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| Image from the Jessie Hart Collection |
It took me over fifty years of cross dressing as a woman to decide I had enough and I finally decided to come out full time as a transgender woman.
At that point, I either threw out my old male clothes or donated most of them to a local thrift store which was the demarcation point of when I flipped the script and stopped cross dressing as a man. For awhile it was difficult deciding what I would wear everyday as a trans woman. I knew I desperately wanted to blend in with the other women around me but knew I had to put in considerably more effort than they did to do it. Plus the effects of the hormone replacement therapy I was on was beginning to drastically change my old male appearance. So a change was needed. My skin was softening, along with the lines of my face, so I was beginning to appear quite androgynous.
With all these changes taking place, I finally had a one on one talking with myself and decided enough was enough. The gender buck stopped there and then. It was time to take advantage of a lifetime of preparation and cross the gender border and live as a transgender woman. All those years of admiring my self in the mirror and attending transvestite mixers in Columbus, Ohio would be put to the test. During the mixers I was able to see and meet many different types of cross dressers all the way to transsexuals to determine just where I fit in. It was about that time when the term "transgender" was being publicized and I immediately thought the term fit me. It turned out it actually did and my life would never be the same again.
When the buck stopped with me and I began to take complete responsibility for my gender questions, my life suddenly became easier. Even though I was still facing questions in the harsh light of the public's eye. I needed to learn being a successful transgender woman took so much more than just taking care of my appearance. Surely appearances were the path to opening doors but what happened after the door was opened became very stressful. How could I handle actually communicating with a man or another woman when I was so new at doing it. Possibly the most frustrating part of the whole communication process was how much it changed with each person I encountered. The process was not unlike playing tennis and waiting for the other person to serve. Finally I began to relax and make the best of a situation I never knew where it was going.
It turned out relaxation was another key to my new ability to exist in the world as a trans woman. I learned for the most part men left me alone and women were just curious as to why I wanted into their world at all. I valued my communication with other women because I was learning so much about playing in the girl's sandbox. My confidence was high and I thought I had as much business as other women did in the sandbox. From there, I made the most of it.
It is also important to note, when I determined the gender buck did end with me, there would be no turning back. I became so involved in learning my new feminine life and it felt so natural, I would actually take the gender buck and spend it.
