Transgender Adjustments

 

Image from Markus Winkler
on UnSplash.

No matter how you cut it, life is nothing if not a series of adjustments.

As we enter school and learn to adjust to the other kids around us, we discover the basic differences which go far past the genders. As far as boys go, we learn some are toxic, some are athletic, and others perceive themselves as leaders at an early age. I went to a very small rural school and basically went to class with the same students from kindergarten through the ninth grade. Plenty of time to form cliques such as who were the brains, the hell raisers, the athletes and yes, even the losers. 

The one clique which I never had the chance to join was the one with gender issues, or the boys who wanted to be with the girls. I was very sure I was the only one with such issues, so I needed to make whatever adjustments I needed to make on the down low. No other person could ever learn of the adjustments I truly wanted to make but could not. 

As I made it through my early school years, the complexity of my adjustments to gender increased. I remember going to a high school festival where I saw a male student in drag for the first time in my life and was fascinated. If he could do it, why couldn't I? It was around this time of my life also when I heard the rumors of one of my fellow students who had attended a Halloween party dressed as a girl and was prettier than his sister. All of it gave me a brief glimmer of hope for my future. Perhaps there were other males who wanted to be girls also. Sadly, it was just two instances of learning of an outside world of gender adjustments before "Virginia Prince" and her "Transvestia" Magazine came into my world.

"Transvestia" rocked my world with its articles and pictures of cross dressers or transvestites everywhere. Seemingly, the only acceptance requirement you needed to have been, was to be heterosexual which was no problem for me. Of more importance was the fact the side organization call "Tri-Ess" I believe, held monthly mixers in Ohio within driving distance of where I lived. All I needed to do was fill out an application and be approved to meet others with similar gender adjustments for the first time in my life. 

As I discovered, when I first began to attend the transvestite-cross dresser mixers, how much more adjusting I would need to do. I met so many others of differing backgrounds from basic admirers to ultra feminine transsexuals, my life was changed forever. Sadly, I had plenty of time between mixers to figure out how I was going to adjust to the new world I found myself in. The only realization I came up with was, there were very few at the mixer who were close to me in my desires and adjustments I wanted to make. Plus, I had a spouse to attempt to explain it all to. 

Sometimes, I am not as naive as I let on, and I knew all the action behind closed hotel room doors was not heterosexual in nature but beyond that, nothing I saw really surprised me. Like I said, I came away from the mixers knowing I had many more adjustments in my gender journey which in reality was only beginning. Little did I know, life would take me in so many different directions before I could settle into my transgender womanhood. I would have a daughter to raise, marriages to negotiate and jobs to take on in my life. 

In many ways, I am no different than the rest of the world except I have gender issues to contend with. I don't expect any special treatment but then again, I don't need to be discriminated against either. I was only doing what came natural to me by trying to survive in the only world I knew. 

The Darkness

 

Transvestia Magazine 1960.

The darkness in my transgender closet was intense and complete. I had no windows or doors to let any light in at all.

One of the problems I had was I lived in the pre-internet era when there was little to none gender information to learn from. I needed to wait for my monthly issue of "Virginia Prince's" Transvestia Magazine for so called heterosexual cross dressers only to learn there were others like me struggling with gender issues in the world at all. Even with the brief glimpse into the lives of others, I had very little of light in my dark lonely closet. I was very far away from knowing there was absolutely nothing wrong with being me. 

With guidance from the back pages of Transvestia, I managed to gather the confidence to attend a relatively close by mixer, blending cross dressers of every sort (or transvestites as they were known back then) with transsexuals. Remember, the transgender term was not used at the time. At the time, I was very naive and thought going to a mixer or two would help me out of my gender closet.  I was wrong and all I learned was I needed to go back to my dark closet until I learned more concerning others who might share gender issues with. 

What I did learn was there was no easy way to fit in with the transvestite community. I was too much of a woman for the parttime cross dressers and not enough to fit in with the transsexuals I met who were waiting for gender realignment surgery. Deep down I knew, I was not prepared for the surgeries needed to change my genitals and gender was not between my legs for me anyhow. It was between the ears in my brain. All the process did at the time was enable me to look for a brighter light in my closet. 

