The Stare

Summer Image Dining Out
by JJ Hart.

 
Last night, my wife Liz and I went out to eat with her son as an early Christmas gift to him. 

We went to our favorite restaurant, and they were packed with early dinner guests. Since they normally turn their tables quickly, we were not overly concerned about being seated in a timely matter.  I need to mention also, I have never had any problems at the venue with being treated as my authentic feminine self. Last night could have been a little different. But was it really?

The surprise came when we parked and a woman looking out at nearby window was staring at me. Before we even came in the restaurant. I ignored her, and we went on in and were seated. It just so happened we sat near to her where she could continue to look at me. Then the stare down became more serious as again I tried to enjoy my dinner and ignore her. 

Finally, after I glanced her way a final time, she was smiling at me, which could have meant many things. It could have been she spotted me as a transgender woman and was ready to make a scene all the way to she was just being friendly. So, I decided to smile back then go back to my dinner as if nothing happened. It worked. From then on, when I quickly looked back at her, she had obviously lost all her interest in me and was talking to the other woman she was with. I never saw her look at me again.

So, it turned out I won last night's battle, but I know I am a long way from winning my overall transgender war. In an earlier life, I was ravaged by testosterone poisoning which I face to this day. Which means I have to work very hard to obtain any of the passing privilege I may have earned when I was younger. Plus, now, with the added mobility issues I face at the age of seventy-five, it is difficult now to walk at all. Let alone walk like a woman. 

Still, I refuse to accept defeat and walk as far as I can daily, and I will not give into in any stray transphobes I may run into. Who knows, maybe the woman last night was just trying to be friendly.  After the previous disastrous election, maybe I am just paranoid. I know I am fortunate also to have my wife with me most of the time to run some sort of interference for me if I need it. However, I know I need to fight my own battles when and if they arrive. 

Perhaps the biggest test I will have is coming up in a couple weeks when Liz and I embark on a bus trip to the Florida Keys. There will be plenty of tests on my restroom presentation to see how much I have learned over the years. 

I will see how many stares I will receive. 

Trans Girl Shopping

 

Image from Sam Headland on UnSplash.

Many Christmases ago, in the early two thousand's I began to do most of my special gift shopping for my second wife as a transgender woman. Needless to say, I learned a lot. 

My wife was a huge gardener, so greenhouses and specialty garden stores were my first places to go to if I was to ever find the special gift, I was looking for. To find the best selections, I normally made the hour trip to Columbus, Ohio which had bigger greenhouses and even a specialty garden store in one of their upscale malls. Since at that time, I had a reasonable amount of spendable income, almost nothing was out of reach for me as a gift for her. 

Normally, I made the trip during the day and wore professional women's business attire. My hope was I could present well as a woman just on her lunch break shopping for last minute gifts. Even though, I was beginning to feel more and more at home as a woman in the world. Still, I felt I needed to work hard to be able to present the best I could as a transgender woman to avoid detection. Seeing as how I was knocking out two birds with one stone, I needed to do it well. 

I should not have worried because one way or another I was treated warmly by more than a few of the clerks I faced and at the worse with indifference by others. I found the older clerks were more apt to help me and the younger ones left me on my own to shop. Even being left alone was alright with me because I was so intensely trying to find just the right gift for my wife who did not know it was my feminine self-doing almost all her shopping. Along the way, I found all sorts of unique gifts from new garden tools all the way to vintage seed boxes in antique malls. Which is a different story for another blog post which I will write before Christmas. 

Perhaps you are wondering what I wore for these new yet scary shopping adventures I was on. Depending upon which mall I was going to, I attempted to scale up or back on my outfit so I would not appear out of place. At that time, Columbus featured two very upscale malls, and I could not miss out blending in by dressing in my finest silky black pant suit, blond wig, and heels along with my very best application of makeup. All my efforts worked well as nearly everyone ignored me, except a few men. 

Since I was being successful in my transgender womanhood, and I was able to be out in the public's eye for an extended period of time, I decided to push my boundaries and stop to eat and use the lady's room. Both were a challenge for me since I had rarely done it before. I gathered my courage and stepped into one of the sit-down restaurants in the mall and just took a seat at the bar to eat. Sure, I was scared of having any one-on-one communication with the public but on the other hand, I was so successful so far in the day, why not push my luck. 

It turned out all my fears were unfounded as I was treated well in the venue I chose and the only problem I had in the restroom was navigating my way around using the toilet in my pantsuit. I did not think far enough ahead when I chose my outfit for the day and put fashion ahead of rest room utility. Fortunately, I was able to complete my struggles successfully, take care of business and leave the lady's room before anyone else came in. 

I finished the day of trans girl shopping as a very successful experience with the added positives of finding great gifts for my wife. I could not wait to do it again.

NOT for Entertainment Only

 

Image from Alice Alinari
on UnSplash

As I went along my path to transgender womanhood, I found the journey was never a choice and was not for entertainment only.

My journey did not begin that way. Similar to many of you, I started by exploring my mom's underwear drawer and wearing what would fit. All of that was seemingly innocent enough unless I was caught. Then there would undoubtedly be hell to pay, along with a trip to a psychiatrist. Later I would wonder if my mom ever knew because her underwear was stretched out, but she never approached me at all. 

It was all fun and games until it wasn't. Slowly, I learned wearing girls/women's clothes was not for entertainment only. I was becoming increasingly serious about it. For the first time in my life, I was obsessing over how I looked. How was my makeup and very limited access to a wardrobe appearing in the mirror. I even went as far as shaving my legs when I thought I could get away with it. In addition, I did my best to study the other girls around me. I did not know it then, but I probably was wearing makeup before a few of the girls I knew were allowed to do it. At the time when I could not seem to muster the same passion for building the model cars I had and painting them well, makeup was an entirely different challenge and one I could not resist doing my absolute best at doing well. With no help whatsoever. 

