You Never Know until You Try

 

Image from Leo Visions
on UnSplash.

You never know until you try was drilled into me as a kid by my WWII generation parents whenever I was facing a potential difficult situation. Little did they know, their insistence on me trying to do the improbable would come back to haunt them in a very different way. Back in those days (in the 1950’s) gender issues were referred to as mental illness and any reference to their eldest son being mentally ill would have been frowned on, so I was stuck wondering if I was really a boy who wanted to be a girl.

The only thing I knew to do was to keep cross-dressing in front of the family’s full length hallway mirror. Imagining I was one of the pretty girls I desperately wanted to be. At the time, I had no idea my gender issues would last the better part of fifty years and take up huge portions of my life. Not that I could have done anything about it if I had tried which I did a number of times when I purged nearly all my feminine belongings swearing never to pick them up again. I was stuck being a male and somehow, I needed to make the best of it. Like so many people I knew with gender issues, purging never worked. The pressure built until I could take it no longer and again, I was accumulating women’s clothes again and wearing them.

At the least I tried to go back to mentally being male full-time and failed miserably at it. All I knew was when I was not thinking about getting out of my dark, lonely gender closet, I was not happy at all and when I at least tried to be me in the mirror it took the pressure off. Even if it was only for a while. At the same time, I was acutely aware that I was doing the best I could to see if I could improve my appearance as a pretty girl. How I never got caught doing all of this, I will never know, and I even resorted to taking plastic bags of clothes and makeup into the neighboring woods so I could escape the prying eyes of my slightly younger brother and family.

My mentality of never knowing you could do something until you try really came to the forefront when I was drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War. Instead of taking the two-year plan with a ticket to Southeast Asia, I took a chance and signed up to try to get a job I wanted in the American Forces Radio and Television Service. With a lot of luck and the help of a congressman whose radio station I worked for, against all odds, I got one of the sixty job slots in the Army for AFRTS. It turned out the whole process turned my life around and taught me that anything could be possible. If you went out of your way to try. Probably the most valuable lesson that I could have ever learned as I looked ahead at my path to becoming a successful transfeminine person. If it had worked for me once, why couldn’t it do it again.

As I set out to leave my gender closet behind and improve my life, I know I took on a journey I would not readily recommend to others. When I started to leave the mirror and join the world as a trans woman, I used a tool that I had already used effectively as a man in my previous life. It was alcohol, and I knew I could use it to build up much needed courage to be in the world as a transgender woman and not get myself into more trouble as I was presenting as a single woman in an establishment which served alcohol. Gay, straight or lesbian, it did not matter. I found I could get by if I stayed out of the redneck leaning venues. I was also well schooled in the artform of driving while buzzed from all my days in the Army when I did all the driving. More than anything else, this was back in the days before the major crackdowns on drunken drivers, so I was safer, and in NO WAY do I recommend what I did.

Also, what I think is tougher these days than when I was intensely lonely and looking for companionship is the world of on-line dating. When I was seeking a date, I played both sides of the gender coin, because I was in the unique position of being a transgender woman who favored lesbians. Looking back, I think I got the most attention from men seeking men dating sites. But just knowing that the amount of trash I would receive was at its best humorous and at its worst, a disaster because I refused to meet anyone in a public place which was not of my choosing. I was stood up more times than I would care to count or remember because my life was destined to change forever when I met my future wife Liz on a woman seeking woman dating site.

Liz responded to my picture saying I had sad eyes which was entirely possible at that time of my life. Amazingly, she lived relatively close to me in a town (Cincinnati) that I had always admired. From there, I began to become involved in her friend’s girl’s nights out and I was able to do more to learn what was behind the gender curtain than I had ever thought possible. The entire on-line dating world for me proved again you never know what you are going to get until you try.

These days again it is more problematic to find someone online with all the scammers out there, but destiny can never find you if you never venture out of your dark lonely closet and light up your path to a brighter future.

I wonder what my deceased parents would think now of what they taught me so long ago.

 

 

 

Letting the Light Into my Trans Closet

 

Image from Sahin Kalijii
on UnSplash. 

Growing up, I had what I considered to be a very dark and escape proof gender closet.

I was part of the pre-internet/social media generation so I could not find the latest online tutorial on improving my makeup skills. And of course, I could not run to my mom or girls’ peer group for any information either. I was stuck with no light in my closet all by myself it seemed.

I stayed that way for years until gender pioneers such as “Virginia Prince” began to shine her faint light into my closet. I had little to no knowledge that individuals such as me even existed in the world. Once I did, I was very relieved I was not the only transvestite as Virginia called us then in the world and I set out to meet others. Before I could open my closet door even a little, I had to convince my second wife that it would be OK to do it. She had known from the beginning of our relationship that I was a cross-dresser but did not like it when I began to let others know of my so called “hobby.” It actually marked the beginning of me opening my closet door to the world and proclaiming I was a transgender woman, not a part time man putting on a dress and makeup.

Along the way, another problem I had was deciding when to take the chance to open my closet door and to which person. I did myself no favors when for the most part, I tried to internalize all my feminine feelings which made me an impossible person to get along with when I was looking in the mirror at my male self and hating what I saw. All the times I ventured out of my closet only to have to hurry back in was wrecking most of my life as I knew it. Not to mention the life with my wife who I envied because she was a ciswoman, and resented because she would not let me explore a feminine side which was trying to see the light of day.

I found my male self-had installed a powerful spring closer on my closet door which was designed to keep me in. Deep down he knew his part of my life was in danger every time I was able to escape the closet and get out into the world. I felt so enlightened and natural when I did, I never wanted to return to my male life and all its drudgery. I was so sick of wearing the same old collection of ties to work every day when better/brighter fashion choices awaited me in my closet at home.

