Transgender Truth

Image from Ava Sol
on UnSplash

Often as a transgender woman or trans man, we have a hard time find finding out our personal truths. 

Our truths can be hidden behind a maze of society issues which we have to work our way through. In other words, is what we are thinking a real truth or something acting like one. Did I really want to be a girl or just temporally look like one? I struggled to figure it all out. 

Worse yet, was the fact I needed to hide my emerging truth from the world. How was I ever going to discover if my gender life as a guy was indeed a lie unless I was able to take on the world as my own sense of femininity. Was it all an act or was it real, who knew? Little did I know, I was embarking on a lifetime trip to determine how true my gender issues were. As I went along, hiding became less and less of an alternative because I was finding out how natural I felt when I was playing in the girl's sandbox. All the bastions of sacred femininity were suddenly opening to me in the forms of being invited to girl's night's out and earning my way into having women's rest room privileges. 

When I did, the pressure started to mount to live my life more and more as a transgender woman. Every time I had to interact with the world as a man, I felt as if I was somehow an impostor and I was just going through the motions. Plus, my obligations to spouse, family, friends and work started to weigh heavily on my mental health. I did my best to enlist the aid of a qualified gender therapist to help me. There were very few of the therapists in those days who knew anything at all about gender issues, so mine was hard to find. Looking back, I think I saw her advertisement in an issue of "Transvestia" Magazine. When she saw me after a couple of appointments, she told me her truth which I did not listen to. She said, there was nothing she could do with me wanting to be a woman and somehow I would have to learn to live with it or accept it. Like I said, I ignored her advice and continued to ignore my basic truth.

Speaking of truth, currently, I am writing a book gift which was given to me on Mother's Day this year by my daughter. It is a year long project designed to answer questions from my family. The book will be given  to me after I am done and then passed on so others can understand my life and truths after I am gone. One of the questions from my trans grandchild is what has been the most ill-advised thing you (me) has ever done and I think ignoring my therapist's advice may have to be up around the top. Had I listened to her and told my second wife the truth, I would have saved myself so much turmoil over the years and I would have faced my truth. How bad could have it have been. I would have had to find other employment and new friends but rebuilding my life then could have been easier. 

I was stubborn and held on to my idea I ever was male for way too long and it cost me years of alcohol abuse and mental health problems. I was so fortunate I found and was accepted by women who I admired so much who embraced my idea of what an ideal woman would act like. Ironically, the evil TERF's were few and far between. I was allowed to flourish as I learned so much from the women around me who accepted me for what I was for the first time in my life. 

My truth was finally evident to me. I had never been meant to live a male existence and I just wish I had faced my transgender truth earlier than the age of sixty. Sixty is when I gave in and gave up any hope of ever living as a male again. In addition, I am so proud of my college aged transgender grand child for coming out so early in her life. Hopefully, my existence helped hers.

Gender Truth

 

Ripley, Ohio Image from
the Jessie Hart Archives

Following years of living a huge lie, I decided to live my gender truth. All along, I should have never been a male and felt so natural and alive when I was being feminine. 

As with any lie, you need to be more and more skillful to keep the ball rolling and not be discovered. The process all started when I was a kid and was carefully hiding away my small collection of girls clothes and makeup. Some of the items, I "borrowed" from my Mom when she discarded them and others I was able to purchase myself with funds I earned doing odd jobs around the house and from my newspaper route. I will never forget the first trips I had made to stores in nearby downtown Springfield, Ohio to buy makeup. I was scared to death since my Dad worked close by and I thought for some reason he might catch me there. Even though, it was my money and I was spending it the way I saw fit, I still felt guilty. The truth of my life still escaped me as I did my best to live in the male world. 

Somehow I was able to hide away all my clothes and makeup and even managed to shave away the hated hair which appeared on my legs when I became a little older. Probably, I was shaving my legs earlier than some of the girls I knew with strict Mom's who wouldn't even allow them to use lipstick. Looking back, I am sure I would have had the same problems with my Mom had I been born female. I just know she would have tried to restrain me the same way she did when I was her oldest son. All she really accomplished was enabling me to be more skillful in hiding my truth. I think. At the least, nothing was ever said to me by either of my parents.

