Fearing Change as a Gender Challenged Woman

Image from Joshua Gaunt 
on UnSplash. 

Gender change came so very slowly for me during my life.

First, I needed to free myself from the male bonds I was born into which I had no control over. Looking back, I think one of the main problems I had was fearing the changes I was looking to go through if I faced up to reality. From that point forward, life became a struggle as I feared changing it.

What I became was the best transgender procrastinator I knew. Any excuse I could come up with not to go through with living my dream, I clung to like a survivor on the Titanic. What I would do about spouses, family and employment were a few of the major questions I was asking. So, what did I do? I ran as hard and as fast as I could from the problem. I was running so hard, I even changed jobs very quickly so I would not be bored with my life as a transfeminine fugitive. Eventually, even though I grew tired of the pace, I found a stable good job and settled part of my life down. I say part of my life because during that time my gender issues were raging out of control.

Even though I was slowly becoming successful at blending my feminine self in with the world of cisgender women, I still had many fears to conquer. Just when I thought life was improving for me, I would hit another roadblock and send me running back to my cross-dressing drawing board. Which was crazily marked with clownish makeup until I got it right. The fear of applying skilled makeup kept me occupied for years it seemed. On the other hand, when I got my male ego out of the way and realized I needed to dress for other women and not men, did I begin to improve my overall look and the laughter I used to receive in public began to die away. When it did, I learned the most powerful force I had to combat gender change was having confidence in myself. Surely, I would never be the prettiest most beautiful woman in the room, but a lot of other cisgender women were not either and they were surviving and even thriving just fine. There were many layers to building womanhood and I just needed to find mine.

For some reason, the more success I felt as a transgender woman, the more fear I had. I guess it was because of my old male self-starting to panic because he was losing his dominance over my life. For years, what had seemed like the impossible gender dream was now looking as if it could become a reality. As he fought his new reality, the stakes towards living a successful life as a trans woman, increased dramatically. Every step I was taking towards my dream seemed to feel as if I was walking in quicksand since at any time, life as I knew it could be disrupted beyond repair in the little backwards town I lived in. I still lived in mortal fear that any day I could be discovered and the acquaintances I had built up over the years would realize I was living a gender lie. Which I was.

I finally made it to a point where I could not procrastinate my life any longer and I began to use every spare moment to explore the world as a transfeminine person. It all meant I accepted the challenge to finally go all in with making the final preparations for my new life. The bittersweet part of it all was part of my male to female final transition was built on tragedy. In the space of a couple short years, I lost my second wife as well as all of the friends I had built up over the years to death, and I had to start all over again. Sure, I was still afraid to do it but deep down I knew transition was the only way I could go. Suddenly it was up to only me to decide if I wanted to take the ultimate step and try to get a doctor’s permission to begin HRT or gender affirming hormones. I was approved and then the changes I was hoping for began to really happen for me. The changes were so dramatic, I sometimes take an entire blog post to relate them to you.

What frustrates me now are the haters who say that because I took so long to transition, I am not trans enough for them. Normally, they are younger LGBTQ individuals who have no idea of what the world was like way back when I was growing up. We all have our own gender crosses to bear, and we need to understand each other’s journey.

Sadly, there are all those transgender women and trans men who can’t take the burden of gender change fear any longer and tragically try to take the self-harm way out. The suicide rate in our community is completely too high and could come down with proper help and understanding.

In my case, my excuse is I had a heavy dose of ignorance combined with fear and procrastination as reasons it took me nearly a half a century to come out of my gender shell and live freely in the world as a transgender woman. These days, if you can steer clear of all the online trolls and haters, you can still get valuable information on the internet concerning ideas on how to build a new life as a woman from scratch. Plus, fear for me was a powerful motivator and when I was forced into a corner because of my gender, I came out fighting because I believed I was right.

It turned out I was.

 

 

 

  

Resolutions

 

Image from Nik on UnSplash.

I am a firm believer that most new year’s resolutions are made to be broken. Statistics say that nearly eighty percent of people never keep resolutions.

On the other hand, in my formative transgender years, I ended up making several resolutions that I intended on keeping. But by now you might be able to guess which ones I am talking about. The further I was going towards being able to live the feminine life I always dreamed of, the easier it was for me to set new resolutions to conquer in the upcoming year ahead.

Very early in my gender journey, it was easy to set easier goals such as getting out of my dark closet and into the world. I figured from there I could look around and see what was next. What was next proved to be terrifying, natural and exciting all at the same time. More and more I felt bored by the old idea that all I wanted was a chance to be a woman on my own terms. It got to the point where I did not have to make any resolutions which I would have to break. I was doing a good job at living out the ones I had already made. Ironically, I missed several resolutions I should have made but did not. Such as when I did not see my second big gender transition coming at all. It was when I shifted gears mentally and began to think of myself as being transgender and not a cross dresser at all. To this day, I have nothing against all cross dressers (since I was one for years) but my gender needs took me deeper.

