Gender Gatekeepers in the Way?

 

Image from UnSplash

Perhaps you have gender gatekeepers blocking your gender transformation.

It is often a hot button issue for people drawn into the fray by unreasoning political debates which more times than not center around transgender girls in sports as well as trans women and men using the restroom of their choice. The problem is we all have had the gender label slapped on us from birth if we liked it or not. And what’s that old saying about everyone having assumptions? Everyone has one…Well that certainly applies to gender also. Gender is such a powerful building block for humans today, as they think they are vested in a certain gender simply by being born into it.

As far as gatekeepers go, leading the charge along with the religious right are the Trans- Exclusionary Radical Feminists or TERF’s for short. Mainly TERF’s arrived on the scene around 2008 as a way to block transgender women from having any access to women’s only spaces. Even though I would venture a guess that the average trans gatekeeper has heard the TERF term at all, she still attempts to practice it. My prime example was the night a ciswoman was yelling at me at the top of her lungs in a women’s rest room (at a venue I was a regular at) by calling me a pervert for just trying to pee. After she backed down, I got her to even give me a card to her beauty salon she ran, so I could pass it along to the very powerful LGBTQIA+ organization in town. Even though I emerged with a modest sense of success, the experience still influences me to this day. Even though I have been able to use the women’s room for years now with no problems.

Another problem I see in our trans world today are the people who assume (yes, I used that word again) that they have reached a certain age, they can be anointed with the term woman or man. When becoming a woman or a man is a socialized term and just because you were born female or male, you don’t have an automatic right to it. Beyond everything else I have gone through to achieve a transfeminine womanhood; this fact has given me more confidence than anything else when I am being stared down by an unfriendly person anywhere, I go. Chances are, I have gone through more to achieve my womanhood than they had, mine just came from a radically different path. Plus, it was more mentally driven as I rejected the gender status I was born with.

Even so, it took me a long time to not fear the gatekeepers who were trying to keep me from experiencing my dream goal of slipping behind the gender curtain and seeing if I wanted to permanently live there. To do so, I needed to take chances with my male life which had provided me with so many positives. Also, I needed to overcome the haters who thought I was up to no good as I tried to learn a new world.

From my days dealing with serving teams in the restaurant business, I learned of the power of Alpha-females. Or I discovered once I was accepted by the Alpha women in the bunch, the easier time I would have it. Many times, my plan worked to perfection when my gatekeepers paved the way for me and opened doors, I never thought possible. I was approached for the first time in my life by well meaning women who were curious about me and more importunately shunned by potentially toxic men.

As I bring up the gender with the frail sexuality (men) I need to mention most all of them were all too happy to act as gatekeepers to me. Unless they wanted to treat me as some sort of a fetish object, they were all too happy to slam the door on me. Even the gay men who just saw me as another drag queen. I grew used to having my hands well out of the way when I was dealing with a cisman.

The more I tested the public as a novice cross-dresser or transgender woman, the more skilled I became on testing the gatekeepers I was going to face. My biggest drawback by far was adjusting to the passive aggressive attacks from ciswomen who for one reason or another were out to get me. I learned a smile from some women was just masking their claws that were out to get me and I needed to move on from them quickly. As I learned, the more I was able to become my own gatekeeper and even help a few others come out for the first time themselves in the public’s eye. I was humbled and flattered anytime it happened to me.

Today I believe that the government gender gatekeepers have been emboldened by their recent political successes. But even that is being challenged here in backwards Ohio as the number one anti-LGBTQ politician in the state is being charged with child sex crimes. I bet that sounds familiar right? Whatever comes from the charges here in solid red (conservative) Ohio, it is the slightest chink in the armor of the heavily gerrymandered Republican party and brighter days may be ahead of us.

What it has to do with you is an incredible chance to vote and change the system. No matter if you are a beginning cross-dresser looking for answers in your dark closet, or an out and about transgender woman or transgender man, you need to have your voice heard. Because when you finally make it out of your closet, you will need the fewest gatekeepers in your way as you follow your gender path. Look at them as some sort of a gender haunted house of scary attractions you have to overcome to make it.

Gatekeepers can be won over and help you to survive in the world if you are a survivor and want to make it. It is a learning experience but an interesting one if you take the time to enjoy it.

 

 

 

Existing in a Male World from the Perspective of a Trans Man

Image from Nicola Dowie
on UnSplash. 

 

In response to yesterday's post praising transgender men, I received a comment from “Gio”, a trans man who follows my writings and thoughts.

Here is his comment word for word on what he has gone through during his transition from female to male:

“Thank you JJ for this nod. You know, they are a tough bunch, on the exterior. They are also exhausting. Try to teach them how to be a real gentleman and right out of the gate they label you a sissy. I always counter with being raised to respect and honor women. In the Italian Culture in which I was raised the women were savvy. The women in my family ran the show and they somehow left the men feeling like they were in charge. I witnessed this with my parents (first generation born in America) and my grandparents (immigrants - who escaped Mussolini; everything old becomes new again but that's another story). The Cis men I encounter, many of whom are wealthy Trump supporters, posit they own their women. She is to do what they say. A woman, if raped, deserved it because of how they acted or what they wore. It boggles my mind. So, I remind them that women are to be revered, they remain underpaid yet they have more talent than their male counterparts. I remind them that if married they took a vow to cherish and protect their wives. I could go on and on here. Suffice to say, it’s usually a bipartisan type of conversation and they often end pleasantly. Luckily, I've not been fired yet because mostly these are the people who keep me employed. I'm also amused by how they request me as their chauffeur to drive their wives and daughters. It's these little things that cause a ripple effect”. First of all, “Gio” thanks for the comment!

