Trans Girl Secrets

Image from Ben White 
on Unsplash.

Secrets became a very important part of my life at a very young age.

It all started when I viewed myself in women's clothes  in front of the mirror for the first time. I realized my life would never be the same again. Plus I also knew my desire to be a girl would not be well received by my family at all. It was in the late 1950's and early 1960's when cross dressing was still considered to be a crime where I lived near Dayton, Ohio. In those days any sort of gender dysphoria was thought to be a mental illness. Even then, I couldn't see the act of cross dressing in women's clothes to be an act of mental illness. 

What happened then was I needed to go into a dark secretive closet, I would not come out of completely for a half a century. Along the way, I included very few outsiders in my secret. Four or five to be exact. I did not even include myself in my secret. What I am referring to is the fact I wanted to do much more in my life than just cross dress as a girl, when in reality, the reverse was true. I was a woman cross dressing as a man the entire time and I was indeed transgender after all.

Predictably, one secret leads to another and another and in my case led to lies being told later on. My dishonesty came when I refused to admit to myself who I really was and took out my frustration on those closest to me. I became a very unpleasant person to be around when my gender dysphoria was at its worst. Even to the point of me losing a job because of what I was going through. It was like I was setting myself up for failure at every turn in my life as I waited for more and more people to discover my secret. 

The longer my secret was hidden away and on the other hand, I was desperately trying to discover a new feminine world as a transgender woman, the heavier my secret became. I attempted to hide all my transgender activities from my second wife and was reasonably successful. I say reasonably because I would do more and more as a trans woman until she caught me and the gender battle between us would continue. She was wiser than I was when at one point she told me to just leave her and live a life as a woman. That made her the second woman in my life who I should have listened to when they told me the same thing. The first was my gender therapist years before. 

Sadly, my male self was not ready to give up the strangle hold he had on my life and encouraged me to do the male thing and try to ignore and internalize all my struggles. Of course in the end run, the only thing which happened was the pressure just kept on building as I managed to keep my secret. However, no matter how hard my male self tried to protect his domain, he was slowly sliding down a cliff of no return. Finally, with the help of several close friends I made the gender leap of faith. I gave away all of my male clothes, started gender affirming hormones (HRT) and never looked back. 

Perhaps the best part of not having to protect my secret and not live a lie was my new friends never knew my old male self at all. My inner feminine soul was finally free to live her life. When she did, she became the third woman in my life to tell me the same thing.

The only secret I really ever had was I was never really a man at all. 

Opportunity Knocks

 

Civil War Cemetery image
from the Jessie Hart Archives
 

In my life I have found several really rare times where true opportunity actually knocked on my door. 

As I indicated, the situations were exceedingly rare and required split second decisions on how I was going to proceed. Possibly the first main one happened when I went with the "A" list trans women from the cross dresser - transgender mixer I was at in Cleveland. It was the night I gathered my courage, put on my big girl panties and was able to enjoy a professional makeover at the mixer. The result was I looked better than I ever had in my life and really wanted to claim my spot with the other impossibly feminine women in the room who were planning to continue the meeting with going to gay venues afterwards. At the second venue we went to, for the first time in my life as a woman I was approached by a good looking man who wanted to socialize. Since I was in a city I knew nothing about and with acquaintances who were about to call a taxi and leave, I decided to turn his advances down and leave. I often wonder what would have happened if I had stayed. What sort of opportunity if any, did I miss?

 Most likely, the second opportunity I did take advantage of was when suddenly I decided I had had enough of cross dressing and wanted to follow my gender instincts even further. It was the night I was determined to go out and blend in with a group of young professional women at an upscale bar/restaurant I had frequented several times as my male self. More than anything else, I wanted to see if I could blend in with the group as a transgender woman and enjoy myself. Perhaps what I remember most about the evening was how scared I was as I waited in the parking lot constantly checking my hair and makeup before I gathered the courage to go into the venue. As it turned out, opportunity did knock that night. I enjoyed myself after I could take a normal breath again and I knew my life as a casual cross dresser was gone forever. I needed new horizons to conquer as a novice transgender woman.

