Just Stay Out of My Lane

 

Image from Navid Solrabi
on UnSplash.

One of the many delights I encountered when I set out on my male to female femininization project was the amount of attention I was receiving from the ciswomen around me.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I received very little attention from men, probably because I was not attractive enough. Even still, there were the occasional experiences when I let men into my lane out of pure curiosity. I wondered how it would be to be treated as a woman by a man on a date.

Curiously, my first date to dinner was from a lesbian who went on to transition into and live as a trans man. Later on when we talked, he always chided me about how scared I was that night. I never told him, but one of the reasons was I felt he could physically overpower me if he wanted to. One way or another, the evening was so different that I never forgot it.

Other men I ended upgoing out with in my exploration days mostly ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time to ever get serious. Take for example the big, bearded man who I grew close to after his ill-fated wedding to another exotic woman I knew. While others in the group we were a part of either shunned or made fun of him, I was the opposite, an understanding shoulder to talk to. It was so new and different to me and it felt so natural and good that I could react to a man that way. Before I knew it, he transferred out of town on his job, and I never saw him again.

The only other man of note that I enjoyed my self with was Bob, who I was able to go out with only one time because again I was in the wrong place at the wrong time to seriously get involved. Since he lived far away and was just traveling through where I lived in Ohio, we were able to set up a date in a regular sports bar I went to near Dayton, Ohio. Long story short, I let him in my lane and for the first time in my life felt like a woman on a date she enjoyed. We talked, laughed and he even sang karaoke to me. All too soon the magical night was over, and we went our separate ways after a long passionate kiss, never to meet in person again.

For some reason, I continued to be drawn to ciswomen, and them to me. I primarily think it was because most women were curious about me. What was I doing in their world and how different was I. Since women are fortunate to not have the sexuality hang ups men have, I found all but the most hard-core lesbian haters were intrigued by me. I think too, the honesty I portrayed in my life helped my appeal with the women I met who had encounters with men in their lives such as having kids. What worked for me was, I did not have to consider changing my sexuality around and I was used to the specific gender drama I would be facing with women, not men. Who of course I understood too but they did not want anything to do with me, so why bother. I was much more than a fetish object.

I was also having the time of my life as I escaped the extreme loneliness I was feeling after my wife passed away by going to lesbian mixers with my friends. I found that often I was the one doing the mixing as sometimes I was the one out of three of us who was hit on. I was in the lane I wanted to be in for sure. Plus, in many ways, I am still in that lane, as I formed a long-term relationship with one of the lesbians I met and we are still happily married to this day.

From my wife, I have been able to fill in many of the blanks I had in my gender workbook growing up as an unwilling boy. I learned not everything was pleasant as a young girl when I learned the reality of what went on in life with parents and friends. Not being allowed behind the gender curtain when I was young really took a toll on me. It took me years to catch up to what all cis women already knew, and they always made gentle fun of me and said welcome to our world. What they did not know was how badly I wanted to be in their lane.

Now that I have been in their lane for years, I have grown quite comfortable and confident in my surroundings. In fact, I feel as if I have spent my entire life here and most of my male life was a bad dream that I needed to live through to arrive at where I am today. And even though I struggled through much of my male existence, he still taught me how to be strong when I needed it. To maintain the strength to keep my lane the way I wanted it in a transfeminine world.

Even though I had many close calls and bumps and bruises along the way, my interactions with women and men let me choose the lane I wanted to be in. I consider myself to be fortunate in that I survived one of the most difficult transitions a human can undertake. Changing one’s gender is a basic human need and is never easy to change. Before you know it, you can find yourself in a bumper car-like zone and need to get out. I was especially successful when I finally chose my lane and stayed there. No more switching back and forth which was hard on my already fragile mental health. Plus, I felt good when I had the confidence to keep others out of my lane so I could experience it on my terms with no more blind curves and huge hills to climb.