I really liked your insight into how exhausting men are because on the few times I went out with a man, I could not relax and be myself when I was catering to his ego. In my family growing up, we were a heavily male influenced crew but like you, mom ran the show from behind the scenes, so I learned a lot from her on how to be a woman, She is rolling over in her grave as we speak to hear of such a thing but it is true.

Fortunately, since I am retired, I don’t have to worry about working with any tRumpters and their backward gender ideas. But when I was employed, I always did my best to protect and advance the careers of the ciswomen around me. To the point of even hiring a transgender server at one of the restaurants I worked at. Sadly, I was transferred and she was fired by the next manager, but I tried to do my part.

Looking back, it was my love of sports and military service which kept me from wearing the “Sissy” tag early in my life and when I advanced as far as I did up the business ladder I was in, I understood that males form teams and I was able to benefit from that even though I detested everything I was doing most of the time when I needed to play the gender game I was in. Maybe the whole time, I was exhausted too about playing the male game and just wanted out to go to my transfeminine world. I took what my mom taught (more than dad) and was able to beat the system which was stacked against me.

When we are transgender, it is certainly a complicated world we live in when we need to go outside the confines of a so-called normal world. The old world is on its way out and hopefully a younger more progressive gender-neutral generation will power a better world. Especially for transgender men such as “Gio” who was kind enough to share his thoughts with us on his world.

 

It Is the Fourth of July and are We Better Off?

 

Image from Ben Maher
on UnSplash.

It’s the Fourth of July and a time to celebrate the first two hundred fifty years of the United States.

I don’t want to be negative, but I am wondering what there is to celebrate if you are a transgender woman or transgender man. Making my point was the recent crooked Supreme Court decision which rejected helping trans athletes around the country by denying the request and sending it back to the states where they know the heavily gerrymandered Republican legislatures will keep rejecting our rights. Here in my native Ohio, the ruling was the kiss of death for the very few transgender athletes who could have benefitted from it.

Then there is the ongoing dilemma of what to do about our rapidly decaying dementia ridden convict/traitor in the White House he is trying to destroy. What will he try to do next is the problem when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole.

As I always say, his effects cause harm to current out and visible transgender people as well as potential future harm to those of you in the closet who are seeking a way out. The most immediate way out is to NOT stay home and get out and vote for your freedom in November. You may desperately need those rights when you decide it is time to come out of the closet.

It is a difficult road we have chosen to live and holidays such as the Fourth of July spotlight the good and the bad that our country has chosen to do over the years such as take away the native American lands and build some of the new country on the backs of slavery. Certainly nothing to be proud of.

It all brings back remembrances of the T-shirt I wore to several Pride celebrations so long ago which said: I am a transgender veteran who fought for your rights to take away mine.

I just hope that none of the bleak scene I have painted is not too far gone to repair and my Social Security benefits continue to be there when I need them, and my transgender grandchild will be able to still work towards a bright future that they have.

I have every hope in the world that the old dinosaurs will fade away and a new generation can come along and right the ship before it is too late.

Finally, I am sorry I cannot come up with a more positive post on such an important day in our country’s history. But it would be dishonest of me to break my tradition of writing from the heart as the basis of doing this at all.

In the meantime, I still proudly display the flag I served in the past and hope for a better future.

 

 

 

Staying Calm as a Trans Person

 

Image from Matteo Vistocco
on UnSplash.

Many times, during our lives as transgender women and transgender men, staying calm in the face of adversity is not easy.

Perhaps the worst time I had staying calm ever in my life came fairly early on when I encountered a hostile, aggressive woman in a rest room I was simply using to pee. It all happened by accident when I was looking at the door of the women’s room at a venue where I normally had no problems, so I could judge when the room would be empty and safer to use. I had judged correctly, and the room was empty when I entered it and I had my choice of stalls. As I finished the business I came for, I left the stall and started to wash my hands when this woman burst through the door and started calling me a pervert, My first reaction was shock because I had never had any problems before from the staff when I used the woman’s room in that venue. Then, I became angry that this woman who was a total stranger to me was calling me a pervert.

My mind was turning quickly as I fought to stay calm and say something to the angry woman who was completely out of control and fortunately, she gave me the insight to do it. Somehow, in our brief conversation, I got out of her what she did for a living, and she said she owned her own beauty parlor. When she did, I asked her for a card so I could report her business to the very strong and influential LGBTQ organization in town during those days. I never got her card as she turned around and stomped out of the restroom, and I only saw her one more time walking past me in the venue. I glared at her as she refused to even make eye contact with me. So, at that moment staying calm (no matter how hard it was) worked for me.

It is my opinion that the ability to stay calm mainly comes from having confidence in yourself. Normally from years of interaction with the public as your authentic transfeminine self. Like anything else, confidence is very fragile and can be destroyed at any time as you advance up your gender path. You might think you have done the best makeup job ever and was able to find a comfortable outfit which really flattered you, only to find out it did not and you needed to go back home and try again to reset your confidence. There would have been no way early in my life that I could have ever survived the bus tour vacations that my wife Liz took me on where I needed to interact with many different ciswomen on the trip and get along with them in all the restrooms we encountered.

After I enhanced my feminine appearance and attitude with the HRT or gender affirming hormones I was approved for, I discovered a new calmness I had never known before in my life. Which probably came from the hormones themselves, and the fact I was no longer battling being something I just wasn’t. I had achieved all the male accolades and benefits I had ever dreamed of but then did not want them. And I was surprisingly calm when they all went away, never to return again.

Another big surprise was how calm I stayed when I was making more gender transitions in my life into my own form of transgender womanhood. I negotiated all the phases such as being terrified on occasion when I tried out new venues, all the way to when I was making several unexpected transitions, I did not see coming. Even though, I knew what was coming if I was able to survive or even be successful when I went out for the first time at “Fridays” to mingle with ciswomen just getting off of work at a nearby mall, I knew I could never go back to believing I was some sort of a weekend cross-dresser who wore women’s clothes as a hobby. It all was an extreme revelation to me, and I had a very difficult time staying calm through my whole adventure.