As I settled into attempting to find my way as a trans woman in the world, I tried to try different venues and situations to deal with. Some were successful, some were not. The ones which I can remember the most were the times I tested going to more or less red-neck country venues. I quickly discovered I wasn't welcome and moved on quickly but not before the cops were called on me a couple of times. No opportunity to succeed in those places for sure and I never went back.

Perhaps the biggest opportunity which came knocking at my door was when I had the chance to begin gender affirming hormones or HRT. At my age of sixty, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to harm myself, so I took the proper precautions and sought out a doctor to prescribe the medications I had waited for so long. Fortunately for me my health proved not to be an issue and I was given minimum dosages to get me started. Seemingly, my body took to the hormones like I always should have been on them and new changes started almost immediately. In no time at all, I was moved up to a higher dosage and my new changes took over my body. So much so, I needed to move up my transition timetable when my hair started to take off and grow along with my softening skin and protruding breasts. 

Then, the most unexpected opportunity happened when I met my current wife Liz on line nearly fourteen years ago. At my age and transgender history, I was prepared to spend the rest of my life alone and especially never expected to ever be married again. Opportunity was telling me to never say never and here I am.

I have a very hard head however and many times opportunity had to knock loudly to get my attention. Often because I was stuck with life changing conditions where I could lose everything. I tried to fall back on my inner self and hope for the best and finally I let her lead me the right direction. 

Making the Difficult Easier

Image from the
Jessie Hart archives.

I spent years and years admiring every aspect of how women and the girls around me conducted their lives. I was dazzled by how they moved and interacted with the world. 

On so many levels, I wished I could be just like them but for so many reasons I could not. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake the shackles of my pre-ordained male existence In order to survive in a male world, I needed to copy and succeed at being a guy. All of made the dramatic gender transition I was about to make later in life that much more difficult. 

As I moved from a cross dressing mirror into the real world, I discovered the feminine gender had so many other layers to their life's than I ever imagined. So much more than merely looking like a woman which turned out to be the way I could slightly open my closet door to the world. When I worked my way past the first layer of cis-gender women I faced in clothing stores and malls, then the hard work started. 

All of a sudden, I found myself in a position where I needed to communicate with the public as a novice transgender woman. In the past, my second wife had told me repeatedly in no uncertain terms I did not know anything about truly being a woman even though I was becoming fairly competent on looking like one. She was right and I didn't understand it. 

One vicious argument comes to mind from when we lived in the New York  City metro area and happened the day after I went to a transvestite mixer. What happened was, I needed to show my identification card showing I was really a male to even get in. For the next couple of days, I was on a massive ego trip which led to a big fight with my wife. It led to her comment I still vividly remember when she said I made a "terrible" woman. I could not believe she could say it after I had almost been refused admission to a cross dresser party for looking too much like a woman. When I told her my problem with what she said, she promptly told me, she wasn't referring to my appearance. From then on, I was determined to find out what she meant. It was difficult to do because my wife did not particularly care for my feminine side, so I was on my own.

It was only easier when years later I was able to break out of my old male bonds and be able to finally play in the girls sandbox. Along the way, I had learned the power of non-verbal communication between women as well as surviving the effects of passive aggression when I had to guard my back from smiling faces. When I did, my mental health improved along with my self confidence as a transgender woman. I came to realize (with help from my friends) while I could never be a cis-gender woman, I could be a proud transgender person. I achieved my womanhood through a different path but I made it. My presence in the group just made it more diverse and nobody questioned me about my past.  

In order to do it, I needed to reverse years and years of male life. Moving like a woman needed to become my primary goal since I was never going back. Also very difficult was how I was speaking to the world. I did my best to mimic the women around me and even took vocal lessons for awhile. Eventually all the work came together and I became confident in my abilities to survive in the feminine life I had always dreamed of. 

