When Every day is Day One

 

JJ Hart

We all know how difficult being a transgender woman or transgender man can be. For years, it seems as if you are starting on day one when you are trying to catch up with ciswomen who have lived a feminine existence their entire life.

For me, my journey started when on certain mornings when I did not know if I was going to be a boy (physically) or a girl (mentally) that day. My thoughts often came from vivid dreams I had from the night before that I was living a life as a pretty girl. I just couldn't shake the idea that something was wrong in my life, and I couldn't do much about it except occasionally cross dress in front of the mirror in mom’s clothes and makeup. When I did, early on I needed a lot of help with my makeup and everyday when I tried something new on my face, I was starting all over again. Plus, it did not help that most every time I cross-dressed, it was an adventure in not getting caught. Between my parents and my slightly younger brother, earning my private time to be on my own and be a girl was difficult.

It took me years to shake the idea that every day as a transwoman was still day one in my life. Mainly because, I was still learning so much from all the ciswomen I was around in my new world. I had plenty of stop signs on my gender path I needed to negotiate as I made my way towards my dream of living full-time as a transfeminine person. Some of the stop signs were busy four way stops when I really needed to stop, look both ways, and make the difficult decision to proceed. Looking back now, I don’t know how I managed not to have any major collisions with anyone but my second wife who unfortunately had a front row seat in my transition from just cross-dressing on a part-time basis all the way to considering HRT or gender affirming hormones as a transgender woman.

What kept me going was my deep-seated knowledge that what I was doing was right. All the cross-dressing I was doing was just practice towards a bigger, brighter future as a trans woman. Looking at it that way was certainly difficult, but it was all I could cling to if I was to keep my fragile mental health intact. As my wife told me when we were fighting about my gender that I made a terrible woman. So, I needed to find out what she meant because she added that she was not talking about appearance which I thought I was doing better with.

I set out at that time to re-dedicate myself to understanding a woman’s life. I was naïve at the time and thought I could learn more while I was still presenting as a man fulltime. Years later, when I had crossed the gender border publicly as a trans woman, I finally was invited back behind the gender curtain so I could learn a lot and not be a terrible woman. For most of you who do not know, my wife unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack after twenty-five years of marriage to me and she never was able to see the better woman I had become. Mainly because my time behind the curtain enabled me to start all over again and mold the new woman, I wanted to be. Including most of all the nuances and the layers a female must live through before she becomes a woman. My inner female was forced to stay back and be dormant for all those decades before she could claim her ultimate gender prize also. She just had to take a vastly different path to get there.

At that point in my life, everyday was day one again when I donated all my male clothes and vowed to never look back again at my male life. Which I ultimately found impossible to do. Male influences built me into the person I had become as a transgender woman and made me stronger in the process. I even brought experiences from the most male dominated part of my life to my gender table as I remembered the days I went through in Army basic training. There was no need to throw away valuable experience I could use in my new life.

It turned out to be the most exciting time of my life when I could finally live my truth in the world. And I was able to forget the dark days of my youth when I began to deeply question what gender I was. Having all the help I did to finally begin to fill out my gender workbook helped me too, even though I was rejected on occasion and needed to start all over again. I urge all of you who are considering a journey in life the way I did, is to be resilient and expect many ups and downs along the way. Most are just learning experiences anyway and can be valuable as you are allowed to play in the girls’ (or boys for you trans guys) sandbox. It takes time and experience for your confidence to grow as you navigate one of the most difficult paths a human being can take.

Slowly but surely, every day will not feel like day one as you get used to living a full-time life you have always dreamed of in a gender world you want to be a part of. For me, it was like taking a great deep breath of fresh air when I was finally checked out and was able to begin the long-awaited HRT which would transform my body outwardly and more intensely, inwardly. My entire being was telling me what took me so long when the male to female feminizing hormones hit my system. But I did not need the hormones to tell me who I was, they were like the icing on my transgender cake and made every day a better day.

 

 

A Trans Girls' WOW is Real

 

Image from Raamin Ka
on Unsplash.

One of the many reasons I kept moving towards my dream of living as a fulltime transfeminine person were the “WOW” experiences I was having.

Of course, I was a fan of the gender euphoria I experienced when I cross dressed in front of the mirror as myself for the first time. The downside was the buzz from the euphoria did not last that long and then I was stuck back in the life of my unwanted male self. Deep down I knew there was much more to what I was doing except putting on pantyhose, makeup and a dress. I just was not ready yet to face my truth in life.

As I got older and more experienced in being a cross-dresser, I began to separate the gender euphoria episodes with the WOW times I had on very rare occasions. I suppose the reason was that I felt the euphoria so much deeper in my soul that I was doing the right thing with my life. It was then, that I began to seek out a term which described my life to me and it just happened to co-inside with the new use of the transgender word. When I first read about it on our new computer, I thought WOW that is me and I finally made a discovery I could really use to feel like I was not alone.

This new thought pattern led me into the belief that I was no longer a man dressed as a woman when I left the house, I was a trans woman of my own experiences capped off by the TGIF Friday’s experience when I gathered the courage to go out one night and mingle with a group of ciswomen just getting off of work at a nearby mall. It turned out to be a first of a kind WOW experience as I was treated fairly and even managed to put my fear aside and stay for a second drink when I pondered the fact that my life would never be quite the same again.

As I followed up on my Friday’s experience, my emphasis began to be on increasing my visibility out of the gay venues and into the straight ones. I WOW ed myself when I was able to be accepted as fast as I was in most of the liberal places I chose to try. Such as sports bars where I could enjoy a large beer and follow my favorite teams. No longer as a man but as a transgender woman when everybody of any worth left me alone. The WOW was real when I followed my basics of never causing any problems, being friendly to the staff and tipping well. It worked for me nearly every time except when I slipped up and tried to go to a couple redneck venues just to see if I could.

I think then, my WOW’s slowed down as I needed to slow down my advance into the world of ciswomen because of negative pushbacks from my male self and my wife. Both of whom did not want to see me as a woman of any type. My male self because he did not want to lose any of the male privilege, he worked so hard to build up, and my wife because she did not want to lose her husband. Both were quality opponents and put up very big fights. At the time, my inner female simply retreated and waited for her chance to live as part of my overall dream. She had temporarily lost the battle but eventually would win the war.

