Stepping off a Gender Cliff

 

Image from my first salon
visit 12 years ago.

As I slowly began to become part of the world as a transgender woman, I felt as if I was sliding down a steep slope towards a deep cliff which I could not see the bottom.

Not being able to see the bottom of the canyon I was facing was probably the scariest part of coming out as my authentic self and being allowed to be behind the gender curtain with ciswomen around me. Along the way, I worried about the smallest things such as my appearance, all the way to how I sounded if I had needed to talk to someone else. Many times, in an emergency only because I was so unsure of myself as a novice transfeminine person. Sadly, I learned the hard way that as weak as my communication skills as a trans woman were, not communicating at all with other women was worse. Because not saying anything made me come off as being somehow stuck up or worse yet, bitchy.

Through it all, I came off sliding slowly down my gender path as I ignored several stop signs thrown up by my male self or my second wife who knew she was in danger of losing her husband altogether. For most of my journey at this point of my life, I was in the dark and used that as an excuse of why I had just ignored or run the stop signs I was facing. Whatever the case, I was living an exciting yet scary time of my life.

When I came out to my daughter nearly a dozen years ago, I finally had lost my grip on the small trees and vines I was holding onto during my steep descent into trans womanhood.  She surprised me by promptly supporting me and her only question was why was she the last to know, when in fact she was the first to know I was much more than a part-time crossdresser (as my first wife and her mother thought), I was actually a transgender woman who was afraid to admit it to the world.

Since my birthday was right around the corner, my daughter volunteered as a gift to me to take me to her hair salon/spa for a haircut and color makeover on my hair which had become long enough to work with. Even though the whole idea scared me to death, I took her up on the offer and she made the appointment which would forever change my life.

Before I knew it or could even entertain any thoughts of backing out the day was upon me and the next thing I knew I was with my daughter and her stylist looking at seemingly endless color and style combinations that I needed to choose from. Plus, I had to walk past a endless line of women in chairs who had nothing else to do but give me their undivided attention as I walked by, nervous as hell and trying my best not to show it. Fortunately, I had a complimentary glass of wine to calm me down as I chose a highlighted blond/red cut which all of us thought suited me the best.

Once I was done and allowed to see myself, I have to say I was impressed and knew why ciswomen everywhere put so much emphasis on taking care of the hair through salons everywhere. As I left, I felt as if I could skip my daily dose of gender affirming hormones because the estrogen was so thick in the air in the salon. As I said, it all added up to a day I will never forget thanks to my supportive daughter I could never thank enough over the years as she helped me pick out a new legal name change that my three grandkids could easily grasp. Ironically, the middle grandchild who was in the fourth grade had a teacher who was an out gay teacher in the school system and had my grandchild as a student. Then my daughter needed to explain the difference in their gay teacher and their transgender grandparent. As you can tell, diversity ruled in their house and went full circle when my oldest grandchild came out as trans.

As it turned out, I had nothing to fear from sliding off my gender cliff because it turned out I had built such a group of supportive people to help me when I fell. Of course, I always have to mention my future third wife Liz who along with my daughter turned out to be my best allies during my male to female feminization project. In fact, it turned out they knew me better than I knew myself and showed me the way to success. Liz in particular always told me that she never saw any male in me at all. Which in many ways provided me with the powerful shove down my gender cliff into a world I always should have been part of in the world of ciswomen. I don’t know what I would have done without the guidance of women such as Kim and Nikki also. I just know I probably would have kept up the male charade I was living longer than I did.

Perhaps the ironic part of them providing me a safe landing was when all the ciswomen refused to take any credit. The only response I ever got was welcome to our world when I tried to share stories about my first hot flashes, so I learned to keep quiet and learn how to protect myself when the expected gender crash happened. Because of women such as Min and Kathy, their initial invitations to their girls only nights out helped me to learn what life behind the gender curtain was really all about.

If I had known all I had learned earlier about being a transfeminine person, I would have definitely taken the plunge down my cliff earlier than I did. Not much I can do about it now as I am very much where I wanted to be and the plunge was not too bad after all.

 

 

Trans Girl's Dreams...Nothing lasts Forever

 

Image from Bruce Mars
on UnSplash. 

Nothing last forever in a transgender woman’s world, or does it?

Many of my life’s earliest recollections begin with the vivid dreams I had of being the pretty girl of my thoughts, only to be shattered back to reality when I woke up into my same old male world. Sadly, I remember thinking at the time how bad it was that dreams could not last forever. Why was I stuck with the impossible dream.

At the time, I thought too, it was a possibility that I was going through some sort of a phase that I would grow out of. As many of us know, we did not grow out of any sort of cross-dressing phase, I grew into a more transfeminine one. It turns out that thinking me wanting to be a girl was just a phase was as wrong as thinking I was truly crazy because of my gender issues. I did not really think I was crazy for just wanting to be who I was, but it remained a thought in the back of my head which back in those days was reinforced by the mental health community.

As life moved quickly forward as it always does, in my thirties and early forties, I began to really entrench myself in the physical world of newly found cross-dressers and transgender women around me. For the first time in my life, I discovered I did have role models in the community I could learn from. In their lives, they were approaching the world as if they were never going back to their male selves, so why couldn’t I. My impossible dream may not be so impossible after all as I improved my feminine presentation to the point to where I could blend in with the majority of ciswomen I encountered when I started leaving the mirror at home and heading into the world.

From there, I began to set up small bucket lists for myself. Once I completed one task as a novice transgender woman, I immediately set up another. Basically, I set my tasks up on what my observations of women were anyhow and how much I wanted to try them in my new world I was experimenting in. An example was when I began to go to the big bookstores as me to see if I caused any negative attention. When I didn’t, I began to visit their in-house coffee shop and even began to use the restroom of my choice. The women’s of course. I would have looked very silly using the men’s room the way I was dressed.

Another problem I had was focusing on my dream. Just exploring the world without a plan was not getting me anywhere. In order to progress towards my goal, I purposely chose a few of the most trying experiences a ciswoman could have. Like going to an auto parts store to see how I was treated. The scariest experience I ever had was going to a pick it yourself junk yard with my wife Liz to pick up a side mirror for an old car we had. It was a very hot and humid Ohio day, and I was worried about melting in front of the guys at the junk yard, but no one gave me a second look, and we were off with our mirror before I knew it. But to this day, I am still shy of going into male dominated spaces because I know of how women can be taken advantage of from my old days as a male.

