Playing on the Girl's Team

 

Image from Fa Barbosa
on UnSplash.

I am fond of calling my initiation into the world of ciswomen as being allowed to play in the girls’ sandbox. But recently, I have seen it described as playing on the girls’ team. When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter what you call it when you have essentially given up life as you know it to transition into the feminine world.

When I was allowed to play on the girls’ team, of course there were many new things I needed to learn because I was seeking admittance to a new and complex, layered feminine existence. For the longest time as I was learning what life really was like for ciswomen, I took the easy way out by thinking all I needed to do was look the part. This is when my second wife began to mock me by calling me the “Pretty, Pretty Princess.” She was right as my presentation was advancing quickly forward and I had ego trips when women at transgender socials I went to on Long Island, New York mistook me for a real woman and wanted to see a male identification before they would let me in.

Even though I was extremely flattered when they asked for my ID, deep down I knew my wife was right and all I was trying to be was a princess. That was when I tried to begin studying the lives of women around me to discover the deeper meaning of being allowed to play on the girls’ team. Which I knew my wife would never help me with. She was busy with bigger issues such as the possibility of losing her husband to another woman which was me.

Initially, the shock of playing on a different gender team came from losing all of my male privilege such as using my size to bluster my way through life. All of a sudden, my size which I took for granted became a problem for me to disguise with the best fashion choices I could. All I knew for certain was I was told I had good legs at the Halloween parties I attended as a woman, so I tried to build my style from there. All the way to putting together my own tennis outfit even though I had never played a game in my life. Eventually, I needed to back off from showing too much leg and getting kicked off the girls’ team for not blending in and attracting too much attention to myself.

It took a while, but finally I began to realize what feminine privilege was all about and it was so much more than just having men open doors for me. Privildge to me meant I could appreciate the world around me so much more deeply. I had many more avenues to explore in the world once I escaped the restrictive bonds of living in my old unwanted male world. Other women freely interacted with me once I was firmly accepted on the girls’ team and once I learned the rules of engagement and communication, I was able to have so much more enjoyment in my life. Most importantly, I knew I never wanted to go back no matter how many stop signs I faced on my gender path.

Sadly, my second wife passed away before she could see the maturation of her princess into a fully-fledged transfeminine person. Looking back, I don’t think we could have ever stayed married but hopefully we could have remained friends while I continued to fill out my gender workbook. I finally learned I did not have to rely on her assistance to gain admission to the girls’ team because she had given all she could to help me. As with any other female, I needed to find my own way to womanhood. And even though I was not born as a psychical female, I surely thought like one and fought to be one my entire life.

As a novice on the girls’ team, I needed to earn my way also which included many bumps and bruises along the way when I learned I was much more than a cross-dresser who liked to wear women’s clothes, the mental process I went through was much more complex and tougher. To quote an old popular “Kenny Rodgers” song, I had to know when to hold them, know when to fold them and know when to run when I was dealing exclusively with other women.

Fortunately, my newfound acceptance on the girls’ team meant I needed to do very little running. No one came up to me and tried to pull my wig off in public, and for the most part I had to just deal with silence, stares and glares when I encountered a woman who for some reason wanted to hate me. There was one in particular who was also invited to the girls’ nights outs I was invited to who had a problem with me being there. I was able to ignore her for the most part or try to kill her with kindness. Finally, it occurred to me that her problem may not have anything to do with me, it may have been with the world. Maybe she resented the fact that I was happy, and she was miserable.

The more I was allowed to play on the girls’ team, the more I learned from them on the nuances of the new life I so badly wanted to live. Along the way, I never imagined learning so much in such a short amount of time. I also never thought feminine privilege could mean that much to me after I left all my male privilege behind. Especially when the effects of HRT softened my world and improved all my senses,

Whatever you want to call it, playing on the girls’ team or playing in the girls’ sandbox never mattered to me. The most important part was that I made it and rarely got any sand thrown in my face as the princess grew up.

 

We Must Be Better

 

Image from Ecaterina 
on UnSplash

Yesterday I wrote a very short post about going to the doctor with my wife Liz. During the post, I put quite a bit of emphasis on what I was wearing, just to look casual. Following the post, I received a comment from “Dana” exploring her own feelings about presenting in the world convincingly as an older transgender woman. She said (and I paraphrase) we older trans women must be better than the average ciswoman to survive in the world.

Of course, I agreed and took it a step further. Young and old, in no matter what we do, transgender women and transgender men must be better than their cis counterparts in everything they do.

It all started with me when I began to seriously get out of the mirror as a novice crossdresser and into the world. One of the first things I needed to do was upgrade my very limited fashion wardrobe. I found out the hard way; I was too heavy to attempt to find fashionable clothes for larger women like me. Immediately, I went on a diet which melted off nearly fifty pounds of weight. Which made all the difference in the world for my shopping confidence when I haunted the thrift stores for the best clothing bargains I could afford on my still limited budget.

At the same time, I concentrated on taking care of my skin by using cleansers and moisturizers every morning after I shaved. My skin did improve and I could use less makeup for a better overall effect. Through it all, I considered it a labor of love if I was ever going to present better in the world as a trans woman and not be mocked.

Finally, I did make it to a point where I could blend in with the ciswomen around me after learning many brutal lessons which sent me quickly home in tears. I found out the hard way I had to be better, just to be average and blend in with the world which was seemingly out to get me. Probably the main thing I had going for me was how dedicated I was to be staying on the gender path I was following. I always knew it was going to be rough but not as tough as it was turning out. I had a lot of dues yet to pay if I was ever going to make it to my dream of living as a transfeminine person. I thought I knew a significant amount of how women live but I had no idea of the complexity of life I was facing. Which was exactly what my second wife was trying to tell me every time she sensed me drifting away from being a cross-dresser towards starting HRT and living as a transgender woman.

What she did not tell me was, in order for me to make it, not only would I have to be average as the new person I was exploring being, I needed to be better. I was fortunate and stuck to my ideas of exploring the world around me as a trans woman mainly because I little voice in my head kept telling me I was doing the right thing because I felt so natural when I was living it. I emerged from this time in my life with a few scars from the experiences I was going through which healed quickly as I moved on to better things.

