Better at Being Human

 

Image from Micheile Henderson
on Unsplash.

Following years of refining my life as a transgender woman, it occurred to me that trans women and transgender men are just better at being human. Or should be.

Why? Because if we are able to do it right, we get to see both sides of the binary gender spectrum in life. Along the way however, I have met more than a few trans individuals who have not managed to make the transition across the gender border gracefully and seem to have some sort of a chip on their shoulder about the transition process. I could understand them being that way with the outside world but could not understand why they would be so bitter with others within our community.

Let me explain or try to. When I was first being active in the online community of cross-dressers versus transgender women, I encountered a group of trans women who seemingly based their femininity on how many gender affirming surgeries they had gone through. Coining the term “I am more trans than you” so what do you know about being transgender since you are just a cross-dresser. In one fell swoop, the “trans-nazis” as we called them were taking all of humanity out of the entire gender crossing process. I know I thought at the time that somehow they had not lost all of their male past when they transitioned. They were still men at heart showing off their materialistic possessions such as new women's parts to make themselves feel better. 

As luck (or boredom) would have it, I grew tired of the conflict and switched away from the internet site altogether to begin to explore my own feminine world I was busy building. The only thing I knew at the time was I wanted to explore building a kinder and gentler me when I entered a new world. And especially, I wanted to support others who were doing it too, the best I could and not try to be in some sort of a contest to be more trans than they were. Essentially, way back then, over a decade ago at the urging of a friend, I decided to begin to blog about my life and gender transitions as a way to help others. 

I also decided to make a concerted effort to try to never put myself up on any sort of pedestal as I certainly had gone through my share of difficult times in my life due to my own gender dysphoria and bi-polar depression issues. I wanted to make myself a better human by doing it. I learned through therapy that even though depression could be a part of my gender issues, often it was not and was caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain. Not my desire to wear a dress. I was fortunate to have found the right therapist out of sheer luck to help me. But I was not lucky enough to listen to her when she told me there was nothing, she could do about me wanting to be a woman. I was still too stubborn to face the obvious about myself and make me a better person because at that time I was not as I was a mean and nasty person when I was coming down from my high when I achieved gender euphoria. I was hating my male self and letting it show to the ones I loved. It became so bad that I lost jobs over my attitude before I got it under control 

From that point forward, I decided to focus on the positives I was learning as a transfeminine person and put it into good use in my everyday life. Mainly I began to notice and react more effectively to the ciswomen around me. In many ways, I was preparing myself for the days when I could cross the gender border and live with them on an equal basis. Since I had always been better at getting along with women than cis men it was easier for me to do when I was treated to an unexpected rush of feminine attention when I started to come out into the world. Looking back, I think there were two reasons why it happened the way it did. 

The first reason I think was the fact that most women were curious about why I would leave all my male privileges behind to enter her world. The second, equally as important, was the fact I was a better human for my time exploring the world of both binary genders. In fact, I was flattered when a few ciswomen asked me questions about understanding their spouses or boyfriends. Finally, I was given a chance to be a better person as a transgender woman and not scorned or belittled. The best part I always mention was that every time I interacted with another woman, I was learning from her on how to exist in her world. Maybe the women I was dealing with sensed that, and it paved the way for a smoother interaction. 

The final reason I did not mention was the fact that when I was carving out a new exciting yet scary time in my life, I may have not been the best at doing some aspects of it but at least I was honest in what I was doing. 

After the wonderful election results, I am hoping that the overall population realizes we trans folk are not the demons we were painted out to be by the political culture wars. Maybe now, more and more people will come to the realization that we are better humans because we have had the chance to live on both sides of the binary gender border. Just maybe, along with that, people will learn we are just part of the population which is trying to better itself. No different than most anyone else. 

Being a better human takes very little extra work in life.The world just looks a lot better when you do it.

Thank you again for reading along with my ideas! Your comments are always appreciated. 

No Learning Experience is a Waste of Time

 

Image from Christian Lue
on UnSplash.

Now that Halloween has come and gone, I am sure that some of you took advantage of the freedom of the season to express your feminine side. Maybe to the public for the first time. 

For you first timers, congratulations on taking the first tentative steps out of your gender closet. For the rest of you, you ended up like me and gained Halloween experiences as a trans woman you will never forget. I vividly remember the night that three friends and I attended a midnight showing of the “Phantom of the Opera” on Halloween one year in the newly restored “Ohio Theatre” in Columbus, Ohio. I was proud of my “costume” which was a mini dress, blond wig, shaved legs and high heels to set it all off. I was prepared to pay the price for fashion with my heels until I had to walk a distance to the theatre from the closest parking spot we could find. As I tried to daintily find my way down the sidewalk, it was not long until my feet were protesting and I was looking for a place to sit down. That was not happening and I just had to ignore the pain and chalk it up to another experience.

When I began to break away from just going out into the public eye and testing myself as a novice cross dresser or trans woman, I needed to get ready for many more experiences, some good, some bad. From both, I tried to keep in mind how difficult it was going to be to attempt to cross the gender border and live out my dream and I tried to always learn from the experiences I was going through. Since I had very few to none natural feminine characteristics to start from, I knew my journey to possible success as a transfeminine person would be a long one and hopefully soon, all the tears from the rejection I was feeling would soon be forgotten. Sadly, that was not the case and some of my early dealings with the world have left many serious memories with me. Until I got to the point of dealing with them as just another experience I would have to go through to get to my goal. 

I was there, mainly because I was always on the outside, looking in when it came to being around the ciswomen in my world. Because I was excluded from the exclusive girls’ club, I could never see all of the complex dealings in the world a woman has to go through just to be successful. Including dealing with huge male egos which I was guilty of having. I just tried to transfer mine to my feminine side by obsessing the best I could about being an attractive woman. It became an all or nothing obsession which consumed me to a point where it was all I lived for and I am not proud of the experience. I wonder now, why my second wife stayed with me at all, but she did. 