By the time all of this was happening, I was having a sneaking suspicion that my desire to live full-time as a transfeminine person was never just going to go away. In fact, it was just going to become more intense.

As my third wife Liz became more serious, she wanted to travel to a few places she had never been to and some that she had. The easiest way to do it was to sign up for tours with a local Cincinnati based tour bus company. Over the years, we traveled from Boston and Maine and New Orleans to Mardi Gras and Florida in the south. The challenge for me was always using the restroom with a bus who majority of passengers were women. I had some adventures along the way such as one elderly woman commenting that I was using “their” restroom, all the way to being afraid of confronting two agitated women in an Alabama restroom and being afraid of being arrested by a “good ol boy” southern sheriff for just wanting to pee. To add insult to potential restroom drama, matters just got worse when I became non-mobile to where I needed to use a handicapped stall where there was one available. But through it all, I learned to be resilient, and the world was not such a bad place after all.

It was about this time that my gender life flipped, and I knew my male life was not going to last forever but my female one would last as long as I did. It was during this period I survived two trips to the hospital. One for Covid and one for pneumonia which were the most gender numbing experiences of my life. When the nurses asked questions about my gender status since I was still biologically a male and I had to put up with all the nudity which went along with my visits. From it all I learned that being nice to the staff was the best way to go and they would be nice to me.

I am sure that kid in the mirror would have never thought his life would have taken so many twists and turns if he chose the gender path that he did. Would he have done it? Sure, but would he ultimately have a choice, no. Being transgender was simply something that was built into him from the beginning and he never would have a choice in the matter. As soon as he could come to that conclusion, the better off he would be when he discovered nothing lasts forever.

 

Using yet Another Term

 

Trans Tennis Star
Renee Richards circa 1976.

Recently, I used the term “dead name” to describe my old male name which I legally changed years ago. Rather than using “dead name”, Kayla wrote in and responded by saying she uses “former tenant” when referring to her former self.

I liked the idea and decided to pass it along to all of you for your consideration. I mean it is not like we have enough other terms which have evolved and even disappeared over the years. If you are of a certain age, you probably remember when transvestite was used as a term to describe many of us with gender issues. Then there is the term “transgender” which (according to Wikipedia) was originally used in 1965 by psychiatrist John Olivien then popularized by Virginia Prince in the mid 1990’s. Which was when I began to hear about being transgender and how it applied to me.

It was not until I began to go to the old “Tri-Ess” social transgender-cross dresser mixers, did I really begin to grasp the differences in the terminology to describe myself which was becoming more and more important to me. During the earliest times I can remember coming out to anyone was in the mid to late 1970’s when I used the transvestite term rather than using cross-dresser which perhaps would have been easier for the other person to understand. At the time, I was selfish and was not so concerned about what the others thought about me as I was about preserving my male self and was not coming out to many others anyhow. I stayed with thinking I was a transvestite which was not as far along on the gender disruption order as transsexual which meant to me as wanting major surgeries to live fulltime as a woman. At my age, “Christine Jorgensen” was the first person I remember as a well-known transsexual when she published her autobiography in 1967. The year I graduated from high school, so I had a real interest in secretly trying to find a copy of her book and try to read it which I never did. The closest I ever came was finding a copy of the “Renee Richards” book “Second Serve” which was published in 1976. I found it interesting when I researched Richard’s book in Wikipedia, no reference was made to her being a transsexual woman, only a transgender one.

About that time was when I began to seriously feel as if I fit the definition of a transgender woman more than any definition, I had ever seen before. I was somewhere off in a never-never land between being the cross-dresser I always perceived myself to be and the transsexual self which was rapidly disappearing as a term.

For me, at least as I “matured” into a “transfeminine” person which supposedly first appeared in a “Tapestry” publication from Tri-Ess in 1985. About the time I was seriously looking for ways to escape my gender closet. Also the time for me when I began to have serious access to the internet and social media which over the years was to open many new doors for me as well as many new terms such as the use of LGBT at all as many more letters were added to support different gender communities. In my latest search, I found the term is up to LGBTQIA+ to include all the variations on the gender spectrum.

Then there is gender fluidity which I have known a few people who have described themselves as such over the years. In fact, we had a gender fluid person attend our support group meeting here in Cincinnati years ago who went only with their middle initial as a name and refused any of the traditional he or she pronouns. I often thought maybe I was actually gender fluid growing up on the days I wanted to be a girl instead of the boy gender I was born into.

In another support group years ago, I mentioned another group catch phrase centering around Hormone Replacement Therapy or HRT. I called it HRT and Andi gently reminded me that a better, in-depth term, would be gender affirming hormones which made sense to me and I try to use both to this day.

Now I get to throw another gender term into my years old trashcan thanks to Kayla. I will never have to use a term I always hated anyhow to describe my ascent to being a successful trans woman in a world of ciswomen. Which, for the sake of staying with the theme of this post simply means a woman who was born female and still identifies as a woman.

I suppose the meaning of all these labels simply shows what a complex community the LGBTQIA+ really is and the most important thing is that you find the little niche you need to survive in. If you can follow all these changes, you deserve all the progress you have made. When push comes to shove all these terms are just semantics and you deserve more as you enter your authentic life.

I know there are other labels I have missed. I hope I have covered the major ones that helps us all and my “dead “name is now truly dead.

 

 

 

 

Destination Unknown

 

JJ Hart and wife Liz on Right.

Through most of my life, I have taken the path less traveled to an unknown destination. Many times, I have thought I knew where I was headed, only to be faced with many stop signs in my way. It was like the night I took the night bus to Ft. Knox, Kentucky to begin my Army basic training. All I really knew was I did not want to be there and I would be in for more unpleasant situations than I wanted to count. All without my precious feminine wardrobe, heels and makeup to fall back on.

To make matters worse, some of the other men on the bus were not so silently crying about their fates which were coming up, quickly because before we knew it, the bus arrived at the not so beautiful, winter-time hills of Ft. Knox and we were greeted by drill sergeants and loaded from the bus into our waiting barracks. In a small way, I guess I was fortunate that I had two friends who were drafted ahead of me into the Army who told me what to expect and gave me some sort of confidence that I could successfully survive whatever was ahead.

Actually, for me, basic training went fast seeing as how I was facing an extended period of my life without the feminine fallbacks I had always known to get me by. Keep in mind too that the Army in those days was deeply gender separated and there were no women to interact with anywhere where I was at all in basic training. So, I was forced to do all my interaction with other men which I had never been good at. It turned out to be a learning experience I will never forget and even gave me extra insight about how competitive men interact with each other when there are no ciswomen to show off for.

