Deadly Serious

 

Image from Nicholas COMTE
on UnSplash

Looking back at my long (50 year) gender journey, I wonder now how I became so deadly serious as I considered myself more than a casual cross dresser.

I came a long way from just experimenting with my mom’s clothing to where I am today. As I live fulltime as a transgender woman. Many days, if I have the time to even think about it, I wonder how I went about connecting my dots during my travel from the male to female gender. But, before I go any farther, I should mention two things. First of all, I have nothing against cross dressers, as I spent too many years being one to attempt to put myself up on any sort of gender pedestal. Secondly, I don’t consider myself a female in the strictest sense of the word. That is why you might notice I use the transgender or transfeminine word more frequently. In addition, I strongly feel the woman word (and man) are both socialized terms as many females or males never make it to being true women or men. Now, since I got all of that out of the way, what does that have to do with being deadly serious about anything. Not much, but I always like to clear the air.

In my life, I can only remember being deadly serious about two things, the first was following an often-vague path to my own version of womanhood and the other was Army basic training. In the Army, your secondary MOS or job classification is infantry which means I received the same training as everyone else who were going to Vietnam for a very uncertain future. So, the bottom line was, I took my military training deadly seriously. Just in case I needed it later. Fortunately, I never did. Naturally, pursuing my feminine path was destined to be just the opposite.

It seemed, the more I tried to do as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman, the more I wanted to do. I forced myself away from the easy gender experiences I was trying, into a true interaction with the world and my challenges became much more serious but not quite to the deadly stage. I think the reason was, I was still experimenting with people as strangers. Not like somebody I would see more than once. I was naïve and thought people would not remember me for what I was, a man in drag or a dress. When other people began to see me repeatedly it was good for both of us because I needed to up my presentation game and quit changing wigs every time I went out. To succeed in the new world I was creating, people needed to see I was deadly serious about being accepted in the new mainstream venues I was going to when I gave up on going to the gay venues I tried.

More importantly, I lived through all the bumps and bruises I suffered as I silently fought back against the gender bigots I faced. Some of which were not so silent as I attempted to enter the so-called women only spaces such as restrooms. One night, I was called a pervert by an irate cisgender woman before I backed her down. She was the one I had to threaten with LGBTQ sanctions on her business if she did not leave me alone. Which she did.

The more comfortable I became in my transgender world, the more deadly serious I became about doing more. Soon I was to the point where I was like a runaway train heading down a one-way track as my manhood was coming to an end. One of the final acts of severing what was left of him came when I was approved for and started gender affirming hormones or HRT. My body took to the new hormones flawlessly to the point when I wondered why I hadn’t been on them all along.

The reason was relatively simple, as the changes from the HRT would preclude me from going back to the male life I had worked so hard to establish. Would I be deadly serious enough to risk all I had built up such as a long-term marriage, a family and friends plus a very good job which I could have never transitioned on.

Finally, after years of introspection, I made the decision to go as far as I could without surgery into a transgender life. With all I had to lose at the age of sixty, I decided “playtime” was over, and it was time to be deadly serious again and never look back as I had reached my dream of living in a transfeminine world.

 

Buckle Up!

 

Alpha Gatekeeper Hope
Who Let Me In!

If you are a transgender woman or trans man and you have been transitioning along your gender path for any length of time, you know there are plenty of highs and lows to prepare for.

I know on my gender journey; I have had to buckle up for many rough roads ahead. I have many examples I write about often such as being told to leave one venue I started to go to when I decided to leave the gay bars behind and go to mainstream straight venues. I went home in tears like when I was laughed out of malls by groups of teenaged girls when I first attempted to go out in public. For a long time, I never thought I had a chance of living my transgender dreams at all.

Deep down, something told me to fasten my seat belt and keep trying to succeed. You see, the problem was all along in my life, if something went wrong, I ran to my skirts and put on makeup to make it go away. In these cases, I had nowhere to run, so I had to get it right. I was in a corner, and I couldn't get out without a lot of work. It turned out to me, the whole process was a labor of love, and I felt good going forward on my gender path. The problem was I was still quite naïve about what I was facing and thought success could be found if I just was able to present properly as a woman. To try the new world out I was in, I went to all sorts of different situations. Examples were when I went to a downtown festival and an outdoor concert just to see if I could. Following painstakingly applying my makeup and choosing just the right clothes, I managed to be successful at both, and my confidence soared.

When I did, my frail confidence was shattered again when I learned the world was curious about me as a transfeminine person. It meant I would have to really buckle up and do more than trying just to look like a woman, I needed to communicate like a woman. All of that turned out to be harder than it sounds (no pun intended). I found out quickly that women operate on a different wavelength than men. Men use a more simplified straight forward approach to communicating with each other and other women. On the other hand, I discovered I better refine my listening skills, plus be aware women communicate with each other on non-verbal wavelengths. Also, eye contact with other women became very important too, if I was ever going to be allowed to play in the girl’s sandbox by the alpha female gatekeepers.

As with anything else, I needed to allow practice to become perfect if I was ever going to succeed at reaching my goal of living as a transgender woman. To do it, I needed to forget my unreachable dream of being able to present so well as a woman that anyone would ever think I was cisgender. To begin with, testosterone poisoning had taken all of that idea away from me. I needed to re-buckle up my expectations and know the best I could do was follow my path as a woman from a different background. To succeed, I needed invitations from cis-gender women to their girls’ nights out so I could observe and learn how other women acted when men were not around. Naturally, I needed to put what was left of my male ego behind me when I had to buckle up and attend several of these meetups. My primary example came one night when I was invited along with a group of servers where I went to, to another upscale venue to party. They were all young and attractive and immediately were surrounded by attentive males, leaving me by myself and my drink. I learned a powerful lesson that night why certain attractive women tend to hang out together.

I was fortunate as I traveled my gender journey, I had key alpha females to help me with my seatbelt. As an example, I have added the picture of “Hope” who ironically gave me hope for my future dreams. She was the first bartender I ever met who went out of her way to be kind to me, all the way to introducing me to her lesbian mother who I stay in touch with to this day. Hope led the way for me to be accepted by others and thrive in the girls’ sandbox, and I will never forget her for it.

My main message is, no matter how many bumps and bruises you may suffer along your own gender journey, just try to securely fasten your seatbelt and make the trip as interesting as possible. Just remember, not many are able to make the same journey and achieve their dreams of living as a transgender woman.

 

 

 

Low Risk...High Reward?

 

Image from Jayson 
Hinrichsen on UnSplash.

There are many things we do in the gender universe which represent a low risk, high reward effort.

