Prom Time

 

Image from Amy Kate
on UnSplash

I graduated from high school way back in 1967 and where I went to school in Ohio, going to prom was a big deal.

I was very shy and as it turned out my junior year in high school prom was my first date with a girl ever. I didn't even really ask my date out, it was pre-arranged by her friends who knew she did not have a date nor did I. So I was set up for success. 

Of course success for me was scary. I had no idea how I could ever spend an entire evening with a girl. What would I say? How would I even communicate? The only real interactions with girls were with my Mom. All others just seemed to be up on a far away pedestal I had invented. Then my gender issues came crashing in to make my problems even larger. All I really knew was deep down inside, I wanted to be the one wearing the pretty fancy gown rather than the restrictive monkey suit called a tuxedo. Worse yet, I had to spend my own hard earned money to rent a tux. 

It turned out renting the tuxedo was only the beginning of my expenditures. I was fortunate at the time to have had a very well high school paying job so my parents did not have to contribute much to my initial adventure with a girl. In order to go all out for the evening, tradition was the guy paid for nearly everything from flowers, to dinner at a supper club, to tickets to the after prom which was a way to spend the entire night out. What I didn't factor in was how much my date had to spend on finding a dress, having her makeup and hair done and of course locating matching shoes. All of the processes the girl went through for prom to me felt like a labor of love to me I couldn't have waited to try. 

My date's parents were doctors so Dad even went the extra mile and let me borrow his car for the evening. Needless to say, I was scared to death in my tux when prom time approached. Somehow I managed not to blurt out anything stupid when I was introduced to my date and let her Mom put the corsage on for me on my date's spaghetti strapped gown which I loved and told her so. Just didn't happen to mention just why I loved her dress so much as I wondered how it would look on me. Fortunately, we were meeting another couple for dinner, so I didn't have to feel so stressed about carrying any sort of a conversation myself. So far so good, my first date was coming off without a hitch and ironically I was able to experience some sort of transgender revenge when I went to the old supper club when it became a gay venue. I was there one night and was able to use the women's room completing some sort of gender circle in my mind.

By the time my senior year rolled around, I was a seasoned prom pro and ended up going to two proms in one night. Since I was dating a girl who went to a competing high school, we decided to go to both proms. I even drove my own car since she was familiar with it and I didn't have worry about asking my Dad for his car. Overall, I managed to have a good time since I wasn't so frightened of the whole experience. For the rest of my life, my prom experience was over. For better or for worse. 

Probably, my parents were relieved I was finally dating girls. I on the other hand wasn't doing anything to relieve my gender dysphoria. I still wanted to be my girlfriends and live their lives. My cross dressing tendencies continued all the way until I was drafted into the military and had to stop for obvious reasons. By this time, I had more to worry about than how I looked as a girl. I was looking at surviving college so I could stay out of Vietnam as long as I could.     

Today I see the young high schoolers seem to view proms as less structured affairs than we did so long ago. It's all for the best.

Deep Gender Frustration

My attempt at formality.
From the Jessie Hart Archives.

One of the first deep seated internal  frustrations I felt with my gender dysphoria was when I first encountered the challenge of attending my junior-senior prom in high school. 

I was very shy and nervous when it came to being around girls of any type. I didn't have any sisters or any girls in the neighborhood I grew up in, so I had no experience. When I made it to the time when my first prom came up in my junior year, I was stuck in a new high school with very few friends period. Especially no female ones. So I had no one to even summon up the courage to invite to the prom. It turned out, the problem was going to take care of itself without much effort on my part. 

What happened was a group or clique of popular girls noticed one of their group did not have a date to the prom. At that point, they reached out to me to find out if I was interested in attending the event. I nervously said yes and the planning began. Little did I know what I was getting into. As the male part of the date (back in those days) I was expected to provide everything from transportation, to dinner to flowers for my date.  My deep problem was I was the one who wanted to wear the fancy gown and be given a corsage then dined and danced with. I was deeply frustrated. The only good parts of the entire night were my parents were proud and probably a little relieved I was finally going out with a girl. On my part I was interested to see how I would finally find out how I would react to a real live date.

As predicted, my first prom did absolutely nothing to relieve any of my deep seated gender frustrations. In many ways, the whole process just made it worse. At  the least at that point I had began the process of learning what dating a girl was all about. In my senior year I actually met and stayed with another girl until I went away to college. The time included another prom in my senior year which I needed to suffer through since once again I wanted to be the girl, not the guy. I hated the tuxedo I had to wear all the way (again) to not being the one in the glitzy dress. The only revenge I ever received came years later, the supper club we went to eat at prom became a large gay venue and I was able to use the same women's room my date used. A small amount of retribution but meaningful none the less.  

When I went way to college, the initial months on campus provided one of the few gender respites I ever experienced from my transgender life. But to make a long story short (as you know) my desires to love everything feminine never went away. In fact, years later my jealousy re-surfaced in a major way. During my years working for a major restaurant chain franchisee, the company threw lavish Christmas parties for the store managers and upper level assistants.  The parties were semi formal  so once again I was thrown in to being downright jealous of the women who would be attending. Several were very attractive and needed to try to negotiate getting in and out of the limousine the company provided  for transportation in the fancy gowns. As the other men admired the women and their attempts to stay modest when they entered and exited the limo, I on the other hand, wanted to be one of the women in the beautiful dresses. 

It wasn't until fairly recently when I came even remotely close to achieving close to the same feeling cis-women feel when they are able to dress up. During recent Christmas's and other banquets I have managed to come up with a semi formal dress up look. It provided me a respite from a little of the gender frustration  I experienced over the years.  I also discovered women all along were aware of their own insecurities of semi formal events. Often the grass is not always greener on the other side of the gender fence.