I found, for the first time in my life, I was completely serious about doing one thing and it was being a girl. Not just looking like one. It took me years to learn just gazing at my reflection cross dressed as a feminine person was just not enough. I needed more. My problem was early on was having the budget to do anything such as being able to afford having a nice wig. It was not until my college days until I could buy a long blond wig I cherished for years. Spending all the money on one specific fashion accessory proved my passion to look good was not for entertainment only. I was really serious.

Of course, then I really started to step up my gender game. When I was released from my military service, I began to seriously explore the world as the feminine trans woman I was destined to become. As I write about often, my journey was filled with ups and downs and my mental health suffered. Definitely not the way I thought it would be when I looked at myself dressed as a girl in the mirror early in my life. What I never had a chance to consider was I was not a transvestite or cross dresser at all. In fact, I was a transgender woman and needed to accept it. I was never in it for the entertainment and my life depended on a successful outcome. 

What I mean is, I needed to stop all the self-destructive behavior I was exhibiting as I sought to destroy everything successful, I had ever done. Along the way, I had tried to lose jobs, drink too much all the way to trying to kill myself with pills. Never realizing how much I had to live for if only I followed my transgender path far enough. 

I wonder now, if I had realized how difficult my journey would be and not be entertaining would I have ever undertaken it at all. I also realize now, I never had a choice, and my life would have been better had I realized it sooner. I would love to get back just a tiny portion of the stress and tension I lost during my life as I worried about my gender. Outside of a few therapists who tried to help me by telling me the truth about myself, I was on my own. My life was never for entertainment only as I followed a gender path full of turns and dead ends before I discovered my truth in my transgender womanhood. 

Christmas Lights and the Trans Girl

 

Clifton Mill's Holiday Lights.

When I was first exploring the world as a novice transgender woman, I set up a small bucket list of activities I wanted to explore. 

As Christmas approached every year, my second wife and I made it a tradition to explore a wonderful Christmas light display at a restored grist mill near our hometown. The more I was successful in my presentation as a trans woman, the more I wanted to experience the lights as my feminine self. Since I knew my wife would be completely against any idea of us going as women to the display, I knew I would have to do it on my own. If, at all. It got to the point if I could not go as me, I did not care to go at all. So, I changed it all one night. 

To accomplish my dream, first I needed to find the proper time to do it. At the time, my wife worked in retail and was working many nights so all I needed to do was find the night she was working, and I was not. Once I established when I could go, then I needed to make all the important decisions on what I was going to wear. Since I live in a winter climate and would have to spend quite a bit of time outside, many of my fashion choices were easy. 

For the evening, I chose one of my favorites, a warm, and soft sweater, paired up with my fleece lined leggings and low-heeled boots. Suitable for long walks in the cold weather. To really stay warm, I wore my full-length wool coat, and I was ready for what I hoped would be a fun evening. Of course, before I left, I did my makeup and put on my favorite blond wig and headed for the car. I was lucky and weather was on my side. The evening was crystal clear and just cold enough to be winter. 

The Clifton Mill's holiday display is very popular, and I knew parking spaces would not be easy to find so I took my time to find the best one I could. It gave me time to calm down as my expectations of having a fun time were at an all-time high. What differences would there possibly be between experiencing the lights as a guy versus as a transgender woman? Very quickly I was going to find out. 

Since the actual mill is in a very small village, I found several of the other shops were open and selling hot chocolate. I felt buying a warm beverage would help me to see how well I would be accepted the entire evening. As I stood in line to order, no one noticed the tall blond ordering a hot drink and in fact the server was even nice to me. So, I left encouraged and thankfully, a little warmer as I continued my walk to the mill itself. Since the real crowd was ahead of me, my challenge still had not been met. 

Once I paid to enter and went into the mill itself, I began to relax and enjoy myself. No longer was I on high alert for a bigot making fun of me. I was able to enjoy all the lights and attractions better than I ever had before. Most likely because I was finally having the chance to enjoy my time as my authentic self without the constant worry about how it would be to do so. My confidence in myself to present well as a woman came through and all too soon, my time was growing short, and I needed to return to my old boring male life.

However, checking off the Clifton Mill's Christmas display from my transgender woman bucket list was well worth the time and effort I put into it. The next step would be to enjoy it with another person which sadly never happened. Due to my mobility issues and me moving away from the area where the mill is located, my current wife Liz and I have never been back, and my wife back then passed away.

Changing the subject just a bit (or a lot) my Alzheimer's diversity council lunch turned out to be a girl's day out and was fun. It is always nice to be around other gender affirming women as I was the other day. I hope to do it again soon.

Mountain of Hope...Mound of Ash

 

Image from JJ Hart

On occasion when I was following my very long path to transgender womanhood, I did experience enough hope to keep moving forward towards my ultimate goal of living a fulltime feminine life. 

Those were the days I was on top of the world and felt good about my life as a whole. Sadly, too many times my dreams were crushed mainly with me making poor gender decisions. Those were the nights I returned home with tears in my eyes following brutal interactions with the public. I was at the least stared at and at the worst laughed at to my face. Since I had only the mirror to blame for lying to me, I needed to find a better way to improve my presentation as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. 

Really, the only recourse I had was to keep going out hoping for the best and expecting the worst. Very gradually, out of sheer will power, I did become better at my craft and my confidence grew. I was climbing my mountain of hope and staying there. Sadly, my only mound of ash came when I was discovered by my second wife when I was returning home after a night out. Predictably a massive fight would happen, and feelings would be hurt. It wasn't until years later when I finally had the courage to face my gender truth and finally transition. By that time my wife had passed away and it was a moot point. Following her passing, I found I had another mountain to climb. 

