Starting All Over Again as a Trans Woman

JJ Hart

With all the environmental global warming disasters we have going on in the world today, there are many people forced to start their lives over. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to all of you who have lost a significant part of your lives to weather-related incidents.

On the other hand, transgender women and transgender men have a head start on most people because we have become skilled in stopping our lives and starting all over again. In my case, I put it off until my mid fifties to start all over again and leave my male past behind me. The only thing I really did was build up too much male baggage I had to figure out what to do with.

I had a long-term marriage to a wife who was completely against any thoughts of me transitioning into a woman, a small but secure family, a vintage brick house I was restoring and a good job to consider losing. Unlike a weather related “hand of god” experience, I was bringing down the demise of my male life completely on my own. Without the help of anyone else. So, it would be my burden to carry around if anything went wrong with me crossing the gender border and following an extreme male to female femininization program which would eventually include HRT gender affirming hormones.

The only thing I did know was I was off to a good start as I slowly refined my makeup and clothing arts as a very serious cross-dresser who always had the suspicion that more than cross-dressing was in my future. Being more than a cross-dresser was like dangling a carrot in front of a horse to get it to move, I just had to have the confidence to tear down what I built and start all over. Any setbacks I encountered when I went out in public for the first time would always destroy the frail confidence, I had built up in myself over time and sent me back to my closet to try to figure out what I was doing wrong. How hard could it be?

I found out over my early years that “it” could be very hard as I struggled to get out of my closet and into the world. For the most part, it seemed I had bitten off more than I could chew when I began to get close to the gender border and had to think of all the white male privileges I would have to give up if my urge to transition did not change. Not only did it not change, but it also strengthened into a powerful force that I thought of every spare moment of the day and even some nights when I dreamed. It was always extra punishment when I had to wake up from being an attractive woman and go back to my boring and unwanted male world. Still, I had no alternative but to keep pushing towards a transfeminine goal I never knew if I could reach.

To my surprise, I went through other major and minor transitions as I made my way from cross-dresser to the transgender terminology. As I became more skilled at blending in with the world of ciswomen around me, mentally I slowly shifted back to my old thoughts that I wanted to be more than a man who looked like a woman. I wanted to feel as close as I could to feeling like I belonged behind the gender curtain and be allowed into the girls’ club full-time. All my surprises led me to a place where I could finally flourish as a trans woman. If I could decide what I was willing to give up getting there. When the time came to decide, would I be willing to push all my chips into the middle of the table and decide to go all the way, or once again, slink back again to my closet. Or I could relate my life to being one big “Monopoly” game where I was always ready to take another chance and buy another feminine property.

I know all of this sounds like sort of a word salad fantasy until reality set in for me. In my haste to seek out the meaning of a feminine existence for me, I had started to build up the basics I would need to keep building a new and exciting life I never thought I could get to. But there I was having to decide what I was going to try to keep of my old male life as I tore it all down and built a new one. I was very one dimensional in my life with my hobbies and interests so in that sense, I did not have much to get rid of. The one interest I hoped I could keep was my interest in sports and always figured it might help me if I was ever involved with a man but never dreamed my former male life in sports could mesh so well with the ciswomen I met.

Before I knew it, I was joining woman-friends in sports bars drinking beer and debating our favorite teams. I saved one piece of male baggage but at the same time, others had to go. As I write about often, I lost my unapproving wife and several male friends to death in a short period of time. When they left me, I realized how difficult it was for me to make true male friends. As I started to transition more, I began to understand why. Down deep, I was never interacting with other men as a man but rather as the trans woman I truly was. All of the pieces of the puzzle of my life were finally starting to come together, and I was seeing the big picture of what my denial of myself had cost me over all those years. I came away thinking how I could miss something that was that simple.

One thing was for sure, thanks to the HRT hormones and the relationship I was building with my future wife Liz, nothing was standing in my way on my gender path. Liz was the opposite of my second wife and told me she had never seen anything but female in me anyhow. I certainly was not one to argue and gave away all my male clothes to charity so I could help all those thrift stores which had helped me in the past.

I was more than ready to start all over again.

Thank you so much for taking your time to join me in my gender travels. Any comments are always appreciated.

 

 

Sliding Down a Hill as a Trans Woman

 

Image from Alexander Mass
on UnSplash.

As I made my way into a very serious time in my life on my male to female femininization journey, I found myself on a hill with my male life slowly slip sliding away.

At first, as my male self-started to panic at losing his footing in the world, my overall life was in panic mode also. That was until I began to enjoy the process and realized it was nothing more than a normal progression into a transgender woman’s life, if I truly wanted to go there.

Keep in mind, I was doing my sliding in a pair of new high heels I was in love with, and for a long time I was on uneven footing. Then, I started to do everything in my power to determine if the grass was greener on the feminine side of the gender border for me or not. I even went to the extent of dating cismen to see if I had any sexual attraction to them at all. For the most part, finding a date with a quality man was difficult to do as most ciswomen know as most men were turned off by having anything to do with a trans woman at all.

To go out with me, a man had to be willing to meet me in a public place where I was already a regular in and go from there and I was stood up many times. Which I got used to. The only exception was a man I met in a group of people who had tried and failed to marry an exotic dancer who was beautiful and in the social group. After the brief marriage which lasted only a week, the man ended up getting made fun of by others in the group which I thought was completely unfair because I saw how much he was hurting. After that, on separate occasions when we happened to see each other at the bar, I tried to comfort him the best I could. It turned out the big bear of a man who ran a lumber yard and rode a Harley motorcycle was an interesting person that I liked and we got along. Sadly, he moved on before we could get to know each other better and I had a chance to ride on his Harley.

There were dates with other men which helped me slide down my transgender path, but not many as most men avoided me like a disease since they sensed I had left their club and were afraid of their frail sexuality being challenged. But other men were attracted to women like me I discovered as I was pushed along down my ever-steepening hill to my own feminine destiny. There were men such as Dan and Bob who were willing to meet my demands of going on a date at one of my regular straight venues I went to.