Of course, going deeper into my transgender rabbit hole, brought out the need for new resolutions. The old shallow ones such as could I exist in a ciswoman dominated world no longer were making it. I was way past all of that and needed to find out once and for all if I could carve out a new life for myself that I had only dreamed of. You might say, reality of life began to outstrip my dreams as well as the need for more resolutions. At that point, I quit making them all together.

It was easier to go free form in my transfeminine pursuits and do the best I could. It turned out that for the most part I was successful and continued on feeling good about myself. Until the usual problems arose with my unapproving wife and a male self who continued to dominate a big portion of my everyday existence. As I thought more and more about them, I wondered what I would ever do about setting up more resolutions about changing my life for good and jumping the male to female femininization border.

I don’t think until you have walked a mile in our high heeled shoes as a transgender woman would you understand the relative importance of making new year’s resolutions. While others are thinking about losing weight or cutting back on their drinking, you (on the other hand) are wondering what in the world are you ever going to do about becoming a full-fledged transgender woman. It is especially difficult when someone you know asks you what your resolutions are and you don’t want to lie.

At that point, I just went back to my default position I used when anyone asked me about my future. When I was a kid, instead of saying one day I wanted to be a woman, to please my parents I just said I wanted to be a lawyer or doctor. Seemingly, nothing changed later in life when I was asked about my resolutions, I would just say to lose more weight or make more money. So, I lied and took the easy way out. There was one way I could tell the world the truth at that point in my life. Then I started to wonder how many other people who spoke of their resolutions on new year were fudging their answers too. All those people who rushed out to join a gym never really meaning to go like I did once. As I think about it, going to workout in any shape or form was yet another gender smokescreen I threw up to disrupt anyone who was sensing my transgender issues.

Overall, I wonder how many other trans women or trans men have had to try the same method and any sort of a public call for a resolution or two is just another way to hide while you are on your path. One of the statistics which I have read on resolutions said that only twenty percent of people making resolutions keep them anyway, so I don’t feel so bad about not making them anymore. And who knows how many of those making resolutions are closeted transgender people anyway?

Looking back, the only advice I could give to a trans person still in the closet thinking about the new years and making resolutions is to try to make yours doable and don’t try for too much. Failure only leads to disappointment and a deeper return to your closet.

Anyway, you cut it, a new year is on the way, and we have a chance to sweep away a very disappointing 2025 out the door. Just keep your head high and hope for the best in 2026. At the least we will have a chance to vote and change a very crooked regime in Washington. Something you can do from the privacy of your closet, and no one will have to know and if you do make resolutions and don’t keep them you will be in the majority of the population for a change. A real rarity.

 

 

 

 

Gender is a Basic Human Instinct

 

JJ Hart, Birthday Dinner.

One of the most basics of human instincts is gender. It comes with us at birth and is then (right or wrong) reinforced by our families. External factors kick in to put us in a tight gender box and keep us there. How we are treated as boys and girls, goes a long way in how our future is shaped. In my mind boys were always told to get out there and conquer the world while girls were coddled in a pretty world. It took me decades of interactions with ciswomen to learn that was not true. In their own ways, women face the same competitive challenges as men, just coming from different angles or perspectives. I told one of the experiences I had yesterday when I waded into the ciswomen’s world for the first time and discovered how brutal passive aggressive behavior could be.  

Examples include boys competing more physically with each other while girls learn to compete just as hard but in a more passive nature. One way or another, gender as an instinct is ingrained into us quite early in life and is difficult to change. One of the reasons transgender women and trans men are so misunderstood in the world today. Not to mention the fact that we are very rare, and very few people have ever met a transgender person. I know my parents from the “greatest generation” were not great enough with me to understand how their first-born son wanted to be their daughter. Taking a page from the great Christmas movie “A Christmas Story”, I never wanted the BB Gun that “Ralphie” wanted in the movie, but I got one anyhow. Instead of the baby doll I really wanted. All my gender instincts were kicking in although I was not sure I knew exactly what was going on, I knew something was definitely wrong.

It was not until I began exploring the public as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman, did I start to understand what was going on with my own gender instincts. Facing up to the fact I never belonged in the male world as an active participant at all never came easy for me. Mainly because I had worked so hard to survive in a gender I did not want to be. To make matters worse, I was becoming more of a success in the male world. Even though I was so self-destructive I kept tearing down all the successes I kept building up as soon as I achieved them.