For example, under the cross-dresser umbrella, we have the far-ranging participants who go from wearing panties under their male clothes, all the way to those who fully dress as transfeminine women in their spare time. At the least, there is more risk to the cross dresser who is fully dressing in feminine fashion and makeup than the person who simply needs to pull his pants up to cover his panties. At some point too, one must consider if wearing women’s clothes is simply a fetish or is there more to it. Which carries even further into the world of sissies and such which involves men who fantasize about forced femininization.

In my case, even though I deeply felt the pleasure of hose on my shaved legs, or other beginning thrills such as looking at myself in the mirror, deep down I knew there was so much more to what I was doing about my developing gender issues. I knew too, if I was ever caught with my clothes and makeup on, there would be no rewards, just risks, so I needed to be very careful. All the way to the point of never wearing panties under my male pants at school and on rare occasions dreaming about a woman forcing me to cross dress at all. Ironically, I talked a woman into dressing me head to toe as a woman only one time and I ended up thinking I could have done it better myself. The risk of telling her did not equal any reward at all.

The risks and rewards proportionally grew greater together as I grew older and my male life began to grow. Many times, without my feminine one who was still stuck in her mirror. It was in the Army of all places, when I first came out to a small group of friends that I was a transvestite and much more than the fully cross-dressed woman they were able to see at a Halloween party. Naturally, it was a huge risk to take because the Army could have taken measures to discharge me. The reward did come when I was able to finally feel the relief of telling someone else my deepest secret and no one cared.

The further reward of coming out of gender shell was the fact my first wife was in the group of friends I came out to. Our marriage then led to the greatest reward of my life…the birth of my daughter who supports me to this day.

As my male world kept expanding and threatened to take over my transfeminine experience, I was going through a wonderful period of great discoveries in my life. Those were the days when I first discovered the transgender term and what it meant to me. For the first time in my life, I found a community which I belonged in. I was too much woman for the average low risk cross dresser and too little for the risk it all world of the transsexuals who were headed for gender realignment surgery.

I was so comfortable in my new place in the world, I was prepared to take bigger and bigger risks. Much to the chagrin of my second wife who had no problem with my cross dressing but was totally against any thoughts of starting gender affirming hormones and living increasingly as a woman. Every time I went out to explore the new feminine world I was creating, I was risking my twenty-five-year marriage. Because I chose to lie to myself for many years of denying who I really was, I ended up making us both miserable.

My excuse was I knew I would be losing a great marriage, a substantial job and many hard-earned male privileges if I threw all my cards into the middle of the table and came out into the world as the person I was always meant to be. Finally, the choice ceased to be mine as I embraced my new feminine self. My wife had passed away, I reached the point where I could retire from my job, and I was eager to check out the world of female privilege. It was all a huge risk, but I had to take it as I was nearing the age of sixty and I figured I was near a now or never moment in my life.

I had never been a gambler of any sort, but I wished I had the courage to make the move I made earlier. One thing is for certain; you can never rewind your life to make up for past mistakes. You just have to do the best that you can of your past to plan ahead for the future risks you will have to take.

 

 

Hormones in my Life

 

Image from Mitch
on UnSplash.

This morning, as I changed out my Estradiol hormonal patches, I briefly paused to consider the magical changes HRT has meant for me.

My thoughts were formed yesterday when I wrote a short chapter in my book I was writing on my life that my daughter bought for me. As I remember, the question of the week for me was how I responded to changes to my body over my life. I started by writing about how bad I felt when my body began to form angles when I went through male puberty. It was long ago, but I still remember my disappointment. This was way before the time of puberty blockers for young transgender boys and girls. Not that my parents would have approved of blockers for me anyhow.

I followed up my ideas on male puberty with what had happened to me since I was fortunate enough to be approved for gender affirming hormones and I could experience a second puberty in my life, this time, one I wanted. Even though I was attempting to overcome all the damage testosterone did to my body, I could not fix most of it. I was stuck with broad shoulders and a big male torso which served me well to keep bullies away but did little to help me to present well as a transgender woman.

On the positive side, the new HRT meds were able to soften the harsh angles of my face and soften my skin, so I could use less makeup. I also found I had no male pattern baldness, so my hair grew so well one of the first things my daughter did was treat me to a hair styling and color at her upscale women’s beauty salon. Another case of being totally out of my old male environment and loving it. After my fear went away. At that point, I was loving my new life.

My new life as a transfeminine woman took on a new meaning as I adjusted to my new body. Gone were the old days of blustering my way through life with my male body. In were the days of being more in tune what was my body telling me from newly sensitive breasts to a developing transgender woman’s’ intuition, I was really changing. By intuition, I mean I needed to develop a sense of anyone who was going to potentially threaten me with any harm. Much of the new development was not much of a problem because I was going through so many other internal changes anyhow. The easiest way to explain it is, my world went from the harsh realities of being male, all the way to the softening universe of being a woman.

Also gone were the days of me attempting to macho my way through any situation. From being able to admit when I was cold, all the way to planning ahead to any potentially dangerous situations, it all presented me with a new world to consider. All because of two little Estradiol patches I applied twice a week. It was magic to me how well and how fast they worked. It was as if my body was waiting for the HRT meds my entire life.

It is not often that I have the opportunity to slow down my everyday life and consider the benefits of being approved for gender affirming hormones. I needed to go to a physician back in those days which were relatively difficult to find. On one hand I had seen the health problems other transgender women had gone through when they went the route of unsupervised hormones. Since I was near the age of sixty at the time, I did not want to risk any health issues and fortunately, there weren’t any. Even though I do not remember the exact year I started HRT, I remember I took my first dosage which were pills with my future wife Liz on New Year's Eve. From there, I progressed to higher dosages and eventually to the patches I am on today.

Which brings me full circle to the meaning of this post. With or without the hormonal medication I am on, I would still identify as transgender. HRT just helped my external presentation in the public’s eye. And, if you are considering hormones, you don’t need them to be you either. If you do, make sure you seek out a doctor to help you to know all is well before you make the jump.

For me, the HRT process was the final point of knowing I was doing the right thing by jumping off the gender cliff I was on. It sure made the landing softer.  

Female Privilege?

 

Is there such a thing as feminine privilege? Even though it is much different than male privilege, I think there is.

At first, the only privilege I could see in response to putting in all the work I was doing to present myself as an authentic woman was men would open doors for me. Ironically, opening doors for me was just a prelude to taking away my intelligence if they took the time to talk to me at all. Sort of like the tow truck driver one night who needed to explain the basics to me of how his wrecker worked before I gave in and just played the part of a dumb blond which matched the color of my wig, I was wearing that night when my car broke down.

What I was going through was losing my male privileges. The main one I always warn novice cross dressers or transgender women about is the male personal security privilege. Beware of going about your business as you had as a man when you jump the gender border because it could get you hurt. There is a reason women don’t go out alone into dark unsafe areas and you need to learn it too. You can get hurt, or worse if you have no one to protect you as a transfeminine person.

