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| Image from Katherine Hanlon on UnSplash. |
For literally decades, any thoughts I had of living a successful life as a transgender woman, were only thoughts. I was never sure if I had any chance of making it. In fact, most of the time it seemed as if I was swimming against the current in a fast-moving stream of ciswomen, I wanted to interact with so badly, on their terms.
Doing it on their terms was my problem as I had always tried
my best to be a strong student as a man of how all the women around me were
living their lives. The main issue always was that I was only allowed to see so
much of what was going on across the gender border. Again, because I was a man
and had not yet paid many dues yet as a novice cross-dresser and not even a
transgender woman yet. I still thought my real issue in paying my dues to be
let behind the gender curtain came from my appearance in the world. Just being
able to blend in with the ciswomen around me was good enough.
It was quite a humble experience when I found my appearance (and
no matter how much it was improving) was not going to be enough. Even though
the mirror was being kind to me as it told me I presented well, I was still
stuck behind it as I still needed to put the image into motion. I was caught in
the place where I looked good as a woman…for a man trying hard to accomplish
it. I desperately needed to find a place where I looked as if I wasn’t trying to
dress to impress. I was just being me. The problem then became who was the me I
was becoming? How deep did my feminine desires run and where would they ultimately
take me became the main things I thought about in my life. Every spare moment I
had was spent either actively cross-dressing in front of the mirror or making
plans of going public with how I looked and making the world my mirror.
As I learned the hard way my lessons on how to blend in with
the world around me, often I was brutally laughed at and rejected by the world
because I was dressing to thrill and not to blend. I guess I could say, I was
humbled in the worst way by groups of teen girls in the malls I was just trying
to shop in. My initial goal back then was to face my teen critics one-on-one until
I failed completely or succeeded after many times of going back to my cross-dressing
drawing board. It was like ripping a band aid off a mental wound and saying too
hell with it and trying again to be successful. Until I was.
Rather than become overconfident at that point, I decided to
try to build upon my newfound success and work on things such as how I moved
and walked in heels. I discovered that every little discovery helped in my male
to female femininization project such as keeping the old male scowl off of my
face when I was out as a transfeminine person. No more scaring little kids away
who called me a woman which was good but a mean woman which was bad of course.
It was the last thing I wanted to do after working so hard on the basics of
presenting as a passable woman.
The more I progressed on my path to living as me, the more
humbled I became. Too many nights I came home in disbelief at the lessons I had
learned from men and ciswomen in public as I struggled to fill out my gender
workbook which was way behind the rest of the world I was dealing with. I
learned men did not value anything I had to say unless I was spoken to first
and women had their own way of communicating around men even if the men thought
they were in their conversation. Just as a starting point. I also learned of a
whole new lesbian culture I knew nothing about and where I could possibly fit
in as a femme lipstick lesbian. As you can understand, the terminology and how
I fit in came at me quickly and again I was extremely humbled to be asked to go
to lesbian mixers where I learned a lot.
I learned also that women lead much more layered existences
than men do, often built around dealing with men themselves. I did not have to
worry much about that because I was not attractive enough for men to pursue me
and after my lesbian friends taught me I did not need a man for validation, my
life brightened considerably.
As I progressed deeper and deeper along my gender path, it
became increasingly obvious that I could indeed achieve my goal of someday
succeeding in a feminine world. Even though in many ways it did not resemble my
initial dreams. In no way did I think I could maintain my sense of sexuality as
I never made it with a man. In my own way, I maintained my own “Gold Star”
status that many lesbians I knew maintained. The closest I ever came to getting
any real attention from a “GS” lesbian were a few kisses.
When my new world began to open up, I was very humbled to be
there at all. Along the way, I have survived issues such as severe depression
and negative attitudes towards me from loved ones to stick to my dreams and goals.
Remembering where I came from helped me form the strong building blocks to
complete such a diverse and difficult change in my life. Using the negatives in
my male life to build a transfeminine one was one of the best moves I ever made
in my life as I made a complete circle back through all my male years to be the
person I always dreamed I could be.
I was back to being me. The only transition which really
mattered.
