because of the diet I have been on. But I still have some time to think about it since it is not until the July 4^th weekend.

Thanks to all of you for reading along every day and taking the time out to comment on my posts, your input makes it all so worthwhile.

Plus, as I said, the VA support group meeting is on for another week and I will let you know if something exciting happens.

 

 

 

 

Women's Spaces

 

Image from Tim Mossholder
on UnSplash.

As far as being included in the so-called women’s spaces in the world, the women’s restroom is the crown jewel of inclusiveness.

When I was in my earliest stages of transitioning into my transgender womanhood, being “allowed” to use the women’s room, seemed to be an impossible dream. What went on behind the closed doors of the women’s room was so special anyway? As destiny would have it, I was to find out. My journey began when I started to become a regular in the sports bars I write so much about. The nearest ones to my home were nearly half an hour away, so I needed to time my restroom visits carefully, once I summoned the courage to use them. You see, I had to because of the amount of beer I was drinking. One led to another. When I drank, alcohol gave me the courage to be more confident about myself but on the other hand I needed to go more often.

As I gathered my courage to use the women’s room, I tried my best to time my visits so it would be empty.  Sometimes I was successful and other times I was not, so I did my best to see and learn from what other cisgender women were doing in their “sacred” space. Most of the women I encountered were just there to do their business, wash their hands and touch up their makeup. Quickly they were gone.

For the most part, the first lesson I learned was to look other women in the eye and give them a greeting with a smile. Which would have been a huge no no in the men’s room. From then on, it was just a matter of having the proper restroom necessities handy to ensure I was able to follow proper etiquette. I made sure my cell phone was always handy in my purse so I could use it in case I needed to wait in line for a stall. I even went so far as to carry an extra small amount of tissue paper, in case I needed to loan it out to a desperate fellow user in the next stall.

From my days in the bar/restaurant business I knew how women were not always the pristine humans in a restroom they claim to be, so I knew to look before I sat down to check for any wet spots or worse. I was also careful to always check for a hook to hang my purse on, so I did not have to put it on the floor. A sure sign of a gender intruder.

Through it all, I did not see or participate in any of the brief gossip sessions I encountered. Except for one memorial evening when I needed to use the restroom in one of the bars Liz and I went to. When I went in, the restroom was tiny and packed with women talking about a certain man. As my luck would have it, one evil looking woman was blocking my way to a toilet stall I needed to use in the worst way. Without physically moving her, I needed to stare her down and say excuse me as she let me by. By this time, I did not care what she thought of me, and my revenge was coming. When I finished my business in the stall, I came out to wash my hands and check my makeup. In the meantime, she had moved to a spot near the electric hand dryer which I needed to use. As luck would have it, she was slouching against the wall near the dryer, and I was able to direct the air flow towards her hair. Naturally, she did not enjoy her new hairstyle, and I got my revenge.

I was not as successful as the time I mentioned when I was first visiting women’s rooms. Even though I tried to be a regular in the venues I visited and had no problems with using the room, I did have the police called on me twice a long time ago. To this day, I still have negative feelings about those police calls. Specifically, the one where I was called a pervert. I was deeply hurt but ended up being able to report the woman who ended up owning her own hair salon to the Dayton, Ohio LGBTQ alliance for being an anti-transgender business.

These days, here in my native Ohio, the Republican bills banning all restroom usage by transgender women and trans men are currently in court battles to determine their legality. Whatever happens, it has been decades since I have used a men’s room, and I will be damned if I will ever go back. Besides, using the men’s room would subject me to bodily harm which I certainly don’t need.

The bottom line (no pun intended) to all of this is, be careful when you use the women’s room and know the written and unwritten rules of the room. Above all, your basic confidence in yourself will be an integral part of your experience.

My disclaimer and limits on all of this comes with when a pre-opt trans woman attempts to use a women's only locker room. I can understand all the problems which comes with doing this and I agree. It should be a women's only space.  

 

 

Loneliness

 

Image from Engin Arkyurt
on UnSplash. 

Growing up as I transitioned from my unwanted male birth gender into my feminine one, often I was intensely lonely. The mirror was no replacement for real people.

