The Last Line of Defense

 

Image from Gayatri Malthroa 
on UnSplash.

Throughout nearly half of a century, my male self-fought the complete transition I made into a feminine lifestyle.

During that extended period of time, I think I tried everything possible to convince myself that I was wrong to want to play in the girls’ sandbox at all. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I “purged” many times of my feminine belongings. Leaving me with nothing but my most cherished pieces of girl’s/woman’s clothing and makeup. The makeup was easy because I knew I could always buy more. Perhaps the most precious items I never threw away were the nice wigs I was able to buy and the silicone breast forms which ironically were given to me by a fellow cross dresser who was purging also. Deep down inside, I knew I would need the wigs and breast forms again when my urge to cross-dress returned. As my own personal history told me it would.

It turned out that purging was not my last defense, no matter how hard I tried. In fact, the more I tried not to be feminine in any way shape or form, it seemed I slipped closer and closer to it. Especially when I learned I could dress to blend with most of the ciswomen around me. It was then I learned how natural I felt when I began to get it right and could feel all the gender euphoria I could feel.

What I did continually feel was my masculinity slipping away and I only used it on occasions with my wife in mixed company and when I was working in a high-pressure environment. For years, when I was out in the world experimenting living a new life, I felt as if I was sliding down a steep hill towards a transgender cliff which I had no idea of how I would be able to land.

In all fairness to my second wife, she never opposed me cross-dressing and knew about it when we got married. But on the other hand, completely opposed any idea of me becoming a transfeminine person. Between her and my male self, they made formidable opponents in my life when I thought about living as a trans woman. What made it all worse was when my wife kept saying she did not want to live with another woman and did not agree to that when we got married and I had to agree with her. Putting me in a very difficult situation in my life. I escaped the best I could by sneaking out of the house behind her back at any given time I found to test the world time and again to see if I would be allowed to go back behind the gender curtain. Which in many ways, represented escaping the last defense to staying in the male world I had.

Of course, my wife found out on numerous occasions what I was doing as a trans woman and resisted all my progress. When she did, we had giant battles which she normally won and I tried the therapy route to help me with my gender issues. Therapy helped me in many ways in my life but not so much with my deep-seated gender issues. I was expecting too much when one therapist told me if I thought our sessions would ever relieve my tensions, I would be wrong until I was able to make the final decision on if I was able to be a woman or not. At that point, I had two of the most far-reaching quotes that I ignored which were told to me. One of which was the time I was told I was the only one who could decide my gender future and the second was when my wife told me to go ahead and be man enough to be a woman. I was so sure I could do it my way and it cost me dearly. Especially, in terms of my overall mental health when juggling two genders and two lives at once became too much to handle. I did not know if I was coming or going on which day it was on how I was expected to act.

As many of you know, my second wife tragically died of a massive heart attack, leaving me with only my male self to do gender battle with. His last defenses deteriorated quickly as I became deeply unhappy and lonely and took solace in my inner female self for comfort. She stepped up big time, and very soon when I was not working nights, I was in one of my regular drinking venues seeking company. That was when I discovered I had more in common with the lesbians I met than with any man. Since most of them rejected me anyhow for leaving the good old boys club. I was able to say good riddance and go forward in my life into a world I never thought possible could ever be a part of. I had never really got along well with men in my life, and it turned out nothing had really changed. Except the way I was exploring the world. Finally, as my true self. As I was finding me after all those years of searching.

The last defense my male self-had was when my third wife Liz and only daughter came to my rescue with unwavering support for my final dive off the steep gender cliff. They made the landing very soft, and even easy. More precisely, Liz made me a believer in myself again and my daughter gave me support I needed from what blood family I had left since my brother rejected me, and my parents had long since passed away. Add in the couple of lesbians I always socialized with and I had all the support I needed to succeed in where I had dreamed of going and being accepted behind the gender curtain.

By far, I would be remiss if I did not mention the power of HRT or gender affirming hormones in removing any of the final defenses my male self-had going for him. I could not believe how fast the hormones acted as my body began to change, inside and out. It would take a whole post to describe all the impacts the hormones made to me. In fact, I have my annual appointment with my endocrinologist coming up this week, and with it, the chance to get refills on my hormonal patches.

Maybe I can thank her then for helping me to win my battle with my male self. Since I receive my HRT meds through the Veterans Administration, I always hope nothing changes from the top down with my ability to keep receiving a huge part of what makes me whole. I worked too long to get here.

Thanks again for joining me on my journey and I hope my experiences help you too.

Any comments, claps or subscriptions are welcome and make my work so worthwhile!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Laughing Matter

 

Image from Priscilla Du Preeze
on UnSplash. 

I am always amused when someone thinks I had a choice to follow my transgender path. Obviously, they were not there for all the trials and tribulations I had and the extreme harassment I received as I came out into the world. All the times I hurried home crying when I was stared at or glared at by the public before I was able to improve my feminine presentation to the point where I could blend in.

I did all I could to improve my testosterone damaged body by going on a crash diet and did my best to improve my skin by using moisturizers everyday after I shaved before I went to work. Why would I attempt all of that if I thought crossing the gender border was just a choice I could make. The farther I went, the more I had to do to improve. Mainly because it felt like it was the right thing to do.

