Gender Was Always Such a Delicate Dance

Image from Morgan Petrosky
on UnSplash. 

 I can say one thing with relative certainty as I get started with this post, is that dancing has NEVER been something I have been able to do. I simply have never had the ability to sustain any sort of rhythm when I tried to dance, and I was notorious for stepping on my partner’s toes. 

My efforts became so bad when I grew up that I would only try to dance when I was semi-intoxicated. By now, you may be asking, what does dancing have to do with gender? When I started to think about it, I could equate it this way. At the beginning, I was so insecure as a novice cross-dresser, I was trying too hard to be perfect with my hair, makeup, clothes and movements. It was just like dancing for me as I struggled along with my life. The difference finally came when I discovered that being feminine was something I could learn and did not rely on the sense of rhythm that I needed to dance. For the first time in my life, I needed to go all in to perfect my feminine presentation and accept no shortcuts.

Perhaps you have heard of the term muscle memory. Along the way, I was discovering all that I was doing was changing my muscle memory from being a man to being a woman and it was very frustrating to me. My gender dance was starting off to a bad beginning. Of course, I knew ciswomen moved in their own special ways but to duplicate it was going to be the most difficult dance I ever attempted. 

In the beginning, I was trying just to not look like a linebacker in drag when I cross-dressed and went out. I thought anything would be an instant improvement than what I already was trying to unlearn walking like a man. I also needed to combine it with taking the menacing male scowl off my face and show to the world I was enjoying being there. Why put all that time and effort into applying perfect makeup if I was going to ruin it with a frown on my face. My whole problem was I was going to my own gender dance class without a teacher. The only feedback I ever received came from my second wife when she was coaching me on how to walk in high heels. She rarely wore hers, so I always wondered how she knew.

The final image I was trying to put together, just had to be so much more delicate than anything else I had tried in my life. Which was easier to think about than to do. The only previous cross-dressing images I had to work from were singular efforts on my own to work with my presentation before I was brave enough to sneak out of the house and into the world. It did not matter if I was just going to the mall shopping, or attending a transvestite-transgender mixer, I needed to dance my way in as a transfeminine person the best that I could. 

Initially, I failed more than I succeeded and spent hours trying to figure out how I could improve my presentation in all the ways I could. Since I was battling a severe case of testosterone poisoning from my unwanted male puberty. As I said, it was no fun unlearning the male poses and replacing them with female ones. The best part was that when I succeeded as a novice transgender woman, gender euphoria swept in and carried me away. Letting me know I was on the right gender path in my life. No matter how selfish or painful it seemed at times. The best part was when my new feminine self was coming together, the times I could relax and enjoy the dance. Sometimes, in my heels, I could even feel light on my feet which I had never felt that way before.

The more that I was accepted and then involved with a group of ciswomen who regularly socialized with me, the more I learned about how far I still needed to go to be on an equal footing to mentally dance with them. It was a shock, since throughout my life I had considered myself such an avid student of everything female. Only then to find out I still needed to learn so much more. Such as when to be soft and when to be strong as a woman and to project that to the world when I had to dance with all of it at one time. By myself.

My life as a man in the past taught me at least two ways to deal with the world I needed to change. One of which was to never show any emotion and the second was to internalize any negative thoughts I might run into. Like being able to ever dance with women at all. Overcoming those two obstacles on my gender path were very difficult for me and was especially difficult when I started seriously to pursue a male to female feminization. Way past just putting on a wig, makeup, and a dress all the way to dancing with the world as a trans woman. In fact, I never reclaimed my emotions until I started HRT or gender affirming hormones and to this day I have to still work to not internalize all of my thoughts. Now I know it is OK to show emotion and not internalize everything in life.

One thing is certain; I will never be able to actually dance well in any way shape or form but mentally I can now since my senses have improved so much. Along with my sense of smell and temperature, all the old music I liked so much just sounds better to me now. It is a place I never thought I could be, so I have grown to cherish it. Afterall, gender was always such a delicate place for me since I was forced to a male box at birth I did not want to be in, once I escaped, I never wanted to go back. So far, I haven’t and my dance continues.