More than Meets the Eye?

Another dynamic of being in the public eye as a transgender woman  comes from whom I'm with. My girlfriend is a lesbian who is not shy at all about showing any public affection.
Of course my normal reaction to people staring is they are judging me.  More than once or twice I have been told "how do you know just what the hell they are judging?" Two perceived lesbians or a trans woman and a woman or what?

Early in our public ventures, I was a little shy on the "public affection" but like everything else I finally said to hell with it.
In fact as I look forward to embracing the future as my body continues to feminize, attending LGBT pride events as two women seems like great fun.

All of this is yet another twist on my trans journey I didn't foresee. At one point of time I tried to come up with a "connect the dots" post. I was going to attempt to make some sense of my gender versus my sexuality. As you may know though, logic is not my strong point. My idea of logic is "it exists-so go with it."
If you want to slap the "trans-lesbian" tag on me or even say this is yet another sign that I'm am over active cross dresser that's fine.

I care about the label's about much as I do the stares. That's a surprise...right?

Aussie Transgender Story

This is far from a new story. In fact it is from 2010 but it bears revisiting.

It actually came from "AsiaOne's" Diva site for women and features Ms Chelsey Mikimoto who was born in Singapore to a Malay-Dutch mother and a Chinese- Japanese father. She migrated with her family to Australia in the mid-90s at age 10.

Much of her story sounds familiar: "Although born biologically male, Ms Mikimoto said that she never identified with being one. Growing up, she liked girlie things. She dreamed of parading in beautiful gowns and experimented with her mother's make-up and clothes. One Christmas, she placed her name on the Barbie doll meant for a female cousin.
 She had visited a psychiatrist who diagnosed her with gender identity dysphoria - a condition in which individuals identify emotionally and psychologically with the other gender. For five years before the surgery, she lived as a woman. During that time, she underwent hormone replacement therapy to feminise her facial and bodily features. Other than physical changes, she also took the time to "greatly reflect" on what it meant to have the gender change."

I haven't been able to find much recent information on her, so I hope all is well!

So Much for Predictions

I am really glad the election is over and my home state of Ohio didn't screw it up for the country. For what ever reason, Florida wants to keep that title. I could be cynical and say they still could be voting there  for all I know. More realistically they at the least are still counting!  Doesn't matter,  we still have an official winner-on time.

Also on time is my body shifting back to a little higher feminizing mode. I have been back on the summer dosage of hormones  for the last week  As I wrote before I had to cut back to a smaller dosage as I waited for the VA to work their magic. Now my breasts are getting a little sorer again so life is good.

In the life goes on department in Cyrsti's Condo...Let's see, playing with my big hair over the top "drag" look was fun.
My heart is still going out to all those poor folks on the East Coast who are still powerless and now are getting yet another storm.
Finally I still recoil and get physically ill at the sight of Rude Paul.

It doesn't seem possible the holiday season is almost here too.  It's a time of fun with family and friends but at the same time the loneliest time of the year for some in the transgender community rejected by those close to them.

Plus, let's not forget the Mayans predicted this was it anyhow. So I need to get ready.

Female Bonding

Every now and then I will run into a genetic female who wants to chat about my transgender status.
At some point in the conversation, she will want to know what I think are the biggest changes I have been through and what I have felt about them. Know she will. It's all good. Just bonding with the girls.
The answers are easy.  We go down the feminine checklists of skin, breasts, moods etc.
Then the fun starts. The next round of questions involves periods, bloating, and hot flashes. AND
it's all well and good to feminize your body BUT what about not experiencing monthly periods, bloating, PMS etc.
What can I say?
My simple answer is "only females bleed".
Never have had a menstrual period...never will. It is a deal breaker with them? Not usually if they are grounded human beings. This point is always a great spot to toss in-  gender is between the ears and sex is between the legs factoid and a female is not necessarily a woman.
Bottom line: Has it made my life easier or harder than theirs since I didn't bleed? Can't tell you.