Gender Expectations

Image from the JJ Hart
Archives

As I progressed through my gender transformation, I had so many expectations.

All I really wanted to be when I grew up was a woman but I had no idea of how I was going to achieve my dream. Unlike most of the major professions available to me, there were no schools I could apply to to be femininized. I just wanted to find my passion and follow it. 

To do it, I finally had to be free of the mirror and join the world. Even when I discovered that, I had to often snatch defeat away from the jaws of victory. Or I was defeating myself by going exactly the wrong way with my women's fashion, hair and makeup. At the rate I was going back then, there was no way I was ever going to exceed, or even make it, to my gender expectations.

Another problem I encountered was the complexity of the new life I was trying my hardest to live. Every time I turned one corner it seemed I had another blocking my way. I began to see life as a series of walls I needed to climb. For example, if I couldn't learn to communicate with the world, how could I ever hope to bring my dreams to life. Many times as I journeyed out into the world, I was flying blind not knowing what to expect. The whole process was at once scary yet exciting. It took me many evenings out on my own to establish myself in venues I wanted to be secure in. At the time, I was doing my best to separate myself from the gay bars I was going to where I did not enjoy being treated as a drag queen. 

It was very difficult at first to be accepted as a single transgender woman in the sports bars I was going to. Often I resorted to using my cell-phone as a prop to fend off anyone who thought I was going to be alone for any length of time. It was during this time when I started to meet a trans woman friend of mine and socialize in many venues I was fearful of going into by myself.  There seemed to be an extra amount of security when I was with a friend. When we were together my gender expectations were satisfied because I was allowed to relax and be more social in the world.

From there I transitioned into having my lesbian friends and had a chance to really blossom. All of a sudden, I did not need a man to validate my existence as a woman and they helped me climb another big wall towards achieving my dream. My experiences at lesbian mixers, roller derby matches and even professional football games helped me to come out of my gender shell fast. By doing so, I needed to free my long dormant feminine inner being so she could help me to become a new person. She gladly did so and took off tons of pressure from my gender expectations. If I did not know what to expect, she did and took charge and maybe most importantly gave me the chance to build a quality trans person. I had the rare second chance in life to learn from my mistakes as a cross dresser and a man.

I finally ran the string out and had seen all I needed to see as a transgender woman and couldn't wait for the gender affirming hormones or HRT I was approved to take to take further charge of my body. All my expectations had been exceeded and there was no way I could have dreamed of coming this far in life the first time I slid into hose and a bra when I was a kid. 

I don't completely know why I made it but I sure am happy I did. Along the way, my gender expectations were often confusing to me and impossible to explain to others. Even though internalizing my feelings was brutal, good therapy helped my mental health. Even more so if I had listened to my gender therapist years ago who told me there was nothing either of us could do about my desire to be a woman. Of course I was stubborn and did not listen. If I had, my gender expectations may have really changed for the better much earlier in life.

Buckle Up!

Image 
from the 
Jessie 
Hart
Archives

Recently, I have happened across several posts on my social media feeds from novice transgender women just beginning HRT or gender affirming hormones. 

In many ways, as I look back on my hormonal experiences, I am envious. Mainly because my experience was so exciting. Possibly because I was finally realizing my attempt to take a major step forward in my transgender transition. For years, I had dreamed of starting HRT, much to the chagrin of my second wife who was completely against it. She had always told me, she did not want to live with another woman and the hormones would take me dangerously close to doing it.

When I actually started down the HRT path, little did I know how right she would be. I was naïve and I thought my new journey would involve growing breasts and hair but never dreamed of all the other changes which would take place. My skin softened along with my facial angles which helped  my feminine presentation in the world. I could use much less makeup and do away with wearing wigs because I was fortunate I did not inherit any male pattern baldness.  

Before I knew it I really wanted it to happen, I was becoming very androgynous and had to do something. With my hair, breasts and skin alone, it was time to begin to think about the circumstances to what I was doing. Plus, I have not even mentioned all the extra benefits of going through the second major puberty in my life. When I did, I discovered so many new things about myself such as when my sense of smell suddenly improved and my body's thermostat went away. What happened was I was cold all the time and suddenly understood women were not making it up all the times when they said they were chilly.

Then there were the onset of emotions I went through when I started HRT. Previously in my male life I had become very insulated when dealing with my emotions. Sadly, I became so callous, I had a difficult time shedding a tear when my parents passed away. Suddenly, one night, when a late summer thunderstorm moved in, I sat alone on my side porch and started to cry for the loss of my old male self. It was such a powerful moment in my life, I will never forget it. 

Of course if you are just starting down your path to femininizing hormones, there will be many peaks and valleys or ups and downs. Similar to so many others, I questioned the gender path I was taking. Was it the correct one? So, I buckled up for the ride. I'm not sure now if I was ready for the first hot flashes I went through which hit me when I was out in public and I ended up wondering if the world had noticed I was getting ready to internally combust. Perhaps back in those days, the worst part of my gender journey was I had no one to share it with. I was just getting to know the small circle of women friends I started to hang out with on a regular basis and knew they would only say welcome to their world if I brought up anything such as hot flashes to them. 

After awhile, I came to the conclusion I had buckled up for one of the best roller coaster rides there were. The best part was, for the most part, I had no idea what was coming up next. When I was approved for larger dosages under the care of a doctor, changes continued to come at a rapid pace. Under medical care, I went from pills to patches which supposedly helped with the wear and tear on inner organs such as kidneys. Life was good as I adjusted to the new hormones and I felt as if my body was telling me I was a natural for gender affirming hormones all the time. 

The very few people who knew me pre-transition said it the best, I just seemed more relaxed and happy now as a transgender woman. I never said anything but I gave most of the credit for my new found joy to the hormones I was on. HRT had helped me to sync up my internal and external gender feelings. It would have been "TMI" or too much information for the average person to understand. 

I will always wonder how my deceased second wife would have reacted to me as a transgender woman. Would I ever have paid enough dues to move out of the pretty pretty princess mode she threw me in and ascend to the woman mode she was so afraid of. I would like to think at the least we still could have remained friends.  I will never know.

At the least, your journey will be different than mine in many ways and will include many twists and turns. Just try to enjoy the journey many others will never have the chance to take.

Much More than a Phase

 

Civil War Cemetery image
from the Jessie Hart Archives. 

When I was first experimenting with wearing woman's clothing, I worked long and hard to hide all my feminine wardrobe and makeup. 