Since I was still in the pre-internet generation, I found it impossible to reach out and socialize with any others with similar gender issues. I mean, how strange was it that I wanted to be a girl anyway? To make matters worse, the thought of who I should be dominated my daily thinking. I separated myself from the rest of the world my age. I lived in a rural area with very few friends to start with, so I had very few potential friends to begin with. To combat my problems, I did the usual male reaction and internalized everything since I had no choice on coming out to my parents.

It wasn’t until I learned of the “Tranvestia” publication and Virginia Prince that I learned there might be a light of my gender tunnel which was not the train. I learned maybe an entire life of loneliness was not in store for me. I eagerly read of all the other pretty transvestites in the pages who managed to even stay married and have a career. Life went on for me in the 1960’s and then, all of the sudden, I had bigger problems ahead than wanting to be a girl. At that time, the draft for the Vietnam War had me directly in its crosshairs, with very few alternatives to consider. One of the main ones was what I was going to do concerning my gender challenges. Somehow, I knew the drill sergeants in Army basic training were not going to allow miniskirts as part of the uniform.

Making the best of a bad situation, I enlisted for three years to attempt being included in the American Forces Radio and Television Service and thanks to a couple contacts I developed with my congressman, I was fortunate enough to make it and left home for my three-year tour.

In the Army, I was anything but lonely and my confidence as a person increased, but at the same time my inner woman suffered. I resorted to my old habit of daydreaming of what I would do to make myself the most attractive woman I could following my military discharge. I even dreamed of which new car I would buy to show up my fiancé who deserted me when I had to join the Army. Instead of receiving mail from home from a girlfriend or lover, all I had was me and the letters I received from mom. The forced teamwork activities of basic training kept my mind off my basics for the most part. Was I a man or a woman. Certainly, basic was no place to figure it out. I needed to be the best man I could be to get by.

Time went by and I was awarded a spot with AFRTS which in turn, kept me out of most of heavy-duty Army duties. I was sent to Thailand, then Germany so I was able to see and sample two other cultures. Courtesy of Uncle Sam. Best yet, I was able to fight off my loneliness and even met my first wife and mother of my child in Germany where she was also serving at the time.

I suppose you can say I became quite self-contained as a person by the time I was discharged by the Army. I even went as far as coming out to my closest friends as a transvestite and my mom when I arrived home. I was successful with my friends who did not care and rejected by mom who wanted to send me to a psychiatrist. We never mentioned my gender issues again until she passed away. Sadly, she never knew (or accepted) she had a daughter instead of a son.

When I entered the time of my life when I finally learned and embraced the idea, I was transgender, I entered an entirely different set of being lonely, primarily because everything in my life was in question including my sexuality. I quickly discovered on the nights I went out to be alone, I was attracting much more female attention than male. Which I loved. I just needed to be careful where I went and who I talked to being a single trans woman alone. After a couple of close calls, I started to take more precautions and became safer.

I finally emerged from my loneliest period of my life, which I call my dark time, with new women friends and even a new wife in my life. Who I am still with to this day.

Sadly, I still carry the scars of my lonely times in my life, and I am still very guarded with others. I have a regular reader by the name of “Georgette” who wrote in and said our transitions never end. I am sure my transition from my lifetime of loneliness will never end either. But as far as the entire transgender community as a whole goes, I know I am fortunate.

Climbing Walls

JJ Hart

 When I transitioned from male to the feminine person I was all along, I hit many walls.

As it turned out, some were short walls and easy to climb, and some were almost insurmountable. The problem quickly became which were which. Very early on, when life was simpler, the act of applying eye makeup initially presented itself as a major hurdle, or wall. Once I conquered that challenge, I was able to move on to bigger and better things. Little did I know, I would be facing bigger walls to climb. A few were so tall I could barely see my dream of living fulltime as a transgender woman at all.

Leaving my safe yet dark gender closet and trying my hand at living as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman in public suddenly presented me with many new walls to climb. Iniitally, there was the omnipresent pressure of presenting properly in public as a woman. To do it, I needed to overcome how my old male self-thought I should look and change it to how my femininized self knew how I had to look to blend in with her cisgender counter parts. Plus, I needed to do it on a regular basis as people were starting to remember me. There were no more changing names to fit a new wig I was wearing. At least I needed to understand that even though strangers knew I was not a cisgender woman, I needed to prove I was a person who was nice to know and got along in the world. Most of all, I was not some sort of a freak, and I needed to remember in the overwhelming number of cases, I was the first and only transgender woman the public had ever met.

