Gender House of Cards

 

Image from Erick Langfield on Unsplash.

Just when I thought I had my life altogether, the world collapsed on me.

For example, when I thought my makeup and hair was the best, I could do, I would walk or scowl like a linebacker and ruin my entire feminine image. Of course, then, I would have to recount my steps and see what I was doing wrong. It took me years to build a solid foundation to build my gender future on because my base was so weak.

What made matters worse was the fact at the same time, I was beginning to do so much better as a man with my career. It was like I was succeeding despite of myself. Down deep, I attempted to destroy everything I worked so hard to achieve. All the self-destruction really took a toll on me and my mental health. To make matters worse, on my worst days I would attempt to take my gender frustrations out on the people closest to me. I became so bad; I even lost a job over my actions. Perhaps the worst part was, I did not grasp what was happening to me. I kept repeating the same old stop-gap routine of cross dressing once or twice a week, feeling better for a day or two before I would revert back to my old gender frustrations again. Predictably, my frustrations would repeat, and my gender house of cards would come crashing down again. 

Finally, as I began to acquire more confidence in my transgender womanhood, I started to increasingly build a better base and feel better about the major struggles I knew were coming up ahead. Primarily, what was I going to do about my twenty-five-year marriage to a woman I loved and a successful job I would have to leave behind. And all of that just scratched the surface of all the obstacles I would need to face such as what would my sexuality be if I decided to live full-time as a transgender woman. The path ahead, at the least was very murky. 

Since I was a very social person, I needed to figure out how not to be so lonely anymore. I just could not keep going out to be alone. My dilemma was men did not approach me seriously and I did not know how to react if they did. My first date with a man was with a transgender man who afterwards said I was very scared. Which was true. The problem became when the only other path to being social for me came by approaching other cis women. Fortunately, I did not have a problem because more and more of them approached me. For whatever reason. Regardless, when I went out socially, I ended up at the least talking with other women. Just having the chance to practice my feminine communication helped me to build a better gender base to build from. 

From that point, life became easier, and my path became clearer. Increasingly I understood I needed to leave the male life I never really wanted behind and jump the gender border at whatever the cost. I was near the age of sixty and was so tired of living a lie and was to the point if I did not complete my transition, I would never have the chance to live my dream.

By this time, I was able to build a solid gender house of cards, so everything turned out successfully when I made the final move. Perhaps here would be a good time to quote Paula from the UK: "For some of us there is a real need not just dress as a woman, for the world to experience us, and accept us as a woman ~ it is not enough that in our mind we are women, we need to go all the way; and that is why we need to transition. I too remember my wife saying (with no intended irony at all) "It takes balls to be a woman"

Most certainly Paula our wives were right. That is the primary reason it takes a solid foundation to approach transgender womanhood. Thanks for the comment!

Trans Girl Preparedness

Image from Ben White
on UnSplash. 

Since it took me approximately fifty years to fully emerge as a transgender woman, I had plenty of time to prepare.

The challenge comes when we trans women or men need to begin from scratch. We did not benefit from a gender peer group such as other girls to have sleep over parties and experiment with makeup and clothes. No one to tell me I looked like a clown in drag. I learned I needed to resort to the mirror for help but sadly ran into problems when the mirror had the habit of lying to me. I could still look like a clown and the mirror would not tell me the truth.

What I did was go out to into the public's eye and receive an honest feedback on my appearance. In the beginning, the experience was brutal as I was met with stares and even laughter. Many times, I could not wait to go home to the safety of my own room to start over again. I kept thinking, regardless of all the negative feedback I was getting I could do better. For the first time in my life, I needed to decide what I wanted worse, to hide in my closet and not advance toward my dream of ever living a feminine life, or advance and begin the learn the basics of makeup art and fashion which at the least fit me. I found the entire process to be exceedingly difficult for me. 

Spoiler alert. I did learn the hard way what I needed to do to blend in with the rest of the women around me. It was a powerful lesson to learn when I found out how women ruled in their own worlds and how I could join in.  In the meantime, I was learning how to erase my male past and start over. To make matters worse, my male self naturally fought against the gender change to transgender womanhood he was facing. 

Through it all, I was naïve to think I was progressing towards my gender dreams. I thought that just doing my best to look like a woman was all I had to do. When I entered the wild and wonderful world of women, I was excited yet terrified of my future. After all, I was risking all of my male life as I had known it. What would become of my family, friends and income? To arrive at the point of knowing all my gender questions, I just had to be better prepared.

At that point, I started to go out into the world with a purpose to learn if I could make it as a transgender woman at all. Primary issues remained such as communication problems. Plus, I went the distance to try to stair step my way into an increasingly active public community. I purposely tried out more and more challenging situations. Away from the no challenge opportunities I was facing in clothing stores and malls. I even tried to avoid the book stores and antique malls I had become fond of but never presented any sort of a gender challenge to me. I needed to feel OK with who I was, where I was before I was able to move on. 

At the same time, my male life was successful and was pushing me to stay the same and not transition into a women's world even farther. All the struggle did was wreck my mental health. What I did not recognize yet was my feminine self was my dominate personality and needed to be freed. The harder she fought, the harder he fought. Finally, he gave up and I found a deep seated relief I had never known before.

Primarily, after all the time and effort I put into changing my exterior gender to what my inner self was always telling me, was the reason I felt better about my life. Sure, the gender affirming hormones I began to take made the transition easier also but bottom line, I was just prepared to do what came naturally and live it.  

A Day at the Coffee Shop

 

Transgender Outreach Image
University of Cincinnati. JJ Hart

My first meeting with the Pulitzer prize winning television journalist lasted nearly two hours and went well I think. 

Of course with the new current state of affairs we are dealing with in the transgender world, I was a little nervous. Ironically, my nerves were settled a bit when another customer stepped forward and purchased my coffee. While I am positive he was not overwhelmed by my beauty, perhaps in his own way he was supporting the transgender community. Regardless the journalist arrived and we began the interview, nerves and all.

