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| JJ Hart (left) with wife Liz. |
Just a man in a dress has been used to describe me in my past.
I suppose it was true to an extent when I was a part-time
cross-dresser. But it all changed when I finally grasped the idea, I was so
much more than a cross dresser, I was transgender. Ironically, the idea came to
me out of the blue one night when I was going out to be alone. As I was
applying my makeup and getting dressed, it occurred to me that my life was
different. Instead of just wanting to look like a woman, I wanted to
interact with the world as a woman. The whole idea terrified me, but I knew
if I was successful, my life would never be the same again.
To be successful, I knew I needed to be very careful to
blend in with the professional women I had seen previously in the venue I chose
for my grand experiment. To scout it out, I went there as a man to get my
potential timing down. Once I did, it was time to try to increase my confidence
and calm the major fear that I had that I would be called out as a man in a
dress. Looking back, I think I sat in my car for a half hour adjusting my
makeup, before I gathered the courage to go in. Making a long story short, I
was successful and managed to even stay for an extra drink before I left and I
was right, I knew my life would never be the same again. I had crashed through
my cross-dressing barrier and landed comfortably in the transgender phase of my
life.
As I changed, I had the baggage of two worlds to bring with
me. One was my past as a man and the second was my experience as a
crossdresser. Of the two, my male past was the most difficult to shake, mainly because
I had worked so hard to maintain it. I desperately did not want anyone to see I
was feminine at all. It turned out I was so successful portraying a man, that
everyone I knew was surprised when I transitioned. It was difficult to explain
to them I was so much more than a man in a dress, I was a transfeminine person.
Then I needed to explain what I meant about that. At that point, I found actions
spoke louder than words and they had to see me repeatedly as my dominant
feminine self to understand where my life really was.
These days I am so fortunate to be surrounded by people who
accept me for who I really am, so much more than just a man in a dress. They shield
me from all of the evil stupidity coming down from the orange felon and his
minions in the white house. I feel so sorry for the transgender troops who were
loyal, qualified members of the miliary who lost their jobs out of ignorance. You
all know how I feel about what is going on in Washington, so I don’t have to
repeat myself, and ruin this post.
As far as the day-to-day world went for me, I discovered I
was remembered easily, so it was not too difficult to begin to build a new feminine
person from scratch. I needed to decide on basics such as wearing the same wig
and using the same name to get me by. What I was doing was changing wigs and
names thinking the process would help me pass magically as the woman I so
desperately wanted to me. What I learned was, there were no shortcuts on my male
to female transition path. If I was going to make it to my goal of living
fulltime as a woman. I also quickly realized, once someone saw me a couple
times as my authentic self, they knew I was much more than a man in a dress.
My disclaimer in all of this is, I am not in any way putting
myself up on a pedestal and saying I am better than a cross dresser. On the
other hand, the opposite is true. I appreciate the time I spent crossdressing. The
whole experience taught me so much. Perhaps the biggest lesson was I could make
it to my dream of transgender womanhood if I worked hard enough. I most
certainly did not think at any point my journey would be as complex as it was. I
found to be successful; I needed to be better in life than the average
cisgender woman who had huge benefits on me from growing up female. Catching up
proved to be difficult to do as my gender workbook was blank. As I always say,
I am not taking all of the credit for my success and putting myself up on some
crowded pedestal. I found cisgender women to help me.
They realized early I was so much more than a man in a dress
and stepped up to help me into their world.
