How Halloween Benefitted Me

 

Image from Jennifer Marquez
on UnSplash. 

In the recent past, I have written a couple of stories about my Halloween experiences but there were more which taught me valuable lessons about the possibility of following my gender path.

Such as the time I was able to set up a training trip down to my company’s headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky to coincide with my favorite time of the year which was Halloween. In those days, the fashion rage was very much into fake leather, and I could not wait to show off my new faux leather mini skirt and matching top at a Halloween party. To get ready for the trip from Ohio to Kentucky I needed to find private time away from my wife to pack two sets of clothes. One for my male presentation at the company headquarters and another for my so called “costume.” Somehow, I was able to find room in my suitcase for makeup and a wig, and I was ready to go. The lessons I learned on that trip were that I could indeed pack effectively for two genders.

Once I arrived in Lexington, the next problem I faced was figuring out where I was going to go to show off my new “costume” in public for the first time. Luckily, the hotel I was staying in had several different publications in the lobby I could look at to see if I could find any parties that may be close by. I did, and then had to try to find them, after I was cross-dressed and ready to go. I was nervous as I put on the only pair of black panty hose I brought with me and put on the padding I needed to work with to provide a feminine figure. Next came my makeup and a resurrection of my wig following its time in my suitcase put on my heels and I was nervous and ready to go.

Probably, the biggest challenge I was going to face was going from my room to the elevator then worrying about facing anyone else as I went down to the hotel lobby. I should not have worried because I did not see another person until I arrived at the entrance and the ones I did act like I was not even there. Then, I was off to find the venue I was looking for in a city I was not familiar with at all. Back in those days, there was not such an invention as a GPS to help me along but somehow, I did find the first big venue I was looking for. Lesson learned. Try to find out where you are going before you get there. On the other hand, I had a powerful motivation to get out of my closet and see if I could survive in a straight world of Halloween party goers as a novice trans woman.

When I arrived at the entrance to the venue, they were checking identification at the door and surprisingly, no one reacted to the person in costume as a woman with the obviously male I.D. My hand was stamped and in I went to an unknown experience which might change my life as all the other Halloween experiences had done.

As I walked in, the venue was already packed, and I needed to find my way to the bar for a drink and the closest route was across the dance floor. I took a chance and made my way through the couples dancing and up to the bar. Once I ordered my drink and was served, I started back to a relatively uncrowded part of the club to enjoy people watching along with the feel of my “costume.” It was then that I learned the lesson of what it was like to be a ciswoman in a crowded venue with potentially toxic cismen who could not keep their hands off of my rear. I have never been pinched and touched so much in my life as I made my way back to one of the rare open seats I could find. Lesson learned again as I headed off to another venue to experience more of my evening before it was time to return to my hotel in my faux leather outfit.

I did find one other place which was having a party, so I decided to make it a night by stopping in there also. The second venue on was far less crowded and mellow than the first one and I was relaxed and had the confidence from my first experience to go right in. I was met by a friendly checker at the entrance and again no reference was made to my male identification which was probably due to the magic of it being Halloween.

One thing I did not do was stick around in either place for their costume contest because I was so insecure about myself. I did wonder if I did join the contest and somehow won if all the men who were fondling me would have been properly shamed but probably not. All they pinched was foam rubber anyhow and I went on my way with another powerful lesson learned about how ciswomen are really treated. I wondered if I had not been wearing any protective padding would I have bruised the next day.

The biggest problem I had was coming down off of my gender euphoria rush to effectively teach the company management classes I was supposed to teach. I did not make the trip to Lexington very often and was never able to spend a Halloween evening there again. When I went, I was often stuck going out with groups of other male managers to strip clubs where I did not really want to go. While I admired good female bodies, I never had the urge to go any farther. I was always the first to leave the strip clubs which made for a clearer head in the morning from no alcoholic hangover.

Without the benefits of many Halloween experiences, I am sure eventually I would have made it to my goal of living a fulltime transfeminine life, but it would have taken me longer. I would have not had the “A-Ha” moments I had from Halloween when I was able to see why women are able to exist in the world the way they do, and I will never forget the lessons I learned from my favorite holiday.

 

 

 

 

 

Living Rent Free in my Head

 

JJ Hart. First Beauty Salon
Image

Living rent free in my head quickly became the motto of my feminine self.

It all began when I was very young exploring my mom’s clothes and makeup then expanded from there. Very early on, I gladly gave up the space in my head to a new and exciting person. Anything to escape the unwanted male prison I was living in. I did not like the day-to-day life I was forced to live as a male but could do nothing about it.

In the meantime, I was busy making space in my closet for a new person who was very demanding. She had to have clothes, and makeup to the best of my ability. And the problem was, I had to hide all of her from my family and friends because discovery would have been disastrous. As back in those days, any sort of gender dysphoria was considered a mental health issue. A place I certainly did not want to go.

As I matured into a more established cross dresser, there were several times when my closet experienced severe ups and downs when I needed to expand or limit the size and space I was working with. Perhaps, along the way, you have heard me refer to the term “purging” which means to throw away all your feminine items and resolve to go back to living a stress-free male life. For me at least, it never worked and just caused me to develop more stress later when I did not take care of the other inhabitant who was living rent free in my head. Always after purging, I found myself coming back stronger and better than ever when I remodeled my small closet into a more organized version to who I really was.

Who I really was became a very difficult answer for me to consider in my formative years coming out of the closet. Basically, the only constant I knew was I felt very natural when I was in my feminine mode and I felt a much deeper draw to it than just the thrill of wearing woman’s clothes. I did not know how I would get to a more transfeminine experience but just knew I needed to try. The problem was my male life kept getting in the way by throwing up obstacles such as military duty, marriage and jobs in my way. As much as I was fond of the woman living rent free, she was incapable of paying any of the bills which were coming my way after I got out of college and the Army.

Until I could go further in my feminine explorations, and hard as it was for me to do, I just had to back off most all I was trying to do for my ever-demanding transgender self. Once the term became popular and I could read up on it, the more trans made sense to me. So, I slapped the label on my other person living rent free in my head as it made sense to me and made me come closer to understanding the person I really was. As some wise person once said, you need to understand the problem before you can do anything about it. But before I could go any further, I needed to research what exactly I was getting into if I entered the world of ciswomen everywhere.