Looking back at the time we spent, it is rather difficult to sort out all the details. In no real specific order we began discussing my work with the Cincinnati's Alzheimer's diversity council and how I became involved. It turned out the network I developed with the statewide (Ohio) article I did for the "Buckeye Flame" issue which was read by the journalist and he wanted to know more. That is where the meeting today came in.

Along the way, we covered almost all my life and how I arrived at the place I am today and of course what the election meant to me. I did mention I was surprised a television station would want to do an interview with a transgender woman after all we had just gone through. Essentially, he responded he liked doing stories outside of the ordinary and we started to go through my life I quickly centered the conversation on the fact I had led a fairly normal life for someone of my generation. I grew up playing football, graduated with two degrees and had served my time in the military with the American Forces Radio and Television Service. 

All of the time I served in all the different capacities of my life have led me to believe I am not much different than any other transgender person. As our lives pass us by we acquire family, friends and occupations we need to get and then need to get rid of as we change. The point I was trying to get across was we trans folk are really not that much different than anybody else and certainly not the monsters the election set us up to be.

We ended the interview with another appointment for him to join me for an upcoming walk when I sometimes come up with ideas to write about daily. 

It was an exciting day and I am looking forward to more outreach if I can do some good.   

Cutting Through the Noise

 

The further I went along my transgender path, the more noise I encountered. 

When it was just me and my mirror, the noise was often very restricted and low. Even still, the message was creeping in , I  was dealing with  more than met the eye in the mirror when it came to me looking like a girl. However, what I was hearing stayed close to the same until I began to go out in public. When I did, the noise began to increase dramatically. Often, not in a good way. 

The reason was, during the times when I was failing at presenting any semblance  of a feminine person, the noise was deafening. It was telling me to stop my impossible dream of transgender womanhood and take the easy retreat back to an old male life I never really wanted but had succeeded in anyhow. I was used to all the male privileges I had gained. Long term, fortunately for me, I cut through the negative noise and continued along my gender path. To do so I needed to be patient and learn all the feminine lessons when they were presented to me.

The longer I tried to experience the world as a transgender woman, the more I wanted to do more. Which meant more noise I needed to cut through. Such as the guy who tried to attack me sexually at a mixer I went to one night in Columbus, Ohio. I was saved from a very bad experience by my second wife. She made me pay by mentioning how I was dressed invited the interaction I had. Mega noise in the house began after the incident.

There were other examples I have written about and some I haven't as I traversed the path to my dreams. Too many nights going out just to be alone when I was already too lonely to start with. On those nights I muted the noise mainly with extra alcohol which proved to be a temporary fix to my problems. Little did I know, the worst of the noise was yet to come. When I actually had to communicate in the world with other women I needed to be part of my noise solution and not be part of the problem. In other words, I was becoming a skilled listener so I could cut the noise of the world back and enter women only spaces. It was never easy but I earned the right to be there.

Often today with all the vile and harmful politics which have been laid upon the transgender women and trans men of the world, the noise has become more unbearable than ever before. It takes a better person than me to ignore all of it. Especially when I have the future of a transgender grandchild to worry about. All I can do is continue my written outreach as I attempt to prove to the world transgender women and trans men are just the same as the rest of the world trying to get by. We are not the monsters the politicians make us out to be. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel for me and my outreach issues. Yesterday I was contacted by a reporter from one of the Cincinnati televisions concerning the possibility of doing an interview. So we will see what happens. 

Whatever happens, I will write about later and hopefully todays election will be a positive force for the future and not a step backwards. 

When We were Against the Law

 

Phil Donohue on left with singer (male) 
Grae Phillips.

I am old enough to remember the days in Dayton, Ohio when transvestites and or cross dressing men were loaded into police vehicles and arrested. 

Since I was just discovering my attraction to feminine clothes, of course the whole process scared me. I did not want the police to come in and arrest me. Then, the Stonewall Riots happened in New York City in 1969 and all of a sudden there was a glimmer of hope for me again. The outside world was changing, or so I thought as I watched and learned from my home in faraway Ohio. I was in my second year of college and the world was changing for me also. As the world on occasion seemed to tip in our favor when movies such as "Tootsie" were released in 1982. 

Then there were the flood of talk shows from "Phil Donohue" to" Jerry Springer" who focused on the the so called married cross dresser and wives. Many were trash and did the transgender or cross dressing community any good.  Donohue ran from 1970 until 1996. Sadly we were left with being items of ridicule on "Springer. " We were not against the law but close. 

Now of  course we face the most difficult times a transgender woman can face. If the orange menace and his cronies find their way into power, we in the entire LGBTQ community face a real threat to our very existence. I live in Ohio and the anti-transgender political ads against Democratic Senator Brown have been ridiculous. In fact they out and out lie. What amazes me most is when I encounter a pro-tRumpt transgender person. I have had them tell me they believe him when he says he had nothing to do with Project 2025 and they are safe with him in office.

I stand with all women and support their right to control their own body. I also stand with the candidate which does not threaten our future existence as transgender women and trans men. I think you know who I am referring to. 

I know nothing I can say can influence your vote. In fact, you may have already done it. I just hope enough see through the barrage of lies and vote in our first woman president.  

Set Her Free

Image from JJ Hart

Throughout my long life, which included fifty years of being a cross dresser, I could feel the stress and tension of not freeing my inner girl.

It all started innocently enough with trips in front of our family mirror in clothes I had borrowed from my Mom. Of course that all ended when I outgrew her sizes and I needed to strike out on my own to find fashion which fit. With my meager allowance and money I made from delivering newspapers to the neighborhood, I managed to get by and buy a few items to add to my wardrobe which then I needed to carefully hide away from my family.  Somehow I survived and my life as a male set in, no matter how much I did not want it to. 

