Staying Calm

 

JJ Hart, Cincinnati Pride

Many times, staying calm as you traverse your gender path is easier said than done. For example, take the early days of exploring your mom’s clothes to see what still fit and how well you thought it made you look in the mirror. Just the sight of your girlish self-brought a palpable change to your excitement level that you would never forget. Then the disappointment set in and your calm was shattered when you knew you had taken the last little bit of time you had to take off the makeup and clothes and return to the boring male world you were forced into.

At that point, as you grew up, it became evident that taking the time to cross dress as a girl anytime you could calm you down and made life easier…until the pressure built up and you could cross dress again. In my case, before long, to stay calm in my life, I needed the effort I put into looking like a girl. If I did not, all I would worry about was the next time I could apply makeup and a dress and look at myself in the mirror.

For some reason, when I was young, I thought age would temper my urge to be feminine. Then the internet came along (with social media sites) and I discovered there were others with like interests in femineity. I also learned new terms such as transgender which for the first time, I thought applied to me and the gender dysphoria I was suffering from. The whole on-line process took me out of the printed confines of “Virginia Prince” and her “Transvestia” publication and into a world I could communicate with. Suddenly, my calm was shattered again as I needed to sneak around my wife’s back on our computer to see what I could learn and wonder if I could ever achieve the attractive beauty of some of the cross-dressers I saw. I even discovered a contact relatively close to me that I was conversing with until my wife caught up with me and I needed to stop to retain the uneasy calm we had in the marriage.

As luck or destiny would have it, staying calm became increasingly complex for me. I had started to explore the world as a transfeminine person with some success. So much so that I could not keep my mind off what I was going to do next as a novice trans woman when I went out in public the next time. The pressure to balance a life in two genders was tremendous and the only time I ever remember being calm was when I was out living my new life as a woman. But again, the feeling of calm was fleeting as I had to hurry home and change back to no makeup and skirts to my male work-a-day world and at the same time hiding my true transgender self from my wife and most importantly myself. It took me years and years to understand the true basis to all my jittery problems, I was fighting a male gender the whole time I should have never been born into.

When I gradually began to understand what I was up against as a gender conflicted person, I turned to therapy as a solution. As with anything else in life, I suffered through bad therapists and benefitted from good ones. One of the good ones was the initial gender therapist I went to in Columbus, Ohio when I saw her name in an ad in a LGBTQ newspaper I was reading. The sad part was that in true male form I refused to listen to her advice when she told me there was nothing she could do with me wanting to be a woman and I would have to decide someday what decision I would make. If I had listened to and heeded her advice, I would have been able to build the calmness of choosing my dominant gender long before I did.

The next two therapists I tried were terrible and knew little about gender issues at all, so I kept searching for another good one which I found in all places like the Veterans Administration. She had a great basic knowledge of the LGBTQ community and was willing to help me through my Bi-Polar depression issues also. The luck of the draw, again went in my favor as she even helped me in the legal change documents, I needed to change my gender within the VA and out in the world. During this time, it was difficult to remain calm because of all the positive changes I was going through, and my life was so exciting.

When I really calmed down was when I was approved for HRT or gender affirming hormones. The HRT took off the remnants of my testosterone poisoned personality. Or I should say, took the edge off all my feelings of aggression and panic. Very quickly my whole world softened, and I could see a future again. It was a true calmness of existence that somehow, I had always craved but had no idea how to achieve it. Little did I know, I was on the right path the whole time and did not know it. Worse yet, my path led me to being addicted to stress in pressure packed jobs on top of my gender issues. I just did not know how to be calm and slow down and enjoy the present.

Our lives come at us quickly, so that is my excuse for living mine the way I did. Looking back, I do think I was able to use the basic building blocks of my male life to build a stable future as a transgender woman. I equate it to going back to school and getting credit for courses you already took. Life around you changes but certain basics always stay the same. The best advice I could have had for myself is you only have one life to live. Try to sit back and stay calm so you can enjoy it.

 

My Gender Timing was Everything

 

Image from Danny G
on UnSplash. 

For me, timing was everything when it came to completing my male to female gender transition. Plus, there was no way possible to think I would take nearly a half of century to do it.

The problem was, I never considered the extra layers of a ciswoman’s life rather than what a man had to go through to live. Just having to put up with a man in a relationship would have been enough for me to drive me into a lesbian relationship. Although I never really understood why more men don’t want to accept trans women because we understand so much about the way they think because after all, we had to live as a man for a while. But that is a long, drawn-out story to be saved for another time.

In many ways, timing comes down to everything when you decide to jump out of your closet and enter the world. Just a few things to consider are what would happen to you if you were out as your authentic feminine self and ran into someone you know. It happened to me one time long ago when I was married to my second wife. I was happily following my shopping routines in the small Ohio town we lived in when I parked in a parking lot, slid out of my car and right into the on-coming face of my wife’s boss. As I panicked and headed the other way as fast as I could, all I could hope for was he did not recognize me in my wig, makeup, mini skirt and matching leotard top. Fortunately, as I got a quick glimpse of his face, he showed no reaction to me at all.

