Down the Transgender Rabbit Hole

 

Image from Benoit Baumatin on UnSplash.

Long ago, I sought out a rabbit hole I found I did not want to escape.

In the beginning, I did not go deep into the hole so I could supposedly easily escape if I wanted to. The farther I went, the harder it was to escape even I wanted to. What happened was gender euphoria set in and the entire cross dressing experience became increasingly pleasurable as well as feeling incredibly natural. The problem I faced was how to cover the entrance to my rabbit hole so no one else in my family could discover it. Very early it was easy when I could attempt to borrow select clothes from my Mom's closet which ended when I became too big to wear them. Then I had to rely on my own limited financial resources to buy fashion and makeup accessories. 

For awhile, the pressure to go away and cross dress became so intense I needed to find a spot away from the house to establish another private rabbit hole. I found the best spot in a quiet wooded area next to our rural home. I was able to protect my secret collection of feminine clothes in plastic bags and hope they would be protected enough as well as not be discovered. I did well, because they never were and I was provided another place to go to cross dress. If even for a short period of time. 

The better I became at perfecting the "art" of fashion and makeup, the more I wanted to leave my novice transgender rabbit hole and look around at the world. At first, the world proved to be a very difficult place to be. After too many public failures I was sent scurrying back to my rabbit hole to seek comfort and try to figure out what all I was doing wrong with my feminine presentation. The entire feminization process for me proved to be a difficult one as my entrenched male self fought for his dominance and kept on trying to cover up my rabbit hole with ill advised purges. Very quickly he found out the gender purges I was going through were a complete waste of time and money. 

Once I reached the middle portion of my life, my rabbit hole needed to be expanded from a crossdresser rabbit hole into one large enough to contain a full fledged transgender woman. I needed room for more wigs, shoes and women's essentials to survive in the world. As I was entering a new exciting yet scary world without my white male privilege, the sunlight outside my rabbit hole was at times blinding. Even more so when the world all of a sudden expected me to communicate with them when at the least, I had to order face to face with servers or bar staff trying to take my order. What was a novice trans woman to do? What I attempted to do was make the best of a potential destructive situation. Very early in the game, I came to the conclusion the world knew I was transgender for the most part and those who cared, could just get over it because I was just living my truth.

Of course, once I was able to leave my rabbit hole in my past and live, I had no desire to go back to it's dark confines. Each time I was successful in the feminine world, my male self lost more and more of any control he had left. 

The writing was on the rabbit hole wall when I started gender affirming hormones. I knew I had made the correct decision when my body and mind took to the new hormones so naturally. In addition to all the bodily changes which took place, I cherished the new emotions I felt. Being able to cry for the first time in my life was quite the experience. 

Perhaps, most importantly, was when I discovered the lack of predators I really had when I left my rabbit hole. Of course dealing with the occasional man was a problem but with my circle of lesbian women friends, not so much as they taught me true validation as a person. Once I learned to validate myself, I was freed from my old male rabbit hole for good and jumped into the sunlight.

Sexuality .The Great Divide

Image from Jack Lucas Smith
on UnSplash

 It is no big secret men are more insecure in their sexuality than women. Many to the point of being toxic in their approach. I think the toxicity is the reason for the uptick in violence against all women, transgender or not. 

When I transitioned out of my old unwanted male world into a new scary exciting feminine universe, I wondered if my sexuality would or have to change. For me, it meant giving up on my long held belief I was NOT a gay male. God forbid if I wasn't . Somehow I never the connection of dressing up as a girl with wanting to be with a man sexually. Even to the point when I finally understood I wanted to do more than just look like a woman, I wanted to be one. To be honest, the sexuality scared me more than anything else about my MtF gender transition. Could I have been wrong my entire life about my attraction to women? 

Very early in my transition I was "coached" by friends such as Amy on how to practice being with a man by using a banana. While I appreciated the advice, I never really decided to think about a banana the same way again. Plus, since I was living a whole new lifestyle, who was to say I needed to live it a certain way. After all, there were many lesbians I knew who would disagree with me or anyone about  needing a man to validate their existence. Since so many had told me I shouldn't or couldn't change my gender, what was one more idea to shatter. 

Still, I wasn't sure on how to proceed when I decided to leave the fragile world of men who were secretly struggling with their own sexuality and build a new one for myself. It meant entering a time of experimentation for myself. First I searched high and low on dating sites for a man who happened to live close by and wanted to try to date me. To put it mildly, I failed miserably when I was completely upfront about being transgender. Almost all of them saw me as only a fetish sexual object. They wanted to skip the dating aspect of meeting me in a public venue and go straight to a motel room. When I refused, most all of them would have nothing to do with me.

On the other hand I discovered women did not feel the same way about me. Curiosity I believe led most of the women I met to find out more about me when I went out to many different venues. It all made my life fun and exciting again. Of all people, I found many accepting lesbians who I could socialize with. As I always say, they taught me so much about being a woman who could stand on her own. Once again, my sexuality became secure again without having to make any drastic changes.  No bananas for me except to add to my ice cream sundaes. When I was with my close knit group of lesbian friends, I could watch the fragile world of men from afar as I relied on my  previous experience as a guy to let me in on what they were feeling. Which was probably the biggest reason men didn't trust me. I knew too much. 

By living a transgender lifestyle, I was able to observe the sexuality of both of the primary binary genders. I came away knowing I made the right decision. Destiny led me the right direction. I obviously nothing against the male gay community but it just wasn't for me. I was correct in believing women were the most secure gender when it came to accepting any variations in their sexuality and men are the most fragile.