Passing Privilege?

 

"Cheap Sun Glasses"
from the Jessie Hart
Archives

As we make it through the various stages of our gender journeys, often we are overly concerned with our appearance.

Very early on I learned my looks, or lack of them, were referred to how I presented as a feminine person. If I was a success, I "passed" and if I failed the term I most often heard from within the cross dressing community was I was "clocked" as a man in a dress. So I began to become more and more obsessed with "passing" as a woman in public. The problem was, I thought I was achieving success when I was admiring myself in the mirror and then failed miserably when I tried my best to pass in public. The process all led to my well documented years of thinking (or confusing) sexy with trashiness when I cross dressed. What maybe looked good on a teenaged girl, most certainly didn't look good on me. Undeterred, still I persisted. Finally I made it through my so called teen aged girl years and into womanhood and started to work on blending in with the other women around me. 

All of a sudden, I found I could discover just a small amount of passing privilege. In my case, it meant not being stared at to the point of even being laughed at. I could concentrate on the brief gender euphoria I was feeling by just being in the world as my feminine self.  One of the tricks I used to judge the world's reaction to me was to wear sunglasses. When I did so, I could see how others were looking at me without being obvious. My "cheap sunglasses" worked well from a fashion standpoint as well as a tool to see if I had gained any passing privilege. 

It took me years longer to discover what any sort of a woman's gender privilege was going to mean to me anyhow. When I first began to become successful as a novice transgender woman, the only privilege I could notice was when a man would stop and hold a door open for me. The more I experimented in the world, the more I learned how wrong I was about the passing privilege and/or feminine privilege's I was gaining. Nothing really happened until I was able to hold my head up in the world and quit being so shy about myself. After all, I was doing nothing wrong and if someone else had a problem with me, it was their problem. Not mine to solve or run from. 

When I first was able to be prescribed gender affirming hormones for the first time, I suddenly learned more of what feminine privilege was all about. As my initial dosage increased, I found I had a different view of the world. As my senses became more in tune of what was going on around me, my world just grew softer. I could not believe the changes. 

I think my final bout of passing privilege also came with the external femininizing results from the hormones. Since I had never been a "natural" when it came to trying a male to female gender transition, I needed all the help I could get. Most certainly hormones aren't for everyone, but they sure were for me.

These days, I mostly just present as old. I have a natural passing privilege.  

The Good Fight

Image from Fred Moon 
on UnSplash

Often, our biggest enemy we face when we transition from one binary gender to another is ourselves. 

In the case of male to female gender transitioners the male ego never wants to give up his control. In my case it was a fight to the bitter end. A fight which nearly killed me. As along the way my old male self seized upon every means possible to preserve his existence and furthermore, he never fought fair. He felt he carried all the cards and only played any when he was pressed to do so. 

Through it all, what he never counted on was the inherent strength of my inner feminine self. Along the way he was ego driven to the point where he thought dressing as a transgender woman was simply a hobby he had to relieve the stresses of the world. When in reality, the opposite was true. She was letting him continue to express his masculine self while she bided her time and waited for her chance to shine in the world. 

As I continued to explore the world as my feminine self, it became clear to me who the winner of my gender struggle would be. Every step of the way in my brave new world felt so natural. Before I knew it my so called even split living life the best I could as a male and a female became more and more female and when I was spending life as a male, all I did was dream of what my next step would be as a woman. Where would I go and what would I do?

Of course the biggest problem I faced was my male self held the power cards such as family, friends and finances. The most powerful card he held was the influence he had with my wife of twenty five years who I desperately loved. She wanted nothing to do with my female and created the ultimate catfight between two women. In the meantime, in protest to having less and less influence in my life, my male self made my existence miserable, ruined my mental health and led me to try a suicide one night. He was prepared to risk my entire life just to maintain his. In addition, he pushed me into more and more alcohol abusive situations. Happily, I was able to end his influence when I transitioned before I seriously damaged my body. 

None of any of that mattered to my male self as he fought the good fight and slowly but surely was sliding down a very slippery gender slope. Deep down he knew every successful moment my novice transgender self experienced, the fewer chances he would have to claim his existence.  In typical male fashion, he moved ahead fighting change at every turn without thinking of the final outcome. In the process, he was making himself and everyone around him miserable. 

Finally he knew enough was enough and with the help of a few very close cis-women friends I took the leap and transitioned into a new life as a transgender woman. The slope I mentioned abruptly ended and I went into a gender free fall. Little did I know at the time how strong my inner female was and how much she appreciated finally being free and having the chance to run my life. 

It turned out she really knew how to fight the good fight since she had been fighting her entire life to live an authentic life. There are days, I wish I would have intervened in my gender fight earlier in life but as it stands now I have to live with what I did. 