I thought the experience was behind me until a week or so later, we were invited to a party at their house. At the party, her boss casually brought up how he had seen this big woman at a big box store he was shopping at the other day.  As I ignored the comment the best I could, I saw my wife suddenly glaring at me from across the room, and I knew what she was thinking. It was me; her boss saw that day. It took me a long time to live that one down because I was never supposed to leave the house as a trans woman unless I was somehow supervised.

Timing kept me living on the edge with my job too. What if my “hobby” of being a cross dresser was discovered? I knew I would not be able to function the way my male self-had all his life. I was stuck between the rock and the hard place on several personal fronts. I was becoming increasingly dependent on my lessons I was teaching myself as a woman and keeping my personal life together. All I could do was keep on working towards my dream of living as a transfeminine person. As I progressed along my often-rocky gender path, all I could do was look for a quick exit. But I found out, exits were as rare as on a long-deserted interstate highway.

It was not until I reached my mid-fifties, did I begin to see the faint out-lines of a possible gender exit ahead for me. All I needed to do was time my male exit correctly so I could cover the main living basics such as spousal support (or nonsupport), a job to support name changes, all the way to all the identification forms I would need such as a new driver’s license. For me, the name change was the most challenging because I needed to go before a very conservative judge I even knew before as a man. Surprisingly, he just smiled and approved my paperwork and name change and the rest was basically easy. So timing on that exit went smoothly with no roadblocks.

Other exits were not so forgiving for me. Such as what was I going to do about a job at that time. I had just closed my restaurant and was essentially broke, and I needed to find a job fairly quickly to support myself. I guess timing was everything and I took an easy exit into a job that I hated. I took the job anyway and managed to keep it for the couple of years I needed to work to claim my early retirement and keep myself afloat by selling vintage collections that my deceased wife and I had put together over the years. During this time of my life, there were other main detours which were difficult to navigate.

That was when my current wife Liz stepped in along with a huge push from destiny to erase any doubts in my mind that I was making the right decisions. I can not forget to mention this was also the time when I was able to begin HRT or gender affirming hormones and take another smooth exit away from my old male life. Putting him in my rearview mirror was the best move I had ever made in my life. I had a new me to go with my new name, and I was ready to go by the time I hit the age of sixty-two. I did not even have to revisit another job exit and just totally retired and moved in with Liz. Where I still am nearly a decade later.

Timing was everything for me, and even though it took me longer than I ever expected to reach my dream, the trip was worth it and I managed to even stay on a very rocky gender road full of roadblocks without wrecking.

 

 

 

A Labor of Love

 

Image from Mor Shani

Lately, it has occurred to me that possibly my posts have been a little negative when describing my journey along my gender path. Sure, my trip had its ups and downs but overall, it was a labor of love. Gender euphoria always seemed to come along at just the right time to keep me centered on my dream of living a transfeminine life. Finally meaning to me that transitioning male to female was the only way to live for me.

From that point forward, I just had to figure out a way to do it. I knew I loved the lure of women’s fashion and makeup, and how it all changed around me on a seasonal basis. So far from the male fashion I was used to. Instead of just putting on a coat when the weather became cooler outside. Now I needed to choose between leggings, boots and fuzzy sweaters to keep me warm and stylish.  Furthermore, I loved the concept of seasonal change and the desirability of going through my wardrobe to see what could stay and what had to go to the thrift store.

Even though, fashion and makeup remained a priority for me, a new love interest set in when I began to explore the world more as a transgender woman. Whole new gender vistas opened up for me relatively quickly as I needed to put my static mirror version of my trans woman self into motion. It became a labor of love to go out and start meeting new people. As I did, I came to the realization that most strangers I met did not mistake me for a cisgender woman, but on the other hand, I could be quite satisfied to be recognized as myself…a woman from a different background. I think in a couple of the venues I became a regular in; I became their token transgender woman to prove their overall diversity. Whatever the case, I loved the extra attention I was getting. Especially from the ciswomen I met who were basically curious what I was doing in their world.

All the on hands experience in the world I was getting helped me to want more and leave my male life behind. As I always say, the gender change concept seemed to be so natural for me as I went forward. The only problems came from wondering what I was going to do about all the male baggage I carried with me. I discovered I was much more than a man trying to put on a pretty face, I was a full-fledged person trying to build a life from scratch. All the nuances of doing so extended way psst making sure my shoes matched my purse, all the way to wondering how I was going to handle the woman sitting next to me when and if she tried to make conversation. In a very short period of time, I became used to the challenge, and it became part of my life and yes, I loved it.

As I increasingly loved this new life I was living, I was able to balance between the two main binary genders. Before it became too much to handle mentally for me. It became increasingly evident that if I was going to survive as a person, I was going to have to choose one of the genders pulling on me. At that point my lifetime of loving everything feminine kicked in for me. Long ago, I had realized I was much more than a casual crossdresser and made it a love affair to learn more about my dream of being a woman on my own terms. Which meant I did not necessarily need all the extensive facial or gender realignment surgeries. I just needed to present well enough in the world as a trans woman to be left alone. Mainly because of the circle of ciswomen friends who accepted me as an equal, I was able to achieve my goal. Even with the added surprise of finding a woman who loved me the way I was.