My mountain was one of loneliness. For the first time in over twenty-five years, I was by myself with only my two dogs to take care of. No other person to worry about disappointing with all of my gender adventures. It did not take me long to decide which direction to go with my life. My inner feminine soul was screaming to be let out and for once there was nothing to restrain her. She was my woman, and I was her.  With new enthusiasm, I began to climb again. Sure, there were still setbacks and problems with my new life. A primary example was when I tried to date men and was constantly stood up on potential dates. Fortunately, when I began to be accepted by lesbians, I found I did not need a man to be validated as a woman. 

When I climbed my gender mountain, I began to begin too clearly see what was going on around me. As all the clouds and doubt parted and I could see there was only one path for me to pursue. I finally gave up on my male self, gave away all his clothes, started gender affirming hormones and never looked back. 

When I finally freed myself up to be me, I never had felt better. It was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders which I had carried way too long. Since I am afraid of heights, climbing my gender mountain was never easy but I made it. 

Trans Fun?

 

Holiday Image, JJ Hart author.

Are we having any fun yet as the holidays are upon us? 

Certainly, it is a tough time of the year as transgender women and trans men face the daunting task of facing unapproving families. Too many of us face a lonely existence this holiday month. In many ways, we are uniquely qualified to face the challenge. For those of us who were ravaged by testosterone poisoning and not gifted by natural feminine features, our path is a steep one to finding any acceptance at all in our transgender womanhood. 

In my sense, there was only brief gender euphoria moments during too many instances of rejection by the public. Every now and then, I would have moments of fun when I briefly succeeded at my goal of successfully presenting as a woman. Then, all too often I would ruin it all by not knowing how to move as a woman or more importantly having any idea how to communicate with the public as the person I had always wanted to be. 

Through it all, I did have enough fun, or at least satisfaction to keep moving forward. To be certain, there was a difference between having fun or being satisfied with what I was doing. To be satisfied meant deep down I felt natural when I was pursuing my feminine dreams. To put it another way, there was a flood of water under my gender bridge primarily in the decade after 2007 when my second wife passed away and opened the door to a total transition into transgender womanhood. If I wasn't hanging out with lesbians in their venues, I was finding my way in big sports bars as a regular. Slowly but surely, I learned I still was alone on my gender path, even though I was meeting and learning from a few of the cis women I stayed close to. It was difficult because I had always trained myself to keep everyone else at an arm's length so I would not be hurt. The difference was now I was finally at the level personally where I wanted to be as my authentic self so I could accept new friends.

If I had liked, it or not I had finally reached the bottom-line where I had always wanted to be. When I did, I began too actually relax and enjoy myself. Which means I was having fun, regardless of myself. Perhaps I was fortunate in that my path forward was complex but maybe not as complex as is the norm these days. Social media contacts were just becoming the norm and maybe it meant the tons of trash I needed to sift through to find my wife Liz was destiny and not luck since she actually sought me out online after reading my profile. Then, there was my public persona which I don't necessarily recommend because I was going out to venues as a single transgender woman. Back in those days at least, one did not have to worry about someone else putting date drugs in your drink while you were not looking. 

Looking back, I did have fun during those days and primarily it was because my confidence in my new self was increasing because of the people around me. I could copy what they did as women and do the best I could. Which was better than I had ever done before. I had paid my transition dues and was ready to face the future.  

Tomorow is Here

Outreach Image from
JJ Hart.
 

 This morning, I went with my wife Liz to her doctor's appointment. She is a morning person which I am not, so I needed to be up much earlier than normal. 

To make up for it, I shaved before I went to bed which was enough beard removal to get by with a light application of foundation. The entire process gained me a half hour of extra sleep which came in handy. Another benefit of being the first appointment was being in a nearly empty waiting room and actually being on time to be called. So, any worry about being noticed as a transgender woman in a potentially hostile world was erased. 

I don't know why I worry so much. In the past ten years or so, I have never been harassed by anyone which means I am meeting my goal to dress to blend in with the public of women I encounter.  Also, I cannot stress enough how much confidence plays in my presentation as a trans woman. I need to be prepared to smile and speak with other strangers, primarily women. 

Coming up, I have several occasions to socialize with other women who I have never met before. However, a few I have met virtually several times so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Fortunately, we have a good weather day coming up for me to make a relatively lengthy drive to the venue where the luncheon is being held. I have an outfit picked out. It is a regional Alzheimer's diversity meeting, so I want to not be a distraction. As the only transgender person involved, I want to put my insecurities and contribute what I can to the group.  Primarily, the reason I turned down a request to talk with a television reporter who acted as if he wanted to interview me concerning LGBTQ elderly care. Instead, the reporter kept steering the conversation towards the election which I preferred not to talk about. So, I decided not to go any further. I feel as if I need to explain it to the group.

Other get togethers are smaller Christmas or Yule events which are with people I have known for a long time, so there is no threat. 

One thing is for certain, my long wait for my gender tomorrow is here. My trip to transgender womanhood has finally arrived and I need to enjoy and make the best of the life I have always dreamed of and put years of work being a cross dresser to get here.   

Joy to the World

Image from JJ Hart Liz on right.

Gender euphoria is so wonderful to a transgender woman or trans man striving to present themselves in the world as their authentic selves. On the other hand, it is often very rare to obtain. 

The brief moments I experienced euphoria in the world when I first went out as a novice trans woman or cross dresser, kept me going but barely. The reason was, I suffered from huge bouts of  gender dysphoria which wrecked my life. It seemed every morning when I woke up and looked in the mirror, would I see the same old male I never wanted to be or somehow see behind him and view the girl I always dreamed of being. My dreams even reflected my gender issues when I would awake following a very vivid dream where I was the pretty girl. When reality set in, I was very sad.