Through it all, my inner super repressed feminine self was busily recording all of this for use later on in my life. Any spare moment I had when I was doing some sort of a mundane task in the chow hall for dinner like peel potatoes, I was given the chance to day dream off to the future and think of the new car I was going to buy with the money I was saving because of Uncle Sam taking care of everything I needed. I dreamed of buying a new wig and clothes and making it a point to slowly drive past my first fiancé who had rejected me when I was drafted into the military. She thought I should have tried to get out of serving because I was a cross-dresser. Which was close enough to being gay for her to get me rejected from duty.

When my three years of military service was up and I returned to the world I knew before, I returned almost exactly where I was with my cross-dressing when I left. The only difference was when Halloween rolled around and the newly restored Ohio Theatre in Columbus was having a costumed “Spook Out” with their newly restored theatre organ providing the background sound live for the silent version of the “Phantom of the Opera.” It was an opportunity for me to jump out of my dark gender closet and present my true self to the world for the first time since I was a civilian again. For the evening, I was the long blond-haired woman in heels and a minidress which of course included my freshly shaven legs and new panty hose. Outside of the heels beginning to bother me as the evening wore on, I had a wonderful time. Especially when I had the chance to see and appreciate the other costumes.

From there, the only problem I had was thinking about waiting another long year to be able to come out of my closet and express myself as a transfeminine person. I had just spent three years of my life waiting for my freedom from the Army and I did not want to wait anymore. My solution was to open my closet door and have the courage to come out on my own and not wait for another year. I knew in order to do it; I needed to take my feminine presentation standards way beyond what I was doing for Halloween if I was ever to make it in a world of ciswomen. Certainly, I made mistakes along the way as I stumbled out of the closet but managed to maintain the balance on my heels to get by in the world.

Thanks to previous life lessons I had learned to rely on myself, my inner female finally had her chance to come out and shine in the world when I started out evenings to go out and be by myself and ended up talking to other curious ciswomen wondering what I was doing in their world. I had learned to outgrow my shyness around strangers and become a social person, so my “plan” worked to perfection. I did not have to go out anymore to be by myself and my previous unknown gender destination was becoming clearer to me.

For the first time, I was able to see ahead of myself for future reference the stop signs I would face. Such as what was I going to do about all the male baggage I had managed to build up over the years against my will. If you are trans, you know what I am talking about such as spouses, family, friends and employment to begin with. Along the way, I have written entire posts about the power of stop signs and what they mean to transgender women and transgender men. I can only say, when you have negotiated all your stop signs and reached your unknown destination, you will have reached your own little utopian space because it feels so natural to you. At least it worked that way for me.

Thanks for reading along!

Any comments are always welcomed! 

 

 

Hey You!!!! Meeting Myself in the Middle

 

Image from Adam Winger
on UnSplash. 

For me, meeting myself in the mirror was never easy to do. While the group of boys I grew up around were blissfully doing boy things without a problem, I was struggling with the idea that I wanted to be a girl.

Sadly, for the longest time, I thought that someday I would have the chance to outgrow what would become for all to call gender dysphoria. For me, I was just a kid with problems I had no idea of how to conquer. Through all this time of my life my favorite quote to pass along was when some adult asked me what I wanted to become when I grew up, I could never tell the truth and say a woman as I lied and said a doctor or a lawyer. The only thing with certain that I knew was I would get an immediate trip to the psychiatrist if I had ever told the truth compliments of my parents. 

As I always say, age entitled me to a chance not to outgrow being a cross-dresser but did give me the opportunity to meet myself in the middle and start to mature into the transgender woman I am today. Before I did though, I needed to come up with an understanding of what the middle of being me really meant. What made it all so difficult was that my male life when it was going well it was very good, but when it was bad, I wanted out immediately. As I ran to my makeup, dresses and heels for comfort in the mirror.

The middle began to be harder and harder for me to find when I left the home mirror, gathered my courage and headed into the world as a transfeminine person. Many times, I could almost see and sense my middle person in the public mirrors I was still using to build myself up in places such as clothing stores in the malls and changing rooms I had started to use in all the thrift stores I was shopping to discover the latest fashion item I could wear. I was never any good shopping for women’s clothes as a man, as my feminine self-wanted to do it all and make all the final choices for herself.

In addition to fighting for the middle with my male self, I needed to fight my second wife for the rights to her husband. Like my male-self, my wife was a formidable opponent to any idea of me transitioning any further into the feminine world I increasingly wanted to live in. In many ways, she held all the gender cards because she knew I was a cross dresser when we met but never/ever agreed to me going past that point as she said she did not sign up to live with another woman. For whatever reason she never liked the transgender woman I was becoming and passed away before she could meet the finished product I had become. I don’t blame her because she just got caught in the middle of me not wanting to admit to what I always knew deep down…there was actually no middle point to me, I was destined to eventually live my life among ciswomen as an equal transgender woman.

The problem was, getting to the point of realizing all of this was easy to write about and harder to do. The biggest mistake I made was thinking my gender balance between male and female was so good that I could live as both in the world. While I maintained a long-term marriage and a good job. Trying to go all in on both genders cost me my already fragile mental health as I was still trying to do my research in the public eye about which gender direction I wanted to go. Long story short, I found without too much trouble I could carve out a new feminine life without the world questioning anything about my old male life. As I surveyed the world suddenly, I could see gender possibilities opening for me that I never thought possible before.

During this time in my life, I think I met myself in the middle too fast and tried unsuccessfully to slow my progress down until I could figure out what to do about the rest of my life. Primarily my second wife and my very lucrative job. Plus, on the other hand, I had put this gender teeter totter in motion, and it increasingly looked as if I could not get off. I kept up the old male charade I was forced to live as long as I needed to, and with the help of a few ciswomen friends, I was able to find a new middle point in my life as a trans woman. Which seemed to work well, until HRT or gender affirming hormones came my way, and the balance of my life was changed forever.

I had always viewed the possibility of me taking the gender altering hormones as a line of demarcation of me never going back to my old male life and it was. From the obvious growth of my breasts and hair to the overall softening of my skin and facial lines the changes came fast and furious and again I was forced to move up my timeline to discard (or give away) all my old male clothes and set my sights on a new bright future. Away from all the uncertainties of going back and forth between the two main binary genders of womanhood and manhood. My lifetime of juggling identities went away, my mental health improved as I entered the world I had always dreamed of my entire life that I had finally earned my way into.

