A Tale of Contrasts

 

Image from UnSplash.

No matter how you cut it, our gender is a tale of contrasts.

From the earliest age, we are forced into rigid gender roles, who for most people, work out quite nicely because they never question their assigned roles. Then there are those of us who just as early in life begin to question our placement on the gender spectrum. In my case, I knew something was wrong, I just could not figure out what. Then, as I became older, I made the discovery every morning when I had to determine what gender I had to be for the day. A jarring discovery to be sure.

Naturally, since I was born male, I needed to own up to the fact I had to do my best to face the world each day as a guy until I could slip behind my own gender curtain and put on women’s clothes and makeup. Early on, as I lived my limited feminine life in the mirror, I thought appearance was my number one goal towards living my gender dreams. It was not until much later in life did, I began to understand how wrong I was. There were many more contrasts between men and women that I ever dared to think about. Mainly because I was viewing how women live only through rose colored glasses as I thought they had easier lives than men.

It wasn’t until I began to pay my gender dues as a transfeminine person, did I begin to see the reality of what I was looking at if I decided to transition. As I was making my way into what I call the girl’s sandbox, I was getting tested regularly to see if I belonged. On some days I was successful and happy and on others, I was getting beat up (or clawed) and needed to retreat before I came back for more. One thing was for sure, all of this testing from other women was doing me good, because I never quit trying.

The main thing I did learn was one that I vaguely knew, women had their own world away from men and had their own alpha’s who ran the show. Once I was accepted by them, the rest of my life as a transgender woman was so much easier. But, on the other hand, the testing process was so much harder because the alphas were so much more wary of me wanting to be in their world. My second wife was an alpha and she made sure I worked long and hard to even try to earn a spot in the sandbox. An example was one of the many times she told me there was so much more to being a woman than just looking like one and it took me years to understand what she meant.

Perhaps the second most difficult part of being accepted in the feminine world was being able to communicate with other women. Out were the days of trying to bluster my way through a conversation and in were the days when I needed to look another woman in the eye and appear to be less threatening. While at the same time having eyes on my back for a passive aggressive attack. I learned the hard away on that to never trust a smiling face completely.

As I learned to communicate with other women, my life in public became so much easier and I could begin to relax more as I was beginning to put my entire feminine picture into focus. I could forget about completely focusing on my looks and movement and could concentrate on being social with the world. Which was important to me since I had always been a socially active person. Plus, as I always mention, men were never much of a factor to me since most of them ran and hid from me completely. Which was OK since I did not really know how to handle them as a transgender woman either.

My life of contrasts was coming to an end when I entered the final chapter with gender affirming hormones or HRT. The hormones were magical when they started their changes on me. I think most people consider external changes such as skin, breasts and hair to be important, and they are but to me, internal changes were more important. In a remarkable short span of time, I became more emotional as my world softened. Making me into a complete person.

I am biased, but I think my tale of contrasts made me into a better human being as I could understand both binary genders better. Since I had lived in both. Plus, after having the chance to live as both, I made the right choice to live as a transgender woman, even though at times, it was an intensely lonely and difficult journey. Which could be another blog post.

Staring off The Cliff

 

Image from Anton Luk
on UnSplash 

When I reached a point where I saw the real possibility I could live a life of a transgender woman, I found myself staring off a deep gender cliff.

The biggest problem I had was wondering how I would land if I threw caution to the wind and become (as my second wife called it) man enough to be a woman. As I slid down the slippery slope towards my cliff, sometimes I was fearless and other times scared to death. I can’t tell you the number of times I sat in my car adjusting my hair and makeup before I went into a venue. At times, I considered bringing an oxygen tank along in case I hyper ventilated. I did not because I thought it would ruin my outfit.

Another problem I encountered was alcohol. When I drank, I became much more fearless but to get to my arrival, I needed to be brave and walk into a venue to order a drink. It took me awhile to put the alcohol in my rear-view mirror and get on with my life, but I did it.

Along the way, I cannot stress enough about all the bumps and bruises I had when I slid down a very slippery gender slope towards a very steep cliff. I was facing losing everything I knew, owned and loved to be a transgender woman, so I wanted to make sure I was doing my slide right. For the most part, I did good except for impromptu visits from the police after I used the rest room of my choice and another night when I was asked to leave a venue after I was doing absolutely nothing wrong. I mended faster than I thought I would and chalked the experiences up to what I needed to go through to transition in the straight world which I was trying out for the first time.

The main thing which kept me going was the deep feeling I had I was doing the right thing. I had spent too long in front of a lonely mirror to turn back then. I needed to face the cliff and decide how and when I was going to jump because it was becoming increasingly evident to me, I would need to.

After my second wife passed away, I went into another lonely dark period of my life when the only thing I did was go out in the world as a transfeminine person and watch the occasional sporting event with my brother as my old male self. What did happen was, I felt the time I was spending as a man was being increasingly wasted. Even my male self was seeing the beginning of the end to his life.  If my brother did not accept me (which he did not), he would have to go away.

What really helped me to overcome my fear of the gender cliff I was looking at, were the ciswomen friends I was developing. The give and take I felt when I was invited to girls’ nights out or even lesbian mixers was propelling me forward to making the ultimate choice in my life. Ultimately, I started gender affirming hormones under a doctor’s care and made my decision to jump off the cliff even easier to do.

It turned out, my women friends knew me better than I knew myself. They saw no traces of my old male self and helped me with the nuances of living in a feminine world. Many times, all I was doing was going along for the ride. Never had I ever experienced so much about a new world I desperately wanted to be a part of in my life. It all made my fear of jumping off my gender cliff so much easier.

Another example would be, I had taken the time to do my homework and build a solid base before the slippery slope claimed me. I waited for two extra years working at a job I hated to make sure I could retire on Social Security and not have to worry about transitioning on the job. During that time, my gender universe opened a little more when the Veterans Administration health care program I was in approved gender hormone therapy for veterans which gave me access to mental health care and cheaper medications.

It all turned out to be time well spent and came back to help me when I finally made the jump down my gender cliff. My experiences and friends made the landing so much easier. I ended up wondering why I had waited so long doing my preparation.

 

Living the Transgender Reality

 

Image from Brian Kyed
on UnSplash. 

For me, living a life as a transgender woman was much different than my life as a cross dresser.

I mention it because of the comments I receive here mentioning those of you who may be on different phases of your gender journey and are on the gender balance beam. Such as regular reader “Michelle” who commented: That “gender balance beam” you described? God, it brought me back. The confusion, the hope, the guilt, the not-knowing—all of it. And the way you talk about HRT, how your body just... knew? That hit me so hard. I’m still early in my journey, but reading stories like yours gives me hope that it can work out. Even if it’s messy and hard."

Thanks for the comment! Yes, somehow my body knew I had just made the right choice when I started gender affirming hormones under a doctor’s care. As far as the balance beam went, I have never been coordinated enough to stay on any sort of object, but somehow, I was able to stabilize myself several times and live a transfeminine reality.