I discovered that the more I outfitted my closet with brighter lights and bigger mirrors, the more I wanted to test my new fashions, wigs, and makeup in the world. Away from my mirror which had the tendency to lie to me. I can’t tell you how many times the mirror told me I looked great only to be rejected quickly in the public’s eye. It took me years to realize that I was expecting too much on just looking like a ciswoman, I had not yet paid my dues on becoming myself and then having the ability to relax and enjoy myself even more.

It helped me too when I began to venture further away from my closet as my confidence as a transfeminine person began to grow. To get there, I needed to be able to look another woman in the eye and communicate one on one with her about the world around us. Men entered the picture too but briefly since most of them did not want to have anything to do with me anyhow. More and more, I did not have to scramble back to my closet following a bad day or night out into the world because I was doing better in my feminine life. All my male could do was sit back and helplessly watch as his hold on me slipped away and all he ended up being was a provider because of his good job.

I arrived at a point when I needed to expand the small dark transgender closet, I had always lived in. It all began with me having to accept who I really was and had much more to do than just expanding my closet for all the feminine clothes I was buying. I was making a huge lifestyle choice that I had spent way too long deciding to make. All of this moving things around in my life led me all the way to leaving my closet totally behind and looking for a transgender house to live in. I had taken my time (decades) to make my decision, and it occurred to me that I had taken too much time but by then there was nothing I could do about re-winding the clock. I took the good and lived on until I was able to carve out a new transfeminine life.

As I look back, it does not seem possible to me that I have come from the lost, lonely boy staring longingly at himself dressed as a girl in his closet’s mirror to the person I am today. But none of would have been possible had I not been able to embrace the help of several key ciswomen around me to make it happen. I wonder what would have become of me if I was not able to meet them. On the bright side, stepping out of my closet (as scary as it was) enabled me to meet all of them to start with. So, destiny was on my side as my life went full circle from a dark closet to the bright existence I live with my wife Liz now. I was just fortunate as my hunches that everything would work out if I stayed on my gender path. I just had the super strong hunches that they would.

Thanks very much to all of you who read and interact with my writings. All comments are always welcomed!

 

A Special Kind of Crazy

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Are We Having Fun Yet?

 

Image from Katie Treadway
on UnSplash.

Having fun as a transgender woman or transgender man can be difficult to define. First, let’s define fun as something that provides mirth and amusement. Which comes from “Dictionary.com.”

In my case, I cannot remember finding much “mirth and amusement” when I was cross dressing as much as I could to present as an attractive girl. All I can remember was that I was experiencing deep satisfaction when I thought I had succeeded. As I began to search for a better term, I went back to the “Dictionary.Com” to look up the definition of happy. Because happy is how I felt when I thought I had succeeded into transforming myself into a pretty girl. I was right when the definition of happy was “delighted, pleased or glad” when something was accomplished. It fit me totally because it worked in all aspects of what I was trying to do. Actually, it was all three of the delighted, pleased or glad definitions which fit me exactly.

The problem I was having was getting to the point where I could be happy about trying to cross the gender border. I severely struggled to find the fine line where I could disguise my broad shoulders and narrow hips of my testosterone poisoned body. I certainly was not happy or having any fun when I was brutally laughed at by the way I was trying to present myself as a woman in the world. As I always point out, back then teenaged girls were the biggest test I faced when I went to the malls and they seemed to be attracted to me like magnets, for all the wrong reasons. It took me a while to realize I was trying to dress like teenagers, which brought me completely undo attention. There was no way I could be happy.

What I also did not understand was that fun or being happy was a fleeting thing for me. Sort of what had you have done for me recently, type of thinking which I was very used to from how I was raised. For the most part, I was never allowed to be happy, so I did not miss it at all. I also say for the most part because slowly I began to discover I could feel happy when I was cross-dressing as a man into my true feminine self. When I was able to find the proper clothes, shoes and wigs which helped me with my appearance with my makeup, I could relax and enjoy a new world I had only dreamed of.  Fun became to me when I could escape the male world, I was forced to spend so much time in and explore all the new facets of being a confident transfeminine person. It made me happy to discover who I really was destined to be in life.

As I headed past the fun and happy part of discovering myself as a transgender woman, I needed to mention the satisfaction I felt when I had reached the point where my diet had kicked in and I could buy more stylish clothes in my own size for the first time ever in my life. I was ecstatic in my pre-hormonal HRT days when a cross-dresser friend of mine purged his feminine belongings and gifted me a set of silicone breast forms that I needed to run out and size just the right bra for.

Those were the early days of my explorations in Columbus, Ohio when I could attend very diverse by invitation only parties where I could see everyone from lesbians to transgender women considering gender realignment surgeries so I could have a idea of how I might want to live my life in the future. Almost every party I went to was to be a fun learning experience, and I could not wait for the next one. At the same time, I was thinking if I was having this much fun, how could it be wrong to have it.

The only negative I experienced was the night I was cornered in a narrow hallway by a huge admirer of crossdressers and almost learned the hard way about what ciswomen learn at an early age. To not put yourself in compromising positions with men which could possibly overpower you and get yourself into deep trouble. I was lucky that my wife came along to bail me out of the situation I unknowingly put myself into.  It was no fun hearing her, I told you so’s all the way home. Mainly because she did not approve of what I was wearing.