The frustrating part of this time of my life came when I was taking a step forward towards climbing another wall, then slid back down when I hit it. I was rapidly losing all the press on nails I bought as I was trying to climb. I seemingly always had problems with moving like a woman. No matter how much I tried, I still ended up moving like a stiff football player in public when I walked into a venue. I worked long and hard to correct the problem and finally succeeded to an extent. Putting femininized self into motion was a problem so large, it was only topped by the communication problems I was having dealing with the public. Basically, I was scared to death of talking to anyone. It was particularly frustrating when I began to talk to other women, who I very much wanted to be friendly with.

On the other hand, men were not a problem at all, since for the most part, they left me alone. The problem was partially solved when I took feminine vocal lessons and the rest with pure practice. Finally, before I came off being unfriendly with other women, I just gave up, relaxed and did the best I could to enjoy and learn from the conversations I was having.

Before I knew it, the walls were coming down and I was gaining the all-important confidence I needed to reach my lifetime dreams of being a woman on my own terms. My terms became rather obvious over time. No major gender surgeries which I thought were too expensive and risky for a person my age of sixty. I would just have to take all my learned experiences out of the closet, put them together and do the best I could.

Another of one of my remaining tallest walls was doing more for my inner self. I solved it by becoming eligible for gender affirming hormones. My initial thought was the changes I would experience would be external, not internal. It turned out, the internal changes were more immediate and far reaching than the external changes. In fact, I can and should write an entire blog post about my changes on HRT. Briefly, I entered an entirely, the new, softer world. Suddenly, I could cry, and my senses improved. Perhaps the biggest one was I was more susceptible to changes in temperature. I learned all those years of thinking women were faking it when they were cold was true. When I was reaching for my coat on a chilly evening.

Certainly, HRT helped to tear down most of the final walls in my gender journey. I say most because I do not think all my walls will ever be totally gone. After all, I have lived most of my life as a man with all the resultant experiences and privilege. No matter what I do what is left of him will still be with me. His former life will always be with me. I just need to learn from him and conquer all the walls he put up in protest.

Pride Month

 

Image from William
Fonteneau on
UnSplash. 

These days, specifically, Pride Month means many different things to many different people.

Of course, the deluge of bigotry set off by the orange Taco felon in chief, has emboldened gender bigots everywhere to come out from under their rocks and attack the LGBTQ community as a whole and the transgender community specifically. If you are still in your closet, the bigotry probably has given you pause to consider where to go next with your gender transition, and should you attend a local Pride celebration at all.

Years ago, when I first began to check out Prides on my own, I was not happy with the number of drag queens I saw who ended up representing the transgender community if they were trying to or not. Then there were the cross dressers teetering around on their painful high heels, just to experience a day out. Overall, I saw precious few transgender women like me.

Fortunately, as the years flew by, my views on Pride began to change too. I began to see more and more trans women in the crowd. All the way to the parade marshal’s being transgender also. To me, it finally meant, we as a group were finally claiming our rightful spot under the LGBTQ umbrella, rather than always being left out in the rain. I finally reached a point where I could attend Pride and have a good time with my lesbian friends.

Bringing this all back into the present, it does not matter much what my prior Pride experiences were, it is how you feel about going today, or this month. Of course, there are safety concerns with so many crazies out and about in today’s world. Sadly, it only takes one to ruin it for the rest of us. Also, my mobility issues have severely limited my ability to go at all. So, I cannot go and be seen without lots of pain. I feel too, I did my part earlier in life so others can today.

It could be a decision to attend Pride these days is as personal as it has ever had been. Around here (Cincinnati), there are Prides every weekend. From very big to very small. All give the LGBTQ community a chance to be themselves and mingle with other like-minded individuals. Through rain and shine, I cannot remember never having a great time. From doing table work with the transgender-cross dresser support group I was a part of to going on gay bar pub crawls with Liz on a bus, we tried to do it all. Then there was the time my lesbian friends and I all got together and made the trip to Columbus, Ohio from Dayton to go the biggest Pride in Ohio. Great times were had by all, and I gained confidence as a transgender woman by trying it.

