Living Rent Free in my Head

 

JJ Hart. First Beauty Salon
Image

Living rent free in my head quickly became the motto of my feminine self.

It all began when I was very young exploring my mom’s clothes and makeup then expanded from there. Very early on, I gladly gave up the space in my head to a new and exciting person. Anything to escape the unwanted male prison I was living in. I did not like the day-to-day life I was forced to live as a male but could do nothing about it.

In the meantime, I was busy making space in my closet for a new person who was very demanding. She had to have clothes, and makeup to the best of my ability. And the problem was, I had to hide all of her from my family and friends because discovery would have been disastrous. As back in those days, any sort of gender dysphoria was considered a mental health issue. A place I certainly did not want to go.

As I matured into a more established cross dresser, there were several times when my closet experienced severe ups and downs when I needed to expand or limit the size and space I was working with. Perhaps, along the way, you have heard me refer to the term “purging” which means to throw away all your feminine items and resolve to go back to living a stress-free male life. For me at least, it never worked and just caused me to develop more stress later when I did not take care of the other inhabitant who was living rent free in my head. Always after purging, I found myself coming back stronger and better than ever when I remodeled my small closet into a more organized version to who I really was.

Who I really was became a very difficult answer for me to consider in my formative years coming out of the closet. Basically, the only constant I knew was I felt very natural when I was in my feminine mode and I felt a much deeper draw to it than just the thrill of wearing woman’s clothes. I did not know how I would get to a more transfeminine experience but just knew I needed to try. The problem was my male life kept getting in the way by throwing up obstacles such as military duty, marriage and jobs in my way. As much as I was fond of the woman living rent free, she was incapable of paying any of the bills which were coming my way after I got out of college and the Army.

Until I could go further in my feminine explorations, and hard as it was for me to do, I just had to back off most all I was trying to do for my ever-demanding transgender self. Once the term became popular and I could read up on it, the more trans made sense to me. So, I slapped the label on my other person living rent free in my head as it made sense to me and made me come closer to understanding the person I really was. As some wise person once said, you need to understand the problem before you can do anything about it. But before I could go any further, I needed to research what exactly I was getting into if I entered the world of ciswomen everywhere.

My world of exploration began in gay venues where I was just treated as another drag queen and even discriminated against on occasion. I quickly said enough was enough and I gathered my courage to attempt to establish myself as a regular in a few of the straight venues I had visited regularly as a man. I always had wondered when I was male what it would be like to go in several places, I was a regular in as a woman and finally I got the chances to try. I was overjoyed when I was successful in my attempts and quickly found myself in a world I had only dreamed of.

When I was doing all of this, I pretty much left my old closet behind completely as I stepped out into the bright lights of the world. After I accepted the fact, I would never be accepted in the world as a ciswoman, I set out to prove I could make it as a woman on my own terms and I did. I discovered I just had to live with my truth and most of the world would just be curious about me or just not care. All I was looking for was an even break for my rent-free person, and she got it. In fact, she got more than she ever bargained for as in a relatively short period of time, she was carving out an entirely new life as a transgender woman. My new woman friends knew I came from a different place than them but did not care.

It was a joyous occasion as all of them helped me to close my old closet for good and what about that rent-free person that lived there? She took over my life, saved the good through out the bad and overall constructed a new life for me that I had never dreamed of. As I suspected, she was not a squatter in my closet after all, she was the real deal all long and all the attention she demanded was paid back to me totally when the time came for pay back. In addition, she was nice and gentle about my male to female femininization project by telling me I had it all wrong. I was a woman hiding as a man for most of my life.

I was stubborn and shame on me for not realizing and reacting to my truth for as long as I did. But once my person in the closet took over with the addition of a few HRT gender affirming hormones, she was on her way to a freedom she would never have to give up again.

Hey you! Thanks for reading along and or commenting. Anything you do is appreciated and I hope if you are stuck in your closet, you can find your way out too.

 

The Season to Party as Your Feminine Self

JJ Hart
Cincinnati Witches Ball

It’s October, the season to party as your feminine self with no repercussions if you are lucky and have the chance.

In my case, Halloween parties that I gathered the courage to go to provided me with tons of valuable information I would use later in life. For example, I learned that just going to parties dressed as a trashy woman did not do me much good and when I went dressed to blend in with the other women around me, I was much better off.

My best Halloween evening ever happened to me when I was living in the New York City suburbs running a well-known fast-food chain restaurant and just happened to receive an invitation from one of my ciswoman assistant managers to a Halloween party that her and her friends were going to. Eagerly, I accepted and started to plan my “costume.” I immediately knew from my past Halloween adventures that I wanted to dress provocatively like many of the women do, while not going overboard and not appearing clownish. Since I already had the minidress, long wig and matching heels to go along with the dress, I knew what I was going to wear.

In all fairness to my second wife, she was not into Halloween and all the costumes that came with it, so she was alright with me going by myself although she highly disapproved of what I was wearing. As I was putting on my heels and makeup, she merely said be careful and out the door I went to a new adventure as I chased my feminine spirit.

Since I was relatively new to the area where I lived in New York, I had to navigate the streets in my truck as I wore my heels for the first time. I managed to do good and did not hit anything and anybody and made it to my manager’s house intact. Of course, I was beyond nervous as I found a place to park, adjusted my hair and makeup in my mirror and went up to her front door. When she opened the door, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see the friends of hers which were going to the party were all tall very attractive ciswomen with whom I could blend in with easily. When they saw me, they all grew silent until they realized I was not all I seemed to be. Out of pure luck, I had stumbled into a cross dressers dream of being around like-minded women for a Halloween Party.

