Living the Dream

Image of dreaming woman from 
James Forbus on UnSplash.

 For the greater part of a half a century, the thought of transgender womanhood remained a distant dream for me.

The main reason was, I spent decades denying who I really was, as my male self-sought to rule me. Sadly, he either won many gender battles or made life overall miserable for me. When he was doing it, my dream remained in place as I wondered how big my rainbow was and would I ever live my dream. In the meantime, I kept experimenting in the world as an out transgender woman. 

When I had the chance, I would do things such as attend downtown festivals all the way to watching an outdoor concert as my new exciting authentic self. I had a black leotard top I often wore with a favorite pair of flair legged silky pants and a glittering pair of black and gold sandals. I even went as far at the daylight festival I went to; I added a pair of sunglasses so I could see anyone checking me out in a negative way without them being able to see my eyes. My biggest discovery was no one paid me any real attention. In other words, I was beginning to think I could actually live out my dream of transgender womanhood. 

From there I attempted to expand my new exciting life. I completely enjoyed the time I spent living my dream and soon, never wanted to go back to my male life. When I was forced back, I hated it. Often, I took it out on my second wife and other close people around me. By internalizing my dream, I grew angrier and angrier and almost lost good jobs because of it. 

It was not until I began to spend almost all of my spare time living my dream, did I realize I could really succeed at it. Finally, I had made the transition from the mirror to the world and was ready to attempt to learn to do more. Overall, I began to have more success than failures when I learned not to push my gender envelope too far. I was accepted at several venues where I wanted to go to watch sports and drink beer plus, I gained a couple unexpected female friends when I did it. I was discovering I was closer and closer to my dream of transgender womanhood was almost here and I wanted more and more of it.

I did not think I would ever make it to my dream, but destiny was on my side and all of a sudden, at the age of sixty, I realized I was at a huge make it or break it time of my life. Either I completed my gender transition then, or I never would have the chance again. I seized the opportunity and even had the chance of meeting the cisgender woman of my dreams who accepted and even encouraged me to be a better version of myself. She told me very few humans ever have the chance to reinvent themselves, so I should strive to do it right. As I did.

At my age of seventy-five now, I still have the everyday pain which comes with age, but I try to write and walk every day to stay active. Perhaps by doing so, I can expand my dream to the fullest. 

Thanks for reading along! I hope you can live out your dream also.

Comments

 

Image from Bruno Acquire on UnSplash. 

In regard to yesterday's post concerning the Veterans Administration's announcement they were not going to cover gender affirming hormones, prothesis's, and even mental health treatment for new veterans suffering from gender dysphoria anymore. 

In my rant, I said, among other things, how much I disagreed with the move, even though it did not affect me. The VA said, those already receiving gender related care could keep getting it. Which, of course, means me. 

One huge problem I did not mention in my post was pointed out by Denise, who pointed out, the VA's decision to shut out trans women being discharged into the world to fend for themselves was just a smaller part of what the orange felon's presidential administration is trying to do to erase the rights of all women in our country today. Since transgender women are a unique form of women, our rights as women are being taken away too. Which gives me yet another chance to wonder why any clear-thinking woman, trans or not, would have ever voted for the felon at all. And I will leave it at that.

On another subject concerning a post called "Why Me?' a reader wrote in with this comment:

"Over many decades I often asked myself both “why me” and “why not me”. For decades I limited myself to underdressing…. something I told myself was just a (hopefully) harmless kink, out of the fear that if I explored further, I would irreversibly descend that slippery slope. I in my early 50s I finally allowed myself to experiment with makeup and women's clothing beyond underwear. I still vividly recall the moment when I looked in the mirror and saw myself for the first time. In that instant, I may have even said aloud, “I can do this!”

There have been subsequent periods of self-doubt, of course. Still, every day I find that I look forward to seeing myself and engaging with the world as a woman."

Thanks to both of you for the comments! I found many of your ideas to be very profound and meaningful. Plus, I had "aha" moments when I realized I had left all women out of the current political agenda and the moment when I too had realized when I was successful in public as a novice transgender woman that "I could do this", and it felt so natural. Deep down inside, something snapped, and I felt as if I was home.

The night I realized I could do it and felt at home in the company of women was and is so special to me. Just one of the reasons it disturbs me so much to see what is happening today with our rights continue. 

Speaking of continue, I love all your comments and wish I could answer them all, here on the blog in a public setting. Needless to say, I do the best I can!

Also (something I don't say enough) thanks to all of you who find the time and effort to read along on a regular basis. It makes it all worthwhile to me!

Gender House of Cards

 

Image from 
Nathan Dumlao
on UnSplash.

As I progressed along my gender path, I regularly built houses of cards.

I became used to showing my cards regularly when I was a novice cross dresser. Sadly, I was coming off too often as the joker. I can't mention enough how I was the victim of the beginning cross dressers' curse. I was trying to dress as a teen aged girl when I was a wide-bodied male just trying to survive in a new exciting yet scary new world. My life existed by taking a step forward and another two steps back. Gender euphoria was very rare in my life, so I needed to cherish it when it came about. 

In order to make up (no pun intended) from the long lapses of gender euphoria, I needed to step back and try to build my house of cards with a better, more solid foundation. Every time I was rejected, I had to resolve myself to go back to my cross-dressing board and work harder on something like I had never worked so hard on before. Finally, my efforts paid off and I began to blend in with the public with less effort. I was ecstatic and I readied myself to move forward play more cards. Did someone say success breeds success? If not, I will, and it happened to me. I gained the all-important confidence I needed and headed on up my gender path.  

I proceeded to keep building my house of cards against all odds, I realized who I truly was. Much more than a relatively innocent parttime cross dresser and much more of a transgender woman. It seems like such a small difference in thought pattern could make such a huge difference in my life. Suddenly, it seemed the world opened up for me and I thought I had found the missing card I had always been looking for.  