At first flipping the gender tables from male to female was difficult for me and I was extremely nervous but slowly learned what I would need to know to carry on a successful conversation from the other side of the binary gender spectrum. I learned quickly not to push too hard to start communicating and let the man lead the way and do my best to follow from there. I had to be careful not to be too reticent to talk because I was building myself into a strong feminine trans woman and did not want to give that up. I was a true contradiction in terms. I found I did love being treated like a woman but always was worried about what was coming next. I did not want to be the sort of woman who seemingly just led men on for sport. I did not have to worry because both men were gentlemen and we went upon our separate ways after a parting kiss. The kisses were the first I ever experienced with a man, and I was interested to see what if anything I felt after doing it. I did not and my sexuality was never challenged. I did not even go out and buy bananas to practice with as my ciswoman acquaintance Amy told me I needed to do.

This entire time of my walking my downhill gender path, I was noticing the biggest surprise of all. As men were ignoring me, women were attracted to me for any number of reasons. I think the main reason was women were curious why I wanted to give up being a man to be in their world. Whatever the reason, I found myself going to lesbian monthly mixers with friends and even being asked to be one of my friends “wing-person” one night when she was afraid to approach another woman for her phone number. I was overjoyed to do it and had another of those once in a lifetime experience when I was accepted for who I really was.

The only problem I was experiencing was a big one. I was still living parttime in a male world and slipping quickly down a hill into a female one. I had people to tell and a job to deal with among other problematic issues I had to take care of before I lost it all and plunged off a gender cliff into an unknown, I knew nothing about. My cliff was so steep, I could not see to the bottom.

By this time, proceeding carefully was out of the question. I had survived the death of my wife as well as most of the few male friends that I had and I was ready to make a change. Even then I could see which change was coming and I would have to take the chance to seize the opportunity of a lifetime to take it. So, I let go of everything that was holding me back and took the leap over my gender cliff, not knowing what was going to happen. On the other hand, I had done a lot of homework on what would happen if I did jump. All the way from testing my sexuality with men to socializing with the lesbian culture, I tried to cover all my transfeminine socialization bases as I slid down my path. Never being totally out of control.

The best part was the reception I received when I took my final gender leap. All the trust and time I had spent with women over the years was completely repaid and they provided me with a soft landing into a world I had only dreamed about as a transgender woman.

Hi! Thanks for reading along and no matter where you are on your life’s journey, I hope it is a successful one for you.

Anytime you have for comments is appreciated.

 

 

 

Seeing It All Clearly Now

 

Image from Lola Rose
on UnSplash. 

As I journeyed for years along my decades old gender path, I discovered I could see life much more clearly.

Going back and forth across the gender border from male to female allowed me to see what goes on in the lives of both binary genders. Something that is very rarely accomplished by very many human beings who are stuck in their restrictive gender boxes from birth. But, what about the rest of us who for some reason, got put into the wrong box and were forced to live a life we never wanted until we went out on our own to change it. That is where we start to see the changes in our gender set in. Or maybe something was wrong when we were put into neat little boxes at birth.

In a classic what goes around, comes around, we go around searching for our authentic selves as transgender women or transgender men until if we are lucky, it comes around back to discovering our true selves later in life. How we can come to that conclusion is as different as human beings can possibly be. Some of us take shorter routes than others. If I use myself as an example, I took decades to come to my gender truth that I was hiding from me the whole time. If I had the courage to face my truth earlier, my life would have been so much different. I am sure it would not have been a completely positive experience, but at least, I would have been working towards living a transfeminine life much earlier than I did as a serious cross-dresser.

I was the classic person who does not see the forest for the trees. Since all my trees had a big transgender marked in every one of them and I thought it could not be for me. Even though I was going as far as cross-dressing three out of the seven days of the week if I could get away with it.

At the least, during those three days of the week, I was learning to present better in the world the way I always wanted to. As I did it, slowly I was seeing what I needed to know if I had what it takes to cross the gender border for good and would the grass be even greener when I did it. Plus, as I always mention, I had an increasingly successful male life and family to deal with. At the least, my second wife knew about and reluctantly approved of my cross-dressing but always drew the line if I was thinking about going ahead with the next step for me. Which would have been HRT-gender affirming hormones. She always said she did not sign up to live with another woman, and I never had the courage to tell her she already did. In the meantime, I clashed with my two main ciswoman role models, my mom and my second wife. I admired them for being strong women until it came to the times, they did not accept me.

The problem was I was seeing clearly the trans person I was becoming and every positive step I took led me to believe I never wanted to go back to the male life I never asked for. Most importantly, I was building the confidence to do it and ignore the gatekeepers like my wife and mom. I felt deep down, if I kept knocking on the gatekeeper’s door, someone would let me in, and I could experience for myself what went on behind the gender curtain.

When I finally made it behind the curtain, I found the feminine reality I was always looking for. Far past the shiny fashion, hair and makeup intangibles all the way into the complex lives that ciswomen lead. By that time, I had paid plenty of dues to get there and just figured my socialization as a woman was part of life I should cherish. If anyone wanted to get in my way, shame on them because by that time I could see clearly who I really was in my unique form of womanhood. Other women saw me too when I was asked to pose for a book about different women for a judging in Chicago years ago. It was to be my only experience as a photographer’s model, and I was nervous, but I enjoyed the attention immensely.

The rest of my life was not as exciting as posing for a photographer, but in other ways, as satisfying also. I was enjoying building new acquaintances with my wife Liz as we went to writers and crafters meetup groups to intermix with total strangers. The whole experience helped to get me out of my shell and lift the fog away from whom I was destined to be in life. Most importantly, I was happy doing it. Something I was never allowed to do when I was growing up when doing good was not good enough, there always had to be something better. I never imagined how much that carried over into my adult life until I began to come out of my gender shell. Even still, I had to work my way out of the idea that there always was a better dress or wig I could buy which would magically transform me into an attractive passable woman.  It was all good until I looked in the mirror or went out into the world attempting to be myself. Some nights being myself was within reach and some nights it just was not and I needed to go back home disappointed.

I went back to my gender drawing board continually until I slowly got it right and began to present myself in the way as the trans woman, I wanted to be.  I took advantage of all the time that I wanted to see the best woman I could become on my own terms. It was the best I could do. I was done with all the denial I had put myself through which should be the topic of another blog post.

