Who is Hurting Who?

Photo Courtesy
Kim Petras 

With the deluge of anti-transgender Republican led political bills around the country, it's easy to forget those cis women who may be caught in the gender cross fire. I am referring to the many cis-women (born female) who don't particularly present well as women. Are they going to have to undergo some of or all of the idiotic regulations some one has to go through just to go to the bathroom. I have read some legislators are trying to require monthly records of a woman's period as a basis to judge their gender to compete in sports.

Imagine being an unsuspecting cis woman questioned in a restroom about her gender. Will she take a moment to think about and realize where all political transgender problems are coming from. It's so bad now even the right wing parrots who say they are running for president are mentioning the transgender community as major problems. 

Speaking of problems, the only one I see for trans folk is when they try to go naked in places such as women's changing rooms. As I have said before, I would not be caught dead with no clothes on in front of strangers and resent others who do and discredit my right to life as a proud out transgender woman. Recently, another example of what I am talking about occurred close to where I live in Ohio. A pre-opt transgender woman was naked in a women's changing room and was seen by a group of teenaged girls. Of course, all hell brook loose.  By "pre-opt" I mean the person had no genital realignment surgeries. 

Even with all the negativity in the transgender world, there are still positive signs if you look for them. Signs that point out transgender women and men are not going anywhere. We have always been around and always will be. Recently, I was watching a promo about the upcoming Grammy awards show on

Photo Courtesy
Jazz Jennings

CBS and noticed Kim Petras name mentioned. If you are not aware, Kim is a transgender singer from Germany who began her transition early in life. She is one of the fortunate young trans girls such as Jazz Jennings who have started young with a supportive family and stayed in the public's eye. Although with Kim, you have to search long and hard to find any information about her being born male when I searched Wikipedia and other sources. It's a good thing when she is only known as a singer without the transgender tag added on.

Obviously, as a community we trans folks have enough challenges coming up. Together we have to accentuate the positive such as we are as normal as the population at large. I say that because I never considered I was "normal" even though I identified as a transgender person.  

Perhaps if enough cis women are affected by the ridiculous number of proposed anti-transgender laws being proposed and people get to know other trans people, the tide will turn in our favor and we don't have to rely on celebrities such as Kim Petras and Jazz Jennings to do it for us.  

Life Long Experience or Bad Ass Transgender

I have seen recently several profiles of new followers (thank you) who refer to themselves as "bad-ass" old ladies. At the time I felt Wow! it must be nice to think of yourself in those words. One thing is for sure, it takes the amount of life experience to make such a claim. 

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart
Archives

Certainly, many cis-women have the multi layered experiences to make the "bad-ass" claim.  It has always been my thought that to become women, girls have to go through quite the process. Just one example would be the child birthing experience. Of course most girls have to deal with the fact they shoulder most of the burden when it comes to becoming pregnant. It's still too easy for an underaged boy to trot off into the sunset when there is an unwanted child to deal with. 

Then women through out their lives have to deal with being perceived as being second class citizens in the worlds of being paid less and overall treatment at the hands of men. It wasn't so long ago women finally earned the right to vote and much later to even apply for and receive their own credit card. Bad ass women remember all of that. So where does it leave transgender women? Our life long experience should lead us to a position where we deserve to be bad ass women also. I vividly remember the early days of my gender transition into a feminine world when I rudely was rejected by men. In any and all conversations. Through it all it was evident when I reached a certain level of the presentation I was seeking, I lost huge amounts of my former hard earned male privilege. Primarily I lost my intelligence as well as my personal safety. Ironically, I knew it was coming and didn't miss any of it. What I gained was worth it because it all felt so natural.

None of this of course happened over night. There were so many nights out with my friends engaging the public when I was able to learn what I would need to know later in life to survive. I needed to survive my basic battles just to use the women's restroom as one of my prime examples. Those alone should make huge contributions to my claim of being a "bad ass" old lady. Except I am not. Over the years remembering how testosterone made me feel as well as the new feelings of estrogen in my body mellowed me right out. When someone mis-genders these days, even though it hurts me deeply, I try to take the upper path and educate them to their gender mistake. 

