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| JJ Hart, Club Diversity, Columbus, Ohio |
As transgender women, we have a unique method of creating a new life.
Obviously, we cannot host a birth ourselves, so we do the
next best thing, allowing our inner feminine selves to flourish in the world. For
some of us, the process takes a long time. I was referring to myself as a late
in life transitioner. Occasionally, I still receive the comment I was not
transgender enough to transition. Or why did I wait so long. Comments such as
those used to bother me until I grew confident enough in myself to ignore them.
We all have our own path to creating a new life. How we get there, and our
methods are our own business.
What is lost on most civilians is how difficult it is as we create
a new life. Which is even more difficult because we are only bringing out what
was always there. It took me decades to discover I had all my gender issues
backwards. Life became easier for me when I learned I was a woman all along,
cross dressing as a man. As with many or all of you, I set out to convince
others of my true self.
At first, I needed to prove to strangers I was so much more
than a man putting on a dress parttime or a drag queen in my days of hanging
out in gay venues. It was not until I began to leave my comfortable closet and
take on the straight world, did I begin to improve my confidence and overall
presentation. As I went out, I took my bumps and bruises and invested heavily
in my future as a transgender woman. I finally learned it was time to cash in
my gender chips and go for it all. Each chip was a unique experience I learned
from as I learned how to create my new life.
When I had started to test out the ciswomen gatekeepers and
was accepted, I knew I had reached the now or never stage of my life. It was
time to face my true inner self and live my truth. The secret of making my trip
personal was a scary step. I needed to risk strangers taking advantage of me,
or my emotions which had been badly damaged after the death of my second wife. I
thought I had effectively shielded myself off to the world as a novice
transgender woman, but the opposite happened.
As women have a way of doing, they read the true damaged me
and a select few reached out. The main one was my wife Liz who I have been with
well over a decade now. Just when I was hopelessly online seeking a date with
another woman, she responded to me, and we started to communicate back and
forth. Liz, as well as my daughter, were instrumental in me creating a new
life. They were powerful feminine role models who I could (and can) fall back
on to this day.
In many ways, I could resent being born with gender issues as
a problem I did not need, but what good would that do. I would never have had
the chance to look deep inside me and create a new life which started with hidden
glances in the mirror and morphed into a full-time life as a transfeminine person.
I would never have thought it possible.
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