Speaking of another post, I always invite you to join me again and read along. Thank you! 

Comments are always welcomed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She Was Always There

 

Trans Ohio Symposium
JJ Hart

No matter where I went in my life, she was always there.

It did not matter if I was in the middle of playing a football game as a defensive end, she was always with me wanting instead to be a cheerleader. She carried over into my everyday life also as I daydreamed all the time what if would be like to cross the gender border and live a feminine life. As I dreamed my life away, my feminine side may have had an unfair advantage because I was only seeing the positives of being a girl or a woman. It seemed so unfair to me that they could wear all the pretty clothes, have long hair and not have to worry about being forced into military duty during the Vietnam War. Plus, why did I have to be the chaser whenever I wanted to ask someone out. I never saw the competition between the girls for attention, being able to wear makeup and more. They were far from the simple life I was seeing but had no one to tell me so.

Even so, she was always lurking in the background as I fought off the shyness, I felt when I had to be around people I did not know in public. Especially other girls. I did not know then why I was attracted to them in a non-sexual manner because it would be the way I would live my life as I grew older. I learned my natural comfort zone in public always came with other women and I never felt comfortable making friends with men at all. Maybe it was because she was always there in the background. Telling me what to do.

When she did, often major conflicts in my life would occur because in my male life I was always trying to put up a macho front to keep the bullies away. It was difficult to do when she was always whispering in my ear, I was doing the wrong thing when all I was doing was to survive my gender dysphoria and live. It was the beginning of a lifetime of warring genders that would consume me to the point of self-destructive behavior.

When I progressed in my career into management, she was always with me when I needed to handle the women in my crews different than the men. She was studying the way I handled myself and how the ciswomen I was dealing with handled me. Primarily, I learned a lot about how women exist with each other and how alpha females can control a clique of other women. It would be valuable experience later in life for me when I was trying to gain acceptance to the girls’ club. If I had an alpha or two helping me along, they could make my life so much easier.

It began to matter more to me when I began to listen more and more to the feminine voice who was talking to me. She was a powerful influence when other women approached me to investigate what I was all about. Somehow, I was like them but yet so different as a transgender woman. I would have to learn how to build trust with other women as a like minded person and only use the long unwanted male basics of my life when I was asked to. Such as when women asked me questions about understanding their boyfriends or husbands. The last thing I wanted to say was I never understood them either, so I helped the best I could and I was flattered by the questions.

Most certainly, she was more than in the background when I started to explore the world as a trans woman. To do it, interaction and communication was the key as I had to come way out of my closet to do it. I even went as far as taking feminine vocalization lessons to learn more about how to communicate more effectively one on one in the world. The lessons were wonderful and taught me more than I ever thought they would. I knew of course that ciswomen had their own way of communication, but not as much as I learned about the nuances of feminine speech patterns. It was a huge change for me as I had developed many bad listening habits as a man that I needed to change…quickly, if I wanted to survive and thrive as a transfeminine person. Such as beginning to closely listen to what another person was telling me rather than skipping over it to how I was planning on answering it.

As I added layer upon layer in the world to the feminine self I was building, I did not have to pay attention to the woman within me that had always been there in the background. She was having a chance to see the fruits of always being with me come to bear as she was able to take over my world. Since I had already put in years of effort into my presentation as a trans woman and had taken it about as far as I could, my background woman was overjoyed to see me take the extra step and listen to her where to go next. That step was to put the communication mode fully into my life and complete my feminine image in the world. I finally made it out of my closet’s mirror and had a chance to be happy. Something that was never emphasized in my family when I grew up. I did not know how to act with such a new emotion.

Then it became time to flip my gender equation. My male self still vaguely exists as my female self runs my life. I discovered it was nearly impossible for me to erase the decades I had in life doing my best to make it in an unwanted male world. So, I tried to take the best and leave the rest behind. It is working for me so far.

Speaking of working for me, I will not be writing tomorrow as I must go to my new Veterans Administration clinic for my annual checkup, Flu and Covid immunizations and even blood labs. I have not had any problems for years at the VA because of my gender, so I do not expect any tomorrow. But if past Flu and Covid shots are any indication, I will not feel like writing. If any thing crazy happens with the clinic’s personnel disrespecting me, I will report it.

Thanks as always to reading along with my gender journey exploits. Hopefully my thoughts can be of value to you.

 

 

 

 

Spending Your Whole Life Changing a Person

 

Image from Hoite Prins
on UnSplash. 

Sometimes, change comes slow in the life of a transgender woman or transgender man. I can speak from experience since my change came roughly over a fifty-year span.

During the old if I had known then what I know now experience, if I had known my male to female femininization project would have taken that long, would I have tried it at all. Then again, I would have had too because becoming a woman with my own standards was always the main dream I always had. I never knew how I was going to make it, or if I even could but I was determined to try.

And try, I did. Repeatedly until I came closer to getting it right. I spent countless hours in front of the mirror as a youth trying to get my makeup and clothes just right and dreaming of the day when I could afford a nice wig. I had had enough of my short male haircuts, and as far as change of hair styles went, I would be forced to wait until after I got out of the Army before I could begin to grow my hair out to where I wanted it. In the meantime, I was able to buy a beautiful long blond wig to help my change along.

About that time, I realized I could help my way along with a major change by going on a crash diet. By doing so, I was able to lose enough weight so I could finally fit into the more fashionable women’s clothes I was finding at all the thrift stores I was shopping at. Even the weight loss, along with my new skin care program, did not help me enough in the change department. I wanted more in my desire to be the most attractive woman I could possibly be and worked constantly at it. Much to the chagrin of my second wife who wore nearly no makeup at all. We clashed about it all the time, but I stayed on my path to always do better.

Sadly, before my second wife’s death, my formative years of change as a novice transgender woman set in. I wonder now, how I made any strides with all the restrictions which were put on me. I did know one thing that I could not see any real changes in my feminine life until I could make it out of my restrictive lifetime closet and be allowed to explore the world. Something my wife was dead set against, adding an extra barrier on my gender path. In place of being able to explore more in the world, I daydreamed my life away. Thinking what it would be like to live the experiences I had as a cisman as a woman. I would like to get back just a portion of the time I wasted daydreaming and have often wondered what I could made of my male self if I had been constantly focused on him. Of course, I could not get the time back and had to make the best out of what I had been given.