Due to transportation and financial constraints I always had a difficult time adding to my very limited collection. Plus, I always wondered if my Mom ever really discovered her clothes and others I managed to "borrow" for my cross dressing trips to my mirror. If she did, she never confronted me about it. Perhaps she thought it all was a phase and I would grow out of it. Similar to the fallacy, being transgender is ever a choice, I learned my gender issues were much more than a phase.

Very early on, I discovered a lesson I should have relied on but kept on ignoring. The lesson was, I wanted to be a girl, not just look like one. The very beginning of the realization I was transgender as I envied everything girls around me did.  Which went far past their pretty clothes while I was stuck in my drab male clothes. All along I was stuck in a family which valued male superiority and I wanted to rebel but couldn't. I often wonder if I had been born into a more diverse family (if that was possible back in those days) I could have made my feelings known and thrived. Instead, I did the only male thing I knew how to do and internalized all my inner feelings. I even thought, if I ignored my gender issues long enough, they would turn out to be a phase and go away.

Of course my gender dysphoria never did go away and just grew worse as I began to understand the full depth of what I was facing. As I look back, Halloween parties were my first indication I could do more than living a shallow life in front of the mirror as a cross dresser. I learned the hard way, heels weren't so much fun when I first wore them on long walks all the way to how much fun I had experimenting with the clothes and learning from the parties as a whole. Another step towards showing me my phase was not going away, I was just growing into it.

Halloween parties proved to be false feedback in many ways. Most people who saw me were friends who thought Haha I was the clown dressing as a woman for a laugh. Even though I was going as far as shaving my legs. In my mind, my legs alone would do the trick and everyone would know I was much more than a once a year man putting on a dress. At least I wanted it to as I grew confident I could present more and more as a real woman at the party. When I had achieved my goal, I felt I was ready to pursue a future as a successful transgender woman. 

When I did, the work really started. Life was so much more challenging as I left my male phase in my past. I wonder now if my Mom ever thought my simple love of girls clothes was a phase, what would she think now. Outside of the one time I tried to come out to her as a transvestite and she rejected me, we never discussed it again before her death. I can't help but look back and regret how much life I may have lost if she would have ever accepted me. I on the other hand took the high road and honored her by using her first name as my new legal middle name.  

Normally, phases come and go but certainly none of it applies to being a cross dresser or transgender person. Once the public at large learns to accept we are not a phase, trans kids especially could benefit from more understanding when they are young. Parents and siblings could have a more serious outlook of what being trans is all about, helping the whole situation. Or, leave the phase out and help the person. 

Finding your Happy Place

From the Jessie Hart Archives 

 As a transgender woman or trans man, it is often very difficult to find your happy place.

A happy place can often be called gender euphoria for all of us who suffer from gender dysphoria. If you don't know, dysphoria is the often evil process of hating the gender you were born in. After all these  years, I still dread the first look in the mirror every morning. Who will I see looking back? My same old masculine self, or a femininized version of him. Some mornings I land in my happy place and others I don't. I usually settle on a middle point until I am done with the mirror.  On occasion too, I suffer from having an impostor syndrome. When I think do I even belong here at all. Happily, the syndrome goes now away quickly because I know I have earned my place as a transgender woman.

Earning my place was never easy as I never inherited any feminine characteristics to start with. What I did have was a testosterone damaged body to work with. The only positives I had to work with were the compliments I received  on my freshly shaven legs at Halloween parties.  Then I had the tendency to overdue it when I explored feminine fashion. I thought I should emphasize my positives such as my legs and at the same time play down my body negatives such as a thick torso. All of it led to massive fashion mistakes before I learned to dress to blend in with the other women I encountered in public. I lived through all of those and found a happy place I could live with.

Around this time was when my happy place location started to change and move around. It shifted from appearance only into a personality based place. Mainly because, suddenly I was closely interacting with the public as a trans woman. It all meant so much more to me than my days as a casual cross dresser. All I know was I was up to the challenge and enjoyed my new happy place everytime it presented itself to me. Outside of a few instances of impostor syndrome, I was learning more and more I could indeed live my dream of being a transgender woman in the world. It turned out my happy place did exist in the feminine world and more and more I wanted out of my old boring male existence. 

Still I had a lot of climbing to do to rid myself of the old baggage I needed to lose to transition. I wondered at the time what I would do about everything I loved in life such as my daughter, (hobbies such as sports) and what was left of my business. It turned out destiny took it's own course with my baggage. My daughter supported me completely while my brother rejected me, so I was the recipient of the best part of the deal. As far as my business went, it mercifully closed due to a weakened economy and other factors, leaving me close to having an early retirement. As far as hobbies went, ironically I found a group of women who were as passionate as I was about sports, so I had friends to watch our favorite games with. So as you can tell, outside of the obvious gender issues, I was able to restart my happy place without a whole lot of extra effort. 

When I found my new happy place, it felt so natural I wondered why I did not pursue it earlier. I know early on I was into my appearance as a woman completely and often missed the basics of movement and communication to further my femininity. It turned out I did not have to worry because the deeper I delved into my new life, the more fluid and natural I became. Practice made perfect in so many ways along with the fact I became secure into who I was. When I did, I didn't care what others thought of me and my confidence as a trans woman increased.

It turned out, destiny took it's time but ultimately led me the right direction.    

The Gender Waltz

Image from Clarisse Meyer
on UnSplash

Since the beginning of time, the two binary genders have done a special dance with each other. 

Being transgender, I have been fortunate to have seen and experienced dancing from both sides of the spectrum. Before I go any farther, I do need to say I am a terrible dancer. In fact, the only time I have tried to dance was when I was so intoxicated I could barely stand up. Sadly, there were recordings made of my dancing struggles.

Certainly, my struggles with dancing were with women . I still tried but since I was so shy, I had very few interactions with girls or women at all. No dancing for me outside of the lessons my Mom made me take. It made it worse as I was at the embarrassing age when many girls were taller than the boys. We learned such trendy dances way back then such as the Cha-Cha as I remember. The grand experiment failed and immediately, I tried to put the entire experience behind me.

Of course gender waltz's go way past just real live dances. Just one of the main ones is inter-gender communication. When the book came out called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and appeared on the book stands, I wondered where was I from? It took me years to figure it out. I was from neither. Regardless, it did not take a genius to figure out there are very big differences in the genders other than biological. It is the reason, men and women have such a difficult time understanding each other.

Interestingly, the differences between  the genders extend to what friends we choose. In my case, since I grew up with only other males in my neighborhood, early on all my friends were boys. However, as I grew older, the vast majority of my friends were with women and I had very few close male friends at all. I guess deep down, I was getting ready for my future. 