In order to win the war, my feminine self-had to continue to have the courage to carve out a totally new life as a trans woman in the straight venues I mentioned. I had WOW moments when I was even able to communicate effectively with men who were not intimidated by a woman who had left the men’s club. The whole process just helped me to be a better, more rounded person. I figured if I was starting from scratch again in life, I better do my best to do it the right way.

I must have been successful, because I was able (with a little help from destiny) to start a new complete life as a transfeminine person. My biggest WOW I always mention was the small group of diverse women friends I was able to fit into. Most were lesbians but some were not and even one was transgender. The best part was that I was beginning to enjoy my new life immensely and was starting to fit right in as I build in layers of living between the new feminine me and my old male self no one ever knew. Mostly from going to artists’ and writers’ meetups in Cincinnati as a total stranger and sharing my ideas of writing a blog. It all helped me to establish myself as me and help do away with the remaining shyness I had from meeting strangers.

The only real negative I had was a chance meeting with a drunk lesbian bigot who wanted to know my “real” name. The more I attempted to ignore her, the more she would not leave me alone until my future wife Liz came back and ran her off. The whole negative experience happened years ago at a lesbian Valentine’s dance in Cincinnati, but I remember her obvious dislike for me to this day. Certainly, a negative WOW since my relationship with the lesbian community had always been so positive.

As you can tell, my WOW experiences always came from me stepping out of my male gender box and trying new things. Some successful, some not but if I did not try, I would have never known how bright my future could be. My lesson to all of you is to be careful as you follow your own gender journeys, the world is a changing place for all of us and finding our niche is becoming harder. Hopefully, you can stay the course and be successful.

 

 

 

 

 

Who You Going to Call as a Trans Girl

 

My friend Raquel 

One of my biggest problems when I decided to test the world as a new cross-dresser or transgender woman was having no one to ask about my issues. For example, why was I getting “clocked” or read every time I left the mirror and went to the mall. It turned out that the issue was just tied into how I was dressing my male contoured body by not doing my best to blend in. Ciswomen everywhere were laughing at me from my cross-dressing mistakes and ruining my all-important confidence.

As I said, I had absolutely no one to go to, to discuss the problems I was having in the world. I had no mom to try to rein me in in my trans-teen years or a peer group of girls my age for me to copy. As it was when I was mom’s phantom daughter, I ended up wearing makeup and shaving my legs before most of the girls my age were allowed to do it. Mom, for some reason, never looked for the tell-tale signs of being a curious girl from her oldest son.

Skipping ahead quite a bit, my closet was truly dark in the years before the internet when all there was, was Virginia Prince and “Transvestia” or the “Tri-Ess” social mixers I used to attend every time I could. My hope was that I could find a friend or acquaintance that I could get to know to understand our unique gender issues, but it never worked out that way and I still did not have anyone to call with my cross-dressing problems. The only thing I walked away with was I came away with being more confused than ever before. I did not know how many layers of individuals I would be able to meet at the social mixers I was able to attend. Many more levels than the publications I was reading from “Virginia” led me to believe that existed when she was calling her group as one for heterosexual men only. She probably needed to turn a blind eye and ignore all the activity going on beyond the hotel room doors where the mixers were being held. There was most likely different kinds of mixing than Virginia and the “Tri-Ess” groups would have approved of.

All sexuality aside, there was a diverse group of people who attended, all the way from men in dresses with cigars and cowboy hats trying to hide their femininity to the ultra-feminine “A” listers who were on their way to gender alignment surgeries. Neither of which did I fit in with. I was somewhere in between once again with no one to call or hang out with and exchange trans-girl talk.

It turned out, I only made one significant trans friend and that was Raquel before she moved away from our native Ohio to Dallas, Texas. Even if we were on slightly differing transition paths, we still had enough in common to get along and socialize. She was headed towards gender operations and attracting men while I was on the path of staying the same physically and hanging out with lesbian women. Opposites do attract too in the world of transgender women when we keep an open mind about who is on the right path. The whole situation with Raquel briefly gave me a person to call, and I truly appreciated it even though we have not seen each other in person for years as she is still in Dallas and I am with my wife Liz in Cincinnati.

As I bring up Liz and other ciswomen who were instrumental in bringing out my best as a transwoman, my interactions with them brought on an entirely different dynamic. It was not as if I was calling them for advice on my male to female femininization project, they were always there if I needed them. I was still embarking on an intense learning project as I crossed the gender border for the first time. So, I needed their input like how my lesbian friend Kim handled a man harassing her in a sports bar about her “Pittsburgh Steelers” leather jacket. I did not have to call her for her knowledge; it was right there for my taking. Learning is always easier if you are having fun, and I was having a blast.

We transgender women (no matter where you are on your path) begin our lives as adults on the outside looking into to the world of ciswomen we so completely want to be a part of. In my life I went full circle of having my first fiancé dress me head to toe as a woman when I took the time and effort to call her. She ended up holding it against me for the rest of the time we were together and worse yet, I was not that impressed with her makeup job anyhow. In my circle, she was actually the only ciswoman I sought out for help. The rest, I learned the art of femininity by osmosis or by just observing everything my friends were doing and thinking I could do it too.

The main big problem comes when our frail confidence is shattered when someone says we can’t succeed and major setbacks occur. Unless you are fortunate enough to have an understanding spouse or friend to help you through the rough patches, it still is hard to find someone to call. My suggestion at that point is to seek out help from a local LGBTQ group you can interact with. In person or even virtually until you can regain your confidence about your authentic transfeminine self. Where there is a will, there is a way out of the darkest gender closet.

When you do, maybe you can reach the best step ever and be able to pay forward your confidence in life to help others in need. Which is my main goal for writing this blog. I don’t want to see anyone suffering needlessly in their dark closet.

 

The First Time

 

JJ Hart

There are plenty of first times in a person’s life that we can set up on a pedestal and remember. Such as, the first time you had sex or the first time you drove a car can create some memorable experiences.

I venture a guess that we transgender women and transgender men have more than our fair share of first times to look back on. I know I do. For example, I remember vividly the first time I went exploring in my mom’s garment drawers, and deep down something clicked inside me that I was on a new and exciting path I could never get off of. I also remember the first time I drove a car on a country road at the age of fourteen when no one else was around and I remember the first time I had sex with a woman, and she told me that I would never forget her and she was right.