I hope you are a better dancer than I am! Thanks for reading along and any comments are always appreciated. 

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!

 

I Hit the Kid Lottery

 

Liz on left JJ Hart with Daughter
on right. 

One person I don’t mention enough is my daughter who is my only child. The easiest thing I can say about her is that somehow, I won the kid lottery when she was born. 

To begin with, when my daughter came along, I was very much an out of control, alcoholic wreck of a person. Desperately running from my gender dysphoric problems. Very quickly, I needed to settle down and at the least figure out a way to pay for her birth on the close to minimum wage job I was working at a small local radio station. So, you could say, she worked her magic on me before she was even born. Since back in those days, it was more difficult to determine the sex of your baby ahead of birth, my wife and I decided to be surprised when she arrived in the world and more than anything else we wanted a healthy baby.

Not only were we blessed with a healthy baby, I became what I treasured most…a girl dad. I was secretly overjoyed that I would have the chance to be around another feminine person in my life and if I ever had to come out to her as my authentic self, it would be easier to do with a girl than a boy. 

As she grew up to college age, her mom and I were divorced and my daughter ended up growing up in a village who adored her but more importantly shaped her into a very diverse person. Which would obviously come back to help me later with her. The only drawbacks to her diversity came from my mom who wanted to control where she went to school which I would not allow. 

Jumping ahead to when I finally came out of my closet and announced to the world that I was transgender, my kid was chosen as being the first to know. I was very nervous on the morning that I chose to tell her the news, and I was frightened at her possible response. It turned out she was disappointed but not in the way I thought. It was not in the fact she was essentially losing her father figure but on the other hand, why was she the last to know. Then I had to tell her she was the first to know I was transgender. Not a cross dresser such as her mom and stepmom knew that I was. It was a huge difference, and she started to calm down and to my amazement began to make plans to help me along with my transition across the gender border. I knew right then I had won the kid lottery and all the effort I put into raising her for this moment had paid off. 

The first suggestion that she made was asking if she needed to come shopping with me. Which I politely declined since I was able to fill out my wardrobe nicely by then since I was a serious cross dresser for so long. The second suggestion she made scared me to death. She volunteered to treat me on my upcoming birthday to a hair color and styling at her upscale beauty salon and spa. Like I said, the whole idea frightened me but I did take her up on the offer and in a couple of weeks, there I was in the salon nervously walking down a line of ciswomen getting their hair done. After the nerves wore off, I discovered my day was the gift of a lifetime and I understood then what the drawing card was for all women everywhere. In fact, I joked about not needing to take my Estradiol dose that day because the estrogen in the air was so thick I could cut it. On my way out, I set up my next appointment without the help of my daughter. 

Her influence on me did not end at the salon as she worked with me setting up a new legal name which would work easily for her three young children and made it clear she wanted me in their lives. It turned out, I was in a humorous way when my middle grandson ended up in a fourth-grade class taught by one of the cities’ best known out drag queens. My grandson came home one day and proudly announced to my daughter that his teacher and I were just alike, and my kid had to explain the differences between a drag queen and a transgender woman to her fourth grader. It turned out to be the first of many conversations she would have with her kids about diversity in the genders when her oldest daughter came home suggesting she liked girls more than boys. That was the daughter who graduated as a nuclear engineer from Ohio State and then transitioned.  It turned transgender women and transgender men run in the family. 

Later on, it turned out my daughter and son-in-law stepped up in a big way when I needed them again after the breakup between my only sibling and I when I came out to him as transgender. It was around Thanksgiving and he revoked his invitation to me to come enjoy the family. Back then my future wife Liz and I were just getting serious, and it looked like I was going to have no family to visit on the holiday like I was used to. Liz and my daughter stepped up in a big way and invited me to their family’s holiday get together. It meant the world to me.

It proved to me once again that somehow, someone was looking after me and I had won the kid lottery. I even was asked to speak and participate in my grandchildren’s Bar-Mitzvahs when she converted to Judaism. Again, I was scared to death to get up in front of a bunch of strangers I did not know except for a couple of women I knew from before I transitioned and even went along on a girl’s night out trip to a drag show with my daughter. 