From there, we wasted very little time leaving her house and heading the short distance up a couple of blocks to the neighborhood bar where the party was taking place. I was in heaven when I heard my heels clicking along with the other women as we walked the short distance to the venue. But it was just the beginning of a fantastic evening, I will never forget. It was like my first girls’ night out and I did not realize it.

It turned out, the venue we went to was smallish and dimly lit which was good for a novice, nervous cross-dresser like me out for a Halloween adventure. What I did not anticipate happening was being left alone by the other women I went with as they split up and began flirting with men they already knew. What I did was grab a seat at an unoccupied table so I could rest my feet. Somehow, I managed to go to the bar and order my own drink and head back to the table without attracting the attention of any of the other women I came with. However, I did attract the attention of an older cisman who sat down beside me at the table I was at.

I almost panicked when he offered to buy me another drink or wanted to know if I wanted to dance but I managed to say no to both since I had no idea if he knew I was not all I seemed to be and did not want to lead him on. At the same time I was flattered by all the attention I was getting, and my gender euphoria was soaring. I felt as if I belonged and fit in nicely in the venue I was in.

About that time, my new female acquaintances came looking for me telling me that they were leaving for home. All too quickly my Halloween dream evening ended, almost. On my way home, I drove past my restaurant and saw a stray car still in the parking lot. Ignoring for a second how I was dressed, I pulled through the parking lot and noticed one of my grill cooks in his car. By this time, I was emboldened by my earlier experiences in the evening and asked him if everything was alright. He said he was fine, and we ended up talking for a short time. During which he complimented me on the way that I looked and precisely about my legs.

Sadly, the glow of my evening was beginning to fade, and I needed to face the fact I had to return to reality and head back home. I walked away in my heels with new life/gender lessons I had learned for the first time. Primarily it is every woman for themselves when it comes to intermixing with men who maybe interested in you. Any loyalty fades quickly away. I also learned that under the right circumstances I could use the cover of Halloween to lip behind the gender curtain and see what was on the feminine side. Most importantly, I liked what I saw and wanted to experience more without having Halloween to help me.

When I returned to work the next day, I was interested to see the reaction from the rest of the crew and my boss over my “costume” the evening before. Overall, outside of a few knowing smiles from my boss and manager, life went on as normal with no questions asked so I was encouraged that my evening in heaven did not hurt my career, Halloween had given me the best of all possible gender worlds for at least one evening. I had to just figure out how I could have more without waiting another year.

 

What Goes Up Must Come Down

 

Image form Vicky Hladynet
on UnSplash. 

Gender euphoria for me has been a double-edged sword.

The sharp edge of the blade has been the powerful elixir I gained from when I was successful in my early attempts to cross-dress successfully and enter the world. I was well aware of the feelings from my initial view of myself as a perceived pretty girl in my home mirror. Well before I had the courage to leave the house.

On the other hand, the dull side of the blade was the quick coming down I needed to go through after my successful journeys into the world of ciswomen and cismen. But I found early that the women were the ones I needed to concentrate on because they were curious about me. Ciswomen were the most likely to pick me out of a crowd and notice that I was not all that I seemed to be.

To combat my severe ups and downs, I needed to set up and stay on a steady diet of cross-dressing activities. To do my best to always have the joy of gender euphoria to get me by the worst of my gender dysphoric issues. Often, my rhythmic cross-dressing adventures were the only thing which kept me going in life when I became so depressed with a fatalistic “Why me” mentality.

As I learned later in life from one of my therapists, I was a bi-polar depressive which added to my problems of feeling down. When I was down, I was really down and had to force myself out of bed for days at a time. When I got the professional opinion about my depression issues, I was relieved because it was one less thing I could blame on my gender issues. Then I could concentrate on my sword again along with its ups and downs. What I did was expand my ups by doing more when I was out in the world exploring to see if I really was a transgender woman or a serious cross-dresser or what.

When I was out at the bigger shopping venues in nearby Columbus, Ohio, I learned I could be accepted as just another well-dressed feminine shopper looking for gifts from the specialty stores, I went to. Perhaps because I was trying to soothe part of my guilt of not telling my second wife what I was doing, I always tried to buy a little gift for her from one of the big gardening stores I knew about and visited. She was a very dedicated gardener and for a change I could make her happy. Along with me at the same time. At least I was trying to do something positive with my gender euphoria before I started to go home and crash back into my old unwanted male life.

Sadly, after I crashed, I wanted more of my feminine world and when I did not get it I tried to internalize my feelings which only made my life worse. Since I was suffering, I was selfish and wanted everyone around me to suffer too. It got so bad that I nearly lost jobs over my attitude and probably should have lost my marriage too, if my wife was not so strong. That also had its good and bad points. The good was that when we were good, we were very good and when we were bad because of my gender dysphoria, we were very bad. Mainly because my wife had everything as a woman that I envied and I resented her for it. The worst part was she should not have had to suffer along with me on my path of severe ups and downs because I was incapable of explaining either the ups or the downs of my life when I had them. One thing was for sure; the worst move I ever made was internalizing my feelings from my second wife.

To help my ups, I continued a serious program to learn if I really wanted to risk my life as I knew it to live a transfeminine life. How could I risk all that I had built up as a man for such a selfish move which would have far reaching effects past just me. Including my marriage, my family and my employment which were all doing well except for my marriage. I felt as if I was on a run-away train on a dead-end track with my life if I ever faced my truth about who I really was.

At the same time, my downs just had to be worth all the ups I was experiencing. My gender tipping point was rapidly reaching the critical point of no return as I was increasingly carving out a new and exciting life as a trans woman. My confidence was staying at an all-time high and suddenly my dreams might be able to become a reality. The only downs I was experiencing happened when my wife was still alive and I was feeling like I cheated on her with myself every time I snuck out into the world as the new me. I think deep down, I knew our relationship was not going to be sustainable, but I never thought it would be because she would die ahead of me. Naturally, her death hit me hard and at the age of fifty-five I was going back to my drawing board. This time to do much more than re-work how I looked as a woman. Now I needed to determine how I wanted to live out the remainder of my life.