Perhaps the most important sacrifice I needed to be prepared to make was losing my white male entitlements or male privileges. Even though I did not respect the growing rights that I had obtained through hard work as a male, I needed to keep in mind continually I did not really want them anyhow and there were better days ahead if I ever had achieved my dream of living as a transgender woman fulltime.

Through it all though, I wondered why all this gender turmoil was happening to me. Often when the poor, poor pitiful me aspect of my life was at it’s worse, I would “man-up” and purge myself of most of my feminine belongings. As most of us know, purging does not work for any length of time. All it did for me was make me go out and buy more makeup, clothes and shoes to express my femininity again. A total waste of money, but at least I always tried to build back better following every purge I tried. Finally, I looked back at purging as just another rite of passage I needed to through as I followed along my gender path to success, and I was able to put my transgender victim mentality behind me.

As I grew older and set in my cross-dressing ways, I knew increasingly I had no choice in how I lived my life. I was rapidly going through yet another gender transition from just having a so-called hobby into being a transgender woman. I was doing more than just shopping for more and more clothes and was trying out new ways to experience the world the way ciswomen do. I started doing a portion of the grocery shopping successfully as the new transfeminine me all the way to starting to do all my Christmas shopping in unique situations also. Just to see if I could.

At that point, the things I needed to go through to survive in life became increasingly evident to me. I would need to express myself as a woman and I had no choice but to do it. I also knew the risk I was taking when I thought about losing the male life, I had worked so hard and long to be successful at. What would my daughter think of her new dad was one of the few variables as I knew I would lose my long-term marriage and great job that I had. I needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt I was doing the right thing, and I truly had no choice but to stay on the course I was on. This is where my transgender humor comes in. Why would anyone ever put themselves through such a life full of turmoil if they ever had a choice. Or, when just putting on a dress becomes so much more than a fun experience, where do you go then?

It is no secret where I went and I had the chance to experience so much more in my life because it is exceedingly rare when a human gets the chance to experience both sides of the binary gender spectrum. The problem is we transgender women and transgender men don’t have a chance to enjoy the trip because of the pressure we put on ourselves to perform behind the gender curtain we chose. If we are not doing it to ourselves, the pressure is certainly on from the public to do it too. Especially these days with the charged anti-transgender political attitude we are seeing from the orange menace in Washington DC, and in many states such as my own native Ohio.

If we can ever get the public at large to understand we trans people never had a choice on the life’s direction we ultimately took, we would come out so much further ahead. Sadly, the path to get there does not seem to be getting any closer for many of us as the things we have to go through just keep on coming. I know for those of you who are still on your transition path or even consider it, it is a major step to take. Hopefully on the way, you can take the time to stop for a moment and enjoy how far you have come. I always thought if it does not kill me, it will just make me stronger would help me along. And on a lesser scale, the old sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me saying really applied to me also.

When you are on your path long enough to realize there is no turning back, you will also know you had no choice but to keep going towards your goal. It was never easy, but so worthwhile as you navigated the final blind curves, potholes and stop signs. At the least, you will know you lived a life where you had a choice and made the most of it.

Plus, certainly it was no laughing matter. 

As always, thank you for reading along with my experiences. Any comments, extra claps or subscriptions are welcome!

 

 

 

 

My Gender Workbook was Blank

 

Image from Marcus Winkler
on UnSplash. 

Somedays, I prefer explaining the trip up my gender path as filling out my gender workbook. Of course, the problem I had doing it was I had absolutely no help. No mother or peer group pressure to tell me if I was doing right from wrong when it came to cross-dressing myself as a girl or applying makeup.

Ironically (as I said in a recent post), knowing my mom the way I did she would have been against me shaving my legs and wearing makeup as early as I did as her secret daughter. I was only trying to get a head start on writing my own gender workbook and trying to catch up with all the girls around me who also were sneaking around wearing makeup and wearing panty hose.

It was fairly easy for me to make up my own workbook rules when it was just me and the mirror to deal with. No matter what I did as far as my feminine presentation was concerned was accepted by my mirror which kept lying to me and telling me I was a pretty girl. Which was much easier before I hit the curse of male puberty and all the changes my body was going through. I was seeing unwanted growth and angles while the girls I envied around me were getting curves. When I went to bed every night, I dreamed of my life being different but of course it never was. I would not get the curves I wanted until decades later in life when I was fortunate to have good health enough to be able to start HRT or gender affirming hormones.

There turned out to be tons of effort I needed to put into my workbook before I could arrive at the point where I could even think about starting hormones. The shortcuts I kept trying to make never seemed to work and usually got me in trouble. When I did find trouble by trying to do too much with poor fashion choices, finally I gained some sense, rewrote my gender workbook and went on to successfully try to blend in with the world of ciswomen as a transgender woman. Looking back, I think that page of my book had so many erase and start over marks that I could barely read it.

When I really began to get serious about seeing if I could be successful as a trans woman was when I desperately needed my gender workbook to help me, but it just couldn’t because I had not put the time and effort into filling it out. I had never given enough thought to how different the lives of men and women really were. Perhaps you remember the book “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” which when I read it, I wondered where trans people came from. I did not know yet we transgender women and transgender men get to occupy a special planet all our own with our unique knowledge of both men and women.

