That Can Not be Right

Image from Nicola Dowie
on UnSplash. 

 As I was able to fully awaken my feminine self, there were many times when I paused and thought that cannot be right. So many times, when I felt as if I was having an out of body experience when I was walking the sidewalk as the transgender woman I always dreamed of being. 

Then, the more I forced myself out into the world and out of my mirror, the more intense the experience became. I kept thinking the whole thing could not be right. Could I really be becoming the woman I dreamed of becoming. I discovered the hard way that before I could chase my dream, a lot of work would have to be done because no short cuts could be taken. There was always too much to risk in my life such as a spouse, kid, job and friends. Very little of which could I see myself bring along if I completed a male to female feminization project from scratch. As it turned out, my second wife was the main instigator in my transition when she told me I made a terrible woman and it had nothing to do with my appearance. 

She spurred me on to find out what she was talking about which was very difficult to do because I was always outside of the ciswomen’s fence wondering what was happening inside. Somehow, I needed to find a female gatekeeper to let me in which was easier said than done. Because I needed to earn my way in to be admitted by the gatekeepers, which meant a lot more than just looking the part of a woman. I needed to prove I had some of the same experiences that they had to the best of my ability. 

As I think back to the early days when I was admitted into the feminine world, I had always wanted to be a part of, ironically, I needed to go through a problem with impostor syndrome. Or, once I was admitted to the girl’s club, did I really belong there. It was not until I began to be invited to my first girl’s nights outs did, I finally begin to feel as if I truly belonged in a place I was always supposed to be. In addition, being scared to death to go initially did not help me get over my imposter syndrome. One of my first priorities was to be able to relax and enjoy my new surroundings as I wanted badly to participate in all the conversations. I was trying to not appear scared or just standoffish so I would be invited back. I must have been a success because I was invited back and for a change I could think I was in the right place at the right time to be more of a woman on my own terms.

During this period of my life when I was growing into my expanding feminine self, I experienced fewer impostor syndrome moments as I figured I had as much of a right as the next woman to be there. It took me the time and effort to keep trying to experience new things in the world and took me to a place where I could finally do the same things as a trans woman as I did as a cis man. The entire process presented me with extreme gender ups and downs. But somehow a little voice in my head kept telling me I was on the right path if I was ever going to make it to my dream. The only problem I kept having was overcoming all the obstacles which were facing me as a new woman. Primarily because I had so much catching up to do in my life, as I stopped one male version and started a new feminine one with a totally blank gender workbook to start with. Plus, as I always point out, even though I always considered myself a great student of the lives of the women around me as a man, I ended up knowing very little. I had no idea of the complexities of my dream feminine life as a transgender woman which awaited me. 

As I was finally able to settle into the life I wanted, I realized more and more that how I was living and where I was headed was the right thing to do and I should have taken this path long ago. I spent too much time experimenting with joining the female world and less time resolving to just do it. I am ashamed it took the extreme encouragement of my wife Liz, my daughter and other women friends to push me to the gender cliff and over it. It turned out that they knew me better than I knew myself. I was a woman all along hiding behind trying to be a man. 

As I was hiding, I was building up the sometimes-infamous male privileges that come with being a white male in today’s society. I knew as I was transitioning away from all that I had earned what I was losing and would have to face it sooner more than later. It turned out, as I thought it through, I was not losing male privilege, I was just giving it away for something much better. The chance to be myself as a fully out and functional trans woman. A choice I gladly made. I thank the higher source I believe in daily that I made the choice, go on HRT gender affirming hormones, change my legal gender markers and never look back.

If I did look back, I know I would feel that same old feeling again that something is not right. I worked too hard to get to the place I am today as I filled out my own gender workbook to enter the girls' club and be able to play with them in their sandbox. I was not born female, but I socialized myself seriously as a woman. Which is all it took for me to know my new life was as right as it could be.

Hey all of you! Thanks for reading along and comments are always welcomed!

Envy or Resentment?

 

Image from Obie Fernandez
on UnSplash. 

Recently, I wrote about a few of my very unpleasant encounters with teen girls before I began to blend in with the world as a novice transgender woman and received several comments from readers saying the same thing. 

This morning however, when I went with my wife Liz on her appointment to see the vampires to have blood work done, we had enough time to stop at our favorite coffee shop for a light breakfast and a coffee drink. 

It just so happens, the coffee shop is very close to a big high school and as luck would have it, groups of teen girls were heading into the venue for a dose of their morning caffeine, so I could see what most of them were wearing. Outside of a few girls wearing short pleated skirts, most of the others were just wearing leggings and sweatshirts, so there was not much to look at.

Even still, I felt some of the old envy or even resentment that my teen years did not allow me to be a girl and have the chance to grow up the way they did. Perhaps it is the reason my second wife and I clashed so much when it came to her telling me I did not have the knowledge or the background to be a woman and what could I say? She was right. I was always on the other side of the gender fence looking in. Not by choice but by destiny had put me in a male box I could not get out of and this morning I was stuck watching groups of teen girls living life like I always wanted to do,

I guess, when it comes right down to it, the difference between envy and resentment is just semantics and my second wife telling me I could never cross the gender border to go through what a woman does was true. There was no way I could reclaim my early years of life as a confused teen boy wanting into the feminine world I could only dream of, so I would have to build my own. Many of the negatives of growing up female I would certainly have not had to do such as the build up of female hormones which I would have easily traded for my unwanted effects of male puberty. I would have taken a girl's soft curves over the hard angles I received from male puberty. 

Of course, there are other negative aspects of being a woman such as periods and dealing with the drama of men I would never have to put up with. There are simply tradeoffs between both binary genders which we have to deal with. No one gets out alive. 

Getting back to today, at least this morning, I was not close enough to any of the girls to get into any potential abuse. Plus, they all seemed to be in their own world enough not to mention me. Of course, back in the day, that is when I thought none of the girls would notice me then and I was wrong. When one did, they all did it seemed. 

