Survival as a Trans Girl

 

Image from David Gavi on UnSplash.

If you are a transgender woman or transgender man, you are a member of the survivor tribe. You have earned your spot through too much trial and error that a “normal” human simply would not go through.

I know there are many of you who are early on your gender transition paths that really need a survival pep talk. My pep talk would be…to try to stay on the bumpy path you are on because it will be full of sharp curves, stop signs and steep walls in your way. What is that old saying? If it doesn’t kill you, it will only make you stronger sadly happens in record numbers to the trans population. In fact, I tried to kill myself several times due to the amount od stress and depression I was feeling through my gender dysphoria. Fortunately, I was unsuccessful at my self-help attempts and lived to talk about it.

Even to this day, I still have to keep a close eye on how I am feeling mentally, and I still take meds for depression and anxiety which have very little to do with my gender issues. I suppose we all have our own weight to carry through our lives, and that one is mine. I am also fortunate in that I have mental health and LGBTQ support groups to attend virtually every Friday at the Dayton, Ohio Veterans Administration. In the group, we have a diverse set of survivors with different experiences to share, and the moderator always starts the session with what good things have happened to each of us every week. It is so successful that anytime now I think the henchmen from the orange crook in Washington DC to catch wind of it and have it cancelled. So far though, it seems to be OK. All I can say is, I have been in many support groups over the years with little to no positive results, so I hope this one lasts.

If you are feeling lonely and need like minded individuals in the LGBTQ community, seek out local groups in your areas. I know it is difficult for those of you in isolated areas but maybe you can do it virtually online. And, if you are jaded like me, don’t expect too much too soon from the groups you are in. Often, these are highly insecure individuals in the group who are reluctant to share until they know you better.

Then there are the ultimate survival tests such as spouses, family members and jobs. Each one of you will have to face your own challenges in these areas and the only thing I can say is, you have to be patient and try to use common sense when telling the world about your seismic gender changes. In my case, my second wife knew I was a cross dresser from day one of our marriage and never stood in my way but totally refused to have anything to do with me going on HRT and being transgender. She told me there was no way she would live another woman, and I understood what she was telling me. My second strike came with my employment. I had a very successful high energy job I worked hard to get and knew there would be no way I could transition on the job. At that point in time, I did not know what I was going to do to survive and continue my dream of living as a transfeminine person.

Perhaps you are blessed with a more understanding wife, and I would suggest a sit-down talk with her before appearing cross-dressed in your best feminine clothes. That way, you can tell what she is going to do and will she ever come to accept you. Then you can make plans for your survival.

Remember too, there are various stages of development as a transgender woman. First of all, you have to accept you are much more than a cross-dresser who can survive on fewer days a month dressed. Even though I had free reign to dress a couple days a week from my second wife, it was never enough to satisfy my need to go behind the feminine gender curtain and learn more. Even though it doesn’t sound like I took a slow and cautious path to my own form of womanhood, I certainly did. I wanted to make sure I could survive when I came out for good.

The amount of introspection alone makes you a better person and more of a survivor than the normal person. To have the chance to experience intimately both sides of the main gender binaries is the reason why some shallow people will never trust you. At some point to survive, you have to learn to accept the fact that you have reached a point where you are better than them. Plus, if you happen to be a person who thinks change is good, you are in for the most change a human can attempt.

When you are a survivor, you will join an elite tribe of humans who have walked an incredible path and lived to talk about it. If you are considering taking the path, just try to reach inside your inner soul to determine if the path is right for you. In my case, when I did, I came up with the answer that it was the only direction I could take and if I did not my life would not be worth living after all. My life then went full circle and a ciswoman who accepted me picked me up and made me the person I am today. I made it through all the self-harm and destruction I tried on myself just in time to transition into a transfeminine world in which I could survive. Hopefully, you can too.

 

 

Tiny Ripples of Gender Hope

Image from Rosie Kerr on UnSplash.

During the overwhelming sense of darkness I felt when I began to come out of my gender shell, were moments of gender hope and euphoria. More than anything else, they kept me moving slowly towards living my ultimate dream. All I could think of was the possibility of living as a woman later in life.

Having to run and hide my small “collection” of feminine clothes and makeup every time I tried to get in front of the mirror and cross dress did not help. I resented the fact I could not be free to do what I wanted, no matter how radical it was…like being a girl. I could not imagine the pain and suffering I would have if I was caught. What saved me was the vision of a pretty young girl which came peeking on through when I was able to be alone and try on my precious clothes. Even though I was depressed I had to go back to being a boy, the brief moment of femininity carried me through the dark days and gave me a ripple of hope.

Fast forward through the difficult days of puberty and adolescence everyone goes through, I needed to deal with my gender dysphoria also. There were so many dark days when I just went through the motions of life that I did not know what was going to become of me. When I did, I desperately needed to find refuge behind my dresses and makeup to give me hope. Perhaps the only good thing which was happening was that I was slowly perfecting my use of makeup. When all my friends were showing off their painted model cars, I was stuck not being able to show off my new eye makeup. I had to internalize my feelings of hope and euphoria when I saw my new pretty eyes. Sadly, I needed to become good at removing all traces of the makeup so my brother and parents would not notice.

