 |
| Image from Ava Sol on UnSplash |
Expressing yourself to the world as a transgender woman carries with it a certain amount of vanity.
Until you begin to relax in your new feminine world, I think
you need to obsess over every detail of your exterior appearance. Since we all
have such a vast amount of catching up to do to compete with other ciswomen in
the world, details matter. Perhaps one of the first lessons you learn is how
competitive the world is when you are a trans woman. Ciswomen are every bit as
competitive as men but in certain areas not readily visible to the male gender.
For example, the major question comes to mind that do women
dress for men or for each other. Sadly, we never had the input of mothers,
sisters or girlfriends saying, “are you wearing that?” I know if I had that sort
of input, it would have saved me a lot of embarrassment when I first began to
go out into the public’s eye. It was a resounding yes for me when I learned who
women really dress for…themselves. My problem was, my male self-kept getting in
the way and had me dressing like a trashy teen girl. All poorly concealed in a
testosterone poisoned male body. It was no wonder I was creating negative attention
and getting laughed at. When all I was doing was trying to present myself well
the best way I knew how.
After I began to learn and change my thought patterns
concerning fashion and makeup, I began to have success in the world. So much
so, that on occasion (when I was so vain and did everything right) I received a
compliment or two from a cisgender woman. One thing was for sure; it takes a
woman to know the work it takes to perfect a public image with makeup and
fashion. Plus, I needed to be better than the average woman because I was
working at the whole image after I started as a man.
It turned out, having to be better in the world worked well
with my increasing source of transfeminine vanity. All I thought of was how
much better I could look if I tried just the right foundation and mascara, as I
haunted the many thrift stores, I went to looking for just the right piece of
clothing to add to my wardrobe of feminine clothes. My personal newfound male
to female femininization vanity was in full force as I was having fun. In
reality, I saw nothing wrong with being vain in how I appeared as my authentic self,
until I clashed with my second wife.
She rarely wore makeup or dresses at all and did not like the
way I presented myself at all. On the rare occasions we went out together as
women, I tried to tone down the amount of makeup I was wearing along with
putting on my most conservative clothes. All because I wanted her approval,
which I never got. If I wore any less makeup, I might as well say to hell with
it and go out with her as my old male self. I was stuck between the rock and
the hard place as far as my feminine vanity was concerned.
As I progressed with my makeup and fashion experience, I
understood how much work I would have to put out to achieve the transgender
goals I wanted. I knew I would never be able to transform my old male self into
the prettiest girl in the room but on the other hand I could present well
enough to get by. Everything that I was doing at that point just became a blur
of change. Especially when I was approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT.
As my skin softened, hair and breasts grew, it all was a welcome addition to
all the work I had done all those years to just survive in the world. As I
wrote yesterday, just not having to wear a wig anymore was a huge deal for me
since I had no male pattern baldness to contend with. All of a sudden, I needed
to contend with a new form of vanity when I went to beauty parlors to have my
hair done just a certain way.
During all the years it took me to fully come out into the
world as a trans woman. I learned the true meaning of competing with ciswomen
in the appearance arena. Once I did. I needed to move ahead to the larger
context of being allowed to exist in women only spaces by the alpha-female
gatekeepers. In many ways, my second wife was an alpha female who never let me
in, so I wonder what would have happened if she had lived long enough to see/know
the person I am today. One thing is for sure; I am no longer the “pretty,
pretty princess” she used to call me because I have paid my dues as a
transgender woman.
All I know is I did go through my periods of extreme
selfishness and vanity to arrive where I am today and I don’t know if there is
any other way to go down the path, I ended up taking. Changing a gender is such
an intense way to live, especially when you started with so much success as a
male that it took me a massive effort to change. Not to say, all of the effort
was not enjoyable but at least, it was interesting and challenging to see behind
the gender curtain.
For many of us stuck in our own form of gender dysphoria,
vanity is just one aspect of our larger need to survive.