As my life progressed towards the ultimate goal of leading a fulltime life as a transgender woman, unfortunately, my wife stood right in my way of progressing.  Which meant I needed to cheat on her with another woman which was me. Every time I slipped out of the house in my heels, jeans or boots, I normally had a good time as I was finally having fun as a trans woman and did not want to ever give it up,  I had gone too far to ever look back to an old male life I never had a choice on living to start with. Like it or not, my life had put me on a collision course of having to decide what I was going to do about my marriage. The course was disrupted when my wife unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack leaving me tragically alone after twenty-five years of marriage.

Most certainly, those days of my life were no fun, and not filled with happiness. On the other hand, they were filled with uncertainty and loneliness until I could find my way home again. Thanks in no small part to my inner feminine self who took over my life and others such as my daughter and future wife Liz. Who helped to pull me from my major pity party. When that happened, life became fun again as I was able to lead a life in the feminine world I always wanted to be part of.

 

 

                               

 

 

There was Never a Maybe

 

Image from Marija Zaric 
on UnSplash. 

In my life, there were never any maybe moments about having gender issues, only a resounding yes, because I had them.

Time fades the memory, but I think the first inkling of the issues I had was when I began to experience very vivid dreams that I was indeed a pretty girl. That is when I went the only route, I knew how to go and secretly began to raid my mom’s clothing drawers and closets for her clothes I could still squeeze in to at the time. Before I knew it, I had somehow acquired my own “collection” of feminine clothes and makeup I used to practice my new artform. While the boys around me were practicing putting together model cars, I was busy practicing being a girl. At the time, all the practice flustered me, but would come back to help me later in life when I would not have to work so hard on the basics of presenting as a ciswoman.

The more I accomplished in my cross-dressing pursuits, the more I wanted to do because I felt so natural. Which was a huge clue to me that I was on the right gender path, and this part of my life had always been a deep part of me. If I had followed the clues and not ignored them, I would have been much better off in the long run. By putting my deep instincts off, I ended building up a successful but deeply destructive male life. Every time I built something up as a man, I needed to somehow destroy it because I did not want it to interfere with my possible upcoming male to female femininization project. I guess I could say the possibilities intrigued me as much as they terrified me. How would I ever be able to live as a transgender woman dominated most of my everyday life as I envied the lives of the ciswomen around me.

At the time, all of this was happening, all I was trying to do was experiment if my gender dream could ever come true and I could give up all my male privileges I had built up to try it. If I could do it, I could live it became my goal. Which was easier said than done because I was still living most of my life as a transfeminine person only in front of the mirror and not the world where I belonged. At times, making my way from the mirror was a brutal experience for me because the world treated me in ways that I really deserved when I did not dress myself in the proper way to hide the best I could my testosterone poisoned body and attracted undue attention. Not dressing to blend in with the other ciswomen around me was hurting me badly until I finally learned my lesson.

Probably what I suffered from the most was not having the role models I needed to help me in my male to female transition. It was very lonely in the pre-internet days with no social media tutorials to help new struggling trans women or cross dressers along. It was just me and the public to provide feedback on my progress because I discovered the mirror was quite OK with lying to me about how I looked. It would tell me I was attractive, then I would get immediately laughed back home by a group of teen girls was a prime example of what I was going through. I remember vividly the days when I began to seek out the girl’s attention to measure how well I was doing in the world, rather than running from it. I figured if I could succeed in passing my toughest tests anything was possible.

As I began to pass more and more feminine tests, my confidence began to grow, and I started to face my deepest dreams and fears that I could conceivably leave my old male path behind and carve out a life as a transgender woman. On my own in the world. All of this had its good and bad points. The good was that I was finally realizing after all this time I could live my dream and the bad was, what would I do about the remainder of my male life. At that time, I still had a very good marriage to deal with, as well as a family and successful job to consider. It was as if I was painting myself simultaneously into two gender corners which would be hard to get out of. I found wanting the best of both binary gender worlds was impossible to do and coming up soon I would have to decide which way I was going to have to go.

The decision I made turned out to be the easiest one and one I should have made long ago. I certainly had the gender issues I worried about endlessly and would have them as long as I lived. I had always thought that tomorrow would be the day I could figure it all out, but all the tomorrows started to become years and decades and I still hadn’t done anything about it. Gender procrastination at its finest, or its worst. Bottom line was the procrastination I was doing ended up hurting me in ways that I never imagined such as with my mental health which really paid the price of living the pressure of life in two genders. I needed to finish painting the gender corners I had put myself into and do it fast.

On one of the nights, I went out to try to be by myself, I ended up really socializing as a trans woman and enjoying myself. Right then, I decided I had made my final decision to pursue HRT and finally put what was left of my old male self to a permanent rest. It occurred to me then that the decision had always been made for me from those earliest days in the mirror I went through.

All the maybes were in my past. I could succeed as a trans woman, and I had a bright future ahead.

 

When Every day is Day One

 

JJ Hart

We all know how difficult being a transgender woman or transgender man can be. For years, it seems as if you are starting on day one when you are trying to catch up with ciswomen who have lived a feminine existence their entire life.

For me, my journey started when on certain mornings when I did not know if I was going to be a boy (physically) or a girl (mentally) that day. My thoughts often came from vivid dreams I had from the night before that I was living a life as a pretty girl. I just couldn't shake the idea that something was wrong in my life, and I couldn't do much about it except occasionally cross dress in front of the mirror in mom’s clothes and makeup. When I did, early on I needed a lot of help with my makeup and everyday when I tried something new on my face, I was starting all over again. Plus, it did not help that most every time I cross-dressed, it was an adventure in not getting caught. Between my parents and my slightly younger brother, earning my private time to be on my own and be a girl was difficult.

