Transgender Game Changers

 

Image from Andre Fonseca
on UnSplash.

One of the positives to being able to live a long life is to be able to look back on all the key moments in my life when a decision one way or another could have made a huge difference in my life.

Perhaps the biggest moment was when I discovered the enchantment of looking at the pretty girl in the mirror where my boy self was just standing. Sadly, the moments were fleeting as my life was calling me.

As I grew up and my life became more complex, so did my dealings with my transgender issues. One of the most important lessons I learned came early when my second wife and I encountered a handsome Harley motorcycle rider at a tavern we were at one day in Cleveland, Ohio waiting for a transvestite mixer we were going to, to start. I was very new  to being out in the world as a cross dresser and was completely surprised at my reactions when this guy came into the bar and started flirting with my wife. Then, I was even more concerned about my wife when she started to flirt back, completely ignoring me. What was I going to do since I was stripped of all my male reflexes of what to do when another man was flirting with my wife. I had to just sit there and be quiet and hope she did not go for a ride on the Harley with the man. Of course, my wife sensed my concern but let the situation play itself out to teach me a lesson in feminine competition. One I never forgot.

Another evening, I never forgot and could have been a bigger game changer than it was, was the night I had my makeup done by a professional makeup artist in Columbus, Ohio at another transvestite-transgender mixer I was attending. After the makeover, I was stunned at all the positive changes the artist made for me. I was flattered with all the compliments I was receiving and decided I did not want the evening to end early. I wanted to join the so called “A” listers who always went out on the town and show off my new look. Plus, for some reason, my wife decided not to go to this mixer, so I was free and on my own. We ended the evening at another tavern which I could not tell was LGBTQ friendly or not but one way or another I bought a beer and headed for one of the unoccupied pinball machines. When I did, amazingly I was approached by a younger good-looking man who wanted me to stay and play pinball with him. By this time, the rest of the “A” girls were ready to leave, and I needed to make a split-second decision on if to stay or go. Since I had no idea if the man knew my true gender or not, and I was in a strange city, I decided to go with the “A”’s who were jealous of me because I was approached by a man and they were not.

I never knew what would have happened if I had stayed and would the evening change my life forever, which also happened the night I went on a date with Bob. By this time, my wife had passed away, and I had not met Liz yet (my future wife) so I was free to explore my own boundaries. Bob was not from my area of the country and on occasion passed through the Dayton, Ohio area on business where I lived. On one of those nights, I knew he wanted to meet me in person at one of the venues I was a regular at. I had never partied with a man at a sports bar before, so I did not know what to expect. What I did not expect was the great time I had. It was the first time in my life that I had been treated completely as a woman, and I loved it. It was even a karaoke night, and he sang for me. And yes, Bob did know I was transgender. We shared a rather passionate kiss together and the night was over. Never to be repeated again.

There were other trans game changers such as girl’s nights outs and the conversations I shared with a man who I thought I could have gone farther with if he had stayed around. The “what if’s” remain big questions for me as I grow older, and I know you can’t have it all. In many ways I crammed a lot of life into my years which I am grateful for.

I should not be selfish though because I have been blessed during my life with people who have loved me, and I did my best to love back in return. Sadly, my gender issues were in my way through most of them and if I had faced reality, I could have been a better transfeminine person. Which is a topic for another blog post altogether.

 

 

The Rise of Transfeminine Privilege

 

JJ Hart (Middle) wife Liz (Left)
daughter (Right)

When I began to seriously leave my closet and mirror and attempt to join the world as my true self, I quickly lost all my male privileges and gained very few feminine ones. In fact, early on, the only privilege I felt was having doors opened for me by the men around me.

On the other hand, the most extensive male privileges I lost were my intelligence and my personal security. When I was around men, I learned to keep my mouth shut until I was spoken to, which was not very often because I think most all men knew I was transgender and wanted no part of me. And as far as personal security went, I needed to learn what ciswomen know from an early age to keep themselves out of possible bodily danger by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

All along, during this time, I was wondering when and if the gender teeter-totter I was on would balance itself out and I would see the positives of what I was doing. It took a combination of things happening before I ever did. One was seasonal around Christmas, and the other one was when I decided to give up on men all-together and concentrate on knowing other women. A preferred topic in my mind, since I did not have to consider changing the focus of my sexuality, which had always leaned exclusively towards women. But I digress, the meaning of Christmas and what it meant to me as a transgender woman, is the real reason for this post.

To begin with, Christmas was always a major holiday for me and my second wife especially. Finding an exceptional, unexpected, rare gift was always the priority for me and even my brother’s family. The difference became to me was when I decided the Christmas shopping, I had been doing as a man would be much better accomplished as a woman. If I was able to pull it off, I could accomplish so much more during the Christmas rush I was in the middle of.

First of all, I needed to up my crossdressing game to give me the best possible chance to succeed in my shopping conquests. I went through my closet and pulled out my fancy, sleek, black pants’ suit for trips to upscale malls and my leggings, boots and sweaters when I combed through the huge local antique malls for just the right gift for my wife. I knew if I was to succeed, I had to be better than the average Ciswoman so I would not be potentially embarrassed. Also, the right makeup and hair was a priority because of all the up close and personal time I would be spending in the public’s eye. Through it all, I wondered where the magical feminine privilege would kick in for me.

The first major time it did was when I was shopping for a matching oak bookcase for my wife’s roll-top desk. One night, I found one which worked beautifully in an oak furniture store in nearby Columbus, Ohio. It just so happened I was returning from a shopping trip to a local Columbus upscale mall when I stopped into the store on the way home. After I found the bookcase I wanted, my old male self-wondered how in the world would I get it in my truck/SUV. Would anyone come to the aid of a tall blond in a black pants suit and heels? After I paid, I found out they would because for the first time in my life I was able to sit back and watch two young men load the bookcase carefully into my vehicle and finished their job off with a nice thank you mam. Because I had finally discovered a dose of feminine privilege, the half hour trip home went quickly, and I wanted to do more shopping, but I was out of time and money.