As I always write about, it was not until I broke the self-imposed bonds, I had put myself under, did I begin to really understand the life I was pursuing. And figure out if I really wanted to do it because there was so much at stake. Everything I worked so hard at would need to be thrown in a giant trash can as I started all over again as a trans woman. No experience was a bad experience really came into play when I left the gay venues I was frequenting and started to try to socialize on an equal footing with the ciswomen in my world who would gather after work in a TGIF Fridays I went to as a man. When I was going there as a man, I always fantasized how it would be if I could do it as a woman and when I did, I was in heaven as well as being scared to death that I would be "discovered" and told to leave. Which thankfully never happened and I needed to step up my wardrobe options to keep blending in with the women around me.

It was not until then did the women around me begin to reach out to me when they saw that I was all alone and I began to build up a small circle of friends who turned out to be lesbians who were destined to teach me more than I ever imagined about the world and how to deal with it as an independent woman. The first thing I needed to do I discovered was to take the important step of validating who I was as a person. To take all the experiences I had accumulated and learn from them. By this time, most of the bad experiences had faded away, giving me the confidence to be myself for the first time in my life. When my validation was secure, I could move on and cross the gender border the way I wanted to. 

One thing was certain; I needed to keep being a keen observer of the genders around me if I was to continue to be successful.  Quickly I found, I was kicked out of the men' s club for good as they left me alone for the most part. Which was the direction I wanted to go anyhow because I had never felt comfortable around men and what they demanded from me to be successful in my life. For once, I felt comfortable in my life which added to the fact I had always felt so natural that I was doing the right thing when I was pursuing a feminine life. 

Finally, I bought into the idea that I was a unique human with a lot to offer to the world if they would accept me. To arrive at the point where I was, I needed to take all the good and bad experiences of my gender journey and combine them to succeed. When they did, I knew I had made it to my goal against all obstacles, and I was living my dream.

Thank you all very much for joining me and as always, I hope your experiences turn out to be positive ones. Comments are always appreciated.

Getting Creative as a Trans Woman

 

Image from Brooke Cagle
on Unsplash. 

When I began my male to female femininization process, I needed to look around and take note of what I had to work with.

It did not take long for my notes to come back. I had very few feminine traits to begin with as I started my long gender journey. Which meant I was going to have to be very creative if I was ever going to make it to my goal of possibly living fulltime as a transgender woman. To begin with, I needed to find some way to disguise my testosterone poisoned body to present the best I could in the public’s eye.

By beginning to look around and closely watching all the shapes and sizes of the ciswomen I was observing, I slowly began to see the various women who were around me and what they did to improve their appearance. Naturally, I started to copy all of them which gave me hope that I could someday present well enough to blend in comfortably with the public to get by. At the time, finances were another hurdle I needed to face when I went out to shop for a new feminine wardrobe. Since I really did not know what I was doing in the world of fashion from styles to sizes, it did not make any sense for me to shop at any of the high-end women’s clothing stores until I had a better sense of what I was doing. So, I got creative and began to be a regular shopper in several of the big thrift stores near where I lived.

In the stores, I had the freedom to shop as long as I wanted for just the perfect addition to my wardrobe. Better yet, if I did not like it when I got it home, I did not have to worry about returning it because I did not spend much on the item anyway. When I began to gain the confidence to do it, I even began to use the thrift store dressing rooms to try on a special wardrobe item that I had picked out. Life was getting better.

Then I found that better did not mean I was reaching the end or even the middle of my creative feminine journey. Sure, I was able to blend in better with the public as a trans woman, but I was not getting anywhere as I tried to communicate with those ciswomen who wanted to communicate with me. I was woefully unprepared as somehow, I thought the world would not want to talk to me, and I needed to catch up. To do it, I started by trying to mimic the tone of the woman trying to talk to me. I did not have to worry about very many men because they avoided me completely. It gave me the freedom to concentrate on one aspect of my gender journey and that was the communication lines I needed to form with women if I was ever going to be successful and conquer the major hurdle I faced.

Quickly, it became evident to me that I could not conquer the communication problem I was having talking to women alone. I was not creative enough to recognize the true differences between cismen and women when they talk, so I sought out professional help. Ironically, the help I got came through the Veterans Administration and my therapist who recommended me to the speech therapy department. I was then set up appointments with a gender speech counselor who promptly sent me on the right path. She spent sessions with me going over the way women talk different than men and use different words in a totally different way. I had no idea before the sessions I took of the nuances the genders use when they communicate. Before long I was able to build the confidence I needed to go forth on my own. Better equipped to face the world as a transfeminine person.

As I was building the blocks I needed to be successful in my transition across the gender border, I still needed to be receptive to change and be creative when it happened. For the longest time, I needed to still remember which gender I was operating on what particular day. Which even came down to how I interacted with my employees after I went through feminine speech therapy. Was I talking to them like the old male self I used to be, or the new female self I was becoming. Gender concentration was a must if I was ever going to survive the new world I was in.

I think the worst part came when I was in the final stages of my border crossing to the female side. I was in the last part of my male side saying no to the entire move as well as me having my own misgivings about giving up all the white male privileges I had gained over the years. Finally, I needed to sit down with myself and get creative on making lists of what was good and what was bad about what I was thinking about doing with my life. The final drawing card came when I pulled the ace of hearts which told me how natural I felt when I was in my unique world of womanhood. I decided there would be no more of the self that never should have been. I was stuck in a male box from birth, and I had spent fifty plus years being creative enough to find a way out.

Giving into my feminine side was the best move I ever made, and my inner self rejoiced that I had finally made the right decision as I went back to the thrift stores. This time to return all the male clothes I did not need anymore. Sure, it felt strange every morning to figure out what I had to wear as a woman but I made it happen when my future wife Liz asked me what kind of a woman, I was when it came to fashion, a girly-girl or a “tom-boy”. It turned out, I was more of a “tom-boy” as I came to love the simplicity of my leggings and jeans. It turned out the entire rebuilding process I was going through as a transgender woman was just the fun part after all those years of suffering. The best part was that I never had to second guess myself anymore. I made my decision and never looked back.

Thank you all very much for reading along and I hope you have the concentration to see you through your transition. Any comments are appreciated.

 

Starting All Over Again as a Trans Woman

JJ Hart

With all the environmental global warming disasters we have going on in the world today, there are many people forced to start their lives over. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to all of you who have lost a significant part of your lives to weather-related incidents.