Recently, I read a post from another transgender woman how she vastly approved having men friends over women. Why? Because she didn't  really like the interaction with other women including the body language on how they crossed their legs  all the way down to how they were sitting. In addition, she didn't enjoy the feminine give and take very much. She much more preferred to talk to men. In my case, I waltzed in the opposite direction. I didn't like the reaction I was receiving from men when I talked to them as a transgender woman. So I resorted back to when I was a guy and was able to communicate the best I could with the women around me. It was all I could do to survive in a new gender world. 

None of my new dance was easy to do. Even though it felt more natural to me. With women, especially, I needed to try to judge what they were really trying to say to me, often in a round about way. Was a compliment really a compliment or merely an opening to try to find out something else about me. I learned the hard way how to dance in a new world not as a cross dresser but as a novice transgender woman. Who knows, maybe other women sensed my innocent approach and it helped me to be accepted. Until the newness of meeting a transgender woman wore off and life resumed. 

Outside of a few exceptions, I rarely had many interactions with men I sought out and was accepted into a world of women. I enjoyed my new dance so much and wanted it to go on forever and so far, without a few exceptions, it has. Maybe I was just trying too hard to dance the wrong way after all. 

  

 

Exploring my Passions

Alzheimer's Pride Shirt.

Recently, I received a message from a statewide Ohio LGBTQ publication concerning my passion to help any way I can with the Alzheimer's Association. As I write about often, I serve on the Greater Cincinnati Alzheimer's diversity council and look at it as a way I can pay back to the time when my Dad passed away from dementia. 

If I am chosen for an interview this coming Friday, I will be able to express my paranoia concerning what may happen to me if I contract the same disease my Dad did. Not only do I want to not lose all the work I put into living as my authentic feminine self, I certainly don't want to bring any extra pressure needlessly to my family care givers over my gender issues.  

Of course I hope the publication follows through on writing an article  about the impact of Alzheimer's on the aging transgender population which is largely invisible, I look at it as the least I can do.

On another outreach topic, I heard back from several readers on my post concerning doing LGBTQ or transgender support groups at the Dayton, Ohio Veterans Administration hospital. Most of which pointed out their lack of real feedback from the group. I agree but point out having a LGBTQ group is often having a too wide of a base. For example, the average lesbian or gay person does not have the same lifestyle as a transgender person may have. In my opinion, it is why the groups I was a part of never maintained any critical mass of participants. 

Even still, I decided to join this new group which starts in August to see what happens. And to see if there are any new participants I don't know. Plus, I may get updates on those transgender women who had just started gender affirming hormones when I had saw them last. It would be interesting to see the changes which occurred. Often in these groups I don't say much and hope I can just serve as an example of transgender survival in the world. 

As with anything else, I will follow up with all of these upcoming happenings and keep you posted.

Going Through the Motions

Image from Dibakatur Roy 
on UnSplash.

Looking back at my fifty plus years of life as a cross dresser, I wonder when and how I crossed the gender barrier into being a transgender woman.

Also, how many years did I spend just going through the motion to arrive at my destination. I started with going through what I call now my mirror worship period. During this time, I couldn't wait for any opportunity I had to slip away from my boring, unwanted male life to slip into what feminine fashion and makeup I could find which fit me. Invariably, the mirror would give me positive feedback until I could come back for more. 

I am guessing now but I think approximately twenty years or so went by before I was brave enough to leave the mirror behind and see what if anything the world had to offer a novice cross dresser. On the other hand,  I know it took me longer than the two decades to figure out my truth. I was just going through the motions as a cross dresser and my gender issues ran much more deeper than just wanting to put on a dress and walk in front of the mirror. After years and years of doing the same thing, for some reason something clicked in me which made sense but at the same time was very scary.

It was the time I decided to find out if I could go co-exist with a group of women as a woman in their own territory. Previously, I had scouted out the venue I wanted to go to and when I wanted to try out my idea. It was the "Friday's" I write about often and yes I was petrified for several reasons. What if I did not make it and was ridiculed or maybe worse yet, what if I did and my life would change forever. If I did make it, I knew I could never go back to just going through the motions of being a part-time cross dresser. I was so much more. 

Finally, I got in so deep with me thinking I was transgender I reversed all of my gender thinking. Primarily I wasn't a man cross dressing as a woman at all I was a woman cross dressing as a man. Or, I was just going through the motions of being a male because I was born into it and was just attempting to get by until I could change my life for the better and live as a transgender woman. It represented a seismic change in my thinking on how I was going to live my life. 

By the time I was sixty, I could not take all the self destructive behavior I was experiencing any longer and decided to cross the gender frontier and live as a transgender woman. I embraced all my new gender thinking and set out to discover all I had missed by living my life as a man. Since my inner feminine soul had been observing my life and struggles the whole time, surprises were kept to a minimum. It turned out she was plotting all along how she would live once she got the chance. 

The last major step my male self gave her was going to the doctor and getting approved for gender affirming hormones. HRT just helped to further sync up what I thought I needed to be with what I actually was. Or, I thought I needed any help I could with femininizing my body to help me blend in with the world.

Of course, now I feel as if I was robbed of my life when I was going through the motions of being a man. On the other hand, I made the best of an unfortunate mistake. I gained a daughter, built a solid career and even survived my tour in the Army, so it all could have been so much worse as I battled my own gender dysphoria. It turned out, being transgender just led me into going through more motions than most people.   

Trans Peaks and Valleys

Image from the
Jessie Hart Archives.

Lifetime as a whole presents us with many peaks and valleys to negotiate.

Since I am transgender and always wanted to be a woman, my peaks and valleys often revolved around times when I came out as my authentic self in the world. Very early on, sadly, there were more frequent valleys than peaks as I learned to survive in the public as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. I vividly remember too many times when I came home sobbing when I was laughed at. I don't remember now how I survived the dark times and continued to move forward. 

As I did move forward, there were other peaks in my life such as when my only child was born. When she arrived, my existence changed forever. Plus, I wondered how having a new person in the world would effect my gender desires. In many ways, I thought it was poetic justice when I had a girl. For some reason, deep down, I thought I could understand a girl better than a boy.  Since my daughter turned out the way she did, maybe I was right.

A big problem I had with my peaks and valleys was staying in one place long enough to actually understand if I was doing anything right. As I constantly changed jobs and moved my small family, I gave my second wife a hard way to go when I tried to chase myself. I am amazed we made it through twenty five years. 

Another problem I had was when I needed to come down off the gender peaks when I encountered them. Gender euphoria was so rare, I wanted to hang on to it as long as I could. When I couldn't I would become frustrated and ultimately mean around my family and co-workers. 