For many reasons, these were the easy firsts to remember other than times such as when I was in the delivery room for the birth of my only child and negative ones such as when I needed to go to Ft. Hayes in Columbus, Ohio for my draft induction physical. Standing in a room full of naked men was not my idea of fun and a first time I did not want to revisit. There were also lesser first times such as graduating college and receiving my honorable discharge from military service that I was proud of but not as much as I was when I started to fill out my gender workbook and begin to advance towards a stable transfeminine future. It was only then that I began to grasp the importance of life’s first times that I was sometimes racing past before I even knew it. I was so bad about not living in the present and appreciating it for what it was. I was always thinking about the future before the present was over.

When I began to search for my feminine self in the world, I needed to stay in the present more than I had ever needed to in the past. If I did not, I would forget what I was trying to do that night as far as being a novice cross-dresser or transgender woman. I could be mirror-ready with my clothes, makeup and hair and still destroy that image with the wrong movements if I became too careless and forgot where and who I was. Who I was, was the most important time of my life as for the first time, I was attempting to see if I could (against all odds) survive a dream run towards my goal of living as a trans woman in a world of ciswomen everywhere.

As I did become successful, my mindset began to change, and I started to think of myself of a transgender woman more than some sort of a casual cross dresser. I knew it was completely a mental move but still a very important one as I scaled the steep walls of my gender path. At the time, the term transgender was just being used more and more, and for the first time in my life I found something that really described who I was. All those years I had gone to those “Tri-Ess” cross-dresser social mixers were wasted because I still came away with the idea that most of the others were not like me. It took me a while, but I finally began to appreciate the individual that I was for the first time. When I began to remove the cross-dresser word from my mental vocabulary, I was beginning to insert the use of woman and inwardly began to refer to myself as a she, became a milestone in my existence because I was coming to the point of understanding for the first time, I was a woman. Just one with a unique background which should be celebrated, not scorned.

My only problem I had with the whole direction I was heading in my life with my feminine self was that the potential I had to hurt others I loved in the process. And if I had followed my instincts and done the male to female transition, would I had been better off in the long run. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I was wasting my life as a man. What was left of it was only the physical image I presented to the world when I worked and when I was around friends. I was still under the impression I needed his male privileges to exist in the world which were nice to have in the short term but had to go for the first time when I decided to transition into a new, exciting transfeminine world.

Not to say the new world did not present constant challenges to not slip back into my old ingrained masculine ways from living nearly fifty years on and off in that world I was born into without a choice of getting out of. It seemed I was in a dark closet I could not get out of until I made more than a few serious efforts such as going out and carving out my own new life with people who knew nothing of my past. For the first time, I made it in a world full of ciswomen who saw nothing wrong with me being behind their gender curtain and it was as if I had always belonged to the new world I was in. Which was true, I had never been able to get there until I took chances and made the effort. Of course, back in those days, the world was in essence a kinder and gentler place with people less inclined to be in others business.

In my male life, I had always been quite guarded because I did not want anyone in my gender business. As I went female, everything changed and I did not mind anyone knowing my big secret. I was a woman of a transgender background, and I found people who respected me for my honesty on how I was living my life. For some reasons, especially lesbians who let me into their world, and socialized with me as we were regulars watching sports in a few big venues and regulars for the first time at lesbian mixers, I was invited too. In fact, often I was a better “mixer” at these socials than my friends were. I was having fun for the first time in a long time in my life.

I was moving so fast, I finally had to slow down and think of how far I was able to come with the help of my small circle of friends and my future wife Liz. I needed to work on staying in the present for the first time in my life I had a present worth living for, not just going through the motions.

Thank you all for staying with me through all my experiences, and responding with claps, comments and suggestions. As I always say, without you all, none of this is worth it to me.

 

 

 

Mother's Day and the Battle for Gender Supremacy

 

Image from Daiga Elaby
on UnSplash.

Before I get started on today’s post, I would like to mention Mother’s Day, and all it means to me. First of all, it gives me the chance to remember all the problems my mom went through to have me. Such as, going through three still born babies before my parents kept trying and had me. Without their determination, I would not be here today. Which is the main reason why I adopted my mom’s first name as my legal name when I changed it years ago.

Plus, even though my mom and I were much alike and fought quite a bit through my youth, I managed to use her as a roll model as I slowly grew into the daughter, she never accepted having. I view her now as a one of kind woman who presented herself to me as an unknowing roll model. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you reading today who may be ciswomen and birthed your own children! We all know how important you are to the world. If your mom is still around, do your best to try to bridge the gender gap. Although I was never able to do it with mine before she passed away years ago.

Now, on to the post for today which has to do with my remaining male gender and how he got in the way of my transfeminine progress in life. I already mentioned the fights I had with my mom as she taught me to fight like she did. Bring anything you could think of to make sure you have at least a decent chance of winning the battle you were in. I think she indirectly taught me valuable lessons about fighting as a girl because I had to resort to being mental and not physical with my fighting.

As it turned out, just the aspect of having fights with other males never materialized much with me as I was growing up. I tried to hide behind liking sports and cars to hide my true love of fashion and makeup to keep the bullies away and for the most part it worked. It also worked when I failed at trying something such as sports, getting beat, and having the chance to run home and soothe my feelings behind one of my favorite dresses and makeup.

This plan was all well and good when I was just dealing with just minor athletic events and became much more serious when it came to activities such as work and life in general. I quickly learned that if I was to be successful, I could not just take my feelings home and cross-dress, I needed to stay there and fight. I needed to push hard to keep my transgender issues at bay and take care of myself. Even though in the background, my feminine self was always waiting to get out and thrive in the world. Sort of like that app on your computer which is always running in the background. Because every situation I faced, I secretly wondered how I would face it as a trans woman. At that point, I needed to face the real possibility that I would just have to experiment with new situations in life from the view that ciswomen do.

That was when I got out of the gay venues I was going to and back into the straight venues I had grown used to going to as a man. Of course, I found the entire process to be extremely terrifying yet natural as I settled down into my new world. A world where I did not have to worry about what my feminine instincts were telling me as I was actively acting upon them. I was free and gender for once was not getting in my way. All I had to worry about was my fear of discovery disrupting my new life.