Backtracking just a bit, this morning I read a thoughtful post on Stanas' Femulate blog which went into how women accept (or don’t) when their men come out to them as cross dressers. In my case, I write excessively on how my second and third wives interacted when confronted with my gender issues.

The entire interaction was a story of contrasts between the two women who never had the chance to meet when my second wife passed away. My second wife knew of my cross dressing before we were married, and it was never an issue for her. Although she never let on, she never liked the feminine version of me at all. The problem arose as it became increasingly evident, I was much more than your average cross dresser, as I increasingly slid towards my reality of being a transgender woman. The problems all of this gender turmoil created were never her fault. They were mine because I refused to face the reality of who I really was regardless of the costs.  She was well within her rights to refuse me any help as I moved towards my gender dream which would not include her, and I understood that.

Now, on to my third wife Liz. I have been with her for over a decade now. In many ways, she is the exact opposite of my second deceased wife. Liz met me online in a woman seeking woman chat room and rescued me from a very dark time in my life. I was falling off the balance beam. After many months of chatting back and forth, we decided to meet up for our first date with a couple of other women at a drag show.

At the time, I was still reluctant to finish my male to female gender transition. I was living a minimum amount of time as a man, and I had not started hormones yet. The reality of transitioning was still sinking in. After a few months of being around Liz, she told me she had never seen any male in me so what was I waiting for? All I needed to do was make a doctor’s appointment and start HRT and within a very short period of time move in with her in Cincinnati. So, I was able to make a clean start as a transgender woman.

As you can tell, during my life I have been blessed to be with several women who loved me and I learned from all three, including my first wife who I saw just last week as she is the mother of my only child. Even though she only knew me as a crossdresser, we still get along.

Any way you cut it, coming out to a woman you are in a relationship with is one of the most difficult realities of being a cross dresser or transgender woman. I think women who accept us are saints for putting up with such a unique set of challenges. What hurt me the most was my second wife agreeing to me becoming the best woman I could become then not liking the feminine person I was becoming. In all fairness to her, I did go through many changes in my reality when I transitioned and she passed away before meeting the true me. I doubt if there was any way we could have stayed together but maybe we could have been friends.

Maybe you can use the old marriage pun: Life is a bitch until you marry one. And change it around to being transgender is a bitch, until you become one. The truth of transgender reality?

 

 

Painting Myself into a Corner

 

Image from UnSplash.

I was always an adequate house painter and not much more.

Possibly my biggest problem was ever finishing a project. Every time I would start, I got bored and quit before the project was done. There were even times when I would unknowingly paint my way into corners. Little did I know, all of this would carry into my life as a cross dresser and later a transgender woman.

Like many of you, I started experimenting with my mom’s clothes which I became attracted to at a young age. It was most likely a carryover from watching mom (and admiring) put on her “face” or makeup as she called it. I wanted to see how the whole girl package worked for me. At that point, I began to place myself in danger of painting myself in a corner I could not get out of. The corner I am referring to is being caught and facing irreplaceable damage to my life as I knew it in a male dominated family. As the oldest son, I was expected to carry on a macho tradition.

The problem was of course I did not want anything to do with male tradition because I was enjoying my alone time cross dressing as a girl so much. I worked onward on my feminine artwork, as I sought to buy my own makeup and pantyhose from my allowance and newspaper route money. Then I experimented with my limited time until I became a little bit better and did not look like a clown in drag. I was slowly finding my voice as a transfeminine woman.

The more I discovered, the more I risked painting myself into a corner. When I was in the corner, sometimes I paused to look around for a reality check. An example was the night I was in one of my regular venues dressed to fashionably blend in with the rest of the women and I needed to discover if I wanted to escape the corner I was in at all. It turned out I loved the real me and wanted more time out of my closet. I was beginning to learn who I really was, but it turned out I would have many more corners to paint myself into. Such as settling into one new person and not changing each time I went out into the public. I was shocked how quickly people remembered me; I needed to wear the same wig as a start to solidify my future in the world as a transgender woman. In a way, the experience was boring because I was always enjoying my newfound ability to shop in wig stores for the so-called perfect hair after waiting all those years to do it.

Another of the major corners I painted myself into was how I ended up just pursuing the basics of communicating with an all-new world. I never expected people (particularly other women) would ever want to talk to me as a woman because they rarely wanted to as a man. My guess is the women were just curious about me wanting to be in their world, or just I did not threaten them anymore when they let me behind their gender curtain.

In many ways, my decision to undertake gender affirming hormones was me painting myself into a corner was the biggest risk I had ever taken. Undertaking HRT was my own ride or die. Either I made it as a transgender woman with the help of hormones would preclude me ever going back to a male life I never asked for, or I would have to find another way out. Spoiler alert: I was fortunate when I cleared the medical screening, I needed to begin what I considered to be lifesaving hormones, and I flourished. My decision could be compared to a gender insurance policy. I was making sure I was successful when I finally synced up my inner and outer selves.

Today, I have put down my paint brush and concentrated on living my life as a supported transfeminine person. Sure, I confuse some people with how to refer to me, but that is their problem not mine. They need to be educated to the world anyhow. Transgender women and transgender men are not their enemy, but their ignorance is. I filled my world with acceptance from a loving world and watched many other people paint themselves into their own corners. I took many risks along the way to do it and out of sheer will power to do it.

I have felt the depths of loneliness, all the way to having a new family all my own (except my daughter of course, she was always there). I don’t think I would recommend such a unique human journey to anyone else, but it was anything but boring.  As a painter, I have finally come close to finishing a project.

 

 

 

 

Did I think Life Would Turn Out this Way

 

JJ Hart.

Did I think life would turn out to be this way, I would have said NO!

In the earliest days of just exploring my mom’s clothes and admiring myself in the mirror, I never thought life would have become as complex as it did. For years, I thought my cross-dressing urges were an innocent hobby which hurts no one. I was entertained and it was all that mattered in my selfish world.

Little did I know, all I was going through was just the beginning of my life I would have to adjust to if I was going to survive. I was embarking on what turned out to be a very unique life as I had the opportunity to live life in two of the main binary genders.

To put it all together on a timeline, I was in my thirties when I first read the term transgender for the first time, and I thought I had finally found a term which described me. Or, at least put words to my gender dream of possibly living a transfeminine life. Up to that point, I had only experienced the other gender variant people I met at various mixers I went to. When I attended the mixers, I met everyone from cross dressers in cowboy hats barely covering their masculinity all the way to impossibly feminine transgender women who were on their way to surgery. I certainly did not think the mixer I went to would turn out that way. I was expecting to attend, meet people like me and come away with new answers about myself. Of course, it did not turn out that way, and I came away with more questions than answers afterwards.

Primarily, I found myself on a sort of a gender balance beam. I was very clumsy and became well versed in playing both sides of the gender spectrum. At times I was good at my games and at times I was very bad, and I suffered. Through the bad times I needed to keep my eye on my gender dreams, be selfish and do the best I could. Perhaps the worst part was, I still did not know how any of it would turn out.