The tragedy probably was I did not realize the depth of the love affair I was having until much later in life. I would have preferred to have spent more time living as a transgender woman in a world I created. Rather than sharing it with a man I started a life with and had very little control over.

I will never know (of course) what life I missed and maybe the course of destiny I was on would have stayed the same anyhow. Just being able to acknowledge the lifelong love affair I was on is just enough to rationalize where I ended up. So if you are just starting or contemplating starting your journey, try to look down deep inside of yourself to see where your love affair has taken you. It may save you problems later on your journey.

 

 

 

 

Reflections on a Theme

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Solving the Gender Puzzle

Christine Jorgensen. 

Many times, during my life, I have looked at my gender issues as having a big puzzle to solve.

From my earliest age of recollection, I can remember thinking that something about me was really wrong, but I could not put my finger on what the problem exactly was. Most likely, it was not until I began to have a fascination with my mom’s clothes did, I began to discover what the puzzle I had was really all about. At that point did I embark on a lifetime journey or path to figure it out. I had no idea of all the twists and turns my path would take me on until I could finally put the pieces of my gender puzzle together.

Perhaps the biggest part of the puzzle to me was the fact that I was born into a male world with no way out in sight. I lived in a rural area around the same kids growing up from kindergarten through ninth grade, so I figured no one else had the same puzzle to solve that I did. Plus, in the pre-internet days, when I was growing up, there was no easy way to access any outside information. Especially none as radical as having anything to do with gender issues. As close as I could come was sneaking a look at all the “National Enquirer” type trash rags at a friend of mine’s aunt’s small neighborhood convenience store. Every once in a while, they would run a sensationalized story about “Christine Jorgensen” or another G. I. who wanted to change his/her sex. I remember the first time I saw one of the stories, I was hooked and could not wait to go back and look for more stories.

In some ways, just looking at these stories made finding pieces to my puzzle even more difficult to do. There was just no way I could ever see myself ever arriving at the point where I could go through such drastic measures to be a woman. I would just have to rely on my dreams to give me hope of ever living my life the way I wanted. Which of course was that of a transfeminine person. Hell, the word did not even exist back then in the sixties and having any sort of gender dysphoria was still considered to be a form of mental illness. Any hope of piecing together my gender puzzle would somehow just have to wait. For a bigger problem called military duty.

As I entered my formative years of high school, the Vietnam War was still escalating and the government had to establish a military draft to fill the ranks of unwilling participants, which included me. With all the stress hanging over me, I went off to college to at least prolong the draft position I had for four more years. Surely, the war would be over by then, but it wasn’t and it was my time to serve in the Army. I had the dual problems of not wanting to experience a military career from what it might do to me along with the problems I would have expressed any of my gender issues which I was just starting to do when I was drafted. My one certainty was miniskirts on soldiers would be frowned upon in Army basic training. Any work on my gender puzzle would have to wait for three long years.

Three years later, I survived my military service much better than I ever thought possible. I got to travel the world on Uncle Sam’s dime and even was able to experience the beautiful, exotic “Lady Boys” of Thailand when I was stationed there for a year. Even though I was fascinated with their culture, I was never brave enough to approach. Much later on, when I was in Germany, I gathered my courage to go to a hospital Halloween party dressed head to toe as a woman which led me later to my first coming out piece to my puzzle. Over huge amounts of good German beer one night, I admitted to three of my closest friends that my Halloween “costume” was more than a one-time deal. I was a transvestite and was attracted to dressing like a woman. Luckily for me, no one else cared and my secret was safe for the remaining six months I had to serve in the Army.

After I had served my time in the military, piecing together my gender puzzle became a bigger priority. Initially, I needed to rely on Halloween parties every year to express my need for public exposure as a transgender woman as by that time, I was realizing I was much more than a cross-dressing part-time guy. One of the biggest “aha” moments of my life came the night I made the mental shift from cross dresser to transgender woman and went out into the world. Despite being scared to death, I made the evening a success and knew deep down there was no going back. I had found a giant piece to my puzzle and I began to wonder what took me so long.

From then on, the pieces to my giant puzzle began to come together quickly as I began to carve out a life for myself in a world of cisgender women. To this day, the path I took seemed like a blur and once I began rolling downhill towards living my dream I could not stop. I was going crazy looking for the final pieces of my puzzle until I discovered the magic of gender affirming hormones or HRT. The hormones evened out my testosterone poisoned personality and enabled me to feel emotions I never realized I had. For the first time ever, I was able to feel the feminine way I tried so hard to appear like.

I have never been good at puzzles my entire life and find them to be exceedingly boring and frustrating…except my gender puzzle. Even though I don’t think I will ever finish it in this lifetime, the amount of work I put into it turned out to be very satisfying and just what the therapist in me ordered. I was able to finish to the point where I could see myself in the puzzle and was satisfied with what I saw.

  

Fearing Change as a Gender Challenged Woman

Image from Joshua Gaunt 
on UnSplash. 

Gender change came so very slowly for me during my life.

First, I needed to free myself from the male bonds I was born into which I had no control over. Looking back, I think one of the main problems I had was fearing the changes I was looking to go through if I faced up to reality. From that point forward, life became a struggle as I feared changing it.