To my surprise, most of the world around me did not seem to care there was a novice trans woman around them. No one screamed “Hey! That’s a man” when I entered the room and at the worse all I received in response was a few stares. Mostly from women. When I did, I always made sure to stand up straight and try to make eye contact if a could as if to say what is wrong with you? There is nothing wrong with me. As we all know, humans are like sharks in the water who are attracted to blood. When I showed the hard-earned confidence, I gained to project my authentic feminine self, the sharks left me alone. I can’t emphasize enough though the bumps and bruises I took to my ego to find the much-needed confidence to get by.

I did get by and stopped most all my gender battles which helped me to end all the self-destructive behavior I had carried around with me for decades. It certainly took a while for all the emotional scarring to go away and for me to clean up my act. As I always say, it was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I finally gave in to the transfeminine person I always was meant to be. And I was allowed to continue to fill out my gender workbook as I was socialized in the world of ciswomen by the small group of women friends, I had built around me. I was able to learn a little or a lot from all of them except for one. Which was my biggest issue…

In other words, the biggest boulder on my path to move was getting my male gender out of the way. He was stubborn and hung on to his male privileges as long as he could. All to no avail. I finally had to give up on trying to use all my old male strength to help me and resorted to a more feminine approach of slowly chipping away at portions of the rock. Success led to more success and before I knew it, I had a new exciting path to my future open for me ahead. It was bright, exciting and I never wanted to even think about going back.

 

 

 

 

Graduation Season

 

Image from Logan Isbell
on UnSplash.

It is graduation season around me, and it brought up all sorts of memories of my own graduations. Many far from the usual school graduations everyone thinks about when we think about moving on with life. Plus, it goes much further than just thinking about the pretty new fashions women get to wear on their celebration days. If they choose to do it.

When I look all the way back to my high school graduation days, I always tie it with the prom season which was very close to it. My senior year was actually my second prom, but nothing really changed. I was still very envious of my date’s beautiful prom dress and corsage (which I had to buy her) to add insult to injury. No matter how hard I tried, I wanted the high heeled shoe to be on my foot and not hers and I would be taken out for the evening. Graduation was not as bad as prom because every graduate had to wear the same black gowns, hiding their new fashions until they went to an after-graduation party. But, even so, I still had misgivings about what I was facing following my graduation. As I faced hurdles such as surviving college and the military service which sometime made my gender issues pale in comparison.

Even though I realized a college graduation was in my future too, I did not think of all the other times I would have to graduate in life to survive. Examples included the times in the Army when I needed to graduate basic training all the way to making my way through the “Defense Information School” in Indianapolis. Time was flying by as I transitioned from the college world to the Army and back again three years later when I pursued my second college degree. Aside from brief moments of regression and purging, my desire to be a transfeminine person never went away and was in fact getting stronger. Little did I know I was facing more graduations confined only to how I viewed myself as a person.

Backtracking a bit and going back to my very first time I saw myself in girl’s clothes and makeup in front of a mirror. I realized I had graduated from being a so called “normal” boy forever. Plus, there would be several future gender graduations when I transitioned from being a cross-dresser to a transgender woman and when I began to take HRT or gender affirming hormones under a doctor’s care and took another major step towards my dream of being a fulltime trans woman.

By the time I had gone through all these graduations, even I would have thought I would have grown tired of the process. But I did not. I started to crave the next step in my occupation and my life as a transgender woman. Which put me on a collision course for my future. It came down to which one I would save after the major gender collision in my life. Following years and years of success, one would just have to go. Just trying to look ahead up my winding gender path became a major problem as increasingly carving out a life as a novice transfeminine person on my own terms became a priority over every thing else, I loved in my life.

At this point, my graduations began to slow down and became smaller in nature. Every time I was successful at trying to be the person I always wanted to be, I celebrated my own mini gender victory and resolved to do better on my path. No longer did I have to be envious of the ciswomen around me, since I was allowed to be behind the gender curtain. Which was another graduation for me, as I loved it. It was a major reward for all the work I put into filling out my gender workbook. As a matter of fact, it was the best graduation I had ever had in my life.  If I wanted to, I could wear the pretty dress all the other women around me were wearing.

Until then, I think I was taking all the graduations and transitions I was taking for granted. I was not raised to think anything I did was good enough, so being pleased with my progress towards my dream and being happy about it was a first for me. Ironically, I even was able to use the same restroom in the dinner club I took my second prom date to years later when it became a gay venue. It was as close as I could ever come to reliving the inadequacies I felt so long ago as I looked at myself in the women’s restroom mirror.

Humans are blessed to be able to graduate to many different levels as they transition through life. It is sad because of whatever reason, some people (men and women) are never socialized to make it to a point when they can claim the status of being a man or a woman. They are doomed to never making it past the stage of being male or female and never took the opportunity to graduate to the next level of life. They are the ones who are jealous of and hate transgender women and transgender men for reasons they do not even understand. Often, they are stuck in the past and never have the chance to escape.

If you are busy trying to figure out your next stop on your gender journey, I hope you can take the next careful step and graduate to the level you want to be. In the end, graduation is much more than having a framed certificate for your wall and who would consider having a framed certificate saying you made it to your own form of womanhood above your desk anyhow. Wouldn’t that be something?

Your destination should be your own sense of satisfaction or even happiness because you undertook one of the most difficult journeys a human can take. Congratulations!

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                       

 

Working Smarter not Harder as a Trans Girl

 

Image from Erik Mclean 
on UnSplash.

Before we get started on today’s post, here is a little background on my annual visit to the endocrinologist yesterday at the Veteran’s Administration in Dayton, Ohio.

It turns out, I was just wasting a lot of mental time and effort as I was worried about this appointment. I was worried that she would not renew my Estradiol prescription for the next year. But she did with no questions asked. The only other real problem I asked was why my Estradiol blood levels dropped as much as they did on my last visit to the vampires to have them checked. She did not know and thought I should have them checked again and see where they checked out. So, that is where we left it.

In the same vein, I had a great question from reader “Morgan” asking me if I could sense any differences in my moods when my levels went down since we both are older and on the hormonal patches. I told her no, I did not see any difference except in a new infuriating amount of hair I needed to get rid of on my arms. Since that time, the hair seems to be retreating, so hopefully that signals my levels returned to where they usually were. And, as far as moods go, normally I do feel an overall sense of wellness on the days I change my patches as well as a welcome swelling of my breasts.  I hope that covers the question Morgan, and thanks for asking.