The more I progressed in my gender transition the more extreme the effort to climb out of the valleys became. The major problem was I didn't feel increasingly secure in my old male role and at the same time, I was feeling more and more natural as my femininized self. Which again caused me great frustration when I fell deeper into my valley. At several points I was so deep, I needed therapy to help me restore my mental health. Therapy on occasion did help me climb up to an acceptable level of a peak. When I was smart enough to actually take the therapist's advice. 

It turned out my fear of heights carried over to my transgender issues. The better I became at existing as a woman in public, I was scared. Primarily because for the first time in my life it seemed to be a real possibility I could reach my dream of actually living as a transgender woman. As I looked down on my previous male life, leaving it scared me. What would I do about  losing all of my white male privileges and then having to start all over again. At the time, the only female privilege I could see was a man opening a door for me. Which I later found to be false as there were other feminine benefits I had yet to experience as I climbed my gender peak. 

Finally, at the age of sixty, I could take the pressure of the climb no longer and I decided to stop all aspects of my old male life. I was taking gender affirming hormones to take me to the next step, my mental health was improving and for once I could see my life clearly as a transgender woman. So even though I needed to take a leap of faith off a cliff and transition, I found I had others around me who provided a soft landing. It turned out, I hadn't lost anything at all. 

My up and down life of trying to live as both binary genders was difficult at times to say the least. Near the end I found I made the correct decision on which peak to climb and it was not the male one.

Transgender Shape-Shifting

 

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives

Changing your unwanted testosterone damaged male body into anything which remotely resembles a female is very challenging. 

In order to be a gender shape-shifter you need to become a perfectionist down to the smallest detail. Plus, seeing as how most of us transgender women got a late start in our transitions, we spent quite a bit of time playing catch up to other genetic women our age. We did not have the peer pressure or Mom's influence to steer our way into the public's eye.

Some would argue also, we trans women had to be better than the average woman to survive. We had to be on point with our makeup, fashion and accessories to look good and in addition were able to still able to blend in with a society of women who increasingly did not seem to care how they looked.

Finding the middle point of presenting well in your cross dressing shape-shifting experience was difficult to say the least. Even so, some of us would consider the process of presenting as a woman as a labor of love. In my case, I was fond of haunting all my local deep discount clothing stores until I located just the right fashion item or accessory. I remember the thrill I felt when I finally summoned the courage I needed to use the changing rooms to see in fact if I had found a "treasure" to add to my wardrobe. 

Then there was the problem of learning how to put my shape-shifted self into motion. No matter how I looked was any good if I still walked like a linebacker and communicated as a man. I remembering working long and hard on discarding my male walk the best I could and picking up the unique movement of a woman. It was difficult for me because I was still working and living a portion of my life as a man and needed to be careful not to cross over the gender line at the wrong time. Even though I secretly loved to be called "ma'am" when I was working as a guy, I still needed to be very careful to maintain my carefully crafted male image. 

I came to the point where shape-shifting became too much for me to handle and I finally tried to be approved for gender affirming hormones to aid the process. I was helped along by the knowledge I had taken my femininization process along as far as I could without the aid of medical help. Since I never was the beneficiary of any natural help with my feminine appearance, I needed all the assistance  I could find. I discovered help when I started HRT under a doctor's supervision. My skin almost immediately began to soften which helped my facial angles soften which also allowed me to use less makeup and look more natural. In addition, my hair growing to the point of not needing to wear a wig anymore, along with growing my own breasts were just the beginning of my advanced search into being a gender shape-shifting human. 

Of course my final test, was how the public was responding to the new transgender woman me. For the most part I received positive feedback by getting no feedback at all. I was able to blend in with the world as my preferred authentic self and take a major step towards being happy in life. All along I was stuck in my dream of wanting to be a woman, or come as close as I could. It was all because I finally discovered my gender was coming from between my ears and not my legs.

Looking back on a shape-shifting life was certainly easier than living it on occasion when I think back on all the failures I went through to arrive where I am today. Supposedly learning from failure is the best way to progress in life and I believe it.

Having it All as a Trans Girl

Archived image
after Beauty Salon. 

As we negotiate difficult gender journeys on the way to becoming our authentic selves as transgender women or trans men, we find it is tough to have it all in our lives.

Many times, as we give up much of the baggage we have accumulated in our old lives, we have to give up spouses, families and even employment. On the plus side, if we have the chance, we can build back better in our new lives. In fact, I was told once by a woman I knew, I had an unique situation. I was starting all over in life where as most other humans never have the chance to do. Before I could get there, I needed to do quite a bit of work.

Early on, I obsessed on my feminine appearance, wrongly thinking it was all I needed to do to make it in the world as a cross dresser or transgender woman. Seeing as how my wife was fond of calling me the pretty princess all the time and I knew nothing about being a woman. Now, I wish I would have listened closer to her. As it was, I did listen to the point where I really began to work overtime observing women to see what she meant and it was not enough. I still didn't understand and my male ego continued to get in my way when I happened to have a successful night out cross dressing. Like the evening I went to a transvestite mixer and was carded at the door to prove I was a guy and not a cis-woman. My defense was I had to know what a woman was if I had been mistaken for one the night before. Plus, somehow I held my gender dilemma against my wife because she would not help me,  As  I always mention, it seemed my wife and my male self ganged up on me to slow down my transition. Both had a losing stake in the process if I made it.

At any rate, I said to hell with them and set out to look behind the sacred feminine curtain to see if I could survive. Quickly, I learned not only could I survive but just possibly I could thrive as a transgender woman. In order to make my way behind the gender curtain, I needed to really learn the basics of communicating as a woman, mainly with other women. I found I had a curious audience of women wondering at the least what I was doing in their world and at the most, learning I was not any sort of a threat. For awhile, my life was moving fast and I was close to seeing what having it all might mean for this trans girl. It all became tantalizingly close. 

So close, I kept moving forward as fast as I could, especially when the forces which were holding me back began to weaken and disappear.  It became easier and easier to toss my old male baggage in the trash and acquire new feminine luggage, The turmoil I experienced at once was the toughest, saddest moment of my life coupled in with a few of the most exciting times I had ever experienced. 

Even with all of my changes I was going through as a transgender woman, I still didn't think I was ever on the edge of having it all. Life is just not built that way. Primarily with the help of a small group of very accepting women friends, I was able to come close and open gender doors which were previously closed to me. I was able to never look back at a male life I never really wanted.

Finishing What you Started

Dinner with my wife Liz on Left

My parents always pushed me to finish what I started. 

