Loving the Skin You are In

 

JJ Hart.

Loving the skin, you are in is often difficult for a transgender woman or transgender man. In fact, we often come to hate the skin we are in. 

We start early in our lives boxed into a gender we were born into but never felt comfortable with. Many of us go through times of discomfort as we try to sort out who we really are. We have many questions such as are we going through a phase, is it just a fetish and someday will we somehow outgrow our desire to be the gender we always wanted to be.

In my case, it took me decades to accept the skin I was in and to learn to live it in the world as a transgender woman. Recently, I was reminded of my past when I attended a virtual LGBTQ support group meeting at the Veteran’s Administration. Normally it is a very tight knit group of the same people who come every week, but this week we had a new person who joined us who was coming out of her gender shell and slowly learning to live a life as a transgender woman. During the session, she asked if anyone had any advice on dealing with public in general and the police in particular when you are out in the world.

I am not good at giving much advice in situations such as that, so I mainly kept my ideas to myself. Such as the fact that I have had few interactions with the police over the years and those have been mostly positive. Even the ciswoman who called me a pervert once in a women’s restroom, did not call the cops on me. Leaving me with the time I was in a venue I was not a regular in and two women at the bar made it a point to call the police on me after I had used the women’s room. All that happened was I was stopped on the way out by a female cop who told me not to do it again and I went a short distance up the road to one of my regular venues where I knew I would not have any troubles. To make a long story short, I was sorry, but I did not have much of any ideas on a magic cure to dealing with a potentially unaccepting public. You just must develop a thick skin and complete confidence that you are doing nothing wrong and you can make it.

Another problem I have with giving any trans person advice is that I came out seriously so long ago and times have changed. You see reports of so many toxic men harassing ciswomen these days which were barely seen in the days when I was trying my hand at being a single woman at a big sports bar. Plus, I am lucky to live now in a fairly liberal part of Cincinnati where the public at large does not notice me, or care. I am allowed to exist in the world as my true self in my own skin for the first time in my life.

I was fortunate to be one of those trans women who could get out of her gender closet and exist in a stable world where I could flourish and share my ideas about my femininity. Hopefully the new member of the support group will stick around long enough so that I will be able to share thoughts with her about appreciating her own skin. Another problem too is that the group time is at a premium, so I am reluctant to take too much up with my thoughts. Such as, if she is already out enough to wear feminine clothes and paint her nails, what is she waiting for. Maybe she is waiting for someone to come along like I was and kick me out of my closet for good. Which is what happened to me when I was miserable trying to juggle living in both genders, and my future wife Liz told me that she had not seen any male in me at all

Destiny really set in with me when my daughter came on board with knowing the true me by saying among other things that I looked so happy. I mentally added, because for the first time in my life I was having the chance to live in my own skin.

Even with all the positives I was dealing with, I still had to get out into the world and live my new reality. I always had some sort of an idea that ciswomen live more of a complex life than men do, but I had no idea of what I was walking into in my new high heeled shoes. Primarily learning to deal with curious ciswomen and their passive aggressive behavior and potentially drama-filled toxic men filled my evenings when I was going out in my new skin in the world as I knew it. Through it all, I needed to adjust my way of thinking quickly and radically away from the old male way I viewed the world.

What kept me going was the fact that I felt so good and natural in my new transfeminine skin. Deep down I felt this new life I was living was always the way things should have always been for me until the cruel joke of being born a biological male set in. It was something I would have to battle for my entire life.

As far as the physical part of having a new skin, it was way past time for HRT or gender affirming hormones to set in and help me. When I was approved for my life improving hormones, it was like my body was telling me I should have been on them all along. As my overall body skin softened dramatically, along with bigger breasts and longer hair.

The best part of adding hormones to my body was the fact that my emotions set themselves up to better appreciate the whole process. For the first time in my life, I could cry tears of joy which I did when I began to live my life in my own skin. I certainly loved it.

 

 

 

 

 

Every time I Looked Around...

Image from Mahrael Boutros 
on UnSplash

Until I began to become used to the new feminine world I was beginning to navigate as a transgender woman or cross dresser in those days, it seemed as if everyone was looking at me.

