Every Eye was on Me

JJ Hart

 When I was first entering the world as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman, I felt as if every eye was on me.

For the most part, most eyes were on me. Especially from other women. I vividly remember the times I was looked from head to toe by another woman. Slowly but surely, she was undressing every aspect of my fashion and making no secret of it. I thought at the time, I was just being introduced to the aspect of womanhood and to just get used to it.

At the same time, I was working on my overall femininized presentation, I was trying my best to mimic the way women move so I would not appear as a linebacker in drag. My adventures took me as far as trying to walk like a girl in large box stores late at night. I wonder now how many security cameras I made it on trying to perfect my walk. Through it all, I needed to be careful I was not walking the wrong way at the wrong time. Or for example, remember to not try to walk like a woman when I was working as a man. The entire process became more difficult the more I began to split down my time increasingly in favor of being a woman. I started with just cross dressing when I could a few days a week and ended with splitting my time four days a week in a feminine world versus three as a man. The whole process became even more complicated because I was still working my full-time job as a man. Especially when it came time to getting a new pair of glasses and I wanted to change over to feminine frames. 

The most difficult aspect of what I was attempting to do was the mental aspect of trying to juggle both main binary genders. I needed every moment to work on my transition and get used to all the nuances of it. A big portion of the process involved being looked at. At the least, no matter how well I applied my makeup, styled my hair and picked the right clothes for the occasion, I was still a big woman and would naturally attract attention. I attempted to conquer the size issue by losing weight. I responded by losing a significant amount of weight which helped in two ways. I could fit into better fitting women's clothes and at the same time look better when I went through another woman's inspection.

Of course, I was inspected by men too, but the inspection was much simpler, and I knew what it would involve. Women on the other hand, had more to look for since they had experience in the fine points of putting outfits together. At some point in their life, they had to put together everything from shoes to wardrobe to hair to put an outfit together. Since I needed to do it too, I knew what they were looking for and tried to plan for it. My accessories needed to match the rest of my hand-picked outfit to succeed. Even still, the times I went through helped me to prepare my future life as a transgender woman. 

If every eye was going to be on me, I was just going to have to adjust and do the best I could. If it was possible, I would try to thank all those women who looked me up and down. They taught me what I needed to do to succeed in my future. 

Opening Your Eyes

 

Image from Jesper Brouwers
on UnSplash.

I found I needed to be careful as I tried to negotiate a difficult gender path to transgender womanhood. 

Most likely, my eyes were open for the first time when I explored my mom's wardrobe for clothes and makeup I could try and see myself in the family's full length hallway mirror. When I saw myself, my eyes somehow were opened, and I knew I could never go back. Being a so-called normal boy was not going to cut it. 

From my humble beginnings, a small fire within me grew to a point where I knew I could never turn back from at least trying to set feminine goals and living up to them. The problem was, I had no workbook to rely on when the going got rough. I had no girls sleep overs to go to, or a mom to council me on my appearance. It came down to my relying on the mirror to tell me everything I needed to know about my femininized life, and it turned out the mirror could easily lie to me. It would tell me I was pretty, when in fact, I looked like a clown.

Following being rudely rejected by the public, my eyes were finally opened to the fact I needed to make changes in what I was doing if I was ever to survive. Soon I was haunting every nearby thrift store I could find for just the right feminine wardrobe items to add to my closet. It took a while, but I began to turn the corner and began to work my public presentation to a point where I could blend in with the cisgender women around me. My only real problem came when I did not have the finances to purchase the rare item, I thought I needed in the worst way. An example I still remember was a full-length wool powder blue coat I found at a discount coat store. It was in my size, went with my blond wig and I desperately wanted it. Long story short, no matter how many times I went back to the store and admired myself in the mirror, there was simply no way I could buy it. The main problem outside of affording it, was where would I hide it from my wife when I got it home. I needed to give up and move on to a cheaper alternative to keep out the Ohio cold. 

My eyes were really opened when I was allowed behind a rather formidable feminine curtain which women use to protect themselves from men. First of all, I needed to earn my way into their inclusive club by proving I was much more than a casual observer of women and most of all, not another drag queen. Step by step as I earned my way into a new and exciting gender world, I knew I was making the right move away from a male life. Mainly because I felt so natural in my experiences I was having. I cannot say my life was easy back in those days because I was stuck between two genders but on the other hand, each time I reached a new point of success, then I could not ever turn back. Again, because I was feeling I was headed in the right direction. 

Another problem I had during my journey was making sure my vision was correct. It was easy to have 20/20 vision when I was looking at myself in the mirror, but much harder when I was having a conversation with a strange woman. I was burnt many times when my vision of what was going to happen was blurred. 

Each time my eyes were opened, deep down I knew I could never go back. 

Wishes were not Enough

 

Image from Delphina Iacub on UnSplash.

In yesterday's post, I wrote about the amount of time I spent wishing I was a girl as I went about attempting to live a male life.

As I pointed out yesterday, I finally arrived at a point where every spare second, I was becoming dedicated to my pursuit of becoming a girl. Which included watching the girls around me closely at school. I was desperately jealous of their fashion and lifestyle. 

As I became older, in order to survive in the world, I put less time wishing I was feminine and adding more time into actually doing it. Which meant of course I needed to unlock the door to my gender closet and try to enter the world as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. Back in those days, I took a lot of rejection, as I thought I looked like a clown in drag. Stubbornly, I persisted until I could find the right mixture of makeup skill, fashion and wigs. Once I did, my life across a new and exciting gender border became much more satisfying and fun. So much so, I was fooled into thinking my feminized wishes were coming true. 

It was about that time when I hit a gender wall as I found out what my wife was telling me all along, I had a long way to go on my path to transgender womanhood past just looking like a woman. I needed to quit wishing and find out what she was talking about. 

The more I explored the world as a trans woman, the more the world opened to me as gender curtains were pulled back. Of course, I knew cisgender women had their own world to exist in but I did not know how strong and in-depth that world was. For the longest time, my head was spinning as I tried my best to absorb the daily lessons I was learning. Primarily about communication and co-existence with other women on their playing field. Certainly, wishes were not enough when it came to surviving in a woman's world. I found I drew the curiosity of other women who wondered what I was doing in their world, and I had to be better than the average ciswoman just to get by. 

