Constant Refinement of Life as a Trans Woman

Image from JJ Jordan
on UnSplash. 

 Proper presenting as a woman has always been a challenge for me. After I went through an unwanted male puberty into an equally resented manhood, I emerged with no real feminine characteristics to work with. So, I had to begin from ground zero on my path to my own unique form of womanhood. 

When I could still find some of mom’s clothes I could fit into, the mystery of applying her makeup kept me working towards mastering it for a very long time. Until I could get to a point where I did not look like a circus clown in drag. Even if I was in despair over my cosmetic progress, I was able to keep working on it until I became more proficient in what I was trying to do. I did not know it at the time, but I was facing decades of constant refinement to get the feminine image I wanted to show the public correct. 

When my cross-dressing habits took me out of my closet, I was really put to the test when I first went out into the world. That is when I discovered how far I needed to go to be successful as a novice cross dresser. At times, the whole feminine process seemed impossible for me to do. But, for some deep reason I did not fully understand, I kept going. I even went the extra mile as a kid to take on a rural newspaper route to make extra money to buy what clothes, panty hose and makeup I gathered the courage to buy on my own. It all worked together to give me an added sense of accomplishment in my refinement process. 

When I had the courage for the first time to go shopping in one of the big indoor malls close to my house, I used to gauge my progress on how much attention I got from the roaming bands of teen girls in the mall. I instantly knew my refinement was working when I went from being noticed and laughed at all the way to blending in with the other ciswomen and not noticed at all. Still, it was no more than a beginning, and I had no way of knowing how long and winding my path would be across the gender border. 

Coming up with the credentials to cross the border into a woman’s world, took quite the refinement process for me. I researched as much as I could the transgender women that I knew who had already made the crossing as I wondered what made them successful other than their appearance. Which was amazing. I knew the old “beauty was more than skin deep” applied to these trans women and I wanted to know more. As I was deeply questioning my future in their world. What would I do about the relationship I had with my second wife and child as well as how would I continue to support myself in a totally new life were the major questions I had. At that point, refinement meant to me I needed to research how the other trans women I admired changed their lives and could I do it also. 

As I researched the trans women I knew and admired, I learned the truth that there could be no shortcuts for me if I ever hoped to overcome the obstacles I faced on my uniquely personal male to female feminization journey. Every wall I faced, I would have to climb it rather than look for the easy way around it which simply did not exist. I started from point zero and had made it to a middle point which I discovered was more interesting than I ever thought it could be as I went from being a dedicated student of ciswomen to being allowed behind the gender curtain to see the real complexities of the life I wanted to live. Still, I faced my own insecurities about doing it and needed to rely on my inner voice to keep me going. It kept saying that somehow, I was doing the right thing, no matter how difficult it felt.

When I arrived at this part of my life, I again out of necessity had to really begin to decide what I was going to do about my future and take the next step towards refinement so I could do it. Unexpectedly, I was able to carve out a new transfeminine life faster than I thought. Which brought in communication skills as well as other things such as settling into wearing the same wig and using the same name because the same people were interacting with me and I had to become a solid person. Not just a memory which kept on changing. Constant refinement was slowing down into areas which I could control. All of a sudden, my dream of womanhood on my own terms seemed like a real possibility. Which scared me in some ways and excited me in others. I could control for a change where I was going because I was a regular there and I even thought I was the venue’s token trans person because I was a tribute to their diversity. 

When I discovered I could make new women friends who accepted me for who I really was, I was able to refine myself simply by learning from them. They led and I followed their example which rounded off the remaining rough edges I had from a male life. Most importantly, the lesbian women around me taught me that I did not need a man to validate my existence. Which worked out well for me because the vast majority of cismen ignored me when I left their club and all my male privileges behind.

I think now, in the long term, the life I led which resulted in my constant refinement presented me with the chance to have a much more interesting life than the normal human. 

Thanks for reading along! And I hope the election turned out as well for you as it did for me. We now have a Democratic Senator and Governor in my native Ohio! Yay!

 

Stop The Noise

 

Image from Markus Kammermann
on UnSplash

Transgender women and transgender men often have quite a bit of external noise to deal with in our lives. Mainly the noise coming from family about following our gender paths to transitioning. 

In my case, I did my best to shield myself from any noise coming from my family over my desire to be feminine. I hid my small stash of women’s clothes I collected the best I could in our house growing up and even had a backup collection I put away in plastic trash bags in an old hollowed out tree in the woods next to my house. I guess I did a good job because to my knowledge I was never discovered and forced into impromptu visits to a psychiatrist. 

Another problem I had was that most of my noise was coming from a very loud internal source. It kept telling me that I was living the wrong life as a male and I could do nothing about it at that time. Frustration grew as I looked for various other outlets for my noise. At first participating in sports worked. I was not the best athlete around, but at least my involvement helped keep the bullies away and made my life a little more secure. As I said, the problem was that I never excelled in sports or anything else that mattered. The noise was telling me that the only thing I wanted to be really good at was being a girl. Which presented another problem. How could I ever express my gender needs when telling anyone would certainly result in blowing up the life that I had known. So my life went on, as I headed for my college time and then a stint in the Army. Which certainly went against all my gender desires. 

Just when I started to be brave enough to buy a nice wig for myself and sneak out of the house and into the world, Army basic infantry training came along and put all my desires to be a woman on hold. My three years in the military were far from spectacular as I had followed the same old path in my life I had always followed. I did the best I could to survive until hopefully, something better came along. It all worked for a while because of the structured life I was forced into in the military and the noise was just moved to the back of my head constantly because there was nothing I could do about it until I was honorably discharged. When I was, my life went right back to where I had left it and I could resume my cross-dressing ways in front of the mirror. 

The only difference was that for the first time in my life, just before I was discharged, for some reason I decided to tell three of my closest friends that my Halloween “costume” was not a onetime deal and that I liked to dress in women's clothes as much as I could. Thank goodness, no one I told told anyone else so my secret was still safe until I tried to come out to my mom when I got out of the Army. She brutally rejected me, and I was sent back to all the noise I was experiencing before. The topic was never brought up between us again. The only understanding “friend” that I had was the mirror. 