Even with the obvious answer staring me in the face, I managed to still ignore my reality and stumble forward with one foot firmly planted in each of the binary genders. Finally, my male foot began to slip, and I quit fighting the obvious. I was never meant to be a man at all, and I was a woman living a lie and living like a man. When I did, almost all my depression went away, and I was free to live the life I was always destined to live.

As always, thank you for reading along with my lifetime of gender experience. I hope I can help you and comments are appreciated!

 

 

 

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

Image from Shifazz Shamoon
on UnSplash. 

Typically, as we follow our winding gender journeys as transgender women or transgender men, we reach points where we must decide what we are going to do next.

It is especially intimidating to see all the political anti-transgender ads on TV funded by far away billionaires such as Theil and Musk who are pouring millions into defeating Democratic candidates here in my native Ohio. Especially the ones stating that the Democrats are extremists who supported sex change surgeries for children in school. That is about as far as I want to go politically in this post, so I will move on to what really matters…each of us and how we feel.

If the so called “civilians” in our world knew what we have to go through to see results in our individual gender worlds, they may understand more what it is like to be in our shoes and being constantly bombarded with negativity. Following years of struggles (or decades) I was fortunate to have found my way into discovering who the true me really was and most of the years of turmoil went away. Even still, I needed to follow a journey of steps which led me to blind curves which I knew nothing about.

All I discovered was that I had an unique life worth living to the fullest and very few other human beings can live a life which enables them to experience both sides of the binary gender road. It meant being able to exist in a life I never really wanted to live as a man. Slowly stop it altogether and start all over to earn a place like the other gender. As frustrating as that life as a trans person can be, the rewards can still be there if you can answer all the what’s next. Since most of us begin our lives cross-dressing in front of a mirror, there is plenty of ground to cover. Because we are destined to have such a small knowledge of the gender we are seeking to become. Again, because we are stuck on the outside looking in.  

Gaining access to your new life can take many paths. Sadly, many involve marriage, family and friends we do not want to give up but have to. The ways to announce your true self to the world can be done in several ways. Some just pull the band aide off, cross-dress and say here I am to the world, while others write letters and others still try to soften the blow by providing positive feedback from the internet or social media. Sometimes, I think I chose the most painful way of all as I tried to maintain my marriage to a woman I loved deeply while I knew all along that my truth was going to slip sooner or later. To make matters worse, she knew I was a cross dresser from the beginning and accepted it but told me time and time again she would draw the line at any moves I would ever make to going the transgender route and taking HRT hormones. She did not want to live with another woman. An answer I could never debate.

I guess you could say, I wanted the best of both gender worlds as I tried to do better and better in the male world I learned to survive in, while at the same time work very hard on my makeup and wardrobe to appear more realistic as a woman. All I was doing was creating severe friction within the marriage and within my head. If I was not thinking about work, I was thinking about how I could improve myself as a novice trans woman. Which I was just understanding that is what I was.

Without fail, I would get moody and nasty when I did not get my way and be able to cross-dress when I wanted which led to more friction within the marriage and more fights. In the heat of battle, my wife told me a couple of things I should have reacted to sooner. One of which would have been difficult for me to do and the other I should have been doing all along. Being called a “Terrible woman” was one thing I did not understand until I had the chance to live my truth as a transfeminine person and the other time she told me, “Why didn’t I be a man and live like a woman.” She was right, I should have done it. No matter how painful it would have been for me to carve out a new life for myself during that portion of my life when I was in my thirties.

Another problem was the sizeable male ego I was still carrying around with me. He wanted me to look and act a certain way as a novice trans woman which my wife did not like. Which led to more fights. The only revenge I ever got on her was the night she was forced to ask me for help on her makeup when we were invited to an upscale business dinner. At least the “Terrible woman” was better at makeup, I guess.

The thing it took me years to understand was that it was never about looking terrible as a woman, it was all about being socialized as a ciswoman. Sadly, my wife passed away before she could ever get to know the new improved feminine me. It took me until I was in my fifties to begin to get admission into the Girls’ Club and fully understand more about what my wife was talking about all those years before. I was suddenly on the verge of knowing where I wanted to go from that point forward. As every part of my being was telling me I was making the right decision about my life and should go for it.

I would not recommend taking the amount of time I took on my gender path before I made the final decision to live a life I always thought was going to be a dream. I think now there would have to have been a better way or like my second wife said, “Be man enough to be a woman.”  At the same time, I had my reasons for not doing it when I did which I will discuss in-depth on another post.

In the meantime, I hope you have a clearer understanding of where you want to get to in the everchanging world of trans women and trans men.

Thanks so much as always for reading along and I hope somehow, I have helped you on your gender journey. Comments are always appreciated!

 

Transgender Journey...Down but Not Out

 

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash.

As transgender women and transgender men, it is easy to feel down and out as we try to navigate our new gender paths.

As I sometimes look back on my journey, it is easy to remember the good times and forget the bad. The most important thing about reliving the bad is having the appreciation for the world I am able to live in today as a fulltime trans woman. Every time I make simple trips in the world to the doctor’s, the Veterans Administration or the pharmacy, I always have to look back at remembering the not so good old days when I was struggling for acceptance. Either one of a couple things has happened. Either I have become better at my overall feminine presentation (wrong) or my confidence has taken me to a point where I don’t particularly care what the world thinks about me.