Even though I can never replace the years I lost by never having the chance to live an early life as a girl, I have tried to make up for it in my later years. To share any wisdom, I had learned as a male and use it towards building blocks for my future. Now it doesn’t matter how much resentment or envy I ever felt because today and tomorrow is all that matters. I just have to put my past male life behind me and move on because the scars from my past life as a novice trans woman have almost all healed. Even the resentment for what I never had. 

It is a short post today because I have been busy, but thanks for reading along anyhow!

Comments and claps are always appreciated!

A Hot Mess on Another Veterans Day

Image from Tim Mossholder
on UnSplash.

Before I get started on my main post, I would like to take a moment and salute all the members of the population of this country (US) who have served in the military forces. Thank you for your service. On top of the many gender conflicted men and women who served their country so well and later came out into the world, I have always suspected there are still far too many who are still in their closets waiting for their chance to join the world. With the positive election we had, all your chances to come out may just have improved. At least,  I hope so.

As far as my time in the military went, the hot mess part mainly came during the years I waited to see if I was going to see the Vietnam War up close and personal all the way to figuring out what I was going to do about the draft, if the long, drawn-out war was still going on through my high school and college years. During those confused years, my life was a hot mess as I thought about what I was going to do about my two main pleasures in life, my cross-dressing and my beginnings of having a solid commercial radio DJ career. Since I knew my love for cross-dressing would have to be put on hold in the Army, I hoped that somehow, I could maintain my career as a broadcaster in the service. 

I started my search by going around to all the military branch recruiters to learn if they had any job listings for what I was looking for at all and learned only one did and that was the Army and it was exceedingly difficult to get into.The only thing I had going for me at that time was that the radio station I worked at was owned by a powerful congressman, so I hoped that I could use him to my advantage. I wrote and sent off a letter to Washington saying I would serve my country and was there anyway they could help me salvage my career while I served. To my amazement, in a relatively short amount of time, I received a letter back saying they would put me in contact with an officer they dealt with in the Pentagon and for me to deal with him. The power of having a congressman behind worked for me again as the officer in the Pentagon said he would look into it as well as other jobs doing attache work in embassies around the world. Which was not what I wanted, but better than the alternative.

Then I needed to be on hold until I went to infantry Army basic training like everyone else. I was able to put off going as I went on a six-month delay program to let my sources work on my future, even though, I kept telling myself I was going to put myself on some sort of a physical training program before I left, I never made it and was just a hot mess of drinking and self-pity as I faced my military future. Before I knew it, my time had passed and I was headed to Ft.Knox, Kentucky for basic training in the middle of winter. On my way, I learned I was far from being the worst hot mess on the bus we were traveling on as one of the guys in front of me was openly crying out loud. As for me, I could not wait to get off the bus and get started on the next three years of my life. 

It was not until about three weeks into basic that the attitude by the drill sergeants started to change towards me. I was very naive at the time and did not put together the fact I was receiving mail from the House of Representatives and the Pentagon and all of the sudden I was made a squad leader. A position normally reserved for those troops who performed the best at physical training and marksmanship. Neither of which described me. I finally woke up to the fact that no one was reading my mail, but someone was certainly noticing it and my hot mess of a life in basic began to calm down because it was beginning to look like I would get the impossible job in the Army I had hoped for. In fact, there were only sixty plus openings in the entire Army available at any one time. 

The rest of my three years in the military turned out to be a blur as I worked on AFRTS military radio and television stations in Thailand and Germany. It was not until I was discharged did my life revert back to the old hot mess it had always been because of my gender dysphoria. I got out of the Army about six months ahead of my future first wife and I was so conflicted about who I was that I was seriously considering meeting her at the airport dressed as my authentic feminine self but I did not and life went on as I began to try to outrun my gender issues. In the next decade, I tried changing everything from wives to jobs to locales to try to outrun myself which did not work. I was doomed to be a hot mess until I faced the reality of who I was. I was not a woman trapped in a man' s body. I had always been a woman cross-dressed as a man. 

Finally, I faced reality and my hot mess of a life straightened right up. I learned to appreciate what life had given me over the years and I had no right to deny what it was showing me to live. More importantly, I was ready to share my wisdom with the world if anyone was in need of it because I certainly did not want anyone else to go through what I went through. That is why I write.

If you are facing a mess with the gender in your life, I hope everything becomes better for you and you are able to face your own reality better than I was. Once again, thanks to all you veterans for your service. Comments are always welcome!

 

Sink or Swim Time

 

Image from Haley Phelps
on UnSplash.

One necessity I learned when I first began to leave the mirror as a novice cross-dresser and join the world was when I was jumping right into the deep end of the pool. None of that just wearing pantyhose under my pants with no socks when I went out with painted nails. I needed to go all the way with my new wig, clothes and makeup.

It turned out, the biggest problem I faced was there were sharks in the pool I was swimming in. In my case the sharks came in the form of teenaged girls who were battling for their own path to femininity also. It made them overprotective gatekeepers on womanhood and at the same time, seemingly attacking mine by laughing and mocking me. When they bit me, my blood was in the water as they kept coming back for more.

The answer of course was very simple. I needed to become a better gender swimmer if I was ever going to survive and move forward towards my dream of ever living fulltime as a transgender woman. As I became better at my overall presentation in the world as a trans woman, I found the teen-sharks began to ignore me and I could move about freely and relax for a change as I had to change all my muscle memory moves from male to female. I think too, that when I went through my turn in the deep end of the pool decades ago, times were different than they are now. I think regardless of the pushback they are receiving from some backwards adults, kids today are moving towards being more tolerant to the LGBTQ community. At least I hope so.

In my case and point in time I was living when I reached the 1980’s and I was in my thirties I was coming to understand exactly where I was in the gender pool. Instead of trying to get out of the pool when something went wrong, I needed to swim harder against the current to make it. Those were the days when I started to do more than just the easy stereotypical duties a ciswoman is somehow assigned to at birth. For example, I started to do more grocery shopping as a woman as well as starting to do more cleaning around the house. It all was the beginning of a very long swim to experience how much of the feminine lifestyle I wanted and was the grass really greener on their side of the border.