At this point (for once) my noise out did the relief I was experiencing from cross dressing in front of the mirror and I resumed getting out of the house and into the world to see how I fit into it as a transfeminine person. The going was rough for a while until I got my high heeled shoes firmly planted on the ground and I started to blend in harmlessly with the world of ciswomen around me. I discovered that the vast majority of the world was wrapped up in themselves and did not care about me at all which brought the number of people I needed to pass way down and lessened the panic noises in my head. 

Then I needed to be more selective in the voices I was listening to. I needed to tune out the rare hater (TERF) gatekeeper I ran into who resisted me being in her world and concentrated on the ones who did. The women that did want me there were my teachers in what femininity truly meant to them and were willing to share. From my background, I was always attracted to strong ciswomen, and I was just following on the same path as I gained ground. I cannot stress enough about how positive the feminine gender changes in my head were suddenly being accepted and how much better my life was. For the first time in my life without all of the transgender burden I was carrying around, I could actually see happiness in my future. 

Before happiness could ever be around, I needed to follow my voices again on my male to female feminization path and get it done. That was when I needed to start backfilling my old male life and refill my past with my new feminine life. I am referring to the legal name changes and new ID’s I needed to smooth out my entrance to the world. As well as the HRT gender affirming hormones I needed to make it all so much easier. Until all of this happened, I think I was nearly tone deaf because of a lifetime worth of constant noise around me. 

As I said, once I was able to sort the noise and see the bright future I always should have had if I was not forced into the male box I never asked for. In my case, destiny stepped in and opened gender doors for me I never knew I had. Whatever I decided to call it, the best part was happiness did set in when the noise went away. 

I hope you did not have to put up with your own brand of noise. Thanks for reading along about mine. Comments are always appreciated! 

No Learning Experience is a Waste of Time

 

Image from Christian Lue
on UnSplash.

Now that Halloween has come and gone, I am sure that some of you took advantage of the freedom of the season to express your feminine side. Maybe to the public for the first time. 

For you first timers, congratulations on taking the first tentative steps out of your gender closet. For the rest of you, you ended up like me and gained Halloween experiences as a trans woman you will never forget. I vividly remember the night that three friends and I attended a midnight showing of the “Phantom of the Opera” on Halloween one year in the newly restored “Ohio Theatre” in Columbus, Ohio. I was proud of my “costume” which was a mini dress, blond wig, shaved legs and high heels to set it all off. I was prepared to pay the price for fashion with my heels until I had to walk a distance to the theatre from the closest parking spot we could find. As I tried to daintily find my way down the sidewalk, it was not long until my feet were protesting and I was looking for a place to sit down. That was not happening and I just had to ignore the pain and chalk it up to another experience.

When I began to break away from just going out into the public eye and testing myself as a novice cross dresser or trans woman, I needed to get ready for many more experiences, some good, some bad. From both, I tried to keep in mind how difficult it was going to be to attempt to cross the gender border and live out my dream and I tried to always learn from the experiences I was going through. Since I had very few to none natural feminine characteristics to start from, I knew my journey to possible success as a transfeminine person would be a long one and hopefully soon, all the tears from the rejection I was feeling would soon be forgotten. Sadly, that was not the case and some of my early dealings with the world have left many serious memories with me. Until I got to the point of dealing with them as just another experience I would have to go through to get to my goal. 

I was there, mainly because I was always on the outside, looking in when it came to being around the ciswomen in my world. Because I was excluded from the exclusive girls’ club, I could never see all of the complex dealings in the world a woman has to go through just to be successful. Including dealing with huge male egos which I was guilty of having. I just tried to transfer mine to my feminine side by obsessing the best I could about being an attractive woman. It became an all or nothing obsession which consumed me to a point where it was all I lived for and I am not proud of the experience. I wonder now, why my second wife stayed with me at all, but she did. 

As I always write about, it was not until I broke the self-imposed bonds, I had put myself under, did I begin to really understand the life I was pursuing. And figure out if I really wanted to do it because there was so much at stake. Everything I worked so hard at would need to be thrown in a giant trash can as I started all over again as a trans woman. No experience was a bad experience really came into play when I left the gay venues I was frequenting and started to try to socialize on an equal footing with the ciswomen in my world who would gather after work in a TGIF Fridays I went to as a man. When I was going there as a man, I always fantasized how it would be if I could do it as a woman and when I did, I was in heaven as well as being scared to death that I would be "discovered" and told to leave. Which thankfully never happened and I needed to step up my wardrobe options to keep blending in with the women around me.

It was not until then did the women around me begin to reach out to me when they saw that I was all alone and I began to build up a small circle of friends who turned out to be lesbians who were destined to teach me more than I ever imagined about the world and how to deal with it as an independent woman. The first thing I needed to do I discovered was to take the important step of validating who I was as a person. To take all the experiences I had accumulated and learn from them. By this time, most of the bad experiences had faded away, giving me the confidence to be myself for the first time in my life. When my validation was secure, I could move on and cross the gender border the way I wanted to. 

One thing was certain; I needed to keep being a keen observer of the genders around me if I was to continue to be successful.  Quickly I found, I was kicked out of the men' s club for good as they left me alone for the most part. Which was the direction I wanted to go anyhow because I had never felt comfortable around men and what they demanded from me to be successful in my life. For once, I felt comfortable in my life which added to the fact I had always felt so natural that I was doing the right thing when I was pursuing a feminine life. 

Finally, I bought into the idea that I was a unique human with a lot to offer to the world if they would accept me. To arrive at the point where I was, I needed to take all the good and bad experiences of my gender journey and combine them to succeed. When they did, I knew I had made it to my goal against all obstacles, and I was living my dream.

Thank you all very much for joining me and as always, I hope your experiences turn out to be positive ones. Comments are always appreciated.

Getting Creative as a Trans Woman

 

Image from Brooke Cagle
on Unsplash. 

When I began my male to female femininization process, I needed to look around and take note of what I had to work with.

It did not take long for my notes to come back. I had very few feminine traits to begin with as I started my long gender journey. Which meant I was going to have to be very creative if I was ever going to make it to my goal of possibly living fulltime as a transgender woman. To begin with, I needed to find some way to disguise my testosterone poisoned body to present the best I could in the public’s eye.