It took me awhile to realize there were many feminine privileges except for clothes and makeup. Like so many other things I was experiencing, I discovered the whole process was layered into the world of women as a whole. Much feminine privilege I found came from the separate world women create away from men. For example, to be allowed to play in the girl’s sandbox by cisgender women became much easier when and if I was accepted by an alpha female who acted as a gatekeeper. Much like when I was accepted in a venue I chose by a lead server or bartender. It was an easy way to earn the right to use the women’s room. All I needed to do was mind my own business and tip well and the alpha would do the rest.

At no point did I ever take the privileges or freedoms I had earned for granted. Because when I did, I would risk sliding back into the old male world I had come to dislike so much. There were many times when I sat alone and weighed the benefits of my new life to see if all the gender turmoil was worth it. On one hand, I was learning what my second wife told me I would have to learn about being a transgender woman, and on the other, I was scared to keep going towards a very steep gender cliff.

I suppose the biggest move I made towards learning what female privilege was all about was when I started gender affirming hormones or HRT.  As my body took to the new hormones as something it should have always had, as much as I appreciated the external changes, I appreciated the internal changes even more. My world rapidly seemed to soften as my emotional level increased for the first time in my life. I understood for the first time what women had gone through all those years in their lives. It was a privilege to try to erase as much as I could the effects of testosterone poisoning, which I had gone through so many years ago. As well as having the opportunity to go through my own version of female puberty while I still could.

The end result of my gender exploration was that each of the binary genders has their own privileges. It just is as if a man’s benefits are more pronounced, which is like a man’s life in general. As the man, I was for all those years, I was used to blustering and forcing my way through many situations I found myself in. Plus, I had very few real friends as a man which I could rely on to help when and if I found myself in a bind. Of course, women turned out to be different as I could rely on my cisgender women friends to help me in times of need. Which turned out to be mainly emotional, more than anything else.

After seeing both sides of the gender border, and having the chance to cross it, I made the right choice for me when I chose to seek out the real meaning of feminine privilege. Women certainly do not have it any easier, but I would take what I learned and feel secure in my choice to live in society as a transgender woman.

Is Purging Just a part of a Trans Journey we Need to Go Through?

 

Image from Shayan Rostami
on UnSplash. 

I received several wonderful comments to my “Purging” post yesterday including people such as Jeanie who has had gender issues for years such as me.

Here is the comment and we will go from there: “I just purged last Thursday. I wanted to see if there was a strong enough "desire to reacquire". I'd go months with the stash behind insulation in the basement under a bay window without dressing. It might be I was too chickenshit”.

Thanks for the comment! And it got me to thinking about all the ways we cross dressers or novice transgender women went to hide our small collection of feminine wardrobe and makeup from our family. As a kid, I even went as far as hiding my stash in plastic garbage bags in a hollowed-out tree in a neighboring woods. Where I hoped no one would ever discover it. In addition, I had two other small hiding places in the house I could go to if I was suddenly free to cross-dress in front of the mirror. The entire process added to hiding my gender issues in plain sight. Almost, as all along, I was desperately trying to escape being caught and being sent on an unpleasant trip to a psychiatrist who would have most assuredly pronounced me mentally ill. Which was the norm for mental health professionals back in those days.

Since I never completely purged my feminine stash ever, maybe I was too chickenshit to do it (as Jeanie said). Or, as I struggled throughout my life with gender issues, my own “desire to reacquire” would return to rule my life. As it turned out, I was never strong enough to purge totally. Which looking back should have given me a clue to who I really was, a woman cross dressing as a man. Deep down, I knew, every feminine item I had worked so hard to acquire could not so easily be thrown in the trash. It would ultimately come down to me wondering how much different I would look in the mirror if I had not thrown out my previous stash.

At first, it all got worse before it got better when I entered my strong going out in the world as a novice transgender woman with my second wife. Fortunately, when I was restoring the old house, we lived in, I was able to build in a closet we rarely used. So, I found a place to hide the many thrifts store finds I had made and purchased. Also, by this time I was in a place where I did not care what my gender foes thought. I was building my future public persona, so I needed to look my best. Essentially, I entered the “don’t ask, don’t tell” phase of our relationship when my wife never said a word about my increasingly large wardrobe. She knew, I knew I was never going to purge again. Which turned out to be not true.

Just before she passed away, I decided to throw away “most” of my wardrobe and makeup and even went to the extent of growing a beard. Which I considered the ultimate purge. Even as I did it, something told me to keep my favorite outfit, wig and shoes because I never could be sure when I would need my old friends again. Tragically, six months later I did when my wife passed away and I turned inwardly to my feminine soul for comfort. When I did, I was able to shave my beard and hit the ground running towards a new life. Or, should I say, heels on the ground.

One way or another, I was happy I was not strong enough to totally attempt to purge away my feminine life. It was time to open a new chapter, even if I was sixty, as a transfeminine person. It seems many of us, with gender issues are doomed to a life of denial. We try to sooth our transgender or cross dresser sides by trips to our mirrors until we are caught, or in a relationship which even makes it worse. We begin to feel guilty about many things such as forsaking our ingrained male habits, all the way to feeling selfish for wanting to do something as radical as changing our genders for ourselves.

A lifetime of purging falls right in line with all the other pitfalls we encounter on our gender journeys. We must be strong enough men to make it to transgender womanhood and purging is just another experience we have to go through.

As always, thanks for reading along with my writings and experiences! Your comments mean a lot to me also. They help me to know if I am headed in the right direction. Please keep them coming!

 

 

Kicking and Screaming.

 

My trans friend Racquel
with her fur-baby.

Sometimes I am asked why I waited so long to finally make the serious transition into a transfeminine world at the age of sixty.

The partial answer is I did not want to face up to my truth of who I really was. Instead, I internalized my gender desires as long as I could. Another reason was, I had a powerful male self who did not want to give up all the white male privileges he had fought to gain. Every bit of ground he lost to his transgender sister was hard earned. Plus, he had a powerful ally with him in my second wife who wanted no part of me to progress any further than the cross-dressing stage I was in when I met her.

My excuse is for not transitioning sooner goes past just ignoring the obvious. I just did not factor in the other major changes I would have to go through just to see if my dream of living as a trans woman was even feasible. Maybe I could never make it at all was a fatal flaw in my thinking because I needed the inner confidence to live. At that point, I opened my gender closet door and began to look around and my male self was dragged kicking and screaming into the world. Early on he was being laughed at in drag when he went out which hurt his male ego. Until he summoned up enough skill to stop the abuse.