Long story short, I found that a feminine life was more complex and difficult than a man. In most cases, ciswomen were tasked with keeping a family together as well as putting up with all the male drama which came with it. Which ironically, I knew all too well as I had put my second wife through the most profound drama of all. When her husband wanted to be a woman. Somehow, we still lasted twenty-five years until her death because when we were good, we were really good and when we were bad, very bad. Maybe the worst part was when we were very good as man and wife, I was always thinking of how it would be if we could do it wife to wife but just kept it internalized the best I could. The whole process just made me bitter, and I took it out on her. Something I will be forever sorry about.

During this time, I was always very self-destructive as I tried to take my gender feminization frustrations out on myself. Some days, I was moving too fast in my pool and other days (and years) it seemed I was just treading water trying to keep my life afloat. I got to the point that even though I was a success in my business as a male, I would have not wished the rest of my life on my worst enemy. 

It did not happen until I was able to make it out of the deep end of my pool and start doing the activities which really gave me a hint about how women really live. I began to think everything was going to turn out for the best after all. Those years of listening to that little voice in my head telling me to stay in the pool and keep swimming were beginning to pay off. I was paving the way towards a future I had only ever dreamed of. As I swam against the current in the deep end of the pool with the sharks, at the same time, I was earning my own unique form of womanhood, I leaned on other women to do it. Specifically, the ones who had led difficult lives themselves. 

For once in my life, being around my female friends taught me how to survive in the world as just me , as they never once asked or wanted to know anything about my old male life. They went a long way helping me to validate myself again as a person. Something I had never been able or willing to do as a man. Mainly because there was always something missing from my life. 

Being able to swim anywhere I wanted in my pool was certainly a liberating experience and worth the wait. All that swimming did me good and made me a stronger and wiser person. Finding the missing gender link was all I needed to complete my life. It was there all along and I had refused to see it. Maybe I needed a new set of swim goggles so I could see better when I was in the pool. At least that is my excuse for being weak.  

Whatever the case, I managed to make it through all the shark attacks to the transfeminine life I always dreamed of. I hope you can make it to yours too!

Thanks for swimming with me! Comments are always welcomed.

Gender Was Always Such a Delicate Dance

Image from Morgan Petrosky
on UnSplash. 

 I can say one thing with relative certainty as I get started with this post, is that dancing has NEVER been something I have been able to do. I simply have never had the ability to sustain any sort of rhythm when I tried to dance, and I was notorious for stepping on my partner’s toes. 

My efforts became so bad when I grew up that I would only try to dance when I was semi-intoxicated. By now, you may be asking, what does dancing have to do with gender? When I started to think about it, I could equate it this way. At the beginning, I was so insecure as a novice cross-dresser, I was trying too hard to be perfect with my hair, makeup, clothes and movements. It was just like dancing for me as I struggled along with my life. The difference finally came when I discovered that being feminine was something I could learn and did not rely on the sense of rhythm that I needed to dance. For the first time in my life, I needed to go all in to perfect my feminine presentation and accept no shortcuts.

Perhaps you have heard of the term muscle memory. Along the way, I was discovering all that I was doing was changing my muscle memory from being a man to being a woman and it was very frustrating to me. My gender dance was starting off to a bad beginning. Of course, I knew ciswomen moved in their own special ways but to duplicate it was going to be the most difficult dance I ever attempted. 

In the beginning, I was trying just to not look like a linebacker in drag when I cross-dressed and went out. I thought anything would be an instant improvement than what I already was trying to unlearn walking like a man. I also needed to combine it with taking the menacing male scowl off my face and show to the world I was enjoying being there. Why put all that time and effort into applying perfect makeup if I was going to ruin it with a frown on my face. My whole problem was I was going to my own gender dance class without a teacher. The only feedback I ever received came from my second wife when she was coaching me on how to walk in high heels. She rarely wore hers, so I always wondered how she knew.

The final image I was trying to put together, just had to be so much more delicate than anything else I had tried in my life. Which was easier to think about than to do. The only previous cross-dressing images I had to work from were singular efforts on my own to work with my presentation before I was brave enough to sneak out of the house and into the world. It did not matter if I was just going to the mall shopping, or attending a transvestite-transgender mixer, I needed to dance my way in as a transfeminine person the best that I could. 

Initially, I failed more than I succeeded and spent hours trying to figure out how I could improve my presentation in all the ways I could. Since I was battling a severe case of testosterone poisoning from my unwanted male puberty. As I said, it was no fun unlearning the male poses and replacing them with female ones. The best part was that when I succeeded as a novice transgender woman, gender euphoria swept in and carried me away. Letting me know I was on the right gender path in my life. No matter how selfish or painful it seemed at times. The best part was when my new feminine self was coming together, the times I could relax and enjoy the dance. Sometimes, in my heels, I could even feel light on my feet which I had never felt that way before.

The more that I was accepted and then involved with a group of ciswomen who regularly socialized with me, the more I learned about how far I still needed to go to be on an equal footing to mentally dance with them. It was a shock, since throughout my life I had considered myself such an avid student of everything female. Only then to find out I still needed to learn so much more. Such as when to be soft and when to be strong as a woman and to project that to the world when I had to dance with all of it at one time. By myself.

My life as a man in the past taught me at least two ways to deal with the world I needed to change. One of which was to never show any emotion and the second was to internalize any negative thoughts I might run into. Like being able to ever dance with women at all. Overcoming those two obstacles on my gender path were very difficult for me and was especially difficult when I started seriously to pursue a male to female feminization. Way past just putting on a wig, makeup, and a dress all the way to dancing with the world as a trans woman. In fact, I never reclaimed my emotions until I started HRT or gender affirming hormones and to this day I have to still work to not internalize all of my thoughts. Now I know it is OK to show emotion and not internalize everything in life.

