Fear Factor?

We have been discussing climbing walls as we gender transition here in Cyrsti's Condo recently.

I have felt fear many times provides a major push to climb a wall, in the everyday and transgender world. The Army of all places taught me the power of overcoming obstacles in Basic Training. There was no way in hell, I wanted to fail myself and my fellow soldiers during training.

Perhaps it was just that attitude which helped me overcome the paralyzing fears when I first began to test the waters as a woman.

Turns out, I am not alone, check out these two comments from Connie and Paula:

1. FABULOUSCONNIEDEEMarch 8, 2018 at 12:42 PM     "I think most of the walls we climb are ones we have built with our own hands (or minds). These are walls of fear. I know that I was not only afraid of people's immediate response to me, but I feared even more what they might have been thinking of me. I imagined, after I had departed, people would be talking about me, possibly laughing at my appearance or, even worse, my deviant behavior. These were just strangers, though, so I had to convince myself that it didn't matter what they thought (Your opinion of me is none of MY business). 

   
   The fear of being recognized by someone I knew was a more ominous wall. The more time I spent over the first wall exposed myself to that possibility, and just getting past the neighbors without being caught required so much of my energy.
   
   Fear of causing pain to family and loved ones was the wall with the biggest challenge in my mind. Like you, I had already come to the conclusion that I was not seeing myself as a man who enjoyed cross dressing, but a woman who was presenting as the man I was expected to be. In coming out to the family, I knew that I had to be totally honest with them, but that required my being honest with myself, first. I suppose that I could have made a bargain, and compromised by getting them to allow me to cross dress occasionally, but it would have been disingenuous on my part. This was not a wall for me to climb, but one that needed to be torn down. I had built it with the thought that I was protecting those whom I loved, but, in truth, building it mostly served to shut them out.
   
   I avoided a wall that many others need to climb. I had arranged my work-life, by being self-employed, so that I could control the amount of time for me to be "me." Of course, that eventually became detrimental to my income, and so was a wall in itself. I didn't have to come out at work, a wall that many consider negotiating, but I had to make the decision as to how to rectify my income capabilities with my being honest with myself - if not being true to myself. Therefore, I have only sought out employment as my true self, and I have found that to be difficult, but so much more affirming and satisfying when I've attained it.
   
   Overall, I have to say that building and maintaining the walls in my life have cost much more of my energy than it has been to climb or tear them down. The other walls, those which society had built, are much lower these days. I can only hope that the younger generation will take advantage of that, and not build their own walls, as I thought I had to do over my lifetime. If I've learned anything, it is that, whatever the fear that holds one back, waiting to face them by building walls does not make it easier for anybody; for oneself or whomever."
2. 
   
3. 
   
4. 
   Paula GoodwinMarch 9, 2018 at 5:32 AM

   "Those walls are scary aren't they! I remember that first time out in public as being both wonderful and terrifying. A lot of cross dressers unintentionally put themselves in dangerous situations as they feel the need to go out, but try to stay in the shadows, to not be obvious, but in that very attempt to hide make themselves vulnerable."
5. Thanks to both of you!

T

International Woman's Day

Sisterhood with cis women? What exactly does that mean to you?

For me, it means several things. I know I share a sisterhood because cis women made it possible for me to play in their sandbox. Although, some never knew to what extent and some did  not so willingly.

Cis women also taught me how to communicate in their feminine world, often with non verbal communication.  Indirectly. women taught me how to dress to fit in with their world also.

I know too, a number of cross dressers and/or early transgender women who wanted into the sisterhood so bad, they were sure they needed a cis woman to make them up to be the beautiful creatures of their dreams. Most never made it and learned on their own. For me, ironically, it was a cis male make up artist who helped me out with my makeup the first time so many years ago.

And speaking of men, their attitude towards transgender women (for the most part) is one of distrust while women have a tendency to be more curious. Again, lending a welcome hand to the sisterhood.

I know my time in a feminine lifestyle makes me far from an expert but it has shown me very emphatically what cis woman go through in their lives. From employment, to being talked around (or down to), all the way to feeling physically threatened, I have been in the sisterhood.

Although it is never as easy as it seems, my hope for the future is women continue to advance in all key areas of society. Perhaps finally, they can bring some sanity to the world as we know it today.

Such is my salute to International Women's Day. It's great to finally be part of the "sisterhood."

The Future is Female!

To Be or not To Be

During our Cyrsti's Condo discussion on Mtf gender transitional walls. I am considering using this one as my second wall.

I am using cross dressing as my first wall. After a point (which differs in all of us) a transgender person feels comfortable enough with her make up and clothing to consider the next step...going out in public. Or, should I say, uncomfortable enough. I know in my case, just dressing up for the mirror wasn't enough. There had to be more.

Once I opened the door and began to climb the public wall, I found out people wanted to interact with me and what was I going to do then? Essentially, dealing with the public pushed me off the wall and towards the next one. Interaction meant learning more than looking like a woman, I had to learn to communicate as one too. Since I had the benefit of working with many primarily cis women populated employees over the years, none of this was too difficult to relearn.

Something else I had to learn was in most all situations, other women read me for what I was, a transgender woman or cross dresser. Passing at this point became "personality." I found when and if I returned to the same location, people would have the tendency to remember me. So, to not be friendly labeled me as a bitch. Or worse yet, someone who was doing something wrong.

I found too, scaling this wall turned out to be easy, compared to the walls I would face in the future. After I became more comfortable in my feminine role, I found more and more I didn't want to go back. This also was the point in my life the term transgender was appearing for the first time and HRT was beginning to become more available.

In the distance, I could begin to see my next wall to climb and it was a scary one too! Going full time as a trans woman.

Could I or would I? Increasingly, my feminine lifestyle told me I could and the naturalness of how I felt told be I probably would have to.