I am Back

 

What greeted me this morning on "Femulate:

After much thought, I have decided to return today with another post. If you are not aware, the gold standard of transgender blogs "Femulate" has decided to go "dark" after yesterdays' devastating election results. 

One of the main reasons I have decided to go on is a message I received from my transgender grand-child yesterday when they said thanks for supporting them and thanks for being me. When I received the note, I knew there was no way I was going back. 

Essentially, Stana at Femulate said she did not want to encourage anyone to enter a dangerous world and get injured. That has been one of my thought patterns also and need to repeat my usual warning: Just because I took certain risks when I was learning to be my authentic feminine self, does not necessarily you should too. Everyone of us faces different paths to transgender womanhood. So be careful.

Plus I can not say it enough, I have been so fortunate to have met and married a very supportive ally in  my wife Liz. Ironically too, I still have the outreach interview scheduled with a television reporter tomorrow on the topic of Alzheimer's care for elderly LGBTQ adults which is my passion. It will be interesting to see how it goes.   

One thing is for sure, transgender women and trans men are NOT going away, we have been part of society forever. In my life, I have just laid out one path of many to achieve a very certain dream or goal and I  have always written to my truth.

Following a lot of thought, I will continue attempting to build around a theme that takes us to a point our gender transitions involve so much more than clothes and fashion. Our unique paths to trans womanhood run deep and can not be taken away.

Seraching for Me

Image from Selcuk S
On UnSplash.

Ironically, during my life I have spent too much time searching for who the true me was.

Naturally, I am referring to finding the springboard I needed to determine which gender I was. When I was younger, I made the habit of waking up in the morning wondering if I was a boy or a girl. I was very gender fluid for years before I decided which gender direction was the correct one for me. The problem was I needed to put on my gender blinders and attack the world daily as a male. Something I never wanted to do.

It turned out the springboard I needed to find out the me I was looking for was still a long way in coming. I still needed to cross or follow many paths before I found me. More precisely, I had parenthood come into my life as well as many challenges such as military service, marriages and just life in many ways. I was constantly searching for my gender by going out and exploring the world to find out if I could ever achieve my dream of transgender womanhood. The journey was so difficult when I experienced negative feedback From stares and giggles, all the way to people singling me out for pictures, I did it all before I made a better effort to blend in with the rest of the world.

All in all, I found just being me was going to be much more complicated than I ever thought possible. It all started for me in the days when I always thought the grass was always going to be greener for me on the feminine side of the border. I discovered, even though my trip across the border was terrifying at times, on the other hand I felt so good and natural, I knew there could and would be no turning back. No matter how easy it would have been. At times, I was even a bit jealous of men who had never experienced any gender issues and were able to live out their lives enjoying male privileges. It all just was not in the cards for me during my life.

Just me, turned out to be so much more. I am a parent, a grandparent and a spouse to a supporting wife. In other words, I am so fortunate to be surrounded by people who care for me. Plus during my life I have been able to take an in-depth dive into how both main binary genders operate. What really breaks my heart is when one of the bigoted transphobic political commercials comes on with all it's lies. I want to tell the haters that even though I am a transgender woman, I have a life not so different from theirs. I am just busy being me.

Perhaps the problem is, since my life turned out to be more complex than the so-called norm, so people don't want to understand or care. 

By this time in my life, I have learned being just me will have to be good enough. I have worked too long and hard to give it up now. From having a gender fluid lonely youth to finding my true self in trans womanhood, I think I have been fortunate to end up where I am. Plus, I will continue to advocate for all transgender women or trans men such as my transgender grandchild with their whole life ahead. There is so much to do. Maybe I can just be a positive example to another novice transgender person still living firmly in their closet. Who knows? Maybe you can be next to escape and live as your authentic self.

Passing the Big Tests

 

Image from Shifaaz Shamoon
on UnSplash.

Throughout the years, I found out I had time after time when I needed to "pass" or present well as a feminine person in key situations.

Probably, there are too many to remember but here are a few I recall besides the major one I always write about. It was when I went out to see if I could exist in a world of single professional women in a bar/restaurant I went to as a guy. I really wanted to see if I could make it from the other gender side I had always dreamed of. I wanted to be the other women so badly and now I found I could actually do it. Of course from that point forward, my life changed and I could move forward on a different gender path. 

Forward had it's own set of challenges. One aspect I was really successful at was accomplishing two things at once such as going to the grocery store. By doing so, I was accomplishing a task which most women do again as my feminine self. From there I was able to expand my horizons to other venues such as antique malls where I could admire myself in the old mirrors and at the same time shop for a gift for my second wife. The effort was especially valuable around the Christmas season. 

All along, my experiences were adding to my overall confidence in my new exciting life. Even though, I did not really approve of or buy into the concept of passing, I did approve of blending into the world as part of my transgender womanhood. I was cherishing the time I spent in my new life and increasingly hating any of the time I needed to go back to my old male ways. I was fascinated with how quickly I was adjusting to my new feminine ways. The entire process proved to me I should have been living this way all this time.

Still, I had big tests to pass. It seemed I was going back to school and everytime I passed one test, there was another to go. Another one I just went through was having a mammogram. As I wrote yesterday, mammogram day was upon me again and the nurse could not have been nicer. She asked me about my family history with breast cancer and we went on from there without any invasive questions. She was much better than the nurse last year who acted as if I was some sort of bother.

To arrive at the point I am today, I needed to pass the communication test. There was a time when I would be shy and reluctant to look another woman in the eye when I was talking to her. With quite a bit of practice and trial and error, I found myself enjoying the interaction with other women. I have passed the gender test.

Of course life will always present other challenges around blind corners. I just hope I am up to the challenge, especially when someday I know I will have to face off with a transphobic person. In the mean time, I will do the best I can to pass the big tests when I can. It all continues to be so different than back in the male days when I could simply try to out bluster the other guy. Over the years, I have had so many knives I have pulled out of my back from other women, I think I am ready for more claw marks.