It took me years to realize I could fight back against my gender dysphoria and do more to live out my dream of living as a woman. Years of sorrow when I failed became years of joy when I succeeded. Progress was very slow at first as I went out shopping in the world and sought out every mirror I could find to restore my faith I was indeed a presentable woman just minding her business in the world. When I discovered most people did not really care about me, my life became much easier and took quite a bit of the pressure off I was feeling. 

Still, I needed more. On every occasion I could, I was out the door seeking new places to visit as my new exciting self. I was walking the gender border and feeling the joy on some of the days I was successful and torment on the days I was not. My main problem was trying to find feedback with what I was attempting to do. The only time I did receive any response was when I went to the small, diverse parties I went to at an acquaintance's house in nearby Columbus, Ohio. From transgender admirers to inquisitive lesbians, I had a chance to meet new people in my world and see how I measured up to them. I knew I could never be a beautiful as a few of the impossibly feminine transgender women who attended but just maybe I could elevate my appearance to a feminine level where I could get by. The parties also proved to be the initial starting point of developing my own new personality as a trans woman, so they were very beneficial.

As I experienced the joy of being my true self, something had to give. Sadly, the something turned out to be my male self and my marriage of twenty five years to my second wife. Both of them suffered terribly. Naturally, neither of them wanted to lose any power. My male self was quite comfortable in the life he had built and my wife did not want to lose the man she married, so I was in for very difficult times. What happened next was my mental health went into a very steep decline. I did not know where to turn and at that time did not have a good therapist to fall back on. Then I resorted to the worst possible choice when I tried to internalize everything. By doing so, I made everything worse. 

I continued to go out as much as i could but ended up just forcing the gender issue and losing any of the joy I had previously felt. It wasn't until I decided to begin gender affirming hormones and transition fully, did I begin to reclaim the happiness I felt. 

Was it worth it? Sure as I finally achieved my dreams of living fulltime as a transgender woman. I just wish I had the courage to do it sooner. Or as my second wife told me a number of times when we bitterly fought...be man enough to be a woman. 

Trans Girl in the Winter

Image from Freestocks on UnSplash.

I happen to live in Ohio where there is often a weird mixture of the four seasons of weather. For example, when it seemed fall has set in, summer returns and the sweaters and leggings you have pulled out have to temporally go away. Now, around here we have made our way into winter. Which means I have had to dig a little deeper into my collection of leggings to find the lined ones. I love the soft feel of the leggings and how they keep me warm when the temperature dips well below freezing.

For my wife Liz and I's winter time walks, I usually pair my favorite leggings with my furry boots and bulky soft sweater before I have to go outside and brave the elements. These days, I need to force the issue with my walks since Liz and I are going to visit the Florida Keys in January. So I need to do my best to walk as long as I can when we go. Since there is thirty days away, there is plenty of time to write about our winter vacation before it arrives. Such as my first time swimming as a transgender woman.

If I had my choice, I would choose winter over our hot, humid summers any day. I like the fashion and the fact it is easier for me to stay warm in the winter rather than cold in the summer. I know possibly, I may be in the minority of all transgender women who value the look and feel of bare skin in warmer times. While I remember vividly the freedom I felt when I could finally shave my arms and wear short sleeved women's fashions, over the years, the feeling has somehow went away. One way or another, I have traded the feminine feeling of leggings for the sensation of shaved legs in the wind.

Either way, the entire fashion process is one of the reasons I enjoy my transgender womanhood so much. The planning ahead for the seasons means so much and winter is just a portion of the process. Of course we will see if I am just as enthused if we get any sizeable snowfall in December since I have one Christmas lunch coming up with the Cincinnati Alzheimer's diversity council as well as a Yule get together with Liz's circle of friends. During which I will have the opportunity to explain why I turned down an interview with a local television reporter after the election. 

So there is quite a bit coming up in December, including awaiting the arrival of a new laptop I thought I would go ahead and purchase before the proposed tariff's go into effect driving prices upwards. It will be interesting to see how easy or difficult the set up will be. I am not very technologically advanced. The laptop was one of the biggest purchases I have made in a long time. It was an online Cyber Monday purchase so I did not have to put up with any lines or pestering sales people. Patience, along with many other attributes will have to be my main goals following trying out a new laptop in over a decade. 

Overall, the month of December is more enjoyable with the fashion and festive Christmas lights in the neighborhood. I have respect for those who put effort into holiday decorations since all the work I put into my second wife's extensive decorations 

It all makes up for the drab months of January and February. Being a trans girl in the winter is yet another challenge. 

Trans Bucket List

 

Image from Pepe Nero on UnSplash.

On my way to achieving my version of transgender womanhood, I started my trans woman bucket list.

It all started on the fateful night when I decided to go out and mingle with a group of professional women as an equal. Not as a man cross dressed in their company to see if I could make it in their world. There was so much else at stake that evening because I knew if I was successful, I could never go back to just living my life as a man. 

Once I was successful, I began to think of  things I could accomplish as a trans woman to add to my bucket list. Once I was accepted as a regular in one venue, could I possibly add another to increase where I could go to add variety to my evenings. For the most part I was successful in being accepted. Even to the point of being thrust into a diverse small group of acquaintances I could regularly socialize with. The group included the sister of one of the bartenders, a lesbian, a couple men and an exotic dancer to name a few. All of this occurred before I met the transgender woman and two lesbians I socialized with on a regular basis.

Also on my bucket list at the time was how was I going to handle my sexuality with men. I almost found out when I became attracted to one of the men in the group. Or should I say he was becoming intrigued with me. All the way to him seeking me out on the nights when I was there all alone. I felt comfortable talking to him and even enjoyed his company before he switched jobs and abruptly moved away. It turned out there were very few men on my bucket list but even so, there were a couple which left a deep impression on me. 