It should be noted, I did not do all this suddenly, and I needed to work my way up to the fun over the years. It is easy to say, but if I did not look out of my closet door and wonder what it would be like to go to a Pride, and try, I would have missed a big piece of my life as I transitioned into transgender womanhood. On the other hand, going to Pride has become an increasingly personal decision with the country where it is now. I know quite a few readers have expressed to me where they are in their transition and how attempting something like going to Pride would be a big risk. The fun part is, for once, you don’t have to worry about passing because people watching is one of the big sports at Pride. Just find a comfortable seat and enjoy the view.

Whatever decision you should decide to make, just make sure you are safe and comfortable in what you decide. Be prepared to collect loads of information from many LGBTQ friendly organizations. Some of which may help you in the future. In the past, at a Cincinnati Veterans Administration Pride (when they were allowed to have them) a man stopped at our table for information and later almost immediately started their transition. So, you never know.

The only other words of wisdom I have is, wear comfortable shoes! I did not for one year and paid the price. Regardless of the party atmosphere at many Prides, it is a solemn occasion when you consider the month was born out of Stonewall Bar protests in New York City. Basically, the drag queens revolted, and change began. It may take another revolt to do it again. In the meantime, enjoy your Pride month. Even if you are doing it in your closet.

 

 

Redemption

 

Female Impersonator
Kim Christy. 

Redemption is a largely vague term, and I am oversimplifying it for use here, but I do use it to describe the very few humans are ever given the chance to stop our lives and start all over again.

Fortunately, transgender women and transgender men are part of the very few who can put the brakes on their life, stop and then start over. In my life, I was always trying to outrun my gender dysphoria and was usually going too fast to slow down. Let alone stop. Another problem was, when I did slow down enough to look around, I became scared and then sped up again so essentially, I was just chasing my own tail.

As I did, I just eventually learned, I was just where I belonged. On my way to my dream of living full time as a transgender woman. I can not stress enough, how paranoid I was of ever reaching my dream. The massive hurdles of family (spousal approval), friends and jobs always come to mind.

Redemption for me also meant when I transitioned into a feminine world, I needed to do it in a graceful way. I certainly did not want to be one of the mean, frustrated older women I knew in my life. I always thought those women suffered from large amounts of testosterone gained in their lives when their estrogen naturally goes down. I had already suffered from testosterone poisoning through much of my life and never wanted to go back. I was fortunate when I learned my inner feminine woman believed the same ideas I had, and she was very gracious when she was finally released to lead her own life. She had the chance to experience the world in a positive way and did. She was able to get along well as she sought out the guidance, she needed to enter a dark new world and give it light anyway.

Fear turned out to be my powerful motivator and, as difficult as it was, I used it to my advantage. I guess it worked because my world opened in a magical way. I also can’t stress enough how my appearance only was a starting point, and I had to use it only to open very basic doors. Then when I went through those doors, I needed to begin to carve out a real life as a transgender woman. Much of my new life started when I picked up my dog and moved in with my future wife Liz in Cincinnati. My biggest example was when Liz and I began to go to various “Meet Up” groups and I began to meet strangers for the first time in different settings. I went to craft groups, writer’s groups and even a knitting group or two. The bottom line was I was able to build my confidence in my new self, and I highly recommend “Meet Up” groups if any exist in your area.

Through it all, I was prepared for rejection but only really received it once when Liz and I went to a lesbian Valentine’s Dance years long ago. At the dance, I was busy minding my own business when this evil woman comes up to me and started to be very nasty. She kept asking me what my “real” name was. It took a while to rid myself of her bigoted self, but I managed to before Liz came back with appetizers from the serving line. In all the time I had dealing with the lesbian community, this woman was the only gender bigot I ever had to directly deal with. I am/was fortunate.