All of this led up to finally realizing (for whatever reason) I was more than a cross-dresser. I was a transgender woman. It all led up to the scary, magical night when I decided to change my mind set when I went out for a drink in a venue, I had frequented many times as my male self and had always wondered what it would feel like to do it as a woman. As I said, I was scared to death, and sat in my car for what seemed like forever adjusting and readjusting my hair and makeup before I went in. I knew from previous visits, when the nearby mall closed, the bar would fill up with single professional women who just socialized with each other. As I steadied myself to go in, my male side was still screaming no as my feminine side was excited to finally get a chance to live. That night, for the first time, she had won the battle because I had a great time and even stayed for an extra drink just because I could.

Little did my feminine side know, winning one big gender battle would only make the war seem further away. Following the evening out, she wanted more which caused severe problems with my marriage and life. Deep down, I wanted to experience the thrill of feeling natural in my skin for the first time, and when I could not do it, I became depressed and downright mean to the world around me. Internalizing my gender issues became less and less of a way to run my life. As a result, I started to sneak out from the house any spare moment I had to attempt to reinvent myself as a transgender woman.

I learned I could and began to slowly carve out a new life for myself with people who knew nothing of my past male self who was still strongly resisting every move I was trying to make out of my closet. Sure, I had my ups and downs with what I was doing but my overall trajectory was up, and I was proud of myself. I had come so far from the early days I had admiring myself in the mirror. Even the kicking and screaming from my male self was beginning to fade. But I found not to be too confident because I still had a long way to go on my gender journey to be a full-time transgender woman. Since my trans woman friend Racquel always told me, I passed out of sheer will power, I always had to work harder to make it in the world. I would forever have a testosterone poisoned body my male self-had left me to work around since I did not have the finances or will power for expensive facial femininization surgeries like Racquel did.

So, I did the best I could and managed to build a small tight knit group of women friends who accepted me while at the same time instructed me on the finesse points of being a woman. All of it brought the final curtain down on the kicking and screaming of my male self. I just wish he had not been such a formidable opponent. On the other hand, his interaction kept the bullies away from me for the most part and allowed me to get through the military in one piece, so all was not bad.

The end result was, he never felt as if he was the most natural person for me to be. That distinction always went to my feminine side who never gave up winning my own gender war. She ended up just ignoring all the kicking and screaming until it finally went away and the lack of extra noise in my life was a welcome change.

 

Purging

 

JJ Hart from back in Ed's and Michelle's
time.

For many transgender or cross dresser women, rarely have we lived a life when we never wanted to go back to our male selves. A common term for the practice is called “purging.”

Like many of you, I have experienced my share of trying to purge away my gender issues. About the time I thought I was entering a high-profile stage of my feminine life, I began to feel guilty and wanted to throw it all away. Then, I learned there were different stages of purging. For example, when I was purging, I never could seem to throw out or give away all my hard earned, cherished feminine wardrobe and makeup away. Deep down I always left the door open to my closet for a return to cross dressing as I called it back in those days.

Then there was Ed, an acquaintance I had who really defined purging to me. Ed was a frustrated cross dresser who at the least was having problems with his family and at the same time dealing with several very serious health problems. Before he reached a crisis point with his health problems, he decided to give away all his cross-dressing items. With Ed, that meant a lot. He needed to empty out an entire storage unit he rented to hide his wigs, wardrobe and makeup from his family. I turned out to be on the receiving end of his gifts. He gave me a nice set of silicone breast forms he purchased as well as a plastic tackle box full of expensive makeup.

What ever happened to him I will never know, the last I heard from him was decades ago when he was increasingly becoming more and more negative concerning a transgender friend of ours. Michelle was very beautiful and was headed towards gender realignment surgery, and I think Ed had developed deeper feelings for her than just friendship. He never confided in me if that was the case which leaves me to yet another unclosed mystery in my life. Along with what my deceased wife would have thought of me if she ever knew me as a more complete transgender woman.

Even as I continued to progress along my transgender path, I found myself to be a contradiction of terms. I did not know for the longest time how I fit in on the gender spectrum. I had an idea I was more than a casual cross dresser such as Ed was but was I as serious about becoming a fulltime woman as Michelle was. Being in the middle as always tortured my frail mental health as I did not know which way I wanted my life to go.

Initially, I decided I could take the pressure no longer and purged my feminine fashion and makeup…almost. I compromised and did not throw out my favorite wig, sweater and Ed’s silicone breast forms. So, I had left the door wide open to return to a life I had always thought deep down, I could never leave behind. Slowly but surely, I rebuilt my wardrobe, added another wig and purchased new makeup to fill Ed’s tackle box I still owned.

That was the last time I tried to purge my physical belongings, helping to calm my transfeminine longings down. Following the many times in life I attempted to purge my life away from my deep-seated gender desires, I finally learned that I could not easily throw my real life in the trash. I also lost track of Ed and Michelle long ago and the last I heard from Michelle was she had gone ahead with her gender surgeries and was living with a lesbian in nearby Columbus, Ohio.

I just wish I had the foresight to understand how close purging was to my overall wellbeing than the obvious. All along, I thought I was trying to rid my feminine self of her external possessions when in reality, I was proving the futility of trying to deny the person I was always destined to be.

In a full circle moment, I was able to grow my own breasts thanks to gender affirming hormones or HRT and donate my silicone breast forms Ed gave me to a swap out at a transgender-cross dresser support group meeting I attended. As I mentioned, he had very serious health issues, and I doubt if he is still alive today. In a moment of clarity, I remembered his full name and searched for it on Facebook to no avail.

One way or another, I view purging yet another unique sideline of following a gender path. As far as I was concerned, I not so slyly resisted completely throwing away all of my wardrobe, shoes, wigs and makeup I acquired. I never knew when I would go back, I just knew I could.

Gender Trauma or Dysphoria?

 

Image from Dominic
Swain on UnSplash.

When you spend a life dealing with gender dysphoria, often, gender trauma comes along with it. Interestingly, I have encountered some in the transgender community who claimed they had no dysphoria at all.

One of those encounters I had, happened one night at a transgender-cross dresser support group I was attending. I mentioned my struggles with gender dysphoria and the moderator stuck her nose up in the air and said she never had experienced any dysphoria at all. I recovered from her statement by simply saying she was lucky. I would have not wished what I went through with my gender struggles on my worst enemy. As a sidelight, I wondered later if the moderator knew what gender dysphoria was anyway. Since that time, she has gone through gender realignment surgery and has married another transgender woman. What I consider a remarkable journey for someone who never had experienced any gender trauma supposedly at all.

My trauma started quite early in life when I knew something was wrong with me but just could not come up with what it was. In fairness to me or my parents (if they knew), the information on gender dysphoria was completely missing in those days when I was young. In fact, I don’t think I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria until I went to a Veteran’s Administration therapist. Which would have been sometime in my thirties and allowed my therapist to prescribe gender affirming hormones to me and start the paperwork towards all my legal gender change documents. So, it was very important.