In essence, I found I could be better and carve out a new feminine life from scratch. A place where no one knew anything about my old male life and my present seemed to be more positive than my past ever was. In my way though I still had the usual male baggage problems such as an unapproving spouse (whom I did not blame), a family, and a very good job I knew I was going to lose if I did what I knew deep down I would have to do. Jump the male to female gender borders and finally live where I wanted to live from the beginning.

At the same time, I found the more complex my life became as a trans woman, the better I needed to become to protect it. On the girl’s nights out, I was invited to for example, it was key that I never went into my past very far and outed my deeply rooted male past. The example included the time I spent with my lesbian friends who would have not enjoyed any stories I had of my male past if I ever let my guard down and just blurred relevant details of my past. My willpower kept me going until I never thought about my past at all, except that it was a bad dream.

If you are on the fence considering coming out into the world as yourself, just remember to build yourself up to the point where you are the better person as a transgender woman. Perhaps then, you will have reached a place you were never able to find in your old unwanted male life. And key to the whole process is when you are feeling natural as your feminine self. By then, you will know that you have made it to a good place on your gender path. But if you decide not to go any farther, that is OK too. It is your life to live to its fullest, and your journeys into the feminine gender will have taught you so much about the need to be better.

I get asked all the time how I knew about my gender issues, and the simple answer is I always knew and refused to do anything significant about it. I was stuck in my male box from birth, and he was a powerful influence on me until I knew once and for all the only future for me was as a trans woman. Somehow, I just knew the truth about myself and quit fighting it. It was all for the better.

 

 

I've Got Someone for That

 

JJ Hart on Left, wife Liz on Right. 

Maybe you have seen the commercial on television where a group of men seemingly have an answer for a friend who can solve a certain problem. To a point, then they are all stumped on what to do.

I saw the commercial again this morning and applied it to my path to living a transgender existence. My basic idea was, I did not ever have someone to provide guidance in all my gender issues. In the pre-internet days, which I write about often, I needed to rely on publications such as “Transvestia” or “Tapestry” for any real information on having someone to help me understand what I was going through in my life. I was overjoyed for awhile when the magazines helped lead me to actually meeting in person others at cross-dresser-transgender mixers which were close enough to me so I could attend. Surely, (don’t call me Shirley my name was Karen back in those days) I could meet someone there who I could explain my gender issues to and feel as if I had someone to confide in and help me.

In reality, even after I went to the social mixers, I still did not come away with feeling like I had someone to be my friend. No matter how you defined what the publications called me. A transvestite or a cross-dresser, I just knew I was different and still belonged in the group of men in the commercial who were stumped on what to do. That defined the new groups I was meeting for the first time.

Since I could not find a friend at the mixers, I withdrew into myself and did the best I could cross-dressing and dreaming of a better day in front of the mirror. I was stubborn and kept on attending socials until I began to be invited to smaller parties at a house in nearby Columbus, Ohio. The parties were very diverse, and I learned a lot from the others around me and even developed acquaintances who shared my gender path. Or so I thought because a few of them took a sharp curve away from me and went as far as having gender realignment surgery. Back in those days when you took such a radical step, you were expected to leave your past totally behind and start all over again and I started to drift away from them. Very soon I was stumped again and very confused on where I was going as a transfeminine person.

The only thing I knew for certain was my sexuality did not change when I entered my feminine world. I even was attracted to the very few lesbians who were attending the parties I was going to, and often we would briefly leave to visit other lesbian friendly venues in Columbus. At least it was one small feeling I knew I could count on.

Through it all, I did have someone who was my second wife. On many of the party nights, she would accompany me which sometimes was bad and sometimes it was good. She was the one who saved me from being trapped in a small hallway by a huge admirer one night, which was good, and other nights her presence hindered my ability to expand and test my feminine personality. Sadly, I learned more about myself when she was not around as I considered her my best friend most of the time. She was not the person I needed all the time though, which created huge problems in our long-term relationship. She always knew I was a cross-dresser but drew the line if I drifted towards any of the transgender women at the party.   

At that point, I did feel like I did have someone who understood what I was going through at the party but had the feelings rejected at home. The worst part of the whole thing was, I had gone too far with my transfeminine experimentations to ever turn back but I tried to have the best of both worlds. Save my marriage on one hand and live a part time life as a trans woman on the other. I still carry the guilt coming from the number of times I broke my promise to my wife and left the house dressed when she was at work. I have always described it as cheating on her, with myself.

One way or another, I was gaining confidence in my feminine self to continue to build a new life which felt so natural because for a change I had someone to lean on. For those of you who don’t know, my second wife passed away suddenly from a massive heart attack leaving me with a huge hole in my life along with a truck load of guilt which I could never make up for.

In her sudden absence, I fell back on the only person I knew who could help me as I decided to end my male life for good and live out the remainder of my life as a trans woman. It turned out all the labor of love I put into my femininized life came back to help me because I had all the hard work of refining my presentation behind me. I had a working knowledge of what to do to survive in the world of alpha ciswomen. I just had to refine my new life to a point where I could thrive with new friends. When I had reached new milestones in my life such as HRT hormonal changes, I was met with welcome to our world and knowing smiles rather than masculine scowls and glares. I loved my new life.

The only problem I had was I took too long to transition across the male to female gender border. It turned out I had someone all along to help me if I ever gave her the chance. I was stuck in the good old boys’ male privilege club way too long and it was hard to give up. Once I found someone like my wife Liz to point out the obvious to me, I knew for sure I had that special someone and I could live an authentic life as a transgender woman.

 

My Gender Woes were Always Pending

 

Image by Samual Regan Asante
on Unsplash. 

From the earliest days of my life, my gender always seemed to be “pending” as the bank likes to call my most recent on-line deposit.

In my cross-dressing days, when I could afford it, I jumped daily into different wigs, clothes and makeup styles. I was desperate to find the next best thing which would help my feminine presentation along and I was always waiting for the public to acknowledge me. Positive or not, I was always pending their approval in my life.

Along the way, I did get better with my looks and became better at blending in with the ciswomen in the society around me. But I never lost my desire for approval. It became key to my survival as a novice transgender woman, long before I discovered there would be so much more if I ever wanted to slip behind the gender curtain and live my dream life. By then, I was lapsing back into my brainwashed family idea that nothing was ever good enough which carried over to my male to female femininization activities. My confidence was so low, and fragile that the smallest negative comment would send me back to my cross-dressing drawing board as I wondered if I would ever make it.

