The First Time

 

Image from Jon Tyson 
on UnSplash.

Like most of you, as I look back at an increasingly long life, I tend to remember many firsts I accomplished.

Of course, my gender dealings are among the top things I remember along with the first time I had sex with a girl, all the way to the first time I drove a car. I also vividly remember the first prom date I went on and how amazed I was when on the first night of basic training in the Army how many of the men around me were crying. I may have felt like crying too because the military was taking away my makeup, dresses, and wigs but I would be damned if I would cry in public about it.

Through it all, I learned the hard way to wait out the hard times and try to look ahead and not behind me for a better future. The first time I remember it happened was when we were on a long-forced march during the wintertime at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. I was feeling sorry for myself until I looked back and looked at how far I had come. From it I learned a lifetime lesson I could fall back on when I was feeling down. Which was often when I could not have any way to express myself as a feminine person by cross-dressing.

I had no idea when I resumed my civilian life after the Army how much I would have changed when I had the freedom to explore who I was. Even to the point of trying to come out to my mom. I was naïve and thought that even though I was accepted when I came out to anyone for the first time about being a transvestite (as we were called back then) while I was still in the Army, my mom would accept me also. I was wrong and all she offered was a trip to a psychiatrist rather than any understanding. So, my first time coming out to any of my family was a complete failure and the subject was never brought up again. I went back into my gender closet and slammed the door shut again. The only redeeming value I had was my closet was big enough to have a mirror to lie to me about my cross-dressing future when I needed it.

The first time I made a major step into the world as a future transgender woman was when I started to go to Halloween parties where I could express my true self. After a rocky beginning, I settled into a professional woman’s “costume” which brought me acceptance and gave me hope that possibly I could make it to make dream of living fulltime as a transfeminine person if I looked ahead and learned from my experiences.

From those humble Halloween beginnings, I began to explore a number of other firsts on my gender path. I figured if strangers were mistaking me for a woman at the parties I was going to, I would not have to wait another year to do it again and started to visit venues such as clothing stores in big malls as well as safe places such as coffee shops and bookstores. When that worked for me, I expanded my gender outreach into more challenging venues such as restaurants where I needed to interact with more people.

As I began to enjoy my time as a novice trans woman more and more, the problems of how much male baggage I still had began to cause a strain with my mental health which was already fragile. All my male life, I had tried to fight a losing battle to get rid of any possible positive male belongings that I had by moving all around to different jobs and being very self-destructive. Like runaway trains on the same track, the successes I could not wish away were coming at me from the male and female side. I could not shake the fact I had a very successful marriage, a good daughter and great job I had worked hard for so easily as I had imagined. It was the first time in my life I felt bad about being successful.

At the same time all of this was happening, I realized I was transitioning again as my transwoman self. It happened when I grew tired (again) of thinking of myself as a man who was just cross-dressing as a woman into more of a woman myself. It seemed I was facing firsts every week when I snuck out of the house to be myself. I was terrified and excited at the same time with the way my life was unfolding. I had never planned on how my life was turning out, even though I hoped that it would. I never dreamed I could carve out a new life as a transgender woman as quickly as I did.

Now I could look back on all the other first times I could remember as being important and add my series of transitions as a male to female feminized person with them. My first stable communications with other women one on one immediately come to mind as firsts. It was because I was allowed behind the gender curtain in a way I never was when I was acting to be a man. Plus, I can never leave out the impact HRT or gender affirming hormones had on my life. All of a sudden, my inside feelings and external images began to sync up, and my world softened on the hormones. Making many of my previous firsts in life seem minor in comparison. Who cares about marching at Ft. Knox when I could feel so good about myself. Truthfully though, one first led to another and made my life much fuller as I look back on it.

I never realized all the firsts were just a sign of where destiny was leading me in my life and I should have paid more attention when all I wanted to do as a kid was to be a woman when I grew up. I was always a go with the flow as a person, and the flow took me eventually exactly where I wanted to go as a transgender woman…with a lot of help from my friends.

 

 

 

Staying in your Own Gender Lane

Image from Earnest Tarasov
on UnSplash.

Staying in my own gender lane may have been more difficult than I had ever imagined. Of course, it all started when I was externally born male. Then when I started to understand something was dreadfully wrong with my male existence, I needed to figure it out.

My first indication of what the problem might really be came when I discovered the thrills of wearing my mom’s clothes, since I did not have any sisters to beg for clothing off of. Sadly, even though I was thrilled to see my version of a pretty girl in the mirror, deep down I knew it was just not enough for me to stay in my cross-dressing lane.  I wanted to pull out and find myself in a more comfortable gender lane where I more than ever before to being feminine.

Before I could do that, I needed to define what being feminine meant to me. I knew just acting effeminate would get me nowhere except bullied to the point of beaten up and on the home front (which was very male dominated) I would probably earn a trip to a psychiatrist if my small stash of girl’s clothes and makeup was ever discovered. I was trapped in a male world I wanted nothing to do with, and worse yet, I was pressured to perform well in that world. I needed to be in a passing lane around as many other males as I could.

The problem was, I wanted nothing to do with that world and could not show it. And in the pre-internet era I was growing up in, I felt so all alone with no one to talk to about what I was feeling. I just knew I did not feel the so-called mental illness that gender issues were being referred to back then. All I knew was, I was having a very difficult time staying in the gender lane which was assigned to me when it felt so natural. Plus, when I woke up in tears after having such a realistic dream that I was a girl impacted my life terribly until I could get centered again where I was “supposed” to be.

Somehow, I made it through those very confusing gender days and finally made it out into the world to discover if I had any future at all in a world ruled by cisgender women. When here I was, a novice in their world trying to survive. I equated it with driving on the Autobahn in Germany. I quickly discovered when you were driving a VW Beetle (like mine) and ventured into the outside lane then you saw a car in your rearview mirror flashing its lights, you better get out of the way. My life in those days often felt that way. I was learning lessons about where I wanted my transfeminine womanhood to go but I always seemed to see lights warning me in my rearview mirror.

Through tons of trial and error, I learned I could change my gender lane to the one I dreamed of. From as young as I could remember all I really wanted to do with my life was live it as close as I could to being a woman. Of course, that meant putting all my safe male privileges behind me and set out to build new ones in my gender lane with new life experiences. Like the Autobahn I found there were no speed limits on what I could learn or experience in the new gender lane I was in. More importantly, I had no one except my old male self to tell me to slow down before it was too late and I wrecked. Here is where I make the excuse of why it took me so long to transition because I was overly cautious that I did not wreck.

As I was in the gender lane I wanted to be in for a change, it w as nice to finally wake up in the morning knowing I was coming closer to my dream of living life on my terms as a woman and not having to keep falling back on my male self for last minute support. I was one and she was me for good.

But just when I thought I had it all in my new gender lane, I discovered many small nuances the ciswomen around me use that I needed to learn and put into practice. Such as the powerful use of nonverbal communication and passive aggressive behavior. For the first time in my life, I needed to look intently at other women when I talk to them and search their eyes for what they were really telling me. Which extended into the passive aggressive areas of behavior I encountered. There were many times I fell for a smiling face or non-threatening comment which turned out to be a knife in the back when I let my guard down. They were all lessons I learned the hard way as I earned my ability to stay in my gender lane permanently.

The best part was that the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn about the lane I was in. Even my biggest naysayer, my male self, had to finally give up and get out of my way. I was in my lane for good and there was nothing he could do about it. I had served my feminine apprenticeship I was walking the path I always was destined to walk and in the short and long term I got out of the way until I could salvage was left of myself and move forward.