On the other hand, transgender women and transgender men have a head start on most people because we have become skilled in stopping our lives and starting all over again. In my case, I put it off until my mid fifties to start all over again and leave my male past behind me. The only thing I really did was build up too much male baggage I had to figure out what to do with.

I had a long-term marriage to a wife who was completely against any thoughts of me transitioning into a woman, a small but secure family, a vintage brick house I was restoring and a good job to consider losing. Unlike a weather related “hand of god” experience, I was bringing down the demise of my male life completely on my own. Without the help of anyone else. So, it would be my burden to carry around if anything went wrong with me crossing the gender border and following an extreme male to female femininization program which would eventually include HRT gender affirming hormones.

The only thing I did know was I was off to a good start as I slowly refined my makeup and clothing arts as a very serious cross-dresser who always had the suspicion that more than cross-dressing was in my future. Being more than a cross-dresser was like dangling a carrot in front of a horse to get it to move, I just had to have the confidence to tear down what I built and start all over. Any setbacks I encountered when I went out in public for the first time would always destroy the frail confidence, I had built up in myself over time and sent me back to my closet to try to figure out what I was doing wrong. How hard could it be?

I found out over my early years that “it” could be very hard as I struggled to get out of my closet and into the world. For the most part, it seemed I had bitten off more than I could chew when I began to get close to the gender border and had to think of all the white male privileges I would have to give up if my urge to transition did not change. Not only did it not change, but it also strengthened into a powerful force that I thought of every spare moment of the day and even some nights when I dreamed. It was always extra punishment when I had to wake up from being an attractive woman and go back to my boring and unwanted male world. Still, I had no alternative but to keep pushing towards a transfeminine goal I never knew if I could reach.

To my surprise, I went through other major and minor transitions as I made my way from cross-dresser to the transgender terminology. As I became more skilled at blending in with the world of ciswomen around me, mentally I slowly shifted back to my old thoughts that I wanted to be more than a man who looked like a woman. I wanted to feel as close as I could to feeling like I belonged behind the gender curtain and be allowed into the girls’ club full-time. All my surprises led me to a place where I could finally flourish as a trans woman. If I could decide what I was willing to give up getting there. When the time came to decide, would I be willing to push all my chips into the middle of the table and decide to go all the way, or once again, slink back again to my closet. Or I could relate my life to being one big “Monopoly” game where I was always ready to take another chance and buy another feminine property.

I know all of this sounds like sort of a word salad fantasy until reality set in for me. In my haste to seek out the meaning of a feminine existence for me, I had started to build up the basics I would need to keep building a new and exciting life I never thought I could get to. But there I was having to decide what I was going to try to keep of my old male life as I tore it all down and built a new one. I was very one dimensional in my life with my hobbies and interests so in that sense, I did not have much to get rid of. The one interest I hoped I could keep was my interest in sports and always figured it might help me if I was ever involved with a man but never dreamed my former male life in sports could mesh so well with the ciswomen I met.

Before I knew it, I was joining woman-friends in sports bars drinking beer and debating our favorite teams. I saved one piece of male baggage but at the same time, others had to go. As I write about often, I lost my unapproving wife and several male friends to death in a short period of time. When they left me, I realized how difficult it was for me to make true male friends. As I started to transition more, I began to understand why. Down deep, I was never interacting with other men as a man but rather as the trans woman I truly was. All of the pieces of the puzzle of my life were finally starting to come together, and I was seeing the big picture of what my denial of myself had cost me over all those years. I came away thinking how I could miss something that was that simple.

One thing was for sure, thanks to the HRT hormones and the relationship I was building with my future wife Liz, nothing was standing in my way on my gender path. Liz was the opposite of my second wife and told me she had never seen anything but female in me anyhow. I certainly was not one to argue and gave away all my male clothes to charity so I could help all those thrift stores which had helped me in the past.

I was more than ready to start all over again.

Thank you so much for taking your time to join me in my gender travels. Any comments are always appreciated.

 

 

What Could Possibly Go Wrong

 

JJ Hart

What could possibly go wrong when you transition genders from one side of the gender border to another? We all know the answer to that question. A lot can go wrong when you start the process of traveling your long gender path out of your closet into the world.

It seems the path never gets any easier the longer you go. If you start early in life, and happens to be in an understanding family, you may be able to begin hormone blockers before you enter the hated results of the gender you want nothing to do with. And that door is rapidly closing in backwards states like my native Ohio which are doing their best to ban any gender care at all for anybody. Especially minors.

On the other hand, if you are forced to wait in life for the hormonal poisoning which goes on in puberty, you end up playing catch up your entire life as you either have to go through extensive, expensive operations to present more authentically as the person you want to be or stay the course and try to present effectively with makeup and clothing skills. Which was the path I needed to take. Plus, let’s not forget the obstacles we face when we are first considering the HRT gender affirming hormonal route. To do it right (which you should) you should seek the help of a doctor to help you along which is an unwanted expense that many transgender women and transgender men may not have the finances to cover. Then there is the extra route I had to take with the Veterans Administration of having to go through mental health screenings before they would approve my HRT at all. I was fortunate to be matched up with a VA therapist who had knowledge of the LGBTQ world so all that could have gone wrong never did.

When you male to female transition later in life like I did, many risks come along with doing it. All of us must give up almost all we have worked so hard to achieve, such as having spouses, friends and jobs reject us as we must start all over in life. What could possibly go wrong with wrecking your own life often becomes a reality.  I know firsthand of several trans people who had their lives wrecked, simply by wanting to live as themselves. It seems no one under the transgender umbrella gets a free ride out of the rain. Let’s say you are very passable but still must worry about a stray toxic man threatening you physically when he discovers your truth. It all takes what a ciswoman fears most in the world as far as sexual violence goes and takes it to a whole different level.