It's Mammogram Day

 

JJ Hart, image from Columbus, Ohio.

Once a year, my doctor puts in a request for a mammogram screening for me. Mainly because breast cancer runs in the family. My maternal grandmother died of it back in the 1950's when I was quite young. 

If you have never experienced a mammogram, there is some minor discomfort involved but nothing major. In fact, I consider the whole procedure to be a rite of passage of sorts for me into my own transgender womanhood .Even though I have a difficult remembering for sure, I think this is at least my sixth or seventh mammogram. So by now, I have a very good idea of what I am facing. 

For the most part, I have been met with an inclusive caring staff and have had only only one experience with an unpleasant nurse who asked me vague questions about if I had any work done down below. Like it was any of her business one way or another. She was border line evil and happily I have never seen her again. Anymore questions like that and I would have had to report her.

I am going to a new, closer hospital today for the test and I will be interested to see how it goes. Plus it could be my last breast test because of my age. My Doctor said no one gets them anymore past the age of seventy five. So I guess when you get old, you are on your own. Regardless, I am hoping for a clear mammogram today since my blood work did not come back so good. I have an appointment with hematology coming up in mid November. Even though I want to worry about it, I am trying my best not to build any un-necessary bridges to jump off of before I need to. 

I know this is a short post but I need to get ready to go here fairly soon. It's a fairly rapid procedure, so I should have most of the results back today.  

Turning Your Gender Corner

 

Image from the JJ Hart Archives.

As I made my way towards coming out of my closet and living as a transgender woman, I found I had many corners to navigate.

At first the corners were easy to take on but then became progressively more difficult as I moved closer to my impossible dream of escaping my male life. Through out the fifty years I lived as a serious cross dresser, it seemed I spent too much time researching to see if a life as my authentic femininized self was even possible. What was I going to do about a disapproving group of family, friends and bosses. All corners I needed to see around and judge what was next. 

At times, a few of the corners were more frustrating than others. My primary example always is when I spent years thinking my appearance as a woman (trans or not) was the all important driving factor in how I lived. There was so much more to being a woman than just how I looked. Appearance did open or close many doors but it was only the start. Also, as the internet began to have an impact in my life, I started to research more and more about what the new transgender term was all about and how did it define me. Initially, I thought it did because when I went to transgender - cross dresser mixers I did not mix well with the transvestites and leaned towards the transsexuals in the groups. I was somewhere in between and it was evident to me I had many more corners to turn before I discovered where I wanted to be.

Looking back, during that time in my life, I was gender fluid but had no way to express it. 

As I did begin to aggressively pursue my gender path, I needed to put all the labels behind me and try to determine if my dreams were indeed reachable. Right or wrong, I began to slip out of the house when my wife was at work to live an entire whole new existence as a woman. To do so, there were many blind corners I needed to face, Perhaps the biggest one was when other women wanted to strike up a conversation with me. I found they would start innocently enough with a small compliment on a facet of my wardrobe such as ear-rings and move on from there. Fortunately, most of the conversations were innocent enough as most of the women just were curious about what I was doing in their world. After the first shock of having to communicate in a brand new world, I actually turned the corner and began to appreciate the attention I was getting. I never had that amount of attention from women in my male life. The roles were reversed because I was receiving little to no attention from any of the men I met.  

Even though sometimes we follow similar paths as transgender women and trans men, the gender curves and corners are vastly different. We all have spouses or girlfriends who provide various levels of support or push-back. Often the push-back leads to mental health stress all the way to suicide attempts. 

Through therapy, often turning the gender corners you face may be easier. I know in my case, a mixture of going out on my own to start a new life along with therapy to do away with the old one worked for me. 

Now, at my age of seventy-five, I have come to realize the gender corners I will have to face will always be there as I face the possibility of advanced elderly assisted living. It all seems just a part of the problems we face as transgender women and trans men. 

Intimidating Women

Library of Congress 
image from 
UnSplash.

During my life, surprisingly so, I have encountered many intimating cis-women. 

Probably the most intimidating of all was my Mom, a dynamo at a mere five foot two inches tall.  From early as I can remember, we clashed on many different issues probably because we were so much alike. On the girl side, I was fascinated from a young age when I watched her skill with makeup and hair. I could only dream of ever duplicating her prowess. Of course I would never get the chance for her to ever see the fashion skills I finally developed as the daughter she thought she never had. 

As I grew up, my intimidation of girls of all kinds increased. I was so jealous of their ability to dress in pretty clothes and wear makeup continued. In addition, I was so shy, I was afraid to communicate with girls at all. So my problems continued to get worse. I never had the chance to circle back to where I began. All the time I was cross dressing in front of the mirror, it was a very solitary, lonely experience as I craved the peer feedback other girls my age had to work with. 

The older I became, the more I admired women who were stronger and spoke their minds. You might say I was intimidated in the most positive ways by strong women. I was even attracted to them to the point I chose one for my second wife who I was married to for twenty five years. Even though she knew I was a cross dresser from the very beginning, somehow I secretly thought she would help me with my on-going quest to be a feminine person. She never really did help me much and very much resisted any ideas I had I was a transgender woman. 

Perhaps I am attracted to strong successful women because I wish I was one. I so admired the women managers I worked with because of all the extra skills they had to use to be successful. Most if not all of them had families to support at the same time they worked a full-time job. I was in the restaurant business and some of my best kitchen managers were women who dealt with macho kitchen crews. 