I was not used to the fact that both main binary genders look at women. Even though they do it through vastly different lenses. Men of course have the tendency to add a sexual aspect to how they view a woman and other ciswomen often compare other women to how they look and how much work did the woman put into her presentation. As any beginning cross-dresser learns early, it takes a lot of work and effort put into a quality feminine look. Especially when you are making the leap from presenting looking like a man with your testosterone poisoned body, all the way to being able to blend into the world of ciswomen effortlessly.

I know with me, before I could begin to blend in with my new world, I needed to shake all the cobwebs of male feelings I had about doing it at all. For the longest time, I listened to my male self on how he perceived women in the world as sexual objects and tried to influence the way I was presenting myself. What happened was, I was dressing too tight and too short in my clothes and attracting too much unwanted attention. Not only was everyone looking closely at me, I received negative feedback because I was doing it all wrong. I was fighting a losing battle with the age that I was and the body shape I had to stubbornly realize I could not go on that way and hope to ever try to live my dream of being a fulltime transfeminine person.

Then, I went back to my cross-dressing drawing board to set out a whole different way of trying to present myself. Out went the way too short skirts and dresses and in came more manageable denim skirts and oversized flowing tops designed to cover my broad shoulders and lack of hips. I even went to the extent of going on a crash diet so I could find clothes in the thrift stores I was haunting that fit me. Along the way too, it is worth mentioning, I started to take much better care of my skin after my daily shave which helped me to wear less makeup. If everyone was going to look at me, I needed to give them my best effort.

One thing I could not hide was I was a big woman, and I needed to not be ashamed of it but to understand there were plenty of other ciswomen in the world who were the same size as me. So, I began to look for them to see how they moved about in the world. Even though I was right around the six-foot tall mark, I could still wear my cherished high heels. Even with jeans and a tight top which accented my new properly proportioned silicone breast forms I was gifted by a cross-dressing friend who was purging all his feminine belongings at the time.

Amazingly to me, my life as a newly realized transgender woman begin to come together for me. I started to be able to move around in society without causing undo attention while at the same time completely enjoying myself. I even went to the point of buying sunglasses which hid my eyes so I could watch others to see if they were watching me. It was a great way to judge how well I was doing in my ongoing challenge of who was watching me and who was not. I learned I was not attractive enough to attract much cis male attention but attractive enough to be sized up in the public by the ciswomen I encountered. Most importantly, I was getting used to the attention I was receiving and often I wondered where it was if I did not receive it.

The way I began to see the attention I was receiving was I craved it because of all the hard work I had put in to being an attractive woman anyway I could. Positive attention was feedback that I was doing something right and the very little negative feedback I encountered could be overcome easily because of my new overall confidence. Which became my number one accessory I needed when I found myself in shark (human) infested waters with potentially dangerous people. My new training as a trans woman taught me to look ahead and do my best to not put myself in dangerous situations in the new world I was in stripped of my old male privilege of personal safety. Very quickly, I learned the problems of being a lone woman in a poorly lit deserted area.

I was able to test my passing privileges when I transitioned away from the gay venues I was going to and tried my best to become a regular patron in many of the very same big sports bars I used to go to as a man. It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be and I was not noticed much at all by cismen or ciswomen. Even though, on occasion, another woman at the bar would take the time to talk to me. I think more than anything else out of curiosity. Why would an ex-man such as me want in her world was the major point women of all sorts were trying to find out.

As I said, I began to crave and even expect the attention I was getting as the only transgender woman in the venue. Except on the nights that my trans woman friend Racquel met me there. We ended up having about five venues we went to that accepted out business with no problems. I also went to monthly lesbian social mixers with my two friends in many of the same places and I was overjoyed when another lesbian approached me. I guess you could say I was causing the right kind of attention.

Getting out and learning how to know and appreciate the right amount of attention even carried over to an on-line relationship I stumbled into with my future wife Liz who contacted me from an ad I had placed on a woman seeking woman dating site. Fourteen years later we are still together, so I guess I looked in the right place for attention.

Thanks for giving me your attention for my experiences! Any feedback or responses is always welcome.

