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| Image from Valentia Conde on UnSplash. |
During the long gender path which I have been fortunate to live, I have had many “aha” moments to look back on.
The problem I had was realizing that the times in my life
were something I would forever remember, forget immediately, or just refuse to
understand what they meant after my own ignorance set in. For my first example,
I have to go way back to the first times I was exploring my mom’s clothes and
makeup. I knew something was up, but I did not know exactly what and how deep
it would run with me. All I knew was my desire to be feminine in any way was
deeply forbidden in my family and most of society which called it being
mentally ill at the time. Through it all, even though I did not fully understand
what was going on with me, I did think I was mentally ill for thinking it.
That was the good news. The bad news was I was decades away
from understanding the “aha” moment that I was living the wrong life as a man
all along. Even if I was warned by a therapist that I respected very much that
she could essentially do nothing about me wanting to be a woman and I was on my
own to save a marriage that I really wanted to save. If I would have listened
to her and started my male to female femininization earlier, I would have saved
myself so much inner turmoil that it would have been amazing. But I did not and
stubbornly hold on to the idea I could live as a man while at the same time cross-dress
when ever I wanted as a woman.
Another problem was, I had moments when my feminine world
was opening to me and I thought, “wow is that what being a woman was all about.”
Like the day at the grocery store when I positively melted a young bagger who
was stuttering as he shyly asked if he could take my groceries to the car.
Right then I knew why I had such a difficult time talking to pretty girls in
school when all my perceived smooth vocal abilities just disappeared. It was a
giant “aha” moment when I had the chance to reverse course and cross that
gender border so long ago.
As I held on for dear life that I was just following my
hobby as a cross-dresser, slowly but surely the idea of going through another
male to female transition gained on me. I went back to the times when I was thinking
that just putting on makeup and a dress was good enough. I always wanted to do
more like the pretty girls around me did at school. I wanted to be the one
being chased for a date in my new pretty clothes any time that I could. Which
turned out to be never back then. Years flew by before they ever did as I began
to test the world of ciswoman as a novice cross-dresser. Then, one night out of
nowhere, the thought came to me that I was done just looking like a woman
again, I wanted to inter-mix with them and see if I could be accepted. If I
was, from that point forward I would change my self-gender perception from just
being some sort of a harmless hobby to thinking about myself as a thriving
transgender woman. A super scary, but exciting thought because once I went
there and was successful, I could never go back to ever just thinking that I was
just a man again. A real, enduring “aha” moment in my life.
The problem I had was once that I was becoming successful as
a new transfeminine person, how could I stay there. Initially, I made up a new
feminine persona to go with my new look. I wore the same wig and used my same
new name every time I went out and before I knew it, I was being treated as a regular
in all the venues I was testing out in the straight world I knew before as a
man. Another big “aha” came when I was able to break the influence of all the
gay venues I was going to which I really disliked and was accepted as me in a
new world. Then I learned I could have fun doing it as I enjoyed my new
feminine self so much that increasingly I did not want to go back at all to my
old male world.
As I did, I began the all-important job of getting rid of
all the male baggage I did not want or need anymore. At all costs, I hoped I
could maintain a relationship with my daughter which I did, and if my brother
did not accept me, so what. Which he didn’t and we went our separate ways as those
two were the only two blood family that I had left. With all of that turmoil
behind me, I was free to concentrate on my transgender future which did not include
any surgeries at my age of sixty, but hopefully a chance to test out my body on
HRT or gender affirming hormones. I was approved first by a doctor and then by
the Veteran’s Administration to begin the hormonal treatment and positively
loved it. It was as if my body was saying the hormones were an “aha” moment and
were the missing ingredient to leading a fuller transfeminine life.
I am sure there were other “aha” moments which turned out to
be bright light posts on my often dark and lonely gender path. Such as when my
current wife Liz came into my life to love me and make me whole again by saying
that she had never seen any male in me. I never realized that I had built up
that much good karma to help my life along.
Thanks for reading my lifetime of gender experiences as a transgender
woman. Hopefully, you can gain some insight to help you along.