Little did they know how their priorities for me  would influence me in my future years. As I began my early years as an innocent cross dresser just trying to justify my new gender feelings. The more I went in front of the mirror, the less I could un-see what I imagined myself to be if I was an actual girl. Seeing as how I was in a shared space with myself, my imagination was key to survival. Often I spent hours at school dreaming of rushing home ahead of my family and cross dressing with the feminine clothes I managed to accumulate. I made very little money with my allowance I earned along with what I earned on my newspaper neighborhood route I took on. I think my parents were surprised when I was so good with doing my job delivering papers, not knowing the real motivation I had. Which was, I needed the money to buy more make-up or clothes if I could find them.

I was well on the way towards finishing what I started the older I became. What happened was the mirror became reality when I started to leave my closet and journey into the world. Plus, for years, I wondered if I was ever able going to attempt to finish what I started. Was it even possible? To finish, I would have to completely overcome the challenges equated with changing out family, friends and even employment. The more I went forward in the world as a transgender woman, the more sense I felt in my life as I knew it. For a change, I actually thought I could make it towards my dream goal of being a woman, transgender or not. Mainly because of the times I was actually being accepted in the world as my authentic self. From shopping, to eating out to making special trips to Christmas activity, I was doing it all. 

The problem became I became too good in my new life. I can't say it enough how natural I felt when I was finishing what I started so I kept pushing myself to do more. That meant nothing feminine was off limits for me. Except for the occasional redneck sports bar I went into to enjoy a drink and an appetizer, I did not have any major problems at all. The exception was the one venue I went to when the police were called on me for using the restroom. I never finished what I started there and never went back as I had several other venues I was welcomed at. I realized I should spend my money where I was welcomed. 

Eventually, I knew to come closer to finishing what I started, I would need to research gender affirming hormones. If I was approved for HRT, I felt I could come closer than ever before to femininizing my exterior body to match my feminine inner gender. I was medically approved and before I knew it, the hormones had produced a very androgynous body for me. So much so, I needed to move up my timetable of when I planned on going fulltime as a transgender woman. My skin was softening so much, my breasts and hair were growing so fast, I could not turn back. Perhaps, most surprisingly to me were the internal changes which were taking place. My world was softening and for the first time in my life, I could have an emotional cry. 

Even though I have been successful in mostly finishing what I started on my gender journey, as I nearly reach the age seventy five. Three quarters of a century has taught me what Yogi Berra said is true. It's not over till it's over. I never make a secret of the paranoia I face over facing my final years fighting for my gender in an assisted  living facility. I have finally been able to tell myself I will face that hurdle when I come to it.

Fortunately, I have survivors such as my wife Liz and daughter who respect my gender wishes and won't have a huge family argument when I die. A problem  I see so much of in the transgender community when a family disapproves of a person living as their authentic self. Who would have ever thought finishing what you started would be such a time consuming and difficult process. I certainly didn't when I first got a glimpse of myself all those years ago.    

A Transgender Marathon

Archive Image

 I'm sure you have heard the saying it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is especially true for transgender women and trans men.

Yesterday, I read a social media post from a first time transgender woman going out in public for the first time. In the post, she was bemoaning the fact after applying her makeup and seeing pictures, she did not look as good as she thought she did. My heart went out to her and I mentioned I went down the same path. Learning the art of makeup is just the first part of a transgender marathon into understanding yourself. 

Others who read the post chimed in with similar thoughts and even expanded it into impostor syndrome as a future possible reaction the person might have to face. 

Looking back, I could remember vividly how badly I felt when I first started my visits out of the house and into the public's eye. Back then, pictures were difficult to come by and were mainly only accessible by the old "photo kiosks" and drug stores. Only one time get I get brave enough to take a roll of film to one of the kiosks to see how I looked on film. I was shocked, and not in a good way, I obviously looked like a cross dresser and a bad one at that. The worst part was, the person who developed and gave me my pictures knew me and even worse yet, his Dad worked with my Dad. My marathon was almost over before it started. If I liked it or not. 

As it turned out, I moved back into the mirror and did my best to remove the negative self image I still had from the ill advised pictures. It actually took me years to try to attempt more pictures as my marathon moved on. As with anything else, the more you work on something, the better you become. Also technology was on my side with better cameras, which offered more than the very expensive Polaroids giving instant pictorial feedback. I was fascinated with my first cell phone which took pictures and better yet I had my first computer that I used to upload cross dressed pictures of myself. By doing so, I attracted attention, flattering to begin with in chatrooms until my wife caught on. She learned the computer skills faster than I did, so I needed to try to catch up as fast as possible. 

My marathon marched on, I gained more and more confidence until I reached increasing problems with my gender dysphoria. It seemed, no matter how much effort I put into my feminine appearance and deportment, the more I felt like a guy in a dress. To survive, I finally had to come to a basic conclusion. I was not as good looking as a woman I thought I was, or as bad. There was always the middle point I needed to shoot for. Finally, I knew who I was and I had the confidence to move on from new problems such as impostor syndrome. 

Again, I needed to come to a middle point where I could survive as a person. While I could never reclaim a girl's childhood experiences, or the problems associated with having periods or pregnancies, I had to go through my own set of experiences which presented their own problems. For example, I needed to try to escape my own gender demons which everyone in life seems to have, male or female, trans or not. I finally had to end the part of my marathon I agonized over for so long and claim my own brand of womanhood. Somehow I always found a way to survive and found a path. I was able to chase it and find success...in my own way. Which turned out was all I could do.

Going all the way back to the person who was just starting their public journey as a transgender person, try to make your marathon as easy as you can, Roll with the punches and move along as quickly as you can but always remembering the entire process is a marathon, not a sprint and sometimes, you are your own worst enemy. 

Good Together

 

Image from Columbus, Ohio
from the Archives.

As I grew into expressing my authentic self, I felt the pressure of attempting to placate what was left of my male self while I was increasingly living as a transgender woman. 

Increasingly, I felt as if I was living with a stranger when I tried to express my male self. He was fading quickly into my past, much quicker than I thought possible. Who was this man who controlled my life for so long? It took me so long to have the courage to figure it out. As I always point out, the answer was an easy one. I never was a man cross dressing as a woman, I was a woman cross dressing as a man. Once I figured it out, my life became so much easier. 

Sadly, my male and female sides never were good together. My second wife was fond of teaming up with my male self against my femininized insecure self. When she needed help the most, it was extremely difficult to find. Fortunately, I was stubborn enough to mentally tell them to go to hell. Mainly, because I felt so natural when I was following my transgender instincts. 