On the other hand, staying calm was much more difficult when it came to how fast I was being accepted in my desire to carve out my own transfeminine life. The public was accepting me way too fast and challenged my life and communication skills that I was always putting off. All my procrastination did me no good as the world came crashing in around me and I needed to do things such as feminine vocal lessons to catch up. Thankfully, the world gave me the chance to catch up and again I return to the new calmness I was feeling. These were the days when I was learning almost daily what I would need to do to survive as a trans woman in a sometimes-hostile world. Obviously, I did not want to be called a pervert again for simply wanting to pee. Perhaps I paid my dues, because nothing remotely coming close to that ever happened to me again.

Perhaps also, I am not giving the impact of the HRT hormones enough credit. Even with the minimum dosage I began with, I could feel substantial changes in how I viewed the world. The hormones simply took my male edge off and mellowed me right out like I had always been destined to take them.

Over the years, I have learned to try to separate the always present anxiety I feel about everyday life from the new calmness I have developed over the years. Which in turn has helped my fragile mental health. Which has been quite an accomplishment. Hopefully wherever you live, the anti-transgender pendulum has begun to swing back the other way for you. Even here in Republican led backwards Ohio where I am from, the leading anti-trans bigot in the legislature has his own problems after news surfaced of him being in bed with an underaged girl. Sounds familiar. Right?

Maybe the future is not so dim after all since the world is waking up to the fact that the transgender population is not the problem after all and the rest of the population needs to stay calm around us.

 

 

 

 

 

Endocrinologist Visit Today

 

JJ Hart at a recent
Cincinnati Pride. Ohio River
in background. 

Just a shorter post because my endocrinologist annual visit is today.

The only paranoia I have is that for some reason, she will not renew my HRT medications for Estradiol and Spironolactone. You may ask why I would have any nervous energy before my virtual appointment, and it is because I am part of the Veterans Administration health care system which is always making changes.

Recently, I had another one of my medical providers “retire” and I needed to switch my care from the Dayton VA to the Cincinnati VA which is closer to me. Fortunately, I was able to make it a seamless switch and even was able to visit my local VA clinic for my initial appointment with my new therapist, which I really liked. But all of that had to do with my mental health medications which the VA puts a higher priority on than prescribing medications which have made my gender transition possible. In fact, it was not so long ago that the orange felon in Washington DC assigned a new VA commissioner who was making threatening suggestions about doing away with gender affirming therapy in the VA altogether.

To my knowledge, nothing ever really became of that statement and the rank-and-file VA employees found ways of getting around it.

Another paranoia I have is my “Endo” in Dayton is being retired too and I will have to seek out new assistance in Cincinnati which in itself is not a bad thing except when it comes to where I must go for appointments. Going to the main VA hospital downtown is always a congested mess and I always must ask Liz to take me because of my mobility issues. If I can just go to my local clinic or have a virtual appointment, there are usually no problems.

My current “endo” usually prescribes me a years’ worth of medications unless there are any changes in my Estradiol blood levels. For some reason, after years of staying the same, my levels went down quite a bit on my last test. Which is the last thing I wanted to happen. So I will have to see what she says about it because I am still undecided on switching from patches to injections at my age.

Most importantly, I am who I am, and my HRT does not define me but it surely has helped. I will never forget all the extreme gender changes my new hormones put me through and would hate to lose all I gained. Who knows, maybe I am just building bridges to climb when I don’t have to with this upcoming appointment. She will maintain the long-term stability and status quo we have built up over the years, and our annual visits will continue.

One way or another, I will let you know.

 

 

 

No Laughing Matter

 

Image from Priscilla Du Preeze
on UnSplash. 

I am always amused when someone thinks I had a choice to follow my transgender path. Obviously, they were not there for all the trials and tribulations I had and the extreme harassment I received as I came out into the world. All the times I hurried home crying when I was stared at or glared at by the public before I was able to improve my feminine presentation to the point where I could blend in.

I did all I could to improve my testosterone damaged body by going on a crash diet and did my best to improve my skin by using moisturizers everyday after I shaved before I went to work. Why would I attempt all of that if I thought crossing the gender border was just a choice I could make. The farther I went, the more I had to do to improve. Mainly because it felt like it was the right thing to do.

Perhaps the most important sacrifice I needed to be prepared to make was losing my white male entitlements or male privileges. Even though I did not respect the growing rights that I had obtained through hard work as a male, I needed to keep in mind continually I did not really want them anyhow and there were better days ahead if I ever had achieved my dream of living as a transgender woman fulltime.

Through it all though, I wondered why all this gender turmoil was happening to me. Often when the poor, poor pitiful me aspect of my life was at it’s worse, I would “man-up” and purge myself of most of my feminine belongings. As most of us know, purging does not work for any length of time. All it did for me was make me go out and buy more makeup, clothes and shoes to express my femininity again. A total waste of money, but at least I always tried to build back better following every purge I tried. Finally, I looked back at purging as just another rite of passage I needed to through as I followed along my gender path to success, and I was able to put my transgender victim mentality behind me.

As I grew older and set in my cross-dressing ways, I knew increasingly I had no choice in how I lived my life. I was rapidly going through yet another gender transition from just having a so-called hobby into being a transgender woman. I was doing more than just shopping for more and more clothes and was trying out new ways to experience the world the way ciswomen do. I started doing a portion of the grocery shopping successfully as the new transfeminine me all the way to starting to do all my Christmas shopping in unique situations also. Just to see if I could.