Having said all of that, I knew I would have to set out to build a whole different house of cards. No longer did I want to just look like the women around me, I wanted to be treated as an equal. Which seemed to be an impossible dream. When I was successful in hanging out with other women, I developed a whole new set of confidence and began to relax and enjoy the experience. I was at home with myself for the first time ever. Perhaps the best result was, my house of cards was being built so much stronger and more resilient to the outside world. 

From then on, the race was on to enable my inner feminine self to play her own cards. When she finally did, she was extremely successful and made the best of her situation. Plus, she was able to build upon the mistakes of her male counterpart and never having to play the joker. Then my wife Liz came along and re-enforced my new transgender womanhood, while at the same time rapidly building my house of cards. When I experienced a collapse, Liz was there to catch me. 

I am sure you agree, building your own gender house of cards is not an easy task to complete. You need to show an uncommon level of patience when your cards collapsed, and you needed to start all over. It shows how difficult a transgender life can be. Especially in these difficult times.  

The Grand Search for Discovery

 

Image from Gints Gallis
on UnSplash.

Along the path to transgender womanhood, I made many discoveries. 

It wasn't until I finally made it into the world did, I begin to pick up the pace in being allowed behind the feminine gender curtain, so I could learn for myself what was going on. In other words, I needed to earn my stripes as a trans woman to be allowed in to play in the girl's sandbox. Now, I can't quite remember what my expectations were of being allowed in, I only remember I basically forced my way in. Many times, causing the sand to really fly. 

I discovered most other women accepted me for myself and let it go at that, and I learned quickly to let the others go on their own way. After all, you cannot please everyone at the same time. Plus, the acceptance I gained far outweighed any negatives I experienced. I discovered once I made it past the idea I was attempting to "fool" anyone into thinking I was a cis-gendered woman, the better off I was. When I was satisfied to just be myself, more women reacted to me positively. Probably because they appreciated, I was being truthful with them. I was just busy learning how to live my dream and meant nobody harm.

Even still, my gender path was very winding, and steep with many roadblocks. Similar to many of you, I experienced the pain of separation from family, friends and life in general as I transitioned and femininized myself. Many times, I needed to stop and rest on my path because the effort exhausted me.

Out of all the discoveries I made, one of the biggest ones was when I made the transition from weekend or parttime cross dresser to novice transgender woman. Even though I was just dealing in basic gender semantics, the shift in thought was a major one for me. All of a sudden, I began to feel I was achieving my childhood dream of being a woman. Not just looking like one. When I did make the discovery, to change my life, my path ahead became fairly well illuminated. Now, I had the usual hurdles to jump through such as how to make my way out of the mirror and into the sandbox but overall, I had the confidence to move forward.  

The other main discovery I made as I entered transgender womanhood, was how important the gender affirming hormones would be to me. Of course, I knew the physical changes I would go through such as changes to my body such as breast growth. However, nothing prepared me for the internal changes which would go on. All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I could cry tears of joy as well as sorrow. In essence, estradiol softened my entire life and quickly took the testosterone related universe I lived in away from me. A huge discovery. 

Of course, every discovery does not have to be a good one. When my second wife discovered I was sneaking out of the house to live as a transgender woman was certainly not a good discovery for me. It took me weeks of apologizing and even therapy to save what was left of our twenty-five-year marriage. Which I managed to do until she unexpectedly passed away. When she did, I discovered what loneliness was all about. 

Every human life is filled with discovery if you are living it right. It seems transgender women and transgender men live have an extra amount of discovery. It is very rare a person who has the chance to explore the two binary genders to determine which one they want to live as. I feel it is one of the reasons so many people these days misunderstand our trans community and treat us poorly or even with hate. We have found how deep trans bigotry suddenly runs in our country, led on by a certain felon as president. Which is all I am going to say about it. 

In the meantime, I hope all your discoveries are positive and exciting.

Should You Be a Jumper?

 

Image from Jeremy Bishop
on UnSplash. 

As we go through life, many of us have chances to jump and try to improve our status. 

As I lived, I certainly registered in the jumper category. I have no idea if many of the decisions I made concerning employment changes and resultant family moves had anything to do with my gender issues, but I always assumed they did. What if I was trying to just jump and hide from wanting to live a feminine life and escape the old male one, I was forced to live. 

The one thing I did learn relatively early in life was I did not have to put up with seemingly huge obstacles put in front of me. The biggest example was when it became obvious, I was going away to serve my country during a very unpopular and deadly war in Vietnam. Immediately, since I worked for a congressman's radio station, I sought out help to work in a very small section of the military...American Forces Radio and Television. I thought, why not try and see if I could pull off a miracle of sorts, so I went ahead and jumped by sending off letters to Washington, DC. Amazingly, I received a fairly positive letter back and went on to eventually landing a spot on the network. So, jumping really helped me, and actually spoiled me for the near future.

When I was discharged from the military, I played around for a while and ended up on a cross-country car trip with my future first wife and mother of my only child. Since we were driving from my home in Ohio to her home in California, we covered many miles with side trips to visit friends in Texas and Seattle. It was fun as my fairly new Chevrolet Vega held together well enough to make the trip. And all the jumping helped me to briefly forget all my gender issues. 

When we returned, I pooled together my savings with a friend and bought a small neighborhood tavern in my hometown. It was quite the jump as my dad described it best as a place which had two doors, so the Flys did not have to stop when they went through. Even though dad's opinion spoke for itself, we worked on the tavern and finally made it a success when we added homemade pizza and deli sandwiches. Sadly, I destroyed all of my hard-earned success because of excessive alcohol abuse, and I lost the whole operation. 