As far as the deeper problem of feeling so much paranoia that I felt before the appointment, I think it goes back to my entire progression on the gender path I took to my transfeminine womanhood. It always seemed I was working harder not smarter as I attempted to fill out my feminine gender workbook as fast as I could. It was because I did not have the benefit all the other girls had growing up in a world of ciswomen where I was excluded. Every gender stop sign that I faced deepened my paranoia that I could ever have a chance of making it to my dream goal of crossing the male to female gender border and settling in as a successful transgender woman.

The first part I faced was just working to blend in with the ciswomen public I was around. I wanted to live the old saying that if it walked like a duck and looked like a duck, then it was a duck. My problem was even when I thought my clothes and makeup were on point and looked good, here I was walking like a circus clown in drag in my high heels. Putting my transfeminine persona into motion presented a real problem for me. It seemed like it was not so long ago that I was having the problem learning how to walk like a man out of puberty so I would not be called a sissy by the bullies and here I was trying to reverse the process. It took me a while to try to perfect my version of a woman’s unique style of movement but with a lot of practice I calmed my paranoia when I entered a room full of strangers and did the best I could. Then, I needed to work smarter, not harder trying to remember which gender I was on which day I was presenting. I worked in a pressure packed male dominated industry and it was as if the clock had been turned back and I was worried about being called a sissy again.

Another problem I was having was keeping my mind on whatever gender I was. An example would be all the time I wasted at work wondering what it would be like to live the life the ciswomen around me were living. Or better yet, daydreaming of the next time I could try when I could flip the switch and sneak out of the house again as a convincing transgender woman. If I could reclaim just a portion of the time I wasted, I worked harder not smarter as a person caught between two genders, what a relaxing, extra successful life I could have led. I was stubborn though and persisted through the decades just getting by thinking I could juggle being a parttime woman and a parttime man. Finally, it all became too much for me to handle mentally, so I needed to make a choice. But even then, I had to make certain that I was making the right decision, so I set out to change my path into a more challenging direction.

What I did was to throw caution to the wind and try to experience situations I always wondered what it would be like if I was an actual ciswoman. To do so, I had to finally earn my way behind the gender curtain and really attempt what my own unique path to trans womanhood really required of me. Essentially, the whole process required total commitment from me, and I needed to start making future decisions which would dramatically change the rest of my life. I was nearing sixty and my transgender biological clock was ticking loudly in my mind. If I was ever going to make my move to live fulltime as a woman, I better do it and it was time.

Better yet, I had a circle of women friends to help me socialize into the feminine community and I set out to secure a doctor’s approval to start HRT or gender affirming hormones. The timing was all right for my big move, and I no longer had to work harder more than smarter to do it. Most importantly, my paranoia about doing it all was at an all time low as for a change, destiny was on my side. Against all odds, I was able to meet a stable loving woman online as well as my daughter came on to accept me when I told her my deepest secret about wanting to be a woman my entire life.

Karma was coming around to pay me back for all the paranoia I experienced when I was working harder more than smarter. For the first time in my life, I allowed myself to be happy.

 

 

 

 

Endocrinologist Visit Today

 

JJ Hart at a recent
Cincinnati Pride. Ohio River
in background. 

Just a shorter post because my endocrinologist annual visit is today.

The only paranoia I have is that for some reason, she will not renew my HRT medications for Estradiol and Spironolactone. You may ask why I would have any nervous energy before my virtual appointment, and it is because I am part of the Veterans Administration health care system which is always making changes.

Recently, I had another one of my medical providers “retire” and I needed to switch my care from the Dayton VA to the Cincinnati VA which is closer to me. Fortunately, I was able to make it a seamless switch and even was able to visit my local VA clinic for my initial appointment with my new therapist, which I really liked. But all of that had to do with my mental health medications which the VA puts a higher priority on than prescribing medications which have made my gender transition possible. In fact, it was not so long ago that the orange felon in Washington DC assigned a new VA commissioner who was making threatening suggestions about doing away with gender affirming therapy in the VA altogether.

To my knowledge, nothing ever really became of that statement and the rank-and-file VA employees found ways of getting around it.

Another paranoia I have is my “Endo” in Dayton is being retired too and I will have to seek out new assistance in Cincinnati which in itself is not a bad thing except when it comes to where I must go for appointments. Going to the main VA hospital downtown is always a congested mess and I always must ask Liz to take me because of my mobility issues. If I can just go to my local clinic or have a virtual appointment, there are usually no problems.

My current “endo” usually prescribes me a years’ worth of medications unless there are any changes in my Estradiol blood levels. For some reason, after years of staying the same, my levels went down quite a bit on my last test. Which is the last thing I wanted to happen. So I will have to see what she says about it because I am still undecided on switching from patches to injections at my age.

Most importantly, I am who I am, and my HRT does not define me but it surely has helped. I will never forget all the extreme gender changes my new hormones put me through and would hate to lose all I gained. Who knows, maybe I am just building bridges to climb when I don’t have to with this upcoming appointment. She will maintain the long-term stability and status quo we have built up over the years, and our annual visits will continue.

One way or another, I will let you know.

 

 

 

Life is Too Short to be Ordinary.

 

Image from Frolicsome Fairy
on UnSplash.

I saw this quote on a television show I watch regularly and it resonated as a transgender woman with me. Here is the quote: “Life is too short to be ordinary.”  I immediately thought that a trans woman’s or trans man’s life is anything but ordinary in the world we live in today.

I also thought of a few of the final battles I had with myself before I finally gave in to my feminine desires at the age of sixty and decided to try to enter the transfeminine world permanently. It was never a move I took lightly, which was probably one of the reasons it took me so long to make my final choice to join the girls’ club and leave the good old boys’ club behind.

What I attempted to do was weigh all the good and bad I had accomplished in my long life and use it to make my decision. To be fair, I did have many male experiences which I felt I needed to take into consideration as positives I would have to leave behind if I proceeded with my male to female feminization efforts. The end result was I found that I did not live an ordinary life for several reasons, and one of them was because I spent so much time on the gender path I obsessed about. The others involved just the ordinary life’s challenges that everyone goes through such as maintaining a family, a marriage and trying to be successful in a profession you can tolerate. I kept coming back to my gender issues which set me apart from the great majority of the world, in a good way.

