Can You Ever Enjoy the Ride?

 

Image from A. C. on UnSplash.

Lately, it has occurred to me how often I did not pause to enjoy my gender journey.

Perhaps it was because for the longest time I experienced very little gender euphoria for two reasons. The main reason was, I was never raised to feel any joy in my life. Nothing was ever good enough. So, when I entered the world as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman, life was very tough. The other main reason was, I was approaching my life from the exact wrong way. Deep down I knew when my “buzz” went away so soon from merely dressing up in feminine clothes in front of the mirror, I was doing something wrong. I did not know then my gender issues ran much deeper than just a love of fashion and makeup.

Before I knew it, I was in a vicious gender circle in my life when I needed to dress up rather than wanted to. There was a huge difference. When I needed to cross-dress, I had the tendency to take more chances and jeopardize my life as I knew it because I knew there was no way my parents would ever understand how their son was really their daughter. Plus, there were many other distractions too, such as not being able to afford my own wig until I was well into my college years. I hated running around with a towel on my head fantasizing that I had a full head of luxurious girls’ hair.

There was always something I was reaching for which ruined my present enjoyment. Such as a better dress, shoes or makeup which could help me look better as I had neared an impossible ideal of attractiveness. Facing my reality of appearance when the only feedback I had was in the mirror. As we all know, the mirror has a tendency to lie to you if you are not careful, and I needed a way to test my presentation as a transfeminine person in the public’s eye. Easier said than done, when I was busy living my own down low in a male life I was frustrated to be in anyhow.

Very quickly, I learned the mirror had been lying to me as I was rejected by the public. To succeed with my dream, I needed to pause my life and attempt to find out why I was having all the problems I was having. Almost immediately, I determined I needed to get my male self out of the way. He was dictating how my fashion presented itself and it was all wrong. For any number of reasons trying to dress sexy in the wrong places was getting me into trouble. My guy was dressing me for other guys when I should have been dressing for other women. Once I figured out, I was not a teen aged girl, my public life became decidedly better.

So much better, I was even able to enjoy several of the solo nights out I went on to be by myself. Even though I knew I was a transgender woman, I was just being me, and the public (amazingly enough) was accepting it also. My mirror even came back into play, and I used it more often in places such as women’s rooms to adjust my hair and makeup.

Life then began to roll on very fast. All the way to the point I was having a difficult time keeping up. I was learning so much about the feminine side of life, it was too late to turn back then and more and more, I was discovering how much I loved this new side of life I had always dreamed of.

Also, my life was reaching a new level of complexity as I was shutting down the male side and giving full access to my female side who had waited so long to be free. My problem was I was still trying to live part time in both genders as I transitioned, and I was afraid of what would happen when I lost all my male privileges. Finally, my mental health could take it no longer and I had to jump off the gender cliff I have written about.

As I jumped, the ride down was scary but fun in its own way, not unlike a big rollercoaster at an amusement park, the ride up in many ways was worth the ride down. All the fear and terror I had experienced when I had come out to a close family disappeared when I was accepted by my daughter and my wife Liz and a warm set of relief sat in. I could not wait until I could get back in public and live my true existence out of the closet. I was creating my own universe for a change and not relying on someone else to do it.

I began to build my own female privilege and thrive in it. It continues till this day and is the topic for another day. In the meantime, I often try to pause my life and enjoy where I am in my life.

 

 

Emerging as Your True Self

 

Image from JC Gellidon 
on UnSplash. 

Emerging as your true self after a lifelong gender struggle is often very difficult.

It starts very early in life when you discover you are in the wrong place at the right time, or the right place at the wrong time. Whatever the case, your struggle to find yourself begins. In my case I began with explorations into my mom’s clothing which lasted until I could no longer fit into any of her clothes. If you had suggested to me my final emergence into the world would take as long as it did, I would not have believed you. It was a long journey until I finally took the transition step to live as a full-time transfeminine person at the age of sixty.

Some of you may ask why I waited so long or since I did, why couldn’t I just wait for it a little longer into my senior years. On the other hand, I felt if I did not do it then, I would never have the chance. So, I pulled the plug on my old male life and emerged new as a transgender woman. It was never easy, but I made it.

Others may ask why I never opted for any gender surgeries of any sort. I did not because I was on the borderline to being able to present well enough as a woman to get by and I did not have the insurance or the finances to do it. Plus, I was superstitious about having any operations on my body since to this day the only surgery I have ever done was getting my tonsils taken out. I decided to set my gender dysphoria aside and work with what I had or pass out of sheer willpower as a transgender woman friend once told me.

I can’t tell you how many times my willpower was challenged before I made it to the point of emergence in the world. The seemingly endless times I was sent home in tears when my cross-dressing plans went wrong. Fortunately, I was stubborn and kept on moving towards my dream of possibly living fulltime as a woman. I replaced my willpower with confidence since in most cases, I was following my path in the most difficult way possible, without the help of any facial feminization surgeries. For the most part, makeup art was my way around having no expensive, painful operations until I could begin gender affirming hormones.

For me, the hormones worked miracles inside and out. Outwardly, my skin softened along with my facial angles of manhood, and I could use less makeup. Also, on the plus side, my hair grew quickly and fully since I inherited no male pattern baldness which made wearing any sort of a wig a thing of the past for me. What really changed was my overall view of the world. Suddenly, my view softened as my senses heightened. I felt emotions such as I had never felt before, and I learned how women complained they were always cold (except during menopause) because I was in my second puberty and cold all the time.

During this time, emergence became a slippery slide for me. The HRT hormones were quickly making it impossible to go back to my male life because I did not want to. Why would I want to trade in all the work I put in to travel my long gender path for anything? I finally gave up on all the resistance I was putting into retaining any of a life as a male I never really wanted. The only remaining reason turned out to be me losing all the white male privileges I had worked so hard to gain. For that reason, I put off emerging and attempted to briefly live a portion of my life in both binary genders. Something I would strongly suggest not doing. For me, trying it wrecked my mental health and nearly my life. My male side was hanging on and very materialistic while my female side was discovering a magical life is the best way I can describe it. Afterall, I could see my best-case dream life within reach.

Through it all, I think being approved by a doctor for gender affirming hormones was the biggest moment of my emergence as a fulltime transgender woman. With the help, I was able to carve out a new life and put the old one aside. I was able to see a new world with the help of new friends who never knew the old me. The essence of emergence when someone else could enjoy the company of my new feminine self. HRT was just a kick start to make it to where I wanted to be. I needed to take it from there and make my emergence complete.