It took me years to shake the idea that every day as a transwoman was still day one in my life. Mainly because, I was still learning so much from all the ciswomen I was around in my new world. I had plenty of stop signs on my gender path I needed to negotiate as I made my way towards my dream of living full-time as a transfeminine person. Some of the stop signs were busy four way stops when I really needed to stop, look both ways, and make the difficult decision to proceed. Looking back now, I don’t know how I managed not to have any major collisions with anyone but my second wife who unfortunately had a front row seat in my transition from just cross-dressing on a part-time basis all the way to considering HRT or gender affirming hormones as a transgender woman.

What kept me going was my deep-seated knowledge that what I was doing was right. All the cross-dressing I was doing was just practice towards a bigger, brighter future as a trans woman. Looking at it that way was certainly difficult, but it was all I could cling to if I was to keep my fragile mental health intact. As my wife told me when we were fighting about my gender that I made a terrible woman. So, I needed to find out what she meant because she added that she was not talking about appearance which I thought I was doing better with.

I set out at that time to re-dedicate myself to understanding a woman’s life. I was naïve at the time and thought I could learn more while I was still presenting as a man fulltime. Years later, when I had crossed the gender border publicly as a trans woman, I finally was invited back behind the gender curtain so I could learn a lot and not be a terrible woman. For most of you who do not know, my wife unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack after twenty-five years of marriage to me and she never was able to see the better woman I had become. Mainly because my time behind the curtain enabled me to start all over again and mold the new woman, I wanted to be. Including most of all the nuances and the layers a female must live through before she becomes a woman. My inner female was forced to stay back and be dormant for all those decades before she could claim her ultimate gender prize also. She just had to take a vastly different path to get there.

At that point in my life, everyday was day one again when I donated all my male clothes and vowed to never look back again at my male life. Which I ultimately found impossible to do. Male influences built me into the person I had become as a transgender woman and made me stronger in the process. I even brought experiences from the most male dominated part of my life to my gender table as I remembered the days I went through in Army basic training. There was no need to throw away valuable experience I could use in my new life.

It turned out to be the most exciting time of my life when I could finally live my truth in the world. And I was able to forget the dark days of my youth when I began to deeply question what gender I was. Having all the help I did to finally begin to fill out my gender workbook helped me too, even though I was rejected on occasion and needed to start all over again. I urge all of you who are considering a journey in life the way I did, is to be resilient and expect many ups and downs along the way. Most are just learning experiences anyway and can be valuable as you are allowed to play in the girls’ (or boys for you trans guys) sandbox. It takes time and experience for your confidence to grow as you navigate one of the most difficult paths a human being can take.

Slowly but surely, every day will not feel like day one as you get used to living a full-time life you have always dreamed of in a gender world you want to be a part of. For me, it was like taking a great deep breath of fresh air when I was finally checked out and was able to begin the long-awaited HRT which would transform my body outwardly and more intensely, inwardly. My entire being was telling me what took me so long when the male to female feminizing hormones hit my system. But I did not need the hormones to tell me who I was, they were like the icing on my transgender cake and made every day a better day.

 

 

Working Smarter not Harder as a Trans Girl

 

Image from Erik Mclean 
on UnSplash.

Before we get started on today’s post, here is a little background on my annual visit to the endocrinologist yesterday at the Veteran’s Administration in Dayton, Ohio.

It turns out, I was just wasting a lot of mental time and effort as I was worried about this appointment. I was worried that she would not renew my Estradiol prescription for the next year. But she did with no questions asked. The only other real problem I asked was why my Estradiol blood levels dropped as much as they did on my last visit to the vampires to have them checked. She did not know and thought I should have them checked again and see where they checked out. So, that is where we left it.

In the same vein, I had a great question from reader “Morgan” asking me if I could sense any differences in my moods when my levels went down since we both are older and on the hormonal patches. I told her no, I did not see any difference except in a new infuriating amount of hair I needed to get rid of on my arms. Since that time, the hair seems to be retreating, so hopefully that signals my levels returned to where they usually were. And, as far as moods go, normally I do feel an overall sense of wellness on the days I change my patches as well as a welcome swelling of my breasts.  I hope that covers the question Morgan, and thanks for asking.

As far as the deeper problem of feeling so much paranoia that I felt before the appointment, I think it goes back to my entire progression on the gender path I took to my transfeminine womanhood. It always seemed I was working harder not smarter as I attempted to fill out my feminine gender workbook as fast as I could. It was because I did not have the benefit all the other girls had growing up in a world of ciswomen where I was excluded. Every gender stop sign that I faced deepened my paranoia that I could ever have a chance of making it to my dream goal of crossing the male to female gender border and settling in as a successful transgender woman.

The first part I faced was just working to blend in with the ciswomen public I was around. I wanted to live the old saying that if it walked like a duck and looked like a duck, then it was a duck. My problem was even when I thought my clothes and makeup were on point and looked good, here I was walking like a circus clown in drag in my high heels. Putting my transfeminine persona into motion presented a real problem for me. It seemed like it was not so long ago that I was having the problem learning how to walk like a man out of puberty so I would not be called a sissy by the bullies and here I was trying to reverse the process. It took me a while to try to perfect my version of a woman’s unique style of movement but with a lot of practice I calmed my paranoia when I entered a room full of strangers and did the best I could. Then, I needed to work smarter, not harder trying to remember which gender I was on which day I was presenting. I worked in a pressure packed male dominated industry and it was as if the clock had been turned back and I was worried about being called a sissy again.