At that time, I survived in my world by listening to a little voice in my head which was telling me all this turmoil was pending if I just stayed on my path. To do so meant negotiating many blind curves, bumps, and stop signs along the way. Before I knew it, my path was littered with failed fashion choices, wigs and drag style makeup. I needed to choose wisely what I would need to keep before I attempted to move on.

One of the most dramatic pending issues I had was when I made the jump from gay to straight venues. When I did it, I had no idea if I could, so I had to gather the confidence to do it. I needed to be better at blending my style so I would fit in but not too flamboyant to attract unneeded attention as a single woman by herself in a bar. I became very good at using my cell phone as a prop to act like I was saving a seat in the venue for a friend. Among other things I was doing to present and blend in as a transgender woman. I was not concerned so much about being read as trans but was concerned about not being a distraction. Even though I became successful and was able to become a regular at a couple venues, my relaxation was always pending as I needed to stay on guard for any crazy reactions to my being there at all.

The whole process helped me to heighten my senses to where ciswomen normally operate on a daily basis. Since I was primarily dealing women in my new life, it was key that I was able to read my gender cues correctly because the cues were coming from a different angle than they ever were when I was a man. Women primarily were curious what I was doing in their world and was I projecting an honest view of myself. When I passed their tests, I was allowed in to play in their sandbox. There was room for me after all and my dreams of living in a feminine world suddenly became so much more feasible. Something which was always pending before I was able to get out into the world and experiment as a transfeminine person.

The problem became; I was forced to remain pending in my life at a time of extreme gender discovery from me. As the world of ciswomen were exploring me, I was exploring them and learning tons of information on what I would have to do if I ever chose the final male to female transition. In other words, I was able to turn their curiosity around to satisfy my own.

Finally, I arrived at the point of no return when I had done enough experimentation as a novice trans woman to know where I wanted to go to live my dream and I knew I could if I played my cards right. I knew in many ways, this final transition I was planning on making would be the most difficult to do. I would have to try to wrap my male life up the best I could. Which involved deciding what baggage I wanted to bring with me following nearly a half of century of living.  As far as family went, I was down to only two who were still living and I knew I really wanted my daughter to accept me, which she did and my brother who I figured would be a problem and he was. He rejected me and we ended up going our own separate ways over a decade ago.

I knew too, I would have to find another way to financially support myself because my employers never would. For once, age came to my rescue as I was close to being able to take an early social security retirement and augment it by selling the numerous amounts of collectables my second wife and I had collected over the years. With the two sources of income, I calculated I could not have to work another job as I transitioned.

With those two major potential problems behind me, I had very little pending to stop me from moving ahead to the hormonal world of HRT which proved to be immensely satisfying and something I should have done years before. Rather than making the process another pending idea I wanted to try.

By now, you probably know the rest of the story. I am seventy-six and the remainder of my life is shorter than what I have previously lived. Even though I am immobile, I am fortunate to still get around and have someone who loves me. I just hope good health is not pending and I can live peacefully with myself. Which at times during my life has been an issue, including my mental health. I am meeting with my new therapist this week and will have more to share later.

 

Easter Envy

 

Image from Annie Spratt
on UnSplash. 

Once again, it is Easter and time for some ciswomen to model their new colorful, feminine dresses and accessories to the world.

Like most of you, I remember the envy I felt when once again I needed to be forced into a restrictive suit and tie for one of the rare occasions we went to church. Why couldn’t I be one of the girls in their Easter finery. All the envy in the world I felt did me no good as off to church we went. My parents thought I just did not want to go to church (which I didn’t) but did not realize the real reason. I was just jealous of the girls.

Back in those days, I had very little inkling of how my desire to look like the other girls ran much deeper than I ever thought it would. I was scratching the surface of where I would end up in life as a fulltime transgender woman. I thought it was an innocent hobby that perhaps some day I would grow out of when the opposite happened. I grew into it. If I had any idea of all the growing pains I would feel over the years as I grew into my true self, I don’t know if I would ever undertake the gender path I did.

The truth of the matter is that I did not think I had any choice. I was born into an unforgiving male world that I was expected to excel at. I knew too that if my cross-dressing or gender secret was uncovered, I would be sent to a psychiatrist and told I was mentally ill. I did not know exactly what was going on with me, but I knew I was not mentally ill for just wanting to be feminine. On the other hand, I knew my WWII/Depression era parents would have any idea of what was going on with their eldest son to take any creative measures to help. The first measure would be acceptance. In my wildest dreams, did I ever think they would buy me a pretty new dress for Easter and do away with my suit and tie forever. My parents were simply not built that way so that they could step out of their rigid parenting box to help me. I was stuck in a male world until I could figure a way out on my own.

Over the years, regardless of setbacks such as military service, I was fairly successful in my male life. Which ironically made it harder for me to give it all up and cross the gender border when the time came. One thing I never lost was the envy I felt for all ciswomen who inherited from birth what I wanted so bad. I kept remembering the girls and women in their Easter dresses, even though I rarely wore a dress as I attempted to blend into the world as a woman. It seemed fashion had gone away from the frilly feminine basics once I arrived at the point where I could take advantage of the new world I was in. For years what I did take advantage of was the fashion trend where I could wear oversized sweaters with miniskirts, flats and opaque tights. Sadly, fashion moved on, and I needed to also if I was still going to blend in with the world as a transgender woman. Not only did I have to try to equal the cis women I was around, I needed to be better. So, I went with denim mini’s with long flowing tops to attempt to hide my oversized male torso.

Even with all the effort I was putting in, it never seemed to be enough to compensate myself for not being the pretty girl in her new dress at Easter. Ironically, then I found out from my wife Liz how she was a tomboy and did not like all the frilly Easter fashion she had to wear and was always under inspection from her mom on getting her new white tights dirty. I learned the view of the other gender side was not always the better one. It left the door open for a greater understanding of what females go through to be socialized into women and why some never make it.

This Easter, if you are religious, I hope you have the opportunity to celebrate the true message of the day and you don’t get hung up on what the ciswomen and girls around you are wearing. Although, I don’t see many women getting all dressed up for any reason anymore. Maybe if I attended any sort of church services at all, I would.