My world of exploration began in gay venues where I was just treated as another drag queen and even discriminated against on occasion. I quickly said enough was enough and I gathered my courage to attempt to establish myself as a regular in a few of the straight venues I had visited regularly as a man. I always had wondered when I was male what it would be like to go in several places, I was a regular in as a woman and finally I got the chances to try. I was overjoyed when I was successful in my attempts and quickly found myself in a world I had only dreamed of.

When I was doing all of this, I pretty much left my old closet behind completely as I stepped out into the bright lights of the world. After I accepted the fact, I would never be accepted in the world as a ciswoman, I set out to prove I could make it as a woman on my own terms and I did. I discovered I just had to live with my truth and most of the world would just be curious about me or just not care. All I was looking for was an even break for my rent-free person, and she got it. In fact, she got more than she ever bargained for as in a relatively short period of time, she was carving out an entirely new life as a transgender woman. My new woman friends knew I came from a different place than them but did not care.

It was a joyous occasion as all of them helped me to close my old closet for good and what about that rent-free person that lived there? She took over my life, saved the good through out the bad and overall constructed a new life for me that I had never dreamed of. As I suspected, she was not a squatter in my closet after all, she was the real deal all long and all the attention she demanded was paid back to me totally when the time came for pay back. In addition, she was nice and gentle about my male to female femininization project by telling me I had it all wrong. I was a woman hiding as a man for most of my life.

I was stubborn and shame on me for not realizing and reacting to my truth for as long as I did. But once my person in the closet took over with the addition of a few HRT gender affirming hormones, she was on her way to a freedom she would never have to give up again.

Hey you! Thanks for reading along and or commenting. Anything you do is appreciated and I hope if you are stuck in your closet, you can find your way out too.

 

Peeling Back my Gender Layers

 

JJ Hart with "Brutus Buckeye"
In the Ohio State Student
Union. 

Following the awakening I received from the numerous Halloween parties I went to “costumed” as my authentic feminine self, I needed to determine the complex path I would take so I could survive in the world.

What I ended up deciding on was a layered effect as I learned the ropes of the feminine universe I had only dreamed of living in. Like many of you, I started slowly with trips to my closet’s mirror, cross-dressed as what I thought was a pretty girl. In essence, the mirror provided me with my first layer to build from. Since putting on mom’s clothes was a relatively easy thing to do, I needed to concentrate on wearing her makeup which was not. No matter how hard I tried at applying makeup, I somehow ended up looking like a rodeo clown in drag. Adding this layer of expertise to my attempts to be pretty were intimidating before I started to see improvement.

Once I started to believe I had mastered the makeup arts part of my new life, I needed to add a new layer and set forth to do more about doing what I could to counteract the testosterone poisoning of my recent puberty. Since there was nothing, I could do about certain aspects of my body, I needed to do better in hiding them to the world when I started to leave the closet and explore. Those were the days of crash dieting and hunting through many thrift stores for just the right fashion item I could not live without. Mirror worship came back to help me during this layer of my life when I could honestly tell myself if an article of clothing really flattered me or not. I needed to get out of my teen cross-dressing fashion years and into a more realistic look I needed to blend in with ciswomen everywhere.

Blending in brought a whole new layer to my gender existence. To my relief, women had more of a tendency to embrace who I was becoming in their world, while cismen everywhere shunned me for leaving their club.  It all was an extension of my life as a man because I had never had much of a liking being around other men anyhow. I guess it all was a precursor to the person I was destined to become as a transgender woman. Probably, more than anything else, the Halloween parties I learned from helped me to be a success during this layer of my life when I was allowed to learn the basic differences between the two main binary genders. And landing squarely in the middle of both until I decided once and for all which direction my life would take. Should I take the easy way out and stay a very serious cross-dresser or follow my instincts and achieve my dream of living a transfeminine life.

To do so, I would have to add layer upon layer to my life by taking the old male building blocks I had used to get me by and use them as a foundation to build a better future. Little did I know what I was getting myself into as I was going past the princess-appearing layer of my life. For once, I was going to have to not listen to what my parents said about me when I approached any project I took on. To put it bluntly, they always told me I “half-assed” everything that I did just to get by. To advance through the gender layers that I wanted to, I knew I could not take the old approach to life I had always taken or I simply would not make it to my dream. It suddenly looked as if it was getting closer and closer to becoming a reality.

Before I just set all the male privileges I had learned aside, I needed to see what I was getting myself into. What would I really face as a fulltime trans woman if I ever decided to cross the gender border. I was selfish and wanted to see if I could peel back all the diverse patterns of life a ciswoman goes through before I went down her path. I was lucky in that all the right gender doors opened for me as I learned the ropes of being a woman in a supposed male dominated society. To do it, I needed to learn to leave the male domination behind me and learn a whole new society which existed for and about women. But I needed to earn my way in from all the gatekeepers in my way. I learned it was not going to be easy.

It did not help that initially I was so timid when I presented myself the keepers of the feminine world and it took me the “two C’s” to overcome it. The “two C’s” I speak of are courage and confidence. I needed the courage to think I was ready for my next gender layer and the confidence to do it. Somehow, I needed to get back out in society and prove myself all over again and carve out a totally new life as a trans woman for myself. I needed to keep reminding myself that yes, I was different, but what was wrong with that. I would never be a ciswoman but my socialization as a woman came from a whole different world you would not understand unless you lived it. Surprisingly, the gatekeepers let me in and I decided right then that HRT or gender affirming hormones should be in my future to provide a major kick forward in my transition femininization journey. I had done most of the hard work peeling back the layers I needed to learn if I wanted to do it and now it was time to take the easy hormonal way towards my future. I say easy because my body took to the hormones like what took you so long and all the changes seemed so natural.

The main thing I learned along my gender path was the number of layers I would have to peel back to achieve my goal. I knew going into it that nothing would be easy, but nothing prepared me for what I was about to face. Once I did face my reality that I was feminine all along, it was clear sailing to my dreams.