Either way, I look back to when I considered myself a very serious cross-dresser as I still was researching which fork in my gender path would I take. Back in those days, I took hours to prepare for an outing in the world, and I often wondered what I would do if I had to go out in the world everyday and compete with ciswomen everywhere. It was easy at that time to put those thoughts behind me as I was so obsessed with my feminine looks that my second wife kept calling me the “Pretty, pretty, princess.”  Naturally I loved the “pretty” part but rejected the “princess” part of her very pointed critique of me. One day, she even went as far as separating appearance from being a true woman for me when we were fighting about me wanting to go out. It was one of my all-time down moments when she told me I made a terrible woman. It hurt because I was not trying to make anything, I was just trying to express my true self, but I could not properly put my thoughts in a form she would understand.

I guess you could say, back then, I was definitely in my mental transgender formative years when my mind was trying to catch up with all the cross-dressing I was doing. Sadly, before I could formulate what a better version of my transgender self would be, all I experienced was an extreme amount of frustration. I could not understand what I was doing wrong when I was being successful in situations such as transgender-cross dresser mixers I was going to. The problem was the extreme gender euphoria I experienced at the mixers when I was mistaken for a ciswoman was not worth the resultant crash and depression, I felt when my life went back to its same old boring male self.

It all resulted in me being boxed into rarely getting out of my gender closet to explore the world and I was moody, resentful and not the easiest person to live with as I tried to internalize my gender feelings from my wife. A prime example was one year when we took a vacation from our native Ohio to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. On the trip up there, I progressively grew more depressed and mean until my wife asked me what was going on since I was supposed to be having a good time on vacation. Predictably, I lied my way out of it and did not tell her the truth that I rather be spending my vacation time as a woman rather than a man.

Somehow, I pulled myself back together and the vacation continued without incident, but I remember it as another low point. Little did I know at that time, destiny would finally come back to me on my gender path, and I would get my wish to go on extensive vacations as a transfeminine person.

Along the way, I have had many other low points which I write about often. Such as when a woman called me a pervert for simply using the women’s room in a venue, I had been a regular patron of for a long time and had no one say anything negative to me at all. Then much earlier than that when I was struggling to blend in with the world at all, there were all the stares and even laughter I needed to put up with on my journey to present. I was reduced to tears more times than I care to remember mainly by groups of teen girls struggling to find their own femininity. I was certainly at a low point when all of this was happening to me, and I did not have the tools yet to know which way to turn. All I had was this little voice in the back of my head telling me to keep going and my low points would disappear.

All of it did go away for a while until I hit my dark age when nearly everyone I cared about decided to die within a two-year period. The group included my second wife and three of my closest male friends. Who were the only ones I had. To add to my low point, I was desperately lonely and ended up relying on that little voice who at this time was growing louder and more insistent that she had all the answers for me. This time, I had very few other alternatives to fall back on. As one person told me after I had lost my restaurant along to everything else, you will land on your feet. Not knowing my feet would be in high heels when I did it.

I am sure that everyone’s lives have its share of highs and lows and I can not say a transgender woman or trans man lows would be even more dramatic, but it seems possible because we have so much to lose as we pick up our lives and move them across the gender border. Until we find ourselves living behind the gender curtain where we always wanted to me.

Hopefully if you are in the midst of a low time, you have a little voice telling you everything will be OK. If not, remember life is but a circle and what is down will eventually come up.

As always thanks for reading along and comments are always welcome.

 

 

 

When A Good Day was in the Details

 

Image from Ali Hassan
on UnSplash

I remember vividly the frustration I felt when I tried to connect all the dots I needed to connect to make blending into the world as a feminine person a reality. A good day was when I was able to recognize the details and improve my overall feminine presentation.

It was because I had so much new to remember when I finally summoned the courage to leave the mirror and get out into the world. The mirror was kind to me and often would not tell me when I was looking like a circus clown in drag. It took being out in the public’s eye to do that for me, unfortunately. When the stares and laughter caught up to me in the initial stages of being out of my shell, I had to scurry home to go back to my cross-dressing drawing board to go over all the details I was trying to put together if I ever was going to make it as a novice transfeminine person.

It seemed when I arrived at the point where I did a reasonably good job of applying my makeup, then I would make some huge mistake with how I was moving and mess up the feminine image I was trying to portray. One example that comes to mind was when I was in a mall blissfully minding my own business as a woman when one of my heels stuck in a crack in the sidewalk and I almost fell. After I determined that no one else noticed my embarrassing move, I gathered myself back up and resumed my journey. A lot wiser for the experience which I am sure that many ciswomen have gone through. It was just that the overall gender learning experience at times seemed to be so cruel and frustrating.

Overall, it took me submitting to practice, practice, practice to make it to just an entry level where I did not look like a linebacker in a dress when I moved in a new, scary world. Of course, I knew ciswomen move very differently than cismen, but to copy it was not going to be easy for me. It also seemed all eyes were upon me as a transgender woman which was and was not the case. As I found out if I could just do the basics, most people would be in their own worlds and not notice me at all. That is, if I did not give them anything out of the ordinary to look at which initially I was quite bad at. Why? Because I tried dressing as a teen girl, which was a major mistake as I was trying to disguise my thirty-year-old testosterone poisoned body.  It did not take me long to get laughed out of doing it and settled into a more reasonable look which was able to blend in with the ciswomen around me.

At that point, a good day was when I was able to put my overall appearance together with the way I moved as I began to put the ideal mirror image I always had into motion. I began to try my hand by going to well attended events such as urban festivals in downtown Dayton, Ohio. When I went, I always wore my best sunglasses so I could look to see if other people were paying attention to me and I knew I had made significant strides towards living my dream and I was ecstatic. For once it seemed, everything was coming together for me in my life until I hit two major roadblocks. My second wife and my male self-sensed the potential of losing their lives with me as they knew them.