Being a transgender woman, I think sometimes I intimidate other women. Sometimes they seem to melt with kindness such as the hostess last week when my wife Liz and I went out for my birthday dinner. She was beside herself to make sure we were satisfied with our experience. As I can remember, intimidation on my part of a guy was when I was shopping at a grocery store years ago for the families groceries. In those days, a fashionable woman who had the legs wore an oversize sweater with flats and a mini -skirt, so I did on that day. As I chose our food, I tried to contain my fear in checking out, I found I was wrong.  As it turned out, the store was nearly empty and only had one check-out lane open with a woman cashier and a male bagger. 

It turned out, I really intimidated the bagger, he blushed and stuttered when he asked me if I needed help taking my bags to my car. I looked at the cashier and him when I said I didn't and she gave me a slight knowing smile. I wondered then, if she knew I was transgender at the time or not. Regardless, it was quite the experience. 

It wasn't until I transitioned into a feminine world as a trans woman did I fully understand all the nuances of what it takes to be an intimidating woman. For example, some women use their heels to begin the process. Heels give a shorter woman a height advantage to be able to compete with the men in their world. Plus, these days, more and more young women are becoming educated to give themselves an extra advantage in the world. 

It turns out, in my life, intimidating women are becoming the norm as the future is female. 

 

Connecting the Gender Dots

 

JJ Hart, from
the archives.

Many outside of the LGBTQ community, or more precisely the transgender community, think connecting the dots between male and female is as simple as putting on a dress and makeup.

One of the problems is, in order to  walk a mile in our transgender shoes, you have to learn to tie the laces first. Very few people have the patience or understanding to do it. The complexity of gender scares most people off. They think gender is cut and dried but is the opposite. 

Even those in the community have a difficult time connecting the dots and don't realize that even if we have similarities as trans women or trans men, we have just as many differences. Obstacles such as male lives, spouses and sexuality face us as the next dot to connect becomes bigger and bigger or worse yet out of reach.

During my male to female transition, many times, connecting the dots seemed downright impossible and I would never be able to move ahead in my life. My primary problem was my spouse and my male  self were standing directly in my path to gender realization and they would not move or give up their spot in my life. What I did in the meantime, was fall back into a more realistic journey to the next gender dot. An example would be when I began to get out of the non challenging mall shopping experiences and into actual interaction with the public as a transgender woman. 

Many times, the dots would totally fool me when I totally had a mis-conception of what a woman's life would be like. For some reason, I did not think I would be the one whose personal security would be challenged or my intelligence would be diminished when I jumped the gender border into trans womanhood. I was wrong in my judgement and needed to rapidly rethink my path to another dot. Of course I always knew women's lives were much more complex than men's but I did not really know until I succeeded in connecting my dots. 

The frustrating part of my whole experience was two-fold. The first part was I needed to accomplish it on my own with no help and the second part was everytime I thought I had accomplished something, immediately it seemed I needed to accomplish another milestone or dot on my gender journey. It was not until I was accepted in a small tight knit group of women friends did I really begin to make progress in the world. I learned through them, I could validate myself in the world as a trans woman without the help of much of the public, including men. Connecting these dots made my life fun again and so liberating. 

I can not begin to completely describe my experience connecting my own dots because they could be so much different than yours. The one thing we may have in common is, in order to have success in the world, you have to summon the courage to put yourself out there. Of course the problem these days is the concern for your personal safety. You have to be very careful, be aware of your surroundings as any other woman would and connect your dots the right way.       

 

A Cajun Night Out

Ohio River Pride Image
of Author JJ Hart

Recently I passed my seventy fifth birthday. To have a mini celebration, my wife Liz took me to one of our favorite restaurants which happens to be a Cajun food place called the "Swamp Water Grille." 

Even though we live miles and miles away from Cajun country, the chef/owner of the venue studied down in New Orleans and his food is incredible. Before I could get to the food, I had to go through the usual steps most women go through to get themselves ready. Since we just finished watching the Ohio State - Iowa college football game and the venue is quite casual, Liz and I decided to wear our Ohio State University sweatshirts. In addition, I added a close shave, foundation, contouring and lipstick and was ready to go after I brushed and tied back my hair. 

As I prepared, I realized I was putting the effort in to be invisible in the venue but I wasn't. For some unknown reason, I went first to the hostess stand to put our name in on the wait sheet. The first thing which happened was the hostess gave me a big smile and complimented me on my glasses so I was not so invisible after all. She was obviously of the younger generation which does not have a problem with transgender women or men so I felt warmly welcomed to the venue. Not to mention feeling a little relieved of my anxiety I was experiencing. I was further confused because I had been at the venue before with no problems what so ever. It is just a sample of the anxiety I live with. 

From there, it was clear sailing and no one seemed to notice me at all. They were all so busy with enjoying their food, friends and surroundings they did not have time for me. The only person who we were dealing with was our server who addressed us as "ladies." Which is wonderful of course. I went through so many years of disavowing my true authentic self, I don't think I will ever tire of being referred to in the feminine tense. 

As we finished our wonderful dinner and drinks, it was time to bring the evening to an end and we headed to the car. Ironically, I felt the benefits of being largely invisible to the world as an older transgender woman while at the same time being very visible to myself. It seemed everyone of my senses were heightened as I waited for someone to stare at me and say something negative. I guess no matter how successful I am in my relatively new life, I will always experience the stress and tension of be confronted in my life.

In the meantime, a little (or lot) of great Cajun cooking helped me to experience a huge dose of gender euphoria. The best gift I could have ever experienced.
    

What If?

 

Marci Bowers

As I spent all the years as a very serious cross dresser, I dreamed of perhaps becoming a transgender woman and what it would be like to live a feminine life.

For many, many years I was my own worst enemy as I learned the parameters of what I needed to work with. First of all, I needed to play catch up with all the girls around me who were already experimenting with makeup and fashion. I remember vividly back in the mini-skirt days how the girls in my class would not so shyly sit and cross their legs to tease all the boys. Little did they know, the affect they had on several boys such as me. I wanted to be them and wear the skirt and panty hose and tease the boys.  I was so envious of the stories my wife told me of how she would roll up her skirt when she went to school and was out of sight of her Mom. 