It was only when I managed to escape my dark, lonely gender closet and explore to learn if my future transgender dreams were possible at all. I was in a long-term marriage with a woman I loved, in a successful job and outwardly living a good male life. Why would I want to sacrifice any of the white male privileges I had earned. I did not think on occasion that I ever could.

What changed everything for me was the further I went on my journey, the more natural I felt. I began to think more about my life was meant to be this way. When I was selfish in my gender choices and I did my best to be a chameleon with my life. These days, I would be known as being gender fluid. Another term not known in those days, instead I thought of myself as an androgynous person. Especially when I started gender affirming hormones or HRT. What happened was, I really started to play with fire then. I had given myself a loose timetable until I made the final transition from male to female but could not keep it when the changes to my body became much more noticeable than I had ever imagined.

I never had thought in a million years, my life would turn out this way and I needed to arrive at a point where I needed to be selfish again and give up on my male self. My longer hair, softer skin and budding breasts were giving me away. It was time for a change. In fact, way past time for me to face the inevitable, I should have been living a transfeminine life all along.

All the torment and balancing acts I put myself through were no more than tormenting myself needlessly. Perhaps the final clue was how quickly my body took to the new feminine hormones. There was no negative to the process at all and the calm I suddenly felt led me to feel I was in the right place.

So, no, I never thought I would be in the spot I am in today. I am living as a transgender woman with a wife who supports me totally. The only slice of life I lost was my brother’s acceptance which was overcome by my daughter’s. It has been over a decade since I have spoken to him and truthfully, I haven’t missed our interaction. I am sure I had a few lucky breaks along the way, but for the most part, I think destiny was leading the way. Along with my stubbornness to continue my journey. It does not matter as it all worked out.

 

 

It's Just Life...Not a Joke

 

Image from Engin Akyurt on UnSplash.

It took me awhile before I finally came to the point in my gender transition when I gave up and thought the whole process was just life and not some sort of an evil joke.

I had struggled enough through the years when my male self-put up quite the struggle to exist at all. It was as if he was on a slippery slope towards losing his life altogether. To make matters worse as I always point out, my male side’s life was not always that bad. I had a long-term marriage, close friends and a good job to fall back on when I needed it.

Through it all, I thought it was only the draw of the feminine clothes which kept me longing for another trip to the mirror. I did not realize my feelings went much deeper than that. I was feeling life itself. It took me many years and even decades traveling a very curvy and bumpy gender path to realize where I was. Plus, many times, when I realized where I was, I became scared of losing everything. Falling off a gender cliff became a real possibility.

No matter how frightened I became, somehow, I kept on moving forward thanks mostly to the brief moments of gender euphoria I was feeling. The interludes helped me to determine if my dream goal of living a transfeminine life was possible at all. Back in those days, I was immersed in the struggle to present well as a woman and not much else. In fact, when I go back and read my earliest blog posts, I cannot believe how much they emphasize fashion and makeup. It all happened long before I needed to learn the layers of life a woman goes through to live her life. It was like my wife told me be man enough to be a woman. In those days I was not as I made weak attempts to live in both main binary genders.

In the short term, I did not understand what my wife meant as I became semi successful in presenting well in the world as a woman, but I had not paid my dues. I found I would have to wait until my wife had passed away before I could earn my way behind the feminine gender curtain to be allowed in by the ciswoman gatekeepers. It was about that time too when I began to understand my dream of ever becoming a fulltime transgender woman could be possible. It was much more than a hobby or part-time profession; it was my life. Then my realization led me to understand what my wife was talking about. I needed to set off on an all-out journey to live my best life as a transfeminine person. I even needed to understand questions about my own long held sexuality. If I lived as a woman, would I suddenly have to like men sexually? I just didn’t know until I set off to experiment.

Along the way, I did manage a couple dates with men which led to kissing but not much else and I did not feel much of a spark of any kind. On the other hand, I was surrounded by curious ciswomen (including lesbians) who wanted to socialize with me, so I was happy, I had always been a contradiction in terms socially, meaning I always enjoyed company even though I was shy and I could continue to feel that way. My life was beginning to come together in ways that I never imagined possible.

For example, I never imagined I would have been able to enjoy a small closely knit group of women friends who taught me more about life than they ever knew. Without any pressure, I was able to sit back and live vicariously through them and primarily how they lived their lives without the validation of men. It was not too long until they began to invite me along to their lesbian mixers, which I loved. I was even approached by other women and kissed. Which provided me with a huge amount of validation.

With my sexuality and life coming together, I could concentrate on enjoying my life on my new gender affirming hormones or HRT. The hormones went a long way in syncing up my internal and external self. Along with softening my skin and facial lines, my whole world was changing too. My emotions heightened as well as my senses as the world around me was softening. A perfect match to my rapidly expanding social life.

I will never know if waiting so long to transition into a feminine world was worth it or not because I had so many excuses why I never had done it. All I really know is, I did it before it was too late and have never looked back. That’s life.

 

 

Just a Gender Detour

 

Image from Belinda Fewings
on UnSplash

After many years of looking back at my life, I began to think of my transgender experience as merely a detour in my life.

The problem was, there are many types of detours ranging from major closures to small delays. I found I needed to be careful with my navigation quite early when I was in the exploration stage of my mom’s clothes. One speed bump could lead me to an impromptu visit with a psychiatrist who knew nothing about gender issues and wanted to pronounce me mentally ill. Even back then, I knew I was not crazy for wanting to be a girl.

As the years progressed, I became increasingly skilled at sneaking around and dodging the detours in my life. Especially, the major ones such as becoming a parent. Even though the whole experience made me extremely proud, it still changed my life profoundly. I remember thinking at the time if it would affect my desire to be a woman but if anything, the birth process enhanced it. I was still in my detour mode, drinking heavily as I tried to find the nearest exit to help me.

To make up for the detours, I began to leave my closet and explore the world increasingly as a transfeminine person. The entire process meant taking chances such as leaving the house dressed as a woman and dodging many speed bumps along the way. It took me many more years before my path began to smooth out and I could see a clear road ahead. However, I still needed to be very careful with what I was doing. I had a long-term marriage and good job to protect among other male privileges. I was stuck between a giant rock and a hard place I needed to detour around. The rock was the better I did with my male life, and the hard place was my female side resented any incursion into her existence. To be sure, a very difficult place to be.

Then there were the times I crashed with my wife and was caught coming home late from one of my nightly gender adventures. A prime example was the night a lesbian was flirting with me and bought me a beer and said she should take me home with her. I was flattered and ended up staying too long and arriving home late. The ensuing fight lasted days after I hit that speed bump. Sadly, there were other times when I crashed on my own by driving an old sports car, which I bought that had the habit of suddenly not starting on occasion. Of course, one night when I was at a gay venue approximately twenty minutes from home, the car would not start. Fortunately, I had planned and left me enough time to call a tow truck and arrive home before my wife did. I had survived yet another close call.

