Gender Expectations

 

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Jessie  Hart
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Early in my transition to a fulltime transgender woman, I thought my expectations would be relatively simple. 

My simplistic approach led me to believe achieving perfection in my knowledge of makeup and acquiring the feminine clothes would be all I would need to survive. Little did I know, when I went public with my cross dressing, I would encounter so many other issues to solve. 

Another problem I had was my cross dressing theory all  was wrong and directly backwards.  All along, I was a woman cross dressing my life away as a man, plus I had no idea how my new time as a transgender woman would put me so completely on a public stage with men and women. The time I spent trying to cross dress for my male self proved to be totally wasted for the most part. Those were the days of trying to dress sexy and failing miserably. 

As with any female who grows into womanhood (all don't), I needed to learn to play in the girls sandbox. As I came closer to perfecting my appearance the best I could, each time I thought I reached a milestone, I found there were many more to come to achieve my goals of living my own version of womanhood. Even though I may not be the prettiest girl in the room, I still could rely on other aspects of my personality to succeed. Similar to any other woman I had met in my life. Like my transgender friend Racquel told me I passed the public out of sheer willpower. I was just being the authentic me.

One part of the entire coming out process which really intimidated me was how I needed to present differently to each binary gender. As I always mention, men had the tendency to steer clear of me and women had a tendency in their own ways to challenge me. Communication in the world to survive became key to me. As far as men went, I think there were very few who were secure enough in their own masculinity to approach me. Plus, since early on I was usually alone, I would try my best to give the impression someone else was coming to join me. One of my favorite "props" was my cell phone. I used it to act as if a friend was on the way and I was saving a seat where ever I was. Then, when I did develop a small group of women friends, I did my best to blend in and not stand out of the crowd so to speak. 

Through it all, I can't write enough on how insecure I felt for years in public when I first came out into the world. When I couldn't wear my sunglasses to judge the public's reaction to me, I tried to perfect my peripheral vision to see the best I could if I was creating an impact by just being my authentic gender self. The whole process turned out to be a multi-layered experience. Similar to what my second wife told me about absorbing the life skills women need to survive. For years I was naïve and didn't understand what she meant since I had literally obsessed studying the world of women around me I so admired. I never considered all the ramifications of coming out as a transgender woman would mean. 

Once I did discover my truth, I did have others around me to assist in my journey. Together they all helped to make my expectations more realistic and achievable.      

Catching the Trolley

 

The Trolley Stop, Dayton, Ohio

Since one of my college degrees is in History, I always have been a fan of historical restoration.

When I was considering my male to female gender transition, a portion of the baggage I was looking at bringing along was my love of history. All the way to the point of where I lived, an 1860's brick building I restored myself in my home town. To do it, I taught myself many of the basics of plumbing and electricity. 

One of my inspirations in my restoration was in close by Dayton, Ohio in a area known as the "Oregon District". Home to many beautiful Victorian homes. Included in the many residences was a commercial strip of businesses along a brick street which had been there for years and years. Plus, it just so happened, many of them were old taverns. 

I know I write often about my fondness for going to the large sports bars when I transitioned since they provided me with a more pleasurable experience than the local gay bars did. While it's true I did go to the sports venues quite a bit, there was another place I went to also. It was called the "Trolley Stop" located on the strip I was telling you about in the Oregon District. The "Stop's" building was constructed in 1839 and is believed to be the oldest continually operating tavern in Dayton. As well as being known for it's drinks, the kitchen features cooking made from scratch. 

Since I was a customer before I transitioned, I knew what to expect and thought with a little work I could be accepted at the "Trolley" without much problem. I was right and in no time at all, I became a regular with one of the fulltime bartenders. With that accomplished, I was awarded with restroom privileges and others in the tavern being nice to me. I rarely had any problems. I could enjoy two of my passions, history and living a life as a transgender woman. 

My fondness for the venue grew except for the fact the restrooms were upstairs and when I consumed a few cocktails, navigating the steps became quite the challenge for me in my heels. Until I quit wearing them when I knew I was going to the "Trolley." 

Along the way, I ended up meeting my small group of friends there. Including my transgender friend Racquel. To the casual observer, I am sure we seemed to be quite the group. On occasion also, the venue hosted lesbian mixers which were always quite fun for me. In fact on several occasions I was able to steal a kiss from an admiring lesbian woman. 

Now, since I moved fairly far away to Cincinnati from the Dayton area where I lived, I have not been back to the "Trolley Stop" for years. Hopefully the venue and all it's fond memories will out live me. 

Never Give Up

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 Similar to so many transgender women or men, I live a fragile existence. Or I should say for the most part I lived a fragile life as a cross dresser.

These were the times I was fighting totally any feelings of being feminine. Naturally, my ingrained male self fought the entire idea completely. Several times when I was caught cross dressing in front of the mirror, I gave up and decided to "purge" (or throw out)  almost all of my feminine belongings. I say almost because every time I stopped purging, I stopped just short of throwing out my favorite wigs or dresses. I guess deep down inside I knew I would need the clothes or wigs again. And I did because I never gave up on my dream to live as a fulltime transgender woman. 

By never giving up, I had several obstacles to overcome along my gender path. Everyone goes through tough times in their lives and looking ahead, I could see many more on my horizon. Mainly because, I was far from a natural when I looked at myself in the mirror. How could I ever turn a rather gruff bearded overweight man into a presentable trans woman. 

First things first. As soon as I could the beard had to go along with the weight. The first part was easy but the weight wasn't. Fortunately, I was able to cut back on a few fattening items and let my still robust male metabolism do the rest. In no time at all, I was able to lose nearly fifty pounds which helped completely in finding women's fashion in my size. At the same time, I started to concentrate on my skin. After shaving, I made sure I used a good moisturizer to aid in the process. I learned how much better my foundation looked on my face when I cared for my skin, plus by shaving daily, I was exfoliating my skin very effectively. In my case, along with practicing "extreme" shopping methods for fashion, I was able to do better in presenting my feminine self to the world. I suppose you could say, the whole process was a labor of love.