Along the way, I had the public to blame for furthering my gender trauma, which made my ordeal of coming out of my gender shell even worse. I was insecure enough until I made it to the ordeal of having the police called on me because I simply had to use the restroom. To make matters worse, I was kicked out of one of my regular venues. That was the place where the crew came down to a nearby venue I was going to and invited me back. It turned out, the manager who told me to leave was fired for drug abuse and stealing. I had my revenge, but my gender dysphoria remained.  

It turned out, my newfound success in the world as a transgender woman was followed by extra pressure to do better. I wanted to be better at my art of makeup and fashion. I wanted to be able to blend but do it better than the average cisgender woman. I wanted to be respected but at the same time not threatening the world. I had my setbacks such as being called a pervert by another woman in a restroom. I got even with her too when I found out she owned a hair salon, and I reported her to the local powerful LGBTQ center.

When something like that happened, I desperately needed points of gender euphoria to balance out the bad spots. It seemed for every gender bigot I encountered; I ran into another nice person who was genuinely curious about me. Many times, even better, I was able to learn as much from the other women I met as they did about me. For weeks at a time, if I was lucky, I grew confident in my presentation and my gender dysphoria subsided. Not completely, as there was always a new obstacle on my path to being a full-time transfeminine person. On the plus side, I spent less time stuck in reverse on my transition journey.

By being out in the public’s eye, I spent less time dwelling on what I was going to do about my future. Was I going to keep pursuing a part-time male life until the wheels came off or was, I going to take the actions necessary to make progress towards my dreams. As I put off deciding on my life, my gender dysphoria simply would not go totally away. Every day and time I looked in the mirror, I struggled because sometimes I would get a glimpse of my real feminine self but on others, I could not shake the old male image looking back at me. No matter how much change was occurring from the gender affirming hormones I was on. Disappointment ran deep with me as the transition wheels fell off when I saw him in the mirror.

Sheer willpower, as well as elation when things were going right kept me going through the dark days of dysphoria. In fact, to this day, I still suffer from gender duress when I look in the mirror. I have made it to the point where I am not as bad off as the mirror is telling me I am or as good as the mirror is suggesting. I am tired of fighting and the world will just have to take what it gets from me.

 

 

Life is too Short

 

Image from Brian Wangenheim 
on UnSplash.

Time is a precious commodity and life is too short.

Days, weeks, months and years are especially precious for many transgender women and transgender men. Mainly, if you waited until later in life to break out of your gender box and transition. Which is what I did.

I could and did look at my cross-dressing years as practicing for the big event of coming out as a transgender woman. While I improved my overall skills in wardrobe and makeup basics, there always seemed to be something I was missing. Actually, there were two main things I was missing, not just one. The first one was the realization I had my idea of cross-dressing backwards. I was never a man cross-dressing as a woman, I was a woman cross-dressing as a man. The second major realization was I would have to go through several transitions to meet my goal. An example was, I needed to transition from being a cross dresser to being a transgender woman if I was ever going to make it to where I wanted to go as a transfeminine person.

To accomplish my dream, I needed to take my second wife’s advice and set out to learn what a real woman went through in life. There was so much more than just being the “Pretty, pretty princess” as she called me. The problem was, she was always my feminine gatekeeper when I tried to explore the new and exciting world I was seeking. She did not want me to make it. She was a strong person and made it tough on me to progress in any way on my gender path but still I persisted.

Time went on and the years passed me by as I went to transgender-crossdresser parties and mixers to see what I could learn. Even then, when I hit my forties, I had a sense of desperation as time went on with me, and nothing major was happening on my gender front. It was during this time of my life when I started to escape my closet and explore the world. Mainly, I was carving out a totally new life where people knew nothing of my old male self. I was free to be the new me I wanted so bad.

After I went through the darkest period of my life when I lost nearly everything and everybody who was near and dear to me, did my life come full circle, and I began to notice the light at the end of the tunnel was not the train. My guess is I had paid my dues, and destiny was opening its doors to me. Among other things, it was about this time that the Veteran’s Administration health care system approved providing gender affirming hormones for veterans such as me. I jumped at the idea of taking advantage of less expensive HRT medicines and free mental health care. Even though I had already set up my hormonal medications through a civilian doctor.

By this time, it was becoming increasingly evident to me which direction my life would have to take before it was too late. I was in the middle to late fifties of my life and if I ever was going to ever have the courage to jump off the gender cliff, I would have to do it. One thing I did not want to do was continue to live the part-time gender existence I was already living. Plus, I was rapidly nearing the point in my life when I could take early retirement. Which would preclude me from having to go through any ugly transition on the job scenarios. I worked in a very male dominated profession, so switching genders on the go could have been quite challenging.

Finally, one night when I was out to be alone, I decided I was enjoying myself so much, I needed to end my gender turmoil forever. I decided to forsake all my male privileges I had fought to earn for decades and seek out my dream life as a transgender woman. It was not a decision I took lightly as I sent all my male clothes except my Army uniform to the thrift stores which were so beneficial to me when I was first acquiring my transfeminine wardrobe and fashion.

By this time, I was sixty and I figured I would never have a better chance to transition again. I took advantage of all the feminine “practice” I had done over the years. I was able to hit the gender ground running and never looked back.

 

Why Not Me?

 

Image from Buddha Elemental 3D
on UnSplash. 

My life has been a series of why not me moments.

As a boy growing up in Ohio, I always wanted to be a better athlete, which turned out to be an impossible quest because there always seemed to be a better athlete in my world to take my place. Then there was my attempt to be more social in the world, but I was incredibly shy, and it was so difficult to do. So, I ended up hiding at home, thinking someday I would grow out of my shyness.

My greatest why not me moments came as I struggled with my gender identity. It became so bad with me that when a stranger asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, the only truthful answer I never gave was a woman. I internalized my thoughts and somehow hoped they would go away. Which of course, they never did. They just got worse because the main problem I had was wondering if I could do it at all. Information was incredibly difficult to come by in my sheltered male privileged world and for the most part I was lost, and I continued the path I was on. Doing my best to live a male life successfully, and at the same time, steal away moments of privacy to cross dress in front of the mirror.

Often, much to my surprise, I was semi-successful at both. I kept my increasingly gender fluid life in balance by improving my mirror image away from drag clown to beginning girl, while at the same time, keeping the bullies away from me by having an interest in sports and cars. I even went as far as dating a few girls in high school where I ended up attending both my junior and senior proms. Little did anyone know I wanted to be the one wearing the pretty gown and getting the flowers. As with the rest of my life, I got over it and moved on, no matter how difficult it was. Why not me was not working, I was still stuck in my gender quicksand and there was no handsome cowboy coming to help me out. Or strong woman as it turned out.