Sadly, once I returned home and had safely unloaded my prize gift, it was time to return to the place I did not want to be…my old male self. On the plus side though, the whole experience taught me (and provided the confidence) to move forward to my dream life of being a fulltime transgender woman and would not have to return home every night in a hurry to switch back into a gender I wanted nothing to do with. My feminine privilege was being established in the newfound senses I was feeling. Especially when I was doing something for others, such as buying gifts.

The experience made all the learning and trial and error experiences I went through during my male to female femininization process deeply worthwhile. There were other Christmas stories to share as I will do later. Such as when my wife decided we would have a special gift giving time for my feminine self.

 

 

 

 

Stopping was Impossible

 

Image from Edward Howell
on UnSplash.

For years as I followed my early cross-dressing path, I labored under the impression that someday I could actually stop and return to my male existence. Of course, the older I became I learned that stopping was going to be nearly impossible. The reason being, when I was forced out of the mirror and into the world, I began to have success.

To me, success was measured in the public reaction I received. Very early on I suffered scorn when I went out without the knowledge to blend in with other ciswomen. When I became successful, it took so much pressure off and stopping became less and less an option. Mainly because something clicked in my head that I did not want to ever go back which was different than wanting to. For example, there was the night at TGIF Fridays when I went into the venue with the mindset, I actually wanted to be a woman with other women, not some sort of an impostor. When it happened, I knew for sure stopping was never going to be an option again. I was firmly on the path to achieving my dream of possibly living fulltime as a transgender woman.

The more I decided not to stop, the quicker the pressure mounted on me on what to do with my old male life. He had dug in deep and was refusing to go away easily. The worst part was he made good arguments such as what was I going to do about my spouse, family and employment. Just as a start. What did I do? I continued to internalize my inner woman and keep researching my future. Since my gender workbook was blank, I had a long way to go. Primarily when I needed to learn how to communicate one on one with other women when I was exceedingly shy to start with. To arrive there, I went to excess of taking feminine vocal lessons to attempt to learn to communicate better. As I was slowly succeeding in my efforts, again I knew for sure I could never go back.

Another main thing I learned was that I needed to control my emotions, not let them control me. Or when I hit the valleys of my journey (which there would be many), I had to pick myself up from being a failure and continually go back to my gender drawing board to figure out what I was doing wrong. I knew I had a testosterone poisoned body. I needed to work around but I dedicated myself to somehow doing it. I discovered from all the trips I was making to thrift stores; I could find the fashion I needed to make myself look the best I could under the circumstances I was working with. It all added up in my mind to I could never stop.

Along this way too, I quit purging for good. I had learned my lesson about the previous purges I had attempted. The lesson was, I could never go back to my old male self again. I was tired of throwing out all my hard-earned clothes, shoes and makeup only to have to replace it all again as soon as a month later.

What helped me was, I was learning over and over again how wrong I was fighting my instincts to be a transfeminine person at all. I always point out how wrong I was when I was fighting my true feminine self at all. I suffered from the brutal pressure I put on myself. So, stopping my transgender advance was never an option. I should never have waited as long as I did to go after my gender dreams.

I was fortunate that my basic personality never lent itself to stopping my search for my dreams. All my life, all I wanted to be was a woman and I just could never visualize myself not working hard to achieve my goal. I just never in a million years understood how difficult it would be for me to do it. I should have listened to my wife when she tried to tell me I was on the wrong path to achieving my goal. In a way, I did but not nearly enough until I did not stop until I was allowed to exist behind the gender curtain. Once I got there, stopping was never going to be an option again.

Then HRT and new feminine hormones shifted my mental thinking to match my external appearance which was improving all along. I never expected the changes to be so dramatic so quickly. I am glad stopping my male to female feminine transition was never a reasonable option.

 

Is There Really a Difference between Genders?

 

Image from Pea on UnSplash. 

Yesterday, I briefly wrote about how I saw the world differently when I went out for the first time to view Christmas decorations at Clifton Mill, Ohio as my feminine self. I said something to the fact that my senses seemed to heighten as I viewed all the decorations and people around me. To me, the whole evening was brighter and more festive than when I viewed it as a man, wondering how it would be to do the same thing as a woman.

Little did I know the experience would prepare me for later life as I progressed along my gender path. Perhaps, initially, the new senses I felt were psychological in nature because I was still years away from actually changing my gender hormonal balance from male to female when I added HRT or gender affirming hormones to my system. Which means, I guess, if I was in some sort of a scientific gender study, I would not have needed the hormones to increase my femininity at all. Which would be good news to all of you who for medical or spousal reasons cannot consider HRT.

One way or another, I felt a real difference in my world when I entered it as a woman rather than a man. If I was cold, I could react accordingly and not have to be macho and try to ignore it is a prime example. Then, quite possibly, the biggest change of all was what I was going to wear. I had so many fashion choices I could barely make up my mind. It seemed I was only limited to what I could afford to shop for and buy. The sensory feeling of the clothes was wonderful, and I just loved the big, warm, fluffy sweaters I was able to wear because they were in fashion at the time and paired perfectly with my denim mini skirts I was able to find at my favorite thrift store. I discovered that I was perfectly comfortable when I wore a pair of tights or even leggings with my sweater/skirt combo in cool Ohio weather.

Even though the clothes did make a difference for me, the buzz quickly went away and the reality of what I was attempting set in. I have always believed that attempting to change the human gender is one of the most difficult things a person can attempt because there are so many roadblocks in the way.  Such as current misunderstandings of trans women or trans men’s lives. No matter how you cut it, it is just difficult to explain to a “civilian” what is going through our minds when we made the monumental decision to jump the gender border. What could possibly go wrong? Ha ha!

