Is Purging Just a part of a Trans Journey we Need to Go Through?

 

Image from Shayan Rostami
on UnSplash. 

I received several wonderful comments to my “Purging” post yesterday including people such as Jeanie who has had gender issues for years such as me.

Here is the comment and we will go from there: “I just purged last Thursday. I wanted to see if there was a strong enough "desire to reacquire". I'd go months with the stash behind insulation in the basement under a bay window without dressing. It might be I was too chickenshit”.

Thanks for the comment! And it got me to thinking about all the ways we cross dressers or novice transgender women went to hide our small collection of feminine wardrobe and makeup from our family. As a kid, I even went as far as hiding my stash in plastic garbage bags in a hollowed-out tree in a neighboring woods. Where I hoped no one would ever discover it. In addition, I had two other small hiding places in the house I could go to if I was suddenly free to cross-dress in front of the mirror. The entire process added to hiding my gender issues in plain sight. Almost, as all along, I was desperately trying to escape being caught and being sent on an unpleasant trip to a psychiatrist who would have most assuredly pronounced me mentally ill. Which was the norm for mental health professionals back in those days.

Since I never completely purged my feminine stash ever, maybe I was too chickenshit to do it (as Jeanie said). Or, as I struggled throughout my life with gender issues, my own “desire to reacquire” would return to rule my life. As it turned out, I was never strong enough to purge totally. Which looking back should have given me a clue to who I really was, a woman cross dressing as a man. Deep down, I knew, every feminine item I had worked so hard to acquire could not so easily be thrown in the trash. It would ultimately come down to me wondering how much different I would look in the mirror if I had not thrown out my previous stash.

At first, it all got worse before it got better when I entered my strong going out in the world as a novice transgender woman with my second wife. Fortunately, when I was restoring the old house, we lived in, I was able to build in a closet we rarely used. So, I found a place to hide the many thrifts store finds I had made and purchased. Also, by this time I was in a place where I did not care what my gender foes thought. I was building my future public persona, so I needed to look my best. Essentially, I entered the “don’t ask, don’t tell” phase of our relationship when my wife never said a word about my increasingly large wardrobe. She knew, I knew I was never going to purge again. Which turned out to be not true.

Just before she passed away, I decided to throw away “most” of my wardrobe and makeup and even went to the extent of growing a beard. Which I considered the ultimate purge. Even as I did it, something told me to keep my favorite outfit, wig and shoes because I never could be sure when I would need my old friends again. Tragically, six months later I did when my wife passed away and I turned inwardly to my feminine soul for comfort. When I did, I was able to shave my beard and hit the ground running towards a new life. Or, should I say, heels on the ground.

One way or another, I was happy I was not strong enough to totally attempt to purge away my feminine life. It was time to open a new chapter, even if I was sixty, as a transfeminine person. It seems many of us, with gender issues are doomed to a life of denial. We try to sooth our transgender or cross dresser sides by trips to our mirrors until we are caught, or in a relationship which even makes it worse. We begin to feel guilty about many things such as forsaking our ingrained male habits, all the way to feeling selfish for wanting to do something as radical as changing our genders for ourselves.

A lifetime of purging falls right in line with all the other pitfalls we encounter on our gender journeys. We must be strong enough men to make it to transgender womanhood and purging is just another experience we have to go through.

As always, thanks for reading along with my writings and experiences! Your comments mean a lot to me also. They help me to know if I am headed in the right direction. Please keep them coming!

 

 

Purging Revisited

I felt it was worthwhile enough to use Billie's comment and rerun the picture I used

The same thing has happened to me! Let it go, you're still you! And you're looking good! Thanks for the pic, Cyrsti.

Number one, I'm sorry I didn't make it clear the cross dresser in the picture is not me but the situation has happened to me-kind of. ( If anyone knows who she is, please pass the compliment! -And thanks for being so incredibly protective of me!")

While we are backtracking here in Cyrsti's Condo, let me explain what "purging" has always meant to me:

It's the act of throwing away all (or a portion of) your "stash" of feminine articles  When I saw this un named person, I thought immediately someone had found her "stash" hidden away with the lawn mower.

I'm sure like me, all of you have creative stories of where you attempted to hide your stash.  When I was a kid, I used an old box above the garage which was marked as books and even kept a water proof dress, mirror and makeup hidden back in the woods beside our house.