By beginning to look around and closely watching all the shapes and sizes of the ciswomen I was observing, I slowly began to see the various women who were around me and what they did to improve their appearance. Naturally, I started to copy all of them which gave me hope that I could someday present well enough to blend in comfortably with the public to get by. At the time, finances were another hurdle I needed to face when I went out to shop for a new feminine wardrobe. Since I really did not know what I was doing in the world of fashion from styles to sizes, it did not make any sense for me to shop at any of the high-end women’s clothing stores until I had a better sense of what I was doing. So, I got creative and began to be a regular shopper in several of the big thrift stores near where I lived.

In the stores, I had the freedom to shop as long as I wanted for just the perfect addition to my wardrobe. Better yet, if I did not like it when I got it home, I did not have to worry about returning it because I did not spend much on the item anyway. When I began to gain the confidence to do it, I even began to use the thrift store dressing rooms to try on a special wardrobe item that I had picked out. Life was getting better.

Then I found that better did not mean I was reaching the end or even the middle of my creative feminine journey. Sure, I was able to blend in better with the public as a trans woman, but I was not getting anywhere as I tried to communicate with those ciswomen who wanted to communicate with me. I was woefully unprepared as somehow, I thought the world would not want to talk to me, and I needed to catch up. To do it, I started by trying to mimic the tone of the woman trying to talk to me. I did not have to worry about very many men because they avoided me completely. It gave me the freedom to concentrate on one aspect of my gender journey and that was the communication lines I needed to form with women if I was ever going to be successful and conquer the major hurdle I faced.

Quickly, it became evident to me that I could not conquer the communication problem I was having talking to women alone. I was not creative enough to recognize the true differences between cismen and women when they talk, so I sought out professional help. Ironically, the help I got came through the Veterans Administration and my therapist who recommended me to the speech therapy department. I was then set up appointments with a gender speech counselor who promptly sent me on the right path. She spent sessions with me going over the way women talk different than men and use different words in a totally different way. I had no idea before the sessions I took of the nuances the genders use when they communicate. Before long I was able to build the confidence I needed to go forth on my own. Better equipped to face the world as a transfeminine person.

As I was building the blocks I needed to be successful in my transition across the gender border, I still needed to be receptive to change and be creative when it happened. For the longest time, I needed to still remember which gender I was operating on what particular day. Which even came down to how I interacted with my employees after I went through feminine speech therapy. Was I talking to them like the old male self I used to be, or the new female self I was becoming. Gender concentration was a must if I was ever going to survive the new world I was in.

I think the worst part came when I was in the final stages of my border crossing to the female side. I was in the last part of my male side saying no to the entire move as well as me having my own misgivings about giving up all the white male privileges I had gained over the years. Finally, I needed to sit down with myself and get creative on making lists of what was good and what was bad about what I was thinking about doing with my life. The final drawing card came when I pulled the ace of hearts which told me how natural I felt when I was in my unique world of womanhood. I decided there would be no more of the self that never should have been. I was stuck in a male box from birth, and I had spent fifty plus years being creative enough to find a way out.

Giving into my feminine side was the best move I ever made, and my inner self rejoiced that I had finally made the right decision as I went back to the thrift stores. This time to return all the male clothes I did not need anymore. Sure, it felt strange every morning to figure out what I had to wear as a woman but I made it happen when my future wife Liz asked me what kind of a woman, I was when it came to fashion, a girly-girl or a “tom-boy”. It turned out, I was more of a “tom-boy” as I came to love the simplicity of my leggings and jeans. It turned out the entire rebuilding process I was going through as a transgender woman was just the fun part after all those years of suffering. The best part was that I never had to second guess myself anymore. I made my decision and never looked back.

Thank you all very much for reading along and I hope you have the concentration to see you through your transition. Any comments are appreciated.

 

The Waiting Game

 

Image from Levi Mear Clancy
on UnSplash

As transgender women and transgender men, we often play the waiting game in life. In my case, I played the game frequently as I could not wait for the next time I could cross-dress and could put on makeup.

 

Early on in life I was naïve and thought that eventually I would grow out of my desire to be a girl if I just waited long enough. Of course, that never happened and I grew into a more established cross-dressing life, all the way to being a proud transgender woman. Often, I was very frustrated when I had to wait in my gender journey to clear obstacles in my path such as three years in the Army, the raising of my family and other things too numerous to mention.

 

There was also frustration when I had to learn what I was doing as I tried to cross the gender border. It was not as easy as just putting on a dress which fit me and applying skillful makeup. It took an extreme amount of time away from my unapproving family, a younger brother and an extreme amount of practice to do it right. None of the process was as easy as I had imagined but for the first time in my life, I was dedicated to doing something right and that was coming as close as I could to becoming a pretty girl. Adding to my increasing problems was that I had no choice but to go through male puberty with all the unwanted masculine qualities I received but had not asked for.

 

It seemed, the older I became the waiting game for me increased completely with it. I was still trying to carve out time to cross-dress in my closet which in itself was becoming increasingly frustrating. The time was upon me to leave my closet for the first time and see if I could make it in the world as a feminine person. Somehow, I gathered the courage to go out and then was completely rejected by the public. All my failures combined to send me back to my gender closet and return to my waiting game. Finally, I reached a point where I could wait no longer and kept trying the world until I got it right and I was blending in with the world at large where I was going. When I did, my paranoia about going out decreased and my confidence increased as I began to relax and enjoy myself.

 

As all of this was happening, it was becoming increasingly evident that a tour of duty in the military was going to be in my future. To attempt to stay out of combat in the Vietnam War, I decided to enlist for three long years, and avoid the draft. My problem was at that time in my life, three years seemed like an eternity. Especially away from my dresses and makeup. As well as the new long blond wig I managed to purchase for a girlfriend I had in college who hated the wig, so I managed to get it back. A dream came true for me until I had to leave it behind for three long years until I could get back home and wear it again.