Sometimes, we end up surprising even ourselves with the gender changes we have to go through to be successful. As we begin to earn our way behind the actual gender curtain into woman only spaces, we begin to see and feel all the real differences there are. I know my first girl’s nights outs were real eye openers for me. I had no idea of how ciswomen interact with each other when there were no men around. The differences were real, and I cherished my chances to experience them. So much more than even my new one on one communication challenges with ciswomen strangers in the world.

As I approached the idea that I could actually take the opportunity to attempt to go on gender affirming hormones, naturally I knew it was a huge step forward in my transfeminine development. First of all, there were the health consequences of a sixty-year-old male starting to reverse the hormones he had lived with successfully for all those years Plus, back in those days, there were many naysayers preaching about the possible damage female hormones could cause on the body. Fortunately, I found a doctor who did not believe in all of that, and he approved my HRT. When I started the meds, I felt an almost immediate change. It was certainly what the doctor ordered, and I was rapidly increased to higher dosages of my precious new medications.

I felt great when my external changes such as breast development started to happen faster than I expected and was even more surprised at the internal changes I was feeling. Like the first night I visited the Christmas lights, when my world softened and became more perceptive, I quickly found myself in a world where I could appreciate everything more. Heat, light and sound in particular affected me more when I ventured out in public to my regular venues.

At that point, all I really knew was I never wanted to go back to the old male life I forced myself to live. I had found my new home.

Sealing the Final Deal in my Gender Struggle

 

JJ Hart. Key Largo last year.

Sealing the deal on my male to female gender transition was the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my life.

It is the main reason I kept putting it off until I was nearly sixty years of age and could take the pressure no longer. The only way I kept what sanity I had was to cross-dress my way along until I could take bigger, more substantial steps.  One of the problems was, I had learned that cross dressing was not nearly enough to solve my gender issues and sooner or later, I would have to face the truth of who I really was. Also, I was very naïve and thought I could balance the influence of two genders in my world as I grew older.

As I set out to build a reasonably successful male life, at the same time, I was trying to fill out my feminine workbook with absolutely no help from other women. I was stuck being on my own for years, until I progressed to the point where I could leave my closet and explore the world as a novice. After brief successes (and a lot of failure), I was able to see portions of my future and judge if I could ever seal the deal and live my dream of being a fulltime transgender woman. Even though I was still progressing, I was still hitting roadblocks on my path to trans success and had to keep working my way forward through failure.

All I could see in my future was a life I would have to live alone with no way to support myself as a transfeminine person. My sexuality did not change, and I wanted basically nothing to do sexually with men, and I knew how incredibly difficult it would be to find a ciswoman who would accept me the way I was. I had pulled off some other seemingly impossible things in my life but accomplishing this and sealing the gender deal was too much to hope for.

Then, as I lived my new life as a trans woman, I learned that maybe my dream was not too much to hope for and one thing was for certain, if I did not try, I never would know if I could make it. I expanded my explorations with men and managed to have a couple real live dates when I enjoyed myself but nothing sexual happened, so I set my sights in lesbian bars for a ciswoman who wanted a woman with a little bit extra experience in the world. Amazingly to me, I was moderately successful in one lesbian bar where they accepted me. Which brought me so much closer to thinking I could seal the deal and live my dream.

Now I was to the point where I had to really see where I wanted to take my life. I was an executive general manager of a large casual dining restaurant which I had put in years of hard work to arrive at. If I transitioned, all the work I put into my career would be gone (along with the money) and I would have to start all over again. Behind the world as a transgender woman. Naturally, the whole situation was a major roadblock.

It finally came to the point where I faced sealing the deal like I was jumping off a cliff into nothingness. At that point destiny set in for me and made my final decision so much easier. Tragically, I lost my second wife and almost all of the close friends I had to death and could start with a clean slate in life. Plus, the restaurant I owned was failing and I was losing it also, leaving me a couple of years to work before I could retire early on Social Security which would give me enough income to get by. As You can tell, the doors to transition were opening wide and I would have been a fool not to walk through them.

Most importantly, my mental health was suffering and my self-worth as a man was at an all time low, so it was time to end the torture I was feeling and jump off the cliff and seal the deal. It was during this time too, that the Veterans Administration health care system, which I was already a part of, approved veteran’s care for gender dysphoria with mental health counseling and HRT if approved. I was quickly approved and ended up taking another giant step towards achieving my dream and sealing my lifetime goal.

What did I have to lose? I was leaving a male life I never really felt comfortable in to jump off a gender cliff and land in accepting women’s arms as I joined their world. When I did, I tried to take every little bit of advantage I could from all the learning experiences I put in over the years. Landing on my feet in high heeled shoes was a challenge but I managed to make it in fairly good shape. I came out fully at the age of sixty when I finally decided to seal the deal and never looked back. I could not take balancing two genders any longer and took the easy way out into the world of women where I should always had been.

As always, thanks for reading along, and any comments are welcome! I always do my best to respond.

 

Transgender Dreams

 

Image from Felipe Delgado
on UnSplash

Obviously, we transgender women and transgender men do a lot of dreaming when it comes to the ultimate results of our lives. For example, when I was very young, I could never speak truthfully when an adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Saying I wanted to be a woman would have never been acceptable and would have rewarded me with a visit to a psychiatrist. So, I said something more acceptable such as a lawyer or a veterinarian.

I had to save my ultimate desires to be feminine for my dream world and often went to sleep thinking of how it would be if I could wake up as a pretty girl. Of course, I was never able to take advantage of such a thing happening to me and I needed to make the best of what I had to work with. Which was about ready to radically change for the worse when I went through male puberty. As I started my growth spurt, I rapidly outgrew all my mom’s clothes I had tried to squeeze into and had to rely on my meager allowance added to my newspaper route delivery money to try to sneak out to stores and buy my own clothes and makeup.

Through this portion of my life, my mirror was my friend and helped me to bring dreams of being a pretty girl to life, no matter how I really looked. It wasn’t until I began to experience the public’s reaction to me did, I finally get a fair and accurate reaction to how I really looked. I desperately dreamed of being more than a clown in drag. After tons of work and trial and error experiences, I finally made it to where the public at least knew I was being serious about achieving my dream of being a woman. Little did I know, the real work I would need to do to achieve my dream was about to begin.

