You Make a Terrible Woman

 

JJ Hart on left. New wife Liz on right.

As I was initially coming out of my intensely lonely and dark gender shell, I dealt with quite a bit of guilt. Especially when my wife called me a terrible woman. I initially thought she was referring to my looks, which she told me she wasn’t.

My second wife was also fond of telling me coming out was all about me which as I look back on it, she was right. My transition was all about me, and I was completely immersed in it. Every time she even made the slightest move to interact with me, I shunned her as I was scared, she was just going to be negative. To be successful, I needed to do it alone it seemed.

I am sure the progress my wife saw in my overall presentation made her feel insecure about the future of our marriage. No matter how guilty I felt about the journey I was taking without her, deep down I knew I had to stay on my path if I was ever going to have a chance to achieve my dream of living as a transgender woman. Which my wife was dead set against.

As I progressed on and on the guilt grew, I was having. Here I was jeopardizing a good marriage, family and job just to wear women’s clothes and makeup. My problem was, I was still refusing to accept the truth about myself. In other words, my desire to be a woman in any sense of the word ran much deeper than just looking like one. When my wife told me I made a terrible woman because I hadn’t paid my dues past looking like one, I knew somehow, I needed to set out to learn what she was talking about, regardless of the guilt involved. To survive, my transition had to be just about me, and I stubbornly pushed forward.

The problem was, the more guilt I felt, the worse my mental health became. I did not know who to listen to, the world at large or the person I was closest to. The world at large was slowly coming to accept me as a transfeminine person while my wife was as standoffish as always about my progress. What she did not know was I was making the strides needed to prove I was not a terrible woman and in reality, a fairly likeable one. Or at least I was trying to.

Time marched on, and my guilt increased to the point where I committed suicide or tried to. When I failed, the entire self-harming episode left me with further problems with my guilt and mental health, so I sought out therapy. Fortunately, I found a good therapist who understood depression and the transgender community, and my life began to improve again. My therapist told me it was alright to feel guilt about the gender transition process and sometimes you must leave loved ones behind so you can live. Beyond all of that, she taught me extreme gender dysphoria was difficult to deal with and before long, our in-person meetings at the Veteran’s Administration were between her and my authentic self. What a relief!

My guilt subsided as my joy increased in my life. Sure, I still had rough spots to contend with, but with my overall knowledge of the world and what to expect, I knew I had finally overcome my fear of actually “making” a terrible woman. In reality what happened was I had the chance to live my way through what my wife told me and in addition. I was not making anything. I already was a transgender woman and had always been. I was just guilty of trying to hide it and internalize it too long. Surely, it was all my fault, and I never had the chance to apologize to her because of her untimely death from a massive heart attack at the age of fifty. I wanted to show her I had paid my dues in the world, and, at the least, I hoped we could be friends. Actions speak louder than words and I know she would never back off from saying I made a terrible woman and in turn at least like the new me.

In life, we rarely have a chance to make a second impression, and it has been nearly an impossible one for me since most of the people I knew as a man (that mattered) had passed away. I needed to concentrate on the new acquaintances I met as a trans woman who never knew my old male self who in his own way had passed on also. Since I did not have a difficult time making and keeping friends in my new life, I must not have been a terrible woman after all.

Buckle Up!

 

Alpha Gatekeeper Hope
Who Let Me In!

If you are a transgender woman or trans man and you have been transitioning along your gender path for any length of time, you know there are plenty of highs and lows to prepare for.

I know on my gender journey; I have had to buckle up for many rough roads ahead. I have many examples I write about often such as being told to leave one venue I started to go to when I decided to leave the gay bars behind and go to mainstream straight venues. I went home in tears like when I was laughed out of malls by groups of teenaged girls when I first attempted to go out in public. For a long time, I never thought I had a chance of living my transgender dreams at all.

Deep down, something told me to fasten my seat belt and keep trying to succeed. You see, the problem was all along in my life, if something went wrong, I ran to my skirts and put on makeup to make it go away. In these cases, I had nowhere to run, so I had to get it right. I was in a corner, and I couldn't get out without a lot of work. It turned out to me, the whole process was a labor of love, and I felt good going forward on my gender path. The problem was I was still quite naïve about what I was facing and thought success could be found if I just was able to present properly as a woman. To try the new world out I was in, I went to all sorts of different situations. Examples were when I went to a downtown festival and an outdoor concert just to see if I could. Following painstakingly applying my makeup and choosing just the right clothes, I managed to be successful at both, and my confidence soared.

When I did, my frail confidence was shattered again when I learned the world was curious about me as a transfeminine person. It meant I would have to really buckle up and do more than trying just to look like a woman, I needed to communicate like a woman. All of that turned out to be harder than it sounds (no pun intended). I found out quickly that women operate on a different wavelength than men. Men use a more simplified straight forward approach to communicating with each other and other women. On the other hand, I discovered I better refine my listening skills, plus be aware women communicate with each other on non-verbal wavelengths. Also, eye contact with other women became very important too, if I was ever going to be allowed to play in the girl’s sandbox by the alpha female gatekeepers.

As with anything else, I needed to allow practice to become perfect if I was ever going to succeed at reaching my goal of living as a transgender woman. To do it, I needed to forget my unreachable dream of being able to present so well as a woman that anyone would ever think I was cisgender. To begin with, testosterone poisoning had taken all of that idea away from me. I needed to re-buckle up my expectations and know the best I could do was follow my path as a woman from a different background. To succeed, I needed invitations from cis-gender women to their girls’ nights out so I could observe and learn how other women acted when men were not around. Naturally, I needed to put what was left of my male ego behind me when I had to buckle up and attend several of these meetups. My primary example came one night when I was invited along with a group of servers where I went to, to another upscale venue to party. They were all young and attractive and immediately were surrounded by attentive males, leaving me by myself and my drink. I learned a powerful lesson that night why certain attractive women tend to hang out together.

I was fortunate as I traveled my gender journey, I had key alpha females to help me with my seatbelt. As an example, I have added the picture of “Hope” who ironically gave me hope for my future dreams. She was the first bartender I ever met who went out of her way to be kind to me, all the way to introducing me to her lesbian mother who I stay in touch with to this day. Hope led the way for me to be accepted by others and thrive in the girls’ sandbox, and I will never forget her for it.

My main message is, no matter how many bumps and bruises you may suffer along your own gender journey, just try to securely fasten your seatbelt and make the trip as interesting as possible. Just remember, not many are able to make the same journey and achieve their dreams of living as a transgender woman.

 

 

 

Jocks and Dresses

 

Image from Norbert Toth
on UnSplash. 

As a youth growing up, I found myself embracing the world of sports to cover up any lingering feelings of wanting to be a girl. Plus, being a jock of any kind helped keep the bullies away when I needed it the most. Why would they think a defensive end on the football team would ever want to be feminine in any way?