It is difficult to live a life when you forever are looking over your shoulder if you are transgender, but it happens. For example, when you leave what was left of your old male privileges behind, you leave much of your personal safety privilege with it. You better begin to learn what ciswomen are taught from a young age to know. Think ahead and do not put yourself in potentially dangerous situations such as dark city streets when you are alone. It happened to me before I almost learned the hard way not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It takes a strong individual to seek admission into the transgender tribe. We must go through a lot of trial and error to learn what is right and wrong on the path we are taking. In my case, often more error than trial as I had to keep going back to my cross-dressing drawing board over and over again before I was able to overcome all the testosterone poisoning I was subjected to and I learned to blend in and exist in the feminine world I had always dreamed of but then again, I kept finding out what could I be doing wrong and kept on going. Sometimes I pushed my trans envelope too far and had to lick my wounds and get back in the game.  It took me awhile to regain my confidence and get back out in the world. So far away from my privileged male life as I could get. Again, I asked myself what could possibly go wrong with what I was doing with my life.

The answer kept coming back that everything could go wrong and I could be forced into before I was ready into the feminine world I wondered so long if I could live in. I was at the crossroads and needed to get off the middle gender ground and do something about it. I ended up again following my instincts and making the only decision I could. It was not everyday that I had the chance to reassess where I was in life. I needed a real conversation with myself possibly for the first time ever. I was surprised at how fast the conversation went as I thought why was I continuing to put myself through all the gender problems I put myself through. I was paying for all the stress without any benefits. Somewhere along the way I veered from my male path and never wanted to go back which was the most important decision of my life. It was time to attempt to find some joy because who I had become and time to build a new life from my old male self.

It turned out I was engaged for years in a long-term relationship with my feminine self. Not being closer hurt, me sometimes drastically and I had to repair them. No more internalizing my feelings for a change. I was finding out what could possibly go wrong if I did not face my truth. Shame on me for not doing it.

I faced my truth again yesterday when I went for my annual physical exam at the VA. I have been lucky to have the same doctor look at me for years now, so she has never questioned my transgender status at all. I had a lot to do yesterday, including blood work. flu shot and overall exam when things became a little sketchy. When she was listening to my heart, my doctor heard something she did not like and immediately ordered an EKG. She did not think it was anything to worry about but just wanted to send it to a cardiologist to look at. It means a lot to me because my mom passed away from heart problems at approximately the same age that I am. Now I am awaiting the results. On the bright side, all my blood work came back fine. Even my estradiol, which surprisingly, agreed to check it for once at the new clinic I was going to for the first time. It should mean I won’t have to have my blood work done when I go to Hematology next month.

What is the worst that could happen? Hopefully I can stay active and continue to lead a productive life.

Thanks for reading! Any comments are always welcome!

 

 

 

Like the Bulb which Refused to Go Out

 

Image from Christian Dubovan
on UnSplash.
 

Years ago in another life, I bought a small corner tavern in an 1860’s era brick building in my hometown with a friend of mine.

My dad aptly called the bar the place flies did not have to stop when they flew through and I had to agree. But his criticism did not stop my friend and I from trying to make it the best tavern we could. When we were bored, we started to look around in all the saved junk that ancient bars accumulated and found a vintage, part wooden beer sign we could not wait to put up, even though that brand of beer did not exist anymore.

Amazingly, the sign had an ancient filament light bulb that still worked, so we used it and it kept on working for years. Later, I began to think of that bulb and how it could describe my gender conflicted life. No matter how hard I tried, my inner gender feminine light just would not go out. Not even a three-year stint away in the Army from the external expression of me being a cross-dresser could put it out. In addition, when I was honorably discharged, I found I needed to replace my inner gender bulbs with ones of a greater wattage to illuminate my dark, lonely closet.

Brighter bulbs helped to illuminate my feminine image in my closet mirror and helped me improve my makeup art as well as determine what clothes would be the right ones to wear. My new visions of myself helped me to speed up the cross-dressing experience and I just wanted to have more. That is when I began to take chances by going out into the malls and shopping centers close to my home. It did not make matters any easier as I learned how far I needed to go to successfully blend in with the ciswomen around me. Instead of displaying a small/dim bulb to succeed, to get to where I wanted to go, I needed a brighter bulb to display myself if I was ever going to make it as a successful transgender woman

At first, I was just using my light to interact with clerks and salespersons until I built up my confidence to do more. I was moving past my early days of Halloween exposure to the world as a trans woman and I was scared to death because for once I did not have the, “well I am wearing a costume” excuse to fall back on if I experienced any pushback for my cross-dressing in public. I was not up to no good, all I wanted was for my light to shine brightly in the new exciting world I was in. Unfortunately, in my early years, you might say I was a dimwit when my light bulb flickered and I thought it was going to go out. Those were the dark days of “purging” or getting rid of almost all of my feminine belongings and pledging to myself that I was going to turn the light off for good, put it all behind me and go back to where I was as a successful man.

As I said, those were the days of being a dimwit because deep down I knew I needed that feminine bulb to survive. No matter how dim it was at the time. Ironically, every time I “purged” I discovered very quickly I would need a much brighter bulb to sustain my life when I returned to my gender reality. Then I started to work hard to see what my new reflection in the world really was as a transfeminine person. I had to be constantly on my toes with my best behavior to do it as I was learning so much from every woman or the rare cisman I interacted with. It seemed as if I had to keep a constant supply of new bulbs handy every time I went out in the world. I always mention the stripping of all my male privileges as the main way which drastically dimmed my new light as a trans woman until I could replace the privileges with the whole new euphoria of being able to exist equally as myself in the girls ‘club I so desperately wanted admission into. It finally became evident to me; to be admitted, I had to find a bigger, better bulb to improve my overall presentation. So, I would never have to start all over again with my feminine life.

After years of experimentation and trying, I made it into the girls’ club where I always should have been in my life. And I put all those years of replacing bulbs behind me. Suddenly, my gender path became well lit like a large city street which I was able to navigate easily. With the help of powerful/magical HRT gender affirming hormones which helped me sync my external selves with my feminine inner self. I really became a whole person with all the gender benefits I had ever dreamed of. My emotions became clearer as I became more sensitive to the world. Among with the usual changes in hair on my head and breast size to my chest. Probably, most importantly, I was able to quit trying so hard with my makeup as my skin softened along my facial angles which made me more passable as a transgender woman. The world questioned me less, so I was able to change out fewer bulbs as I continued to play in the girls’ sandbox for the first time in my life.