It was all good for awhile as I was able to maintain the delicate gender balance I was trying to live until the portion of my life, I came to call my own dark ages when I lost my wife and three of my closest male friends to death. Naturally, I was knocked for a loop and did not know which way was up for a while. As an experiment I even tried to date ciswomen again as a man, but it did not work since I did not want to start to explain all over again to another woman my gender issues. Finally, I resorted to taking myself out to an outdoor concert in a Dayton suburb because my daughter gave me two tickets to see “Joe Cocker”. The woman I was going to take essentially stood me up a week before the concert which gave me time to consider taking myself. Which is what I did as I went in a black sleeveless top, black flowing silky pants and sparkly silver sandals. No one gave me a second look as I nervously played with my long dark-haired wig and I enjoyed myself immensely.

I knew right then, I was on the right path because I felt so natural in my new world as I was connecting all the right dots and my feminine power was in the details. Until I hit my next big roadblock. Just how was my new transfeminine person going to do her most difficult task of all, which was being able to communicate with the world around me. A world which I had to put all the way up there with my initial feminine problems such as makeup, hair and movement as my most difficult task to take on. Here I was in this big, highly nuanced new world I was in with very few tools to help me.

At first, I resorted to mimicking the tone of the other ciswoman who was trying to talk to me. Which worked well enough to get me by with short, simple conversations with clerks and salespeople but fell miserably short when someone really wanted to communicate with me. That’s when I knew I needed to seek out professional help about feminine vocal patterns which helped me to learn the basics of being able to not necessarily sound like a woman when I was talking but still say the right things a woman would say. a huge detail I needed to communicate in the new world I was in,

I was fortunate when I survived my dark ages and the onslaught of my male self-trying to survive that I was still able to move forward. I began each day with good feelings for once concerning how I felt about my gender dysphoria in my life. No matter what the mirror was telling me in the morning, deep down I had connected all the dots and attended to all my gender details, so I knew who I was.

It made all the difference in the world as it took me so long to do it.

Thanks as always for reading along. I hope you can find and overcome all the gender details and connect your dots along the way. Comments are always welcome!

 

 

 

 

I Wish I Knew Why

 

 

Image from Jon Tyson
on UnSplash

It has been a while since anyone has asked me when I knew I was transgender. In fact, it was several years ago when one of my grandkids was coming out to my daughter as being trans.

My daughter then asked me if I had always known, true? I told her yes that was true except in the exceedingly early days of my life when I knew something was wrong with me but I just did not know what. As I grew older and I experienced that first magical visit to mom’s clothing drawer did I truly knew what the problem was. I really liked the feel of mom’s clothes and that was only the beginning as I wanted to be a girl full-time sometime in my life. Just the buzz of wearing feminine clothes was never going to be enough. So, I set out on a long journey to see if I could ever achieve my dream.

When I was able to begin to interact with others with gender issues, I found early on that it was not going to be the end to my questions that I thought it could be. For example, I was too much girl for many of the cross-dressers I met and not enough woman for the then called transsexuals I encountered in person at the social/mixers I traveled to. The closest ones initially were nearly a two-hour drive away before mixers were then set up in a nearby central location for me. It was then that I was able to meet others who identified as true transgender women and I fit in perfectly with them. Finally, I began to have answers to my identity as a person.

Of course, I needed to take all sorts of side journeys as I sought out the key to why this transgender world had chosen me. In my research I even came across the theory that the drug “D.E.S” which was given to women with a history of problem pregnancies around the time I was born, could conceivably be linked to a person having= gender issues later in life. Because to ensure the fetus went full term in the womb, the womb was flooded with estrogen to aid the birth process. I thought “D.E.S.” might fit me because my mom had suffered through three still births before I came along. Ultimately, “D.E.S” stayed just as it started with me. Another solution to an extraordinarily complex gender problem with no concrete answers.

Then there was the victim mode I wrote so much about when I went through a poor, poor pitiful me time of my life. I could not understand why I needed to be stuck with all the gender issues I had when no one I knew had them either. To this day, I envy men who have been able to go through their lives as men without the added distraction of wanting to be a ciswoman. Finally, I made the difficult turn considering my overwhelming desire to be feminine as a good thing. Because it set me off from society as a unique person with a look at both sides of the gender border. Removing my victim mentality made all the difference in the world to me as I began to look ahead for the possibilities which laid ahead. Rather than always looking over my shoulder and dwelling on the mistakes I had made.

The more success I experienced when I first was able to carve out a new life for myself as a transfeminine person, the more the wish I knew mentality I had lived with my whole life began to fade away. From that point, I went into my confidence mode because without it, I was powerless to do anything I wanted to do as a trans woman. I found that as long as I held my head high and did my best to be a quality person in the world, the more people left me alone since humans are like sharks. They sense blood in the water, and I was not adding any of mine. Confidence also allowed me to try different things. To judge if I really wanted to jump the gender border and give up living life as a man altogether. Even though it was the most difficult decision of my life, having even a sliver of hope that I could live my dream that propelled me forward to a gender tipping point that so many ask about.

This time, I could tell anyone who asked why I decided to leave a successful male life to take on a decided uncertain one as a transgender woman. The answer I always gave was deceptively easy. I had reached my own gender tipping point where I was living more as a woman (and feeling natural doing it) and less as a man as I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable doing it. By doing as much research as I had, I had given myself no choice as what I should do. When became now and that was the time, I decided to take the next step and pursue gender affirming hormones or HRT to sync my inner mind with my external body the public saw. I knew it was the point of no return for me as my body took to the new hormones magically.

