She Was Always There

 

Trans Ohio Symposium
JJ Hart

No matter where I went in my life, she was always there.

It did not matter if I was in the middle of playing a football game as a defensive end, she was always with me wanting instead to be a cheerleader. She carried over into my everyday life also as I daydreamed all the time what if would be like to cross the gender border and live a feminine life. As I dreamed my life away, my feminine side may have had an unfair advantage because I was only seeing the positives of being a girl or a woman. It seemed so unfair to me that they could wear all the pretty clothes, have long hair and not have to worry about being forced into military duty during the Vietnam War. Plus, why did I have to be the chaser whenever I wanted to ask someone out. I never saw the competition between the girls for attention, being able to wear makeup and more. They were far from the simple life I was seeing but had no one to tell me so.

Even so, she was always lurking in the background as I fought off the shyness, I felt when I had to be around people I did not know in public. Especially other girls. I did not know then why I was attracted to them in a non-sexual manner because it would be the way I would live my life as I grew older. I learned my natural comfort zone in public always came with other women and I never felt comfortable making friends with men at all. Maybe it was because she was always there in the background. Telling me what to do.

When she did, often major conflicts in my life would occur because in my male life I was always trying to put up a macho front to keep the bullies away. It was difficult to do when she was always whispering in my ear, I was doing the wrong thing when all I was doing was to survive my gender dysphoria and live. It was the beginning of a lifetime of warring genders that would consume me to the point of self-destructive behavior.

When I progressed in my career into management, she was always with me when I needed to handle the women in my crews different than the men. She was studying the way I handled myself and how the ciswomen I was dealing with handled me. Primarily, I learned a lot about how women exist with each other and how alpha females can control a clique of other women. It would be valuable experience later in life for me when I was trying to gain acceptance to the girls’ club. If I had an alpha or two helping me along, they could make my life so much easier.

It began to matter more to me when I began to listen more and more to the feminine voice who was talking to me. She was a powerful influence when other women approached me to investigate what I was all about. Somehow, I was like them but yet so different as a transgender woman. I would have to learn how to build trust with other women as a like minded person and only use the long unwanted male basics of my life when I was asked to. Such as when women asked me questions about understanding their boyfriends or husbands. The last thing I wanted to say was I never understood them either, so I helped the best I could and I was flattered by the questions.

Most certainly, she was more than in the background when I started to explore the world as a trans woman. To do it, interaction and communication was the key as I had to come way out of my closet to do it. I even went as far as taking feminine vocalization lessons to learn more about how to communicate more effectively one on one in the world. The lessons were wonderful and taught me more than I ever thought they would. I knew of course that ciswomen had their own way of communication, but not as much as I learned about the nuances of feminine speech patterns. It was a huge change for me as I had developed many bad listening habits as a man that I needed to change…quickly, if I wanted to survive and thrive as a transfeminine person. Such as beginning to closely listen to what another person was telling me rather than skipping over it to how I was planning on answering it.

As I added layer upon layer in the world to the feminine self I was building, I did not have to pay attention to the woman within me that had always been there in the background. She was having a chance to see the fruits of always being with me come to bear as she was able to take over my world. Since I had already put in years of effort into my presentation as a trans woman and had taken it about as far as I could, my background woman was overjoyed to see me take the extra step and listen to her where to go next. That step was to put the communication mode fully into my life and complete my feminine image in the world. I finally made it out of my closet’s mirror and had a chance to be happy. Something that was never emphasized in my family when I grew up. I did not know how to act with such a new emotion.

Then it became time to flip my gender equation. My male self still vaguely exists as my female self runs my life. I discovered it was nearly impossible for me to erase the decades I had in life doing my best to make it in an unwanted male world. So, I tried to take the best and leave the rest behind. It is working for me so far.

Speaking of working for me, I will not be writing tomorrow as I must go to my new Veterans Administration clinic for my annual checkup, Flu and Covid immunizations and even blood labs. I have not had any problems for years at the VA because of my gender, so I do not expect any tomorrow. But if past Flu and Covid shots are any indication, I will not feel like writing. If any thing crazy happens with the clinic’s personnel disrespecting me, I will report it.

Thanks as always to reading along with my gender journey exploits. Hopefully my thoughts can be of value to you.

 

 

 

 

A Destination or a Retreat into Trans Womanhood

Image from Brian Wangenheim
on UnSplash. 

As a youth, all I did when I failed at a male task was to seek the reassuring feelings of my feminine clothes and makeup. I knew then I would not have the male world I hated for a while.

The pattern continued with me into adulthood and was even expanded to include a better sense of wardrobe and makeup as I ventured into the world. But then it started to slowly reverse as I started to blend in with the ciswomen around me. Increasingly, I was feeling better about the progress I was making as a serious cross-dresser and wanted to do more as I moved towards being a transgender woman in my mind. Even though I was still extremely lonely as my feminine self, I was starting to embrace the unique person that I was. Afterall, how many people get to experience both sides of the primary genders in their lives.

On occasion, I even reverted to appreciating all the male privileges I had learned after a particularly brutal day of exploring the world of cross-dressing. Early on there were many I needed to go through as I continued to pay my dues to get to my dream of possibly living my life as a transfeminine person. Not a man.

Even though mixing genders was beginning to have a bit of normalcy for me, I came to the point where I would not recommend the journey to just anyone who was not totally committed to it. My mental health, which was already frail at the time, did not take easily to the journey ahead and it suffered. Again, sending me back to the comparative safety of the only other life I had learned to live successfully when I was competing as a man in the world.  At that point, it was difficult to tell if I was on a trans destination or a male retreat. The only thing that kept me going down my path was the deep sense of satisfaction or gender euphoria I felt when everything was going better when I interacted with the world as my true authentic self. Free and out of the closet for a change.

It took me years of experimentation in public, as I set up my own personal bucket list of what I perceived to be the real-world ciswomen had to face in their lives. I figured out why I would want to go there if I could not make it. In other words, I kept challenging my feminine self to do more and more such as do more than just spend very little time in public just walking around or shopping in easy venues such as women’s clothing stores where your money overcomes any reaction to your possible gender when it came to testing myself. I certainly then was setting myself up for a possible transgender destination in my life as I worked my way through my bucket list.