The only regret I have is that it took me so long to follow my feminine destiny and live out my truth in life. I wasted too much time and money cross-dressing my life away changing gender bulbs until I got it right. I should have taken the time to write down somewhere the number of excuses I heard from my male self why I should ignore my truth and not try to live a life as a transgender woman. But I did not and the only thing I can fall back on is when my male life was good, it was very good and very bad when it was not. It is the only excuse I have to waste all those bulbs I did over the decades of gender experimentation I did to arrive at my destiny.

Hopefully, you can do the same. Thanks for reading and comments are always welcome!

 

 

 

 

How Difficult Could it Be?

 

JJ Hart

When I started my transgender journey, I was very naïve and I kept thinking how hard it could be to stay on my path.

All I saw was the good side of being feminine with all the girls around me in their pretty clothes and long hair when I was stuck in all the restrictive, boring male clothes and very short haircuts. To make matters even worse, I needed to make sure I kept all of my cross-dressing activities very hidden from the family and friends who would have ridiculed me and called me a sissy boy. The worst thing I could be called in my very male dominated family.

As I said, I was naïve and for years thought that all I wanted from being feminine was looking like a woman, so I obsessed about it night and day. Eventually, I did come closer to achieving my goal while all the ignoring harassing comments from my second wife who rarely wore any makeup at all. On the rare occasions she went out with me, she constantly thought I was going too far with my makeup and hair to the point of calling me the “Princess”. When all I was doing was trying to blend in with the ciswomen around me by overcoming my old male self.  Of course, I felt the criticism was not fair and the evening was ruined. Often before it even got started. From that point forward, the fights started because she did not like the trans woman I was becoming. And I did not understand why.

I think now that she thought I had not paid my dues as a woman yet to claim the socialization title and she was right. I was still stubborn and did not know how I ever was going to have the chance to play in the girls’ sandbox if I did not want it bad enough. I was stuck between two massive changes in my life which would either involve giving up the woman that I loved for one that I was learning to love. How hard life could be was becoming a reality for me like a boulder rolling down a cliff directly at me. It was quickly becoming unbearably hard when I discovered I could indeed see a path ahead of living my life as a transfeminine person.

What happened next was that I began to step away from my wife and essentially live the life she challenged me to live. That is to begin to socialize myself as a transgender woman in the world. I started to meet strangers as a trans woman who never knew me as a man and start all over in a new life. How hard could it be? It was and the whole process scared me to death. I was terrified of being stripped of all my old male privileges and having nowhere to turn if something negative happened to me. How would I be able to react to potentially negative situations in my new life. It turned out I did not have many potentially negative problems, and I was able to grow into my new feminine person with very few problems because most of the world did not care what gender I was. They were too wrapped up in their own worlds. Especially the cismen who were so afraid of their fragile sexuality that they left me alone. Which was fine by me, since I had always had a problem with making friends with other men when I was trying to be one anyhow.

Ciswomen, on the other hand, were much more willing to let me in their worlds and even show me around. Making it less hard to be one of them as I was learning daily how to fill out my life. I always had enjoyed being around women and found I even enjoyed it more when I was made a member in good standing of the girls’ club. Being in the club entitled me to use women’ only spaces such as restrooms which made my life so much easier also.

Most likely, I made some male to female transition issues more difficult than they should have been. Such as when I first came out into the world and thought everyone was looking at me, when they were not. I even went as far as to wear a favorite pair of sunglasses I had to see if anyone was staring at me without them knowing it. They were not, I was relieved and was able to go on with my new life. With new confidence I never had before. Maybe I could achieve my dream after all. It was a scary thought because then I had to start to think about what I was going do with all the excess male baggage I had built up over the years when I was trying my best to hide my true self by being a successful man.

The entire focus of my life changed as I began to consider the new and exciting reality of being able to live out my dream I had wanted since I was a child. I was sad when I could not tell the truth when an adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I could not say a woman and earn a quick trip to therapy by my parents. At the time, being a woman seemed as far away to me as being a lawyer or a doctor. But at the same time, a dream I really wanted to live.

Along the way, two things were evident to me. One of which was every time I achieved a goal on my path, another would appear for me to consider doing. And the second thing was, every time I began to doubt myself, I would start to feel natural about my journey and it would re-energize me, so I could move forward again. Forward was always good and made me feel better about my life which brings me back to my original point of how hard it could be to cross the gender border. Exceedingly difficult at times to be sure, but excitingly natural as I was doing it.

Wherever you are on your path to a better tomorrow, I hope you can discover your truth and make it in one piece. As always, thank you for reading and comments are always appreciated!

 

Buckle Up....It's the Transgender Law

 

Image from Milada Vigerova
on UnSplash.

As any of you transgender women or transgender men already know, it’s time for you to buckle up for a rough and bumpy ride along the way. To coin a term used in Ohio commercials, “Buckle up, It’s the Law”. To which I added, it is the transgender law.

It all begins early in life when we learn we have gender issues to work out of. Then we must go through the cruel reality which fully sends us into masculine bodies we wanted nothing to do with. Or the opposite for trans men. In my case, I had no need for all the muscles, angles and hair my body was adding, but there they were and I had to buckle up for a lifetime of sometimes unpleasant experiences.

Adding to the problems, many of will not survive puberty as femininized boys or masculine girls but at least the “tomboy” label can get girls by. When they want to play with the boys, which is frowned upon if you are a boy wanting to play with the girls. In my case, I remember Christmas when I wanted a baby doll and received a BB Gun instead. Hear I was stuck in a life I never wanted. I had to buckle down to change it more than anything else I ever wanted to do.

Not being a feminine boy worked wonders for me as a boy around the bullies at school but was a difficult pill to swallow during my early days of trying to look like a pretty girl in the mirror at home. Back then, I could have never imagined all the work I would have to put in to shake my male external image. It would be so much more than just learning to apply cosmetics correctly or finding a feminine wardrobe which would fit me.

What I started to do was take better care of my skin by using good moisteners I could sneak past my wife and then started a crash diet in which I used to buy better fitting clothes in the thrift stores I was haunting, looking for bargains. It worked because I began to be able to present more effectively in the shopping malls I was going to. Which I never thought I could earlier when I was laughed out of them. By then, society was changing or I was because the teen girls who used to harass me began to leave me alone. But only when I was able to femininize myself to the point of almost blending in with the rest of the ciswomen I encountered. I considered it step one to achieve if I was ever able to make it to my goal of being a functional transfeminine person. Or, I had to at least look the part the best I could. It turned out that was going to be the easy part for me and I had better buckle up for what was coming up ahead for me.