Ironically, I did not learn my lesson with restaurants because later on in life, I quit a very good commercial chain restaurant job to risk a fairly sizeable inheritance I inherited when my dad died. This time, due to a severe economic downturn in the town I lived, I lost the whole gamble after about five years. Proving once and for all, my jumps did not all turn out well. 

Later on in life, I blamed much of my dependence on alcohol as just a way to jump life and not have to deal with being a transgender woman. Even still, I was far from finished from jumping. As I began to go public as a novice trans woman, I learned I could actually live the dream life I wanted. To do it though, I would have to jump through a set of very serious hoops to succeed. What would I do with the fairly successful male life I had worked so hard to succeed with. When each of us considers a total gender jump to the other side, we have to wonder what will become of our family, friends and employment. Rather than considering the process as a jump for me, I always thought of it as sliding down a steep gender slope towards a cliff of unknown depth. 

Regardless, I gathered all of my courage and put my male life behind me. I gathered up all my male clothes and gave them to the thrift store and set out with my gender affirming hormones into an exciting new world. 

In the world of transgender women and transgender men, it is extremely difficult to advise or give much guidance to each other. Frustratingly, many trans people share the same path but on the other hand don't. It shows up in the maddening ways we can't seem to truly unite as a strong "T" under the LGBTQ umbrella. It is difficult for all of us to jump together. I can't say you should be a gender jumper or not. It has to come from deep inside you.

I Was Ready but Was the World?

 

Image from the Trolley Stop, Dayton, Ohio

It took me years to understand and accept my transgender womanhood, but once I did, what was the world going to think.

Once I had worked very hard to cross the threshold into being able to put a reasonable effort into presenting as a woman, the difficult work started. Even back in those days, I was able to learn basic tricks to take a good-looking picture but then I found putting the picture into motion was the problem. The whole scenario presented me with big new challenges, The largest mistake I made was underestimating how quickly the world would want to communicate with me. All of a sudden, when I was going out to be by myself, someone (usually another woman) would invade my little world. Which was suddenly growing rapidly. Initially, until I grew used to it, just trying to look another woman in the eye and talk to her was a real challenge.

I started by merely trying to mimic the tone and sound of the person I was talking to, then took femininizing vocal lessons to aid my efforts. I discovered quite quickly, I was more ready for the world than I thought. I found putting too much effort into communicating with a stranger could be a turn off and too little interaction could come off as being bitchy. So, I needed to be careful and usually let the other person lead the conversation. 

For the most part, I found the world was ready for a stray transgender woman just learning her way. I even was able to converse with several other women I met regularly in venues where I was a regular and so were they. I was amazed I had such an easier time talking to them woman to woman than I ever did as a man. One venue in particular in my world was a tavern called the "Trolley Stop" in Dayton, Ohio. It was/is the oldest continuing tavern in Dayton and I quickly became a regular of Gabby the daytime bartender. I knew from previous experiences, having support from the bar staff was key to my overall acceptance. So, I did my best to be friendly, spoke only if I was spoken to, and tip well. Being accepted in the Trolley Stop helped to really expand my world as a transgender woman and prove I was ready to do it. To make matters even better, the Trolley Stop even hosted a lesbian mixer every month or so and I enjoyed good times there as well. 

All of a sudden, the more I was out in the world as a trans woman, I proved I was ready to make it completely in the new universe I was in. It turned out to be one of the most exciting and satisfying times of my life. I was interacting and communicating with others. When I did, I made a whole new circle of friends (mostly women) I write about frequently. They provided me with the building blocks I needed to find my gender dreams. Once I had the solid foundation I needed, the rest was easy and fulfilling. Especially to my long hidden inner feminine self who had been punished for my entire life.  

  

Writing Your Own Script

Carla Lewis

 It is difficult enough to go through life trying to live up to the expectations of others around you. 

In my case, and maybe you too, you struggled under the burden of living up to the demanding expectations of a male world. Perhaps, you achieved some sort of success in the male world as a method of self-survival.  Bullies were everywhere and ready to pounce and you had to be ready. I used the world of sports to hide the fact in truth I wanted to be a woman as I progressed through life. An example was, when I was playing football on the high school football team, I would stare longingly at the cheerleaders who were practicing nearby. Of course, it was my deep, dark secret about how badly I wanted to be one of them. 

About that time, destiny set in for me and it was time for me to step up and serve in the military. Little did I know, later in life, all transgender military members would be banned from serving by a self-serving draft dodger.  Or as trans woman "Carla Lewis" famously said, "I fought for your right to hate me." Now, it is even worse. I fought for your right to ban me.

Regardless, I kept my head down and served my time in the Army. I never labored under the impression the experience would make me a better "man." Looking back, as I was writing a new script in life, the entire process made me a better woman. Why, may you ask? Mainly because I was taught in basic training what extremes I could endure and adjust to in the military. Plus, I learned to always look ahead in life and not backward which would serve me well as I became a serious cross dresser. When I hit the rough spots which always come when you try to cross the gender border, I used my military lessons to always go back to the drawing board, try harder, and move forward. 

When I did move forward into a new scary, yet exciting life, writing my script became so much more intense. I needed to just to get by. For example, what would I do when I needed to put the carefully crafted feminine presentation I put together over the years into motion. The need to move like a woman and communicate with other women were and are prime examples. To make matters worse, I had no workbook to work from. I was completely on my own and made my share of mistakes before I began to be successful.

As you progress with your own life's script, adding being transgender into it adds a certain amount of intrigue. Especially, these days when we are under attack from so many politicians.

Once Your Eyes are Opened

 

JJ Hart, Club Diversity, Columbus, Ohio

In my case, once my eyes were opened as a transgender woman, I could never close them again.