As with anything else in life, all I had learned about being in the world was not all positive and I found myself deeper into my quest to cross the gender border and complete my male to female femininization project. I learned the hard way to try to not get myself into questionable safety situations that women know not to get into that do not bother men. It seemed the gender universe was testing me on certain nights such as the one I needed to fend off negative advances from a much bigger cross-dresser admirer at a party I was at with the help of my second wife. Something I never bargained for as I went around a blind corner on my gender path. It was easier to think about erasing all my male privileges such as safety but harder to learn what to replace them with.

I do not think I ever did replace my new lack of intelligence with the cismen I interacted with as I was mansplained more times than I cared to remember by men of questionable intellect. Such as the tow truck driver I was forced into a conversation with one night when he was towing my car home. I had to sit there, and act interested when he had to tell me all the workings of his truck. Like I cared when all I wanted was to get home safe and sound. Which I did. All the bucket lists in the world did not prepare me for the reality of living a feminine life, but even still, I was loving everything I learned behind the gender curtain. If I was ever a girl scout, I would earn merit badges like what to do if your car breaks down when you are by yourself and the first person who stops to help is a sheriff. Who would not listen to me when I was trying to explain to him and the tow driver the easiest way to my house. I finally just gave up.

It soon was becoming obvious to me that I was no longer retreating behind my dresses and makeup to cover any vestiges of a male life I wanted to cover up. Instead, my full-fledged female life was a complete destination. A destination I wanted to do more than anything I ever had done in my life. There would be no more retreating back to my male world. No matter how easy it would have been to do it because he had always kept a comfortable home for me if I ever wanted to return. Much to his disappointment, I continued my feminine destination into the world of HRT gender affirming hormones which separated me farther from ever hiding again in my old unwanted male world.

HRT was certainly the end for any thoughts of ever returning to my old male self because I felt to increasingly natural when I took them. It was as if my body was telling me what took so long as my external self-synced up with the woman, I always saw myself to be. It just took me years to get there. Which was the tragic result of me not listening to myself.

Thanks for reading along on a few of my trials and tribulations of my gender journey. I hope yours is much smoother. Any comments are always appreciated.

 

 

Sink or Swim Time

Image from Jeremy Bishop
on UnSplash.

Coming off all my new and exciting Halloween adventures, it was time for me to decide if I was going into the deep end of my gender pool to see if I could sink or swim for my life.

One way or another, I knew I could not wait another full year to leave my closet and explore a feminine world which I had barely learned anything about. What I learned was that I loved the femininization process and wanted to know more. I loved the process of learning to apply makeup properly and the feel of the clothes, but even more the fact I was just a little closer to living my dream of how a ciswoman really lived. To accomplish it, I would have to keep swimming in my pool of life. Especially when I was in over my head.

I caught myself in the deep end too many times when I did not know what I was doing in the early days when I was struggling to blend in with the world and essentially disappear to most of it. In the shallow end of the pool, I discovered most strangers did not care about me anyhow as they went about their everyday lives. It was the deep end where I ran into problems. Since I always considered myself a quality student of the women around me, I quickly found how little I really knew about where I wanted to go as a novice transgender person.

It was not until I learned how complex a ciswoman’s life was as compared to a cisman’s did, I figure out how far I would need to swim to make it to my dream. To make it, I needed to become a long-distance gender swimmer while I stayed in the deep end. To stay where I wanted to be in the pool, I needed to fight back all the fears I had of stripping myself of the male life I had tried so hard to build up and start all over again. To make matters worse, I was highly insecure about if I could ever make it to my goal at all. You have probably heard the old saying that you must dream about something to do it and I was having a difficult time even dreaming about my own unique path to womanhood. At the time, and into the future I knew I could not afford any expensive gender surgeries so I would have to go the distance on my own out of sheer will power as a transwoman friend once told me.

The only things that kept me going were the deep sense of feeling natural when I was following up on my feminine instincts and an even deeper sense of gender euphoria any time I succeeded. Maybe I could make it after all and be more like my transgender woman friends I so admired at the diverse parties I was a regular at in nearby Columbus, Ohio. I figured they had made it in the deep end of the gender pool and so could I. Plus, every party I went to seemed to teach me more about the life I was expected to live as a trans woman without any gender realignment surgeries. Which separated me out from most all the other accomplished transgender women I met in Columbus.

From there, I left the gay venues I was relying upon for socialization and ventured into the straight bar scene I mention so much. It was all part of treading water in the deep end of the gender pool until I figured how I was going to make the next move. Either give up and go back or keep on swimming. Along the way, I became tired of all the effort I was putting into my new life as a transfeminine person until new energy came along to keep me going.

I cannot say I was not in danger of drowning if I did not vigorously keep swimming towards my dream goals in life. My already strained mental health was already causing me to be very self-destructive and a danger to myself, so I was in a bad place to be if I was in the deep end of the pool struggling to figure out my future. To make matters worse, nearly everyone I was close to in my life passed away within three years of each other leaving me in shock and nearly all alone. Somehow, I found the inner strength I needed to stay afloat until I was able to reach out to a whole new set of women friends who enjoyed my company. Above anything else, they saved me from drowning while at the same time teaching me the fine points of being a woman. I tried to thank them, but they never understood and we continued to have fun together.

Included in the group was my current wife Liz who met me in an online dating site against all odds when I was in a lesbian woman seeking woman group. It turned out we lived semi close together and were able to correspond online until our first date at a drag show. We have been together nearly fourteen years now and married for the majority, so I consider that a great success story which makes up for all the down times I suffered.

If you are considering a swim into the deep end of your gender pool, make sure that you are sure you want to give up everything you may have to not turn around and go back. It is never easy and each of us has their own particular path to follow and you need to claim your successes when you have them. Gender euphoria is often brief and fleeting for those of us who have not been blessed with many natural feminine characteristics. We just have to work harder to even stay in the pool and take everything we are given to stay afloat.

I have had several recent comments from readers who are in despair because they have nothing to work with as a novice transgender woman or cross dresser but do have several understanding ciswomen who accept them to fall back on. A great way to study the fact that all women are different and more than a few might be closer to you when it comes to shapes, sizes and personalities than you think.