As always, thank you very much for reading along and I hope my experiences can help you along your gender paths. Comments are always appreciated.

 

A Halloween Political Decision

Image from Nice M Nshuti
on UnSplash

This is the second in my month-long series of Halloween decisions I made during and after the parties I went to.

This party took place in a wonderfully restored Victorian Mansion in my hometown where I worked as a radio disc jockey. Just to get an invitation was impressive to me as I struggled to come up with a “costume” to wear. Ironically, by this time in my life I had almost went full circle in my choices of what I was going to wear. I had long since gone from my slutty/trashy woman look all the way to a more moderate less clownish woman with my “costume.” I could still try to be sexy without going overboard as most ciswomen around me were doing on Halloween.

I finally decided to go full circle and see if I could wear something so authentic that the normal party person would not recognize me as a guy at all. I thought it would be the ultimate chance to test how far I had come as a transgender woman in the world on a low risk-high reward Halloween evening. Once again, my wife did not want to go with me, so I ended up with the news girl at the radio station as my companion for the evening.

I discovered I was off to a good start as my companion for the evening marveled at my “costume.” I chose to be a professional woman, just getting off from work and coming to the party to test my newfound freedom in the world. For at least one night.

When we arrived and found a parking place, I loved how my heels clicked up the sidewalk as my “date asked me how long I had practiced in the heels to wear them as well as I did. I just told her longer than it took me to shave my legs and apply my own makeup, so she left me alone after that. As far as asking any further questions about my skills dressing as a woman. Fortunately, it was a beautiful warm evening for Ohio in October, so I did not have to worry about any sort of jacket, sweater or coat as we made our way up to the mansion’s front door. The whole house was beautifully decorated for Halloween, complete with a vintage wooden coffin complete with a real skeleton.

I was met at the door by the hosts for the evening who like my “date” marveled at my male to female transformation. With the good start I was having, I immediately started to relax in my new surroundings and enjoy looking at the other costumed visitors. I was just about ignored as I did manage to blend in as a professional woman until later in the evening when a couple arrived and started to talk to us. It was just after a little bit of conversation that they told me, they did not recognize me as a man at all, and my “costume” had worked. My mind was shooting fireworks of joy when they told me that and it even went on to new heights when they even asked me to leave with them and go to a different party.

By this time, I had recognized the couple who were very active in politics and was on their way to Washington due to a recent election victory. So at least I knew who I was dealing with and if it had been just up to me, I would have said yes and went to the other party with them. But it was not just up to me since I had driven and I needed to get my “date” back home, so I had to sadly make a split-second decision and say no. Either way, I was very flattered by the offer and who knows what I would have encountered as my feminine self at the other party. We stayed on at the original party for a while had a couple more drinks and headed back to the house where I needed to reluctantly return to my old male life for what I thought was going to be another year. Always maintaining the “what if” ideas if I had continued with the politician and his wife, Maybe I could have gone to Washington also.

Another good thing that happened with the Halloween party I went to was, it was the first time that I ever thought/proved I could make it in the world as my true feminine self. Plus, I knew I could not wait another year for Halloween to roll around for me to live as a novice transgender woman again. If I had made it one night as a professional woman in the world, there was no reason I could not do it again. I just had to take matters into my own hands and do something about my gender dysphoria which was helping to wreck my mental health.

The evening was also more proof I had done the right thing for a change when it came to testing the strength of my male to female femininization project. I found I was coming along faster than I thought and I could never go back to living the totally male life I had before I tested the gender waters at the Halloween parties I went to as a cross-dresser. It was as if I had found a giant search light on my gender path and suddenly, my life made more sense. It was so much deeper than anything I thought it could be.

That is why not going out with the politician and his wife maybe cost me a chance at more fun and even enlightenment about who I really was. But on the other hand, I did the right thing by my wife and my date if she did not want to go early and end my evening. I felt better about it in the years to come. Even though, I wonder what would have happened if I had made the other decision. Most likely nothing and the memories are better than the actual experience.

Another reason Halloween will forever occupy a special place in my soul and there were several other evenings I will try to pass along before the actual holiday. Thanks for reading along and commenting!

 

  

The Season to Party as Your Feminine Self

JJ Hart
Cincinnati Witches Ball

It’s October, the season to party as your feminine self with no repercussions if you are lucky and have the chance.

In my case, Halloween parties that I gathered the courage to go to provided me with tons of valuable information I would use later in life. For example, I learned that just going to parties dressed as a trashy woman did not do me much good and when I went dressed to blend in with the other women around me, I was much better off.

My best Halloween evening ever happened to me when I was living in the New York City suburbs running a well-known fast-food chain restaurant and just happened to receive an invitation from one of my ciswoman assistant managers to a Halloween party that her and her friends were going to. Eagerly, I accepted and started to plan my “costume.” I immediately knew from my past Halloween adventures that I wanted to dress provocatively like many of the women do, while not going overboard and not appearing clownish. Since I already had the minidress, long wig and matching heels to go along with the dress, I knew what I was going to wear.

In all fairness to my second wife, she was not into Halloween and all the costumes that came with it, so she was alright with me going by myself although she highly disapproved of what I was wearing. As I was putting on my heels and makeup, she merely said be careful and out the door I went to a new adventure as I chased my feminine spirit.

Since I was relatively new to the area where I lived in New York, I had to navigate the streets in my truck as I wore my heels for the first time. I managed to do good and did not hit anything and anybody and made it to my manager’s house intact. Of course, I was beyond nervous as I found a place to park, adjusted my hair and makeup in my mirror and went up to her front door. When she opened the door, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see the friends of hers which were going to the party were all tall very attractive ciswomen with whom I could blend in with easily. When they saw me, they all grew silent until they realized I was not all I seemed to be. Out of pure luck, I had stumbled into a cross dressers dream of being around like-minded women for a Halloween Party.

From there, we wasted very little time leaving her house and heading the short distance up a couple of blocks to the neighborhood bar where the party was taking place. I was in heaven when I heard my heels clicking along with the other women as we walked the short distance to the venue. But it was just the beginning of a fantastic evening, I will never forget. It was like my first girls’ night out and I did not realize it.

