Survival as a Trans Girl

 

Image from David Gavi on UnSplash.

If you are a transgender woman or transgender man, you are a member of the survivor tribe. You have earned your spot through too much trial and error that a “normal” human simply would not go through.

I know there are many of you who are early on your gender transition paths that really need a survival pep talk. My pep talk would be…to try to stay on the bumpy path you are on because it will be full of sharp curves, stop signs and steep walls in your way. What is that old saying? If it doesn’t kill you, it will only make you stronger sadly happens in record numbers to the trans population. In fact, I tried to kill myself several times due to the amount od stress and depression I was feeling through my gender dysphoria. Fortunately, I was unsuccessful at my self-help attempts and lived to talk about it.

Even to this day, I still have to keep a close eye on how I am feeling mentally, and I still take meds for depression and anxiety which have very little to do with my gender issues. I suppose we all have our own weight to carry through our lives, and that one is mine. I am also fortunate in that I have mental health and LGBTQ support groups to attend virtually every Friday at the Dayton, Ohio Veterans Administration. In the group, we have a diverse set of survivors with different experiences to share, and the moderator always starts the session with what good things have happened to each of us every week. It is so successful that anytime now I think the henchmen from the orange crook in Washington DC to catch wind of it and have it cancelled. So far though, it seems to be OK. All I can say is, I have been in many support groups over the years with little to no positive results, so I hope this one lasts.

If you are feeling lonely and need like minded individuals in the LGBTQ community, seek out local groups in your areas. I know it is difficult for those of you in isolated areas but maybe you can do it virtually online. And, if you are jaded like me, don’t expect too much too soon from the groups you are in. Often, these are highly insecure individuals in the group who are reluctant to share until they know you better.

Then there are the ultimate survival tests such as spouses, family members and jobs. Each one of you will have to face your own challenges in these areas and the only thing I can say is, you have to be patient and try to use common sense when telling the world about your seismic gender changes. In my case, my second wife knew I was a cross dresser from day one of our marriage and never stood in my way but totally refused to have anything to do with me going on HRT and being transgender. She told me there was no way she would live another woman, and I understood what she was telling me. My second strike came with my employment. I had a very successful high energy job I worked hard to get and knew there would be no way I could transition on the job. At that point in time, I did not know what I was going to do to survive and continue my dream of living as a transfeminine person.

Perhaps you are blessed with a more understanding wife, and I would suggest a sit-down talk with her before appearing cross-dressed in your best feminine clothes. That way, you can tell what she is going to do and will she ever come to accept you. Then you can make plans for your survival.

Remember too, there are various stages of development as a transgender woman. First of all, you have to accept you are much more than a cross-dresser who can survive on fewer days a month dressed. Even though I had free reign to dress a couple days a week from my second wife, it was never enough to satisfy my need to go behind the feminine gender curtain and learn more. Even though it doesn’t sound like I took a slow and cautious path to my own form of womanhood, I certainly did. I wanted to make sure I could survive when I came out for good.

The amount of introspection alone makes you a better person and more of a survivor than the normal person. To have the chance to experience intimately both sides of the main gender binaries is the reason why some shallow people will never trust you. At some point to survive, you have to learn to accept the fact that you have reached a point where you are better than them. Plus, if you happen to be a person who thinks change is good, you are in for the most change a human can attempt.

When you are a survivor, you will join an elite tribe of humans who have walked an incredible path and lived to talk about it. If you are considering taking the path, just try to reach inside your inner soul to determine if the path is right for you. In my case, when I did, I came up with the answer that it was the only direction I could take and if I did not my life would not be worth living after all. My life then went full circle and a ciswoman who accepted me picked me up and made me the person I am today. I made it through all the self-harm and destruction I tried on myself just in time to transition into a transfeminine world in which I could survive. Hopefully, you can too.

 

 

When a Trans Girl is Serious

 

Image from Bruce Mars
on UnSplash. 

When I first came out of the closet, I wondered how I was ever going to convince the world I was serious about jumping the gender border into my transfeminine world.