 

When I served my three years and was back in the civilian world, I again was naïve and thought most of my waiting game was behind me. In fact, it was just getting started when the Halloween parties I went to as a woman, showed me that I could possibly live my dream of a transfeminine person after all. I just had to find the hidden keys to unlock my future which was not going to be easy as I thought it was going to be as I delved further into what I would have to do to survive and thrive in a world made up by ciswomen. As much as I had studied the world of women around me, I was not ready to go behind the gender curtain and be admitted into the girls’ club. A woman’s life was much more complex than I ever imagined and the first fact that I learned was why cismen and women do not understand each other. In order to make it into the girls’ sandbox, the first thing I needed to do was understand the new form of communication I was challenged to learn. It was true that men were from Mars and women were from Venus and initially, I felt I was on the Moon. The ultimate gender traveler.

 

The positive part of my life at that time was, my waiting game was speeding up, and I was learning new lessons on where I should be in the world nightly when I went out to socialize with my new ciswomen friends. Without them knowing it, I set back and let all of them be my feminine teachers as I tried to round off what was left of my old male life. Even still, I was impatient about how my life was going and wanted to know what was around the next blind curve on my gender path. I had waited long enough with the time I had spent by myself trying to learn a new life which included a whole new gender language.

 

Before I made the final decision to end my waiting game and jump into the girls ‘club I needed to pause and look back and see if I was making the right decision with my life. Since I was giving up almost all the male privileges, I had worked so hard to gain. I finally got so frustrated with myself that I had to do something about it. I was tired of worrying every moment of the day about what I was going to do. One night I said enough was enough and it was time to begin HRT gender affirming hormones and leave my past behind.

 

I will never think that the waiting game I played was a good thing, but it turned out I had to play out the cards that I had. We are all different which makes us human and interesting as trans folk. We just must get the remainder of the world to accept us. The fact remains the world does not take the time to understand us. So do not expect it. What you can expect is a fair break from the world as you follow your path. That way your waiting game may be a little easier.

 

Thanks for listening to my waiting game I was playing. Any comments are appreciated.

 

 

 

Denial will Eat You Up

 

Image from Annie Spratt 
on UnSplash.

Over the years, turmoil from my gender dysphoria just tried to destroy me. Much of it came from the confusion I felt early in life as I tried to figure out if I was a boy or a girl and could I ever escape the gender box I was born into.

Perhaps the worst part of my inner gender feelings came from not knowing if what I was doing in front of the mirror was really doing me any good or was just a stop-gap measure to get me by to the next time I could cross-dress as a girl. Were my limited mirror experiences all that I would find to get me closer to my lifetime goal of being a transfeminine person. On my own terms. What no one told the young me was that the rules of my life would dramatically change. No one told me then that I would take three years of my life to serve in the military and then go through many years of therapy for a manic-depressive disorder. I was just a confused kid.

As I matured and went through the unwanted terrors of male puberty, I started to feel the pressure for the first time to fight back my gender dysphoria and do the so called “right thing” and just relax in the gender box which was given to me. Somehow, along the way, I had learned the powerful/destructive male response to some problems called internalization. I learned it from my dad as he never showed much emotion at all except when he was angry with us. Most certainly not the ideal environment for a gender dysphoric child to grow up in. There was no way I felt comfortable in going to my dad and telling him I wanted to be his daughter. So, the years went by with me internalizing all I felt the best I could. 

It was not until many years later when I was honorably discharged from the Army did, that I began to feel the increasing depression which was gaining on me. I knew something was not right and I sought out my first therapist for help. From him I learned one of basic truths of therapy, you only get out of it what you put into it. I got absolutely nowhere with my first therapist when I mentioned my cross-dressing and my growing depression which was beginning to seriously threaten my life I was building as a man. He finally prescribed some medications for me which made me feel worse and sent me on my way. I did not know what I thought would happen except nothing which did and my depression over my life began to build to the point I was not happy unless I was out in the world testing out how I felt as a novice cross-dresser.

Regardless of how negative my experience was with my first therapist; I set up other appointments to see another therapist who advertised gender therapy to try to save my rapidly dissolving marriage I was with my second wife. It was with her that I discovered another two truths about myself and the world of therapy. The first was that I was much more comfortable talking to another woman about my feminine desires than a man and for therapy to do me any good, I would have to listen to what I was told. For example, I completely ignored her when she told me there was nothing, she could do about me wanting to be a woman.

On the positive side, we talked about the major depressing lapses I was having in my life and how I spent days when I did not want to get out of bed. She diagnosed me with a form of Bi-Polar depression and prescribed me medication I take to this day which helps stabilize the chemicals in my brain which caused my extreme depression. On the negative side, I was left on my own facing my own battle about who I really was when I looked in the mirror. I was still years away from solving the major question of my life. Sadly, I was wasting valuable time in my life making the decision I always knew was true. I was always a woman pretending to be a man the best way I knew.

The best idea I had was to go out into the world and see if I could make it in a universe ran by and for ciswomen. A world which operated on a separate plane than cismen. I will always be thankful and amazed at the number of ciswomen who welcomed my arrival into their world and showed me the way behind the gender curtain. Where I always wanted to be in my life as part of the girls’ club. It was only then that doing my extreme gender turmoil begin to subside and I could relax and even be happy when I was out in the world as my feminine authentic self.

At that point, I needed to pause and reassess where a life of living a lie had taken me. All I did know was the HRT gender affirming hormones I was prescribed by my Veterans Administration therapist were miracle workers for me. I have spent time mentioning the external changes such as a softening of the skin, longer hair and bigger breasts which came along faster than I even hoped for on my femininization timetable. But I spend less time mentioning the internal changes such as emotions which came about quickly too when I found out how it was to cry. It was as if my body was syncing up with my external woman in the world by saying what took you so long.

As I said, the hormones forced me to play my feminine hand and with help of my circle of women friends, it was time to permanently leave my old male past behind. Sure, not all he had done was bad, but still there was enough negative to want me to leave him in my past and forget about all the gender turmoil behind me. 

I know I get comments all the time from those of you who have not had the chance to free yourself from the chains of your closet. I hope you have the chance soon to escape into the true world you always deserve.

Thanks for reading along, commenting is always appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starting All Over Again as a Trans Woman

JJ Hart

With all the environmental global warming disasters we have going on in the world today, there are many people forced to start their lives over. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to all of you who have lost a significant part of your lives to weather-related incidents.

On the other hand, transgender women and transgender men have a head start on most people because we have become skilled in stopping our lives and starting all over again. In my case, I put it off until my mid fifties to start all over again and leave my male past behind me. The only thing I really did was build up too much male baggage I had to figure out what to do with.