The “earn” word is important here because of all the trial and error (mostly error) I put into finally facing the reality of my true gender and forever stopped meeting myself in the middle. Was it worth it? Sure, because I ended up not having any choice after all.

 

 

 

 

More Serious Stop Signs

 

Image from Steve Lieman
on UnSplash.

“Tia” wrote in yesterday and commented on my recent “Stop Sign” post. She wanted further insight into what my biggest stop signs were and how did I get through them.

First, thanks for the insightful comment, Tia and here are the answers as I remember them now.

By far, my biggest stop sign was put directly in my path by my second wife. As I was stuck between the rock and the hard place with her because of the transition I was slowly making from cross-dresser to transgender woman and my wife. Rightfully so, my wife pointed out I was breaking the marriage covenant we had and she did not want to be married to another woman. The last thing I want to do here is make her the bad person in all this gender turmoil because she knew and accepted my cross-dressing before we got married.

She even went as far as attending the social activities I went to in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio and supported my efforts to leave the house to explore the world as a transfeminine person for the first time by backing me with money for motel rooms to get ready in. The only real stop sign I had was to agree to never leave the house dressed as me. Was it enough for me? No. I blew right through the stop signs and started to throw caution to the wind and go out into the world like the authentic me. Regardless of the heavily populated area of town, we lived in.

I kept on doing this until I was caught time and time again by my second wife and could not lie my way out of me breaking our agreement. I resorted to even going to therapy for help which never actually came. Mainly because I was not doing anything wrong in my struggle to just be the inner female I always thought I was. I even had a therapist I respected totally tell me that and I just ignored her. Thinking I could balance my gender issues and fight on to maintain the status quo. By ignoring the stop signs I was facing, I was just making my life worse and not helping our relationship in the long term which I will get back to later. Because, as it turned out, there would not be a long term relationship anyhow.

In the meantime, as I became more serious about the possibility of living out my life as a transgender woman, I began to see other stop signs ahead. They were major signs too such as how I would support myself in the world without my wife and perhaps the rest of my family. Obstacles which face nearly all transgender women and transgender men as we attempt to cross the gender border and live out our lives as normal everyday citizens. It is difficult to end one life, pick up the pieces and start over again. Something I wish all the transphobes who try to attack us would try to understand but that is a whole other topic.

Pure destiny helped me to negotiate the other major stop signs I faced with the attitude that if others could complete a male to female transition, why couldn’t I. Life became a circle for me as I went through the darkest period of my existence before I was able to pay my dues and take advantage of the new world I was in. The most tragic part was losing my wife to a major heart attack. I never ever thought she would ever die before me with the stressful lifestyle I was leading but I did, which led me to wonder what I would do about the biggest stop sign of all in my life. In the new darkness as I searched for my new path which had existed so long. All I needed to do was remove the stop sign and continue to live.

I also found I needed to do a quick look into who was important to me in my life and who I could afford to lose if I crossed the gender border. In my darkness I guessed my daughter who would support me and my only brother would not. Which was exactly what happened. It has been over a decade since I have talked with my brother, and my daughter has become one of my biggest supporters. My parents had long since passed on so I did not have to worry about coming out to either of them. Even though I did try to come out to my mom years ago and was rejected. I took that stop sign down and forgot about it.

It seemed, once I got used to taking down my gender stop signs the easier it got. Although that was not necessarily the case. Destiny stepped in again and provided me with an age excuse when it came to how I was going to support myself. I was fortunate to have worked a good job with a good wage which helped my Social Security retirement payments. I turned out if I was able to sell the collectables my wife and I had collected over the years, I could retire and support myself. Which saved me having to look for a job as a new transgender woman.

Of lesser importance was when the Veterans Administration started to provide care for gender conflicted veterans such as me. I jumped at the chance for lower cost HRT meds and the mental care to get them. The mental care provided me with a qualified therapist who helped me with the legal documents that assisted changing my legal gender markers within the VA and the public sector.

Perhaps removing the biggest stop sign of all that remained was discovering a loving relationship which I could cherish for the rest of my life. That person of course was my wife Liz who discovered me on an online dating site. I was always a social person and had resigned myself to a life of being alone before I met Liz and we are still going strong over fifteen years later.

I hope all of this answers the questions Tia and all of you may have had about my transgender stop signs and how I handled them. Some stopped me for years while others I simply rolled through or ignored altogether but one way or another I made it. As always, all of your comments are appreciated!

 

 

 

 

No Participation Awards for a Trans Woman

Image from Brett Jordan 
on UnSplash.

As I traveled up my very long gender path with all its stop signs, I realized there were no awards for just participating coming my way. In fact, just the opposite was true.

Every time I was able to cross dress in front of the family mirror and not get caught, I experienced major gender euphoria but no awards because I knew I would just have to go back to my boring male life which I wanted no part of. Since my feminine self was deeply hidden from the world, there were no awards when I mastered a certain make up look or did not run my panty hose. On the other hand, I could expect some sort of gratitude when I achieved good results as a boy. I hated the total imbalance of the system I needed to live under with no available choices coming my way soon.

It wasn’t until much later in life did, I began to experience any participation awards at all. In the very beginning after trips to the big malls I was going to, even on the nights I was laughed at and scorned for my appearance, I felt at least I had tried and needed to go back to my cross-dressing drawing board to come up with ideas about what I was doing wrong. After setting aside my stubborn ideas of trying to dress sexy like a teenaged girl, and dressing age appropriate I was able to blend in with the ciswomen around me and not cause any undue attention to myself. I gave myself a bigger reward when I reached that major milestone in my life back then as a part-time cross-dresser.

Then, I became frustrated because it seemed the awards began to become harder and harder to come by as I started to overachieve as a transfeminine person seeing the world for the first time. Those were the days of trying to overcome a portion of my guilt for sneaking out of the house dressed as me by trying to do things which helped the household such as grocery shopping or better yet, trying to find my wife a garden gift at one of the nearby antique malls I went to. She was a huge gardener, and I thought an occasional gift would please her but probably pleased me more because it helped soothe my guilty conscience and gave me an imaginary award to put up on my mantle. I wish I could say I had a lot of awards, but they were very difficult to come by. Plus, my collection would be destroyed every time my wife caught me out of the house, and I became discouraged and decided to purge all my feminine belongings only to have to start all over again. Until I realized purging was fruitless and my desire to be a woman ran too deeply than just having the clothes, shoes and wigs that I had collected.