Sometimes I believe that unless you have experienced a dark closet yourself, it is impossible to explain to a person who never had to go through it. I know also, there are many of you who read the blog are hopelessly stuck in your own closets. Especially, with an increasingly politically charged anti-transgender world around us. Hopefully, you live in an area which is more liberal and welcoming to those with gender issues. 

I write often about how my life slowly changed through several transitions as I deluded myself as to who I really was. I internalized my true gender for nearly fifty years. Early on, I told myself I was a man cross dressing as a woman, when the opposite was true. I was a woman cross dressing as a man the best I could. At the same time, I was nearing one of the most important transitions of my life, when I began to think of myself as a transgender woman and not a cross dresser. It was only at that point, when the darkness began to lift from my life, and I could live again. 

Hopefully, your gender life as a cross dresser or transgender person is not ruled by darkness and the light at the end of the tunnel you see is not the train.

A Private Journey

Virginia Prince

Being a young person with gender issues forced me into my own deep shell.

 Plus, the times I grew up in did not help. I battled having no real gender information in the times before the internet and social media. In fact, the first real indication I had there were any others who shared a similar desire to change their gender was when I discovered "Transvestia" Magazine and "Virginia Prince". Initially, I was so fascinated, I just needed to learn more.

My private journey became less private when I began to attend transvestite mixers, as they were called back then. From my well-worn pages of "Transvestia" I learned several of the mixers were within driving distance of me in my native Ohio. Immediately, I began to make plans to do the impossible dream and attend. I could not imagine what it would be like to meet in person, another cross dresser as I perceived myself to be. It all struck an emotional chord with me, and I could not wait for my first mixer. I felt, at the least, the event could help to get out of my shell and not be so private. 

Of course, I found out I was expecting way to much from my first meeting with others with gender issues. To start with, I was not prepared for the layers of participants at the mixer. Everyone from beautiful transsexuals to "cowboy" cross dressers with their hats and cigars. Somewhere, in between was me. Wondering where I should be in the group. All Virginia Prince and "Transvestia" told me was, I needed to be heterosexual in order to fit in. Prince never said anything about all the different individuals I would encounter. Long story short, I found I did not really fit in with any of the other attendees. Again, I was stuck in my own private journey.

Throughout my disappointment in not meeting more like-minded individuals to share my gender hopes and dreams with, I at least found a very few others I could socialize with. Better yet, they lived even closer to me in near-by Columbus, Ohio. One of the transsexual women had a very nice, restored home in a historic area of the city and regularly hosted her own mini mixers. Since I usually worked weekend nights, I could not make it to all of them, but the ones I could, I enjoyed immensely. 

On my visits, I even discovered others who were exploring their new gender lives as more than cross dressers since the new transgender terminology was still being explored. At the time, I knew I was not completely into, going through all the gender changing operations, but then again, if I could do it, I would love to pursue a trip into transgender womanhood.

Maybe I kept my journey private because I was just that type of person, or I just had never met many people I trusted with my deepest secrets. To this day, I think I can count on one hand, the people who know all about me. Even including my long-time therapist. My wife Liz used to harass me by asking me what we talked about, and I had a difficult time coming up with an answer. Even so, I am a believer in therapy, as it did help me to come up with coping mechanisms for my complicated gender life. 

As I look back, I have come a long way from the pages of "Transvestia" but not far enough to totally say I have ever left my private journey which was so completely embedded in me when I was younger.

Nobody Understood

 

Virginia Prince

What really hurt me when I first realized I had gender issues was when I had no one to share them with. I was all alone with my problems, or so I thought.

I lived in fear of discovery all the time from my parents or my slightly younger brother. Even then, I knew discovery meant an unpleasant trip to a psychiatrist. The closest friend to me who may have shared a few of the same feelings, ended up moving away. With him, both of us were allowed to experiment wearing his mom's old clothes and putting on her makeup. It was the closest I would ever come to having anyone to share my true life with. Ironically, we never talked about the cross dressing we were doing. We just did it. 

As I said, my friend and his family ended up moving far away and years later, I often wondered if he had any gender issues too which stayed with him. Plus, as I always point out, I spent my youth and the years leading up to college in the information "dark ages", or the time before the internet became so popular along with social media. All I had was my cherished copies of Virginia Prince's "Transvestia" publication to get me by. At the least, "Transvestia" showed me there was a community of others with the same gender leanings I had. Also, in my well-worn issues I saw meetings or mixers within driving distance of me which I could go to. I was excited when I learned I could actually meet other self-proclaimed transvestites in person. The problem was, once I learned I could meet them, was I brave enough to do it. 