One thing is certain; I will never be able to actually dance well in any way shape or form but mentally I can now since my senses have improved so much. Along with my sense of smell and temperature, all the old music I liked so much just sounds better to me now. It is a place I never thought I could be, so I have grown to cherish it. Afterall, gender was always such a delicate place for me since I was forced to a male box at birth I did not want to be in, once I escaped, I never wanted to go back. So far, I haven’t and my dance continues.

I hope you are a better dancer than I am! Thanks for reading along and any comments are always appreciated. 

How Did I Get Here

 

Image from Colton Sturgeon 
on UnSplash.

Often, I sit back and wonder how I ever arrived here as a fulltime transgender woman. Then, the reality of my life comes around and shows me the power of my dreams so long ago.

Some of my dreams I realized and some I did not, which is probably similar to any person’s life. I am biased, but I think a trans woman’s, or transgender man’s life is sufficiently different from most of the population to be mentioned. I think that very few boys' most prominent dream of what they wanted to be when they grew up was NOT a woman. Mine was. Even though I was into sports completely, I did not have any dreams of advancing into upper-level competition when all I wanted was to be one of the pretty cheerleaders on the sidelines. 

I wanted to be a girl so bad with their pretty dresses and long hair, I even dreamed about being a girl in my dreams and was extremely disappointed when I had to go back to my old boring male life. I just hoped that someday I could find my way out of the closet I had built for myself. On the other hand, I thought just maybe I would outgrow my gender dysphoria when in fact, what happened was I grew into it. As the years began to fly by, my skill at makeup and dressing myself in feminine clothes became better with time. 

What did not become better with time was me being able to sneak out of the house and away from the mirror which lied to me about my appearance and head out into the public’s eye. When I was out in my new high heels trying my best to look natural everywhere I went, I kept asking myself how I got here and why would I want to leave all the male privileges I earned along the way behind me. Mainly the natural defense that most men have simply because they are males in the world. If I was harassed for being my new transfeminine self, what would I do? Luckily the worst harassment I ever received was being laughed at early on and later having the police called on me for using the women’s restroom. I simply retreated quickly to my cross-dressing drawing board to become better as a novice trans woman and the female cop who answered my call just told me to go on my way. No harm to either except to my frail feminine ego. 

I keep writing about my failures in life because as humans we all have them and when we do,we need to pick ourselves back up and learn from them. When I faced my biggest obstacles, I needed to understand in the worst way that I really wanted to be in the new exciting yet scary life I was in, but how much was I going to give up continuing it. Building parallel successful binary gender lives was not the long term way to go. In the end, one had to go. 

The best I could do then was stay out in the world of ciswomen and see if I could make it on my own. It meant attempting to experience the good and the bad of a woman’s life to see if I could earn my way across the gender border into my own version of transgender womanhood. During this time, I did the best I could to establish myself as a totally new person, which meant leaving any vestiges of my male life behind to total strangers. There was no time for me to consider how I got there when I was interacting with the public. Again, I was fortunate in that most of the world was accepting to me and my problems were rare. 

I found myself at a point where I never thought I could be and that was being able to live a quality life across the gender border and being able to be shown the way behind the magical gender curtain I always wanted. Once I got there, my final answer was no surprise. I never wanted to go back to my old male life. Then it was up to me to figure out what to do about all the leftover male baggage I had accumulated over the years. 

As I was figuring all this out, it never occurred to me to consider how I got to such a different point in my life. Afterall, how many other humans have the chance to live such a unique life seeing the world from both sides of the main binary genders. It was not until then did I begin to enjoy where I was in life and the challenge of building a new one. Taking a life down and building a new one is certainly not for a weak person and not becoming a victim when you are down is a key to success to figuring out how you got here. 

Even today, as I prepare for a big dinner out with spiritual friends tonight and I am putting together an outfit, it still feels slightly different for me. For the dinner, we are supposed to bring an object or picture from a departed loved one and I chose the picture I recently found of my dad in 1951 with his dog. Since I have long since made peace with my mom who I tried to come out to when I got out of the Army, I never did try to come out to dad. Looking back, maybe I tried the wrong person, and I blame myself for never giving him the chance to know his daughter. Now this is as close as I can come to letting him know how I got here. Maybe too, since I have had the chance to live my transgender dream as long as I have, I would have been in a better place to explain it to dad. His death took that away from me sadly.

I hope you are on the path to discovering your place in the world. Thanks for experiencing mine. Comments are always appreciated!

Constant Refinement of Life as a Trans Woman

Image from JJ Jordan
on UnSplash. 

 Proper presenting as a woman has always been a challenge for me. After I went through an unwanted male puberty into an equally resented manhood, I emerged with no real feminine characteristics to work with. So, I had to begin from ground zero on my path to my own unique form of womanhood. 

When I could still find some of mom’s clothes I could fit into, the mystery of applying her makeup kept me working towards mastering it for a very long time. Until I could get to a point where I did not look like a circus clown in drag. Even if I was in despair over my cosmetic progress, I was able to keep working on it until I became more proficient in what I was trying to do. I did not know it at the time, but I was facing decades of constant refinement to get the feminine image I wanted to show the public correct. 

When my cross-dressing habits took me out of my closet, I was really put to the test when I first went out into the world. That is when I discovered how far I needed to go to be successful as a novice cross dresser. At times, the whole feminine process seemed impossible for me to do. But, for some deep reason I did not fully understand, I kept going. I even went the extra mile as a kid to take on a rural newspaper route to make extra money to buy what clothes, panty hose and makeup I gathered the courage to buy on my own. It all worked together to give me an added sense of accomplishment in my refinement process. 

When I had the courage for the first time to go shopping in one of the big indoor malls close to my house, I used to gauge my progress on how much attention I got from the roaming bands of teen girls in the mall. I instantly knew my refinement was working when I went from being noticed and laughed at all the way to blending in with the other ciswomen and not noticed at all. Still, it was no more than a beginning, and I had no way of knowing how long and winding my path would be across the gender border. 

