Wigging Out

 Recently I wrote a post which detailed a few of my trials and tribulations I experienced with wigs before I was able to grow my own hair to a feminine length. Ironically, one of the first things I noticed was all of the sudden I had to somehow see the back of my head to check out my hair. No more easy out by using a wig head and stand. 

I received plenty of responses by readers who commented on their own wig experiences. Including Monica who currently is up to owning five wigs. I am sure at my height of "wigging out" I owned many more than that, so I understand the attraction. After all, wigs are a natural extension of our makeup and seemingly (at least for me) there was always another wig which would take me to the promised land and I would become the attractive feminine person I always wanted to be. Plus, I feel I was attempting to overcome the days of financial challenges when I couldn't afford much at all when it came to a hairpiece. 

It turns out, I wasn't alone when it came to being a struggling novice transgender woman on the search for the best possible hair. As has happened many times over the span of our lives, Connie and I share quite a similar history:

"At the age of 34, I was married with two young daughters. We’d just bought a house, and I was anxious to fix up the unfinished basement to make an office for my part-time business, as well as shelving for storing all of those seldomly used things, such as holiday decorations. I’d already put a door with a lock on it for my office, and then, late one night, I started organizing things on the shelves. When I got to the Halloween box, I took a peek inside. There it was: that black wig, along with all sorts of makeup. Now, I had worn that wig a few times on Halloween before, but it had been part of a monster-type of costume when I had. On this night, though, it brought back every memory of my feminine-self. I took the whole box, along with an old mirror that was in the basement, into my new office and locked the door behind me. Doing the best I could with what was available, I put the wig on my head and made up my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, I remember whispering, “You can do so much better than this.”

Photo Courtesy Connie Malone

Money was a little tight after just having had bought a house, but it was probably more on my mind to rebuild a feminine wardrobe and accessories as cheaply as possible out of my renewed guilt. My wife had a basket full of makeup that she’d given up on, so I could easily take what I needed from that. I ordered a dress, a pair of heels, and some undergarments from the Sears catalogue, which I could discreetly pick up at the store’s will call. A new wig, though, was more difficult to find without, I thought, outing myself. Somehow, I discovered that K-Mart sold wigs, so I got what I determined to be the best one that was available at the time. It was brown in color, just as my mother’s wigs were, and somewhat contemporary in style (as contemporary and stylish as one might expect to find at K-Mart, anyway). I remember shunning the blonde wig, at the time, as I thought it to be “overdoing it.” I bought that wig, along with a set of wrenches as an attempted cover, and thus began my return to the pursuit of womanhood."

Thanks for the comment! It's amazing to me how the slightest trigger object can lead us back into fond memories of our feminine pasts. Mine was a long blond wig I fell in love with and managed to buy for my then fiancé. She wouldn't wear it but of course I would. That hairpiece managed to stay with me for many years. Even surviving my time in the military and several ill fated "purges" I attempted when I resolved myself to never cross dress again. That really worked out! I haven't cross dressed as a man for nearly a decade. 

I can't make the point enough. I am so lucky to have been able to grow a full head of hair. Now I have to get back to a salon and let a hairdressing professional take care of it. Before it begins to appear as if I have been wigging out.  

Just Passing Thru

 Over the past several days and weeks I have happened along several acquaintances I made over the years. Of course when you get to be my age (72) the opportunity grows to have more people who have just passed through your life. Then again too, I wonder about some of them making a larger influence on my life. 

In the middle of it all was my twenty five year relationship with my deceased wife, my five year relationship with my first wife and my current relationship which is going strong at nearly eleven years. I guess you can say if nothing else I have been loyal. As I think about all the others is when I get bogged down with all the "what if's". What if the woman I met in a Columbus Ohio lesbian bar and went to a party with wanted to see me again? Similar to the date I had with a guy in Dayton, Ohio? I could go on and on  The differences were my wife was still very much alive when I met the first woman and I really couldn't visualize myself with anyone else but the guy was much different. I was on my own and actively exploring my own sexuality. In essence I was all over the gender spectrum although I still knew I liked women. The allure of having validation from the male gender was powerful also.