Perhaps it is because I went through so many trials and tribulations to arrive where I wanted, or even desperately needed to be in my life. Since I had so few natural feminine traits to work with, I really needed to work hard to achieve a feminine presentation. I tried all sorts of ill-fated ideas before I ever got it right. Yes, it was me making the routine cross-dressing mistakes such as attempting to dress as a teen aged girl when I was thirty and had a testosterone poisoned body. All I accomplished was directing unwanted attention to myself. 

 It took me awhile to realize what I was doing, and my eyes were finally opened to what I was doing. The perception I had was I was dressing for men, when in fact, I should be doing the opposite and dressing for the women around me I needed to co-exist with. I learned the hard way, women ran the world I wanted to be part of, and I needed to do my best to get there. All of this meant I needed to keep my eyes open and do the best I could to study the women around me. Or how did the women react to the world around them, good or bad. 

Sadly, blocking my way were women such as my second wife who wanted no part of living with another woman, transgender or not. She was content with letting me learn on my own what women needed to survive in the world. Looking back on it, her process for me was the best way to go because once I learned something in my new transgender womanhood, I never forgot it. Also, magically, once I opened one door to my new life, my eyes were opened to another door. 

As I opened a new door, I knew I could never go back to my old male life which was bringing me down. I felt so good and natural in my new life, there was really no choice to be made. The only problem was what was I going to do with all the male baggage I had acquired over the years. Similar to most of you, I had the usual assortment of spouses, family, friends and employment to deal with. Fortunately, I started my transition process with the person who turned out to be the most accepting of all my family and friends. I am speaking of my daughter and her immediate encouragement helped pave my way to more attempts at telling the world about my authentic self. I ended up going one for two in the family process when I was roundly rejected by my brother and his family. He opened my eyes to what transgender rejection could really be like.

Still, I persisted, knowing I was on the right path and my eyes were not deceiving me. It took me awhile, but I finally gained the confidence to look another woman in the eye and communicate one on one with her. To do so, I needed to not concentrate on how I sounded and instead put an emphasis on what I said. In order to survive, I needed to keep my eyes open at all times because certainly every other woman was not going to be my friend. 

I did keep my eyes open and learned the hard way to keep my head on a swivel. There were many claws I needed to be aware of. Quickly, I was hardened to what the new world was like around me. More and more, I could never go back to the male privileges I had before. Even though, I lost much of my intelligence according to most men and especially lost my personal security, I still wanted more and more of my transgender womanhood. 

You might say, I acquired new 20-20 vision and it was perfect in many ways. It was a long and difficult learning process, but it was the best life I could have ever imagined, and I just felt I had done it sooner. 

Meeting in Person

JJ Hart in a warmer time.

Do you remember the moment you met your authentic self in person?

Looking back, I can recall several profound moments when I saw the feminine person I was always meant to be. My earliest memories came when I was quite young in the days when I was first experimenting with my mom's makeup and clothing. Even though I probably looked like a clown, the mirror told me I was beautiful. No matter what I looked like, I refused to face the truth. 

It was not until much later in life, when I began to realize how much work it was going to take to really see my true self, did I get serious. If I was going to make it to my dream of transgender womanhood, I would have to profoundly change my way of thinking. The first change I made was how my male ego interacted with my appearance the public saw when I went out for the first times. 

The truth of the matter was, if I dressed "down" to blend in with public, I received very little attention, so I started to dress too trashy to please my old male self. What quickly happened was I attracted the wrong type of attention and did not pass well. Or, at all. Back to the cross-dressing drawing board I went time after time until I drove my male ego out to the point where I was successful in blending in with other women in the world. What were the women wearing and when were they wearing it became my motto. The time I spent was worth it when success as a novice transgender woman was becoming mine. 

Suddenly, my visits to the mirror became more and more friendly. I adjusted to the fact I would never be the prettiest woman in the room, but I could rely on other feminine attributes to get by. I began to closely study other women who may not be the most attractive, yet still be popular, fulfilled women. What I did was, I began to concentrate on what my new personality would be as a transgender woman. After all, I had an unique opportunity to start all over again as a human being. My new time was a scarce commodity, and I could not miss my opportunity to do it right. 

I was fortunate in that I already had a women friend who was ready to help me. She had been there all along, just waiting for her turn to lead my life. She was the feminine inner me. It turns out she was a nice person who saw the best in others. When I met her in person, I was excited and knew I was in good hands.

I was in good hands and began to expand my small circle of friends in the world. My wife Liz and I started to go to small and medium sized "Meet Up" groups in Cincinnati where I learned the benefit of a different group of strangers accepting me. None of us knew each other previously, so I was on an even level with them. The great equalizer. 

All of the process was extremely beneficial when it came to meeting myself in person until I became used to it. Perhaps the best part of the entire process was the time I realized I had really expanded myself as a woman, transgender or not.

Transgender Lines

 

My friend Racquel.

During my journey to transgender womanhood, I often went past gender goals without even realizing it. Or, I was too busy living my life, I could not slow down enough to enjoy where I was.

Along the way, I was careful to set goals for myself such as not being satisfied to present successfully in mall and clothing store situations where people were more into my money than gender. What I started to do was go to lunch or an early dinner when I was cross dressed to judge the reactions I was getting. Even though I was not totally successful in my feminine presentation, I was learning. I found employees at restaurants were more apt to accept me when I was pleasant, minded my own business and of course, tipped well. Plus, I was easy to remember and became a protected regular quite easily when I made wise decisions on where I decided to go.

In other words, stay out of the redneck venues so prevalent where I lived in southern Ohio. I learned the hard way in one place I went when I had the police called on me as I tried to use the bathroom. After it happened, I gathered myself and went a short distance up the street to another venue I knew I would be accepted in. I certainly should have seen that line coming up before I tried to step over it. The stubbornness which I carried over into my transgender struggles, served me well as I kept trying to succeed.