Another problem I was having was keeping my mind on whatever gender I was. An example would be all the time I wasted at work wondering what it would be like to live the life the ciswomen around me were living. Or better yet, daydreaming of the next time I could try when I could flip the switch and sneak out of the house again as a convincing transgender woman. If I could reclaim just a portion of the time I wasted, I worked harder not smarter as a person caught between two genders, what a relaxing, extra successful life I could have led. I was stubborn though and persisted through the decades just getting by thinking I could juggle being a parttime woman and a parttime man. Finally, it all became too much for me to handle mentally, so I needed to make a choice. But even then, I had to make certain that I was making the right decision, so I set out to change my path into a more challenging direction.

What I did was to throw caution to the wind and try to experience situations I always wondered what it would be like if I was an actual ciswoman. To do so, I had to finally earn my way behind the gender curtain and really attempt what my own unique path to trans womanhood really required of me. Essentially, the whole process required total commitment from me, and I needed to start making future decisions which would dramatically change the rest of my life. I was nearing sixty and my transgender biological clock was ticking loudly in my mind. If I was ever going to make my move to live fulltime as a woman, I better do it and it was time.

Better yet, I had a circle of women friends to help me socialize into the feminine community and I set out to secure a doctor’s approval to start HRT or gender affirming hormones. The timing was all right for my big move, and I no longer had to work harder more than smarter to do it. Most importantly, my paranoia about doing it all was at an all time low as for a change, destiny was on my side. Against all odds, I was able to meet a stable loving woman online as well as my daughter came on to accept me when I told her my deepest secret about wanting to be a woman my entire life.

Karma was coming around to pay me back for all the paranoia I experienced when I was working harder more than smarter. For the first time in my life, I allowed myself to be happy.

 

 

 

 

Life is Too Short to be Ordinary.

 

Image from Frolicsome Fairy
on UnSplash.

I saw this quote on a television show I watch regularly and it resonated as a transgender woman with me. Here is the quote: “Life is too short to be ordinary.”  I immediately thought that a trans woman’s or trans man’s life is anything but ordinary in the world we live in today.

I also thought of a few of the final battles I had with myself before I finally gave in to my feminine desires at the age of sixty and decided to try to enter the transfeminine world permanently. It was never a move I took lightly, which was probably one of the reasons it took me so long to make my final choice to join the girls’ club and leave the good old boys’ club behind.

What I attempted to do was weigh all the good and bad I had accomplished in my long life and use it to make my decision. To be fair, I did have many male experiences which I felt I needed to take into consideration as positives I would have to leave behind if I proceeded with my male to female feminization efforts. The end result was I found that I did not live an ordinary life for several reasons, and one of them was because I spent so much time on the gender path I obsessed about. The others involved just the ordinary life’s challenges that everyone goes through such as maintaining a family, a marriage and trying to be successful in a profession you can tolerate. I kept coming back to my gender issues which set me apart from the great majority of the world, in a good way.

Along the way, I had come to appreciate the difference between the two main binary genders by actually having the chance to live them. It occurred to me that I was having a chance very few humans have the chance to do and I should make the best of it and keep going. At the time, I was spending approximately half of my time in the world as a transgender woman anyhow, so the jump to going fulltime was becoming less and less intimidating to me.

One of the main final factors I needed to consider was how natural I felt living in each gender I was trying to maintain. After hours of thought and contemplation, I came to the realization I had never felt natural as a man. I had to struggle to make any long-lasting friends and it seemed all my accomplishments were for my public persona only. As I always say, I was never a man cross-dressing as a woman. I was a woman cross dressing as a man. From that, I realized I had always felt more comfortable as a feminine person and time was running short for me to grasp the opportunity to change for good. I was sixty at the time and it did not take a genius to realize I had lived more years than I still had to go on this earth.

Finally, it struck my stubborn head that I had been blessed to live everything but an ordinary life and I should follow my natural inclination to stay in a feminine mode. When I did, it was as if I was allowed to take a ton of rocks from my shoulders. As I assumed the life I always should have lived, I began the finishing touches of my new existence by being approved for HRT or gender affirming hormones by a doctor I read about in a local LGBTQ newspaper I saw. My body’s reaction was simple and to the point and I could hear it saying what took you so long as the changes from the hormones were so natural and immediate. In fact, the changes came so fast that I needed to move up my timeline for when I would transition completely away from my old male self.

It does not seem possible that all those gender changes were over fifteen years ago now and my world changed as positively as I ever hoped that it would. The path I took was completely personal and had its share of stop signs and blind curves but somehow, I made it. Probably because my inner self felt it was the only way to go. If working from a male background to being a transfeminine person was the way my path took me, I would gladly go along for the ride. The ride turned out to be uniquely interesting along with being extremely scary when I gave up and lost all my male privilege before I learned the essence of having female privileges.

I was fortunate that I was blessed with a healthy long life. Long enough to see the circle come around from gender darkness to light. So, you could say, my life was long enough to make it interesting and look around all those steep walls and blind curves to see what was on the other side waiting for me.

If the world would let it be, gender is just a human need on a spectrum like so many others and trans people are just trying to live their lives like so many others. And I know gender is much more than a black and white reality to all of us. You can view yourself anywhere from a weekend cross-dresser all the way to a post-op woman and all should be accepted under our complex umbrella of people. It’s just another way we are far from ordinary and difficult for the average person to understand. It is also difficult to explain to a loved one when we do not fully understand what is going on ourselves, which often takes a long time to happen.

Rest assured that even if your life may be different and/or difficult at times, I will be far from ordinary.

Thank you all for your comments, claps and new subscriptions! Without all of you, none of what I try to pass along would be worth it.

 

 

 

Courage or Something Else?

 

Image from Miquel Bruna
on UnSplash. 