On occasion, I am amused when someone thinks my gender journey into trans womanhood was an overnight success. They never saw or understood the "error and trial" methods I went through when I first began to explore the public as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. The most important moral to the story is I never gave up. No matter how difficult and bumpy the path became. Why? 

The easy answer is no matter how hard life became, deep down I knew what I was doing made me feel so natural. I felt if I lived long enough, I could leave my old male self behind and finally live in the world as a trans woman. 

Destiny proved me right and I was able to fit into a life in the world, I had always only dreamed of. I learned the hard way to achieve any goal in life, you never can give up.

How the Heck did I Get Here

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In many ways, this post is an extension of yesterdays. 

When I woke up this morning following a night of having multi gendered dreams, I glanced at my femininized body and wondered how I arrived here. The answer of course is not an easy one to come by. Plus, most of you have followed a similar path. You started in the mirror and slowly made your way into the public's eye. Some of you actually made it as a transgender woman in the public and others still make it as a cross dresser on line with your own blog. Whatever path you take, perhaps you wonder also how the heck did I get here on the gender divide.

I know many of us offer up the suggestion we had no choice because of the effects of the pregnancy medication "D.E.S.". Here is a description: " DES is a synthetic form of female hormone estrogen . It was prescribed to women between  1940 and 1971 for problem pregnancies."

Even though I will never know for sure, I am positive my Mom probably was prescribed the medication because she suffered through several still births before I came along. In the transgender community it has long been suspected being subjected to an overdose of estrogen in the womb, set us on a path to being trans. So essentially I didn't have a choice on the life I eventually determined I had to lead. 

I had several main gender cross roads to navigate before I could arrive where I was this morning. The tragic part was, I couldn't stop to appreciate my work and all I had gone through. All the times I was stared at, or even laughed at when I was a novice in the world as a transgender or cross dressed person. All the time I wondered all the gender hassles I was going through to figure out where I was going was the right way. After all, I was walking the tight rope on sacrificing my entire life as I knew it. All to jump into a life as a transgender woman I didn't know if I could do at all. 

Finally, I could take the pressure no longer and I decided to take the plunge and transition into a new world. I knew deep down I really didn't have a choice after I tried suicide which was tied to my gender issues. Maybe all along, I truly did not have a choice and just had to do it. At that point, destiny led me to seek out a new group of women friends who helped me along in my journey. Plus the new gender affirming hormones I was on proved I was doing the right thing for a change. It was as if my body recognized the new hormones as doing the right thing and all the resulting changes I recently wrote about felt so natural. As my life changed, so did my mental health as my long hidden female soul kept telling me I told you so.

Now I wonder how long it will take for my old male life to fade away and I won't have to be so amazed by my body when I wake up in the morning. I will be to recognize my body for what it is and should have been all along. 

Emergence

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During our long and twisted gender journeys we have points of emergence. 

I always prefer to explain to others I experienced more than one transition. I feel as if the first portion of my life as a cross dresser in the mirror was one part of my life and coming out as transgender was another. The whole process took me years too long to discover. Much too long observing transsexuals around me to see if I wanted to or even go the route they were headed. Ultimately I decided I did not want to undergo sex change surgery as it was known back in those days. Also expected or recommended was you needed to move away and assume an entire new life. I was selfish and never wanted to totally give up my past I worked so hard to obtain. Plus, I didn't have the life background a couple of my acquaintances had who had gone the gender distance by having surgery.

One of the people I knew was a soon to retire fireman with a good pension to fall back on and the other was an accomplished electrical engineer who would not have a difficult time maintaining a job. Not to mention, both were drop dead gorgeous. At the time, I was far from retirement in an industry which would have been nearly impossible to transition in. Also, I was very insecure about my feminine appearance. Even with all of those factors going against me, I still was intrigued by the possibilities my gender future presented to me. All I really knew was I needed to discover how my path would open a new world of emergence for me.

My potential emergence as a transgender woman was an exciting time for me. Discoveries were like no other I had ever experienced in my life. Directly and indirectly, I was exploring everything from my new feminine life to what would become of my sexuality. At the same time, I needed to consider a wife I loved very much who was dead set against me going any farther in my quest to be a transgender woman but never had any problems with my cross dressing tendencies. It was as if she never liked or even tolerated my inner woman. It was difficult for me to learn my new gender ropes when she was against me but I did. 

Along the way, diverse parties and mixers assisted me in my emergence. By doing so, I was able to test out how well my possible new world was working. I even had the rare time, my wife didn't come along to keep track of what I was doing. Needless to say, the times she wasn't with me led my times to be more productive. Primarily, I discovered negative interactions with a few men, all the way to positive interactions with lesbians I met. All lessons which turned out to be very important in my emergence as an out transgender woman. Ultimately, I decided against the surgeries but completely wanted the lifestyle. After all, my gender was between my ears and not between my legs.

Overall, my gender emergence was never easy but all worth it in the short and long term. In essence, an entire new set of life lessons. 

Patch Day

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Hart Archives

I am on estradiol patches I change twice a week. The hormonal patches help to make me who I am and have been fortunate to be prescribed them for years.

Early on progress was slow as I was prescribed the minimal amount of hormones by my doctor. I remember vividly the night I asked my future wife Liz out on New Years Eve when I started my gender affirming hormones. It was a very big night. Initially I began my dosage on pills which as I said were very minimal in dosage. 

Even on the minimal amounts I still felt changes beginning to take place. Possibly because I was already in my sixties and my testosterone levels were decreasing anyhow so there were fewer hormones to do battle with. At any rate, I was beginning to see (or feel) changes primarily in my breasts. Before I knew it, I was experiencing problems finding shirts which were loose enough to not show my protruding breasts. Little did I know, there was so much more to come.