At the same time, I had a new set of confidences set in. I encountered a diverse set of acquaintances which I write about often. The give and take I went through as a brand-new trans woman helped me to stabilize who I was searching to be. Before I knew it, there were many new lines I was crossing. Since the groups I was socializing with were very diverse, I needed to confront lingering questions about my sexuality. One group had a man I was getting along with wonderfully and on the other side, I had several lesbians I was getting along with too. Mixed in also, was Racquel, a transwoman who often joined our group, and who to say, any of them really liked me.

It was about this time all the lines I was attempting to cross started to blur. Was I into the man, I liked, the lesbians I liked or even the transgender woman I knew? I knew I had quite a bit to consider so I kept going out and researching to hopefully come to a better understanding of who I was in my new life. 

Finally, I was able to sort it out, or it sorted itself out for me. The man I knew, and Racquel moved away and I was able to maintain my relationship with several lesbians. In essence, my decision was made for me. Choices have consequences and with a little help I made mine. 

All the lines I did not see did not trip me up. I was more flexible than I ever imagined possible, and I made my way into my transgender womanhood. 

What is the End Game?

 

JJ Hart, Woman in Red.

Wow! My journey was a long one to transgender womanhood where I always thought I should be. Nearly fifty years from being a part-time cross dresser to fulltime transgender woman. 

The problem was getting there, because the end game scared me so much. I was in my own gender quicksand and could not seem to get out. I had no dashing cowboy riding up to rescue the damsel in distress. I was on my own. So, I persisted through countless days in front of the mirror or combing through thrift stores searching for just the correct fashion statement.

The more I learned about my feminine self, the more I realized how strong she was and how I needed to protect our relationship. The more I did, the more I began to see the end game could be in sight, if I wanted it bad enough. I knew the possible pain of giving up family, friends, spouses and employment to see the end game in person. The problem was, I was gaining more and more experience in my feminine life and every time I did, I did not want to go back to my unwanted, boring male self but I did. Over and over again until it wrecked my mental health and almost cost me my life. 

Still, I kept my eye on the goals I had set which brought me ever closer to my end game of living life as a transgender woman. Along the path I had set for myself, I still had very real doubts if I could do it. I also found out quickly, just daydreaming my life away about being a woman or cross dressing in front of the mirror was not working anymore. I needed to get out in the public's eye and live to be certain I could do it all if I needed to. 

Spoiler alert, I needed to learn all I could to survive in the very competitive world of women. I thought men were bad, but women brought a whole new intensity of competitiveness to their world with other women. In order to survive in the girls' sandbox, I needed to bring a whole level of intensity myself to keep up because on occasion there was quite a bit of kicking and scratching going on behind my back. Once I adjusted to the new world I was in, I was OK after all the scratches on my back healed. Plus, I always kept in the back of my mind, I needed to be better than the average cisgender woman to survive. Mainly because I had so much more catching up to do and I never wanted to get discovered presenting the least bit as masculine. If I ever did and slipped back into old habits, I would have to work so much harder to regain my place in the world as a trans woman.

As I did, I found I naturally was fitting into my authentic life, I found myself at a crossroads of gender. Most importantly, at the crossroads I could see what my end game was. Since I was increasingly thriving in my transgender womanhood, I saw no reason to go back. When I did, a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and life was livable again. 

I had found my end game was achievable and when I did, all things were possible.  

And Then he Was Gone

 

JJ Hart at Club Diversity
Columbus, Ohio

It took me nearly a half a century to rid myself of my male self and begin living as my authentic feminine self.

Even though much of my progress towards my gender goal was physical, much was mental also. The physical part I am referring to was the portion of my transition which revolved an intense period of time I went through attempting to judge my appearance in my own personal mirror. I was so into myself, my wife began to call me the pretty, pretty princess and told me I was ignoring what a woman really was. She was right and it took me years of research and struggle to learn what she really meant. 

As I learned, the more my male self-fought me as he did not want to give up any of his life and male privileges he had fought so long to earn. It seemed every small gender victory was hard earned until he was gone.

Perhaps the biggest factor against him was I felt so excited and natural in the new world of transgender womanhood I was creating. Surely, I was still having my ups and downs when I tried out the public when I went out, but the downs were becoming fewer and farther between. Plus, my amount of terror I was still experiencing as a transgender woman was decreasing by the day. I think now, the major reason was I finally made the mental decision to go forth in the world as a woman on my own terms rather than the part time cross dresser I had somehow portrayed myself to be. Some may say I was dealing in semantics, but the thought pattern was a revelation for me. 

As he disappeared, my female self-had no problems filling the void in my life. My long-buried woman self-had no problem putting her past behind her as she stepped out into the bright lights of a new world. I think having no resentment made her a better person people could relate to and like. In fact, I found many new people related to me as a woman than ever before as a man. 

Ironically, after a very slow start to the fifty years of gender discovery I endured, once I seriously started my transition. time went very fast. Perhaps, it was because every night I went out, I was learning so much new on not being just the pretty, pretty princess and finally experiencing what my wife told me about being a woman was all about. Or I was finally given the chance to go behind the feminine gender curtain into a world dominated by women. When I did, I found women ran their own world their own way without the help of men. During the girls' nights out, I was invited to I learned what was important to women and not men. Even along the way, I learned the power of non-verbal communication between women when one night I was warned away from an intoxicated man in a venue I was a regular in by a bartender I knew. With one look, I immediately went the other way away from him and was safe.

Finally, after so much learning and experiencing a new life as a transgender woman, I think my male self-saw the writing on the wall and decided he was done. When he did, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. It seemed carrying two people all those years took a toll on me, and I wanted out. 

Burning Gender Bridges

 

Image from Adam Wilson
on UnSplash

During my life, I have always excelled in self-destruction. It seemed, whenever I had succeeded in anything positive, I always tried to tear it down. 