Coming up with the credentials to cross the border into a woman’s world, took quite the refinement process for me. I researched as much as I could the transgender women that I knew who had already made the crossing as I wondered what made them successful other than their appearance. Which was amazing. I knew the old “beauty was more than skin deep” applied to these trans women and I wanted to know more. As I was deeply questioning my future in their world. What would I do about the relationship I had with my second wife and child as well as how would I continue to support myself in a totally new life were the major questions I had. At that point, refinement meant to me I needed to research how the other trans women I admired changed their lives and could I do it also. 

As I researched the trans women I knew and admired, I learned the truth that there could be no shortcuts for me if I ever hoped to overcome the obstacles I faced on my uniquely personal male to female feminization journey. Every wall I faced, I would have to climb it rather than look for the easy way around it which simply did not exist. I started from point zero and had made it to a middle point which I discovered was more interesting than I ever thought it could be as I went from being a dedicated student of ciswomen to being allowed behind the gender curtain to see the real complexities of the life I wanted to live. Still, I faced my own insecurities about doing it and needed to rely on my inner voice to keep me going. It kept saying that somehow, I was doing the right thing, no matter how difficult it felt.

When I arrived at this part of my life, I again out of necessity had to really begin to decide what I was going to do about my future and take the next step towards refinement so I could do it. Unexpectedly, I was able to carve out a new transfeminine life faster than I thought. Which brought in communication skills as well as other things such as settling into wearing the same wig and using the same name because the same people were interacting with me and I had to become a solid person. Not just a memory which kept on changing. Constant refinement was slowing down into areas which I could control. All of a sudden, my dream of womanhood on my own terms seemed like a real possibility. Which scared me in some ways and excited me in others. I could control for a change where I was going because I was a regular there and I even thought I was the venue’s token trans person because I was a tribute to their diversity. 

When I discovered I could make new women friends who accepted me for who I really was, I was able to refine myself simply by learning from them. They led and I followed their example which rounded off the remaining rough edges I had from a male life. Most importantly, the lesbian women around me taught me that I did not need a man to validate my existence. Which worked out well for me because the vast majority of cismen ignored me when I left their club and all my male privileges behind.

I think now, in the long term, the life I led which resulted in my constant refinement presented me with the chance to have a much more interesting life than the normal human. 

Thanks for reading along! And I hope the election turned out as well for you as it did for me. We now have a Democratic Senator and Governor in my native Ohio! Yay!

 

Election Day and Much More

Image from 
the Smithsonian

It is election day and my anxiety is at an all-time high it seems. On one hand I am excited to go out and place my vote and on the other, I am scared to death the final results will give us more of the same we have had to put up with as transgender women and transgender men wherever we are. If you are at all a regular reader of mine, you know where I stand with my politics and I am very much against the “Diaper Don” and Elon Musks of the world who have tried to buy elections. Especially in my native state of Ohio. I am so sick of the anti-transgender political commercials I see lying about us in the world. I cannot wait for it to be over. The only thing I urge you to do is look ahead at your future and the future of young trans kids everywhere. Even if you are a closeted cross dresser right now, you never know what the future may bring for you and you may need the rights you voted for. 

On the other hand, it is time for me to remember the first time I proudly showed my new female driver’s license to vote. It was a true milestone in my life that I will never forget. It was as if I was knocking out two birds with one stone by exercising my right to vote as an American and as a transgender woman. Hopefully, after this election, the people will come around to the truth and vote for no more useless wars and honest politicians who care about us. I would only urge you to get out and vote for the future of this country and to release the bonds we feel every election day as trans women and men.

The “more” portion of this post pertains to the fact I have still not heard anything back from the cardiologist at the Veterans Administration which I hope goes under the category that no news is good news, but I will see. The latest EKG I took showed some sort of problem my doctor wanted to look at. Now, my biggest fear is that I will have to stop taking my estradiol dosage I have been on for years. I have received a comment from another reader approximately my age who needed to stop her hormones quickly when she was diagnosed with heart problems. Being me, I immediately became concerned what would happen if I too was told I needed to stop my hormones. Would I lose the long hair I have taken years to grow, go back to having male emotions and certainly lose my soft skin and breasts were all primary fears. Then, for once I calmed down and told myself not to build any bridges until I came to them and if I did stop, whatever happens would be far better than losing my life.

Plus, anyway I look at it, I need to be grateful I was approved for HRT to start with and deep down I knew I could be on borrowed time if I took them. At the least, even if I need to stop tomorrow, I would be deeply disappointed but appreciative of the chance to take an exciting hormonal ride across the gender border I was traveling. It is just a negative part of my personality to build such huge bridges along my life’s path. 

Speaking of my path, ironically as I enter my late seventies, the biggest obstacles I face seem to be medical ones. On top of my heart concerns, I have an appointment with my hematologist coming up soon also at the VA. Since it is at the downtown hospital, it is very congested and hard to get to, so thanks to my wife Liz, she can pull up to the front door, drop me off and go find a parking spot. It will be another we will see appointment because all my blood lab work has been done for the doctor to look at. 

This will be a short post today as I have to get ready to dress casually and go vote. A close shave, followed by a light foundation covering and lipstick should do it for my face. While leggings, and my “Boomer” sweatshirt would do it for my fashion on an unseasonably warm Ohio night in Cincinnati. Even though I want and expect to see a larger than normal turnout, selfishly I hope I do not have to stand in line long because of my mobility issues. Whatever the case, I will have to make it because I desperately want my vote to count. 

As always, thanks for reading along! I hope your day finds you healthy and happy. Comments are always welcome.

 

Stop The Noise

 

Image from Markus Kammermann
on UnSplash

Transgender women and transgender men often have quite a bit of external noise to deal with in our lives. Mainly the noise coming from family about following our gender paths to transitioning. 

In my case, I did my best to shield myself from any noise coming from my family over my desire to be feminine. I hid my small stash of women’s clothes I collected the best I could in our house growing up and even had a backup collection I put away in plastic trash bags in an old hollowed out tree in the woods next to my house. I guess I did a good job because to my knowledge I was never discovered and forced into impromptu visits to a psychiatrist. 