As I first began to mature into a more complete transfeminine person, I sometimes discovered my mental gender notes became overwhelming, and I needed to head back home to go over in my mind about what just happened to me. Good or bad, it did not matter. What was most unexpected to me was the amount of acceptance I received in the new world I was in. I had become used to the glares and abuse I took when I went out of the house in my early days and learned the majority of the world did not care about me one way or another. All the way to those other women who encouraged me to be in their world. Nowhere in my gender workbook did I ever imagine such a thing ever happening to a person like me just trying to find a new foothold in the world as my authentic self after all the years of struggling.

Sadly, there were still times when I ran out of ink to write in my gender workbook, and I attempted to purge everything I had accomplished and go totally back to my old safe male world. As most of us know, purges never work, and before I knew it I was out buying more feminine clothes and makeup to femininize myself all over again. By doing so, I finally came to the point of stopping obsessing over how I looked and settled into just being the person I was meant to be all along. I just did not want anything to do with me being a privileged male anymore, I just wanted to live out the long-held dream goal of mine to live as close as I could to a woman.

Even at that point, my gender workbook was different than other trans women friends I had known when I made the decision to live my life without all the major gender realignment surgeries and facial surgeries the others had gone through. I had two comments which described me the best when a transwoman friend of mine said I passed out of sheer willpower and another which came in on a comment and said I was just another old guy on hormones. Both were right in their own ways, and I wrote a mental note in my workbook that I would never be the prettiest woman in the room, but I could be the nicest. As far as the comment on me being an old guy on hormones, I wondered if the commenter was just jealous and it did not matter anyhow because I had always considered my gender to be between my ears and not between my legs and I had made it through life as far as I did with no surgeries at all, so there was no need to risk damage when I was older.

Also, I was fortunate to have been able to have other ciswomen around me help finish my gender workbook to where it is today. More than they ever knew, they taught me how to validate myself as a trans woman and welcomed me into their world. A major accomplishment in my life.

 

A Musical Interlude

 

AFTN Image. I am on the left and Dave
Mallett is on the right taking a break, Circa 1972. 

I have mentioned many times that I started my working career as a radio DJ on local AM “Top40” stations all the way to entertaining the military on American Radio and Television stations in Thailand and Germany.

During that time, I developed a great attachment to various forms of music including the blues which I suffered from at the time from untreated Bi-Polar depression. Then I began to feel the music deeper than ever before and it helped me to overcome the deep issues I had from my gender dysphoria.

Ironically, out of the clear blue sky yesterday, I heard one of those songs which had affected me so deeply. Actually, I saw “Rascal Flatts” perform their remake of “Life is a Highway” by “Tom Cochrane” on a New Years Eve show I was watching this year.  When I did, the memories from the late 1970’s/early 80’s came flooding back to me when I heard these lyrics for the first time:

“Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you're going my way
I want to drive it all night long”

I was in Columbus, Ohio finishing up yet another exciting evening of partying with friends at a small diverse cross-dresser-transgender mixer I was at. When I heard the song, it was one of those magic moments when I had the lights of the Columbus skyline in my rearview mirror and nothing but open road ahead to collect my thoughts about the evening. It seemed all my senses were at their highest possible point as I savored the summer evening and for once did not think of everything which would come up in the future when I crashed back into my unwanted male life. All I knew was I wanted to drive the transgender highway I was on all night long and never lose the feelings I was experiencing. With lyrics such as this:

“Life's like a road that you travel on
Where there's one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind
There's a world outside every darkened door
Where blues won't haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore”

I really wanted to ride to the distant shore but was not certain how I was going to get there. So, I relied on music to dull the gender pain I felt daily except when I was stepping out to feel what a feminine lifestyle would mean for me.

Yet another song which reflects so deeply what I was feeling is the classic “Nights in White Satin” by the “Moody Blues”. Again, here are a couple of brief excerpts from the song if you have never heard it:

“Nights in white satin, never reaching the end
Letters I've written, never meaning to send
Beauty I've always missed, with these eyes before
Just what the truth is, I can't say anymore”

Most certainly, I was at the point where I could not say what the truth was about my gender at that time. I was at my peak of being non-committal about where I wanted to go in my life. Should I sell it all off for what I could get as a man and start all over again as a transgender woman was my dilemma. Was I missing the beauty with my eyes before. And here was the hardest part, spelled out for me so well by the “Moody Blues”:

“Gazing at people some hand in hand
Just what I'm going through they can't understand
Some try to tell me thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be you will be in the end”

That was the hard part. Did I want to be a transfeminine person, pay the dues and achieve my goals in the end. It turned out I did achieve my dream later in life when I could not take living as a man any longer, so what I wanted to be, I was in the end. And what about those people who tried to me their thoughts they cannot defend? They were so difficult sometimes to overcome.

I am sure, with the amount of music which has been produced over the years, you have music which profoundly speaks to you and your gender issues too. Sometimes I feel. Since we transgender women and trans men go through such profound changes in our lives, we may feel the music deeper than our non-trans counterparts.

In the meantime, we are stuck on Cochranes highway. Riding it all day as well as all night long.

 

Fearing Change as a Gender Challenged Woman

Image from Joshua Gaunt 
on UnSplash. 

Gender change came so very slowly for me during my life.

First, I needed to free myself from the male bonds I was born into which I had no control over. Looking back, I think one of the main problems I had was fearing the changes I was looking to go through if I faced up to reality. From that point forward, life became a struggle as I feared changing it.