You all know, I was brave enough to meet them but then I encountered another problem. No one at the mixers still seemed to understand me. I was too much of a woman for the cross dressers and not enough of one for the transexuals. This was back before the transgender term and meaning was even used and popularized, so once again, I was stuck with no one to understand me.

Finally, the world began to catch up with me and I understood where I was when it came to the cross dresser - transgender community. Even better, with the help of the internet and social media, I began to stay in touch with others with similar views. Suddenly, in many ways, everybody had some sort of an understanding about how I felt. It may have taken me a lifetime to do it, but I made it into the only community who knew what I went through.  

Maybe the problem with the world as we know it these days has been influenced by people who have never met a transgender woman or trans man at all. To understand a trans person, it certainly helps to have followed a similar path. Even briefly. 

In recent years, I went from no one to understand me to having a whole group of people who have not taken the time to even accept me on a basic human level. It seems, I have gone full circle to arrive nowhere. 

All Hands on Deck

 

Image from UnSplash

As I progressed farther along my long and difficult gender journey, there were many times where I wished I had company to aid my path.

Even though I often whine and cry concerning the lack of assistance novice cross dressers or transgender women have early on in their progression, the fact remains we need to work our way through it and do the best we can with our fashion and makeup. Until I began to see positive results, I am sure I looked like a clown in drag. Still, I was alone with my thoughts. I am old enough to remember with "Virginia Prince" and her Transvestia publication first came to my attention. It provided me with the first real look at others who shared the same interest in being femininized and looking like a girl. I was mesmerized with more than a few of the cross dressers I saw in the publication. I so badly wanted to be like them.

For years as I worked alone to look more realistic as a cross dresser, I still yearned for feminine help. I thought any cis woman could help me because of their years of practice and interaction with their peers. When I was engaged in college, the opportunity to be dressed from head to toe as a woman by another woman finally came my way. Somehow, I begged my fiancé to do it even though I don't remember now how I did it or was so persuasive. I went all the way by even renting a motel room for all the pre-prep work such as shaving my body I would have to do. 

Once I shaved and dressed, I was excited to undergo the long-awaited makeup process. Since she wore quite a lot of makeup, I was confident she could do a great job. It was finally time for all hands-on deck in my young cross-dressing life. Back in those days, mini skirts and dresses were in vogue so I brought one I found and purchased along with panty hose, heels, and a long blond wig and started the transformation process. To say I was excited would be an understatement. Time flew by as she finished my makeup, and I headed for the mirror. Instead of the beautiful blond I thought I was going to see, I was actually disappointed. I could not see much difference in her efforts from my own. Even still, I acted as if I was really impressed with her expertise when in fact, I was impressed with how much I had learned on my own over the years. 

It took me a long time working with makeup to learn each of us has a blank face to work with and we need to learn the best way to work with it. My fiancé was doing the best she could with the knowledge she learned from her own face, not mine. She was far from being a professional such as the help I finally received from a true makeup pro at a transvestite, transgender mixer I attended years later after I was discharged from the Army. He taught me lessons about my face I had never even considered such as which features to play down and which ones to build up. To this day, I owe him a huge vote of confidence and thanks.

It turned out the opposite happened with my fiancé. Due to knowing my deepest, darkest secret about being a cross dresser, she said I should use it to dodge the draft and stay out of the Vietnam war. There was no way I was going to do that, so we split up shortly before I was to leave for basic training. Actually, it was the best thing which has ever happened to me in my life. The pain it caused immediately would have been nothing like the suffering we would have gone through if we had stayed together.  

Looking back, at my life's work as a transgender woman, for the most part, it has been a solitary experience. Not having a female peer group to interact with and learn from was a problem to be sure but one I learned to work around. The end result was, I needed to be better than the next woman to make it. 

All I Ever Knew

Circa 1940 image
of Virginia Prince

 Every once in a while I receive the question when did I know I was transgender.