The gender stress and tension continued over the years and even became worse with every success I had when I tried to set my inner self free. It finally became evident my entire gender life was backwards, I was not a man cross dressing as a woman, I was a woman cross dressing as a man and it was no wonder I was feeling the confusion and pain. I would not have wished the mental anguish I felt on my worst enemy. I found being transgender was far from being a choice and somehow I needed to set her free.

The problem was, I needed to face the same set of hurdles transgender women and trans men face. Such as family or spouses, friends and occupations. The longer you go in life, the more gender baggage you acquire, the more you have to get rid of. Or figure out how much you can keep. My prime example always is how I was able to maintain my love of sports when I fully transitioned into transgender womanhood. I had help when I learned the women around me loved sports as much as I did and I felt right at home. It was easier to set my woman free. 

Finally, I arrived at the point where I could take it no longer. I ended up living more time as a trans woman than I did as my old male self. So much so, I was feeling totally out of place in a male world as a guy and would have rather attacked it as a woman. Plus I still had the age old problems of doing my best appearance wise as a feminine person. I began by losing nearly fifty pounds and taking better care of my skin on a daily basis and worked my way forward from there. Through days of trial and error, I was able to arrive at a point where I could provide a reasonable attempt at presenting as myself on a regular basis. The key was to settle in to what myself should look like which meant stopping doing things such as switching wigs on a regular basis. Finding who I was proved to be the key to setting myself free.

Once I did manage to set my dominant self free, she did all the rest. I learned to keep my old male self out of the way and let her go. Among other things, she picked my friends and lover and opened the door to a life I never thought possible.

It was like she was saying I told you so and should have done it sooner. 

What If?

 

Marci Bowers

As I spent all the years as a very serious cross dresser, I dreamed of perhaps becoming a transgender woman and what it would be like to live a feminine life.

For many, many years I was my own worst enemy as I learned the parameters of what I needed to work with. First of all, I needed to play catch up with all the girls around me who were already experimenting with makeup and fashion. I remember vividly back in the mini-skirt days how the girls in my class would not so shyly sit and cross their legs to tease all the boys. Little did they know, the affect they had on several boys such as me. I wanted to be them and wear the skirt and panty hose and tease the boys.  I was so envious of the stories my wife told me of how she would roll up her skirt when she went to school and was out of sight of her Mom. 

I always wondered what if I could ever escape the mirror and experience life the same way she did. Of course I did not and had to set my own course. A course with no guidance or peer pressure on how I looked. What if I could live as a woman remained an illusive dream. To keep my frail mental health balanced, I tried to improve my presentation on my own  As I am fond of saying, I experienced quite a bit more error than trial as I slowly learned to express and embrace myself as a novice transgender woman. To add to my excitement, my wife and I purchased our first computer and I was able to learn about other transgender women in the world. 

One of trans women I learned about and was suggested to me by a reader (thank you) was renowned sex change surgeon Marci Bowers. Even though I knew I would never consider gender surgery for myself. Just reading Bowers journey gave me hope for my future.  My fondest desire her story would pave the way for an easier gender transition for the rest of us. 

I followed my new found confidence by exploring more and more as I tried  to carve out a niche to build my dream life. Even though I was rejected on many occasions, I still managed to climb the steep slope towards my transgender dream which was coming into focus. The main discovery I made was if I was myself, I could actually have the opportunity to live on into trans womanhood. If I did, I knew the risks were great and I was jeopardizing years of male life I had sacrificed to build up. 

Still I learned I had to follow my inner soul and see what if meant to me. Since I had worked so hard to climb dual gender mountains in my life, it was time to jump and head for a hopeful safe landing.  Even though I could never hope to be as accomplished and attractive as an Marci Bowers, I discovered just enough people valued me as my authentic self, I could survive. These were the people who never knew my before person and I was starting all over with. 

Even though I was still doing the pushing, they were the ones doing the pulling me into my new world. Proving what if was possible. 

Staring Down the Transgender Cliff

Image from Jimmy Conover
on UnSplash

 As I transitioned from my very active male self into an accomplished transgender woman, there were many times I found myself staring down a cliff on my gender path.

The more I walked on and was successful, the more scared I became. The cliff I was looking at, increasingly appeared to be steeper and riskier than I ever imagined when I first put on a dress and makeup so many years before. After all, I was risking so much such as a spouse, family and a job to name just a few. To add more pressure, I was becoming increasingly more and more successful in my choice of occupations. I had worked years to arrive at where I was and now I was risking it all to try to be a successful out transgender woman. By successful, I mean I was able to increasingly move about in society as I carved out a new life.

Mixed in with all the life changing experiences I was going through were many failures as I would sneak up to the cliff and look over. The entire process was scaring me more and more and threatened pushing me back into the gender closet I had worked so hard to leave for all of those years. 

Finally, I could take it no longer and began to gather the courage to take a leap of faith as I approached jumping off my personal cliff into a risky world I thought I knew something about. Before I did, I tried to come up with a survival plan when I jumped into the sometime snake pit which was the feminine world. I needed to learn the basics of the indirect passive aggression. Slowly but surely I learned to fasten my seatbelt and learned to ready myself to jump. I had conquered so much on my journey and it was time to quit staring down the gender cliff. 

Ironically, the women friends I had made like Liz and Kim helped me to a soft landing. They taught me what it would take to for me to become a transgender woman on my own terms. More importantly, all the fears I felt concerning my fear of gender heights proved they were like new gender guardian angels to me. Certainly, I found there were transphobes who would never like me but on the other hand, I found most people just didn't care. I was left alone to make a soft landing around my friends and enjoy my new life. 

I have always tried to be a proponent of the idea that something you are proposing to do will not be as bad as you think it will be or as good as you think it will. The same happened to me with I took the chance and gave up my male life and undertook the biggest adventure of my life. 

The soft landing off of the cliff coincided with my softer life as a transgender woman. When I did land, I wondered what took me so long. My excuse was I was afraid of heights, when in reality, I was just afraid of losing what was left of the white male privilege's I enjoyed. But it turned out, I could not have my gender cake and eat it too. It became too much pressure to attempt to live part time as a trans woman and a man. 