As I always say, I hope you can find your own path on the way to your own personal gender freedom. Thanks for reading, and commenting!

 

 

  

I Did Not Just Wake Up This Way

 

Image from We Vibe Toys
on UnSplash

I get a sense of amusement (mixed in with a little frustration) when someone thinks I just woke up one day and decided to put on a dress and makeup.

I don’t have much energy to keep explaining how my gender dysphoria has always been a part of me and one I did not ask for. My frustration sets in when some time ago, an acquaintance from the transgender community I met proudly told me she had never been gender dysphoric in her life which I had a hard time believing since she finally went through the extensive gender realignment surgeries.

Then, I began to think did she or even me know the true definition of gender dysphoria. So, I went to look it up from a well-known online dictionary and here is what I came up with: “ a state of severe distress or unhappiness caused by feeling that one's gender identity does not match one's sex as registered at birth.”  I felt that my acquaintance simply did not know the meaning of the words.

Immediately it made sense to me because that is the way I felt growing up wondering if I was a boy or a girl. The only thing I knew for sure was the way I was born and how it affected my life. Perhaps the worst thing was that if I did not understand the way I was with my gender mix-up, how could I possibly expect anyone else to understand it either. So, I headed down the worst path ever and tried to internalize all of my feelings. Internalizing left me with only one way out. Which was to attempt to cross-dress myself in front of the mirror as a girl, away from my perceived dominant male gender.

As many of you know, cross-dressing in secret behind the back of your family is never easy as you have to sneak around and plan every spare moment to do it. It was something I would not have wished on my worst enemy. Why couldn’t I just have been a so-called normal boy like all if my friends seemed to be. Then reality set in as I realized again, I was not “normal” to many people and would have to live with it. Living with it became increasingly more complex as I matured as a serious cross-dresser into an even more serious transgender woman. I evolved into needing more than just admiring my feminine self in the mirror and wondered if I could do it in the world too. Before I did, I needed to gather the courage and confidence to do it. Which was very difficult for me to do because I just did not wake up and lose all the insecurities I had in my life. Many of which involved me ever being able to live as a woman, trans or not.

As I always mention, my early days in the world as a novice transfeminine person were not easy until I developed the tools in dressing myself and learning the basic makeup arts so I could blend in with the ciswomen around me. After many failures in the malls, I finally knew I had made it when the teen girls who used to notice and harass me began to leave me alone and concentrate on their own developing socializations into women. Which was the same path I was on. Just from a totally different direction, but it was taking me awhile to wake up and realize it.

One of the reasons was that my male life kept getting in my way. He needed space to continue to work on his marriage, help care for a daughter, and work on expanding to a growing successful career. Nothing too remarkable for most cismen, but very difficult for the average transgender woman trying to build her life at the same time. The worst-case scenario happened and the two binary genders within me began to compete for space at the same time. It was like the old days of waking up wondering what gender I was going to be any given day and the stress to my overall mental health was building more than I can say. I became very self-destructive as I finally thought I was not strong enough to handle the life I was given.

Somehow, day to day, I put my life together trying to remember who I was that day until I was fully able to try to disguise my true feminine self to the world. While, at the same time presenting myself as my “normal” male self. I ended up covering my feminine tracks so well that no one expressed to me that they knew all along when I finally emerged into my transgender world. They were all surprised that I never showed any signs of the true journey I was on with my gender.

When I finally woke up to the fact of who I really was, it was as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I did not need my “Two C’s” so much anymore to get me by in the world. I was gaining the confidence I needed so I did not need as much courage as it took previously to carve out a new life as a woman and blend in with all of the ciswomen around me in their world. Saying that I was overjoyed when my life was coming together would be an oversimplification as age-old questions for me were starting to be answered. The main one was that I had been living my life backwards for decades causing conflict. Regardless of what society told me, I was never a man. I was a woman trying my best to lead a male life. For the most part I was successful, which made matters worse as my genders clashed for survival.

All along, I just wanted the battle to end so I could live my life in peace. I had my feminine side telling me how natural her life felt when she was allowed to live it. While at the same time, my male side was questioning why I would ever give up all the male privileges I had gained over the span of my life.

I chose the natural path which led me to a happy feminine life over the materialistic life which had only brought me stress because I was in the wrong place. Waking up was the best thing I ever did.

Thanks so much for reading along with my transgender experiences. Hopefully they can help you to understand yours too! Any comments are always appreciated.

 

 

A Halloween Political Decision

Image from Nice M Nshuti
on UnSplash

This is the second in my month-long series of Halloween decisions I made during and after the parties I went to.

This party took place in a wonderfully restored Victorian Mansion in my hometown where I worked as a radio disc jockey. Just to get an invitation was impressive to me as I struggled to come up with a “costume” to wear. Ironically, by this time in my life I had almost went full circle in my choices of what I was going to wear. I had long since gone from my slutty/trashy woman look all the way to a more moderate less clownish woman with my “costume.” I could still try to be sexy without going overboard as most ciswomen around me were doing on Halloween.

I finally decided to go full circle and see if I could wear something so authentic that the normal party person would not recognize me as a guy at all. I thought it would be the ultimate chance to test how far I had come as a transgender woman in the world on a low risk-high reward Halloween evening. Once again, my wife did not want to go with me, so I ended up with the news girl at the radio station as my companion for the evening.

I discovered I was off to a good start as my companion for the evening marveled at my “costume.” I chose to be a professional woman, just getting off from work and coming to the party to test my newfound freedom in the world. For at least one night.

When we arrived and found a parking place, I loved how my heels clicked up the sidewalk as my “date asked me how long I had practiced in the heels to wear them as well as I did. I just told her longer than it took me to shave my legs and apply my own makeup, so she left me alone after that. As far as asking any further questions about my skills dressing as a woman. Fortunately, it was a beautiful warm evening for Ohio in October, so I did not have to worry about any sort of jacket, sweater or coat as we made our way up to the mansion’s front door. The whole house was beautifully decorated for Halloween, complete with a vintage wooden coffin complete with a real skeleton.