What I became was the best transgender procrastinator I knew. Any excuse I could come up with not to go through with living my dream, I clung to like a survivor on the Titanic. What I would do about spouses, family and employment were a few of the major questions I was asking. So, what did I do? I ran as hard and as fast as I could from the problem. I was running so hard, I even changed jobs very quickly so I would not be bored with my life as a transfeminine fugitive. Eventually, even though I grew tired of the pace, I found a stable good job and settled part of my life down. I say part of my life because during that time my gender issues were raging out of control.

Even though I was slowly becoming successful at blending my feminine self in with the world of cisgender women, I still had many fears to conquer. Just when I thought life was improving for me, I would hit another roadblock and send me running back to my cross-dressing drawing board. Which was crazily marked with clownish makeup until I got it right. The fear of applying skilled makeup kept me occupied for years it seemed. On the other hand, when I got my male ego out of the way and realized I needed to dress for other women and not men, did I begin to improve my overall look and the laughter I used to receive in public began to die away. When it did, I learned the most powerful force I had to combat gender change was having confidence in myself. Surely, I would never be the prettiest most beautiful woman in the room, but a lot of other cisgender women were not either and they were surviving and even thriving just fine. There were many layers to building womanhood and I just needed to find mine.

For some reason, the more success I felt as a transgender woman, the more fear I had. I guess it was because of my old male self-starting to panic because he was losing his dominance over my life. For years, what had seemed like the impossible gender dream was now looking as if it could become a reality. As he fought his new reality, the stakes towards living a successful life as a trans woman, increased dramatically. Every step I was taking towards my dream seemed to feel as if I was walking in quicksand since at any time, life as I knew it could be disrupted beyond repair in the little backwards town I lived in. I still lived in mortal fear that any day I could be discovered and the acquaintances I had built up over the years would realize I was living a gender lie. Which I was.

I finally made it to a point where I could not procrastinate my life any longer and I began to use every spare moment to explore the world as a transfeminine person. It all meant I accepted the challenge to finally go all in with making the final preparations for my new life. The bittersweet part of it all was part of my male to female final transition was built on tragedy. In the space of a couple short years, I lost my second wife as well as all of the friends I had built up over the years to death, and I had to start all over again. Sure, I was still afraid to do it but deep down I knew transition was the only way I could go. Suddenly it was up to only me to decide if I wanted to take the ultimate step and try to get a doctor’s permission to begin HRT or gender affirming hormones. I was approved and then the changes I was hoping for began to really happen for me. The changes were so dramatic, I sometimes take an entire blog post to relate them to you.

What frustrates me now are the haters who say that because I took so long to transition, I am not trans enough for them. Normally, they are younger LGBTQ individuals who have no idea of what the world was like way back when I was growing up. We all have our own gender crosses to bear, and we need to understand each other’s journey.

Sadly, there are all those transgender women and trans men who can’t take the burden of gender change fear any longer and tragically try to take the self-harm way out. The suicide rate in our community is completely too high and could come down with proper help and understanding.

In my case, my excuse is I had a heavy dose of ignorance combined with fear and procrastination as reasons it took me nearly a half a century to come out of my gender shell and live freely in the world as a transgender woman. These days, if you can steer clear of all the online trolls and haters, you can still get valuable information on the internet concerning ideas on how to build a new life as a woman from scratch. Plus, fear for me was a powerful motivator and when I was forced into a corner because of my gender, I came out fighting because I believed I was right.

It turned out I was.

 

 

 

  

Resolutions

 

Image from Nik on UnSplash.

I am a firm believer that most new year’s resolutions are made to be broken. Statistics say that nearly eighty percent of people never keep resolutions.

On the other hand, in my formative transgender years, I ended up making several resolutions that I intended on keeping. But by now you might be able to guess which ones I am talking about. The further I was going towards being able to live the feminine life I always dreamed of, the easier it was for me to set new resolutions to conquer in the upcoming year ahead.

Very early in my gender journey, it was easy to set easier goals such as getting out of my dark closet and into the world. I figured from there I could look around and see what was next. What was next proved to be terrifying, natural and exciting all at the same time. More and more I felt bored by the old idea that all I wanted was a chance to be a woman on my own terms. It got to the point where I did not have to make any resolutions which I would have to break. I was doing a good job at living out the ones I had already made. Ironically, I missed several resolutions I should have made but did not. Such as when I did not see my second big gender transition coming at all. It was when I shifted gears mentally and began to think of myself as being transgender and not a cross dresser at all. To this day, I have nothing against all cross dressers (since I was one for years) but my gender needs took me deeper.

Of course, going deeper into my transgender rabbit hole, brought out the need for new resolutions. The old shallow ones such as could I exist in a ciswoman dominated world no longer were making it. I was way past all of that and needed to find out once and for all if I could carve out a new life for myself that I had only dreamed of. You might say, reality of life began to outstrip my dreams as well as the need for more resolutions. At that point, I quit making them all together.

It was easier to go free form in my transfeminine pursuits and do the best I could. It turned out that for the most part I was successful and continued on feeling good about myself. Until the usual problems arose with my unapproving wife and a male self who continued to dominate a big portion of my everyday existence. As I thought more and more about them, I wondered what I would ever do about setting up more resolutions about changing my life for good and jumping the male to female femininization border.