I closed my eyes, hoped for the best and jumped. It did not matter how intimidating the cliff seemed to be, the steep gender cliff proved to be the least of my problems. 

Strong Women Role Models

Hand Beaded Transgender Hair
Barret from Liz T Designs on
Etsy 

 I am speculating most transgender women or even trans men have experienced at least one or more strong women in their lives.

For any number of reasons, women have been forced to be strong and carry the load for weak men. For many, their first entrance into true womanhood comes with having children. With current economic conditions the way they are, the days of the old fifties version of Mom staying home to raise the kids and take care of the house is long gone. To barely make it financially, both partners have to work.

Problems then arise when the man still wants to follow the old outdated male standards of doing very little around the house to help out. 

By now, you may be asking what does this have anything to do with being a transgender woman. With me, at least, it means a lot. My Mom worked out a deal with my Dad in the sixties. If she went back to work as a school teacher and used her college degree, my Dad would help her out with hiring a part-time housekeeper. Even with the help, Mom had a lot to do with two sons in a very male orientated family. Even though I admired my Dad for being a self made man coming out of the Great Depression and WWII, I had more on hands experience with my Mom who was very headstrong. Who knows, maybe that influence with her had more to do with me being transgender than anything else. Later I was to learn my gender issues ran deeper than one person outside of myself.

Even so, I still searched for the perfect woman to model myself after. I wanted to appear as the confident women in the world I saw moving around in their lives. The older I became, the more I learned the perfect woman did not exist and many women were hurting themselves attempting the be a successful person in the world as well as on the home front. Not to mention, the overwhelming problem of appearance. Until recent times, aging has not been kind to most women who among other things suffer from extended menopause. 

All of these factors contribute to why I have such a high opinion of strong women and how I think the world is changing quickly as many more young women seize the new opportunities in the world around them while young men play video games. 

With all the changes, it is important to figure out how a transgender woman can fit in at all. Certainly, we have to be a better woman to do it at all. Which means understanding all the layers of a woman's life. That is once of the reasons some women resist letting trans women play in the girls sandbox at all. As my second wife always told me in no uncertain terms, I needed to earn my way in. Maybe that is why I never considered her a strong woman role model for me at all. My Mom on the other hand, was a strong role model for me. From how she applied her makeup to how she battled me for my future, I appreciated all she did for me. Including of course, birthing me. She remained my role model even though she rejected me when I came out as a transvestite to her. She immediately said she would pay for a psychiatrist which I rejected. Since I didn't have a mental health problem because of my gender issues. 

We never mentioned my desire to change my gender the rest of her life but even so I decided to adopt her first name as my legal middle name when I transitioned and legally changed my name. It was the biggest honor I could think of for all the things she did for me. The most relevant thing she did for me was to show me what a strong woman was and how to be one. A trait I would really need as I followed all the ups and downs of following a new gender path.

It is ironic to me, the strongest women I know like Liz or Kim have very little idea of how much they have helped me along and the most frustrating part is I don't think I can ever repay what they have done for me. 

Who knows? You might be an offspring of the very few strong women like my daughter. She had to became an ally for her trans child and was then able to take advantage of helping her child at an early age. Maybe your Mom realized your authentic gender self and became an ally rather than the cruel opposite.  If you didn't, you were forced to do what the rest of us did. Study strong women close up and do your best to join their ranks. I was fortunate enough to be able to work professionally along side several strong women who I learned from. The women seemed to combine strength and humility seamlessly to forge a successful business career. 

There are so many variations on how to become a successful strong trans woman it is difficult to mention them all. We all need to the do the best we can to force our way into a world where sometimes we are not wanted.

Trans Girl at Pride Day

 

Pride Flag image from
Jason Leung on UnSplash

Welcome to Pride Month. The only month of the year when the LGBTQ community is celebrated by a portion of the world and hated by others. Sadly, the month brings out all the gender bigots in the world. 

Early on, I had many experiences at various Pride Days with my new circle of lesbian friends. Including non lesbian friends when a meetup group my wife Liz and I were in operated a table at Cincinnati Pride for a couple of years. On occasion, I even felt as if I was the token LGBT person in the group. Regardless, I had a good time people watching all the diverse public which was walking by. I saw everything from lesbians wearing nearly nothing to cross dressers teetering painfully around in their heels and hose. Then, of course there were the drag queens who I almost felt were embarrassing to me because I did not want anyone to think I was part of their culture, I was transgender not a drag queen. My disclaimer is I have nothing against drag queens but my days in male gay bars taught me how unfortunate it was to be mistaken for a queen. 

Plus, I wanted everyone to know how important it was to me to be recognized for being a transgender woman in a sea of other diverse people. Along the way, I felt the Prides I went to started to emphasize trans people and not the drag queens who seemed to get all the attention with their flamboyant attitudes and clothing. Cincinnati in particular a couple of years ago featured a trans woman I don't remember now as their parade marshal. Plus, I started to see many more transgender women and trans men in the crowd along with groups of butch lesbians and gay male "bears". It made for an interesting experience as my preference was to be mistaken for a lipstick lesbian. Or a lesbian who wears makeup. 

Early on, back in our drinking days, Cincinnati Pride always featured an after hours "Pub Crawl" which one year even featured a bus which took us to many gay venues we had never been to before. I had always wanted to live in Cincinnati and this was a great way to experience it, without ever driving because at the end of the evening, we took an Uber to get home. A great time was had by all. 

Of course, Cincinnati wasn't the only city in the region which hosted a huge Pride celebration. Before I moved to Cincy, I lived within a half hour of Columbus, Ohio. Columbus, as I said, had a LGBTQ celebration which rivaled all the others in the state. This time I went with my new circle of lesbian friends including Liz and two others. Similar to my Pride experiences in Cincinnati, the drag queens became less of an influence and better yet, I could relax and enjoy myself. That night for some reason, we ended up in several straight bars without any problems. 