What happened was, when my doctor determined I was not experiencing any ill effects from the new hormones, I was cleared for a higher dosage. With a higher dosage came more changes which I needed to deal with and the changes forced my hand on when I thought I would need to go public as a transgender woman. At the time, as predicted by my doctor, my hair began to grow as fast as my new breasts. More importantly though were the internal changes which were beginning to take place along with the external softening of my skin and facial lines. 

Of course the internal changes were less noticeable in the beginning because I was still so obsessed with my feminine appearance. All the way to the point of thinking my appearance was the reason I went through with HRT or GAH. 

The more I became one with the new hormones which were allowed to invade my old male body, the more I began to understand the process. I really began to change when I switched my health care to the Veteran's Administration and began seeing a new endocrinologist who almost immediately changed my dosage from pills to patches so the new method would provide less wear and tear on my inner organs. At the same time, we discussed upping my dosage slightly as well as how I used my testosterone reducing medication (Spiro) at the same time. 

All of this was working together to provide me with significant internal changes. Suddenly, I could cry for the first time in my life as well as feel my world around me soften. I was more sensitive to temperature changes as well as noticing a big improvement in my sense of smell. Through it all, I even experienced my first feminine hot flashes which initially made me think I was going to internally combust. Little did I know at the time I was just going through another gender puberty in my life. As far as more external changes went, finally I started to develop hips for the first time ever.

Perhaps I am a little dramatic when I think my estradiol patches helped me to become the person I am today. Plus I never forget, how blessed I was with having the health to undertake such a radical hormonal shift in my body. I know so many who couldn't. I know also, so many other transgender women who prefer injections over patches to deliver their life changing hormones. For what ever reason, I have never had much of a problem having the patches adhere to my skin and seem to deliver an overall smoother dosage over the span of a week. That of course, is only my perspective.

Then again, there are those of you who naturally have a higher level of estrogen in your body and don't require gender afforming hormones at all to help you feel secure as a transgender woman. Whatever works, more power to you. 

The Road Less Traveled

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 Every now and then, even though I follow several very popular LGBTQ and Transgender sites such as Stana's "Femulate", I wonder how many cross dressers or trans folks there are in the world.

Sometimes I think there not very many but then again more than I think. My thoughts began relatively early when I began to experience the public as a novice transgender woman. A prime example was when I first began to go to the Veterans Administration for my health care. Included in the care were the basics allowing me to begin gender affirming hormones. During my first visits, I could tell I was the main educator to the VA staff who had never seen a trans person before. I knew then, I was on the road less traveled with my gender issues. 

Over a short period of time, I found differences in how I was treated started to change. I became less of an educator and my providers were more likely to understand my needs. It is important to note how well over the years my VA health team has treated me. Plus, over the years, I have received several other comments from transgender veterans such as this one:

" It was interesting to read of your experience with the VA. Shortly after I retired I began receiving primary care through the nearest VA clinic. I was able to select a female physician and made my first clinic visit presenting as a woman. I had already indicated that I was transgender woman on some on-line forms, as to avoid any confusion. And, my first name on all legal documents is Kimberly, so that kinda sets expectation, I suppose.

Anyway, I weighed in and was roomed by the RN, a lovely young woman. She lead me through the perfunctory questions that had to be asked, and used my preferred (she) pronounce when she introduced me to the doctor. The doctor was similarly courteous. I was a bit surprised when she asked when I had GRS and how long I had been on HRT. (I have had neither and at my age consider these would offer little net benefit for me). We did talk a bit about my transition goals, which are pretty limited at this point.

I had two routine follow up visits with this physician at the VA clinic. During these visits I was always treated with not just courtesy but genuine kindness and friendliness. I had very enjoyable conversations with the staff. Perhaps it helped that I was coming from a health care admin background."

Thanks so much for the input Kimberly! I know various other VA centers vary in their care standards especially when it comes to LGBTQ vets and primarily transgender veterans. If you have a different story, feel free to comment. 

It is said, any public relations is good even though it is not well meaning. During this time in our transgender history when so many negative laws are being proposed and passed in states such as my native Ohio, when the public sees me now, I know increasingly I am on the road more traveled. Sadly, gender bigots in the world are emboldened by their ignorance and somehow are encouraged to voice their unwanted opinions of me. 

My days of existing under the radar in a larger world has gone by the wayside. It seems every night on the news I see information on ill advised politicians  coming after me and my transgender friends. Even though I am so fortunate to be surrounded by a strong group of trans allies, I still suffer from the paranoia I feel when my road into the world becomes more traveled. 

Connecting the Dots

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Throughout life, I found many dots I needed to connect to save my life as I knew it. 

The first dots were the ones I had to connect to live at all. They were the ones which connected me into an unwanted male world. As I mentioned in yesterday's post I was born into a heavy male dominated family where competition between the men in the family was a given. My Dad had two brothers who were always in a friendly battle for which one had the best job, house etc. My best guess is my only brother and I carried the competition to our own level by playing sports. All this time, I secretly would have been happy playing with the girls in the neighborhood but naturally never had the chance. 

Those days, I had fewer gender dots to connect since my main cross dressing activity was with the full length hall way mirror. I was able to hide my deepest gender dreams away and happily dress as a girl when ever I had the opportunity. When I did, I compared it to playing one of the old mechanical  pinball machines. As I viewed myself in the mirror, it was like I hit the one thousand point bumper in the machine and gender euphoria swept in. 