Along the way, I had come to appreciate the difference between the two main binary genders by actually having the chance to live them. It occurred to me that I was having a chance very few humans have the chance to do and I should make the best of it and keep going. At the time, I was spending approximately half of my time in the world as a transgender woman anyhow, so the jump to going fulltime was becoming less and less intimidating to me.

One of the main final factors I needed to consider was how natural I felt living in each gender I was trying to maintain. After hours of thought and contemplation, I came to the realization I had never felt natural as a man. I had to struggle to make any long-lasting friends and it seemed all my accomplishments were for my public persona only. As I always say, I was never a man cross-dressing as a woman. I was a woman cross dressing as a man. From that, I realized I had always felt more comfortable as a feminine person and time was running short for me to grasp the opportunity to change for good. I was sixty at the time and it did not take a genius to realize I had lived more years than I still had to go on this earth.

Finally, it struck my stubborn head that I had been blessed to live everything but an ordinary life and I should follow my natural inclination to stay in a feminine mode. When I did, it was as if I was allowed to take a ton of rocks from my shoulders. As I assumed the life I always should have lived, I began the finishing touches of my new existence by being approved for HRT or gender affirming hormones by a doctor I read about in a local LGBTQ newspaper I saw. My body’s reaction was simple and to the point and I could hear it saying what took you so long as the changes from the hormones were so natural and immediate. In fact, the changes came so fast that I needed to move up my timeline for when I would transition completely away from my old male self.

It does not seem possible that all those gender changes were over fifteen years ago now and my world changed as positively as I ever hoped that it would. The path I took was completely personal and had its share of stop signs and blind curves but somehow, I made it. Probably because my inner self felt it was the only way to go. If working from a male background to being a transfeminine person was the way my path took me, I would gladly go along for the ride. The ride turned out to be uniquely interesting along with being extremely scary when I gave up and lost all my male privilege before I learned the essence of having female privileges.

I was fortunate that I was blessed with a healthy long life. Long enough to see the circle come around from gender darkness to light. So, you could say, my life was long enough to make it interesting and look around all those steep walls and blind curves to see what was on the other side waiting for me.

If the world would let it be, gender is just a human need on a spectrum like so many others and trans people are just trying to live their lives like so many others. And I know gender is much more than a black and white reality to all of us. You can view yourself anywhere from a weekend cross-dresser all the way to a post-op woman and all should be accepted under our complex umbrella of people. It’s just another way we are far from ordinary and difficult for the average person to understand. It is also difficult to explain to a loved one when we do not fully understand what is going on ourselves, which often takes a long time to happen.

Rest assured that even if your life may be different and/or difficult at times, I will be far from ordinary.

Thank you all for your comments, claps and new subscriptions! Without all of you, none of what I try to pass along would be worth it.

 

 

 

Courage or Something Else?

 

Image from Miquel Bruna
on UnSplash. 

Recently, I have exchanged a few comments with a reader named “Janie” and we somehow got into the subject of being courageous in our male to female gender transitions. Also, on occasion, I get someone calling me courageous on how I decided to follow my path to leading a transfeminine life.

The problem is I never considered myself courageous as I tried and tried to establish myself where I could blend in, in a world of ciswomen everywhere. Here are two examples, the first coming from “Janie.” When she said she wished she had the courage (and I am paraphrasing) to come out as a full-fledged transgender woman as a teenager. On the other hand, I wished I would have had the courage to follow my instincts and come out of my closet when I was honorably discharged from the Army and had very little male baggage to think about. I was still becoming established in the working world, had no children yet and a future wife who did not seem to care what I did. I would never again have that sort of opportunity to live a life as my authentic self without waiting on the world to catch up.

It turned out that I still had a lot of living to do before I could find my way up my path to being a fulfilled transgender woman. Sure, there were plenty of opportunities to overcome when I was petrified to try to overcome my male self and enter the world of women, but I never thought I needed an extraordinary amount of courage to do it. I always reserved that amount of praise for war heroes and first responders who ran towards danger, not away from it. I was not running towards danger; I was just doing what I had to do to survive.

Ironically, the world evolved around me when it came to gender issues over the years. You may remember when the film “Tootsie” came out and gave a realistic idea of what ciswomen go through in the world through the ideas of a man (Dustin Hoffman) living the experience. Sadly, the new look into the genders did not last until today when coming out into the world possibly did take a lot of courage after all. Lives could be wrecked when you would not be fully accepted as a trans woman with your spouse, your family, your friends and your employment. Especially today when the orange Russian asset in Washington DC is leading the charge against us for no real reason.

Getting back to the task at hand, the something else when it came to the courage question, as I said, came down to pure survival. Not some sort of a hobby of putting on a dress and makeup to attempt to look good as a woman. The problem was that I knew at a very early age just looking at my girlish image in the mirror was never going to be enough to satisfy my gender desires. I simply wanted more. To live like the girls around me I so envied in school. An idea which would come back to heavily influence my life in later years. I fought my feminine instincts hard, which ended up doing nothing more than potentially destroying my mental health and my life as I led a very self-destructive life. It seemed everything my male self-had built up, I needed to try to tear down. I would not have wished what I went through on my worst enemy. So, I set out to do what I could to save myself.

During those days of discovery, I learned firsthand the idea of having persistence over any idea of having courage. Survival became my goal in life as I set out to build a feminine lifestyle from scratch. Deep-down, the idea kept coming to me that I was doing the right thing, no matter how painful it might turn out to be. In fact, I went all the way back to my childhood, so I knew it was more than just a temporary rush of gender euphoria as a trans woman when I was accepted in the world. I was surviving as me with little or no courage needed. Just a liberal amount of fear on the occasions when things were not going so well like when I had the police called on me for using the restroom of my choice. It was my own fault for being in a redneck venue I had not taken the time to set up being a regular yet. Then I never had the courage to go back.

