Gender Blockers

 

JJ Hart, picture taken after mixer.

Gender blockers often came fast and furious at me as I lived my life.

First, I needed to figure out how to camouflage my big boned testosterone poisoned body so I could present well enough in the world to get by, once I arrived there. Which in itself was a big enough hurdle to face. Then I summoned the courage to go out of my closet and into the world, I learned the hard way how much further my trip would take me and how many people would try to block me.

At the beginning, it was never easy, especially around teen girls who always seemed to figure me out and have quite the giggle at my expense. Often, it took weeks for me to recover, go back to my cross-dressing drawing board and try the world out again. Fortunately, these were the days when I was attending the cross dresser-transgender mixers and parties in nearby Columbus, Ohio. At these events, often I was able to compare myself to others around me with the same gender issues and see how I was doing with my presentation.  Also, I left the diverse parties I was going to by discovering a deeper understanding of where I possibly was going in my life. I was learning I was so much more than just a man with a hobby of looking like a woman. I kept going back to the fact that increasingly I wanted to be a woman. It was my dream.

Often, my dream was shattered by a number of outsiders. While my wife was very supportive of me as a cross dresser, she completely drew the line at any suggestion I was transgender and had nothing to do with me starting HRT. Then she would team up against me with my male self who was beginning to feel threatened with losing his world. Mainly because I was beginning to have an idea of how my gender dream could become a reality. If my male self was becoming successful in conquering all the blocks and hurdles, he ran into, why could not my feminine side do it too.

At times, my male to female transition process was allow and tedious, and at other times fast and exciting. Frustration would set in when I would try to spend three days a week concentrating on my transfeminine side of life, only to have to revert back to my old male side the remainder of the week. Including my job which was male dominated. The whole back and forth gender life destroyed my fragile mental health and made my life hell, except when I was in my transgender phase. I had too many plates in the air which I was trying to keep spinning. Sort of like trying to keep several girlfriends happy at once.

I could finally take it no longer and needed to try to start removing my roadblocks one at a time. I began with the social roadblock. Could I actually begin to carve out a brand-new life as a transgender woman where no one knew of my past. To my surprise, I found I could. Probably because when I got past the point of thinking I was trying to fool anyone into thinking I was a cisgender woman, I just became me, and I was good enough not to scare anyone away.  One roadblock cleared. The next thing I needed to figure out was how I was going to support myself. Because transitioning on the job was out of the question, I needed to find a different answer. I took so long to do it, the problem solved itself when I got close to a point where I could take an early Social Security retirement and then sell the many collectibles my late wife and I had collected to survive.

With all the gender blockers to my dream out of the way, I needed to push my own feminine self-improvement program ahead. It meant seeking out an understanding doctor to prescribe me gender affirming hormones. When I did, I was able to see and sense a noticeable difference in my external and internal self. My skin softened and my hair grew so I could use less makeup and leave my wigs behind for good. All of which helped me to present better in public. Internally, I could not believe all the changes HRT was helping me with. I was more emotional as my world softened. For the first time in my life, I could cry tears of sadness and even joy.

From then on, I had paid all my dues and was ready to settle into the dream life I never thought I could obtain.

Finally, as a serious side note, it is 9-11, never forget.

Change was Coming

 

JJ Hart

As I grew into myself, I learned the truth. Change was coming if I liked it or not.

Change was one of the reasons I loved the fall season so much. As the weather cooled off and football came on, I could go through my feminine wardrobe and see what I could keep and what had to be discarded. Plus, I can’t forget Halloween which of course is the cross dressers’ national holiday in October.

Sadly, as the leaves began to change and fall from the trees, the whole time was bittersweet for me. The worst fall I could remember was when I was on a six-month delay to join the Army and I was working at a small radio station in Bowling Green, Ohio. If you are not familiar with that part of northwest Ohio, it is very flat to the point that any hills are manmade. One night, I was just driving around feeling sorry for myself as I looked ahead to Army basic training and I was so sad as the leaves blew in front of me. If I could have cried, I would have, but tears were nearly impossible for me in my male pre-HRT days. Similar to everything else in those days, I internalized my feelings and tried to move on as deep down I knew change had to happen.

