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| Image from Issiac Viglione on UnSplash. |
The first time I tried a dress on and put on mom’s makeup, I burned a couple of my gender bridges. Because deep down inside I knew I could never go back.
After a few missteps, I became quite used to it. Even though
what I was doing by cross-dressing and building new bridges was quite risky to
the only life as a boy I had known, I kept on burning the old bridges and building
new ones. Fortunately, the new bridges I was building were the product of
better construction than I had ever known before, I still had such a long way
to go.
Early on, the problems I faced were simply formed by the
lack of experiences I had being a feminine person at all. My gender workbook
had never been filled out because I had never been allowed to hang out with the
girls and have the chance to understand their lives. There were no girl’s sleepovers
for me to go to get peer input into how I was dressing or ideas on how I should
apply my makeup. It seemed as if I was stuck forever in my male world and I
could not get out.
Another problem I had was I built too many invisible bridges
that I did not need to. I was and am a worrier and I routinely build structures
just to jump off of them it seemed. That has continued to be a lifetime problem
of mine as we can take yesterday’s routine trip to the drugstore as an example.
The store is very close to my house but yet I needed to worry about getting there
and back in one piece, as well as what I was going to wear and not forget all
the items I needed. Of course, I just dressed casually for the trip and it came
off without a problem as I got everything, I needed including birthday cards
for my daughter’s upcoming dinner my wife Liz and I are hosting her for before
she heads off to Maine to climb a mountain to celebrate her 50th birthday. Already,
I am stressed about what I am going to wear to the restaurant.
As I matured into a more complete transgender woman, of
course I discovered more things to build bridges on or around my life. For the
longest time, I refused to face the truth in my life that I was always meant to
live in my femininity and leave my male life behind. It was then I started to
run, move often and change jobs so I could better support my two women. My
second wife and myself. All my building was doing was destroying my already fragile
mental self as I desperately looked for answers which were there all along. Anyway
I tried to cut it, I should never have been forced into a male box when I was
born and had no power to do anything about it.
It wasn’t until I got out of my gender closet and became
familiar with the world as a trans woman, did I really have to begin to burn my
old male bridges to the ground. Specifically, when I got out of the gay venues,
I sought out some sort of safety and solace in and started testing myself in
the real world did I discover how many bridges I had destroyed and how many
more would have to go. If I was ever going to have the opportunity to live my
dream. I was running as fast as I could in my high heels away from my old male
privileges I took for granted until I torched them. Such as sacrificing part of
my intelligence and all of my personal safety when I was allowed behind the
gender curtain and out of the boy’s club.
The bridge which surprised me the most was when I needed to
communicate with the world of ciswomen who let me in and wanted to know more
about me. It was a shock to my system to have to actually carry on a conversation
or better yet begin one because I did not want to come off as being unfriendly with
another person, mainly women. The overwhelmingly group of men as a whole left
me alone since they had the sense, I was a traitor to their club. It turned out
that if I did not want to burn the bridges between men and myself, they did it
for me and they were replaced by the ciswomen I felt more comfortable around
anyhow.
When I worked on my male to female transition, the bridges I
was building had to be so much stronger than they had ever been before. Mainly
because I was risking life as I knew it to do it. Over the years, I had accumulated
so much male baggage I needed to figure out what to keep and what had to go so
my bridge would carry the load. My baggage included the usual suspects such as spouses,
family and friends as well as employment. Again, I was fortunate when I discovered
other women with the same interests as me such as watching sporting events.
Lately, I have been receiving comments from readers who are
just beginning their gender journeys and the only advice I can give from the
other side is to build your bridges well to withstand the changes you will go
through. And don’t forget there are many ways to achieve your goal. You can go
the surgical route to transform yourself into the person you always knew you
should be and go the hormonal route like I did when I was able to thrive with
the help of a few ciswomen who showed me my way to build my own bridge into a feminine
world. The end result should be whatever feels good and natural to you, you should
go with. The one life you have to live should be yours, even if your path to
doing it may be a little more different and difficult than everyone else’s. Don’t
be like me and take years running from your truth before you face it and win
and are able to proudly walk across your bridge.