The older I became and the more sophisticated my cross dressing world became, the more dots I needed to connect to survive in the gender complex world I was in. As I progressed, the mirror wasn't good enough for me and I wanted to try more dots. Those were the exciting days of going to transvestite mixers in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Those mixers really showed me all of the potential dots I could connect with to live my life. Was I gay, or a cross dresser, or transsexual or transgender? So many questions to ponder and answer. For once, the mixers showed me other examples of choices I could possibly have. 

Ironically, the military service I had provided me three years to pause my connection of dots to try to figure out which direction I was going to go. When I was discharged, I knew deep down I was transgender but was afraid to lose all that I had worked so hard to accomplish as my male self.  Through out my relatively short life, I had acquired two college degrees,  an honorable service discharge and fathered a daughter. All before I was twenty five. I had connected many dots except for the largest ones which concerned my gender. 

Finally, as I treaded water through the years, I took the leap of faith and connected my final gender dots. Possibly the biggest dot was being approved for gender affirming hormones. When I did connect, a whole new world opened for me. 

Now of course, as I approach three quarters of a century in this world, (75 years) , I wonder how many other dots will I have to connect to make it to the finish line. 

Jealousy Issues

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Archives.

Many times during my life, my relationship with women or even girls went from being envious all the way to being out and out jealous. Christmas was a prime example when I had to sit back and watch my girl cousins in their pretty new dresses and outfits while I was stuck in my boring shirt and tie feeling something like a stuffed sausage. Not to mention the gifts they received versus my unwanted boy toys. The best I could hope for was to receive a small amount of cash for a gift which I could use to sneak out and buy me makeup or other feminine items.

When I was younger, I always held out the hope my life would change for the better but it never did around women until much later. 

In middle school when the puberty hormones began to kick in for both genders, my feelings of jealousy began to increase also. Here I was developing unwanted angles to my body as well as extra facial hair while the girls around me were gaining curves was sometimes unbearable. Testosterone poisoning was ruining my life and every night I would go to sleep wishing I could wake up with all the attributes the girls around me had. Of course that never happened and life went on the best as possible.

On top of all my other gender envy, the Vietnam War began to be a very real risk for me. Spending time in the military away from my all too brief cross dressing time in front of the mirror was a reality I never wanted to face, until I did. In addition, how fair was it, the women around me never had to face such a bump in the road? I kept thinking why me until I was drafted and went ahead and served my time in the military the same as my Dad before me and as my friends around me. Tragically, I knew a few friends who only returned in boxes. Proving death was a very real threat.

Even though I was still very jealous of the women around me, I attempted to channel my envy in a positive manner. I say try because I know now looking back how I failed. There were so many times, I didn't bother to notice or take the effort to mention how attractive my wife looked. All the time I knew how insecure she was and I should have stepped up to help her, more than I ever did. Looking back, I was too jealous of her because she was living the life I wanted to live. Then she was gone (passed away) and I never had the chance to recoup my losses. 

In place of my jealousy issues, I tried my best to learn more and more about a woman's real life and why I never should have been as envious or jealous as I became. I never took a moment to stop and realize the other gender grass wasn't always as green as I thought it was. As I pursued a life as a transgender woman on gender affirming hormones, I discovered a new world beyond one with all the white male privileges I took for granted. Such as just having a portion of my daily respect automatically given to me because of my gender. The main privileges were job advancement and personal security. 

Cis-women on the other hand have to go through the intense hormonal changes their body goes through to prepare them for possible motherhood. Periods and later on, menopause are just a few of the problems women have to face more dramatically than men. I always thought too, it would have been better to have been the gender which was the prettier one as well as the pursued one as men always needed to be the one to ask someone out. I so badly wanted to be the one who was invited which was partially because I was always so shy around women or girls. 

Fortunately I don't think my jealousy issues ever reached a toxic level. More or less I just retreated into my gender shell and hoped for a better day to come. Which it did when at the age of sixty I finally came out full time as a transgender woman. After a lifetime of studying women, I think I took the shorter path to my gender freedom, while at the same time putting all of my gender envy behind me. In many ways each of the binary genders has their own weights to bear as they go through life. 

The best we can hope for is, the process makes us stronger. 

  

Loose Ends

 

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With this post, I have several loose ends to tie up and move on from...for awhile.

Perhaps the most important is my health. I finally received the information from my Veteran's Administration doctors from my recent colonoscopy. Fortunately, everything they removed turned out to be non-cancerous and I was cleared to not return for three years. A real improvement over the last time I went through the procedure only a year ago. I was paranoid I would have to do it again so soon, or worse they would find signs of cancer. As I always like to say, without my health I am nothing. 

Another loose end was a recent meet and greet I went to with a group of diverse friends I am part of. The morning started out with the knowledge my wife Liz, who wasn't feeling good would not be going with me to the brunch which was going to be held at a close by upscale brew pub. Liz and I are normally inseparable, so I knew I would miss her. For the occasion, I wore my new boots, favorite cream colored sweater and dark leggings, Light makeup and what passed for a quick brushing of my hair and I actually felt pretty good about myself. What could go wrong? A heavy cold rain which ruined my hair on the way in because I forgot an umbrella was the first thing which went wrong. Of course I survived a little rain, didn't melt and headed in to the crowded venue  As it turned out my group was clear across the room and I received little or no extra attention as I made my way back to them. So again, I was feeling good about myself. 

All was good until the server came back to take our orders. Out of the clear blue sky (which was cloudy) when it was my turn to order she turned to me and said, can I help you "Sir". The one little word, completely ruined my mood as I told her I wasn't a "Sir." She apologized twice but the damage was already done and it took me awhile to restore my confidence as a transgender woman. The damage went so far to me that I felt sorry for my friend who was sitting next to me and heard what the server said and I think felt my shock. Other than the shaky beginnings, the rest of the meet and greet went well and I headed off to do other errands and be home so I could watch the football playoffs. 