The easy answer is I always knew but I needed to figure it all out. The more complex answer is I needed to figure it out after a series of transitions during my life. Two major ones occurred when I made the jump from from a very serious cross dresser all the way to a novice transgender woman. The second problem I had was back in those days, terminology to define a transgender woman or man had not yet been invented. Basically back in the pre-internet days when all we had was the preaching of Virginia Prince and her Transvestia publication which I could not wait to receive in the mail. Seeing all the pretty cross dressers just made me want to do more to improve my feminine appearance.   

I worked harder on my appearance than any thing I had ever done before and slowly began to see improvement over my testosterone damaged male body. It was all I ever knew. 

As I entered my transgender womanhood, I felt deep down inside I was doing all the right things, even though I was jeopardizing all the facets of my male life I had worked so hard to put together. What would I do when my family, friends and bosses discovered my deep secret. It ran so much deeper than just wanting to wear women's clothing. I wanted to be a woman and live a feminine life. 

During that portion of my life, I basically went into attack mode, doing every thing I could to learn how being a transgender woman would affect me. Every free moment I had, either I was out in the world as a woman or day dreaming of the times when I could. Naturally, I learned a lot, good and bad about what life had in store for me if I kept on going towards my gender dreams. I found the grass wasn't always going to be greener on the other side of the gender border as I lost all of my male privileges but hadn't gained any of the female ones. 

Soon I learned, it was truly all I ever knew. Somehow I was born to be feminine and not masculine. Which meant years of struggle to right the gender wrongs I was living. The struggles on occasion were crushing and keeping going was very difficult but I did. Probably because I was behind before I even started. I was born into a very male dominated family which had very few girls to play with. Plus, I never had any feminine characteristics myself to begin with. Add it all up, then include me never having any girl time with anyone all teamed up for a rough start for me on my gender journey.

Even still, my gender path was all I ever knew and staying on it finally made me successful. 

Out of My Mind, Into the World

Image from
the JJ Hart
Archives.

There were many times during my transgender transition I was thinking I was somehow out of my mind. 

I even went as far as telling others there was something wrong with me. Of course there was something wrong and it was because I was trying to live as a man, not my natural woman. It just took me too many years to realize I was doing everything so backwards when it came to dealing with my gender issues. I was not a man cross dressing as a woman, I was the opposite, a woman cross dressing as a man trying desperately to get by. It seemed so unfair because of all the time and effort I put into having my man card. 

Then, I began to put as much effort as I could into my girl self. I tried my best to observe the girls around me in school and model myself after them. Of course in those days, I was severely limited  by my family and financial situation. Even still, I persisted through the idea I had something wrong with me just because I wanted to be a girl. Plus, I knew if I was ever caught cross dressing into my more normal self, I would be sent off to the first non-understanding therapist my parents could find and he would label me mentally ill when I knew deep down I wasn't.

Adding to my gender difficulties was the fact I was so alone. In the pre-internet days, any information about men wanting to be women was very hard to come by and I was convinced I was the only person in the world who felt the same way I did. It wasn't until somehow I discovered Virginia Prince and Transvestia magazine did I understand there was quite the community of men who called themselves transvestites. Once I did make the discovery, I knew somehow I needed to interact with the nearest group to me in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio which was still quite the distance away. Regardless, I knew I needed to make the connection. I still vividly remember the diversity of the mixers I went to. I thought by reading the so-called hetero restrictions on the members would limit the diversity of attendees but it did not. There were everyone from cigar smoking cross dressers in cowboy hats seemingly afraid of losing too much of their masculinity all the way to the impossibly feminine transsexuals who had  worked hard to lose all of their maleness.

In the middle of it all, was me wondering where I fit in. I was too much woman for the cross dressers and not enough for the transsexuals. Once again I was frustrated with my results as I worked my way out of my mind and into the world. 

It took me quite a bit of work to fully make it into the world. The steps I took led me away from the old restrictive transvestite mixers, all the way to being invited to smaller diverse parties in Columbus, Ohio which I enjoyed immensely. Primarily because I was accepted for the person I was becoming. I was heading into the world for once because no one knew or cared about knowing my old male self. I even took the process another step farther when I began to go out by myself and become a regular in my favorite venues I was used to going to as a guy.

I found I was never out of my mind as the world accepted me. I just had to wait for them to catch up. If I had realized it years ago, how much easier my life would have been.

Writing Euphoria

Image from the Jessie Hart
Archives

Every now and then I receive a comment which brings all the effort I put into writing a daily transgender blog into focus. 