As I cross dressed my way through college and my post military days, hiding my gender truth became increasingly more difficult. Primarily because I was slowly doing more and more in the public's eye as I left my closet to explore the world. The new truth I needed to face was how or if I was going to tell potential spouses who crept into my life. Even then, it seemed to be extremely unfair to both of us to not come clean from the very beginning. Except for my first fiancé, none of my future wives held my gender truth against me. Primarily because of a Halloween party, my first wife attended also, she was around when I confessed to a very small group of friends my costume was more than a casual fling to dress as a woman. As the years progressed and I became more assured of my gender truth, I decided I needed to tell my second wife also before we became married.

The problem became with my second wife was when I though I was telling her my gender truth about being a cross dresser, I wasn't. All along I was lying to myself and I was really transgender, not a cross dresser. Which was always a major problem for my second wife. She didn't care about the cross dressing but drew her line in the gender sand when it came to any idea or discussion of beginning any gender affirming hormones. Which, had she lived, would have probably ended our relationship.

Years later, at the age of sixty, I thought I was done with anymore serious relationships and wives is when several other friends came along, including my current wife Liz. With them, I basically had the opportunity to go full circle with my gender truth. Specifically, with Liz who told me at the time, why didn't I just leave the rest of my male life behind because she didn't see any man in me at all. 

Her push was all I needed to throw out what was left of my male clothes and concentrate on living my gender truth. The only problem I had with how it all worked out is why I waited so long to see it and live my gender truth. 

Living Your Transgender Truth

Image from Brett Jordan on Unsplash

To live your truth as a transgender person, you first have to figure out what your truth is. 

In many cases, accomplishing knowing your truth when in comes to gender is very difficult. Even though I had realized from a very early age I wanted to be a girl and strongly admired everything feminine, it was still a difficult journey until I could actually live my truth. I believe the earliest  remembrances I had of being transgender was when I discovered just dressing up as a member of the feminine gender just wasn't enough. I actually wanted more. I wanted to actually be a girl/woman. Sadly, when I was discovering all of this, there was no internet or social media so I still felt isolated from the world. It wasn't until years later when I heard the term transgender for the first time. 

As the years rolled by and I learned more and more concerning what a transgender person actually was, I increasingly felt the term described me. Primarily because I felt just cross dressing as a woman was just never going to describe me. Plus, I had for the first time encountered other persons who identified as trans and I just knew I wanted to learn more about their lives. It turned out to be the right move since two of the people in my circle made their journey's all the way to living full time as women.  Right or wrong, they both became role models. Through it all, I wondered if I could ever follow in their footsteps and live an impossible dream as a transgender woman. 

One of the main differences was neither of them were involved in a serious long term relationship with a strong woman who did not approve of a gender transition. Also employment wise there were major differences such as one of the women I knew was a fire-person and had served out her initial twenty years so she had a good pension coming. And, the other woman was a very successful electrical engineer. She knew she was in demand employment wise and would have no problems with securing employment. Also, to make matters worse for me (or better for them) they were both gorgeous. Here I was just doing my best to look the best I could while all the time knowing I would certainly lose my job and my wife if I transitioned. Living my truth during that time in my life turned out to be rather murky. I was considering following in my acquaintances footsteps but couldn't quite figure out how it was possible. 

Through it all, I took my usual male sides approach and tried to hide my truth. Predictably, the entire process was ill advised and finally led me to a very serious self harm (suicide) attempt. To save myself and live my truth, it took a series of events in my life to do do it. Sadly, the biggest was when my second wife of twenty five years passed away when she was just fifty. Her passing, along with the fact I was quickly approaching retirement age led me down the path to being able to attempt a gender trnasition. It was during this time when I began hormone replacement therapy or HRT. The hormonal change propelled me even further to learning my truth...I always should have been a woman. My body just screamed for the changes it went through and it all felt so natural.

I realized in my early sixties, destiny was on my side and finally I would be able to live my transgender truth.

Truth