Another loose end I have been waiting to hear about is the outreach idea I had from the Alzheimer's Association diversity group I am a part of. They were/are trying to set me up to do an interview for a statewide Ohio publication called the "Buckeye Flame." Recently I talked virtually to one of the women who was responsible for setting up the interview and she told me she would talk to the person who would be doing it for a time. Since it has been a very difficult time in Ohio for all transgender women and trans men, due to all the anti transgender laws being passed in the legislature, I am sure the publication has bigger fish to fry than talking to me. One way or another, I am sure I will find out more at a upcoming diversity council meeting I will be attending virtually soon. 

For now, that is all the loose ends of my life which need to be tied up. Hopefully, there will be more outreach coming up soon to write about. 

Macho Remembered

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 I don't think I ever considered myself as a macho guy but then again, there were times I needed to be. 

Those were the times on the football field, in the Army
or when I was at work when my macho image worked to my advantage. Mainly because I needed it to. In fact, on occasion, I came to rely upon it to do better in life. On other occasions, my main macho props were cigars and beer. 

Interestingly, when I transitioned, I discovered a new side of macho. Very early on when I was coming out as a novice transgender woman, I shied away from any contact with a man I felt was macho. I thought he would recoil at any interaction with me. Slowly but surely, I learned none of it  rarely ever happened. For the most part the majority of all men tended to ignore me  anyhow and the pressure to succeed went away. 

The biggest example I can recall is the time I developed a friendship with a big bear of a guy at one of the venue's where I was a regular. He was part of a small group of diverse people I met on a weekly basis. While I was part of the group, the guy also fell victim to an ill-fated marriage to another member of the group, a long dark haired beauty who also was a hair dresser as well as part time exotic dancer. As you most likely can imagine the marriage just wouldn't work. What happened was, the remainder of the group basically shunned him. All except me. I gave him a shoulder to lean on. What I neglected to mention was the guy owned a classic motorcycle. Even though I was never really a fan of motorcycles, I could appreciate the inherent beauty of the machine and I could pass along my ideas to him.

It wasn't long before he came into the venue and ended up setting next to me to talk. He was the first macho guy I became comfortable with but sadly he moved on too soon when he transferred to another lumber yard in a neighboring town. I never had the chance to hitch a ride on the back of his classic bike. From him I learned confidence in my dealings with all men. Including the first time I was asked out to dinner from a transgender man. 

Which leads me to yet another different attraction I always felt when I was with a group of lesbians. If you don't know, lesbians range all the way from lipstick women to super butch lesbians. For whatever reason, I never had any problem attracting to and relating to the super butch spectrums of lesbian women. I have never been shy writing about the time the super butch cornered me and strongly suggested I sing karaoke with her. I very poorly did it and took off before she had any other chances to talk to me. 

Oddly, my interactions with macho guys also extended into the male gay community. When Liz and I went to Mardi Gras several years ago we ended up in a gay bar heavily frequented by "bears" or macho bearded large men. There, as well as several Prides we went to, I had "Bears" smile and speak to me. 

Perhaps it all has to do with the aura I project. I lived such a long portion of my life attempting to survive in a male world, I still have an in-depth knowledge of the culture. Which doesn't explain the paranoia I always felt when dealing with men. Perhaps I will never lose my fear. 

Finally, what I also learned was many men who project as macho really aren't in the toxic sense and they are more secure in their masculinity. Which makes them safer for all women... Cis-gender and transgender. We need more non toxic men.

Running as Hard as I Can

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Throughout my life, I frenetically ran from one thing to another.

In theory I was never much of a runner and only ran  when I was forced to during times I was in the Army and/or played football. So running never came naturally to me. for some reason though, when I was discharged from the military was when I free to face the world again would I settle down or run again. My answer started to emerge. It didn't take long as  I remembered when I was discharged and was heading home to Ohio from Ft. Dix in New Jersey. Before I arrived home, I had the entire Pennsylvania Turnpike to drive. Before I did so,  I paused for a second to ponder what I was going to do with my life. Surprisingly, at that time gender played just a small part of my future. Perhaps I was saving my gender issues for the future. 

Possibly also, at the time, I was still basking in the glow of coming out as a transvestite or cross dresser to three of my closest friends in the Army. Included in the group was a woman who was also in the Army. We had worked out she would meet me following her discharge and we would decide what would come next in our relationship. After we decided to visit her parents in California from Ohio, we decided to get married and as I said, she was fully versed in my gender issues. At least to the point which I considered them to be. At the time, I considered myself a serious cross dresser and I had a long way to go to being transgender.

As time went by, I switched professions from being a commercial radio disc jockey to the restaurant industry which at the time was expanding rapidly. To support my new family (daughter), I needed to be able to make more money. During the same time, I wedged in buying a small bar with a friend which eventually became a fairly successful pizza and beer restaurant. To make matters worse, I was beginning to feel the gender pressures I would need somehow to learn to live with. Even though I managed to dress in drag on various Halloween parties I went to, the rest of the time, I lived in my dark lonely gender closet knowing the next day I would be back in my male drag. 

To make up for my issues, I tried to offset my thoughts by moving our home as well as switching jobs. In addition, when I could, I tried to participate in civic groups which gave back to the community. Anything it seemed to take my mind off my desire to be feminine. Along the way my second wife and I moved from our native Ohio to the New York City metro area and then back to a new very rural area of Ohio which bordered on West Virginia. In the space of a couple years we went from living in very upscale Westchester County, New York to living in a farmhouse near the Muskingum River in Ohio where we heated with wood and needed water trucked in during times of the year which were drier than others. I was running from my problems as fast as I could.

The end result was I finally had enough and I needed to face my problems head on. One lonely night, I realized I had experienced enough of living a transgender life, I wanted to live it full time. My old male self had lost the battle and my new life felt so natural. 

It turned out I was never very good at running to start with. 