Probably, before I started to convince any strangers of who I was, I needed to totally convince myself. Was I a cross dresser, accomplished drag queen or what. The last thing I wanted to come off as was some sort of a clown putting on a dress and makeup for laughs. I think, all the time I spent practicing in front of the mirror attempting to learn the art of appearing as a woman paid off. Because in a fairly short time, I was presenting as a convincing transfeminine person in the public’s eyes. I was far from being the most attractive woman in the room but at least I was making do with what I had to work with and getting by and the public perceived me as being serious also.

At that point, I was not getting the negative feedback I used to get when I left my male self and traveled to the feminine side of life. The worst that was happening to me was when other ciswomen gave me a knowing smile. Showing that they knew I was attempting to play in their sandbox or world. Even better was when I began to see the same people over and over again and they knew I was serious about where I wanted to be in their world.

As I gained more experience and began to understand all the layers which existed in a ciswoman’s life, I knew I had a long way to go if I was ever to be successful in pursuing my gender dreams. Then I purposely set out to try to experience new situations as a transgender woman because my feminine workbook was given to me blank. I did not have the same benefit other women had by growing up out of a female birth into a woman. I was doing it exactly opposite as I was trying to leave my male birth rite behind. Something that I had never asked for. Each time I successfully conquered something new in life I tried to experience, I looked for other things to do that I had never done. An example would be, once I conquered just going to bookstores and searching for books on gender, then I gathered the courage to stop at their coffee shop for a cup o joe. After that, I took it a step further and used the women’s room to wash up and check my makeup.

By now, you probably are getting the point of how I was branching out and expanding my life as a new trans woman. The world was becoming so new, exciting and scary that I was like a kid in a candy store and could not stay away. Even if I wanted to, which on certain days I did when I felt all my gender issues were out of control and my male self along with my second wife were aligned against me pursuing a transgender life any farther. The problem was that my inner woman was telling me the path I was on felt so natural and deep down I knew it was the right way to go.

Still, I tried to stick it out and try to maintain a presence in both my old male world and my new transfeminine one. By doing so, I certainly did myself and those around me more harm than good. Very simply, the stress was too much for my already frail mental health, and I took it out on myself and those around me. I needed to figure it all out and get very serious about how I was going to run my life before it was too late. Internally, I was out of control while externally I was just trying to hold on to my wife, job and family as I knew it. I would have not wished what I was going through on my worst enemy.

Thankfully, destiny stepped in and showed me the way.  My wife of twenty-five years tragically passed away leaving no major hurdles for me to move ahead with my plan to start gender affirming hormones or HRT. Amazingly, at the same time the Veterans Health Care System which I was/am part of approved a program of affirming hormone therapy along with a therapist to go along with it. Which I took advantage of immediately. Under her care, I became ultimately serious about the direction my gender transition should take, and I even went to my therapy visits as my authentic self. Even better, my therapist helped me change my legal gender markers within the VA and provided me with the documents I would need to change my other legal markers such as my driver’s license.

Changing my legal name and gender markers finally proved to myself as well ss my inner female how serious I could be about my future. Even still, with all I was doing with my life, a little voice kept telling me I should not have taken the easy way out and tried to get serious earlier in life about who my true self really was. Of all people, my second wife told me to do it on several occasions during the fights we had about what I was doing along the way on my gender path. It turns out I was going to travel it with or without her and it was my duty to make the call that I had to do it alone.

Sadly, I think most transgender women and trans men have a lonely path to follow before they are fortunate enough to find someone to share their path with. It is surely difficult to negotiate alone, and you certainly have to be serious enough to do it.

 

                                                                                                                                                       

Off to see The Wizard or Doctor

Today will be a relatively short post because today is the day for my annual trip to see my primary physician at the Cincinnati Veterans Administration and I have to be there soon.

Actually, for this visit, I am going to a satellite location not far from where I live. In many ways, the time I have been going to that location reflects a change in how that clinic treats transgender patients. When I first started to go there years ago, I was met with a very chilly reception. Even to the point of being ignored by one rude receptionist and one temporary doctor who I had a virtual (online) visit with. He rudely said “what’s wrong with you” after he saw me. Obviously, not the reception I was looking forward to.

