A Brave New Gender Path

 

In essence, every turn we take down the path can involve us making our way into a brave new gender world. Little did I know how long the path would be or how many twists and turns it would take. Often I think I should have known more about the gender change process before I started. On the other hand, I was deeply protected from the world in my very dark and isolated gender closet. Even though I was dealt many setbacks as I tried to appear feminine, I was able to experience just enough gender euphoria to help me continue on my journey .

Very early in my life I found I could run my own newspaper route and save my allowance from doing odd jobs around the house to save money to buy my own feminine items such as makeup, hose and even shoes. Then I discovered saving the money was the easy part. Just exactly how was I going to be able to get to a store to spend it because I was still of pre-driving age and only had my bicycle to try to make it into town. I found where there is a will, there is a way when you are dealing with the powerful urge to cross dress and look like a girl. Since my Grandma lived in our nearby city very close to downtown, I could make an excuse to want to go in a see her for a day when I had the chance. From her house I could easily walk downtown to several stores who specialized partially in selling makeup and other women's items. 

Once I summoned the courage to try to shop for the first time on my own, I needed to be extremely careful because my Dad also worked downtown and it would be hell if I was ever discovered.  Little did I know, being discovered by Dad would not be the only hell I would face. Once I found the cosmetic section, I was ill equipped to be prepared for all the different products and brands I was suddenly faced with buying. I remember to this day the panic I felt when for the first time in my life I picked out a few select makeup items and even a pair of my own panty hose. I was flying blind for the most part on what shades of lipstick or foundation to buy but the panty hose decision was much easier since I could buy the largest size the store carried. 

In what seemed like an eternity, I made my selections and gathered my courage to take them to the checkout line. My nervousness I felt would give me away and a suspicious clerk would ask me what I was doing with all the items I had hurriedly selected. All my nerves proved to be wrong and I think the bored clerk never even looked up to see who she was checking out. I paid my hard earned money, looked around again for my Dad and headed back to my Grandma's where I easily hid my purchases. Like it or not, my brave new gender world was beginning to change. During the course of the next few decades I began to learn how deep my gender dysphoria would go into my soul and how far I would go to try to satisfy a  journey often filled with terror and euphoria as I followed the best I could all the gender mileposts. Mileposts which led me finally to a brave new gender world. I am sure I will write more on the subject in later posts. 

Why Do I Write

 

Image Courtesy Aaron Burden
on UnSplash

As I took on the challenges years ago of writing a daily transgender non fiction based blog, many questions came about. During the years, often who my audience was began to change. Initially I thought my readers would be primarily transitioning gender women and men who may be able to benefit from the lessons I learned. I mentioned transgender men because I know of several who read the blog including one who was my first date with a guy. It was quite the experience. I added non fiction because I see so many fantasy based blogs with their filtered pictures, I felt along the way somehow without being over bearing I had to explain all of these experiences really happened to me and they were not stories. I couldn't make all this up if I wanted to. 

Because I had so many errors in my trial and error periods of my life, I  decided to write about them. When I did I  began to receive so many good comments. I kept it up again hoping I could help someone else. The old don't do what I did sermon which I never listened to anyhow. Like going out to public spaces dressed as a teenaged slutty girl in my oversized male body. It's no wonder my second wife didn't approve of the way I cross dressed most of the time. Luckily, it didn't take me very long to grow out of this phase of my transgender life.

 During this time I considered (and still do) my main reader audience to be transitioning transgender women. I had a real pleasant shock when I received comments from wives trying to understand their spouses gender issues. Then I considered adding more information which may be important to a wife. Until  I thought I wasn't or shouldn't be in a position to offer any advice because I did such a poor job communicating my gender challenges during my marriages. Finally, I thought if anyone learns from my past mistakes again it is a good thing. 

Currently I think transgender women and men of age are my primary audience as well as a small group of people who allowed me to join their circle of friends when I so desperately needed it. I could name a few names but I am afraid I would leave someone out. Also recently I have discovered a growing group of transgender veterans on both platforms I write for, Google and Medium who share similar experiences to me when they served in the military. It always has been amazing to me how the dark days before the internet and social media affected us all as we had little to no help when we battled our gender struggles. A battle we may have to have never fought if we had access to the transgender information which is available today.

Probably, the group I leave out for no particular reason are the crossdressers. Even though I can certainly write, I spent a half century as a crossdresser, I think I don't spend enough time including them in my writings. Or, worse yet end up sounding as if I am better than someone else because I started hormone replacement therapy and made the move to living full time as a transgender woman. Without the lessons I learned from my crossdressing days both as a man and woman I would have never made it to the life I live today. 

 

Jen Richards

Jen Richards is a transgender writer, actress, producer and activist.

Rent a Gender?

One of the "fluff" stories on the evening news tonight was the new "trend" among millennial fashionistas was renting high end fashion accessories like glasses to complete outfits. I thought what if you could rent your gender?

If you could take the "magic" pill and transform yourself to the person you always perceived yourself to be-would you?  The base for many great stories, I am sure. The problem would be of course would be how the insiders (transgender individuals in particular) would perceive the option versus the civilians of the world. An idea for another post. A pill for the ultimate cross dresser perhaps? Or an idea for a "Twilight Zone" episode?

Also an idea would be to write a short speculative transgender piece for the "Topside Press":

"Topside Press is now accepting submissions for an anthology of short speculative fiction by self-identified transgender writers. Speculative fiction can include science fiction, horror, fantasy, alternate history or any fiction which envisions a world that is fundamentally different from our own.

Our goal for this anthology is to showcase the talent of a diverse range of authors and catalyze the next wave of meaningful, moving, and politically engaged speculative fiction."

If you are interested, you must hurry because the deadline for submission is December 1st. (Follow the links above.)

I received the info from my Veterans Administration psychologist! Via the Dayton, Ohio PFLAG newsletter.