In my case, I think the war I waged with my internal gender instincts was much worse than the battles I faced for acceptance as a transfeminine person in the public’s eye. Even though they were major hurdles, obstacles such as confidence and impostor syndrome were holding me back. It seemed no matter how successful I was in my new world, I still felt like an impostor or outsider looking in. It took me quite a while to overcome my doubts and feel like I had as much right as the next woman to be in the space I was in. Over and over, I felt I was growing up into the woman I was always destined to be. It was just taking me longer to do it because of many external factors such as a whole train load of male baggage I had managed to accumulate in my life.

Along the way too, I was becoming a keen observer of the public’s gender instincts. Primarily ciswomen who for some reason had no problem with me as men nearly completely left me alone. By doing so, I was able to read other women like I had never been able to do before. Slowly but surely, my life began to turn full circle. Instead of going out to be alone, I was going out to socialize with other women who were mainly lesbians. They taught me a whole different set of gender instincts, mainly revolving on where I stood with the other half of the population, men. While other transgender women I knew were struggling to be validated by a man, I was flourishing when I was validated by women. It obviously is not a world which worked for everyone, but it worked for me.

With all the help I was receiving, I made it to a point where I did not consider myself trans when I was out in the world. I was just me, and I had all the confidence to go with it. It took me over a half a century to completely figure out my gender instincts, but I did it with some powerful help such as HRT or gender affirming hormones. The meds I was approved for helped me to understand what ciswomen go through in their lives such as hot flashes and other effects of female puberty. When I tried to talk about it to my women friends all they did was laugh and say welcome to their world. What I could not say was how happy I was to be there.

Cracking the code of human gender instincts is very difficult to do because it is so deeply ingrained in all of us and in many ways, it is a selfish thing to do. It takes a special person to understand when you have to immerse yourself in the other binary gender to just survive in life. If you are blessed to have found such a person, be sure to cherish and hang on to them because they are so rare.

In the meantime, keep your head on a swivel and be on the outlook for ways to improve your gender instincts. It is a difficult process and never one to be taken lightly. For me, at least it was a lifetime journey to finally discover something I already knew I refused to accept. I had my gender identity totally backwards and ended up paying the price for years. Just because I was afraid to face myself.

 

 

Did I Take the Easy Way Out?

Image from Nicloe Geri
on UnSplash. 

 Yesterday I wrote about the seismic gender changes I went through or could have gone through in my life.

After I did, I began to think about where I took short cuts or took the easy way out of my new life as a transfeminine person. Maybe when you read yesterday’s post, you noticed it was primarily about the men who briefly entered and influenced my life as I questioned my own sexuality.

The fact of the matter was, I was afraid of having sex with a man. Mainly because I had never considered it as I was always connected to women. I wondered as I transitioned farther would my sexuality eventually change. Especially when I started HRT or gender affirming hormones. I knew when I did that, I was sacrificing any way of having so called “normal” sex with ciswomen would be gone as long as I was on the hormones. To be honest, I had always looked at sex as a way to please a partner rather than myself, so losing my sex act would not be that big of a deal. Plus, in my mind, I always made love to a woman as another woman anyhow.

As I write about often, as I transitioned, men for the most part left me alone for any number of reasons. I always felt the primary one was they knew I was transgender and had left the men’s club for good and they did not trust me with their own frail male sexuality. Or maybe I should say, trust themselves. One way or another, I immediately felt as if ciswomen accepted me quicker and I had never had so much female attention in my life. I loved it, as I was able to learn about their world while they were curious about mine. I even went as far as Amy telling me to buy bananas to start practicing what I would do with a man. I never did go that far except for the one big burly, biker of a man I met coming off of his wedding debacle rebound in a regular venue I went to.

I also knew his wife who was a beautiful exotic dancer and I could not figure out the attraction except for looks. It turns out that I was right and the marriage only lasted one week and I felt so sorry for him while at the same time, the people around him were making fun of him. Instead of taking the easy way out this time, I was the only one to lend a sympathetic ear to his problems. In a short while, he began to look for me (and vice versa) when we were at the venue because I was normally alone. Looking back, I wonder what would have happened if I had shown more curiosity about his Harley and would it have led to taking a ride with him. All I know is that I never did and he ended up taking a new job out of town and any possibility of me going any farther with a man sexually with him. From then on, it was back to women.