I don’t think until you have walked a mile in our high heeled shoes as a transgender woman would you understand the relative importance of making new year’s resolutions. While others are thinking about losing weight or cutting back on their drinking, you (on the other hand) are wondering what in the world are you ever going to do about becoming a full-fledged transgender woman. It is especially difficult when someone you know asks you what your resolutions are and you don’t want to lie.

At that point, I just went back to my default position I used when anyone asked me about my future. When I was a kid, instead of saying one day I wanted to be a woman, to please my parents I just said I wanted to be a lawyer or doctor. Seemingly, nothing changed later in life when I was asked about my resolutions, I would just say to lose more weight or make more money. So, I lied and took the easy way out. There was one way I could tell the world the truth at that point in my life. Then I started to wonder how many other people who spoke of their resolutions on new year were fudging their answers too. All those people who rushed out to join a gym never really meaning to go like I did once. As I think about it, going to workout in any shape or form was yet another gender smokescreen I threw up to disrupt anyone who was sensing my transgender issues.

Overall, I wonder how many other trans women or trans men have had to try the same method and any sort of a public call for a resolution or two is just another way to hide while you are on your path. One of the statistics which I have read on resolutions said that only twenty percent of people making resolutions keep them anyway, so I don’t feel so bad about not making them anymore. And who knows how many of those making resolutions are closeted transgender people anyway?

Looking back, the only advice I could give to a trans person still in the closet thinking about the new years and making resolutions is to try to make yours doable and don’t try for too much. Failure only leads to disappointment and a deeper return to your closet.

Anyway, you cut it, a new year is on the way, and we have a chance to sweep away a very disappointing 2025 out the door. Just keep your head high and hope for the best in 2026. At the least we will have a chance to vote and change a very crooked regime in Washington. Something you can do from the privacy of your closet, and no one will have to know and if you do make resolutions and don’t keep them you will be in the majority of the population for a change. A real rarity.

 

 

 

 

Transgender Game Changers

 

Image from Andre Fonseca
on UnSplash.

One of the positives to being able to live a long life is to be able to look back on all the key moments in my life when a decision one way or another could have made a huge difference in my life.

Perhaps the biggest moment was when I discovered the enchantment of looking at the pretty girl in the mirror where my boy self was just standing. Sadly, the moments were fleeting as my life was calling me.

As I grew up and my life became more complex, so did my dealings with my transgender issues. One of the most important lessons I learned came early when my second wife and I encountered a handsome Harley motorcycle rider at a tavern we were at one day in Cleveland, Ohio waiting for a transvestite mixer we were going to, to start. I was very new  to being out in the world as a cross dresser and was completely surprised at my reactions when this guy came into the bar and started flirting with my wife. Then, I was even more concerned about my wife when she started to flirt back, completely ignoring me. What was I going to do since I was stripped of all my male reflexes of what to do when another man was flirting with my wife. I had to just sit there and be quiet and hope she did not go for a ride on the Harley with the man. Of course, my wife sensed my concern but let the situation play itself out to teach me a lesson in feminine competition. One I never forgot.

Another evening, I never forgot and could have been a bigger game changer than it was, was the night I had my makeup done by a professional makeup artist in Columbus, Ohio at another transvestite-transgender mixer I was attending. After the makeover, I was stunned at all the positive changes the artist made for me. I was flattered with all the compliments I was receiving and decided I did not want the evening to end early. I wanted to join the so called “A” listers who always went out on the town and show off my new look. Plus, for some reason, my wife decided not to go to this mixer, so I was free and on my own. We ended the evening at another tavern which I could not tell was LGBTQ friendly or not but one way or another I bought a beer and headed for one of the unoccupied pinball machines. When I did, amazingly I was approached by a younger good-looking man who wanted me to stay and play pinball with him. By this time, the rest of the “A” girls were ready to leave, and I needed to make a split-second decision on if to stay or go. Since I had no idea if the man knew my true gender or not, and I was in a strange city, I decided to go with the “A”’s who were jealous of me because I was approached by a man and they were not.

I never knew what would have happened if I had stayed and would the evening change my life forever, which also happened the night I went on a date with Bob. By this time, my wife had passed away, and I had not met Liz yet (my future wife) so I was free to explore my own boundaries. Bob was not from my area of the country and on occasion passed through the Dayton, Ohio area on business where I lived. On one of those nights, I knew he wanted to meet me in person at one of the venues I was a regular at. I had never partied with a man at a sports bar before, so I did not know what to expect. What I did not expect was the great time I had. It was the first time in my life that I had been treated completely as a woman, and I loved it. It was even a karaoke night, and he sang for me. And yes, Bob did know I was transgender. We shared a rather passionate kiss together and the night was over. Never to be repeated again.

There were other trans game changers such as girl’s nights outs and the conversations I shared with a man who I thought I could have gone farther with if he had stayed around. The “what if’s” remain big questions for me as I grow older, and I know you can’t have it all. In many ways I crammed a lot of life into my years which I am grateful for.

I should not be selfish though because I have been blessed during my life with people who have loved me, and I did my best to love back in return. Sadly, my gender issues were in my way through most of them and if I had faced reality, I could have been a better transfeminine person. Which is a topic for another blog post altogether.

 

 

Passing Through Customs

 

Image from CDC on UnSplash.

Passing through gender customs was one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. Relax, this is not another post where I slam the orange pedo/felon tearing down our country as I write...What I mean is, when the time and effort I took to finally blend in with all the ciswomen around became worth it.