It was about this time; I decided to take a shortcut in my external femininized appearance and research doctors to see if I was healthy enough to begin gender affirming hormones (or HRT). I was, and the hormones almost immediately went about making changes such as softening my skin and producing breasts. All of which helped me to help my presentation skills. Especially, since I did not have any male pattern baldness and quickly was able to grow my own hair out and go wigless. 

I found by this time, wishes did not have to be enough, and I could move up my final transition timeline. Finally, my long-awaited dream could become a reality, and I could put my hated male clothes away forever. Perhaps the best part was, I never wished for him to return.

A Destination or a Journey?

JJ Hart

 Early on when I was stuck in my dark gender closet, I viewed myself on a way to a destination, not much different than a vacation from my male self. 

Then, when I began to experience more "vacations" than I could handle, I began to notice I was on more of a journey than I thought. Looking back, I was missing all of the signs I was much more than a part time crossdresser, pursuing a harmless hobby. The difference always was I wanted to do more than look like a girl, I wanted to be a girl. Needless to say, I spent many hours of my spare time wondering what my true problem was. Time, I wished I could have back. 

Instead of getting any of the time back, I invested it in my femininized appearance in the mirror, and I still thought I was on some sort of a mysterious journey no one else knew anything about. It would be years before I was able to attend transvestite mixers to meet other likeminded people who I thought were on the same path as I. Imagine my shock when I found out I had waited so long to find out I did not fit in well with almost all of the others who were attending the mixer. Somehow, I just still felt different. Probably because most of the attendees viewed themselves as men in dresses and my views of my gender self were just beginning to form and they were so much deeper than thinking I was a man in a dress. 

It was about this time, I realized I was on more of a journey when I began to know transsexual women who were making the ultimate gender step in their life, gender realignment surgery to be exact. I was very intrigued by the idea and deep down I wondered if that was the journey I was headed on. The problem was I was stuck where I was in my male life and was not prepared like my friends were to make such a serious move. To be sure, gender surgery would certainly be a journey for me as I had quite the complex male life I was living and to be truthful, on occasion, I did enjoy the white male privilege I had earned. 

All I ended up doing on my journey was screwing up my mental health. Simply, the stress of juggling two of the binary genders became too much and I was very self-destructive. It was then I knew, my gender path was so much more than just a destination and I really needed to step up my game if I was going to survive. It was decision time. Either I went forward as a transgender woman or retreated back into my male world. 

The deciding factor was I felt so natural as a trans woman, so I did not stop my journey until I made it to a point where I could save my mental health and even my life. Certainly, even though I had reached many destinations along the way, my life turned out to be a gender journey which at times was touch and go. I ended up not going and stayed the course to my own form of transgender womanhood and was a better person for it. 

Gender Mandates

 When I was born, I did not have a choice of which gender I was supposed to be, my birth gender was male and there were to be no questions asked. 

In other words, I was mandated to enter a male world which I came to totally dislike and rebel against. Similar to many of you, I first had an idea something was wrong with my perceptions of my gender at a very early age when I went exploring in my mom's clothes. My first glimpses of myself in the full-length family mirror were memorable and electric. I knew right then, I needed to figure out a way to do more. 

The problem was, in my very male dominated family, I was mandated to go in only one gender direction and follow the male path. Afterall, if I made it, I was offered the promise of white male privileges. On the other hand, if I was caught cross dressing at all, I was surely on my way to see a therapist and perhaps be thrown into the dreaded conversion therapy. My answer was simple; I needed to continue in my underground cross-dressing ways and hope I did not get caught.  My major problem was my slightly younger brother who I was always stuck being with. Somehow, I did manage to do more and slightly lessen my mandate. When I did, I found I could enjoy my femininized self even more than I ever had before.

Of course, the most male mandate I faced was being drafted into the United States military during the Vietnam War. Since women were excluded from the draft, it was an exclusively male experience. I still resent having to face my time in the service when women did not, but I served my time for three years and was honorably discharged. I suppose too, my time in the Army disguised the true me to the outside world, since my friends and my dad already had served their country. It was mandated to be my turn if I wanted it or not. 

Slowly but surely, over the years, my mandate changed from male to female. I went very slowly to insure I would have less and less mishaps on my gender path. Each step I took gave me the confidence to take another. Of course, at some point, my mandates would collide. When they did, my mental health struggled, and I was fortunate (after several tries) to find a qualified therapist who helped me separate my bi-polar condition with my gender issues.

My largest feminine mandate came when I started gender affirming hormones. I knew almost immediately I had made the right decision. All the changes the hormones made to my body felt so natural. Inside and out, the changes were so dramatic, I think my body was always waiting for them. 

As mandates go, I would be remiss if I did not mention the gender privileges which go with the mandate.  Since I have spent quite a bit of time up close with male and female gender privileges, I know a little about both sides. As with most things, male privilege is more upfront and direct, while female privilege is more layered and indirect. 

One way, or another, mandates are a serious part of life and are difficult to control. Plus, they are so hard to deny.  

Happy Easter

 

Image from Austin Tate on UnSplash.

When I was growing up, one of the moments I will always remember were the Easter celebrations I was forced to attend.

Primarily when I was stuffed into a suit and tie and had to watch all the girls in their pretty dresses and wondered how it would be to enjoy such a supposed pleasant experience. I say pleasant because my wife Liz has told me how it was to be scolded when she played with the boys on Easter and ended up getting her new white tights dirty. I told her I so much wanted to wear white tights at Easter but could not, so the grass was not always greener on the other side of the gender border.  

Since our family was not very religious, Easter was one of the few times the family attended church services which made it even harder to accept. Accept I did and had to internalize my thoughts in a very dominated male family. Little did I know, it was just the beginning of a life of internalization I would be facing due to my deep gender issues. To fight the idea, I was transgender I did my best to cross dress it away until I could take it no longer, bought my own white tights and moved on into bright feminine fashion. Slowly but surely, I reimagined myself and begin to change my own narrative into a pleasant transgender womanhood. Then it seemed cisgender women everywhere around me moved away from dresses and hose altogether. 