When I was able to finally break out of my closet and begin to explore the world as a transgender woman, change began to come quicker for me. I got to the point where I could not wait for the next time I had the chance to go out so I could have the opportunity to learn more about the life I should have always been able to live. In an extraordinarily short period of time, I was able to establish myself and begin to carve out a new and separate life away from my old male one. For once, I did not have to wonder what the life of a ciswoman was like as I was experiencing it for myself. The time was especially valuable to me when I began to lose most all my friends to death and I was desperately lonely. I needed a new place to turn and all the changes I had worked so hard on over the years really came back to help me.

Perhaps the biggest change which helped was that I came back as a wiser/nicer self than I ever was before. All the years of watching and learning from the ciswomen around me did come back to help me after all because I learned that all women did not fit the kind and giving stereotype of the feminine world everywhere. I gained some basic knowledge of which women to look out for in the world and how to change around their often-passive aggressive spirit. Lessons I learned the hard way on many occasions when I learned a smiling face did not mean a smiling spirit.

If I had not let a lifetime of change help me, then shame on me. So, I needed to make the best of a life which on occasion seemed to be totally out of reach. It was not until I realized it was that I resolved myself to do the little things to make me a better transfeminine person. That is where the little circle of women friends who I built up around me came in to help me. All the girls’ nights out and lesbian mixers helped me to round off the remaining rough male edges that I had and send my life in the right direction where I did not need a man’s support to validate me as a person. Another woman’s validation was just as valuable to me without all the resultant drama and sexuality questions I would have had to have gone through.

I suppose all the changes I went through in the military when I was stationed on three continents in three years got me used to change and in fact, I often craved it. It worked to my advantage later in life when I had all the gender changes I could handle. Even though my immensely influential male self as well as me trying to appease my second wife went, they never won and I changed anyhow. A drastic change from societies’ standards as I was able to cross the gender border and femininize myself from male to female.

I certainly was fortunate to be able to do it all and see the world the way I could behind the feminine gender curtain. Even though I ignored the obvious about myself and it took so long to do it.

Thanks so very much for joining me on my gender journey!

Any comments or thoughts are always welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

A Destination or a Retreat into Trans Womanhood

Image from Brian Wangenheim
on UnSplash. 

As a youth, all I did when I failed at a male task was to seek the reassuring feelings of my feminine clothes and makeup. I knew then I would not have the male world I hated for a while.

The pattern continued with me into adulthood and was even expanded to include a better sense of wardrobe and makeup as I ventured into the world. But then it started to slowly reverse as I started to blend in with the ciswomen around me. Increasingly, I was feeling better about the progress I was making as a serious cross-dresser and wanted to do more as I moved towards being a transgender woman in my mind. Even though I was still extremely lonely as my feminine self, I was starting to embrace the unique person that I was. Afterall, how many people get to experience both sides of the primary genders in their lives.

On occasion, I even reverted to appreciating all the male privileges I had learned after a particularly brutal day of exploring the world of cross-dressing. Early on there were many I needed to go through as I continued to pay my dues to get to my dream of possibly living my life as a transfeminine person. Not a man.

Even though mixing genders was beginning to have a bit of normalcy for me, I came to the point where I would not recommend the journey to just anyone who was not totally committed to it. My mental health, which was already frail at the time, did not take easily to the journey ahead and it suffered. Again, sending me back to the comparative safety of the only other life I had learned to live successfully when I was competing as a man in the world.  At that point, it was difficult to tell if I was on a trans destination or a male retreat. The only thing that kept me going down my path was the deep sense of satisfaction or gender euphoria I felt when everything was going better when I interacted with the world as my true authentic self. Free and out of the closet for a change.

It took me years of experimentation in public, as I set up my own personal bucket list of what I perceived to be the real-world ciswomen had to face in their lives. I figured out why I would want to go there if I could not make it. In other words, I kept challenging my feminine self to do more and more such as do more than just spend very little time in public just walking around or shopping in easy venues such as women’s clothing stores where your money overcomes any reaction to your possible gender when it came to testing myself. I certainly then was setting myself up for a possible transgender destination in my life as I worked my way through my bucket list.

As with anything else in life, all I had learned about being in the world was not all positive and I found myself deeper into my quest to cross the gender border and complete my male to female femininization project. I learned the hard way to try to not get myself into questionable safety situations that women know not to get into that do not bother men. It seemed the gender universe was testing me on certain nights such as the one I needed to fend off negative advances from a much bigger cross-dresser admirer at a party I was at with the help of my second wife. Something I never bargained for as I went around a blind corner on my gender path. It was easier to think about erasing all my male privileges such as safety but harder to learn what to replace them with.

I do not think I ever did replace my new lack of intelligence with the cismen I interacted with as I was mansplained more times than I cared to remember by men of questionable intellect. Such as the tow truck driver I was forced into a conversation with one night when he was towing my car home. I had to sit there, and act interested when he had to tell me all the workings of his truck. Like I cared when all I wanted was to get home safe and sound. Which I did. All the bucket lists in the world did not prepare me for the reality of living a feminine life, but even still, I was loving everything I learned behind the gender curtain. If I was ever a girl scout, I would earn merit badges like what to do if your car breaks down when you are by yourself and the first person who stops to help is a sheriff. Who would not listen to me when I was trying to explain to him and the tow driver the easiest way to my house. I finally just gave up.

It soon was becoming obvious to me that I was no longer retreating behind my dresses and makeup to cover any vestiges of a male life I wanted to cover up. Instead, my full-fledged female life was a complete destination. A destination I wanted to do more than anything I ever had done in my life. There would be no more retreating back to my male world. No matter how easy it would have been to do it because he had always kept a comfortable home for me if I ever wanted to return. Much to his disappointment, I continued my feminine destination into the world of HRT gender affirming hormones which separated me farther from ever hiding again in my old unwanted male world.