At any rate, celebrate Easter in your world the best you can!

 

 

 

 

 

Transgender Day of Visibility

 

JJ Hart doing trans outreach work. 

Transgender Day of Visibility was yesterday, and I did not post because I was out most of the day being visible.  Which was a change for me.

In the morning, I had several low impact visits to venues I feel secure in, so I did not feel any undo stress in going.  My first visit was to my local Veteran’s Administration Clinic to have my annual hearing check.  Even if my wife Liz perhaps may disagree, my hearing stayed the same and my next appointment was set for two years from now. From the VA, my next stop was at our bank where I needed to pick up a certified check. I was surprised when the bank was relatively busy and I needed to wait. Which is a problem with my mobility issues. Two very nice women helped me out by directing me to a chair saying they would guard my place in line if anyone else came in and tried to cut ahead of me. From there, it was clear sailing because the teller I went to was young and did her job very well and I was out the door before I knew it and there was no reason for anyone to question my gender. I was just a woman running errands as me. The best possible response I could have to my day of Transgender Visibility.

I knew my next stop would be easy because I was going to our favorite coffee shop to pick up a late breakfast and coffee of course. Over the space of time I have been going there, I have never had any problems with any of the staff concerning who I really was. The staff is always immersed in what they are doing to be concerned about me and even had a LGBTQ flag on their wall for a while when they had a decidedly non-binary manager in charge which was good to see.

My third and final interaction for the day came with a young woman who was a bath consultant at a company we were considering putting in a new walk-in shower to replace a dangerous (for me) old bathtub we had enough of. While we were in the small talk get acquainted part of the process, she asked what I did with my time since I was retired. I said, mainly I write a blog, and I am writing a book for my family to read after I am gone on my life. She was interested in what I blogged about. Then I broke my own rule, outed myself and said I write mainly about what goes on in a transgender person’s life. Of course, I needed to say I was transgender and today happened to be the Trans Day of Visibility, so here I was. Since the consultant was young and wanted to sell us something she did not react negatively to the idea I was transgender and married to Liz.

I came away from my own limited day of visibility hopefully thinking I had done my own small part to further the cause of transgender women everywhere to contradict all the negative publicity we get from the politicians. It is important to show the world we are just people like they are attempting to live our lives with no problems. Sadly, with my mobility problems, I cannot be as active as I once was in the community and go to public events like I used to.

Plus, more and more at the age of seventy-six, I am actively becoming me finally in life. It was like going through another major transition. I went from me being a cross dresser to accepting myself as a transgender woman, and now I am completing the circle and going back to me again. Only this time, with a big difference. I am the feminine being I was always meant to be. I was just fortunate to live long enough to live my circle. And celebrate another Transgender Day of Visibility.  And, if you are in the process of thinking of escaping your closet and having your own day. Celebrate those who are leading the way for you! Plus, on a positive note, the younger generations seem to be blinder to gender bias than the older ones, so all is not lost for the future you. Then, you can be involved with your own day of visibility and feel good about yourself.

 

 

The Winds of Gender Change

 

Image from Taylor Flowe
on UnSplash. 

Per normal, we have had a very windy spring here in southwestern Ohio USA. For some reason, I have never associated spring with my gender changes like I have during the fall season. I remember vividly the fall evenings I spent driving around feeling melancholy about the fact that I was stuck in my old unwanted male life. Seemingly, forever. Maybe it was because of the trees losing their leaves which set the fall off from the spring. I just knew it was happening.

Fall was especially bad when I was on a six-month delay to go to the Army basic training at FT. Knox, Kentucky. It marked the time for me that I knew I would have three years away from my gender cross-dressing activities which kept me sane at the time. I was afraid of going to basic infantry training as well as losing my ties to my feminine self for the next three years. The only reality to me was that I had no choice but let the winds of change take me away to a new uncertain future.

When I was in the service, my theme song began to be “Call Me the Breeze” by Lynard Skynyrd because of all the moving I was doing from the US to Thailand, to Germany, I was truly able to feel the wind thanks to the efforts of Uncle Sam and his military. I did it so well that I was even offered a promotion if I stayed in an extra year, which I turned down. Instead, I got out and resumed my civilian life at a small radio station I worked at before the winds of gender change got the best of me, and I started to follow my instincts and began to explore the world as a transgender woman. Which was becoming increasingly evident to me was where I fit in in the gender spectrum.

In the beginning, all I had was Halloween parties to express my femininity and even there, I was not doing a good job of doing it. I was stuck trying to do a trashy look when in fact, my inner woman was pushing for a more realistic approach such as being a professional ciswoman. What did happen was, I got the basics of what it would take if I ever threw caution to the wind and went across the gender border from male to female. It was at those parties that I found that all of a sudden, the other women wanted to talk to me while the men left me alone which would be a theme for my life as I transitioned.

Once I left all the Halloween parties behind me, I started to attend small diverse LGBTQ mixers in nearby Columbus, Ohio. When I did, it was as if there was one of those huge Hollywood movie fans at my back pushing me forward. From lesbians to transsexuals, all were there so I could judge where I would be if I moved forward in the world. Due to the fact that I was still solidly married and had a very good job, I needed to shut the fan off, or at least put it on a slow speed so I could catch my breath and figure it all out because of the gender complexity it all presented. Did I want to give up my life of male privilege to be a trans woman, at that point in time I was undecided.

It turned out, indecision was my worst enemy as I entered the world to explore it as a transfeminine person. Most of my ventures were ill-advised attempts to be accepted in gay venues in Dayton, Ohio where I was barely welcomed and when I was, it was because they thought I was another drag queen. Which was far from the truth. It was not until the winds of change blew me through the doors of the same sports venues I enjoyed as a man did my world began to turn around for the best. To my amazement, I earned my acceptance in those places easier than the gay bars I was going to, or the lesbian bars which were closing due to lack of business. Before I knew it, I was treated like a regular. Even with the restroom privileges I needed so badly.

I was flying high until the winds of change dictated a change and I crashed to earth when everyone dear to me began to pass away in a two year period. Including my wife of twenty-five years. I was in shock and so lonely I drank too much and took unnecessary chances with my life as the winds of change continued to blow strongly. Every time I thought the winds were receding, they would pick up again threatening to blow me off my high heeled shoes.

