No Cure for the Transgender Person

 Most of us learn the hard way there is no easy cure for our gender issues. Marriage, kids and the military are a few of the most common so called "cures" Of course we all found out adding the responsibilities of a spouse and/or family just complicated our lives. Here is a comment I received from Sara:

Photo Source
Sara

" I wish I had known more back before the pre internet days! Like getting married WOULD NOT CURE ME! I wouldn't have put the wife and kids through all tis mess, mine comes from the fact that my mom was given something to stop the many miscarriages she had, or something went wrong/right and here I am today, or was it something else?" 

Thanks Sara! I felt the same way even though my two wives knew of my cross dressing desires. The difference was though no one, including me understood my feminine desires went far beyond the occasional desire to put on a dress. 

Sara also refers to the DES drug which was given to Mother's with history of problem pregnancies. Although I can't prove it, I believe my Mother took the medication which flooded the uterus with extra estrogen.  

As far as the military went, I would have never served except when I was drafted into the Army. I just didn't understand how I would ever adjust to being away from my feminine self for three long years. Adjust I did though and was rewarded more than I could ever say. I can't write enough how my daughters support helped me over the years. 

Over the years also, along with the advent of the "information" age, an amazing amount of information is available to help spouses who need it with extra help dealing with a difficult gender transition. This week I encountered both sides of spouses who accepted (or not) their spouses desire to cross the gender border. The first I experienced came on a very sad post from Kira on how she was giving up after ten years of rejection from her spouse. Sadly she was going back to her male life. Mainly after her wife's threats to "out" her to her work and friends. 

On the other side though came a very nice/inspirational comment from Anne: "I am going to share your courageous story with my husband. He/she has been cross dressing since age 12. Looking and feeling feminine was very important but always controversial when parents or siblings discovered cross dressing activities. During Covid my husband has finally felt safe enough to dress as a female at home and occasionally in public away from our community.

He also started over the counter feminizing supplements and herbs last year with some positive results. He is undergoing M2F counseling before formally beginning the HRT protocols.

Your writings are very helpful for both of us as my husband proceeds further."

Thanks to you Anne! I already responded praising her positive response. It is so sad many transgender individuals never have had a chance to take advantage of such a positive outlook from a spouse. Anne also brought up a good point when she pointed out her spouse was seeking professional counseling before undergoing HRT. It's very important to do so!

A transition is never easy and the only cure for crossing the gender border is realizing you have no real choice. For whatever reason. Just accepting your desires and yourself is a giant part of the solution. As I think back to when I finally decided to start hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and begin my femininizing process, I felt a huge weight off my shoulders.

I was on the way to my cure.  

More Transgender Survivor

As I promised, here is the second part of my "Survivor" post in which I went into detail how I survived growing up trans into my college years.

Photo by Denny Ryanto on
Unsplash

Since I have written in depth concerning my three years in the military, I am mostly going to go past the time in my life except to write how much I missed cross dressing during those days. I believe I spent the greatest majority of my free time day dreaming of being feminine again.

When I was discharged I made arrangements to meet my first wife after she was discharged approximately six months after I was. She knew I was a cross dresser and/or a transvestite so that part of my life was temporarily not a problem.  Little did I know, big changes were on their way which had nothing to do with my gender dysphoria. In a relatively short period of time, my daughter was on her way and my life would change for the better, forever. To this day she accepts me completely and has led the way to me being accepted by my three grandkids plus her in laws. Along the way she more than has made up for the lack of support I received from the last remaining member of my family, my brother.

During the earliest years of her life, my gender activities were largely restricted to Halloween adventures which were highly satisfying but all too short. Nearly all the activities proved were yes I could be seen in public and it felt so natural. I just had to figure out how to expand my time as a feminine person. Around this time also, I was stepping up my activities with friends in nearby Columbus, Ohio. One of which in particular gave me all of their feminine supplies when they "retired" and purged themselves from the group. Except for a love/hate relationship with one of the organizers who went on to have genital realignment surgery. Overall, I learned quite a bit from this diverse group who included everyone from the occasional lesbian all the way to several impossibly feminine people who were still deciding on their own gender paths. 