What I became was the best transgender procrastinator I knew. Any excuse I could come up with not to go through with living my dream, I clung to like a survivor on the Titanic. What I would do about spouses, family and employment were a few of the major questions I was asking. So, what did I do? I ran as hard and as fast as I could from the problem. I was running so hard, I even changed jobs very quickly so I would not be bored with my life as a transfeminine fugitive. Eventually, even though I grew tired of the pace, I found a stable good job and settled part of my life down. I say part of my life because during that time my gender issues were raging out of control.

Even though I was slowly becoming successful at blending my feminine self in with the world of cisgender women, I still had many fears to conquer. Just when I thought life was improving for me, I would hit another roadblock and send me running back to my cross-dressing drawing board. Which was crazily marked with clownish makeup until I got it right. The fear of applying skilled makeup kept me occupied for years it seemed. On the other hand, when I got my male ego out of the way and realized I needed to dress for other women and not men, did I begin to improve my overall look and the laughter I used to receive in public began to die away. When it did, I learned the most powerful force I had to combat gender change was having confidence in myself. Surely, I would never be the prettiest most beautiful woman in the room, but a lot of other cisgender women were not either and they were surviving and even thriving just fine. There were many layers to building womanhood and I just needed to find mine.

For some reason, the more success I felt as a transgender woman, the more fear I had. I guess it was because of my old male self-starting to panic because he was losing his dominance over my life. For years, what had seemed like the impossible gender dream was now looking as if it could become a reality. As he fought his new reality, the stakes towards living a successful life as a trans woman, increased dramatically. Every step I was taking towards my dream seemed to feel as if I was walking in quicksand since at any time, life as I knew it could be disrupted beyond repair in the little backwards town I lived in. I still lived in mortal fear that any day I could be discovered and the acquaintances I had built up over the years would realize I was living a gender lie. Which I was.

I finally made it to a point where I could not procrastinate my life any longer and I began to use every spare moment to explore the world as a transfeminine person. It all meant I accepted the challenge to finally go all in with making the final preparations for my new life. The bittersweet part of it all was part of my male to female final transition was built on tragedy. In the space of a couple short years, I lost my second wife as well as all of the friends I had built up over the years to death, and I had to start all over again. Sure, I was still afraid to do it but deep down I knew transition was the only way I could go. Suddenly it was up to only me to decide if I wanted to take the ultimate step and try to get a doctor’s permission to begin HRT or gender affirming hormones. I was approved and then the changes I was hoping for began to really happen for me. The changes were so dramatic, I sometimes take an entire blog post to relate them to you.

What frustrates me now are the haters who say that because I took so long to transition, I am not trans enough for them. Normally, they are younger LGBTQ individuals who have no idea of what the world was like way back when I was growing up. We all have our own gender crosses to bear, and we need to understand each other’s journey.

Sadly, there are all those transgender women and trans men who can’t take the burden of gender change fear any longer and tragically try to take the self-harm way out. The suicide rate in our community is completely too high and could come down with proper help and understanding.

In my case, my excuse is I had a heavy dose of ignorance combined with fear and procrastination as reasons it took me nearly a half a century to come out of my gender shell and live freely in the world as a transgender woman. These days, if you can steer clear of all the online trolls and haters, you can still get valuable information on the internet concerning ideas on how to build a new life as a woman from scratch. Plus, fear for me was a powerful motivator and when I was forced into a corner because of my gender, I came out fighting because I believed I was right.

It turned out I was.

 

 

 

  

The Hustle and Bustle of Christmas as a Transgender Woman

 

Image from Clarke Sanders
on UnSplash.

Doing the Christmas shopping shuffle as a transgender woman, often takes a lot of courage and confidence to do it.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have written about my holiday adventures leading up to the big day. From taking a short trip to Clifton Mill to view their extensive, festive lighting display all the way to letting two men load my heavy purchase for me at an Oak furniture store, I stretched the boundaries of what I was used to as a new cross dresser or trans woman in public. After it was all said and done, even though I was terrified most of the time, I was happy I tried it all. I came out of doing the Christmas shuffle with much more confidence in my girl self than I had going into the season.

In fact, as I have written before, Christmas quickly outpaced Halloween as my favorite holiday. Why? There were several factors, such as the length of the season and the creativity I could put into celebrating it. Plus, for once, I was doing good for others by buying gifts for them as I shopped. I positively loved it and wondered where the experience had been most of my life.

If you are a procrastinator and last-minute gift shopper like I was, doing the Christmas shuffle as a transgender woman is ideal for you. As you can get lost in the crowds quite easily and no one pays attention to a single woman out doing her late shopping. Custom made for you to do your shuffle and head back home.

I was fortunate when my second wife left her bookkeeping job and took a managerial position at a large bookstore chain. So, at Christmas, she was very busy and worked many hours. It was easy for me to schedule my hours around hers, so I had plenty of time to get out of the house and do gift shopping. I could obsess on wearing just the right outfit to blend in with a busy world and at the same time, search for just the right gift. Along the way also, I could stop in and grab a bite to eat at a restaurant and again stretch my ability to deal one on one with the world as a transfeminine person. Yet another reason, I came to prefer Christmas over Halloween because I hoped I was not perceived as a man wearing a costume, or worse yet some sort of drag queen.