When I started writing this blog over ten years ago, I set out to hopefully help anyone else with gender issues similar to mine. Back in those days, when I revisited my old blog posts, I mainly see an over riding interest with my feminine appearance and not much else. Of course when I transitioned into a fulltime life as a transgender woman, I discovered all the other challenges I was going to face. It was all much different than my life as a casual cross dresser. 

This is where the writer's euphoria comes in. I recently received this comment from Jennifer " Thank you for publishing your thoughts and experiences. I am an older, but not that wiser, transgender woman just starting out on the road to femininity. Your blog helps me much to understand the hurtles I am about to encounter. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and opening up to your experiences.

Thank you, Jennifer" You are welcome Jennifer and thanks for sharing such a wonderful comment. 

Somehow, along the way, the blog made it's own transition into looking at my life as a senior transgender woman. I found, being "more mature" in many ways had it's advantages. Primarily when it came to beginning gender affirming hormones. Because at my age, my testosterone level was already in a decline, the rush of new estrogen in my system seemed to be more natural. On the other hand of course, I needed to go through the medical screening process to determine if I was healthy enough to proceed on the program I was prescribed. 

As far as being "older but not wiser", I think I faced that aspect of my life also more than I could ever write about. For better or for worse, I had already went past and missed my formative feminine years and needed to master the mysteries of makeup and fashion on my own. There were no teen girls to critique my look and for me to return the favor. Plus, I spent way to much time alone with no girlfriends to shop at the mall with. 

I discovered too, there was a small niche of older transgender women who had lived through the dark and lonely pre-internet years. I am amazed how many readers still remember fondly the "Transvestia" publication along with Virginia Prince. But then again, it was all we had to provide any sort of light in our gender closets. 

These days, I am still committed to attempting to provide any guidance I can to anyone like Jennifer who needs it. After all, our gender journeys through life on one hand are so similar but on the other not so much. Each of us needs to navigate how we are going to shed a life of living male and begin all over again. And just when we think we have it made, we need to face the reality of being trans in retirement communities and/or assisted living. Regardless of all the negative publicity we receive from politicians, I still believe more people such as the "Alzheimer's Association" are researching ways to be more inclusive to the LGBTQ community. So, there is hope. 

Thanks again Jennifer, Jen (another reader) and all the others of you who join in with me here on the blog. You give me writers euphoria and improve my mental health.

My Eyes are Up Here

 

Image from UnSplash

As I increased my knowledge of male to female cross dressing, I immediately learned the power of how my breasts appeared to the world. If I could attract the eyes away from my big shoulders to my breasts, I was successful. 

At that point I began to seriously experiment with how I could make my breast forms be as attractive as I could while on the very limited budget I was on. As I remember, stuffing my Mom's bra with socks was the only way I could go. Since my only feminine interaction was with the mirror in the hallway, having realistic breasts was mostly just in my imagination. It was about this time too, when I discovered and was very jealous of the teen aged girls around me who were suddenly sprouting their own breasts and wearing brand new training bras under tight sweaters. It was so unfair to me. So I set out to do much better with my own breast forms.

If my memory serves me correct, the next object I tried to use for breasts were foam nerf balls which were cheap and easy to come by. I still was far from satisfied with the results but it still was an improvement over rolled up socks. I needed to figure out what should be the next step in figuring out what to do about developing a better set of fake breasts. Along the way, I tried many ideas I read about mainly in the "Transvestia" magazine I received every couple of months. I know some of the cross dressers in the publication somehow were fans of using birdseed. Which I never ended up trying. Instead I went the water balloon route which went well until the predictable disaster happened to me when one broke. I really liked the balloon idea because they were cheap and I could use lukewarm water in them and approximate as close as I could to what I thought a real breast would feel like. Plus, I loved the way the balloons moved and bounced when I wore just the right bra. 

All was good with my new breasts until one night when I was headed to the women's room in one the venue's I was a regular in and unexpectedly one of my water balloons broke in the hallway leading to the restroom. The only good thing which came from it was no one else was in the hallway so I didn't have to explain to them I was pregnant and my water broke. I was able to pay my bill and quickly head for home. Finished with water balloon breasts forever.

