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| Image from my first salon visit 12 years ago. |
As I slowly began to become part of the world as a transgender woman, I felt as if I was sliding down a steep slope towards a deep cliff which I could not see the bottom.
Not being able to see the bottom of the canyon I was facing
was probably the scariest part of coming out as my authentic self and being
allowed to be behind the gender curtain with ciswomen around me. Along the way,
I worried about the smallest things such as my appearance, all the way to how I
sounded if I had needed to talk to someone else. Many times, in an emergency only
because I was so unsure of myself as a novice transfeminine person. Sadly, I
learned the hard way that as weak as my communication skills as a trans woman
were, not communicating at all with other women was worse. Because not saying
anything made me come off as being somehow stuck up or worse yet, bitchy.
Through it all, I came off sliding slowly down my gender
path as I ignored several stop signs thrown up by my male self or my second
wife who knew she was in danger of losing her husband altogether. For most of
my journey at this point of my life, I was in the dark and used that as an
excuse of why I had just ignored or run the stop signs I was facing. Whatever
the case, I was living an exciting yet scary time of my life.
When I came out to my daughter nearly a dozen years ago, I
finally had lost my grip on the small trees and vines I was holding onto during
my steep descent into trans womanhood. She surprised me by promptly supporting me and
her only question was why was she the last to know, when in fact she was the
first to know I was much more than a part-time crossdresser (as my first wife
and her mother thought), I was actually a transgender woman who was afraid to
admit it to the world.
Since my birthday was right around the corner, my daughter volunteered
as a gift to me to take me to her hair salon/spa for a haircut and color
makeover on my hair which had become long enough to work with. Even though the
whole idea scared me to death, I took her up on the offer and she made the
appointment which would forever change my life.
Before I knew it or could even entertain any thoughts of
backing out the day was upon me and the next thing I knew I was with my
daughter and her stylist looking at seemingly endless color and style combinations
that I needed to choose from. Plus, I had to walk past a endless line of women
in chairs who had nothing else to do but give me their undivided attention as I
walked by, nervous as hell and trying my best not to show it. Fortunately, I
had a complimentary glass of wine to calm me down as I chose a highlighted blond/red
cut which all of us thought suited me the best.
Once I was done and allowed to see myself, I have to say I
was impressed and knew why ciswomen everywhere put so much emphasis on taking
care of the hair through salons everywhere. As I left, I felt as if I could
skip my daily dose of gender affirming hormones because the estrogen was so thick
in the air in the salon. As I said, it all added up to a day I will never
forget thanks to my supportive daughter I could never thank enough over the
years as she helped me pick out a new legal name change that my three grandkids
could easily grasp. Ironically, the middle grandchild who was in the fourth
grade had a teacher who was an out gay teacher in the school system and had my
grandchild as a student. Then my daughter needed to explain the difference in
their gay teacher and their transgender grandparent. As you can tell, diversity
ruled in their house and went full circle when my oldest grandchild came out as
trans.
As it turned out, I had nothing to fear from sliding off my
gender cliff because it turned out I had built such a group of supportive
people to help me when I fell. Of course, I always have to mention my future third
wife Liz who along with my daughter turned out to be my best allies during my
male to female feminization project. In fact, it turned out they knew me better
than I knew myself and showed me the way to success. Liz in particular always
told me that she never saw any male in me at all. Which in many ways provided
me with the powerful shove down my gender cliff into a world I always should
have been part of in the world of ciswomen. I don’t know what I would have done
without the guidance of women such as Kim and Nikki also. I just know I
probably would have kept up the male charade I was living longer than I did.
Perhaps the ironic part of them providing me a safe landing
was when all the ciswomen refused to take any credit. The only response I ever
got was welcome to our world when I tried to share stories about my first hot
flashes, so I learned to keep quiet and learn how to protect myself when the
expected gender crash happened. Because of women such as Min and Kathy, their
initial invitations to their girls only nights out helped me to learn what life
behind the gender curtain was really all about.
If I had known all I had learned earlier about being a transfeminine
person, I would have definitely taken the plunge down my cliff earlier than I
did. Not much I can do about it now as I am very much where I wanted to be and
the plunge was not too bad after all.