During that time, I almost outed myself to my roommates in the apartment I was staying in until I left for basic. On one trip home, I brought back one of my favorite outfits along with a wig and makeup to Bowling Green. One day when I left, I assumed I had hidden my belongings well enough to not be discovered but I was wrong, and one night when I was preparing to surprise a male visitor to the apartment, after I went to work of shaving my legs and face, I checked for my clothes, and they were gone. I certainly thought, for a while change was coming then it was not. No one said a word to me and very soon, I was off to play soldier anyway so nothing else mattered.

Back in those Vietnam War days, basic training was an intense team building experience when a few drill sergeants needed to try to get a bunch of raw recruits ready for possible combat. During this time, the only way I could keep my girl self-alive was to bury her deeply in my subconscious mind, So, when we were on long forced marches around Ft. Knox, I made sure I thought about the well-being of my girl and the changes we would go through after my military service was finished.

Looking back at the three years I served; the time now seems like a blur and when I was discharged, I came really close to making a big change then by picking my future wife up at the airport cross dressed as my transfeminine self. I even went as far as hinting as such when I wrote her a letter. (Remember those?) Again, my male self-won out and I decided not to, and my big change had to go back to coming again. I did not have the courage yet to face my gender truth and took the easy way out and went back to accepting all the male privileges I had earned.

It was not until I became a parent and had reached my thirties did change to me become a real priority. I will always remember my thirtieth birthday being my hardest because I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do with my life. Sure, I had employment and financial issues to be aware of but again the underlying big elephant in the room was what changes would have to happen with my gender. I knew it was never going to be easy to present well as a woman, and I needed to work extra hard to earn whatever passing grades I could achieve in the public’s eye. Once I made the mental changes to proceed, much of my work became cosmetic in nature.

I was able to move the elephant aside and set about learning what it would take me to really live life as a transgender woman and not just be the “Pretty, pretty princess” my second wife called me. As change set in, I learned very few trans women or women at all live the life of a princess and I had a lot of work to do to put my male life behind me.

The last major change I put myself through was the hormonal one when I started gender affirming hormones. The HRT allowed me to sync up my external and internal selves and live a more productive life as a transfeminine person.

Planting the Gender Seeds

 

Image from Sebastian
Demitro on UnSplash.  

After my initial experiments with my mom’s clothes, I blamed the cross dressing and started to plant my gender seeds, as I wanted to be feminine all the time. Sadly, for me, it took me decades to realize the seeds were already planted and were growing. All along, I had an idea that was the case, but I was afraid to do anything about it. Mainly, because I had no one to turn to for understanding. The times were very dark in the 1950’s when I was growing up for any understanding of gender issues at all. As I always mention too, I grew up as the oldest son in a male dominated family, so my goals were set for me as a boy.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I had served my time in the military that I was able to water my gender seeds and watch them grow. My first realization I could come out of my gender closet came in the final months of my time in Germany in the Army when I went to a Halloween party thrown by the nearby hospital staff dressed completely as a woman with shaved legs and all. The biggest moment came weeks later when I admitted to my closest friends, my costume was not a costume at all. I loved to dress as a woman and was a transvestite as we were called back then. In the 1970’s.

The best part was, my friends could care less and more importantly, the higher up’s in the Army never found out and I was honorably discharged after my three years were up on time with no problems. Coming out to my friends really set me up for success in growing more and diverse gender seeds…until my mom came along and tried to kill them. I was emboldened by my recent success in coming out and one night I decided to tell her. She responded the expected way with shock and the added offer of paying for a trip to a psychiatrist. From there, the discussion rapidly ended, never to be brought up again for the rest of her life. I knew deep down I was not crazy and did not need a mental health professional to tell me I was.