My next step forward in the breast form department came when a cross dressing friend of mine in nearby Columbus, Ohio decided to purge all of his feminine belongings which included a nice set of silicone breast forms. I eagerly accepted the gifts and immediately stepped up my breast game. I ended up using the forms until I finally had the opportunity to join the women around me and have my own breasts thanks to gender affirming hormones. 

These days, even though I think my bigger body shape could support bigger breasts than I have been able to grow with the hormones, I think at this point in my life, I will stick with what I have in the breast department. 

It's interesting to me how much breast surgeries are being done these days for transgender and cis-gender women. In fact, I see big billboards around Cincinnati for plastic surgeons who will do the procedure completely for less than seven thousand dollars. I have the money saved but I think I could use it in better ways.

As it stands now, when someone looks me in the eye, they really do it.

It's Your Journey

 

Image from the Jessie Hart
Archives...

There are many different paths on our transgender journeys. Some are eerily similar some are very different.

On occasion, our paths align due to age considerations. We were the ones who grew up in the pre-internet days before it was invented as well as the social media which has become all so powerful. We are the ones who grew up in very lonely and dark gender closets which made it feel as if we were the only ones in the world who wanted to be another gender. At that point many of us chose to subscribe to Virginia Prince and then received our cherished and closely guarded issues of Transvestia. The magazine Prince published. 

Perhaps you are younger and experienced another journey through the internet. I remember vividly the days when my wife and I could afford our first computer along with the ultra slow dial-up internet. Almost immediately I found myself in trouble when my wife caught me corresponding with a like minded individual on a message board in a nearby town. She turned to be more computer savvy than me and learned to track my movements on our system. What I learned was, I needed to better hide what I was doing or stay off the message boards all together.   

At that point, I was using my issues of Transvestia to locate transvestite mixers close enough to me in Ohio so I could travel to them. When I did, I was able to see and meet other cross dressers who were following similar journeys as well as many who weren't. There were the ones who seemingly trying to out run their feminine desires by still acting super masculine in a dress and heels. I certainly didn't feel a part of that cigar smoking crowd. (Before cigars became cool for women). Then there were the future transsexuals on the other end of the spectrum. They were impossibly feminine and I felt were far out of my league as I was very insecure about my appearance as a cross dresser. Even though I wanted to be a part of their world, it was difficult to be admitted. I partially solved my problem with blatantly tagging along with the so called upper class when they normally would go out to gay venues and continue to party after the majority of the group had retired to their rooms in the hotel where we were meeting. 

It wasn't until many years later, after many errors and successes in the world as I tried the basics of living as a transgender woman did destiny set in and I was accepted by small groups of cis-gender women who allowed me to really learn the basics of existing in the feminine world. 

Over the years of writing a blog, I have been able to correspond with other trans women who were able to benefit from similar situations. Mainly when they were invited into "women only" spaces. It was during these times I learned the true essence of communication women use when no men are present. My obsession changed from appearing feminine to actually acting feminine. I learned how much I have changed when I go back to the earlies days of blogging to see what I was up to. 

Whatever your journey, I hope it has been a successful one for you. There are so many facets to consider such as family and spouses which lead to staying in some sort of a closet by choice. Which there is certainly nothing wrong with that. I will forever wonder what would have happened with me if my wife would have lived on. Would we have ultimately split up when she said she would never live with another woman or could have a compromise been reached for both of us. Pursuing gender affirming hormones for me was the breaking point which I was free to do after she passed. So as you can understand I am not putting myself up on any sort of a pedestal because destiny led my journey to living as a fulltime trans woman. Pedestals are very fragile and easy to break. 

Hopefully it has been your journey and you have been able to live it with a positive outcome.  

Welcome to Hell

Inside "Casa Susanna" A dream trip I never made. 

My early days of dealing with a severe case of gender dysphoria can only be described as being in hell.

For those of you who can remember the dark days of information before the internet and social media, you also recall the days of being completely alone in your dark gender closet. Since I was raised in a very male dominated family, I knew escaping my own closet was going to be difficult at it's best. I was forced to sneak around behind my family's back to steal away the time to cross dress in my small stash of girls clothes and makeup. I even resorted to storing away my clothes and a spare mirror in plastic bags in a hollowed out tree in the woods next to our house.