The more I explored the world as a novice transgender woman, the more I found I had to do to survive in the new exciting feminine world I had dreamed of being a part of. When I was in the public’s eye, I found I attracted the attention of ciswomen as never before and as I did, I needed to get radical and do things such as talk to them. Initially, I was very shy and completely unprepared to take such a big step, but I was way past the point of ever turning back. For the first time in my life, my dream appeared to be within reach, if I kept learning what my new world meant.

I found I was stuck in some sort of a gender never-never land. Ciswomen instinctively knew I was not Cis but on the other hand, wanted to be in their world. Fortunately, I found most of them let me into their worlds and showed me a path to being successful, if they knew it or not. I did not care how I received the help and guidance; I was just trying to achieve my dream of living as a successful transgender woman. As I tried to point out in yesterday’s post, I went past the point of trying to be trans all the way to just being me. Which I think the women around me accepted because of my honesty. By now, you may be thinking what about the men around me? For the most part, they left me alone. Which was fine by me. I wanted out of their club and wanted nothing to do with going back if I had anything to do with it. I was successful and never did. My dream increasingly appeared to be reachable, and destiny opened her doors for more success for me. Primarily when it came for time to consider going down the path of gender affirming hormones or HRT.

I knew first, I needed to find a doctor to approve taking the hormones and I found one in one of the Dayton, Ohio LGBTQ publications. He had openings and I was able to get in for a checkup and then receive my precious prescriptions for initial minimum dosages for estradiol and spiro to get started on a new path towards achieving my dream as never before. After I began the minimum dosages, I had no adverse reactions and in fact the opposite was true. I felt as if I should have been on the meds for my entire life. They made me feel so good.

By this time, I felt as if I was living proof that transgender dreams come true if you pay your dues such as I did. The dues I paid were certainly the best investment I ever made.   

 

Stranger Things have Happened

 

Image from Alexander
Krivisly on
UnSplash.

My gender journey has proven to me that stranger things have happened, just not to me.

What I mean is, on a scale of one to ten at succeeding in ever living a life as a transgender woman, I would have ranked myself some where around an eight. Meaning I was giving myself very little chance of ever making it to my dream life. Along the way now, I wish I had kept more track of every time I succeeded at and then passed a goal I had set for my feminine self.

In many ways, the early days of shopping in mall women’s clothing stores was easy and gave me a false sense of hope. I was naïve and did not realize for the longest time, I just represented as a dollar sign in front of the store clerks, I was facing. Most certainly, I was not the first man in a dress and makeup they had ever seen in their store and would not be the last. Regardless, the false sense of confidence I was giving myself raised my faint hope of ever succeeding at my dream.

As I went not so blissfully on my high-heeled way, I did pick up bits and pieces of information I would need to survive. For once, I thought far enough ahead to set up time away from my wife so I could slip away and shop with the rest of the women in the malls on Black Friday after Thanksgiving. Which had been on my trans bucket list for years. By this time, I had experienced enough time in public as a woman, I knew things such as wearing comfortable footwear was a must for the long trips from the parking lot to the stores, all the way to being stylish but not overdone in my fashion choices for the day so I could blend in well with the other ciswomen I met. Stranger things happened and I had a great time which I will write about in a later blog post.

All of my continued success combined to make me think maybe, just maybe I could achieve my dream life, and I could increase my scale to a four out of ten. What helped me were the short trips I made to Columbus, Ohio to the small diverse parties I went to where I could meet and interact with anyone such as transsexuals on their way to surgery to cross dresser admirers who were there just to watch. I even met a stray lesbian there one night who I left with briefly to go to a big gay club together. Through it all, I was just trying to see where I fit in at all. I figured if I had any success at all at understanding where I was, I hoped I could see the light at the end of my gender tunnel was not the train and just maybe I could live my dream.

As much as I liked the interaction in Columbus, I knew I had to leave the relative safety of the group and try to carve out my own life as a transgender woman in the world. Sure, I was terrified to do it but I knew I had to overcome my fears if I was ever going to be able to move up my scale from a five to a seven. When I made it to a lucky seven, the pressure to live the way I wanted to really be increased. The reason for the increase came because of the new interactive experiences I was now having with other ciswomen around me. What I did was watch the women around me and try to learn how they were living their life and learn my own way.

From then on, when I could see the dream life I had hoped for was in sight, I could really concentrate on my future as a transfeminine person. At that point, I needed to begin my preparations for what do about telling the family close to me about my male to female gender transition, all the way to what I was going to do about surviving financially. I was to the point where I did not have to make it as a transgender woman, I just needed to let it happen. I had to stay in the new moment I was in and live it for all it was worth. It turned out my scale was worth it, all the way.

Stranger things happened to me. I may not have looked like a ten, but I felt like one.

Staying in the Present

 

ss

Image from Ekka Wessman
on UnSplash. 

As I progressed in my cross-dressing life to a novice transgender woman, it proved to be difficult for me in several different areas.

Just one of those areas was the amount of time I needed to stay in the present for the first time in my life. My problem was compounded by the fact I had trained myself to daydream my life away as I wanted nothing more than to be a girl. Then, when I took my feminine image out of the mirror and put it into motion, I needed to constantly stay in the present to remind myself where I was and what I was doing. If I did not, I would be in danger of slipping back to my old ingrained male self. The problem was particularly intense when I was trying my best to mimic the magical way ciswomen moved.

Sadly, I found if I relaxed at all, no matter how attractive I thought I looked as a trans woman, all would be lost if I looked like a linebacker in drag as I walked. And to make matters worse, I needed to quickly learn to change the old stay away masculine scowl I had perfected and replace it with a more welcoming feminine look. As I shopped and interacted with ciswomen in public, they wanted to smile at me, so I needed to be pleasant and smile back. Especially if they suspected all was not as it seemed gender wise with me. I did not want to appear as any sort of a threat.