As the big day approached, the sky was the limit for me. I did my shuffle as much as finances allowed and stockpiled my gifts for my special night where I stayed home with some high-powered eggnog and wrapped my treasures to go under the tree if they would fit. Of course, my wife was close to being a professional gift wrapper and I was just the opposite. But as the eggnog kicked in, I did not care, and besides it was the thought that counted. Right?

Finally, the big day arrived and I was shuffled out. Plus, we had family connections to visit all day on Christmas day. My thoughts for once were in other places than doing my precious shuffle which I had learned so much from. After the day wound down and my wife and I were alone, we opened the final gifts from each other. Which included a gift for my feminine self. I will forever remember a nice fancy fuzzy baby blue sweater she gifted me. It was snug fitting and I filled it out nicely with my new silicone breast forms I received from a cross-dresser acquaintance of mine who was purging. Naturally, that part of our gift giving day was the part of the day which was the most anticipated for me. I was like a little kid, brimming with anticipation.

Every year after the intense transgender Christmas shuffle was over, I had the chance to sit back and reflect on all my experiences and what they meant. Without hesitation, I think the confidence I built up from going out in the world as my trans self was the most important aspect of what happened to me. I learned what it meant to blend in with ciswomen around me and survive better than I ever could before. I also discovered the vast majority of the world did not and does not care about having a transgender person in their midst. The biggest difference is that back then, we did not have a Russian asset in the White House leading his blind, spineless party into demonizing a small portion of the population. Back then, I was merely a curiosity to many people, especially ciswomen.

When my second wife passed away, the need to do the major Christmas shuffle went with her too. The only blood family I had left was a brother and a daughter to worry about at all during the holidays. When I came out to them, I was roundly rejected by my brother and completely accepted by my daughter and her family. So, I broke even and even did better when I considered the relationship, I was able to build up with my daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. I won the family coming out shuffle in a big way.

Even still, sometimes I miss the hustle and bustle of doing the transgender Christmas shuffle as over the years, I have gone nearly the entire direction in the other way. It is hard to say what I miss most but it probably having the financial resources to buy basically as many gifts as I could afford might be it.  Maybe it all came from having a guilty conscience from sneaking out of our house to join the world as my authentic true self instead of my old boring male self and breaking the pledge, I gave my wife that I never would.

Whatever the case, I was extremely selfish and was a contradiction when I did it to buy gifts for others. I guess it fit in with the whole contradiction I felt from my deep-set gender dysphoria to begin with. I dealt with it all the best I could, did my Christmas gender shuffle and moved on with my life making the most of it.

 

 

Letting Things Happen versus Making things Happen as a Trans Woman

Image from Mahdi Chaghari
on UnSplash.

Perhaps you have heard a football coach talk about slowing the game down and simplifying it for his players. Of course, I had to equate it with being a transgender woman or trans man when I heard it.

I began to think of all the stressful days I spent in front of the mirror as my perception of a pretty girl, then taking my image public and into the world. For years it never occurred to me that I was trying too hard. I was attempting to micro-manage myself to ensure every little aspect of my feminine image was correct. Here is an example of what I was doing wrong. On any given day, my makeup and fashion were on point, and I was confident about my presentation. Then as I was out trying it all in the public’s eye, I would either catch myself walking hunched over like a linebacker or worse yet, trip over my own heels and almost fall. It took me quite a while to realize what I was doing wrong and try to change it.

For me, relaxation and confidence were the key to real gender change. I was letting it happen rather than making it happen. I discovered it was so much more pleasurable for me when it happened that way. After that I could take my game to a different level such as communicating one on one with the world for once as my authentic feminine self. A key point I had to do if I was ever going to make it to my dream of a male to female femininization project.

I also established bucket lists of things I wanted to do as a transgender woman and was able to accomplish most of them except a couple of ill-thought-out visits to women’s rooms when I had the police called on me. Letting it happen surely did not work for me then, but I recovered and gained my restroom privileges in other venues I went to. Fortunately, the police had better things to do than mess with me and I went on my way without further problems. That was years ago and I haven't had any problems since. That was a good thing because the restroom privilege was something that I needed more than wanted.

I cannot stress enough about how much I had to learn during this period of my life when I was making a serious push towards transitioning from a serious cross dresser all the way to a transgender woman. When in reality, it was mostly a mental transition, it was still a very important one to make. I have a difficult time explaining it but all of a sudden, something clicked in my mind, and I knew another change was needed. I was so more than a man wanting to look like a woman.  I wanted to be a woman and feel like one as close as I could. That was when I successfully set out to socialize with cisgender women just to see if I could. I conquered my fear and found out I could add another layer of just letting it happen versus making it happen.

By this time, my muscle memory had improved so much as a trans woman that it became natural to me. So much so in fact that I had to be careful I was not too effeminate when it came to me working my male job and living with my wife. It finally became too much for me to juggle, and I needed to put it down before it was too late and I became more self-destructive than I already was. What I did was, attempt to do more things as a transfeminine person and do as less as humanly possible as my male self. It is one of the reasons I took so long to transition, because of the need to work around a disapproving wife and male self which was desperately hanging on.

