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| Image from Jon Tyson on UnSplash. |
Some assume I have reached the point of life I am at, through very few challenges.
The truth is that I faced many challenges along my very long
gender journey to living fulltime as a transgender woman. I write about many of
them often. As I look back, the one main challenge I faced was having the
confidence to move forward to my strong dream. Perhaps the earliest confidence I
needed was when I walked down our long driveway dressed as a girl to check the
mail. Hoping someone would notice the girl in a miniskirt out of the house on a
winter’s day without a coat. Then hoping no one would see me and somehow report
me to my parents. Nothing ever happened, so I gained the confidence to keep
doing it.
The problem was, there were only so many trips to the
mailbox I could take to feel good about my cross-dressed feminine self. Here I
was taking all that time and effort to feminize myself and having no outlet
except the mirror. I was frustrated in my little closet which I had no idea of
how to escape from. I was like a caged animal, I knew I wanted out of the cage,
I just didn’t know where to go when I escaped.
As the years passed by, I traded going to the mailbox with a
yearly trip to a Halloween party. Even though it took me years to get it right,
I finally figured out how to figure out a “costume” which helped me to build my
confidence that I could present well enough to get by in the world as a woman. My
goal always became to be mistaken for a woman in a costume, not as a man
dressed as a woman and I achieved it. From there, my problem became Halloween
only happened once a year, and what would I do the rest of the year about my growing
gender dysphoria. My final decision was a simple one, if I had the ability to
do it. I would have to manufacture my own reasons to sample the world as a
novice transgender woman and see if I had the same positive feedback I received
on Halloween. I discovered most of the world did not care about how I was dressed,
and I gained the confidence to do more.
I made it to the point where I began my “bucket list” of
things to do as a transfeminine person. Or could I do other things that women
do in their everyday lives and succeed. Every time I did something such as
taking myself out to lunch, or negotiating a bookstore and buying a coffee, I
checked them off my bucket list and proceeded to move on to more difficult interactions
with the public.
Of course, not everything I did was a success. I was told to
leave a venue I thought I was a regular in one night when three drunk guys
thought it would be fun to play “Dude Looks Like a Lady” on the jukebox over
and over again. Initially it hurt me, until I got my confidence back and found
another venue right up the street. My success was complete when the crew of the
place I was asked to leave found me one night. They told me the manager who
told me to leave was fired for drug abuse and they wanted me back. Retribution
was mine as well as a real boost to my confidence. It felt good to be wanted as
their token transgender woman.
Even so, to this day, I wonder why my confidence is so
fragile. In September, my wife Liz and I are taking another bus tour. It’s our
fourth one, and this time we are traveling from Ohio to Boston and then up into
New England by train. Even though, I have never had any real problems with anyone
else on the trip before, in the back of my head I still worry about some right-wing
woman questioning my gender and ruining my trip. I am sure I am just paranoid and
should be worried about catching Covid again and ending up in another hospital.
Which is how our last vacation ended up. Hopefully I can get an updated vaccine
just before we go. Which will build that part of my confidence.
The only way I know to build your confidence is to keep
being yourself and improving your presentation as a transgender woman or cross
dresser if you prefer. Perhaps it will always be fragile like mine is and it is
something we always will have to deal with. One thing is for sure; you cannot
build it by hiding yourself away. Expect some setbacks and keep moving forward as
you are building a new future. It is a huge step forward. Having nice fashion
and applying beautiful makeup is wonderful but it all means nothing if you do
not have the confidence to pull the picture together. Humans are like sharks
and they will know something is wrong if you let them.