I blame the entire process on two basics, one of which on how I was raised. My parents never accentuated the positive at any time. If I received a "B" in any class, invariably I heard, why didn't I earn an "A" and I was not applying myself properly. The other basic was anything I accomplished as my male self; I did my best to reject. I did not in any way want to accept any success I earned as a male. So, I did my best to burn the gender bridge I created. 

Of course, the more I went down my gender path towards transgender womanhood, the more bridges I needed to burn. Everywhere I looked, the stakes were higher in life. All along I was accumulating more and more success as my unwanted male self which made my decision so much more difficult. Still, I forged on with my torch burning brightly. To hell with the results, I was going to attempt to follow my gender dreams anyway. Finally, I arrived at the point where seemingly I was subconsciously trying to sabotage myself. In many ways, I was desperately attempting to hide my deep dark cross-dressing secret while, on the other hand, I secretly wanted everyone to know I had always wanted to live as my authentic feminine self and did not care what they thought. Still, I needed to be careful as I had deep roots to my male past. Spouses, family and jobs were at stake. So, I tried to be sure of what I was doing before I cut the gender tree down.

Perhaps the most substantial bridge I needed to burn was to my job. I was a very successful restaurant manager in a regional/national casual restaurant chain. The management was very male dominated, and I knew there was no way I could ever transition in the same job. 

I decided to try going to other similar food/bar competitors thinking no one would recognize me. Long story short, I found out the hard way I was recognized as a version of my male self. To make matters worse, I tried to frequent my own operation and was close to being immediately recognized. In doing so, I burnt a major bridge which I don't think my wife ever found out about. It was bad enough when she knew I was breaking the agreement we had for me to never leave the house as a transgender woman.

The new bridge I built when I burnt the old one was when I decided to buy my own restaurant. I figured if I was the owner, no one could tell me what to do. That was true to an extent until one night a very evil former acquaintance met me in the parking lot to tell me my lifestyle was keeping the public away where we operated. I don't know how true what he said was but one way or another, I had burnt all my gender bridges and there was no way I could ever go back. 

When I transitioned and began my life as a transgender woman, I was able to build new strong bridges for the first time in my life. It was like my feminine soul was excellent in her building skills and could not wait for a chance to thrive.

The sad part was/is how much destruction I had to go through just to arrive at where my dream could be born. It turned out the birth was the easiest part of it all, as I set out to live a fulltime new life in my transgender womanhood. I finally had the chance to put my fire out. At least the destructive one.   

Set Up for Success

 

My wife Liz who set me up 
for success. 

As we follow the complex gender path, we are on, there are many ways to set ourselves up for success or failure in the world.

Being the stubborn person I am, I kept making the same mistakes over and over again until I finally righted myself and was able to blend in with the public. Looking back, too many times, I returned home with tears in my eyes after the mirror lied to me about how I looked. I was somehow not setting myself up for success and had to keep going back to my feminine drawing board until I finally began to improve.  

One of the earliest forms of success I discovered was the power of the thrift store. The stores provided me several avenues to improve my novice transgender self. First of all, the stores fit my very limited budget, and I was able to try on or purchase clothes I would normally not. Secondly, I was allowed to shop to my heart's content without any interference from commissioned clerks who were more interested in my money than me. Finally, my third form of success was the entire experience helped me to discover a newfound sense of confidence in myself as a transgender woman. 

Slowly but surely, I was learning how to dress myself properly as a transgender woman without being trashy. When I did so, I stopped all the unwanted attention I was receiving Or, all attention as a woman, was not good attention.

Setting myself up for success in my transgender womanhood meant going to the right venues. I found out the hard way not to go where cis women already knew not to go. I started to stay out of dimly lit streets and parking lots. Even more so, I began to stay out of red-neck venues where I tried to go to for a beer and to watch sports. Sadly, the police were called on me in one of the places and in another, two guys thought it would be cute and necessary to play "Dude Looks Like a Lady" repeatedly on the juke box. I solved the problem by establishing myself in venues which accepted me.  Which did not include the gay bars I did not feel a part of either.

Through it all, as I learned to accept myself as a trans woman, being set up for success was a long process discovered mainly by trial and error. Since I had no real role models to show me the way. Fashion and makeup were only the beginning before I needed to explore communicating with the world as a woman. I discovered very quickly how many women wanted to know what I was doing in their universe. 

Along the way, one thing I needed to learn was to be patient and judge each step carefully since I had so much to lose. Setting myself up for success was so difficult on so many levels. I needed to make sound decisions to make sure I was making the very complex move I was contemplating. I have always viewed a gender transition as one of the most difficult moves a human can undertake.

Sometimes I feel, I took too long to set myself up for success, but I had to be sure I was doing it right.   

Coming Out Day

 

Key Largo Boat Trip

Recently, I have written several times how my daughter rose to the occasion and drove the six plus hours to Atlanta from Ohio to rescue my wife Liz and I when we were stuck after I landed in the hospital and could not finish our bus trip back.

Our plight became increasingly desperate after there were no rental cars available for us to rent for the trip back. 

This is not the first time I have needed to turn to my daughter for help in my life. First and foremost was the time I came out to her as my authentic transgender self. To my surprise, instead of rejecting me, she simply said why was she the last to know. When in fact, she was one of the first family members I had ever tried to explain who I truly was to. She was under the impression her mother, who was/is my first wife knew I was trans. When in fact her mom knew all along, I was a cross dresser but never knew I wanted to pursue our gender issues any further. The only other person my daughter was referring to was my second wife or her stepmother who always rejected any idea of her living with another woman if I transitioned. So, I needed to explain to my kid, she really was the first.

I remember the coming out day so long ago like it was yesterday. Naturally, I was petrified yet secretly excited to tell another person my deepest, darkest secret. I was leading a hidden life all along and never wanted to be male at all. 

