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| Image from Donald Gianetti on UnSplash. |
Often you must be better than the world to prove yourself as a transgender woman or transgender man.
An easy example would be we have to be better with our
appearance. Because of the current lack of concern over appearance with many
ciswomen and cismen, it’s an anything goes fashion world when women are wearing
their pajamas and slippers to shop at a big box store, I won’t mention. Because
we trans persons have so far to come in the appearance department, we cannot
set our appearance bar that low or even want to.
Another problem with appearance is that we have had so few
natural advantages to help us along when we first take the tentative steps out
of our gender closets. In the case of transgender women, very few have the
advantage of escaping the ravages of puberty which gives us angles, broad shoulders
and deep voices. So, unlike the curves and softness we see in the women around
us and envy so much. To get by in the world as a cross-dresser, we must strive
to cover our natural flaws and act like we are not doing it.
The good thing is that ciswomen provide us with a big range
of fashion to work from. Some wear dresses, some wear pants, some go without
makeup and others don’t as life goes by. All you have to do is grab a spot you
feel comfortable in and try to maintain it in a world of curious ciswomen who
want to know more about you. You notice I said try to maintain it because early
on, finding the best fashion and learning hair and makeup are major challenges
we face. As our old bodies do not want to cooperate with the new path you have
set them on.
Since I have always felt more comfortable in pants, leggings
or well fitted jeans as a trans woman, I often took in criticism from other
novice cross-dressers when I went to mixers in pants. Per norm, I did not care
what they said about wearing pants as a man all the time so why I would do it
as a woman because I was noticing how stylish some women look in their pants. I
even had a glamorous silky black low-cut pants suit I wore to prove them wrong.
Plus. most importantly what I wore was none of their business if I was aiming
to be as good as the world of ciswomen in public at large who were increasingly
wearing pants in their wardrobes. Not a bunch of cross-dressers at a social/mixer.
The more I was out in the world and interacting with the
public, I discovered that appearance was just a small part of being better than
the next person. Following some rough early experiments with my presentation as
a transfeminine person, I settled into noticing who was noticing me. I learned
men rejected me almost completely (which was fine by me) and women on the other
hand wholeheartedly accepted the new me who wanted so badly to be in their
world. The percentage of gender acceptance I received totally surprised me and
I had to up my game to get better when I faced the public with so much more at stake.
Suddenly, women wanted to talk to me, and I was initially surprised
and had to talk back. Then as now, I am very self-conscious about my voice, and
it took me what seemed like an eternity to understand my communication skills
centered more around what I was saying more than how I was saying it. In fact,
I needed feminine vocal lessons to learn more about how women speak to each
other. Primarily when men were not around. I also leaned the power of passive
aggressive speech behavior in cis women and how it could apply to me when a
potentially smiling face did not equal a supportive woman who could just as
easy stab you in the back. After I tended to more than a few claw marks down my
back, I adjusted to the new world I was in and survived by being better than
them.
All these steps led me to pursuing an expanded transgender
bucket list of potential things I wanted to do as a trans woman. To learn if I
would want to do them on a permanent basis. As my checklist grew, my confidence
did too and I discovered how natural I felt in the new exciting yet scary world
I was in stripped of all my old male privilege such as dealing with my own
personal security. With the menacing male scowl being gone, I had to rely of my
new feminine senses to get me by and to stay out of potentially dangerous situations.
It was all a major lesson of being better in the world out of a sense of pure
survival as a new transgender woman.
At that point, destiny set in for me and set my life upside
down as nearly all the loved ones I new and respected passed away. Leaving me
all alone. To survive, I had to quickly quit being a victim and decide which
direction my life would take. I took the feminine path, was approved for HRT or
gender affirming hormones and prepared myself for a bumpy path ahead. At the
age of sixty, I needed all the wisdom I had learned from a predominately male
life and apply it all to a new female existence and exceed my own expectations.
By taking chances in the world, I had lucked into finding
supportive ciswomen friends into my new life and I give them all the credit for
the ease that it happened. And it made all the prep work I had done in my life worthwhile.
Even still, I found I had to be better than the average woman to find my way and
stick to it so I would not slide back to my old male ways.
Before I go, I would like to thank “Grace” for inviting me
to write for her group “Empowered Trans Woman” on Medium. I really appreciate
it