Overtime, with all the purges I attempted, I became better at keeping key items of my wardrobe I would need if (ha-ha) the urge to be a trans woman hit me again. I was not the sharpest tack in the box and still had not realized being trans was apart of me and would never just go away.

In the meantime, I continued to go out at night in the world and collect my participation awards as I learned what it really meant to be myself. To do so I needed to leave the gay bars behind that I was frequenting where they only thought I was a drag queen and try out the real world for a change where at the least I could be accepted as a woman from a different past. To do so, I needed to hitch up my big girl panties and do a deep, scary dive into the world I wanted so desperately to be in. I was growing increasingly tired of living a lie as a man and wanted out. In the beginning, I still took what I thought was the easy way out. By going to venues, I frequented often as a man and had wondered how it would be to live it as a transgender woman. It also helped that I was able to see how single women were treated in the straight places I was considering going. The last thing I wanted to do was to feel unwanted or afraid being a single woman in a venue full of couples.

After much thought and caution, I tossed my misgivings aside and considered what was the worst that could happen. My frail ego would be destroyed, and all my participation awards would be destroyed was my first thought. Then, I relied on all my new-found confidence as a transgender woman to succeed at my first big moves in straight venues in the world around me. To my amazement, I was treated well in my new world, and no one laughed at me or treated me with disrespect as I left my unwanted male privileges behind to learn what all the female privileges were all about.

I learned immediately one of the benefits was just being treated nicer. Even to the point where I was invited to staff girls’ nights out when the bartenders were concerned, I was lonely. Which I was. Better yet, one bartender set me up with her single lesbian mom whom I remain friends with to this day. Ten years later. There would have been no way that I could have made friends as easy as I did as a woman than I ever did as a man. A major reward for all the years of work I had put into succeeding on my gender path to my dream.

Another major reward I have received over the years comes from all your comments and feedback to my experiences. Originally, the idea was to write a blog (before I even knew what was one) to help others with similar gender differences so they could learn from them. Thanks to you, the idea has grown way past my expectations.

Thank you!

 

 

  

She Was Living Rent Free in my Head

 

Image from Nathan Dumlao
on UnSplash.

It took me years to realize that I had a tenant living rent free in my head all along.

I should have known from day one when I was going through my mom’s clothing that she was here to stay. In fact, she increasingly demanded more and more space in my head to justify her life as a cross-dresser or transvestite as we were called back then. I would need to wait several years for the transgender term to even become popular in our gender diverse society.

Also very early, I realized that the small closet I gave her to exist in just was not going to be enough. When she succeeded in expressing herself in the world in the smallest of occasions, she wanted to increase her space in my head. Prime examples were the days in school during study halls when I should have been actually studying. But I wasn’t as if I was having too much fun envying the girls around me who I desperately wanted to be like the next time I had the rare chance to be by myself and cross-dressed as a pretty girl in the mirror. And I realized I did not want them sexually as much as I wanted to be them physically and mentally.

It was during that portion of my life that I completely did not have any idea of how much rent-free space my evolving trans woman needed for her share of my head. Now I want back all the time my male self-spent fighting her for my life as I lived it. The gender ripping and tearing was certainly no fun, as both genders in my head fought for their right to survive. For awhile I tried the old male fallback of just try to ignore my number one problem in my life and she would somehow just disappear. When, in fact, the opposite was happening. The thrill of putting on a dress, hose and makeup would go away, and in its place, I would have a deep-seated feeling of just doing what was coming to be just natural for me. It was increasingly evident that I would need more space for my rent-free tenant to operate in as she went out to explore the world as a novice transfeminine person.

Following more than a few rough patches when she was going out in the world, my woman began to understand the sacrifice of her male ways it would take to survive. She became more serious and began to work on the basics such as presenting herself convincingly in the world. I went on a crash diet and succeeded in taking off enough weight so I could go down a size or two in the world of women’s fashion and I could find and wear stylish clothes for a change. Along with that major move, I began to take extra better care of my skin. Using a good moisturizer following every shave. Which paid off by not having to use so much foundation makeup and I could look so much more natural as if I was not trying so hard to look like an attractive woman. The trips I started to make to the department store makeup counters for guidance certainly did not hurt my progress either.

I was learning the hard way that I could not cut any corners if I was to be successful in my quest to present successfully in a world of curious ciswomen. I needed to give my rent-free tenant the opportunity to expand her space in my head and the finances to do it. I would be spotted a mile away as a man trying to be a woman if I used cheap makeup and did not do my best to shop for (and try on) clothes that fit me and even flatter my testosterone poisoned figure that I could do very little about. I did learn from my observations of the ciswomen around me that there were women of every shape and size that I could copy from and be successful. Which gave me the positive energy to carry on and pass as a trans woman friend of mine said, “Out of sheer will power.”

Even though the progress of my rent-free tenant was not moving along as fast as she wanted, there were still major obstacles in my way to deal with. Such as what would happen to my twenty-five-year marriage, my relationship with my daughter and the problem of finding a new job as a trans woman in the world. To be sure, all were major obstacles to deal with, so my tenant would have to be patient as she was beginning to understand she was the only tenant left in my head with any power. My male self was just going through the motions of life to keep a job and the outwardly show of male privilege in my life.

Finally, it was time to go on gender affirming hormones and allow my tenants to switch places. My previous rent-free tenant had earned her right to live as the dominant person in my life and my male self was left to pick up the pieces. I should say baggage more than pieces, because that is what he left me to consider in my new feminine life as a fulltime transgender woman. It was difficult to do, but I was able to keep several of my main male building blocks of my life such as my will to succeed and a deep-seated desire to bring my hobbies with me such as my love of sports. Which I learned was alright when I made ciswomen friends with the same passion for sports that I had built up over the years of my life.

While I certainly would not recommend a life like mine to anyone. Letting someone live rent free in your head for all those years was never easy. Perhaps, the only positive was, having all that time to learn the world as a trans woman gave me a stable basis to work from. That is my excuse, and I am sticking to it.

 

 

The Original Witches Ball as an Up-and-Coming Trans Woman

 

JJ Hart.

Back in the day, the Cincinnati area used to host what was called the “Original” Witches Ball around the Halloween season of course. It was called “The Original” because several copycat dances had sprung up attempting to copy the success of the first one.  Of significance to me was the ball that year was actually the third date my wife Liz and I had been on. Our first two dates had been to a drag show and a Renaissance festival, so another themed date would fit right in until we got to know each other better.