I will never try to speak for “Janie” or anyone else who regularly reads my work, but on my end, no matter how much I did not respect the work my male self-did for me over the years there are certain things I would have really missed if I had followed my instincts and come out before I had the chance to build any sort of a life. I would have missed the once in a lifetime opportunity to have a wonderful daughter and a loving wife which I was with for twenty-five years until her untimely death. We had many good times, interwoven with the bad caused by my gender issues. I don’t know if I would have ever had the courage to ever totally leave her and wished she could have been around to experience my growth into a mature transgender woman. Of course, now, I will never find out.

As you can tell, I really don’t believe courage had that much to do with my development as a transfeminine person. On the other hand, a heavy dose of persistence mixed in with the ultimate need to survive allowed me to make it to where I am today. I know I am basically just dealing with semantics anyhow so the only thing that matters is how you survive. With or without HRT or any gender surgeries or with extensive work it does not matter as long as you are happy and thriving.

Thanks to “Janie”, Christine and all of you who have taken the time to comment on my topics. Without all your input, my work would not be worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pressure Tested as a Trans Woman

 

Image from Jayson Hendrickson
on UnSplash. 

As I moved along in life, I became pressure tested on both sides of the gender border.

On the male side, I became embroiled with restaurant jobs which involved immense amounts of pressure to succeed and on my female side, I felt the same pressure to succeed when I was finally able to leave my mirror and enter the world. For the most part succeeding as a male meant more financial rewards, while the success as a transfeminine person meant more inner freedom to express myself.

Ironically, my success as a novice cross-dresser or transgender woman often came at the expense of my male self when he failed at a project in life and came running back to dresses and makeup for comfort. Even that became old though when my trans woman kept increasing the stakes in the basic battle to just be seen in public. She wanted more than the easy trips to women’s clothing stores where money was more important than gender. As she began to interact more completely in the world, the pressure to be tested time and time again increased dramatically. Especially when she had to do more than try to communicate with more than a simple “Hello” or “Thank You.” For the longest time, I was panicked and very insecure about holding any sort of a conversation with another person, woman or man.

The way I relieved the pressure of communication was simply tied to doing it over and over again until it became as natural to me as possible. I learned from my feminine vocal lessons, it was not as much about what you were saying as how you were saying it. And how I could interject little feminine vocal patterns into my speech, even though I still had a deeper voice than most women. I say most women because I immediately began to notice a few ciswomen who had lower voices but still managed to communicate in the world with no problems. All because they had the benefit of growing up around other women. As I said, the only way around my communication potential problem was to hitch up my big girl panties and begin to communicate with the world. Which in some cases was one of the last frontiers I needed to face as I climbed out of my mirror and into the world as a trans woman.

I discovered I did not really know any pressure on my initial excursions as a feminine person until the time came to use the restroom. Initially, I was very intimidated and made sure I waited until “the room” was empty before I snuck in to use it until I began to build some confidence in myself. When I did, I began to learn restroom basics such as making sure I took the time to smile and interact with any other women I may encounter. The exact opposite than what I was used to in any men’s room I used. Since I was not using the women’s room as any sort of a fun test just to prove I could, I needed to learn as much as I could about other women because of a natural need to do so. I did things such as trying to mimic the sound of “flow” when I went to the woman close in the stall next to me and of course, I needed to remember to look for toilet paper, hang my purse up and always, always stop to wash my hands as I examined my hair and makeup in the mirror. No matter how much of a hurry I was to get out of there.

Surviving the restroom wars gave me the confidence to lose some of the pressure I felt as I entered the world for the first time as a transgender woman. From there I could move on to bigger and better things such as being recognized as a regular in the selected venues I wanted to go to. When I did, I knew I would have the backing of the staff if and when I was approached by a gender bigot or TERF (ciswoman bigot) about what I was doing there at all. In fact, I think I became the token trans woman at several venues who were proud of their diversity and safely for the LGBTQ community.

If I was a more intelligent person in math, maybe I could come up with a quotient relating to how pressure relates to confidence, but I cannot. I am stuck just trying to explain what it meant to me and what it might mean to you if you are considering a gender journey such as mine. The easiest way to describe it is that it is an intensely personal journey that is often lonely and full of self-sacrifice. Which could also describe why the path or journey is so full of pressure to succeed in so many different ways. I say that because I learned on my path that there were so many different ways to achieve my dream of living the way I wanted to as a fully functional transfeminine person. Primarily I learned I did not have to be the most attractive woman in the room to be accepted. Maybe I could make it on my personality. Which is exactly what many ciswomen do.

When the pressure was off, the pleasure set in for me and I could begin to refine who I wanted to be as I pursued a rare second chance in life to rebuild myself in the image I had always dreamed of. I was fortunate when I found the right people, cis women, to help me along in ways they never knew as I filled out the little nuances of my gender workbook. As I always say, I had no idea of how many layers women have to go through other than men just to live their life.

I don’t think I had a choice in my life to not live the pressurized existence that I lived. It was all built into the path I chose to take, and I grew used to it. As a transgender woman, often it seemed I had more than my fair share of pressure to deal with. That is why as a tribe, trans women and trans men have proved to be very resilient over the time we have populated the world. Regardless of what haters and bigots think.

 

 

My Last Date as a Man

 

JJ Hart in the long black wig
I wore to the concert. 

My last date as a man was very eventful as destiny was sending me a powerful message.

It all began a couple of years after my second wife passed away and I decided to again seek out feminine companionship from a ciswoman. Then I made a mistake and became enamored with the mom of one of my servers at the restaurant I owned. Mom was about my age and extremely attractive and I gathered up the courage to ask her out when I learned she was single. From there we went on several dates including one in her native Cincinnati. I was quite naïve and thought things were going fairly well until my daughter got me two tickets to a “Joe Cocker” concert at an outside summer festival near to where she lived in Dayton, Ohio.

I guess the idea of perhaps meeting my daughter scared her off, because after initially saying yes, a week before the concert she abruptly said no and I wasn’t to call her anymore. By this time in my life, I don’t think anything could surprise or hurt me more than what I was already going through, so I picked up the pieces of this brief ill-fated relationship and prepared myself to move on. But I had one problem, what was I going to do with the other ticket I had for the concert. Then my mind came up with a plan, why not invite my feminine self? It would be yet another test to see how successful my transition was coming along as well as soothing the ego wounds from being turned down by what turned out to be the last date I would ever have as a man with a ciswoman in my life.