It turned out, the venue we went to was smallish and dimly lit which was good for a novice, nervous cross-dresser like me out for a Halloween adventure. What I did not anticipate happening was being left alone by the other women I went with as they split up and began flirting with men they already knew. What I did was grab a seat at an unoccupied table so I could rest my feet. Somehow, I managed to go to the bar and order my own drink and head back to the table without attracting the attention of any of the other women I came with. However, I did attract the attention of an older cisman who sat down beside me at the table I was at.

I almost panicked when he offered to buy me another drink or wanted to know if I wanted to dance but I managed to say no to both since I had no idea if he knew I was not all I seemed to be and did not want to lead him on. At the same time I was flattered by all the attention I was getting, and my gender euphoria was soaring. I felt as if I belonged and fit in nicely in the venue I was in.

About that time, my new female acquaintances came looking for me telling me that they were leaving for home. All too quickly my Halloween dream evening ended, almost. On my way home, I drove past my restaurant and saw a stray car still in the parking lot. Ignoring for a second how I was dressed, I pulled through the parking lot and noticed one of my grill cooks in his car. By this time, I was emboldened by my earlier experiences in the evening and asked him if everything was alright. He said he was fine, and we ended up talking for a short time. During which he complimented me on the way that I looked and precisely about my legs.

Sadly, the glow of my evening was beginning to fade, and I needed to face the fact I had to return to reality and head back home. I walked away in my heels with new life/gender lessons I had learned for the first time. Primarily it is every woman for themselves when it comes to intermixing with men who maybe interested in you. Any loyalty fades quickly away. I also learned that under the right circumstances I could use the cover of Halloween to lip behind the gender curtain and see what was on the feminine side. Most importantly, I liked what I saw and wanted to experience more without having Halloween to help me.

When I returned to work the next day, I was interested to see the reaction from the rest of the crew and my boss over my “costume” the evening before. Overall, outside of a few knowing smiles from my boss and manager, life went on as normal with no questions asked so I was encouraged that my evening in heaven did not hurt my career, Halloween had given me the best of all possible gender worlds for at least one evening. I had to just figure out how I could have more without waiting another year.

 

When Life Hands You Panty Hose

 

Image from Garin Chadwick
on Unsplash.

As transgender women, we find when life hands us panty hose, we better wear them.

In my case at least, I had an early love of wearing hose after I was able to borrow my mom’s electric razor and shave the unwanted hair off my male legs. Which puberty had gifted me with when I was not looking. Ironically, if the truth is known, I was probably shaving my legs ahead of many of the girls in school I admired so much. I say that because if my mom had the daughter she always wanted, she would not have let me shave my legs and wear makeup as early as I did.

During my early love affair with Hose, I discovered how frail they could be as I ran many pairs of my mom’s collection which she never mentioned to me. Since I was earning a meager amount of weekly income from my paper route, I discovered buying panty hose was within my reach if I could just discover the size and shade which fit me the best. I could go to the corner small department store, gather my courage and be able to buy a new pair of panty hose and an item of cosmetics and still have a little left over to save for my next cross-dressing adventure.

Since I was buying my own supplies, I felt less guilty about searching for clothes in my mom’s wardrobe which still barely fit me as I had less chances of being caught. But the new problem I was having was where I could hide my growing collection of feminine belongings where my family would not find them. Especially, my slightly younger brother. I even resorted to storing my overflow in plastic bags in an old hollowed out tree I found in the woods next door to my house. It was far from ideal, but I managed to have my privacy one way or another.

As I lived my life, I was still in my victim phase of wondering why I was the only boy I knew who was going through all the contortions I was going through to be a girl. Why could not I be “normal” like the rest of my friends. When they were thrown panty hose, they would promptly drop them like some sort of a hot potato. I on the other hand still enjoyed the electric feel of the feel of the material on my legs and how good my legs looked in the mini-skirted fashion of the day. Since I was told I had great legs at Halloween parties I went to, it was the ideal time to show them off with a pair of panty hose that I had just bought at a neighborhood convenience store. By this time, I was a pro at knowing just what I was looking for and always buying it with no problems.

Thankfully, I finally exited my victim phase of life and started to embrace and accept who I was thanks to a lifetime of cross-dressing. Since the term transgender had not been invented yet. By this time, I was entering the 1980’s with mini-skirts coming back in fashion along with the big hair. I loved the fashion of the day almost a much as I loved the old hippie days, I was largely deprived of because of my time in the Army. It was fun when I could look out for and adjust what I was wearing as a transgender woman, so I would continue to blend in with the ciswomen around me. Evolving with the times also involved how I evolved as a transfeminine person because I had a lot of growing to do if I was ever going to make it to my dream.

I needed to go back and accept what I knew so long ago that much more than women’s clothes and makeup defined me as a person. I yearned to be the women I admired so much and had to figure out how to get there. Which involved more than the simplicity of being presented with panty hose and having the chance to wear them. What would I ever do about putting in the effort to live out a life, cross the gender border and successfully exist in the world with other ciswomen. I write extensively about the time it took me to peel back the layers I needed to cross on my gender journey to be allowed to be behind the gender curtain. Where I looked merely opened a few initial doors for me. An example was what happened when I observed I was the only woman in the room who was wearing hose at all. Somehow, fashion had come full circle in front of my eyes and every time I saw a woman wearing hose, I looked closer to see if she was a cross-dresser.

As far as I am concerned now, my hose wearing days are almost over along with most of the women I am around. Sadly, I am into leggings and jeans now more than anything else because I do not go anyplace other than casual venues where I would be out of place if I dressed up so I have come full circle in my life once again. Life handed me panty hose initially and I embraced them totally before I moved on later down my gender road. However, the one fun thing you can do as a woman is embrace certain fashion styles the best you can. You are still not tied to the old restrictive male fashion code which evened to start to change also. Men now are even allowed to wear pink shirts, so who know what is in store for future men’s fashion. On the runways it is not uncommon to see a male model wearing woman’s clothes. Maybe someday, cismen will grow out of their frail sexuality, and the world will change with them.