By women, I meant back to my new inroad into the lesbian culture and community which started when I began to frequent several small lesbian venues in the Dayton, Ohio area. Initially, I was just looking for a friendly place for companionship with other women. Out of the three venues I went to, I discovered they were all different in how I was treated. One of them hated me and did everything they could to keep me out of there, one was neutral and did not seem to care at all, and one was very friendly and welcomed my business. I even learned the bartender I saw several times was a customer in my restaurant with her friend. Her acceptance paved my way for several eye-opening experiences for me in the venue with other lesbians. Before I did, I needed to learn the social levels that other lesbians operated at. Everybody from super butch masculine women to more feminine lipstick lesbians who I more closely identified with. Along the way, I was hit on several times including the time I was forced to sing karaoke with a cowboy hat wearing super butch who wondered why my voice was lower than hers and another night when another butch told me she should take me home with her. Both were eye opening experiences.

What my dealings with the lesbian culture really taught me was that I did not need a man to validate my existence as a woman and there were many lesbians who might walk that fine line sexually to be with a man who was quite different than anyone they had ever known. It was my wife of over a decade now who decided to cross her lesbian leanings and attempt to build a relationship with a transgender woman. After a long courtship, I decided to throw caution to the wind and sell my house and move to Cincinnati to live with Liz. The deciding factor was she had briefly known my old male self and had completely rejected him. Telling me she had never seen any male in me at all.

With that major decision behind me, I was encouraged to proceed with HRT and give all my male belongings to thrift stores and live fulltime with Liz as a transgender woman. It was the biggest seismic change in life I could have ever made. Maybe I was taking the easy way out by never learning if I could live with a man because they were exceedingly hard to find. Ciswomen were not, I was enjoying myself and learning at the same time how I could reach my dream of living as a transfeminine person, so I never looked back. My world settled down, and I learned to live without all the seismic gender changes I went through.

 My path was never easy, but I ended up with a wonderful knowledge of the two basic binary genders.   

Falling Asleep in my Heels

Image from Toa Heftiba
on UnSplash.

Falling asleep in my new high heels turned out to be a very dangerous thing for me to do.

There was a time when I was in my early formative cross-dressing years that I thought wearing high heels was a fashion necessity I could not do without. Instinctively I knew the heels made my legs shapelier and longer. But what I did not realize was how much power the shoes gave the ciswoman wearing them. Have you ever noticed how men follow the sound of heels when a woman enters a room? Plus, the power extends from men to other women, who at the least responded to the expertise it took to wear a pair of high heeled shoes.

So, where did the danger come in for me? Actually, in. several different ways. First came the pure challenge of wearing heels. I had never experienced anything like it in my entire life but only knew the shoes made me feel so deliciously feminine. Through sheer effort, I conquered my fear of wearing heels so much that I forgot I was wearing them and ended up with another big problem, looking like a linebacker in drag, in heels. So much so that one night as I was trying to negotiate the stairs at home, my wife barked at me with a feet forward command. I never forgot that night and resolved to walk better in the future.

There were times in my past when heels went out as a fashion accessory and flat shoes were in with over-sized sweaters and short mini skirts for ciswomen everywhere. I was overjoyed with the idea of showing my legs off in tights and opaque pantyhose but again found myself in a situation where I needed to really concentrate on how I walked femininely without the heels I had come to rely upon. It seemed one of my favorite female privileges was taken away just when I was getting used to them. As with anything else in the fashion world of women, if you don’t like something, just wait because change is just around the corner.

That corner for me turned out to be a long way away. My fashion sense turned into a strong urge to blend in with other women in the world. Which meant where I was going, the women around me never wore heels. Especially all of my lesbian friends. Like them, I went for comfort in my footwear and blended right in, especially at all the lesbian mixers I went to.

My caveat to all of this comes from the transgender women such as “Stana” at the “Femulate” blog who have fabulous legs. Years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting her in Dayton, Ohio. Stana is tall to begin with and makes a striking beautiful woman when you meet her in person. Where we met, there were a group of men waiting for a ride when the elevator opened and out stepped Stana in all her long-legged glory. From where I was waiting, I could see everyman in the lobby turning to admire her. As you can tell, I have never forgotten the moment years ago when Stana took every advantage of her legs and heels as a transgender woman.

As I grew older, unfortunately, I had an old football injury destroying my ability to wear any heels at all. I broke my left ankle twice in the same place and wearing heels just became unbearable. To compensate in my own way, I try to buy stylish shoes and boots with no heels that I can walk in.

Regardless, I still remember the days when I felt the power of wearing my high heels gave me. Even after I went through the paranoia of feeling I was so much taller in the shoes. I decided to stand tall and be proud of myself, even though I was barely six feet tall. I had the opposite effect of going to sleep in my heels. I was wearing them proudly when I could. As I said, time has passed for me and I need to go for total comfort in my footwear, and it makes me sad. I feel I have lost a portion of my transfeminine self which will never be reclaimed. In the meantime, I can sit back and admire any woman I see negotiating the world in her high heeled shoes. As I know what she is going through, so I appreciate it.