I had a long-term marriage to a wife who was completely against any thoughts of me transitioning into a woman, a small but secure family, a vintage brick house I was restoring and a good job to consider losing. Unlike a weather related “hand of god” experience, I was bringing down the demise of my male life completely on my own. Without the help of anyone else. So, it would be my burden to carry around if anything went wrong with me crossing the gender border and following an extreme male to female femininization program which would eventually include HRT gender affirming hormones.

The only thing I did know was I was off to a good start as I slowly refined my makeup and clothing arts as a very serious cross-dresser who always had the suspicion that more than cross-dressing was in my future. Being more than a cross-dresser was like dangling a carrot in front of a horse to get it to move, I just had to have the confidence to tear down what I built and start all over. Any setbacks I encountered when I went out in public for the first time would always destroy the frail confidence, I had built up in myself over time and sent me back to my closet to try to figure out what I was doing wrong. How hard could it be?

I found out over my early years that “it” could be very hard as I struggled to get out of my closet and into the world. For the most part, it seemed I had bitten off more than I could chew when I began to get close to the gender border and had to think of all the white male privileges I would have to give up if my urge to transition did not change. Not only did it not change, but it also strengthened into a powerful force that I thought of every spare moment of the day and even some nights when I dreamed. It was always extra punishment when I had to wake up from being an attractive woman and go back to my boring and unwanted male world. Still, I had no alternative but to keep pushing towards a transfeminine goal I never knew if I could reach.

To my surprise, I went through other major and minor transitions as I made my way from cross-dresser to the transgender terminology. As I became more skilled at blending in with the world of ciswomen around me, mentally I slowly shifted back to my old thoughts that I wanted to be more than a man who looked like a woman. I wanted to feel as close as I could to feeling like I belonged behind the gender curtain and be allowed into the girls’ club full-time. All my surprises led me to a place where I could finally flourish as a trans woman. If I could decide what I was willing to give up getting there. When the time came to decide, would I be willing to push all my chips into the middle of the table and decide to go all the way, or once again, slink back again to my closet. Or I could relate my life to being one big “Monopoly” game where I was always ready to take another chance and buy another feminine property.

I know all of this sounds like sort of a word salad fantasy until reality set in for me. In my haste to seek out the meaning of a feminine existence for me, I had started to build up the basics I would need to keep building a new and exciting life I never thought I could get to. But there I was having to decide what I was going to try to keep of my old male life as I tore it all down and built a new one. I was very one dimensional in my life with my hobbies and interests so in that sense, I did not have much to get rid of. The one interest I hoped I could keep was my interest in sports and always figured it might help me if I was ever involved with a man but never dreamed my former male life in sports could mesh so well with the ciswomen I met.

Before I knew it, I was joining woman-friends in sports bars drinking beer and debating our favorite teams. I saved one piece of male baggage but at the same time, others had to go. As I write about often, I lost my unapproving wife and several male friends to death in a short period of time. When they left me, I realized how difficult it was for me to make true male friends. As I started to transition more, I began to understand why. Down deep, I was never interacting with other men as a man but rather as the trans woman I truly was. All of the pieces of the puzzle of my life were finally starting to come together, and I was seeing the big picture of what my denial of myself had cost me over all those years. I came away thinking how I could miss something that was that simple.

One thing was for sure, thanks to the HRT hormones and the relationship I was building with my future wife Liz, nothing was standing in my way on my gender path. Liz was the opposite of my second wife and told me she had never seen anything but female in me anyhow. I certainly was not one to argue and gave away all my male clothes to charity so I could help all those thrift stores which had helped me in the past.

I was more than ready to start all over again.

Thank you so much for taking your time to join me in my gender travels. Any comments are always appreciated.

 

 

Sliding Down a Hill as a Trans Woman

 

Image from Alexander Mass
on UnSplash.

As I made my way into a very serious time in my life on my male to female femininization journey, I found myself on a hill with my male life slowly slip sliding away.

At first, as my male self-started to panic at losing his footing in the world, my overall life was in panic mode also. That was until I began to enjoy the process and realized it was nothing more than a normal progression into a transgender woman’s life, if I truly wanted to go there.

Keep in mind, I was doing my sliding in a pair of new high heels I was in love with, and for a long time I was on uneven footing. Then, I started to do everything in my power to determine if the grass was greener on the feminine side of the gender border for me or not. I even went to the extent of dating cismen to see if I had any sexual attraction to them at all. For the most part, finding a date with a quality man was difficult to do as most ciswomen know as most men were turned off by having anything to do with a trans woman at all.

To go out with me, a man had to be willing to meet me in a public place where I was already a regular in and go from there and I was stood up many times. Which I got used to. The only exception was a man I met in a group of people who had tried and failed to marry an exotic dancer who was beautiful and in the social group. After the brief marriage which lasted only a week, the man ended up getting made fun of by others in the group which I thought was completely unfair because I saw how much he was hurting. After that, on separate occasions when we happened to see each other at the bar, I tried to comfort him the best I could. It turned out the big bear of a man who ran a lumber yard and rode a Harley motorcycle was an interesting person that I liked and we got along. Sadly, he moved on before we could get to know each other better and I had a chance to ride on his Harley.

There were dates with other men which helped me slide down my transgender path, but not many as most men avoided me like a disease since they sensed I had left their club and were afraid of their frail sexuality being challenged. But other men were attracted to women like me I discovered as I was pushed along down my ever-steepening hill to my own feminine destiny. There were men such as Dan and Bob who were willing to meet my demands of going on a date at one of my regular straight venues I went to.

At first flipping the gender tables from male to female was difficult for me and I was extremely nervous but slowly learned what I would need to know to carry on a successful conversation from the other side of the binary gender spectrum. I learned quickly not to push too hard to start communicating and let the man lead the way and do my best to follow from there. I had to be careful not to be too reticent to talk because I was building myself into a strong feminine trans woman and did not want to give that up. I was a true contradiction in terms. I found I did love being treated like a woman but always was worried about what was coming next. I did not want to be the sort of woman who seemingly just led men on for sport. I did not have to worry because both men were gentlemen and we went upon our separate ways after a parting kiss. The kisses were the first I ever experienced with a man, and I was interested to see what if anything I felt after doing it. I did not and my sexuality was never challenged. I did not even go out and buy bananas to practice with as my ciswoman acquaintance Amy told me I needed to do.

