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JJ Hart (Center) Wife Liz on Left, Daughter on Right. |
The process of crossing the gender border from male to female, always felt as if I was coming home.
From the beginning, my dual genders clashed, causing me to
often sacrifice my already fragile mental illness when I was diagnosed as being
bi-polar. Naturally, it was difficult to separate one issue from another when I
became depressed and just wanted to curl up in a ball and left alone. On most
occasions, I could just cross dress in front of the mirror and take my mind temporarily
off my trip to find my true home.
The trip proved to be much longer than I ever thought it
would. I never considered it would take me on a fifty-year odyssey. Complete
with too many blind curves and dead ends to mention. If I was to attempt to
mention any of the major problems I had with my transition was there would be
so many more transitions than one. The gender border crossing was so complex,
it would take me several different ways at once. I finally came to the point
where I was simply trying to raise the bar of living as a transgender woman
every time I went out in public. In my earliest days, it meant concentrating on
more than just my feminized appearance. I needed to put my appearance, no
matter how good or bad, into motion. What good would it be to look like an
attractive woman if I was moving like a linebacker.
Every time I made a move forward in my transition, I could
imagine myself living my gender dream. Which in most cases scared me more than
anything else. What would my life be like without all the male privilege I
worked so hard to earn. Perhaps the only stable idea I learned was I was much
more than the casual cross dresser who just wanted to put on a dress for
certain occasions. As suspected from my earliest days of admiring myself in the
mirror as a girl. I wanted to do much more such as be a girl or at the least
find out if the public would accept me as one.
I put many hours of work into my femininized presentation. I
tried and tried to get my makeup right, even to the point of losing nearly
fifty pounds on a diet I undertook. When I lost weight, I was able to fit into
my stylish clothes, so it was a huge win for me. Along with the intense skin
care routine I followed. Suddenly, I discovered I could use less make up and
prove less was more. All these moves proved coming home indeed may be reality if
I kept working hard enough. For the first time in my life, I made a concerted
effort to achieve a very real goal. My transgender womanhood.
As I said, coming home involved several other minor and major
transitions. I began to do so called womanly duties such as grocery shopping
into my days when I could. I also added gift shopping at Christmas (and other
times) to my time as a woman. Through it all, I was learning how the world
would possibly accept me when I was able to make it home. All these actions showed
me the feasibility of proceeding with my gender plans, though many questions
remained unanswered. Such as, what would
I do about the basics of my life such as what to do about my wife, extended
family, friends and having a basic income to live on.
It was around this time when destiny set in to provide me
with major answers in my life. Tragically my second wife passed away, at the
age of fifty, along with most all of my very few male friends. As far as family
was concerned, my daughter stepped up to be my most steadfast ally, until my
third wife Liz stepped into my life. Finally, I learned if I waited a relatively
short period of time, I could take an early retirement on Social Security and
solve my financial issues. The only loss I sustained was with my brother and
his extended family who roundly rejected me. So much for close family ties.
When I made it to my true home, it was like day and night.
It was as if a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. My mental health improved
with the help of therapy, and I was better able to face my life on a more equal
basis than I ever had before. Surprisingly, I had very little re-arranging to
do to live in my new house. It seemed my inner female self-had been not so patiently
waiting for her chance to take over my life. Once she earned her spot in the
public eye, she knew exactly what to do to survive.