Now on Easter, the closest I come to any sort of an observance is when I am able to attend the afternoon Passover Sedar at my daughters in laws who are Jewish. On occasion too, I attend Wiccan circles with Liz and identify as a Buddhist, when pushed to do so, on some sort of form I need to fill out. I loved the Buddhist religion from my experiences with it when I was in Thailand in the Army.

Ironically, now when I am free to do so, I don't attend any organized religious Easter services at all. So, I do not wear or even own a symbolic pair of white tights at all. 

For those of you who do celebrate Easter and love to dress up in your prettiest clothing, have a great day and enjoy your present gender tense.  You can even see if many other cisgender women break the current fashion trend by wearing a dress at all...with white tights.

Transgender Breakthroughs

 

Image from 
Shane Rounce  on 
UnSplash. 

Even though we are all at different points along the way in our gender journeys, we still have break throughs which keep us going. 

My earliest breakthrough was when I was still admiring my girlish reflection in the mirror, the first times I was able to try on my mom's clothes when I was all alone. I thought I looked great, and the feeling stayed with me for a couple days afterward until I could try to cross dress again. The problem was, I felt deep down there was still something missing, I wanted to do so much more than just look like a girl, I wanted to be a girl. The problem was, I did not have any gender information to go with my discovery of who I really was. I was still years away from even hearing for the first time about transgender women and what the term meant to me. I still have vivid recollections of the time I saw the transgender term used and just knew, for the first time in my life, being a trans woman fit me. Naturally it was a major breakthrough. 

Little did I know, just having a label to attach to myself, would prove to be a challenge for me as I went through life. No longer could I rely upon a mirror's image to get myself by. I needed to get out into the world and see if I could present well enough to mix in with the public. When I did, I found being a woman was no joke, and I needed to really work to achieve my goal of transgender womanhood. 

One of the big problems I had was, when I was coming out, I tried to keep one foot firmly in my closet. In case something went wrong, and I needed to go back. The only problem with keeping a foot in my closet was the time I spent in the world as a woman spoiled me, and I never wanted to go back. It was very difficult for me to tell my inner feminine self no. What I decided to do was, formulate a version of my own feminine bucket list. I would try increasingly more difficult things as a woman and see what would happen. For example, if I made it browsing in a bookstore, I would take it a step further by ordering a coffee and using the women's room the next time I was there. Or I would try to go to a different restaurant all together and order lunch. 

I try not to act as if I am recommending my path out of my gender closet to others because when it comes to leaving your closet, one size does certainly not fit all. Circmstances such as experiences in the public and where you live can vary so much. However, in my case, it did take a certain amount of courage to come out. There were many times when I waited in my car adjusting and readjusting my makeup before I gathered the courage to walk into a venue I wanted to try out as my new femininized self. Since a few of the venues I had been to several times as a man. 

Then, courage gave way to confidence and when it did, I could enjoy my new exciting life. Before that happened, it seemed to be a challenge every time I turned around. Perhaps I was expecting too much by thinking I could turn decades of living a reasonably successful male life around so quickly. Being a woman of any sorts presented a challenge because women lead a so much more layered and complex life than men. Once I accepted the challenge, I discovered I was in the right place as a trans woman and there would be no turning back. 

Even though the current barrage of anti-transgender legislation shows no sign of abating soon in many places, we have to remember transgender women and trans men will never be erased and have always existed and you can too. If you try, you can have your own breakthroughs and live a solid life out of your closet. You just have to be careful how you do it and keep an eye out for the bigots which are increasingly brave. In my case, I needed to realize the worst the bigots could do to me was not as bad as continuing to live in my gender closet. It was very dark and lonely, and I could not take it any longer and I set out to experience my own transgender breakthroughs.

I Just Could not Do It

 

JJ Hart. Club Diversity, Columbus, Ohio.

Every once in a while, I see a guy, or a group of guys doing routine guy things and become rather envious of them.

I remember how hard I worked to arrive at a point of being a man to just fit in and think how easy it was for me to participate after I earned my white male privileges. Then, when my gender issues caught up to me, I needed to give all my male privilege up and make the sacrifice to lead a happy life as a transgender woman.

About that time, when I am observing the men, I talked about, I remember how miserable I was just playing the old repetitive male game I was stuck in, and I feel much better. Even to the point of feeling free. Perhaps, it is because I never should have forced myself to play the male games to start with. Being born into a male dominated family as the first son, locked me into serious expectations of who I was expected to be at all times and there could be hell to pay if I was not. Regardless of the pressure I put myself under, I did my best to succeed while all the time suspecting something was wrong with how I perceived my inner gender. 

I don't know what I thought about how I could live my life the way I was doing it, but somehow, I made it to the age of sixty before I could not take it anymore, and I transitioned into my version of transgender womanhood. I say my version, because I decided I did not need any serious gender realignment major surgeries to live life the way I wanted to. I basically took all the experience I had learned as a very serious cross dresser and decided I could live full time in a new and exciting world.

Before I paint myself out to be some sort of a courageous person, I wasn't. Destiny had led me through many bouts of self-destruction to be able to live to a point where I was healthy enough to begin gender affirming hormones and femininize my body. Inside and out, it all was quite the change. As excited as I was to experience all the changes, the fact was not lost on me that I was nearly old enough to retire early and start Social Security which took me away from any negative ideas about transitioning on a job. Old or new. 

All of a sudden, almost all of my major hurdles to transitioning were taken away, even to the point of the Veterans Administration approving HRT for its health care members. So, at the least, I would have to pay less for my femininizing meds. Even though, they were not free. 

One night, when I was again feeling sorry for myself because of my lifelong gender issues, I finally came to the conclusion I did not have to do it anymore. I was sure of the fact I did not want to live as a man any longer and had paid nearly all my dues not to do it anymore. 