In the meantime, I will always remember my beginning of a life of a discovery as a transgender woman. Life did not throw me any lemons, but it did throw me panty hose in an egg-shaped package. Which I used as a springboard to move on from there. I managed to proceed through a lifetime of gender discovery I used to come close to my dream. From there, woman friends of mine helped to push me across the line I was dreaming of. I was so fortunate to have had them to help me to yet another electric sensation. The of living an everyday life as a trans woman.

Thanks for reading along and making comments! Your input is always welcome as it helps me grow.

 

 

The Right Place but the Wrong Time

 

Image from Alexey Demindov 
on UnSplash.

Perhaps you remember the Dr. John song “Right Place, Wrong Time” from 1973. In his classic style, he bemoans being in the right place at the wrong time in his life.

Sometimes I think the song could be the theme of my life. To start with, I was born against all odds, seeing as how my parents had suffered through three stillbirths before I came along and survived. I was in the right place to thrive in a family who loved me, but I was in the wrong place when my gender was determined to be male. Something I could do nothing about for many years.

Without knowing it, I was being set up for all sorts of embarrassing scenarios in life running from my gender truth. Examples came fast and furious during my initial days of trying to go public with my cross-dressing desires. Way before I acquired the knowledge to blend in with the world as a feminine person. Being in the wrong place it seemed was a regular occurrence. Both my male and female egos were suffering from be stared at, all the way to putting up with out and out laughter.

At the same time, I was feeling deep down that I was in the right place at the right time anytime I cross-dressed as a woman. I had not realized at that time that along I was a woman cross-dressing as a man. Which would have saved me a tremendous amount of heartbreak in my life. In the meantime, I needed to be content with just following my gender path the best I could, being aware of the many blind curves and stop signs I would run into. Such as the times when I was learning the proper etiquette that I needed to use the women’s restroom. For the most part, I did well with very little pushback except on rare occasions I remember to this day. The worst one that I always recall was the night a ciswoman followed me into the room and started calling me a pervert when all I was doing was trying to do my business in piece. Fortunately, she was the exception rather than the rule and I never had to go through anything so dramatic such as that again. Except for the time I was on a bus tour through the deep south with my wife Liz and we stopped at a rest stop on the Alabama border.

I thought everything was going to be fine until I was washing my hands and turned to face two women glaring at me. I quickly thought that I was certainly in the wrong place until I stepped around both of them and headed as fast as I could for the bus. I was certainly in the right place to take care of my business and at the wrong time with those two women.

The more I went out in the world as a transgender woman, naturally, the more chances I had to climb out on my gender limb and take chances to see how I felt about being there. Every time I did not fall, my confidence grew stronger to put myself in more challenging situations. In the retail world, I got myself out of the clothing stores where I was a non-entity and went to the world of bookstores and coffee shops to see how I was accepted. At the same time, as I always mention, I left the gay bars I was going to all the time and went to straight venues to see if I would find myself in the right spot at the right time. I was overjoyed when I ended up as an accepted regular at several venues I chose where I could enjoy everything from the music to the beer and my sports on big screen televisions.

I was never raised to be happy or satisfied with anything I ever did, so I was surprised at how satisfied my life was becoming when I followed the correct gender path to becoming a full-fledged transfeminine person. Casually living my new life, the same as any other ciswoman would do it. I even discovered that I had been in the right place at the right time with my sexuality as I fell into a group of women who accepted me totally and being with a man was never anything I ever had to consider.

The more I did as a trans woman, the more I never wanted to do again as a man, so I stopped because I began to feel so awkward on the rare occasions, I needed to re-enter the male world I used to be so good in. In fact, I just hated going back. Which was the time that I started to get it through my stubborn head that I was never destined to be a man at all and my right place was as a woman.

 Once I arrived firmly in my right place there was no turning back. Out went the old male clothes to thrift stores and in came the daily routine of what I was going to wear in the feminine life I always dreamed of. It had been a difficult gender journey complete with approving and disapproving people in the world but somehow, I always seemed to separate the haters and TERFS (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists)  out, learn from them and move on. Common sense finally prevailed as I chose the only lane I could and stayed in it. Many times, it was my own lack of confidence which stopped me from taking the steps I needed to survive.

As I said, being in the wrong place at the right time did not have to be the theme of my life unless I let it. Once I corrected a lifetime worth of errors, I was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it was not the train. My train was still coming to take me to a transgender dream life I never imagined I could live.

Thanks to all of you who take your precious time to read and comment on mine. Without you, none of this would be worth it.

 

 

 

It Was Decision Time

 

Image from Malvestida 
on UnSplash.

I had many years in my life to make a crucial decision on which way I was going to lead my life. Continue in the male box I was put into by mistake at birth or continue the path I was taking into a fully feminine world.

I say many years because it took me approximately fifty years of cross-dressing in the mirror and then the world to figure out if I wanted to finally take the final steps, I needed to do to lead my dream life as a transgender woman. The funny thing about life is that now the half a century seemed to go by so fast, but when I was doing it, it was very slow.

Along the way, I had many of the usual suspects crop up I used as excuses as why I did not transition earlier. Such as, having a severe lack of information because I was born into the pre-internet era, or was I cross-dressing just because of the thrill of the clothes or the danger of getting caught. My whole life hung in the balance when I was doing my best to look like a pretty girl because if I was caught, I knew I would have a trip to a psychiatrist in my future who would say I was mentally ill. At such an early age I knew that what I was doing as my cross-dresser self-did not make me mentally ill. All I wanted to do was live a life among the girls I saw at school and put my male life behind me.

Before I could even consider living a fully feminine life such as a new term which I read about (transgender) on the internet, I would have a ton of living and researching my future to do. I was only seeing one side of a ciswoman’s existence which was the good side with all the pretty clothes and hair which was the external side. Before I could see what ciswomen had to do to get there, I would have a lot of living to do before I could ever be admitted to the girls’ club for good.

Undoubtably, the biggest mistake I made was not moving forward into my male to female femininization world faster than I did because femininization came from the inner self for me. Much more I found than the purely external femininization I thought that I was facing. So, I often miscalculated what I was doing as a novice transgender woman.  Among many other things, I had to outgrow what I call my teen girl cross-dressing years when all I wanted to do was wear my clothes too short or too tight for my testosterone poisoned body shape. Once I found how wrong that was, I could move forward into being able to blend in with the world of ciswomen my age.