These days, Pride has really expanded. In the local metro area alone, there are four separate celebrations going on this year. Sadly, with most, after the celebrating has died down, the same old problems exist for transgender women and men in the community. Big corporations who support Pride go back into their closets and I assume wait for the push back from the gender bigots. 

At any rate, it is refreshing to see the public media support for our community. Even if it is temporary.

Enjoy your Pride month no matter where you are in your gender transition! That includes all of you who identify as cross dressers. You never know when all of that may change. It happened to me.

A Zig-Zag Trans Life

Party night at Club Diversity
Columbus, Ohio.

 Maybe I should have called this post I should have zigged when I should have zagged. Or vice-versa.

In many ways, I see all sorts of transgender women or trans men in the same situation. I started at a very young age when I would zig away from my younger brother when we were home alone and I was able to get away from him when I cross dressed by locking myself in the bathroom. Fortunately, I never needed to zag because somehow, he never caught me and told my unapproving parents.

Somehow I thought when I got older, my life would improve. The first thing I learned was my urge to be or at least cross dress as a girl my age would not magically disappear. In fact, it became stronger when I learned it was not just a phase and I began to understand my gender dysphoria better. At that point, I really had to start zigging and zagging just to maintain my fragile mental health. When I was old enough, I even began taking myself to therapists to seek out help. My only main success which came out of it was when I was diagnosed with a bi-polar depressive disorder. It had nothing to do with my gender issues at all. As far as zigging or zagging, I was able temporarily save my marriage and received my money's worth when my gender therapist told me the truth. She could do nothing about me wanting to be a woman. Overall, my desires should not be a problem and I should face my truth. Of course, I wasn't smart enough to follow her advice and resumed all the zigging and zagging. 

It took me years and years to grow up and away from my male self and settle into a life as my authentic feminine or transgender self. By this time, I was growing so tired of all the zigging and zagging I was going through. Even though the whole process was an exciting time of my gender life, I was still becoming fatigued by my life the way it was. Ironically, when I was, I settled into a long term set of appointments with a very understanding therapist. She talked me off the ledge several times and along the way helped me secure gender affirming hormones and the paper work I needed to change all the legal gender markers I could. All of a sudden, I was able to visualize myself living my dream as a full fledged transgender woman. With my daughter's help, we were even able to come up with a new legal name which would reflect my family history and would be easy for my grandkids to use.

Finally all my exhaustion came to an end and I was able to live how I pleased. All the zigging and zagging had worked. All the times I hurried to hide myself away from friends and family, were put behind me. Through it all I learned one difficult lesson. If you can somehow believe in yourself, you can live your best life. Even though you may (like me) take years and years to evolve into your authentic self, the trip is usually never boring as you lead a zig-zag trans life. Overall, it takes a ton of effort to weave your gender issues into a life of family, spouses, jobs and friends. You learn to be forever vigilant in protecting yourself and end up internalizing way too much of your life. It seems the entire process is just ingrained as part of a transgender life as breath itself. We just have to finally zig to get around it. Then zag to adopt your new life as a trans woman.

Transgender. Complex or Simple

Is the art of being transgender very complex or simple? It depends on where you are in your gender transition cycle.

Anyway you cut it, femininization is a difficult process and I assume the same is true for transgender men seeking to enter a male world. In my past, I have had conversations with a trans man friend of mine about the trials and tribulations of using the men's room. The process seemed different to me because I had always taken for granted using the men's room and ignoring everyone else in it. I experienced a much different world full of complexity when I started to use women's room. Just making sure I looked another woman in the eye was a challenge, not to mention everything else I needed to remember to survive. 

Of course the biggest complexity was fashion, hair and makeup. Since we transgender women don't have the luxury of growing up feminine, we have a ton of catching up to do. It is often more painful than fun but is something we just have to if we want to ever make it to the simplicity side of our lives. In addition, the complexity of living trans comes full circle when it comes to our emotions. Then emotions lead to our overall mental health, so it has a very deep relationship with our everyday lives. If we are fortunate, we settle into and come to an uneasy acceptance of being our authentic gender selves is the goal. 

None of the conquering of the transgender complexities came easy for me. I needed to work my way through dressing as a teenaged girl in my mind all the way to being able to present to blend in the world successfully. I needed a whole new attention to detail if I was ever going to achieve my lifetime dream of being a fulltime woman, trans or not. It took awhile but I slowly adjusted my life to a much simpler mode which included being feminine. Fashion and makeup became second nature to me as well as the difficult attempts of dealing with the public which meant mainly with other women. 

There were so many serious facets of my everyday such as being to deal with such as what my sexuality was going to be. After all, since I was living as a woman, would I be expected to have sex with men. Since I had never had sex with men, I had no idea of what to expect. Would I have any pleasure, or would I have been doing it just for my own validation. Thankfully, I did not ever have to explore the new frontiers of sex as I found I was still attracted to women and my lesbian women friends taught me it was fine to be so. So the sexuality of my life didn't change and stayed very simple.

Life is complex enough on it's own without adding in the complexities of being transgender, so we face the ups and downs of following our paths. We somehow find we are carrying pocket knives to solve a problem when all I needed was a set of pliers. It was all part of the simplification process. All along I knew women live a more complex lives than men but adjusting our existences to fit was the challenge. Ultimately, I needed to accept the challenge to save my own life. On occasion, the complexities of learning a new gender world in my femininization process became too much and I needed to try to fall back and take a break. However, breaks were short because the more I learned about being a woman, the more I wanted to learn which was aided to a large degree from finally beginning gender affirming hormones. The new hormones simplified my life even further by aligning my inner and outer selves. 

Suffering through all the complexities of transitioning genders turned out to be so worth it for me. The long journey I took led me to a much simpler world I wish I had be able to know years ago.

My Gender Clock never Stopped

Image from the Jessie Hart 
Archives. Ohio River in back
ground.

 Although it is difficult to remember my thoughts when I first viewed my girlish image in the hallway mirror growing up, I am certain I had a mixture of emotions. 