My gender detours did not begin to go away until I started to really be allowed behind the gender curtain. It was after I had placed the gay venues firmly behind me in my rearview mirror and started to prove a fulltime life as a transgender woman was possible for me. The only problem was how fast I should dare to go. In those days, I still had my wife, family and job to worry about. As it turned out, destiny stepped in and showed me the way. Tragically my wife and several dear friends passed away leaving me alone to decide my future.  In addition, my road crew removed other detours such as employment when I discovered I could take my Social Security early and sell collectibles to make ends meet. My final indication I had a clear path ahead was when the Veterans’ Administration health care program approved gender affirming hormones for qualifying veterans. I was qualified and made a big jump towards my gender transition.

By this time, even I could see my detours towards living my dream were coming down, and I was in a now or never situation. I was sixty and had put up with my gender indecisions long enough. I went into a double retirement by quitting a job that I hated and gave away all my male clothes to charity.

Looking back, if I had known all the detours, I would have to take in my life just to survive, I wonder if I would have taken a different path. On the other hand, I was locked into a route I was taking and had no choice. Sure, I would have tried other ways around to get to where I was going. Such as attempting to come out quicker than I did and stop lying to myself. One way or another it is too late now to cry over spilled makeup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emerging as Your True Self

 

Image from JC Gellidon 
on UnSplash. 

Emerging as your true self after a lifelong gender struggle is often very difficult.

It starts very early in life when you discover you are in the wrong place at the right time, or the right place at the wrong time. Whatever the case, your struggle to find yourself begins. In my case I began with explorations into my mom’s clothing which lasted until I could no longer fit into any of her clothes. If you had suggested to me my final emergence into the world would take as long as it did, I would not have believed you. It was a long journey until I finally took the transition step to live as a full-time transfeminine person at the age of sixty.

Some of you may ask why I waited so long or since I did, why couldn’t I just wait for it a little longer into my senior years. On the other hand, I felt if I did not do it then, I would never have the chance. So, I pulled the plug on my old male life and emerged new as a transgender woman. It was never easy, but I made it.

Others may ask why I never opted for any gender surgeries of any sort. I did not because I was on the borderline to being able to present well enough as a woman to get by and I did not have the insurance or the finances to do it. Plus, I was superstitious about having any operations on my body since to this day the only surgery I have ever done was getting my tonsils taken out. I decided to set my gender dysphoria aside and work with what I had or pass out of sheer willpower as a transgender woman friend once told me.

I can’t tell you how many times my willpower was challenged before I made it to the point of emergence in the world. The seemingly endless times I was sent home in tears when my cross-dressing plans went wrong. Fortunately, I was stubborn and kept on moving towards my dream of possibly living fulltime as a woman. I replaced my willpower with confidence since in most cases, I was following my path in the most difficult way possible, without the help of any facial feminization surgeries. For the most part, makeup art was my way around having no expensive, painful operations until I could begin gender affirming hormones.

For me, the hormones worked miracles inside and out. Outwardly, my skin softened along with my facial angles of manhood, and I could use less makeup. Also, on the plus side, my hair grew quickly and fully since I inherited no male pattern baldness which made wearing any sort of a wig a thing of the past for me. What really changed was my overall view of the world. Suddenly, my view softened as my senses heightened. I felt emotions such as I had never felt before, and I learned how women complained they were always cold (except during menopause) because I was in my second puberty and cold all the time.

During this time, emergence became a slippery slide for me. The HRT hormones were quickly making it impossible to go back to my male life because I did not want to. Why would I want to trade in all the work I put in to travel my long gender path for anything? I finally gave up on all the resistance I was putting into retaining any of a life as a male I never really wanted. The only remaining reason turned out to be me losing all the white male privileges I had worked so hard to gain. For that reason, I put off emerging and attempted to briefly live a portion of my life in both binary genders. Something I would strongly suggest not doing. For me, trying it wrecked my mental health and nearly my life. My male side was hanging on and very materialistic while my female side was discovering a magical life is the best way I can describe it. Afterall, I could see my best-case dream life within reach.

Through it all, I think being approved by a doctor for gender affirming hormones was the biggest moment of my emergence as a fulltime transgender woman. With the help, I was able to carve out a new life and put the old one aside. I was able to see a new world with the help of new friends who never knew the old me. The essence of emergence when someone else could enjoy the company of my new feminine self. HRT was just a kick start to make it to where I wanted to be. I needed to take it from there and make my emergence complete.

 

 

 

It is Just a Phase?

Image from Claudia Love on UnSplash.

Have you ever been accused of just going through a phase?

Drawing from several comments from other transgender women and trans men, including myself, I have heard us being accused of just going through a phase when it comes to being transgender.

There was a time in my life when I seriously hoped I was just going through a phase when it came to my love of dressing in feminine clothing and makeup. I wanted it to be just an innocent hobby I could put down and walk away from at any time. As years went by, I found I couldn’t replace my so-called hobby with anything else in my life. I did the worse possible thing, I tried to internalize my feelings hoping I could somehow ignore them, and the phase would go away. Of course, it never did.

I always thought my mom knew I was trying on her clothes and putting on her makeup but never said anything because she thought I was going through a phase. Obviously, she was wrong! She never had the courage to call me out on what I was doing until I brought it up to her in a very ill-fated attempt to come out when I was discharged from the Army many years later. She quickly rejected my attempt to clear the air by volunteering psychiatric care. Of course, I refused her offer because I knew I was not mentally ill. I just wanted to live a transfeminine life on my terms. We never mentioned it again for the rest of her life but at least I tried to explain my deepest secret to her.

The phase idea came to be one idea I always ran from. I did not feel deep down my feelings were a phase but still was afraid to face the truth. I ended up moving many times and trying many new jobs just to try to outrun my gender feelings. It all was exhausting to my already fragile mental health. In fact, my initial gender therapist diagnosed me as being bi-polar when all along I thought I was just terribly depressed when I never thought I could achieve my dream of living as a full-time transgender woman. I was depressed when I considered the extreme distance I still had to travel, just not as bad.

As I still managed to progress along my gender pathway, I still encountered phases I needed to go through. The major one was what I called my teen girl dressing years. As I survived my urge to stuff my oversize male body into skimpy fashions, I was quickly laughed back into my closet several times before I learned the proper way to attempt to blend in with what other women my age were wearing. Easily, it was the most difficult phase I needed to deal with. Mainly because I was so stubborn.

It turned out the stubbornness I possessed was just what I needed to keep going. Deep down I knew I was in the middle of one of the most complex journeys a human can take, and I could be successful if I tried hard enough. It all meant I needed to earn my way through the feminine gatekeepers I faced to be allowed to play in their sandbox.  I was petrified when I needed to actually begin to talk one on one with other women. Very early on, I was frightened of their reaction when they learned I was not a cis-gendered woman. This was before I learned my path to womanhood was as valid as theirs. I just came to mine along a different path. Amazingly to me, the doors were opened to me, and I was permitted to play behind the gender curtain.