I guess you could say I was in the dark through my college years and beyond until I began to be able to enter the world for the first time as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. These were the days of attending transvestite mixers and small parties in nearby Columbus, Ohio. Being around like minded people who were searching for their gender answers almost made my search seem normal for the first time in my life. I was so protected from the world in the pre-internet days that I thought I was the only one like me stuck in their own personal hell. I was experiencing ripples of hope for the first time in my life on a scale I could appreciate. I even upped my appearance game when I went to Columbus from trashy woman to hopefully a passable ciswoman. One of my favorite outfits to wear was what I called my knit black out. I paired a loose fitting black wide knit top with a black leotard, shorts, tights with a pair of black flats and my red wig and was ready to go. After makeup of course.

For me, the whole outfit helped me to tone down and refine my look and it worked so well that I had my first ever encounter with a lesbian from the party when we left and went to a big lesbian venue for a break. I learned many valuable lessons that night which provided me with ripples of hope for the future. Mainly, if I could not be as feminine or beautiful as the transsexuals who were there, I still could be attractive myself to have a good time and most importantly, learn to be just me. Developing the future, me gave me real hope for the future as I learned it would be possible to achieve my transgender dreams if I worked hard enough. I had to learn the new transfeminine me meant so much more than the ripples of hope I had gained in the past went way past how I looked and into how I acted.

Suddenly, acceptance became my main goal, as my interior feminine self-stepped forward in my life. I knew who I wanted to be but still was not quite sure how to get there. For example, I knew for sure I did not want to be like the “Trans Nazi’s” as we called them or the bitchy trans women who thought they were better than anyone else simply because of their appearance or the number of gender surgeries they had undertaken. I suppose I should owe them a debt of gratitude for showing me what not to do to be a gracious, friendly transgender woman.

All of this came together for me when I began HRT or gender affirming hormones when I was sixty. I had spent enough life in the dark to appreciate the light and grasp a ripple of hope when I saw it. The hormonal medications proved to be a natural success when I began taking them. My body seemed to be saying again what took you so long. But on many levels I don’t think even I understood the basic limits I went through back in those days to salvage my life through the brief ripple of hope I received way back in the days when I lived for the mirror.

More importantly, I found myself in a situation where I could pay forward my experiences to helpfully help others. Especially those of you who are struggling to find answers on how to escape your dark gender closets and find your own ripple of hope. 

Stopping was Impossible

 

Image from Edward Howell
on UnSplash.

For years as I followed my early cross-dressing path, I labored under the impression that someday I could actually stop and return to my male existence. Of course, the older I became I learned that stopping was going to be nearly impossible. The reason being, when I was forced out of the mirror and into the world, I began to have success.

To me, success was measured in the public reaction I received. Very early on I suffered scorn when I went out without the knowledge to blend in with other ciswomen. When I became successful, it took so much pressure off and stopping became less and less an option. Mainly because something clicked in my head that I did not want to ever go back which was different than wanting to. For example, there was the night at TGIF Fridays when I went into the venue with the mindset, I actually wanted to be a woman with other women, not some sort of an impostor. When it happened, I knew for sure stopping was never going to be an option again. I was firmly on the path to achieving my dream of possibly living fulltime as a transgender woman.

The more I decided not to stop, the quicker the pressure mounted on me on what to do with my old male life. He had dug in deep and was refusing to go away easily. The worst part was he made good arguments such as what was I going to do about my spouse, family and employment. Just as a start. What did I do? I continued to internalize my inner woman and keep researching my future. Since my gender workbook was blank, I had a long way to go. Primarily when I needed to learn how to communicate one on one with other women when I was exceedingly shy to start with. To arrive there, I went to excess of taking feminine vocal lessons to attempt to learn to communicate better. As I was slowly succeeding in my efforts, again I knew for sure I could never go back.

Another main thing I learned was that I needed to control my emotions, not let them control me. Or when I hit the valleys of my journey (which there would be many), I had to pick myself up from being a failure and continually go back to my gender drawing board to figure out what I was doing wrong. I knew I had a testosterone poisoned body. I needed to work around but I dedicated myself to somehow doing it. I discovered from all the trips I was making to thrift stores; I could find the fashion I needed to make myself look the best I could under the circumstances I was working with. It all added up in my mind to I could never stop.

Along this way too, I quit purging for good. I had learned my lesson about the previous purges I had attempted. The lesson was, I could never go back to my old male self again. I was tired of throwing out all my hard-earned clothes, shoes and makeup only to have to replace it all again as soon as a month later.

What helped me was, I was learning over and over again how wrong I was fighting my instincts to be a transfeminine person at all. I always point out how wrong I was when I was fighting my true feminine self at all. I suffered from the brutal pressure I put on myself. So, stopping my transgender advance was never an option. I should never have waited as long as I did to go after my gender dreams.

I was fortunate that my basic personality never lent itself to stopping my search for my dreams. All my life, all I wanted to be was a woman and I just could never visualize myself not working hard to achieve my goal. I just never in a million years understood how difficult it would be for me to do it. I should have listened to my wife when she tried to tell me I was on the wrong path to achieving my goal. In a way, I did but not nearly enough until I did not stop until I was allowed to exist behind the gender curtain. Once I got there, stopping was never going to be an option again.

Then HRT and new feminine hormones shifted my mental thinking to match my external appearance which was improving all along. I never expected the changes to be so dramatic so quickly. I am glad stopping my male to female feminine transition was never a reasonable option.