 For the longest time, I thought passing customs just meant looking better than the average woman in the world. Then I discovered I needed to be better because I was a transgender woman. I could not get away with wearing no makeup and jeans like the other women around me if I was to pass their inspection. Don’t get me wrong, I did not have to wear heels and hose all the time to make it through customs, I just purchased jean skirts rather than jeans from my local thrift store and did very well with the new fashion I discovered. I was not wearing pants of any sort which I loved and still made it through customs wearing a skirt which flattered my legs.

Then I found wearing a simple skirt rather than pants was the easy part of customs. My first actual experience in passing a checkpoint as a trans woman came when a woman friend invited me to a NFL Football game in Cincinnati. In order to be admitted, I needed to be patted down by another woman who just smiled at me and then checked the extremely small purse I was carrying. She made it quick, smiled at me and let me on my way, terrified and all. By the time I began to breathe again it was game time, and I had other less scary distractions such as when and how I was going to use the women’s restroom. The whole evening really gave me confidence in my new self and how my future as a transgender woman could look.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not bring up the most important point of all when I needed to actually talk and communicate with the other ciswomen who were inspecting me. The worst part was I was really shy and had put off any practice I could with my voice and eye contact. For the sake of repetition, I have always referred to the process of communication as being able to play in the girl’s sandbox. To make my life easier, I did my best to make sure there were as few girls as possible in the sandbox when I played in case something went wrong, and I needed to escape. Fortunately, I never did and was allowed to play.

For what they are worth, my words of wisdom are, when you start your journey in the world as a transfeminine person, always assume you will be going through customs of some sort. Women are always examined by other women from head to toe and by men also. So, get ready. It was a world which I was not used to because as a man, I rarely if ever, looked at what other men were wearing. On the other hand, women will notice what you are wearing if you can’t pass customs. Try not to be intimidated and enjoy the process as much as you can. It is what you signed up for.

It is also a positive if you can go through the process of having your legal gender markers changed. I had most of mine done years ago when I had not made the transition from transgender woman to trans woman senior citizen. I was more worried about being pulled over while I was driving and not having an ID which did not say female on it. Plus, not that it matters so much here in fascist Ohio, this year, the heavily manipulated legislature is trying to circumvent any gender markers on ID’s a person may have. Which means, as I understand it, in the future, I could be confronted and harassed by the authorities for simply using the restroom. Customs passing is getting harder and harder around here.

I read many posts and experiences from transgender women and men who are confronted when they have tried to pass customs, and it is not pleasant. In fact, it has led many to resort to measures such as genital realignment surgery to make them feel whole in their chosen gender. I myself, for various reasons, have not resorted to any surgeries, mainly because I am fortunate to have found many supportive allies over the years, I could surround myself with. More than anything else, they gave me courage when I needed to pass through gender customs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Second Time Around

 

JJ Hart (middle) at my first
Girls' Night Out. 

If you are one of the rare human beings to experience a second time around in life, you owe it to yourself and others to live it the best you can.

Being transgender can give you that rare insight into two of the main binary genders which should give you an edge in dealing with the everyday world. Having an intimate knowledge of whatever the other gender maybe thinking of us as trans women or trans men brings out fear in the public's eye. Who are we to possess such a wonderful scope of knowledge anyhow? It is especially bad with the male gender who has such a poor grasp of their sexuality to begin with. I know when I transitioned from male to female, one of my main concerns was my own sexuality. Was I expected to suddenly change my sexual preferences which had always been with women and suddenly start liking men. I even went to the point when I first came out when a straight woman friend of mine told me to buy bananas and practice. I will let your imagination do the rest.

We all know though there is so much more to a gender transition than sex when you set yourself up for the second round in life. I found I was leaving a life as a man where I was mildly successful and entering a totally new world full of women who were able and willing to question my existence in their world at all. Away from men, the women were a complex tribe, and it was difficult for me to be given the access to play with them behind the obvious gender curtains. First and foremost, just looking like a woman just got me in the game and the difficult part was just beginning. I spent hours and hours in the world just learning how to be the new me.

Suddenly, before I knew it, the doors to a totally different world opened for me and I was invited to the girls’ night’s outs. The invites could never replace the learning experiences young girls have when they are in their formative years and they get to go to girls’ overnighters with friends, but they were all I had to attempt to catch up on my gender homework. No chance to experiment with makeup or gossip about boys or other girls.

The main problem was, I had another male life to deal with at the same time. Looking back, I don’t know how or why I put up with all the gender stress and tension I did to make it to my dream. I guess the reason was I did not have the confidence to know if I could make such a major life changing step at all. We all have a lot to lose when we undertake such a step, don’t we? Plus, as I slid towards the idea I could live fulltime as a transgender woman, I was being accused of being selfish. Which made me feel guilty until I finally came to the conclusion I was being selfish. Because I had to save my own life.

As I was accepted into the girls’ sandbox around me by the majority of the women around me, my confidence grew that I could indeed live a second time around life as a transfeminine person. My long hidden inner female took over and surprisingly became a rather social person as I formed bonds with my small group of lesbian friends which was the best of all worlds for me. As I always say, the first and main thing my friends taught me was I did not need a man for validation. Which included my sexuality. All I needed to do was still keep an eye out for the rare bigot who hated me for no real reason. It turned out the haters would have to go through my cisgender friends to get to me, if they wanted to.

