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| Image from Liam Nguyen on UnSplash. |
Quite early in life, I learned to pay attention to the details when I followed my instincts and started to cross-dress into mom’s clothes and try to put on her makeup. I thought all was good after I had snuck around and managed to shave my legs again without anyone noticing.
That was until I snagged mom’s hose on an unkept fingernail and
ran yet another pair of good stockings or pantyhose. I learned the hard way to
take better care of my nails as well as the rest of my body on my path to
femininity. Little did I know, paying attention to just the smallest of details
would rule my world as I climbed my gender path towards my dream of living
fulltime as a transfeminine person.
My major problem was that I was restricted to viewing what a
woman’s life was like from the outside in a male dominated family. Through it
all, my mom became my mentor and role model more than she ever knew and it went
way past just using her makeup and wearing her clothes. I could see how she
worked behind the scenes to make sure that the family ran as smoothly as
possible. Way past all the traditional female duties such as cleaning and
buying groceries. She taught me all that a ciswoman could be at a young age.
All the time not realizing what she was doing because she actually had a
daughter, not a son.
It was not until I began to get out on my own as a novice
cross-dressing transgender woman did; I really have to develop my sense of
detail. It was very difficult for me because I was never a detail orientated person.
When I went out initially as a trans woman, there just seemed to be so much to
concentrate on and remember to do to succeed. Even if I thought I had perfected
my fashion, hair and makeup for the evening, there was the problem of putting
it all together outside of the mirror and getting all my movements down, so I
did not look like a linebacker in drag. The details weighed on me heavily and
they were all I thought about in every spare moment I had. So much so that I
needed to think ahead to which gender I was at key moments in my life.
It all carried over into life events such as weddings and
dances when I had to step back and wonder what I would be wearing if I ever had
the opportunity to attend as a trans woman. Sadly, I did get to experience
attending a funeral when my wife Liz’s dad passed away after I had transitioned.
I wore my best black outfit and did the best I could to blend in properly with
all the other ciswomen who attended.
The funeral was just another reality check for me as I needed
to face how far I had come in my male to female femininization journey. At my
age, I always knew attending a funeral as me was a possibility, but I never
knew how real it was until it happened. At that time too, reality and details
were becoming increasingly important as I expanded my life in the world to new
and exciting groups of strangers such as in spiritual circles and Meetups of
writers in Cincinnati. They were the first groups of strangers that I had ever
met outside of LGBTQIA+ support groups I attended locally and at the Veterans
Administration in Dayton, Ohio. Meeting new people as I said was exciting and
kept me active at an exciting time of discovery in my life.
By this time, repetition replaced my need for detail as my
makeup habits, along with clothing needs became ingrained as I finally knew who
I was in my life. No more searching in a dark lonely closet for an answer. I
had it with the help of the world of new and exciting discoveries I was in. I
had brief moments of releasing my gender euphoria before but nothing like this
before as all the possibilities of the world were opened to me. When I sought
out and was approved for HRT or gender affirming hormones. Which I write about
a lot. New emotions outweighed the need for details as I moved ever closer
to being the person I always wanted to be.
One thing I never forgot as I male to female transitioned
was how I was treated early on and how I needed to respond by going back to my
cross-dressing drawing board time and time again until I got my details
correct. There was so much more to what I was trying to do than my home mirror
had told me as I tried to exit my gender closet for good. All I knew was, once
I was released from my loneliness, I never wanted to go back. I spent as much
time as I could out in the world working on my feminine presentation so I could
overcome my testosterone poisoned body and make it.
I cannot stress enough how much of my journey has been
filled with fear and or panic when I lost key male privileges such as intelligence
and personal security. Details just weren’t enough to help me through all the
anxiety I felt meeting strangers in my new exciting world. In fact, just
yesterday, I felt the same old twinges of panic sneak in when Liz’s son and I had
to take our old lawn mower into the shop for a tuneup. After all these years in
the public eye and I still have the same problem is ridiculous I know, but I
still do when I am entering predominantly male spaces for any reason. Again,
all went well as the young person at the mower place was only interested in
taking care of us. Not my gender.
All in all, the extreme work I put into crossing the gender
border was worth it as I achieved my goal of living the life I wanted to live.
Even though there were times when I did not think I was going to make it.
Thanks so much for joining me with my life experiences. Hopefully
you can gain some insight into your life from them. Comments are always
welcome!