I knew from there that all my explorations as a trans woman pus the addition of HRT allowed me the most powerful female privilege of all. The power to finally be myself. The wish I knew why I was different my whole life was answered with a resounding yes, I did know it all along and refused to face my own truth. I was living a counterproductive life as I was going overboard trying to be successful as a man when I was a woman forced into her shell all the time struggling to get out. The best part was when she said I told you so, as she destroyed what was left of my old male ego.

I finished strong when my why me became a why not as I had the chance to live my feminine truth among the ciswomen of the world.

Thanks for reading along and I hope you will discover your why me in life! Comments from you are always welcomed.

 

 

 

 

I Had No Idea

 

Image from Hayley Lawrence
on UnSplash. 

As we dodged yet another terrible weather bullet where we live in this part of Cincinnati, and I sit here writing, I feel a deep sense of belonging in the life I discovered years ago.

Certainly, through most of my life, I never thought I could make it this far and live out my own dream of living as a fulltime transgender woman. Possibly, it is because I got off to such a rough start when I left my gender closet and took on the world. Back in those days also I had such a simplistic view of what it would take me to live as a woman. I mistakenly thought I would just have to look as close as I could to a ciswoman. I had no idea of how wrong that would turn out to be.

What I had never really considered was how difficult it would be to truly cross the gender border and face all the everyday challenges ciswomen face in the world. Including the ones from toxic men. In that sense, I was fortunate in that I was not attractive enough to garner much attention from cismen at all and only had to deal with the new surge of attention I received from the women around me who mainly wanted to know more about what I was doing in their world. What the women never knew was when they were studying me, I was closely studying them because I was on a crash course to learn everything, I needed to be accepted into their club and be allowed behind their gender curtain.

Referring back to a recent post of mine and a comment from “Mark”, I was excited to be finding the true me and I enjoyed the excitement of being in a new world I always wanted to be in. Probably because I thought it would never be me who could do it. Thanks for commenting, Mark!

Change was slow, but eventually the confidence came that just maybe I could exist in a world where ciswomen ruled and make it. It was only then when I had any idea that it could be me that made it into the world I knew from my transgender mentors I had met at the parties I was going to in Columbus, Ohio. At that time, even though I had very few certainties of where I would end up in life, if I had my choice I rather be like the trans women I knew that the part-time cross-dresser than I was. It was my dream and I was sticking to it. Even though I knew I did not have the natural resources or the financial means to be as beautiful as my friends were. I realized that all ciswomen were not classic beauties but lived fulfilled and impactful lives anyhow. So, there was a path for me anyhow.

My new idea opened a whole new vista of being femininized for me. It meant so much more than the makeup, hair and pretty clothes I was having a chance to wear for the first time. Suddenly, I could see a path forward to where I could see the real me for a change. A person that I had no idea about was there but liked it when I discovered her.

Now is the time I always take to explain how difficult this part of my life was. It seemed nothing was coming easy to me as I struggled to find a middle point with my second wife over my gender desires and my work was making new demands on my male self. The worst part was that the idea of who I was internally was becoming clouded and I lost sight of where I needed to go to find me. As I grasped for answers, I could not wait to get back to my safe place in Columbus and interact with the diverse LGBTQ group of people who always gathered there.

It took a while, but I finally gathered the courage to set out on my own to see if my idea of making it in the world as a transfeminine person was dead. The problem was that I only had known the world of gay venues to attempt to express myself. Since I had never identified as a gay male, I never felt at home in their venues, only lesbian bars and large straight places. I needed an extraordinary amount of courage to begin to see if I could exist in both at all. When I found out I could, almost nightly if I was not working, I was trying out the new world I was carving out for myself. No matter how hard I tried to blend in with everyone else, I did not to the staff of bartenders and servers who routinely took care of me, and I was unmistakable to them and had no problems becoming a regular. A smiling face and good tips took care of the rest.

Long story short, I was finding myself as the person I had no idea I could be. Before I knew it, I needed to settle on one wig and decide on a new feminine name for me to use in every venue I was in regularly. The pressure was on to not lose everything that I had gained over the years, and this time I could just start all over again building a new woman from the building blocks of my male life. The prize I never thought I would ever get was suddenly within reach, and I needed to figure out what to do next.

That decision was made for me when my second wife as well as the only good male friends I had ever had all passed away in a short span of time. I was left by myself to decide my future which without much thought turned out to be female. Yes, the idea I never thought would come true was, just when I thought again that it never would. I am a living example of how someone’s life can change if you stay on your gender path. Especially when you don’t expect it. Sadly, I remember the dark days when all I had was two dogs to comfort me in my times of duress and I had no idea I could ever climb out of my depression to where I could find the support, I needed to live my dream life.

It turned out for me that my grand idea was a good one after all.

 

 

Understanding is the First Step to Overcoming Fear

 

JJ Hart (Center) on a 
girls' night out. 

Before you can overcome fear, you need to understand exactly what you are afraid of.

I know I was petrified of leaving my closet behind and heading out into a world where I knew little or nothing as a novice cross-dresser. It took me years to overcome most of my fears except the ones I never did. Such as going into male dominated spaces by myself as a transgender woman. For some unknown reason, that one thing has always been a problem for me and my anxiety issues about coming out in the world.

When I was younger, I always thought either I would grow out of my need to feel feminine in all ways or somehow, I would lose my fear of doing it. Of course, I learned quickly that anytime soon I would not be outgrowing my urges to cross the gender border into a feminine world. In fact, my urges were getting stronger which led to more fear and anxiety about the future of my life. Out of sheer survival, I had to find out why I was so scared.