With that knowledge, my gender seeds continued to develop, even though they were in the darkness of my closet for the most part. Until I could stand it no longer, the only times I ventured out in public as a novice transgender woman was the occasional Halloween party and business trip I went on. Somehow, I was able to smuggle my feminine wardrobe, wig, and makeup past my wife and enjoy a night out on the town when I arrived there. For the most part, the experiences I went through helped me to nourish my transgender seeds and come away with a better understanding of where I fit into the world as a transfeminine person.

Even though I was becoming more successful in chasing my dream to ever live as a trans woman, I kept finding I had a long way to go. In order to see my seeds finally bloom, I needed to have the cisgender alpha females I encountered to accept me. They closely examined me and let me in to play in the girl’s sandbox. To get there, I needed to tend to my seeds which were still blooming. The mistakes I made all centered around when I was overconfident about where I was headed and I got burnt. Fortunately, I was able to reach down and pick one of my flowers and offer it as a peace offering. The flower was enough to move my life along.

My garden proved to me to be worth all the effort I put into it. All the tears I suffered early on when I went out into the world as a transfeminine person were used to water my seeds and watch them grow. Plus, all the time and effort I put into learning the makeup arts after looking like a clown in drag came back to help me. I took the time also to plant diverse seeds which helped me when I encountered difficult situations. Which I never knew where and when they were coming from.

It turned out that I never had much of a green thumb in my male life, but a flourishing trans thumb when it counted the most. It was quite the discovery for me when I discovered how layered and complex the women’s world I was in. I also benefited from the careful job I did of planting and protecting my young seeds. On occasion, I regret the time it took them to grow, but in many ways, I was the prisoner of when I grew up in the dark days in the pre-internet era. But taking the extra time to become strong and thrive in my new life was worth it. As I said, the seeds were there all along, all I needed to do was nourish them. 

 

 

Trans Girl Panic

Transfeminine person from 
the Baliente Agency
on UnSplash.

As I transitioned from male to female, I found myself in over my head more times than I can recall. But before I get started on them, I would like to wish my daughter a happy birthday. She has always been one of my biggest support mechanisms (ally), and I love her very much.

As I was initially venturing out of my gender closet for the first time, my daughter quite literally put me in over my head when she gifted me a visit to her up-scale hair salon she was a regular at. I will never forget the complete panic I went through as I had to walk a line of at least ten women in chairs getting their hair done as I made it to my stylist I was meeting for the first time. I needed to calm down and look around until I began to realize what women know about getting their hair styled. It is a gender affirming experience and there was enough estrogen in the room to help my minimal Estradiol dosage along. As my panic subsided, I began not to care what the other women thought of me, and I relaxed.

It turned out, my first trip to the hair salon was just the beginning of a lifetime full of panic filled experiences. Many of which were brought about by my own ignorance. Such as the night my daughter invited me along to join her women friends in Dayton, Ohio at a well-known drag show. The only problem was, I couldn’t let on I was her parent to several of the other women because my daughter did not know how they would react. No pressure, right? I did manage to talk only when I was talked to and enjoy the show from a well-known drag troupe which had raised well over a million dollars to AIDS research. By the end of the evening, I was confident I had done nothing to embarrass my daughter, which was my goal, and I calmed down.

Later on, as I branched out on my own, I found myself in plenty of embarrassing situations I brought about on my own. I went through ill-advised times when my water balloon breast forms exploded on their own and I needed to head quickly to the bathroom to try to repair the damage. Luckily, no one else seemed to notice the mess I made before I was able to pay my tab and leave. From then on, I made sure I purchased silicone breast forms and did away with the ill-fated balloons forever, so I did not have to worry at a time when I had so much else going on. I was busy trying to make the transition from male to transgender woman, so any unwanted disasters were not welcome.

Such as the time I pulled a very public slip and fall when I was wearing my new high heeled boots, I was so proud of. I learned fashion needed to take a back seat for me when the weather was bad. The only good thing I can say about the panic I was experiencing was it was teaching me valuable lessons. I learned when I entered a venue, all eyes were not on me, and I was OK to simply stand up straight and find my seat unless there was a hostess present.

