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| Image from Katherine Hanlon on UnSplash |
Just when I thought I had conquered one obstacle in my gender transition, another obstacle suddenly appeared for me to climb.
The problem I had was I am very afraid of heights and some of the walls were taller than others. For example, makeup was not a big wall since I had so many years at home alone in front of the mirror to practice. By the time I went public, I had perfected most all the makeup ideas I needed. Plus, benefiting completely from having a professional makeover at one of the transvestite/cross dresser mixers I went to. The makeup artist really showed me how to scale the wall which on occasion had made me look like a clown.
At approximately the same time, I was fighting climbing another obstacle called fashion. For years I dressed my feminine self for what my old male self thought was appropriate The whole process was completely backwards as I should have been trying to present as close as I could to other women of my age so I blended in. Once I scaled the obstacle, my life as a novice transgender woman in public became so much easier. Once my life became easier, I thought I had it made but I was so wrong. What happened was gender doors began to open for me I wasn't really ready for. I found it was much easier for me to move around in society as my feminine self than it was to actually sit down and have a conversation with another woman or man. Communication for me was a huge wall to climb. So much so, I even ended up taking vocal lessons at one point in my life to sound like a woman.
As I write this post on walls, it occurs to me, I should have added in all the stop signs I went through on my path to living as a fulltime transgender woman. Coming to mind were all the times my male self was screaming stop!!! when his domain was being challenged. All the times, I put my marriage at risk by sneaking out behind my wife's back when she was at work is an example of running a stop sign just to try to climb another gender wall. What I was doing was slowly but surely building a way around the old male obstacles I faced, to build a new life as a transgender woman. At that point, if I had been honest with myself, I would have known my new life felt so natural, it would win out in the end. But, I wasn't honest and boxed myself into what was left of my male life which I had hated so much.
Finally, the world around me changed because of dire situations where family and friends had died leaving me the freedom to climb the final walls out of my gender closet. I came to the point where I had the tools I needed to conquer my fear of existing in public as a trans woman thanks to gender affirming hormones and pure courage to live.
The walls I kept facing kept declining to a point where I had no choice but to do the right thing for myself and go ahead to live my lifetime dream of living as a woman. Looking back, maybe I should have described all the obstacles or walls I went through were more of a maze. Maybe I should have paid more attention in the scouts or the military to find myself an easier way through. Although, after communicating with all the other transgender women and trans men I do, maybe an easier way just wasn't possible.