Life long experiences as a transgender woman have made me a better person. Not so much more of a bad ass. Who else is able to cross the gender frontier and live to write about it. Plus, to be bitter at all would negate a life long experience of learning. I do respect those who describe themselves as "bad ass old ladies" and prefer to make them my friend rather than an enemy.  One never knows what is going to happen next. 

Sweet Revenge

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Collection

 I wish to thank everyone who responded to my recent post which dealt (among other things) with my self destructive attempts at self harm. Tragically it is a theme which resonates deeply within the transgender community. 

Now, since I survived a very bumpy road down my gender path. I like to think back and enjoy just a bit of sweet revenge. Too many times it would have been easier to turn around, purge my feminine clothes and wigs and go back to my male lifestyle. I could have reclaimed my male privilege and moved on like nothing happened. Through it all, I faced all the challenges, learned and finally arrived at the other end of a long dark tunnel. It all began in my very dark and very lonely gender closet as I suffered from gender dysphoria. As I continued my journey, there were too many false road marks to guide me and I suffered setbacks. It was during these set backs I resorted to deeply self destructive behaviors.  I took too many risks behind the wheel and drank way too much alcohol as I wrote about previously. In addition to all of those, I even lost a job when my gender dysphoric behavior got the best of me and I took it out on others. 

In desperation I made appointments with one of the only gender knowledgeable therapists at the time in Ohio. She was upfront with me when she said she couldn't help my gender issues but did diagnose my bi-polar ones. Which helped me immensely with a portion of the severe mood swings I was going through. The end result was once again I discovered there would be no magical cure to me wanting to be a girl and I was essentially on my own again. Back in those days, in the early to mid 1980's, there simply wasn't the information available to help any LGBT individuals, especially those with severe gender issues. In addition, I was guilty of expecting too much from my therapy. I was new at the process and just didn't understand the benefits and drawbacks. 

These days, as I come to the end of long series of appointments with my highly motivated and qualified Veterans Administration therapist, I have so many memories of the assistance she has given me over the past ten years. It was her who in many ways helped me in plotting my sweet revenge when she initially provided me the paperwork to begin hormone replacement therapy with the VA. Then she helped me again with paperwork which forwarded my gender marker changes which happened over seven years ago. By gender markers, I mean all the legal identifications I needed to process to change my gender legally through the courts and other places. 

Although, since I have been living for years now as a successful transgender woman , I still don't have all the revenge I so desired when I was younger. Back in those days, I couldn't wait to be prettier and drive a nicer car than my fiancé who dumped me with no warning before I was drafted into the military. Now, with my younger and prettier days behind me, I have mellowed to what is really important in life. My daughter, grandkids and wife who support me.  At the age of seventy three my own personal revenge is staying healthy enough to appreciate my gender journey and what I learned from it. 

 

Being Transgender Nearly Killed Me

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash

Even though I was able to never convince myself I was going through any sort of a cross dressing phase, I finally moved on in my life. By moving on I should say I went through several of the other gender dysphoric questions I faced such as was I addicted to the clothes all the way to was I facing many more gender issues such as being transgender. For reasons only I could answer, being transgender was the scariest proposition of them all. Certainly, thinking I had a part time hobby of being a cross dresser was less threatening to me. 

Through it all, I never turned back and ended up moving more and more towards knowing the inevitable, I was a feminine person and had been one all along. Being the hard headed person I was, I continued to do my best to carve out a male life. But, the more success I had doing it just made me more unhappy. Somehow, someway deep down I felt there had to be more. Another problem I had was the more I tried to test the public as a woman, the more successful I was. The more I did as my hidden self, the more I wanted to do. An example was my wife and I finally came to an agreement I could go and get a motel room, change into my feminine self and explore the world one day a week. Even that didn't end up being enough to satisfy my drive to femininity. What I did was start sneaking out behind her back any chance I got and ending up trying to lie my way out of it if I was caught. Which I was on a fairly regular basis. The whole process was very stressful because in the rest of my life I had prided myself on my honesty. 

Still I didn't stop until I reached the point where I had falsely tried to convince myself I could live part time as both binary genders, male and female. To be brief, the process nearly killed me. I went to the point of being caught one night by my wife and we had a massive fight. I decided to sleep away from her on the downstairs sofa but before I did, I was feeling so bad I took a full bottle of my anti depressants and washed them down with a bottle of Jägermeister liquor. Fortunately the mixture didn't kill me and I don't think my wife ever found out I tried suicide. 