You regulars know this part of my story when my wife tragically passed away. Which left only my weakened male self to resist any efforts at total domination from my inner female who had waited so long for her chance to live and write her own gender workbook. Little did I know she kept her own workbook up to date and was ready to go. If and when she had a chance to use it. Perhaps, your inner female is keeping a gender workbook also and you will not have as far to go to catch up when you get the chance to live your life.

I discovered too that letting it happen versus making it happen was mostly common sense. Even though the two main binary genders do things differently, they often operate in parallel universes which are the same and seem to be doing more so in the younger generations. I first learned up close and personal during my first girl’s nights out I went to. I was worried about what I needed to do to be able to interact with the group but then found they had just flipped the script from jobs and sports to family and friends with the women. Quickly I relaxed and started to let my inner girl flow, and I was fine with most of all the other participants except for one who I perceived as being a miserable person anyway. Who was unlikeable to me, and I left her alone.

I chuckle to myself when I think of how my football coach’s words would come back to help me in such a different way later in life. I guess it proves that you just cannot count on anything staying the same when it comes to gender. Perhaps that is a clue why the population at large knows nothing about us and we live parallel lives from both of them. Whatever it is, if you are in your path of gender discovery, you will certainly feel the change from making it happen to letting it happen.

 

                                                                                                                                          . 

Staying in your Own Gender Lane

Image from Earnest Tarasov
on UnSplash.

Staying in my own gender lane may have been more difficult than I had ever imagined. Of course, it all started when I was externally born male. Then when I started to understand something was dreadfully wrong with my male existence, I needed to figure it out.

My first indication of what the problem might really be came when I discovered the thrills of wearing my mom’s clothes, since I did not have any sisters to beg for clothing off of. Sadly, even though I was thrilled to see my version of a pretty girl in the mirror, deep down I knew it was just not enough for me to stay in my cross-dressing lane.  I wanted to pull out and find myself in a more comfortable gender lane where I more than ever before to being feminine.

Before I could do that, I needed to define what being feminine meant to me. I knew just acting effeminate would get me nowhere except bullied to the point of beaten up and on the home front (which was very male dominated) I would probably earn a trip to a psychiatrist if my small stash of girl’s clothes and makeup was ever discovered. I was trapped in a male world I wanted nothing to do with, and worse yet, I was pressured to perform well in that world. I needed to be in a passing lane around as many other males as I could.

The problem was, I wanted nothing to do with that world and could not show it. And in the pre-internet era I was growing up in, I felt so all alone with no one to talk to about what I was feeling. I just knew I did not feel the so-called mental illness that gender issues were being referred to back then. All I knew was, I was having a very difficult time staying in the gender lane which was assigned to me when it felt so natural. Plus, when I woke up in tears after having such a realistic dream that I was a girl impacted my life terribly until I could get centered again where I was “supposed” to be.

Somehow, I made it through those very confusing gender days and finally made it out into the world to discover if I had any future at all in a world ruled by cisgender women. When here I was, a novice in their world trying to survive. I equated it with driving on the Autobahn in Germany. I quickly discovered when you were driving a VW Beetle (like mine) and ventured into the outside lane then you saw a car in your rearview mirror flashing its lights, you better get out of the way. My life in those days often felt that way. I was learning lessons about where I wanted my transfeminine womanhood to go but I always seemed to see lights warning me in my rearview mirror.

Through tons of trial and error, I learned I could change my gender lane to the one I dreamed of. From as young as I could remember all I really wanted to do with my life was live it as close as I could to being a woman. Of course, that meant putting all my safe male privileges behind me and set out to build new ones in my gender lane with new life experiences. Like the Autobahn I found there were no speed limits on what I could learn or experience in the new gender lane I was in. More importantly, I had no one except my old male self to tell me to slow down before it was too late and I wrecked. Here is where I make the excuse of why it took me so long to transition because I was overly cautious that I did not wreck.

As I was in the gender lane I wanted to be in for a change, it w as nice to finally wake up in the morning knowing I was coming closer to my dream of living life on my terms as a woman and not having to keep falling back on my male self for last minute support. I was one and she was me for good.

But just when I thought I had it all in my new gender lane, I discovered many small nuances the ciswomen around me use that I needed to learn and put into practice. Such as the powerful use of nonverbal communication and passive aggressive behavior. For the first time in my life, I needed to look intently at other women when I talk to them and search their eyes for what they were really telling me. Which extended into the passive aggressive areas of behavior I encountered. There were many times I fell for a smiling face or non-threatening comment which turned out to be a knife in the back when I let my guard down. They were all lessons I learned the hard way as I earned my ability to stay in my gender lane permanently.

The best part was that the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn about the lane I was in. Even my biggest naysayer, my male self, had to finally give up and get out of my way. I was in my lane for good and there was nothing he could do about it. I had served my feminine apprenticeship I was walking the path I always was destined to walk and in the short and long term I got out of the way until I could salvage was left of myself and move forward. 

Trans Girl and the Christmas Season

 

Image from Roberto Nickson
on UnSplash.

Little did I know that Christmas would pass Halloween as my favorite season when I transitioned genders to the one I wanted. There were several factors which contributed to the change I was going through.