Instincts led me to improving my natural presentation as a woman including fashion and make-up arts. Maybe as I improved, my wife and male self became more and more scared. Somehow they saw me glimpse my reality and they did not like the future they saw. Specifically, the very few nights, my wife actually went out to eat with my femininized self, she made it painfully obvious she did not like me. More than anything else, her attitude hurt my feelings since I had attempted to dress down to meet her standards of wearing jeans, boots and sweaters. My next step down for me was to wear no makeup at all which would have defeated the purpose of going at all. Essentially, I gave up on any idea of us co-existing as women of any type. We were never good together. 

All I really wanted was an even break, or so I thought. The more I ended up exploring the world as a novice transgender woman, the more I wanted to do. Eventually, I could take it no longer and took the only way out I had. I went the gender affirming hormone route and decided to pursue a life as a trans woman and the rest of the story is relatively easy. The more life I lived, the more I felt more relaxed and good together with myself. 

Life was good again as I had come full circle from the dark days of death and gender dysphoria. 

Dealing With Trans Rejection

Image from Jakayla Toney
on UnSplash.

Similar to so many transgender women or trans men, I have dealt with my share of rejections. 

My first major rejection came when I tried to come out to a friend when I was young. Instead of accepting me in anyway, he seemed to be embarrassed, shook his head and walked away. With that, I was forced again into my lonely, confused gender closet. I learned the hard way my friends did not want anything to do with a cross dressed companion. 

Little did I know, I needed to become used to rejection in my life. Somehow I needed to grow a thicker skin. Then again, all of my rejections did not come from outside sources. Sometimes rejection came from within as my male self became quite the transphobe. He did not want to give up any of his white male privileges plus being made fun of when I first started to try to out myself into the real world. Ironically, my male self tried to team up with my second wife to reject any ideas of a transgender life for me. To be fair, my wife was always OK with me being a cross dresser but drew the line at any idea of me going any further towards being a trans woman and to be fair to me, she knew I cross dressed before we were married.

Skipping ahead again to the times I was rejected when I tried to go out and test the public waters as a novice gender divergent person, there were plenty of times when I was rejected. Sometimes, it was merely being stared at, other times people being rude and asking for pictures, all the way to be out and out laughed at. All of the negatives led to me coming home in tears and laying down on my bed and sobbing. For some reason, after my tears, my basic stubbornness kicked in and I began to look at ways I could improve my presentation. Slowly but surely, I did improve but the rejection scars remained behind to haunt me. Mainly, my confidence was affected leading to even more unwanted rejections. I was just too timid when I was a novice transgender woman. Many times, I gave myself away.

The worst time I ever had was when a woman followed me into the women's room in one of the regular venues I went to. As always, I chose a stall, completed my business and had started to wash my hands when I turned around and faced a red faced woman who immediately started to scream at me. When she called me a pervert, I said enough is enough. For some reason I don't remember now, I learned she was a hair dresser, so I asked her if she had a business card. She asked why and I said I wanted to pass it along to our local LGBTQ organization so they could publicize her bigotry in their monthly news letter. With that, she turned around and stormed out of the woman's' room  and we went back to our seats. My reaction to her slur must have worked because she refused to even look at me when we had the chance to closely pass each other in the venue. 

Even though I was semi successful (I think) in backing down the bigot, I am still scarred by the incident. Especially these days when politicians in my native Ohio are attempting to make the simple act of using the restroom of your choice would become a crime. So far, they have been unsuccessful because of issues of enforcement. 

Perhaps, rejection is just a part of the transgender pathway we all have to follow and the ones who are successful in our journey are just the people who deal with it the best. Then again do rejections just scar us to the point of never properly recovering. Much like all the times I was turned down when I asked a girl out ended up how I viewed the the entire world of women. I let a few skew my feelings of the many. which is sometimes what happens with transgender women or trans men. When we are painted with broad strokes like that, often it can lead to rejections. I wonder if my friend I came out to so many years ago still remembers the one he met. Did I make any sort of a good impression or did I ruin it for any trans women he may meet now. There is no way to know but sometimes I find it fascinating to think about. 

I am happy to say, I came out of my years of hiding and dealing with rejection relatively unscarred and equipped to live a positive life.  

A Breath of Fresh Air

Out to eat with my wife Liz on the left.

Even though we are among the millions of other Americans stuck under the infamous "Heat Dome" and temperatures near one hundred, last night I was able to take a breath of wonderful fresh air.

To do it, I needed to get out of the air conditioned house long enough so Liz and I could make the short trip to our favorite Mexican restaurant. Fortunately, the venue's air conditioning was working fairly well and we were seated under a ceiling fan. So we were comfortable even though the place was very busy. 

For the evening out, I chose a lacy pink and black top I have not worn in ages. Along with my dark blue leggings with tennis shoes so I was very much at ease. It was also fun to shave very close and apply a light foundation coat of makeup before I did my eyes and contouring finally finishing up with lipstick before I brushed back my hair. My goal, which I think I achieved, was a soft feminine look. I helped myself by clipping my hair loosely in the back, allowing long straight strands to fall on both sides on my face. The whole effect, served to lengthen and femininize my face.  

At any rate, the most important part was how the public perceived me. Even though I wasn't dressed in the shorts and light dresses the other women were wearing around me, I thought my flowing outfit fit in well. It helped too I was with my wife Liz and her son who has accepted me since he was a teenager. I was set up for success. 

The best part was, no one gave me a second look and I was able to feel as if I was the "normal" woman out into the world. Even little kids ignored me. Along the way, I did have the opportunity to pause in my mind and think back to all the work it took to come to this point of gender acceptance in my life. All the times I was stared at or worse as I tried to make my way in a new uncertain world out of the mirror. In many ways my dreams were answered. All it took were years of struggle to finally achieve the success I found last night. 

After we finished our drinks and dinner, the three of us decided to try a different venue the next time we go out. Which presents another challenge when I present to the world. Plus, I know both my wife Liz and I need to get out of this house and everytime we do, it seems to improve our mental health for any number of reasons. Every time I am "ma'amed" at the table automatically adds to the tip and sends my brain soaring.  I was last night and the tip reflected it without the server (a man) even knowing why.

Perhaps the best point is the resultant gender euphoria I felt after we arrived back home and into the next day. Today I still feel the pleasure of finally arriving more or less where I wanted to be years ago when I was a confused kid. Of course I know there will still be many challenges ahead in my gender journey, I feel satisfied so far with my long term progress. I even call the transgender process, working at my craft. It is the only way I can look at all the gender changes I needed to make to jump across the gender border to see if the grass was indeed greener. For me it was and I decided to never turn back into an unwanted male life. 

Nights such as last night are always a re-enforcement of all the work and effort I put into my transition.  I need all I can get. 