At that point, the things I needed to go through to survive in life became increasingly evident to me. I would need to express myself as a woman and I had no choice but to do it. I also knew the risk I was taking when I thought about losing the male life, I had worked so hard and long to be successful at. What would my daughter think of her new dad was one of the few variables as I knew I would lose my long-term marriage and great job that I had. I needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt I was doing the right thing, and I truly had no choice but to stay on the course I was on. This is where my transgender humor comes in. Why would anyone ever put themselves through such a life full of turmoil if they ever had a choice. Or, when just putting on a dress becomes so much more than a fun experience, where do you go then?

It is no secret where I went and I had the chance to experience so much more in my life because it is exceedingly rare when a human gets the chance to experience both sides of the binary gender spectrum. The problem is we transgender women and transgender men don’t have a chance to enjoy the trip because of the pressure we put on ourselves to perform behind the gender curtain we chose. If we are not doing it to ourselves, the pressure is certainly on from the public to do it too. Especially these days with the charged anti-transgender political attitude we are seeing from the orange menace in Washington DC, and in many states such as my own native Ohio.

If we can ever get the public at large to understand we trans people never had a choice on the life’s direction we ultimately took, we would come out so much further ahead. Sadly, the path to get there does not seem to be getting any closer for many of us as the things we have to go through just keep on coming. I know for those of you who are still on your transition path or even consider it, it is a major step to take. Hopefully on the way, you can take the time to stop for a moment and enjoy how far you have come. I always thought if it does not kill me, it will just make me stronger would help me along. And on a lesser scale, the old sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me saying really applied to me also.

When you are on your path long enough to realize there is no turning back, you will also know you had no choice but to keep going towards your goal. It was never easy, but so worthwhile as you navigated the final blind curves, potholes and stop signs. At the least, you will know you lived a life where you had a choice and made the most of it.

Plus, certainly it was no laughing matter. 

As always, thank you for reading along with my experiences. Any comments, extra claps or subscriptions are welcome!

 

 

 

 

Nothing Lasts Forever...or Does It?

 

Image from Lucas Stankey
on UnSplash. 

Yesterday when I first went to the bathroom to begin my start to the day, I turned the light on and was greeted by a slight “pop” and the bulb going out. I was disappointed that it was one of those bulbs that is supposed to last forever. Then, I began to think that nothing lasts forever, especially light bulbs no matter what they say.

As I normally always do, I took the idea I was following to another level and compared it with my old broken-down self. No surprise, but I was not built to last forever either. Just like my transgender desires, or were they? I know when I was very young trying on my mom’s clothes and makeup, I thought perhaps I would outgrow my desire to be a girl as I became older. As it turned out, the opposite was true. I did not outgrow my desire to be feminine; I grew into it as I became more skilled in applying make-up and cross-dressing myself the more, I wanted to try my newfound skills in the public eye.

When I accomplished the seismic shift from mirror approval to public approval, I knew any approval would not last forever because of the mixed reactions I was having in public where I tried to go. Outside of the usual gaggle of teen girls who would laugh at me, I found that the largest part of society did not notice me when I took the effort to blend in with the other ciswomen around me. The mistake I was making was very simple when I finally took the time to figure it out. To dress for success did not mean to dress to attract unwanted extra attention. Success meant that I fit in with the public at large. Carefully, since I was a large woman, but a woman none the less when I presented myself correctly.

At that point, the responsibility of being a stable presentable transfeminine person began to set in. Just looking the part of a woman would not last forever as by then I certainly knew I would never just outgrow my feminine desires. By responsibility I mean it became time for me to fully accept what I was becoming in the world. To catch up, I took feminine vocal lessons to improve the nuances of my speech patterns and worked hard to listen to my progress. If nothing was going to last forever in my life as a trans woman, I was driven to do it right. Outside of the very good job I had and the relationship I was desperately clinging to with my wife, being a transgender woman who passed in the world was my ultimate goal.

That point in my life became a blur as I was learning almost daily what went on behind the gender curtain, I was given access to. It was not all good, but I knew the bad would not last forever if I continued past the stop signs, I encountered on my gender path to my ultimate goal of shedding my male past. The best part was no one knew him and I could build a new life from scratch with the good and bad of living as long as I did as a man. Everything was going so well for awhile that I was waiting for the next high heeled shoe to fall on me since nothing lasts forever. Sadly, I was right when my personal world around me began to rapidly crumble.

I call it my dark period when almost everyone I cared about passed away. I knew about the finality of death because of my parent’s death, but I wrongly assumed I would be the first to go in the small circle of friends and family I had built up because of my self-destructive lifestyle.

The person who helped me out of my dark age was my wife Liz who made me a believer in myself, and my forever could be with her. That was over twelve years ago now, and I hope it can go on forever too. I am just grateful I was able to find her when I needed her the most because I was drinking way too much and struggling.

The moral to the story is that life is but a circle and you can ride out the down parts if destiny shows you the way. It was true for me that the darkest hour was right before the dawn when I attempted the ultimate self-destructive act of all. Taking my own life. I failed and ended up being able to live the most exciting and self-fulfilling days of my life. I would have missed everything from the tour bus experiences Liz and I took all the way to being humbled in my two fairly recent hospital stays for Covid and pneumonia. Sometimes I think I was just given the chance to do as much living as I could in the time allotted to me. Being transgender just added to the mystique of my life.

Whatever the case, I was completely wrong when I was a kid thinking I would grow out of my dreams of being a woman, transgender or not. Growing into my dreams was certainly the most challenging thing I have ever attempted. Sometimes causing me joy and sometimes causing me extreme pain and suffering.

I know nothing lasts forever, but when mine ends, I will know I gave it my best shot.

Recently I learned that even backwards Ohio who only concentrates of passing anti-transgender bills, is considering a bill which would legalize euthanasia for terminally ill persons. Even though I seriously doubt the republican legislature will pass the bill, it would be nice to be able to end your own life when the time has come and gone to do it. I would love to have control of my own destiny. Nothing lasts forever, including humans.