Recently, I have exchanged a few comments with a reader named “Janie” and we somehow got into the subject of being courageous in our male to female gender transitions. Also, on occasion, I get someone calling me courageous on how I decided to follow my path to leading a transfeminine life.

The problem is I never considered myself courageous as I tried and tried to establish myself where I could blend in, in a world of ciswomen everywhere. Here are two examples, the first coming from “Janie.” When she said she wished she had the courage (and I am paraphrasing) to come out as a full-fledged transgender woman as a teenager. On the other hand, I wished I would have had the courage to follow my instincts and come out of my closet when I was honorably discharged from the Army and had very little male baggage to think about. I was still becoming established in the working world, had no children yet and a future wife who did not seem to care what I did. I would never again have that sort of opportunity to live a life as my authentic self without waiting on the world to catch up.

It turned out that I still had a lot of living to do before I could find my way up my path to being a fulfilled transgender woman. Sure, there were plenty of opportunities to overcome when I was petrified to try to overcome my male self and enter the world of women, but I never thought I needed an extraordinary amount of courage to do it. I always reserved that amount of praise for war heroes and first responders who ran towards danger, not away from it. I was not running towards danger; I was just doing what I had to do to survive.

Ironically, the world evolved around me when it came to gender issues over the years. You may remember when the film “Tootsie” came out and gave a realistic idea of what ciswomen go through in the world through the ideas of a man (Dustin Hoffman) living the experience. Sadly, the new look into the genders did not last until today when coming out into the world possibly did take a lot of courage after all. Lives could be wrecked when you would not be fully accepted as a trans woman with your spouse, your family, your friends and your employment. Especially today when the orange Russian asset in Washington DC is leading the charge against us for no real reason.

Getting back to the task at hand, the something else when it came to the courage question, as I said, came down to pure survival. Not some sort of a hobby of putting on a dress and makeup to attempt to look good as a woman. The problem was that I knew at a very early age just looking at my girlish image in the mirror was never going to be enough to satisfy my gender desires. I simply wanted more. To live like the girls around me I so envied in school. An idea which would come back to heavily influence my life in later years. I fought my feminine instincts hard, which ended up doing nothing more than potentially destroying my mental health and my life as I led a very self-destructive life. It seemed everything my male self-had built up, I needed to try to tear down. I would not have wished what I went through on my worst enemy. So, I set out to do what I could to save myself.

During those days of discovery, I learned firsthand the idea of having persistence over any idea of having courage. Survival became my goal in life as I set out to build a feminine lifestyle from scratch. Deep-down, the idea kept coming to me that I was doing the right thing, no matter how painful it might turn out to be. In fact, I went all the way back to my childhood, so I knew it was more than just a temporary rush of gender euphoria as a trans woman when I was accepted in the world. I was surviving as me with little or no courage needed. Just a liberal amount of fear on the occasions when things were not going so well like when I had the police called on me for using the restroom of my choice. It was my own fault for being in a redneck venue I had not taken the time to set up being a regular yet. Then I never had the courage to go back.

I will never try to speak for “Janie” or anyone else who regularly reads my work, but on my end, no matter how much I did not respect the work my male self-did for me over the years there are certain things I would have really missed if I had followed my instincts and come out before I had the chance to build any sort of a life. I would have missed the once in a lifetime opportunity to have a wonderful daughter and a loving wife which I was with for twenty-five years until her untimely death. We had many good times, interwoven with the bad caused by my gender issues. I don’t know if I would have ever had the courage to ever totally leave her and wished she could have been around to experience my growth into a mature transgender woman. Of course, now, I will never find out.

As you can tell, I really don’t believe courage had that much to do with my development as a transfeminine person. On the other hand, a heavy dose of persistence mixed in with the ultimate need to survive allowed me to make it to where I am today. I know I am basically just dealing with semantics anyhow so the only thing that matters is how you survive. With or without HRT or any gender surgeries or with extensive work it does not matter as long as you are happy and thriving.

Thanks to “Janie”, Christine and all of you who have taken the time to comment on my topics. Without all your input, my work would not be worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Line of Defense

 

Image from Gayatri Malthroa 
on UnSplash.

Throughout nearly half of a century, my male self-fought the complete transition I made into a feminine lifestyle.

During that extended period of time, I think I tried everything possible to convince myself that I was wrong to want to play in the girls’ sandbox at all. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I “purged” many times of my feminine belongings. Leaving me with nothing but my most cherished pieces of girl’s/woman’s clothing and makeup. The makeup was easy because I knew I could always buy more. Perhaps the most precious items I never threw away were the nice wigs I was able to buy and the silicone breast forms which ironically were given to me by a fellow cross dresser who was purging also. Deep down inside, I knew I would need the wigs and breast forms again when my urge to cross-dress returned. As my own personal history told me it would.

It turned out that purging was not my last defense, no matter how hard I tried. In fact, the more I tried not to be feminine in any way shape or form, it seemed I slipped closer and closer to it. Especially when I learned I could dress to blend with most of the ciswomen around me. It was then I learned how natural I felt when I began to get it right and could feel all the gender euphoria I could feel.

What I did continually feel was my masculinity slipping away and I only used it on occasions with my wife in mixed company and when I was working in a high-pressure environment. For years, when I was out in the world experimenting living a new life, I felt as if I was sliding down a steep hill towards a transgender cliff which I had no idea of how I would be able to land.