I was fortunate when I saw the name of a doctor who would check me out and then prescribe HRT or gender affirming hormones and I took immediate advantage to do something I had wanted to do for a very long time. Sync up my inner person with an exterior which was feminized. Even with the minimum dosage I had to begin with, I could feel and immediate change in several areas such as with my emotions and breast growth. When I began to see myself as a different femininized person in the morning mirror, I was becoming more and more excited over the winds of change which were pushing me ahead into a new exciting world.  

The only part of my being who was not surprised by all the changes was my feminine self who had been hidden away all those years with no way to express herself as when she was in the Army. If patience is a virtue; she had it all as my male self-put on a tremendous fight to maintain what he had earned as far as privileges went. Fortunately, the winds were blowing in the right direction, and she won the ultimate battle for my life. I discovered that without her, I would not have had a life worth living.

 

 

Wishing and Hoping never Made it For Me.

 

Image from Abbot
on UnSplash.

Sadly, just wishing and hoping that we can make it to our feminine dreams just won’t get us there.

Since most of us started our gender journeys with very little natural external characteristics of the gender we want to become, it makes our struggle even more difficult. Even more so when you consider how far trans women like me had to go to hide my true self so I would not be bullied by the men around me. I played sports such as football and worked on cars to hide the fact I did not really want to follow a male path.

In the deep, dark recesses of my closet I spent my time wishing and hoping time would come along to magically change me. We all know how that worked. It did not and I grew more frustrated as I spent my meager leisure time wistfully cross-dressing in front of the mirror at home in the long hallway we had. After the initial success I felt from looking at my imagined self as a pretty girl, I knew it was just not enough. Looking back, I was going through the early stages of being transgender without having any of the terminology to go with it. In the meantime, I needed to keep my public charade alive of making the world think I was male.

Then, along came the shock of puberty with all its unwanted physical changes such as size of body and bone structure. I was helpless as all the changes took place and I was depressed that I was moving farther away from the feminine person I always wanted to be. All I could do was wish and dream for change which never worked. I finally had to do something about it, the pressure on me was intense. The little trips to the mailbox when I was dressed as a girl just were not enough anymore, I could no longer just exist on that little interaction with the world as I introduced my true self.

Early on, once I grew older and found a place of my own, I did venture out into shopping malls and often the experience was brutal. No matter how good the mirror at home was telling me I looked, the public quickly told me something else. Too many times I had to come home early crying because of being laughed at by groups of teenagers I attempted to dodge but couldn't. Fortunately, something deep down inside me kept telling me to keep trying to get better with my make-up and fashion and maybe then I could present well enough to get by in front of the mirror and the public both. The brief moments of gender euphoria I experienced were the indication I needed to know there was indeed more and I was on the right path after all.

Once I did discover I was on the right path, then I needed to stay on it and try to navigate all the blind curves, potholes, and stop signs I encountered. Initially, I was naïve and was not prepared for everything I was about to face. I thought I had a fairly good idea of what was behind the gender curtain with the ciswomen I would have to coexist with, but I did not. All of what I was seeing was the pretty clothes and passive aggressive nature without seeing all of what went into it later as I actually made my way into the world. I really misjudged how complex and layered a woman’s life could be if I decided to follow along.

At first, I thought I needed some woman to show me the way but again was so wrong when I tried. By the time I did, I actually had a better knowledge of makeup than she did, so basically, the whole experience was wasted, and I knew I would have to go up my path on my own if I was going to be successful as a transgender woman. Then, I had to figure out what being a trans woman meant to me. As in my earliest days in front of the cross-dressing mirror, I knew I wanted so much more, and I knew it would involve my evolution into a unique woman of my own. As with any other human born female, I knew they needed to be socialized into being a woman and so did I. It just was because my path to womanhood came from a different way than most women but that should not exclude me. Once I felt secure with feeling this way, I freed myself to more completely live my truth in the world with people who accepted me

Surprisingly, I had fewer problems than I anticipated when my trans friend Raquel told me I passed out of sheer will power, that became the story of my life. I was not trying to “fool” anyone into thinking I was the most attractive woman in the room. I was simply announcing my truth to the world, and they could take it or leave it. No more wishing and hoping for me, if someone did not like or approve of me, that was their problem not mine as I paid my dues to be where I was.

As I look back at all the wishes and dreams I had when I hoped to somehow live my dream as a transfeminine person, I know I wasted a lot of my time which I could never get back. Once I did get my late start and began to make up for lost time, I did begin to learn what I needed to survive in the girls’ sandbox once I was allowed in it to play. Once I did, I resolved to never look back and enjoy what I helped to create. A woman with an unique background allowing her to arrive at where she wanted to be.

Before I wrap this post up, I would like to thank Sara E for writing in and commenting. She is in a similar position as most of us went through. A married man, working through her feminine side.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to read my writings and comment!

 

 

Trans Girl on the High Gender Board

 

Image from Navy Medicine
on UnSplash.

I remember completely when I was a kid, intensely afraid of heights, and my mom made me jump off the high diving board at the swimming pool we were at. It was the last thing I wanted to do, and I still don’t know till this day how she convinced me to do it. But she did. I am sure she thought that once I did it, I could do it again, which I never did.

Perhaps, by this time, you are thinking what does this have to do with being transgender but of course I can connect the lines as always. Fast forward to the days when I was first gathering all the courage, I could muster to leave the house and attempt to explore the world as a woman. To do it, I needed to jump off that high diving board again and again. Plus, I would have to raise the diving board even higher every time I tried it.

As I did, I discovered little pockets of cross-dressing acceptance I could exist in. Such as the women’s clothing stores where almost everyone was nice to me. It took me awhile to realize the clerks who waited on me were not being nice just because I was another woman, they were being nice because I had money to spend. To them, my gender was not trans, it was green. Even though I took acceptance and built on it to other potentially mellow venues in malls such as bookstores and coffee shops. I was successful in them and was able to build my confidence from there and move up to a higher diving board and jump off. No matter how scared I was, I needed to force myself to climb and jump.

