Whose Fault was It

 I often think about and sometimes write about what if I was never gender dysphoric and ultimately made it my life's goal to be a woman. In fact, if someone had asked me early in life (and I gave a honest answer) what I really wanted to do with my life, somewhere in the answer, being a girl would have made it into the conversation. Of course I never had the courage to answer like that.

Photo Courtesy
J,J, Hart

I have written before on the effects of the drug DES which was given to pregnant women who had a history of problem pregnancies'. What is DES? Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is a synthetic form of the female hormone estrogen. It was prescribed to pregnant women between 1940 and 1971 to prevent miscarriage, premature labor, and related complications of pregnancy.  I fit the description as I was born in 1949 and my mother suffered from a string of cruel miscarriages and still births. So it's very possible I was a DES baby.

What did it mean to me? Most likely a lifetime of gender struggle. I wish I could reclaim just a small portion of the energy it took me to stay in the male gender lane. 

I wish too I could have had a chance to experience just a small lesson into what a girl went through growing up. I remember quite vividly the changes I went through when male puberty took over my body. I remember too how I didn't like it but thought I didn't really have much of a choice. I am happy for the young transgender youth of today who at the least have a possibility of being prescribed hormone blockers to help development  into their authentic selves. 

Looking back at the process now, I'm sure my Mom who was a very forceful individual would have forced her "daughter's" hand  into going to the same college as she did along with being in the same sorority. I can only imagine the pressure she put on me as a son would have increased dramatically

Most certainly there would have been other trade off's too. The primary one concerns my time in the military. Seeing as how I have to add in all the years the Vietnam War hung around for, caused me to have to worry about going and serving. All the worry led me to the ultimate prize of meeting my first wife and her birthing my daughter who I cherish as the greatest gift of my life.

For the most part, my gender condition was no one's fault. In the end I was given lipstick and learned to wear it and if it wasn't for DES I may not be around to experience the gender euphoria I feel on occasion. 

I wonder if DES had come with a transgender warning label if Mom would have decided to take it.

Living in the Moment

 How many times have you heard the advice "Live life in the moment?" I know my Mom always said it. She probably meant it but forgot to add, do it only if it didn't reflect badly on the family or her. After all, how would her friends and fellow teachers react if they discovered her oldest son wanted to be a girl, I actually came out to her once after I was discharged from the Army after serving my three years. She offered psychiatric care which was a normal response back in those days (1970's).

Photo Courtesy
J,J. Hart 

Regardless, I think transgender people have added pressure to try to live it the moment. Our problem is tomorrow looks so inviting. Not unlike the grass is always greener on the other side of the gender border. 

Take hormone replacement therapy for example. Just a couple more months and my breasts will be bigger and my overall feminine appearance will improve and free me from the guy staring at me in the morning every day.

With so many gender trigger objects in the world, it is no wonder living in the moment is so difficult. In addition to our own gender issues we have chosen to take on the specific issues of the gender we are seeking to live as our authentic selves. A prime example is involving ourselves as transgender women in the beauty industry. We have directly chosen to join  the overwhelmingly obsessive drive to find the newest  beauty trend guaranteed to help us achieve impossible levels of beauty.

I know all of this is true for me at least as I use a moisturizer every night after cleansing my skin to ward off the inevitable wrinkles which I know will happen at my age of 72. Then, let us not forget the all important eyeshadow and special new mascara . Guaranteed to send my eye lashes to new sexy lengths. 

Tomorrow, it's always been tomorrow for me. You would think all my experience with death in my life, I would have learned to take my time to enjoy life in the moment. Now the inevitable is happening, I am running out of time. 

Living in the moment is becoming so rare. Then again just realizing it is a step in the right direction.

Not Fooling Anyone

 Early in my days as a novice cross dresser, I was obsessed with "fooling" the public into thinking I was a cis woman. As proof, when I look back at my earliest blog posts, I see a trend. I am almost completely into my appearance and not much to do with the feeling associated with being out in the public eye as a woman at all.

While we are on the subject, Mark sent in a question asking why I separated my time as a cross dresser with my time as a transgender woman. In essence Mark my idea of being a cross dresser was the process of looking like a woman. Being transgender to me was the process of coming as close as I could to becoming a cis woman of different upbringing. I have always believed females are not born as women. It's a process of socialization they go through to claim the title. Of course men go through the same process. So transgender people can too.

Photo by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash

 I guess I could say my time as a cross dresser enabled me to learn and see if I wanted to take the next step to being a transgender woman. The point of no return for me was when I started hormone replacement therapy. Which brings up the question of why it took me so long. The answer is very complex and varies from person to person. In many ways I am very envious of the young transgender girls and boys who are able to come out and live as their authentic self at a young age. In many ways, at my age, I see myself as sort of an unwilling pioneer because times were so different and difficult to come out in as I was growing up in the 1950's and 60's. 

So, who was I fooling? Sometimes quite a few people when I started to try my hand at going out into a feminine world. At the time I thought the world was primarily a masculine one with women being around to look good and to birth/raise children. I was completely wrong. Once I started to dress for the approval of or to blend in with the rest of women in society I started to be accepted for at the least a transgender woman. I found also, most of the people didn't really care. They were in their own little worlds. Stay out of their way and they would stay out of mine. 

All of a sudden I didn't care anymore if I was "fooling" anyone into thinking I was feminine. After I quit fooling myself, my gender puzzle came into focus. 

My entire life, I had been trying to fool myself into thinking I was male orientated at all and the process hurt me deeply. I was the biggest fool of all.