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| Image from Jason Rosewell on UnSplash. |
What’s that faint noise I hear far in the distance? It took me awhile to figure it out, but it was the sound of my feminine self-yearning to be set free to live. Very early on, I thought she would go away as I aged but the opposite turned out to be true. She grew stronger as the years of my life progressed.
That is when I started to realize just looking at my cross-dressed
self in the mirror was just not going to be enough. I wanted more of the
feminine life I had experienced. What I was experiencing was the idea of I had
much more than a casual interest in women’s clothes and makeup. I was more into
how they lived. The term transgender had not even been invented yet, so I had
nothing to compare my feelings with. I did not think I was transsexual like
Christine Jorgensen, but I was certainly different from other cross dressers I
was seeing in my well-worn copies of “Tapestry” and “Transvestia” magazines.
When all of that happened, the sound kept getting louder and something larger
was wrong with me and it took me years to realize what was wrong with me was
not what the sound was telling me.
I went on fighting myself searching for the truth I was
looking for when it was right in front of me if I chose to see it. I ignored
the advice of my handpicked gender therapist (one of the few I could find back
in those days) who told me she could do nothing about me wanting to be a woman
but could do something about my manic depression. Which I always had thought was
something to do with my gender dysphoria. She told me it wasn’t and helped me by
prescribing medications to help me in everyday life. At the time, it turned
out, I was ready for help with my depression but not ready to face the facts
about my gender future. I was used to loud sound from my days as a radio DJ and
I was stubborn enough to want to hang on to a dual gendered life.
At the same time all of this was happening, I was beginning
to explore the world as a novice transgender woman and learning every time I
went out what the sound I was hearing really meant. I had life all backwards
with my struggles to live a male life and the sound was telling me increasingly
I was destined to be a woman all along. Not in the mold of having extensive
major gender operations but doing it on my own schedule as I marched to my own
drummer. Yet another sound which was growing in volume. Before I did though, I
needed to undertake an extensive program of more exploration. I desperately did
not want to make the move across the gender border at some point and find out I
had made the biggest mistake of my life. My spouse, family and job meant so
much to me, giving them up for no real reason scared me beyond belief.
Every time I began to have doubts about my upcoming gender
decisions, my drumming sound grew louder as I felt more alive and natural when
I was allowed behind the gender curtain with cisgender women. The work I was
doing to prove myself to the world finally was paying off, for the most part.
When I suffered a setback, I had the confidence and experience as a trans woman
to do the right thing and move forward in my new life as I followed the sound
of gender success. During this time, even though it is a blur to me now, I
still remember that it all was not pleasant as I went through the turmoil of deciding
which way I was going to turn next.
I know what you are thinking, what was she doing even
thinking about turning her back on the gender future she had worked so hard to
build. But I did as my male self stubbornly tried to drown out the sound my
feminine life was making. Perhaps desperately would be a better term because of
all the male privilege he had built up. He was desperate to hold off any more
change.
Finally, the sound of change became deafening to the point
where it could not be ignored anymore. I was not getting any younger and my transgender
transition clock was ticking, loudly. As I had a huge heart to heart talk to myself,
I came up with the decision to seek a doctor’s approval for HRT or gender
affirming hormones as a natural progression of my feminine progress. In addition,
I decided the hormones (if my body responded positively to them) would be the
point of no return. I would have to come up with a different way to support
myself financially, plus gather the courage to tell what was left of my family
the truth about myself. As it turned out, the hormones began to feminize me faster
than I ever thought possible and soon it became increasingly difficult to hide
my protruding breasts, longer hair and softer skin than ever before. Long story
short, my daughter accepted me and my brother rejected me as I revealed my life
to them so I had the best of all worlds with the support of my daughter.
Ironically, one of the changes I went through was I had a
greater, deeper appreciation of sound and music as a transfeminine person. I
had gone full circle in my life understanding what that sound was and better,
yet what it meant to me.
I always loved being right when it mattered most, and it did
when I relaxed and listened to the sound of my gender spirit. I should give all
the credit where credit is due…to the little sound inside of me who said keep
trying when the going gets rough. Through the good times and the bad times, she
was always there to help me survive.