 

Honesty was Always the Best Policy

 

Image from Jon Tyson on 
UnSplash. 

Very early on in my life, I thought my default mechanism to anyone challenging my masculinity would be to lie about it. Fortunately, I did not have to take that route often because of all the elaborate ways I utilized to hide my feminine desires. Examples were the times I was competing in sports or working on cars. People close to me just assumed I was a “normal” male.

It wasn’t until much later in life when I began to get serious about dating women, did honesty become a real priority when it came to explaining my life. My first experience with telling a woman I was serious about, has been relayed several times here as recently as in the last several days. She is the one I coerced into dressing me head to toe as a woman which was the first time a ciswoman had attempted to do it for me. The whole plan turned out to be a disaster because of so many things. As I have mentioned before, I just wasn’t that impressed with the outcome she presented to me as she applied my makeup and the long blond wig I so desperately wanted. By then, I had spent years doing my own makeup and I thought I did a better job.

Little did I know that disappointment would only be the beginning of many with her. Being honest in our relationship early on led to an engagement but then a total break up because of a date I had with Uncle Sam and the Vietnam War. Rather than support me as I served, my then fiancé insisted I tell the draft board and the world I was gay to try to not get drafted which would have been a total lie. I knew I was a cross dresser but also had a pretty good idea I was not gay. Instead of wrecking my personal life as I knew it, we broke the engagement and went on our not so merry ways. I knew where I was headed, the US Army for three years. It was not the most pleasant time I ever spent in my life, but at least I was honest with myself.

Time went by in the Army until I found myself in a place to exercise some of my cross-dressing desires by going to a hospital Halloween party I was invited to by friends. By doing so, I through caution to the wind and decided to go all out dressed as a woman. I only had about eight months or so to go in the Army, so I was willing to risk getting in trouble to satisfy my need to cross-dress after such a long time of being denied.

All three of my closest friends that I socialized with all the time were at the party too, and as luck would have it, several weeks later, the subject of our “costumes” came up after a long night of enjoying very good German beer. When my turn came to talk about how I had went to all the effort to femininize myself for one night (including shaving my legs), I finally just was honest with my friends and told them I was a transvestite and the Halloween party was far from being just a one night deal of seeing what it would be like to dress as a woman. It was the first time I had ever admitted to anyone that I had a fondness for being a woman, so it was quite the liberating experience.

It was also a far-reaching experience because included in my group of friends was a woman who I got to know quite well. So, well in fact that later on we went on to be married and she became the mother of my only daughter who I cherish to this day and is one of my biggest supporters. Obviously, from day one in our relationship, she was aware of my feminine desires and accepted them.

Much of the same happened with my second wife, who was much more strong willed than wife number one. Even so, I felt honesty was the best policy and I nervously told her again I was a transvestite or cross-dresser before we were married. Ironically, the problem came with me not cheating on her with myself. What I was increasingly doing was doing exactly what I had sworn not to do. Leave the house dressed as a woman. By doing so, I broke one of the main bonds of our marriage which was not lying to her about what I was doing all the time.

Needless to say, like any other ciswoman, my second wife had keen instincts of what I was doing and was constantly on the outlook for things like extra forgotten makeup on my face when I was out and about as a novice trans woman. Since I prided myself in the rest of my life on my honesty, the constant lying I was doing to the woman I loved broke my heart. Especially when I could not stop doing it.

My heart was further shattered when she passed away quite unexpectedly from a massive heart attack and I was on my own after twenty-five years of marriage. The only redeeming thing I did was completely purge my feminine side for six months before she died. Even to the point of growing a beard. It was the only thing I could do to try to redeem myself.

Ironically, her death forced open the biggest door to my honesty there was, being honest with myself. When I looked deep, I found that all along I had been just wasting my time trying to be a man with all the privilege that came with it. I had learned to play the male game effectively but did not want any thing to do with my gender prizes after I won them. Being honest with myself for a change was the best feeling of all except I did feel guilty about all the stress and tension I had put others through because of my inner weakness. Total honesty certainly would have been the best policy in my life.