Since that attempt many years ago, with the help of therapy, medication and many close friends, I have been able to put self harm in my past. As far as my wife went, before her passing, I was able to grow a beard and go back to acting like I was a guy for six hard months. Her passing was totally unexpected and sudden from a heart attack and when she died it opened the door for my feminine self to finally be given a chance to take over. Not the ideal way to do it but the opportunity was there and one night I finally accepted the fact I was transgender and had been my whole life. Suddenly, all the other self destructive episodes of my life became clear. All the times I was driving recklessly trying to cheat death all the way to drinking way too much to mask my gender pain, all made sense. 

Most certainly being transgender nearly killed me but it didn't quite succeed. Leading me to a happy, satisfied life as a transgender woman living my truth. I will forever wish though I had not been so stubborn in hanging on to my old male life.   

It's All About the Hair

When I was very young the thought of ever being able to afford a nice, quality wig was the impossible dream. Since I was forced into the fashionable boy haircuts of the day ( a short burr or crew cut), I couldn't even begin to approximate having girls hair when I dressed up. I can't even remember wearing a towel around my head to look more feminine. Somehow, I made do until years later I was able to buy the first wig of my dreams, a sleek shoulder length blond hair piece I loved. In fact I think I bought it originally for my first fiancé and then managed to "inherent" it from her when we broke up. Something like you keep the ring and I will keep the wig. Definite priorities, right?

After I maintained ownership, that hairpiece managed to travel with me around the country when I was able to hide it in my baggage. I learned to be very skillful as I packed a small "collection" of women's clothes with my regular wardrobe. Now, as I fast forward several years to another time in my life, I found myself with enough freedom and financial resources to try and buy several ill advised wigs. I conservatively estimate I bought ten in a years time and of which, only two should have been worn in public. 

Finally, after I started hormone replacement therapy, my own hair quickly grew to a point where I could follow my daughter's lead and go to her salon and have it styled. At that point I felt I was truly making serious advances in my MtF gender transition. I loved fixing my own hair but it was an experience having to learn to take care of the back of my head also. No longer did I just have to rely on turning a wig head around and brushing it out. Paula, from the "Paula's Place" blog wrote in and commented on her similar experience:

Photo Courtesy 
Paula Godwin

"I note your comments about acting, there was a moment when I abandoned the use of a wig, for the first tie I felt as though I wasn't in costume and wasn't playing apart. I was dressing as a woman, I wasn't pretending to be woman, I simply was a woman, I was me. Additionally that was when I first started to understand that in all those (oh so many) preceding years I had been playing a part ~ I had been pretending to be a man. Now I could start being me instead of playing the part society expected of me."

Thank you Paula. I agree with your comment on so many levels. The blessings bestowed on me from being able to undergo HRT therapy among other things accelerated my hair growth and I was fortunate not to have any vestiges of male pattern baldness. 

The "costume" comment resonated with me also. Very quickly, being able to do away with wigs and wear my own hair helped me with my gender dysphoria. In other words, I was able to settle in physically to being my authentic self. 

I too was able to convince myself that all those years of being a cross dresser, I had it all wrong. I wasn't cross dressing as a woman. I was fooling myself and was cross dressing like a man. 

  

Would Have, Could Have, Should Have

Photo Courtesy Jessie Hart
Archives 

The longer we live, I am increasingly convinced we encounter many phases of our life which we can separate down into certain categories. For transgender women and trans men those categories maybe more intense than the normal human being. I have several examples in this post. 

The first I place in the "would have "category. What if I defied all odds and proclaimed to my parents at any early age I wanted to be a girl instead of a boy. I didn't want the boy toys I received for Christmas, I wanted the girl dolls instead and why did I have to wear a hated tie to visit relatives. I so wanted to wear the pretty dresses, tights and shoes my girl cousins were wearing. Of course I couldn't do anything about my situation back in the dark days of the 1950's when a boy wanting to be a girl was considered to be mentally ill. Even though I didn't begin to know anything about my gender questions, I knew I wasn't mentally ill for wondering.  