At that point in time, I met my wife Liz, and my second time around became easier and easier for me to live up to. I say live up to because I found myself at a point where I always dreamed of being. But I never thought I could make it. Never say never became a reality for me when Liz told me she never saw anything male about me. I was in gender heaven and stayed there until I realized what a heavy burden I needed to face. Here I was with the rare chance for a do over in my life and to not repeat the same mistakes I made as a man.

So far so good I think as I head down the stretch run of my life and I can be thankful for the chance to live two lives regardless of what the gender haters say.

 

When Who You Are is Against the Law

 

Kim Davis wants YOUR Rights.

Yesterday, the spineless governor of my native Ohio agreed with the felon/pedo in chief tRumpt to send national guard troops to Washington DC.

The move was a stark reminder to me of how close we are as a nation to a fascist state with a dictator in charge. And, on the battle lines are transgender women and transgender men who at least here in Ohio have watched as our rights have been taken away by a heavily gerrymandered Republican legislature who prefers doing its dirty work under the late-night cover of darkness.

I am extra paranoid because I vividly remember the gay/ cross dressers being rounded up in police buses when I was young in Dayton, Ohio. I certainly don’t want those times to return for myself or especially for my transgender grandchild.

Especially horrific are the Caitlyn Jenners of the world who insist on supporting the regime in Washington. Obviously, they never really learned how it was to have their rights taken away. Perhaps you noticed, I refused to refer to Jenner as “she.” Recently, on a popular social media site I am on, a rather spirited (to say the least) discussion about cross dressers and transgender women. The moderator waded in with some sort of a statement that cross dressers cannot be transgender women and tied the discussion all in with the male privileges CD’s refuse to give up the way trans women have. Then used Jenner as an example. Being smart for a change, I stayed completely out of the fray. Almost.

I did use the example of the cross dressers and/or transgender women I knew who were strong orange felon supporters. I will never understand how they could throw themselves or the trans community under the bus and keep doing it. Their excuse was, he couldn’t be that bad. Well, he was.

Then there are the comfortable gay and lesbian tRumpt supporters who sat back in their shells and thought all the misery being brought upon the transgender community couldn’t happen to them. Now Kim Davis is back asking the corrupt supreme court to formally destroy the same sex marriage ruling the gays and lesbians celebrated so many years ago. Now their refusal to get totally behind the transgender community in our time of need is coming back to haunt them. It could and would be coming around again.

I know one of the problems with this post is I stereotyped too many people along the way. I know many in the gay, lesbian, and cross-dressing community who don’t support the sick felon and do support the trans community and that is powerful because we need everyone behind us in these desperate times.

Just imagine if you are a novice crossdresser trying to decide if you want to attempt to jump out of your gender closet and are afraid of being arrested. It’s uncomfortably close to happening in states such as Ohio. The midterms are coming and make sure you vote from your closet for the right candidates.

On the bright side (and there always is one), there are pockets of support in major cities around the country. If you are struggling, try to find a LGBTQ support group to help you come out. In the meantime, buckle up for a rough ride and stay safe.

Sorry for the rant, sometimes I just have to vent.

Was I Outdated?

 

My wife Liz. Key West Florida.

Along the way in my increasingly long life, I have considered myself to be outdated. 

As I grew up through the late fifties and the early to mid 60's, I went through my mom's fashions, all the way to the short mini skirted times when I was in middle school. By the time I had cross dressed my way in the mirror to a place where I could control it at all, the world of fashion had changed, and I was outdated for the first time. My miniskirts gave way to hippie boho fashion. I loved the long-haired hippie women around me.

By now you are probably thinking I was resistant to change or was simply ignoring the overall basics of women's fashion. The biggest basic is that fashion always changes. A woman is encouraged to go with the flow of fashion for a number of reasons, good or bad. As I see it, the good or fun aspect of fashion are the seasonal changes. I write occasionally about when the seasons do change here in Ohio, how satisfying it is for me to go through my wardrobe and judge what stays and what goes. It is at these times; I have to figure out if I am outdated or not and most importantly, does it still matter to me at my age. 

As I am sure you all know, as cisgender women age, they go through progressions especially involving their hair. Many start wearing the longer hair of their youth and as they age, the hair becomes shorter and shorter. It was the one age trend I resisted until I had quite a bit of my hair trimmed off at the end of last year before my wife Liz and I went on vacation. It turns out, I fit right in with the other women on the vacation tour we went on to the Florida Keys. 

Just fitting in, was something I never wanted to do. Preferably, as much as possible, I wanted to be on the cutting edge of fashion, if, it involved having a Boho lean. I never got over the admiration I had for the women during my college and military days when I was required to wear my hair short. I made up for the short buzz cuts I had to wear by wearing my hair longer than almost all other women during my senior years. 

If you are familiar with "Stana Short" on the famous Femulate blog, the short she is referring too is in regard to her length of hemlines on her famously long and shapely legs. I never had to face the skirt length dilemma following my love affair with miniskirts in my youth until the eighties I believe it was when they briefly returned. One of my favorite outfits I had was a black mini I wore with one of my fluffy long sweaters and a pair of flats when I went out shopping. It was one of the few times in my life as a transgender woman that my fashion matched the majority of what cisgender women were wearing.