Another problem I had was that most of my noise was coming from a very loud internal source. It kept telling me that I was living the wrong life as a male and I could do nothing about it at that time. Frustration grew as I looked for various other outlets for my noise. At first participating in sports worked. I was not the best athlete around, but at least my involvement helped keep the bullies away and made my life a little more secure. As I said, the problem was that I never excelled in sports or anything else that mattered. The noise was telling me that the only thing I wanted to be really good at was being a girl. Which presented another problem. How could I ever express my gender needs when telling anyone would certainly result in blowing up the life that I had known. So my life went on, as I headed for my college time and then a stint in the Army. Which certainly went against all my gender desires. 

Just when I started to be brave enough to buy a nice wig for myself and sneak out of the house and into the world, Army basic infantry training came along and put all my desires to be a woman on hold. My three years in the military were far from spectacular as I had followed the same old path in my life I had always followed. I did the best I could to survive until hopefully, something better came along. It all worked for a while because of the structured life I was forced into in the military and the noise was just moved to the back of my head constantly because there was nothing I could do about it until I was honorably discharged. When I was, my life went right back to where I had left it and I could resume my cross-dressing ways in front of the mirror. 

The only difference was that for the first time in my life, just before I was discharged, for some reason I decided to tell three of my closest friends that my Halloween “costume” was not a onetime deal and that I liked to dress in women's clothes as much as I could. Thank goodness, no one I told told anyone else so my secret was still safe until I tried to come out to my mom when I got out of the Army. She brutally rejected me, and I was sent back to all the noise I was experiencing before. The topic was never brought up between us again. The only understanding “friend” that I had was the mirror. 

At this point (for once) my noise out did the relief I was experiencing from cross dressing in front of the mirror and I resumed getting out of the house and into the world to see how I fit into it as a transfeminine person. The going was rough for a while until I got my high heeled shoes firmly planted on the ground and I started to blend in harmlessly with the world of ciswomen around me. I discovered that the vast majority of the world was wrapped up in themselves and did not care about me at all which brought the number of people I needed to pass way down and lessened the panic noises in my head. 

Then I needed to be more selective in the voices I was listening to. I needed to tune out the rare hater (TERF) gatekeeper I ran into who resisted me being in her world and concentrated on the ones who did. The women that did want me there were my teachers in what femininity truly meant to them and were willing to share. From my background, I was always attracted to strong ciswomen, and I was just following on the same path as I gained ground. I cannot stress enough about how positive the feminine gender changes in my head were suddenly being accepted and how much better my life was. For the first time in my life without all of the transgender burden I was carrying around, I could actually see happiness in my future. 

Before happiness could ever be around, I needed to follow my voices again on my male to female feminization path and get it done. That was when I needed to start backfilling my old male life and refill my past with my new feminine life. I am referring to the legal name changes and new ID’s I needed to smooth out my entrance to the world. As well as the HRT gender affirming hormones I needed to make it all so much easier. Until all of this happened, I think I was nearly tone deaf because of a lifetime worth of constant noise around me. 

As I said, once I was able to sort the noise and see the bright future I always should have had if I was not forced into the male box I never asked for. In my case, destiny stepped in and opened gender doors for me I never knew I had. Whatever I decided to call it, the best part was happiness did set in when the noise went away. 

I hope you did not have to put up with your own brand of noise. Thanks for reading along about mine. Comments are always appreciated! 

Happy Halloween !!!

JJ Hart with Tom on left. 

 Once again, the national holiday for cross dressers has rolled around. It is our chance to show off our feminine finest to the world without the fear of destroying everything we had tried to build up in our male lives. In many ways, for some of us, it is time to walk that thin line of appearing too convincing as a woman and raising suspicion of how we were able to go all the way and shave our legs for one night, or have the skill to apply our own makeup. 

Over the past month, I have presented the various Halloween parties I attended which really helped me to understand if I could ever live my dream as a transgender woman. I was fortunate in that I was able to be free enough to take the Halloween opportunity as far as I could and run with it. My wives at the time all knew about me being a cross dresser, so my skill at putting together a complete feminine “costume” did not surprise them and they stayed out of my way for the most part.

The only problem I had with Halloween was that it only came once a year and I needed to find other outlets for my desires during the regular boring parts of the year. When I needed to escape the part of my life I wanted less and less to do with. 

Sadly, after I transitioned and crossed the gender border into the feminine world, my interest in Halloween began to fade. It was as if it had served its purpose and it was time for me to move on with my life. The exceptions were the Greater Cincinnati Witches Balls that my future wife Liz and I attended every year. In its early stages, the Ball was held in a vintage mansion which at one point in time went under a renovation which included an attached ballroom with a balcony which was perfect for the vendors who set up to try to sell their wares. In other rooms, there were belly dancers and various other entertainers. It was quite the event. 

In the early years, the only mistake I made was the footwear I chose for the party. I found out quickly that no matter how good my high heels made my legs look in the mini-skirt I was wearing, my feet just did not agree with me wearing them and the pain led me to places I could sit down and kick off my shoes for a couple of minutes. I learned my lesson in the later years when we went to the party.  I  wore comfortable flats which made it easier to walk the short distance to our close-by hotel room we had so neither of us had to worry about drinking and driving. 

Liz and I became so attached to the workings of the Witches Ball that in later years we even became volunteers through the circle of spiritual friends that Liz had been a member of for years and they accepted me also. The image I provided with this post shows me helping out at the circle’s promotional table with another volunteer who has since passed away. It was nearly the end of any more Halloween activities I could be involved in as my mobility issues worsened. In the meantime, I was left with all the pleasant memories of Halloween past.

I Hit the Kid Lottery

 

Liz on left JJ Hart with Daughter
on right. 

One person I don’t mention enough is my daughter who is my only child. The easiest thing I can say about her is that somehow, I won the kid lottery when she was born. 

