Gender Shape Shifter

 

Witches Ball Halloween
Image,

For years I obsessed with  the idea I basically was  just a shape shifter between my male and female selves. 

All of this coincided with the time I spent as a very serious cross dresser. Basically, all if my idle thoughts were grounded in my feminine appearance. Time I wished I could get back. As my feminized presentation became better, the more I felt more than just a shape shifter. Especially when I began to explore the world as a transgender woman.

My gender ideas were changing primarily because I quit thinking I was fooling the world and began to know I was living as my authentic self. So if the other person was a transphobe and did not like me, it was their problem, not mine. My mind had made a difficult yet important shift when I began to believe in myself. 

At the same time, ironically, my shape shifting became easier. I became more comfortable in the world and at the same time more confident. I found confidence to be my main feminine accessory. Much more so than my favorite jewelry, heels or wigs. Looking another in the eye was much more important when I used the women's room and other places I needed to communicate. Without confidence, I might as well just stayed home and watched television with my miserable male self. I was not shape shifting any longer, I was me.

When I did, I found I was so much happier and I wanted to push the feminine envelope I was living farther and farther. It was all good, until all of my actions put me on a collision course with my second wife who never approved of any ideas of me transitioning any more into a transgender world. I had put myself firmly between the rock and the hard place when it came to my gender issues. To attempt to survive, I did the best I could to live out my dual life I was living. I would over achieve in my work world as a man, then at the same time try to explore the world as a woman.

The more in-depth I became living a dual life as an accomplished shape shifter, the more pressure I felt to do something about it. In the meantime, I was doing things such as shopping for my wife's Christmas gifts as a woman. When I was successful, I was encouraged to do more and more as I suddenly began to feel secure in the world. 

Finally, I came to the point when I cross dressed as a man, I felt foreign as if I was shape shifting again and wanted no part of it. Happily, by that time I was able to try gender affirming hormones which femininized me even further. I enjoyed the effects so much, it was an easy decision for me to never go back to my male world. Being free of gender shape shifting was quite the enlightening experience. 

Transgender Confidence

From the Archives, banquet image.
My wife Liz on left.

One of the most important accessories we can chase as a transgender woman or trans man is confidence. Especially when success is never guaranteed. 

Finding confidence is often very difficult when you are crossing the gender border. You can succeed in the public's eye for awhile, only to crash and burn in a moment of weakness.  It turned out there were so many points to consider when you are transitioning. It's always one thing to appear as a woman and another to walk and talk as one. If you are familiar with the term "muscle memory", very simply means keep doing something until you get it right and it describes perfectly the process of entering the sacred spaces of a gender you only dreamed of. In my case, there were plenty of girl's nights out and rest room visits to provide me the confidence to keep moving forward and challenging myself. Another problem of sorts I had was experiencing too much gender euphoria. Many times, I forgot where I was and resorted back to my old male self without thinking of it. 

When I did fall back into my old male ways, I often thought the whole gender transition process I was in was never going to make it. Had I spent too many years working hard to make it in a male world to ever change. Another problem I had was I was still living part time as a man so everytime I had mastered any aspect of being feminine, I lost most of it when I went back to being a man. It was similar to a child in school who forgets most anything they learned during a summer break. It was very frustrating for me to keep starting from the beginning again and again which was shattering my confidence.

Finally I tipped the balance in my gender world where I was living more feminine than masculine. I could make real progress in what I really wanted to do which was follow my dream to live as a fulltime transgender woman.  Most importantly, I was feeling natural when I did it and the increased confidence followed. When I was invited into the so-called sacred women only spaces, I discovered why they were or weren't sacred at all. First of all, I knew women didn't always keep their restroom as pristine as men thought they did from all my years running restaurants/bars but, on the other hand was totally unprepared to have to look other women in the eye and speak when I was in the women's room. For the most part I was very successful except for the notable occasion when I had the police called on me. Naturally, my confidence was shattered for quite a while after that. On the other hand, there was no way I was going to go back to using the men's room when I was dressed as my authentic self.

When someone asks me how I developed the confidence to progress in my gender transition, the easiest thing I can say is, I had a single minded desire to keep trying until I made it. Sure the gender affirming hormones helped but I needed to go through therapy to earn them from the Veteran's Administration health care system. Which proved to be a positive experience for me. As I pointed out in yesterday's post, I kept working towards my dream until destiny showed me the way to success. Plus, I can never forget to point out, I had a small group of women around me who showed me the way. Even to the point of believing in me when I was faltering. They refused to believe I ever was the old male person I was desperately trying to leave behind. I guess you could say I had a tremendous peer group. 

It always took quite the effort to put him behind me and tears were shed along the way. To be on this journey you sometimes have to be selfish and one sided to make it but that is just the nature of the beast. When you do arrive, sometimes you are fortunate enough to forget the selfish days and pay your life's knowledge forward. 