I always wondered what if I could ever escape the mirror and experience life the same way she did. Of course I did not and had to set my own course. A course with no guidance or peer pressure on how I looked. What if I could live as a woman remained an illusive dream. To keep my frail mental health balanced, I tried to improve my presentation on my own  As I am fond of saying, I experienced quite a bit more error than trial as I slowly learned to express and embrace myself as a novice transgender woman. To add to my excitement, my wife and I purchased our first computer and I was able to learn about other transgender women in the world. 

One of trans women I learned about and was suggested to me by a reader (thank you) was renowned sex change surgeon Marci Bowers. Even though I knew I would never consider gender surgery for myself. Just reading Bowers journey gave me hope for my future.  My fondest desire her story would pave the way for an easier gender transition for the rest of us. 

I followed my new found confidence by exploring more and more as I tried  to carve out a niche to build my dream life. Even though I was rejected on many occasions, I still managed to climb the steep slope towards my transgender dream which was coming into focus. The main discovery I made was if I was myself, I could actually have the opportunity to live on into trans womanhood. If I did, I knew the risks were great and I was jeopardizing years of male life I had sacrificed to build up. 

Still I learned I had to follow my inner soul and see what if meant to me. Since I had worked so hard to climb dual gender mountains in my life, it was time to jump and head for a hopeful safe landing.  Even though I could never hope to be as accomplished and attractive as an Marci Bowers, I discovered just enough people valued me as my authentic self, I could survive. These were the people who never knew my before person and I was starting all over with. 

Even though I was still doing the pushing, they were the ones doing the pulling me into my new world. Proving what if was possible. 

The Sixty Four Crayon Box

Image from Leisy Vidal on UnSplash

I view gender in light of all the recent attacks  on the transgender community from a certain political party here in Ohio not called the Democrats, as a big box of crayons. The whole shameful process just shows how little the Republicans care to know about the trans community,

Rather, if they like it or not, almost all humans fall on some sort of a gender spectrum. It seems, men have fewer crayons to pick from because of their innate insecurities concerning their own gender and or sexuality. Which is a whole separate subject.

I know when I began to color in my own life, I needed the big box of crayons because I did not fit the male mold I was in. Whatever the world thought of me, I needed more out of my life than a restricted male existence. Instead of viewing myself as the round peg being forced into the square hole, I started to see myself as a multi-colored individual with many new gender frontiers to explore. My journey was destined to take me far past the rather quick romance with all the pretty fashion, all the way into a in-depth dive into what a life as a transgender woman would be all about. As I was busy coloring my future, I found I needed different colors to enable me to express myself more completely.

Examples were plentiful. Such as when I looked the part of a woman, how was I ever going to communicate as one. I was so busy coloring, I needed a whole new box of crayons to keep up with my life I was attempting to balance between two genders. To further stereotype the whole process, I quit using all the drab and darker colors and began to use the lighter more vibrant ones as I lived more and more in a femininized world.

The more I went to diverse transgender mixers in nearby Columbus, Ohio, the more I learned about others who were coloring in their gender lives too. I was able observe everyone from those who had almost completed their new lives, all the way to those who were working with broken crayons and severely struggling. All of it was an extreme eye opener for me because I was so naïve when it came to the transgender or LGBTQ world as a whole. Normally what happened was, I took everything in and ended up going back home and thinking about it. A solitary pursuit since I did not have anyone to talk to about it except for the occasional therapist. 

Therapy produced mixed results when several I went to did not want to discuss or see my colored design of who I truly was. It wasn't until I sought out one of the rare gender therapists back then who told me the truth. Basically, she said my picture was beautiful and there was nothing I could do about wanting to proceed on my path to transgender womanhood. I wish I would have listened and started to change my life back then but I was stubborn and hung on to my part-time male existence which at the least, paid the bills. 

As transgender women and men, we really need the extra courage to keep coloring our pictures. For example, in my case, if my health holds up, I will be on gender affirming hormones the rest of my life. Hopefully, I will need another sixty four box of crayons as my life expands as a transgender woman.

 

The Rock and the Hard Place

 

Image from
the JJ Hart
Archives

Recently, I received a comment from a reader who said in essence, I was too hard on my second wife when I mentioned her.

After thinking the comment over, I can see why it was made. First, some quick history. My second wife and I were married for nearly twenty five years until her sudden and untimely death at the age of fifty. She knew I was a transvestite or cross dresser when we were married and accepted it up to a point. The demarcation line was always HRT or me pursuing  a life as a transgender woman. For years it was fine with me as she approved me going to a motel to cross dress and go out into the world. We had an uneasy gender truce and I ended up abusing it.

The problem was, I always blamed myself for our gender problems because naturally, they all originated with me. Primarily when I began to break the promise I made to never leave the house dressed as my feminine self. Of course, I eventually was caught and all hell broke lose. She was a strong woman and knew how to emotionally battle me. She was the rock keeping me from my increasingly obtainable goal of trans-womanhood and I was in the hard place of knowing deep down it was where my life was headed.

Along the way, my second wife imparted good information about being a woman but withheld other very important facts. She would just tell me I made a terrible woman and then adding in she was not implying anything about my appearance. Leaving me to wonder for years what she meant. Mainly I found my old male ego was still in the way of my gender progress to the future. It wasn't until she had passed on and I took the opportunity to really explore the world as a transgender woman, did I understand what she meant. I finally had to walk the walk and talk the talk to move my hard place along. Femininization was difficult yet exciting for me on many occasions.

My second wife also tried to tell me to follow my dreams and give up our relationship but I still tried to have it both ways which just made things worse. She knew me better than I knew myself. 