I was met at the door by the hosts for the evening who like my “date” marveled at my male to female transformation. With the good start I was having, I immediately started to relax in my new surroundings and enjoy looking at the other costumed visitors. I was just about ignored as I did manage to blend in as a professional woman until later in the evening when a couple arrived and started to talk to us. It was just after a little bit of conversation that they told me, they did not recognize me as a man at all, and my “costume” had worked. My mind was shooting fireworks of joy when they told me that and it even went on to new heights when they even asked me to leave with them and go to a different party.

By this time, I had recognized the couple who were very active in politics and was on their way to Washington due to a recent election victory. So at least I knew who I was dealing with and if it had been just up to me, I would have said yes and went to the other party with them. But it was not just up to me since I had driven and I needed to get my “date” back home, so I had to sadly make a split-second decision and say no. Either way, I was very flattered by the offer and who knows what I would have encountered as my feminine self at the other party. We stayed on at the original party for a while had a couple more drinks and headed back to the house where I needed to reluctantly return to my old male life for what I thought was going to be another year. Always maintaining the “what if” ideas if I had continued with the politician and his wife, Maybe I could have gone to Washington also.

Another good thing that happened with the Halloween party I went to was, it was the first time that I ever thought/proved I could make it in the world as my true feminine self. Plus, I knew I could not wait another year for Halloween to roll around for me to live as a novice transgender woman again. If I had made it one night as a professional woman in the world, there was no reason I could not do it again. I just had to take matters into my own hands and do something about my gender dysphoria which was helping to wreck my mental health.

The evening was also more proof I had done the right thing for a change when it came to testing the strength of my male to female femininization project. I found I was coming along faster than I thought and I could never go back to living the totally male life I had before I tested the gender waters at the Halloween parties I went to as a cross-dresser. It was as if I had found a giant search light on my gender path and suddenly, my life made more sense. It was so much deeper than anything I thought it could be.

That is why not going out with the politician and his wife maybe cost me a chance at more fun and even enlightenment about who I really was. But on the other hand, I did the right thing by my wife and my date if she did not want to go early and end my evening. I felt better about it in the years to come. Even though, I wonder what would have happened if I had made the other decision. Most likely nothing and the memories are better than the actual experience.

Another reason Halloween will forever occupy a special place in my soul and there were several other evenings I will try to pass along before the actual holiday. Thanks for reading along and commenting!

 

  

How Difficult Could it Be?

 

JJ Hart

When I started my transgender journey, I was very naïve and I kept thinking how hard it could be to stay on my path.

All I saw was the good side of being feminine with all the girls around me in their pretty clothes and long hair when I was stuck in all the restrictive, boring male clothes and very short haircuts. To make matters even worse, I needed to make sure I kept all of my cross-dressing activities very hidden from the family and friends who would have ridiculed me and called me a sissy boy. The worst thing I could be called in my very male dominated family.

As I said, I was naïve and for years thought that all I wanted from being feminine was looking like a woman, so I obsessed about it night and day. Eventually, I did come closer to achieving my goal while all the ignoring harassing comments from my second wife who rarely wore any makeup at all. On the rare occasions she went out with me, she constantly thought I was going too far with my makeup and hair to the point of calling me the “Princess”. When all I was doing was trying to blend in with the ciswomen around me by overcoming my old male self.  Of course, I felt the criticism was not fair and the evening was ruined. Often before it even got started. From that point forward, the fights started because she did not like the trans woman I was becoming. And I did not understand why.

I think now that she thought I had not paid my dues as a woman yet to claim the socialization title and she was right. I was still stubborn and did not know how I ever was going to have the chance to play in the girls’ sandbox if I did not want it bad enough. I was stuck between two massive changes in my life which would either involve giving up the woman that I loved for one that I was learning to love. How hard life could be was becoming a reality for me like a boulder rolling down a cliff directly at me. It was quickly becoming unbearably hard when I discovered I could indeed see a path ahead of living my life as a transfeminine person.

What happened next was that I began to step away from my wife and essentially live the life she challenged me to live. That is to begin to socialize myself as a transgender woman in the world. I started to meet strangers as a trans woman who never knew me as a man and start all over in a new life. How hard could it be? It was and the whole process scared me to death. I was terrified of being stripped of all my old male privileges and having nowhere to turn if something negative happened to me. How would I be able to react to potentially negative situations in my new life. It turned out I did not have many potentially negative problems, and I was able to grow into my new feminine person with very few problems because most of the world did not care what gender I was. They were too wrapped up in their own worlds. Especially the cismen who were so afraid of their fragile sexuality that they left me alone. Which was fine by me, since I had always had a problem with making friends with other men when I was trying to be one anyhow.

Ciswomen, on the other hand, were much more willing to let me in their worlds and even show me around. Making it less hard to be one of them as I was learning daily how to fill out my life. I always had enjoyed being around women and found I even enjoyed it more when I was made a member in good standing of the girls’ club. Being in the club entitled me to use women’ only spaces such as restrooms which made my life so much easier also.

Most likely, I made some male to female transition issues more difficult than they should have been. Such as when I first came out into the world and thought everyone was looking at me, when they were not. I even went as far as to wear a favorite pair of sunglasses I had to see if anyone was staring at me without them knowing it. They were not, I was relieved and was able to go on with my new life. With new confidence I never had before. Maybe I could achieve my dream after all. It was a scary thought because then I had to start to think about what I was going do with all the excess male baggage I had built up over the years when I was trying my best to hide my true self by being a successful man.

The entire focus of my life changed as I began to consider the new and exciting reality of being able to live out my dream I had wanted since I was a child. I was sad when I could not tell the truth when an adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I could not say a woman and earn a quick trip to therapy by my parents. At the time, being a woman seemed as far away to me as being a lawyer or a doctor. But at the same time, a dream I really wanted to live.

Along the way, two things were evident to me. One of which was every time I achieved a goal on my path, another would appear for me to consider doing. And the second thing was, every time I began to doubt myself, I would start to feel natural about my journey and it would re-energize me, so I could move forward again. Forward was always good and made me feel better about my life which brings me back to my original point of how hard it could be to cross the gender border. Exceedingly difficult at times to be sure, but excitingly natural as I was doing it.