 

 

 

 

What Makes You...You

 

JJ Hart

Recently, I have taken an informal poll with my wife Liz. We walk a lot and stop to talk to our neighbors quite a bit. Just once I would like to ask the neighbors, we see what makes them, them. Just kidding of course, I can’t imagine doing such a thing in our neighborhood. If I did, I would guess that they would all take for granted their gender and they would look at me as if I was crazy.

Predictably, the women who live on both sides of us are very friendly and the men are rather standoffish to me which brings me to my point of what is up with the men in the world today. First of all, as difficult as it is to being a woman today, in many ways, being a man carries its own set of potential problems. Primarily, having a very fragile idea of their own sexuality. Plus, men are still expected to be primary providers in many families which is added pressure not to lose your job.

For me, growing up, my gender became an early issue, but my sexuality never did as I was attracted to all things woman. At least, in my mind, I had one constant to hang on to about what made me, me.

As I started to grow into myself, I began to understand the differences in what I was facing which were different than the mass majority of the other men around me. When I inwardly did not embrace the male culture, I was born into of competition and posturing, all it caused was extreme mental conflict. Which I am or was sure the other men around me did not have to deal with. Most of my stress was caused by the pressure I put on myself in the highly competitive restaurant business I was in. Even though I was outwardly very successful, inside I wanted to run and hide as my increasingly transfeminine self. At the same time, I wished I could just be like the other men around me and not have to carry around the gender issues I carried. I was resentful either way I turned by not being the ciswoman I wanted to be or the man I always was.

At the same time as all of this was happening, I went exploring in the world as my exciting yet terrified new feminine self. The first move I made was to transition for the second time in my life from being what I perceived as an innocent guy who just liked to look like a woman, all the way to a guy who wanted to be a woman and see if she could interact one on one with other cis women when I was out. Which took me to the fateful evening at TGIF Fridays when I finally decided I had enough of what used to make me, me and wanted a change. As frightened as I was of losing my male privileges, I went ahead with the move, was successful and knew my life would never be the same again.

As I continued my explorations into the new me, I had glimpses of how my life as a transgender woman could be and could not get enough of the learning process, I was a part of. I made it a point to try new situations as a trans woman that I always wanted to be a part of when I was on the outside looking in as a man. I tried gay bars, lesbian bars and even the big sports bars I was familiar with as a guy before I settled into a venue where I was accepted and felt comfortable. In other words, I was involved with learning what made me, me. Something I had been missing my entire life.

I do believe if you are starting your gender journey from scratch these days, you may feel the same sort of resentment I felt when I started, which was something like why me? It was not until I embraced who I really was and learned the benefits of being able to see and live out both sides of the binary gender spectrum. In my case, I needed to put the feminine image I saw in the mirror to the test in the public’s eye to see if I could really pass the public’s scrutiny. Until you get out of your mirror and prepare for the bumps and bruises of your gender path, you will know the truth about yourself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going back to being a cross dresser in your closet or a transfeminine person in the world.

As gender challenged transgender women or trans men, we face many uphill battles that other women and men don’t have to face. Such as the basis of our gender at all. It is one of the basics of human nature that we take our gender for granted, but what if we don’t? Then the search starts for who you really are and what makes you, you.

 

 

 

 

It is Right When you Know it Is

 

Image from Caroline Herman
on UnSplash.

Some have asked me over the years, when did I know it was the right time for me to leave my closet and emerge into the world as a transgender woman. It is a complex question with a very easy answer. I always knew I was having problems with my gender but did not have a clue for years what to do about it.