The next comfort zone I forced my way out of was by forcing myself to stop for lunch to see if I would be accepted. For the most part I was, because again, my money was green and I smiled and tipped well. The magic ingredients it turned out to be accepted into a challenging new feminine world. Or so I thought until I kept on climbing. It turned out the climbing part was the easiest. Once I arrived where I thought I wanted to be. I added “thought” in because once I made it to a higher board, the jumping part really scared me. Mainly because I was leaving so much behind me, along with all the male privileges I had worked so hard to gain. Such as fighting back when someone made fun of me for the way I looked. When it happened, the only recourse I had was to go back to my cross-dressing drawing board and try to determine what I was doing wrong.

Before long, my drawing board became quite littered with fashion mistakes I had made. Going through my cross-dressing adolescence was quite painful because I was a thirty-year-old male trying to do it before I learned otherwise. I was exhausting myself climbing up the high dive and then down when I discovered there was no water in the pool. Finally, I learned the hard way to cross-dress to blend with the other ciswomen around me because they ran the pool I wanted admission to.

It turned out that the pool was much farther down than I thought it was, and I had too much time to think about what I was trying to do before I hit the water. I had not made the time to build up the feminine muscle memory I would need to allow me admission to the world as a transgender woman. It did me no good at all if I vaguely looked like a woman if I could not move or communicate like a transfeminine person.

At that point, jumping off the high board became very real to me. I was rapidly coming to the point of decision about what I would do with my life. By this time, I was in my fifties and was beginning to carve out a respectable life as a trans woman. My new world knew what I was and did not care. About my present, or more importantly, my past as a man. I was able to bring what baggage I wanted from my male life without any interference. It made all the difference in the world to me when I needed support from wherever I could get it in the worst way.

As I lost my fear of the high dive, I began to consider other transgender alternatives such as taking advantage of therapy and HRT through the Veteran’s Administration health care system which I was already a part of. I wondered then what my mom would have thought (she had long since passed away), about teaching me to take the long and difficult path to the high board would come back to help me so much later in life. Especially when she was the one who was dead set about me coming out to her after the Army when I tried. Karma came back to help me when I needed it the most. I could jump off the highest diving board I could just to prove I could.

Of course, the final high board I jumped off was the one which saw me do away with all my male clothes and live life as a fulltime transgender woman. In reality, I was never a stylish swimmer or diver, but at least I made it to the point where I could make it in a woman’s world. A world which would prove to be much more complex and difficult for me to succeed in than I ever thought possible. Probably, because, for the most part (except for a few friends) I was filling out my gender workbook as I went along. Preparing myself for when I could achieve the ultimate goal, my lifetime dreams of living as a woman to the best of my ability.

At the least, I was happy I gathered enough courage to go ever higher on my gender diving board and more importantly jump.

 

 

 

It was Always in my Way

JJ Hart on Left, wife Liz on Right.

Every time I turned around, my gender issues were always in my way. When I was younger and my life was simpler, the issues manifested themselves mainly around the sports I was trying to play. Since I was never good enough to win consistently, I usually had to head home to my makeup, mirror and skirts to feel better. One way or another, I always was soothed by looking at my feminine self in the mirror.

Of course, with age came complexity in life which included a military disruption of three years during the Vietnam War. My Army training very much was in the way of expressing any of my feminine qualities. Drill sergeants frowned upon any miniskirts or lipstick during basic training. So, I needed to resort to deeply hiding my secrets away, not unlike what I had done my entire life. I kept thinking against hope that someday I would be the pretty girl in the new car I was saving up for. I did get the new car, but being the pretty girl was very much up for debate and something I was always trying to achieve.

To remove the obstacles, I faced to living the transgender dreams I had, I needed to do a lot of living I discovered. Life was never going to be as easy as just looking the part of a ciswoman. If I truly wanted to go through all the living to earn the title, I needed to get out of my shell and into the world as a novice trans woman. Sadly, as I followed my gender path, there was always something emerging to get in my way. Such as a wife, family, friends and job which I did not want to risk losing. It seemed the better I did as a man, the more I had to lose.

All along, I thought the gender curtain would be more of a gentle barrier to cross to see how the feminine half of the population lived without men. I was not prepared for all I needed to go through to earn my way to having female privileges to replace the male ones I was losing. To begin with, I was painfully shy and insecure about talking to any other woman at all. Plus, as I learned all the different forms of communication women use, adding them into my world was a challenge. Such as having to stay in the present when someone talked to me and not try to anticipate what they were going to say. I discovered it was much easier to anticipate what a man was going to say from all my years as living as one, than a woman with non-verbal (eye to eye) communication skills. Not to mention, a ciswoman’s passive aggressive behavior which I misjudged several times before I adjusted to the new world I was in.

When I was able to get communication out of my way, I could move on to other obstacles in my way. I was still having problems with putting together a complete convincing picture as a transfeminine person. I had not practiced enough to feel natural in my world of makeup and high heels to feel natural and relax. Every time I was able to relax and enjoy myself as a transgender woman, I would do something to give myself away. It was not until I quit thinking I was fooling anyone into thinking I was a ciswoman did I do better. Mainly because I was just being me. At this point, I needed to overcome another major hurdle I had when I was a man. I never thought, or was raised to think, I was ever good enough to excel in the world and if I could never make it as a man how could I ever make it as a trans woman. It was a major boulder to move from my path.

It took a while, but I did build the self-esteem as a woman that I never had as a man. I did it slowly with the explorations I took into the world. I was able to build the all-important confidence I needed slowly but surely with the help of a totally new set of friends and acquaintances I built up who had no knowledge at all of my former life as a man. As my wife Liz told me, very few people ever have the chance to start over again, so make the best of it and I was able to. Soon enough, I was as comfortable in my tennis shoes as I was in my high heeled boots, and I was able to build upon nothing being in my way as I built my female privilege.

I knew then, I had made the right choice to follow my dreams into a trans woman world because I felt so natural. The light at the end of the tunnel was not the train as it beckoned me into a new world. It turned out, the main thing that was in my way all along was myself. Once I got me out of the way and for once was truthful with myself, I was able to move forward with a mental clarity I had never known before.

It was certainly worth the struggle to make sure my second chance in life was worth it. Sure, my gender issues were a major hurdle to move but it was no big surprise when I considered how deep gender runs in all humans. In many senses, discovering the true nature of me made life that much more interesting.

 

 

 

 

Imagination or Knowledge

 

JJ Hart. 