Perhaps the highlight of the witches’ ball was the venue itself. It was in a huge vintage Victorian house which had been expanded in the past to include an auditorium with a balcony and stage. For the evening, I thought I would go all the way in black with a hand-picked outfit guaranteed to be fun and just a little on the sleezy side. I went with a short black sleeveless minidress with black panty hose, a sequined net shawl and black heels. Since I was not quite to the point where I could style my own hair and wear it, I decided to wear a long curly black wig I had purchased a long time ago. For the party, we were even able to reserve a nearby hotel room so we could get ready and spend the night without having to worry about driving since it was within walking distance.

As I was to discover later in the evening, the only mistake I made in my outfit was the high-heeled shoes I chose to wear. As the night wore on, so did the strain the shoes put on my feet. Fortunately, I was able to kick them off at key places in the venue which had carpeted floors. I guess you could say I paid the price for fashion the night of the witch’s ball. Other than that setback, I had a wonderful time with Liz enjoying the entertainment on the main stage. The costume contest (which I did not enter) and all the exotic belly dancers who performed during the evening in another part of the venue.

All too soon the party was over, and my head was still spinning over all the wonderful costumes I saw, all the vendors with their merchandise and even getting an introduction to the “Captain Jack Sparrow” impersonator who complimented me on my “costume.”

I was hoping the alcohol I consumed would dull the pain in my feet for the walk back to the hotel in my heels, but it didn’t and off came the heels and on came the sidewalk in my panty hose for the short walk back. For all the fun I had, the brief pain was worth it. Little did I know at that time, I would be able to return to the witches’ ball in the future in a much bigger role as a behind the scenes organizer. And Liz and I would be able to cement our relationship with other entertaining dates.

It turned out that the witches’ circle Liz was already part of when I met her wanted to try to take on the huge task of organizing and putting on another annual ball. The first thing they needed to do was negotiate a rate for the same venue, which was crucial for the success of the event. Since I enjoyed being part of the group putting together another ball, I was given the opportunity to set up a vendor’s table to sell cookbooks and other crafts the group had put together. The fact was not lost on me that I had transitioned with all of them from a transgender woman to just another integral part of the group. Or circle that it was referred to.

 We only managed another couple of balls in the original venue it had was so uniquely designed for. Old and spooky to start with, it was simply ideal for what we wanted it for but the newer future places just did not come up to its standards of uniqueness, and the attendance began to decline. I did add an image showing what I did wear to the last of the old-style Cincinnati Witches Balls. I chose my black silk pants with a red sequined sleeveless top with my own hair this time around topped off with an oversized black hat you can’t see in the picture. Furthermore, I learned my shoe lessons this time around and wore a pair of sensible flats. The only positive I got from researching where we could have our next event was being invited to visit possible venues. Many of which were in Cincinnati brew pubs which meant I could sample some good beer.

These days, the Witches’ Ball event still hangs on in a vastly smaller form as it is held now only in a local bar. I, however, will always remember what the event meant to me. I was able to express myself for the last time in a hyper-Halloween atmosphere where I attempted to dress as a sexy woman and this time with a date who would become my wife later in life. From then on, I transitioned male to female into a world I had only dreamed of and any work I did on the ball was from my new viewpoint. Not to mention, I really appreciated the lack of special attention I received just because I was a trans woman in a group made up primarily of ciswomen and a few men.

I would have never thought just going to such a special venue for an outstanding event would lead to such far-reaching circumstances for me. It proved once again how life can be a strange but wonderful set up of possibilities which are there for you if you can ever set out to achieve them. For many of us that is the problem which hurts us in life. If it is something you can’t overcome.

Thanks for reading along and adding your comments. It makes it all so worthwhile for me!

 

 

You Never Know until You Try

 

Image from Leo Visions
on UnSplash.

You never know until you try was drilled into me as a kid by my WWII generation parents whenever I was facing a potential difficult situation. Little did they know, their insistence on me trying to do the improbable would come back to haunt them in a very different way. Back in those days (in the 1950’s) gender issues were referred to as mental illness and any reference to their eldest son being mentally ill would have been frowned on, so I was stuck wondering if I was really a boy who wanted to be a girl.

The only thing I knew to do was to keep cross-dressing in front of the family’s full length hallway mirror. Imagining I was one of the pretty girls I desperately wanted to be. At the time, I had no idea my gender issues would last the better part of fifty years and take up huge portions of my life. Not that I could have done anything about it if I had tried which I did a number of times when I purged nearly all my feminine belongings swearing never to pick them up again. I was stuck being a male and somehow, I needed to make the best of it. Like so many people I knew with gender issues, purging never worked. The pressure built until I could take it no longer and again, I was accumulating women’s clothes again and wearing them.

At the least I tried to go back to mentally being male full-time and failed miserably at it. All I knew was when I was not thinking about getting out of my dark, lonely gender closet, I was not happy at all and when I at least tried to be me in the mirror it took the pressure off. Even if it was only for a while. At the same time, I was acutely aware that I was doing the best I could to see if I could improve my appearance as a pretty girl. How I never got caught doing all of this, I will never know, and I even resorted to taking plastic bags of clothes and makeup into the neighboring woods so I could escape the prying eyes of my slightly younger brother and family.

My mentality of never knowing you could do something until you try really came to the forefront when I was drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War. Instead of taking the two-year plan with a ticket to Southeast Asia, I took a chance and signed up to try to get a job I wanted in the American Forces Radio and Television Service. With a lot of luck and the help of a congressman whose radio station I worked for, against all odds, I got one of the sixty job slots in the Army for AFRTS. It turned out the whole process turned my life around and taught me that anything could be possible. If you went out of your way to try. Probably the most valuable lesson that I could have ever learned as I looked ahead at my path to becoming a successful transfeminine person. If it had worked for me once, why couldn’t it do it again.

As I set out to leave my gender closet behind and improve my life, I know I took on a journey I would not readily recommend to others. When I started to leave the mirror and join the world as a trans woman, I used a tool that I had already used effectively as a man in my previous life. It was alcohol, and I knew I could use it to build up much needed courage to be in the world as a transgender woman and not get myself into more trouble as I was presenting as a single woman in an establishment which served alcohol. Gay, straight or lesbian, it did not matter. I found I could get by if I stayed out of the redneck leaning venues. I was also well schooled in the artform of driving while buzzed from all my days in the Army when I did all the driving. More than anything else, this was back in the days before the major crackdowns on drunken drivers, so I was safer, and in NO WAY do I recommend what I did.