   

Gender Patterns

 

Witches Ball Image, I am on the 
Left from the Jessie Hart 
Archive

It is very easy if you take the time to listen to certain transphobic people who want to simplify the whole concept of human gender to know they are all wrong. It's the old men are men and women are women argument. As with any gender argument, there are grey areas which come up to cloud any discussion.

Take birth certificates for example. Sometimes it is not so cut and dry when the birthing doctor has to decide which gender a baby is when they are born. Intersex babies are left completely out of the decision process and are often left on their own to struggle later in life. The problem becomes when the child is forced to live a life they don't ever feel natural in. Or being the round peg forced into a square gender hole. The process begins early in life with pink or blue clothing all the way to ill-advised gender reveal parties. A child is doomed from the start to accept the gender pattern which is forced on them.

The pattern I described very much was how my early life turned out. I was born into a very male dominated family where my only other sibling was a slightly younger brother. So we did all the boy things like sports and playing in the woods. Plus I was raised in the 1950's to "greatest generation" parents who survived the great depression as well as World War II. They very much wanted boys and even though I resisted receiving gifts such as trucks and BB Guns, I received them anyhow instead of the dolls and toy kitchens I always wanted. 

Again and again, I desperately needed to hide my feminine self.  In order to just survive, I needed to develop methods of survival in a male world. I did the best I could to compete in sports and work on model cars. It seemed, the harder I tried, the worse I did. Even so, I was successful enough to keep the bullies away as I worked on the gender patterns I never really wanted. 

Until I really started to transition, I never completely realized how deeply entrenched I was in my fake male gender pattern. In the beginning, it was a simple as mastering makeup or trying my best to move like a woman. Then when I realized I was transgender my world needed to undergo a major change. Was I still going to keep fighting my trans urges or give in and lose all contact with the male patterns  I worked so long and hard to establish. 

In the end, I think no matter how hard I tried, I ended up being some sort of a gender hybrid. I was feminine enough to be accepted to play in the girl's sandbox, while at the same time just retaining just enough of my old male self to make me intriguing enough to the world to again just get by. Also, what the women around me never realized was how much I was watching and learning from all of them. It all went back to the days years ago when my second wife challenged me by saying how much I didn't know about women. She was right and it took me years to realize what she meant. To simplify her thought pattern (I think), she meant I would have to give up all of my male privileges' and start all over again as a transgender woman. Years later I made it.

Somehow, I think all the years I had spent carefully watching women came back to really help me when I set out to establish a new feminine gender pattern. I needed to factor in the reality of being out in the world which made my life so much more fulfilling. 

A Toxic Relationship

 

Image from Jurien Huggins
on UnSplash

One of the problems I faced when I went down the gender transition route I chose was facing a huge toxic relationship. 

 More than likely, many of you regulars assume I am writing about my second wife, who I was married to for twenty five years until she unexpectedly passed away at the age of fifty from a massive heart attack. In reality, the toxicity I am referring to was within myself. I wouldn't wish the ripping and tearing I went through from my battling binary genders on anyone. In other words, my old male self was fighting the best he could against me learning and living a feminine life. Deep down I feel he knew he was fighting a losing battle, which made everything so much worse. 

What happened was, following the brief moments of gender euphoria I experienced along my journey, I really resented having to go back to my male world. When I did, I took my frustration out on whomever was closest to me. In doing so, I was trying to lose relationships and jobs I had in the meantime. Somehow, through all my gender toxic tendencies, my wife and I managed to stay together. Jobs, were a different story as I lost several due to my foul temperament. I was lucky in that I was in a rapidly expanding industry at the time and had acquired a strong network of acquaintances who helped me obtain new employment. Finding all those jobs however just enabled me to be even more spoiled and toxic.

Speaking of being spoiled, along the way, I was perfecting my knowledge of women's fashion and makeup so I was able to cross dress myself better than ever before. Then, I started to go public more often in what would turn out to be the earliest stages of realizing I was a transgender woman and not a very serious cross dresser. A huge difference when it came to understanding why I was so toxic. The more time I spent trying to maintain my old unwanted male lifestyle, seemed to be a waste of time when all I did was daydream about being a woman. Mainly because all of a sudden, it seemed possible I could. If I went on my appearance only. Which of course I leaned later was just a small part of crossing the gender border to arrive at where I wanted to be.  

Through it all, my wife managed to stick it out with me, even though she was completely against me beginning gender affirming hormones and transitioning any further. In many ways I was completely torn. On one side, I loved her completely but on the other resented her for being the woman I always wanted to be. It would have been interesting if she would have lived if we could ever worked out the biggest puzzle I had. Which of course was my transgender inner woman who increasingly was struggling to live her own life. The end result was one night I could take the stress no longer and I tried suicide as an end to my torment. Happily now, I was a failure and can share my feelings with others who assume my path to get here was so smooth. Destiny and good genetics were on myside as I was able to work my way through the lonely days of my life and live long enough to come out of the other side. 

So, ironically, the biggest toxic relationship I had in my life was with myself. When I was able to understand the reason behind all of my torment, the fog went away and I was able to understand where I needed to go to live a better life.     

Upping your Game

 

Image from Brian Kyed on
UnSplash

As I followed my winding gender path towards living a life as a fulltime transgender woman, there were many times when I needed to up my game if I wanted to keep going.

Along the way, there were simply too many blind curves and dead ends to count. For some reason, I hitched up my new big girl panties and proceeded forward. Sometimes it was just a touch of gender euphoria I experienced which kept me going. For some reason, one of the euphoric experiences I felt was one of the nights I went to a diverse private gender party in nearby Columbus, Ohio. For the evening I decided to match up my black tights with my black shorts, loose black net sweater and red wig, I was aiming for an upscale casual look and was confident I achieved it. What escapes me now is what my wife was doing that evening because I am sure she would have disapproved. No matter what outfit I put together to wear. I just know for whatever reason, she was not there. Leaving me free to explore and explore I did.  