When I finally had had enough of being a gender victim, I opened my closet door and looked around for the first time in my life. I knew I needed to move past the once-a-year Halloween parties I was attending as my novice transfeminine self and try more ways to get out into the world to see if I could be successful or would my dream of life as a woman always must be a dream. I was ever so cautious as I began by shopping in malls and bookstores which turned out to be low impact areas for novice cross dressers or transgender women. I went to places where my money was more important than my gender which gave me the confidence to do more. More meant testing the public with new and exciting ideas such as stopping at restaurants to eat to see if I had any push back at all. I did not and moved on. Maybe, my why not me was coming true after all.

Sadly, dreams being dreams are not so easy to achieve I found out. Especially in the world of gender change. There was no way I could gloss over all the nuances of being a true transgender woman would entail. Many times, I ended up getting my new high heels stuck in more quicksand than I could have imagined and was fortunate to have found my way out, which I have written about in several blog posts. It occurred when I suffered the loss of male security privilege. However, by this time, I was able to take the good with the bad which was beginning to lessen, and I could see my dream being reality.  Which I had never thought possible.

For the first time in my life, I was beginning to live my why not me moments. I was at the threshold of living the life I had always wanted. Free from the male shackles which had tied me down. Sure, at times, it was unbelievably confusing to do, but with the help of a few women friends I always mention, I made it and was able to get out of the quicksand all together and rebuild my life.

Today, I am a woman who happened to come from a different background than most. But it was my dream to make it, and I did. As I said, I never thought I could or would.

 

 

 

 

Chess versus Checkers in Life

 

JJ Hart in Key Largo

On occasion, it seems to me that I am playing chess when the rest of the world is playing with checkers.

Of course, I am referring to how my gender dysphoric issues have affected my life. Let me be clear too, I have never been a chess player in real life ever. None of that stops me from having the utmost respect for someone who excels at the game. So why can I compare playing chess to my life at all? The reason is I can understand life a little bit better than the average person just because I have lived my life on both sides of the primary gender borders. I have had the opportunity to see firsthand how men live and then women when I was allowed behind the gender curtain as a transgender woman.

Having the opportunity to live in both gender worlds has totally put me at odds with some in the world. Especially those who worship the orange pedo/felon. It has been ridiculous how many laws have been passed in certain areas of the country against the transgender population. My prime example is my native Ohio, where I live today. For all intents and purposes, the Republican state legislation has voted me out of existence. The question is why. To find a closer look, you must follow the money here in Ohio where a deep funded dark money political group rented out and renovated offices right across the street from the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. It turns out the primary objective of the group was to push for anti-transgender laws in the state.

Of course, in the already corrupt legislature, the anti-trans push worked. Often in the dead of night when the Republicans pushed it through. By now you may be wondering what all this political talk has to do with playing chess. With all the new laws, transgender women and transgender men have been forced to be more skillful when they go out in public. To their credit, many of the transfeminine people I know have continued their push to live an everyday life.

On the other side of the coin, those rednecks who would not accept us have never met a trans person in their lives and don’t know how to react when they discover we are just trying to live our lives the best we can. Which gives us a better chance of acceptance when they do.

I think also, many strangers don’t trust us because we have an abundance of life knowledge and skills behind us. Which is the reason many men reject us because they know we were once in the male club and know all the tricks. On the flip side, as I was transitioning into the feminine world, I had several women ask me personal questions on how to deal with their men since I had lived in the male camp for so long. Sure, It took me a long time to be awarded my feminine chess set, but once I was, there would be no looking back and no one was going to take away my new found freedom.

Certainly, I feel the same way today as I did when I came out of my gender shell over a decade ago. This fall, my wife Liz and I are taking another tour. This time to Boston, Vermont and Maine. Even though this is our fifth tour and I have never had any restroom problems before, I always pause to consider the consequences if I do this time. All it takes is one bigot to ruin it for everyone. One way or another, no tRumper is going to keep me from using the restroom of my choice with Liz. If the last tour was any example, I won’t have to worry about any gender related questions because the best one we received last year was were Liz and I sisters.

After being able to live so many years on both sides of the gender border, I feel now I am more than qualified to bring my chess game to the public and leave my old male checkers behind. Now, I even anticipate the sport of anyone trying to challenge me in the world. It took me long enough to get here, so it is time to enjoy it the best I can without something as petty as the restroom standing in my way.

Sorry about the politics in this post, but sometimes I just need to vent the best I can when someone is succeeding in taking our transgender rights away. We just have to be better than our rivals who know nothing about gender chess.

Never forget, men play checkers while women play chess in life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buckle Up! Now Entering Gender Comfort Zone

 

Image from Andraz Lazic 
on UnSplash. 

Around here, in Southwestern Ohio at least, we have been in orange barrel season on the roadways for months now.  As we drive through the new road construction, it is time to be ultra cautious and buckle up your seatbelt for safety.

As I always do when I travel, my mind drifts towards the transgender side of life when my wife Liz does the driving. This time, I equated all the orange barrels we were driving through to my life as a transgender woman.

Even if I had ever had a choice (which I did not), I wonder if under the old if I knew then what I know now if I would have ever embarked on the gender path I took. Initially, it was fun playing in my mom’s clothes and makeup, until suddenly it was not. It seemed too quickly I passed through the stage of wanting to look like a girl, straight to wanting to be a girl. To hell with the mirror, I wanted more out of life. Very quickly, my new attitude was causing problems which I needed to buckle up to and attempt to tackle.

Sadly, there were many times when I swerved when I should not have and hit several orange barrels throwing me back into my mirror to attempt to learn what I was doing wrong. What happened was, I simply needed more time and experience to be successful with a very complex move I was trying to make. Change genders as a human being. All along, I knew women were different, but I did not know how different until I was allowed behind the gender curtain. Plus, just being allowed behind the curtain required special navigation skills to get around the orange barrels. Not only did I need to appear as a woman, I needed to move and communicate as a woman also.

Putting the image from the mirror into focus and into the world proved to be very difficult for me. Since I was trying to live a life spanning both main binary genders, living one day as a trans woman and one day as a man was literally killing me mentally. The pain I was suffering I would not have wished on my worst enemy and worse yet, I was veering off my path and hitting many barrels. Fortunately, after a failed suicide try, I righted the ship and was able to continue towards my dream of living full time as a transgender woman. Without taking out any more orange barrels.