Regardless of any remaining envy I felt as how easy it was for me to enjoy any male privileges I had gained over the years; it was not enough to keep going as a man. I just could not do it and survive. 

I Made Nothing

 

Image from Camillo 
Contreras on UnSplash.

Several of my earliest memories of success as a cross dresser came during the Halloween parties I went to. 

When I wore my very short mini dresses, showing off my freshly shaven legs, I found I had several women come up to me and say, I "made" a good-looking woman. Years later, when I began to understand "woman speak" better, what they probably meant was I "made" a good-looking woman, for a man dressed as one. 

Furthermore, I soon came to realize, I was not making anything. I was simply being who I was. In order to learn that simple fact, I needed to live decades of life as a parttime cross dresser or novice transgender woman. Or I needed to live my gender truth before I could claim it. I needed to get out of the mirror and into the world to learn if I really belonged there. Those were the days when no one in the world around me would give me a break. The public was laughing at me (rightfully so) because for the most part, I was dressed like a clown in drag. Plus, my old male self, my second wife and my mirror did not want to let go of me. Making my life miserable and destroying what I had left of my mental health.

Juggling two genders at once was a tremendous challenge when I caught myself practicing living one gender when I should not have been. Being called "Ma'am" at my macho management job was certainly not cool or good but somehow, I survived to live on to the next day when I was determined to do better.  What happened was, I did keep getting better at my feminine side and increasingly began to leave my male side behind, which scared him.

Fear, as they say, is a powerful motivator and instead of giving up, my male side and my second wife grew increasingly close and forced a battle of the wills. In other words, neither one of them wanted to lose their place in the world. Which included my universe. It turns out, I did make something...a huge mental mess for myself. It is one of the excuses I make for taking nearly fifty years to break out of my gender bonds and flourish out of my closet and mirror. I just had to make sure I was making the right choice and there was so much pressure on me. 

As I grew out of the mental gender mess, I had made for myself, I gained the critical confidence I needed to establish myself as a secure transgender woman. Not just a femininized man. Since I had spent a lifetime getting there, the personal coming out was extra special to me. It was as if my feminine self was telling me what took so long. As it turned out, I shared her belief in wondering why I took so much time and wasted so much nervous energy I wish I had back. As we all know, worrying over what we did in the past is a waste of time, unless we are learning from our mistakes.

I felt better when I realized I did not make anything, when it came to my gender issues. Rather, I inherited them from some unknown source which made life a challenge. A challenge I needed to finally accept before the pressure I put on myself had grown too heavy to carry and I had to put it down and go with the life which made me feel natural and alive. When my transgender womanhood became secure thanks to friends I had, I felt so much better as I built a new life.

Do the Right Thing

 

Image from UnSplash.

I learned early on from my parents when in doubt, you should always do the right thing. At the same time, I learned from them, dressing to look like a girl was not doing the right thing. So, I needed to completely hide it.

Later, when I attempted to navigate my gender path, I found many obstacles I did not foresee hurting me. But they did and brought about many doubts. Of course, the main doubt was, should I be doing all the cross dressing I was doing in public at all. Still, I persisted and improved my craft at presenting well as a femininized person. Finally, I arrived at a point where I could leave my dark gender closet and attempt to live a new scary yet exciting life. The more I explored as a novice transgender woman, the more I wanted to do. Which brought me back to the question, was I doing the right thing. 

Similar to so many of you, I suffered from extreme guilt as my second wife kept telling me my gender desires were selfish pursuits. The sad part of it was, for the most part, she was right. She wanted very little to do with me wanting to be a woman, so I kept it away from her. Not the right thing to do in a marriage but was my only recourse. At that time, I only had a distant dream of perhaps living someday as a transgender woman. All I needed was the courage to face my reality. 

Because of a number of reasons, I needed to do much more exploring the world as a transgender woman to see if I could survive. First, I had to look the part, then I needed to live the part. Standing in my way, were the usual questions of transitioning to another gender such as what would become of my family, friends and job. As well as did I really hate my male life that much. I wasted hour upon hour antagonizing over what I should do and would it be the right thing. 

I was stubborn of course and refused to do any more than observe several transsexual women I knew from a distance. From their stories I did know they had really good safe jobs or were close to retirement so they could support themselves whereas I did not and had no idea of what I would do for an income. Plus, I also needed to consider, both of them were flat out gorgeous and had no problems presenting in the world as women. I did not labor under any idea I even came close to being as attractive as them and did not have that going for me either. After taking all of this and much more into consideration, I did not know what I could do about my gender dilemma which was not doing my mental health any favors.

What I did do was try to continue on the path I was on. To increase my awareness of the world as a transgender woman as much as I could at a time, I went as far as I could. Even absorbing major clashes with my wife over what I was doing. I can't always say I did the right thing as I learned more and more about living in the new world I was seeking. There were too many times when I had to out and out lie to get out of situations, I found myself in. In all fairness to my wife, she told me to stop it and just become a woman to bring peace to both of us. Still, I did not have the courage to change my life and leave her behind. I did not do the right thing. 

You regulars know what happened next. My wife passed away quite tragically from a heart attack leaving me all alone with my dogs to put my life back together. I rapidly turned to my inner feminine self as the strongest person around and did the right thing and finally turned to a life I always just dreamed of. 

On a side note, I may be missing a day of blogging tomorrow as my wife Liz and I have a daylong seminar to attend. Sorry for the inconvenience!

When too Much Wasn't

 

JJ Hart (Middle) with two friends.

As I continued along my long and winding gender path, I (on occasion) ran into situations when the public seemed to be too much. 

Examples were the times I was approached in public by strangers when I did not want to be. Very quickly I needed to judge their motives. Did they see me as a man in a dress on one hand, or as a woman on the other. Naturally, it made a big difference when I returned home and rated my experiences as a novice transgender woman out in the world for the first time. How did I do? Was I too much for my own good and did I need to tone it down, or attempt to do more?

There were the times when I managed to thrive in situations where women dominated and times I could not and ran home. Back to my gender drawing board. There seemed to be so much to learn, I was overwhelmed by the task ahead of me if I was ever to achieve my dream of living a femininized life as a transgender woman. 