Both of the men were met through social media dating sites and happened after I sorted through an amazing amount of trash responses. Because I was careful to meet any responders in a setting I approved of, we met in my regular venues I felt safe in. Both treated me with respect and I leaned a little of how it would be to interact with an interested man as a woman as I was wined and dined. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time. I still remember both dates and how special I felt but on the other hand, I never really lost my attraction to women. As impossible at it seemed to me at the time, I was headed towards being a transgender lesbian...if I could be accepted. 

I continued my quest for a new bucket list as I learned how to be a woman from other women. It seemed nightly I was learning new ideas such as I did not need a man to be validated in my new life. The lesbians I were around were both very strong and confident in their own right, so I could be also. 

Then, there was my relationship with my wife Liz which has been going on for over thirteen years now. I never though I would find another person who would be serious enough about me to want to build a relationship at my age. But I did and amazingly, Liz found me on a dating site defying all odds. 

Just when I thought I was done with my bucket, it became filled with happiness and I hope to keep it that way. 

Now What?

 

Image from JJ Hart

As I cautiously discovered I could make it in the world as a transgender woman, rapidly I kept coming to the conclusion of now what.

How would I face a whole new life without the old male standbys to fall back on. I had taken the time and effort to build a family, friends and a fairly successful job which I had to possibly give up. Naturally, I spent hours, days and weeks trying to figure out what I would do once I entered fulltime transgender womanhood. I had long since passed the point of just being satisfied with existing as a part-time cross dresser. 

Ironically, every time I was successful in public as a novice trans woman, I wondered now what I  have I done and what was next in my life. The problem was, I had several major roadblocks which were looming in my life, such as helping to care for aging parents and a spouse who was totally against me transitioning any further than I was. To diminish the impact of all the gender stress I was dealing with, I did what many males try to do and internalize all of my problems. Even though I was going out as much as I could as my authentic feminine self, the fact remained I would have to go back to my old unwanted male life sooner more than later. As Paula from the UK put it in response to a previous post:

"For me it was the depression that followed "putting Paula back in her box", each time I went back to being "him" it was like a bereavement, in the end it was bowing to the inevitable. Arguably transition was the most selfish thing I have done, but like so many others I was insufferable trying to maintain my male persona, in the end it wasn't so much choosing my feminine side as choosing life."

Similar to Paula, the entire transition process for me came down to life and death for me. Like so many other transgender women or trans men, I attempted suicide to relieve myself of the brutal gender related stress I was feeling. Fortunately now, I was unsuccessful and lived to write about the experience. In fact, it was one of the reasons I began to author a blog.  In order to help others. 

Perhaps you are wondering how now what worked following my attempt at self harm. I still was not smart enough to listen to my inner female and tried to purge my fairly extensive feminine wardrobe and makeup. It was during this time too, I began to notice my second wife's health was slipping badly and she would end up passing away at the age of fifty.

Then I really entered the now what part of my life. The door had suddenly opened for me to live my dream of living fulltime as a transgender woman. I followed my soul and began gender affirming hormones at the age of sixty and never looked back.

All the days of wondering now what were behind me. All the risks I took were with it as I began to happily live an authentic life. And, by the way, Paula thank you for the comment and thanks to all of you reading along. 

Happy Thanksgiving?

As I sit here watching the Macy's parade, it brings back all sorts of bittersweet memories. 

Looking back, Thanksgiving and Christmas were the two biggest days of the year for my second wife. She went all out for both, often feeding up to twenty people for Thanksgiving. Our door was never closed to anyone who needed a place to socialize and eat. The day also marked the beginning of a very serious stint of putting up all of her extensive decorations for the season. 

At the time, I took it all for granted and thought it would go on forever. As I grew older, I learned the hard way nothing lasts forever. I am fortunate in that I still have an extended family to celebrate  Thanksgiving with. If not for my daughter and my wife Liz, I would be joining no one for the holiday.

I used to have blood family with a brother. A decade ago I came out to my only brother and sister-in-law. I was naïve and thought I might receive the same positive reaction I had from my daughter. I was wrong and was told they did not want me at the family Thanksgiving Day dinner. Naturally, being  shunned  because I was coming out as my authentic self hurt me deeply. My brother and I have not spoken since. 

However to make up for it, I was invited to my daughter's in laws for the holiday. Plus I made up for the slight from my brother when I was invited to small get togethers in Liz's family when her Dad was still living. 

In the transgender world, sadly I am often not the example, as so many in our community have no family remaining to socialize with. Mainly because they were not accepted by their families. It is especially cruel when you have to remember times with the family by yourself.

On this Thanksgiving, I hope you have someone to socialize with. Even if it with a local LGBTQ organization. Many in our area often offer dinners you can participate in. 

Regardless, I hope you have a good turkey day!   

The Second Time Around

 

Image from JJ Hart.

Not many humans have the opportunity to stop their life and begin again as a new person unless they are up to no good.

Perhaps it is one of the reasons so many people do not accept or try to understand the transgender community. Or then again, they are secretly jealous. Regardless, it is up to all trans women and trans men to attempt to live their second life to the fullest. 

Often, living a transgender life is easier said than done. We all have to remember all the opportunities in life we needed to give up to achieve our gender goals. Opportunities some take for granted who are not at risk of losing spouses, family or employment. I know in my case, any or all of the chances to lose everything was a very real deal. I was fortunate when I lived long enough to see destiny re-open closed doors in my life.

Following a very dark period of losing loved ones to death, just in time I was able to find others to fill the void as I was so very lonely. In many ways, I was a social creature and if possible I wanted to remain that way. Naturally, when I started my path into transgender womanhood, I needed to learn and perfect an entire new set of feminine social skills. It was all so very intimidating. Especially when so many women wanted to know more about me and what I was doing in their world. It was a shock to my system how different my world became so quickly. Gender learning became a priority over just going out to be by myself. 