Perhaps the largest question in the "would have" category is, what if I had the courage and or knowledge to had come out of my gender closet earlier. Looking back now, I see the time after I had completed my military service and my daughter was conceived would have been an extreme possibility of coming out to the world as my feminine self. I had completed my patriotic duty and was indirectly rewarded with the gift of a lifetime...my beloved and highly supportive daughter. It was around this time when I was rapidly beginning to come to grips to who I was and was learning to dress the part. 

The next category is "could have". It was during this period of great gender discovery when of course I had to make a living. I didn't have a potential pension to worry about such as a transsexual friend of mine, nor was I a very educated professional person. Similar to another trans person who was going through genital realignment surgery and moving away to a city where she knew no one. I didn't have the finances or the willpower to under go such a major step so I began to try to outrun my gender dysphoria by moving around and switching jobs.  Most certainly I "could have" cut nearly all the ties of the life I was used to and moved on but I didn't.

This brings me to my last category "should have." Should have I have the courage to live my gender dreams earlier? Most certainly but as is said, it is too late now to cry over spilled milk. Even though I didn't cut ties with my old male self when I should have, I was fortunate to have landed on my feet, I turned "should have" into I did it. But before I try to put myself up on some sort of pedestal, again and again I have to give credit to all the people who accepted me as my true self and allowed me to grow as a fulltime transgender woman.

Maybe I can add another category "did have" because I did have enough help to keep moving until I reached my final goal of leaving my male self behind.

 

Transgender Confidence

Image from Brett Jordan 
on Unsplash

I have always thought confidence was the most important accessory a transgender woman can have. More important than the most attractive dress or the prettiest most flattering wig. Of course your dress and wig work together in so many ways to provide an external image which matches your inner feminine self. Plus, confidence often proves to be so difficult to come by as well as equally difficult to maintain. It takes only a swift moment of being mis-gendered along with being recognized as a man in a dress to wreck your confidence. I know, because it all has happened to me too many times to count. I had spent literally weeks in gender heaven without even the smallest pushback to my new coming out presence in the world. 

Finally I learned my rejections were a moment in time and I went back to the drawing board and moved on. I kept my changes to a minimum and tried to analyze every small nuance of the feminine gender I was trying to assume. I knew deep down, I was a woman but somehow, someway I needed to cross the gender frontier and arrive at my destination. I can't began to tell you how many times confidence was fleeting due to a particularly brutal evening when I was out in public. I was fortunate though in that even though I was having bad times, there was enough gender euphoria slipping through to keep me moving towards my goal. Plus, even coming up with a goal was difficult because everytime I accomplished one goal, to keep moving, I needed to set another. There was also the problem of the ultimate goal of going all the way and living as a woman.

We all know humans are apex predators and not unlike sharks can sniff out blood in the water. So more than a few humans can sense something could be wrong when you try to change something as huge as your gender. Unless you have the supreme confidence to know deep down you are right in what you are doing, you could be in trouble. For me, often the supreme confidence came from feeling natural as my feminine self. So much more than just thinking I was acting as my authentic self because I wasn't acting at all. 

Where ever you are in your transgender journey, woman or man, I hope you have been able to develop the confidence you need to survive. As far as trans women go, the effects of testosterone poisoning is so difficult to overcome. On the other hand, once you have gone so far across the gender frontier, going back is often impossible to do. Inspiring more confidence and gender euphoria as you go.     

One Trans Girl to go Please

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archive

Going out to be alone was one of my favorite phrases when I first started to explore a brave new world as a transgender woman. Another look at it would mean I was desperately lonely and just needed a release from being at home all alone. Along the way, I had discovered several venues I could go to without the chance of being harassed.  Outside of one notable exception, I was usually left to my own without any bother. Since I normally consumed quite a bit of beer, having a women's restroom pass was important. In several venues, I did experience push back from the management due primarily to complaints from other customers. I became so good of a regular at one place, after I was asked to leave one night by a manager, the crew found me at a nearby venue and asked me to come back. That was the infamous evening when a group of drunks kept playing "Dude Looks Like a Lady" on the juke box. Even then I was determined I would attempt to ride out the hassles until I was asked to leave. I got my revenge later when I found the manager who asked me to leave was fired for drug abuse. 