Happily, that was the last time I had to deal with him and the next time I went, I was greeted by a new pleasant, female primary provider (which I think is similar to a general practitioner in the civilian world.) The best part was, she had some sort of working knowledge of what it meant to have a transgender patient. So, I did not have to educate her.

Providers turn over quickly at the VA, so I hope she is still there when I go this morning because I have several important personal health care issues to discuss. Such as getting a mammogram, settling up an eye care appointment, and most pleasant of all…is it time for a colonoscopy. I am getting a flu shot this morning, but due to the interference by our “dear leader”, so far Covid shots are not available. To people of any age. Which is important to me because I spent three days in a hospital last winter with Covid. My wife Liz and I are going on vacation about the same time as last year in January and I would really like the added protection of a vaccine before that time rolls around.

For my visit, I always try to dress light casual for my VA appointments. It is also important to wear short sleeves in case she wants blood work done. It has been a year, so I imagine she will want it done today. I  am  lucky that I have never had any problems giving blood to the “vampires”.

One way, or another, I always hope I am treated with respect which I have been on my recent VA visits.

If anything, else happens, I will let you know because I know, health care varies radically between the VA medical centers. Especially with the mandated cutbacks led by you know who. Whose motto is “If it ain’t broke, break it.”

National Coming Out Day

 

National Coming Out Day is today around here.

Of significance to me is the input I was asked to provide in my Veteran’s Administration LGBTQ support group. In the group, there are equal members from the gay, lesbian, and transgender communities. Yesterday, I was asked when I came out.

I said I came out when I was sixty, or sixteen years ago. Then came the questions of how I actually made the decision to come out in the world as a transgender woman. Since my time to explain was relatively short for such a complex subject. I did my best to explain all the nuances of giving up a male life I worked so hard to maintain. Then I needed to try to explain the unorthodox way I did it. I wished for the freedom of having the written word to do it, so I jumped right in and quickly started how I left the gay bar scene and went to the straight sports bar scene, just to prove I could. Making it all concise was an issue but I did the best I could.

Then the questions shifted to how or who helped me on the special day when I decided to give up all my male clothes, start gender affirming hormones and come out. That person was my wife of ten years plus, Liz. They asked how we met, and I said she literally picked me up on an on-line dating site called “Zoosk.” The lesbians in the group enjoyed the story saying it took a good woman to finally help me coming out. Which I said was true.

I appreciated the fact that the LGBTQ group wanted to hear my story, and I tried to mention all of us are different. If you are considering coming out, naturally it is one of the biggest decisions you will ever make in your life. We have to sacrifice family, friends, jobs and more to live our dreams. There is also a new transgender woman in the group who felt safe enough to explain her gender issues last week. Her story meant a lot to me and I appreciated her tears of joy of being able to talk to someone else about her coming out story.

No matter where you are on your coming out journey, hopefully you will have the support you need to achieve your goal. Remember, it is a marathon not a sprint and there may be many bumps and dead ends along the way for you.

For those of you who have come out, hopefully you are able to live your best life. Congratulations! Now with the current anti transgender climate from the orange Russian asset, we need you more than ever before.

 

 

Damn its Hot in here

 

Image from Jon Tyson
on UnSplash. 

It is “patch day” for me. One of the days during the week when I change out my Estradiol hormonal patches. Every time I do it, I take the time to remember the changes I went through when I started gender affirming hormones or HRT.

Of course there were the much-publicized changes such as breast growth, changes in skin, and generous hair growth. Very quickly, I was able to put my wigs away and have my own hair styled professionally and begin to use much less makeup to present well. What I did not count on was the internal effects the HRT had on me. All of a sudden, I had emotions I had never had before, and I could cry.