Little did they know, the time I spent longingly looking over to watch the cheerleaders practice was much more than admiring their short skirts and tight tops. My desire was in no way sexual; I did not desire any of the cheerleaders that way, I just wanted to be them. Happily, my cover worked and to the outside world I appeared to be a “normal” boy with normal hobbies such as sports and cars.  

It was my rendition of having my own gay beard as described here on “Wikipedia”: “Often, the term was used in the early to mid-20th century, used by homosexual individuals to conceal one's sexual orientation through the disguise of a heterosexual relationship.” I was not gay but needed sports to conceal the fact I was a cross dresser. My “beard” worked and got me through school very much unscathed. My gender closet was secured.

I was able to play football until I was hurt twice in my junior year and there was no place on the team for an injured slow defensive end and no matter how much dreaming I did, I could never make it as a cheerleader either.

Along the way, my love of sports became ingrained in me as much as the desire to be a transgender woman. If I can describe the love of sports I had, it was like a big set of luggage I was carrying from one gender to another when I needed to figure out what I could take with me.

It was about that time in my life when I was leaving my gender closet and looking around, that I began to see other women who shared my passion for sports. Just maybe, I could drop my beard and bring along what could be one of the most important pieces of baggage I had in life. If I was careful, and set myself up of success, it could quite conceivably be me as the woman at the bar watching her favorite team on one of the big screens. While I would not be a jock in a dress, I could be one in a football jersey.

Even better was when I was able to befriend a couple other cisgender women who were sports fanatics like me. We would get together often to watch games and harass each other when our team lost. It all led me to one of my proudest moments when I was invited to a NFL Monday Night football game in Cincinnati. I was still quite new to the world as a transfeminine person, so I was very scared, but I accepted her invitation to go. I had made the big time in my quest to have brought my passion for sports with me into my transgender world. Except for my team losing, I ended up having a great time and the whole experience really built my confidence in my new life.

While I never became exactly a jock in a dress, I did become one in makeup, leggings and boots. All along, I had my doubts about where my journey would take me and how I could get there. But I never missed most of the male baggage I needed to leave behind as I embraced the transgender future I was looking at. Maybe I was fortunate in that the world around me was catching up to an expanded role for women in the world as I was entering it. Whatever the case, it made my transition so much easier.

Also, I did not do it by myself, I had women friends to show me the way. They just happened to share many of the same interests I did. I mention them a lot, but I would feel bad if I didn’t give credit where credit is due.

Plus, from the comments I receive, I know I am not alone in utilizing sports to use as a “beard” in your life to cover up your gender issues. I remember one comment from a reader saying she used football shoulder pads to cover up the gynecomastia breast growth they went through early in life. Proving for many of us experiencing gender issues, hiding them can take many paths.

 

Is Purging Just a part of a Trans Journey we Need to Go Through?

 

Image from Shayan Rostami
on UnSplash. 

I received several wonderful comments to my “Purging” post yesterday including people such as Jeanie who has had gender issues for years such as me.

Here is the comment and we will go from there: “I just purged last Thursday. I wanted to see if there was a strong enough "desire to reacquire". I'd go months with the stash behind insulation in the basement under a bay window without dressing. It might be I was too chickenshit”.

Thanks for the comment! And it got me to thinking about all the ways we cross dressers or novice transgender women went to hide our small collection of feminine wardrobe and makeup from our family. As a kid, I even went as far as hiding my stash in plastic garbage bags in a hollowed-out tree in a neighboring woods. Where I hoped no one would ever discover it. In addition, I had two other small hiding places in the house I could go to if I was suddenly free to cross-dress in front of the mirror. The entire process added to hiding my gender issues in plain sight. Almost, as all along, I was desperately trying to escape being caught and being sent on an unpleasant trip to a psychiatrist who would have most assuredly pronounced me mentally ill. Which was the norm for mental health professionals back in those days.

Since I never completely purged my feminine stash ever, maybe I was too chickenshit to do it (as Jeanie said). Or, as I struggled throughout my life with gender issues, my own “desire to reacquire” would return to rule my life. As it turned out, I was never strong enough to purge totally. Which looking back should have given me a clue to who I really was, a woman cross dressing as a man. Deep down, I knew, every feminine item I had worked so hard to acquire could not so easily be thrown in the trash. It would ultimately come down to me wondering how much different I would look in the mirror if I had not thrown out my previous stash.

At first, it all got worse before it got better when I entered my strong going out in the world as a novice transgender woman with my second wife. Fortunately, when I was restoring the old house, we lived in, I was able to build in a closet we rarely used. So, I found a place to hide the many thrifts store finds I had made and purchased. Also, by this time I was in a place where I did not care what my gender foes thought. I was building my future public persona, so I needed to look my best. Essentially, I entered the “don’t ask, don’t tell” phase of our relationship when my wife never said a word about my increasingly large wardrobe. She knew, I knew I was never going to purge again. Which turned out to be not true.

Just before she passed away, I decided to throw away “most” of my wardrobe and makeup and even went to the extent of growing a beard. Which I considered the ultimate purge. Even as I did it, something told me to keep my favorite outfit, wig and shoes because I never could be sure when I would need my old friends again. Tragically, six months later I did when my wife passed away and I turned inwardly to my feminine soul for comfort. When I did, I was able to shave my beard and hit the ground running towards a new life. Or, should I say, heels on the ground.

One way or another, I was happy I was not strong enough to totally attempt to purge away my feminine life. It was time to open a new chapter, even if I was sixty, as a transfeminine person. It seems many of us, with gender issues are doomed to a life of denial. We try to sooth our transgender or cross dresser sides by trips to our mirrors until we are caught, or in a relationship which even makes it worse. We begin to feel guilty about many things such as forsaking our ingrained male habits, all the way to feeling selfish for wanting to do something as radical as changing our genders for ourselves.

A lifetime of purging falls right in line with all the other pitfalls we encounter on our gender journeys. We must be strong enough men to make it to transgender womanhood and purging is just another experience we have to go through.

As always, thanks for reading along with my writings and experiences! Your comments mean a lot to me also. They help me to know if I am headed in the right direction. Please keep them coming!

 

 

Purging

 

JJ Hart from back in Ed's and Michelle's
time.

For many transgender or cross dresser women, rarely have we lived a life when we never wanted to go back to our male selves. A common term for the practice is called “purging.”

Like many of you, I have experienced my share of trying to purge away my gender issues. About the time I thought I was entering a high-profile stage of my feminine life, I began to feel guilty and wanted to throw it all away. Then, I learned there were different stages of purging. For example, when I was purging, I never could seem to throw out or give away all my hard earned, cherished feminine wardrobe and makeup away. Deep down I always left the door open to my closet for a return to cross dressing as I called it back in those days.