It was around this time when I began one of the most powerful phases of my life, when I made the correct decision to begin gender affirming hormones, or HRT. I say powerful because the new hormones I was prescribed by a doctor turned out to be everything I dreamed of and more. If anything, else, the hormones proved my whole life was not a phase. Now I felt as if I was arriving home in the deepest sense. If you compared my hormonal life as a circle, I was completing mine. The effects of HRT made me feel whole as a transfeminine woman. I could feel deeper, be more emotional and enjoy the world as never before.

I proved, more than ever before, my life was not a phase, I was much more than just a man putting on a dress. I proved all along I was a woman putting on a male face and clothes all along. At the least, I could rest easily knowing what my gender issue was all along. Not a phase but my life.

 

 

A Trans Girl and her Hair

 

JJ Hart and Mega Hair. Most of
it is tied up behind my head.

Certainly, one aspect of life transgender women share with cisgender women is the love of their hair.

Very early in my life and for years following, like so many novice cross dressers, I had no access (financial or otherwise) to buying a wig, nor did my mom wear one. I was stuck wearing a towel around my head and imagining I had beautiful flowing hair.

I needed to wait until my college years before I could afford to buy a wig, which supposedly was for my fiancé who I desperately wanted to not like it. To me, it was long blond, thick and beautiful, and I couldn't wait to try it on. I was still firmly in the closet to her in those days, so I needed to figure out an excuse to wear it.

Finally, I could not take the pressure any longer and came out of my closet to her and asked her to dress me head to toe as a woman with (you guessed it), that beautiful hair to finish off my outfit. As it turned out, that one day of satisfaction of cross dressing would come back to haunt me later. To make a long story short, she held my gender issues against me and threatened to leave me if I did not tell the military draft board, I was gay when they came after me during the Vietnam War. We broke up when I refused her demands and fortunately, I got to keep the wig. Years later, I found I received the better end of the deal.

After I was discharged from the military, I did have the financial resources to purchase more wigs and was able to be successful on occasion when I did not simply try to buy the longest hair in the wig shop, I went to. I normally traveled at least fifty miles to get to a quality venue to purchase a new wig. I was obsessed with my hair; it was the crowning glory of all the work I put into my fashion and makeup. As with many other aspects of learning to blend in with the other women around me, I took the wig obsession too far. I was beginning to be involved with the public far too often to change wigs every day. They were beginning to know me looking a certain way and I needed to stay on course to carve out a niche as the new transfeminine person I wanted to be. My clown wigs, as I called them, went into a storage bin, only to be seen again on Halloween…maybe.

The biggest jump from there came when I started to grow an amazing amount of my own hair when I started gender reaffirming therapy or HRT. The prescribing doctor told me that I would grow a lot of hair, and he was right. He noticed at the age of sixty, I had no signs of male pattern baldness which I carry over to this day.

Another person who noticed my hair was my daughter and for my first birthday following coming out to her, she offered me a trip to her upscale beauty salon for a color and style of my new hair which was all mine! Naturally, I was scared to death to go but the experience opened so many doors for me. The main door was the understanding of why so many women make a priority of going to a hairdresser to look good. As I soaked up the atmosphere at the salon, I thought I could skip my daily dosage of estradiol tablets I was on at the time were not needed because of all the estrogen in the air. Even though I was still frightened, I still loved it as I was the center of attention for my hairdresser and my daughter who was hovering nearby.

From that point onward, wigs were in my past and I needed to concentrate on my own hair. An immediate problem was I couldn't see the back of my head and did not have a wig head to rely on to turn the hair around and see the back. It did not take me long to master the art of holding another mirror up, catching the reflection in the main mirror so I could see the back of my head. Initially, I compared it with seeing the dark side of the moon.

I know my experience with hair turned out to be very lucky in my world of genetics. While I did not have to put up with expensive wigs, going to a hairdresser is certainly not cheap. Plus, for me at least, I think the ability to go without wigs was one of the most important aspects of me presenting well as a woman.

Maybe it was karma making up for all those years I had to have short hair, when I was finally allowed to grow it out. Whatever the case, I share with women everywhere, trans or not, the importance of having good hair. Plus, you can still have great hair with your wigs, if anyone asks if it is your own hair, you can truthfully answer, yes! I bought it.

 

Jumping Through Hoops

 

Image from Jennifer Mela444
on UnSplash. 

The more involved I became in the transfeminine world, the more I found myself jumping through hoops. Many times, in my heels.

It seemed, every time I became comfortable enough in my transgender womanhood, something would come along to set me back. Sadly, most of my setbacks came at the hands of my deceased second wife. She was accepting me as a cross dresser but recoiled and drew a line in the sand when it came to any idea, I was transgender and wanted to move forward to gender affirming hormones. As much as I wanted to argue (or plead) my case, she still said she did not want to be married to a woman.

It was my fault I did not have the courage to tell her she already was married to a woman. Like it or not. So, since I lacked the courage to follow my gender instincts, I did the worst possible thing and tried to hide all my activities such as leaving the house dressed as a woman. One of the things I promised I would never do. But, as hard as I tried to hide it, she always would somehow catch me coming home when I was cutting my time away too closely. To save what was left of our twenty-five-year marriage, I went as far as seeking therapy. I went to therapy mainly to provide my wife with an idea I was jumping through another hoop to save our relationship.

I have therapy to thank for helping me to strengthen my mental health, but my wife never knew it was not helping our marriage. In fact, one therapist even told me she could do nothing about my desire to be a woman at all. Leaving me with no hoop to jump through at all, and I would have to find another way. In the meantime, I knew just sitting around the house admiring myself in the mirror was not going to cut it in any way. Once I had jumped the hoop and was successful in the public’s eye, there was no way I could ever go back to my old life.

Deep down I knew, I had to keep pushing forward as I set gender goals for myself such as taking the giant step of leaving the gay bars and seeing if I could be accepted in sports bars. When I found out I could, I was ecstatic and kept on going. However, through it all, jumping through hoops was never easy as I kept on doing stupid things such as overextending the water-balloon breast forms I made in my pre-silicone days. Of course, I had one of them break and created a mini flood at one venue I was a regular in. As I said, I needed to very quickly upgrade to silicone breast forms to prevent any future disasters. I had enough other problems to worry about. Such as, what was the new person I was creating be like.

Suddenly, I was beginning to understand when my wife called me the pretty, pretty princess and told me being a woman was more than just looking like one. Most importantly, I was in the middle of learning exactly what she told me. When I was going to my venues and socializing as a transgender woman, I was jumping all the hoops I needed to get by. More precisely, I was learning the layered life a woman lives when men think they are running the show. On more than a few nights, I became so tired of jumping hoops, I just gave up and headed home exhausted.  Along the way, I was facing passive aggression from ciswomen who really resented my presence at all. I learned to leave the other women behind and move on to people who at the least did not dislike me. Life was too short to waste it on bigots and haters.