Deep down I knew I had to learn from my first go around in life as a man and learn from it. Even though I was never a toxic male, there were instances of life I would like to have back. Such as the times when toxic males were attempting to have their way with women. What I did do was observe how women handled it which helped me out in the future. 

All in all, following several rough patches at the beginning of my new life, the second time around was exciting yet terrifying to me. Primarily because my inner feminine soul was just waiting to have her chance to take over my life. It turned out, she was not scared at all. It was my old male self who was frightened about losing his life as he knew it. 

The whole process set into motion a secure second time around in life for me. Being secure led me to a new found confidence in life I had never know before. At the age of sixty, I was able to begin gender affirming hormones and really kickstart my second time around. External changes to my body helped me to present better in the world and internal changes helped me to feel much more femininized than I had ever had before. 

Most certainly, the second time around for me opened my eyes to a life I only had dreamed of. Destiny allowed me to accomplish my dreams and all I needed to do was reach out and grab it.     

Having an Affair

Image from Susan G Komen
on Unsplash

Years ago I experienced having an affair during my marriage  with my second wife. 

Before you condemn me any more than I condemn myself,  the affair I am talking about was with myself. That is right, myself. It happened when my feminine inner soul began to take over my life. What I was doing at the time was rejecting the pledge I had made to her to never leave the house cross dressed again. I became so entranced with how natural I felt in my transgender womanhood, I left the house any chance I could which was often. It turned out, the more exploration I went through, the more I wanted to do. Seemingly nothing was out of reach in the new exciting gender world I found myself in. Sadly, even to the point of leaving the vows I made with my wife behind. 

Let me point out also, I had never stepped away from my marriage during the twenty-five years before to be with another woman. Imagine my shock when I finally did, the other woman would turn out to be me. 

As is the case with many affairs, the passion was real in the beginning. Then begins to lessen overtime. In my case, the opposite happened. The more I explored and lived as a transgender woman, the more I wanted to do. I had a real problem on my hands on what was I going to do. On one hand, my wife had told me in no uncertain terms she would not live with another woman and on the other, I did not have the courage to tell her she already was. If I had faced reality, I would have known it was time to jump off the old male ship and begin to live a new life in a feminine world. Even though most likely, it would have cost me our marriage, perhaps we could have at least become friends in the future if she had lived. You see, she died of a massive heart attack at the age of fifty. 

The only thing I did do out of desperation was try to purge myself of most of my female belongings before she passed away and I even grew a beard. It turned out to be my last tribute to her and the years we had together. 

As with all purges, they don't last for long and one of the first things I did was shave off the beard and turn inward to myself in the lonely tragic days after her death. It took awhile but my inner female took control and let me know everything would be fine. Finally I decided she was right and decided to give up all the guilt I was carrying over the affair I had with myself. 

Once I did, my new life as a transgender woman took over. I found new friends and moved on but it took me five plus years to do it. In the meantime, I found all the work I needed to do to play in the girls' sandbox was worth it. I needed to be better than the average cis-woman to survive in the world I chose to live in. I found a woman's life had so many layers to it, I faced a real challenge. As big a challenge as having an affair in your marriage. With yourself.

Engineering the Envioronment

 

Image 
JJ Hart.

As I transitioned into an increasingly feminine world, I faced many difficult issues.

I was keeping very busy with all the new sights and sounds I was facing. It was all so exciting while at the time, all so scary. Here I was trying to survive in a new gender world I so desperately wanted. Basically, with no training as I was only a very serious observer of the world of women and was never allowed behind the invisible gender curtain. 

I found out quite early I needed to engineer my own environment. Mostly, as I said, I was flying blind and needed all the help I could find. I was immersed in losing all my old male privilege's. I survived losing a good portion of my intelligence and learned how to be mansplained on many levels along with changing how I viewed my own personal security. Instead of thinking I was safe in unlighted dark spaces, I began to look for safer well lighted areas. All lessons cis-women learn at a young age. 

Once I learned I could basically dress to present properly with other women where I was going, I began to engineer more places to go to test my future into transgender womanhood.  Sometimes I was successful and other times I wasn't, mainly because I chose the wrong venue to go to. For example, bookstores were more gender friendly to me than redneck bar venues where single women rarely ventured anyhow. It took several hard earned lessons such as having the police called on me before I learned my lesson and stayed in more friendly environments . Again, experiencing what cis-women already knew. 

Ironically my journey took me to the spot some call the impostor syndrome. It occurred at all times and without notice. Such as during girl's nights out and other times when I was succeeding in living in an exciting new world. It was frustrating when the feeling slipped in which was telling me I should not be there at all. Ruining the good time I was having. 

The whole process forced me into pursuing and engineering whole new levels of my gender existence. Once I thought I had controlled everything I needed to learn to live my life as a transgender woman, something else arose to prove me wrong. Communication as a trans woman with the rest of the world who were primarily other curious women became a strong focus of mine. If I could communicate properly with other women, I had a leg to stand on to survive in my dream life, without it, I had nothing' and the time and effort I had previously put in would go for nothing. 

I was never an engineer in anything else I tried in life so all of this was new and different for me. I was also a bit of a quitter when it came to finishing a project. Completing my journey into transgender womanhood was easily the most difficult and extensive project I had ever contemplated finishing. All along the process just felt so exciting and natural, I had the best and worst times of my life as I kept on going until I reached my dream goal.

Finally, I learned the environment I was in could be trans friendly for me.  Hopefully, in the new world we are facing in the future, we can maintain it.

Good News from the Doc

Image from JJ Hart.

Yesterday was my Hematology appointment at the Cincinnati Veteran's Administration hospital.    