The easy way out for me was just by thinking that making the gender jump into what I perceived as greener pastures, was the reason I was so scared. I was using the dresses and makeup I had acquired to hide behind and feel better in times of duress. I was too new at the gender game to consider ideas such as gender privileges which I was accumulating as a young man with out even knowing it. Privileges such as never having my intelligence questioned or having an innate sense of personal security were never questioned. I found I would not have to until much later in life when I began to present well enough as a transfeminine person to get by. All of a sudden, passing as a woman meant more than just having a man open a door for me. I had to take the good with the bad if I was ever going to be successful in making it to my dream of living as a woman on my own terms.

The more involved I became in my male to female femininization, the more I discovered there was no easy way out. Which frightened me more. I always equate it as me busily painting myself into new life corners as a trans woman which there was no easy escape from. Finally, I did see a brief escape from my unreasoning fear was when the transgender term was being popularized to gender conflicted people like me. There was a term which described people such as me who did not fit into the cross dresser-transvestite mold or the more extreme transsexual person. From the moment I saw the trans term, I immediately knew it described me. It certainly took long enough for a term to come along, which helped me, but it finally did.

Being able to read about other more accomplished transgender women and trans men helped me to understand my fears and why I was feeling them and the new less rigid gender spectrum terms helped me immensely. For the first time in my life, I could pinpoint why I was feeling a certain way and at the same time calm most of my anxieties. Gender diversity became my motto in life as I really began to explore the world of ciswomen for the first time. I had left the men’s club (and they knew it) and wanted to join the women’s club if they would have me. Yes, the world of ciswomen would have me which lessened my fears and anxieties immensely. Mainly because I had a better understanding of where I wanted to go.

Looking back, I do not know why I took so long to try to have a better understanding of who I really was. I could blame the usual suspects such as my old male self or my second wife who put up such a battle against me transitioning when in reality it was all on me. In the would of-should of department, I always should have faced up to the fact I was more female than male and should have not made life miserable for my wife when I did not “man-up” in her terms and become a woman. I guess I was never one to take the easy way out.

If I had taken any of the excess time I was wasting, I would have taken the time to calm my fears by understanding who I was as a person and try to build a better feminine person I learned I could be from all the male building blocks I had left behind. As I looked around at the new world of ciswomen, I was seeking admittance into, I realized they were more diverse than even I had given them credit for. And I would not be shunned for wanting to do something like wearing my favorite team’s jersey on game day in one of the sports bars I was a regular in because other women were beating me to it by wearing their jerseys It made my fears evaporate as my life became more fun again and certainly more fulfilling as I had always wondered what it would be like to cheer my favorite teams on in the venues I was used to going to as a woman and not a man.

Once I finally started to have a basic understanding of where my fears were coming from, I was able to better keep them under control. Which, in turn led me to being more relaxed with a chance to let my long hidden trans woman personality shine through.

I know it is difficult for all of you who are just getting started along your gender path to not be afraid because of what is at stake but if you are able to slow your life down to take a closer look at it…you will stand a better chance of understanding your fears and anxiety and living a better life.

Thanks for reading along and I hope my experiences can help you anyway I can!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stepping Out as Yourself

Image from Max Anderson
on UnSplash. 

Stepping out into the real world and leaving my closet and mirror for the first time was difficult for me. For lack of a better term, I was leaving everything I worked for in my male life behind.

As much as I hated my dark, lonely gender closet, I found it to be a safe place to be when I needed it the most. My ability to put on a dress and makeup soothed my soul, if only on a temporary basis helped until I needed to take another high heeled step into the real world where I so desperately wanted to be. To put it mildly I was scared to death when all my male privileges I had worked so hard to learn were stripped away and I was starting all over again. It was different when I could not rely on a menacing facial expression or an occasional bluster to get me by.

Stepping out into a new feminine world for me meant I needed to immediately begin to work on building a new personality which would grow with me as I worked my way towards my dream goal of living fulltime as a transgender woman. This was the same period of time that I was obsessed by my feminine appearance, so I had a lot on my mind. As I struggled day to day about what gender I was going to be. All too soon, life meant so much more to me than buying a new dress or skirt all the way to how I needed to change my old male movements when I wore them.

As I was forced by being in the public’s eye, I needed to understand exactly what I was getting myself into. So much more than the pretty clothes that I saw the girls around me wearing. If I needed to be more like them, I had miles to go on my gender path to get there. All I knew was at that time, most of the ciswomen I encountered were nice to me. Every little bit helped me learn what my future could be like if I kept stepping out and away from my old male past. Plus, problems kept occurring with my second wife and my male self who saw the changes in me as a threat to their future lives. My second wife saw her husband slipping away and my male self-saw his whole future gone if what I was doing continued.

Through it all, I was able to establish myself as some-sort of a successful cross-dresser before I transitioned into a transgender woman one fateful night when I thought enough was enough and I had to do more to continue up my gender path. Before I became lost entirely and had to reassess where I was. What I learned was that I was actually further along towards my transfeminine goal than I thought I was. I learned the hard way when I was able to be successful when I went out for the first time to enjoy a drink with a group of ciswomen from a nearby mall who just would go out and socialize after work. It was something I always had wanted to do as a transwoman, and I was amazingly accepted into their circle. I guess you could say that night I really stepped away from my old male self and loved it.

Before I knew it, my new shiny shoes (flats this time) were stuck in gender quicksand as I had stepped into a place that I never wanted to get out of. One thing was for sure, if anyone came along with a rope trying to rescue me, I would have turned them down. I was having too much fun challenging the world as my new transgender self to ever turn around and go back to a boring life as a man that I had stepped away from.

Sure, there were still many times that either I was scared to death of where I was going or was out and out rejected by the world, but those times were getting fewer and fewer apart. I was headed towards my dream goal which was slowly coming into focus as a doable project. I say project because I had never attempted such a thing as jumping the gender border to slide behind the gender curtain in my life. When I finally accomplished my goal of being allowed to exist in so-called women only spaces, I certainly was not going to give up all that I had earned.