The only relief I had was the brief time I had to rapidly cross dress in front of the mirror, away from my family and friends. Even when I was able to accomplish my goal of looking like a pretty girl, I still was aware deep down that something was not right with my life. In my own way, I set out to find any gender solutions I could, on my own, with no available sources to aid me. Plus, at the time, my male self was rapidly settling into a relatively successful life, and he wanted nothing to do giving up any of it to my inner feminine self. It turned out, this would be a battle I would have had to face for decades of my life to come. I would spend any available free time I had as a cross dresser, only to have what I learned rejected when I went back to my male life.

The only thing which kept me going was the deep idea I had that what I was doing was actually the natural part of my existence. And the parttime male life was an act. The act which became so good over the years that I shocked a number of people I knew when I finally came out as a transgender woman. I always had assumed they had thought something was up with me when they saw me at Halloween parties dressed as a woman but never did. It was like my male self-tried to dig a deep hole to bury my female self was never quite successful as she kept digging herself out.

The years at that point seem to fly by with the continuing fights with my second wife over considering if I was transgender at all and at the same time, me improving my transfeminine presentation during the times I was out in the public’s eye. I started to do more than just walk around in malls to see if I could present well and started to accomplish small tasks such as doing part of the family grocery shopping as a woman. I found I could do the tasks, and my life began to feel so natural again. The opposite of when I needed to go back to living as a man. It seemed unfair to me when my wife and my male self-ganged up on me to protect their interests in the relationship and I did not know what to do because I was just doing what was becoming more natural to me.

All the infighting only did one thing and that was prolonging the truth from coming out. I had always been destined to be feminine and when the time was right, I would be able to claim my birthright. The longer I lived as a transgender woman among ciswomen I knew I was in the right spot and had to face the facts about myself. My wife unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack leaving only my male self to protest any idea of me being trans and starting the HRT medical treatment. Under a doctor’s care of course.

Finally, when faced with the reality of my future life, my male self-gave in to my inner feminine self who had waited so long to live and prosper. More importantly, I was tired of all the internal fighting and knew I had readied myself to make a choice. All the frustrating years of playing with makeup and clothes came back to help me. I did not have to worry so much about my presentation when I made the decision to permanently be in the public’s eye as a transgender woman. I found a great majority of the world either didn’t pay any attention or were just curious of me which was a great surprise. I could relax and enjoy the wonderful new world I had always dreamed of.

When I finally stopped the gender in-fighting I suffered through all those years, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders at the age of sixty. Why I waited so long to face my true self in the mirror and decide to do the right thing will forever be a mystery to me. My only excuse is, I just knew the time was right.

 

In the Wrong Room?

 

JJ Hart ahead of first Girl's Night Out.

When I first jumped out of my dark closet and into the bright world, I wondered if I had jumped into the wrong room.

There are other words for my feelings such as impostor syndrome, but I was not far enough along in my transgender development to know them. All I did know was I was feeling ill at ease when I was with another group of women. Which was nearly fatal mistake when it came to being accepted. I discovered how perceptive ciswomen were in their world and could spot a fake miles away. So, I worked hard to show them my truth. I really wanted to earn my way into their world.

It took quite a bit of work and time but slowly I began to be invited to special girls’ nights outs. I never turned down an invitation no matter how terrified I was of going until I began to feel as if I was not in the wrong room after all. It helped when I paid attention to what the other women were doing and saying, and I tried to do the same. As I suspected, the conversations revolved around family and kids, so even though I could not share any birth stories, I could talk about my daughter as a loving parent. A door was opening for me to enter a world I had always dreamed of as an equal, and I cherished my opportunity to learn.

I discovered too that most of the other invitees accepted me easily except for a few I rather not mention. No matter how much they glared at me, I was able to ignore them and have a good time. I was learning I had as much of a reason to be in the room as they did, an invitation from the alpha female gatekeeper who I respected completely for her diverse beliefs. In her life, she was her own contradiction in terms as I saw her. Primarily a strong Christian woman who accepted me for who I was.