Sorry to end this on such a negative tone but death is as sure as birth and we need to make the best of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you Worthy, or an Impostor

 

Image from Strechath Gupta 
on UnSplash

As a transgender woman or a transgender man do you ever think you are worthy of all the contortions you put yourself through to arrive at your dream goal. What gives you the right to challenge one of a human’s most sacred basics, the gender you were supposedly born with.

To make matters worse, you have the orange felon in Washington (and his followers) oversimplifying any idea of a gender spectrum saying there are just men and women. When we know there is no such thing because we live it every day. Many of us (including me) wondered for the longest time if we are worth the time to try to handle such a inner spirit which was called a dual spirit by quite a few ancient cultures before the white Puritans got ahold of our society. Forget about being held up to be honored for our knowledge of the world, we became scorned. But that is not the subject of this post, I want to try to talk about us.

The first time when I truly faced the problem of being worthy enough to think of myself as a transgender woman was when I started to attend regular girl’s night out functions and still felt as if I was some sort of an outsider. Or, I had a strong case of impostor syndrome setting in. It took me awhile to get used to where I was behind the gender curtain, feel like I deserved to be there as much as the next woman and relaxed and started to enjoy myself. As I write about often, at this point in my life I had my second wife and male self-fighting me as hard as they could to keep me male and hurt my chances of ever achieving my dream of living as a complete transfeminine person. Without the guilt I felt and had no impostor syndrome.

What kept me going through all the resistance I was feeling was the whole femininization process felt so natural. Even with the day my wife could had left me behind in the small Cleveland, Ohio tavern venue we were visiting as two women before we went to a transgender-cross dresser social mixer. What happened was, we were sitting at the bar enjoying a drink when a good-looking man on a Harley motorcycle pulled up outside, came in and sat next to my wife and started a conversation. For the first time in my life, I felt powerless to do anything about what I was about to go through if the man offered my wife a ride on his Harley. In addition, my wife played her hand for all it was worth before she decided to not go with him leaving me behind. With no male privileges to protect me. I was taught quite the lesson about female-to-female competition when it came to men and would I ever be worthy enough to compete. Don’t be fooled into thinking that women don’t compete as much as men. They do, just on a different level of intensity at different times.

It literally took me years to accomplish what I wanted to, but I did feel I had the confidence to stand up for myself as a trans woman. In other words, I finally had been able to put the total package together on my trip out of the mirror and into the world. It felt good until I found I was not there yet and was not worthy of feeling secure in calling myself a proud transgender woman. I wanted to be more; I just wanted to be worthy of just being the me I always dreamed I could be. I wanted to be able to compete the next time my wife encountered a man she was attracted to for his attention on an equal footing. Sadly, I never could before she passed away.

To be worthy for me, also took the work of several friends I always mention who taught me so much about being a woman in the world. Primarily in the area of dealing with me. Being lesbians, they taught me I did not need a man’s attention to validate my being in the world. And I was no worse for wear after leaving the men’s club for good and greener pastures with feminine privileges such as the basic freedom to see the world like me. Being allowed to express my emotions when I needed to be a prime example.

Are you worthy can only be answered by you. I know from reading the comments I get, many of you are taking the cautious exploration methods that I took on the path to my gender goals. The method I took was certainly much slower than just tearing the bandage off saying to the world, here I am. Sometimes I wondered what that would have been like when I considered trying it as early as when I was discharged from the Army. Before I had the chance to start building any sort of male life at all. Naturally, the world was much different back in the 1970’s, early 80’s when I was discharged so I will never know what my life would have been like. All I do know was my initial exploration into coming out to my mom were dismal failures and I probably would have been disowned by my family.

Also, it is never too late to think of yourself as being worthy of going behind the other gender curtain. Male to female or female to male, it doesn’t matter. The trip is amazingly the same according to readers such as “Alex” who is a female to male transgender man. The only stable idea is the longer you wait, the more likely you are to build up more gender baggage which you will have to decide what to do with. Who knows, maybe you can find others around you who enjoy the same hobbies and interests that you do. Which is what happened to me.

The only way you can know if you feel worthy is to try.

 

 

 

 

 

I Got Scammed

 

Image from Markus Winkler
on UnSplash.

Years ago, I discovered I was scammed when I attempted to climb my gender path towards my dream goal of living completely as a transgender woman.

My first mistake was believing what I saw in the mirror when I was cross-dressed as a girl was a true indication of what I really looked like. The mirror was more than capable of lying to me by telling me I looked attractive, when I really looked like a circus clown in drag. It wasn’t until I began to go out in public as a feminine person, did I find out the brutal truth of how far I still had to go to present well as a novice cross dresser in public. Rather than create attention to the way I looked, I needed to blend in with the average ciswomen around me and just get by.  I was scamming myself to think otherwise.

Sadly. The scamming continued unabated until I woke up to the true world around me. My life was restricted by outdated thoughts I carried through from my still very active male self who thought dressing sexily was the way to go. The only good thing that happened during this part of my life was that I went through my cross-dresser “adolescence” fairly quickly and began to attempt to dress my testosterone poisoned body the best I could to hide my flaws. I was aided by fashion styles back then which favored miniskirts, bare legs, opaque stockings with oversized sweaters. I was even able to continue a version of the fashion basics when I changed into a bohemian style denim mini along with a flowing loose top to hide my oversize male torso. For once, fashion trends were playing in the right direction for me and my scamming decreased from my male self and the public.

At that point, I shifted my emphasis on where I was going when I was learning the world for the first time.  Initially I chose more malls and safe places such as coffee shops and bookstores until I got bored and chose other venues to go to at night when I began to sneak out of the house when my wife was working. At first, I was satisfied with going to a few male gay venues in downtown Dayton, Ohio. Even though I did not like the overall atmosphere of the places, I kept going because I thought they were safe. That was until I was stopped on a sidewalk outside one night by two men looking for a handout and I was lucky I still had a five-dollar bill to give them, so they left me unharmed. I learned a valuable lesson that all ciswomen knew which was to always be careful of your surroundings and I never went back there again unless I had friends with me.