So, as you can tell, I owe her quite a bit and wonder if we could have at least arrive to a point where we could have been woman friends. I obviously don't say it enough if I am receiving comments to the contrary. I also don't praise the cis-women who stay in marriages with their transgender spouses. I know if the shoe was on the other foot, I would have an incredibly difficult time accepting a trans spouse. As my wife said, living with another woman  was something she never signed up for. 

The rock and the hard place cost me dearly over the years. The pressure of attempting to maintain a relationship and a male life with the increasing knowledge it was all a lie built up an enormous amount of pressure and all but ruined my fragile mental health. I resorted to trying to drink away my problems to no avail and just became more depressed. I was not freed until I basically had nothing else to lose after her death. Once I was freed, I could look back on our relationship for what it was and all the good times we had and how I basically hurt it all.

The Fear Factor

 

Will Farrell and Harper Steele

I suppose my life is not much different than many others, transgender or not. Along the way, we need to deal with certain fears to succeed.

Early on in life as a novice or beginning cross dresser, I needed to deal with the basic fear of being discovered which had the chance to destroy my life as I knew it. Then, as I grew enamored with the view of myself in the mirror as a girl, I always feared for the next time I could do it. 

Now, as the calendar switches over to October, many memories of Halloween fear invade my thoughts. I don't mean spooky movies or haunted houses, I mean finally having the chance of exploring the world as my girl self at parties. When I did find and hitch up my big girl panties and dressed to the nines as a woman in front of friends, I was very afraid I would lose my man card along with the male privileges I enjoyed. 

Along the way, I enjoyed a few exciting Halloween parties when it took several days for the people around me to quit joking with me about my "costume'." All in all, I think shaving my legs for the parties separated me out as being more than a fun casual cross dresser who was doing my outfit as some sort of a joke.  At least I received compliments about how good my legs did look, which made the comments so worthwhile. My overall remembrances of how Halloween kicked started my entry into the world will be examined in depth here as we come closer to the Halloween date itself.

The more I followed my instincts into the world as a transgender woman, the more fear I felt on many occasions. I had so much on the line such as losing my family, friends and employment to name a few. It would be easier to say, I was risking everything and I was scared. The way I dealt with it was, I tried to take the transition process one step at a time, keeping one foot in one gender world and one in another so if I ever could go back to one or the other I could. 

The more I tried my grand gender plan, the more flawed I found it to be. The problem was all the benefits of the plan began to lean towards the feminine side of my life. I was excited yet felt so natural when I was out in the world as a transgender woman, no matter how scared I still felt on occasion. Normally what was happening was, I found a kind giving person who was able to calm my fears. I was so fortunate as I always say.

These days my fears come from all the blatant political lies I see from the political party of hate against transgender women (mainly). Here in Ohio we have a Democratic senator who is running for reelection. The lies against him are ridiculous and instead of examining the true issues, all the ad says is Sherrod Brown is for false transgender issues. The only light I see is the feedback from the Will Ferrell documentary "Will and Harper." It is on Netflix. 

Another small positive I see is when other transgender women and men are able to be in the public's eye, we immediately battle all of the false rhetoric about us. We are just normal people trying to live our lives like everyone else. The fear factor can decrease in intensity the more you are able to live your life. In many ways, I am still the same young girl admiring myself in the families hallway mirror but in so many other ways, as I was propelled forward by my fears, I have learned so much good about life. 

A Genderless Journey

Image from the 
Jessie Hart
Archives

Recently I needed to take our car to the oil change place to get the transmission fluid replaced. 

In the past I have written concerning my paranoia of going to male dominated places. Since normally I am the only feminine person at the oil change place, the usual paranoia set in. The last time I was there, I was called "Ma'am" several times and had no gender problems so I did not really expect anything else this time. 

To prepare, I shaved closely, put on my foundation and contour blush with lipstick and was ready to go after tying my long hair back. Off I went to get the car serviced hoping I would not be mis-gendered. 

It turned out all my paranoia was baseless. I was treated with respect and not referred to as sir. Plus it turned out the whole process needed much more work than a simple oil change. So the manager was very much involved in the process. At times, he was so involved I wondered if he was trying to impress me. He even went as far as helping me turn off the "perform maintenance soon warning" off. Maybe I was the recipient of female privilege. Or, I needed help and he volunteered. 

Very soon the process was over and I was free to go (after I paid) and it was time to go through the drive thru of our favorite coffee place for a treat. The pressure was off and once again I wondered why I got so worried about going at all. Looking back, I have never experienced any negative feedback when I have gone to male dominated spaces. I guess I am afraid of being taken advantage of. When most of the time the opposite has happened. For the most part, men have bent over backwards to help me.

Maybe I will never change but I doubt it because the transition scars  run too deep. My gender dysphoria ran too deep as a transgender woman. It could be time to change my own oil.   

Welcome to Reality

Out with my girls. Liz on left, Andrea on
right.

I worked very hard to get to the point where I could live as a transgender woman. 

Once I began to arrive, I understood the real work was still ahead. When I finally began to establish myself as a new person, I needed to start all over again. It primarily affected me when I was in a conversation with other women, since men barely talked to me at all. Main examples came when I was invited to several girl's nights out. I learned to interject my family experiences in the older group of women. Instead of saying I was specifically a mother or a father in my life, I said I was a parent to a daughter I was very proud of. By doing so I was able to become an active participant in the give and take women use to communicate when there are no men around. 

It was all a great learning experience for me as I was building my confidence to stay out in public and slip behind the feminine gender curtain. For the most part, I found acceptance except from a few women in the older group who did not accept me. All the younger women did accept me for who I was and I enjoyed going out with them immensely. Since they were all younger and more attractive than I was, they attracted all of the attention, leaving me basically to fend for myself which was fine. It was only the reality of being in the feminine world setting in. 