In the end result, normally I found too much just was not when I was trying to get ahead in a new world I was just getting used to. The problems occurred mainly in the areas of fashion and makeup, as well as where I was trying to go when I went out. Once I got them under control, I was able to build a stable new life in the girls' sandbox. Once I earned my way in. Often earning my way in, had its own set of challenges. Mainly I had to find out how to play correctly to be accepted. On the other hand, even though it was difficult to do, I had to play to learn a life's full of lessons in a hurry. As I always say, my women's workbook was blank to this point, and I needed to write it. 

I found as I struggled to fill out my workbook, I needed to be extra vigilant in how I viewed other women, since I was totally on their turf. For the most part, I did my best to hold back on my opinions and speak mainly when I was spoken too. It worked well enough until I could get my feet on the ground, and I could move forward as a transgender woman. My goal was to build my new life as a confident, intelligent woman in society, but I needed to prove to myself my goal was not too much and would destroy my dream of transgender womanhood. Fortunately, throughout my life, I had several strong positive feminine role models to work from and add to my workbook. When I was able to add their influences to the inner female, I already knew was there, the women formed a strong bond to guide me through my struggles.

Overall, I discovered rarely too much just was not. What was happening was, I was just paralyzed by fear to move on with my new life. Once I got over most of my fears, I was able to move on and be free to live a better life. A better mental health life waited for me when I quit fighting two genders to survive. 

If you Know, you Know

 

JJ Hart from Key Largo, Florida

One of the reasons, we transgender women and trans men have to put up with so much evil misinformation about us in the public's eye is so many people don't even know a transgender person. 

The main reason is, we are so few when you consider the population as a whole. However, within the trans community, we share many similarities. For example, many of first trips into a feminine lifestyle came when we went through our mom's dresser drawers (or sister's) and came away with a wonderful experience. Sadly, then we could not understand why all the people and family around us could not be trusted with our secret. To make matters worse, our secret was so rare, the chances of finding anyone around us who understood was nearly impossible. I only tried to relay my secret to someone who understood twice. Once I was quickly rejected and once I was not. Of course, with the first person, I went back into my closet and was never seen again. But with the other, I found a friend I could share my desires with. Until he moved away with his mother who did not care if we experimented with her clothes and makeup. I don't know for sure, all these years later but perhaps I had found the proverbial needle in the haystack. Another person who knew what I did, we loved all things feminine.

As life continued on, I began to attend various transvestite - cross dresser mixers where I received mixed feedback on how I felt about knowing others. I discovered I did not form as many gender bonds I thought I would. I figured simply we were both into cross dressing and beyond, we would get along better. Quickly I learned, I did not know most of the attendees better than the rest of the world simply because we shared the same need to be femininized. I was exposed suddenly to different layers of the world who had the same gender issues than I. Or so I thought. I found I did not know anymore how the cowboy cross dressers who I called that because they wore cowboy hats and smoked big cigars while they wore a dress, could do that. I had my upbringing when I wore slacks to a mixer and was attacked for doing it. 

Then there were the "A" listers who were very attractive an acted just like the stuck-up girls I went to high school with. I did not get along with them either and did not understand why they could not have been nicer to everyone. I guess, if you know, you know wasn't working for me just because I put on a dress. I was learning the hard way, the differences between cross dressers and transgender women. 

These days, I am involved in just one support group through the VA, which used to be known as a LGBTQ peer support group before the changes forced upon us by the orange felon. Now we are just a support group made up primarily by the gay and lesbian attendees. In fact, out of twelve or fourteen participants, I am one of only two transgender women in the group. What I have learned is, out of all the LGBTQ people in the group share many of the same problems, especially with the upcoming problems in the Veterans Administration. Once again you could say I was so involved in my little world, I did not consider others. For example, I assumed gay and lesbian people understood or supported transgender people because we are cousins so to speak. Whereas they don't understand us any better than the rest of the world. That is why I love to share my experiences with the gays and lesbians in the group. 

I am doing my best to change and understand just because I am transgender, I understand what other trans people are going through. Or they understand me. It is difficult because today more than ever, we need each other in the world to survive. 

I Just Couldn't Live Without Her

 

Image from Brian Kyed
on UnSplash.

At a certain moment in my life, I had reached the point of no return where I was living with two women, the one inside of me and my wife of twenty five years.

The question remains, how did I find myself in such an untenable, precarious situation. The answer was, it was not easy, and I really had to work hard to get there. Decades, to be exact. Once I pulled myself out of the mirror, and put her into the world, I knew I could never go back to being a parttime cross dresser. I could never live without her.

Many times, I have gone through the many steps I took on my path to transgender womanhood. To provide you all with a more precise look at my actions, we need to go back to the years when my second wife was still alive. What I began to do was sneak out of the house when she was working cross dressed in the world just to see if I could. After a very rough beginning, when I was laughed at, I began to get my high-heeled feet on the ground and do better. So much better, I began to think my ultimate goal of living as a transgender woman on my own terms may actually be possible. 

From there, I began to spend every spare moment I had alone as who was to become my authentic self. I became so immersed in becoming a woman, I needed to concentrate on the times when I still had to be a man at work, or with my wife. The biggest problem I had was, deep down inside I knew which gender route I had to take to survive in the world, but I was afraid to face it. The fights between my wife and I became so bad, a couple times she just told me to be man enough to be a woman. I was not man enough to do it, but I was stubborn enough to keep trying to live a middle of the road gender life, which became impossible to maintain. My mental health suffered, and I began to be more self-destructive than I already was. All the way to attempting suicide one night.

Fortunately, I was not successful in my suicide attempt, and I proceeded down the same path I had been on before. This time taking my cross-dressing activities into my own restaurant and threatening my substantially good job. Again, deep down I felt if everyone knew of my deep, dark secret, I would be relieved of the hell I was living because I had to make a change away from the male life I was living. 