Whatever the outcome of my life now, my daughter was certainly a gift which kept on giving. 

As always, thanks for joining in with my thoughts. Any comments are always appreciated!

Destiny or Blind Luck

 

Image from Maia I on 
UnSplash.

As I mention often, escaping the restrictive male box I was born into turned out to be not an easy task. So difficult that I wonder how I ever made it and consider if destiny or luck was involved.

Since my life was laid out for me in what I was supposed to do with my male privilege, the choice to be a female was not included. I was expected to grow up, be intelligent enough to go to college and marry another woman from the college I was attending and help the family’s genetic pool flourish. Not much of that happened as I did go to college but never met the girl of my dreams enough to want to spend the rest of my life with. In fact, I had the sneaking suspicion the only woman I wanted to spend that much time with was me. Several obstacles were stopping me such as the male box I was in and my problems escaping it.

It turned out, the only serious feminine relationships I had were my form of the gay term “beards”. I just needed a ciswoman by my side to convince the world that somehow, I was “normal.” The same way some gay men use a wife and kids to somehow hide their true selves from the world, I was doing the same thing. Over the years, I discovered that was not so much the case because I was learning I just liked being around women much more than men. So, it was more of a destiny sort of thing coming through as I would realize later as I went through my male to female femininization transition.

Just using the femininization term might be wrong because I was just expressing what I had always known about myself but could not bring myself to express. All I needed to do was refine the process of how I was ever going to achieve the goal of living full-time as a transfeminine person. Far from the casual cross-dresser I was lying to myself that I was. That was when I went through another major gender transition. As I mentally moved away from my cross-dressing mentality, back to an idea I had so long ago when I was admiring myself in a mirror at home in dress and makeup. I thought then this was fine, but there had to be so much more. As in me being a girl myself.

For the longest time, I went through differing stages of emotion all the way to a self-pity form of being a victim to a problem that I knew little about and felt that I was the only boy in the world that wanted to be a girl. Then along came the world of computers and social media and the world opened to me that I was far from the only pseudo male who wanted to be a ciswoman and did not care what it took to get there. I quickly discovered too, by going to “Tri-Ess” mixer/socials that I was not going to find my answer there either. I did not find that magic friend that I could talk about my gender secrets with because everyone I met was not enough woman for me, or too much when it came to the rare transsexuals in the room.

I did what I always had done, I went back to my own feminine drawing board and at the same time continued to be an intense student of every woman around me. Destiny, not luck was driving me forward in a single-handed pursuit of my unique womanhood. The problem was I became a very selfish person with only a couple goals in mind. Advance my femininization process and, at the same time, advance in my job so I can finance it. I knew for sure destiny had me a comfortable seat on a runaway train and I just had to make the best of it. Another obstacle which kept popping up in my way was the fact I could never make it across the gender border and behind the so-called sacred gender curtain without help from my destiny. My wife said it best when she called me a terrible woman and it had nothing to do with how I looked. The fact was that I still had years of socialization to go through before I could truly say I did not make a terrible woman and she was wrong.

I thought that since I was “making” something, I better do a good job at it. Since very few humans have the chance to stop their old life and start all over again. Except that was not entirely true as I began to think about it, destiny and being female was always apart of me. I just did not know how to express it. It turned out to be on me to learn to express myself the way I needed to be to do more than survive in the world I was in, I wanted to thrive as a transgender woman. A world I was in a rush to learn as much as I could to experience. My woman was always living rent free in my head and wanted more, and I was ready to give her more access.

With extra access, my life became easier to live as I was able to feel comfortable in my new feminine life. My vision of destiny became easier to understand too as there was no luck with what I was doing. I had earned every bit of my progress by living it and it all felt so normal. Sure, as I always point out, there were many obstacles in my way. Including a strong constant denial coming from my old declining male self. Who was a “self” in title only as all his male privileges were slipping away. I had good teachers who taught me where my true validation in life should be from…myself, especially from other cismen who were resentful that I had left their club.

I had claimed my freedom from their club, and what I always wanted to do was claim my destiny. There was no luck with it.

 

 

 

 

Seeing It All Clearly Now

 

Image from Lola Rose
on UnSplash. 