As I began to go out in the public's eye more and more, I did realize I was under some sort of threat being a single woman at a bar. As I continued to try to present as an attractive woman I found I had a couple things going for me. First, I discovered I was watched over by several of the bartenders I visited on a regular basis. When I was approached by the occasional drunk guy, the bartenders would warn me with a glance and kept him moving.  Another trick I learned was always using my cell phone as a crutch. I would act like I was texting someone else and expecting another visitor. That way I could explain to unwanted visitors I wasn't going to be alone much longer. 

Finally, "One trans girl to go" began to change. In a moment of brilliance, one of my bar tender friends set me up to meet her single mother who identified as a lesbian. Then, not too long after that I happened to be sitting alone one night when another woman slid a message down the bar to me. Not to let a golden opportunity go by, I quickly responded by introducing myself. It turned out she also identified as a lesbian and before long the three of us bonded over several mutual interests such as sports and drinking. For all intents and purposes from then on one transgender girl disappeared into a much needed small group of three. I learned so much from them I can't begin to list them all. All of a sudden I was even being invited to lesbian mixers which even led to one evening I was asked to approach another participant for a date...for my friend. I was a failure, because my friend didn't get her date but I tried. 

Also, as you may recall from a previous post, it was about this time when I met another circle of women who I called my second circle. It was through this circle I met Liz approximately twelve years ago. Our first date was a drag show and after being together for eleven years we decided to get married last October. Even though it's been years since my "One transgender girl", I still and probably always will remember all the intensely lonely days I had to go through. I even tried on line dating. Which predictably went badly in so many ways. I encountered my share of crazies before I ran into Liz who lived relatively close to me in Cincinnati, Ohio. We began to correspond more and more on line before I had the courage build up to let her hear my voice. She wasn't scared off and the rest as they say was history.    

A Brave New Gender World

 Recently I wrote a post describing briefly how big a deal gender actually is.  Coming out from one gender and living in another can only be described as a shock to the system which also takes a lot of work. I remember completely how many times when I first was exploring the feminine world, I was a dismal failure. No matter how many times the mirror told me I was doing well with my presentation, I found there was so much farther to go. 

Photo from the Jessie
Hart Archives 

One of my problems was putting my feminine image in motion. Walking the walk was very difficult for me. I needed to practice many many times walking in heels and/or other female footwear before I finally began to feel comfortable. Lessons learned included nearly breaking my ankle in a mall one day when my stiletto heel became stuck in a sidewalk crack. Luckily, no one else seemed to notice my complete embarrassment. Other times I practiced included walking around home and even late at night in deserted big box stores. I was trying so hard to develop a walk which fit what I was wearing without appearing too outlandish. 

Other problems I encountered were (as I always bring up) dressing to blend in the world. Once I did my life in my new chosen gender began to change. It was difficult deciding which wig I wanted to be my primary hair style. Which became ultra important as I began to see the same people over and over again. I was amazed how outgoing the world in general and other women specifically became when I saw them. During that same period of time also was when I had to seriously consider what to do about my voice. What happened was, I became bored with going to the same stores and malls where there was no real challenge to being accepted as my new authentic self.  What I did was begin to take the extra steps and began to stop in places for lunch. Once I did, after I behaved myself and tipped well, I fairly quickly became a regular. As a matter of fact too quickly in many cases. I simply was not prepared for the interactions I was finding myself in. My problem was I wanted to be friendly and learn more if I was doing my "woman thing" correctly. I needed to learn feminine communication skills along with trying to do the best I could with my voice as soon as possible. 

As far the voice went, I tried my best to mimic the range and tone of the person I was talking to. Then try to remember it the next time I tried to communicate with anyone. I tried to make the whole process habit forming which was all well and good until I had to go back to my old boring male self. Years later I did take professional vocal lessons at the VA (Veterans Administration) which I still use till this day to improve my speaking skills. Little did I know, just learning how to sound more like a cis woman when I was talking was only the beginning. As with nearly everything else they do as humans, women communicate in a much more layered, complicated system than men. I needed to go back to communication 101 and learn all the nuances of feminine communication. Including non verbal communication all the way to dealing with passive aggressive personalities. I knew going in to all of this brave new world I was facing, what women said versus what they meant were often two different things. Now I was seeing a whole different view of the process.

I can't begin to say how terrifying yet exciting my journey into a brave new gender world was. I believe I am a better person for the experience and certainly much wiser.  