As I became better at being a confident woman from a different background, I began to see life differently. I was able to look other women directly in the eye and tell a lot about what they were thinking. As I took lessons from other cisgender women on nonverbal communication. From then on, my life began to improve markedly as I began to buckle up for more gender challenges. Such as, losing all my male privileges I fought so hard to gain. I nearly had major collisions when I did not plan on losing all the security privileges I had as a man. One night I had a big problem with a large man I could not fend off at a party I was at and needed my wife to rescue me and on another night, I was walking alone on an urban sidewalk after leaving a gay venue when I was approached by two men wanting money. They took my last five dollars and went on their way. Lessons learned from both evenings. One way or another, these two near misses made the loss of my intelligence when I talked to men seem to be very petty.

The next set of orange barrels I needed to navigate came when I began gender affirming hormones. The first major hurdle I had was finding a doctor to prescribe them at all. Back when I was looking for hormones back in the 1980’s in Ohio. Once I had passed the test of being on a minimum dosage for a period of time, I was allowed to take bigger amounts of HRT, and the changes really started to happen. Then, I had a whole different set of barrels to drive around. Such as, what would I do about my rapidly developing breasts and softer facial angles. The entire process moved up my transition timeline into the transfeminine world.

I finally had had enough with the whole gender dilemma, gave my male clothes to charity and set out to build a new feminine life at the age of sixty. Being a late transitioner had its benefits to me because I had more than a little idea of what to expect. Mainly from the time I spent navigating around all the orange gender barrels I saw on my path towards a future I so dearly wanted. As I always point out, it was never easy, and I needed to buckle up to make it.

 

 

Dealing With Severe Escapism

Image from Ludovica Dri
on UnSplash.

Severe escapism has been part of my life for many years.

It all goes back to the humble beginnings of me exploring my mom’s clothes and makeup. The entire process helped me to escape from a male life I never wanted. What never occurred to me had how quickly I escaped would become reality as I kept going back to my cross-dressing beginnings to seek guidance from the mirror.

Problems began when I began to listen to the mirror completely. It was telling me I was an attractive woman but was I really and ready to prove it to the world. When I switched out the mirror for the world, I quickly learned I had a long way to go in my heels to do better in a feminine world. What turned out to be a short trip really kept on going into a major lifetime of escapism.

How did I know I was escaping? Primarily it started when I began to feel so good as my novice transgender self. I thought, how could I feel this good and natural if I was just escaping. It was at that point when I seriously started exploring the possibility of living out my dream of eventually living out my life as a transfeminine person.  

Increasingly, I discovered my dream was a reality if only I could sever my ties with my escapism I was suffering under. No more could I run home to hide behind my skirts if I was so completely exploring the feminine world. Whatever was going to happen just would. What happened was I did not have to escape nearly as much because I was increasingly enjoying my journey into transgender womanhood. Again, because I could not run and hide when someone tried to interact with me. I even was able to conquer my fear of the “mean girls club” as I not so fondly call the so-called gatekeepers of femininity. Perhaps conquering is too strong a term. Put up with maybe a better one. The mean girls may not have liked me but found I was going nowhere.

As I no longer had to resort to so much escapism, I began to look for better ways to live my new life. I started to see new colors in the world as the gender affirming hormones (HRT) in my life began to take control. My senses heightened to a point where I could sense the world as well as the cisgender women around me. I learned women were really cold all the time I thought they were making it up, is a prime example.

It was increasingly a very rare occasion when I needed to revert to my old male life to take advantage of a male privilege such as taking my car in to be repaired. Even though I have needed to conquer that fear, I still have nagging problems with doing anything auto related to this day. Outside of that, I have overcome most of the problems I faced which sent me home hiding behind my skirts. Even my mirror has become a noncombatant in my life. I see myself for whom I really am. No better, no worse and I work from there with my makeup.

To be sure, running away from my gender issues did not improve my life. I continued to switch jobs and locations as I tried to escape my true self. It was not until I landed a dream job in my hometown did, I had to stay put and quit running. For all intents and purposes my escape route was destroyed. For a while, channeling all my gender issues into my work proved to be a wise choice as I made it nearly to the top in my field. Hear I was, with a good marriage, family and job, while all along something was still missing. That something was I still had the nagging idea something was still missing from my gender identity. I was still living a lie and found it increasingly difficult to run anymore from the idea.

In many ways, tragically, escapism would work for me as I became the last person standing in my small group of friends. They all died including my wife of twenty-five years, so I needed to start all over again. As they say, when one door closes, another one opens. Which is all well and good if you can find the door. Destiny paved the way for me to make the final gender transition of my life away from the male road I was on. For every tragedy which I so poorly faced, I discovered a person to help me rebuild, and that person is my wife, Liz.

With the magic words, she had never seen any male in me at all, I threw all caution (and him) to the wind along with all my male clothes and closed out the portion of my male life I had fought so long to do away with. My only regret? I selfishly would like back all the time and energy I wasted on fighting the inevitable, it was always time to allow my transgender woman to live. She was tired of not being allowed to do anything. Escaping was over.

 

Meeting Your True Self

 

Image from Caroline Veronez on UnSplash.

Perhaps you remember looking into the mirror and seeing your true self peeking back at you for the first time. I know I do.

Ironically, I don’t think it was the time when I was looking at myself after trying on my mom’s clothes and working with her makeup. I am sure it was much later when I improved my makeup skills to progress from looking like a clown in drag. Most certainly, I could not see the true me yet but there was still hope that I still would. I had an ideal to work towards. My ideal was I wanted to be a pretty girl and admire myself in the mirror. But even still, I knew deep down I wanted more than just looking like a girl, I wanted to be a girl, in the worst way.

My biggest problem was I did not know how to achieve my goal of being much more than a part-time cross-dresser. I was still in the pre-information stage on the internet dark ages and had very little idea there was anyone like me who was questioning their gender. Even though, I finally did meet other cross dressers or transgender women but still was coming away confused on who I really was. It wasn’t until I gathered my courage and put my ego away to undergo a professional makeover at one of the mixers I went to, did I finally see the potential of who I was overcome my male self in the mirror. Better yet, the make up professional was able to explain to me what he was doing as he did it in a way I could understand and repeat the process.

As I began to enter the public’s harsh eyes, the pressure was on to up my fashion and makeup game so I could blend in with the world as a novice transgender woman. Increasingly, I was pushing my male image aside and concentrating on my feminine look in the mirror. I was coming close to seeing the true me for the first time in my life. Once I met her, I knew there could be no turning back. I needed to step up my public game to meet my gender urges.

It turned out, the public did my work for me. As I established myself as a regular in a few special venues I was going to, other women began to approach me for friendly conversations. For most, it was nothing more than idle curiosity about who I was and why I was there. Whatever the case, I needed to develop a more complete personality quickly. No longer could I sit there by myself and watch the world go by and enjoy myself as others were watching me. My true self came out quickly and she was aided by my long dormant feminine self. She had waited long enough for her turn to do more than survive, she wanted to thrive. I was surprised at how well she thrived. She did not care others knew she came about her femininity from a different route than she did. She just knew she was finally there.