Wherever you are on your path to a better tomorrow, I hope you can discover your truth and make it in one piece. As always, thank you for reading and comments are always appreciated!

 

A Gender Yo-Yo

 

Image from Eric Prusak
on UnSplash. 

I have felt most of my life like I was a gender yo-yo. One day I was a boy and the next day I was a girl was the way I was living, and it was no fun. The ups and downs were killing me as it did in the future as I tried many self-destructive attempts.  Luckily, they failed.

Of course, my male self-received all the benefits since he was given all the advantages as I was born male and could do nothing about it. He got all the accolades when he did something right at home while at the same time, my feminine self-needed to remain firmly hidden away. Which did nothing to relieve the yo-yo gender life I was living.

Then, there were the vivid dreams I was having where I was the pretty girl. Sadly, I had to wake up to no changes in my everyday male world of having to compete daily with the rest of the male world I was in. It never changed so I was stuck and I could not go live in the world of women where I always wanted to be.  The yo-yo never seemed to slow down as life went by me, but I can say I did l learn to adjust to its up and down rhythms. As I began to understand what gender euphoria meant to me and how long it would last once it was over. The answer was a maximum of four to five days before the depression of not being an active participant in my own transfeminine life would set in and I would have to get creative and do something before my gender yo-yo hit the floor.

To counteract my depression, I began to research the meager amount of information I could find on gender issues way back then. The only term I could find was gender dysphoria which was labeled as a mental illness. So, I rejected it. All I knew was I was confused still if I was totally a male or a female. If the term had been popular back, then I have used gender fluid for awhile to describe myself. At least it would have worked until I began to run out of male fluid altogether. Since I did not have the mental willpower to find my gender fluid leak, I concentrated on keeping track of my feminine side. As I became a regular at LGBTQ diverse parties close to where I lived. It was like going to one of those quick oil change places where I could rejuvenate my feminine self around like-minded others. From lesbians I learned shared an attraction with me to toxic cross-dresser admirers, I was able to experience and learn from them all.

On the negative side, like my yo-yo, what went up had to come down as far as my gender euphoria went. Not too long after going to the parties, I started to miss the experience and wanted to do it more. Which made me a spoiled brat when I lost my yo-yo completely and could not find it. I was learning how to live a new life where I fit in as a secure transgender woman, but I was not there yet. What all my research at the parties proved was I had just scraped the surface of where I wanted to go as a trans woman but still had not had the chance to research where I needed to go internally. The internal piece would be the hardest to do because I had learned so effectively to wall myself off from the outside world and ignore it. As I struggled to live a life as a man.

I finally had to listen to the world and discover my internal piece was the biggest part of my second wife saying I made a terrible woman. Because I did before I was in the unique position to remake myself. Maybe in many ways, I was a clueless person all together and that would have to change before I could ever move forward into a better world. I had the chance to take what I learned in a male world and build a solid female world was a chance I just had to take. I needed to take a new approach and put the imbedded emotions of my yo-yo aside. It helped me with all the ups and downs I was feeling specifically with my mental health. I finally had to face the truth about myself and freed me up to be me as I always say.

If the truth be known, I was never any good with my yo-yo anyhow. My male-equated hand-eye coordination stopped me from doing more. Maybe it was my fault because I was always so biased about being male at all. Through all the ups, downs and sideways, I knew I could not take it anymore. It was time to take a time out from him and learn what life would be like of I took the transgender plunge. Was I risking all that I had earned to live my dream or not. I thought I would be fine after all the research in the world I did but I needed to make sure. What I discovered was I did not care for good about the risks I was about to take. As I said, I had put that old yo-yo away for good.

Hopefully you have been able to put that yo-yo of yours away too. It is certainly no fun to do it. Thanks for reading and commenting.

 

What Goes Up Must Come Down

 

Image form Vicky Hladynet
on UnSplash. 

Gender euphoria for me has been a double-edged sword.

The sharp edge of the blade has been the powerful elixir I gained from when I was successful in my early attempts to cross-dress successfully and enter the world. I was well aware of the feelings from my initial view of myself as a perceived pretty girl in my home mirror. Well before I had the courage to leave the house.

On the other hand, the dull side of the blade was the quick coming down I needed to go through after my successful journeys into the world of ciswomen and cismen. But I found early that the women were the ones I needed to concentrate on because they were curious about me. Ciswomen were the most likely to pick me out of a crowd and notice that I was not all that I seemed to be.

To combat my severe ups and downs, I needed to set up and stay on a steady diet of cross-dressing activities. To do my best to always have the joy of gender euphoria to get me by the worst of my gender dysphoric issues. Often, my rhythmic cross-dressing adventures were the only thing which kept me going in life when I became so depressed with a fatalistic “Why me” mentality.

As I learned later in life from one of my therapists, I was a bi-polar depressive which added to my problems of feeling down. When I was down, I was really down and had to force myself out of bed for days at a time. When I got the professional opinion about my depression issues, I was relieved because it was one less thing I could blame on my gender issues. Then I could concentrate on my sword again along with its ups and downs. What I did was expand my ups by doing more when I was out in the world exploring to see if I really was a transgender woman or a serious cross-dresser or what.

When I was out at the bigger shopping venues in nearby Columbus, Ohio, I learned I could be accepted as just another well-dressed feminine shopper looking for gifts from the specialty stores, I went to. Perhaps because I was trying to soothe part of my guilt of not telling my second wife what I was doing, I always tried to buy a little gift for her from one of the big gardening stores I knew about and visited. She was a very dedicated gardener and for a change I could make her happy. Along with me at the same time. At least I was trying to do something positive with my gender euphoria before I started to go home and crash back into my old unwanted male life.

Sadly, after I crashed, I wanted more of my feminine world and when I did not get it I tried to internalize my feelings which only made my life worse. Since I was suffering, I was selfish and wanted everyone around me to suffer too. It got so bad that I nearly lost jobs over my attitude and probably should have lost my marriage too, if my wife was not so strong. That also had its good and bad points. The good was that when we were good, we were very good and when we were bad because of my gender dysphoria, we were very bad. Mainly because my wife had everything as a woman that I envied and I resented her for it. The worst part was she should not have had to suffer along with me on my path of severe ups and downs because I was incapable of explaining either the ups or the downs of my life when I had them. One thing was for sure; the worst move I ever made was internalizing my feelings from my second wife.

