The Right Place but the Wrong Time

 

Image from Alexey Demindov 
on UnSplash.

Perhaps you remember the Dr. John song “Right Place, Wrong Time” from 1973. In his classic style, he bemoans being in the right place at the wrong time in his life.

Sometimes I think the song could be the theme of my life. To start with, I was born against all odds, seeing as how my parents had suffered through three stillbirths before I came along and survived. I was in the right place to thrive in a family who loved me, but I was in the wrong place when my gender was determined to be male. Something I could do nothing about for many years.

Without knowing it, I was being set up for all sorts of embarrassing scenarios in life running from my gender truth. Examples came fast and furious during my initial days of trying to go public with my cross-dressing desires. Way before I acquired the knowledge to blend in with the world as a feminine person. Being in the wrong place it seemed was a regular occurrence. Both my male and female egos were suffering from be stared at, all the way to putting up with out and out laughter.

At the same time, I was feeling deep down that I was in the right place at the right time anytime I cross-dressed as a woman. I had not realized at that time that along I was a woman cross-dressing as a man. Which would have saved me a tremendous amount of heartbreak in my life. In the meantime, I needed to be content with just following my gender path the best I could, being aware of the many blind curves and stop signs I would run into. Such as the times when I was learning the proper etiquette that I needed to use the women’s restroom. For the most part, I did well with very little pushback except on rare occasions I remember to this day. The worst one that I always recall was the night a ciswoman followed me into the room and started calling me a pervert when all I was doing was trying to do my business in piece. Fortunately, she was the exception rather than the rule and I never had to go through anything so dramatic such as that again. Except for the time I was on a bus tour through the deep south with my wife Liz and we stopped at a rest stop on the Alabama border.

I thought everything was going to be fine until I was washing my hands and turned to face two women glaring at me. I quickly thought that I was certainly in the wrong place until I stepped around both of them and headed as fast as I could for the bus. I was certainly in the right place to take care of my business and at the wrong time with those two women.

The more I went out in the world as a transgender woman, naturally, the more chances I had to climb out on my gender limb and take chances to see how I felt about being there. Every time I did not fall, my confidence grew stronger to put myself in more challenging situations. In the retail world, I got myself out of the clothing stores where I was a non-entity and went to the world of bookstores and coffee shops to see how I was accepted. At the same time, as I always mention, I left the gay bars I was going to all the time and went to straight venues to see if I would find myself in the right spot at the right time. I was overjoyed when I ended up as an accepted regular at several venues I chose where I could enjoy everything from the music to the beer and my sports on big screen televisions.

I was never raised to be happy or satisfied with anything I ever did, so I was surprised at how satisfied my life was becoming when I followed the correct gender path to becoming a full-fledged transfeminine person. Casually living my new life, the same as any other ciswoman would do it. I even discovered that I had been in the right place at the right time with my sexuality as I fell into a group of women who accepted me totally and being with a man was never anything I ever had to consider.

The more I did as a trans woman, the more I never wanted to do again as a man, so I stopped because I began to feel so awkward on the rare occasions, I needed to re-enter the male world I used to be so good in. In fact, I just hated going back. Which was the time that I started to get it through my stubborn head that I was never destined to be a man at all and my right place was as a woman.

 Once I arrived firmly in my right place there was no turning back. Out went the old male clothes to thrift stores and in came the daily routine of what I was going to wear in the feminine life I always dreamed of. It had been a difficult gender journey complete with approving and disapproving people in the world but somehow, I always seemed to separate the haters and TERFS (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists)  out, learn from them and move on. Common sense finally prevailed as I chose the only lane I could and stayed in it. Many times, it was my own lack of confidence which stopped me from taking the steps I needed to survive.

As I said, being in the wrong place at the right time did not have to be the theme of my life unless I let it. Once I corrected a lifetime worth of errors, I was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it was not the train. My train was still coming to take me to a transgender dream life I never imagined I could live.

Thanks to all of you who take your precious time to read and comment on mine. Without you, none of this would be worth it.