Since I don’t rely on any facial surgeries to help my look, I am very much into what you see is what you get these days. I have had to rely on makeup skill and the effects of gender affirming hormones to get me by in the world. For the most part these days, I present as old more than anything else but again, I needed to meet my true self. Finally, I could take denying reality any longer and moved to accept my true self. The meeting was long overdue and was so much fun, I was sad I put it off as long as I did.

No Easy Way Out

 

JJ Hart doing Trans Outreach Work. 

Like many of you, I struggled for years to escape my dark, lonely gender closet.

As I beat my head against the closet walls, I stared longingly into the mirror, dreaming of the day I would find an easy way out. As I did, it became increasingly evident to me that there would be no such escape from my dominating male self. He would make life miserable for years because of my indecision.  One day I wanted to be a boy and the next I wanted to be a girl dictated how I lived.

After years of despair over my gender dysphoria, I began to see a sliver of light in my closet when I briefly opened the door to look out. At first, I was getting the door slammed back into my face when I went out in public. Too many people were laughing at me to my face or worse yet, I could hear their comments behind my back. I was sent home early many nights in tears, wondering what I was doing wrong with my feminine presentation. Following intense introspection, I discovered what was wrong. I was letting my old male self-make my fashion decisions and dressing for men instead of women who were for the most part controlling my destiny as a transgender woman. Without the support of women, I would have never made it out of my closet at all.

Even as I learned my lessons on presentation, I still found there would be no easy way out of my closet. I discovered the more walls I scaled on my path to transgender womanhood; the more walls would appear to challenge me. Mainly because I was out in the public eye so much more, and I was challenged to find the proper wig to wear all the time as well as find better fashion to augment my wardrobe. There was no way I wanted to wear the same outfit day after day when people began to recognize me. To offset the extra attention, I needed to increase my visits to area thrift stores to find bargains I could afford, and more importantly, fit me. I was obsessed with outdoing myself when it came to my feminine presentation.

It turned out, the public was noticing as I lost nearly fifty pounds and started taking better care of my skin. If I behaved myself in the world, and was friendly, I crossed the line into communicating with other women. Of all the walls I needed to climb, communication skills were the hardest to scale. The change was dramatic because I needed to change my communication from direct male to indirect female as I learned women often talk with their eyes. Thus, I needed to get better in looking another woman in her eyes when I talked with her. Often doing it as a man was a threatening option, while doing it as a woman was not optional. I needed to learn to do it. By doing so, often I could see what they thought of me. Did they think of me as a woman or sort of a man seeking admittance into their world.

Mostly what I received back was curiosity. What was I doing in their world? And I think they understood my interest in being admitted to the girl’s sandbox went far beyond just putting on a wig, dress and makeup. One way or another, the process was extremely challenging and kept me guessing every night about what I was going to experience because some nights I was tired of climbing walls. I kept looking for the last one to climb, but found I was not even close. Mainly because the gender club I was seeking to join was so complex. On the other hand, the process of totally leaving my closet and male privileges behind was still quite scary and I needed total confidence in what I was doing before I made the final jump.

My introduction to HRT or gender affirming hormones gave me the confidence I needed to keep going. Suddenly the hormones helped me to sync up my external feminine self with my internal one. It was the final shove I needed to get out of my closet and live a new life as a transfeminine person. It turned out there was an easy way to escape if only I possessed the inner strength to look for my truth. Once I did, my fragile mental health improved, and I set my sights on enjoying my family more since a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. In the end, it was all worth it, but it was never an easy trip to go on, or I could find no easy way out.

 

 

 

 

Too Low on the Down Low

 

Image from Ky Nang
on UnSplash. 

I describe my life when I was cheating on my second wife with another woman(me) as being on the down low. Especially when in the early days I was hanging out in gay bars.

On occasion, I feel as if I make the process of transitioning with or without my wife’s support a little too exciting or even fun. I need to make it clear; it was anything but. It all started with a deal my wife and I made which I could go out in the public as a woman, only if I did not do it from our house. I even went as far as renting out motel rooms to apply my wardrobe, makeup and hair as I got ready to go out into the world.

Of course, with my mentality, that was never enough, and I started to break our agreement to never go out cross dressed from the house. The more I did it, the more I wanted to do it. That is when the going on the down low really started as I was sneaking around behind her back as a novice transgender woman every chance I got. I was stuck in life between not breaking our agreement and feeling so natural every time I went out in the world. During my life, I had always prided myself on being very honest, so I was not happy with the way my life was headed when I needed to lie to my wife when it came to explaining what I was doing in my spare time. Or why I was not successful in removing all my makeup when she came home.

The next biggest problem I ran into when I was on the down low was what was I going to do about the women who were approaching me. It was not as if I was being bombarded with romantic advances, but I did have some slight pushes. I felt bad because I never had any intention of ever physically cheating on my wife. However, I had always been a bit of a flirt which carried over from my days of being a male. There were occasions such as the night a man tried to pick me up in a bar after a professional makeover that I wonder what would have happened had I stayed. I didn’t and I will never know as well as what would have happened had I pushed a little harder to get to know a certain man with a motorcycle I was becoming close to.

I guess I had reached the bottom of my down low except for some stolen kisses from my lesbian friends. I internalized my feelings and waited for them to come to me, just like my male days. Then, when my wife unexpectedly passed away, everything changed and at the least I had purged my feminine life the best I could for the last six months of her life as I did not want to lie to her anymore. After she passed, all my barriers were removed and the first thing I needed to do was determine my sexuality. I thought to do it; I needed to go on public safe dates with a couple men I had met. I had a great time with Bob who was passing through Dayton on business, but he was married and lived far away. I did not have to worry about being brought home to mom in our brief relationship.

On the lesbian side of my life, things were decidedly different since I was no longer on the down low. Since HRT had effectively did away with any masculine sexual advances, I needed to learn new techniques. If I was brave enough, I found with the lesbian culture I needed to move slow and let them make the first move. I basically ended up with a group of three women I was close to. Which was all I needed. From the three, Nikki was never a real possibility because she was too much younger than me and I think would have recoiled at the idea of ever having relations with any sort of men (including me) at all. She was just an entertaining drinking buddy. Kim and my future wife Liz were in totally different situations. Both had lived difficult lives and were closer to me in age so they could relate to me being in a rebounding situation from all the death I had went through. In the end, I decided to move in with Liz in Cincinnati and are still together over a decade later, so I made the right move. Although every now and then I hear from Kim.

One way or another, life on the down low was never any fun for me. I constantly felt as if I was cheating on my wife. It was a relief to finally let it go and live my life authentically as a transfeminine person.