Once I blurted out my transgender truth, I felt immediately better. Especially so after I learned of my daughter's enthusiastic and unqualified acceptance of me. She immediately made plans to go shopping with me, which I rejected and then made an appointment for me at her upscale beauty spa for a hair makeover for my birthday. To this day, the appointment she made was one of the most life changing feminine experiences I have ever gone through. Very quickly I learned why cis women everywhere cherish their time with their beauty stylist. 

Now, as my daughter is coming close to finish raising three wonderful kids (including one who is transgender) it seems she is now shifting to care giver mode with several elderly extended family members. Including me of course. I am so fortunate to have Liz to help me also to take most all of the possible burden off of my daughter. 

In the meantime, I can't say enough about how much I appreciate all the help she has given me. I consider myself a very independent person and being a senior transgender woman has put added pressures into my life. This latest bout I fought with Covid has brought me into an increased focus of what is important in my life. My health and the people around me.   

Dream On

 

Image from Darius Bashar
on UnSplash.

Last night I had a dream which may have signaled my subconscious mind has finally caught up with my reality. 

For the longest time, since I transitioned into transgender womanhood over a decade ago, I wondered why my dreams still had me as a man. All the way to people using my dead name with me. I woke up frustrated it was even happening at all. When I was very young, all the way to my teen years, I cherished the nights I could fall asleep and dream of being an attractive girl. Of course, when I woke up, I was very disappointed to learn I was still stuck in my same old male world. 

Years passed by and I proceeded to work very hard to resolve my gender issues but still had the same old male dreams. Who would have thought it would be this difficult to change me completely, including my subconscious dream world. For some reason, last night, the dream switch was flipped. As I said, even to the point of the world using my legal feminine name I changed years ago when I journeyed out of the closet.

Maybe the dream was reflecting all the tension I am feeling on my wife Liz and I's upcoming trip to the Florida Keys. Since it is a bus trip from Ohio, we will be traveling through several states not known for easily providing rest room privileges to transgender women. Not to mention, the possibility of encountering a stray transphobic gender bigot on the bus itself. Liz keeps telling me I am overreacting and just being paranoic. I hope she is right. Maybe last night's dream was a higher power telling me to relax and enjoy the vacation. 

Regardless, I am going to take a ten-day break from writing during our trip. It will be coming up this weekend and will give me a chance to refresh and start all over again when we return back to Ohio. 

During my vacation and beyond, it will be interesting to find out if my dream world has reached the tipping point to my authentic feminine self. Perhaps it is unrealistic of me to think ten plus years of trans womanhood could overcome nearly sixty years of living as a man in my subconscious mind. The whole process isn't the most trying problem I have to conquer. But it would be good if I could. Even in a dream world, I still do not like to be referred to as my old male name or be back living in a male world at all. 

Total erasure of my past is my goal. Although I cannot ignore all work my guy self-put into our life to set me up for success as a transgender woman, it is still a process I feel I need to complete. In the meantime, I know dreaming is a natural part of life. Now I can hopefully relax and look forward to a good night of sleep in my authentic world.  

All Hands on Deck

 

Image from UnSplash

As I progressed farther along my long and difficult gender journey, there were many times where I wished I had company to aid my path.

Even though I often whine and cry concerning the lack of assistance novice cross dressers or transgender women have early on in their progression, the fact remains we need to work our way through it and do the best we can with our fashion and makeup. Until I began to see positive results, I am sure I looked like a clown in drag. Still, I was alone with my thoughts. I am old enough to remember with "Virginia Prince" and her Transvestia publication first came to my attention. It provided me with the first real look at others who shared the same interest in being femininized and looking like a girl. I was mesmerized with more than a few of the cross dressers I saw in the publication. I so badly wanted to be like them.

For years as I worked alone to look more realistic as a cross dresser, I still yearned for feminine help. I thought any cis woman could help me because of their years of practice and interaction with their peers. When I was engaged in college, the opportunity to be dressed from head to toe as a woman by another woman finally came my way. Somehow, I begged my fiancé to do it even though I don't remember now how I did it or was so persuasive. I went all the way by even renting a motel room for all the pre-prep work such as shaving my body I would have to do. 

Once I shaved and dressed, I was excited to undergo the long-awaited makeup process. Since she wore quite a lot of makeup, I was confident she could do a great job. It was finally time for all hands-on deck in my young cross-dressing life. Back in those days, mini skirts and dresses were in vogue so I brought one I found and purchased along with panty hose, heels, and a long blond wig and started the transformation process. To say I was excited would be an understatement. Time flew by as she finished my makeup, and I headed for the mirror. Instead of the beautiful blond I thought I was going to see, I was actually disappointed. I could not see much difference in her efforts from my own. Even still, I acted as if I was really impressed with her expertise when in fact, I was impressed with how much I had learned on my own over the years. 

It took me a long time working with makeup to learn each of us has a blank face to work with and we need to learn the best way to work with it. My fiancé was doing the best she could with the knowledge she learned from her own face, not mine. She was far from being a professional such as the help I finally received from a true makeup pro at a transvestite, transgender mixer I attended years later after I was discharged from the Army. He taught me lessons about my face I had never even considered such as which features to play down and which ones to build up. To this day, I owe him a huge vote of confidence and thanks.

It turned out the opposite happened with my fiancé. Due to knowing my deepest, darkest secret about being a cross dresser, she said I should use it to dodge the draft and stay out of the Vietnam war. There was no way I was going to do that, so we split up shortly before I was to leave for basic training. Actually, it was the best thing which has ever happened to me in my life. The pain it caused immediately would have been nothing like the suffering we would have gone through if we had stayed together.  