This entire time of my walking my downhill gender path, I was noticing the biggest surprise of all. As men were ignoring me, women were attracted to me for any number of reasons. I think the main reason was women were curious why I wanted to give up being a man to be in their world. Whatever the reason, I found myself going to lesbian monthly mixers with friends and even being asked to be one of my friends “wing-person” one night when she was afraid to approach another woman for her phone number. I was overjoyed to do it and had another of those once in a lifetime experience when I was accepted for who I really was.

The only problem I was experiencing was a big one. I was still living parttime in a male world and slipping quickly down a hill into a female one. I had people to tell and a job to deal with among other problematic issues I had to take care of before I lost it all and plunged off a gender cliff into an unknown, I knew nothing about. My cliff was so steep, I could not see to the bottom.

By this time, proceeding carefully was out of the question. I had survived the death of my wife as well as most of the few male friends that I had and I was ready to make a change. Even then I could see which change was coming and I would have to take the chance to seize the opportunity of a lifetime to take it. So, I let go of everything that was holding me back and took the leap over my gender cliff, not knowing what was going to happen. On the other hand, I had done a lot of homework on what would happen if I did jump. All the way from testing my sexuality with men to socializing with the lesbian culture, I tried to cover all my transfeminine socialization bases as I slid down my path. Never being totally out of control.

The best part was the reception I received when I took my final gender leap. All the trust and time I had spent with women over the years was completely repaid and they provided me with a soft landing into a world I had only dreamed about as a transgender woman.

Hi! Thanks for reading along and no matter where you are on your life’s journey, I hope it is a successful one for you.

Anytime you have for comments is appreciated.

 

 

 

She Was Always There

 

Trans Ohio Symposium
JJ Hart

No matter where I went in my life, she was always there.

It did not matter if I was in the middle of playing a football game as a defensive end, she was always with me wanting instead to be a cheerleader. She carried over into my everyday life also as I daydreamed all the time what if would be like to cross the gender border and live a feminine life. As I dreamed my life away, my feminine side may have had an unfair advantage because I was only seeing the positives of being a girl or a woman. It seemed so unfair to me that they could wear all the pretty clothes, have long hair and not have to worry about being forced into military duty during the Vietnam War. Plus, why did I have to be the chaser whenever I wanted to ask someone out. I never saw the competition between the girls for attention, being able to wear makeup and more. They were far from the simple life I was seeing but had no one to tell me so.

Even so, she was always lurking in the background as I fought off the shyness, I felt when I had to be around people I did not know in public. Especially other girls. I did not know then why I was attracted to them in a non-sexual manner because it would be the way I would live my life as I grew older. I learned my natural comfort zone in public always came with other women and I never felt comfortable making friends with men at all. Maybe it was because she was always there in the background. Telling me what to do.

When she did, often major conflicts in my life would occur because in my male life I was always trying to put up a macho front to keep the bullies away. It was difficult to do when she was always whispering in my ear, I was doing the wrong thing when all I was doing was to survive my gender dysphoria and live. It was the beginning of a lifetime of warring genders that would consume me to the point of self-destructive behavior.

When I progressed in my career into management, she was always with me when I needed to handle the women in my crews different than the men. She was studying the way I handled myself and how the ciswomen I was dealing with handled me. Primarily, I learned a lot about how women exist with each other and how alpha females can control a clique of other women. It would be valuable experience later in life for me when I was trying to gain acceptance to the girls’ club. If I had an alpha or two helping me along, they could make my life so much easier.

It began to matter more to me when I began to listen more and more to the feminine voice who was talking to me. She was a powerful influence when other women approached me to investigate what I was all about. Somehow, I was like them but yet so different as a transgender woman. I would have to learn how to build trust with other women as a like minded person and only use the long unwanted male basics of my life when I was asked to. Such as when women asked me questions about understanding their boyfriends or husbands. The last thing I wanted to say was I never understood them either, so I helped the best I could and I was flattered by the questions.

Most certainly, she was more than in the background when I started to explore the world as a trans woman. To do it, interaction and communication was the key as I had to come way out of my closet to do it. I even went as far as taking feminine vocalization lessons to learn more about how to communicate more effectively one on one in the world. The lessons were wonderful and taught me more than I ever thought they would. I knew of course that ciswomen had their own way of communication, but not as much as I learned about the nuances of feminine speech patterns. It was a huge change for me as I had developed many bad listening habits as a man that I needed to change…quickly, if I wanted to survive and thrive as a transfeminine person. Such as beginning to closely listen to what another person was telling me rather than skipping over it to how I was planning on answering it.

As I added layer upon layer in the world to the feminine self I was building, I did not have to pay attention to the woman within me that had always been there in the background. She was having a chance to see the fruits of always being with me come to bear as she was able to take over my world. Since I had already put in years of effort into my presentation as a trans woman and had taken it about as far as I could, my background woman was overjoyed to see me take the extra step and listen to her where to go next. That step was to put the communication mode fully into my life and complete my feminine image in the world. I finally made it out of my closet’s mirror and had a chance to be happy. Something that was never emphasized in my family when I grew up. I did not know how to act with such a new emotion.

Then it became time to flip my gender equation. My male self still vaguely exists as my female self runs my life. I discovered it was nearly impossible for me to erase the decades I had in life doing my best to make it in an unwanted male world. So, I tried to take the best and leave the rest behind. It is working for me so far.

Speaking of working for me, I will not be writing tomorrow as I must go to my new Veterans Administration clinic for my annual checkup, Flu and Covid immunizations and even blood labs. I have not had any problems for years at the VA because of my gender, so I do not expect any tomorrow. But if past Flu and Covid shots are any indication, I will not feel like writing. If any thing crazy happens with the clinic’s personnel disrespecting me, I will report it.

Thanks as always to reading along with my gender journey exploits. Hopefully my thoughts can be of value to you.

 

 

 

 

Spending Your Whole Life Changing a Person

 

Image from Hoite Prins
on UnSplash. 