Then there was Ed, an acquaintance I had who really defined purging to me. Ed was a frustrated cross dresser who at the least was having problems with his family and at the same time dealing with several very serious health problems. Before he reached a crisis point with his health problems, he decided to give away all his cross-dressing items. With Ed, that meant a lot. He needed to empty out an entire storage unit he rented to hide his wigs, wardrobe and makeup from his family. I turned out to be on the receiving end of his gifts. He gave me a nice set of silicone breast forms he purchased as well as a plastic tackle box full of expensive makeup.

What ever happened to him I will never know, the last I heard from him was decades ago when he was increasingly becoming more and more negative concerning a transgender friend of ours. Michelle was very beautiful and was headed towards gender realignment surgery, and I think Ed had developed deeper feelings for her than just friendship. He never confided in me if that was the case which leaves me to yet another unclosed mystery in my life. Along with what my deceased wife would have thought of me if she ever knew me as a more complete transgender woman.

Even as I continued to progress along my transgender path, I found myself to be a contradiction of terms. I did not know for the longest time how I fit in on the gender spectrum. I had an idea I was more than a casual cross dresser such as Ed was but was I as serious about becoming a fulltime woman as Michelle was. Being in the middle as always tortured my frail mental health as I did not know which way I wanted my life to go.

Initially, I decided I could take the pressure no longer and purged my feminine fashion and makeup…almost. I compromised and did not throw out my favorite wig, sweater and Ed’s silicone breast forms. So, I had left the door wide open to return to a life I had always thought deep down, I could never leave behind. Slowly but surely, I rebuilt my wardrobe, added another wig and purchased new makeup to fill Ed’s tackle box I still owned.

That was the last time I tried to purge my physical belongings, helping to calm my transfeminine longings down. Following the many times in life I attempted to purge my life away from my deep-seated gender desires, I finally learned that I could not easily throw my real life in the trash. I also lost track of Ed and Michelle long ago and the last I heard from Michelle was she had gone ahead with her gender surgeries and was living with a lesbian in nearby Columbus, Ohio.

I just wish I had the foresight to understand how close purging was to my overall wellbeing than the obvious. All along, I thought I was trying to rid my feminine self of her external possessions when in reality, I was proving the futility of trying to deny the person I was always destined to be.

In a full circle moment, I was able to grow my own breasts thanks to gender affirming hormones or HRT and donate my silicone breast forms Ed gave me to a swap out at a transgender-cross dresser support group meeting I attended. As I mentioned, he had very serious health issues, and I doubt if he is still alive today. In a moment of clarity, I remembered his full name and searched for it on Facebook to no avail.

One way or another, I view purging yet another unique sideline of following a gender path. As far as I was concerned, I not so slyly resisted completely throwing away all of my wardrobe, shoes, wigs and makeup I acquired. I never knew when I would go back, I just knew I could.

Life is too Short

 

Image from Brian Wangenheim 
on UnSplash.

Time is a precious commodity and life is too short.

Days, weeks, months and years are especially precious for many transgender women and transgender men. Mainly, if you waited until later in life to break out of your gender box and transition. Which is what I did.

I could and did look at my cross-dressing years as practicing for the big event of coming out as a transgender woman. While I improved my overall skills in wardrobe and makeup basics, there always seemed to be something I was missing. Actually, there were two main things I was missing, not just one. The first one was the realization I had my idea of cross-dressing backwards. I was never a man cross-dressing as a woman, I was a woman cross-dressing as a man. The second major realization was I would have to go through several transitions to meet my goal. An example was, I needed to transition from being a cross dresser to being a transgender woman if I was ever going to make it to where I wanted to go as a transfeminine person.

To accomplish my dream, I needed to take my second wife’s advice and set out to learn what a real woman went through in life. There was so much more than just being the “Pretty, pretty princess” as she called me. The problem was, she was always my feminine gatekeeper when I tried to explore the new and exciting world I was seeking. She did not want me to make it. She was a strong person and made it tough on me to progress in any way on my gender path but still I persisted.

Time went on and the years passed me by as I went to transgender-crossdresser parties and mixers to see what I could learn. Even then, when I hit my forties, I had a sense of desperation as time went on with me, and nothing major was happening on my gender front. It was during this time of my life when I started to escape my closet and explore the world. Mainly, I was carving out a totally new life where people knew nothing of my old male self. I was free to be the new me I wanted so bad.

After I went through the darkest period of my life when I lost nearly everything and everybody who was near and dear to me, did my life come full circle, and I began to notice the light at the end of the tunnel was not the train. My guess is I had paid my dues, and destiny was opening its doors to me. Among other things, it was about this time that the Veteran’s Administration health care system approved providing gender affirming hormones for veterans such as me. I jumped at the idea of taking advantage of less expensive HRT medicines and free mental health care. Even though I had already set up my hormonal medications through a civilian doctor.

By this time, it was becoming increasingly evident to me which direction my life would have to take before it was too late. I was in the middle to late fifties of my life and if I ever was going to ever have the courage to jump off the gender cliff, I would have to do it. One thing I did not want to do was continue to live the part-time gender existence I was already living. Plus, I was rapidly nearing the point in my life when I could take early retirement. Which would preclude me from having to go through any ugly transition on the job scenarios. I worked in a very male dominated profession, so switching genders on the go could have been quite challenging.

Finally, one night when I was out to be alone, I decided I was enjoying myself so much, I needed to end my gender turmoil forever. I decided to forsake all my male privileges I had fought to earn for decades and seek out my dream life as a transgender woman. It was not a decision I took lightly as I sent all my male clothes except my Army uniform to the thrift stores which were so beneficial to me when I was first acquiring my transfeminine wardrobe and fashion.

By this time, I was sixty and I figured I would never have a better chance to transition again. I took advantage of all the feminine “practice” I had done over the years. I was able to hit the gender ground running and never looked back.

 

Why Not Me?

 

Image from Buddha Elemental 3D
on UnSplash. 

My life has been a series of why not me moments.

As a boy growing up in Ohio, I always wanted to be a better athlete, which turned out to be an impossible quest because there always seemed to be a better athlete in my world to take my place. Then there was my attempt to be more social in the world, but I was incredibly shy, and it was so difficult to do. So, I ended up hiding at home, thinking someday I would grow out of my shyness.

My greatest why not me moments came as I struggled with my gender identity. It became so bad with me that when a stranger asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, the only truthful answer I never gave was a woman. I internalized my thoughts and somehow hoped they would go away. Which of course, they never did. They just got worse because the main problem I had was wondering if I could do it at all. Information was incredibly difficult to come by in my sheltered male privileged world and for the most part I was lost, and I continued the path I was on. Doing my best to live a male life successfully, and at the same time, steal away moments of privacy to cross dress in front of the mirror.