Coming Out Day

 

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash

Recently I know I missed "Coming Out Day" which I think was actually on October 11th. 

My excuse is I have been so busy with medical appointments between my wife Liz and I, I barely had a chance to write a post at all. Today, following a very early morning trip to Liz's hospital for pre surgery instructions, I had a chance to sit down, do a little research and write concerning the when's and how's of my actual coming out.

Following a bit of quick math, I determined I actually decided to shed what was left of my old male self and come out in the year 2010. Up to that point, I was still attempting to recover from the loss of my second wife who passed very unexpectedly in 2007 from a massive heart attack. In reality, she was the only major hold back to me coming out in the world as transgender excepting what would I do for employment. I knew for sure the company I worked for would not accept me as a trans woman so I needed some way to support myself. Since I was already in my early sixties, I researched how much I could make if I retired early on Social Security and determined I could make a living by selling off all the vintage collectables my wife and I had accumulated over the years. 

I ended up selling enough to even pay off the back taxes I owed on my house before the bank came after it when my loan became due. I moved in with Liz and let the house go which is something I should have done years before. 

I remember vividly the night I decided once and for all to turn my back on my old male self and live full time as a transgender woman. Primarily, I was exhausted from all the gender tension I was putting myself through. Plus I had started hormone replacement therapy and was rapidly approaching the point when I was at the least, very androgynous. I had put myself in a gender corner I couldn't get out of and deep down didn't want to. As I stared into the drink I was enjoying, I finally said enough was enough and why did I have to live the way I was living. I was dividing my time between the two primary binary genders and I wouldn't wish the ripping and tearing I was experiencing on my worst enemy. It became so bad, I needed to consciously consider which gender I was going to live as when I awakened in the morning. 

As you can tell, I have been out and living as my chosen feminine self for many years now. As much as I wish I could, I can't take all the credit for shedding my old male self and never looking back. I mention often the small circle of women (cis or genetic) who helped me along my transition path. It turned out I was making the whole process much more difficult than it had to be. It was Liz's final push which sent me down the slippery slope to a new life when she told me she had never seen any male in me at all and why didn't I just transition and get it over with.

I suppose somewhere along the line I should have been keeping track of my coming out anniversaries but life always seemed to get into the way and the reality of the situation of living my dream of living as a transgender woman was too much. 

The old saying is true, time fly's when you are having fun.   

I Couldn't Take It

 

Image from Adam Jicha 
on UnSplash

The process of completing my male to female gender transition admittedly took me many many years. Over fifty to be exact and the whole process took a toll on me. 

During the time, I experienced many peaks and valleys on my way to living my ultimate dream. My attempt was to try different scenarios to see if I could pass successfully as a woman in the public's eye. As I said, I experienced many failures and returned home to cry my eyes out. Through it all, I was still determined and kept going back to the cross dressing drawing board to try harder. Thankfully, the more I tried (and learned) the better I became at my presentation. The better I became, the more I wanted to try.

From that point, the better I became at being transgender, the better my chances of trying to live a fulltime life as a transgender woman became. The problem was my entrenched male self was fighting every gender move I made. He did his best to discourage me and did it well. After all, he had a lot to lose. Such as an entire life he had worked hard to create. Friends, family and employment were all at stake. So the pressure was intense to somehow stay the course and try to live a life stuck firmly between the two primary binary genders. 

The problem was when I was living the life of a transgender woman, I felt increasingly natural. I had a deep seated feeling all was right in my gender world for a change. The process should have brought about a welcome change, when in fact it was causing extra pressure. As much as I tried to avoid it, I could see ahead I would have to make serious decisions in my life. If I was ever able to salvage what was left of my mental health. Dealing with the pressure had led me down the road to self destructive behaviors including suicide. After my suicide attempt, I made a very unhappy decision. I decided to purge (or get rid of) most all of my feminine belongings, grow a beard and live fulltime as a guy. The whole process was designed to please my second wife who told me any number of times she didn't sign up to live with another woman. You regulars know within a year after I purged, she passed away unexpectedly from a massive heart attack at the age of fifty. 

At that point my life entered a new stage of being totally alone. Between wife one and two, I had been steadily married since when I was in the military approximately thirty years before .Through my tears, I reached out to my feminine inner self for comfort. Off came the beard and on came the makeup as I set out to rebuild what was left of my life. It took awhile for my confidence and mental health to improve as I was suddenly able free to explore a world I had only ever just dreamed of. The pressure was relieved and I could finally enjoy where I was headed again and I could take it. I didn't want to self destruct. 

Day Dreamer

 

Recent PicNic. Liz on Right.