Step two it turned out was going to be the longest step I would have to take, as I finally entered the world as a trans woman and started working for my future. Following several false starts and in-advised adventures. By ill-advised, I mean the nights I was asked to leave several redneck venues I went to just to see if I could. I did not make it and got asked to leave, which I did with no incident as I continued to settle into a life I respected, and it respected me as I began to carve out a new existence. The only way I did make it through this step was to consider every failure as a learning experience to never try again. I was fortunate that several of my experiences turned out to be potentially dangerous situations that a ciswoman would know from experience to try to stay away from. Such as dark city streets late at night and huge cross-dresser toxic admirers in small hallways at a party I was at.

During stage two, it would have been certainly better to learn from what ciswomen told me than trying to find out for myself. It was all part of my effort to see if I really wanted to step aside from all the male privileges I had learned and start all over across the gender border to find out if the grass was greener on the feminine side. Which is what stage three would teach me, as I had to buckle up for the first time in my life for circumstances beyond my control such as death and dying around me. For some reason, I had always thought I would be the first to die because of the destructive lifestyle I was leading but I was very wrong.

Death and dying meant that my wife of twenty-five years along with four close friends all would pass away ahead of me with a short two-to-three-year span. Knocking me into a deep depression, and a battle with loneliness. I had gone from being a very shy person in my early life to being a very social one and I did not want to go back. But the problem was, I had never had an easy time making friends with other men as a man, how would I ever do it as a woman. The answer was quite easy when I began to live it. I found I naturally interacted with women much easier once I was playing in their sandbox, and I became very social again. Which in turn brought out more of my feminine self but first, I had to summon the courage to buckle up and put myself out into the world.

It all worked for me and took me to stage four in my life. The stage where all my challenges seemed to disappear temporally. Many times, life still caught up with me, and I had to do my best to stifle my old male urges. But them again there were still many parts of my male life I needed to bring with me. I could not live for half a century without doing so. I guess you could compare my stage four to a giant-sized kitchen mixer when I needed desperately to turn out a quality product.

It was certainly never easy to buckle down and live a radical new life as a transgender woman for me. It was especially difficult to do since I was very much an easy-going person and learning about a new life was an interesting experience. If I was going to give any advice, I would say expect a dose of the worst and embrace the doses of the other. One way or another buckle up for your new life.

 

 

 

A Gender Yo-Yo

 

Image from Eric Prusak
on UnSplash. 

I have felt most of my life like I was a gender yo-yo. One day I was a boy and the next day I was a girl was the way I was living, and it was no fun. The ups and downs were killing me as it did in the future as I tried many self-destructive attempts.  Luckily, they failed.

Of course, my male self-received all the benefits since he was given all the advantages as I was born male and could do nothing about it. He got all the accolades when he did something right at home while at the same time, my feminine self-needed to remain firmly hidden away. Which did nothing to relieve the yo-yo gender life I was living.

Then, there were the vivid dreams I was having where I was the pretty girl. Sadly, I had to wake up to no changes in my everyday male world of having to compete daily with the rest of the male world I was in. It never changed so I was stuck and I could not go live in the world of women where I always wanted to be.  The yo-yo never seemed to slow down as life went by me, but I can say I did l learn to adjust to its up and down rhythms. As I began to understand what gender euphoria meant to me and how long it would last once it was over. The answer was a maximum of four to five days before the depression of not being an active participant in my own transfeminine life would set in and I would have to get creative and do something before my gender yo-yo hit the floor.

To counteract my depression, I began to research the meager amount of information I could find on gender issues way back then. The only term I could find was gender dysphoria which was labeled as a mental illness. So, I rejected it. All I knew was I was confused still if I was totally a male or a female. If the term had been popular back, then I have used gender fluid for awhile to describe myself. At least it would have worked until I began to run out of male fluid altogether. Since I did not have the mental willpower to find my gender fluid leak, I concentrated on keeping track of my feminine side. As I became a regular at LGBTQ diverse parties close to where I lived. It was like going to one of those quick oil change places where I could rejuvenate my feminine self around like-minded others. From lesbians I learned shared an attraction with me to toxic cross-dresser admirers, I was able to experience and learn from them all.

On the negative side, like my yo-yo, what went up had to come down as far as my gender euphoria went. Not too long after going to the parties, I started to miss the experience and wanted to do it more. Which made me a spoiled brat when I lost my yo-yo completely and could not find it. I was learning how to live a new life where I fit in as a secure transgender woman, but I was not there yet. What all my research at the parties proved was I had just scraped the surface of where I wanted to go as a trans woman but still had not had the chance to research where I needed to go internally. The internal piece would be the hardest to do because I had learned so effectively to wall myself off from the outside world and ignore it. As I struggled to live a life as a man.

I finally had to listen to the world and discover my internal piece was the biggest part of my second wife saying I made a terrible woman. Because I did before I was in the unique position to remake myself. Maybe in many ways, I was a clueless person all together and that would have to change before I could ever move forward into a better world. I had the chance to take what I learned in a male world and build a solid female world was a chance I just had to take. I needed to take a new approach and put the imbedded emotions of my yo-yo aside. It helped me with all the ups and downs I was feeling specifically with my mental health. I finally had to face the truth about myself and freed me up to be me as I always say.

If the truth be known, I was never any good with my yo-yo anyhow. My male-equated hand-eye coordination stopped me from doing more. Maybe it was my fault because I was always so biased about being male at all. Through all the ups, downs and sideways, I knew I could not take it anymore. It was time to take a time out from him and learn what life would be like of I took the transgender plunge. Was I risking all that I had earned to live my dream or not. I thought I would be fine after all the research in the world I did but I needed to make sure. What I discovered was I did not care for good about the risks I was about to take. As I said, I had put that old yo-yo away for good.

Hopefully you have been able to put that yo-yo of yours away too. It is certainly no fun to do it. Thanks for reading and commenting.