In the very beginning of my transgender journey, I often wondered if it was all just part of my very active imagination. Perhaps it was all part of me secretly hoping all of my gender issues would magically go away.

Of course, my gender dysphoria never went away until much later in life when I faced up to it and all I was doing as I viewed myself in the mirror cross-dressed as a girl, was slowly instill the knowledge my trans desires were not going anywhere. In fact, back in those days, the transgender term had not even been invented to use at all. I was living in the pre-internet “dark ages” of information. All I had was the well-worn issue of “Transvestia” from Virginia Prince to connect me at all to the world of people who had the same gender issues as I did. Closets were impossibly dark and lonely back then.

It took the knowledge of my situation to finally break into the light and see the world as a small part of who I really was. I finally used my issue of “Transvestia” to locate nearby mixers which were headlined for heterosexual transvestites only. If that was true or not, I found a diverse mixture of people attending which ranged from beginning cross-dressers all the way to impossibly feminine transsexual women heading for gender surgeries. The frustrating part for me was that even with the choice of individuals I felt close to, I could not find a group to hang out with. I was frustrated that I had come this far to still feel this completely different. The light was there, but it was very dim due to my complete misunderstanding of who I really was.

The one fact I was waking up to was that none of what I was feeling was my imagination. My gender issues ran very deep and would be very difficult to solve. As I always point out, since I was so busy being an active man at the time, the conflict was real. Once I realized what I was really battling. On the plus side, about this time, the internet became part of my life, and I was able to see and even reach out to others like me. It was all well and good until my second wife, who was more computer savvy than me, caught on to what I was doing and tried to stop me. After I used my imagination to find ways around her, I was still able to build knowledge of what it would look like if I was actually able to enter the world as a transgender woman.

Once I began to really explore the world as a novice transfeminine person, I really had to use my imagination to succeed in getting out every spare moment I had from work. I would purposely schedule myself off from my work on the days I knew my wife was going to be working late just so I had free time for exploration, is a prime example. In that case, imagination became knowledge as I actually began to explore what I needed to explore behind the gender curtain. Even to the point of making new friends who had no knowledge at all of my previous male life which I was trying hard to do away with.

More importantly, as I sat myself up for success in venues I really wanted to be in as a woman, imagination further faded as knowledge sat in as I was able to fill out my gender notebook. No more gay venues for me where I was treated as a drag queen and even ignored when I tried to order a drink, all the way to be treated as a regular where I wanted to be was the knowledge that I needed to succeed further.

During this time also, I spent a lot of time soul searching about if I was doing the right thing about attempting to femininize myself even more with my new lifestyle and going even further my seeing it I could be approved for HRT. Mainly because I felt so natural as my feminine self among ciswomen, I thought I would take the path of least resistance and continue building knowledge of taking the gender leap I was considering. In essence, I was taking all the imagination that the young girl in front of the mirror away and replacing it with the knowledge of what I could expect living as a fulltime transgender woman. I needed all the knowledge I could get because the risks in jumping the gender border were so great. It all meant saying goodbye to all the male privileges I had worked so hard to build up. Not to mention the extra pressure of the possibility of giving up spouse, family, friends and employment as I knew it. I needed to be prepared to burn it all and start over.

What I ended up doing was, hedging my bets a little by making new friends in a new feminine life which I hoped would soften the fall if I decided to jump off the cliff and never go back to my male self. At this point, I always mention all the women who helped me along but somehow, I miss the most important one, my inner female who came through in a big way when she was allowed to run my life for a change. Once I gave her the platform to flourish, there was no imagination of the path she was going to take.  She took the highroad without all the evilness you see in some fulltime transgender women. She just wanted to enjoy her life and be an active part of the world and the LGBTQ community. And she wanted to help others by writing about her experiences.

Which brings me full circle to where I am today. No imagination, just the knowledge of experience to get me by in the world.

 

 

 

In Touch with Nature

 

Image from Brice Cooper
on UnSplash.

The “Ostara” ritual came off yesterday as expected with the usual suspects attending.

The weather cooperated with all the other plans, and it was a beautiful spring day here in southwestern Ohio. The only gender drawback did not even come because of me because there was a young very androgynous child there too. I could not tell the gender of the child and of course I did not pry. All went well until one of the other older women in the circle just could not leave the matter alone and said something to the child which elicited a loud response. Suddenly I heard “I’m a girl!”, and I thought the woman just could not leave it alone and had to go where she should not have been. Other than that, the woman sat next to Liz and I when we ate lunch and persisted on lighting up some sort of a cigarette after she ate which did not go over well with Liz and I who are confirmed non-smokers. The only good thing was after she smoked if was time for us to leave the ritual.

What I don’t think I realized was until after I received a comment from “Alex” who is transitioning from female to male was how much the opposite path of my gender male to female gender transition has meant to me. Now I can really feel the power of nature is a small example of how much more the Ostara ritual meant to me than I ever thought it could be when I was a man and too busy thinking about guy stuff such as work and sports to be overly concerned about my inner connections with Mother Nature. I credit the power of HRT or gender affirming hormones with unleashing a new appreciation for the world around me as I progressed with the hormones. All of a sudden, I was more in touch with the world around me with senses such as temperature and smell. I was very appreciative of permission I was given by the doctors I saw to go down the gender path I did, and I worry that the orange pedo in Washington and his followers will take it all away from transgender people of all ages today. Already it is happening here in Ohio, and I fear for my next estradiol prescription which is due to be renewed early in May.

It comes through the Veteran’s Administration health care system for me, and hopefully I still will be protected from outside political influence since I have been taking the hormones for nearly a decade now. Maybe I can fly under the radar at the VA and tie it all into my mental health (which is true) and something the VA is ultra-sensitive about. Fortunately, I have an appointment set up soon for a new psychiatrist who I hope will be sensitive to my entire situation. With that, maybe I can explain the power of the ritual I just went through on my overall mental well being and he will be behind me.

I think in many ways, getting back in touch with nature during “Ostara” takes me back to the innocent days of my rural childhood when my brother, friends and I had our run of the fields and woods around us. Growing up that way, with the freedoms we had, set in motion a lifetime of appreciation of nature that somehow got away from me as I grew into a false sense of manhood. Where “camping” out during Army basic training in Kentucky was as far as I got into nature. What a relief it was for me to make all the positive contact I had missed at least for a hour or so during the intense ritual experience.