Probably, my biggest emotion was elation and from that point forward, something within clicked and a new gender clock was set and running. From then on I had a new goal and possibly a new life to consider. One of the things I needed to figure out was how deep my gender leanings were running. My young mind needed to consider was I just trying to look feminine or was there something much deeper going on. At that point, my clock dramatically entered the picture. Within a relatively short period of time, everytime I cross dressed, the "buzz" would wear off and I needed to try to sneak around and dress as a girl again and again. Something just wasn't right and my young mind was feeling it. Looking back, my clock issues with cross dressing could be easily explained away. I was in the earliest stages of considering I was transgender, which I ran from for most of my life.

As I grew older, I grew braver in my gender outlook and I began to search for ways to open my closet door and see the world. Sometimes I was successful and other times I wasn't. The successful times when I was able to negotiate the world as a novice transgender woman essentially set my gender clock forward a few minutes. When I wasn't, my clock was set back when I needed to head home and attempt to figure out what I was doing wrong. For some reason, I wasn't able to complete what was going on with my gender puzzle. On occasion, when my feedback was quick and brutal, my clock had more than it's shares of setbacks.

On the bright side, as hard as I tried to wreck my male life as I knew it, I was never successful as I searched desperately for my truth...could I really or ever live a life as a happy fulltime transgender woman. Since happiness was always difficult to define in my family growing up, I often wondered if gender was the missing ingredient for me to survive. 

Then there were the times I needed to put my gender clock on hold due to many major life changes such as going away to college and serving my time in the military. Essentially, again to survive, I needed a safe spot in the back of my head to store my clock until I could put it into use again. Thanks to several well attended Halloween parties I went to and tested out my prowess at being a novice transgender woman, I was able to set my clock forward to some sort of version of gender savings time. Because, at the same time I was watching the time, I was saving my life for the future. 

As I set the time forward, my life as a cross dresser became so intricate, I needed to seriously consider making a change. Finally, I came to the conclusion I was a woman cross dressing as a man and I needed to perceive myself in a different way. The different way involved me seriously considering if my gender clock wouldn't stop until I started to live more and more on the feminine side of life. At that point, my gender clock went into overdrive. I quickly started to develop a new life as a woman where very few people knew the old male me and I made the major decision to begin gender affirming hormones. 

Luckily, all this activity made my mental health better and my gender clock stronger. To this day, it has never stopped. Plus, if the world didn't like me, it was their problem, not mine.

In another side note, I received comments from "Sunshine Jen " and others on my health situation. So far I just found the main Cincinnati Veterans Hospital wants to take a further look at the spots on my head. So we are still in a wait and see place. Thanks for asking!

Trans Lost and Found

 

Lost woman from UnSplash

During a transgender persons' life, we experience many enormous periods of  lost and founds. 

Perhaps the biggest loss most of us face is with our families. In the transgender transition process, often many in families choose not to understand our journeys to living as our authentic selves. I am very familiar with the process when my brother decided to end all dealings with me when his family decided they did not want me at a family Thanksgiving dinner. We have not spoken since and that was over ten years ago. Needless to say, I am not happy about all I lost with my brother. As I always write is how fortunate I was when I found other family to fill the void. Between my wife's Liz's family and the acceptance I found from my daughter's in laws, I found more than I lost. 

Another major portion of our old male lives we have a tendency to lose is much of the old baggage we have to try to bring along. Interests such as mechanics and sports are stereotyped as male and are frowned upon back in the day when transsexuals were expected to go through gender realignment surgery and then move away and start a brand new life. I saw the whole process as one of the biggest obstacles of me potentially giving up everything which I earned to start all over again. I wanted in a large part to have my cake and eat it too. Could I really, transition into a feminine based life and keep most of my interests? 

I was stubborn and found out I could when destiny led me to a whole new group of friends who helped me into a new world. In essence, I found more than I ever lost, even though going through the separation from my old male life was very traumatic and stressful. More than anything, the finality of the loss off of many of my old male friends to death was tough to take, including losing my wife of course. Before the found began to flourish in my life, it seemed the losses would take over and they almost did. 

It took awhile but slowly and surely. I began to climb out of my valley and begin to climb again at the age of sixty. I shed (or lost) almost all the parts of my male life and even though I was scared of the future, I could at the least look ahead to better times ahead. Finding more than I lost became a fun goal for me as my life changed. 

I hear from so many other transgender women whose lives parallel mine. Either they continued with a skill they earned earlier in life or were able to meet others who made their gender transitions so much easier. One way or another,  the losses didn't feel as bad. Sadly, there are the other trans women and transgender men who never seem to not struggle with their loss of family or employment. It is just another example of how being transgender is everything but a choice. 

Perhaps, as being transgender continues to be better known thanks to the internet, everyone will have the chance to pick and choose with more confidence what is lost and what is found with their life. Then have a chance to cherish what is found.

Who Do You Love?

Image from Freestocks 
on UnSplash

Along my lengthy transgender journey I learned the hard way I had several love affairs. 

The main one I want to refer to is the love affair with my wife and  the one with myself. Or should I say my feminine self, since I had never really liked my old male side I never asked for. I think the worst part of having two love affairs was the guilt which came with it. I think my major problem came from how much I threw myself into the process of being feminine. If I wasn't cross dressing in front of the mirror, I was spending my time studying all the girls or women around me. I am sure along the way, my wife caught me daydreaming too much and wondered why I was not paying more attention to her and our marriage.

Along with the daydreams came the frustration I felt when my wife was able to do all the things a woman does in her life. Plus, she wouldn't let me in to her world very much and she infuriated me when she wouldn't. The entire process led me to try even harder to improve my makeup and fashion ideas since at that time I was far away from realizing looking like a woman was only the very beginning of my long gender journey. At the time also, since I was putting so much time into myself, I am sure my wife felt unloved and I am surprised we made it through twenty five years of marriage. 