HRT was certainly the end for any thoughts of ever returning to my old male self because I felt to increasingly natural when I took them. It was as if my body was telling me what took so long as my external self-synced up with the woman, I always saw myself to be. It just took me years to get there. Which was the tragic result of me not listening to myself.

Thanks for reading along on a few of my trials and tribulations of my gender journey. I hope yours is much smoother. Any comments are always appreciated.

 

 

Not Just a Visitor

 

JJ Hart from my Parttime Life.

When I began cross-dressing at a very early age, I learned I was so much more than a casual visitor to my femininity.

I knew because the feelings of wanting to be a girl just did not go away when the clothes came off and I needed to quickly return to my old male world. I was very resentful that I needed to return to being male because I had no choice in the matter to do it. Nothing seemed to help the way I felt except planning for the next time I could be alone and be the feminine person I wanted to be.

As I grew up, I did not grow away from my feminine instincts and desires, I grew into them and decided to gather the courage and leave my closet to see if I could make it in a world of ciswomen where I always wanted to be. Sure, I was scared when I first faced the world, but it was a natural progression for me if I was ever going to make it to my dream of living a transfeminine life. Following the initial clownish attempts, I made to present myself to the world, I settled in and learned how to present myself properly in a world dominated by the very women that I had put up on a pedestal early in my life.

Ironically, the two women that I chose to be my primary role models were the two women who tried to stop my transition the most. The first was my mom who was a very dedicated and popular schoolteacher who ran a very successful male dominated family from behind the scenes. Long before she passed away when I got out of the Army, I sat down with her and told her of my desire to be a woman. She quickly rejected me and said she would pay for a trip to a psychiatrist. Which was exactly what I did not want to hear because recently I had come out to a very small group of friends in the Army that I was a transvestite and was accepted. There was no way I was going to let mom push me back in the closet, so we never mentioned the subject again.

My second wife presented me with an entirely different challenge to my identity. She knew from the start of our relationship I was a cross-dresser but soundly rejected any ideas of me going forward into the transgender world of women. I had to respect her promise that she did not sign up to live with another woman, and it was the cause of many fights over our twenty-five years of marriage before she suddenly passed away. Regardless of all the negative feedback I received from both of them, I learned close up what it meant to be a strong independent woman in the world. While at the same time maintaining a family relationship. If I could ever be half the woman, they were, I could be successful.

Now, let's get back to that darn pedestal I put women up on for as long as I did. It took me years of trying to cross the gender border and being allowed to experience what was going on in the girls’ sandbox to do it. But when I did, I was finally able to destroy what was left of the pedestal I had built so many years before. When I was out in the world as a transgender woman, I learned the separate paths that cismen and women take. Since I had already learned the hard way about the male path, my next big challenge was to adapt it to the strong feminine world I was trying to survive in. One of the main things I learned was once you were out of the men’s club you were totally out for being a traitor and not following the fragile rules that men had set up over the years. Especially the ones that included any reference to their sexuality.

Women, on the other hand, were much more sympathetic to my cause. All the way to guiding me into women only spaces. There were very few times when I was completely rejected by ciswomen as I tried to be in their world. Probably the biggest reasons were they were curious about what I wanted there, and I was not up to no good as I was just being my authentic self all the time. Much more than being a part-time visitor. I knew from my experience as a man that women were much more in tune for BS from the world than men and embraced me when I did not have any of that negative aura around me as I was just the true me. Which I had taken years to experience.

It is no surprise to me that some think I am not trans enough to write about my experiences because I have never gone through any of the major gender realignment surgeries. Long ago when I could not afford any of the major surgeries, I decided I could live without them because my gender was between the ears and not between the legs. So, I set out to discover the best I could do to still live a complete life in a world of ciswomen everywhere. I ended up putting years into my pursuit of learning a new life, but all the work was worth it because I was able to carve out a new feminine life from the remints of a successful male life. Proving I was so much more in the world than just a part-time visitor into the world of women was certainly a challenge but with help I was able to do it.

I had the fork in the path long ago, when I had to decide to end my part-time infatuation with being a girl into the fulltime version of living the dream that I always wanted. Then I put my two and two together and hit the jackpot. I ended up winning my own personal lottery by finally listening to myself and doing the right thing.

Thanks for reading along! Any comments are always welcome!

 

 

Like the Bulb which Refused to Go Out

 

Image from Christian Dubovan
on UnSplash.
 

Years ago in another life, I bought a small corner tavern in an 1860’s era brick building in my hometown with a friend of mine.

My dad aptly called the bar the place flies did not have to stop when they flew through and I had to agree. But his criticism did not stop my friend and I from trying to make it the best tavern we could. When we were bored, we started to look around in all the saved junk that ancient bars accumulated and found a vintage, part wooden beer sign we could not wait to put up, even though that brand of beer did not exist anymore.

Amazingly, the sign had an ancient filament light bulb that still worked, so we used it and it kept on working for years. Later, I began to think of that bulb and how it could describe my gender conflicted life. No matter how hard I tried, my inner gender feminine light just would not go out. Not even a three-year stint away in the Army from the external expression of me being a cross-dresser could put it out. In addition, when I was honorably discharged, I found I needed to replace my inner gender bulbs with ones of a greater wattage to illuminate my dark, lonely closet.

Brighter bulbs helped to illuminate my feminine image in my closet mirror and helped me improve my makeup art as well as determine what clothes would be the right ones to wear. My new visions of myself helped me to speed up the cross-dressing experience and I just wanted to have more. That is when I began to take chances by going out into the malls and shopping centers close to my home. It did not make matters any easier as I learned how far I needed to go to successfully blend in with the ciswomen around me. Instead of displaying a small/dim bulb to succeed, to get to where I wanted to go, I needed a brighter bulb to display myself if I was ever going to make it as a successful transgender woman

At first, I was just using my light to interact with clerks and salespersons until I built up my confidence to do more. I was moving past my early days of Halloween exposure to the world as a trans woman and I was scared to death because for once I did not have the, “well I am wearing a costume” excuse to fall back on if I experienced any pushback for my cross-dressing in public. I was not up to no good, all I wanted was for my light to shine brightly in the new exciting world I was in. Unfortunately, in my early years, you might say I was a dimwit when my light bulb flickered and I thought it was going to go out. Those were the dark days of “purging” or getting rid of almost all of my feminine belongings and pledging to myself that I was going to turn the light off for good, put it all behind me and go back to where I was as a successful man.