As I journeyed for years along my decades old gender path, I discovered I could see life much more clearly.

Going back and forth across the gender border from male to female allowed me to see what goes on in the lives of both binary genders. Something that is very rarely accomplished by very many human beings who are stuck in their restrictive gender boxes from birth. But, what about the rest of us who for some reason, got put into the wrong box and were forced to live a life we never wanted until we went out on our own to change it. That is where we start to see the changes in our gender set in. Or maybe something was wrong when we were put into neat little boxes at birth.

In a classic what goes around, comes around, we go around searching for our authentic selves as transgender women or transgender men until if we are lucky, it comes around back to discovering our true selves later in life. How we can come to that conclusion is as different as human beings can possibly be. Some of us take shorter routes than others. If I use myself as an example, I took decades to come to my gender truth that I was hiding from me the whole time. If I had the courage to face my truth earlier, my life would have been so much different. I am sure it would not have been a completely positive experience, but at least, I would have been working towards living a transfeminine life much earlier than I did as a serious cross-dresser.

I was the classic person who does not see the forest for the trees. Since all my trees had a big transgender marked in every one of them and I thought it could not be for me. Even though I was going as far as cross-dressing three out of the seven days of the week if I could get away with it.

At the least, during those three days of the week, I was learning to present better in the world the way I always wanted to. As I did it, slowly I was seeing what I needed to know if I had what it takes to cross the gender border for good and would the grass be even greener when I did it. Plus, as I always mention, I had an increasingly successful male life and family to deal with. At the least, my second wife knew about and reluctantly approved of my cross-dressing but always drew the line if I was thinking about going ahead with the next step for me. Which would have been HRT-gender affirming hormones. She always said she did not sign up to live with another woman, and I never had the courage to tell her she already did. In the meantime, I clashed with my two main ciswoman role models, my mom and my second wife. I admired them for being strong women until it came to the times, they did not accept me.

The problem was I was seeing clearly the trans person I was becoming and every positive step I took led me to believe I never wanted to go back to the male life I never asked for. Most importantly, I was building the confidence to do it and ignore the gatekeepers like my wife and mom. I felt deep down, if I kept knocking on the gatekeeper’s door, someone would let me in, and I could experience for myself what went on behind the gender curtain.

When I finally made it behind the curtain, I found the feminine reality I was always looking for. Far past the shiny fashion, hair and makeup intangibles all the way into the complex lives that ciswomen lead. By that time, I had paid plenty of dues to get there and just figured my socialization as a woman was part of life I should cherish. If anyone wanted to get in my way, shame on them because by that time I could see clearly who I really was in my unique form of womanhood. Other women saw me too when I was asked to pose for a book about different women for a judging in Chicago years ago. It was to be my only experience as a photographer’s model, and I was nervous, but I enjoyed the attention immensely.

The rest of my life was not as exciting as posing for a photographer, but in other ways, as satisfying also. I was enjoying building new acquaintances with my wife Liz as we went to writers and crafters meetup groups to intermix with total strangers. The whole experience helped to get me out of my shell and lift the fog away from whom I was destined to be in life. Most importantly, I was happy doing it. Something I was never allowed to do when I was growing up when doing good was not good enough, there always had to be something better. I never imagined how much that carried over into my adult life until I began to come out of my gender shell. Even still, I had to work my way out of the idea that there always was a better dress or wig I could buy which would magically transform me into an attractive passable woman.  It was all good until I looked in the mirror or went out into the world attempting to be myself. Some nights being myself was within reach and some nights it just was not and I needed to go back home disappointed.

I went back to my gender drawing board continually until I slowly got it right and began to present myself in the way as the trans woman, I wanted to be.  I took advantage of all the time that I wanted to see the best woman I could become on my own terms. It was the best I could do. I was done with all the denial I had put myself through which should be the topic of another blog post.

Speaking of another post, I always invite you to join me again and read along. Thank you! 

Comments are always welcomed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Could Possibly Go Wrong

 

JJ Hart

What could possibly go wrong when you transition genders from one side of the gender border to another? We all know the answer to that question. A lot can go wrong when you start the process of traveling your long gender path out of your closet into the world.