I also had to deal with a big dose of impostor syndrome when I went behind the gender curtain. I needed to keep telling myself I belonged with a group of women while I was doing it. Following many battles with myself, I finally came to the conclusion even though my path to womanhood was different than most of the world, I still followed a difficult path to arrive where I wanted to. Plus, I needed to remember, being born female did not necessarily entitle a person to being a woman. It was a social title not a biological one. When I arrived at that point, the reality of my situation was easier to understand.

The more I worked on the new me, the better life became. I felt natural when I slipped behind the gender curtain and for the first time in my life, I could say I was happy. Mainly because all of the gender tension I felt attempting to fill an unwanted male role was over. Understanding all the differences between the two main binary genders was never easy but for the first time in my life, I attacked a problem head on and did not try to run behind makeup and a dress to escape. I was the one in makeup and a dress and I had to make it work.

I was fortunate in the fact my inner feminine soul had been watching and learning all along. She was just counting the days until she could take control and quit fighting my male self for domination. Once she was free, activities such as girl's nights out were just icing on the cake. 

Once I discovered my feminine reality and was able to live my truth as a transgender woman, life was so much easier.

Quickly, on another topic, I have decided to go to another LGBTQ Veterans support group meeting coming up soon. I have been to two now and they have been tolerable. The only real problem I have had is explaining what I did in the Army because I was in the American Forces Radio and Television Service. A very small segment of the Army. So, you needed to be deployed overseas to be exposed to AFRTS at all anyhow. During the last group meeting, I think I at least was able to explain what I did in the service and I was in way before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military LGBT policy was in effect. It is all so difficult to explain but the moderator seems to want me there, so I am on the week to week participation plan. Past that, we shall see how it goes.    

  

I Knew my Life had ro Change

Pride Image from Christian Lue
on UnSplash.

As I grew more proficient in the art of feminine makeup and fashion, the possibility of leading a feminine life grew more and more feasible. 

When it did, I experienced certain moments of knowing I could never go back to my male life and I was lying to myself if I thought I could. Still I was stubborn and refused to listen and I was uncontrollable in my search for my true gender. I resorted to self destructive behavior such as self medicating my mental health with alcohol. 

An example was when I cross dressed and went out into the world. What happened was I was emboldened when I drank to do more. I chose and was accepted in a few venues I was used to going to as a guy. Even though I was radiating with anxiety, I managed to calm down and change the way I was thinking. I went from thinking I was trying to get by in the world as a man cross dressed as a woman to thinking I was actually a transgender woman trying to find herself in the world. It was a dramatic change to say the least and quite a bit to comprehend. Specifically, I remember vividly the night in question as once I arrived as a transgender woman, the more I knew I could never return. 

Return I never did. I was firmly occupied in my quest to be the best trans woman I could be. Including researching what my second wife was telling me. She kept saying I made a terrible woman which had nothing to do with my appearance. It had everything to do with how I conducted myself in a new feminine world which I learned I knew nothing about. No one would let me behind the gender curtain until I made the first move. The move meant so much more than just obsessing on how I looked and went into how I acted as the new feminine person I desperately wanted to be. The learning process turned out to be more intricate than I ever imagined. 

Time and time again, communication skills stood firmly in my way when a stranger (mostly other women) wanted to invade my little world. I don't know what I thought was going to happen but what did happen startled me. I needed to do my best to talk to the world as a transgender woman. Matching my external self with what my internal self was feeling. No longer could I try to render myself invisible and visible at the same time. No more going out to buy myself a drink and enjoying it by myself. I think now the last time I did it was when I treated myself to a date night as a woman. I went to an outdoor concert one night to watch an aging blues rock and roll star. I managed to have an enjoyable time and knew right then I had made the right decision and I would not be attending any other events as my old male self.

I knew my life had to change and I was changing it. At times, the process seemed to be agonizingly slow but at others, so fast I wondered if I could handle it. I weathered all the changes and turned them into progresses. I procrastinated my final changes as long as I could. I quit lying to myself and jumped off the gender cliff. Never to return to a male world I never should have been in to begin with. Gender affirming hormones sealed the deal and my body took to them as if they always should have been a part of me. Finally, it never occurred to me the feminine hormones may have somehow been a part of me to begin with.

Maybe the hormones were to blame for a lifetime of gender stress and tension. I will be the last to know.     

Broken

 

Ohio River image from the
Archives of Jessie Hart.

I am selfish, I want all the time back when I felt I was broken somehow because of my gender issues or dysphoria. 

The way I look at it, I lost years when I stressed over what gender I wanted to be in my day to day life. If I just had a portion of it back how much more I could have accomplished. 

I guess the problem would have been, if I had followed my truth, how many barriers outside of my control would have been placed in my way to stop my progress. For example, I can not imagine any scenario where my parents would have accepted me switching over from my boy self to live as a girl. The best case would have been endless, fruitless trips to a therapist who knew little to nothing about gender issues and back in those days, I would have been labeled with some sort of a mental illness.

If I had gone the route of trying to live as my authentic feminine self at an early age, I would have been broken to start with and have had no chance to change it. So, I needed to develop ways to cope with my broken situation. Early on, I resorted to wearing what I could of my Mom's clothes and buying my own makeup to experiment with. It was a fairly easy fix to get me by until I could risk my life by trying to cross dress again. If I was caught, I knew all hell would break loose in my family. Somehow, I hid my emotions and desires and got by.

As the years flew by, I became used to feeling broken and so alone in my gender issues. I had only one friend who seemed to feel the same way and he ended up moving several states away before I could find out if he shared my desire to be feminine. I ended up with another dead end and feeling broken again.

