Girls, Girls, Girls

Image Courtesy 
Motley Crue

This morning following a quick trip to the post office, I happened to hear the group Motley Crue sing their song "Girls, Girls Girls".  Hearing it always takes me back to experiences with girls I had when I was growing up. I would say my formative years but then I think I am still in my formative years in many ways during my senior years. 

I grew up outside of a small to medium sized town in a pre-suburban rural area where there were relatively fewer children in the neighborhood. As I remember, only around six and only one of them was a girl. It was definitely a male dominated structure including our family lives. There would be no discussion at all of the possibility of not wanting to be a boy at all. The problem I had was I had very few feminine role models to interact with in my own peer group. Since I was exceedingly shy, my gender issues which I was becoming increasingly aware of became even worse. Much of the problem was I was too isolated from girls and watched them from afar. 

Since I did live in a rural area, the school I went to was small also. In fact I went there from Kindergarten through the ninth grade with basically the same students which meant the same girls. When I hit the eighth grade and puberty began to set in, more and more I began to realize I didn't just want to socialize with the girls, I wanted to be one of them. I remember vividly how a few of the girls would wear their mini skirts, cross their legs and tease all the boys who wanted to admire them. I so wanted to be like them.

Little did I know, the older I became, the stronger my desire to be a woman would be. As I was a disk jockey for many events, I wondered how it would be to be a female groupie for one of the major musical groups they followed.  I was really triggered when my second wife and I went to one of the many Jimmy Buffett party/concerts we went to in Cincinnati. Of course there were tons of scantily dressed attractive women to look at. Even though I was a "Parrot Head "and loved the music, I couldn't get over how much I wanted to attend and look just like one of the attractive women I was admiring. As I did many times back in those days, I just tried to drink my feelings away to no avail.

Sadly, these days, "Jimmy Buffett" still comes to Cincinnati for a fun riverside concert but even though I could go now as a transgender woman, it would be very difficult due to my problems walking any distance at all. It seems my desire to be among the  "girls girls girls" in a big party situation will have to wait for another lifetime.  In the meantime, I can still listen to the song with the satisfaction I made it to my goal of living as a transgender woman.

It's Prom Time

 Spring has finally sprung around here and with it comes prom season in the local schools. With prom comes most every young novice cross dresser or transgender girls dream of being the lovely girl in the fancy dress enjoying a night out. Excluding those who write cross dressing fiction, dreams are all the envious boys will experience.

Photo by Amy Kate on Unsplash

Way back in the day, I ended up going to my high school's junior prom one year followed by actually going to two proms (with the same girl) my senior year in high school. It was because we actually went to competing high schools. So all in all, I was able to experience too much prom for my own good. Ironically I had to spend my own hard earned money on something I was so envious of. Instead of me being restricted to a tuxedo, I had to present a corsage and purchase dinner for my finely dressed prom dates. 

The only positive I could see coming out of the whole evenings was for the first time I was actually going out with girls. Leading up to that point, I was so shy and confused about my own gender, I still could barely talk to girls at all. I continued to place them all high up on an impossibly high pedestal. The pedestal included being jealous on my end of a date in a pretty formal with professional makeup and hair. So badly I wanted to be her. 

The closest I ever came was years later when the supper club we went to eventually closed and changed into a gay venue. It took awhile but at least finally I made it into the same rest room/powder room my date went to. A small victory to be sure but at the least a small amount of satisfaction of the fact finally I was making strides in the right gender direction.

Today, from the outside looking in, times seem to be better for an increasingly larger number of young transgender girls. Every now and then I read about a trans girl being elected to her schools' homecoming court etc. Plus there doesn't seem to be the social pressure for actual prom dating. I remember how my first date was set up through in betweens.  In other words friends of the girl who turned out to be my first date set her up with me because they knew I didn't have a date .Being so far removed from the school scene these days I can't even speculate on current proms.

I do know an increasingly number of LGBTQ organizations around here are organizing "adult proms" for those who for whatever reasons never had a chance to go to a prom. Plus I know of a couple of places locally who deal in used discount prom dresses for those who need them. 

The closest I have come to needing anything remotely formal to wear was several years ago when my partner Liz and I attended a holiday performance of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra I think I was as scared going to the performance as I was so long ago on the first prom. For the evening I managed to pair a long flowing pair of black pants I owned for awhile with a black sparkly sweater top I located in a thrift store, belted at the waist. A beaded small black purse completed my outfit.    

Hopefully, during this prom season you can do something such as attending an  adult prom to see what if anything you missed.