Often, much to my surprise, I was semi-successful at both. I kept my increasingly gender fluid life in balance by improving my mirror image away from drag clown to beginning girl, while at the same time, keeping the bullies away from me by having an interest in sports and cars. I even went as far as dating a few girls in high school where I ended up attending both my junior and senior proms. Little did anyone know I wanted to be the one wearing the pretty gown and getting the flowers. As with the rest of my life, I got over it and moved on, no matter how difficult it was. Why not me was not working, I was still stuck in my gender quicksand and there was no handsome cowboy coming to help me out. Or strong woman as it turned out.

When I finally had had enough of being a gender victim, I opened my closet door and looked around for the first time in my life. I knew I needed to move past the once-a-year Halloween parties I was attending as my novice transfeminine self and try more ways to get out into the world to see if I could be successful or would my dream of life as a woman always must be a dream. I was ever so cautious as I began by shopping in malls and bookstores which turned out to be low impact areas for novice cross dressers or transgender women. I went to places where my money was more important than my gender which gave me the confidence to do more. More meant testing the public with new and exciting ideas such as stopping at restaurants to eat to see if I had any push back at all. I did not and moved on. Maybe, my why not me was coming true after all.

Sadly, dreams being dreams are not so easy to achieve I found out. Especially in the world of gender change. There was no way I could gloss over all the nuances of being a true transgender woman would entail. Many times, I ended up getting my new high heels stuck in more quicksand than I could have imagined and was fortunate to have found my way out, which I have written about in several blog posts. It occurred when I suffered the loss of male security privilege. However, by this time, I was able to take the good with the bad which was beginning to lessen, and I could see my dream being reality.  Which I had never thought possible.

For the first time in my life, I was beginning to live my why not me moments. I was at the threshold of living the life I had always wanted. Free from the male shackles which had tied me down. Sure, at times, it was unbelievably confusing to do, but with the help of a few women friends I always mention, I made it and was able to get out of the quicksand all together and rebuild my life.

Today, I am a woman who happened to come from a different background than most. But it was my dream to make it, and I did. As I said, I never thought I could or would.

 

 

 

 

Dealing With Severe Escapism

Image from Ludovica Dri
on UnSplash.

Severe escapism has been part of my life for many years.

It all goes back to the humble beginnings of me exploring my mom’s clothes and makeup. The entire process helped me to escape from a male life I never wanted. What never occurred to me had how quickly I escaped would become reality as I kept going back to my cross-dressing beginnings to seek guidance from the mirror.

Problems began when I began to listen to the mirror completely. It was telling me I was an attractive woman but was I really and ready to prove it to the world. When I switched out the mirror for the world, I quickly learned I had a long way to go in my heels to do better in a feminine world. What turned out to be a short trip really kept on going into a major lifetime of escapism.

How did I know I was escaping? Primarily it started when I began to feel so good as my novice transgender self. I thought, how could I feel this good and natural if I was just escaping. It was at that point when I seriously started exploring the possibility of living out my dream of eventually living out my life as a transfeminine person.  

Increasingly, I discovered my dream was a reality if only I could sever my ties with my escapism I was suffering under. No more could I run home to hide behind my skirts if I was so completely exploring the feminine world. Whatever was going to happen just would. What happened was I did not have to escape nearly as much because I was increasingly enjoying my journey into transgender womanhood. Again, because I could not run and hide when someone tried to interact with me. I even was able to conquer my fear of the “mean girls club” as I not so fondly call the so-called gatekeepers of femininity. Perhaps conquering is too strong a term. Put up with maybe a better one. The mean girls may not have liked me but found I was going nowhere.

As I no longer had to resort to so much escapism, I began to look for better ways to live my new life. I started to see new colors in the world as the gender affirming hormones (HRT) in my life began to take control. My senses heightened to a point where I could sense the world as well as the cisgender women around me. I learned women were really cold all the time I thought they were making it up, is a prime example.

It was increasingly a very rare occasion when I needed to revert to my old male life to take advantage of a male privilege such as taking my car in to be repaired. Even though I have needed to conquer that fear, I still have nagging problems with doing anything auto related to this day. Outside of that, I have overcome most of the problems I faced which sent me home hiding behind my skirts. Even my mirror has become a noncombatant in my life. I see myself for whom I really am. No better, no worse and I work from there with my makeup.

To be sure, running away from my gender issues did not improve my life. I continued to switch jobs and locations as I tried to escape my true self. It was not until I landed a dream job in my hometown did, I had to stay put and quit running. For all intents and purposes my escape route was destroyed. For a while, channeling all my gender issues into my work proved to be a wise choice as I made it nearly to the top in my field. Hear I was, with a good marriage, family and job, while all along something was still missing. That something was I still had the nagging idea something was still missing from my gender identity. I was still living a lie and found it increasingly difficult to run anymore from the idea.

In many ways, tragically, escapism would work for me as I became the last person standing in my small group of friends. They all died including my wife of twenty-five years, so I needed to start all over again. As they say, when one door closes, another one opens. Which is all well and good if you can find the door. Destiny paved the way for me to make the final gender transition of my life away from the male road I was on. For every tragedy which I so poorly faced, I discovered a person to help me rebuild, and that person is my wife, Liz.

With the magic words, she had never seen any male in me at all, I threw all caution (and him) to the wind along with all my male clothes and closed out the portion of my male life I had fought so long to do away with. My only regret? I selfishly would like back all the time and energy I wasted on fighting the inevitable, it was always time to allow my transgender woman to live. She was tired of not being allowed to do anything. Escaping was over.

 

Breakfast with the Family

 

JJ Hart.

Just a short post today since I spent most of the morning at breakfast with the supporting side of my mini family.

By “mini”, I meant there were only four of us, my wife Liz, my daughter, son in law and me of course. We met roughly halfway between Dayton, Ohio (where they live) and Cincinnati where Liz and I live. To do so, I needed to take my walk early, which was not a bad idea anyhow because of our ongoing heat advisory.

Because of all of that and the half hour drive, I needed to back time the rest of my activities such as shaving, applying makeup and brushing out my hair. Since we were meeting at a casual breakfast venue, I chose a nice tan sleeveless top with a pair of leggings and flats. As always, I wanted to be comfortable and blend in with the other women. The only hold-up we ran into was the first venue we always went to was closed, so we had to choose another close by. Fortunately, we were near a major interstate exit, and there were a couple of other major breakfast food chains nearby. Plus, the one we chose was not full and we were seated quickly. Sadly, we could not find any locally owned venues to support.