In all fairness to my second wife, she never opposed me cross-dressing and knew about it when we got married. But on the other hand, completely opposed any idea of me becoming a transfeminine person. Between her and my male self, they made formidable opponents in my life when I thought about living as a trans woman. What made it all worse was when my wife kept saying she did not want to live with another woman and did not agree to that when we got married and I had to agree with her. Putting me in a very difficult situation in my life. I escaped the best I could by sneaking out of the house behind her back at any given time I found to test the world time and again to see if I would be allowed to go back behind the gender curtain. Which in many ways, represented escaping the last defense to staying in the male world I had.

Of course, my wife found out on numerous occasions what I was doing as a trans woman and resisted all my progress. When she did, we had giant battles which she normally won and I tried the therapy route to help me with my gender issues. Therapy helped me in many ways in my life but not so much with my deep-seated gender issues. I was expecting too much when one therapist told me if I thought our sessions would ever relieve my tensions, I would be wrong until I was able to make the final decision on if I was able to be a woman or not. At that point, I had two of the most far-reaching quotes that I ignored which were told to me. One of which was the time I was told I was the only one who could decide my gender future and the second was when my wife told me to go ahead and be man enough to be a woman. I was so sure I could do it my way and it cost me dearly. Especially, in terms of my overall mental health when juggling two genders and two lives at once became too much to handle. I did not know if I was coming or going on which day it was on how I was expected to act.

As many of you know, my second wife tragically died of a massive heart attack, leaving me with only my male self to do gender battle with. His last defenses deteriorated quickly as I became deeply unhappy and lonely and took solace in my inner female self for comfort. She stepped up big time, and very soon when I was not working nights, I was in one of my regular drinking venues seeking company. That was when I discovered I had more in common with the lesbians I met than with any man. Since most of them rejected me anyhow for leaving the good old boys club. I was able to say good riddance and go forward in my life into a world I never thought possible could ever be a part of. I had never really got along well with men in my life, and it turned out nothing had really changed. Except the way I was exploring the world. Finally, as my true self. As I was finding me after all those years of searching.

The last defense my male self-had was when my third wife Liz and only daughter came to my rescue with unwavering support for my final dive off the steep gender cliff. They made the landing very soft, and even easy. More precisely, Liz made me a believer in myself again and my daughter gave me support I needed from what blood family I had left since my brother rejected me, and my parents had long since passed away. Add in the couple of lesbians I always socialized with and I had all the support I needed to succeed in where I had dreamed of going and being accepted behind the gender curtain.

By far, I would be remiss if I did not mention the power of HRT or gender affirming hormones in removing any of the final defenses my male self-had going for him. I could not believe how fast the hormones acted as my body began to change, inside and out. It would take a whole post to describe all the impacts the hormones made to me. In fact, I have my annual appointment with my endocrinologist coming up this week, and with it, the chance to get refills on my hormonal patches.

Maybe I can thank her then for helping me to win my battle with my male self. Since I receive my HRT meds through the Veterans Administration, I always hope nothing changes from the top down with my ability to keep receiving a huge part of what makes me whole. I worked too long to get here.

Thanks again for joining me on my journey and I hope my experiences help you too.

Any comments, claps or subscriptions are welcome and make my work so worthwhile!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connecting the Gender Dots

 

Image from Beya Yurtzkuran'
on UnSplash. 

Connecting all the dots in a life when you have gender issues is never easy.

Especially so when your life’s workbook is completely blank and you have nowhere to go but to struggle. The great majority of transgender women and transgender men grew up with unapproving parents and/or no peer group pressure to shape our gender youth and help us along. At the best, the closest dots we were trying to connect were fuzzy and far away.

On the other hand, with me, my male dots were always crystal clear and easy to at least try to connect. If I was successful on a sports team, I would connect an easy dot is a great example. But if I was cross-dressing as a girl in front of the mirror, I was always confused on how I should act or feel. The only certainty I had was I knew I wanted to feel pretty.

As I progressed through life’s lessons, I learned the impact of achieving the connecting of my feminine dots while at the same time, leaving my male ones behind. Sacrifice became the ultimate name of the game. Especially when my second (out of three wives) kept calling me selfish for my complete pursuit to begin to leave my male past behind and live as a complete transfeminine person. What made matters worse was the fact that my gender dots on both sides of the spectrum were becoming clearer. I was becoming more successful as a father and as a provider as I advanced in my chosen profession, but at the same time, I became better and better at presenting myself as a convincing woman. For the longest time, my dots formed a parallel path. Heading ultimately for a collision.

I was stubborn and tried to separate the dots I was connecting until it affected my mental health so badly I could do it no longer. I was like a juggler trying to balance the two main binary genders as fast as I could and it nearly cost me my life. I was finding it harder than ever to separate my old unwanted male self from my new exciting yet terrifying new feminine self when one side began to bleed into the other. For example, when I was in a company meeting full of men, I would daydream how it would be if I was there as the only woman. Before reality would slap me down and back into the present.

Finally, I could take it no longer, and I began to give up on connecting any more of my male dots at all. I figured if I connected any more dots, it would just create more baggage I would have to deal with when I male to female transitioned. Mentally, I began to make contingency plans on what to do when I could ever connect my female dots and live out my dream. It is when I began to kick my experimentation portion of my life into high gear. I wanted to make certain as little as possible would be standing in my way as I moved forward in life. I needed to deal with the possibility I would lose contact with my wife and family then figure out what I would do to support myself financially. I was fortunate when my daughter stuck around to support me when my only remaining blood relative (brother) did not and I was old enough to support myself on an early social security retirement I earned and selling collectables my second wife who tragically passed away, and I collected over the years. So, I had connected all my obvious dots fairly well.

