Sink or Swim Time

 

Image from Haley Phelps
on UnSplash.

One necessity I learned when I first began to leave the mirror as a novice cross-dresser and join the world was when I was jumping right into the deep end of the pool. None of that just wearing pantyhose under my pants with no socks when I went out with painted nails. I needed to go all the way with my new wig, clothes and makeup.

It turned out, the biggest problem I faced was there were sharks in the pool I was swimming in. In my case the sharks came in the form of teenaged girls who were battling for their own path to femininity also. It made them overprotective gatekeepers on womanhood and at the same time, seemingly attacking mine by laughing and mocking me. When they bit me, my blood was in the water as they kept coming back for more.

The answer of course was very simple. I needed to become a better gender swimmer if I was ever going to survive and move forward towards my dream of ever living fulltime as a transgender woman. As I became better at my overall presentation in the world as a trans woman, I found the teen-sharks began to ignore me and I could move about freely and relax for a change as I had to change all my muscle memory moves from male to female. I think too, that when I went through my turn in the deep end of the pool decades ago, times were different than they are now. I think regardless of the pushback they are receiving from some backwards adults, kids today are moving towards being more tolerant to the LGBTQ community. At least I hope so.

In my case and point in time I was living when I reached the 1980’s and I was in my thirties I was coming to understand exactly where I was in the gender pool. Instead of trying to get out of the pool when something went wrong, I needed to swim harder against the current to make it. Those were the days when I started to do more than just the easy stereotypical duties a ciswoman is somehow assigned to at birth. For example, I started to do more grocery shopping as a woman as well as starting to do more cleaning around the house. It all was the beginning of a very long swim to experience how much of the feminine lifestyle I wanted and was the grass really greener on their side of the border.

Long story short, I found that a feminine life was more complex and difficult than a man. In most cases, ciswomen were tasked with keeping a family together as well as putting up with all the male drama which came with it. Which ironically, I knew all too well as I had put my second wife through the most profound drama of all. When her husband wanted to be a woman. Somehow, we still lasted twenty-five years until her death because when we were good, we were really good and when we were bad, very bad. Maybe the worst part was when we were very good as man and wife, I was always thinking of how it would be if we could do it wife to wife but just kept it internalized the best I could. The whole process just made me bitter, and I took it out on her. Something I will be forever sorry about.

During this time, I was always very self-destructive as I tried to take my gender feminization frustrations out on myself. Some days, I was moving too fast in my pool and other days (and years) it seemed I was just treading water trying to keep my life afloat. I got to the point that even though I was a success in my business as a male, I would have not wished the rest of my life on my worst enemy. 

It did not happen until I was able to make it out of the deep end of my pool and start doing the activities which really gave me a hint about how women really live. I began to think everything was going to turn out for the best after all. Those years of listening to that little voice in my head telling me to stay in the pool and keep swimming were beginning to pay off. I was paving the way towards a future I had only ever dreamed of. As I swam against the current in the deep end of the pool with the sharks, at the same time, I was earning my own unique form of womanhood, I leaned on other women to do it. Specifically, the ones who had led difficult lives themselves. 

For once in my life, being around my female friends taught me how to survive in the world as just me , as they never once asked or wanted to know anything about my old male life. They went a long way helping me to validate myself again as a person. Something I had never been able or willing to do as a man. Mainly because there was always something missing from my life. 

Being able to swim anywhere I wanted in my pool was certainly a liberating experience and worth the wait. All that swimming did me good and made me a stronger and wiser person. Finding the missing gender link was all I needed to complete my life. It was there all along and I had refused to see it. Maybe I needed a new set of swim goggles so I could see better when I was in the pool. At least that is my excuse for being weak.  

Whatever the case, I managed to make it through all the shark attacks to the transfeminine life I always dreamed of. I hope you can make it to yours too!

Thanks for swimming with me! Comments are always welcomed.

Opportunity or Challenge

Image from UnSplash

During our often long and torturous gender journeys, we often face many difficulties.

The first obstacle we face happens simply because we faced the problem of having no chance to really experience the world as a youth as the gender we really wanted to be. Transgender woman or trans man, both have to catch up with what we missed as a youth. Not being able to socialize with others as our authentic selves really would come back to haunt many of us when we first ventured out from our dark and lonely gender closets. Of course, in the case of trans women, we needed to learn the basics of makeup and wardrobe before we could seriously move forward in the world. 

In my case, moving forward meant saving my meager allowance and adding it to my paper route money (I had a rural newspaper delivery route) so I could purchase my own make up and even was able to buy my first pair of women's shoes. I learned quickly, just having the money was one thing but having the courage to spend it was another. I needed to gather my funds and courage then try to sneak out from where my Grandma lived to visit a nearby Woolworth store which featured (among other things) an intimidating section of makeup supplies. I do not  remember now how I was able to maintain any sort of composure to buy anything but I did and was able to slowly build my own small collection of makeup which I was able to hideaway from prying eyes at home.

It turned out I had faced the challenge of purchasing my own makeup and then had to face the opportunity of how to apply it. I was on my own and had no peer group to question me if I was doing it right. I only had the mirror to rely on. During this time, I only tried once to come out to a male friend of mine who was my age and was completely rejected. So back into the closet I went. The only relief I had that there was anyone remotely similar to me was another young male friend of mine who sued to dress in his mother's clothes. However, before our explorations moved ahead too far, he ended up moving a couple states away and I was alone again.

Much later in life did the challenges begin to disappear and the opportunities began to become very relevant in my life. The days were upon me when the term "transgender" was becoming widely used and more importantly I could apply the word to myself. In addition, my trips into the world became less and less anticipation and more and more realization. Step by step I was learning who the real me was and she felt so natural. 

I was able to keep my thirst for change up and kept finding ways to meet new people (primarily women) who accepted me for the trans woman I was and with them at least, they had never met and had no knowledge of my old male person at all. Challenges became fewer and fewer until it was time for me to consider taking the step and starting hormone replacement therapy or HRT. The changes in my gender hormones provided me with opportunities I had only previously dreamed of. As my skin softened and my hair grew, I was able to present a more natural version of myself to the public. 

Now I look at all my gender challenges as opportunities to grow and do better in life. I ended up living my dream and succeeding in experiencing both sides of the binary gender border. Not always fun but always satisfying. A place I never thought I never could achieve.