As always, it is about this time, after all these years of being out in public, I still have a little amount of concern over being read in a negative situation. Nothing of that sort happened this morning and I had a great time. The only drawback happened when we discussed how my first wife was doing after her husband passed away last week. She is the mother of my daughter, and she is quite close to the situation.

My kid is a glutton for punishment and even went to an extended family reunion (from my wife’s late husband) last week. You may remember, she has a trans child who she completely supports and is quite liberal, in the middle of a bunch of tRumpt loving cultists. Including a friend of mine from long ago who keeps asking how my dead name is doing. He refuses to call me by my new legal name. Since I never see him anymore, I could care less about him and his political beliefs.

Other than our brief political discussions, we had a great morning and better yet, no one questioned my gender.

 

 

 

Meeting Your True Self

 

Image from Caroline Veronez on UnSplash.

Perhaps you remember looking into the mirror and seeing your true self peeking back at you for the first time. I know I do.

Ironically, I don’t think it was the time when I was looking at myself after trying on my mom’s clothes and working with her makeup. I am sure it was much later when I improved my makeup skills to progress from looking like a clown in drag. Most certainly, I could not see the true me yet but there was still hope that I still would. I had an ideal to work towards. My ideal was I wanted to be a pretty girl and admire myself in the mirror. But even still, I knew deep down I wanted more than just looking like a girl, I wanted to be a girl, in the worst way.

My biggest problem was I did not know how to achieve my goal of being much more than a part-time cross-dresser. I was still in the pre-information stage on the internet dark ages and had very little idea there was anyone like me who was questioning their gender. Even though, I finally did meet other cross dressers or transgender women but still was coming away confused on who I really was. It wasn’t until I gathered my courage and put my ego away to undergo a professional makeover at one of the mixers I went to, did I finally see the potential of who I was overcome my male self in the mirror. Better yet, the make up professional was able to explain to me what he was doing as he did it in a way I could understand and repeat the process.

As I began to enter the public’s harsh eyes, the pressure was on to up my fashion and makeup game so I could blend in with the world as a novice transgender woman. Increasingly, I was pushing my male image aside and concentrating on my feminine look in the mirror. I was coming close to seeing the true me for the first time in my life. Once I met her, I knew there could be no turning back. I needed to step up my public game to meet my gender urges.

It turned out, the public did my work for me. As I established myself as a regular in a few special venues I was going to, other women began to approach me for friendly conversations. For most, it was nothing more than idle curiosity about who I was and why I was there. Whatever the case, I needed to develop a more complete personality quickly. No longer could I sit there by myself and watch the world go by and enjoy myself as others were watching me. My true self came out quickly and she was aided by my long dormant feminine self. She had waited long enough for her turn to do more than survive, she wanted to thrive. I was surprised at how well she thrived. She did not care others knew she came about her femininity from a different route than she did. She just knew she was finally there.

Since I don’t rely on any facial surgeries to help my look, I am very much into what you see is what you get these days. I have had to rely on makeup skill and the effects of gender affirming hormones to get me by in the world. For the most part these days, I present as old more than anything else but again, I needed to meet my true self. Finally, I could take denying reality any longer and moved to accept my true self. The meeting was long overdue and was so much fun, I was sad I put it off as long as I did.

No Easy Way Out

 

JJ Hart doing Trans Outreach Work. 

Like many of you, I struggled for years to escape my dark, lonely gender closet.

As I beat my head against the closet walls, I stared longingly into the mirror, dreaming of the day I would find an easy way out. As I did, it became increasingly evident to me that there would be no such escape from my dominating male self. He would make life miserable for years because of my indecision.  One day I wanted to be a boy and the next I wanted to be a girl dictated how I lived.

After years of despair over my gender dysphoria, I began to see a sliver of light in my closet when I briefly opened the door to look out. At first, I was getting the door slammed back into my face when I went out in public. Too many people were laughing at me to my face or worse yet, I could hear their comments behind my back. I was sent home early many nights in tears, wondering what I was doing wrong with my feminine presentation. Following intense introspection, I discovered what was wrong. I was letting my old male self-make my fashion decisions and dressing for men instead of women who were for the most part controlling my destiny as a transgender woman. Without the support of women, I would have never made it out of my closet at all.

Even as I learned my lessons on presentation, I still found there would be no easy way out of my closet. I discovered the more walls I scaled on my path to transgender womanhood; the more walls would appear to challenge me. Mainly because I was out in the public eye so much more, and I was challenged to find the proper wig to wear all the time as well as find better fashion to augment my wardrobe. There was no way I wanted to wear the same outfit day after day when people began to recognize me. To offset the extra attention, I needed to increase my visits to area thrift stores to find bargains I could afford, and more importantly, fit me. I was obsessed with outdoing myself when it came to my feminine presentation.

It turned out, the public was noticing as I lost nearly fifty pounds and started taking better care of my skin. If I behaved myself in the world, and was friendly, I crossed the line into communicating with other women. Of all the walls I needed to climb, communication skills were the hardest to scale. The change was dramatic because I needed to change my communication from direct male to indirect female as I learned women often talk with their eyes. Thus, I needed to get better in looking another woman in her eyes when I talked with her. Often doing it as a man was a threatening option, while doing it as a woman was not optional. I needed to learn to do it. By doing so, often I could see what they thought of me. Did they think of me as a woman or sort of a man seeking admittance into their world.

Mostly what I received back was curiosity. What was I doing in their world? And I think they understood my interest in being admitted to the girl’s sandbox went far beyond just putting on a wig, dress and makeup. One way or another, the process was extremely challenging and kept me guessing every night about what I was going to experience because some nights I was tired of climbing walls. I kept looking for the last one to climb, but found I was not even close. Mainly because the gender club I was seeking to join was so complex. On the other hand, the process of totally leaving my closet and male privileges behind was still quite scary and I needed total confidence in what I was doing before I made the final jump.

My introduction to HRT or gender affirming hormones gave me the confidence I needed to keep going. Suddenly the hormones helped me to sync up my external feminine self with my internal one. It was the final shove I needed to get out of my closet and live a new life as a transfeminine person. It turned out there was an easy way to escape if only I possessed the inner strength to look for my truth. Once I did, my fragile mental health improved, and I set my sights on enjoying my family more since a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. In the end, it was all worth it, but it was never an easy trip to go on, or I could find no easy way out.

 

 

 

 

Too Low on the Down Low

 

Image from Ky Nang
on UnSplash. 

I describe my life when I was cheating on my second wife with another woman(me) as being on the down low. Especially when in the early days I was hanging out in gay bars.

On occasion, I feel as if I make the process of transitioning with or without my wife’s support a little too exciting or even fun. I need to make it clear; it was anything but. It all started with a deal my wife and I made which I could go out in the public as a woman, only if I did not do it from our house. I even went as far as renting out motel rooms to apply my wardrobe, makeup and hair as I got ready to go out into the world.