To help my ups, I continued a serious program to learn if I really wanted to risk my life as I knew it to live a transfeminine life. How could I risk all that I had built up as a man for such a selfish move which would have far reaching effects past just me. Including my marriage, my family and my employment which were all doing well except for my marriage. I felt as if I was on a run-away train on a dead-end track with my life if I ever faced my truth about who I really was.

At the same time, my downs just had to be worth all the ups I was experiencing. My gender tipping point was rapidly reaching the critical point of no return as I was increasingly carving out a new and exciting life as a trans woman. My confidence was staying at an all-time high and suddenly my dreams might be able to become a reality. The only downs I was experiencing happened when my wife was still alive and I was feeling like I cheated on her with myself every time I snuck out into the world as the new me. I think deep down, I knew our relationship was not going to be sustainable, but I never thought it would be because she would die ahead of me. Naturally, her death hit me hard and at the age of fifty-five I was going back to my drawing board. This time to do much more than re-work how I looked as a woman. Now I needed to determine how I wanted to live out the remainder of my life.

Even with the obvious answer staring me in the face, I managed to still ignore my reality and stumble forward with one foot firmly planted in each of the binary genders. Finally, my male foot began to slip, and I quit fighting the obvious. I was never meant to be a man at all, and I was a woman living a lie and living like a man. When I did, almost all my depression went away, and I was free to live the life I was always destined to live.

As always, thank you for reading along with my lifetime of gender experience. I hope I can help you and comments are appreciated!

 

 

 

Transgender Journey...Down but Not Out

 

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash.

As transgender women and transgender men, it is easy to feel down and out as we try to navigate our new gender paths.

As I sometimes look back on my journey, it is easy to remember the good times and forget the bad. The most important thing about reliving the bad is having the appreciation for the world I am able to live in today as a fulltime trans woman. Every time I make simple trips in the world to the doctor’s, the Veterans Administration or the pharmacy, I always have to look back at remembering the not so good old days when I was struggling for acceptance. Either one of a couple things has happened. Either I have become better at my overall feminine presentation (wrong) or my confidence has taken me to a point where I don’t particularly care what the world thinks about me.

Either way, I look back to when I considered myself a very serious cross-dresser as I still was researching which fork in my gender path would I take. Back in those days, I took hours to prepare for an outing in the world, and I often wondered what I would do if I had to go out in the world everyday and compete with ciswomen everywhere. It was easy at that time to put those thoughts behind me as I was so obsessed with my feminine looks that my second wife kept calling me the “Pretty, pretty, princess.”  Naturally I loved the “pretty” part but rejected the “princess” part of her very pointed critique of me. One day, she even went as far as separating appearance from being a true woman for me when we were fighting about me wanting to go out. It was one of my all-time down moments when she told me I made a terrible woman. It hurt because I was not trying to make anything, I was just trying to express my true self, but I could not properly put my thoughts in a form she would understand.

I guess you could say, back then, I was definitely in my mental transgender formative years when my mind was trying to catch up with all the cross-dressing I was doing. Sadly, before I could formulate what a better version of my transgender self would be, all I experienced was an extreme amount of frustration. I could not understand what I was doing wrong when I was being successful in situations such as transgender-cross dresser mixers I was going to. The problem was the extreme gender euphoria I experienced at the mixers when I was mistaken for a ciswoman was not worth the resultant crash and depression, I felt when my life went back to its same old boring male self.

It all resulted in me being boxed into rarely getting out of my gender closet to explore the world and I was moody, resentful and not the easiest person to live with as I tried to internalize my gender feelings from my wife. A prime example was one year when we took a vacation from our native Ohio to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. On the trip up there, I progressively grew more depressed and mean until my wife asked me what was going on since I was supposed to be having a good time on vacation. Predictably, I lied my way out of it and did not tell her the truth that I rather be spending my vacation time as a woman rather than a man.

Somehow, I pulled myself back together and the vacation continued without incident, but I remember it as another low point. Little did I know at that time, destiny would finally come back to me on my gender path, and I would get my wish to go on extensive vacations as a transfeminine person.

Along the way, I have had many other low points which I write about often. Such as when a woman called me a pervert for simply using the women’s room in a venue, I had been a regular patron of for a long time and had no one say anything negative to me at all. Then much earlier than that when I was struggling to blend in with the world at all, there were all the stares and even laughter I needed to put up with on my journey to present. I was reduced to tears more times than I care to remember mainly by groups of teen girls struggling to find their own femininity. I was certainly at a low point when all of this was happening to me, and I did not have the tools yet to know which way to turn. All I had was this little voice in the back of my head telling me to keep going and my low points would disappear.

All of it did go away for a while until I hit my dark age when nearly everyone I cared about decided to die within a two-year period. The group included my second wife and three of my closest male friends. Who were the only ones I had. To add to my low point, I was desperately lonely and ended up relying on that little voice who at this time was growing louder and more insistent that she had all the answers for me. This time, I had very few other alternatives to fall back on. As one person told me after I had lost my restaurant along to everything else, you will land on your feet. Not knowing my feet would be in high heels when I did it.

I am sure that everyone’s lives have its share of highs and lows and I can not say a transgender woman or trans man lows would be even more dramatic, but it seems possible because we have so much to lose as we pick up our lives and move them across the gender border. Until we find ourselves living behind the gender curtain where we always wanted to me.

Hopefully if you are in the midst of a low time, you have a little voice telling you everything will be OK. If not, remember life is but a circle and what is down will eventually come up.

As always thanks for reading along and comments are always welcome.

 

 

 

Finding Your Trans North Star in a Straight World

 

Image from Daniel Lincoln 
on UnSplash

As most all transgender women and transgender men know, finding your own personal North Star is often very difficult to do.