Much later, after she passed away, did I learn to love myself. I learned then the fact you needed to love yourself before you can love someone else was so true. Once I started to complete my transgender transition, I did start to love myself. Or, at the least, I started to have more respect for everything I had achieved in my new world I had chosen to live in.   

It was about that time I was feeling deep frustration because of the way my life was headed. Although I did enjoy the small social group of women I was apart of, I still felt I was doomed at the age of sixty to live my life alone. I found I was still a social creature and did the best I could to change the situation. Fortunately for me, my attempts at dating when I was still a guy were miserable short term failures which led me to believe I was on the right path to living as a trans woman...even if that meant living alone. As a stop gap measure, I still had my friends to hang out with.

For the most part, my experiences in the on-line dating world were failures too. I tried every combination on the sites I could afford to list on. One month I would try "man seeking man" as a transgender woman, then the next time try "woman seeking woman". Again always being up front I was transgender. The only men who responded for the most part wanted me to dress them up as a woman or let them wear my panties, so they were out. 

There was a happy ending to my on line dating woes after sifting through tons of rejections and trash, my wife Liz responded to one of my ads. She lived fairly close to me in a city I had always loved (Cincinnati) so I was interested in knowing her more. After corresponding by text initially, I finally became brave enough to talk to her on the phone. I was so insecure of my voice. From there, our first date was a local drag show at a gay venue midway between our homes. From then on we became a couple for ten plus years until we decided to get married. 

I guess the moral to my story is, the darkest moments of your life can turn around if you continue to put yourself out there. Sure it hurts and is painful to be rejected but often there can be a light at the end of the tunnel. The sad part is, you went through a transition to find your authentic self and you discovered self love and now there is no one to share it with. 

On the positive side, I am seeing an increase in wives staying with their transgender spouses when they transition. I have the utmost respect for the love expressed by these women and wish we could all experience the same. 

Warhol Revisited

Actress Candy Darling 

Years ago, I joined several transgender friends for a short drive to The Ohio State University for an exhibit they were hosting on the works of  Andy Warhol. 

To begin with I made the decision to not wear heels like most of the other friends I went with.  Since I had some sort of an idea of where the exhibit would be on the spacious Ohio State campus the decision saved me quite a bit of pain. While my friends were crippled, I was comfortable in my flats. Probably, most importantly, I was able to enjoy most all of Warhol's varied works I saw, not just his transgender followers.  

Such as, at the time, we knew of the connections between transgender women and Warhol. Specifically the beautiful trans actress "Candy Darling" who tragically died at the age of thirty from lymphoma in New York City. Not being totally into the Warhol at the time, I really had no idea of everything the artist was into. The exhibit was massive and quickly a few of my friends seemed to be getting bored. So much, to my chagrin one of the trans women flashed the world on an escalator between floors when I was immediately behind her. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice her obscene act and no harm was done. From then on, I kept my distance since the exhibit's audience included many kids. As far as the public was concerned, they were not paying us any attention and I wanted to keep it that way.

From then on my bored trans friends decided upon leaving Warhol behind and going to a nearby gay venue. Following my experience with one of the women at the exhibit, I wondered how she would act following a couple of drinks so I did my best to again distance myself from her at the bar. Plus, I knew from my experiences in male gay venues, most of the other clientele would not be interested in her and her new genitals anyhow. 

From then on, since we had nearly a forty five minute drive home from Ohio State, we didn't stay too long and headed for home.

Far from being any sort of an art critic at all, I was surprised how interested I was in the entire collection of Warhol's work. As far as the rest of the transgender women I went with, I never saw a couple of them again and just stayed in contact with Racquel who I mention here fairly often. I always respected her for her trans journey to living an authentic life. 

If I had the chance, I would revisit Warhol again and I am sure my wife Liz would also. She is much more an appreciator of the arts than I am. Sadly today, with my mobility issues, I would struggle to enjoy his work again.    

 

Impostor Syndrome?

 

Halloween Girls Night Out
Jessie Hart Archives 

In many ways, this post is an extension of yesterdays work. 

Impostor syndrome to me means not feeling at home in a space where you worked hard to find yourself. It is especially true when it comes to transgender women and trans men. Specifically I know a couple of trans men who suffer from impostor syndrome even though they are undetectable in their adopted authentic gender presentations. I am fond of telling one of them, they have transitioned into better men than I have ever known. 

Even still, imposter syndrome is difficult to shake. My earliest problems with I.S. came when I was invited to girls nights out. First of all, I was petrified and when my fears quieted down, I could finally grasp where I was and I was living my dream. Most importantly, I did not want to turn my dream into a nightmare and did I really belong there. After all, my path to womanhood was so different than all the other cis-gender women I was with. As I said in yesterdays' post, most all of the women in the group accepted me without questioning my past. I say most, because there was one woman one night who made no secret of her dislike for me. I did my best to ignore her or on the other hand, return the favor. My largest goal was not to let her ruin my experience. Which was so so fragile to begin with.

To this day I still suffer from gender impostor syndrome on occasion. I don't know why after all these years of living as a transgender woman fulltime why I would but I do. Perhaps it is because all the years I lived through to get to this point at times seemed as if I would never make it. All the years of going home with tears in my eyes from public scorn took their toll on me. All the years of trying to know myself when the answer was right in front of me all the time. Including the days when restroom privilege's were difficult to come by also. I had the police called on me all the way to being screamed at by a transphobic woman one night in a venue where I thought I was safe in. 

It has always been my theory that genetic women (or men for that matter) are just born female or male and need to grow into being women or men. As humans we need the time and experience to grow into our mature gender selves and sadly, many never make it.

I suppose this is the main reason I still fall for the occasional bout of gender impostor syndrome. I just haven't had the chance to pay all my dues I need to pay on the bumpy journey out of my closet and entering the world as a novice transgender woman. Even though I have spent over a half century of work to arrive here.