Of course, with my mentality, that was never enough, and I started to break our agreement to never go out cross dressed from the house. The more I did it, the more I wanted to do it. That is when the going on the down low really started as I was sneaking around behind her back as a novice transgender woman every chance I got. I was stuck in life between not breaking our agreement and feeling so natural every time I went out in the world. During my life, I had always prided myself on being very honest, so I was not happy with the way my life was headed when I needed to lie to my wife when it came to explaining what I was doing in my spare time. Or why I was not successful in removing all my makeup when she came home.

The next biggest problem I ran into when I was on the down low was what was I going to do about the women who were approaching me. It was not as if I was being bombarded with romantic advances, but I did have some slight pushes. I felt bad because I never had any intention of ever physically cheating on my wife. However, I had always been a bit of a flirt which carried over from my days of being a male. There were occasions such as the night a man tried to pick me up in a bar after a professional makeover that I wonder what would have happened had I stayed. I didn’t and I will never know as well as what would have happened had I pushed a little harder to get to know a certain man with a motorcycle I was becoming close to.

I guess I had reached the bottom of my down low except for some stolen kisses from my lesbian friends. I internalized my feelings and waited for them to come to me, just like my male days. Then, when my wife unexpectedly passed away, everything changed and at the least I had purged my feminine life the best I could for the last six months of her life as I did not want to lie to her anymore. After she passed, all my barriers were removed and the first thing I needed to do was determine my sexuality. I thought to do it; I needed to go on public safe dates with a couple men I had met. I had a great time with Bob who was passing through Dayton on business, but he was married and lived far away. I did not have to worry about being brought home to mom in our brief relationship.

On the lesbian side of my life, things were decidedly different since I was no longer on the down low. Since HRT had effectively did away with any masculine sexual advances, I needed to learn new techniques. If I was brave enough, I found with the lesbian culture I needed to move slow and let them make the first move. I basically ended up with a group of three women I was close to. Which was all I needed. From the three, Nikki was never a real possibility because she was too much younger than me and I think would have recoiled at the idea of ever having relations with any sort of men (including me) at all. She was just an entertaining drinking buddy. Kim and my future wife Liz were in totally different situations. Both had lived difficult lives and were closer to me in age so they could relate to me being in a rebounding situation from all the death I had went through. In the end, I decided to move in with Liz in Cincinnati and are still together over a decade later, so I made the right move. Although every now and then I hear from Kim.

One way or another, life on the down low was never any fun for me. I constantly felt as if I was cheating on my wife. It was a relief to finally let it go and live my life authentically as a transfeminine person.

 

A Tale of Contrasts

 

Image from UnSplash.

No matter how you cut it, our gender is a tale of contrasts.

From the earliest age, we are forced into rigid gender roles, who for most people, work out quite nicely because they never question their assigned roles. Then there are those of us who just as early in life begin to question our placement on the gender spectrum. In my case, I knew something was wrong, I just could not figure out what. Then, as I became older, I made the discovery every morning when I had to determine what gender I had to be for the day. A jarring discovery to be sure.

Naturally, since I was born male, I needed to own up to the fact I had to do my best to face the world each day as a guy until I could slip behind my own gender curtain and put on women’s clothes and makeup. Early on, as I lived my limited feminine life in the mirror, I thought appearance was my number one goal towards living my gender dreams. It was not until much later in life did, I began to understand how wrong I was. There were many more contrasts between men and women that I ever dared to think about. Mainly because I was viewing how women live only through rose colored glasses as I thought they had easier lives than men.

It wasn’t until I began to pay my gender dues as a transfeminine person, did I begin to see the reality of what I was looking at if I decided to transition. As I was making my way into what I call the girl’s sandbox, I was getting tested regularly to see if I belonged. On some days I was successful and happy and on others, I was getting beat up (or clawed) and needed to retreat before I came back for more. One thing was for sure, all of this testing from other women was doing me good, because I never quit trying.

The main thing I did learn was one that I vaguely knew, women had their own world away from men and had their own alpha’s who ran the show. Once I was accepted by them, the rest of my life as a transgender woman was so much easier. But, on the other hand, the testing process was so much harder because the alphas were so much more wary of me wanting to be in their world. My second wife was an alpha and she made sure I worked long and hard to even try to earn a spot in the sandbox. An example was one of the many times she told me there was so much more to being a woman than just looking like one and it took me years to understand what she meant.

Perhaps the second most difficult part of being accepted in the feminine world was being able to communicate with other women. Out were the days of trying to bluster my way through a conversation and in were the days when I needed to look another woman in the eye and appear to be less threatening. While at the same time having eyes on my back for a passive aggressive attack. I learned the hard away on that to never trust a smiling face completely.

As I learned to communicate with other women, my life in public became so much easier and I could begin to relax more as I was beginning to put my entire feminine picture into focus. I could forget about completely focusing on my looks and movement and could concentrate on being social with the world. Which was important to me since I had always been a socially active person. Plus, as I always mention, men were never much of a factor to me since most of them ran and hid from me completely. Which was OK since I did not really know how to handle them as a transgender woman either.

My life of contrasts was coming to an end when I entered the final chapter with gender affirming hormones or HRT. The hormones were magical when they started their changes on me. I think most people consider external changes such as skin, breasts and hair to be important, and they are but to me, internal changes were more important. In a remarkable short span of time, I became more emotional as my world softened. Making me into a complete person.

I am biased, but I think my tale of contrasts made me into a better human being as I could understand both binary genders better. Since I had lived in both. Plus, after having the chance to live as both, I made the right choice to live as a transgender woman, even though at times, it was an intensely lonely and difficult journey. Which could be another blog post.

Can You Ever Enjoy the Ride?

 

Image from A. C. on UnSplash.

Lately, it has occurred to me how often I did not pause to enjoy my gender journey.

Perhaps it was because for the longest time I experienced very little gender euphoria for two reasons. The main reason was, I was never raised to feel any joy in my life. Nothing was ever good enough. So, when I entered the world as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman, life was very tough. The other main reason was, I was approaching my life from the exact wrong way. Deep down I knew when my “buzz” went away so soon from merely dressing up in feminine clothes in front of the mirror, I was doing something wrong. I did not know then my gender issues ran much deeper than just a love of fashion and makeup.

Before I knew it, I was in a vicious gender circle in my life when I needed to dress up rather than wanted to. There was a huge difference. When I needed to cross-dress, I had the tendency to take more chances and jeopardize my life as I knew it because I knew there was no way my parents would ever understand how their son was really their daughter. Plus, there were many other distractions too, such as not being able to afford my own wig until I was well into my college years. I hated running around with a towel on my head fantasizing that I had a full head of luxurious girls’ hair.