On the other hand, men were a completely different story. From the time I started my male to female transition, I was ushered out of the boy’s club I had become a comfortable member of. I learned relatively quickly on the few dates I went out on with men to be quiet and let them lead. No matter how mundane the subject, and how much I knew about it. It worked as I settled into a new world having a lesser IQ. My dates were so rare with men that I never had a chance to feel the chill of being kicked out into a new world I always wanted to live in.

In short, I was thriving in my world and all thoughts of being in the wrong gender room went away. I was in no way an impostor and I deserved to be there. Rather than having a fancy new handbag, I had a fancy new confidence to go with everything else good which was happening for me.

Sadly, the only remaining problems were the same massive ones I refused to face. What was I going to do about my spouse who did not want to live with a woman, all the way to how I was going to support myself financially if I decided to jump the gender border from a male life, I was successful at, to a female one which was largely untested. Helping me along was the knowledge of knowing from all my ciswoman interaction in the real world was successful. It would be difficult, but I knew deep down I could make it. Mainly because the whole process seemed so natural to me.

Finally, I realized I was living my whole life backwards. I was always fighting the idea I was a man trying to be a woman. When in fact the opposite was true. I was a woman all along trying to be a man. It was no wonder I did not feel at home in either of the two main binary genders, male and female. And until I chose the right room, my life and mental health would never improve.

It seemed destiny was on my side as I made the journey into the transfeminine gender side of life. To arrive I had the cruel death of my wife (as well as other close friends to deal with) plus closing my business to overcome. Against all odds, my wife Liz found me online of all places and helped me to rebuild my shattered life. I was able to locate the proper feminine room and stay there.

The Same Old Road

Image from Danijel Skabic
on UnSplash. 

Quite early in life, I grew tired of the same old gender path I was on. Although I could not exactly put a finger on what was wrong with me, I knew something was. What is that definition of insanity? When you do something over and over again and have the same results, I think it is.

Also quite early, I thought I was the crazy one because of my deep-seated desire to be a girl when I was being forced into being a boy from birth. Little did I know, I was destined to become a late gender transitioner in life and must deal with my own form of insanity for fifty years, before I had the courage to do something about it and get off the same old gender road I was on.

As I traveled, it seemed like I was getting better than ever at finding every bump, curve and pothole along the way. Possibly, I was attempting to make my male to female journey even harder, just to prove I could do it. As I like to say, my gender workbook was blank and everyone around me could tell it. Plus, when I first began to get serious about trying out my feminine self in the world, the only outlet I had were the annual Halloween parties I went to. Early on I tried to dress sexy/trashy and then after a couple of years built myself up to trying to present as a cisgender woman at the party. Which surprisingly I was able to do way back when I was still into Halloween as my outlet from the same old gender road.

The best part was, I was able to locate side roads along the way as I was able to present better in the world as a transgender woman. The side roads enabled me to explore different rabbit holes and dead ends to see if I could survive in a new exciting environment. When I had the courage to do it, the road actually smoothed out for me, and I enjoyed myself more than I could ever dreamed I could. Even with all new gender euphoria I was experiencing, I still had to be more careful than ever that I did not crash and burn my male life…yet. I still needed him and what he could provide such as all the male privileges he had worked so hard to earn.

One way or another, I was definitely not on the same old road as I continued to experiment with living as a transfeminine person. I made mini bucket lists of the new things I needed to accomplish each day as a transgender woman and set out to do them. The list could be as small as working on a more feminine walk, all the way to going to a new venue I had never been to before as a trans woman. More often than not, I found the world accepted me as just another woman and did not really care. The whole experience was a confidence booster and enabled me to travel roads which were not the same old ones I was experiencing as a man. One of the main road twists I always mention was when I was able to escape the gay venues I was going to and finding other lesbian or straight venues which supported me.