Gender Stress

 

Image from Alekon Pictures
on UnSplash

Living a transgender life can often be nearly unbearable. I found it to be especially so when my male self was refusing to give up a losing cause and I was still trying to discover the wonders of living as a novice transgender woman.

In many ways, I don't blame my guy for holding on because of all the work he did to arrive at where he was in the white male hierarchy he grew up in. By jumping genders, I was risking it all. My job, my family and friends could conceivably all be gone. The pressure was on. In one way I admired the men around me who didn't have gender issues to deal with but on the other hand, I felt so alive and natural when I was expressing my transgender self. More and more, I so admired the women around me even more than the men. 

All of this envy led me to a major point in my life where I finally needed to decide my future gender. In many ways, it was my own fault because when I started coming out, I was more successful quicker than I ever thought possible. Very early on, I was just going out cross dressed to see if I could and then discovered it was going be easier than I thought to build a new life as a woman. To my surprise, strangers wanted to know me. Especially other women who wanted to know why I wanted to be in their world. At the time, I had just lost my wife and most of my close friends to death, so I was extremely lonely. Any attention I received was a surprise and welcome. 

The problem was I still had a male life to decide what I wanted to do with. Did I want to try to keep him part-time or go all the way and do away with all of my male existence. If I had just faced up to my truth, I would not have to have gone through all the gender stress I was to encounter. What happened was, I still hung on to trying to live as both binary genders nearly killed me. The stress I felt, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I couldn't keep my mind on anything else than when or if I was ever going to take the next step on my transition journey. Which, at that time, I considered to being approved for and starting gender affirming hormones. 

As my life changed, my gender stress magically went away slowly but surely. At that point, I knew I had made the right decision by going ahead and giving up what was left of my male life. The pressure was off and I became a happier person. At the same time, I had developed my own group of women friends who accepted me and my life was similar to a continual girls night out. I'm sure the hormones helped but life became much more bearable. It all turned out to be great timing as it was near the time my health care group (Veterans Administration) started to accept transgender veterans for HRT care which included free mental health guidance which helped me to change most all of my legal gender markers. I was extra lucky when I was assigned to a LGBTQ friendly therapist who was happy to help with anything she could. Plus lend an understanding ear when needed. 

I am not sure I could ever explain the stress and tension gender dysphoria causes to the average person who refuses to even try to understand. The most important issue to stress is that being transgender is not and has never been a choice for anyone involved. 

As I said, I would not have wished my gender stress on my worst enemy but if I did, hopefully my enemy would have  become a better person in the process. 

A Spectator in my Own Life

 

Ohio River Image from
the Archives.

Many times during my life, I felt as if I was just a spectator in my own life, not an active participant.

Included were the times I fell in love with myself over the new feminine self in the mirror at home. The whole experience for years  was similar to the impossible dream I could never achieve.  The older I became, changes began to take place in how I viewed myself. Perhaps, some of the biggest ones came about when I began to meet other diverse people in the cross dresser or transgender community. At the time, I barely knew a transgender or transsexual person even existed and here I was actually meeting real life people I could learn from. I especially wanted to see and understand how two women I knew were going to go through the entire surgical gender surgeries to complete their gender journeys. I wondered if I could ever make the ultimate sacrifice to change my body or, did I even need to. It was until much later in life when I fully learned gender was between my ears and not my legs and living like a woman was good enough for me.

As I was initially out in the public's eye trying to survive as a novice trans woman, often I felt as is I was a spectator in my own life. The pretty girl in the mirror just couldn't be me but she was and what would happen next. What happened was, I immediately wanted to do more in my new exciting femininized life. In order to do so, I needed to begin to communicate with the world if I wanted to go any further. At that point I thought my spectator issues would go away but it did not.

The prime example with me being a spectator happened on the night I went to a sports/restaurant venue to see if I could blend in successfully with other single professional women. Despite being scared to death, I managed to survive even though I still felt like a spectator in my own life. Who was this person?  By this time, I was wondering if my spectatorship would ever go away and I could lead a so called "normal" life as a transgender woman. 

The answer came from repetition.  The more I was out in the world, the more I felt as if I belonged and my authentic self took charge. I no longer felt as if I was a spectator looking in on my own life. I suppose much of my change had to do with the balance of living over half a century trying to exist in a male world, with much a smaller percentage of time learning to exist in a world often not accepting to transgender women. Through trial and error, I was able to see what was working and set out to fix it. I am very stubborn and the same effort I put into my transition often slowed my progress down when I hit a rough patch. Such as how I was dressing. I needed to adjust my fashion away from what my old male self liked into what my feminine self thought was proper and then I started to blend and succeed in the world. At the same time, I felt less and less as a spectator and more and more as a participant.

Being a participant was impactful and fun and made me feel as if I had a real say in my everyday life into my future for the first time ever. It seemed living a life as a transgender woman was within my grasp and I started to understand what my acquaintances so long ago felt, except for the major gender surgeries of course. 

Then there was the major waste of time I needed to face in my life. I always say, if I could have just a small amount of time back when I was day dreaming of being a girl or woman, where would have my life taken me. If I had not been a spectator and took control could I made a bigger success of my male life, or would something else have happened to keep me on the same path I was on. Ironically, age brings on many questions and very few answers except for at the least, I ended up trying to change for the better. 

Maybe we all are spectators in our own lives and never realize it until it is too late. It seems transgender women and trans men just have better seats on occasion  Especially all the times we had to tear down our old life and rebuild anew. .

  

Outing Yourself

 

Image from Simon Humler
on UnSplash

Years ago, as I sometimes I suffered from strong impostor syndrome, when I was actually fitting in with a group of women, sometimes,  I accidentally outed myself. Then I needed to forgive myself for doing it.

I remember vividly one night on vacation when my wife Liz and I were having dinner with a single woman we had be-friended on our trip. I don't remember how the topic came up about the friendliness of some of the other travelers, or lack of from others. For some reason I blurted out in our case, the reason for other people being standoffish was because I was transgender. The woman looked surprised and I immediately wondered if she had known but by that time it was too late to turn back and the conversation continued fortunately as if nothing happened. 

From that point forward, I conditioned myself to letting all other people come to their own conclusions about me. It helped because I was gaining the confidence in myself to not care one way or another what someone else thought of me. But still, I had to battle to judge others and let them make the first move. Like the evil cis-woman with her friends in a restroom I had to use one night at a mixed venue in downtown Cincinnati.  When I entered the small women's room, I needed to make my way through the gaggle of women to a stall to do my business. As I finished and came out, I headed for the sinks to wash my hands and check my makeup in the mirror. In the meantime, the one woman who had glared at me earlier had positioned herself near the only hand dryer which happened to be fastened high off the wall. As I moved to use it, she continued to block my way, so I reached behind her and pushed the button which ruined her hair for the time being. She jumped and moved quickly out of my way and I had complete access to the hand dryer. I then finished drying my hands, glared at her at exited the ladies room. 