One of the more humorous experiences I had was the night I experienced my first ever hot flash. I was out to be alone that night and was completely caught off guard when the heat hit me. In fact, I had just stopped thinking about how chilly it was in the venue and how I might have to put on my jacket to stay warm. Something I never had to do back in my male years. Suddenly my own thermostat seemed to be ruined, and I was paying the dues for all the times I thought the women around me were just making it up when they said they were cold. Then, I did not need my jacket at all when all hell broke loose, and I felt as if I was on fire. I quickly looked around to see if anyone else noticed my predicament, but no one did. I wondered at the time how they could not, but my heat must have been internal in nature. Later on, that evening, I tried to explain what had happened to me to my cisgender friends and they just laughed me off saying welcome to their world.

Now patch day once a year comes down to my annual mammogram. Since my maternal grandmother passed away years ago from breast cancer, my primary medical provider at the Veterans Administration makes sure every year I have a mammogram to be safe. If you have never experienced a mammogram, there is some brief discomfort but nothing like the alternative. So, I consider it a rite of passage when I have one.

It turned out for me there were many rites of passage to come as I went through a male to female transition. I had taken the appearance aspect of transitioning just about as far as I could and then faced a real decision in my life. Should I seek out a doctor to prescribe gender affirming hormones. I went to my local Dayton, Ohio LGBTQ resource guide and found a doctor and decided to make an appointment to see if I was healthy enough to begin HRT. This was way back in the days before the VA decided to include hormone therapy as a choice for gender dysphoric vets, so the doc I chose was the only logical choice. He asked me a few key questions about what I was prepared to lose of my male lifestyle and then approved me for a minimum dosage of medications to start my journey.

I started on pills and very soon they became a lifeline for a better world for me. Fairly quickly, after I showed no ill effects to the new hormones, I was prescribed larger dosages, and my body took to them naturally.  Then it got hot with my thought pattern of what I was going to do about all the changes which were happening to me. I was appearing very androgynous which was noticeable to others who knew me, so I needed to change my transition timetable because I was running out of time. In short, hormones slammed the door shut on my male life I had worked so hard to achieve. It was mine to give away, and I gladly did it.

Now, as I change my hormonal Estradiol patches out, I stop to remember the old male days and how I felt in my body and say a silent prayer that I have suffered no ill effects in my decade plus journey on HRT. I always take time to urge everyone considering femininizing their body through hormones, to seek guidance from a doctor before you do it. As I have seen the results of unregulated hormone therapy. The process is nothing to play with.

As I look back on the benefits of all the therapists and doctors I have seen over the years (and continue to see), being able to feel the heat of becoming a transgender woman was worth the effort.

 

 

 

Last Chance

The Ohio State Student Union
with Brutus Buckeye

In  a recent post, I discussed the problem of waiting through years of cross dressing before I could finally transition into fulltime transgender womanhood. 

Then when I came out, I faced certain people who somehow didn't think I was deserving of the transgender title because I took so long to do it. Of course in my usual way, I thought to hell with them, we all are different in how we are able to transition. In most cases, the younger trans people who were saying all of this, had no knowledge of the conditions we faced in our younger days before the internet and social media. Our closets were potentially darker and more lonely than the days after the internet. 

Enough complaining, reality set in for me as did my age. All of a sudden, all those years I spent supposedly preparing myself to come out of my closet had taken me to the age of sixty and I was facing a now or never proposition as far as undertaking my final transition. In addition, I had never worked on anything as hard as I had to cross the gender border to see if the feminine side was indeed greener. Slowly but surely, I found the grass was greener and I was much happier there. Once I did, my age became a major consideration. Being sixty meant I had more life behind me than ahead, so I had to act. Being the original great procrastinator I was, I needed to change that aspect of my life  and do something about my overwhelming gender issues. 

It all happened one night when I was sitting alone in one of my favorite venues pondering my future when a clear thought came to me. The thought was so simple, I wondered why I did not think of it before. Enough of my drama queen existence.  It was time for my male self to go completely away and I could live in the greener feminine grass for the rest of my life. Plus, the doors of destiny were opening for me so I could. First of all, I was single and did not have an unapproving spouse to worry about. Secondly, I felt I was ready appearance wise to present well enough in public to get by. And finally, my Veterans health care system was starting to approve basic care for trans veterans so I could take advantage of low cost gender affirming hormones which I had long dreamed of taking. As you can tell, I had no real reason not to change my life. I was even old enough to consider early retirement so I didn't have to worry about coming out on a job.