It takes all the confidence you can muster to correct a gender situation you never asked for into a positive. With a little, or lot of willpower you can make it to your dream.   

Instilling Transgender Confidence

Image from Wesley Tingey
on UnSplash.

 
More than likely, many of you have suffered through a lack of confidence in your transgender lives.

We suffer fashion mistakes as well as learning the art of make-up and hair before we can even attempt to enter out into the public eye. The biggest problem we faced was catching up to the other women around us who had the benefit of growing up as young girls who had the chance to experiment with their friends and Mom's on applying make-up and trying on clothes. We had very little chance to improve our confidence.

Gender dysphoria destroyed for years any hope I had of establishing any confidence about ever being able to present well as a transgender woman. It was a rare day which I didn't see a guy wearing make-up staring back at me from the mirror. For some reason, I put all my misgivings behind me and still went out to see what the world was going to be like as the person I always dreamed of being. 

Any way I look at it, I took a long, long time to work my way through rejection and begin the basics of building confidence as a novice trans woman. I began by taking small steps. I took into consideration where I was going until I found certain venues to be untenable. For example the male gay venues which made me feel uncomfortable. When I left them to find a better more accepting world I did in straight venues I was used to going to as a guy as well as a lesbian bar I frequented. As I became a regular in my new homes, I was able to increase my transgender confidence. I did not expect to be mistaken for a cis-woman but I did expect to be treated with respect anyway since I was treating everyone else with respect. 

As luck would have it, I started to build my small circle of friends who helped me build my confidence in a big way. The women I met were mostly all lesbians, so I was not under any huge pressure to be more exacting with my make-up and my fashion. It needed to be just good enough to blend in with the group. The times I was not with women were rare and I needed to step up my feminine game to look the best I could. I wanted to look nice without appearing as if I was trying too hard. I knew I was succeeding when my wife even asked me to help her with her make-up. 

The problem I still had was how I moved and communicated as a woman, trans or not. I did not factor in the huge jump I would have to take in order to keep building my confidence. What good did I have applying a wonderful make-up job,  if I walked and talked as a linebacker, I found I needed to be present in the moment. For example, when I needed to walk a fairly long distance to my seat in a venue. Instead of worrying about getting there without attracting attention, I needed to worry about how I was getting there. Then, in most cases, I just had to rely on one of my friendly servers to help me out with the rest of my visit. As I mentioned in a recent post on the Vocal Trans Girl, communication basics were such a huge part of my past transition, they needed their separate post. 

Once I became more comfortable talking to the public as a transgender woman, I was able to do more and more to increase my confidence. I felt as if I was doing nothing wrong and if the other person did not like me, it was on them to fix the problem. I was being the authentic me as my shyness went away. 

If you are just starting, or in the middle of your gender journey, confidence is often one of the more difficult stages you will go through. Once you think you have it, it can slip away with just an ill fated encounter with a transphobic person. The only words of advice I can offer is believe in yourself and eventually you will win the battle to live as you please. 

Confidence is your Greatest Accessory

Image from Alysha Rosly 
on UnSplash

In my post from yesterday about Ohio's vote, I didn't mention how much I appreciate being able to vote with my driver's license state ID which is gender marked with a "F". For female of course which I worked very long and hard to secure.

I am always proud to be able to vote and also proud to vote as my authentic self.  Yesterday when I voted. I proudly walked up to the first available poll worker and handed him my drivers license. I was surprised when I saw he was a younger person. Normally the workers seem to be my age or above. I was even more pleased when the man was very nice to me. It's been a long time since I have ran into a man who seemed at the least bit happy to see me. 

The reasons could be many. I automatically assume the men have read me as transgender and in some way think I am less attractive. Or some men just treat women as lesser citizens anyhow and they aren't treating me any different than they would any other woman. One way or another I try to approach situations with the public with as much confidence as I can muster. 

Confidence of course for a transgender woman comes as we progress from a novice cross dresser-transvestite all the way to living full time as your authentic self. If you are lucky (as I wasn't )  you will be spared the public humiliation of being stared at all the way to outright laughter. It is nearly impossible to build any confidence at all when you have to suffer through that. However, if you stick with the process you can slowly learn to apply artful makeup and dress yourself to begin to blend in with society. When any or all of the process begins to happen, confidence does also. 

Perhaps most importantly, confidence allows you to face the world eye to eye. Human's are like sharks and they can sense when something is wrong.  It took me years of trying before I gathered enough confidence to look at others with the idea something was wrong with them, not me. I also needed to learn the difference in dealing with other women or men. Women proved to be much more of a challenge to me as they were/are more discerning than men. Going back to the poll worker who was so nice to me, I wondered if he was somehow attracted to my appearance or was he in his own closet and his trans-dar was going off. Whatever the case, I am sure I relieved the boredom for him as he checked in people to vote.