Through it all, I knew the whole process of dressing as a girl made me feel better but somehow would have to be enough to get me by. I followed the vicious cycles of feeling the gender euphoria of being feminine in my mirror with deep depression when I was denied access to my clothes. I learned very early I wanted to do more than look feminine, I wanted to be feminine. Way before the term transgender was ever invented. to put the date in perspective, I would have been in the 1960's before I hit my teenaged years and still years away from my military duty and discovering Virginia Prince and her "Transvestia" publication which only dealt with so called heterosexual cross dressers or transvestites. I mention "Tranvestia" again because it was my first link to other like minded people. 

From then on, I knew I wasn't alone and could even go to transvestite mixers which were within driving distance of me. Even though I had discovered others, it turned out I was still dealing with my own personal hell. I still needed to be able to deal with the gender euphoric times followed by longer periods of gender dysphoric down times. Ironically I brought much of my hell on myself by not knowing the best ways to dress and apply makeup to best present my inner female to the public world. I had a difficult time dealing with all the stares, all the way to laughter when I tried to take on the world. Once I began to learn how to best handle the public, along came the Army to disrupt my life. As much as I didn't really want to experience military life at all, specifically I didn't know how I could exist three long years without having a chance to express my feminine self. For years, as I waited for the Vietnam War to draft me, I went through hell considering it's ramifications to me.

One way or another, I made it through the three years and couldn't wait for the relative freedom I had to escape my own personal gender hell, no matter how briefly. 

My big escape came when I made the highly personal decision to stop considering myself a cross dresser when I went out and I transitioned into thinking of myself as a transgender woman. Semantics to be sure but a huge move for me mentally. By mentally transitioning I was able to take a huge step out of my own personal gender hell. In many ways, I entered my golden years of MtF gender transition by leaving much of my hell behind and be able to increasingly explore the world. 

From then on I was able to free myself from my gender dysphoric hell and start to live my dream life as a transgender woman. Although I want to say the process was worth it, I wouldn't wish my journey on my worst enemy.

Do Clothes Make the Woman

Photo Courtesy
Jessie Hart

 
Early in life when my only feminine experience was with the mirror, I learned quickly my quick visits with my new friend did not last long. Within days I found myself right back where I started. Mostly very confused concerning my gender. None of what I was doing helped me with my youthful desires to be like the other girls my age. Years later I finally learned how I was beating my head against the wall. In reality I was just trying to look like a girl not be one. All of this was occurring way before the internet and social media and in fact long before the term transgender was ever invented. So I was very much on my own except for the occasional issue of "Transvestia" I received in the mail. It's founder Virginia Prince was very much into the theory of all transvestites should be heterosexual to be a member of her organization. 

Which in many ways was alright with me since I considered myself hetero at the time and was until my sexuality did come into question until I was transitioning. None of this helped me to understand clothes do not make the woman. 

It took me years longer to why I felt this way. First of all, I had to look at what I felt made a woman. It turned out, nobody makes anything such as a woman or a man, While it is true most of us are born into one or the other of the binary female or male genders, over the years we have the chance to socialize ourselves and grow into women or men. Secondly as we grow into women or men, clothes are just a way to better present ourselves to the world at large. Early on we transgender women or men learn the more proficient we become at presenting as our authentic selves, the easier our path is when we actually find our way out of the mirror and into the world. 

As I went through the often painful process of separating myself from the mirror, I still was having a difficult time understanding why just presenting well as a woman didn't come close to me having any sort of an idea of what a woman was. In other words, clothes for me were not making the woman. Following many more years of hard earned research and learning, I finally came to the conclusion gender was between the ears for me and likely had been my entire life. Clothes were just an extension of my inner feminine soul. 

Similar to any man attempting to hang on to his frail masculinity, I fought the feelings as long as I  could. Finally one night I decided to let my feminine self have her way totally. Now I wish I would  have manned up and did it years ago. 

I found out the hard way clothes do not make the woman. You do. 

Transgender History

One never knows when simply being older than everyone else could be a positive.

One of the questions at last night's transgender - cross dresser support group meeting was what was your earliest remembrances of obtaining any information at all concerning your gender differences.

Being the oldest in the group, I was the only one to remember Virginia Prince , her  Transvestia Magazine and The Society for the Second Self... for male heterosexual cross dressers. The last issue was in 1979.