I also felt I was scamming myself and wasting my hard-earned money by going to gay venues at all. Lesbian bars for the most part were fun for me for a number of reasons. Including the attention, I would receive on occasion from a few of the other patrons. Male gay bars however just treated me like any other drag queen which I hated. I even had a hard time being served which drove me away. It was then; I decided to stop being scammed and take my business to straight sports bars where I knew I could enjoy the atmosphere if only I could be accepted.

I was surprised how quickly I was accepted at venues I used to frequent as a man, and I felt comfortable in. The difference in venues was in the straight sports bars, other women wanted to actually talk to me. Which opened up a whole new world of possibly being scammed by ciswomen and their passive aggressive behaviors. I don’t want to recall how many times I went home with claw marks on my back after I assumed another woman’s smile actually meant she was being friendly with me. That scam became old quickly and I learned to be careful in the world in a whole different way.

The biggest scam of all came when I learned I was not a man cross-dressing as a woman, I was a woman cross-dressing as a man to get by in a life she never wanted. If I had only learned that earlier in life how much easier I could have made it on myself. No such luck, as I was destined to be scammed by a world and my male self into thinking I was doing the right thing by fighting hard to keep my manhood. These days, I am older and wiser when it comes to scamming myself and have accepted the transgender truth, I always denied myself.

As I wrote in a recent post, I would not recommend the path I took towards achieving my dream because the world has changed since I did it. Harsh anti-transgender politicians have made it harder to come out in the world as well as making it harder for some of us to exist at all. (Like in my native Ohio). Hopefully though, the younger generations seem to be resistant and blind to the bigotry of their elders and there is hope for the future. That was, none of us will have to worry as much about scamming ourselves or each other about who we truly are. Just people who have been around forever and are trying to live a basic, honest life.

One way or another, the path we have chosen as transgender women and transgender men is much more difficult than the average person next door. And I can add scammers along with stop signs, blind curves and steep hills on our route to finally discover who we are with the opportunity to live it. It just makes it worse when we learn the person who was our main scammer was ourselves.

As always, thanks for joining me in my journey. Any comments, claps or subscriptions are always welcome!

 

Your Gender Path maybe Different Than Mine

Image from Erik Mclean
on UnSplash. 

 

Even though many of us share similar paths to our dreams of becoming successful transgender women or transgender men, often our paths diverge and we end up going different directions.

Most of us start out on our own without the help
of an understanding sister or mother and must fill out our gender workbooks as we go along. There is no one to tell us what to wear or how to act in our younger years as a cross-dresser. We just know we have conflicting ideas on what we are doing. On one hand, we cannot wait to put on the pretty dresses we found that still fit us, but on the other hand, we felt guilty doing it. It was somehow taking away what was left of our fragile masculinity.

At that point, most of us were willing to sacrifice that masculinity for the intensely intoxicating appeal of looking at ourselves as pretty girls, especially before puberty got ahold of us and testosterone poisoning set in. We all know what happened then, our bodies grew angles instead of the curves we admired on the girls around us and life would never be the same again. From that point forward, many of our paths seem to diverge. Over the years, I have heard from several readers who put down their urges to be feminine with no problems until much later in life. While others followed a more focused stairstep path which meant meeting and learning from other cross-dressers or transgender women searching for their true meaning to life. I know when I first discovered there were others like me who shared gender issues and I could go meet them; there were many layers of people who attended the socials. Anyone from cigar smoking men in dresses still going overboard to preserve their masculinity to completely femininized transsexual women whose next stop was gender surgeries.

It was then that I began to see and appreciate the different layers of the gender community I was seeing in person for the first time. I could almost compare it to the amazing number of cosmetics I saw the first time I went shopping with my own money to buy my own. The entire idea of going to a mixer of my peers did not work for me at all. I became more confused about where I fit in on the gender spectrum than when I started. I knew I was much more than a part-time cross-dresser but was not committed enough to consider complicated and expensive gender realignment surgeries which were still fairly rare back in those days. The direction I decided to take was one of experimentation which I found set me apart from many of the other gender conflicted individuals I had met.

I certainly would not recommend the direction I took because it involved a certain amount of risk and way too much alcohol in the mostly gay venues I initially was going to. What happened was, I used the fake courage of the alcohol to allow me to take ill advised chances in places I should not have been as a single woman. Especially a transgender one. I was fortunate when I escaped unharmed in a couple of situations I should have never found myself in as I was dressed way to provocatively for where I was going and one time in particular found myself having to be bailed out by my second wife who had warned me ahead of time about my mini-dress being way to short. I attracted the unwanted attention of a cross-dresser admirer who was huge and had me trapped in a small hallway with nowhere to go when my wife grew curious and came in time to rescue me. Believe me, it took me a long time to live that incident down with her.

Even when I became a regular in the big public straight sports bars I was going to, I would not recommend my methods of establishing a path to gender freedom as a trans woman. Being a single woman in a public place can sometimes be dangerous to the point where you don’t see many ciswomen do it. They always bring a friend or two for safety which it took me awhile to finally come to the point where I could do it too. My only recommendation is to act like you have a friend coming to join you by acting as if you are talking to them on a cell phone, or “save” a seat next to you with your coat if it is wintertime. Better yet, you can solve the problem completely by sitting at a dining room table, but what fun is that?

Another way to attempt to find companionship is through the use of social media. I tried that too and had to sort through a tremendous amount of trash before I hit the jackpot with the person who turned out to be my third wife Liz. Unbelievably, she contacted me on a social media site which I was listing under woman seeking woman. Better yet, it turned out we were within driving distance of each other and began to correspond until I became brave enough to talk to her on the phone. I was so ashamed of my voice to do it. I finally jumped off the deep end and had success as we started to date. That was over twelve years ago and we married and are going strong I am happy to say.