Tragically, my wife passed away before she was around to meet the new and improved me. It would have been interesting to see if she recognized I took her up on her advice. I tool a crash course on her instructions that a woman was far more than appearance. My period of exploration was intense and to the point and I could deflect my future any longer. I needed to take it upon myself to finally achieve my lifelong dream of living a transfeminine life.

My hoops became so much more real than the earrings I was wearing. I was finally in the process of paying my dues my wife had talked about. What she never told me was, I would have to be allowed behind the feminine gender curtains to really could do it. One led to the other and while it was never easy, similar to jumping all the hoops I needed to jump, I made it. Heels and all.

 

Just Part of Being a Woman?

 

Image on Unsplash. 

Just part of being a woman meant several different things to me.

First, I needed to get there by being able to present well enough to being accepted by other women. Once I arrived, I was able to enjoy the benefits of living in my dream world as well as the drawbacks. The first night I had an idea I was arriving was when I began to be semi-friendly with a man I met at a venue, I was a regular in. He was part of a small, diverse group of people I mixed with often. Sadly, I followed the saga of his quickly failed marriage to another woman in the group. She was an exotic dancer with long black hair, and he was a big, bearded man who rode a Harley motorcycle. Not exactly a match made in heaven. But they went ahead with the ceremony anyway. It failed within a couple of weeks.

I really don’t know why, but from then on most of the group turned against him, except me. I felt sorry for him and could sense the hurt he felt, so we began to talk. Before long we became friendly enough to look for each other when we came in alone to socialize. I can’t speak for him, but I was in uncharted territory even talking to a man at all since I was basically scared to. Who was I to say no to this big good-looking guy who wanted to talk to me? You are right. I couldn’t. I was too shy to even ask him to see his Harley before he rode off to another job in another town and I never saw him again. How different my life could have been if I had pushed my luck as a transgender woman just a little farther.

That fleeting encounter left a deep impression on me, not because it blossomed into anything, but because it made me realize how much of life I had yet to explore. It was a bittersweet moment of clarity: I had spent so much time crafting a version of myself that fit into the world I longed to belong to, yet I was still afraid to fully embrace the opportunities before me.

In the days that followed, I thought a lot about courage to truly be brave, not just in appearance but in action. It wasn't about being bold for the sake of it, but about taking the step that felt impossible, the one that whispered promises of growth and self-discovery. And yet, even as I reflected, I knew that fear still gripped me, tethering me to the safety of the new family I was creating.

It was around this time that I began writing the blog, capturing what I could of the small victories and the quiet heartbreaks that defined my journey. The act of writing became my sanctuary, a place where I could be unapologetically honest with myself, where I could acknowledge my fears without judgment. The words became a mirror, reflecting not just who I was but who I could be if only I dared to push beyond the limits I had unconsciously set for myself. By doing so, I hoped I could help others.

Life has a way of surprising you, though. Just when you think you've missed your chance, it presents you with another, often in the most unexpected of forms. Sort of like the first night I found myself in the middle of four men discussing guy things which of course I knew quite a bit about. Not realizing exactly where or who I was, I attempted to add my comments to the group. The men paused for a moment, then went on with their conversation as if I was invisible. I learned my lesson, entering a male only domain was a big no-no and exposed my new feminine life of having a lesser IQ. 

On my very few encounters with men, I learned to let them lead the way in conversations. No matter how inane the subject matter was. A prime example was the night I always mention when my car broke down and I needed to call a tow truck. Also, to my chagrin, a well-meaning policeman showed up out of nowhere to help. Between the cop and the tow driver, they refused to even listen to the directions I tried to give to my house. Then everything became worse when I had to ride home with the driver. By the time I arrived home, I had nearly reduced myself to playing the dumb blond just to survive the trip.

Just part of being a woman just meant leaving my male self behind, which is what I was trying to do anyway. What I did not count on was how fast I would lose most all of my male privileges I took for granted when I transitioned. All cisgender women go through the same process when they grow up around boys. It just took me a little longer to get there. Or, as my lesbian friends said, welcome to their world.

Plus, there was the new magical world of gender affirming hormones to consider. The HRT certainly contributed to my internal part of life as a woman.

Gender Selfishness

 

JJ Hart, Key Largo, Florida.

Often as I discovered my transgender womanhood, I felt extremely selfish. Who was I to sacrifice my male life with others just to cross dress in the mirror for me.

At the time, I regarded myself as a clown in drag and ugly in every way possible. With those thoughts, how could I even think I could succeed of my dream of living as a woman someday. To have any success at all, I needed to be selfish and forge a one-way path to feminize myself.  

Defining selfishness was a problem also. I went from thinking I was merely in a phase, all the way to finally realizing I was a full-fledged transgender woman. Along with all the responsibilities of living a new life. I needed to face the reality of knowing every step I took would be different and others close to me would have to come along for the ride. Or be left behind. Mainly, I am referring to my second wife, who for several reasons drew the line at helping me femininize myself. The number one reason was one I had to totally agree with, which was she did not want to live with another woman and specifically one she did not like.

Through it all, I tried to discover why she did not like me. Since she has long since passed away, I can’t ask her for an honest answer. My best guess is she did not the amount of makeup I wore and the wardrobe I had acquired. Plus, she especially hated the idea of me leaving the house cross dressed as a woman anytime she was not around. Essentially, I was cheating on her with myself. I was the other woman. Naturally, I was torn too, as I just could not stop exploring the new world, I was excited to find myself in. All my efforts just put me in the cross hairs of my mental health. I was selfish and put myself in risk of losing a marriage of twenty-five years and give up the chance of living my dream of living as a woman. These days I make no secret of trying to take my own life with an ill-advised suicide attempt. I thought there was only one person who could truly help me, and I had burned that bridge with her. So, I was trapped.

Fortunately, with the help of a good therapist, I found my way out of the darkness I was in, and she helped me to understand the gender situation I was in. I started to take it for granted I was selfish, but I had to be to save myself and my mental health. At that point, I knew I would not have wished the period of life I just had went through on my worst enemy. My dark closet was even becoming darker even though I was beginning to explore the world as a woman. Transgender, or not because often gender borders were blurred. To focus on it, I needed to be more and more selfish in my life and every spare moment and thought had to be involved in feminization.

By this time in my life, my biggest hurdle was overcoming the loss of my second wife. Sure, she resisted losing me to another woman, but I still loved her dearly, and we did have many good times together. What happened was my long ignored inner female stepped in and immediately took over. She exposed us to many new social interactions to see what would happen and if when we conquered it, we immediately moved on to often more delicate social situations. She was really into testing me to learn how serious I was about the transition I was considering.