It seems the path never gets any easier the longer you go. If you start early in life, and happens to be in an understanding family, you may be able to begin hormone blockers before you enter the hated results of the gender you want nothing to do with. And that door is rapidly closing in backwards states like my native Ohio which are doing their best to ban any gender care at all for anybody. Especially minors.

On the other hand, if you are forced to wait in life for the hormonal poisoning which goes on in puberty, you end up playing catch up your entire life as you either have to go through extensive, expensive operations to present more authentically as the person you want to be or stay the course and try to present effectively with makeup and clothing skills. Which was the path I needed to take. Plus, let’s not forget the obstacles we face when we are first considering the HRT gender affirming hormonal route. To do it right (which you should) you should seek the help of a doctor to help you along which is an unwanted expense that many transgender women and transgender men may not have the finances to cover. Then there is the extra route I had to take with the Veterans Administration of having to go through mental health screenings before they would approve my HRT at all. I was fortunate to be matched up with a VA therapist who had knowledge of the LGBTQ world so all that could have gone wrong never did.

When you male to female transition later in life like I did, many risks come along with doing it. All of us must give up almost all we have worked so hard to achieve, such as having spouses, friends and jobs reject us as we must start all over in life. What could possibly go wrong with wrecking your own life often becomes a reality.  I know firsthand of several trans people who had their lives wrecked, simply by wanting to live as themselves. It seems no one under the transgender umbrella gets a free ride out of the rain. Let’s say you are very passable but still must worry about a stray toxic man threatening you physically when he discovers your truth. It all takes what a ciswoman fears most in the world as far as sexual violence goes and takes it to a whole different level.

It is difficult to live a life when you forever are looking over your shoulder if you are transgender, but it happens. For example, when you leave what was left of your old male privileges behind, you leave much of your personal safety privilege with it. You better begin to learn what ciswomen are taught from a young age to know. Think ahead and do not put yourself in potentially dangerous situations such as dark city streets when you are alone. It happened to me before I almost learned the hard way not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It takes a strong individual to seek admission into the transgender tribe. We must go through a lot of trial and error to learn what is right and wrong on the path we are taking. In my case, often more error than trial as I had to keep going back to my cross-dressing drawing board over and over again before I was able to overcome all the testosterone poisoning I was subjected to and I learned to blend in and exist in the feminine world I had always dreamed of but then again, I kept finding out what could I be doing wrong and kept on going. Sometimes I pushed my trans envelope too far and had to lick my wounds and get back in the game.  It took me awhile to regain my confidence and get back out in the world. So far away from my privileged male life as I could get. Again, I asked myself what could possibly go wrong with what I was doing with my life.

The answer kept coming back that everything could go wrong and I could be forced into before I was ready into the feminine world I wondered so long if I could live in. I was at the crossroads and needed to get off the middle gender ground and do something about it. I ended up again following my instincts and making the only decision I could. It was not everyday that I had the chance to reassess where I was in life. I needed a real conversation with myself possibly for the first time ever. I was surprised at how fast the conversation went as I thought why was I continuing to put myself through all the gender problems I put myself through. I was paying for all the stress without any benefits. Somewhere along the way I veered from my male path and never wanted to go back which was the most important decision of my life. It was time to attempt to find some joy because who I had become and time to build a new life from my old male self.

It turned out I was engaged for years in a long-term relationship with my feminine self. Not being closer hurt, me sometimes drastically and I had to repair them. No more internalizing my feelings for a change. I was finding out what could possibly go wrong if I did not face my truth. Shame on me for not doing it.

I faced my truth again yesterday when I went for my annual physical exam at the VA. I have been lucky to have the same doctor look at me for years now, so she has never questioned my transgender status at all. I had a lot to do yesterday, including blood work. flu shot and overall exam when things became a little sketchy. When she was listening to my heart, my doctor heard something she did not like and immediately ordered an EKG. She did not think it was anything to worry about but just wanted to send it to a cardiologist to look at. It means a lot to me because my mom passed away from heart problems at approximately the same age that I am. Now I am awaiting the results. On the bright side, all my blood work came back fine. Even my estradiol, which surprisingly, agreed to check it for once at the new clinic I was going to for the first time. It should mean I won’t have to have my blood work done when I go to Hematology next month.