Staying in the present brought about other pleasant rewards also, such as when I communicated with other women, I needed to look them in the eye and listen to what they were saying, not jumping ahead and anticipating what I thought they were going to say. My communication game with women had really changed.

After a lifetime of hiding in the future, the present started to be a very pleasant place for me to be. I could take the time to feel the different clothes and talk to different people from a whole new viewpoint. I could take and give compliments from others regardless of their hidden motives. I found just the most innocent mention of my earrings from another woman was not about my choice of jewelry at all, she was gently starting a conversation to find out more about me. It all carried into the learning curve I experienced when I began to take lessons in passive aggressive aggression, from other women. I never had needed much knowledge of passive anything with the alpha macho men I hung out with. They were upfront with me for the most part. Ciswomen, on the other hand, could smile at you while they clawed your back for whatever reason they had. For a while, I thought I was going to have to carry band aids in my purse for any surprise attacks such as one night when a woman was coming back from the restroom and caught me talking to her man and took a dim view of the situation.

The more time I spent in the present, the better my life had become, and I got to the point where I missed out on all the time, I spent daydreaming of my life away. As I wondered how it would be if I could shed all my male existence and redo it as a transfeminine person which made me unapproachable to family and friends as well as making me totally miserable. Also, all the jealousy I felt towards ciswomen would have been swept away if I had had the chance to live and compete with them in their own world. To be sure, it was a different world but a life I discovered I enjoyed immensely as I found my new life to be all I thought it would be and more.

To arrive at the point I wanted to be, I first had to be confident in how I arrived at my own womanhood and if someone did not like me, it was their problem not mine. Then and only then could I fully live in the present and most importantly, try to forget most of my past. The future is still a problem for me as I wonder what will become of me if I have to encounter an assisted living situation where my gender issues are not addressed. The difference now is that I don’t spend the time dwelling on it as I used to. The present is just more important for me, which was a hard lesson to learn.

 

 

It is Right When you Know it Is

 

Image from Caroline Herman
on UnSplash.

Some have asked me over the years, when did I know it was the right time for me to leave my closet and emerge into the world as a transgender woman. It is a complex question with a very easy answer. I always knew I was having problems with my gender but did not have a clue for years what to do about it.

The only relief I had was the brief time I had to rapidly cross dress in front of the mirror, away from my family and friends. Even when I was able to accomplish my goal of looking like a pretty girl, I still was aware deep down that something was not right with my life. In my own way, I set out to find any gender solutions I could, on my own, with no available sources to aid me. Plus, at the time, my male self was rapidly settling into a relatively successful life, and he wanted nothing to do giving up any of it to my inner feminine self. It turned out, this would be a battle I would have had to face for decades of my life to come. I would spend any available free time I had as a cross dresser, only to have what I learned rejected when I went back to my male life.

The only thing which kept me going was the deep idea I had that what I was doing was actually the natural part of my existence. And the parttime male life was an act. The act which became so good over the years that I shocked a number of people I knew when I finally came out as a transgender woman. I always had assumed they had thought something was up with me when they saw me at Halloween parties dressed as a woman but never did. It was like my male self-tried to dig a deep hole to bury my female self was never quite successful as she kept digging herself out.

The years at that point seem to fly by with the continuing fights with my second wife over considering if I was transgender at all and at the same time, me improving my transfeminine presentation during the times I was out in the public’s eye. I started to do more than just walk around in malls to see if I could present well and started to accomplish small tasks such as doing part of the family grocery shopping as a woman. I found I could do the tasks, and my life began to feel so natural again. The opposite of when I needed to go back to living as a man. It seemed unfair to me when my wife and my male self-ganged up on me to protect their interests in the relationship and I did not know what to do because I was just doing what was becoming more natural to me.

All the infighting only did one thing and that was prolonging the truth from coming out. I had always been destined to be feminine and when the time was right, I would be able to claim my birthright. The longer I lived as a transgender woman among ciswomen I knew I was in the right spot and had to face the facts about myself. My wife unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack leaving only my male self to protest any idea of me being trans and starting the HRT medical treatment. Under a doctor’s care of course.

Finally, when faced with the reality of my future life, my male self-gave in to my inner feminine self who had waited so long to live and prosper. More importantly, I was tired of all the internal fighting and knew I had readied myself to make a choice. All the frustrating years of playing with makeup and clothes came back to help me. I did not have to worry so much about my presentation when I made the decision to permanently be in the public’s eye as a transgender woman. I found a great majority of the world either didn’t pay any attention or were just curious of me which was a great surprise. I could relax and enjoy the wonderful new world I had always dreamed of.

When I finally stopped the gender in-fighting I suffered through all those years, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders at the age of sixty. Why I waited so long to face my true self in the mirror and decide to do the right thing will forever be a mystery to me. My only excuse is, I just knew the time was right.

 

The Transgender Fear Factor

 

Image from Darius Bashar
on UnSplash

Even though my transgender fear factor is a relatively dramatic term, it was very real to me.

So much so, I used to walk clear across malls to avoid groups of teen aged girls who in the past treated me with scorn. Finally, I had enough and decided to zero in on what my presentation problems were. When I did, I was able to blend in with other ciswomen I was around and only then did I begin to really address my fears.

Before I did though, I needed to define exactly what transgender fear meant to me. The problem was I could not go to an internet site and read about someone else’s definition of fear could be. I was on my own to decide. To figure it out, the only way I could was to test my new life out in person. At that time, I was used to going to gay venues because of their relatively safe spaces and was afraid to leave the venues and see if I could be successful in so called straight venues where I knew I would like the atmosphere.

Then, my biggest issue was being pulled aside in one of these new venues and being physically assaulted. Ironically, the only place I ever was in any kind of danger was outside of a gay bar I went to a lot. I paid my way out of the danger with my last five-dollar bill. The two men who stopped me took the five and let me on my way. I learned my lesson and never went back there again.