Over the years,  Virginia finally has began to receive the credit she deserved for being one of the pioneers of the cross dressing movement all the way to the beginnings of understanding the transgender movement. She came from a socially prominent family in Los Angeles and like so many of us struggled (and lost) a marriage because of her cross dressing. She began cross dressing when she went to a church Halloween party dressed as a woman and no one knew. So, again, many of us followed the same path as her.

I know I first obtained a copy of one her books "The Transvestite and His Wife" (1967) and immediately read it approximately three times. I also subscribed to "Transvestia" for awhile. Plus, my first dealings with other transvestites came from a Virginia Prince connected group in Cleveland, Ohio. So I owe a lot to her as a pioneer.

Virginia Prince

Virginia passed away in May of 2009. Follow the link above for more.

Life Turns on a Dime Part Five

 For me these were the days shortly after Virginia Prince and her Transvestia publication burst upon the scene. I was still amazed others in the world felt the same way I did. So, I ordered several issues of Transvestia and discovered a group of hetero sexual transvestites who held mixers through out the country. The closest to me was a very drive able Cleveland, Ohio so I paid my dues and headed to my first of several mixers.  

From those mixers I learned several important lessons including a much closer chapter forming in much closer Columbus, Ohio. 

Other lessons learned were some there were hetero questioning or as I called them "admirers in drag" cross dressers, and even a few who were on their way to perhaps a stealth (SRS) transsexual full time existence as a woman.

What Virginia never wrote about though was the difference internally was between a male who could pass as a female and one who had a feminine soul. So I know Virginia and others considered her a transgender pioneer but I am one of those who is not so sure.

I also discovered a very distinct social system as distinct as the one high school girls had. Very quickly I called them the "A" listers  because of their "mean girl" style social clique. You definitely had to look a certain way to be invited into the group. Which of course I didn't. However, these also were the ones who left the motel/hotel to go party elsewhere later in the evening. Later on I would attach the "trans-nazi" label to them but still tagged along-invited or not.

Other notable exceptions to the norm were the guys in their fancy dresses and smoking cigars as if to not let too much of their male self go.

Two dimes were dropped on me during these mixers in Cleveland. One, was an invite to join the group in Columbus and the other thanks to a free makeover at a mixer.

I pulled up my big girl panties and let a makeup artist take all my war paint off and start over. The results were startling. I was even invited to go along with the "A" listers without having to invite myself. Most importantly though as the night was beginning to wind down (right in front of all of them, a guy who seemed real nice invited me to stay over for a drink. I often wondered what would have happened had I said yes?

As promised though, I discovered an even smaller incredibly diverse group to learn from in Columbus as time marched ever forward.

Coming up next, German Village.

A Transphobic Pioneer?

For those "more mature" girls here in Cyrsti's Condo, the "dark ages" of information during our youth and longer is hard to remember. How did we exist back in those days without our cellphones and all the other electronic info devices we have today.  The answer is simple, unless you lived in a major metropolitan area, obtaining any information concerning your gender identity issues was tough to come by.

One of the first persons I discovered was Virginia Prince (left). As with most issues in our community Virginia is thought of in many different ways. On one hand she lived nearly 40 years as a woman but denied being a transsexual, which today could be considered transgender but also was perceived as being homo and transphobic.

None of that really mattered to me as I eagerly read her first couple of books including the "The Transvestite and His Wife"- and never showing it to my wife who knew I was a cross dresser.  Shortly after that in the early 1990's I began to attend far away Tri Ess meetings, a  nearly 150 mile one way trip and subscribed to Transvestia. Published by Virginia.  Ironically, I benefited so much from many of the exact problems she had with others. Transsexuals in particular.

Very quickly I found there were several groups within a group at the so called hetero cross dresser "only" meetings.  One of the "groups" would always separate from the main bunch in the hotel we met at and go to the nearest gay venue. Those evenings included some of my first contacts with the diverse subculture I was in including transsexuals and drag queens. Let's just say I had a fairly good idea a portion of the group were not completely "hetero" cross dressers. I loved the diversity of the group.

Then as today, I do think of Virginia Prince of one of the gender pioneers in my life. She opened my world, although I did view her as a throwback to my stodgy old grandmother.

If you don't know much about her, Dallas Denny has written an excellent in depth look at her life. To take a look, go here.