What is the worst that could happen? Hopefully I can stay active and continue to lead a productive life.

Thanks for reading! Any comments are always welcome!

 

 

 

More Than Just a Passing Fantasy

 

Image from Alexsy Turenkov
on UnSplash.

As I made my way into the public’s eye as a novice transgender woman, I needed to prove to the average person I was much more than a man in a dress with a wig and makeup.

It meant I needed to change my entire thought pattern too about who I thought I was because for the longest time, I considered myself more or less a feminine “hobbyist” who dabbled in wearing feminine clothes and makeup. I considered myself as serious about my hobby as much as I did my brother being serious about his golf game.

Ironically, I can not put my finger on the exact moment I started to change my overall thoughts on myself, but it was a gradual process. Triggered by me being exposed to the transgender term for the first time in my life. It all came from the fact that I knew there just had to be more to what I was doing with my feminine self than just a casual process and the transgender terminology appealed to me. Being trans took me another step towards living my ultimate dream of living as a transfeminine person more than anything I had ever read before.

All my research into gender dysphoria and its effects on me led me to slide myself increasingly on the gender scale to the feminine side of the spectrum internally. Which was the easier part initially. Then, all I needed to do was internalize my feelings and keep on living my male life so no one would notice that I was different at all. The problem was, I did not know how much internalizing my gender dysphoria would hurt me in the short and long term.

As I always knew, but tried to hide, just cross-dressing was never going to be enough for me, as I wanted to do more with my life as a woman. Of course, once I realized it, I needed to plan a course to do something about it. Being stuck in a restrictive single occupant closet was not going to be enough. Somehow, I needed to gather the two C’s, courage and confidence to take on the world as my authentic feminine self if I was ever going to do more than jut survive in the male world I wanted nothing to do with. I needed to get out of it and convince others I was so much more than some sort of a drag queen playing a part of a woman.

Little did I know, the drag queen problem would take care of itself everywhere but in the gay venues I was going to often. After I was done hitting my head against the wall in the gay venues, I decided to go back into the world once again to see if I could be viewed than more than someone’s fantasy object. Accomplishing it became easier to me than I ever thought possible when all I had to do was to keep going back to the venues I had frequented as a man but this time as a trans woman. If I managed to wear the same wig and look the same, I was hard to miss and easy to remember if I followed my basics of always being pleasant, never causing problems and tipping well. By doing so, I became a regular before I knew it and I started to carve out a whole new feminine life away from my male past. Most importantly, there were no passing fantasies involved for me, no smoke and mirrors as I was actually doing it.

I continued to take my trans show on the road, so to speak, as I tried to live every spare moment as a woman to see if my dreams were more than just dreams and not turn out to be nightmares. I was trying to make sure I had all my life’s basics covered if I was ever going to give up everything I had earned as a man. Use what I could as a transgender woman and start all over again. That way, I would not totally be starting over, I could take what I learned as a so-called cisman and apply it all towards the scary but exciting new world I was living in.

Doing the same things over and over as a woman helped me to carve out the new life I had always wanted to live. Other ciswomen knew my name and wanted to know more about my life because they were curious why I wanted into their world. I was in heaven and continued to want more as my life changed for the better. It all did because I had the courage to put myself out in the public’s eye. While I never managed to be the most attractive woman in the room, I was the most consistent with my look. Which was all I could do with what I had to work with in my testosterone poisoned body. It took me a lot of time and effort, but I put away all my old misgivings about my life’s journey and kept my momentum up towards my extreme male to female femininization project.

By this time, most all the family and friends who meant anything to me had passed away leaving me all alone in the world to do what I wanted. After all those years of playing around with thinking I was a casual cross-dresser had completely left my mind and looking like a woman was much more than a mere fantasy, I was ready to move forward into the world I had always should have been a part of. It turned out to be a for better or for worse deal for me by this time. I had put so much effort into the struggle to femininize myself and get out of the male world that it all turned out for the better as I entered a win-win situation in the world.