As life has a way of doing, many times it is like water. If you let it go, it will find it's own level. For me that level was feminine. It seems the more I tried to find a male companion, the easier it was to find a female one. Much more than when I was completely in the world cross dressing as a man. Maybe the women I was around then could sense I was a mess. 

Photo from Unsplash

Since I was a mess, I had very few male "friends." I spent my life guarding myself from the world so most people just were passing thru. 

I think too, we transgender people have more of a chance to have more people just pass thru our lives. Primarily because early on we are so guarded and later because we start all over attempting to build new lives. Many times the process dictates a whole new set of people just passing thru.

Another problem is when transgender women or men become successful in entering society many of them leave the transgender or LGBTQ group they were part of.  So there goes another group of acquaintances. 

It's difficult for me to even compare if I had had the opportunity to live a mainstream life if I would have had more or less of the same people just passing thru. Maybe it isn't as important as it was to me when I thought of it when I couldn't sleep last night. I just can't help but wonder what happened to certain people who just passed me by so quickly as my life sped by. 

Transgender Freedom

Is there something called transgender freedom?  Some I sure would argue no, which I believe I would have to agree with. You may ask why if you read my recent post on transgender boredom which I actually experienced after going out two nights in a row without experiencing any negative feedback, So, by now you are thinking what is the problem.

The problem is I have never been able to accept success much at all. Especially with my gender issues. Once I arrived at a certain point in my transition, I always thought there had to be more. In my pursuit to find more, often I found myself in over my head. A prime example was the night I was in a sports tavern I thought I was safe in and several men decided to make my life miserable by playing "Dude Looks Like a Lady" over and over again on the juke box until the manager asked me to leave. I got my revenge weeks later when he got fired and several servers found me down the street in another venue I was a regular in and asked me to come back. I look at the experience two ways. First of all, it was a big hot mess of excitement and terror to do what I did at all and secondly I was lucky nothing more than my feelings were ultimately hurt.

Shortly after that I was able to work with my new found transgender freedom in new ways. By doing so I found a new circle of friends including the one I write about all the time. As it turned out, the others were different and interesting to be around too. Those were the friends who came so close to inviting me to a bachelorette party and included the motorcycle guy who took a liking to me. To make long stories short, the bachelorette party never happened and the motorcycle guy moved away shortly after his failed marriage to a wild woman in the group who was a hairdresser and exotic dancer. The one thing you never know about your freedom is when it is going to give you a gift or take it away. 

Little did I know, all of this sudden freedom I had acquired after my wife passed away was going to lead me to new and wonderful feminine transgender experiences. This was when I went through what only can be called a period of advanced trans experiences.  Or, for those of you who prefer abbreviations, ATE. To be sure I eagerly "ate" up all the culture I could as I was learning how it was to communicate and live full time as a woman. Little did I know how right my wife was everytime she told me there was more to being a woman than becoming the "pretty pretty princess" a couple days a week. Once again, it wasn't until after she departed and I started to play in the girls sandbox  did I discover how right she was. I sustained many scratches and set backs before I earned my spot in the sandbox. The photo you see above was from that period in my life.

It was approximately this time of my life when I took my friend Connie's advice and started writing about my experiences. My goral then as it still is all these years later is to provide help and input to anyone I can through my blog. 

Even though I have reached a point of boredom in my public presentation, I still don't consider my transgender freedom to be a done deal. At this point of my life I still have my final years to look forward to. I am fairly sure that once again I will have to fight for my gender freedoms again. On the positive side, I will be used to it. 

And, while I am on the subject, those of you just beginning your journey. Rest assured the trip will be worth it. Just take advantage of all the stops along the way to catch your breath and continue when you can. 

Your freedom as your authentic self awaits.