Once I decided my course was clear, now it was a now or never moment I had to act on it. In my mind, I had connected all the male to female gender transition dots I could, so it was time to quit running from my truth and start a new life. As the hormones feminized my body inside and out, I found I had made the right decision. It was my last chance to live my dream and I better take it. I guess I was fortunate in that my choice was crystal clear. I had been transgender all my life and at the least I had lived long enough to live a life immersed in both binary genders. It certainly was not the easiest way to live and I would not wish it on anybody but at the least, my life was never boring. 

Boring or not, I needed to play all the cards I had and take the last chance I had to live my dream. Thanks to a small circle of women friends, who helped me more than they ever knew, my last chance gender gamble was a good one and I made it a success.    

Being Prepared for a Transgender Future

Image from Chad Walton
on UnSplash.

For nearly a half a century, I hid behind the idea I was nothing more than a cross dresser who liked to wear women's makeup and fashion. What harm was I really doing? The answer is, the only harm I was doing was to myself.  

Had I known all I was doing was to prepare myself to transition into a transgender woman later in life, I may had approached the process in a different light. The problem was, everything seemed to be so life and death serious. Primarily since I was locked into a very lonely, dark gender closet. I had no role models around me to prepare for a highly uncertain future. No one to tell me my make up looked clownish and my skirt was way too short. I only had my old male ego and a mirror who were teaming up to make my life miserable. 

I really learned how miserable I could be when I began to leave my closet and explore the world.  Being stared at and laughed at to my face taught me the mirror could lie to me and the way my old male self was telling me to dress was all wrong. I was going back to my cross dressing drawing board too many times before I learned what I had suspected all along, becoming a part of the feminine gender was going to take a lot of work. I needed to go so far to finally understand all along I was a woman cross dressing as a man and not the opposite. 

The more I began to understand where I was in life, the more the future came into focus and preparations for major upcoming decisions became important. As I was exploring and building a new life as a novice transgender woman, it became clear to me I could indeed live my dream of living as a woman. Before I could arrive there, I still had heavy preparation work to do. There were major issues of coming out and telling what was left of family and friends I was a trans woman. Once I did, there would be no more running home and hiding in the mirror wearing a dress, The first person I told was my only child (my daughter)  went very well and I was emboldened to tell more people such as my only sibling ( a brother). He accepted my transness terribly so I ended up with an even split in salvaging any of the family life I had left since my parents had long since passed away.

The next crossroad I needed to navigate was what was I going to do about supporting myself in my new world. Following quite a bit of planning and preparation, I decided I was close enough to being able to take an early Social Security retirement which back in those days was sixty two. To get there, all I had to do was work another two years. Ironically, during the two years, I was able to prepare even further for my future when the Veteran's Administration Health Care System I was part of suddenly began to accept HRT or gender affirming hormones for veterans. So, the extra two years gave me the time to further prepare for a future which included changing all the legal gender markers I could including a new legal name. 

Since I was newly single again following my second wife's sudden passing, I really could use the time to prepare for the final transgender transition into a new life I had been preparing for since I was born.  

Pockets of Insecurity

Girls Night Out, I am Bottom Left
Image from the Jessie Hart Archives.

 Where I live in suburban Cincinnati, it has been rare in the past decade when I have ever been harassed for being transgender. In fact, I think the only time it happened was when I first moved down here approximately ten years ago.

However, if I travel a few more miles east into a neighboring county, I always find myself in a decidedly redneck or MAGA areas. One of the most memorable occasions took place two times when the Wiccan group I was part of had garage sales in a small village in the middle of the area I am referring to. Here we were on a Sunday morning and afternoon set up just outside of a big box store selling crafts and baked goods to interested people. Yes I was scared!