The hospital itself is surrounded by other medical facilities mostly owned and operated by the University of Cincinnati, so space is at a premium which means parking spaces are also. Even though we have a handicapped placard for the windshield, sometimes spaces close by to the door are not close enough for me to easily walk to. Regardless, I was going to try to make it yesterday with the help of my new cane. Plus, in addition to the walk to the door, I knew my wife Liz and I were facing an equally long walk once we arrived in the hospital.

I was scared and was running on extra energy as we finally made our way to the medical department where the appointment was scheduled so we actually were there ahead of time. I was scared of what the doctor would tell me about my platelets being down again from my last bloodwork. Of course, then I began to read up on what it meant and Leukemia was one of the possibilities. Then I started to build all sorts of negative bridges in my head about my mortality. So my blood pressure and nervous energy was at an all tine high when I finally met with a medical team of three. One doctor and two other fellows, whatever that meant. I was hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

It turned out almost all my worry was for nothing . I had  what was called an iron overload in my body. I have had it before and it seemingly went away for years before coming back to haunt me. It used to be I needed to go for regular blood draws called "phlebotomies" which brought the iron problem under control. So instead of Leukemia, I have too much iron in my system again which can cause fatigue, joint pain and skin discoloration among more serious issues.

From the doc, I was then sent down a couple of floors to the vampires so they could do more bloodwork before setting me free. I should mention through it all so far I was treated with respect and was never mis-gendered. I was referred to as Ms. Hart or my first name all through my visit to the VA hospital...until the very end. Just as I was leaving the bloodwork room, the woman said "thank you Sir.' Ruining my perfect day in the gender department. 

However, I was not going to let one person spoil my medical and gender euphoria I felt when we stopped off for lunch on the way home and we were referred to as "Ladies"  again. 

I am sure, I will get back my bloodwork today and will find out when my first phlebotomy in years will be scheduled. Hopefully I will feel improvement soon because Liz and I are planning a trip to the Florida Keys in January and more energy along with less back pain would be a welcome relief. As I will need all the gender euphoria I can get to help me along.

I will have much more later as we get closer to the date, in the meantime, I have some iron to get rid of.

Finding your Happy Place

 

Image from Priscilla du Preeze
on UnSplash

These days you may think finding any sort of happiness as a transgender woman or trans man may be impossible but it is not.

Take this morning for me as an example. As I was getting dressed and viewed my bare thighs before I put on my pants, I had forgotten how nice it is to view their increasingly femininized form thanks to the use of gender affirming hormones. In other words, I have developed my own hips, finally following years of hormonal usage. In many ways I took the slow cautious route when I started down the medical transition path on the advice of my doctor. He advised me to take minimum dosages until we could judge the effects on my body.

At the age of sixty, my body took to the new feminine hormones wonderfully and naturally. Soon I was put on higher doses of HRT and bigger changes began to take place rather quickly. I had set up a semblance of a timetable of when I wanted to shed all my male clothes and live fulltime as a woman but it turned out the timetable was a waste of time. What happened was I became very androgynous looking in a very short period of time. While I was developing an increasingly noticeable set of breasts, my skin began to soften which in turn softened the lines of my face. So much so that anyone who knew me from before would notice the difference.

Even though I was shocked at the rapid exterior transformation of my body, the whole process felt so exciting and natural I could not wait to do more and more as I accessed my new transgender womanhood. It all meant setting up new plans and timetables on who I was going to tell and when. By this time in my life I had outlived most of my family and close friends, so telling many people was not going to become a problem. I had even retired so I did not have to worry about transitioning at a job. All of this left me with two main people to come out to. My only daughter and only slightly younger brother. 

I knew at the time, I had a better chance of succeeding at telling my daughter the truth about me than my brother. My daughter was much more liberal while my brother's in-laws were right wing Baptists and I figured he would sell me out to appease them. It turned out I was right on both accounts. I found my happy place when my daughter totally accepted me and was down when my brother did not. I took my fifty fifty win/loss record and moved on.

To this day my happy place continues with my daughter and her extended family. In fact, my wife Liz and I just accepted an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at my daughter's Mother-in-Law's house which makes up for the decade long snub from my brother. 

As the holidays approach, I hope all of you can find a happy place to celebrate with family, blood relation or not. In the transgender community, often we find the best family in non traditional situations. It is a wonderful time of the year to discover or re-discover a new happy place for yourself.

Picking your Poison

 

Dinner with my wife Liz
on left. JJ Hart on right.

Before we get started on this post, let me repeat again and again a transgender woman's or trans man's path to living an authentic life is NOT a choice.

Somehow for reasons we are never aware of, we are born into it. At that point we are forced to pick our gender poison when we decide to follow our instincts and transition or decide to stay in our closets for whatever reason. 

Most of the reasons on either side are compelling and not wrong. Reasons include major implications include facing problems with employment, family and friends. When faced with any or all of these challenges make a closet a more comfortable place to be. Or is it? Do the problems ever go away? The answer of course is no and picking your poison becomes a bigger problem. In my case, I became increasingly caught between my own personal gender rock and the hard place. 

On one hand, I appreciated the unwanted but over appreciated male privileges I had earned the hard way. But, on the other hand, I increasingly felt natural and excited by the new feminine spirit I was feeling. The main problem I had was knowing deep down I could never go back to my male life but could not face my own truth and the process then began my poison. The longer I progressed on my gender path, the stronger my poison became and the only anti-venom I knew was to keep exploring the world as a transgender woman. I became so engrossed in my search on occasion I forgot my old male self altogether. In a short period of time I was facing cruel and unusual punishment. Mainly because I needed to internalize all my poison and the process was lonely and unfruitful. What about key questions such as my sexuality? What would my future life look like. 