By this time my second wife had passed away, and my old male self was seeing the writing on the wall, and his days were numbered too. Which left me all alone to make my key life choices. Still after much thought and consideration, I finally gave in totally to my feminine side, and I set out to build a different yet better life with my new ciswomen lesbian friends. All of them helped me round out and refine the woman I always wanted to be. Most of the work I had already put in, so I did not have that far to go. Mainly the only place I needed to go was with my dealings with men. Even that turned out to be relatively easy because most men left me alone because I was not attractive enough or just wanted me as some sort of a fetish object. All my problems went away when my lesbian friends taught me I did not need a man to be validated anyhow.

As stepping out as a transgender woman in the world became natural to me, a whole new universe of life came alive for me. Especially when I was approved for my long-term dream of starting HRT or gender affirming hormones. Something that my second wife always recoiled at the idea of, but on the other hand, my current wife Liz loved. The essence of being on my hormones just carried over into me stepping out into a new world with confidence I had never known before.

 

 

 

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!

 

 

 

 

Staying in the Present as a Trans Woman

JJ Hart at Trans Ohio.

Staying in the present has always been a difficult task for me. Perhaps it all started when I was a very young gender distracted person and could not seem to stop daydreaming about being a pretty girl. The daydreams were nearly always a great escape from my everyday boring male world where I was always competing for the same rights to be recognized at all.

Overtime, I was rarely successful as a boy and just put in the amount of effort to get by. The only thing I was moderately successful on was hustling on my newspaper route and doing extra chores around the house to make extra money. Which in turn, I used to buy my own feminine articles such as makeup, and pantyhose for when I was able to shave my legs. Overall, my plan worked and eventually I was able to build up my own collection of cross-dressing essentials. As I discovered I could get away with shopping at a couple of small local department stores for everything I needed to shatter my dream of doing it and stepping into my own form of reality.

The older I got, the more I did not grow out of my cross-dressing gender desires. In fact, I grew into them when the world became more and more accessible to me. I was building an increasing sense of confidence in my new self and going out briefly into the world as a novice when the Vietnam War and the persistent military draft caught up with me. For the first time in my life, I could not daydream of something as major as a war going away. It was as real as my draft card. Which I resented having because none of the ciswomen around me needed one. Why should I be forced into an unfair war when they were not was what fueled my resentment. A resentment which just made me feel worse as I wasted my time worrying about the war which was staring at me in the face.

To make matters even worse was the fact my fiancé who knew I was a cross-dresser told me we would break up unless I told the draft board I was gay. Which, there was no way that was going to happen, so we did end our relationship just before I headed out to Ft. Knox, Kentucky for Army basic infantry training. Even though I fought military service as long as I could, in many ways it did me good because I needed to stay in the present most of the time when I was going through basic. If I was not, I would feel the wrath of the drill sergeants which was not a place I wanted to be. I guess you could say, I was going through a whole different basic training by teaching me to stay in the present.

After I had served my time, I tried my best to pick up where I left off by trying to join the world as a transgender woman. A new life was just starting to come to me with the realization I was much more than a part-time cross-dresser and needed to experience more of a woman’s life to satisfy me. Change was upon me with the birth of my daughter and a new wonderful world of mall shopping experiences to explore. After a rough start, I was able to present well enough to enjoy being out in the world. In other words, the teenaged girls who made me a target suddenly left me alone. The rest of the mall time was easy because I discovered that my money was green and that was more important to the store clerks who waited on me than my potential gender.

Eventually, more reality than daydreaming set in with my life. I was becoming so successful in carving out a new transfeminine life I knew that I had gone too far to ever turn around on my gender path to ever go back. Sure, I was scared but a voice in the back of my head kept telling me this was so natural that my new world deserved to be the reality I always sought and I needed to stay in the present to do it.

I discovered as a transgender woman, the present was a very great place to be. For once, I had access to the gender I wanted to be with which were all the ciswomen who showed interest in what I was trying to do in their world. I had always had a difficult time making friends with other men when I was acting like one and I finally figured out why…I should not have been in the boys’ club to begin with. Living a lie was a total mistake which should never have happened. I was not interested in a club where I never belonged, and that was OK.

Old habits are hard to break, and maybe even more so for transgender women and transgender men. Primarily because we have to decide what baggage we are taking with us or leaving behind as we journey along our gender journey paths. Bring too much, and you can’t carry it all or don’t bring enough and end up losing all of your building blocks you need for a new life are all things to consider. And most of all, it is important you stay in the present, so you don’t forget where and who you are and slide back into your old self. It is frustrating when something as small as the look on your face can destroy all that you have worked so hard to perfect. That old male “stay away” scowl may have worked in your old world but in your present one, it certainly doesn’t.

It was difficult for me to find my present. Determine if it was the right choice and then stick with it. As I went through my male to female feminization efforts, I needed to finally decide on a wig to wear on a regular basis and quit looking for the miracle wig which would instantly make me attractive. Why? Because people were starting to recognize me as a person, and I needed to build on that. Instead of just carving a new person, I was blasting one and having the time of my life doing it.

I just wish I could have stayed in the present earlier in my life, which I know would have given a better understanding of who I was at the time. I almost did more after I served my time in the Army, but it was in the mid 1970’s and the world was different, and I did not have the courage to do it. Instead, I played my status-quo cards and thought I could help my life along by just cross-dressing. By doing so, I just ended up losing so much of my life when I ignored living in the present. One way or another, it is much too late to cry over time that was wasted and remember the good time when I discovered my present and lived it.

Thanks for reading along with me. Hopefully my insights can help you with yours and comments are appreciated.