I feel redemption was not as severe as it could have been. During my life in my male years, I did my best to be kind to others, especially in the LGBTQ community all the way to hiring a transgender waitress at one of the restaurants I managed. Even though she was a natural for the job, when I left, the next manager ended up running her off the job. I also had to deal with bigoted guests in another restaurant I managed when they refused to be waited on by a gay waiter. Instead, I told them to leave. Anytime I could, I tried to pay my experiences forward to a time I would need it.

Another very important set of lessons I learned by working in the food business was how cisgender women navigated their worlds when they were basically under stress. Or, how important it was for the women to form cliques when men formed teams. The importance of being accepted by an alpha female was not lost on me when I transitioned into transgender womanhood.

Speaking of transgender, today is the birthday of my oldest grandchild who also happens to be a trans graduate of The Ohio State University. They are pursuing a career as a civilian in the Navy this fall, so I am very proud! They are a nuclear engineer.

Happy Birthday.

Also, thanks to Susie Jay for writing in and commenting on the blog! It’s good to have you along. I agree with your question about Kim Christy. I had forgotten about them as a female impersonator. It's a term I saw in the Wikipedia reference on Kim. Been awhile since I have used it.  

 

Coming Home

 

JJ Hart (Center) Wife Liz on Left, 
Daughter on Right. 

The process of crossing the gender border from male to female, always felt as if I was coming home.

From the beginning, my dual genders clashed, causing me to often sacrifice my already fragile mental illness when I was diagnosed as being bi-polar. Naturally, it was difficult to separate one issue from another when I became depressed and just wanted to curl up in a ball and left alone. On most occasions, I could just cross dress in front of the mirror and take my mind temporarily off my trip to find my true home.

The trip proved to be much longer than I ever thought it would. I never considered it would take me on a fifty-year odyssey. Complete with too many blind curves and dead ends to mention. If I was to attempt to mention any of the major problems I had with my transition was there would be so many more transitions than one. The gender border crossing was so complex, it would take me several different ways at once. I finally came to the point where I was simply trying to raise the bar of living as a transgender woman every time I went out in public. In my earliest days, it meant concentrating on more than just my feminized appearance. I needed to put my appearance, no matter how good or bad, into motion. What good would it be to look like an attractive woman if I was moving like a linebacker.

Every time I made a move forward in my transition, I could imagine myself living my gender dream. Which in most cases scared me more than anything else. What would my life be like without all the male privilege I worked so hard to earn. Perhaps the only stable idea I learned was I was much more than the casual cross dresser who just wanted to put on a dress for certain occasions. As suspected from my earliest days of admiring myself in the mirror as a girl. I wanted to do much more such as be a girl or at the least find out if the public would accept me as one.

I put many hours of work into my femininized presentation. I tried and tried to get my makeup right, even to the point of losing nearly fifty pounds on a diet I undertook. When I lost weight, I was able to fit into my stylish clothes, so it was a huge win for me. Along with the intense skin care routine I followed. Suddenly, I discovered I could use less make up and prove less was more. All these moves proved coming home indeed may be reality if I kept working hard enough. For the first time in my life, I made a concerted effort to achieve a very real goal. My transgender womanhood.

As I said, coming home involved several other minor and major transitions. I began to do so called womanly duties such as grocery shopping into my days when I could. I also added gift shopping at Christmas (and other times) to my time as a woman. Through it all, I was learning how the world would possibly accept me when I was able to make it home. All these actions showed me the feasibility of proceeding with my gender plans, though many questions remained unanswered.  Such as, what would I do about the basics of my life such as what to do about my wife, extended family, friends and having a basic income to live on.

It was around this time when destiny set in to provide me with major answers in my life. Tragically my second wife passed away, at the age of fifty, along with most all of my very few male friends. As far as family was concerned, my daughter stepped up to be my most steadfast ally, until my third wife Liz stepped into my life. Finally, I learned if I waited a relatively short period of time, I could take an early retirement on Social Security and solve my financial issues. The only loss I sustained was with my brother and his extended family who roundly rejected me. So much for close family ties.

When I made it to my true home, it was like day and night. It was as if a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. My mental health improved with the help of therapy, and I was better able to face my life on a more equal basis than I ever had before. Surprisingly, I had very little re-arranging to do to live in my new house. It seemed my inner female self-had been not so patiently waiting for her chance to take over my life. Once she earned her spot in the public eye, she knew exactly what to do to survive.