I see and hear from so many transgender curious people who are on the gender edge in their life with no evident way out. My only recommendation is that at some point you need to take chances if you ever want answers in your life. The only certainty is if you do nothing, nothing will happen. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that you do have to be careful though with all the scammers out there these days and all the negative people you may encounter if you decide to go public. With the political arena and anti-transgender laws which are being passed in many states such as my native Ohio.

No path is right and who is to say, your path is not right for you even if you decide to stay in your closet which is safe and not risk giving up things such as spouse, family, friends and employment. Maybe you can experiment too as you discover which path is right for you. As I said, be careful of the stop signs and bumps ahead.

 

 

New Therapy Visit

 

JJ Hart with "Brutus" Buckeye
at Columbus, Ohio. 

As promised in a recent post, I am passing along the results of my new psychiatrist visit this morning.

First of all, I needed to run the waiting room gauntlet after I got checked in. The woman checking me in was very nice and I had no problems with my pronouns which was different from the past. After that, I needed to walk past the rest of the waiting room men waiting for their appointments. When I did, I received the usual number of stares and glares I normally get, so I was not upset over anything new.

Very quickly, my new therapist came out to greet me. I was relieved when he turned out to be a younger man as I have found to be more accepting of gender situations such as transgender women and trans men.

As we started to go through my past, I was surprised at all the information the Veteran’s Administration mental health system acquired on me during my previous appointment. All I needed to do was fill in the many blanks he asked me. Immediately, I tested him by telling him my former fulltime psychiatrist separated my transgender issues with my struggles with depression and anxiety. He agreed with me that the issues I have are separate and should be treated separately. Furthermore, coming out in the world and expressing myself as a transgender woman fulltime had helped me express that side of my personality, the help never resolved my other issues.

Other issues we covered in-depth were my suicide and self-harm attempts. It was decided my medications were working and we should stay on the course for the most part. Those were the difficult issues we talked about and others we finished up with included my childhood and military service.

This appointment marked the next to the last move from all my care from the Dayton, Ohio VA hospital to the Cincinnati VA. All I have left to do is my endocrinology doctor services from Dayton to Cincinnati which could be the most difficult move of all. My next appointment is coming up early in May and I need a refill on my Estradiol prescription. With the current situation in Washington, I do have a constant paranoia that my HRT hormones can be cut off at anytime by the VA under direct supervision of the orange war criminal. I think what I am going to do now is go ahead and get my refill then try to transfer my needs down here and close out my need to deal with Dayton at all. As a point of reference, Dayton VA is in close proximity to where I used to live before I moved the nearly one hundred miles to move in with my wife Liz.

From there, my appointment was over and my next visit was up as a virtual appointment in three months. I finished the early morning off by stopping at our favorite coffee shop, drive through and picking up coffee and a breakfast sandwich. I am happy to say the shop’s LGBTQ flag is still up on the wall and the young man at the window probably was gay and very friendly to me. All the better for me and the perfect ending to a great morning.

Just a short post to check in on my progress with my VA mental health care which has overall been a very positive experience over the years. When I started many years ago, I had to educate everyone about what a transgender woman was all about. These days, they know and I don’t have to.

Fortunately, I did not have to explain myself this morning and I look forward to my next appointment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facing my Deepest Fears

 

Image from Tonik on Unsplash. 

Over the decades I have found that my gender desires have produced the biggest fears and anxiety I have ever felt.

Prime examples came from the times I was first testing the world as a transgender woman. The number of occasions I needed to sit in my car making endless tries at adjusting my hair and makeup until I felt everything was right to attempt going into whatever venue I was going to. You would think from the number of times I had to face my fears; I would have at least become used to it. But I never did. In fact, I developed my own form of trans PTSD from the number of times I was rudely rejected by the public. I could not get it out of my mind that if I was laughed at once, I could be laughed at again. Which I discovered just was not true after I learned to dress for the public of ciswomen around me.

Finally, a little confidence began to creep in, and I did better for the most part, but it seemed the fear of being myself just would not go away. Maybe I can blame my old male self who in his own way was as strong willed as my feminine self and did not want to give up all the male privilege he worked so hard to earn. His reluctance to give up pointed to a deeper problem I had. The fear of facing myself. At the same time, my dreams of even trying to become a fulltime transgender woman in the world seemed to be a far-off dream.

What I decided to do then, even though I still was experiencing deep fears about my future, was experiment by going out into the world a little at a time. I started in what I perceived as safer spaces such as shopping malls and gay venues. If and when I was successful (or grew tired of) in those places, I would try more challenging places. Lessons I learned included money overcame gender problems in the malls and I was just considered another drag queen in the gay bars and made to feel completely out of place. I discovered to enjoy myself more I would need to try to frequent the same sports bar venues I went to as a man. Where I could drink draft beer and watch my favorite team on the big screen televisions. Sure, I was scared to do it as I knew how single women were viewed in sports bars, but I had to try.

Desire overcame fear and I was successful as long as I followed my three basics of smiling, never causing problems, and tipping well. Before I knew it, I was a regular and gained the backing of the bartenders who even saw to it that I had restroom privileges. Before  I knew it, I had built a small circle of lesbian friends who shared my love of sports, as well as another transwoman. Loneliness became a thing of the past for me, and my fear of being seen as a woman was going away too.

Just when my trans confidence was at an all time high, obstacles such as drunk guys would come along and ruin my evening. The night I remember the most was when a bunch of drunks noticed my trans friend and I at the bar and started playing “Dude Looks Like a Lady” time and time again until the manager asked us to leave. We did, temporarily, because a month later when I was in a nearby competing venue, I was surprised to see one of the bartenders who was there when I was asked to leave approaching me. I was astounded to learn the manager who had kicked me out had been fired for drug use and I was invited to come back. So much for the drunks who had played that song over and over and I had put my fears to rest. To this day though, when I hear that song, I cringe.