Sometimes, change comes slow in the life of a transgender woman or transgender man. I can speak from experience since my change came roughly over a fifty-year span.

During the old if I had known then what I know now experience, if I had known my male to female femininization project would have taken that long, would I have tried it at all. Then again, I would have had too because becoming a woman with my own standards was always the main dream I always had. I never knew how I was going to make it, or if I even could but I was determined to try.

And try, I did. Repeatedly until I came closer to getting it right. I spent countless hours in front of the mirror as a youth trying to get my makeup and clothes just right and dreaming of the day when I could afford a nice wig. I had had enough of my short male haircuts, and as far as change of hair styles went, I would be forced to wait until after I got out of the Army before I could begin to grow my hair out to where I wanted it. In the meantime, I was able to buy a beautiful long blond wig to help my change along.

About that time, I realized I could help my way along with a major change by going on a crash diet. By doing so, I was able to lose enough weight so I could finally fit into the more fashionable women’s clothes I was finding at all the thrift stores I was shopping at. Even the weight loss, along with my new skin care program, did not help me enough in the change department. I wanted more in my desire to be the most attractive woman I could possibly be and worked constantly at it. Much to the chagrin of my second wife who wore nearly no makeup at all. We clashed about it all the time, but I stayed on my path to always do better.

Sadly, before my second wife’s death, my formative years of change as a novice transgender woman set in. I wonder now, how I made any strides with all the restrictions which were put on me. I did know one thing that I could not see any real changes in my feminine life until I could make it out of my restrictive lifetime closet and be allowed to explore the world. Something my wife was dead set against, adding an extra barrier on my gender path. In place of being able to explore more in the world, I daydreamed my life away. Thinking what it would be like to live the experiences I had as a cisman as a woman. I would like to get back just a portion of the time I wasted daydreaming and have often wondered what I could made of my male self if I had been constantly focused on him. Of course, I could not get the time back and had to make the best out of what I had been given.

When I was able to finally break out of my closet and begin to explore the world as a transgender woman, change began to come quicker for me. I got to the point where I could not wait for the next time I had the chance to go out so I could have the opportunity to learn more about the life I should have always been able to live. In an extraordinarily short period of time, I was able to establish myself and begin to carve out a new and separate life away from my old male one. For once, I did not have to wonder what the life of a ciswoman was like as I was experiencing it for myself. The time was especially valuable to me when I began to lose most all my friends to death and I was desperately lonely. I needed a new place to turn and all the changes I had worked so hard on over the years really came back to help me.

Perhaps the biggest change which helped was that I came back as a wiser/nicer self than I ever was before. All the years of watching and learning from the ciswomen around me did come back to help me after all because I learned that all women did not fit the kind and giving stereotype of the feminine world everywhere. I gained some basic knowledge of which women to look out for in the world and how to change around their often-passive aggressive spirit. Lessons I learned the hard way on many occasions when I learned a smiling face did not mean a smiling spirit.

If I had not let a lifetime of change help me, then shame on me. So, I needed to make the best of a life which on occasion seemed to be totally out of reach. It was not until I realized it was that I resolved myself to do the little things to make me a better transfeminine person. That is where the little circle of women friends who I built up around me came in to help me. All the girls’ nights out and lesbian mixers helped me to round off the remaining rough male edges that I had and send my life in the right direction where I did not need a man’s support to validate me as a person. Another woman’s validation was just as valuable to me without all the resultant drama and sexuality questions I would have had to have gone through.

I suppose all the changes I went through in the military when I was stationed on three continents in three years got me used to change and in fact, I often craved it. It worked to my advantage later in life when I had all the gender changes I could handle. Even though my immensely influential male self as well as me trying to appease my second wife went, they never won and I changed anyhow. A drastic change from societies’ standards as I was able to cross the gender border and femininize myself from male to female.

I certainly was fortunate to be able to do it all and see the world the way I could behind the feminine gender curtain. Even though I ignored the obvious about myself and it took so long to do it.

Thanks so very much for joining me on my gender journey!

Any comments or thoughts are always welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

Sink or Swim Time

Image from Jeremy Bishop
on UnSplash.

Coming off all my new and exciting Halloween adventures, it was time for me to decide if I was going into the deep end of my gender pool to see if I could sink or swim for my life.

One way or another, I knew I could not wait another full year to leave my closet and explore a feminine world which I had barely learned anything about. What I learned was that I loved the femininization process and wanted to know more. I loved the process of learning to apply makeup properly and the feel of the clothes, but even more the fact I was just a little closer to living my dream of how a ciswoman really lived. To accomplish it, I would have to keep swimming in my pool of life. Especially when I was in over my head.

I caught myself in the deep end too many times when I did not know what I was doing in the early days when I was struggling to blend in with the world and essentially disappear to most of it. In the shallow end of the pool, I discovered most strangers did not care about me anyhow as they went about their everyday lives. It was the deep end where I ran into problems. Since I always considered myself a quality student of the women around me, I quickly found how little I really knew about where I wanted to go as a novice transgender person.

It was not until I learned how complex a ciswoman’s life was as compared to a cisman’s did, I figure out how far I would need to swim to make it to my dream. To make it, I needed to become a long-distance gender swimmer while I stayed in the deep end. To stay where I wanted to be in the pool, I needed to fight back all the fears I had of stripping myself of the male life I had tried so hard to build up and start all over again. To make matters worse, I was highly insecure about if I could ever make it to my goal at all. You have probably heard the old saying that you must dream about something to do it and I was having a difficult time even dreaming about my own unique path to womanhood. At the time, and into the future I knew I could not afford any expensive gender surgeries so I would have to go the distance on my own out of sheer will power as a transwoman friend once told me.

The only things that kept me going were the deep sense of feeling natural when I was following up on my feminine instincts and an even deeper sense of gender euphoria any time I succeeded. Maybe I could make it after all and be more like my transgender woman friends I so admired at the diverse parties I was a regular at in nearby Columbus, Ohio. I figured they had made it in the deep end of the gender pool and so could I. Plus, every party I went to seemed to teach me more about the life I was expected to live as a trans woman without any gender realignment surgeries. Which separated me out from most all the other accomplished transgender women I met in Columbus.

