 |
| JJ Hart |
In my youth and even later when I was struggling with my deep-seated gender issues, the thought entered my mind that I may just be a little crazy to think that way. I even went as far as telling others I was not the well-adjusted person they thought I was.
Looking back now, I think I was just preparing in my own way
to tell others I met that I wanted to be a woman. Which I never did for decades
when it became obvious to strangers I met at cross-dressing, transgender socials
I went to that I wanted to be feminine, or I would not have been there.
The first time that I told anyone that I liked to wear women’s
clothes was after a Halloween party I went to in the Army of all places. Weeks
later, over way too much good German beer, the topic came up with friends about
how realistic my “costume” was, all the way to my shaved legs. Since I was among a
few very close friends, I took a big chance with risking the remainder of the
time I had in the Army and told them I was a transvestite (the term used back then)
and I liked to dress as a woman. I said nothing about being crazy, and I just
liked to do it.
Of course, at that time in my life, I was busy running from
the fact of how deep my gender issues went. I was hiding the fact from myself
that no I was not crazy, I just wanted to be a transgender woman in the days
when the term was first being used. “Running” for me back in those days meant
changing jobs and locations frequently to keep my mind off what I was truly
running from, my gender issues. Even with all the moves I was making, I could
not outrun my life and occasionally the term “crazy” snuck into my thought
pattern.
To compensate, I began to do “chores” which I considered
feminine in nature such as doing part of the grocery shopping for my wife
dressed as a ciswoman. When I succeeded with no problems, I started to feel so
natural that I continually wanted to do more. So, I began to combine my grocery
shopping adventures with new visits to big shopping stores to pick up small items
I could afford such as a pair of panty hose, or new makeup. Amazingly, no one
bothered me or shouted, “There is that crazy man in a dress.”
As the years went by, I learned that the ciswomen around me
did not think I was crazy. They thought I was more curious than anything else
as they wondered why I would leave the men’s club to play in their world. Ironically,
as they were taking care of their curiosity, at the same time, I was learning
from them. I had always envied girls (then women) so much as I followed them
from afar, and now I had the chance to go back behind the gender curtain and
learn first hand about the pluses and negatives of a ciswoman’s life and did I
want to be a part of it or was I just following a crazy path off a cliff.
I learned quickly that I was following the right path, no
matter how crazy it seemed at the time. The more I explored the world as a
trans woman, I found the more exploration I needed to do but that was OK with
me because again, my life for a change did not feel forced and so natural because
I was not fighting to be something I was not…a man. All of a sudden, my life
made sense and a was a special kind of crazy, a transfeminine person. At that point,
I knew I would have to lose for good all the formidable white male privileges I
had earned over the years. Even I was surprised to say “buh-bye” to all privilege
I had built up.
Not all benefits I had living as a man were so easy to give
up such as part of my intelligence and my personal security. I did not have
many interactions with men one on one, but I learned the process of letting the
man take the lead in most all situations. Especially when it came to sports, where
I knew a lot about what was going on. The other privilege or benefit I needed
to give up quickly was when it came to my personal security. I was not prepared
for the world I was facing now in which I was fair game for any toxic man. I
was fortunate to have escaped injury a couple of times when I broke the rules that
ciswomen grow up with such as not finding your self in a compromising position
on a dark city street all alone. I thought at the time, I was crazy to do it
and never did it again.
Most recently, the craziest thing I have done is to let my
precious Estradiol prescription run nearly all the way out. In fact, I am down
to my last applications of patches this week as I am waiting for another refill
which I have been notified is coming today. I have written in the past a couple
of times about the paranoia I felt when I had a recent appointment with my endocrinologist
who prescribes my HRT medications. It turned out that that all my crazy paranoia
about the far reach of the orange felon in the White House rejecting any ideas
of me receiving gender affirming care through the Veterans Administration would
ever happen again. Instead, I received a prescription which will last me
through another year until our next appointment.
Once again, it was proven that I am a special kind of crazy
which I wish I had learned to embrace earlier in life. It would have made life
so much richer just knowing I had the chance to experience life on both sides
of the binary gender border.