In many ways I was in the same situation. By this time my first wife and I dissolved our marriage and I moved on to my second wife. Before we became serious though, I let her know too I was a cross dresser. As the years progressed she remained fine with that but she never accepted me being transgender. This set in motion an on again, off again battle between us for twenty five years. Over time I have written about some of the battles when she told me to be "Man enough to be a woman."

Through it all, I was working on doing just that. Of course I loved her completely and did my best to firmly keep a camp in both binary genders. By doing so it tore me up. So much so after breaking yet another promise not to leave the house as my authentic self, she caught me and the fight was on. This time though, I couldn't take it anymore and washed down a whole bottle of anti depressants with Jägermeister.  As my therapist later told me all it would do to me was make me lethargic not kill me.

As you regulars mostly know, she got the last laugh on me by passing away at the age of fifty from a massive heart attack. Naturally, I was devastated but all of a sudden I was free to pursue my ultimate dream of crossing the gender border and living fulltime as a transgender woman.  By doing so proved to me once again how much I still had to learn.

All of this brings me to a group of women I write about consistently who took me in when I was lost and desperately lonely. Plus the all important support from my daughter. Between all of them and my partner of ten years Liz, I was able to learn the basics of creating a new person in a gender I always could just dream of becoming.

Thanks to all of them I survived and the wait was worth it.

Transgender Survivor

 It could be argued we all are transgender survivors. Even if you are not trans but are the ally of one. Crossing the gender border is not for the faint of heart. 

When I think back at all the error and trial I went through as I negotiated a gender transition, I don't know if I would have attempted it at all. 

Perhaps the biggest problem I had was understanding my true gender. Sure I can use the excuse again of  being raised in the pre internet generation. I felt so alone all the time assuming I was the only boy in the world who wanted to be a girl. By crossdressing in the very few feminine clothes I could get my hands on, I was able to survive this part of my formative years. 

Photo Credit
JJ Hart

When I became a teen ager and beyond, I discovered I wasn't the only boy who wanted to be a girl. When I was fifteen and almost old enough to drive I used to hang out with a friend of mine who could drive. On many days we used to stop in at his aunt's small variety store for a bottle of pop and a chance to look at her collection of "racy" magazines. No porn but different. Similar to lower class Playboy magazines. Every once in awhile I was rewarded with an article featuring female impersonators. It was a rare occurrence but enough to show me there was another world out there where impossibly feminine men made their living as women. Mostly in far away cities such as New York and San Francisco. On the rare occasions I found such a magazine, it was impossible for me to buy it because of my friend and his aunt knowing me so well. 

The closest I ever came was finding out a group of softball players who played in drag would be visiting our Midwest city. As badly as I wanted to go, again there was no possible way I could give anyone any indication I wanted to. This continued into high school when even though there were no womanless beauty pageants for the boys,  some occasional drag would creep in mostly for laughs. Except for the occasional participant who was just a little too good. Through it all I managed to survive and make it into college without giving anyone a glimpse of my true self. 

During my first couple years in college the severe changes I was going through being away from home as well as being exposed to new people and ideas led me away from any cross dressing desires. For awhile that is. I ended up transferring back home to a nearby university where I graduated from. While I was back home I also graduated back into exploring my feminine self. It was during this time I really wished I was born female so I wouldn't have to worry about going away to fight in Vietnam. I have written many times on how I survived this time in my life and was rewarded with an interesting three years in the Army.

Following my three years, I entered one of the most active times of my life when it came to exploring my authentic self.  As my first issues of Transvestia magazine arrived I found myself to be within driving distance of several of their regional mixers. As I was able to attend, the whole experience opened up a whole new world to me. I had survived and made it this far. 

During these mixers I found a curious group of attendees who were neither cross dressers or transsexuals. They fit somewhere in between. They were to become known as transgender and they were me. It turned out the easy work was done when I realized where I fit on the gender spectrum. The hardest part was figuring out how I was going to survive it. A topic for another post.