Do the Right Thing

 

Image from UnSplash.

I learned early on from my parents when in doubt, you should always do the right thing. At the same time, I learned from them, dressing to look like a girl was not doing the right thing. So, I needed to completely hide it.

Later, when I attempted to navigate my gender path, I found many obstacles I did not foresee hurting me. But they did and brought about many doubts. Of course, the main doubt was, should I be doing all the cross dressing I was doing in public at all. Still, I persisted and improved my craft at presenting well as a femininized person. Finally, I arrived at a point where I could leave my dark gender closet and attempt to live a new scary yet exciting life. The more I explored as a novice transgender woman, the more I wanted to do. Which brought me back to the question, was I doing the right thing. 

Similar to so many of you, I suffered from extreme guilt as my second wife kept telling me my gender desires were selfish pursuits. The sad part of it was, for the most part, she was right. She wanted very little to do with me wanting to be a woman, so I kept it away from her. Not the right thing to do in a marriage but was my only recourse. At that time, I only had a distant dream of perhaps living someday as a transgender woman. All I needed was the courage to face my reality. 

Because of a number of reasons, I needed to do much more exploring the world as a transgender woman to see if I could survive. First, I had to look the part, then I needed to live the part. Standing in my way, were the usual questions of transitioning to another gender such as what would become of my family, friends and job. As well as did I really hate my male life that much. I wasted hour upon hour antagonizing over what I should do and would it be the right thing. 

I was stubborn of course and refused to do any more than observe several transsexual women I knew from a distance. From their stories I did know they had really good safe jobs or were close to retirement so they could support themselves whereas I did not and had no idea of what I would do for an income. Plus, I also needed to consider, both of them were flat out gorgeous and had no problems presenting in the world as women. I did not labor under any idea I even came close to being as attractive as them and did not have that going for me either. After taking all of this and much more into consideration, I did not know what I could do about my gender dilemma which was not doing my mental health any favors.

What I did do was try to continue on the path I was on. To increase my awareness of the world as a transgender woman as much as I could at a time, I went as far as I could. Even absorbing major clashes with my wife over what I was doing. I can't always say I did the right thing as I learned more and more about living in the new world I was seeking. There were too many times when I had to out and out lie to get out of situations, I found myself in. In all fairness to my wife, she told me to stop it and just become a woman to bring peace to both of us. Still, I did not have the courage to change my life and leave her behind. I did not do the right thing. 

You regulars know what happened next. My wife passed away quite tragically from a heart attack leaving me all alone with my dogs to put my life back together. I rapidly turned to my inner feminine self as the strongest person around and did the right thing and finally turned to a life I always just dreamed of. 

On a side note, I may be missing a day of blogging tomorrow as my wife Liz and I have a daylong seminar to attend. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Is It Real?

 

JJ Hart. 

Every now and then I pause and reflect upon my transgender womanhood as it exists now. 

I mention often, the trials and tribulations I needed to go through to arrive at the point I am today. Similar to many of you, I went through my cross-dressing adolescence trying to shove my testosterone poisoned body into skimpy women's fashion designed mainly for teen aged girls in their prime. I would love to have back some of those days when I went out in skirts which were too short and tops which were too tight. Predictably, I attracted too much of the wrong sort of attention and had to hurry home in tears. It was real alright, and reality was no fun for me in those days. The only good thing which happened was, my inner feminine self-kept the pressure on not to quit the feminizing process and listen to her on how I should dress to face the world. Which was much different than what my male self was telling me. 

It was then I realized how different and powerful the gender world was I was seeking admission to. I learned firsthand what I had always known. Women run their own separate world oftentimes in a parallel universe to men. They have their own power struggles from cliques they form rather than the teams' men form. Perhaps, more importantly, I learned the power of passive aggression women use. Women are very good at supposedly losing the battle but coming back to win the war and a smiling face does not often mean acceptance into her clique. 

Before you think the learning, curve was all negative for me, there were plenty of positives to work with. A prime example was, I loved the passive aggressive games women played with me as I learned to have eyes on my back the whole time I was out in the early years. By doing so, I earned my way in to being able to play in the girl's sandbox. My ticket in, just happened to be from the women bartenders I came to know as a regular. From them, other strangers were able to see me interacting easily with the staff plus I was awarded rest room privileges which I desperately needed. I grew used to seeing the staff so much in one venue I went to, I was even invited to a girl's night out one time with a group of servers. Which (even though I was scared), I ended up enjoying immensely. 

The whole process was extremely real to me and more importantly, it all felt so real. It was like this is the way I should be living the whole time. I was developing a substantial feminine wardrobe and had venues to wear my fashion to. I felt for the first time in my life, I was living a real existence, and I felt so alive. It took me many years to try to live a male existence and just that quickly, I broke all the reliance I had in the male world and stayed in my new femininized world. 

It was real and I was so happy I had the chance to live it, but I need to say, the whole path had its share of bumps and emotional bruises. Plus, since I had so few believers in me, I needed to rely in myself. Often, it was a very lonely process when I went it alone. It wasn't until I began to believe in my inner female so completely, did I find out how real life could be.