You Make a Terrible Woman

This post is very much a continuation of yesterday's Cyrsti's Condo post on trans woman intuition. We have quite the chance to develop an amazing gender intuition because we live on both sides of the gender frontier.

Years ago, when I was exploring jumping genders my deceased wife and I became embroiled in a huge fight over how much I wanted to cross dress. Basically, it wasn't how much I wanted to do it, it was where. Once I had started to venture out of the house, the more I wanted to. In fact, I was still on a huge ego roll from the night two women tried to keep me out of a transvestite mixer. They thought I was a "real" woman.

During the fight, my wife shot me down by telling me I would make a terrible woman. I told her how could that be after my encounter recently? She promptly told me my appearance was not what she was talking about and I had just made her point. Being a woman was indeed so much more than looking like one.

From that point on, I set out to find out what she was telling me. I did my best to develop my own idea of what women went through as they lived their lives. You might say I was learning my own version of trans woman intuition. It wasn't easy though as I had a strong male ego to work away from.

After all these years, I can't tell you I am where I want to be in life. To be more spiritual and intuitive may make me a more stereotypical feminine person but it also makes me a better human too.

I am far from getting to my goals. Then again when I arrive I probably will have crossed over to the other side.

Hopefully then, I won't be considered a "terrible woman,"

Masculinity and Trans Woman Intuition

Recently I have been seeing again a few posts here and there about the effects of masculinity. After reading one of them, I began to think of my own up bringing. I have written many times here in Cyrsti's Condo about the macho-centrist family I grew up in. Between my other brother, my Dad and I, I don't know sometimes how my Mom made it. In our house, sports dominated along with a liberal amount of fishing and some hunting thrown in. We lived in a rural area and there were very few girls even in the neighborhood.

During this time I had discovered the allure of feminine finery in my Mom's closet and even tried it on when I had the rare chance to be alone. I even had a minimum income source to buy a few makeup items and clothes from my paper route and mowing grass.

I often wonder if these were the formative years when I learned how I had to be as ultra masculine as possible to get by. Of course I was scared to death my Mom would discover my "secret." I knew there would be no "understanding" of any desire to be a girl.

Overwhelmingly I hung out with a group of guys and girls were just the impossible dream. Impossible to figure out and even harder to date. For the longest time I considered I was taking the easy way out by creating my own girl.

On the other hand, by nature, I was shy and sensitive. Not male traits in my family, so I hid them too. Through sports and cars I was able to effectively disguise my growing feminine desires and show the public a macho male outward persona. 

To put it mildly, it was hell trying to maintain such a life, plus by that time I had the Army to look forward to. It seemed my masculinity was never going to let me go. And, after years of gender dysphoric struggle, I finally gave up and tried to commit suicide.

So masculinity was tough on me, even though I was able to live the lifestyle without many struggles. On the positive side , I still am easily able to judge a man's reaction to many different scenarios.

Call it trans woman intuition. 

Carmen Carrera

From last year, transgender activist and beauty Carmen Carrera. During the Glaad media awards.