As for you, if you haven’t checked out the “Femulate” blog yet, try it and you will see several transwomen and cross dressers in their heels and hose. Then you can go home and practice. Till you have your walk down and attempt in the public’s eye and watch out for sidewalk cracks which can cause you problems. Which I know from personal experiences.

 

  

In the Wrong Room?

 

JJ Hart ahead of first Girl's Night Out.

When I first jumped out of my dark closet and into the bright world, I wondered if I had jumped into the wrong room.

There are other words for my feelings such as impostor syndrome, but I was not far enough along in my transgender development to know them. All I did know was I was feeling ill at ease when I was with another group of women. Which was nearly fatal mistake when it came to being accepted. I discovered how perceptive ciswomen were in their world and could spot a fake miles away. So, I worked hard to show them my truth. I really wanted to earn my way into their world.

It took quite a bit of work and time but slowly I began to be invited to special girls’ nights outs. I never turned down an invitation no matter how terrified I was of going until I began to feel as if I was not in the wrong room after all. It helped when I paid attention to what the other women were doing and saying, and I tried to do the same. As I suspected, the conversations revolved around family and kids, so even though I could not share any birth stories, I could talk about my daughter as a loving parent. A door was opening for me to enter a world I had always dreamed of as an equal, and I cherished my opportunity to learn.

I discovered too that most of the other invitees accepted me easily except for a few I rather not mention. No matter how much they glared at me, I was able to ignore them and have a good time. I was learning I had as much of a reason to be in the room as they did, an invitation from the alpha female gatekeeper who I respected completely for her diverse beliefs. In her life, she was her own contradiction in terms as I saw her. Primarily a strong Christian woman who accepted me for who I was.

On the other hand, men were a completely different story. From the time I started my male to female transition, I was ushered out of the boy’s club I had become a comfortable member of. I learned relatively quickly on the few dates I went out on with men to be quiet and let them lead. No matter how mundane the subject, and how much I knew about it. It worked as I settled into a new world having a lesser IQ. My dates were so rare with men that I never had a chance to feel the chill of being kicked out into a new world I always wanted to live in.

In short, I was thriving in my world and all thoughts of being in the wrong gender room went away. I was in no way an impostor and I deserved to be there. Rather than having a fancy new handbag, I had a fancy new confidence to go with everything else good which was happening for me.

Sadly, the only remaining problems were the same massive ones I refused to face. What was I going to do about my spouse who did not want to live with a woman, all the way to how I was going to support myself financially if I decided to jump the gender border from a male life, I was successful at, to a female one which was largely untested. Helping me along was the knowledge of knowing from all my ciswoman interaction in the real world was successful. It would be difficult, but I knew deep down I could make it. Mainly because the whole process seemed so natural to me.

Finally, I realized I was living my whole life backwards. I was always fighting the idea I was a man trying to be a woman. When in fact the opposite was true. I was a woman all along trying to be a man. It was no wonder I did not feel at home in either of the two main binary genders, male and female. And until I chose the right room, my life and mental health would never improve.

It seemed destiny was on my side as I made the journey into the transfeminine gender side of life. To arrive I had the cruel death of my wife (as well as other close friends to deal with) plus closing my business to overcome. Against all odds, my wife Liz found me online of all places and helped me to rebuild my shattered life. I was able to locate the proper feminine room and stay there.

Damn its Hot in here

 

Image from Jon Tyson
on UnSplash. 

It is “patch day” for me. One of the days during the week when I change out my Estradiol hormonal patches. Every time I do it, I take the time to remember the changes I went through when I started gender affirming hormones or HRT.

Of course there were the much-publicized changes such as breast growth, changes in skin, and generous hair growth. Very quickly, I was able to put my wigs away and have my own hair styled professionally and begin to use much less makeup to present well. What I did not count on was the internal effects the HRT had on me. All of a sudden, I had emotions I had never had before, and I could cry.

One of the more humorous experiences I had was the night I experienced my first ever hot flash. I was out to be alone that night and was completely caught off guard when the heat hit me. In fact, I had just stopped thinking about how chilly it was in the venue and how I might have to put on my jacket to stay warm. Something I never had to do back in my male years. Suddenly my own thermostat seemed to be ruined, and I was paying the dues for all the times I thought the women around me were just making it up when they said they were cold. Then, I did not need my jacket at all when all hell broke loose, and I felt as if I was on fire. I quickly looked around to see if anyone else noticed my predicament, but no one did. I wondered at the time how they could not, but my heat must have been internal in nature. Later on, that evening, I tried to explain what had happened to me to my cisgender friends and they just laughed me off saying welcome to their world.