At the party, I was always used to upping my game because often there were the prettiest of the pretty people attending. I knew I couldn't out do them but just did not want to embarrass myself either. It turned out I didn't at the party which turned out to be a look into the future for me when it came to my sexuality. During the evening I met and got along with a lesbian who was attending for the first time. In fact, we got along so well, we decided to leave the party and go downtown to a well known lesbian venue I had been to many times. Nothing really happened between us and we returned to the party. The importance of the meeting was I proved to myself I could conceivably live a life as a transgender lesbian if I upped my game enough. If I did, I wouldn't have to ever worry about attracting a standoffish man again. Who, for the most part ignored me or treated me as some sort of a fetish object.  

As it turned out, just when I thought I had reached a successful stopping point to rest in my gender journey, something else came along and again and again I needed to up my game. I didn't realize until much later I was building a whole new person and needed all the help I could get. I found I was doing so much more than just doing my best to appear as a woman, I needed to communicate with the entire world as one also. On occasion, the only clarity I had was I knew I needed to keep going and some day I might be able to live my lifelong dream of living a feminine life. 

Ironically, I was able to find my way thanks to a close group of lesbian friends I found and was accepted by. In addition to my other life lessons I learned the basics of being a woman who did not need the validation of a man to thrive in the world. Thanks to them, I was able to keep upping my game and progressing along my gender path as I was losing all of my male privilege. 

Perhaps, most importantly, I didn't have to worry about my sexuality anymore and was able to eventually marry my wife Liz who identified as a lesbian also. She really helped me to up my game and succeed in life as a trans woman. 

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. 

Passing Privilege?

 

"Cheap Sun Glasses"
from the Jessie Hart
Archives

As we make it through the various stages of our gender journeys, often we are overly concerned with our appearance.

Very early on I learned my looks, or lack of them, were referred to how I presented as a feminine person. If I was a success, I "passed" and if I failed the term I most often heard from within the cross dressing community was I was "clocked" as a man in a dress. So I began to become more and more obsessed with "passing" as a woman in public. The problem was, I thought I was achieving success when I was admiring myself in the mirror and then failed miserably when I tried my best to pass in public. The process all led to my well documented years of thinking (or confusing) sexy with trashiness when I cross dressed. What maybe looked good on a teenaged girl, most certainly didn't look good on me. Undeterred, still I persisted. Finally I made it through my so called teen aged girl years and into womanhood and started to work on blending in with the other women around me. 

All of a sudden, I found I could discover just a small amount of passing privilege. In my case, it meant not being stared at to the point of even being laughed at. I could concentrate on the brief gender euphoria I was feeling by just being in the world as my feminine self.  One of the tricks I used to judge the world's reaction to me was to wear sunglasses. When I did so, I could see how others were looking at me without being obvious. My "cheap sunglasses" worked well from a fashion standpoint as well as a tool to see if I had gained any passing privilege. 

It took me years longer to discover what any sort of a woman's gender privilege was going to mean to me anyhow. When I first began to become successful as a novice transgender woman, the only privilege I could notice was when a man would stop and hold a door open for me. The more I experimented in the world, the more I learned how wrong I was about the passing privilege and/or feminine privilege's I was gaining. Nothing really happened until I was able to hold my head up in the world and quit being so shy about myself. After all, I was doing nothing wrong and if someone else had a problem with me, it was their problem. Not mine to solve or run from. 

When I first was able to be prescribed gender affirming hormones for the first time, I suddenly learned more of what feminine privilege was all about. As my initial dosage increased, I found I had a different view of the world. As my senses became more in tune of what was going on around me, my world just grew softer. I could not believe the changes. 

I think my final bout of passing privilege also came with the external femininizing results from the hormones. Since I had never been a "natural" when it came to trying a male to female gender transition, I needed all the help I could get. Most certainly hormones aren't for everyone, but they sure were for me.

These days, I mostly just present as old. I have a natural passing privilege.  

The Biggest Sacrifice?

 

Image compliments of Racquel.

When transgender women cross the gender border into a feminine world, we face losing many things. 

Naturally, we have to consider the three "F's" or Family, Friends and Finances. All major losses in our lives. In fact, they are so important I get a chuckle when someone says being trans is some sort of a choice. If indeed it was a choice to undertake such a radical life change, I would have certainly chosen an easier path. With easier sacrifices. 

In the early years of my life I was predictably naïve when I thought cross dressing in girls clothes was sacrificing just my male existence. It took me years of living, as well as accumulating white male privileges, to learn how much more I could lose. As far as the first two "F's" would go, I was fortunate in my results. I lost all contact with my only sibling, a brother but gained so much more through adding a bigger more accepting family through contacts such as my daughter and wife Liz. Thanks to women such as Kim, I was able to expand my friends into an accepting world of cis women who taught me so much about the life I wanted to pursue. I even had a close transgender woman friend (Racquel) who I would socialize with on a regular basis. Surprisingly, I found I had an easier time making friends as a trans woman than I ever did as a man.  In addition, Racquel and I had more than one interesting adventure at venues when rednecks played "Dude Looks Like a Lady" on the juke box eventually leading to the manager kicking us out that evening and not our bigoted tormenters. She is also the one who said I passed out of sheer willpower. 

As I progressed down my gender path to living more and more as a trans woman, I discovered more and more sacrifices I would have to make. One evening comes to mind when I was first coming out, somehow I found myself in a group of men. I found out quite early not to try to interact at all when I was ignored when I tried to talk and express my opinion. So much for maintaining my intelligence or any workable knowledge as a woman. One male privilege down to be sure but I found the biggest one was yet to come. 