Throughout all the years of my life, I wish I could reclaim just a small portion of the time I lost day dreaming of my gender issues.

Of course I am referring to are the times when I zoned out of my reality into a world where I left my unwanted male world behind and live as a female. I vividly remember having a complete crush on the girls who sat around me during study halls in junior high as well as high school. I never had a sexual crush, I really wanted to be them. During the years which followed, my feelings towards women never really changed until I married and began to have a differing view of women after observing them close up. I found in many ways, women and men face similar challenges. Just on different stages. 

Through it all, I wanted to still be feminine and spent plenty of time thinking and worrying about the process. During the Vietnam War era, I was jealous of women since they couldn't be drafted into the military which was probably my peak of wanting to be a female. For awhile, during the rigors of going through Army Basic Training, I was able to briefly escape the even stronger stresses of living with gender problems. I say briefly,  because it wasn't very long until my old gender issues returned. In fact, one of my best day dreams was to reappear in front of my fiancé who ditched me just before I was to leave to join the military. In the worst way, I wanted to come back in a new car looking better than she did. Revenge would be sweet but it never came. You might say, as I grew into my authentic self, I moved past her altogether. 

It ended up requiring nearly a total male to female gender transition for me to mostly completely lose being a day dreamer. The more issues and even problems I encountered as a transgender woman taught me I didn't have to day dream about the transition process any longer. As I said, it is important to note not all the day dreams I felt turned out to be good. I ended up living through too many negative life experiences which for the most part revolved around my new appearance and where I tried to do in my new life. Perhaps one of the main lessons I learned was women were always on stage. Men admired them from one angle while other women did also for totally different reasons. It was quite the learning process and robbed me of any extra time I had to day dream.

Sadly, we only have one life to live and I can't go back and reclaim any of the time and energy I lost when I was a novice transgender woman. On the other hand, the experiences I gained from my life could not be traded for anything I could have ever expected. Now my day dream problem has been reversed so I don't live too much in the past.  

Multiple Transitions

 An acquaintance of mine on Facebook (Joni) recently wrote a post concerning an encounter she had with a cis female friend who all of the sudden  "slipped" up and called her by the correct pronouns which I assume was different because how Joni (left) responded to it. 

She (Joni) responded the whole process just seemed to take a while with her friend to actually transition with her.

I believe there are multiple transitions involved with something as complex as a human gender change. Personally, I think I can recall of at least one major transition when I went from being what I referred to as a cross dresser to a fully out in the world transgender woman.

Unfortunately, we lose sight of how hard it is for others around us to make the transition also. Once again, n my case, I will use my brother as an example. He told me he would always know me and refer to me as my old self. Shortly after that I ended up moving away and we never pursued my gender change any further. On occasion, I do feel guilty I didn't give him the chance to try to transition with me. 

So, as we proceed down this very complex and long journey, we find there is no easy answer to the amount of transitions we go through. Some transgender women go down the surgical path to what they consider "the final solution"  then again, some don't. 

Along the way, somehow we have to consider those making the transition with us. Some never make the journey for what ever reason but some do. Making room for those that do is the essence of being an understanding transgender woman. It's exceedingly hard to do on such an often lonely path we didn't choose to accept but somehow find away to exist with. The whole process has a tendency to make us seem selfish.

As you can see from the picture, Joni has transitioned well. To my knowledge she hasn't had any surgery but has been on HRT for several years. Congratulations on others around her accepting her for  true self! 

The High Maintenance Gender

 As I began my transition years ago into a full time feminine world, I learned the hard way what I suspected all along. Being a woman would prove to be infinitely more difficult than I thought it would be.

 Most certainly in my cross dressing days, I did learn the basics of looking like a woman but as my wife always told me, I really didn't know anything about being a woman. In fact, one of our fights ended up in her telling me I would make a terrible woman. She later went on to explain to me her statement had nothing to do with how I looked.

What she didn't take into consideration was all the years I had studied all women so intently. Including the time I worked in a predominately woman dominated business. So all I had to do was to step up my game even farther. 

I am fond of pointing out my first  major learning experience in my male to female gender transition came as I learned how women communicate between themselves often by using visual cues more than the straight forward ones used by men. I tied my experiences in with a couple I already knew. Women operate on a passive aggressive basis and are more apt to form cliques rather than teams men form. 

The more I was able to get out and try to live a feminine life, I found out my wife was right and I changed.  To make matters worse, she passed away before she ever had a chance to see my transition.

So, applying the makeup and picking the perfect outfit is gratifying all the way to being fun, is all still icing on the cake.

Being able to reinvent yourself as your authentic self is so deeply satisfying. Proving once again living the layered life of a woman proves you belong in the sandbox of the high maintenance gender.