Confidence is also a chicken or the egg type story. Did the perfect outfit (along with makeup) come before the confidence or was it vice versa when you achieved your goal of existing in society as a transgender woman...or what ever label you want to attach to yourself. One thing is for certain, you never know until you try to make your exit from the mirror and head into the world. 

You go girl!    

 

Transgender Doors

 

Image from Nathan Wright 
on UnSplash

Anyway you look at it, doors are meant to be opened. No matter how scary and difficult the door may appear, to try to see what is beyond it is a part of being human.

As a transgender woman or trans man we have many doors to go through to live as our authentic selves. The first door I remember distinctly was the one when I fought to free myself from the mirror and venture out into a feminine world. The entire process was scary and required maximum effort for me to succeed. Primarily I needed to always remember to keep trying, no matter what the circumstances. Along the way, many times, I needed to turn my tears of public failure into eventual success. 

Another door I needed to go through in the beginning was the fact I was going to have to succeed as a transgender woman on my own. My wife knew I was a transvestite or cross dresser but constantly remined me she never signed up to live with another woman. I understood and went about learning all I could about being a trans person on my own. To do it, I needed to do many things I am not proud of, then and now. Primarily, I was going out on her to be with another woman who turned out to be me. Sadly, I would go to any lengths to further my goal of exploring the world as a feminine person. 

As I began to see progress in my presentation as a transgender woman, it just so happened I found many more doors I needed to open and go through. First and foremost I needed to decide I was transgender and what the term meant to me. I needed to leave the transvestite term behind, as well as any idea I was anything more than a very serious cross dresser. Taking the whole process a step further, I had to face the one fact I had always secretly known about me, I wanted to do much more than just look like a woman. I had known for many years I had lost any attraction to just wearing the clothes and needed more. I also learned each door I had the courage to go through showed me how natural the process was for me. 

I learned also some doors opened easier than others. Basic communication with the world was an example of a very heavy and difficult door. First I needed to establish my own self confidence before I could even attempt to communicate with others. Especially other women. I learned to look strangers in the eye and not care if they thought I was transgender or not. Once I did, I needed to establish my new personality which involved opening a whole different door. I most certainly did not want to come off as an unfriendly or somehow evil person. After all, how many humans have the chance to rebuild another person from scratch. The pressure was on not to screw it up since I had such a wonderful knowledge of how both primary genders operate. I desperately wanted to be a person someone would want to know. 

Even though I found many doors I needed to open and negotiate, I loved the inherent excitement of gender discovery. No matter how heavy or how scary I managed to keep going forward to my goal of living full time as a transgender woman.

You "Gotta" Own It

 

Image from Alysha Rosly 

As a transgender person, one of the main accessories we can have is confidence. 

Of course, when we change genders, confidence is very difficult to come by and then even possess. In my case I needed to go out in the public's eye sometimes in very questionable outfits before I finally learned what I could do to survive as a transgender woman. Even though I was going through times of being stared at (or worse) somehow I needed to pay my dues and own up to what I wore, before I could hurry home and change into a more realistic outfit which was better for my testosterone poisoned body shape. The whole process was very difficult but I survived and slowly build a very fragile confidence. 

One of the main problems is the human animal is in fact an apex predator and showing any weakness is similar to having blood in the water around sharks. Seemingly, some humans are better in sensing weakness or even uneasiness in others. If you are a novice transvestite and/or transgender person, it takes a lot of will power to have confidence in your new found ability to blend in with the public. I vividly remember so many days when I thought I had it all together just to be destroyed by one person with a mis-placed comment in public. The whole process would quickly send me back home to reconsider everything I was attempting to do with my gender presentation. One example came when I was minding my own business shopping one morning in the women's clothing section of a favorite store when I tried not to encounter a young girl running around in the store. She was better than I was when she found me and exclaimed loudly to her Mom, "Look at the big lady!...the big mean lady!" 

I quickly thought well at least she did call me a lady but resolved to do something about the old ingrained male scowl on my face. As my new self, I certainly did not want to appear unfriendly or even mean to others. Lesson learned as the Mom retrieved her child and rapidly left the store. The only other negative I ever faced in a clothing store which really hurt my confidence was when a clerk took an unappreciative look at my short skirt and said something to the point that I better cover up those big old legs. I didn't buy anything and never returned to that store again. 

Through it all, I did manage to build upon my fragile confidence all the way to point where I could own my existence. I became so confident I thought if someone had a problem with my gender existence, it was their problem, not mine. Once I made it to this point, I was able to relax more and enjoy the new exciting gender path I was on. But looking back, it was never an easy journey for me. 

First and foremost, the biggest problem I had was, I needed to go all the way mentally as far as my desire to live as a transgender woman. I do think, along the way, my old male self was working in the background to sabotage any idea of living fulltime as a woman. Once I shook him off totally, I was able to continue to build my confidence and own who I was.