The first one was the ease I found I could get lost in the Christmas shopping crowds when I shopped as a trans woman. As long as I followed my fashion instincts. I learned I could follow several different shopping paths. For example, one day I could dress up and go to an upscale mall, and on the second, I could dress down and go shopping at a nearby local antique mall. I enjoyed the feminine freedom of choice immensely.

The second main reason I came to love Christmas so much more was I could really get into the spirit of giving. For some reason, being my transfeminine self-slowed me down and encouraged me to choose more thoughtful gifts for the people I cared about.

The third man reason was I could get lost as a woman in the hustle and bustle of the season. I forgot all about the buy something quickly and move on person I was as a man. My second wife was a huge gardener which made garden themed gifts popular with her, so I could shop at both style of malls for her garden gifts…new or vintage. In particular, I remember finding her a vintage seed merchandising box which she ended up cherishing in her collection. Right or wrong, she never found out my male self-did not buy it at all, my transgender side did.

Reason four was shopping as a woman took all the guilt of sneaking out of the house dressed as myself to buy gifts. I told myself I was not cheating on her when I did it if I was buying her a gift. Probably not the best reason in the world, but at that time it was the best one I had.

Reason five was that Christmas was such a longer season for me than Halloween. Halloween was an intense build up just for one day, and then the let down set in. Christmas of course lasted much longer, and I had the satisfaction of knowing my feminine self-bought all the gifts under the tree.

The final reason I can think of is since my wife always had a special gift giving night for my transfeminine self, I always felt guilty when I came up short for gifts for her. She was not much into makeup and fragrances and such, so the traditional ciswoman gifts were out. She never found out all her gifts could have been given out that night because of who they really came from. Instead, I ended up letting her open a few gifts at a time before Christmas itself.

Christmas at my house and my restaurant became a major holiday from the point of decoration. My wife had quite the collection of animated holiday figures, some new and some vintage which I was expected to find a way to display. As I did, I was put in a festive Christmas mood and made me more impatient to join the masses and do more shopping. Or at least all my finances could stand. Through it all, I was gaining the all-important confidence I would need to consider if my transgender dreams could become a reality after all. I could only discover if I was on the right gender path by the trial-and-error method. By attempting to stay out of the mirror and let the public tell me if I was right or wrong. I don’t know if the public was kinder at Christmas or not, but for some reason I was getting by and enjoying myself as a transfeminine person even more.

All these Christmas holiday positives did not leave me like the Halloween ones did. They became ingrained as I built my new life. A trans girl at Christmas soon became a trans girl period. All my learning gave me a new foundation to stand on when my life hit the skids, and I nearly lost everything. I lost my wife, what close friends I had, and my restaurant within a two-year period to death and recession. As it all crumbled before me, my feminine self-stood strong and ready to help. All I needed to do was let her with no strings attached. To ensure I could make a living until I could retire, I sold all the vintage items I had accounted for and was able to make enough to pay my back taxes and then retire from a job I hated. It worked because then, I would not have to worry about transitioning to a new job.

Now, since my second wife and her love for Christmas has long since departed, my daughter has converted to the Jewish faith and my wife Liz is wiccan, my overall interest in Christmas has waned. However, I will forever remember the festive seasons I went through in my past which helped me along so much in my male to female transition. I developed the instincts I needed to survive in a scary, exciting new feminine world. Being a trans girl at Christmas really worked out for the best for me.

 

Tiny Ripples of Gender Hope

Image from Rosie Kerr on UnSplash.

During the overwhelming sense of darkness I felt when I began to come out of my gender shell, were moments of gender hope and euphoria. More than anything else, they kept me moving slowly towards living my ultimate dream. All I could think of was the possibility of living as a woman later in life.

Having to run and hide my small “collection” of feminine clothes and makeup every time I tried to get in front of the mirror and cross dress did not help. I resented the fact I could not be free to do what I wanted, no matter how radical it was…like being a girl. I could not imagine the pain and suffering I would have if I was caught. What saved me was the vision of a pretty young girl which came peeking on through when I was able to be alone and try on my precious clothes. Even though I was depressed I had to go back to being a boy, the brief moment of femininity carried me through the dark days and gave me a ripple of hope.

Fast forward through the difficult days of puberty and adolescence everyone goes through, I needed to deal with my gender dysphoria also. There were so many dark days when I just went through the motions of life that I did not know what was going to become of me. When I did, I desperately needed to find refuge behind my dresses and makeup to give me hope. Perhaps the only good thing which was happening was that I was slowly perfecting my use of makeup. When all my friends were showing off their painted model cars, I was stuck not being able to show off my new eye makeup. I had to internalize my feelings of hope and euphoria when I saw my new pretty eyes. Sadly, I needed to become good at removing all traces of the makeup so my brother and parents would not notice.

I guess you could say I was in the dark through my college years and beyond until I began to be able to enter the world for the first time as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. These were the days of attending transvestite mixers and small parties in nearby Columbus, Ohio. Being around like minded people who were searching for their gender answers almost made my search seem normal for the first time in my life. I was so protected from the world in the pre-internet days that I thought I was the only one like me stuck in their own personal hell. I was experiencing ripples of hope for the first time in my life on a scale I could appreciate. I even upped my appearance game when I went to Columbus from trashy woman to hopefully a passable ciswoman. One of my favorite outfits to wear was what I called my knit black out. I paired a loose fitting black wide knit top with a black leotard, shorts, tights with a pair of black flats and my red wig and was ready to go. After makeup of course.