Also, what I think is tougher these days than when I was intensely lonely and looking for companionship is the world of on-line dating. When I was seeking a date, I played both sides of the gender coin, because I was in the unique position of being a transgender woman who favored lesbians. Looking back, I think I got the most attention from men seeking men dating sites. But just knowing that the amount of trash I would receive was at its best humorous and at its worst, a disaster because I refused to meet anyone in a public place which was not of my choosing. I was stood up more times than I would care to count or remember because my life was destined to change forever when I met my future wife Liz on a woman seeking woman dating site.

Liz responded to my picture saying I had sad eyes which was entirely possible at that time of my life. Amazingly, she lived relatively close to me in a town (Cincinnati) that I had always admired. From there, I began to become involved in her friend’s girl’s nights out and I was able to do more to learn what was behind the gender curtain than I had ever thought possible. The entire on-line dating world for me proved again you never know what you are going to get until you try.

These days again it is more problematic to find someone online with all the scammers out there, but destiny can never find you if you never venture out of your dark lonely closet and light up your path to a brighter future.

I wonder what my deceased parents would think now of what they taught me so long ago.

 

 

 

Letting the Light Into my Trans Closet

 

Image from Sahin Kalijii
on UnSplash. 

Growing up, I had what I considered to be a very dark and escape proof gender closet.

I was part of the pre-internet/social media generation so I could not find the latest online tutorial on improving my makeup skills. And of course, I could not run to my mom or girls’ peer group for any information either. I was stuck with no light in my closet all by myself it seemed.

I stayed that way for years until gender pioneers such as “Virginia Prince” began to shine her faint light into my closet. I had little to no knowledge that individuals such as me even existed in the world. Once I did, I was very relieved I was not the only transvestite as Virginia called us then in the world and I set out to meet others. Before I could open my closet door even a little, I had to convince my second wife that it would be OK to do it. She had known from the beginning of our relationship that I was a cross-dresser but did not like it when I began to let others know of my so called “hobby.” It actually marked the beginning of me opening my closet door to the world and proclaiming I was a transgender woman, not a part time man putting on a dress and makeup.

Along the way, another problem I had was deciding when to take the chance to open my closet door and to which person. I did myself no favors when for the most part, I tried to internalize all my feminine feelings which made me an impossible person to get along with when I was looking in the mirror at my male self and hating what I saw. All the times I ventured out of my closet only to have to hurry back in was wrecking most of my life as I knew it. Not to mention the life with my wife who I envied because she was a ciswoman, and resented because she would not let me explore a feminine side which was trying to see the light of day.

I found my male self-had installed a powerful spring closer on my closet door which was designed to keep me in. Deep down he knew his part of my life was in danger every time I was able to escape the closet and get out into the world. I felt so enlightened and natural when I did, I never wanted to return to my male life and all its drudgery. I was so sick of wearing the same old collection of ties to work every day when better/brighter fashion choices awaited me in my closet at home.

I discovered that the more I outfitted my closet with brighter lights and bigger mirrors, the more I wanted to test my new fashions, wigs, and makeup in the world. Away from my mirror which had the tendency to lie to me. I can’t tell you how many times the mirror told me I looked great only to be rejected quickly in the public’s eye. It took me years to realize that I was expecting too much on just looking like a ciswoman, I had not yet paid my dues on becoming myself and then having the ability to relax and enjoy myself even more.

It helped me too when I began to venture further away from my closet as my confidence as a transfeminine person began to grow. To get there, I needed to be able to look another woman in the eye and communicate one on one with her about the world around us. Men entered the picture too but briefly since most of them did not want to have anything to do with me anyhow. More and more, I did not have to scramble back to my closet following a bad day or night out into the world because I was doing better in my feminine life. All my male could do was sit back and helplessly watch as his hold on me slipped away and all he ended up being was a provider because of his good job.

I arrived at a point when I needed to expand the small dark transgender closet, I had always lived in. It all began with me having to accept who I really was and had much more to do than just expanding my closet for all the feminine clothes I was buying. I was making a huge lifestyle choice that I had spent way too long deciding to make. All of this moving things around in my life led me all the way to leaving my closet totally behind and looking for a transgender house to live in. I had taken my time (decades) to make my decision, and it occurred to me that I had taken too much time but by then there was nothing I could do about re-winding the clock. I took the good and lived on until I was able to carve out a new transfeminine life.

As I look back, it does not seem possible to me that I have come from the lost, lonely boy staring longingly at himself dressed as a girl in his closet’s mirror to the person I am today. But none of would have been possible had I not been able to embrace the help of several key ciswomen around me to make it happen. I wonder what would have become of me if I was not able to meet them. On the bright side, stepping out of my closet (as scary as it was) enabled me to meet all of them to start with. So, destiny was on my side as my life went full circle from a dark closet to the bright existence I live with my wife Liz now. I was just fortunate as my hunches that everything would work out if I stayed on my gender path. I just had the super strong hunches that they would.

Thanks very much to all of you who read and interact with my writings. All comments are always welcomed!

 

A Special Kind of Crazy

 

JJ Hart

In my youth and even later when I was struggling with my deep-seated gender issues, the thought entered my mind that I may just be a little crazy to think that way. I even went as far as telling others I was not the well-adjusted person they thought I was.

Looking back now, I think I was just preparing in my own way to tell others I met that I wanted to be a woman. Which I never did for decades when it became obvious to strangers I met at cross-dressing, transgender socials I went to that I wanted to be feminine, or I would not have been there.

The first time that I told anyone that I liked to wear women’s clothes was after a Halloween party I went to in the Army of all places. Weeks later, over way too much good German beer, the topic came up with friends about how realistic my “costume” was, all the way to my shaved legs. Since I was among a few very close friends, I took a big chance with risking the remainder of the time I had in the Army and told them I was a transvestite (the term used back then) and I liked to dress as a woman. I said nothing about being crazy, and I just liked to do it.

Of course, at that time in my life, I was busy running from the fact of how deep my gender issues went. I was hiding the fact from myself that no I was not crazy, I just wanted to be a transgender woman in the days when the term was first being used. “Running” for me back in those days meant changing jobs and locations frequently to keep my mind off what I was truly running from, my gender issues. Even with all the moves I was making, I could not outrun my life and occasionally the term “crazy” snuck into my thought pattern.

To compensate, I began to do “chores” which I considered feminine in nature such as doing part of the grocery shopping for my wife dressed as a ciswoman. When I succeeded with no problems, I started to feel so natural that I continually wanted to do more. So, I began to combine my grocery shopping adventures with new visits to big shopping stores to pick up small items I could afford such as a pair of panty hose, or new makeup. Amazingly, no one bothered me or shouted, “There is that crazy man in a dress.”