 

 

Adjusting to Gender Change

 

Image from Fab Lentz on Unsplash.

Adjustment to gender change was never easy for me.  

Two of the biggest initial problems came when I realized that I had too few feminine characteristics to help me start. Being seen as a so called “normal” male did help me keep the bullies away but provided me no help when I was attempting to cross dress as a girl for the mirror. Plus, all along I knew the problem of looking like a girl was just going to get worse as I grew older and enter puberty. In the worst way, I wanted to add curves to my body and not the masculine angles I was getting. By this time, I was building a secure dark gender closet to protect me from the world, and it saved me many times from being caught.

The other big problem was, I did not know what I was doing when I was trying to femininize myself. I had none of the peer support (or criticism) from the girls around me to aid me in the way I appeared in the public’s eye. My makeup alone I feared made me look like a clown in drag. It took me years of work in the mirror before I had the confidence to go out in public as a cross dresser or novice transgender woman. Which was just beginning to be understood.

I also needed years to develop the courage to even try to go out into the world. Eventually, after quite a bit of failure, I experienced enough success to finally build confidence to build myself to a point I could own who I was. Being true to myself meant entering a room and feeling confident in my identity.  It also meant when I was ridiculously dressed as a teen and was getting laughed at or attracting unwanted attention, I still had to own it until I could make it home and change. From that point forward, I began to seriously adjust my wardrobe and fashion choices to dress to blend in with the other women around me. By doing so, I finally left the male in myself behind. I understood women ran the world in their own way, and to enter, I needed to change my thought pattern about my gender life significantly.

Out went the very short miniskirts and shorts and in came leggings, boots and jeans. I was haunting the thrift stores so often, I thought a few of them were beginning to know me. Ironically, I received pushbacks from others in the cross-dressing community for my fashion choices. Several went out of their way to tell me I could wear pants anytime I wanted as a man, why would I want to wear pants when I was a woman. I came to the point where I responded I did not need clothes to define my transgender womanhood. Or my gender is between my ears, and my sex is between my legs. Plus, it was not as if I was that butch when I dressed as a woman. I normally always wore my heels and makeup with my slacks and blouses when I went out. I did not know it at the time, but I was developing my later life as a femme transgender lesbian.

As stubborn as I always was, I still was insecure in my own way and needed reinforcement in my transgender womanhood. That is when going out to the new venues I had discovered helped me along. Repeating the same movements repeatedly as a trans woman, helped me along towards my goal of living fulltime and I could see the results of my efforts in life very personally in the public’s eye. When I discovered my lifelong dream of living as a woman could be within reach, I needed to go for it.

At that point in time, my battle of genders really set in. To put it mildly. My male self was not ready to give up what remained of his life at the age of sixty. Essentially, he wanted to know if I could afford to make the transition and give up all the white male privilege, he had worked a lifetime to build up. On the other hand, my up-and-coming feminine side was arguing at my age, it was now or never as far as a gender transition was concerned. The hardest part of my gender work was already done.

I had spent the greatest part of fifty years having to adjust to gender change, and I was more than ready to attempt the final jump to start HRT or gender affirming hormones to aid in the process. Your results may vary but, in my case, my entire life was never easy. As I view it now, it was worth the effort to adjust to a gender change.

 

It Never Got Old

 

Key West, Florida on Vacation. 

All the decades I spent of my life on the journey from male to female never became old and boring.

Even though I spent decades to arrive in my transgender womanhood, surprisingly, the trip never got old. Perhaps it was because I was so entrenched in my male existence and could not get out. Certainly, I knew I did not want to receive any participation trophies simply because I was semi successful as a man to place on my imaginary mantel in my mind. I learned quickly where my true learnings were with my gender and my search for truth never was not exciting. I can vividly remember all the times when I first went out shopping as my true self and thought I was accepted as a woman by the clerks I encountered. When, in fact, they were accepting me for my money first.

It did not matter to me at the time because I was scared to death and was just trying to find my way in a new world I had only every dreamed of. So, this was what it was like to shop as a woman? I loved it. I also loved it when I was able to present well enough to relax more and be brave enough to expand my horizons. I began to stop for lunch on my shopping trips so I would have more one on one time with the public at large. Instead of just going to a big bookstore just to browse, I started to stop for a cup of coffee and to use the rest room for the first time in my life as a transgender woman. Through it all, I was surviving and thriving and most importantly, my life suddenly never was old again.