Now patch day once a year comes down to my annual mammogram. Since my maternal grandmother passed away years ago from breast cancer, my primary medical provider at the Veterans Administration makes sure every year I have a mammogram to be safe. If you have never experienced a mammogram, there is some brief discomfort but nothing like the alternative. So, I consider it a rite of passage when I have one.

It turned out for me there were many rites of passage to come as I went through a male to female transition. I had taken the appearance aspect of transitioning just about as far as I could and then faced a real decision in my life. Should I seek out a doctor to prescribe gender affirming hormones. I went to my local Dayton, Ohio LGBTQ resource guide and found a doctor and decided to make an appointment to see if I was healthy enough to begin HRT. This was way back in the days before the VA decided to include hormone therapy as a choice for gender dysphoric vets, so the doc I chose was the only logical choice. He asked me a few key questions about what I was prepared to lose of my male lifestyle and then approved me for a minimum dosage of medications to start my journey.

I started on pills and very soon they became a lifeline for a better world for me. Fairly quickly, after I showed no ill effects to the new hormones, I was prescribed larger dosages, and my body took to them naturally.  Then it got hot with my thought pattern of what I was going to do about all the changes which were happening to me. I was appearing very androgynous which was noticeable to others who knew me, so I needed to change my transition timetable because I was running out of time. In short, hormones slammed the door shut on my male life I had worked so hard to achieve. It was mine to give away, and I gladly did it.

Now, as I change my hormonal Estradiol patches out, I stop to remember the old male days and how I felt in my body and say a silent prayer that I have suffered no ill effects in my decade plus journey on HRT. I always take time to urge everyone considering femininizing their body through hormones, to seek guidance from a doctor before you do it. As I have seen the results of unregulated hormone therapy. The process is nothing to play with.

As I look back on the benefits of all the therapists and doctors I have seen over the years (and continue to see), being able to feel the heat of becoming a transgender woman was worth the effort.

 

 

 

The Second Time Around

 

JJ Hart (middle) at my first
Girls' Night Out. 

If you are one of the rare human beings to experience a second time around in life, you owe it to yourself and others to live it the best you can.

Being transgender can give you that rare insight into two of the main binary genders which should give you an edge in dealing with the everyday world. Having an intimate knowledge of whatever the other gender maybe thinking of us as trans women or trans men brings out fear in the public's eye. Who are we to possess such a wonderful scope of knowledge anyhow? It is especially bad with the male gender who has such a poor grasp of their sexuality to begin with. I know when I transitioned from male to female, one of my main concerns was my own sexuality. Was I expected to suddenly change my sexual preferences which had always been with women and suddenly start liking men. I even went to the point when I first came out when a straight woman friend of mine told me to buy bananas and practice. I will let your imagination do the rest.

We all know though there is so much more to a gender transition than sex when you set yourself up for the second round in life. I found I was leaving a life as a man where I was mildly successful and entering a totally new world full of women who were able and willing to question my existence in their world at all. Away from men, the women were a complex tribe, and it was difficult for me to be given the access to play with them behind the obvious gender curtains. First and foremost, just looking like a woman just got me in the game and the difficult part was just beginning. I spent hours and hours in the world just learning how to be the new me.

Suddenly, before I knew it, the doors to a totally different world opened for me and I was invited to the girls’ night’s outs. The invites could never replace the learning experiences young girls have when they are in their formative years and they get to go to girls’ overnighters with friends, but they were all I had to attempt to catch up on my gender homework. No chance to experiment with makeup or gossip about boys or other girls.

The main problem was, I had another male life to deal with at the same time. Looking back, I don’t know how or why I put up with all the gender stress and tension I did to make it to my dream. I guess the reason was I did not have the confidence to know if I could make such a major life changing step at all. We all have a lot to lose when we undertake such a step, don’t we? Plus, as I slid towards the idea I could live fulltime as a transgender woman, I was being accused of being selfish. Which made me feel guilty until I finally came to the conclusion I was being selfish. Because I had to save my own life.

As I was accepted into the girls’ sandbox around me by the majority of the women around me, my confidence grew that I could indeed live a second time around life as a transfeminine person. My long hidden inner female took over and surprisingly became a rather social person as I formed bonds with my small group of lesbian friends which was the best of all worlds for me. As I always say, the first and main thing my friends taught me was I did not need a man for validation. Which included my sexuality. All I needed to do was still keep an eye out for the rare bigot who hated me for no real reason. It turned out the haters would have to go through my cisgender friends to get to me, if they wanted to.

At that point in time, I met my wife Liz, and my second time around became easier and easier for me to live up to. I say live up to because I found myself at a point where I always dreamed of being. But I never thought I could make it. Never say never became a reality for me when Liz told me she never saw anything male about me. I was in gender heaven and stayed there until I realized what a heavy burden I needed to face. Here I was with the rare chance for a do over in my life and to not repeat the same mistakes I made as a man.