At that point, I was very much still in the closet to my daughter, so I planned to pick up the tickets as my male self then go home later and get ready. Getting ready proved to be an adventure as I knew I could put together an upscale/casual outfit for the evening. I ended up choosing a black outfit with a three-quarter sleeve mesh top and wide legged silky black pants with black sandals. Topping it all off, I chose my long black straight-haired wig and sunglasses on my head as an accessory. After carefully applying my makeup, I was ready to take on the world as a transgender woman out to her first concert. I felt good and confident for a change as I left the house for the half hour drive to the concert venue.

Once I arrived, I gathered myself, checked my makeup and took off walking to the concert which was filling up with people fast. Since it was still light outside, I could wear my sunglasses to check out anyone who was staring at me without them knowing. I was relieved when no one noticed the tall, long-haired woman in black making her way through the crowded sidewalk to her seat. I even had enough time to walk up to the concession stand and order me a refreshing drink before the late “Joe Cocker” started his show. By this time in his career, he played his hits and I was happy.

I ended up immensely enjoying the concert. Even more so since I was spending unique public time with my transfeminine self. I walked away from the experience with a new-found confidence in myself to live my life the way I had always dreamed of. In a world where ciswomen ruled. And maybe most importantly, I don’t think I embarrassed myself by the way I looked.

Maybe I was a little too over dramatic when I mentioned destiny setting in that night, but it did because never again did I set out to date a ciswoman as my male self and go through all the dating contortions I hated so much. I don’t know why but I always had felt so much more at ease when I was dealing with women as a trans woman and I never looked back.

My last date as a man was uneventful because it never happened it seemed for a reason. In the future I was able to have much better times going to places such as roller derbies with my lesbian friends where I could relax and have fun. Something I rarely did when I was trying to date as a man.

 

 

The Last Line of Defense

 

Image from Gayatri Malthroa 
on UnSplash.

Throughout nearly half of a century, my male self-fought the complete transition I made into a feminine lifestyle.

During that extended period of time, I think I tried everything possible to convince myself that I was wrong to want to play in the girls’ sandbox at all. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I “purged” many times of my feminine belongings. Leaving me with nothing but my most cherished pieces of girl’s/woman’s clothing and makeup. The makeup was easy because I knew I could always buy more. Perhaps the most precious items I never threw away were the nice wigs I was able to buy and the silicone breast forms which ironically were given to me by a fellow cross dresser who was purging also. Deep down inside, I knew I would need the wigs and breast forms again when my urge to cross-dress returned. As my own personal history told me it would.

It turned out that purging was not my last defense, no matter how hard I tried. In fact, the more I tried not to be feminine in any way shape or form, it seemed I slipped closer and closer to it. Especially when I learned I could dress to blend with most of the ciswomen around me. It was then I learned how natural I felt when I began to get it right and could feel all the gender euphoria I could feel.

What I did continually feel was my masculinity slipping away and I only used it on occasions with my wife in mixed company and when I was working in a high-pressure environment. For years, when I was out in the world experimenting living a new life, I felt as if I was sliding down a steep hill towards a transgender cliff which I had no idea of how I would be able to land.

In all fairness to my second wife, she never opposed me cross-dressing and knew about it when we got married. But on the other hand, completely opposed any idea of me becoming a transfeminine person. Between her and my male self, they made formidable opponents in my life when I thought about living as a trans woman. What made it all worse was when my wife kept saying she did not want to live with another woman and did not agree to that when we got married and I had to agree with her. Putting me in a very difficult situation in my life. I escaped the best I could by sneaking out of the house behind her back at any given time I found to test the world time and again to see if I would be allowed to go back behind the gender curtain. Which in many ways, represented escaping the last defense to staying in the male world I had.

Of course, my wife found out on numerous occasions what I was doing as a trans woman and resisted all my progress. When she did, we had giant battles which she normally won and I tried the therapy route to help me with my gender issues. Therapy helped me in many ways in my life but not so much with my deep-seated gender issues. I was expecting too much when one therapist told me if I thought our sessions would ever relieve my tensions, I would be wrong until I was able to make the final decision on if I was able to be a woman or not. At that point, I had two of the most far-reaching quotes that I ignored which were told to me. One of which was the time I was told I was the only one who could decide my gender future and the second was when my wife told me to go ahead and be man enough to be a woman. I was so sure I could do it my way and it cost me dearly. Especially, in terms of my overall mental health when juggling two genders and two lives at once became too much to handle. I did not know if I was coming or going on which day it was on how I was expected to act.

As many of you know, my second wife tragically died of a massive heart attack, leaving me with only my male self to do gender battle with. His last defenses deteriorated quickly as I became deeply unhappy and lonely and took solace in my inner female self for comfort. She stepped up big time, and very soon when I was not working nights, I was in one of my regular drinking venues seeking company. That was when I discovered I had more in common with the lesbians I met than with any man. Since most of them rejected me anyhow for leaving the good old boys club. I was able to say good riddance and go forward in my life into a world I never thought possible could ever be a part of. I had never really got along well with men in my life, and it turned out nothing had really changed. Except the way I was exploring the world. Finally, as my true self. As I was finding me after all those years of searching.

The last defense my male self-had was when my third wife Liz and only daughter came to my rescue with unwavering support for my final dive off the steep gender cliff. They made the landing very soft, and even easy. More precisely, Liz made me a believer in myself again and my daughter gave me support I needed from what blood family I had left since my brother rejected me, and my parents had long since passed away. Add in the couple of lesbians I always socialized with and I had all the support I needed to succeed in where I had dreamed of going and being accepted behind the gender curtain.

By far, I would be remiss if I did not mention the power of HRT or gender affirming hormones in removing any of the final defenses my male self-had going for him. I could not believe how fast the hormones acted as my body began to change, inside and out. It would take a whole post to describe all the impacts the hormones made to me. In fact, I have my annual appointment with my endocrinologist coming up this week, and with it, the chance to get refills on my hormonal patches.

Maybe I can thank her then for helping me to win my battle with my male self. Since I receive my HRT meds through the Veterans Administration, I always hope nothing changes from the top down with my ability to keep receiving a huge part of what makes me whole. I worked too long to get here.

Thanks again for joining me on my journey and I hope my experiences help you too.

Any comments, claps or subscriptions are welcome and make my work so worthwhile!