Just before my wife suddenly died, I made one last ditch effort to partially purge myself of my femininizing supplies. I went all the way to growing a beard, so at least I was telling myself I was making an effort to return to the male world. However, there was one big problem, I was miserable and about the time I needed to go back into my feminine world, my wife suddenly and tragically passed away from a massive heart attack at work. Through all of our problems, I loved her deeply and we were married twenty-five years.

I often wonder what would have happened had she lived. I think now, my internal female would have won out and I would have completed my gender transition. She would have won because I felt so natural in the world as a transgender woman. When it came down to which woman I could not live with, I would have had to have chosen the woman I should have been all along and hopefully patched up my life with my second wife. So, at the least, we could have stayed friends.

The Light in the Mirror

 

Image from Alessandro 
Bianchi 
on UnSplash.

I spend quite a bit of time here attacking my mirror when I was growing up.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion some of my negativity could have been wrong. First of all, I was fortunate to have a beautiful full length mirror dad installed at one of the ends of the hallway in our house when I was growing up. When no one else was home, I would spend as much time as I had admiring myself in the hallway mirror. As I did, I could always see a brief dim light in the mirror when I viewed my feminine self for the first time. Even when I knew, the light would have to be extinguished soon, and I would have to go back to my unwanted male world. 

As I grew up and began to explore the world for the first time as a beginning cross dresser, I made plenty of mistakes the mirror did not tell me about. In fact, the mirror light shone brightly and told me I looked great when in fact, I looked just the opposite. I was presenting as a clown in drag with no one to warn me. For a long time, the light in the mirror nearly went completely out as I was rejected in public time and time again resulting in a deep depression for me.

I kept trying though, and the light began to come back on. I lost weight and began to find styles of women's fashion which flattered my body shape and finally began to present better. Especially when I was making the mental transition to novice transgender womanhood from cross dresser. To do it, I needed every break I could muster. Plus, I needed to turn up my light in the mirror, and let my femininized light shine through, so I could see her better. 

The extra light turned out to be all I needed to become more skilled at my makeup art and do the best I could with my testosterone damaged male face. With a little help from a professional makeup person, my light in the mirror grew even brighter, and more importantly, I could trust it. With trust came confidence which equated to more acceptance as a transgender woman in the public's eye. All of a sudden, my lifelong dream to lead a feminine life was within reach. If my light in the mirror stayed on. 

It did and I was even able to turn up my light to a brighter level with the addition of HRT or gender affirming hormones. Among the many other positive changes I went through was when the overall texture of my skin softened. Which meant the male lines in my face softened and I could use less makeup. Specifically, foundation. I quickly learned with more femininized skin and being able to wear my own hair, I was suddenly more presentable to the world. 

Looking back, I may have been too quick to judge my light in the mirror. It just took a little longer (along with the rest of me) to become more situated with living a new life away from my old male self, and perhaps it was my fault for not switching to a brighter bulb sooner. Plus, I was fortunate in that my light in the mirror did not burn out altogether. 

 

Knowing the Rules before You Break Them

 

Image from Milan de Clercq 
on UnSplash

I had a very good idea of what it would take me to survive in a male world before I decided to see if the grass on the other side of the gender border would be any better or greener.

Growing up in a very male dominated family with the only girl being my mom, provided me with a so-called brightly lit path to my future. I was fortunate in some ways to have a larger male body to keep the bullies away as I played sports such as football and baseball regularly.  Of course, I came to dislike my body completely when I went through male puberty and had a difficult time finding any new fashionable girls' clothes to wear. 

When I went through the hated male puberty, the rules of the road so to speak, became clearer and clearer to me. Coming from a white middle-class family with two working parents in the 1950's to mid 1960's gave me a work ethic I used to scrape together the meager funds I needed to buy my own makeup and a few fashion accessories. I knew I could not ask my parents for the money because they would want to know what I needed it for. Any hint of femininity on my part would immediately break all the rules and would result in trips to a psychiatrist. Even then, I knew going to a therapist who knew nothing about gender issues would be a disaster. 

I knew the rules and played the game of male gender the best I could. I found good hiding places for my femininizing fashion and makeup while at the same time, dreamed of the day I could buy a nice wig. In those days, I was able to get by with a mirror who never lied to me by telling me I was a pretty girl. The feelings of joy or gender euphoria would continue several days before the pressure built up on me to cross dress again and again. When I began to realize I was just scratching the surface of my gender issues, I became quite good at knowing one of the primary male rules taught to me as a kid. If you did not like something, internalize it until it went away.

The problem I had was, my desire to be a woman never went away and it was so much more than just being a phase. From the darkness of my closet, I had what turned out to be a distorted idea of what womanhood meant to females everywhere. I only saw what I considered the good part was. Such as no military service and being able to enjoy the wonderful world of woman's fashion. I left out the challengingly part of women's lives such as child raising and toxic men, to name a few. As I was able to cross the gender border, I did realize the grass was not always greener and had I truly been a birth daughter to my mom, extra pressure to conform to her standards would have increased. I am certain she would have pushed me to go to the same university she did, all the way to pledging the same sorority.  I would have again been breaking rules. Just of a different sort.

When I arrived at a time when I was drafted into the military, I was forced into being a follower of rules more than I ever had in the past. Conforming to new Army standards to survive at least kept most of my mind off of my gender issues. I needed to put my desires aside and just dream of the day I could be free to be a transgender woman in my future. It was difficult, but I did it.

By the time I was honorably discharged three years later from the Army, I was able to settle back into the life I had before without one big exception. Without military service looming over my head, I could concentrate on my future. When I did, it became increasingly evident to me, there was a possibility I could break all the gender rules and achieve transgender womanhood. It was still going to be a decades long journey from there, but I was encouraged for once.

Of course, once I began to explore the world as a novice transgender woman, I found a whole new set of rules to deal with. To make matters worse, I had no knowledge of many of the rules I was about to break before I did them. The workbook I was using was blank and I needed to write the rules as I needed them. 

Again, I was fortunate, and I survived when I broke the rules, but I learned quickly since I was free.  Then as I safely continued along my gender path, I found I could make it safely to my dream. Mainly because I knew the rules from both sides of the binary gender and I was a better person for it. 