In fact, during my life, there was no way I ever could have fantasized arriving in the place where I had arrived. I love it when a plan comes together. Even though it took me so long.

Thanks for reading along with all my hopes and desires during my life.

Thought are always appreciated!

 

 

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!

 

 

  

Not Just a Visitor

 

JJ Hart from my Parttime Life.

When I began cross-dressing at a very early age, I learned I was so much more than a casual visitor to my femininity.

I knew because the feelings of wanting to be a girl just did not go away when the clothes came off and I needed to quickly return to my old male world. I was very resentful that I needed to return to being male because I had no choice in the matter to do it. Nothing seemed to help the way I felt except planning for the next time I could be alone and be the feminine person I wanted to be.

As I grew up, I did not grow away from my feminine instincts and desires, I grew into them and decided to gather the courage and leave my closet to see if I could make it in a world of ciswomen where I always wanted to be. Sure, I was scared when I first faced the world, but it was a natural progression for me if I was ever going to make it to my dream of living a transfeminine life. Following the initial clownish attempts, I made to present myself to the world, I settled in and learned how to present myself properly in a world dominated by the very women that I had put up on a pedestal early in my life.

Ironically, the two women that I chose to be my primary role models were the two women who tried to stop my transition the most. The first was my mom who was a very dedicated and popular schoolteacher who ran a very successful male dominated family from behind the scenes. Long before she passed away when I got out of the Army, I sat down with her and told her of my desire to be a woman. She quickly rejected me and said she would pay for a trip to a psychiatrist. Which was exactly what I did not want to hear because recently I had come out to a very small group of friends in the Army that I was a transvestite and was accepted. There was no way I was going to let mom push me back in the closet, so we never mentioned the subject again.

My second wife presented me with an entirely different challenge to my identity. She knew from the start of our relationship I was a cross-dresser but soundly rejected any ideas of me going forward into the transgender world of women. I had to respect her promise that she did not sign up to live with another woman, and it was the cause of many fights over our twenty-five years of marriage before she suddenly passed away. Regardless of all the negative feedback I received from both of them, I learned close up what it meant to be a strong independent woman in the world. While at the same time maintaining a family relationship. If I could ever be half the woman, they were, I could be successful.

Now, let's get back to that darn pedestal I put women up on for as long as I did. It took me years of trying to cross the gender border and being allowed to experience what was going on in the girls’ sandbox to do it. But when I did, I was finally able to destroy what was left of the pedestal I had built so many years before. When I was out in the world as a transgender woman, I learned the separate paths that cismen and women take. Since I had already learned the hard way about the male path, my next big challenge was to adapt it to the strong feminine world I was trying to survive in. One of the main things I learned was once you were out of the men’s club you were totally out for being a traitor and not following the fragile rules that men had set up over the years. Especially the ones that included any reference to their sexuality.

Women, on the other hand, were much more sympathetic to my cause. All the way to guiding me into women only spaces. There were very few times when I was completely rejected by ciswomen as I tried to be in their world. Probably the biggest reasons were they were curious about what I wanted there, and I was not up to no good as I was just being my authentic self all the time. Much more than being a part-time visitor. I knew from my experience as a man that women were much more in tune for BS from the world than men and embraced me when I did not have any of that negative aura around me as I was just the true me. Which I had taken years to experience.

It is no surprise to me that some think I am not trans enough to write about my experiences because I have never gone through any of the major gender realignment surgeries. Long ago when I could not afford any of the major surgeries, I decided I could live without them because my gender was between the ears and not between the legs. So, I set out to discover the best I could do to still live a complete life in a world of ciswomen everywhere. I ended up putting years into my pursuit of learning a new life, but all the work was worth it because I was able to carve out a new feminine life from the remints of a successful male life. Proving I was so much more in the world than just a part-time visitor into the world of women was certainly a challenge but with help I was able to do it.

I had the fork in the path long ago, when I had to decide to end my part-time infatuation with being a girl into the fulltime version of living the dream that I always wanted. Then I put my two and two together and hit the jackpot. I ended up winning my own personal lottery by finally listening to myself and doing the right thing.

Thanks for reading along! Any comments are always welcome!

 

 

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!