As the years went by, I learned that the ciswomen around me did not think I was crazy. They thought I was more curious than anything else as they wondered why I would leave the men’s club to play in their world. Ironically, as they were taking care of their curiosity, at the same time, I was learning from them. I had always envied girls (then women) so much as I followed them from afar, and now I had the chance to go back behind the gender curtain and learn first hand about the pluses and negatives of a ciswoman’s life and did I want to be a part of it or was I just following a crazy path off a cliff.

I learned quickly that I was following the right path, no matter how crazy it seemed at the time. The more I explored the world as a trans woman, I found the more exploration I needed to do but that was OK with me because again, my life for a change did not feel forced and so natural because I was not fighting to be something I was not…a man. All of a sudden, my life made sense and a was a special kind of crazy, a transfeminine person. At that point, I knew I would have to lose for good all the formidable white male privileges I had earned over the years. Even I was surprised to say “buh-bye” to all privilege I had built up.

Not all benefits I had living as a man were so easy to give up such as part of my intelligence and my personal security. I did not have many interactions with men one on one, but I learned the process of letting the man take the lead in most all situations. Especially when it came to sports, where I knew a lot about what was going on. The other privilege or benefit I needed to give up quickly was when it came to my personal security. I was not prepared for the world I was facing now in which I was fair game for any toxic man. I was fortunate to have escaped injury a couple of times when I broke the rules that ciswomen grow up with such as not finding your self in a compromising position on a dark city street all alone. I thought at the time, I was crazy to do it and never did it again.

Most recently, the craziest thing I have done is to let my precious Estradiol prescription run nearly all the way out. In fact, I am down to my last applications of patches this week as I am waiting for another refill which I have been notified is coming today. I have written in the past a couple of times about the paranoia I felt when I had a recent appointment with my endocrinologist who prescribes my HRT medications. It turned out that that all my crazy paranoia about the far reach of the orange felon in the White House rejecting any ideas of me receiving gender affirming care through the Veterans Administration would ever happen again. Instead, I received a prescription which will last me through another year until our next appointment.

Once again, it was proven that I am a special kind of crazy which I wish I had learned to embrace earlier in life. It would have made life so much richer just knowing I had the chance to experience life on both sides of the binary gender border.

 

 

 

 

 

Courage or Something Else?

 

Image from Miquel Bruna
on UnSplash. 

Recently, I have exchanged a few comments with a reader named “Janie” and we somehow got into the subject of being courageous in our male to female gender transitions. Also, on occasion, I get someone calling me courageous on how I decided to follow my path to leading a transfeminine life.

The problem is I never considered myself courageous as I tried and tried to establish myself where I could blend in, in a world of ciswomen everywhere. Here are two examples, the first coming from “Janie.” When she said she wished she had the courage (and I am paraphrasing) to come out as a full-fledged transgender woman as a teenager. On the other hand, I wished I would have had the courage to follow my instincts and come out of my closet when I was honorably discharged from the Army and had very little male baggage to think about. I was still becoming established in the working world, had no children yet and a future wife who did not seem to care what I did. I would never again have that sort of opportunity to live a life as my authentic self without waiting on the world to catch up.

It turned out that I still had a lot of living to do before I could find my way up my path to being a fulfilled transgender woman. Sure, there were plenty of opportunities to overcome when I was petrified to try to overcome my male self and enter the world of women, but I never thought I needed an extraordinary amount of courage to do it. I always reserved that amount of praise for war heroes and first responders who ran towards danger, not away from it. I was not running towards danger; I was just doing what I had to do to survive.

Ironically, the world evolved around me when it came to gender issues over the years. You may remember when the film “Tootsie” came out and gave a realistic idea of what ciswomen go through in the world through the ideas of a man (Dustin Hoffman) living the experience. Sadly, the new look into the genders did not last until today when coming out into the world possibly did take a lot of courage after all. Lives could be wrecked when you would not be fully accepted as a trans woman with your spouse, your family, your friends and your employment. Especially today when the orange Russian asset in Washington DC is leading the charge against us for no real reason.

Getting back to the task at hand, the something else when it came to the courage question, as I said, came down to pure survival. Not some sort of a hobby of putting on a dress and makeup to attempt to look good as a woman. The problem was that I knew at a very early age just looking at my girlish image in the mirror was never going to be enough to satisfy my gender desires. I simply wanted more. To live like the girls around me I so envied in school. An idea which would come back to heavily influence my life in later years. I fought my feminine instincts hard, which ended up doing nothing more than potentially destroying my mental health and my life as I led a very self-destructive life. It seemed everything my male self-had built up, I needed to try to tear down. I would not have wished what I went through on my worst enemy. So, I set out to do what I could to save myself.

During those days of discovery, I learned firsthand the idea of having persistence over any idea of having courage. Survival became my goal in life as I set out to build a feminine lifestyle from scratch. Deep-down, the idea kept coming to me that I was doing the right thing, no matter how painful it might turn out to be. In fact, I went all the way back to my childhood, so I knew it was more than just a temporary rush of gender euphoria as a trans woman when I was accepted in the world. I was surviving as me with little or no courage needed. Just a liberal amount of fear on the occasions when things were not going so well like when I had the police called on me for using the restroom of my choice. It was my own fault for being in a redneck venue I had not taken the time to set up being a regular yet. Then I never had the courage to go back.

I will never try to speak for “Janie” or anyone else who regularly reads my work, but on my end, no matter how much I did not respect the work my male self-did for me over the years there are certain things I would have really missed if I had followed my instincts and come out before I had the chance to build any sort of a life. I would have missed the once in a lifetime opportunity to have a wonderful daughter and a loving wife which I was with for twenty-five years until her untimely death. We had many good times, interwoven with the bad caused by my gender issues. I don’t know if I would have ever had the courage to ever totally leave her and wished she could have been around to experience my growth into a mature transgender woman. Of course, now, I will never find out.

As you can tell, I really don’t believe courage had that much to do with my development as a transfeminine person. On the other hand, a heavy dose of persistence mixed in with the ultimate need to survive allowed me to make it to where I am today. I know I am basically just dealing with semantics anyhow so the only thing that matters is how you survive. With or without HRT or any gender surgeries or with extensive work it does not matter as long as you are happy and thriving.

Thanks to “Janie”, Christine and all of you who have taken the time to comment on my topics. Without all your input, my work would not be worth it.