Who Knew it Would be So Big

 More years ago than I would care to admit, I "borrowed" a pair of my Mom's hose and slowly slid them up my legs. Little did I know how from those humble beginnings I would finally grow into the feminine person I have become today. It all resulted in a life long gender journey which resulted in it's share of bumps and bruises. I think many transgender "outsiders" don't consider the real path we go through just to find and nourish our most inner gender needs. They think the process we go through is just a matter of wearing the clothes of the opposite gender we were born from. In other words, being transgender is just a phase. For me at least, I did go through a series of phases, mainly from going from confirmed crossdresser to out and proud transgender woman. 

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives

It certainly was not all a combination of kicks and giggles on my journey. First I needed to discover who I was and it was s scary experience. Letting go of all my ingrained male responses was as hard as it was to acquire them in the first place. I never wanted to be a boy and have all the experiences of youth which were forced on me. My parents came from the WWII/great depression era. They were great providers but sadly came up short in the emotional needs department.  I was expected to hide my emotions and move forward. I still can't imagine coming out at all to my Dad. I did briefly mention being a transvestite to my Mom after I was out of the Army and she shut me down by recommending electro-shock therapy. My "problem" was never mentioned again.

Years went past before gender knowledge began to catch up with the world and I began to have some sort of realization of who I really was. Terms such as "gender fluid" made sense to me as did the explanations that very few humans fell into a strict male/female gender binary standard. I remember how exciting and euphoric it was to realize again I wasn't so alone in the world. If they admitted it or not, most people just didn't fit into the gender binary we were all taught to think was the only way to be. Boys did not have to be boys and girls did not have to be girls. The two could mix. What a radical idea!

Through it all, I learned my gender issues were a big deal. I went through tons of pain and suffering to arrive at the other end of the gender tunnel which I described in a recent post. The light I found was not the train but a bright new world where I could be myself. I was finally past all the people who wanted to laugh at me behind my back or to my face. 

I wonder now if I ever had the choice to go back to those early cross dressing days, would I do anything different. Trying to hide dressing like a girl for the most part, led me down a life long road of sneaking behind the back of others. Some of which I cared deeply about. On the positive side of life, being transgender provided me with a unique look at both sides of the binary gender fence. I know of course I never really had a choice for whatever reason. I just never imagined the process would prove to be so big.  

The Second Supportive Circle

Recently I wrote a post or two concerning the individuals who helped me cross the gender frontier to live a life as a full time transgender woman. As much as I learned and appreciated their input, there was another group of cis women who accepted me plus helped me move even further into the feminine world. 

From the Jessie Hart Archives:
Min on left with myself and Kathy

More precisely, these women helped me to build upon my initial gender change results and took me to levels I never thought I could achieve so fast. Once I discovered the basics of communication, there were women such as Min and Kathy who started to invite me to girls nights out for special events such as birthday parties. Through it all, I was scared or terrified I would make a fool of myself but on the other hand, I wanted to desperately learn what all went on behind the feminine curtain. After all, I had waited my entire life to arrive at a point where I could be accepted as one of the girls on their special evening.  What I discovered was there was not much of a secret to be told. The women I were around were predictably more family orientated than men and of course didn't operate with the same amount of bravado. Looking back also, one of my biggest challenges also was to dress to blend with the women I was going with. 

Along with Min and Kathy, there were several more women who accepted me and helped me transition more than they ever knew. The Kim's, Jen's and Debra's (to name a few) made me feel at home in their worlds. During this period of my new life, I compared my gender learning curve to building a new house. Once I had established a firm foundation, I could enable my strong inner feminine self to do the rest. All of a sudden just getting out on Halloween parties became a thing of the past although I still went to them. 

Then there was the spiritual side to my existence. When I moved in with Liz, I followed her Wiccan path. In Debra's circle I was accepted by people such as Trish and Ed, who in turn introduced me to their friends and acquaintances. Very few people were even stand offish to me as I continued to build a circle of people who had never known my old male side at all. 

The second supportive circle even extended to the Pride celebration in Cincinnati where I helped yearly before Covid with a booth of information. Today as I look back I can't say enough good concerning all the people who accepted me as my new authentic self. Of course they knew I was transgender but none of that mattered. I was so fortunate.