As I said, those were the days of being a dimwit because deep down I knew I needed that feminine bulb to survive. No matter how dim it was at the time. Ironically, every time I “purged” I discovered very quickly I would need a much brighter bulb to sustain my life when I returned to my gender reality. Then I started to work hard to see what my new reflection in the world really was as a transfeminine person. I had to be constantly on my toes with my best behavior to do it as I was learning so much from every woman or the rare cisman I interacted with. It seemed as if I had to keep a constant supply of new bulbs handy every time I went out in the world. I always mention the stripping of all my male privileges as the main way which drastically dimmed my new light as a trans woman until I could replace the privileges with the whole new euphoria of being able to exist equally as myself in the girls ‘club I so desperately wanted admission into. It finally became evident to me; to be admitted, I had to find a bigger, better bulb to improve my overall presentation. So, I would never have to start all over again with my feminine life.

After years of experimentation and trying, I made it into the girls’ club where I always should have been in my life. And I put all those years of replacing bulbs behind me. Suddenly, my gender path became well lit like a large city street which I was able to navigate easily. With the help of powerful/magical HRT gender affirming hormones which helped me sync my external selves with my feminine inner self. I really became a whole person with all the gender benefits I had ever dreamed of. My emotions became clearer as I became more sensitive to the world. Among with the usual changes in hair on my head and breast size to my chest. Probably, most importantly, I was able to quit trying so hard with my makeup as my skin softened along my facial angles which made me more passable as a transgender woman. The world questioned me less, so I was able to change out fewer bulbs as I continued to play in the girls’ sandbox for the first time in my life.

The only regret I have is that it took me so long to follow my feminine destiny and live out my truth in life. I wasted too much time and money cross-dressing my life away changing gender bulbs until I got it right. I should have taken the time to write down somewhere the number of excuses I heard from my male self why I should ignore my truth and not try to live a life as a transgender woman. But I did not and the only thing I can fall back on is when my male life was good, it was very good and very bad when it was not. It is the only excuse I have to waste all those bulbs I did over the decades of gender experimentation I did to arrive at my destiny.

Hopefully, you can do the same. Thanks for reading and comments are always welcome!

 

 

 

 

How Difficult Could it Be?

 

JJ Hart

When I started my transgender journey, I was very naïve and I kept thinking how hard it could be to stay on my path.

All I saw was the good side of being feminine with all the girls around me in their pretty clothes and long hair when I was stuck in all the restrictive, boring male clothes and very short haircuts. To make matters even worse, I needed to make sure I kept all of my cross-dressing activities very hidden from the family and friends who would have ridiculed me and called me a sissy boy. The worst thing I could be called in my very male dominated family.

As I said, I was naïve and for years thought that all I wanted from being feminine was looking like a woman, so I obsessed about it night and day. Eventually, I did come closer to achieving my goal while all the ignoring harassing comments from my second wife who rarely wore any makeup at all. On the rare occasions she went out with me, she constantly thought I was going too far with my makeup and hair to the point of calling me the “Princess”. When all I was doing was trying to blend in with the ciswomen around me by overcoming my old male self.  Of course, I felt the criticism was not fair and the evening was ruined. Often before it even got started. From that point forward, the fights started because she did not like the trans woman I was becoming. And I did not understand why.

I think now that she thought I had not paid my dues as a woman yet to claim the socialization title and she was right. I was still stubborn and did not know how I ever was going to have the chance to play in the girls’ sandbox if I did not want it bad enough. I was stuck between two massive changes in my life which would either involve giving up the woman that I loved for one that I was learning to love. How hard life could be was becoming a reality for me like a boulder rolling down a cliff directly at me. It was quickly becoming unbearably hard when I discovered I could indeed see a path ahead of living my life as a transfeminine person.

What happened next was that I began to step away from my wife and essentially live the life she challenged me to live. That is to begin to socialize myself as a transgender woman in the world. I started to meet strangers as a trans woman who never knew me as a man and start all over in a new life. How hard could it be? It was and the whole process scared me to death. I was terrified of being stripped of all my old male privileges and having nowhere to turn if something negative happened to me. How would I be able to react to potentially negative situations in my new life. It turned out I did not have many potentially negative problems, and I was able to grow into my new feminine person with very few problems because most of the world did not care what gender I was. They were too wrapped up in their own worlds. Especially the cismen who were so afraid of their fragile sexuality that they left me alone. Which was fine by me, since I had always had a problem with making friends with other men when I was trying to be one anyhow.

Ciswomen, on the other hand, were much more willing to let me in their worlds and even show me around. Making it less hard to be one of them as I was learning daily how to fill out my life. I always had enjoyed being around women and found I even enjoyed it more when I was made a member in good standing of the girls’ club. Being in the club entitled me to use women’ only spaces such as restrooms which made my life so much easier also.

Most likely, I made some male to female transition issues more difficult than they should have been. Such as when I first came out into the world and thought everyone was looking at me, when they were not. I even went as far as to wear a favorite pair of sunglasses I had to see if anyone was staring at me without them knowing it. They were not, I was relieved and was able to go on with my new life. With new confidence I never had before. Maybe I could achieve my dream after all. It was a scary thought because then I had to start to think about what I was going do with all the excess male baggage I had built up over the years when I was trying my best to hide my true self by being a successful man.

The entire focus of my life changed as I began to consider the new and exciting reality of being able to live out my dream I had wanted since I was a child. I was sad when I could not tell the truth when an adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I could not say a woman and earn a quick trip to therapy by my parents. At the time, being a woman seemed as far away to me as being a lawyer or a doctor. But at the same time, a dream I really wanted to live.

Along the way, two things were evident to me. One of which was every time I achieved a goal on my path, another would appear for me to consider doing. And the second thing was, every time I began to doubt myself, I would start to feel natural about my journey and it would re-energize me, so I could move forward again. Forward was always good and made me feel better about my life which brings me back to my original point of how hard it could be to cross the gender border. Exceedingly difficult at times to be sure, but excitingly natural as I was doing it.