As I left my teen cross-dressing years, I was able to expand my search for my true self even further. I made mental lists for myself on what I should try next in my feminine life. Or what could I do to see if I really wanted to give up the successful male life I was living. A life that was very good when it was good and terribly bad when I was suffering from my reoccurring gender dysphoria. It all made coming up with my final big decision such a hard one to make.

Still, I did not stop my constant research on whether I could make it as a transfeminine person. All it really did was add years on to my final decision, as I added layer upon layer of trans woman experiences to fall back on. Some were bad, but most were good which encouraged me to move on. Without the help often from anyone to guide me, I went the “Trial and Error” route as I hoped my errors in a women’s world would not be too embarrassing. I was successful more times than not because I let the other ciswomen in my world take the lead, and I could sit back and learn from them. It was quite the change from my old male self who was trained to always take the lead.

I can call it what I want, but destiny finally came along and opened my gender changing doors for me. I was able to be approved by a doctor and a therapist for HRT or gender affirming hormones. Which was the final nail in the coffin for my old male self who was on his last legs anyhow. I was all alone after my second wife passed away, so I did not have to explain my gender differences to anyone else for a change. I even set out to prove I was not wrong in my choices when I tried and failed to date women as a man again and I even tried to date cismen as a trans woman to determine once and for all my sexuality as a person. I was firmly in the female camp and was encouraged by all the extra attention I was receiving from women and even lesbians as I changed my life.

I ended up giving my male self-more chances than he deserved which wasted more precious years of my life. But I was able to overcome my timely errors by meeting my wife Liz online. Fourteen years later we are still together and hopefully even though she did not get the rest of me, she got the best of me. Because of Liz, it was easier for me to make my final decision to transition out of my male life forever.

I was able to overcome the wasted male years of my life as I pondered if I could live my dream. I just have always wanted the time back, which of course is impossible. Having the chance to survive a life as a “Yo-Yo” gender has provided me the chance to live out a positive life. Once I decided to go all out and live it. I should have realized years ago when it was decision time when it came to my gender.

 

 

 

What Goes Up Must Come Down

 

Image form Vicky Hladynet
on UnSplash. 

Gender euphoria for me has been a double-edged sword.

The sharp edge of the blade has been the powerful elixir I gained from when I was successful in my early attempts to cross-dress successfully and enter the world. I was well aware of the feelings from my initial view of myself as a perceived pretty girl in my home mirror. Well before I had the courage to leave the house.

On the other hand, the dull side of the blade was the quick coming down I needed to go through after my successful journeys into the world of ciswomen and cismen. But I found early that the women were the ones I needed to concentrate on because they were curious about me. Ciswomen were the most likely to pick me out of a crowd and notice that I was not all that I seemed to be.

To combat my severe ups and downs, I needed to set up and stay on a steady diet of cross-dressing activities. To do my best to always have the joy of gender euphoria to get me by the worst of my gender dysphoric issues. Often, my rhythmic cross-dressing adventures were the only thing which kept me going in life when I became so depressed with a fatalistic “Why me” mentality.

As I learned later in life from one of my therapists, I was a bi-polar depressive which added to my problems of feeling down. When I was down, I was really down and had to force myself out of bed for days at a time. When I got the professional opinion about my depression issues, I was relieved because it was one less thing I could blame on my gender issues. Then I could concentrate on my sword again along with its ups and downs. What I did was expand my ups by doing more when I was out in the world exploring to see if I really was a transgender woman or a serious cross-dresser or what.

When I was out at the bigger shopping venues in nearby Columbus, Ohio, I learned I could be accepted as just another well-dressed feminine shopper looking for gifts from the specialty stores, I went to. Perhaps because I was trying to soothe part of my guilt of not telling my second wife what I was doing, I always tried to buy a little gift for her from one of the big gardening stores I knew about and visited. She was a very dedicated gardener and for a change I could make her happy. Along with me at the same time. At least I was trying to do something positive with my gender euphoria before I started to go home and crash back into my old unwanted male life.

Sadly, after I crashed, I wanted more of my feminine world and when I did not get it I tried to internalize my feelings which only made my life worse. Since I was suffering, I was selfish and wanted everyone around me to suffer too. It got so bad that I nearly lost jobs over my attitude and probably should have lost my marriage too, if my wife was not so strong. That also had its good and bad points. The good was that when we were good, we were very good and when we were bad because of my gender dysphoria, we were very bad. Mainly because my wife had everything as a woman that I envied and I resented her for it. The worst part was she should not have had to suffer along with me on my path of severe ups and downs because I was incapable of explaining either the ups or the downs of my life when I had them. One thing was for sure; the worst move I ever made was internalizing my feelings from my second wife.

To help my ups, I continued a serious program to learn if I really wanted to risk my life as I knew it to live a transfeminine life. How could I risk all that I had built up as a man for such a selfish move which would have far reaching effects past just me. Including my marriage, my family and my employment which were all doing well except for my marriage. I felt as if I was on a run-away train on a dead-end track with my life if I ever faced my truth about who I really was.

At the same time, my downs just had to be worth all the ups I was experiencing. My gender tipping point was rapidly reaching the critical point of no return as I was increasingly carving out a new and exciting life as a trans woman. My confidence was staying at an all-time high and suddenly my dreams might be able to become a reality. The only downs I was experiencing happened when my wife was still alive and I was feeling like I cheated on her with myself every time I snuck out into the world as the new me. I think deep down, I knew our relationship was not going to be sustainable, but I never thought it would be because she would die ahead of me. Naturally, her death hit me hard and at the age of fifty-five I was going back to my drawing board. This time to do much more than re-work how I looked as a woman. Now I needed to determine how I wanted to live out the remainder of my life.

Even with the obvious answer staring me in the face, I managed to still ignore my reality and stumble forward with one foot firmly planted in each of the binary genders. Finally, my male foot began to slip, and I quit fighting the obvious. I was never meant to be a man at all, and I was a woman living a lie and living like a man. When I did, almost all my depression went away, and I was free to live the life I was always destined to live.