A Failure

 

JJ Hart at a Witches Ball.

There were many times in my life when I felt as if I was a failure.

I can blame a portion of my feelings on my parents who I feel placed unrealistic expectations on me in my male life. Of course, my up-and-coming female life was hidden from them, so I felt they had no control over me. Only the mirror seemed to. When I was able to transform myself into what I thought was a passable girl, no one could take the fact away from me I was a success in something. In fact, in those days, it was easy not to be a failure because I was so alone with my cross-dressing urges.

Even so, I still had problems thinking somehow, I was a failure. The major problem was I could never seem to get enough of viewing myself as a girl in the mirror. I began to think even though I had a temporary fix on my life, there was a deeper problem. Looking back now, I sense the problem was much deeper than just wanting to wear makeup and feminine wardrobe, I was going through the earliest stages of discovering I was transgender. The only problem was the transgender term and knowledge of had not been invented yet. Leading me to believe once again I was a failure.

As the years crept by and the overall knowledge of gender issues increased, I began to realize I was less of a failure. However, at that point, I began to explore the world more and more as a novice transgender woman so again I was beginning to feel as a failure when life did not work out for me. I was struggling to maintain my demanding male life, my married life, and my new life as a transgender woman. In time, the strain became too much, and it wrecked my fragile mental health. Most of the time, I did not know which way I was going, especially in my gender life. I needed to be careful when I was at work in a macho atmosphere not to slip up and show my feminine side and vice versa when I was experimenting with my feminized self. I certainly did not want to show any of my well-worn masculine tendencies.

Another problem was I had the idea I knew everything I needed to know about being a woman. Afterall, I found myself in a place where I looked the part. When I found out I did not, the difficult portion of my gender journey began. Putting the femininized version of myself I had created into motion was very difficult. Specifically, when I needed to actually communicate for the first time with the world. I felt as if I was a failure all over again and needed to start all over on my extended path to transgender womanhood. It turned out I did not really have to but still needed to work hard to look the public in the eye and have confidence in myself and improve my overall communication with the world. Eventually, I needed to enroll in feminine vocal lessons to improve myself. 

By improving myself, I was able to re-enter the world as an improved transgender woman and survive. I needed to roll up my sleeves and got to work to be a non-failure in a very demanding world.

Living the Reality of being Transgender

My wife Liz at "Harpoon Harry's"
Key West, Florida

Regardless of what the evil bigots think and say, the reality of being a transgender woman or transgender man, is starkly different to what they think.

Most transphobes say living a trans life is just a choice we can make at any time. Or there is some sort of magic gender switch we can throw to reverse the life we are living. If only it was the case, somehow, we all would be able to live simpler lives. We would not have to put our lives in such turmoil just to jump the gender border.

On the other hand, living the reality of being transgender can sometimes lead to a more interesting life. Especially around super fragile and toxic men who refuse to have anything to do with us. Think about it this way, transgender women have a basic understanding of men in ways cisgender women will never completely embrace. I was fortunate when I was able to form relationships with other women (lesbians) who taught me my reality was good enough to be proud of and I did not need a man to give me value. I was living the value of being trans in the best possible way. 

When I completed my second big transition from parttime cross dresser to transgender womanhood, it was a scary, surprising time for me. First of all, I did not know if I could do it at all and secondly, I did not know how to go about doing it. Finally, I decided I needed to hitch up my big girl panties and see if I could be accepted in a world where women dominated the action. That is when I ended up at the "TGI Fridays" restaurant and bar I talk about so much. I had been there as a man so many times when I saw all the women from the mall come in for a drink after their shifts and I was jealous. Badly I wanted to learn if I could somehow be a part of the feminine action.

Once I was successful, I knew there would be no going back to viewing myself as a harmless cross dresser. I was serious about being a better transgender woman and I needed to learn more on how to do it. It was about this time also when I began to consider what I thought was the next step in my femininizing progression and that was beginning gender affirming hormones or HRT. My problem was, standing directly in my way was my strongly disapproving second wife. So, I needed to put off my plans of jump starting a very serious process of battling my testosterone poisoned body. I reasoned, the better off I was when it came to my femininization, the easier time I would have in the public's eye. 

Even though I would have to wait until my second wife passed away from an unexpected massive heart attack, once my path was clear to HRT, I sought the opinion of a doctor and received my cherished meds. Once I did begin to go down the hormonal road, I thought I would be ready for the changes I went through during my second puberty. Hot flashes, along with rapid breast growth were just a few of the changes I went through quickly as my skin softened, hair grew, and I became much more emotional. 

Hormones really changed my reality of what it meant for me to be transgender and while I realize the meds aren't for everyone medically, they were for me.

If the world we live in would just slow down for a moment and understand the reality of being transgender is not so much different than the average human, we would be in a better place.

Comments

 

Image from Bruno Acquire on UnSplash. 

In regard to yesterday's post concerning the Veterans Administration's announcement they were not going to cover gender affirming hormones, prothesis's, and even mental health treatment for new veterans suffering from gender dysphoria anymore. 

In my rant, I said, among other things, how much I disagreed with the move, even though it did not affect me. The VA said, those already receiving gender related care could keep getting it. Which, of course, means me. 

One huge problem I did not mention in my post was pointed out by Denise, who pointed out, the VA's decision to shut out trans women being discharged into the world to fend for themselves was just a smaller part of what the orange felon's presidential administration is trying to do to erase the rights of all women in our country today. Since transgender women are a unique form of women, our rights as women are being taken away too. Which gives me yet another chance to wonder why any clear-thinking woman, trans or not, would have ever voted for the felon at all. And I will leave it at that.

On another subject concerning a post called "Why Me?' a reader wrote in with this comment:

"Over many decades I often asked myself both “why me” and “why not me”. For decades I limited myself to underdressing…. something I told myself was just a (hopefully) harmless kink, out of the fear that if I explored further, I would irreversibly descend that slippery slope. I in my early 50s I finally allowed myself to experiment with makeup and women's clothing beyond underwear. I still vividly recall the moment when I looked in the mirror and saw myself for the first time. In that instant, I may have even said aloud, “I can do this!”