There was always something I was reaching for which ruined my present enjoyment. Such as a better dress, shoes or makeup which could help me look better as I had neared an impossible ideal of attractiveness. Facing my reality of appearance when the only feedback I had was in the mirror. As we all know, the mirror has a tendency to lie to you if you are not careful, and I needed a way to test my presentation as a transfeminine person in the public’s eye. Easier said than done, when I was busy living my own down low in a male life I was frustrated to be in anyhow.

Very quickly, I learned the mirror had been lying to me as I was rejected by the public. To succeed with my dream, I needed to pause my life and attempt to find out why I was having all the problems I was having. Almost immediately, I determined I needed to get my male self out of the way. He was dictating how my fashion presented itself and it was all wrong. For any number of reasons trying to dress sexy in the wrong places was getting me into trouble. My guy was dressing me for other guys when I should have been dressing for other women. Once I figured out, I was not a teen aged girl, my public life became decidedly better.

So much better, I was even able to enjoy several of the solo nights out I went on to be by myself. Even though I knew I was a transgender woman, I was just being me, and the public (amazingly enough) was accepting it also. My mirror even came back into play, and I used it more often in places such as women’s rooms to adjust my hair and makeup.

Life then began to roll on very fast. All the way to the point I was having a difficult time keeping up. I was learning so much about the feminine side of life, it was too late to turn back then and more and more, I was discovering how much I loved this new side of life I had always dreamed of.

Also, my life was reaching a new level of complexity as I was shutting down the male side and giving full access to my female side who had waited so long to be free. My problem was I was still trying to live part time in both genders as I transitioned, and I was afraid of what would happen when I lost all my male privileges. Finally, my mental health could take it no longer and I had to jump off the gender cliff I have written about.

As I jumped, the ride down was scary but fun in its own way, not unlike a big rollercoaster at an amusement park, the ride up in many ways was worth the ride down. All the fear and terror I had experienced when I had come out to a close family disappeared when I was accepted by my daughter and my wife Liz and a warm set of relief sat in. I could not wait until I could get back in public and live my true existence out of the closet. I was creating my own universe for a change and not relying on someone else to do it.

I began to build my own female privilege and thrive in it. It continues till this day and is the topic for another day. In the meantime, I often try to pause my life and enjoy where I am in my life.

 

 

Painting Myself into a Corner

 

Image from UnSplash.

I was always an adequate house painter and not much more.

Possibly my biggest problem was ever finishing a project. Every time I would start, I got bored and quit before the project was done. There were even times when I would unknowingly paint my way into corners. Little did I know, all of this would carry into my life as a cross dresser and later a transgender woman.

Like many of you, I started experimenting with my mom’s clothes which I became attracted to at a young age. It was most likely a carryover from watching mom (and admiring) put on her “face” or makeup as she called it. I wanted to see how the whole girl package worked for me. At that point, I began to place myself in danger of painting myself in a corner I could not get out of. The corner I am referring to is being caught and facing irreplaceable damage to my life as I knew it in a male dominated family. As the oldest son, I was expected to carry on a macho tradition.

The problem was of course I did not want anything to do with male tradition because I was enjoying my alone time cross dressing as a girl so much. I worked onward on my feminine artwork, as I sought to buy my own makeup and pantyhose from my allowance and newspaper route money. Then I experimented with my limited time until I became a little bit better and did not look like a clown in drag. I was slowly finding my voice as a transfeminine woman.

The more I discovered, the more I risked painting myself into a corner. When I was in the corner, sometimes I paused to look around for a reality check. An example was the night I was in one of my regular venues dressed to fashionably blend in with the rest of the women and I needed to discover if I wanted to escape the corner I was in at all. It turned out I loved the real me and wanted more time out of my closet. I was beginning to learn who I really was, but it turned out I would have many more corners to paint myself into. Such as settling into one new person and not changing each time I went out into the public. I was shocked how quickly people remembered me; I needed to wear the same wig as a start to solidify my future in the world as a transgender woman. In a way, the experience was boring because I was always enjoying my newfound ability to shop in wig stores for the so-called perfect hair after waiting all those years to do it.

Another of the major corners I painted myself into was how I ended up just pursuing the basics of communicating with an all-new world. I never expected people (particularly other women) would ever want to talk to me as a woman because they rarely wanted to as a man. My guess is the women were just curious about me wanting to be in their world, or just I did not threaten them anymore when they let me behind their gender curtain.

In many ways, my decision to undertake gender affirming hormones was me painting myself into a corner was the biggest risk I had ever taken. Undertaking HRT was my own ride or die. Either I made it as a transgender woman with the help of hormones would preclude me ever going back to a male life I never asked for, or I would have to find another way out. Spoiler alert: I was fortunate when I cleared the medical screening, I needed to begin what I considered to be lifesaving hormones, and I flourished. My decision could be compared to a gender insurance policy. I was making sure I was successful when I finally synced up my inner and outer selves.

Today, I have put down my paint brush and concentrated on living my life as a supported transfeminine person. Sure, I confuse some people with how to refer to me, but that is their problem not mine. They need to be educated to the world anyhow. Transgender women and transgender men are not their enemy, but their ignorance is. I filled my world with acceptance from a loving world and watched many other people paint themselves into their own corners. I took many risks along the way to do it and out of sheer will power to do it.

I have felt the depths of loneliness, all the way to having a new family all my own (except my daughter of course, she was always there). I don’t think I would recommend such a unique human journey to anyone else, but it was anything but boring.  As a painter, I have finally come close to finishing a project.

 

 

 

 

It's Just Life...Not a Joke

 

Image from Engin Akyurt on UnSplash.

It took me awhile before I finally came to the point in my gender transition when I gave up and thought the whole process was just life and not some sort of an evil joke.

I had struggled enough through the years when my male self-put up quite the struggle to exist at all. It was as if he was on a slippery slope towards losing his life altogether. To make matters worse as I always point out, my male side’s life was not always that bad. I had a long-term marriage, close friends and a good job to fall back on when I needed it.

Through it all, I thought it was only the draw of the feminine clothes which kept me longing for another trip to the mirror. I did not realize my feelings went much deeper than that. I was feeling life itself. It took me many years and even decades traveling a very curvy and bumpy gender path to realize where I was. Plus, many times, when I realized where I was, I became scared of losing everything. Falling off a gender cliff became a real possibility.

No matter how frightened I became, somehow, I kept on moving forward thanks mostly to the brief moments of gender euphoria I was feeling. The interludes helped me to determine if my dream goal of living a transfeminine life was possible at all. Back in those days, I was immersed in the struggle to present well as a woman and not much else. In fact, when I go back and read my earliest blog posts, I cannot believe how much they emphasize fashion and makeup. It all happened long before I needed to learn the layers of life a woman goes through to live her life. It was like my wife told me be man enough to be a woman. In those days I was not as I made weak attempts to live in both main binary genders.

