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| Image from Alexsandra King on UnSplash. |
Reflections on a theme could really go several ways.
The first one goes all the way back to my earliest days of gazing
in the mirror at my new girl-like figure. Since I did not have much to work
with as far as clothes and makeup went, I needed to use a lot of my imagination
when I looked at myself. All I remember is, every article of clothing I could
wear was cherished and I hoped I did not destroy it and clue my mom into
someone had been into her clothes.
On the other hand, makeup was a little easier to hide, since
mom had a whole drawer full of used makeup and samples for me to experiment with
until I arrived at the point where I did not think I looked like a circus clown
doing drag. As I said, imagination played heavily into my girlish pursuits back
in those days until one fact came in loud and clear. Just dressing like a girl
fell far short of meeting my expectations of how I wanted to feel. More than
just looking like a girl, I wanted to know how it would be to feel like one. It
turned out to be an idea I would carry with me throughout my life. Little did I know I would be writing about the same theme some fifty years later as I
still struggle to understand all the aspects of the gender dysphoria I went
through before I just gave up and went to my dominant side which was OK because
in her own way my mom was a dominant woman and had to be to survive in the
world of men she was in.
I guess you could say mom was the first feminine role model
I had. As I reflected on her, I saw a person who worked hard to get a college degree
during the depression years then ran off with a man her parents probably did
not totally approve of. In other words, she was strong-willed and often got her
way. Except for the daughter, she never knew she had who was watching more than
just the way she applied her makeup. I was watching how she navigated the world.
In my own way, I went through my own great depression as I learned how
difficult it was going to be to be a transfeminine person. Long before the term
was ever used.
During this time, I spent a lot of time reflecting on who I
was and why I was this way. Surely, I was one of a very few boys around me who
wanted to be a girl. One of the many ideas I reflected on was the fact that I
was simply afraid to go out and compete with the other boys. Which even though
was probably true to an extent, I knew I had to do it anyway, so I had no
choice but to make a half-hearted attempt at doing boy things to throw gender
doubters off my path when they realized what an effeminate boy I really was. Since
I was not athletic enough to hang with the jocks or smart enough to hang with
the brains, I ended up taking some sort of a middle path with a group of troublemakers
which at least kept me away from the bullies. Sadly, there was no group for
boys who wanted to be girls.
As I stayed in the mirror for years and years, I built up
quite the love for my reflection as I went along. So much so that I caught my
reflection lying to me. No matter how ridiculous I looked, the reflection I was
seeing told me I looked great which hurt my overall feminine approach to life,
out of the mirror. It was not until I gathered all my courage and began to
explore the world as a novice crossdresser ot transgender woman, did my
reflection begin to change. What happened was, for better or for worse, I
traded out my home mirror for one in public. As strangers began to notice me, I
very quickly received feedback on my reflection from them. Was I convincing the
world that I was a serious transgender woman and not some sort of a joke or
someone up to no good that was all the craze back in those days on television
and in the movies.
All of this reflection on a theme quickly became very
important to me since I had finally made the move to get out of my closet and
see the world through the eyes of a very serious trans woman. Soon I reached
the point of no return and just had to rely on my home mirror to apply my
makeup and fix my hair. The rest was up to me to do in the public’s eye, where
my true reflection always was. My theme always should have been I was a feminine
based individual all of my life with strong ties to woman role models. My goal
never was to be the, “Pretty, pretty princess” as my wife called me. I was just
going through a phase so get to a point where I could become a strong
independent trans woman. I did not know at the time how much the world would
change and I would need every bit of my new self to survive under a corrupt president
who wants to erase the LGBTQ community.
Now, when I see myself in the mirror, the only reflection on
a theme that I see is me. I am a survivor of my internal gender dysphoria wars
and external problems along the way too. Some were interesting, some I learned
from and most were quickly forgotten as life intervened. All I know is, I would
never have found out if I had been stuck in my reflection on a theme. Which was
being a woman. Being stubborn enough to keep pushing ahead was what kept me
going. Deep down, I knew I was right.