So far so good I think as I head down the stretch run of my life and I can be thankful for the chance to live two lives regardless of what the gender haters say.

 

Closing the Circle

 

JJ Hart at Club Diversity, Columbus, Ohio.

Very quickly when I opened my gender closet door and looked out, I noticed a whole different world I would have to conquer if I was to survive.

To begin with, I was slightly overconfident with my ideas because I had spent so much time studying the girls around me. I was jealous of their pretty clothes and how the boys chased them. I so badly wanted to run in their circle but as we all know, that was not going to be possible for years to come. To begin with, there were so many smaller circles to negotiate before I could advance. So many, I could barely keep track of them all. I had a LONG way to go.

To put it all into perspective, if you remember the Hula Hoop craze, with the round hoop you put on your hips, arms or even neck and spun it around. I was so uncoordinated, I had a difficult time playing with one as I grew up. If I could not even spin a simple hoop around my hips, how was I ever going to accomplish anything vastly different such as changing my gender identity. For the most part, I was naïve and did not understand all the complexities I was facing. While I was obsessed for years looking like a woman, I should have been obsessed with knowing what a woman was really all about. I remained too new to the gender game to be allowed to enter woman only spaces, or what I refer to as the girl’s sandbox.

Then in the middle years of my life when I began to explore the world more and more as a transgender woman, it seemed I had too many hoops or circles in the air. So many, in fact I kept making wrong choices such as the wigs I wore and how I misconstrued how I needed to look to blend in with the public. Instead of dealing from transfeminine strength, I was dealing with my old male ego hanging on and causing problems. I was stuck in my so-called teen cross-dressing years until I rapidly outgrew them in my thirties. Better choices of fashion and makeup helped me to overcome my testosterone body flaws and blend in with the other women who may have had traces of my problems with their body too. Even with all my newfound success, I was still having a difficult time closing my circles. My major problem was I did not completely realize how difficult it would be to stop a life and start over from a completely different point.

As I chased my Mini skirted tail, I had plenty of time to consider what I was doing with my life. In fact, too much as every spare moment I had, I was daydreaming of the next time I would spend as a transgender woman and what I would wear. I am surprised now I had kept my mind on my job enough to be promoted to an upper management position. I would love to have a portion of the time back I wasted. Perhaps, the sky would have been the limit for my male life, but it was not to be because I could not stop until my gender circle was closed.

It finally took a close circle of cisgender women around me to help me through my crisis. My current wife Liz in particular who told me she had never seen any masculine in me at all when I was still living part time as a man. It was the final shove I needed to reach out and close my transgender circle for good.

I don’t think I gained any physical coordination from transitioning, but I am sure I gained mental help when I long neglected woman side took over. I found part of feminine privilege came when I was allowed to participate in a softer side of life which did not revolve pushing and blustering my way through. My new circle involved more mental gymnastics with other women to see where they were coming from, as well as dealing with a passive aggressive side of life.

Not going in circles anymore was a wonderful experience. All my trial-and-error times in the world as a novice transgender woman came back to help me when I made the final transition to where I always wanted to be. No more spinning hoops to deal with which were destroying my mental health. To be sure, all of my bi-polar depression issues did not go away but the overlaying gender issues did. It sounds easy for me now, but all I needed to do all along was listen to my true self and close my gender circle.

 

 

Transgender-When Life Throws you a Curve.

 

Image from Chu CHU on UnSplash.

It’s baseball season as we head down to the “dogdays of summer” around here in Cincinnati. As I have mentioned many times, the gender gods allowed me to take my passion for sports with me when I transitioned from male to female. This year, I have been completely emotionally immersed in the Cincinnati Reds professional baseball team. So much so, sometimes I feel guilty about my involvement.

Overall, though, life threw me a real curveball when it came to sports. For several reasons, athletics helped me to keep the bullies away, since I was doing “boy” things. As I played, I found I could not hit well at all, primarily a curveball and resorted to running home to my dresses and makeup to feel better about my failures. And I did, which solidified my deepening idea I should have been a girl all along. Dressing in my pretty feminine clothes certainly felt better than crying in the shower after I committed a key error or struck out to end the game.

As time went on, I faced the reality of non-athletes everywhere, life had thrown me a curve ball I just couldn’t hit. Somehow, I just needed to adjust and become the fan I am today and quit being a victim. I think perhaps it was my Army duty which took any idea of self-pity away from me. So what if my draft number was twenty-three, I would just have to enlist for three years to make the best of it. Plus, the entire routine of basic infantry training took any idea of being a victim away from me. At least I was not one of the guys crying on the night bus to Ft. Knox in the middle of a Kentucky winter. Somehow, I would have to make the best of a situation I did not want to be in.