Later in life, I would keep a certain amount of items in a closet space my semi approving wife knew about and then had other stashes hidden here and there.  For the most part the scheme worked well, my problem was flat out getting caught cross dressed in the world-where by mutual agreement I shouldn't have been.

The most embarrassing instance of having my stash discovered and thrown back in my face came just before I had to go into the Army.

I was living in an apartment with two other guys in a medium sized college town in Ohio.  Truly, I got a little careless with how I was hiding my wig, clothes and shoes, and was "discovered."  The worst part about it was, I didn't know right away.  My two roommates were still in college and went home for Christmas break.  I had graduated and was waiting for my due date at Ft. Knox.  A few days after they had left, another guy who had kind of just "hung out" around there happened to stop by.

Looking back, he had to have known about the discovery because he casually turned the conversation around to cross dressing.  I figured what the hell, in a month I would be in the hills of Kentucky running and doing all sorts of other fun Army stuff.  So I told him what he obviously already knew, I was a transvestite or cross dresser and I would show him.

Secretly, I was fantasizing he would find me amazingly beautiful and ask me to go out with him.  What I really found was someone had stolen most everything I had.  So that was that.  When everyone got back from Christmas, of course they all viewed me a little different and even blamed their girlfriends for stealing my things.  I just them to go to hell, where I was going I couldn't wear them anyhow.

I made sure I let them know that even though their girlfriends enjoyed the supreme female privilege of not being drafted- I hope the rest of them would soon enjoy the military too!. 

Transgender Basics

All too often I read of beginning cross dressers all the way to transsexuals who dwell on the smallest points of fashion, shoes and makeup- there is nothing wrong with that! On the other hand, if you are not practicing the beauty basics in essence you could be wasting a lot of time before you slide into those heels!

My first example is weight. Similar to most of us, I have a thick torso so any weight I gain still goes to my upper body. (I think the hormones are finally shifting some "padding" to my hips, thighs and butt.) Excluding my breasts, the last thing I want to do is gain weight. My thought is, if you want to enter the feminine world, you may want to get obsessive about your weight like most genetic women. Be forewarned such as I was. Hormones will not help your weight issue! Pounds are as easy to put on but much harder to take off!

My second example is skin care.  Of course your skin is a canvas. The better the base-the better the finished product. One area of my appearance I do get a lot of compliments on is in the age category. Most don't even come close to thinking I'm 63. Genetics of course do have big impact but I believe nearly 20 years of moisturizers and skin creams have helped too.  "Back in the day" it was always easy for me to "stash" away some sort of skin care product to apply everyday after I shaved. There are hundreds to chose from. They include cleansers, defoliants, wrinkle cream at all different price ranges. Today it is even easier to use a skin care product because they are on the market for men. So, in reality you should have no excuse to not take care of your skin!

Finally, I believe so many in our community spend so much time jumping in and out of the culture they lose sight of tomorrow. Purging today for a week, month or year (of all your female belongings) usually doesn't mean you won't be back.  Following the two common sense basics above will certainly help you in which ever gender you ultimately chose to live.

Do you know "Art"

The "Art" I'm talking about is the "Art of Purging".
As I write on my book projects (I'm a hoarder of words), I discover aspects of my past that I have totally forgotten. What's that saying "I have forgotten more than most people know?"  In my case I'm pretty sure I've forgotten more because of my age!
For whatever reason all of the sudden I began to think about "purging". If you don't know, the term refers to the disposal of your feminine articles.

Looking back on the process, I came up with about three possibilities of how purging worked:
1.- Private. You took it upon yourself to throw your stuff away.
2.- Semi Private. You tossed a portion of your things out for someone else to see and kept the good.
3.-Total Dispersal. You took all of your feminine belongings and heaved them out of your world for someone else to see.

Regardless of the method one overriding memory came through to me-euphoria! I truthfully never purged much and never totally but the mere act of stuffing some of my girl stuff into trash bags and sending them to the trash was symbolically wonderful. I had finally faced the monster, beat her like a drum and was ready to resume a total masculine existence...Yeah right!

My fondest memory of a purge was when a friend of mine cleared out his storage unit of feminine contraband and gave me the pick of what I wanted which included my first real set of breast forms.

Of course the "tragedy" of purging is it doesn't work in the vast majority of cases. The euphoria and the great resolve to to separate one's self from the gender confusion departs quickly.