Connecting the Gender Dots

 

JJ Hart, from
the archives.

Many outside of the LGBTQ community, or more precisely the transgender community, think connecting the dots between male and female is as simple as putting on a dress and makeup.

One of the problems is, in order to  walk a mile in our transgender shoes, you have to learn to tie the laces first. Very few people have the patience or understanding to do it. The complexity of gender scares most people off. They think gender is cut and dried but is the opposite. 

Even those in the community have a difficult time connecting the dots and don't realize that even if we have similarities as trans women or trans men, we have just as many differences. Obstacles such as male lives, spouses and sexuality face us as the next dot to connect becomes bigger and bigger or worse yet out of reach.

During my male to female transition, many times, connecting the dots seemed downright impossible and I would never be able to move ahead in my life. My primary problem was my spouse and my male  self were standing directly in my path to gender realization and they would not move or give up their spot in my life. What I did in the meantime, was fall back into a more realistic journey to the next gender dot. An example would be when I began to get out of the non challenging mall shopping experiences and into actual interaction with the public as a transgender woman. 

Many times, the dots would totally fool me when I totally had a mis-conception of what a woman's life would be like. For some reason, I did not think I would be the one whose personal security would be challenged or my intelligence would be diminished when I jumped the gender border into trans womanhood. I was wrong in my judgement and needed to rapidly rethink my path to another dot. Of course I always knew women's lives were much more complex than men's but I did not really know until I succeeded in connecting my dots. 

The frustrating part of my whole experience was two-fold. The first part was I needed to accomplish it on my own with no help and the second part was everytime I thought I had accomplished something, immediately it seemed I needed to accomplish another milestone or dot on my gender journey. It was not until I was accepted in a small tight knit group of women friends did I really begin to make progress in the world. I learned through them, I could validate myself in the world as a trans woman without the help of much of the public, including men. Connecting these dots made my life fun again and so liberating. 

I can not begin to completely describe my experience connecting my own dots because they could be so much different than yours. The one thing we may have in common is, in order to have success in the world, you have to summon the courage to put yourself out there. Of course the problem these days is the concern for your personal safety. You have to be very careful, be aware of your surroundings as any other woman would and connect your dots the right way.       

 

Transsexual Harassment

 

Pow Wow Image from the
Jessie Hart Archives. 

In a previous post I promised to write about the times I was sexually harassed as a transgender woman. 

The first time I experienced harassment came when I attended a nearby mixer/party with my second wife in Columbus, Ohio. The parties were relatively small but very diverse group. Anyone from cross dressers to transsexuals headed for gender surgery to male admirers attended. 

To begin with, my wife did not approve of the outfit I was wearing, saying it was way too short to start with. Of course I did not listen to her and went with the dress I wanted to wear anyway and yes it was very short on me. Even to the point of making it very uncomfortable to sit down even though I had freshly shaven legs and new panty hose.

Once we arrived at the party, I grew restless and needed to move around. Space was limited in the small house of the host so everyone was basically confined to the living room. There was also a hallway which led to a bedroom and bathroom. When I did get up, I didn't notice one of the male cross dresser admirers got up to follow me also. I was/am a big person and had never experienced any problems with my size before and was shocked when I saw how big the person who was suddenly stalking me was. Before I knew it, he had me cornered in the hallway and for the first time in my life I felt helpless. I didn't know what I was going to do until I looked up and saw my wife glaring at both of us. He saw her too and immediately backed off and the threat was over but not before my wife gave me the I told you so lecture concerning what I wore. Even though deep down I knew my wife was right, the deeper meaning of what happened to me never went away.

From that point onward, I knew how a woman could be overpowered and sexually assaulted by a man. I found out the difficult way, once I put on heels and hose and cross dressed as a woman, my male privileges changed forever. Gone was the idea I would not be stalked and attacked on a dark lonely city street or parking lot. Of course I needed to learn the safety lesson the hard way too. 

When I first came out of my gender closet, I frequented my share of three male gay venues clustered together on a city block in downtown Dayton, Ohio. Once I made into the venues themselves, I normally did not have any problems. It was when I was going back to my car one night, I ran into problems.  As I was walking down the sidewalk, I was approached by two men who ended up stopping me. I was lucky that night and was able to "buy" them off with the last five dollars I had. 

From that point forward, I told myself I would be safer where I went. I made sure I parked in lots which were safely lit and park as I could to where I was going. I even would ask friends to follow me to my car when I was out. I was lucky to escape any actual harm when I first ventured out of the closet as a transgender woman. I discovered negative harassment in no way validated me as a woman. All it did was put me in danger. In fact, it wasn't until I began to hang out and visit my lesbian friends did I learn I didn't need a man at all to validate my existence, transgender or not. 

Once I learned losing my personal safety as a former man was behind me, I could move forward and recognize what being an out and proud trans woman was all about. Transsexual harassment became an unwanted and unneeded determent to my life.   

Gender Countdown

 

Image from the Jessie Hart
Archives

My journey to living my dream as a transgender woman admittedly took a long time. 

Too long to many who blame me for waiting so long and tried to say I was somehow less transgender than they were. Which of course, I immediately dismissed. After all after I had spent nearly a half a century to achieve my goals, who were they to question me anyhow. Also, they dismissed me since I turned my back on any possible gender altering surgeries. My reasons included not wanting to undertake any serious surgeries at my age. I was in my early sixties when I decided to undergo HRT which I still call "Hormone Replacement Therapy.' Since I understand has been relabeled in some circles. It's interesting in that the topic this week of my Veteran's Administration group session this week included two full pages on just transgender related labels from over the years.

Then, there was always the matter of trying to properly present  my feminine gender in a brave new world. Along the way, a trans woman friend of mine told me I passed out of sheer willpower. Which I took to mean, I was going out in the world doing the best I could and I would learn as I went along. Similar to on the job training. As I continued my on the job gender training, I learned the hard way, the more I learned the more I needed to learn.

I was fortunate in that my entire life I made observing women a priority. By doing so, I had a head start when it came to surviving in a new world. Even though I had made major strides, I found I could not learn enough to overcome all of the obstacles I would face. The main one was to be worried about my own personal safety. Looking back, it was the main male privilege I lost when I transitioned. There were many more but none where I had my safety questioned several times by stray men. 

For some reason, destiny led me into the company of lesbians when I was included into a small circle of friends I socialized with. With them, I learned to be an observer more than an active participant until I began to gather my confidence. From there I learned also how women don't need a man for verification. It was during this period of my life my gender countdown really became faster. I began to make up for lost time. 

Perhaps the final and biggest push to my countdown came when my future wife Liz told me I should complete my MtF gender transition. She told me at the time she had never seen anything male about me at all. Finally the doors were opening for me to live my transgender dream. To celebrate, Liz was with me the night I took the first minimal HRT dosage. 

The only regret I have on my countdown, is I put myself through so much torment before I completed it. (To my specifications.) I could have saved myself another suicide attempt as well as other unpleasant possibilities My gender countdown would have come to an unpleasant end. .