Gender Transitions

 Recently I wrote on the aspects of hormone replacement therapy and how I considered beginning HRT as the line I crossed when I went from being a cross dresser to a novice transgender woman. At the time I thought crossing the line would be the only gender transition I would undertake. Needless to say, I was really wrong. 

Basically what happened was, the more I learned about existing in the feminine world, the more natural I felt and the more I wanted to learn more. In a relatively short period of time I was able to begin a life as a fulltime transgender woman. Before I could, I found there were other transitions I had to make. 

The first was deciding the basic idea of exactly what I was. Was I truly a woman or a transgender woman. For the longest time I was content in thinking of myself as sort of a gender hybrid. As the years went by and I lived more and more, I finally decided I deserved the "woman" label as much as the next person who was socialized into it. Just because they were born female. I too went through the comments here on the blog regarding the description of a woman was somehow tied into childbirth. I knew that to be so much trash talk because many women can't have children medically, or want one such as my second wife. Did it make her any less of a woman? I don't think so. 

As time went by also and I was approaching the point when I conceivably could go "stealth" I transitioned to the point where I didn't really care what most anybody thought about my gender anyway. Outside of a few very isolated circumstances, I had transitioned into what I thought was gender nirvana or the ultimate confidence of believing who I am. 

Photo by Faris Mohammed on Unsplash

The nagging  question remained though was I done with my gender transition. The answer is a resounding no. The farther I went, it seems there were always steps to climb or a wall to scale.

Perhaps regular reader Paula said it best when she wrote in and commented she essentially had passed the point of just considering herself a woman. All the way to believing in herself as a person.

In other words, Paula is just herself along with her many interests such as being a musician. When you are yourself, it leaves others to have no choice but to believe in you too. If they don't...buh bye. 

Call a gender transition what you like. A series of challenges, stairs to climb or even walls to scale. It's all dealing in semantics but then again so real to a transgender woman or man. 

As I reach this point of my life (72 years old) my biggest blessing is to have my health for the most part which allows me to continue on my HRT. Syncing my inner female who has always been there pushing to live with my external self which the world sees has helped me tremendously.

Hopefully I can continue this gender transition I am on as I reach the point of the final transition. 

Sunday Inspiration

Last night we moved our clocks forward here in Ohio since for better or for worse we are on Daylight Savings Time. In other words we lose an hour of sleep in the Spring and we get it back in the fall. 

Saturday nights I also stay up to watch Saturday Night Live. The bottom line is I didn't get much sleep last night so I am going to leave you with simple words of inspiration:

 

 Just think, we transgender women and men have the chance to re invent ourselves in the best possible way. Maybe that is possibly part of what makes us so scary to so many Republicans across the country. Who are doing their best to destroy us. 

What they don't understand is we are a strong, resilient tribe and we will survive. 

The Point of No Return

 Yesterday was one of the days I was scheduled to change my synthetic Estrogen patches. Every now and then I pause to remember all the changes I have gone through over the years. 

I usually hesitate to write about the HRT process because hormone replacement therapy is such a unique topic. In other words, it can vary so much between individuals. Age, dosage and current physical condition all factor in. HRT is certainly not for everyone and should not be undertaken without the help of a medical professional. As I set my usual disclaimer aside, it's time to describe my own personal hormonal gender journey for those of you who may be considering it. 

At the very beginning, I can only describe myself as a very serious cross dresser. I normally tried to sooth my extreme gender dysphoria by dressing as a woman two or even three times a week. Through all of it deep down I knew living with feet in both of the binary genders was never going to be a long term solution to my gender questions .I also knew adding synthetic estrogen to my body was going to be my next logical step towards rebuilding my life as a novice transgender woman.

Before I did I had to be checked out by a family doctor who I heard of through the grapevine. He was   a LGBT friendly physician in the Dayton, Ohio area. By this time, my wife had passed away and I was free to take what gender action I wanted to transition or not. Of course you know that I did and the appointment was made. 

Photo Courtesy: During my CD days
Jessie Hart

The doctor's visit itself was very straight forward and simple. He asked me if I knew my breasts would grow along with my hair and my sex drive would for the most part go away. When I accepted all those possibilities, he wrote me the magical prescription I had long dreamed of. The meds were pills with synthetic estrogen along with a med which would decrease my testosterone. By mutual agreement, we decided to begin my HRT on a very minimum dosage to determine how my body would react. Happily, I had no adverse reactions and was given a slightly higher dosage. All in all, I was still impatient for all the feminizing changes I was expecting. I could feel my breasts starting to change and I never had a problem growing hair, so I wanted more.

More would come. This time compliments of the Veteran's Administration. At this time, I was experiencing severe financial problems and had lost my regular health insurance. I desperately needed the health care the VA offered. For the most part, free to me for my service in the military. To continue my hormone replacement therapy with the VA, I had to go back through the process of seeing a doctor, including a therapist. I was fortunate in that the therapist who was assigned to me had a basis of knowledge of transgender and/or gender dysphoric individuals. She promptly wrote me a letter of acceptance and it was up to me to do the rest. 

I did have a bump in the road when the VA hospital I was a patient of did not have an endocrinologist to monitor my meds. It took awhile but I finally received approval to see an Endo doc outside of the Va which they would pay for. Once I got used to seeing him, I was able to move back into the VA system for monitoring until I was diagnosed with a liver problem and again was taken off my hormones. 

The liver problem was conquered and I was allowed to resume my HRT. The good news was I was able to increase my dosages and change to patches to save extra wear and tear on my liver. 

The increased dosage began the changes I had longed hope for. My face began to soften along with my skin. Body hair started to thin (except for my beard) and my breasts really started to grow. All of those changes couldn't compare with my inner changes. I will never forget my first hot flash when I was sitting in a sports bar sipping on a beer. I was sure I was going to internally combust! Then, there were the tears. During my male life, I rarely, if at all ever cried. Now I can cry over bad and good things. What a change.

As I look back, I still consider hormone replacement therapy was the second of several major gender transitions I went through.  Just when I thought there were only two transitions, I found myself going through another. 

More on that later in another post.