It turned out, that idea carried right over into my gender dysphoria. The older and more experienced I became as a transgender woman, ended up clashing with my increasingly successful male life. Life had thrown me a gender curveball, and it was not fair but the problem was mine to deal with.

Initially, I kept striking out on my path to transgender womanhood. I was woefully unprepared for the world I so desperately wanted to enter. The path was quite dark with many bumps and curves, so I needed to be careful with the high heeled steps I was taking. Perhaps the most important problem I faced was when I was completely outed as a man in a dress was quickly going home and attempting to figure out what I was doing wrong. Was it my fashion, or my makeup, or what?

This time I refused to be fooled by a gender curveball and hung in there until my life began to change for the better. Slowly, I was being accepted as my true transfeminine self in the public’s eye. I was not hitting any home runs yet, but I was making contact with the public and was successful.

Incredibly to me, the more contact I was making, the more I needed to make. In particular, women were curious what I was doing in their world and drew me into conversations which were uneasy for me in the beginning. Life was throwing me curveball after curveball, and I became halfway decent at making contact with the strangers I met. I think too that after the public met me, more than a few of them reacted to the fact that I was a person who was living with their truth. Then I needed to catch up and respect myself for living my truth. Which was difficult for me to do for years.

Ironically, at that point, I went to work for a company which would not accept any of their successful managers being victims. I carried their training over into my real life and was better prepared for any and all setbacks I encountered. I began to see my supposed setback in life just could be a positive if I made it one. Not so much different than when I went to Army basic training wondering how I was going to make it without my cross-dressing crutches.

After immersing myself in the world of cisgender women, I came out as a better person. Certainly, well rounded in how the two main binary genders interact with each other. I could not ever make it as any sort of an athlete, but it turned out I could as a transgender woman. A journey I came to respect many times along the way.

 

Gender Lighthouse

 

Image from Juan Gomez
on UnSplash.

As I grew older and more in touch with my possible transgender womanhood, it often seemed to me to be a distant light at sea in my life. 

In fact, I equated my brief encounters with gender euphoria as moments in time when I was hopelessly adrift in a huge sea of life around me. I was rowing my little boat as fast as I could against a strong current, I mostly did not understand. Long ago, my gender notebook had been washed overboard, leaving me on my own to understand a new and exciting feminine world. 

As I was stuck rowing in circles in my shrinking male world, faintly in the distance, I could see a lighthouse which would ultimately show me the way to gender freedom. As I kept on against all odds, the light grew brighter. The entire ordeal was difficult, and I needed to battle tons of self-destructive behavior on my part to just survive at all.

Plus, through it all, my mental health suffered terribly. Since I was already diagnosed as being bi-polar, the last thing I needed was gender dysphoria to worsen my condition. Worse yet, I tried to self-medicate my problems with too much alcohol. Which ultimately caused me to lose my way more dramatically and take more self-destructive chances. I was taking my eyes off the lighthouse, and it was fading away in the distance. Just in time, I was able to regain my equilibrium and was able to set my eyes firmly on the light again.

I was able to get out of my boat and try the world at its best and worst. As I said, my feminine workbook long ago disappeared and I had to go it alone. As I mentioned in my last post, out of sheer good fortune, I was able to work my way out of potentially dangerous situations when I could have hit the rocks in my little fragile boat. I reacted to the experiences as surviving points on my gender learning curve. I resolved to learn from each one and keep my eyes on the light which was slowly becoming brighter. Maybe, I could achieve my dream of transgender womanhood after all. 

For a long time, the person who kept the key to my dream was my second wife who told me on occasion to me to be man enough to be a woman and being the pretty, pretty princess just was not going to be enough to make it. The problem was, she made me figure out what she meant, and it took me years to do it. I needed to wait until I had rowed to shore on the feminine side of the beach and found my way behind the gender curtain by learning lessons cisgender women grow up understanding from lifelong lessons. Or the pretty, pretty princess better learn how real women live in a world they control. I started to dress to blend in with other women on one hand and how I lost intelligence in my conversations with men on the other. Very quickly, I grew tired of being "mansplained" on the very simplest of topics. 

Once I found the lighthouse and made it to shore, the hard work started, and I needed to learn how to communicate with the world, one on one. Nothing told me, my communication efforts would be mainly with the women I met in the world as most men mainly left me alone. I knew most of the women started the conversation because they were curious what I was doing in their world. I did not really care because I was learning what I needed to know to keep my boat on the gender beach. 

Thanks to the world of women I encountered, I found the lighthouse at the end of my search and was able to find my way in a new world as a transgender woman.