A Point of No Return

 

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For nearly a half a century I considered myself a more or less serious cross dresser or transvestite. In addition, I considered the transvestite label little more than just that, a label which was appropriate just to  use around others. Even though I rarely told anyone else about my gender issues.

The only people I can remember telling would number under ten before I finally came out into the world as a novice transgender woman. The first people I ever trusted enough to share my biggest secret oddly enough were friends I had in the Army. My disclosure came after I risked what was left of my time in the Army by dressing totally as a woman for a Halloween party.  Following the party, several weeks later under the influence of great German beer, the subject of the party came up. Of course then, the conversation went to what our costumes were. 

When the subject turned to me and how good I looked, I gathered the courage and told the three others the night was not the first time I had cross dressed as a woman and in fact I was a transvestite. I ended up taking a major leap of faith telling them because I still had approximately six or seven months to go on my enlistment and conceivably I could have encountered problems if the gender information I disclosed got into the wrong hands. After making it so far towards an honorable discharge, I certainly did not want to destroy the time I had put in. Plus, what would I tell my friends and family at home when I arrived back there early. 

To make a long story short, nothing negative happened with telling my friends I was in reality a transvestite and the experience was very liberating. On the other hand, I was not going to tell the rest of the world my secret. Of importance is the fact one of the people I told that night turned out to be the mother of my child and future wife. So I did not have to worry about telling her once we became married. I see her to this day and we still get along. Sadly, the other two friends I told are now deceased and I lost track of them almost completely before they passed. 

All of this brings me to the next person I told which was my Mom. It happened one night shortly after I was discharged and I was living at home for a very short while. One night when I came home from partying with my friends she was waiting up for me just like back in my college days. Somehow the conversation turned to my life and what I was up to. Out of the clear blue sky I decided to tell her my deepest secret about being a transvestite. I was still feeling liberated from telling my friends in the Army and felt secure in telling her, betting she would never tell my Dad. Just about the time I was feeling good about including Mom in my world, she turned around and roundly rejected me. All she really did was offer to pay for psychiatric care to solve the problem. Very quickly I rejected her offer and said no one was going to, in essence, plug me into a socket for electro-shock therapy.  From then on until she died, the subject of my growing gender dysphoria was never brought up again. 

The last person I came out to when I was still in my gender closet was my second wife. I write extensively concerning our gender battles but the fact remains she supported me as a cross dresser until I began my transition into a transgender woman. In essence, over the span of our twenty five year marriage, we just grew apart until her untimely death. 

Once I reached the point of no return in my male to female gender transition. there was no point in worrying about telling anyone I was transgender. It was obvious to the public who interacted with me what I was and they were left to draw their own conclusion. All of a sudden, all the pressure was off of me. All I needed to do was to do my best to present to the public who I really was. Plus, I would be remiss if I did not mention the roles gender affirming hormones played in my experiences. I was so happy with the results I was experiencing, I never wanted to go back to a testosterone filled life. For once, a plan came together for me and the point of no return never had to be challenged. 

Only a Fool

 Only a fool knows everything is a quote I recently heard. Of course when I heard it I made a mental note to try to remember it and use it for a blog post. Amazingly I did remember since my memory is not what it used to be, or never was to begin with. 

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Jessie Hart

What I was thinking of when I heard the quote was how many times I was the fool when I thought I knew all there was to know about completing my gender transition to a transgender woman. Living my dream fulltime. Looking back I realized there were many times when I thought I knew everything and was certainly the fool. 

The first time was when I was very young and thought my new exciting girl like image in the mirror really meant something. It took me years to realize the cross dressing process did mean something. What it meant was the mirror was lying to me and the underlying reason I was feeling the gender stress I was came from the fact I wanted to be a girl rather than look like one. I did some foolish things when I came out dressed as a girl to a neighborhood friend of mine. When he refused to even look at me, I knew I had done something wrong.

Following my failed experiment of coming out to a person I knew I went back into my deep, dark closet for years. Approximately twenty I think. I certainly did not want to be the fool again when my deeply hidden secret saw the light of day. As it turned out, I would still have plenty of time to play the fool as I attempted to grow into my authentic self. The most self destructive urge I had was the one I document so often in my writings. By far the biggest mistake I made was when I tried in vain to dress sexy which in turn came out as no more than a trashy attempt at validation. I was so stubborn and the mirror lied to me so much, I'm lucky I came out of my trashy period of life relatively unscathed. The worst which happened to me was to get laughed at. Obviously I was the fool who thought she knew everything about being a woman but was just getting started. 

My learning curve finally stated to kick in and I realized if I dressed to blend in with women and not to supposedly attract the attention of men, amazingly I could exist successfully in a feminine world. But still I was caught playing the fool. In what seemed like a small period of time, I had to build on merely looking like a woman and develop a personality to go with it. I had to quit changing wigs every time I went out and doing crazy things such as changing my name to go with the wig I was wearing. Darcy was the redhead, Karen was the brunette and Roxy was the blond. Of course all I was doing was destroying any attempt I was making to establish a solid base for my brand new feminine persona. This time it took me just a short period of time to quit playing the wig game and settled into to a person who had wanted out of me for so long. My closet finally was coming open.

Even with all of this new found gender success, I had to guard against being the fool again. An example was one night when a cis woman with her smiling face in essence tricked me into thinking we could be friends. I learned the hard way she was carrying sharp claws behind her back and was just making fun of me. From that point on I learned a smiling feminine face did not necessarily mean acceptance into the girls sandbox. Until I grasped the whole world of how women communicate with each other, I was doomed to play the fool when I was cornered in the world.

These days, I am a combination of being guarded and on the other hand confident at reading other women. However, I don't think I know everything concerning a transgender transition which would make me the fool.