As always, thank you for reading along with my lifetime of gender experience. I hope I can help you and comments are appreciated!

 

 

 

Torn Between Two Lovers

 

Image from Hanna Lazar
on UnSplash. 

There is nothing romantic when you are being torn between two lovers if you are a transgender woman or a transgender man.

For me at least, I would never have wished for the ripping and tearing I suffered from the gender dysphoria I suffered from on my worst enemy. Waking up each morning wondering which gender I would be today was certainly no walk in the park. if I did take a walk in the park, it would be a mental one, and I would be chased by my demons.

As I write about extensively, I was stuck in my dark lonely gender closet as I felt as if I was the only one in the world who felt the same way I did. It was back before the internet and social media days and any information on gender issues was difficult to come by or out and out false. For the longest time, I just did not know where I fit in the world as a man who wanted to be a woman.

The tearing became even worse when one of my identities started to surge ahead of the other. It happened when my daughter was born and I had to get much more serious about how I was going to build a career as a man. Only to be ripped back when I viewed myself as a trans woman in front of the mirror. I only had the annual Halloween parties to get out of my closet and see what the world would be all about if I had the chance to live my dream of going full-time.

The thing about dreams is that they are a long way from reality. Reality meant I needed to go a very long way to learn about what I was trying to achieve. Back in those days, the term transgender woman was brand new and barely used, so I was surprised when I discovered it and it fit me so well. Keep in mind that I could only refer to myself as a transvestite because I knew I was not ready to use the transsexual label then or ever. If I had the will power to go through the major gender realignment surgeries of the time, I certainly did not have the insurance coverage or the financial resources to do it myself. Again, I was just stuck between two genders, but at the least I had a label now for who I was.

The ripping and tearing managed to become even worse when I began to improve my feminine presentation to the point where I could blend in with the world of ciswomen around me. Every time it happened, my male self would become upset because he was losing his hold on my life. As it was becoming increasingly evident that someday, I would have to choose between my two very serious gender lovers.

At the same time, I was trying everything to maintain my already fragile mental health by going to therapists. By doing so, I was able to learn what being bi-polar depressed meant and why I was suffering from it. All along, I was blaming my severe depression on my gender issues when I had other often more pressing issues. At the same time, I was ignoring facts from my therapist that she could do nothing about me wanting to be a woman. It turned out to be my truth that I refused to follow. Instead, I tried to move on. Going the wrong way on a one-way gender street. Dodging the sometimes-toxic public became too much of me until I began to give up totally on my male side and concentrate on living my dream of being a transfeminine person.

I never labored under the idea that my life in the world as a trans woman would be easy but I never bargained for the complexity of the new life I was facing. It seemed that every time I was able to overcome one obstacle on my path, something new would appear to take its place. Like never before, I had to really listen to what people were telling me, so I would miss nothing in the conversation. I found that trying to live in a world of ciswomen meant more than just looking the part. I needed to be the part too. Always before as a man, it was easy for me as a man to zone out in conversations and then catch up when I wanted to, but impossible when I began communicating one on one with other women.

Of course, my male side always hated losing, and every time my female side showed any victories, he hated it and fought back harder. As he was trying everything, he knew how to maintain what was left of his life. To placate him, I would try to do as many male things I could such as drinking with the few true male friends he had left. The problem was even he was beginning to feel alienated from his old friends as they started to pass away from cancer. At the same time, my feminine self was very successful in carving out a new life she could sustain as well as feeling so natural doing it. It was becoming obvious as the ripping and tearing (and even a large part of my depression) began to go away that I had chosen the right path to take on my gender journey.

At the same time, I began to consider attempting to get approved for gender affirming hormones or HRT. First through an independent doctor and then through the Veterans Administration healthcare system which had just approved it. It was as if the long-closed doors which were preventing me from living my transgender dream were suddenly swinging wide open. From then on, the only ripping going on was over what male baggage I could not take with me into my new life. My male clothes were given to charity as I built up my wardrobe for a new everyday experience as a transgender woman. It was a terrific weight off my shoulders.

My hope for you I that you can overcome your inner turmoil faster than I did by facing your truth. Thanks for reading and commenting!

 

 

Transgender Journey...Down but Not Out

 

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash.

As transgender women and transgender men, it is easy to feel down and out as we try to navigate our new gender paths.

As I sometimes look back on my journey, it is easy to remember the good times and forget the bad. The most important thing about reliving the bad is having the appreciation for the world I am able to live in today as a fulltime trans woman. Every time I make simple trips in the world to the doctor’s, the Veterans Administration or the pharmacy, I always have to look back at remembering the not so good old days when I was struggling for acceptance. Either one of a couple things has happened. Either I have become better at my overall feminine presentation (wrong) or my confidence has taken me to a point where I don’t particularly care what the world thinks about me.

Either way, I look back to when I considered myself a very serious cross-dresser as I still was researching which fork in my gender path would I take. Back in those days, I took hours to prepare for an outing in the world, and I often wondered what I would do if I had to go out in the world everyday and compete with ciswomen everywhere. It was easy at that time to put those thoughts behind me as I was so obsessed with my feminine looks that my second wife kept calling me the “Pretty, pretty, princess.”  Naturally I loved the “pretty” part but rejected the “princess” part of her very pointed critique of me. One day, she even went as far as separating appearance from being a true woman for me when we were fighting about me wanting to go out. It was one of my all-time down moments when she told me I made a terrible woman. It hurt because I was not trying to make anything, I was just trying to express my true self, but I could not properly put my thoughts in a form she would understand.

I guess you could say, back then, I was definitely in my mental transgender formative years when my mind was trying to catch up with all the cross-dressing I was doing. Sadly, before I could formulate what a better version of my transgender self would be, all I experienced was an extreme amount of frustration. I could not understand what I was doing wrong when I was being successful in situations such as transgender-cross dresser mixers I was going to. The problem was the extreme gender euphoria I experienced at the mixers when I was mistaken for a ciswoman was not worth the resultant crash and depression, I felt when my life went back to its same old boring male self.