I had no idea that my sense of gender was so intertwined with the world until I began to reach out to others and live it. And I am sad that mankind has managed to abuse the only world we have to call home, but that is another subject altogether. It all came back to me yesterday as I remembered the love I had for the woods which surrounded our house when I was growing up. I guess it took a jolt to my system which included a male to female gender transition, to bring myself back to a full circle experience with the world and back in touch with nature.

 

 

 

 

In the Circle

 

In celebration of Ostara.

Today will be a beautiful day to get together with spiritual friends and celebrate “Ostara” which is the Pagan/Wiccan celebration of the Spring Equinox. The circle part comes in when the group is called together to start the ritual. It is supposed to be dry and near seventy-one degrees (F) today in the park we go to for the ritual, so you could not ask for a better day.

Meeting the group carries a deep meaning for me which goes past the ritual. Joining my wife Liz as she went first to the rituals and being accepted was just one aspect.  It was like I was adding a whole new barrier between my new feminine self and my old male one. I felt as if I was climbing a set of stairs to just becoming a complete me because in addition to attending the rituals, Liz and I were also going to Cincinnati area meetups for writers and craft people. I was meeting strangers for the first time when I was just me then surviving. I was proud as well as being happy about it. 

It was like I transitioned for the third time in my life as I went in a big circle. I started out as a cross dresser, moved to a transgender woman and then back to me. I cannot say enough about the confidence I was able to build up as I traveled my path from one stopping point to another.

In addition, I was curious about how going to the rituals would affect how I viewed the world spiritually. I knew I had always been a somewhat spiritual person without being a part of any specific religion. If I was made to have a choice, I would always say I was Buddhist because of my days in Thailand and how much I respected the gentle ways of the people. Anything but Christianity which rejected the very basis of being transgender in not all but several cases I had encountered. One way or another, religion is not a subject I want to get into here. It is a point of no return and easy to get stuck in stereotyping religions if I attempt to explain myself. So, I will leave it at that.

As I said, I am really looking forward to seeing old friends at the ritual again except for one who asks me what the transgender community thinks about what is going on today. Finally, I quieted him down by asking what he thought about what was happening to us. Fortunately for both of us, he said he hated it. If he did not the circle may have been broken.

 

 

 

Living in the Real World

 

Image from Jacqueline Mungala
on UnSplash.

Living in the real world became a challenge to me as I transitioned from a male existence to a feminine world. The main problem I had was figuring out what was right and what was wrong as I followed my path through many blind curves and stop signs.

One thing I never thought of completely was how different my life would be if I had ever had the chance to live as a fulltime transgender woman. Sure, I was not totally naïve and thought my world would basically involve pretty clothes and being chased by boys. When I finally was allowed behind the gender curtain, I discovered how complex and layered lives ciswomen really live. Very quickly, trying to live in the real world as a novice struggling trans woman got me in over my head. I would be remiss if I did not bring up how I tried to present myself. I thought trying to look like a sexy teen girl was the way to go, and fortunately my time in that cross-dressing phase of my life went away quickly. Often with brutal consequences of being laughed out of any venue I was trying to visit.

In other words, I put what my male self was telling me about presenting as a woman in the real world behind me and started to look around to what I needed to do to blend in with the other ciswomen around me. The challenge was not only did I have to be as good as the next woman, I needed to be better to survive in the real world I found myself in. With success, I brought confidence I could do more.

The next problem I faced was what was I going to do about my deteriorating (already fragile) mental health. As luck would have it, I was assigned a qualified therapist within the Veterans Administration who knew what she was doing and was able to separate my Bi-polar disorder from my gender dysphoria issues. She provided me with permission to begin HRT which is something I had always wanted and made the real world more livable for a transfeminine person like me.

At the same time, I was trying to take every spare moment away from work to explore different venues as a trans woman. I was attempting to accomplish trying out (as much as possible) everything I would have to go through if I ever followed my dream into womanhood. What was a ciswoman’s life really like and how was it different than what I had already lived as a man. I was entering the scariest yet most exciting time of my life as for the most part I was successful when I went out. The biggest issue which eluded me, was being able to communicate effectively with the world of women I encountered. Learning all the nuances of non-verbal communication women use was the biggest challenge for me. For the first time in my life, I needed to really listen to what was being said to me and watch the other woman’s eyes at the same time to see if I could catch a clue of what she really meant.

Through this portion of my life, I had a powerful motivation to succeed as a woman in the real world. My second wife of twenty-five years had unexpectedly passed away to leave me completely alone with my gender issues. I had no spouse to worry about how to tell my truth about wanting to be a woman. Yet another terrifying yet exciting time of my life. What was I going to do about my newfound freedom. Since you are reading this post, you know what I decided to do. I started making plans to finally make the leap off the gender cliff I had thought of for some time and throw caution to the wind for the remainder of my life. I figured why not because my confidence was at an all-time high with my small circle of friends I had built up. Along with factoring in all the time and effort I put in exploring the real-world ciswomen live in because for once, I had earned my way (or forced my way) behind the so called “sacred” gender curtain.

Once I had made it to this point, after another stop sign on my transgender path, I found I still had more learning to do to really be ready to live in the real world. That is where my ciswomen (lesbian) friends came in which is a subject of another blog post. I will say, they taught me how to be validated as myself in the real world. It was another main transition to go from thinking I was a transgender woman to knowing I was just me. Which took me from cross-dresser to trans woman, back to a secure me during my lifetime. A long, often brutal journey which had a happy ending. I learned the person I had been running from much of my life was not such a bad person after all.

Maybe, most importantly, I discovered the one aspect of my life I never thought I could experience and that was having the ability to be happy. I never had a chance to learn it from my family, and I spent so much time trying to deny myself any satisfaction I could have had from a successful career as a man, there was no time to ever be happy. It turned out that when I turned the corner back to just being the true me, I allowed happiness to be part of my existence.

I had survived all the lessons I had learned as I followed my path to a brighter, more authentic gender future. Living in the real world was not such a bad thing after all. My only regret is that it took me so long (all the way till sixty) to have the courage to face my truth so I could live as I truly was.