 |
| Christine Jorgensen circa early 1950's. |
Deep down I knew being feminine for me was much more than a theatrical exercise dressed in front of the mirror as a girl. I wanted to do more than just look like a girl; I wanted to live like one. I wanted to be the one with the pretty clothes that all the boys admired.
It turned out I was ahead of myself as far as my gender
dysphoria was concerned. Gender dysphoria, as well as the term transgender had
not yet caught up with the public at large. It was still transvestite, transsexual
or Christine Jorgensen or nothing for me as far as having any idea anyone else
in the world was like me at all. Perhaps you may not know it, but Jorgensen was supposedly the first widely known transsexual to come out with the very public news of her gender realignment
surgery in the early 1950’s. No
theatrics involved, just a lot of publicity, I guess.
I thought of Jorgensen and the gender loneliness I felt the
other day when I got to watch “Some Like it Hot” on our local PBS station. I
was approximately ten years old when the film was released in 1959 and I
remember being mesmerized by the idea men could be women at all. Even still, I
don’t think, or remember, if I connected the dots yet to how I was feeling
about myself. I was still very much stuck in the everyday struggles of being a
boy.
When the internet became popular, I began to discover a
whole, wide wonderful world of gender possibilities. Including a term which I
had never heard of before, transgender. As I understood the term, it took away
all the possible theatrics of just looking like a girl and brought up the
possibility of living as one. At that point, I began to wonder if I was a cross
dresser at all, and not more. The only thing I thought I knew was I was still
in some sort of middle ground as my gender dysphoria went. I felt much more
that I was so much more than the average cross-dresser, but not quite there yet
as far as I wanted all the surgeries Jorgensen and others were going through.
To maintain any sense of mental stability at all, I began to
explore the world the best I could to see if I fit in with this new transgender
term I was reading about. My best and exciting evenings came about when I was
able to be invited to and attend small diverse parties at a transsexual’s house
in nearby Columbus, Ohio. It was there I learned about the dangers of being
trapped by a much bigger and powerful man, all the way to being picked up by a
lesbian I had never met before. Most importantly though, I was there to observe
and learn anything I could from the hostess, a transsexual retired fireperson
from Columbus who was headed to surgery. Michelle was beautiful and I was
dazzled. I discovered there were no theatrics from her, she was as real as could
be and I wondered if I could ever achieve what she had.
The main thing I did learn was, my deep feelings about
living as a transfeminine person may not go the same way as Michelle’s did, but
it was possible for me to live my own successful life as a woman if I tried
hard enough. That is when I learned to put my cross-dressing theatrics away which
had served me well and I entered another phase of my life. Michelle was beautiful
and exotic in her own way, but I could do it too, just in my own way.
I would be kidding myself and all of you if I said finding
my new self was ever easy. I needed to make all the difficult decisions about
risking everything in my life which was important to me. Such as a loyal, long-term
spouse, family, friends and good employment. The same things we all go through
as we struggle to transition as a transgender woman. When I finally decided I
needed to go the distance and give all my male clothes to charity, the weight
was off from my shoulders to not live a theatrical existence as a man anymore. I
spent over fifty years fighting a gender battle I could not win as the cards
were stacked against me.
I was able to put all the gender questions I suffered
through in my past and build a new transfeminine life the best I could. I just
had to quit the theatrics to do it.