Looking back, at my life's work as a transgender woman, for the most part, it has been a solitary experience. Not having a female peer group to interact with and learn from was a problem to be sure but one I learned to work around. The end result was, I needed to be better than the next woman to make it. 

I Never Felt so Alive

Image from JJ Hart

 
One of the main reasons I found my way into transgender womanhood was when I was exploring the lifestyle of a trans woman, I never felt so alive.

It all started when I resolved one night to change my basic mind set from just thinking I was a part time cross dresser all the way to considering changing my mind all-together to I was a woman pretending to be a man, and I was so tired of feeling that way. All of my new thoughts centering on my gender led me to what I came to consider as my second grand gender transition on the night I went out to a venue to blend in with all the other professional women who were getting off of work. The difference was I did not just want to blend in, I wanted to be them. Even though I was petrified of what I was attempting, I made it through and even was accepted by all I encountered. 

The bottom line was I never felt so alive in my life and knew my life had changed forever. The problem was, in those days, I had serious male baggage to deal with. Similar to many of you, I had a spouse, family and good job to think about even though dealing with them as a male was pulling me down. Regardless, I kept on fighting and learning more and more about the femininized life I was considering undertaking. I was naive and thought I had achieved my goal of learning everything I could about living as a woman when I was just starting my path. I put all those years of just thinking my life would be just one of appearance. As my wife kept trying to tell me, I had a long way to go to learn what the life of a woman was all about. She was right, and I resolved myself to find out what she meant. 

Primarily, what I learned was a woman's life was very layered and difficult to experience because finding women who were willing to allow me behind the gender curtain were difficult to find. I was left to learn it all by myself until I reached a certain level of transition. In other words, I needed to pay my gender dues until I earned my path to the girl's sandbox. Often the route was bumpy, rough, and unforgiving but I lived and learned. Even though (as I always mention) I found friends to help me, I needed to basically keep my mouth shut and observe how the world around me was going about their everyday lives behind the gender curtain as women. 

Through it all, I continued to feel more alive than I had ever felt before as a male. I can compare the process to being guided by a searchlight in a gender fog which was my gender dysphoria. Call it gender euphoria or whatever, I could not wait until I could take the next step towards a complete life as a transgender woman. 

Pain

Image from Tony Frost
on UnSplash

Looking back, I don't think I write enough about the pain I felt during my life which was closely related to my gender issues. 

First of all, I was living in a world where nothing was ever as it seemed. Life had wedged me into living a male pattern I never felt a part of, and I could not escape. One of the problems was I was privileged in so many ways and was told constantly about it. After all, I was white, middle classed male child and all I needed to do was find a way to fit in. The pain was considerable when I learned I just couldn't. I did not have a choice, all I really wanted to do was be a girl.

Much later in life, when information began to become more available, my problem began to be known as gender dysphoria. Having a term was good enough but did nothing to relieve my pain. The only cure was to cross dress in front of the mirror and try to imagine how it would be to be a girl. I was successful in blissfully thinking I was headed in the right direction, until I started to head out of my closet and explore the world. When I did, the public took the mirror's place, and I was judged (sometimes very harshly) by an unforgiving world. Unless you happen to be a natural as a transitioning male to female person, perhaps you have been in the same circumstance of having to learn to present well as a woman. At times, the entire journey I was on seemed to be a steep insurmountable path. 

Still, I learned from the days and nights of pain I endured and kept on trying to improve my feminine presentation. My tears finally subsided, and gender euphoria set in. Maybe I could achieve my dreams of transgender womanhood. What I did not realize was how far I still needed to go. No matter how far along I thought I was with my makeup, hair and fashion, there were still hurdles to jump with communication and interaction in the real world as a trans woman. Plus, there was the very painful life I was leading as two genders when I needed to hide what I was doing from my unaccepting second wife. I always considered myself a very honest person, so being dishonest with her about my truth caused me great sorrow and pain but at that point I could not turn back.

Before I knew it, she passed away and a new pain such I had never known set into my life. It seemed I learned again how death was forever, and loneliness would follow. What I did not realize was how life could go full circle if you are fortunate enough to live long enough as I was. Slowly but surely, the fleeting wisdom of age taught me life offered both joy and pain along the way. It just so happened in my life; gender played a very important part. 

Also, life taught me feeling gender dysphoria or pain helped me to appreciate gender euphoria or joy even more. Regardless, I need to point out my gender journey was never easy and required my utmost attention. So, I could survive all of my pain.  

Merry Christmas

Leg Lamp from the "Christmas Story"

 Doesn't seem possible another year has flown by and here I am writing another Christmas Day blog post as the "Yule Log" plays on the television behind my wife Liz and me.

Earlier this morning, I cried tears of sorrow and joy. The sorrow came from remembering the times of my life when my family was strong, and we had festive Christmases. Plus, I am old enough to remember how much fun it was when the downtown was vibrant and glowing with its holiday decorations. Now around here at least, the downtowns have been replaced by sterile decaying malls or outside shopping centers. I even cried when I recalled the life my ex-brother and I shared. 

Now, the tears of joy. Slowly but surely as I began to think about the present, I shed tears when I thought of the love I feel for Liz and how fortunate I am to have someone to love me in a season where so many others, especially in the transgender community just don't. When my brother and his family rejected me during the holiday season over a decade ago, I found a new family with my daughter and Liz. I know I am blessed.

On this Christmas, I also make sure I watch a couple of my favorite classics such as "It's a Wonderful Life" and Ralphie's "The Christmas Story." Ralphie is especially special to me because the time period it represents is roughly the same as mine growing up. The only difference is, instead of the BB Gun Ralphie so desperately wanted, in my case I received the gun but did not get what I wanted, a doll baby. It is poetic justice, I guess.

Regardless, I hope you have a Merry Christmas with blood or chosen family and thanks for joining me!