Wherever you are on your path to a better tomorrow, I hope you can discover your truth and make it in one piece. As always, thank you for reading and comments are always appreciated!

 

Buckle Up....It's the Transgender Law

 

Image from Milada Vigerova
on UnSplash.

As any of you transgender women or transgender men already know, it’s time for you to buckle up for a rough and bumpy ride along the way. To coin a term used in Ohio commercials, “Buckle up, It’s the Law”. To which I added, it is the transgender law.

It all begins early in life when we learn we have gender issues to work out of. Then we must go through the cruel reality which fully sends us into masculine bodies we wanted nothing to do with. Or the opposite for trans men. In my case, I had no need for all the muscles, angles and hair my body was adding, but there they were and I had to buckle up for a lifetime of sometimes unpleasant experiences.

Adding to the problems, many of will not survive puberty as femininized boys or masculine girls but at least the “tomboy” label can get girls by. When they want to play with the boys, which is frowned upon if you are a boy wanting to play with the girls. In my case, I remember Christmas when I wanted a baby doll and received a BB Gun instead. Hear I was stuck in a life I never wanted. I had to buckle down to change it more than anything else I ever wanted to do.

Not being a feminine boy worked wonders for me as a boy around the bullies at school but was a difficult pill to swallow during my early days of trying to look like a pretty girl in the mirror at home. Back then, I could have never imagined all the work I would have to put in to shake my male external image. It would be so much more than just learning to apply cosmetics correctly or finding a feminine wardrobe which would fit me.

What I started to do was take better care of my skin by using good moisteners I could sneak past my wife and then started a crash diet in which I used to buy better fitting clothes in the thrift stores I was haunting, looking for bargains. It worked because I began to be able to present more effectively in the shopping malls I was going to. Which I never thought I could earlier when I was laughed out of them. By then, society was changing or I was because the teen girls who used to harass me began to leave me alone. But only when I was able to femininize myself to the point of almost blending in with the rest of the ciswomen I encountered. I considered it step one to achieve if I was ever able to make it to my goal of being a functional transfeminine person. Or, I had to at least look the part the best I could. It turned out that was going to be the easy part for me and I had better buckle up for what was coming up ahead for me.

Step two it turned out was going to be the longest step I would have to take, as I finally entered the world as a trans woman and started working for my future. Following several false starts and in-advised adventures. By ill-advised, I mean the nights I was asked to leave several redneck venues I went to just to see if I could. I did not make it and got asked to leave, which I did with no incident as I continued to settle into a life I respected, and it respected me as I began to carve out a new existence. The only way I did make it through this step was to consider every failure as a learning experience to never try again. I was fortunate that several of my experiences turned out to be potentially dangerous situations that a ciswoman would know from experience to try to stay away from. Such as dark city streets late at night and huge cross-dresser toxic admirers in small hallways at a party I was at.

During stage two, it would have been certainly better to learn from what ciswomen told me than trying to find out for myself. It was all part of my effort to see if I really wanted to step aside from all the male privileges I had learned and start all over across the gender border to find out if the grass was greener on the feminine side. Which is what stage three would teach me, as I had to buckle up for the first time in my life for circumstances beyond my control such as death and dying around me. For some reason, I had always thought I would be the first to die because of the destructive lifestyle I was leading but I was very wrong.

Death and dying meant that my wife of twenty-five years along with four close friends all would pass away ahead of me with a short two-to-three-year span. Knocking me into a deep depression, and a battle with loneliness. I had gone from being a very shy person in my early life to being a very social one and I did not want to go back. But the problem was, I had never had an easy time making friends with other men as a man, how would I ever do it as a woman. The answer was quite easy when I began to live it. I found I naturally interacted with women much easier once I was playing in their sandbox, and I became very social again. Which in turn brought out more of my feminine self but first, I had to summon the courage to buckle up and put myself out into the world.

It all worked for me and took me to stage four in my life. The stage where all my challenges seemed to disappear temporally. Many times, life still caught up with me, and I had to do my best to stifle my old male urges. But them again there were still many parts of my male life I needed to bring with me. I could not live for half a century without doing so. I guess you could compare my stage four to a giant-sized kitchen mixer when I needed desperately to turn out a quality product.

It was certainly never easy to buckle down and live a radical new life as a transgender woman for me. It was especially difficult to do since I was very much an easy-going person and learning about a new life was an interesting experience. If I was going to give any advice, I would say expect a dose of the worst and embrace the doses of the other. One way or another buckle up for your new life.

 

 

 

A Gender Yo-Yo

 

Image from Eric Prusak
on UnSplash. 

I have felt most of my life like I was a gender yo-yo. One day I was a boy and the next day I was a girl was the way I was living, and it was no fun. The ups and downs were killing me as it did in the future as I tried many self-destructive attempts.  Luckily, they failed.

Of course, my male self-received all the benefits since he was given all the advantages as I was born male and could do nothing about it. He got all the accolades when he did something right at home while at the same time, my feminine self-needed to remain firmly hidden away. Which did nothing to relieve the yo-yo gender life I was living.

Then, there were the vivid dreams I was having where I was the pretty girl. Sadly, I had to wake up to no changes in my everyday male world of having to compete daily with the rest of the male world I was in. It never changed so I was stuck and I could not go live in the world of women where I always wanted to be.  The yo-yo never seemed to slow down as life went by me, but I can say I did l learn to adjust to its up and down rhythms. As I began to understand what gender euphoria meant to me and how long it would last once it was over. The answer was a maximum of four to five days before the depression of not being an active participant in my own transfeminine life would set in and I would have to get creative and do something before my gender yo-yo hit the floor.

To counteract my depression, I began to research the meager amount of information I could find on gender issues way back then. The only term I could find was gender dysphoria which was labeled as a mental illness. So, I rejected it. All I knew was I was confused still if I was totally a male or a female. If the term had been popular back, then I have used gender fluid for awhile to describe myself. At least it would have worked until I began to run out of male fluid altogether. Since I did not have the mental willpower to find my gender fluid leak, I concentrated on keeping track of my feminine side. As I became a regular at LGBTQ diverse parties close to where I lived. It was like going to one of those quick oil change places where I could rejuvenate my feminine self around like-minded others. From lesbians I learned shared an attraction with me to toxic cross-dresser admirers, I was able to experience and learn from them all.