It all resulted in me being boxed into rarely getting out of my gender closet to explore the world and I was moody, resentful and not the easiest person to live with as I tried to internalize my gender feelings from my wife. A prime example was one year when we took a vacation from our native Ohio to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. On the trip up there, I progressively grew more depressed and mean until my wife asked me what was going on since I was supposed to be having a good time on vacation. Predictably, I lied my way out of it and did not tell her the truth that I rather be spending my vacation time as a woman rather than a man.

Somehow, I pulled myself back together and the vacation continued without incident, but I remember it as another low point. Little did I know at that time, destiny would finally come back to me on my gender path, and I would get my wish to go on extensive vacations as a transfeminine person.

Along the way, I have had many other low points which I write about often. Such as when a woman called me a pervert for simply using the women’s room in a venue, I had been a regular patron of for a long time and had no one say anything negative to me at all. Then much earlier than that when I was struggling to blend in with the world at all, there were all the stares and even laughter I needed to put up with on my journey to present. I was reduced to tears more times than I care to remember mainly by groups of teen girls struggling to find their own femininity. I was certainly at a low point when all of this was happening to me, and I did not have the tools yet to know which way to turn. All I had was this little voice in the back of my head telling me to keep going and my low points would disappear.

All of it did go away for a while until I hit my dark age when nearly everyone I cared about decided to die within a two-year period. The group included my second wife and three of my closest male friends. Who were the only ones I had. To add to my low point, I was desperately lonely and ended up relying on that little voice who at this time was growing louder and more insistent that she had all the answers for me. This time, I had very few other alternatives to fall back on. As one person told me after I had lost my restaurant along to everything else, you will land on your feet. Not knowing my feet would be in high heels when I did it.

I am sure that everyone’s lives have its share of highs and lows and I can not say a transgender woman or trans man lows would be even more dramatic, but it seems possible because we have so much to lose as we pick up our lives and move them across the gender border. Until we find ourselves living behind the gender curtain where we always wanted to me.

Hopefully if you are in the midst of a low time, you have a little voice telling you everything will be OK. If not, remember life is but a circle and what is down will eventually come up.

As always thanks for reading along and comments are always welcome.

 

 

 

It Was Always a Challenge

 

Image from Dwayne Joe
on UnSplash.

As a boy and onward to manhood, I had plenty of challenges to be sure of. Early on, my challenges were in athletics where I had very little natural ability, except for a passion to play ball of any sort.

On the positive side, my love for sports kept the bullies away for the most part and on the negative side, I lost a lot when I played. In the meantime, my feminine side beckoned and I was challenged even more because once again, I was not blessed with very little ability to present well as a girl. Testosterone tore my body up and produced many results that I did not want such as a bigger body and hairy legs and arms. Not good for a boy who wanted to be a girl as the major goal in her life.

At that time, I did not realize how complex my life would become when I decided much later to pursue the life of a transgender woman. How would I ever maintain a marriage as well as a successful career as a man that I was expected to do, if I wanted to be a woman at the same time. It was the beginning of an intense amount of pressure that I needed to live with as it became part of my permanent baggage when at the time, I was trying my best to minimize my life. Especially when I was in the military and almost everything I owned was being shipped home, on my back or in my duffel bag. I would never be free of entanglements in my life that I had then.

Then, even if I was trying not to add more baggage, life set in when I was discharged from the Army and marriage as well as my first and only child were quickly coming my way. All along I was conflicted about the new challenges I faced, I had set up basic guardrails in my life such as telling my first wife I was a confirmed cross-dresser or transvestite at the time and trying to use birth control which ended up failing on me which I will not go into.

I suppose I had no choice but to accept the new life challenges I faced with parenthood and trying to build a career for her and my small family as I moved along. It was what I was supposed to do, and I was trying to meet the demands of doing it. What I never counted on was the strength of my feminine inner self. She was always demanding more and I was on the verge several times of responding to her call when I had very little other male baggage to deal with. But I did not and went on to struggle with my gender dysphoria the best I could by internalizing it. The only release I ever had was cross-dressing in front of the mirror for my own pleasure as I dreamed how it would be to live a life as a trans woman.

A well-known path out for me became the exciting Halloween parties I could go to in my favorite costume…as a woman of course. The parties showed me I could begin to exist on my own terms as the person I always dreamed of being. If I answered the challenge to do it. If I had the courage to present myself to friends as a woman, could I ever decide to do it as another avenue out of my closet and into the world. While I was at the first Halloween parties I went to, the more I learned of the basics of being in a new exciting yet scary world where I always wanted to be.

I learned quickly that cismen around me would avoid me completely, while ciswomen asked me questions about who did my makeup and how did I gather the courage to shave my legs for my “costume”.  Later on, I used the basics I learned from the parties I went to when I tried to meet the challenge of being out with other women who wanted to communicate with and were still curious why I would want to meet the challenge of being in their world. By this time, I was becoming more confident in my true feminine self that the thrill of going to Halloween parties disappeared.

Just because the parties went away and my confidence increased did not mean that the challenges I was facing went away with it. I needed to face the complexities of living a life as a transfeminine person head on if I was ever going to be successful, I needed to communicate with a world which wanted to know more about me for the first time and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. It was the time I had always dreamed of when I could finally put the mirror behind me and put the total new me into motion. When another woman came at me with questions, I was there to answer hers and was beginning to be able to ask her questions of my own by looking her directly in the eye and doing it.

The only advice about overcoming the communication challenges you will face in the world I have is to somehow get out of your closet and experience what is going on firsthand. By doing that, you can let your own unique personality out into the world and leave your unwanted baggage behind you if you are a transgender woman or a transgender man. The same rules apply, just in different gender worlds you must live in and react to. If you do not answer your challenges and try your best to get out of your closet, you will make yourself a victim and never do it.

Also, the only warning I have is depending on where you live, know the anti-transgender laws and attitudes you will be facing and plan ahead accordingly. Remember you can not rely upon the old male security privileges you used to have and find yourself in a dangerous situation. Ciswomen are raised to be careful of potentially toxic situations and avoid them too.

You can also use your challenges as a mini-bucket list and move on after you have accomplished one goal. It is a relatively easy way to manage your male to female or female to male transition.

Good luck with your challenges and thanks for reading along. I appreciate you and any comments you may have!