Fear as a transgender woman and fear as a man was obviously different. I was stripped of all my former male privileges. Most importantly, out of all of them the privilege of personal security proved to be the most dramatic change I needed to face. All my life as a man, I was fairly good size and was able to bluster and bluff my way out of any difficult situation I ran into, plus I was always the protector for the ciswomen around me. All of a sudden, I was put into a world of who was going to protect me.

What I learned from my fear factor was what all ciswomen learned from situations early in life. Plan ahead for potentially negative situations is the best way to have very little happen to you. Such as staying out of dark or dimly lit parking lots and go out with other women friends whenever possible. When I did learn my new limitations, I felt better about my new life in the world as a transfeminine person.

Dealing with fear factor with me also was involved in the amount of male baggage I needed to lose to survive. Since I took until the age of sixty to finally completely transition into a cisgender world, I had plenty of baggage to get rid of. What I managed to keep was my life-long love of sports. I discovered I could go to the big sports bars I was fond to going to as a man and watch my favorite teams play, something I could not do in the gay venues I was going to. When I did begin to be accepted as a regular in the big venues, I began to notice the other women around me who were also into sports. Which made my life easier. I began to be more confident, friendly, and overall, more fun to be around.

Predictably, when my sports baggage stayed, many other parts of my life had to go. I was fortunate that I had retained a relationship with my only child, my daughter. On the other hand, I lost all contact with my only brother’s side of the family. We had not talked in over a decade ago when I came out to him right before Thanksgiving and my invitation to the family dinner was revoked. In the long term, I never missed any interactions with my brother and ended up cherishing my time with my daughter. So, putting my fear of rejection proved to be unfounded and I won the battle.

It was never easy for me to put my transgender fears behind me as I transitioned from a male to female dominated world. Mainly because I did not realize all the rules which would change in the world when I aggressively pursued my transgender dreams. Some of my changes came seamlessly, when others came with big obstacles. An example is I was always a basically shy person as a man, which was easy to lose, when I started to live as a woman in a cisgender world. It was worth it to battle and win my wars with transgender fears.

 

I "Doesn't" Know It

 It used to be when I was asked why I preferred to be feminine over masculine, and I quoted a famous baseball announcer for the Cincinnati Reds and said, “I doesn’t know it.” At the time and continuing to this day, I can’t tell you why I identify as a transgender woman. I am just being me.

The problems began when I began my gender path and ran head-on into many obstacles I needed to conquer. I suppose it all started with the possibility my mom was treated with the DES medication to help with problem pregnancies. This was back in 1949, and she had suffered through three still births before I came along. Even though nothing was ever proven, DES flooded the uterus with the estrogen hormone in women and was suspected of causing gender issues later in life with the children under the treatment. Naturally, if I had my choice of being transgender and being alive, I would take the trans life every time because the life I have lived has been different and even more exciting than the normal persons I know.

So, if I cannot blame DES on my lifetime of gender issues, what could I blame? I doesn’t know it. Could I blame mom for letting me watch her apply her makeup before she went out, or my dad who set nearly impossible male standards for me to live up to. Since both of them were products of the “greatest generation” (survivors of the great depression and WWII). They were stuck in their ways, and I was left out when it came to any possible discussion of my gender issues. Plus, both of them have long since passed away, so why bother.

Even though I tried to come out to my mom after I got out of the Army, and was rudely rejected with the threat of psychiatric care, years later when I changed my legal name, I chose my mom’s first name as my middle name and kept my dad’s family name to honor both of them for the sacrifices they made to bring me into the world. I am sure with the lack of knowledge about gender issues at all, they would have honestly said they doesn’t know it when it came to me and my so-called problems which turned out to be anything but in the future.

As I cracked my gender shell and escaped into the world, I discovered two main groups of people to deal with. The easiest group were men who largely left me alone except on isolated circumstances when they tried to mentally abuse me for leaving the male club, I had been a part of. The only thing the abuse did to me was prove I had made the right decision. The other main group was the ciswomen I met. They proved to be very curious of what I was doing in their world and once they determined I meant no harm and was serious for the most part left me alone. The only thing I knew for sure was I was getting more female attention than I ever had in my life, and I needed to make sure I made the most of it. I needed to walk a delicate balance of when to open my mouth and interact, then shut up and listen and learn the basics of survival as a transfeminine person in the world. 

The gender learning curve was difficult, but I managed to learn what was offered to me unknowingly by the women around me. They never knew all they did for me, but I was amazed at the depth of the feminine world around me as compared to the male world I knew. At times I felt as if I was sinking in the new depths, I found myself in until the women I knew rescued me and made me stronger. Finally, I made it to a point where I did know it. I was following my gender instincts for a change and doing the natural right thing. It was time to take the next step and see if I could get approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT. It turned out I made the right decision after quite a bit of thought.

The way my body took to the hormones gave me a whole new opportunity to experience a life I always should have been living. I doesn’t know it was forever replaced by a peaceful gender spirit I wished I could have experienced sooner in life. By this time, I was sixty and had lived quite the life to make up for, as a man. Now I had to make up for lost time and do the best to experience all the gender wonders I had discovered as a transgender woman. 

A Thing of Beauty?

 

My Trans Friend Racquel.

During my male to female gender transition years, I always stressed to the max about my appearance as a transgender woman or cross dresser.

Every now and then, I go back into my very early blog posts to see what I was fixated on and quickly noticed I was all about how I looked. In those days, I thought being a woman was all about looks and beauty and I wanted to overcome my testosterone poisoned body to achieve what I could.

The big test of my so-called beauty pageant was when I began to free myself from the mirror and break out of my closet into the world. By doing so, I found I had a lot of work to do if I was able to make it in the world as a transfeminine person at all. My first big test was too present well enough that the teen girls would not notice me and send me home in tears. During that time, my makeup had to be just perfect, and I did not want to ruin my mascara and carefully applied eyeliner by crying. Even when my makeup and hair was done just right, I struggled to think I was anything close to being beautiful. I just wanted to be presentable and live my new experience as a transgender woman.