To begin with, when my daughter came along, I was very much an out of control, alcoholic wreck of a person. Desperately running from my gender dysphoric problems. Very quickly, I needed to settle down and at the least figure out a way to pay for her birth on the close to minimum wage job I was working at a small local radio station. So, you could say, she worked her magic on me before she was even born. Since back in those days, it was more difficult to determine the sex of your baby ahead of birth, my wife and I decided to be surprised when she arrived in the world and more than anything else we wanted a healthy baby.

Not only were we blessed with a healthy baby, I became what I treasured most…a girl dad. I was secretly overjoyed that I would have the chance to be around another feminine person in my life and if I ever had to come out to her as my authentic self, it would be easier to do with a girl than a boy. 

As she grew up to college age, her mom and I were divorced and my daughter ended up growing up in a village who adored her but more importantly shaped her into a very diverse person. Which would obviously come back to help me later with her. The only drawbacks to her diversity came from my mom who wanted to control where she went to school which I would not allow. 

Jumping ahead to when I finally came out of my closet and announced to the world that I was transgender, my kid was chosen as being the first to know. I was very nervous on the morning that I chose to tell her the news, and I was frightened at her possible response. It turned out she was disappointed but not in the way I thought. It was not in the fact she was essentially losing her father figure but on the other hand, why was she the last to know. Then I had to tell her she was the first to know I was transgender. Not a cross dresser such as her mom and stepmom knew that I was. It was a huge difference, and she started to calm down and to my amazement began to make plans to help me along with my transition across the gender border. I knew right then I had won the kid lottery and all the effort I put into raising her for this moment had paid off. 

The first suggestion that she made was asking if she needed to come shopping with me. Which I politely declined since I was able to fill out my wardrobe nicely by then since I was a serious cross dresser for so long. The second suggestion she made scared me to death. She volunteered to treat me on my upcoming birthday to a hair color and styling at her upscale beauty salon and spa. Like I said, the whole idea frightened me but I did take her up on the offer and in a couple of weeks, there I was in the salon nervously walking down a line of ciswomen getting their hair done. After the nerves wore off, I discovered my day was the gift of a lifetime and I understood then what the drawing card was for all women everywhere. In fact, I joked about not needing to take my Estradiol dose that day because the estrogen in the air was so thick I could cut it. On my way out, I set up my next appointment without the help of my daughter. 

Her influence on me did not end at the salon as she worked with me setting up a new legal name which would work easily for her three young children and made it clear she wanted me in their lives. It turned out, I was in a humorous way when my middle grandson ended up in a fourth-grade class taught by one of the cities’ best known out drag queens. My grandson came home one day and proudly announced to my daughter that his teacher and I were just alike, and my kid had to explain the differences between a drag queen and a transgender woman to her fourth grader. It turned out to be the first of many conversations she would have with her kids about diversity in the genders when her oldest daughter came home suggesting she liked girls more than boys. That was the daughter who graduated as a nuclear engineer from Ohio State and then transitioned.  It turned transgender women and transgender men run in the family. 

Later on, it turned out my daughter and son-in-law stepped up in a big way when I needed them again after the breakup between my only sibling and I when I came out to him as transgender. It was around Thanksgiving and he revoked his invitation to me to come enjoy the family. Back then my future wife Liz and I were just getting serious, and it looked like I was going to have no family to visit on the holiday like I was used to. Liz and my daughter stepped up in a big way and invited me to their family’s holiday get together. It meant the world to me.

It proved to me once again that somehow, someone was looking after me and I had won the kid lottery. I even was asked to speak and participate in my grandchildren’s Bar-Mitzvahs when she converted to Judaism. Again, I was scared to death to get up in front of a bunch of strangers I did not know except for a couple of women I knew from before I transitioned and even went along on a girl’s night out trip to a drag show with my daughter. 

Whatever the outcome of my life now, my daughter was certainly a gift which kept on giving. 

As always, thanks for joining in with my thoughts. Any comments are always appreciated!

Transitioning Was Nothing but a Circle

 Over the years, I was able to go through several major transitions other than the obvious ones. 

Similar to many of you, I started by going through my mom’s clothes looking for the rare ones I could wear. Then I extended my explorations into her makeup and used her electric razor to shave the unwanted hair off of my legs. I did not know it then, but all my work to be feminine was just the start of a lifetime full of change. At that time, I thought that my change would be limited to the clothes and makeup until a little thought kept sneaking in that I was still missing something in my life. Finally, I discovered the missing link was the fact I wanted to do more than look like the girl, I wanted to be the girl. 

Since I was in complete denial from the world around me, I needed to work hard to hide my feminine supplies I had worked so hard to accumulate. My newspaper route with the pittance I received as an allowance did not go too far when I had the courage to sneak out and buy my own panty hose and makeup. Just by starting to buy my own feminine articles was some sort of a transition because it was the first time I was able to stand up and support myself as a feminine person. No matter how much courage it took me to do it. Plus when I ran my own hose, it was on me to replace them.

As I grew up, life became more complicated along with my gender dysphoria which had grown from a simple look in the mirror in the morning to a full-fledged urge to do more with my cross-dressing urges. Sooner than later, the urge to break out of my dark lonely gender closet would overcome me and I would have to address my needs to be a woman in the world. I was very naive and did not have a complete idea of what that meant but my voice was telling me it was time to try for the next transition in my life. 

Before I tried, I needed to take stock of what I had to work with and have some sort of an idea of where I was going to try to go. At first, I threw caution to the wind and started to just park my car near closed shops in a shopping center where I lived. Which turned out to be no challenge at all. Then I stepped up my cross-dressing game and decided I would go to one of the nearby major indoor malls around me and see if I could make it as a novice. The answer was a resounding no and I was sent back home several times in tears after being laughed at. I would have to work harder to make my new transition work or give it up all together. 