Sadly, even though I have been in the public’s eye as a transgender woman, I still look over my shoulder when I do things like use the restroom. Fortunately, I have Liz to help me out when I have to go and mainly these days, I don’t present as trans as much as I do as old and partially immobile. I am happy these days when I can find a restroom with a handicapped stall to take my fears away.

My deepest fears now revolve around the number of ridiculous restrictive anti-transgender bills currently in the Ohio legislature. One bill would make it illegal for anyone to wear makeup different than their birth gender. Which I guess would mean the orange felon or his sidekick Vance would be arrested if they come to Ohio. I am lucky that age and years of HRT have softened my facial lines to a point of where I don’t wear much makeup at all but what about the younger transgender population. Hopefully, none of this will actually happen or the courts will strike it down.

These days, I have managed at least to calm down my fears of what will happen to me if I have to go into assisted living or if I develop dementia like my dad had. I finally came to the conclusion not to worry about something I have no control over.

I don’t know why I waited so long to be paranoid over what has made my life worth living over the years and decades. I used to be a go with the flow type of person and if I got myself into some sort of a mess, I could get myself out of it. Probably now it is because I have to depend on my wife Liz for so much. Fortunately, most of my deepest fears came from pursuing my gender truth and when I came out to myself, I proved that I was the most important person of all to be truthful with. It was not until then did my life began to change for the better and I could live without all the fear I was experiencing.

 

 

 

 

Pulling Your Gender Band-Aid Off

 

Image from Possessed Photography
on UnSplash. 

I am sure you have encountered a time when you just had to pull a band-aid off quickly from a tender area of your body. Even worse, maybe the band-aid was in a spot where your unwanted male hair was thick, and it hurt.

After I began to realize what was going on in
my life with my gender issues, my time to remove my lifetime band-aid was coming closer to being done. I could put it off no longer once I started to get out into the world as a transgender woman and begin to live. Sure, I was scared, but my whole new life felt so real and natural to me that I just had to keep moving forward.

What helped me gather the courage to finally rip the band-aide off was that I was becoming quite successful in carving out a new feminine life were no one knew or cared about the old male me. Even with the protests of my second wife and my male self, it just seemed possible that someday I could live my dream of being a fulltime transfeminine person. On the negative side, I knew I had a lot of work to do to be able to even think I could ever rip the band-aid off and move on with my life the way I always thought it should be. Courage was always my problem, along with the possibility of causing loved ones around me pain if I made such a perceived selfish move.

Until I arrived at the point of self-preservation, I did think it was selfish the way I was living. After all, I was spending every spare moment when I was not working either living as a woman or planning the next time I was going to do it. I was completely obsessed with making the next move up my gender path and could not wait to fill out the next chapter of my gender workbook. The problem was, ignoring my path was causing me damage to my mental health all the way to me trying self-harm to myself with a suicide attempt when I thought all was lost. Until I finally regained control of myself before I did more harm. When I did, my life began to go  full circle and the future seemed brighter. If you find yourself looking down at that dark tunnel of self-harm, please remember what might be true today, may not be true tomorrow and there might are people to help you on various hotlines. Especially if you are a veteran and have Veterans Administration health care.

I am sorry I digressed from my original topic of pulling off your band-aid into suicide, but it just so happened to me that suicide helped me to make the final decision to take the gender jump from a male to female life. Was there room for me after all behind the gender curtain I so desperately wanted to explore because I felt I belonged there. If I did not make the jump (or attempt to), what reason did I have to keep living, kept sneaking into my subconscious thoughts. At the same time, I wondered what was going on under the wound I was carrying around as I tried to live a successful male life. My habit of living half and half in both genders was just not working for me. I had always heard that if takes three repetitions in a row to form a habit, so what I was doing was completely wrong when I needed to go back to my unwanted male gender after spending three days as a trans woman leading my best life.

My life finally got to the point that even I could not ignore the ignorance of how I was choosing to live. I needed to face the truth of living the male life I had since birth was false and I needed to move on to a brighter future away from all the male influences I lived under. The band-aide which had become such an integral part of my life had to go away. No matter how much pain it might cause. I was fortunate in a way because I had most of the people in my life who had mattered to me, including most of my family. When I came out to my remaining blood family, my daughter wholeheartedly accepted me and my only brother rejected me. So, I earned a fifty-fifty split when the band-aid came off.

The next big problem was averted when I was able to take an early retirement, so I would not have to worry about working a new job as my trans woman self. I supported myself by selling collectables and with my Social Security.

I guess you can say, taking the hard way out and waiting as long as I did transition worked for me. Even though I had to go through enough anguish along the way to wonder why I did it. I was doomed to life of opposites. Gender being the main one, and honesty being the second one. If I had dealt with the second one first, maybe I would have saved myself a portion of the problems which were presented to me. Certainly, emerging into the world at an early stage would have not necessarily been ideal either, but if I had just pulled the band-aid off and did it, I would have had the opportunity to build a new life earlier. Probably in a new job and with a new family because my blood family would not have accepted me.

At least, if I had done it then, I would have had more years to adjust to the radical changes I would have to go through and figure out away to do it. One way or another, we can not go back in life, so we have to live with the consequences of what we have done or haven’t. Who can say which time would have been easier to join the public as a transgender woman, twenty years ago when I was seriously exploring ways to do it, or now with all the anti-transgender rhetoric which is going on as politicians use us as a scapegoat.

I guess we are doomed as transgender women and transgender men to have a giant band-aid to pull off one way or another. In my case, I should have just pulled it off and got on with my life.