On the negative side, like my yo-yo, what went up had to come down as far as my gender euphoria went. Not too long after going to the parties, I started to miss the experience and wanted to do it more. Which made me a spoiled brat when I lost my yo-yo completely and could not find it. I was learning how to live a new life where I fit in as a secure transgender woman, but I was not there yet. What all my research at the parties proved was I had just scraped the surface of where I wanted to go as a trans woman but still had not had the chance to research where I needed to go internally. The internal piece would be the hardest to do because I had learned so effectively to wall myself off from the outside world and ignore it. As I struggled to live a life as a man.

I finally had to listen to the world and discover my internal piece was the biggest part of my second wife saying I made a terrible woman. Because I did before I was in the unique position to remake myself. Maybe in many ways, I was a clueless person all together and that would have to change before I could ever move forward into a better world. I had the chance to take what I learned in a male world and build a solid female world was a chance I just had to take. I needed to take a new approach and put the imbedded emotions of my yo-yo aside. It helped me with all the ups and downs I was feeling specifically with my mental health. I finally had to face the truth about myself and freed me up to be me as I always say.

If the truth be known, I was never any good with my yo-yo anyhow. My male-equated hand-eye coordination stopped me from doing more. Maybe it was my fault because I was always so biased about being male at all. Through all the ups, downs and sideways, I knew I could not take it anymore. It was time to take a time out from him and learn what life would be like of I took the transgender plunge. Was I risking all that I had earned to live my dream or not. I thought I would be fine after all the research in the world I did but I needed to make sure. What I discovered was I did not care for good about the risks I was about to take. As I said, I had put that old yo-yo away for good.

Hopefully you have been able to put that yo-yo of yours away too. It is certainly no fun to do it. Thanks for reading and commenting.

 

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

Image from Shifazz Shamoon
on UnSplash. 

Typically, as we follow our winding gender journeys as transgender women or transgender men, we reach points where we must decide what we are going to do next.

It is especially intimidating to see all the political anti-transgender ads on TV funded by far away billionaires such as Theil and Musk who are pouring millions into defeating Democratic candidates here in my native Ohio. Especially the ones stating that the Democrats are extremists who supported sex change surgeries for children in school. That is about as far as I want to go politically in this post, so I will move on to what really matters…each of us and how we feel.

If the so called “civilians” in our world knew what we have to go through to see results in our individual gender worlds, they may understand more what it is like to be in our shoes and being constantly bombarded with negativity. Following years of struggles (or decades) I was fortunate to have found my way into discovering who the true me really was and most of the years of turmoil went away. Even still, I needed to follow a journey of steps which led me to blind curves which I knew nothing about.

All I discovered was that I had an unique life worth living to the fullest and very few other human beings can live a life which enables them to experience both sides of the binary gender road. It meant being able to exist in a life I never really wanted to live as a man. Slowly stop it altogether and start all over to earn a place like the other gender. As frustrating as that life as a trans person can be, the rewards can still be there if you can answer all the what’s next. Since most of us begin our lives cross-dressing in front of a mirror, there is plenty of ground to cover. Because we are destined to have such a small knowledge of the gender we are seeking to become. Again, because we are stuck on the outside looking in.  

Gaining access to your new life can take many paths. Sadly, many involve marriage, family and friends we do not want to give up but have to. The ways to announce your true self to the world can be done in several ways. Some just pull the band aide off, cross-dress and say here I am to the world, while others write letters and others still try to soften the blow by providing positive feedback from the internet or social media. Sometimes, I think I chose the most painful way of all as I tried to maintain my marriage to a woman I loved deeply while I knew all along that my truth was going to slip sooner or later. To make matters worse, she knew I was a cross dresser from the beginning and accepted it but told me time and time again she would draw the line at any moves I would ever make to going the transgender route and taking HRT hormones. She did not want to live with another woman. An answer I could never debate.

I guess you could say, I wanted the best of both gender worlds as I tried to do better and better in the male world I learned to survive in, while at the same time work very hard on my makeup and wardrobe to appear more realistic as a woman. All I was doing was creating severe friction within the marriage and within my head. If I was not thinking about work, I was thinking about how I could improve myself as a novice trans woman. Which I was just understanding that is what I was.

Without fail, I would get moody and nasty when I did not get my way and be able to cross-dress when I wanted which led to more friction within the marriage and more fights. In the heat of battle, my wife told me a couple of things I should have reacted to sooner. One of which would have been difficult for me to do and the other I should have been doing all along. Being called a “Terrible woman” was one thing I did not understand until I had the chance to live my truth as a transfeminine person and the other time she told me, “Why didn’t I be a man and live like a woman.” She was right, I should have done it. No matter how painful it would have been for me to carve out a new life for myself during that portion of my life when I was in my thirties.

Another problem was the sizeable male ego I was still carrying around with me. He wanted me to look and act a certain way as a novice trans woman which my wife did not like. Which led to more fights. The only revenge I ever got on her was the night she was forced to ask me for help on her makeup when we were invited to an upscale business dinner. At least the “Terrible woman” was better at makeup, I guess.

The thing it took me years to understand was that it was never about looking terrible as a woman, it was all about being socialized as a ciswoman. Sadly, my wife passed away before she could ever get to know the new improved feminine me. It took me until I was in my fifties to begin to get admission into the Girls’ Club and fully understand more about what my wife was talking about all those years before. I was suddenly on the verge of knowing where I wanted to go from that point forward. As every part of my being was telling me I was making the right decision about my life and should go for it.

I would not recommend taking the amount of time I took on my gender path before I made the final decision to live a life I always thought was going to be a dream. I think now there would have to have been a better way or like my second wife said, “Be man enough to be a woman.”  At the same time, I had my reasons for not doing it when I did which I will discuss in-depth on another post.

In the meantime, I hope you have a clearer understanding of where you want to get to in the everchanging world of trans women and trans men.

Thanks so much as always for reading along and I hope somehow, I have helped you on your gender journey. Comments are always appreciated!