The first thing you have to consider is what your North Star means to you and down the road, what will you do to follow it. Very early on in my life, I knew the only thing I wanted to really do when I grew up wanting not to be in the male body I was born into. It turned out after fifty plus years of trying; I was able to make it mentally out of my male body and live as a transfeminine woman but never seriously considering undergoing any of the serious and extensive gender realignment surgeries which are going on today. At the time, I figured I did not have to risk my body which to this day has been healthy and just concentrate on the physical feminine side of life I enjoyed so much. Or my gender stayed between my ears and not my legs. Which started me down a very long path trying to discover what my North Star meant to me and where it was exactly.

The problems which clouded my view came almost exclusively from my male self-fighting the process of a male to female femininization every place that he could. He took a secret joy when I was laughed out of venues I was in as I was dressing to please him and not the public who really mattered which were ciswomen who determined if I could stay in their world at all. What he did not count on was that the stares and laughter just made me more resolute searching for my feminine self.

As I went along, I discovered even the most strenuous male activities could not mask the shine of my inner feminine star. Not even three years in the army could hide her glow when it counted. In fact, lessons I learned when I was away from my true self helped me when I could return seriously to my gender path. Most importantly, I learned I could rely upon myself more completely when the times became rough. Sadly, it took me years of living to learn a woman could be feminine and strong all at the same time as my two-role model’s mom and second wife taught me to be. Without ever knowing they were dealing with another woman. Much to the chagrin of my inner woman who wanted her chance in the world.

And yes, there were times that my North Star was completely lost in the clouds before I could completely reclaim her. Such as the time when I was stuck transitioning from a serious cross-dresser to a novice transgender woman. It turned out, it was only another mental transition because at this time, I had most all my appearance basics together and I was ready to experiment on the next step of mentally comparing myself as I socialized with other ciswomen. Following much fear and trepidation, I found that I could and more importantly, I felt natural and happy doing it. My star was shining brightly when I made it out of the comparative safety of the gay venues I was going to (where I was only considered to be another drag queen) to straight venues in the world where I could express myself as a trans woman.

I discovered that once I reclaimed my star, I reclaimed my life too. I was on the verge of reclaiming the life I was so unhappy in and turning it into an existence which restored my fragile depressive mental health and gave me a reason to be happy. Probably, for the first time in my life. But I still had a long way to go, because my male self stubbornly refused to give up all the privileges he had earned and was fighting for at least a partial share of my life. It did not matter to him that I felt happy and natural when I was a trans woman, carving out a new life with new privileges for myself. Such as constant interaction with ciswomen who were interested why I was in their world. I finally quit trying to figure it out and learned to sit back and enjoy the socialization process I was going through. As I was learning as much from them as they were about me. It all made me a better person as I continued to carve out a new life for myself.

Thankfully, my North Star continued to burn brightly for me during this time of my life. I needed the guidance of the star to help me navigate any more blind curves along my gender path that I was on. I never counted on the new life being so much more complex than the old straight forward male life I was discontinuing due to lack of interest. From appearance to body movement to communication, I needed to change it all, and I felt I was running out of time since I was in my mid-fifties, and my biological transgender clock was ticking. It all kept me going and interested to see what was beyond the next blind curve I would have to face on my gender journey.

By this time my North Star was starting to sink into the horizon of a new day for me as it guided me forward into my new day. As it faded, I was able to sit back and appreciate all the good things it had sent me through in my life, as well as helping me around some of the bad ones I needed help with. By following the star, I was able to finally make it to the dream I never knew I could do and that of course was being able to live a happy life as a transgender woman.

Even during my dark days of infantry basic training in the Army at Ft. Knox, my North Star came through and helped me see the way to overcome my gender shortcomings which turned out to be temporary. Permanence turned out to be the ability to follow and live out my dream.

As always thanks for reading along and I hope you have a North Star to guide you also through the thick and thin days of a transgender life.

 

 

 

 

I Wanted it All

 

Image from Sindy Sussengut
on UnSplash.

During my gender journey through multiple transitions from cross-dresser to transgender woman, I have been selfish and wanted it all.

It all started very early when I was experimenting with mom’s clothes and makeup when I had the first idea all that I was doing may go deeper than just wearing feminine clothes. I did not have the terminology or knowledge back then to work my way through it, but in reality, I was discovering I was more transgender than anything else. In the years to come, that would be a major point to think about along my gender path.

As I grew through my first two marriages where both wives knew of my cross-dressing desires, my first wife was far less demanding than my second and on numerous occasions during fights we were having about me, my second wife rightfully pointed out that our relationship was not all about me. Since I was in the middle of an obsession with my appearance and all things related to makeup, as I said she was right and I was needlessly selfish about our relationship. She was far wiser than I and knew even at that early time in our marriage, her husband was slipping away.

Even though I loved her dearly, I still could not stay away from the powerful draw of wondering if I could ever achieve living fulltime as a transgender woman. Deep down, I knew my second wife would never come with me on my journey as she made it abundantly clear she never signed up to be married to another woman.

With a lot of work and repetition, I did finally get better with my wardrobe and makeup and then needed to figure out how to sneak out of the house and get into the world. It basically meant my imagination had to go into overdrive as I tried to think of reasons I needed to explore the world as my new true transfeminine self. Even if I was not sure what the word meant back then. I went as far as going to the grocery store for my wife who was working on the days, I was off and combined the trip by going to a nearby big box store to shop for panty hose and makeup. My biggest takeaway came when I noticed very few people were noticing me and I started to think I wanted to experience more. My restless feminine spirit was dominating me again.

At the same time, I was doing all of this, I was still searching for my dream job in the commercial restaurant business and after switching jobs and locations several times, I finally did. As I finally broke free of my fast-food background and landed a job with “Chi-Chi’s” Mexican Restaurants in the Columbus, Ohio area where I had ties to. It was a win-win situation for me because I was back home again and could start to interact with the diverse small LGBTQ group that I had known from years previous. This was the tight knit group that had several transgender women who were on their ways to gender realignment surgeries, and I could pick their brains on what it meant to do it. Even though, I did not have the resources or the willpower to consider such a radical move for me in my future, Just being considered as an equal in their group was good enough for me…then.