The moral to my story is I had to be resilient and not collapse when feminine panic set in and I was completely out of my old environment as a man. All my previous escape mechanisms were stripped away, and I needed to form new ones. I even learned to use fear as a motivator when I began to change my mindset that I was a cross dresser to I was a transgender woman. I felt if I could make it through another major change in my life during my second transition, I could make it through anything, and my confidence began to soar. Also, I found I began to put my biggest fear behind me, and I could look another woman in the eye and communicate one on one. For once, I was free to completely explore the world as a new transfeminine person.

I used all my learning experiences as a trans woman wisely (including the mistakes) to calm my panic and move forward towards my impossible dream. As my mistakes began to fade into my past, so did my panic which helped me to be more efficient in the public’s eye. Having a clear head in a new world is so important to moving ahead. And maybe more importantly, deciding where I wanted to go as a transgender woman.

 

 

The Same Old Road

Image from Danijel Skabic
on UnSplash. 

Quite early in life, I grew tired of the same old gender path I was on. Although I could not exactly put a finger on what was wrong with me, I knew something was. What is that definition of insanity? When you do something over and over again and have the same results, I think it is.

Also quite early, I thought I was the crazy one because of my deep-seated desire to be a girl when I was being forced into being a boy from birth. Little did I know, I was destined to become a late gender transitioner in life and must deal with my own form of insanity for fifty years, before I had the courage to do something about it and get off the same old gender road I was on.

As I traveled, it seemed like I was getting better than ever at finding every bump, curve and pothole along the way. Possibly, I was attempting to make my male to female journey even harder, just to prove I could do it. As I like to say, my gender workbook was blank and everyone around me could tell it. Plus, when I first began to get serious about trying out my feminine self in the world, the only outlet I had were the annual Halloween parties I went to. Early on I tried to dress sexy/trashy and then after a couple of years built myself up to trying to present as a cisgender woman at the party. Which surprisingly I was able to do way back when I was still into Halloween as my outlet from the same old gender road.

The best part was, I was able to locate side roads along the way as I was able to present better in the world as a transgender woman. The side roads enabled me to explore different rabbit holes and dead ends to see if I could survive in a new exciting environment. When I had the courage to do it, the road actually smoothed out for me, and I enjoyed myself more than I could ever dreamed I could. Even with all new gender euphoria I was experiencing, I still had to be more careful than ever that I did not crash and burn my male life…yet. I still needed him and what he could provide such as all the male privileges he had worked so hard to earn.

One way or another, I was definitely not on the same old road as I continued to experiment with living as a transfeminine person. I made mini bucket lists of the new things I needed to accomplish each day as a transgender woman and set out to do them. The list could be as small as working on a more feminine walk, all the way to going to a new venue I had never been to before as a trans woman. More often than not, I found the world accepted me as just another woman and did not really care. The whole experience was a confidence booster and enabled me to travel roads which were not the same old ones I was experiencing as a man. One of the main road twists I always mention was when I was able to escape the gay venues I was going to and finding other lesbian or straight venues which supported me.

Suddenly, I was having so much fun choosing all the new roads I found, I had a difficult time deciding where I was going to go. I never thought I was any good at road building until those exciting days when I was finding myself in the world. Some nights, I even felt like I was on some sort of a feminine interstate highway with all the interaction I was having with cisgender women I ran into. Sadly, I finally needed to slow down before I wrecked and burnt myself out, but not before I experienced more than I ever thought I could. My dream life was right down the road, if I could just reach it. I stopped, looked around and I found, all those years thinking I was crazy because of my gender issues were wrong, and I should have listened to myself long ago and I would not have to gone down all the rabbit holes I went down and then being stopped at dead end streets to prove to myself I was still the man I never was.

I was never good at auto mechanics as a man, and it showed when I tried to keep driving down the same old gender roads. As a transgender woman, I was able to take the pressure off driving down the same old roads.