From there, I started to go out at night and discovered a whole new world to be involved with. This was my much-publicized time when I gave up on male gay bars, and began to seek out more venues I could enjoy myself in. The bottom line was, if I was going to be discriminated for being trans in a gay bar, I could find somewhere else to spend my money. When I did find other venues, my life really began to be exciting and new, it never got old being accepted in a new venue which normally featured big cold beers along with big colorful television screens to watch sports on.

From that point forward, life really began to speed up on me. It seemed every night, something new was happening and I was learning the nuances of being able to cross the gender border. I believe I was not convincing anyone I was a cisgender woman but on the other hand, I was a woman with a different background. The distinction became an important one for me to have to succeed in the direction I wanted to go. The direction of course, was the path I was on to leave my closet permanently and join the world as my true self who should have been in control the entire time. Even though the path had plenty of dead ends and sharp curves, following it never got old.

Since my path never got old, I knew I was on the right one for the first time in my life. The new freedom I felt propelled me when I was doubting which direction I should take in my life. The vibe I felt was real and I decided to risk all the materialistic items I had as a male would be risked and could possibly go away. Which meant everything, including spouses, friends, and employment had to change. Naturally, I spent hours, days and even weeks agonizing on what I was going to do.

The fact which kept coming back to me was, I had gone to far down the femininized path I was on to ever go back to the male life I had known. I even realized, I was much more than a cross dresser or a man who liked to look like a woman when he could. Or I was sliding down a very slippery dangerous gender slope towards a very steep cliff and I had no idea of how I would land.

It turned out I had nothing to worry about. With the help of several women friends, I had made along with gender affirming hormones, my landing was surprisingly soft. Even after I did, I still could not relax. Being comfortable with myself as a transgender woman proved not to be an option. The whole process never became old, and I could not live without it.

 

 

The Gender Comfort Zone

Image from Thomas
Vitali on UnSplash.

 It took decades to reach a point where I could say I was comfortable with my gender issues. The point where I could look at myself in the mirror and say I was satisfied with the image I saw.

Before that time, I always just saw my old male face staring back at me. Finally, I glimpsed the beginning of seeing a femininized version of myself. I had hope for the future. The frustrating part was trying to figure out what to do with my new gender life. Up to that point, I felt my gender desires for the most part was unreachable.

Even still. I worked very hard to take myself out of the world of being male and did see glimpses of seeing my authentic feminine self-hiding behind my everyday boring life. Before long, I was spending every spare moment thinking of the next time I could work on my femininized life. Little did I know at that time how long and difficult my gender journey would be. Up to that point, I considered a woman’s life to be mostly tied in with their ability to wear pretty clothes. Along with the seasonal changes to their wardrobes. At the time, my second wife was telling me the truth about pursuing my dream. In other words, a woman’s life was so much more than how you looked.

I found out the hard way, she was correct when I started to enter the world as a transgender woman. I needed to really begin to study the cisgender women around me if I was ever to be successful. I did not know it at the time; she meant learning all the layers of existence women go through in their lives. Such as having the man she was married to (me) go away because he wanted to be a woman. I have the utmost respect for her because she put up with me when she did during our twenty-five-year marriage before she passed away. From a totally unexpected massive heart attack. Tragically, the only unwilling gender mentor I had in my life was suddenly gone.

I ended up making the best of my new life without her and ultimately did find my comfort zone as a transgender woman. The most difficult time in reaching my new zone (as I always point out) was when I was forced to communicate one on one or face to face with another woman. I was so scared to speak I tried not to talk at all. Quickly I learned that idea only portrayed me as being either unfriendly or worse yet, bitchy. No way to make new friends as I found my new comfort zone.

Once I began to arrive totally at my transgender womanhood, I was unbelievably relieved. Even to the point of wondering if I could finally be happy for the first time in my life. Happiness was never a priority in my family, and it took me shedding my old male life to find how it was to be happy.