I say “then” because in life everything rarely stays the same. As I continued to break the vows I had with my wife, I kept going out to venues from the house and began to actually carve out a life as a transgender woman with people who had never known my male side. Wanting it all was staring to mean so much more to me than ever before as my male life began to slip away from me and wanting it all increasingly meant an ongoing break with my long-term marriage of over twenty years. Because she was not giving into her demands, and I was discovering just what mine should be if I was willing to risk it all to live my dream life. Sadly, it would have to be all me to do it as I tore down everything I had worked for as a man to start over in a woman’s’ world.

Sure, I was scared to death as I decided to keep concentrating on the feminine me who had waited so long to live her life. But the whole process and path I was on felt so natural, I decided to be selfish and continue it. By proceeding along the path I was on, I needed to take several abrupt detours when I had problems with deciding my sexuality all the way to just basically communicating with the remainder of the world I was in. Which I discovered was made up of ciswomen not so unlike my second wife. Many were strong and sure of themselves and set up forms of communication which were totally foreign to me as I was coming from a male world. Suddenly, I needed to adjust to forms of non-verbal and passive aggressive communications which were reserved for use when cismen were around.

Perhaps my best selfish move I made was to be approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT which enabled me to come closer to my transgender mentors of so long ago. Since I had ruled out any surgeries, the changes from the hormones would be as far as I could go to sync up my female mind with my male body.

By this time, my wife had passed away and there were very few people left who knew the old me at all. So, I was mostly all-alone with my new emotions and bodily changes such as hair, breasts and hot flashes. When I reached out to any of my lesbian friends, all they would say was welcome to their world. Little did they know how badly I wanted to be there. I was rewarded by the fact that the people who knew the male me told me they thought I was much more relaxed and happy now.

Since I can now love more deeply than I ever could as a man, my life has come full circle to encompass feelings I never knew I had before. All because of my selfish one sided past to get here. I wanted it all and finally was able to find it.

Thanks for reading along and I would be remiss if I did not mention two things. Thanks to Grace Ann Hansen for publishing my stories in her “Empowered Trans Woman” site!

And sadly, I would like to mention the passing of a true icon, Dolly Parton who was a staunch ally of the LGBTQ community. She will be severely missed.

 

 

 

 

Help Me Out of this Box!

 

Image from Tamara Bellis
on UnSplash. 

Since I was born “AMAB” (Assigned male at Birth) I was automatically put into a box I could not easily get out of.

Plus, I had the extra disadvantage of being born into a very male dominated, competitive family, so my box was harder to get out of. Like many of you, I had to sneak around my family’s back to even cross-dress into mom’s clothes and makeup to feel better. The worst part about it was that I did not understand why I wanted to be feminine and felt so all alone when I thought about it. Society had done a good job of building a sturdy box around me with very high sides to see the world out of.

As life went on, I learned to be self-sufficient as I hid my gender truth from the world. Very early on I learned I wanted to do so much more than just look like a girl, I wanted a chance to live their life. But I needed to escape my box somehow to do it with absolutely no help from anyone at all. There were only the girls at school for me to envy and try to copy myself after I returned home and had a chance to cross-dress again in front of the mirror.

When I first tried to take myself out into the public’s eye for the first time, it was difficult leaving my box to do it. I was safe there, and I could be the pretty girl I always wanted to be without anyone questioning me. Even though I was not surviving the world well as a novice cross-dresser walking through the malls that I knew, I was determined to keep trying until I got it right. That is if I ever could as I was very insecure in thinking I ever could come close to my dream of living as a woman.

As life always does, it got directly in my way of ever getting out of my box. The only way I could try very early was by going to Halloween parties dressed as a person who I really wanted to be in life but could never tell anyone. At least at Halloween, I could show the world the transfeminine me and hope it did not wreck my life at the time before I could scurry back to my box and hide again. The problem with Halloween was it only happened once a year and I couldn't wait for the next one to show off my feminine spirit. It all led me to gaining a greater awareness to who I really was and how much I needed to expand my world as a new transgender woman in the world.

Another problem I had was having two strong influences around me, who wanted me to stay in my box and even make it stronger. The two were my male self and my second wife who had everything to lose each time I gained more confidence as myself. They did not understand the turmoil I was going through myself and could not help me, I was on some sort of a gender roller-coaster with all its ups and downs. One of my major ups or gender euphoria came when I was mistaken for a ciswoman at a cross-dresser, transgender mixer I went to one night without my wife. That was certainly the high point, but then the lows began to hit me when I was firmly stuck back in my box with no way to experience the next high. Sadly, I did not know where my life was going to take me then. Except for the small idea that I might have the appearance part of my gender puzzle solved.

More frustration sat in when my wife told me there was so much more to being a woman than just looking like one and I was stuck with no real way to understand what she meant. I was still operating as too much of a cisman to be allowed to be behind the gender curtain to understand all the complexities ciswomen go through in life. To make up for it, I tried to adopt female mentors to learn from. Immediately I chose my mom and my wife to learn from because they were both strong, independent women whom I wanted to be like. It was a true jump for me to go from being a shy trans woman hiding in my box at home to getting out and trying to find out if I could live my life-long dream. What I did was build up confidence slowly until I could shed my male self and his privileges and just do it.

Little did I know, when I did shed my male self, I would end up bringing a big part of him with me. I made him my beast of burden when he carried what was left of him into my scary, yet exciting new world. I learned again how complex ciswomen were and if I wanted to watch sports on a big screen television with a beer in front of me I could and not feel out of place as a transgender woman.

In many ways, I was dismantling my old box and using the pieces I needed to construct the new me who had always been there but had nowhere to live. It felt great for once to feel free of all the old male constraints I had to live with. I had many, so the path I embarked on became very complex as I sorted out exactly who I wanted to be. Plus, I needed to be careful to finally judge when the best jumping off point for me to put my old male self behind me and start a new one. A unique spot that most humans do not ever have the chance to do.

If you are considering what you will do with your gender box, just be careful when you deconstruct it because it can contain many hidden problems. On the other hand, you are embarking on an exciting journey if you can make the best out of it.

Thanks for reading along with all my lifetime adventures as I attempt to bring our gender struggles into focus. Taking the time to read, and comment too are always appreciated!