Fortunately, all this negativity has a good ending. I finally learned I was not broken at all. Society was and all I had to do was learn to exist in my own little transgender world. Not to say, the whole process did not take a tremendous amount of work but it all turned out to be a singular gender effort which was so worth it. Plus, I needed to remove the chip from my shoulder I felt from worrying about all the time I had wasted in my life before I made the all out effort to femininize myself and live my truth. Time is nothing you can ever get back, so I hoped I could learn from my losses. 

I had so much help along the way when I became older and more secure in my gender. Hopefully they all realized I was not trying to live a lie and just was trying to get by and it was the reason we all could become friends. During our lives, we meet so many people who are just passing through and a few leave lasting impressions, I was just lucky I met positive ones. People who showed me I was not broken and never had been.

Kissing as a Contact Sport

Image from Brian Kyed 
on UnSplash

As a transgender woman, I have been at the crossroad many times of to kiss or not to kiss.

Before I proceed, I need to point out, all of this happened before I moved in over ten years ago with my wife Liz here in Cincinnati. 

The first time I was almost kissed as a woman was when I was entrapped by a much bigger than me trans admirer at a small party my second wife and I attended in nearby Columbus, Ohio. He cornered me in a small hallway and for the first time in my life I felt powerless to fend off another human being. Before he came in for a kiss, or so much more, I was rescued by my wife who told me not to wear such a leg revealing dress anyway with my long blond wig. Of course I did not listen and paid the price later on the way home.

Along the way, as I transitioned, I did kiss a few men, mainly to see what it was like. I was attempting to see if my sexuality was going to change with my gender or not. The interactions were few and included two date nights in the regular venues I went to plus another with a guy I met in a coffee shop. The dates ended up being one time affairs which was sad because I had a good time being validated as a woman by a guy but the coffee shop guy turned out to be multiple meetings before we went to his house. We did kiss passionately before he let it slip out he was married. When he did, I slipped out the front door, never to return. 

The only other man I had a crush on and wished he had kissed me was the big burly, motorcycle rider I befriended after his very short lived marriage to a woman I knew briefly. It turned out I was the only one in the group who didn't disown him and we became friends. But not good enough to be asked to ride on the back of his bike or be kissed. Very soon after I got to know him, he transferred jobs and I never saw him again.

From then on, it was back to kissing women for me. During the lesbian mixers I went to, I was kissed by several women I did not know and I was flattered. Along the way also, I did sneak a kiss in with my two party women friends and one was very sweet. Again, sadly a future relationship with all its complications was not to be and we both moved on but still stay in touch to this day.

All in all, kissing a man turned out to be a duty for me. Something which should be done in return for validating me as a woman. But the overall thrill or charge wasn't there to enable me to want to change my overall sexuality. Plus, I did learn how frustrating it could be to be wanted and not the person who was the pursuer. I found the other gender grass was not always greener, especially when I was basically trapped by a person much larger and stronger than me. 

It was all a lifetime learning experience of learning the ins and outs of kissing another person from both sides of the gender border. I learned my preference was always kissing a woman. As a woman. Especially when gender affirming hormones' gifted me with my own set of breasts to enjoy. Kissing as a contact sport became more fun.

Gender Prison

Image from Denis Oliveria
om UbSplsh

Many transgender women and trans men have spent numerous years in their own gender prisons. Sometimes referred to as closets. 

Unless you have had to spend time in your own prison with the walls closing in all the time, you have no idea of how bad it is. Just another proof being transgender is some sort if a choice. Why would we ever choose to possibly destroy ourselves with our gender issues. It all got to the point with me, I was doing all I could to manifest myself being as feminine as I could. When all along my male self was telling me I couldn't. 

I finally arrived at the point where I was given free time from my gender prison to explore the world as my new self. When I did, most certainly I discovered I wanted more and more free time. I discovered also, I needed a ton of work to prepare myself for freedom. I was not prepared for all the challenges I would have to face as a novice transgender woman. Since I had spent so much time cross dressing in my life, I thought how much harder could it be. I never factored in what my second wife was always trying to tell me, I did not really know much about being a woman and she was not going to do much to help me out of my gender prison. 

When she told me that, I reverted back to working ever harder to understand what she meant. Since I had studied women closely my entire life, I resolved myself to trying to get behind the feminine curtain to learn more. It would take me years to get there since it seemed I was living a life time sentence in my gender prison. Outside of a few varied chances to thrive, my prison seemed to be escape proof. How was I ever able to leave my prison without jeopardizing all the white male privileges I had worked so hard for such as family, friends and employment. It seemed the more I tried to escape, the more the walls closed in on me.

Once I staged my big gender prison break, there was no turning back. I discovered that even though my wife would not help me pull back the feminine gender curtain, other women would and I took advantage of their kindness. Even when I was able to, I found I was still looking over my shoulder for any male prison guards who were chasing me. It turned out, even in heels, I was faster than they were and I managed to outrun my naysayers which mainly was myself. 

With practice in the world, I finally put my prison time behind me and I set out to live my dream life as a fulltime transgender woman. One way or another, I had paid my gender dues for nearly half a century before I had the courage to fully transition. It felt so good to be let out of my gender prison and not have to go back. 

My parole officers turned out to be the women friends I found and cherished as I learned so much from them about living in a feminine world. When I used their input and included it with what my own inner woman was telling me, I was able to make a smooth transition even smoother. Plus, I was able to use my prison time as a powerful motivator of what not to do in the world. Even as a man, I tried to treat women differently than the other men around me. Mainly because I wanted so badly to be one of them. 

In the end, spending all the time in my gender prison did not do much for my life. I spent so much mental energy rebelling against my male world, I often wonder how much farther I could have gone if I had used all my resources. It wasn't to be because I was in my own gender prison and could not find the key.

Transgender Cheating

Image from Club Diversity 
Columbus, Ohio.

 I can safely say, I never cheated with another person during my twenty five year marriage to my second wife.