It wasn’t until my second wife began to call me the “Pretty, pretty princess” when we fought about my cross-dressing desires, did I begin to think about what she was really saying. Since she was an attractive but a no-nonsense makeup woman, and she was my idol in so many ways, I tried to tone down my makeup the best I could to please her. On occasion, she would even go out with me as my feminine self, so I wanted to do the best I could to not embarrass her or myself with how I looked. Of course, the problem continued to be I could not get away with wearing no makeup like she did which led to more fighting.

Many years later, after she passed away, I began to build my own feminine self from what I had learned about beauty and how it related to other ciswomen around me. The first thing I did was becoming a better student of women than I had ever been before. I needed to remove the male blinders I still had to get a realistic view of the world I so desperately wanted to enter and be a part of. I discovered I paid an inordinate amount of time admiring the beautiful ciswomen I saw and not notice the vast majority of women who were doing the best they could with the physical attributes they had to work with. An example was, I was always worried about my height as a trans woman until I began to notice plenty of other tall successful women in the world I was in.

I became less of the “princess” and more of the trans feminine person who was just trying to blend in an survive. It was about this time when Racquel, a trans woman friend of mine told me I passed out of sheer will-power. My willpower took me into a world of lesbian women when hers took a different path into facial operations and men. I guess, in our own ways we were successful transitioning into the world at large with her as a tall, slim beauty and me on a completely different level socializing at lesbian mixers with my friends. By doing so, I learned valuable lifetime lessons on how to live my life without the validation of men at all. If they liked me fine, and if they didn’t (which most did not) that was fine too. Afterall, I was not the ideal girl to being brought home to see the family for the holidays.

Years later, after I met my wife Liz and we became serious, it was difficult enough for me to meet her family for the holidays. Her dad was an extremely right-wing gun rights supporter, and her brother never talked so I did not know what they thought about me. I will never know, since dad passed away years ago and her brother lives south of Cincinnati in Louisville, Kentucky. All I know is, I was extremely ill at ease during holidays with the family.

Now, all I know is that I present well as being old with non-age-appropriate long hair. I can’t do anything about my age and love my hair, so it is not going anywhere. Perhaps I am making up for all the years I had to have my hair cut short in my youth and military days.

As with all other ciswomen, over the years, I have learned to work with what I have been given physically. I was extremely fortunate to have found people who accepted me for who I am as I presented as myself out of sheer willpower.

 

Halloween and Me

Image from Nice M
Nsshti on UnSplash.

Even though it has been years since I have been to a Halloween party at all, it still fills a special place in my heart.

The main reason it will is because it was the first time in my life that I was able to really explore if I could possibly make it to my dream of ever living like a woman on my own terms. In the recent past, I have written about the very first parties I went to dressed as a slutty, trashy woman, attempting in my own backwards way to be sexy. Also, when I started to go to Halloween dressed as me, I was doing it around people who knew me as a man, so I needed to put up with the idea in their mind that I was some sort of a jokester. When of course I was dead serious. One memorable evening took me to the freshly restored Ohio Theatre in downtown Columbus, Ohio for a midnight Halloween showing of the original “Dracula” movie, complete with background music from the original theatre organ. I went with my first wife who already knew I was a cross dresser and two other friends. I ended up having a fabulous time in my heels, hose and minidress surrounded by many other attendees in costume. The only problem I had was walking as long as I did in my heels. I was still too new to the cross-dressing style game to think ahead about my footwear if I needed to walk very far.

As the years and Halloween’s moved by, my whole focus began to shift about my potential “costume” I was planning on wearing. I began to move away from the trashy costumes I wore in the past, and into “costume” ideas another ciswoman would wear. At the same time, I stopped going to parties with my friends and began going to big clubs where I could see if I could blend in. It all was working out well until one night I was stopped by a guy wearing a full mask telling me he knew who I was. I was in shock and asked him how he knew, and he told me I looked like my mom. It turned out he grew up with me down the road and knew both of my parents. I was relieved as I was proud of my “French Girl Costume.” Which meant I was dressed all in black. Including a new pair of black tights, flats, blond hair and a black beret I purchased for a dollar at a thrift store. Other than being rudely recognized, I had another great time, and the evening ended too soon.

A few of my final Halloween parties I went to proved to me that I could possibly make it in the world as a transfeminine person. One was by pure accident and one I had planned ahead for. The pure accidental party was the one I recently wrote about which happened when I lived in the New York City metro area. Out of nowhere, I was invited by one of my female managers to a Halloween party her and her friends were going to at a nearby tavern, to her house. I don’t know why, but I decided to back slide in my “costume” idea and go to the party dressed a little on the slutty side. Mini skirt, heels, blond wig and all. It turned out all of her friends who were going were approximately as tall as I was and were all dressed to thrill also. What a surprise I had when I found I could blend in with all of them. The only problem I had was my second wife not approving of my “costume” even though she did not want to go. Life around the house was a bit frosty for a while.

The last major Halloween party I went to was a planned affair. I was invited to a party at a vintage restored Victorian mansion, along with a news girl who I worked with at the local radio station.  I was married to my first wife then and she did not care who I went with, so I planned to go as a professional woman just getting off of work. Just to see if I could. I did with a couple a write about often who thought I was a woman and were so entranced with me, they invited me to another party they were going to. I did not go but stayed and had a great time at a fabulous party.

Sadly, all my fun went away when I fully transitioned into being a transgender woman. Instead of putting on some sort of “costume” and going out into the world, I was just being me, and an exciting part of my life was behind me. Forever to be remembered fondly in my mind.

 

 

 

  

Passing Through Customs

 

Image from CDC on UnSplash.

Passing through gender customs was one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. Relax, this is not another post where I slam the orange pedo/felon tearing down our country as I write...What I mean is, when the time and effort I took to finally blend in with all the ciswomen around became worth it.