 

 

 

Mother's Day and the Battle for Gender Supremacy

 

Image from Daiga Elaby
on UnSplash.

Before I get started on today’s post, I would like to mention Mother’s Day, and all it means to me. First of all, it gives me the chance to remember all the problems my mom went through to have me. Such as, going through three still born babies before my parents kept trying and had me. Without their determination, I would not be here today. Which is the main reason why I adopted my mom’s first name as my legal name when I changed it years ago.

Plus, even though my mom and I were much alike and fought quite a bit through my youth, I managed to use her as a roll model as I slowly grew into the daughter, she never accepted having. I view her now as a one of kind woman who presented herself to me as an unknowing roll model. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you reading today who may be ciswomen and birthed your own children! We all know how important you are to the world. If your mom is still around, do your best to try to bridge the gender gap. Although I was never able to do it with mine before she passed away years ago.

Now, on to the post for today which has to do with my remaining male gender and how he got in the way of my transfeminine progress in life. I already mentioned the fights I had with my mom as she taught me to fight like she did. Bring anything you could think of to make sure you have at least a decent chance of winning the battle you were in. I think she indirectly taught me valuable lessons about fighting as a girl because I had to resort to being mental and not physical with my fighting.

As it turned out, just the aspect of having fights with other males never materialized much with me as I was growing up. I tried to hide behind liking sports and cars to hide my true love of fashion and makeup to keep the bullies away and for the most part it worked. It also worked when I failed at trying something such as sports, getting beat, and having the chance to run home and soothe my feelings behind one of my favorite dresses and makeup.

This plan was all well and good when I was just dealing with just minor athletic events and became much more serious when it came to activities such as work and life in general. I quickly learned that if I was to be successful, I could not just take my feelings home and cross-dress, I needed to stay there and fight. I needed to push hard to keep my transgender issues at bay and take care of myself. Even though in the background, my feminine self was always waiting to get out and thrive in the world. Sort of like that app on your computer which is always running in the background. Because every situation I faced, I secretly wondered how I would face it as a trans woman. At that point, I needed to face the real possibility that I would just have to experiment with new situations in life from the view that ciswomen do.

That was when I got out of the gay venues I was going to and back into the straight venues I had grown used to going to as a man. Of course, I found the entire process to be extremely terrifying yet natural as I settled down into my new world. A world where I did not have to worry about what my feminine instincts were telling me as I was actively acting upon them. I was free and gender for once was not getting in my way. All I had to worry about was my fear of discovery disrupting my new life.

To my surprise, most of the world around me did not seem to care there was a novice trans woman around them. No one screamed “Hey! That’s a man” when I entered the room and at the worse all I received in response was a few stares. Mostly from women. When I did, I always made sure to stand up straight and try to make eye contact if a could as if to say what is wrong with you? There is nothing wrong with me. As we all know, humans are like sharks in the water who are attracted to blood. When I showed the hard-earned confidence, I gained to project my authentic feminine self, the sharks left me alone. I can’t emphasize enough though the bumps and bruises I took to my ego to find the much-needed confidence to get by.

I did get by and stopped most all my gender battles which helped me to end all the self-destructive behavior I had carried around with me for decades. It certainly took a while for all the emotional scarring to go away and for me to clean up my act. As I always say, it was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I finally gave in to the transfeminine person I always was meant to be. And I was allowed to continue to fill out my gender workbook as I was socialized in the world of ciswomen by the small group of women friends, I had built around me. I was able to learn a little or a lot from all of them except for one. Which was my biggest issue…

In other words, the biggest boulder on my path to move was getting my male gender out of the way. He was stubborn and hung on to his male privileges as long as he could. All to no avail. I finally had to give up on trying to use all my old male strength to help me and resorted to a more feminine approach of slowly chipping away at portions of the rock. Success led to more success and before I knew it, I had a new exciting path to my future open for me ahead. It was bright, exciting and I never wanted to even think about going back.