I thought, how the heck did a transgender Wiccan trans woman end up in an heavily redneck area on a Sunday? One in a million I thought. Then I was wrong, there was another trans woman trying her best to come out in a hostile world who owned a house not far from where I was. We have kept track of each other over the years through social media and recently has said she has had more than her share of problems from her world. She has been subjected to everything from old ladies shaking their fingers at her at the grocery store, all the way to men yelling derogatory things from their cars. Gender bigots everywhere it seems for my poor friend. 

The frustrating part is she presents well except for the usual problems with her height and voice. Naturally, she has expressed her frustration with living in the entire Cincinnati area. Several others, including me, mentioned it wasn't the entire metro area, just where she lived. 

Sadly, in many ways, my friend is stuck in a small way in the same problems all transgender women and trans men have living in Ohio. Even though, the metropolitan areas of the state are inviting, diverse and liberal. the redneck Republican politicians are now trying their best to erase all of the gains and rights trans Ohioan's have gained over the years. Now including even the rights to gaining healthcare for gender affirming hormones and beyond. In doing so, the state is threatening to come after the very clinics which work with the trans population. If it happens, it will be scary to see if the states' intrusion into my life will reach all the way to my Veteran's Administration health care. Which, for me has been overwhelming positive when it came to my gender affirming care.

The moral to the story is, no matter where you are or how far along you are in your transition, you better be aware of what your future could hold. Even though you are deep in your closet, you need to vote accordingly for your future. 

As far as my friend goes, I hope she finds away around all the gender bigots and discovers a way to live an authentic life. 

The Ultimate Obsession

 

Image from Brett Jordan
on UnSplash

As I recall, the ultimate obsession I had with being feminine began with explorations into my Mom's clothing and makeup. Once I started I couldn't let it go.

Little did I know, I would need to follow quite the winding and rough path as I crossed the gender border from male to female. As soon as I conquered one of my goals and escaped my very dark and lonely closet another wall or barrier would crop up to challenge my obsession. An example would be how I imagined just improving my outward feminine appearance would be enough to help me live in the world as a transgender woman. All the process really did was set me up for other huge challenges.

Challenges such as how I would or ever could learn to communicate with other women in their world. Nothing in the process was easy and often terrifying. The old "no pain-no gain" saying proved to be all too true. Just attempting to modulate a feminine sounding voice to match my appearance was the ultimate challenge. Plus I needed to learn to always make eye contact with other women as we engaged in conversation. A simple statement saying I loved another woman's ear-rings often proved to be the ice breaker I needed to survive in my new gender world. 

Through it all, my male self was fighting me all the way. Every move I made to try to enable me to be more feminine was a problem to him. Deep down he knew he was fighting a losing battle because when I was pursuing my authentic self I felt so natural. So everytime I was questioning the path I was taking, the bottom line was if it all felt so natural, it was the right thing to do. Somehow I needed to conquer my fears and temporary setbacks and follow my own personal ultimate obsession. Follow it I did.

No matter how complex my life became as I ended up attempting to share a life between the two primary genders, until the pressure became too intense to survive, I did my best to live my life. My male self kept resorting back to what he had always done...internalize his feelings and hope for the best. His best never came as I continued my path towards my ultimate obsession. Even then, I had no idea if I could make it to my ultimate goal of living a life as a transgender woman. Fulltime with no interference from my old male self. 

As I always point out the struggle nearly killed me and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. I was one of the lucky trans women or trans men who all of a sudden found the doors opening which would allow me to finally follow my obsession which had followed me my entire life.  Destiny showed me the way around life's setbacks such as close friends and family dying. It all allowed me to have very little resistance to living my own life as I saw fit. Also near the same time, the Veterans health care system I was part of started to provide help with hormone replacement therapy, which I was fortunate enough to be healthy enough to be a part of.

In short, my life which was very much in shambles faded away and I was finally able to achieve my ultimate obsession. To lead a feminine life and even to become remarried again to my wife Liz who accepted me all the way. 

The path I took was never easy but on the other hand, my trip was never boring and provided me with a unique look at life others never have.