From there, I left the gay venues I was relying upon for socialization and ventured into the straight bar scene I mention so much. It was all part of treading water in the deep end of the gender pool until I figured how I was going to make the next move. Either give up and go back or keep on swimming. Along the way, I became tired of all the effort I was putting into my new life as a transfeminine person until new energy came along to keep me going.

I cannot say I was not in danger of drowning if I did not vigorously keep swimming towards my dream goals in life. My already strained mental health was already causing me to be very self-destructive and a danger to myself, so I was in a bad place to be if I was in the deep end of the pool struggling to figure out my future. To make matters worse, nearly everyone I was close to in my life passed away within three years of each other leaving me in shock and nearly all alone. Somehow, I found the inner strength I needed to stay afloat until I was able to reach out to a whole new set of women friends who enjoyed my company. Above anything else, they saved me from drowning while at the same time teaching me the fine points of being a woman. I tried to thank them, but they never understood and we continued to have fun together.

Included in the group was my current wife Liz who met me in an online dating site against all odds when I was in a lesbian woman seeking woman group. It turned out we lived semi close together and were able to correspond online until our first date at a drag show. We have been together nearly fourteen years now and married for the majority, so I consider that a great success story which makes up for all the down times I suffered.

If you are considering a swim into the deep end of your gender pool, make sure that you are sure you want to give up everything you may have to not turn around and go back. It is never easy and each of us has their own particular path to follow and you need to claim your successes when you have them. Gender euphoria is often brief and fleeting for those of us who have not been blessed with many natural feminine characteristics. We just have to work harder to even stay in the pool and take everything we are given to stay afloat.

I have had several recent comments from readers who are in despair because they have nothing to work with as a novice transgender woman or cross dresser but do have several understanding ciswomen who accept them to fall back on. A great way to study the fact that all women are different and more than a few might be closer to you when it comes to shapes, sizes and personalities than you think.

As I always say, I hope you can find your own path on the way to your own personal gender freedom. Thanks for reading, and commenting!

 

 

  

I Did Not Just Wake Up This Way

 

Image from We Vibe Toys
on UnSplash

I get a sense of amusement (mixed in with a little frustration) when someone thinks I just woke up one day and decided to put on a dress and makeup.

I don’t have much energy to keep explaining how my gender dysphoria has always been a part of me and one I did not ask for. My frustration sets in when some time ago, an acquaintance from the transgender community I met proudly told me she had never been gender dysphoric in her life which I had a hard time believing since she finally went through the extensive gender realignment surgeries.

Then, I began to think did she or even me know the true definition of gender dysphoria. So, I went to look it up from a well-known online dictionary and here is what I came up with: “ a state of severe distress or unhappiness caused by feeling that one's gender identity does not match one's sex as registered at birth.”  I felt that my acquaintance simply did not know the meaning of the words.

Immediately it made sense to me because that is the way I felt growing up wondering if I was a boy or a girl. The only thing I knew for sure was the way I was born and how it affected my life. Perhaps the worst thing was that if I did not understand the way I was with my gender mix-up, how could I possibly expect anyone else to understand it either. So, I headed down the worst path ever and tried to internalize all of my feelings. Internalizing left me with only one way out. Which was to attempt to cross-dress myself in front of the mirror as a girl, away from my perceived dominant male gender.

As many of you know, cross-dressing in secret behind the back of your family is never easy as you have to sneak around and plan every spare moment to do it. It was something I would not have wished on my worst enemy. Why couldn’t I just have been a so-called normal boy like all if my friends seemed to be. Then reality set in as I realized again, I was not “normal” to many people and would have to live with it. Living with it became increasingly more complex as I matured as a serious cross-dresser into an even more serious transgender woman. I evolved into needing more than just admiring my feminine self in the mirror and wondered if I could do it in the world too. Before I did, I needed to gather the courage and confidence to do it. Which was very difficult for me to do because I just did not wake up and lose all the insecurities I had in my life. Many of which involved me ever being able to live as a woman, trans or not.

As I always mention, my early days in the world as a novice transfeminine person were not easy until I developed the tools in dressing myself and learning the basic makeup arts so I could blend in with the ciswomen around me. After many failures in the malls, I finally knew I had made it when the teen girls who used to notice and harass me began to leave me alone and concentrate on their own developing socializations into women. Which was the same path I was on. Just from a totally different direction, but it was taking me awhile to wake up and realize it.

One of the reasons was that my male life kept getting in my way. He needed space to continue to work on his marriage, help care for a daughter, and work on expanding to a growing successful career. Nothing too remarkable for most cismen, but very difficult for the average transgender woman trying to build her life at the same time. The worst-case scenario happened and the two binary genders within me began to compete for space at the same time. It was like the old days of waking up wondering what gender I was going to be any given day and the stress to my overall mental health was building more than I can say. I became very self-destructive as I finally thought I was not strong enough to handle the life I was given.

Somehow, day to day, I put my life together trying to remember who I was that day until I was fully able to try to disguise my true feminine self to the world. While, at the same time presenting myself as my “normal” male self. I ended up covering my feminine tracks so well that no one expressed to me that they knew all along when I finally emerged into my transgender world. They were all surprised that I never showed any signs of the true journey I was on with my gender.

When I finally woke up to the fact of who I really was, it was as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I did not need my “Two C’s” so much anymore to get me by in the world. I was gaining the confidence I needed so I did not need as much courage as it took previously to carve out a new life as a woman and blend in with all of the ciswomen around me in their world. Saying that I was overjoyed when my life was coming together would be an oversimplification as age-old questions for me were starting to be answered. The main one was that I had been living my life backwards for decades causing conflict. Regardless of what society told me, I was never a man. I was a woman trying my best to lead a male life. For the most part I was successful, which made matters worse as my genders clashed for survival.

All along, I just wanted the battle to end so I could live my life in peace. I had my feminine side telling me how natural her life felt when she was allowed to live it. While at the same time, my male side was questioning why I would ever give up all the male privileges I had gained over the span of my life.

I chose the natural path which led me to a happy feminine life over the materialistic life which had only brought me stress because I was in the wrong place. Waking up was the best thing I ever did.

Thanks so much for reading along with my transgender experiences. Hopefully they can help you to understand yours too! Any comments are always appreciated.