All too soon, I knew my poison was also my strength. I just knew I had to stay on the path I was on to finally achieve my gender freedom. I was fortunate, I escaped my closet and was able to achieve my ultimate goal of earning my transgender womanhood. The entire process was not without stress and failure along the way. It was like I was living the ultimate trans woman's days out. I needed better times in my life just to survive in the world. Often I just was confused in how I was going to spit out my poison and achieve my dreams. As I said, I was on a lonely path and needed any light I could focus on to help find my way along. It was like I was carrying the darkness of my closet with me. 

As I was planning to go away and throw (or donate) my male clothes out, I needed to make sure I was picking the right poison when I found a trans woman's life was not all sweetness and light. Entering a woman's world meant I needed to be better than the average other woman just to survive. On the other hand, I found all the life I had lived on both sides of the binary gender border gave me more experience in the world as a whole which helped me to survive. 

In my world picking my poison and being able to escape my dark closet was the only way to go. Being a guy was always difficult for me and learning how to live as my authentic self was even more difficult but was so much more natural and enjoyable. 

Reaching Out for Truth

 

Image from Jen Theodore
on UnSplash.

As I transitioned into my form of transgender womanhood, first I needed to find my own truth. In order to do it, I was placed in a dilemma. 

The dilemma was I needed to make sure my gender journey was taking me in the right direction. I needed to make a huge life changing decision so I needed time and experience to make certain I was taking my life in the right direction since essentially I was risking everything to do it. In other words I needed confidence. 

Gaining confidence proved to be a fragile thing to find. I would have it following a successful day out away from the mirror as a novice transgender woman when I seemed to do everything right. My makeup, wardrobe and wig were on point and I even carried myself fairly well. I was building the life I always had dreamed of and seemed to be within reach until the next time I went out and everything crashed and burned. Either I did something very unrealistic and was laughed at or my overall appearance just wasn't right. Whatever the problem was, my fragile confidence was shattered. And, as we all know, confidence is our most powerful accessory. Humans are similar to sharks, if they perceive something is wrong with you, chances are the other human could act on it. A big turning point for me was when I arrived at the point where I did not care what anyone else thought of me. 

Actually, let me re-phrase that. I did not care what men thought of me because for the most part they had all felt as if I was from another planet anyway and wanted nothing to do with me. On the other hand, I did care what other women thought about me. Since I needed other women's acceptance to exist in the same world they were in, I needed their approval. In order to survive, I needed to be honest to myself which in turn, made me honest to them. I was not hiding anything. I was upfront on what I was trying to achieve which was to give up my old life as a man. Very quickly I learned I appealed to more women as a friend than I ever had as a man. I thoroughly enjoyed my learning curve as a transgender woman and wanted to build on my truth even more.

Even still, on occasion, I was still having issues with living my truth. My biggest hurdle to conquer was myself. I was the last to know my truth because I hid it all so well. To my everlasting shame, I even lied excessively to my second wife about what I was really doing while she was working at night. So, by osmosis, I was lying to the two closest people to me. Something I am certainly not proud of. However, I am proud of the fact I did reach out and grasped my truth during my long life. 

It took me long enough to do it. I struggled for over fifty years as a cross dresser and went through so many stages of attempting to figure out who I really was. I was so much more than a man who liked to wear women's clothes, I wanted to be a transwoman wearing women's clothes. Once I learned this major truth about my life, finally everything came into focus. 

Into One Club and Out of Another

 

In the Women's Club. I am on the bottom row
to the left.

As I transitioned into transgender womanhood, I learned how quickly I could be pushed out of one gender club and make my way into another.

The first club I was quickly rejected from was the good old boys club which I was tired of anyhow. I quickly found many of the gender stereotypes were true. My primary example was and is when I am in a conversation with a man, I seemingly have lost a good portion of my intelligence. In many ways, I was expecting it because of the way I had seen many men around me in my life treat women. I wanted a change in the worst way.

Of course leaving one club and being accepted into another was not going to be the easiest thing I had ever done. As I set my course into the world of women, initially I was met with little resistance except for two key people in my life. Along with my second wife who hated the idea, of course my male self was dead against it also. He was the one who was getting kicked out of the club.

One of the first aspects of being accepted into the woman's club I learned was to look for the hidden knife behind the back trick. All of a sudden I was in the world of passive resistance. Some women did not like the way I looked or acted all the way to resented my presence in the club all together. Rather than tell me to my face, they worked behind my back to drive me away. I came away from the learning experience with many claw marks on my back. I considered it all as a initiation experience into a new exciting world where all I wanted to do was play in the girl's sandbox. What I never counted on was how complex the new world would be. I knew women were much more complex than men but slipping behind the gender curtain and living my dream proved it.

I fought hard to keep my dream from becoming a nightmare. First there was the problem with learning how to dress myself so I could stand a chance of blending in with the other women in the world. Then there was the problem with learning how to go with the flow, or practice moving like a woman and last but not least, there was the problem of learning to communicate with the world in my new club. The more I progressed with all of this, the more I did not want to be forced back into the male club because the pressure was constantly there. Going back meant leaving all the gender struggle behind me and regaining all the male privileges I had lost when I entered transgender womanhood. 

Somehow, I always managed to keep my dream alive and no matter how beneficial going back seemed to me at the time, maintaining my hard earned membership in my new club was more important to me. I had served my time in an unwanted male existence and had no desire to return. So I continued to spend time in my new club as a transgender woman and learn the benefits of living an authentic life. 

I never really missed the benefits of living in the male world.  Then I needed to set out on the complicated process of telling all of those who thought I was still in the male club, I was not and please listen to the reason why. Some people and family I was successful with and some I was not but none of it kept me from trying. My main goal now is to keep my membership in good standing in the transgender woman's club.