In the short term, I did not understand what my wife meant as I became semi successful in presenting well in the world as a woman, but I had not paid my dues. I found I would have to wait until my wife had passed away before I could earn my way behind the feminine gender curtain to be allowed in by the ciswoman gatekeepers. It was about that time too when I began to understand my dream of ever becoming a fulltime transgender woman could be possible. It was much more than a hobby or part-time profession; it was my life. Then my realization led me to understand what my wife was talking about. I needed to set off on an all-out journey to live my best life as a transfeminine person. I even needed to understand questions about my own long held sexuality. If I lived as a woman, would I suddenly have to like men sexually? I just didn’t know until I set off to experiment.

Along the way, I did manage a couple dates with men which led to kissing but not much else and I did not feel much of a spark of any kind. On the other hand, I was surrounded by curious ciswomen (including lesbians) who wanted to socialize with me, so I was happy, I had always been a contradiction in terms socially, meaning I always enjoyed company even though I was shy and I could continue to feel that way. My life was beginning to come together in ways that I never imagined possible.

For example, I never imagined I would have been able to enjoy a small closely knit group of women friends who taught me more about life than they ever knew. Without any pressure, I was able to sit back and live vicariously through them and primarily how they lived their lives without the validation of men. It was not too long until they began to invite me along to their lesbian mixers, which I loved. I was even approached by other women and kissed. Which provided me with a huge amount of validation.

With my sexuality and life coming together, I could concentrate on enjoying my life on my new gender affirming hormones or HRT. The hormones went a long way in syncing up my internal and external self. Along with softening my skin and facial lines, my whole world was changing too. My emotions heightened as well as my senses as the world around me was softening. A perfect match to my rapidly expanding social life.

I will never know if waiting so long to transition into a feminine world was worth it or not because I had so many excuses why I never had done it. All I really know is, I did it before it was too late and have never looked back. That’s life.

 

 

Trans Girl on the "Down Low"

 

Image from Josh Withers
on UnSplash.

According to Wikipedia, down low is basically an African American term for gay cruising of other men. For this post, I am going to use it in another sense.

First of all, I need to take you all back to when I first considered my down low to be as I cheated on my wife. But I was doing it by cheating on her with another woman, which happened to be me. Of course, nothing made what I was doing right but I could not stop doing it as it had a powerful draw on me. Those were the exciting days of leaving the gay bar scene behind me and begin exploring the world of straight bars as well as lesbian venues.

Very soon, my success turned to failure as I began to feel guilty about lying to my wife about what I was doing. I tried my best to rationalize my thoughts because after all, I was having no physical contact with anyone. Male or female so I could not be accused of cheating, but I still was. The reason was, I had made an agreement with her that I could go out in public several days a week. Providing I never left the house cross-dressed. It was a sacred promise she never forgot and one I could not keep once I began to develop a transfeminine life.

Very soon, I felt as if I was still on the down low every time I snuck out of the house dressed as a woman. As I was basically doing as much as possible. The reason was, I was learning so much about the feminine world I had always dreamed about, I could never turn around and go back to my male life.

It was more exciting to stay on the down low until I could figure out what to do about the life I was leading. In fact, I because the more I experienced the new world, the more natural I began to feel as I was able to put the image I always saw in the mirror into motion. In many ways, I began to feel so natural as a transgender woman, it was difficult to ever return to being a man at all. I had to consciously tell myself I still was a part time man when I worked. So much so, I was beginning to be called ma’am when sir would have worked for the occasion. Still, I was secretly overjoyed when it happened.

Sadly, through it all, my marriage really suffered. Mostly because I was and am a very honest person and hated lying to my wife about what was really going on with me. Often, I learned when I lied one small time, I would have to lie more often to make up for it. An example was one year when we took a week for vacation and headed north to try to escape the heat. About two days into the vacation, I became increasingly mean and irritable because I really wanted to be spending my time traveling as a woman. Finally, my poor wife had had enough and asked me what was wrong. I lied again and internalized my feelings enough to get by, and we could eventually enjoy ourselves. Deep down, I hated myself for it.

Life began to finally slow down for me as I reached certain milestones in my transfeminine life. I was beginning to communicate with the world and started to feel much better about myself and at the same time my down low activities slowed down also. At least to a point where I could control them. It was around this time too, when my wife’s health began to really decline. It did not know it then, but she only had approximately six months to live. For some reason, I decided to go on a major purge and throw most of my feminine things away and went all the way to growing my version of a beard. It turned out, I did the best I could for the remainder of her life.

When she passed, of course I was tragically shocked and lonely, so I reached inward. The beard went away quickly, and I was able to restock my clothes and makeup. In no time at all, my inner feminine self was coming to my rescue. I began to retrace my steps I had taken as a novice transgender woman, and reestablished myself fairly quickly in the venues I was a regular in.

I was totally freed from the down low experiences from my past and could concentrate on going out to being alone. In other words, I wanted to be around other people. I just did not want them approaching me.

It worked in the short term until I began to socialize with and started to build a small circle of friends who knew nothing of my previous self. I never had had to go on the down low again.

 

 

Affirmation Day

 

Image from Cate Bligh
on UnSplash

A much-needed affirmation day for me is here.

Today is the event I have written so much about. By pure chance, three of my daughter’s family have graduated from various institutions and will celebrate today.  

With a little luck (and planning on my daughter’s part) my transgender grandchild will return from their post-graduation trip walking the Appalachian trail. They graduated with a degree in nuclear engineering from The Ohio State University in the winter and immediately landed a job with the Navy as a civilian in Maine. They and theirs are their chosen pronouns.

Not to be outdone, my son in law is receiving his MBA this summer and my youngest grandson is graduating from high school. A group of overachievers to be sure!

This is where my affirmation comes in. The entire event is a safe space for me to go to where I can recharge my gender batteries for the future. Plus, my best ally, my wife Liz, will be by my side.

To be on the safe side, I have been planning ahead for months on what I am going to wear. I am aiming to be dressy and feminine without going overboard since I don’t know much about the venue.

I chose my favorite lacy feminine top and am pairing them with comfortable leggings and shoes since I don’t know how far I will have to walk. As always, I don’t want to stand out, I want to blend in. Sometimes, there are pictures taken, so if I get one, I will pass it along.

Past that, I have been able to do much of my pre-body preparation in advance, so today all I need to do is a close shave, makeup and hair to get ready. We have a reasonable drive to go north to Dayton, Ohio from Cincinnati to arrive at the venue.

As we go and I get my gender batteries recharged, I will let you know what happens.