Suddenly, I was having so much fun choosing all the new roads I found, I had a difficult time deciding where I was going to go. I never thought I was any good at road building until those exciting days when I was finding myself in the world. Some nights, I even felt like I was on some sort of a feminine interstate highway with all the interaction I was having with cisgender women I ran into. Sadly, I finally needed to slow down before I wrecked and burnt myself out, but not before I experienced more than I ever thought I could. My dream life was right down the road, if I could just reach it. I stopped, looked around and I found, all those years thinking I was crazy because of my gender issues were wrong, and I should have listened to myself long ago and I would not have to gone down all the rabbit holes I went down and then being stopped at dead end streets to prove to myself I was still the man I never was.

I was never good at auto mechanics as a man, and it showed when I tried to keep driving down the same old gender roads. As a transgender woman, I was able to take the pressure off driving down the same old roads.  

 

  

The Second Time Around

 

JJ Hart (middle) at my first
Girls' Night Out. 

If you are one of the rare human beings to experience a second time around in life, you owe it to yourself and others to live it the best you can.

Being transgender can give you that rare insight into two of the main binary genders which should give you an edge in dealing with the everyday world. Having an intimate knowledge of whatever the other gender maybe thinking of us as trans women or trans men brings out fear in the public's eye. Who are we to possess such a wonderful scope of knowledge anyhow? It is especially bad with the male gender who has such a poor grasp of their sexuality to begin with. I know when I transitioned from male to female, one of my main concerns was my own sexuality. Was I expected to suddenly change my sexual preferences which had always been with women and suddenly start liking men. I even went to the point when I first came out when a straight woman friend of mine told me to buy bananas and practice. I will let your imagination do the rest.

We all know though there is so much more to a gender transition than sex when you set yourself up for the second round in life. I found I was leaving a life as a man where I was mildly successful and entering a totally new world full of women who were able and willing to question my existence in their world at all. Away from men, the women were a complex tribe, and it was difficult for me to be given the access to play with them behind the obvious gender curtains. First and foremost, just looking like a woman just got me in the game and the difficult part was just beginning. I spent hours and hours in the world just learning how to be the new me.

Suddenly, before I knew it, the doors to a totally different world opened for me and I was invited to the girls’ night’s outs. The invites could never replace the learning experiences young girls have when they are in their formative years and they get to go to girls’ overnighters with friends, but they were all I had to attempt to catch up on my gender homework. No chance to experiment with makeup or gossip about boys or other girls.

The main problem was, I had another male life to deal with at the same time. Looking back, I don’t know how or why I put up with all the gender stress and tension I did to make it to my dream. I guess the reason was I did not have the confidence to know if I could make such a major life changing step at all. We all have a lot to lose when we undertake such a step, don’t we? Plus, as I slid towards the idea I could live fulltime as a transgender woman, I was being accused of being selfish. Which made me feel guilty until I finally came to the conclusion I was being selfish. Because I had to save my own life.

As I was accepted into the girls’ sandbox around me by the majority of the women around me, my confidence grew that I could indeed live a second time around life as a transfeminine person. My long hidden inner female took over and surprisingly became a rather social person as I formed bonds with my small group of lesbian friends which was the best of all worlds for me. As I always say, the first and main thing my friends taught me was I did not need a man for validation. Which included my sexuality. All I needed to do was still keep an eye out for the rare bigot who hated me for no real reason. It turned out the haters would have to go through my cisgender friends to get to me, if they wanted to.

At that point in time, I met my wife Liz, and my second time around became easier and easier for me to live up to. I say live up to because I found myself at a point where I always dreamed of being. But I never thought I could make it. Never say never became a reality for me when Liz told me she never saw anything male about me. I was in gender heaven and stayed there until I realized what a heavy burden I needed to face. Here I was with the rare chance for a do over in my life and to not repeat the same mistakes I made as a man.

So far so good I think as I head down the stretch run of my life and I can be thankful for the chance to live two lives regardless of what the gender haters say.