There have been subsequent periods of self-doubt, of course. Still, every day I find that I look forward to seeing myself and engaging with the world as a woman."

Thanks to both of you for the comments! I found many of your ideas to be very profound and meaningful. Plus, I had "aha" moments when I realized I had left all women out of the current political agenda and the moment when I too had realized when I was successful in public as a novice transgender woman that "I could do this", and it felt so natural. Deep down inside, something snapped, and I felt as if I was home.

The night I realized I could do it and felt at home in the company of women was and is so special to me. Just one of the reasons it disturbs me so much to see what is happening today with our rights continue. 

Speaking of continue, I love all your comments and wish I could answer them all, here on the blog in a public setting. Needless to say, I do the best I can!

Also (something I don't say enough) thanks to all of you who find the time and effort to read along on a regular basis. It makes it all worthwhile to me!

Why Not Me?

 

JJ Hart at Club Diversity
Columbus, Ohio

When I was very young, I had the tendency to hide behind my skirts when I needed to deny any masculine pursuits at all. 

Any time I failed, I ran home to see if I could lock myself in the bathroom and apply makeup and try on any of mom's clothes which still fit. I had a dream of finally making it to my own transgender womanhood when I grew older, but I had no idea of how. Back then, little did I know, the journey would take me over fifty years to complete and the path would be so curvy and full of hurdles. If I did, I wonder if I would have ever attempted to try it.

Of course, I started out innocently enough as a cross dresser in a mirror. My reaction was a double-edged sword. One side of the sword told me I was not doing anything really wrong, while the other side wondered if I was the only one in the world doing it. If that was the case, being a transvestite just could not be good. Right? All I had to rely on was my instincts which told me I was on the right path. So, I persisted and stayed on it. Since the only real feedback I had was from the mirror, I needed to rely on it when it was telling me I had advanced on from the clownish drag makeup stage I was into a more acceptable feminine form. At the time, I equated it with painting model cars which I was never good at and I was so proud when I thought I had conquered the basics of makeup. Even to the point of purchasing my own from the newspaper route I had when I was a kid. When my friends were buying model cars, I was buying makeup and loving it. It was not until many years later, would I receive the instruction I needed to really understand the art of makeup, but I was getting by at the time.

Clothes and hair were a whole other problem I needed to try to conquer at the time. With the very limited budget I was on, there was no way I could afford a nice wig all the way to my college years, when I was working a better paying job. In order to buy a wig, I needed the help of my fiancé who bought it under the idea she would possibly wear it. The wig was long and blond and was my cross-dresser's dream and luckily, she hated it, so I inherited it. Even with the abuse I put it through, the wig lasted for years before I needed to finally retire it. Clothes were another problem because again I did not have much money, and these were the days before larger sized women's fashions became available in a younger style. It was not until years later, when thrift stores became abundant, did I finally become fashion independent. 

As my feminine life was coming together, slowly I began to realize transgender womanhood may not be such a reach for me after all. I was beginning to explore all facets of the world as a trans woman and it all felt so natural. The more I attempted and succeeded at in my new life, the less I wanted to go back to my old, boring male world. So, I did not.

I was on a slippery gender slope my path had led me to, and all of a sudden, I did not fear it anymore. Somehow, I knew there was a soft landing out there for me. The stop signs were gone, and I knew at the age of sixty, if I did not try to live my transgender dreams, I would never have the chance and would forever regret my decision. From there, I decided to follow my heart and seek medical help to begin gender affirming hormones or HRT. The hormones forever sealed my trans life, and I never looked back. I always felt my body was looking for the hormones the whole time. Again, a scary gender transitional moment felt so natural. 

Why not me, turned out to be why should not it be me? 

Gender House of Cards

 

Image from 
Nathan Dumlao
on UnSplash.

As I progressed along my gender path, I regularly built houses of cards.

I became used to showing my cards regularly when I was a novice cross dresser. Sadly, I was coming off too often as the joker. I can't mention enough how I was the victim of the beginning cross dressers' curse. I was trying to dress as a teen aged girl when I was a wide-bodied male just trying to survive in a new exciting yet scary new world. My life existed by taking a step forward and another two steps back. Gender euphoria was very rare in my life, so I needed to cherish it when it came about. 

In order to make up (no pun intended) from the long lapses of gender euphoria, I needed to step back and try to build my house of cards with a better, more solid foundation. Every time I was rejected, I had to resolve myself to go back to my cross-dressing board and work harder on something like I had never worked so hard on before. Finally, my efforts paid off and I began to blend in with the public with less effort. I was ecstatic and I readied myself to move forward play more cards. Did someone say success breeds success? If not, I will, and it happened to me. I gained the all-important confidence I needed and headed on up my gender path.  

I proceeded to keep building my house of cards against all odds, I realized who I truly was. Much more than a relatively innocent parttime cross dresser and much more of a transgender woman. It seems like such a small difference in thought pattern could make such a huge difference in my life. Suddenly, it seemed the world opened up for me and I thought I had found the missing card I had always been looking for.  

Having said all of that, I knew I would have to set out to build a whole different house of cards. No longer did I want to just look like the women around me, I wanted to be treated as an equal. Which seemed to be an impossible dream. When I was successful in hanging out with other women, I developed a whole new set of confidence and began to relax and enjoy the experience. I was at home with myself for the first time ever. Perhaps the best result was, my house of cards was being built so much stronger and more resilient to the outside world. 

From then on, the race was on to enable my inner feminine self to play her own cards. When she finally did, she was extremely successful and made the best of her situation. Plus, she was able to build upon the mistakes of her male counterpart and never having to play the joker. Then my wife Liz came along and re-enforced my new transgender womanhood, while at the same time rapidly building my house of cards. When I experienced a collapse, Liz was there to catch me. 

I am sure you agree, building your own gender house of cards is not an easy task to complete. You need to show an uncommon level of patience when your cards collapsed, and you needed to start all over. It shows how difficult a transgender life can be. Especially in these difficult times.