 

 

 

 

Violating Gender Boundaries

 

JJ Hart. Pushing my gender\
boundaries. 

Very early in life I learned that violating gender boundaries could result in severe trouble.

It was obvious to me that the male dominated family I was born into would ever accept a son who wanted to be a daughter. So, I had no choice but to turn inward with my developing feminine senses in the male world I was trying to be a part of. I was born way too early to take advantage of the forthcoming online information world with the advent of computers and social media. Again, I was trapped into trying to cross-dress my feelings away anytime I had the chance.

The other main problem I had was that the gender boundaries were so rigid and demanding I could not see any way out of my dark, lonely gender closet. I lived in a rural area with mostly boys and no girls to have a point of reference from. I only remember one occasion when the only girl in the neighborhood was persuaded by a couple of the boys to show her naked genitals to the group, and I was not excited but embarrassed for her at the time. Just another example of how my sexuality was developing away from the “normal” male’s. I had no need to see her private parts and wondered why I was so different. Little did I know, it was just the beginning of challenging my gender boundaries during my life.

As far as the rest of my life went, I wasn’t much of a challenger of anything. It wasn’t until I reached my college years and was drafted into the military during the Vietnam War, did I begin to challenge the system. At the same time, I was starting to challenge the war and the politics around it, I was pushing my cross-dressing boundaries by starting to leave my house more dressed as the person I wanted to see if I could become. I even made what turned out to be a huge mistake by coming out to my fiancé as a transvestite or cross-dresser back in those days. I say huge mistake because she wanted me to tell the draft board I was gay to stay out of the military service. Even then, I knew a lot about myself and did not have to push my gender boundaries so far to lie and tell someone I was gay. As a side note, then and now I did not have anything against the gay community, but I just knew there was a real difference between them and me.

Of course, the military stopped any gender challenging I was thinking of doing dead in its tracks for nearly three years of my young life. The only challenge I could do was mental in nature as I imagined how life could be better for me as a transfeminine person when I was discharged from the Army. Even then, I was restricted in my gender thinking to the reality in life. What I almost did was send a letter (remember them?) to my future first wife explaining it maybe a transwoman picking her up at the airport when she arrived for the first time. She was in the Army too and was discharged about nine months after I was.

Little did I know, if I had decided to test my gender boundaries then it may have been one of the better times to do it because I did not have the chance to build up all the troublesome male baggage I would acquire later in life. On the plus side, I had a very new car that I had shipped home from Germany, my stereo equipment and a sizeable bank account to start a new life with. On the negative side, I thought I had a good chance of losing my family, friends and job if I started all over as a woman.

Long story short, I did not have the courage to push my gender boundaries any further than they were at the time. Except for a few Halloween adventures, and the occasional night out, my life as a trans woman was mundane. It was not until I could not take it any longer the annual yearly adventures at Halloween, did I start to really push my luck by going out more often. My early explorations were rough to say the least until I settled down and learn how to blend in with the ciswomen who I found really ran the world I wanted to be a part of.

As the world let me in as a transgender woman and/or I finally learned the truth of who I was, I kicked and pushed until my gender boundaries came down. It was like the steep slope I write about as I slid down trying my best to hold on to what was left of my old male life but failing miserably. As I continued to gain my new feminine ground behind the gender curtain, which was hidden from me for so long, I had pushed by gender boundary so far, I was too far gone. I was no longer afraid of the fall and knew I was too far gone to ever go back to being my old male self.

From then on, gender boundaries did not mean much to me except from my former history as a man, I could see both sides of the border from where I lived as a trans woman. Leaving the man’s club scared almost all of the cismen away but attracted as many of the ciswomen that I needed to set up a new boundary. The new boundary was one which validated myself as a woman for the first time in my life and it seemed I was learning daily how to adjust to my new situation.

From that point forward, I changed my legal name and became extra serious about my physical and mental well being by being approved for HRT or gender affirming hormones. It just seemed by that time, I was just doing what came natural in solidifying my new gender boundaries. Sure, they were all big moves in my life, but good ones that I had always dreamed of making.

As always. Thanks to all of you who read along with my lifetime worth of experiences. Your responses and comments make it so worthwhile for me!