 

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

Image from Shifazz Shamoon
on UnSplash. 

Typically, as we follow our winding gender journeys as transgender women or transgender men, we reach points where we must decide what we are going to do next.

It is especially intimidating to see all the political anti-transgender ads on TV funded by far away billionaires such as Theil and Musk who are pouring millions into defeating Democratic candidates here in my native Ohio. Especially the ones stating that the Democrats are extremists who supported sex change surgeries for children in school. That is about as far as I want to go politically in this post, so I will move on to what really matters…each of us and how we feel.

If the so called “civilians” in our world knew what we have to go through to see results in our individual gender worlds, they may understand more what it is like to be in our shoes and being constantly bombarded with negativity. Following years of struggles (or decades) I was fortunate to have found my way into discovering who the true me really was and most of the years of turmoil went away. Even still, I needed to follow a journey of steps which led me to blind curves which I knew nothing about.

All I discovered was that I had an unique life worth living to the fullest and very few other human beings can live a life which enables them to experience both sides of the binary gender road. It meant being able to exist in a life I never really wanted to live as a man. Slowly stop it altogether and start all over to earn a place like the other gender. As frustrating as that life as a trans person can be, the rewards can still be there if you can answer all the what’s next. Since most of us begin our lives cross-dressing in front of a mirror, there is plenty of ground to cover. Because we are destined to have such a small knowledge of the gender we are seeking to become. Again, because we are stuck on the outside looking in.  

Gaining access to your new life can take many paths. Sadly, many involve marriage, family and friends we do not want to give up but have to. The ways to announce your true self to the world can be done in several ways. Some just pull the band aide off, cross-dress and say here I am to the world, while others write letters and others still try to soften the blow by providing positive feedback from the internet or social media. Sometimes, I think I chose the most painful way of all as I tried to maintain my marriage to a woman I loved deeply while I knew all along that my truth was going to slip sooner or later. To make matters worse, she knew I was a cross dresser from the beginning and accepted it but told me time and time again she would draw the line at any moves I would ever make to going the transgender route and taking HRT hormones. She did not want to live with another woman. An answer I could never debate.

I guess you could say, I wanted the best of both gender worlds as I tried to do better and better in the male world I learned to survive in, while at the same time work very hard on my makeup and wardrobe to appear more realistic as a woman. All I was doing was creating severe friction within the marriage and within my head. If I was not thinking about work, I was thinking about how I could improve myself as a novice trans woman. Which I was just understanding that is what I was.

Without fail, I would get moody and nasty when I did not get my way and be able to cross-dress when I wanted which led to more friction within the marriage and more fights. In the heat of battle, my wife told me a couple of things I should have reacted to sooner. One of which would have been difficult for me to do and the other I should have been doing all along. Being called a “Terrible woman” was one thing I did not understand until I had the chance to live my truth as a transfeminine person and the other time she told me, “Why didn’t I be a man and live like a woman.” She was right, I should have done it. No matter how painful it would have been for me to carve out a new life for myself during that portion of my life when I was in my thirties.

Another problem was the sizeable male ego I was still carrying around with me. He wanted me to look and act a certain way as a novice trans woman which my wife did not like. Which led to more fights. The only revenge I ever got on her was the night she was forced to ask me for help on her makeup when we were invited to an upscale business dinner. At least the “Terrible woman” was better at makeup, I guess.

The thing it took me years to understand was that it was never about looking terrible as a woman, it was all about being socialized as a ciswoman. Sadly, my wife passed away before she could ever get to know the new improved feminine me. It took me until I was in my fifties to begin to get admission into the Girls’ Club and fully understand more about what my wife was talking about all those years before. I was suddenly on the verge of knowing where I wanted to go from that point forward. As every part of my being was telling me I was making the right decision about my life and should go for it.

I would not recommend taking the amount of time I took on my gender path before I made the final decision to live a life I always thought was going to be a dream. I think now there would have to have been a better way or like my second wife said, “Be man enough to be a woman.”  At the same time, I had my reasons for not doing it when I did which I will discuss in-depth on another post.

In the meantime, I hope you have a clearer understanding of where you want to get to in the everchanging world of trans women and trans men.

Thanks so much as always for reading along and I hope somehow, I have helped you on your gender journey. Comments are always appreciated!

 

Finding Your Trans North Star in a Straight World

 

Image from Daniel Lincoln 
on UnSplash

As most all transgender women and transgender men know, finding your own personal North Star is often very difficult to do.

The first thing you have to consider is what your North Star means to you and down the road, what will you do to follow it. Very early on in my life, I knew the only thing I wanted to really do when I grew up wanting not to be in the male body I was born into. It turned out after fifty plus years of trying; I was able to make it mentally out of my male body and live as a transfeminine woman but never seriously considering undergoing any of the serious and extensive gender realignment surgeries which are going on today. At the time, I figured I did not have to risk my body which to this day has been healthy and just concentrate on the physical feminine side of life I enjoyed so much. Or my gender stayed between my ears and not my legs. Which started me down a very long path trying to discover what my North Star meant to me and where it was exactly.

The problems which clouded my view came almost exclusively from my male self-fighting the process of a male to female femininization every place that he could. He took a secret joy when I was laughed out of venues I was in as I was dressing to please him and not the public who really mattered which were ciswomen who determined if I could stay in their world at all. What he did not count on was that the stares and laughter just made me more resolute searching for my feminine self.

As I went along, I discovered even the most strenuous male activities could not mask the shine of my inner feminine star. Not even three years in the army could hide her glow when it counted. In fact, lessons I learned when I was away from my true self helped me when I could return seriously to my gender path. Most importantly, I learned I could rely upon myself more completely when the times became rough. Sadly, it took me years of living to learn a woman could be feminine and strong all at the same time as my two-role model’s mom and second wife taught me to be. Without ever knowing they were dealing with another woman. Much to the chagrin of my inner woman who wanted her chance in the world.