Happily, my battle with imposter syndrome seems to be almost at an end. I now have the confidence to realize I belong in a space as much as the next woman. I just have to continue to adjust to the way women are approached in the world. It was my own personal journey to my own unique trans-womanhood and I own it totally.    

Macho Remembered

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives

 I don't think I ever considered myself as a macho guy but then again, there were times I needed to be. 

Those were the times on the football field, in the Army
or when I was at work when my macho image worked to my advantage. Mainly because I needed it to. In fact, on occasion, I came to rely upon it to do better in life. On other occasions, my main macho props were cigars and beer. 

Interestingly, when I transitioned, I discovered a new side of macho. Very early on when I was coming out as a novice transgender woman, I shied away from any contact with a man I felt was macho. I thought he would recoil at any interaction with me. Slowly but surely, I learned none of it  rarely ever happened. For the most part the majority of all men tended to ignore me  anyhow and the pressure to succeed went away. 

The biggest example I can recall is the time I developed a friendship with a big bear of a guy at one of the venue's where I was a regular. He was part of a small group of diverse people I met on a weekly basis. While I was part of the group, the guy also fell victim to an ill-fated marriage to another member of the group, a long dark haired beauty who also was a hair dresser as well as part time exotic dancer. As you most likely can imagine the marriage just wouldn't work. What happened was, the remainder of the group basically shunned him. All except me. I gave him a shoulder to lean on. What I neglected to mention was the guy owned a classic motorcycle. Even though I was never really a fan of motorcycles, I could appreciate the inherent beauty of the machine and I could pass along my ideas to him.

It wasn't long before he came into the venue and ended up setting next to me to talk. He was the first macho guy I became comfortable with but sadly he moved on too soon when he transferred to another lumber yard in a neighboring town. I never had the chance to hitch a ride on the back of his classic bike. From him I learned confidence in my dealings with all men. Including the first time I was asked out to dinner from a transgender man. 

Which leads me to yet another different attraction I always felt when I was with a group of lesbians. If you don't know, lesbians range all the way from lipstick women to super butch lesbians. For whatever reason, I never had any problem attracting to and relating to the super butch spectrums of lesbian women. I have never been shy writing about the time the super butch cornered me and strongly suggested I sing karaoke with her. I very poorly did it and took off before she had any other chances to talk to me. 

Oddly, my interactions with macho guys also extended into the male gay community. When Liz and I went to Mardi Gras several years ago we ended up in a gay bar heavily frequented by "bears" or macho bearded large men. There, as well as several Prides we went to, I had "Bears" smile and speak to me. 

Perhaps it all has to do with the aura I project. I lived such a long portion of my life attempting to survive in a male world, I still have an in-depth knowledge of the culture. Which doesn't explain the paranoia I always felt when dealing with men. Perhaps I will never lose my fear. 

Finally, what I also learned was many men who project as macho really aren't in the toxic sense and they are more secure in their masculinity. Which makes them safer for all women... Cis-gender and transgender. We need more non toxic men.

Creating a Tangled Gender Web

Image from Robert 
Anasch on UnSplash

When I look back at my life, I wonder if I knew all it would entail would I do it all again.

The only change I would make would be to have have the courage sooner to go ahead and transition from male to female. Even though it sounds like a good idea to have jumped off my gender cliff earlier, the problem became the world around me. I am seventy four and the world at large has gone through several different realities when it comes to the transgender world. Back in the day, there was very little feedback when it came to being transgender at all. Basically, there were only two categories, transvestite (or cross dresser) and/or transsexual. Neither of which felt very natural to me, Plus if you went the transsexual route, you were expected to move and leave your old life completely behind. I never thought I could do it either. I still had a daughter I loved plus enjoyed small parts of my male life.

In other words, I was stubborn to the point I thought I could still transition my own way. If indeed I ever came to the conclusion I was trans. As I procrastinated through life, I created an increasingly tangled gender web. I was trying to balance what was left of my male life along with a long term marriage with a woman I loved very much. At that point, I was trying my best to try to discover my true gender self. My web grew ever tangled the more I tried to either escape or relax and enjoy the ride. The ride included taking my transition one step at a time. I found as I struggled in my tangled web I needed more than one transition to move forward. It took the evening when I finally decided to go out to be a transgender woman rather than as a very serious cross dresser just out to escape my male world. to change my mind The difference was major in that I was striving to discover who I really was rather than just playing some sort of game I had indulged in for most of my life. Much of it was in front of a mirror. Naturally the world was much more brutal and I needed to be better.

As it turned out, I was increasingly successful in both of my lives in the main two binary genders which caused my web to be even bigger and more tangled. I ended up sneaking out behind my wife's back, which caused severe problems with my marriage. It was increasingly evident I was stuck in a battle between two women. My wife and my inner woman were both strong feminine people and the war weighed heavily on my overall mental health. Before it killed me, I needed to finally escape the tangled web I was in and begin to live as a woman. Or, as my wife told me, be man enough to be a woman. 

Once I escaped, and with the help of several key friends, I was able to start all over in a new feminine  life. Although, once I began the life, I understood the fact my new life wasn't so new after all. My inner self had been waiting and observing my life just waiting to take over. Of course after I escaped the web, she had her chance and I was living my dream life.  At the least I never led a boring life. 

   

Merry Christmas

 

Christmas Party Image
My wife Liz on right.

Or should I say Happy Holidays to those of you who may prefer it. I am not particularly religious but deeply spiritual.   

No matter how you worship, or don't, hopefully, you were able to spend your day with family, adopted or not and find satisfaction. 

Now, it's time to say how deeply grateful I am to all of you who take the time to stop your day and browse my writings on whatever internet platform you choose.

Perhaps today also you can take the opportunity to pause all the drama which normally comes with the season and discover the blessings you may have. 

As I sit here watching the "Yule Log" on TV and getting my fill of Christmas music and I have my copy of "It's a Wonderful World" cued up (along with a Christmas Story) I'm ready to enjoy a mellow Christmas Day, thinking of you all.