 For the longest time, I thought passing customs just meant looking better than the average woman in the world. Then I discovered I needed to be better because I was a transgender woman. I could not get away with wearing no makeup and jeans like the other women around me if I was to pass their inspection. Don’t get me wrong, I did not have to wear heels and hose all the time to make it through customs, I just purchased jean skirts rather than jeans from my local thrift store and did very well with the new fashion I discovered. I was not wearing pants of any sort which I loved and still made it through customs wearing a skirt which flattered my legs.

Then I found wearing a simple skirt rather than pants was the easy part of customs. My first actual experience in passing a checkpoint as a trans woman came when a woman friend invited me to a NFL Football game in Cincinnati. In order to be admitted, I needed to be patted down by another woman who just smiled at me and then checked the extremely small purse I was carrying. She made it quick, smiled at me and let me on my way, terrified and all. By the time I began to breathe again it was game time, and I had other less scary distractions such as when and how I was going to use the women’s restroom. The whole evening really gave me confidence in my new self and how my future as a transgender woman could look.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not bring up the most important point of all when I needed to actually talk and communicate with the other ciswomen who were inspecting me. The worst part was I was really shy and had put off any practice I could with my voice and eye contact. For the sake of repetition, I have always referred to the process of communication as being able to play in the girl’s sandbox. To make my life easier, I did my best to make sure there were as few girls as possible in the sandbox when I played in case something went wrong, and I needed to escape. Fortunately, I never did and was allowed to play.

For what they are worth, my words of wisdom are, when you start your journey in the world as a transfeminine person, always assume you will be going through customs of some sort. Women are always examined by other women from head to toe and by men also. So, get ready. It was a world which I was not used to because as a man, I rarely if ever, looked at what other men were wearing. On the other hand, women will notice what you are wearing if you can’t pass customs. Try not to be intimidated and enjoy the process as much as you can. It is what you signed up for.

It is also a positive if you can go through the process of having your legal gender markers changed. I had most of mine done years ago when I had not made the transition from transgender woman to trans woman senior citizen. I was more worried about being pulled over while I was driving and not having an ID which did not say female on it. Plus, not that it matters so much here in fascist Ohio, this year, the heavily manipulated legislature is trying to circumvent any gender markers on ID’s a person may have. Which means, as I understand it, in the future, I could be confronted and harassed by the authorities for simply using the restroom. Customs passing is getting harder and harder around here.

I read many posts and experiences from transgender women and men who are confronted when they have tried to pass customs, and it is not pleasant. In fact, it has led many to resort to measures such as genital realignment surgery to make them feel whole in their chosen gender. I myself, for various reasons, have not resorted to any surgeries, mainly because I am fortunate to have found many supportive allies over the years, I could surround myself with. More than anything else, they gave me courage when I needed to pass through gender customs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not a Fetish...A Lifestyle

 

Image from UnSplash. 

I am still always amazed when a bigot or uneducated person thinks a transgender woman dresses as a woman as some sort of a fetish.

In my case, I realized the feminine clothes and makeup I was wearing were secondary to the real reason I was doing it. I wanted to be a woman, or as close as I could come to being one because I knew there were certain things I could never do such as give birth. As I progressed through the years, however, I found I could find my own path to womanhood and follow it. I would have no part of thinking I was involved in a fetish at all. I was different. Little did I know how different I would turn out to be.

Initially, I judged a ciswoman’s life from what I observed, since I was not allowed into experience more. When all you have is a one-sided view, all you get is a shallow result. All I could see was the pretty clothes, shoes and hair that the women around me had. Why did I have to be stuck in my same old shirt and tie when my cousins at Christmas got to wear their new velvet dresses, shiny black shoes, and creamy tights. I was always so disappointed when we left for the trip home, and I dreamed of the day I could be a woman.

For many reasons, I took my time getting to my dream world. It was almost fifty years later when my wife Liz and I took in a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Christmas concert, and I was the one who needed to come up with the most beautiful semi-formal gown I could to blend in with the other ciswomen and enjoy the evening, I did as I thrift shopped diligently until I came up with an attractive, sparkly gown in my size. Happily, I brought it home and it worked well as I blended right in. Without a fetish in sight.

The only time I had to deal with being a fetish object was when I first came out into the public out of my closet and tried online dating. At first, all was pretty quiet on the dating front until I began to try the “man seeking man” sites. Since I never kept my transgender status a secret, I began to be flooded with men who wanted to wear my used panties or just meet up in a motel room some place. I even had a couple of men who wanted me to dress them up as a woman. Naturally, I turned down all those requests and was stood up often when I required meeting a man in a public location of my choice. Even though I was intensely lonely, I knew I was more than a fetish object and had to be safe in the new world I was in.

The longer I followed this route, the more I knew I was headed towards a complete gender lifestyle change. My dream was more than a dream and it could be a reality if I tried hard enough to reach it. But first I needed to change who I was trying to reach in the world. When I started out, I thought men would be my focus. All the way to having one woman friend tell me to get a banana and practice. (I will let your imagination do the rest.) As I progressed though, I discovered the opposite was true, in order to make it in life, I needed to first be accepted in the world of ciswomen. Who made it a practice of looking me over from head to toe when I went out in the world. They taught me how to be better, because I was certainly not a fetish object to them. I was locked into a scary, exciting new transfeminine lifestyle.

When I became a regular in certain venues, it helped me jump the gap I was experiencing when someone just saw me for the first time and thought I was a man in a dress. When they saw me for the second time or more, they began to realize I was a lifestyle, no matter what I used to be. The world opened for me, as well as the ciswomen around me who taught me I did not need validation from a man to feel good about myself.

As day-to-day transgender women, we do face the improbable battle with trans porn in the world. Men think we are all like women they see in videos, and magazines. When the men find out we are not the fetish objects of their desire, some react violently. Trans women have enough threats to face without the extra problems of trans porn.

As soon as the government leaves us alone and realizes we are just living our lives, not as fetish objects, the world will be a better place to live. Our transgender reality is what we are fighting for.