The biggest privilege to lose was my access to personal security. I was always a fairly good sized man and could handle myself well enough to get by. The first time I encountered problems was when I was a cross dresser at a party of my friends in Columbus, Ohio. The attendees were normally very diverse and included anyone from transsexuals to lesbians to men who were cross dresser "admirers." One night I was cornered in my too short mini dress by a huge admirer and needed to be rescued by my highly disapproving wife. In an instant, the damage was done and I learned how easily it was for a woman to be overpowered and compromised by a much larger man. 

The other lesson I learned was the one I mentioned in yesterday's post. It happened when I left a gay venue cross dressed in my heels and hose and ran right into two men on a dark deserted city street. As I said, I was fortunate when I was panhandled for a five dollar bill and allowed to go on my way. These two happenings taught me valuable lessons on keeping myself safe in my new feminine world. All I was really doing was learning what cis-gender women grew up knowing their entire lives. 

So all in all, with a lot of help from the world and friends, my sacrifices turned out to be less severe than the process should have been. And, so worth it! 

 

Is it Sustainable?

 

Image from the Jessie Hart
Archives

When I was cross dressing for myself in the mirror, it was easy to imagine me sustaining how I felt when I put on my small stash of feminine clothes. It seemed as if the feelings could go on forever. Then all too quickly I found I couldn't sustain my feelings of gender euphoria any more than a couple of days at the most.

At that point, I began to wonder about the feelings the clothes brought on to start with. I recognized at a very early age more was going on than just appearing pretty to myself in the mirror. I wanted to be the girl I had become, rather than just look like her. If I knew then what I know now, I would know my feelings would later lead me to discovering a transgender life. Perhaps if I thought it would be sustainable, I may have transitioned earlier.

One of the main problems with sustaining myself as a trans woman was maintaining a presentable feminine appearance. I worked hard to do it and when the mirror in the women's restroom I went to one night in a gay venue where I was meeting two lesbian friends told me I looked good, my confidence soared. It was summer and I was dressed all in black that night with  a sleeveless silky top with black flowing pants. I finished the outfit off with my favorite black sparkly sandals and long straight black wig. Fortunately by this time in my life, I learned the hard way my male privilege of personal security was gone so when I left, I asked my friends to walk me to my car which was parked in a dark urban parking lot. I had been there before and had been stopped by two men seeking money. Luckily a mere five dollars got me out of the bind I was in.

Keeping the appearance issue in mind, my biggest sustainability issue came from worrying how I would support myself if I transitioned. The industry I worked in, I knew would be very difficult  to succeed in if I suddenly changed my gender from male to female. So I knew I would have to find another way of financial support. What I came up with was getting old and just taking the early retirement option of Social Security. It wasn't a lot of money but it was enough to get me by and save me the extreme potential problems of trying to come out at a new job. 

So with all the help I discovered from my Veterans Administration health, doors opened for me which I never thought possible. The prime one was all the help I received when I finally decided to begin gender affirming hormones or HRT. A therapist was provided as well as my medication co-pay for all the meds I needed to really change my life. With those meds, at a price I could afford, my long term sustainability was secure. 

Perhaps the tragic aspect of all of this is almost all of my friends and close family had passed on. Leaving me with fewer and fewer people to come out to. However, times of potential gender trauma were greatly reduced and new doors were opened to me I never dreamed of as a transgender woman. The sustainability was there and so was I.  

My Eyes are Up Here

 

Image from UnSplash

As I increased my knowledge of male to female cross dressing, I immediately learned the power of how my breasts appeared to the world. If I could attract the eyes away from my big shoulders to my breasts, I was successful. 

At that point I began to seriously experiment with how I could make my breast forms be as attractive as I could while on the very limited budget I was on. As I remember, stuffing my Mom's bra with socks was the only way I could go. Since my only feminine interaction was with the mirror in the hallway, having realistic breasts was mostly just in my imagination. It was about this time too, when I discovered and was very jealous of the teen aged girls around me who were suddenly sprouting their own breasts and wearing brand new training bras under tight sweaters. It was so unfair to me. So I set out to do much better with my own breast forms.

If my memory serves me correct, the next object I tried to use for breasts were foam nerf balls which were cheap and easy to come by. I still was far from satisfied with the results but it still was an improvement over rolled up socks. I needed to figure out what should be the next step in figuring out what to do about developing a better set of fake breasts. Along the way, I tried many ideas I read about mainly in the "Transvestia" magazine I received every couple of months. I know some of the cross dressers in the publication somehow were fans of using birdseed. Which I never ended up trying. Instead I went the water balloon route which went well until the predictable disaster happened to me when one broke. I really liked the balloon idea because they were cheap and I could use lukewarm water in them and approximate as close as I could to what I thought a real breast would feel like. Plus, I loved the way the balloons moved and bounced when I wore just the right bra. 

All was good with my new breasts until one night when I was headed to the women's room in one the venue's I was a regular in and unexpectedly one of my water balloons broke in the hallway leading to the restroom. The only good thing which came from it was no one else was in the hallway so I didn't have to explain to them I was pregnant and my water broke. I was able to pay my bill and quickly head for home. Finished with water balloon breasts forever.

My next step forward in the breast form department came when a cross dressing friend of mine in nearby Columbus, Ohio decided to purge all of his feminine belongings which included a nice set of silicone breast forms. I eagerly accepted the gifts and immediately stepped up my breast game. I ended up using the forms until I finally had the opportunity to join the women around me and have my own breasts thanks to gender affirming hormones. 

These days, even though I think my bigger body shape could support bigger breasts than I have been able to grow with the hormones, I think at this point in my life, I will stick with what I have in the breast department. 

It's interesting to me how much breast surgeries are being done these days for transgender and cis-gender women. In fact, I see big billboards around Cincinnati for plastic surgeons who will do the procedure completely for less than seven thousand dollars. I have the money saved but I think I could use it in better ways.

As it stands now, when someone looks me in the eye, they really do it.