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| JJ Hart on vacation last winter. |
I continually write about my youth as a confused boy
wondering if I was the only boy in the world who wanted to be a girl. My
desires extended all the way to what I wanted for Christmas (the doll baby I
never got) all the way to when I lied about what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Rather than rock the boat I always said some sort of a male profession such as
a doctor or a lawyer rather than what I really wanted to be, a woman.
All I could do was take refuge in my mirror which told me I
made a pretty girl out of the boy I was at the time. It became a passion for me
to use as much of my free time as possible to cross-dress. At the same time, I
became really good at acting like a boy by playing sports and having an
interest in cars. I was so good, it kept the bullies away until male puberty
invaded my body. Outside of hating the changes puberty was making to my body, I
remember being intensely aware of my new masculinity and what to do with it. Even
walking like a man was a chore for me to learn to do. I was so afraid of
walking like a “sissy” and be made fun of by the bullies that I feared what to
do. Little did I know that later in life my passion would be to unlearn all
that I needed to learn at the time about being masculine.
As much as I tried and as tormented, I because of my gender
passions, I could not seem to lose my desire to be feminine over my hated male
image. At the time, I was in the midst of what I call the information “dark
ages” before the internet and any social media input. Even the word
transvestite was new to me as I struggled to find my footing in life. In other
words, my gender closet was very dark and lonely, with little opportunity to
have any future at all in my passion to understand and be feminine.
I stayed that way until I grew older and my passion included
receiving my cherished issues of “Transvestia” magazine and I could read the “wisdom”
of “Virginia Prince” whenever I could get my hands on another issue. For a
while I thought it was working until I began to read about the social mixers
certain chapters had to meet and greet other cross-dressers or transsexuals as
they were known back in those days. Amazingly, one of the chapters in my native
Ohio held mixers on a fairly regular basis that I could attend. I thought for
sure, meeting others with similar gender issues could help me but I was wrong.
Their passions exposed the many layers of where I could fit in (or not) with
the remainder of the cross-dressing community and at the least, I hoped I could
come away from the social by making a friend or two.
The only thing that really came out of the mixers was the
knowledge that another chapter was coming close to establishing their own
socials in Columbus, Ohio which was vastly closer for me to attend. Maybe I was
too standoffish or even shy to make what I would call friends, but I continued
to keep going any way and even was rewarded with invitations to smaller more
diverse parties in Columbus which did not have to supposedly adhere to all of “Virginia
Prince’s” archaic rules such as admitting heterosexual members only. As I said,
the parties I went to were very diverse from lesbians to cross dresser admirers
all the way to transgender women getting ready for gender realignment surgeries.
The learning process I went through every time I went fueled my passion to
learn more about my place in this new exciting world, I was becoming a part of.
I could not wait to be invited to the next party.
I felt so secure from my party experiences, that I decided
to do more exploring in my own in public. That is when I began to seek out the
straight venues I used to go to as a man when I always wondered what it would be
like to experience them as a woman. My passion for my new life exploded when I
discovered I could be accepted which kept me out of the gay venues which I did
not feel comfortable in at all. I was able to go out to be alone and mostly
socialize by myself for the most part as I worked hard on my passion to fill
out my gender workbook which was seriously lagging behind my fast-paced life as
a novice transgender woman.
By this time, I had decided I had made the right decision to
follow my feminine passion and try to survive in a world run by ciswomen. My
path felt natural and I was rapidly coming close to the time when I was going
to push all my male privileges I had earned to the middle of the table and bet
my life on the transfeminine path I was on. I could not believe that my entire
life’s dream/goal was suddenly within my grasp. If only I had the courage to
finally follow through on my passion.
I did follow through and with the help of my future wife
Liz, I went on HRT, threw out or gave away all my male clothes and never looked
back on my male life except to decide which baggage to bring with me. I even
went as far as taking female vocal lessons to try to teach me all important
feminine communication skills which I desperately needed. It all turned out to
be a labor of love as I listened and learned from the world around me.
The boy so long ago in the mirror finally had his deep-seated
passions rewarded.