And yes, there were times that my North Star was completely lost in the clouds before I could completely reclaim her. Such as the time when I was stuck transitioning from a serious cross-dresser to a novice transgender woman. It turned out, it was only another mental transition because at this time, I had most all my appearance basics together and I was ready to experiment on the next step of mentally comparing myself as I socialized with other ciswomen. Following much fear and trepidation, I found that I could and more importantly, I felt natural and happy doing it. My star was shining brightly when I made it out of the comparative safety of the gay venues I was going to (where I was only considered to be another drag queen) to straight venues in the world where I could express myself as a trans woman.

I discovered that once I reclaimed my star, I reclaimed my life too. I was on the verge of reclaiming the life I was so unhappy in and turning it into an existence which restored my fragile depressive mental health and gave me a reason to be happy. Probably, for the first time in my life. But I still had a long way to go, because my male self stubbornly refused to give up all the privileges he had earned and was fighting for at least a partial share of my life. It did not matter to him that I felt happy and natural when I was a trans woman, carving out a new life with new privileges for myself. Such as constant interaction with ciswomen who were interested why I was in their world. I finally quit trying to figure it out and learned to sit back and enjoy the socialization process I was going through. As I was learning as much from them as they were about me. It all made me a better person as I continued to carve out a new life for myself.

Thankfully, my North Star continued to burn brightly for me during this time of my life. I needed the guidance of the star to help me navigate any more blind curves along my gender path that I was on. I never counted on the new life being so much more complex than the old straight forward male life I was discontinuing due to lack of interest. From appearance to body movement to communication, I needed to change it all, and I felt I was running out of time since I was in my mid-fifties, and my biological transgender clock was ticking. It all kept me going and interested to see what was beyond the next blind curve I would have to face on my gender journey.

By this time my North Star was starting to sink into the horizon of a new day for me as it guided me forward into my new day. As it faded, I was able to sit back and appreciate all the good things it had sent me through in my life, as well as helping me around some of the bad ones I needed help with. By following the star, I was able to finally make it to the dream I never knew I could do and that of course was being able to live a happy life as a transgender woman.

Even during my dark days of infantry basic training in the Army at Ft. Knox, my North Star came through and helped me see the way to overcome my gender shortcomings which turned out to be temporary. Permanence turned out to be the ability to follow and live out my dream.

As always thanks for reading along and I hope you have a North Star to guide you also through the thick and thin days of a transgender life.

 

 

 

 

Being Accommodating...Not Intimidating

 

Image from Billie
on UnSplash.

Being accommodating versus intimidating was very difficult for me as I transitioned from male to female.

It was all part of learning a new feminine world and escaping the male bonds I had suffered so long from. What happened was, I was thrust into a male dominated world in which if I was ever going to survive, I would have to play the intimidation game of life. That way, I could stand a very good chance of keeping the bullies away as I matured. It did not hurt that I developed into a larger slightly above average sized male person (which I hated) but again when I added sports into my life’s mix kept the doubters away from my masculinity. In fact, I needed to play that intimidation card well into life and used it before I transitioned into a transfeminine world. Intimidation became easy to use for me, and I counted it as one of my male privileges even though I stopped short of ever being a toxic male because I respected all women so much. But it worked well with the male kitchen crews I needed to manage in the busy restaurants where I worked.

The problems began with my basic personality outlook I had been forced to live so well when I began to try to join a world which was largely controlled by ciswomen, not cismen as I always thought was the case. Women just found unique ways always to work around males and their drama. And here I was in the middle of a new world just trying to find my way successfully.

I felt it most intensely when I was forced into communicating one on one in the world with other women. I found I was unprepared and initially just tried to keep my mouth shut, which turned out to be exactly the wrong move to make. Here I was trying to make new friends in a feminine world without talking? How was that going to work. It did work. In exactly the way I did not want it to. If I did not express who I was, the other woman I was trying to communicate with just assumed I was being standoffish or in some way stuck up which was the last thing I wanted to do. So, I immediately trashed my male scowl and quiet behavior as a form of intimidation to keep people away and went to a more open form of interaction with the public which invited people in. In many ways, it was one of the most intense and scariest things I ever went through in my life. I was in uncharted territory for sure and even resorted to feminine vocal lessons to help my progress.

And then there was the experience I had with a small girl who startled me in a clothing store I was in. She ran around a rack of clothes and almost hit me and went running back to her mom saying something about a “Big mean woman.” Immediately I was relieved that she got the woman part right but right then and there decided to do more about the old male intimidation factor I was obviously still carrying with me. In no way did I want to go around scaring little kids.

Life went on, and so did I as I started to feel more secure in my new role behind the gender curtain. I learned that many ciswomen were just curious about who I really was in a world in those days dominated by day-time sensational talk shows such as Phil Donahue and Jerry Springer. Here I was. The real deal cross-dresser or transgender woman right in front of them to talk to and know that I was just a normal person like them after all. It all happened because I had the courage to let them into my world and turn my old male intimidation ideas off for good.

Perhaps the most intense topic in the intimidation versus accommodation discussion came from my initial introductions to the women’s restroom. It was the exact opposite from the men in many ways except the obvious. In the men’s room, you were expected to never make contact or acknowledge another man while in the women’s room just the opposite was true when a polite smile or greeting was the proper way to acknowledge another woman. It took me a little bit of time to get used to the change, but I did it quickly because I wanted to earn my women’s room privileges desperately. For obvious reasons, I was drinking a lot of beer.

I see intimidation versus accommodation as just another step in acclimating yourself into the feminine world. But you have to do it right to be accepted. You must be yourself behind the gender curtain you choose without becoming a doormat. As an outsider to transgender men everywhere, my thoughts are it probably is more difficult to assume an intimidation role in a male world. On the other hand, accommodation in the female world I was in was always an easier path for me to take. I just had to understand and react to anyone who was setting up to take advantage of me. I came away with plenty of claw marks up and down my back from unfortunate experiences I had in a new (to me) passive aggressive ciswoman world. I learned often that a smile meant nothing in most situations when another woman was just sizing me up.

In the end, the whole experience just boiled down to very important experiences I needed to learn to finally make it out of my closet and into the world as a transgender person that other people would like to know and often my smile was the beginning of that process instead of my stay away old male scowl. The fun part often was seeing the results from the amount of learning I needed to do in my stubborn head to make it happen.

As always, thank you very much for joining me along my gender path and I hope you gained something from my mistakes. Any comments are always appreciated!