I was proud of myself and remembered the number of years it took me to arrive at a point where I never outed myself. If someone else had a problem with me, it became their problem. If I was eating my fair share of a "Lobsta" bake in Maine or eating pizza with my friends at a venue in Columbus, Ohio, I was just me and even though I was always trying to improve the new femininized me, it had to be a better version than the old miserable male person I used to be. 

When I finally escaped all the nervousness of being out in the world as a transgender woman, I used what I learned to stop any idea of ever outing myself again. As it turned out, my inner female who had waited my whole life to be in control finally made it into my light of day and she knew how to make the best of her situation. She made it clear I had always been a woman cross dressing as a man and not the opposite I always thought I was. I guess, all those years when I was secretly hoping I would reveal my secret to the world, I had it all backwards.

Since I did, it was difficult for me to forgive myself and all the phantom ideas I had about letting my family and parents down. Including years of therapy and help from key friends, I managed to make it. Plus make up for lost time while I was doing it. 

 

My Wheel had a Flat Spot

Date Night with Liz
from the Archives.

I am fortunate to have lived a long life (so far) as I am looking at my seventy fifth birthday coming up this fall. 

When you live a long life, often you are able to see many things come full circle to fruition. On the other hand, especially when you are leading a transgender life, you discover your circle or wheel may have developed flat spots. You could be moving along in life when all of the sudden flat spots show up to derail you. 

After discovering gender euphoria, at the same time I began to day dream my life away until I could cross dress and admire myself in front of the mirror again. So, no matter how hard I tried, getting back on track in a male life I never really wanted was very difficult. At that point, I held nothing but resentment at the flat spots in my life. Why couldn't I be like everyone else in my small circle of friends. Since being similar to the rest of the crowd, I needed to find away around it. At first, I survived my dark gender closet by cross dressing as often as I could, dreaming I appeared as a pretty girl. The older and more sophisticated I became, the more I needed to put effort into smoothing out my flat spots which could provide me with quite the gender jolt. 

I am not proud of the fact of the amount of sneaking around, all the way to out and out lying I needed to do to try to live a life as a transgender woman which I was finding more and more about. For the most part, I thought I was becoming quite agile at dodging the flat spots which came along in my life when all I wanted to do was run and hide behind my skirts and dresses. Each time, I found I wasn't quite as good as I thought I was when my wife caught me cross dressed again. 

As it turned out, regardless of the hell I put our marriage through, I indeed was in the middle of coming full circle in my quest to lead a feminine life. There were so many times when I was stuck in a flat spot of my wheel, I did not know how I was ever going to get out of it. My lowest point came when I tried a suicide attempt years ago with pills and alcohol. From that low point forward, my life began a slow trajectory forward and upward as I was forced to see who I truly was. Fighting to maintain a male life which wasn't worth it increasingly did not matter anymore as I femininized myself everytime I saw a flat spot coming on. 

I realize having flat spots in life is a human experience we all have to go through but (I'm biased) and think we transgender women and trans men have more than our fair share to deal with. Especially when it comes to having accepting families and friends. Or losing successful jobs and other male privileges. You name it and many of us have had the chance to lose it during the flat spots in our life as we struggle to come full circle. 

The older I became, the closer I came to seeing what a full circle could look like to me. Plus I had the feminization effects of HRT working miracles on my male body. I had been through a lot and was excited to see the work I had put into my flat spots behind me. 

Little did I know, I actually hadn't put all my flat spots behind me after all when I started to look ahead to my end of life options. Needless to point out, I am worried about my future but my goal now is to be positive about anything which may happen.

Do We Have a New Neighbor?

 

Image of Porsche Boxster. 

Similar to so many of you, I struggled for years trying to figure out how to get out of my house without the neighbors noticing.

I was unfortunate in that I lived in a medium sized city on a very busy street. On the other hand, I was lucky my house was ancient and had many doors which I could escape out of if I was just trying to escape for a quick walk. Once I was able to cross the busy three lane street in front of the house, a quiet neighborhood awaited me with limited chances for even seeing anyone. 

From my walking adventures, I very soon wanted to get to my car and drive. At the same time, I needed to be ultra careful I didn't get caught by my second wife or any of her friends. The problem was, one of the only deals I made with my wife who knew I was a cross dresser was I could never leave the house and here I was doing just that. Plus, I had the additional problem of being seen at Halloween parties cross dressed by several friends who could connect the dots if they saw me again. Needless to say, the whole process was risky. 

For the longest time, I was able to park my car on a side street and hurry into it's temporary safety without being noticed. At least I hoped so. From there, I could leave the town in head out on the interstate where I could tease truck drivers in my mini-skirts which somehow validated me as a woman. Finally, I grew bored of truck drivers and concentrated on improving myself as a new novice transgender woman. I had issues such as moving and communicating in a new world, I needed to work on if I was ever going to be successful in achieving my gender dreams.

Still I was reckless in my quest to not be discovered by my neighbors. My prime example is the new car I was able to buy with my restaurant monthly bonus money which happened to be very successful. I had always wanted a new Porsche following my days in the Army when I was stationed near the company's headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. I was able to afford a low end (for a Porsche) Boxster which I dearly loved. By buying the car, any ideas of driving a car the world would not recognize went out the window. Very early when I finally took ownership of the car, my thoughts turned to being the blond behind the wheel of a fancy sports car. 

I couldn't take it any longer and ended up compromising on the how's and why's I was going to drive my dream car as my dream woman. I started by cross dressing as far as I could except for my wig, Putting the top down and heading out of town. I needed to not wear the wig also because I was afraid of it blowing away in the air when I was driving. Very soon I found out how popular the car was when the first night I drove it to the lesbian bar I always went to. As soon as I arrived and ordered my first drink, another woman walked in and loudly said, who does the car belong to? I want a ride, so out the door I went wig and all to show off my dream. The woman was thrilled, as was I and my wig stayed put.

By this time, I didn't really care what anyone thought about me and I enjoyed being the blond in the Boxster for as long as I could before my restaurant went under during a huge economic downturn it could not survive. Sure I had the negative responses I had anticipated but it was increasingly not important as I was living my truth. As far as the neighbors went, they moved away and the new tenants basically either did not know me at all or did not seem to care what I was doing. Which was exactly the way I wanted.