 

 

 

 

Why Me???

Image from Barbara Burgess
on UnSplash. 

I have often thought during my life as I was becoming aware of who I really was as a transgender woman, why me?

Those were the days of thinking I was the only male in the world who wanted to be female, and if I was, what was I ever going to do about it. Very early on before I had the necessities to start exploring the world on my own, I needed to rely on just the occasional cross-dressing experience in front of the family’s hallway mirror. It was very difficult to do because I needed to work around a very curious brother and family.

Most certainly, for years, I played the victim as I felt sorry for myself and my gender issues. It wasn’t until I began to leave my dark, restrictive gender closet did I begin to see that I was not so much of a victim after all. Overcoming my gender dysphoria would make me a unique human being with my insight into both genders. But only if I first paid my extensive dues to get there.

As most of you know, the dues transgender women and transgender men pay to challenge and win the battle to change genders is extensive and often dearly expensive as we have to give up spouses, family, friends and jobs. Just for what some see as a selfish pursuit of personal pleasure. If they ever knew the truth, most certainly they would not feel that way as they never had to feel the anguish, we feel about hurting others. During the depth of my struggle, I was down mentally and lonely as I felt why was this all happening to me. It led me to feel selfish and there was nothing I could do about it. I was even jealous of the other cismen around me who could follow their so-called “normal” lives without worrying about something as major as wanting to be a woman.

As I continued to learn what it would take to lead a transfeminine life, the more I respected what I had discovered and wanted to learn more. That was the time I began to see the light of my victim tunnel was not the train but was sunlight which would lead me into a new day. Away from many of the old fears and paranoias about going along my continuing male to female femininization path I was traveling. Slowly I discovered there could be much more to my gender journey than just doing my best to blend in with the ciswomen in the world around me. I still did not know why me, but at least I was not a victim any longer and I just might be on to something much bigger if I could escape all my self-destructive behavior I was engaging in.

I learned the hard way from pure social experimentations that I was on the right path and to keep going. Maybe by doing so, I could climb the gender ladder up to the level of where some of my transgender mentors were. If they could make it, why couldn’t I. It wasn’t why me anymore, it was becoming why not.

I was more certain in my gender choices when questions surrounding things like my sexuality came about. Because I was immediately embraced by so many ciswomen so quickly, I never had to worry about the occasional man that came along and mainly viewed me as a fetish object The last thing I needed was having to deal with the drama of a toxic cisman. So, I never did as I was able to discover my validation as a transgender woman through other strong women. Why me became suddenly very real as I kept going out night after night with the group of mainly lesbian women who accepted me. They taught me more than they ever knew about what it was like to survive in a world where men were basically an afterthought.

In their own way, my lesbian friends helped me to be prouder of the trans person I had become. My why me became why not as I grew increasingly confident in my own skin as a transgender woman. To coin a classic song, I could see the world from both sides now and be part of a special group of humans that could. Which is why I think so many transphobes and TERF feminist gatekeepers fear us and try to keep us out of women only spaces. Like them we gained our womanhood, just from a different and unique vantage point and we are not men trying to slip in. Especially since we work so hard to get away from the male culture.

Long ago, I was able to put my why me victim mentality about being transgender behind me and get on with my life. It marked the turning point when I could be accepted into the only club I ever dreamed of being in…the girls ‘club and I never have regretted doing it. Following several not so good decisions in my life, I finally made the right one and put the necessary work in to earn the title of proud transgender woman.

Today I will put my public gender persona to the test again as I go with my wife Liz to two of her doctor’s appointments. It is usually the easiest test of all because all the people I run into are mostly concerned about themselves. Plus, these days, I normally mentally have gone back to thinking my newer transgender self has been me all along. No more victim mentality. I always point out I did not have much to work with when I started my journey except a deep will to do it. I also wonder, if I knew all the bumps and bruises, I would have along the way, would I ever attempt the trip across the gender border. It took me taking the chances to get out into the public to make it at all, and if I did not, I probably would have been in my closet crying, why me.

For the first time in my life, all I knew was I needed to get out of my closet and fight for the life I really wanted.