One of the main tests was when we decided to seek out gender affirming hormones. To do it back in those pre–Veterans Administration days, I needed to find a doctor to approve me. It was not given since I was nearly sixty at the time and had to have a health exam before I was given permission. I was approved for a minimum dose and soon was allowed to pursue a life changing hormonal program. Overall, the hormones turned out of be a wonderful gift to my inner self and allowed her to sync up her old male external male self with her strong feminine self to make a more complete human being for the first time in my life.

It turned out, my life of being selfish was the only way I could escape the male life I was born into. It was amazing how quickly my mental health recovered and for the first time in my life, I felt happy. The weight taken off my shoulders was amazing.

 

Climbing Walls

JJ Hart

 When I transitioned from male to the feminine person I was all along, I hit many walls.

As it turned out, some were short walls and easy to climb, and some were almost insurmountable. The problem quickly became which were which. Very early on, when life was simpler, the act of applying eye makeup initially presented itself as a major hurdle, or wall. Once I conquered that challenge, I was able to move on to bigger and better things. Little did I know, I would be facing bigger walls to climb. A few were so tall I could barely see my dream of living fulltime as a transgender woman at all.

Leaving my safe yet dark gender closet and trying my hand at living as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman in public suddenly presented me with many new walls to climb. Iniitally, there was the omnipresent pressure of presenting properly in public as a woman. To do it, I needed to overcome how my old male self-thought I should look and change it to how my femininized self knew how I had to look to blend in with her cisgender counter parts. Plus, I needed to do it on a regular basis as people were starting to remember me. There were no more changing names to fit a new wig I was wearing. At least I needed to understand that even though strangers knew I was not a cisgender woman, I needed to prove I was a person who was nice to know and got along in the world. Most of all, I was not some sort of a freak, and I needed to remember in the overwhelming number of cases, I was the first and only transgender woman the public had ever met.

The frustrating part of this time of my life came when I was taking a step forward towards climbing another wall, then slid back down when I hit it. I was rapidly losing all the press on nails I bought as I was trying to climb. I seemingly always had problems with moving like a woman. No matter how much I tried, I still ended up moving like a stiff football player in public when I walked into a venue. I worked long and hard to correct the problem and finally succeeded to an extent. Putting femininized self into motion was a problem so large, it was only topped by the communication problems I was having dealing with the public. Basically, I was scared to death of talking to anyone. It was particularly frustrating when I began to talk to other women, who I very much wanted to be friendly with.

On the other hand, men were not a problem at all, since for the most part, they left me alone. The problem was partially solved when I took feminine vocal lessons and the rest with pure practice. Finally, before I came off being unfriendly with other women, I just gave up, relaxed and did the best I could to enjoy and learn from the conversations I was having.

Before I knew it, the walls were coming down and I was gaining the all-important confidence I needed to reach my lifetime dreams of being a woman on my own terms. My terms became rather obvious over time. No major gender surgeries which I thought were too expensive and risky for a person my age of sixty. I would just have to take all my learned experiences out of the closet, put them together and do the best I could.

Another of one of my remaining tallest walls was doing more for my inner self. I solved it by becoming eligible for gender affirming hormones. My initial thought was the changes I would experience would be external, not internal. It turned out, the internal changes were more immediate and far reaching than the external changes. In fact, I can and should write an entire blog post about my changes on HRT. Briefly, I entered an entirely, the new, softer world. Suddenly, I could cry, and my senses improved. Perhaps the biggest one was I was more susceptible to changes in temperature. I learned all those years of thinking women were faking it when they were cold was true. When I was reaching for my coat on a chilly evening.

Certainly, HRT helped to tear down most of the final walls in my gender journey. I say most because I do not think all my walls will ever be totally gone. After all, I have lived most of my life as a man with all the resultant experiences and privilege. No matter what I do what is left of him will still be with me. His former life will always be with me. I just need to learn from him and conquer all the walls he put up in protest.

It Never Got Old

 

Key West, Florida on Vacation. 

All the decades I spent of my life on the journey from male to female never became old and boring.

Even though I spent decades to arrive in my transgender womanhood, surprisingly, the trip never got old. Perhaps it was because I was so entrenched in my male existence and could not get out. Certainly, I knew I did not want to receive any participation trophies simply because I was semi successful as a man to place on my imaginary mantel in my mind. I learned quickly where my true learnings were with my gender and my search for truth never was not exciting. I can vividly remember all the times when I first went out shopping as my true self and thought I was accepted as a woman by the clerks I encountered. When, in fact, they were accepting me for my money first.

It did not matter to me at the time because I was scared to death and was just trying to find my way in a new world I had only every dreamed of. So, this was what it was like to shop as a woman? I loved it. I also loved it when I was able to present well enough to relax more and be brave enough to expand my horizons. I began to stop for lunch on my shopping trips so I would have more one on one time with the public at large. Instead of just going to a big bookstore just to browse, I started to stop for a cup of coffee and to use the rest room for the first time in my life as a transgender woman. Through it all, I was surviving and thriving and most importantly, my life suddenly never was old again.

From there, I started to go out at night and discovered a whole new world to be involved with. This was my much-publicized time when I gave up on male gay bars, and began to seek out more venues I could enjoy myself in. The bottom line was, if I was going to be discriminated for being trans in a gay bar, I could find somewhere else to spend my money. When I did find other venues, my life really began to be exciting and new, it never got old being accepted in a new venue which normally featured big cold beers along with big colorful television screens to watch sports on.

From that point forward, life really began to speed up on me. It seemed every night, something new was happening and I was learning the nuances of being able to cross the gender border. I believe I was not convincing anyone I was a cisgender woman but on the other hand, I was a woman with a different background. The distinction became an important one for me to have to succeed in the direction I wanted to go. The direction of course, was the path I was on to leave my closet permanently and join the world as my true self who should have been in control the entire time. Even though the path had plenty of dead ends and sharp curves, following it never got old.

Since my path never got old, I knew I was on the right one for the first time in my life. The new freedom I felt propelled me when I was doubting which direction I should take in my life. The vibe I felt was real and I decided to risk all the materialistic items I had as a male would be risked and could possibly go away. Which meant everything, including spouses, friends, and employment had to change. Naturally, I spent hours, days and even weeks agonizing on what I was going to do.

The fact which kept coming back to me was, I had gone to far down the femininized path I was on to ever go back to the male life I had known. I even realized, I was much more than a cross dresser or a man who liked to look like a woman when he could. Or I was sliding down a very slippery dangerous gender slope towards a very steep cliff and I had no idea of how I would land.

It turned out I had nothing to worry about. With the help of several women friends, I had made along with gender affirming hormones, my landing was surprisingly soft. Even after I did, I still could not relax. Being comfortable with myself as a transgender woman proved not to be an option. The whole process never became old, and I could not live without it.

 

 

The Forgotten Woman

Image from UnSplash.

 Over the years of gender infighting, I needed to carefully sustain my transgender womanhood because she often was the forgotten person.