For me, the whole outfit helped me to tone down and refine my look and it worked so well that I had my first ever encounter with a lesbian from the party when we left and went to a big lesbian venue for a break. I learned many valuable lessons that night which provided me with ripples of hope for the future. Mainly, if I could not be as feminine or beautiful as the transsexuals who were there, I still could be attractive myself to have a good time and most importantly, learn to be just me. Developing the future, me gave me real hope for the future as I learned it would be possible to achieve my transgender dreams if I worked hard enough. I had to learn the new transfeminine me meant so much more than the ripples of hope I had gained in the past went way past how I looked and into how I acted.

Suddenly, acceptance became my main goal, as my interior feminine self-stepped forward in my life. I knew who I wanted to be but still was not quite sure how to get there. For example, I knew for sure I did not want to be like the “Trans Nazi’s” as we called them or the bitchy trans women who thought they were better than anyone else simply because of their appearance or the number of gender surgeries they had undertaken. I suppose I should owe them a debt of gratitude for showing me what not to do to be a gracious, friendly transgender woman.

All of this came together for me when I began HRT or gender affirming hormones when I was sixty. I had spent enough life in the dark to appreciate the light and grasp a ripple of hope when I saw it. The hormonal medications proved to be a natural success when I began taking them. My body seemed to be saying again what took you so long. But on many levels I don’t think even I understood the basic limits I went through back in those days to salvage my life through the brief ripple of hope I received way back in the days when I lived for the mirror.

More importantly, I found myself in a situation where I could pay forward my experiences to helpfully help others. Especially those of you who are struggling to find answers on how to escape your dark gender closets and find your own ripple of hope. 

The Rise of Transfeminine Privilege

 

JJ Hart (Middle) wife Liz (Left)
daughter (Right)

When I began to seriously leave my closet and mirror and attempt to join the world as my true self, I quickly lost all my male privileges and gained very few feminine ones. In fact, early on, the only privilege I felt was having doors opened for me by the men around me.

On the other hand, the most extensive male privileges I lost were my intelligence and my personal security. When I was around men, I learned to keep my mouth shut until I was spoken to, which was not very often because I think most all men knew I was transgender and wanted no part of me. And as far as personal security went, I needed to learn what ciswomen know from an early age to keep themselves out of possible bodily danger by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

All along, during this time, I was wondering when and if the gender teeter-totter I was on would balance itself out and I would see the positives of what I was doing. It took a combination of things happening before I ever did. One was seasonal around Christmas, and the other one was when I decided to give up on men all-together and concentrate on knowing other women. A preferred topic in my mind, since I did not have to consider changing the focus of my sexuality, which had always leaned exclusively towards women. But I digress, the meaning of Christmas and what it meant to me as a transgender woman, is the real reason for this post.

To begin with, Christmas was always a major holiday for me and my second wife especially. Finding an exceptional, unexpected, rare gift was always the priority for me and even my brother’s family. The difference became to me was when I decided the Christmas shopping, I had been doing as a man would be much better accomplished as a woman. If I was able to pull it off, I could accomplish so much more during the Christmas rush I was in the middle of.

First of all, I needed to up my crossdressing game to give me the best possible chance to succeed in my shopping conquests. I went through my closet and pulled out my fancy, sleek, black pants’ suit for trips to upscale malls and my leggings, boots and sweaters when I combed through the huge local antique malls for just the right gift for my wife. I knew if I was to succeed, I had to be better than the average Ciswoman so I would not be potentially embarrassed. Also, the right makeup and hair was a priority because of all the up close and personal time I would be spending in the public’s eye. Through it all, I wondered where the magical feminine privilege would kick in for me.

The first major time it did was when I was shopping for a matching oak bookcase for my wife’s roll-top desk. One night, I found one which worked beautifully in an oak furniture store in nearby Columbus, Ohio. It just so happened I was returning from a shopping trip to a local Columbus upscale mall when I stopped into the store on the way home. After I found the bookcase I wanted, my old male self-wondered how in the world would I get it in my truck/SUV. Would anyone come to the aid of a tall blond in a black pants suit and heels? After I paid, I found out they would because for the first time in my life I was able to sit back and watch two young men load the bookcase carefully into my vehicle and finished their job off with a nice thank you mam. Because I had finally discovered a dose of feminine privilege, the half hour trip home went quickly, and I wanted to do more shopping, but I was out of time and money.

Sadly, once I returned home and had safely unloaded my prize gift, it was time to return to the place I did not want to be…my old male self. On the plus side though, the whole experience taught me (and provided the confidence) to move forward to my dream life of being a fulltime transgender woman and would not have to return home every night in a hurry to switch back into a gender I wanted nothing to do with. My feminine privilege was being established in the newfound senses I was feeling. Especially when I was doing something for others, such as buying gifts.

The experience made all the learning and trial and error experiences I went through during my male to female femininization process deeply worthwhile. There were other Christmas stories to share as I will do later. Such as when my wife decided we would have a special gift giving time for my feminine self.