On occasion, I think I oversimplify the transition process I (or other transgender women or men) go through just to live their lives. Especially, these days when so many roadblocks are thrown up in our lives by the orange hater in the White House. But that is another topic all together, since my views are known.

Wherever you may be in your life of gender transition, don’t despair too far if your closet is dark and locked to the world. You never know when your life can change, and you can achieve your own level of gender comfort. Plus, your level of comfort could be vastly different to mine or anyone else’s. There is no right or wrong when it comes to any of these.

It has also seemed to me; I leased my old male life and was simply looking for my deposit back when I was allowed to finally go behind the gender curtain and cross the border. What the ciswomen gatekeepers did not tell me was I not going to get much of my deposit back I had built up as my old male self. Male privilege was gone, along with any security I had built up. In the end, I was able to give up and sacrifice all I had lost in order to enter the comfort zone I had gained.

 

 

The Inner Girl I Never Knew

 

JJ Hart, Club Diversity, Columbus, Ohio. 

As I was growing up, the girl I saw in the mirror did not seem to be quite real. Mainly because I was still caught in the male world I was born into. It seemed the more I struggled with my reflection, the more depressed I became. It did not seem fair I could not enjoy all the perceived benefits I observed from the girls around me. I say perceived, because it was not until I was able to go behind the gender curtain to see life was not always easier for the women around me.

Life moved on and I discovered always being the pursued by the opposite gender (males) was not often good. The problem was being pursued by the correct male. Not a scary, creepy or toxic one. Another problem I had learning from the females around me was I was so very shy and afraid to talk to any girls at all. So, I watched the dating scene from afar and wondered why I couldn’t be a part of it.

The main problem I had other than being shy was the gender dysphoria I was always suffering from. I was riding a dual edged sword. On one edge, I was struggling to meet the demands of my parents as their oldest son, and on the other hand, was the fact that some days when I woke up, I did not know what gender I wanted to be that day.  Problems I would not have wished upon my worst enemy. Finally, I did the only thing I knew how to do to survive, I went exploring. Or I should say, as I was growing up, I saw the girl looking back and then my transgender side went exploring.

My male self-stayed home as my feminine side attended transvestite – cross dresser mixers searching for answers to my true self. Ironically, the mixers just added more questions than answers. I discovered more layers in the cross-dresser community than I imagined existed. There was everything from male admirers at the party, all the way to impossibly feminine transsexuals I never knew existed. The biggest surprise was that my inner girl was again having a hard time fitting in.

One of the problems was, the transgender term or the knowledge around it had not been widely known at the time. When I finally heard of it, I thought it really described me, and I began to research it more. The tipping point came as I began to explore the public more and more. As I began to experience a new life I only dreamed of, the more natural I felt, and my missing girl was finally freeing herself from the confining world of my closet’s mirror. At that point, my pressure of transgender womanhood began to increase. It was less and less a fun game and became a very serious journey. The real reason why was the trip to my dream was becoming possible and was I going to risk everything my male self-had worked so hard to achieve.  

Nothing turned out to be easy as it seemed as I entered the world as a transgender woman. My focus needed to be dealing with other women on a one-on-one everyday basis. Over a relatively short space of time, I grew into the woman I needed to become to survive. Or my inner girl was growing up into a woman and I needed the gatekeepers to allow me to play in the alpha girls’ sandbox. Very soon, I reached the point of no return, and I had lost most of my past anyhow, so I had nothing to lose. My second wife had passed away along with many of my close male friends, so there was no better time to put my old male self completely in my past.

For the longest time, I never understood what my inner girl was observing and learning from. I found out when she finally had the chance to emerge into the world, she knew what to do. I thought in a small amount of time, she made a major gender adjustment and began to enjoy the dream I had attained. By I, I mean my male self was needed to propel the changes I went through. He provided many of the materialistic necessities I needed such as fashion, hair and makeup to get by. At the least, the entire process was very complex when I put my life into a gender mixer and hoped for the best.

There were plenty of times when I had the opportunity to purge my feminine belongings and return to a male life I never really wanted. When I kept coming back, I finally learned my inner girl was screaming at me to do the right thing. The right thing was to live out the remainder of my life as a transgender woman. Destiny led me to success.