To begin with, she began life as a second-class citizen in my world when I was born as a male in a male dominated family. Essentially, she had two walls to climb immediately to survive at all.   First of all, she did not have any on hands guidance from mom or girlfriends to show her the way through life and secondly, my male self was successful at all in the world, she was completely forgotten. The fragile complement between my genders had to be maintained at all times or she would disappear. Many times, I asked myself why I wanted her along to begin with, but the answer kept coming back, I needed her.

I discovered the hard way, the occasional trip to the hallway mirror dressed as a girl with full makeup, just was not going to cut it. I just needed more. If I could manage to look like a girl, why couldn't I be a girl, if only in my mind. The problem became, when I had to return to my male reality, I needed to forget my girl self altogether. Many days, it seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. when the only true punishment came at the expense of my already frail mental health. All too often, depression would set in when I forgot my feminine self and could not least appease her by cross dressing in the mirror. 

Another problem was, the more I appeased my forgotten woman, the more my male self-hated it. He fought hard when any portion of his life was threatened. He tried his best to make it easier in life by gaining white male privileges which were difficult to give up. I became successful as a male, but try as I might, I could not forget my inner woman. Who, at the time, was learning more and more how to establish herself in the world. Many times, my male self would win the battles in our life when along he was losing the war. A typical female move he was too blind to see as he blustered along in life. 

When my forgotten woman became less forgotten and more accomplished, my male self-started to panic as he could see the end in sight. Without being a winner. Basically, he teamed up with my second wife to attempt to save what they could of my life. At that point, decisions needed to be made in the worst way. My so-called forgotten woman had learned she could indeed live a life on her own terms. The ability to stand on her own two feet after all those years in a closet was so liberating, she knew she could never go back and, on the other hand, my guy knew deep down he was defeated. 

Living a transgender life she had always dreamed of was suddenly all that mattered. She dictated I start gender affirming hormones to feminize my body outside and inside and that was just the start to being accepted in the world. At that point my forgotten woman was not forgotten anymore, and she got her just due for all the years she waited for control. She loved every bit of it.

Adjusting to Change

 

Image from
Rafella Mendes Diniz
on UnSplash.

I am biased, but I think adjusting to a lifestyle in a gender you were not born into is one of the biggest changes a human can make.

As many of you know, I took nearly a half a century to adjust to my gender changes. Looking back, some of the changes were a blur while others were so very slow. The reasons possibly were there were so many changes I made to arrive at the spot where I could take the big leap. For example, the night I went to an NFL Monday Night Football game with a lesbian friend of mine and her family. I was just coming out as a transgender woman and was scared to death but knew I needed to make the move and go with her. Needless to say, after the evening, my life changed forever.

The other night I mention often was when I went to see the Christmas lights at a local grist mill, by myself as a woman. I was not as nearly afraid as I was at the football game and ended up enjoying myself immensely. I felt secure in my fashion choices for the evening and was warm and cozy when I went up to one of the hot chocolate vendors for a warm drink with extra marsh mallows. Most importantly, I did not run into any major problems at either venue and my confidence skyrocketed. Maybe I could be secure in my transgender womanhood after all and live out my dream. 

By now, you may be thinking was that all it took to propel my confidence forward into a new life and leave the old male life behind. No, it was not. It is difficult to mention all the nights I spent out alone as a single lonely woman before I found friends to share my changed life with. Through it all, I needed to be so careful to separate my old male life with my new femininized one. Which meant to separate everything I was talking about to new people. Plus, I did not want to create a totally false past in my life and ignore everything I worked so hard to achieve. I found I could bring in the family I had and just change the perspective I was speaking from, and it worked. At the time, fortunately, I was busy closing out my old male life anyhow which had for the most part collapsed, so the time was right for a major change.

Surprisingly, change did come easier for me than I expected. My femininized life was a pleasure to adjust to. Since, I should have been living it all along. It was like my feminine inner soul was telling me she was right all along. If I just had the courage to make the gender change and stick with it. 

All the adjustments I needed to make in life to survive were worth it for me. Finally, at the age of sixty, I had seen enough of the small changes I was trying to make as a stopgap measure and I decided to rid myself of all my male clothes, start gender affirming hormones (HRT) and live the life I was always meant to live. 

How did I know I made the right change? Because, after I did it, I felt so relieved and natural. I let myself go to fall off my gender cliff and had a very soft landing. All those years which started out as just me in the mirror had come full circle and I was able to live my desired life. All because of the changes I went through.

Gender Bystander

JJ Hart (left) and wife Liz (right).

It took me many years to learn I was nothing more than a gender bystander in my life.

As a young male type, I was always painfully shy of strangers first and women in particular. Girls seemed to live a magical life I could only dream of. In particular, the girls were the ones who were allowed to wear the colorful, pretty clothes while I was stuck in the same old drab male fashions. The closer I watched though, the more benefit the girls around me had. While I was too shy to even ask any girls out on dates, the attractive girls always seemed to have no problem with attracting attention. 

The problem with being a bystander was I saw only one side of the spectrum I was looking at. For example, I learned much later in life being the pursued gender (women) did not always mean good results. As if, what if no one pursues you? And what if the male pursuing you happens to be a toxic guy and you are stuck trying to get rid of him. So much to consider when you are a gender bystander on the outside looking in. 

I needed to pay my dues before I could ever begin to consider I was anything more than a bystander in my own life. Specifically, I needed to get past the impostor syndrome I was feeling on the nights I was feeling comfortable in my transgender womanhood. I needed to stop feeling I was looking down somehow on another completely different person, when in essence, it was the dominant feminine me all along. It was not until I completely accepted my true self, did others accept me also. Magically it seemed, my gender doors swung open, and I was given access behind the gender curtain of cisgender women everywhere. It was then I began to explore what I would do about my sexuality.

When all of this was happening, most everyone around me I knew from the transgender mixers I went to were seeking their feminine validation from seeking a man. Which meant also pleasing a man sexually. My problem was, being a bystander or not, I had never desired a man in anyway shape or form, so what was I to do? What I attempted to do was explore the world of men from a transgender woman's perspective. I went online, and I tried to find men to date to no avail as I was stood up more times than I care to remember. I only was able to go out with men a few times and one of those was with a transgender man. 

Finally, destiny stepped in, and I found a group of lesbians who would accept me which I always mention. Primarily, the lesbians showed me I could stand on my own two feet as a femininized person, and I did not need at all a man to validate my existence. When I did, I stopped being a gender bystander. I knew where I was coming from, and my goals were clear. I needed to begin HRT or gender affirming hormones as soon as I was approved for them. By doing so, I was giving my feminine self an extra tool to assist in her development. 

For the first time in my life, I was no longer a gender bystander in my own life. I discovered women did not receive all the breaks and, on the other hand led a very complex and layered life. Sometimes carefully crafted with or without men. It was quite the journey, and I was so pleased I could do it and survive. It was so enlightening not to be a bystander in my own life anymore. On hands help was the only way to live.