Before I put myself up on some unneeded pedestal, I have to temper my statement of cheating with saying I only cheated on my wife with one person, who was me. Why I say it is because the more I grew as a transgender woman, the more I grew apart from my wife. When I did, I started increasingly to leave the house as my feminine self to see if I could make it in the world. 

Of course, I did and when I was successful, I wanted more and more and I simply could not turn back into my male world. The more I celebrated my new world, it was done completely away from my wife. Which was a shame. I also define cheating as me going against the basic agreement we made which said I would never leave the house cross dressed as a woman. In fairness to her, she bent over backwards to make it happen. Even to the point of letting me go to a motel a couple times a week, so I could safely cross dress and explore the world. 

Even the motel agreement was not good enough for me. Very soon going out anytime my wife was working became the norm for me. My life suddenly became exciting and way too natural for me to ever return. 

The closest I ever came to really cheating came was with an encounter one night with a lesbian in a venue I was a regular in. She bought me a beer and told me she should take me home with her, which was flattering but scary since I needed to beat my wife home from work. There were a few other times my flirting almost got me into trouble mainly with other women but I never went forward with any personal contact.

Since my wife passed away very unexpectedly at the age of fifty from a massive heart attack, my vow never to cheat remained secure. Even my male self managed to never pursue any of the impossibly attractive servers he hired in his restaurants he ran. I was very proud of all of it but never was I proud of needing to lie and try to tell my wife to her face I was not going out on her with another woman. Which happened to be me. If I would have been truthful with both of us, I would left my male self behind long ago and set out to live a feminine one as a transgender woman. I was selfish and wanted to try to preserve what I had earned as a guy. The upside came when my girl self had been put into a brief submission and I enjoyed my time with my life more deeply. The downside came when the friction between my gender issues made my life nearly unbearable. 

I guess, deep down I knew my wife was ill and for the six months before she passed, I grew a beard and purged some of my feminine wardrobe. The final six were some of the most miserable I had ever faced but little did I know, it was going to get much worse before it was going to get better. Basically, through death and loss, the only strong influence on my life I had left came from my feminine self. She wrapped me in her soft arms and let me know everything was going to be alright. Her influence and my overall belief in what was right, tiding me over until my current wife Liz came into my life and reaffirmed my idea I was stubborn enough to live through my issues. Liz told me all she had ever seen in me was female and it was all it took for me to go wholeheartedly into doing away with my male self. 

I will forever be proud of the time I spent being faithful as my male self to my second wife and, on the other hand, be totally ashamed of myself of how my feminine self handled her life with my wife. Non unlike two strong women locked in a struggle. 

My excuse is I was learning my new life as a transgender woman and until I fully understood it, I was petrified of moving along.

   

Trans Weariness

A night out with my wife Liz on left.

Over the span of my life, I have gone through more than a few bouts of weariness.

I was especially tired of being made fun of when it took me many trips to the clothing stores to finally find the correct fashion so I could blend in with other women well enough to get by. Marching to the beat of my own fashion drum was certainly not getting the results I wanted. It got so bad, strangers were stopping me in stores to ask for pictures and not in a good way.

I kept working through all the dark days until the gender clouds parted and I could actually see glimpses of my authentic feminine self. The whole process now happily seems so far away but the process still scars me in so many ways. Especially all the times, I came home in tears following being laughed at after my mirror had lied to me and told me I was an amazing woman. It took me years of work to prove the doubters wrong and I could actually live a successful life as a transgender woman. My biggest problem came from the fact my biggest doubter was my male self. I grew so weary of him telling me I could never live my dream life as a trans woman. 

In many ways too, I grew weary of being a cross dresser and wanted more out of life. It took me trying several terrifying experiences in public to change my mindset around into who I really was. I was right when I was so young when I thought I wanted more than to just look like a woman, I wanted to be a woman. My problem was, life kept getting in my way. Through my formative years of high school and beyond, I had the very real threat of being drafted into the military hanging over my head. Most certainly, I would have a three year break in my quest to determine my gender needs. I was more fortunate than many my age and escaped combat in Vietnam and even got away with coming out for the first time to a few close Army friends after a Halloween party when I told them I was a transvestite. Coming out was an enlightening experience until I was out of the Army and attempted to come out to my Mom. I was roundly rejected and ended back up firmly in my closet. 

In those days, Halloween parties were my salvation from the weariness I felt from everyday male life. Even though they were few and far between, the parties allowed me to get out of the house and interact with the world as a very novice cross dresser or transgender woman. I was able to learn the basics of what I would need to do to survive in a new world I was considering trying. From the Halloween parties I was able to find and participate in transvestite mixers in nearby towns to where I lived. At the social events, I was able to see and interact with others in the cross dressing community so I could judge where I was at and where I wanted to go. When I did, life became less wearisome and I had an exciting reason to look ahead at my next feminine adventure. 

By this time, I was ready to come out of my unwanted male world even further and I was learning so much life took on a new meaning. I learned what transgender meant to me and how I fit in in the trans world which had many layers to it. More than a few of the layers were less than positive and I began to ignore them or called them "trans Nazi's" and rapidly moved on. Basically, they were the people who held their self esteem above others due to the number of gender surgeries they had undergone. Since I had not (and never have) undergone any genital realignment surgeries, they assumed they were better than me. Rejection was quick on my part.

Weariness ceased to be a problem when everytime I went out into the world as a transgender woman I was learning something new. It could be something small such as a fashion error all the way to a huge learning experience of losing my male privilege in personal safety. When I almost ended up hurt. From it all, I ended up learning and doing better.

I guess I should say too, how much my life changed when I started gender affirming hormones. Weariness with my old male self certainly went away as all the changes were different, surprising and rapid. 

Life became like a roller coaster. Once I reached the top and headed down, it was thrilling.