These days, at the age of seventy-five, I am happy to be able to stay active and mobile at all. Sometimes I think my favorite colorful leggings make me outdated in my fashion, but I love them and that is all that matters. I suppose too, I am allowed to be outdated. 

If you Know, you Know

 

JJ Hart from Key Largo, Florida

One of the reasons, we transgender women and trans men have to put up with so much evil misinformation about us in the public's eye is so many people don't even know a transgender person. 

The main reason is, we are so few when you consider the population as a whole. However, within the trans community, we share many similarities. For example, many of first trips into a feminine lifestyle came when we went through our mom's dresser drawers (or sister's) and came away with a wonderful experience. Sadly, then we could not understand why all the people and family around us could not be trusted with our secret. To make matters worse, our secret was so rare, the chances of finding anyone around us who understood was nearly impossible. I only tried to relay my secret to someone who understood twice. Once I was quickly rejected and once I was not. Of course, with the first person, I went back into my closet and was never seen again. But with the other, I found a friend I could share my desires with. Until he moved away with his mother who did not care if we experimented with her clothes and makeup. I don't know for sure, all these years later but perhaps I had found the proverbial needle in the haystack. Another person who knew what I did, we loved all things feminine.

As life continued on, I began to attend various transvestite - cross dresser mixers where I received mixed feedback on how I felt about knowing others. I discovered I did not form as many gender bonds I thought I would. I figured simply we were both into cross dressing and beyond, we would get along better. Quickly I learned, I did not know most of the attendees better than the rest of the world simply because we shared the same need to be femininized. I was exposed suddenly to different layers of the world who had the same gender issues than I. Or so I thought. I found I did not know anymore how the cowboy cross dressers who I called that because they wore cowboy hats and smoked big cigars while they wore a dress, could do that. I had my upbringing when I wore slacks to a mixer and was attacked for doing it. 

Then there were the "A" listers who were very attractive an acted just like the stuck-up girls I went to high school with. I did not get along with them either and did not understand why they could not have been nicer to everyone. I guess, if you know, you know wasn't working for me just because I put on a dress. I was learning the hard way, the differences between cross dressers and transgender women. 

These days, I am involved in just one support group through the VA, which used to be known as a LGBTQ peer support group before the changes forced upon us by the orange felon. Now we are just a support group made up primarily by the gay and lesbian attendees. In fact, out of twelve or fourteen participants, I am one of only two transgender women in the group. What I have learned is, out of all the LGBTQ people in the group share many of the same problems, especially with the upcoming problems in the Veterans Administration. Once again you could say I was so involved in my little world, I did not consider others. For example, I assumed gay and lesbian people understood or supported transgender people because we are cousins so to speak. Whereas they don't understand us any better than the rest of the world. That is why I love to share my experiences with the gays and lesbians in the group. 

I am doing my best to change and understand just because I am transgender, I understand what other trans people are going through. Or they understand me. It is difficult because today more than ever, we need each other in the world to survive. 

The Comfort Zone

 

My trans friend Racquel

As a transgender woman or a trans man, you often encounter major barriers when it comes to reaching our gender comfort zones.

We have all sorts of setbacks such as family and spouses, employment and potential loss of friends. Giving up the life we had been leading is never an easy decision to make. It's definitely more than just an easy choice which a percentage of people (or transphobes) think it is. For some reason, they think it is just a matter of transgender people putting away their clothes and returning to their birth genders. They don't understand how deep our experiences run. Along the way, we become very resilient in our journeys and for the most part, our tribe is strong.

We are strong, in part, because of the time and experiences we went through to reach our comfort zones. I know I had to endure stares all the way to out and out laughter in the early days when I went out and challenged the world. Catching up with all the years I lost not growing up as a girl really came back to haunt me when I had to struggle to catch up. No one taught me the basics of fashion and makeup. More importantly, I did not have the confidence I needed to move forward to even learn if my gender dreams could ever become a reality. Which was the most important thing to me.

Slowly but surely, with success, my time in the comfort zone came around and I survived. It was never easy. To this day, when we traveled to the Florida Keys recently, after all I had been through in my life chasing my gender, I still was very nervous about several things I would face along the way on the bus tour.  I did not know how I would fare as a transgender woman on a bus full of strangers. Especially when it came to having restroom privileges as we traveled through the deep south. However, I can't spotlight the deep south for its anti-transgender laws when my native Ohio recently has passed some of the most restrictive trans laws in the country. I guess you could say, I could run but I could not hide.

Quickly, my fears dissolved as the other women on the bus began to not so slyly question my wife Liz and I's relationship. The reason was one woman said to Liz, she thought we were sisters. Which really increased my confidence and put me in a comfort zone which would last for the rest of the trip.

My comfort zone expanded, and I was able to enjoy my new reality of acceptance in my transgender womanhood. Of course, it was all challenged when I caught Covid on the way back to Ohio and ended up in a suburban Atlanta hospital. I was fortunate in that I had my Covid vaccine three months before and my case was lessened in its severity. My three days stay in the hospital really challenged my comfort zone because I have never had any gender altering surgeries. So, even though the staff initially thought I was a woman, it quickly became evident I was still a biological male. Hopefully, I won't have to go through an experience such as that for a while again.

As we all know, comfort zones are fleeting and have to be earned. You need to be patient and do the best you can until your confidence as a transgender woman or trans man comes along, and you are finally comfortable in your own skin.