From there, the most challenging aspect of life I needed to face was the actual one on one daily living a trans woman has to take on. Learning the lessons a ciswoman is raised to know as she transitions from a female to a woman. Such as the shifting from white male privileges to the female privileges that I had only had the chance to dream about and not know because I had never been allowed behind the gender curtain. Once I was allowed behind the curtain, many aspects I never fully realized ciswomen actually go through became a reality to me. I was connecting my dots and maturing into the transgender woman I always dreamed of becoming. All my misconceptions about just achieving the appearance aspect of femininization faded away as I learned there was so much more to me than just trying my best to have an attractive face. It was quite the shallow existence for me as I needed to develop myself into a quality new human being that the world reacted to on a everyday basis.

As it turned out, HRT or gender affirming hormones took final care of the attractive part of my being as I went from being attractive to being the real me. Because the hormones softened my skin and facial lines and helped me to grow breasts, hips and hair. Like I said, all of which were the real me just waiting all this time for the changes to happen.

All the dots I connected were in a big circle. I went from a young boy for the first time being amazed at what he saw in the mirror (and wondering what was next), all the way to being able years later to being able to find the real me and live out my goal of crossing the gender border into a transfeminine world. I could not wait to give away all my male clothes; enjoy the new hormones I was on and live a new life. I was even able to take vacations with my third wife Liz to places I had never been before. All as my new self.

I can’t say connecting all my dots was ever fun and at times very scary, but they were always with me as I lived my life. At my advanced age of seventy-six, I am fortunate that I had the chance to find the real me before it was time for me to connect the final dot and step into the next dimension.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stopping when You are Ahead

 

JJ Hart. Girls Night Out.
I am top left. 

Somehow, I never learned to stop when I was ahead when I was growing up. Or, as my parents always said, I tried when I was given an inch, I always tried to take a mile.

That whole idea really manifested itself when I began to explore my gender desires and start to cross-dress in my mom’s clothes. As I perceived myself to be successful with one new look, I always wanted more very soon. I could not stop when I was ahead and kept on pushing the boundaries of danger when I cross-dressed at home in the bathroom. Even if my brother was home too. I was risking what I had of the young male life I thought I needed to protect.

Somehow, my guardian angel was looking over me as I never got caught as a kid with my cross-dressing activities and I simply wanted more than I could get most of the time such as a nice, fashionable wig. Rather than the Halloween store wigs I was stuck with. Due primarily to financial constraints. During this time of my life, I was stuck with just being able to dream of what my life could be like when I grew into a more complete transfeminine person. It turned out to be a long (decades) away from coming true. Take wigs for example. When I finally arrived at the point where I financially could afford it, I went overboard on haunting the local wig stores around me looking for just the right wig which I thought would be the perfect addition to my hair collection to allow me to present better in the world. As I did it, mostly all that I accomplished was acquiring quite the collection of potential drag clown wigs which I did not have the patience and/or knowledge to take care of.

At that point, I could not stop when I was ahead or behind my quest to be at least an attractive woman. Every time I experienced the least little bit of gender euphoria when I went out in public, it fired me up and encouraged me to do more. Unfortunately, that meant taking extra chances with my actions and ultimately my safety. I needed to learn the hard way what ciswomen were raised to know about not putting yourself into potentially dangerous situations. I barely lucked it out when I escaped situations with no harm to me, so I essentially did not have to stop when I was ahead as a trans woman. I just had to be wiser when my male privileges were stripped away such as the personal security privilege men inherently have.

As I emerged as a wiser novice transgender woman, the reality of what I was attempting set in and I could not stop. Even if I was ahead. I began to set up a stairstep approach to my male to female feminization process which would I hoped, give me a more in-depth look at a woman’s life behind the gender curtain. Which I had spent countless hours thinking about. I started to consider all the things I wanted to discover as a woman that I had dreamed of as a man which led me to set up my own transgender mental bucket list of things to do. Basically, I set up activities at levels of difficulty. So, when I accomplished one I did not have to stop and move to another. Using the women’s room was a prime example of sliding behind the gender curtain and using a women’s only space. I knew a little of what to expect from my days as a restaurant manager when I needed to monitor how the women’s room was kept for problems I could encounter. Not starting from scratch helped me to survive in my new world with cis women.

Fortunately, I spent much of my time in the world successfully as I learned the basics of how ciswomen live. By doing so, I simply could not quit and kept on trying new things. My bucket was quickly being worn out by the challenges I was facing. Mainly by meeting the number of women who showed interest in me. I have always thought they were just curious about what I was doing in their world and was I living my life the best I could in the girls’ club. In my case, I was different and hopefully presented the best of the two main binary gender worlds as I socialized with many different women who seemingly were happy to see me.

By this time in my life, I simply could not stop what I had started as far as chasing my femininization process. It involved doing a deep dive into how women communicate and compete with each other, among other important things. Probably, communication was the most difficult aspect of my transition to learn. For the first time in my life as a transwoman, I needed to listen closely and completely to what was being said to me for hidden meanings and nonverbal cues. Then, as far as competition as a woman was concerned, I needed to learn that women compete just as hard as men. Just on a whole different spectrum of passive aggressive actions and reactions. Believe me, I learned the hard way a number of times when I made the wrong move and needed to watch my back from a smiling face who was out to get me.

Once I succeeded in learning all of my feminine lessons, my confidence was at a all time high. Especially with the small group of lesbian friends I had build around me by sheer luck. They ended up protecting me during my fragile times I was learning the final ropes of what it would take to round myself out as a transgender woman. By this time, my inner self could take over after being buried all those years and end up running my life’s goal that she always had a hand in. After waiting all those decades to live, she no longer had to stop while she was ahead. She was home and I was a whole person.