By this time in my life, I was tired of giving up on the things in life I really wanted, so I was in no mood to give up my biggest dream of all which was living a life as a transfeminine person. Even though I had such a long way to go to get there. I never counted on so many transitions which were both physical and mental. The external feminine person I was building had to be the best I could do and then combine my image with my mental strength that was telling me I was doing the right thing. On occasion too, the transition was all mental when all of a sudden I began to think of myself as more of a woman of my own making than a serious cross-dresser at all. At that point, I began to relax and enjoy my time around ciswomen more as an insider and not as a cis man looking to join the girls’ club. 

As all of this was happening, on my own personal homefront gender war was breaking out. As what was left of my male self and my second wife were fighting me over transitioning any farther into my dream world. At the same time I was dreaming of changing my legal gender markers to female from the hated male and starting HRT gender affirming hormones, my wife and male self stepped up their war against me. In a tragic and unexpected way, I won the battle when my second wife unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack, leaving me all alone to do what I wanted. 

It turned out, all the groundwork I had set up on all the previous transitions I had gone through came back to help me. My Veterans Administration therapist came through with all the paperwork I needed to start the ball rolling for me to change my legal name to a more proper one which came from generational family names rather than feminine idols I had encountered in the past. Then I used my new name to get a new driver's license back then in Ohio which is not allowed today. Thanks to backwards Republican lawmakers which leads me to being able to change my birth certificate which is nearly impossible to do. For the same reason. 

Perhaps, most importantly, I was able to accomplish all of this at the same time my social life was picking up as a transgender woman. I was able to establish myself as a regular in straight bars outside of the gay venues I used to go to where I was treated as just another drag queen. It all worked together to provide me with another major transition in my life. A chance to live as I always should have been. 

Ironically, all these changes and transitions I went through just took me back to me and made me have regrets about the process I should not have had. I did not ask to be born into the restrictive male box I was born into and needed to quit being a victim to eventually get myself out of it. I feel good.

Thanks for reading along with my trip back to being myself! Comments are always appreciated.

JJ Hart on my way. 

The Waiting Game

 

Image from Levi Mear Clancy
on UnSplash

As transgender women and transgender men, we often play the waiting game in life. In my case, I played the game frequently as I could not wait for the next time I could cross-dress and could put on makeup.

 

Early on in life I was naïve and thought that eventually I would grow out of my desire to be a girl if I just waited long enough. Of course, that never happened and I grew into a more established cross-dressing life, all the way to being a proud transgender woman. Often, I was very frustrated when I had to wait in my gender journey to clear obstacles in my path such as three years in the Army, the raising of my family and other things too numerous to mention.

 

There was also frustration when I had to learn what I was doing as I tried to cross the gender border. It was not as easy as just putting on a dress which fit me and applying skillful makeup. It took an extreme amount of time away from my unapproving family, a younger brother and an extreme amount of practice to do it right. None of the process was as easy as I had imagined but for the first time in my life, I was dedicated to doing something right and that was coming as close as I could to becoming a pretty girl. Adding to my increasing problems was that I had no choice but to go through male puberty with all the unwanted masculine qualities I received but had not asked for.

 

It seemed, the older I became the waiting game for me increased completely with it. I was still trying to carve out time to cross-dress in my closet which in itself was becoming increasingly frustrating. The time was upon me to leave my closet for the first time and see if I could make it in the world as a feminine person. Somehow, I gathered the courage to go out and then was completely rejected by the public. All my failures combined to send me back to my gender closet and return to my waiting game. Finally, I reached a point where I could wait no longer and kept trying the world until I got it right and I was blending in with the world at large where I was going. When I did, my paranoia about going out decreased and my confidence increased as I began to relax and enjoy myself.

 

As all of this was happening, it was becoming increasingly evident that a tour of duty in the military was going to be in my future. To attempt to stay out of combat in the Vietnam War, I decided to enlist for three long years, and avoid the draft. My problem was at that time in my life, three years seemed like an eternity. Especially away from my dresses and makeup. As well as the new long blond wig I managed to purchase for a girlfriend I had in college who hated the wig, so I managed to get it back. A dream came true for me until I had to leave it behind for three long years until I could get back home and wear it again.

 

When I served my three years and was back in the civilian world, I again was naïve and thought most of my waiting game was behind me. In fact, it was just getting started when the Halloween parties I went to as a woman, showed me that I could possibly live my dream of a transfeminine person after all. I just had to find the hidden keys to unlock my future which was not going to be easy as I thought it was going to be as I delved further into what I would have to do to survive and thrive in a world made up by ciswomen. As much as I had studied the world of women around me, I was not ready to go behind the gender curtain and be admitted into the girls’ club. A woman’s life was much more complex than I ever imagined and the first fact that I learned was why cismen and women do not understand each other. In order to make it into the girls’ sandbox, the first thing I needed to do was understand the new form of communication I was challenged to learn. It was true that men were from Mars and women were from Venus and initially, I felt I was on the Moon. The ultimate gender traveler.

 

The positive part of my life at that time was, my waiting game was speeding up, and I was learning new lessons on where I should be in the world nightly when I went out to socialize with my new ciswomen friends. Without them knowing it, I set back and let all of them be my feminine teachers as I tried to round off what was left of my old male life. Even still, I was impatient about how my life was going and wanted to know what was around the next blind curve on my gender path. I had waited long enough with the time I had spent by myself trying to learn a new life which included a whole new gender language.

 

Before I made the final decision to end my waiting game and jump into the girls ‘club I needed to pause and look back and see if I was making the right decision with my life. Since I was giving up almost all the male privileges, I had worked so hard to gain. I finally got so frustrated with myself that I had to do something about it. I was tired of worrying every moment of the day about what I was going to do. One night I said enough was enough and it was time to begin HRT gender affirming hormones and leave my past behind.

 

I will never think that the waiting game I played was a good thing, but it turned out I had to play out the cards that I had. We are all different which makes us human and interesting as trans folk. We just must get the remainder of the world to accept us. The fact remains the world does not take the time to understand us. So do not expect it. What you can expect is a fair break from the world as you follow your path. That way your waiting game may be a little easier.

 

Thanks for listening to my waiting game I was playing. Any comments are appreciated.