Monday, May 16, 2022

Quiet Time

 This Monday morning Liz is off and since I am retired we took advantage of the cooler morning temperatures to take our walk. It was non eventful as always as we normally have to clean up after our dog who somehow needs to complete his morning "constitutional" in the neighbor's yard. The same neighbor who we saw this morning as she was leaving for work.

Photo by Hello Revival on Unsplash

We have lived beside her, her husband and daughter for years now and have never received a negative comment about a transgender neighbor. Whatever the occasion it is nice to be accepted. Following the walk, I returned to my morning coffee and to ponder what I could write about on such a quiet day.

Finally I decided to write about the rare pleasure (on my part) of having a quiet day. Given my mental makeup, I don't have many moments when I am able to set all my demons aside and just relax. I was fortunate when I found I was able to discuss my Bi-Polar anxieties with my therapist and not have them complicate further my life on the transgender interstate highway. I learned long ago my gender journey was far more than a path...it was more like an interstate. Always busy and rarely quiet. Much like I am. If I am relaxed I am sleeping. 

Throughout my life it has been difficult to separate my anxieties from my gender dysphoria. In fact for years I thought they were intertwined. I have read and/or heard from others when they completed their gender transition, they were able to discontinue using their anti depressant medications all together. No such luck with me. Even though I was able to begin a full time transgender experience in a feminine world, my depressions and anxiety stuck around with me.  Again I am fortunate in that I have been able tolerate my medications for years. Giving me a chance to appreciate the rare quiet morning.

It does give me the chance to thank all of you readers on my long time Google blog and my relatively much newer Medium writers format which is growing dramatically. I completely appreciate all of you who read all my experiences and especially those who take the time to comment. Your input makes my whole effort so worthwhile. 

Thanks to all of you again and I hope you can have your own "quiet" time away from all the pressures the world tries to burden us with. Adding gender to those pressures is similar to adding cruel and unusual punishment to your world.


Sunday, May 15, 2022

Achieving a Transgender Goal

 Similar to other human beings, we transgender folk follow a long path to hopefully discovering our  true selves. 

Even though we face a difficult and often cruel journey to arrive where we are heading, others are not immune from going through similar yet different struggles. It is my belief that even though cis women and men are just born female or male they have the chance to hopefully grow in life to be quality women and men. I see the same struggle with transgender women and men as they grow into their authentic selves. 

Connie and I used to refer to them as "trans nazi's" back in the day. They were the ones who seemingly held the number of gender surgeries you had or didn't have against you. More than likely another version of "I am more Transgender than you" movement. How sad is it any of us have had to go through anything like it. 

Early Cross Dressing Picture
Jessie Hart Collection

My earliest remembrances go back to my first visits to "transvestites' mixers" in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Out of all the different types of cross dressers in the room, the ones who perhaps influenced me the most were the ones I called the "A" Listers. The attendees who were impossibly feminine and attractive. Unfortunately, they were the biggest bitches in the crowd. I didn't want to act like them, I just wanted to look like them. With the help of practice and a timely makeover, I finally earned my right to go out with them and party after the mixer was over. 

Slowly but surely, I was achieving a transgender goal I didn't really know I had. Ironically, I never did fit into a niche group there either. I wasn't one of the "A" listers, nor was I a so called run of the mill  cross dresser. Finally, the term transgender came along to save me. I found my niche. 

Overall though, goals are difficult to achieve for many transgender women and men. We have huge hurdles to overcome when we come out to friends and family. Many times, those same friends and families don't understand they have to transition also. Rarely do we stay the same as we make the journey across the gender frontier. Hormone replacement therapy alone takes awhile to fully set in so transitions are far from complete when a trans person comes out. 

Then there are the gender surgeries. All the way from breast enlargement, to facial feminization, to gender realignment it's often a difficult and painful path to take. It takes a special friend or family member to understand and follow one through such a drastic journey.

Perhaps the most cruel goal of all is the conscious desire to forsake any gender privilege you may have built up over the years living as your non authentic self. Depending upon your age, you had potentially accrued the so called right and knowledge to live a certain way. I was to the point in my life when I had earned the hated "Sir" word. If I was deserving or not. 

I'm fortunate in that I have been able to achieve my transgender goals but I have had plenty of help along the way. I can't forget any of them.   

Saturday, May 14, 2022

Not a Choice

 This morning I was watching the news and came across a story about the average everyday person and choice. What the reporter didn't really ever say was for most things in life, we don't really have a choice. If we like it or not, choices are increasingly being made for us. By now you are probably thinking here comes another rant concerning politicians coming after transgender and even women's rights as a whole. But you are wrong. You all know my positions on the anti LGBT legislation sweeping the country. I would have to be Caitlyn Jenner not to. 

Jessie Hart Collection

What I am referring to is our lack of choice we feel as we transition our gender. Male to female or female to male, it doesn't matter. Normally we go through stages of despair and denial which has led the best of us to "purge" and throw away all the items we have acquired from what would become our authentic selves. My example came from when a close acquaintance of mine decided to purge his "collection" of feminine items. I was gifted a whole box of makeup, wigs and breast forms. Ironically, it wasn't so far before that when I did the same thing. 

During my purges I was sure I still had a choice and could quit the pesky idea I wanted to  be a girl. The feeling was so enlightening, for a week or so. Not being the sharpest tack in the box, I finally learned  my feminine desires were not going to magically disappear simply by throwing away my "collection" of feminine articles. Through it all I was slowly learning my true gender was not a choice and it was not the gender I was trying so hard to live as.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on those who don't understand why are living our choice to be our authentic selves. Female or Male. After all they were fortunate to grow up not having to question which gender they were. I will forever remember the lonely mornings when I woke up questioning why I was still a boy following dreaming I was a girl. Resentment  ran deep during those days. Why couldn't I have a choice on the gender I wanted to be?

Of course, gender choices during the 1950's and 60's were even more rare in those days than they are now. In other words, they didn't exist for me. I needed to learn any other method I could to depress my gender dysphoria. I resorted to sports and cars to basically just get by and hide my true gender from family and friends. 

Somehow, I bided my time until I could finally fully transition to a full time transgender woman. During the decades I experienced the highs and lows while living my life in a perpetual gender flux. Through it all, I wish I could impart on all of those considering a gender transition it is not a choice. Although I know the biggest problem can be convincing family and friends why you need to make such a radical move. 

It was never a choice. We just didn't know it.   

There is always One.

  Event Venue where party was held. There is always one person who does not know how to or wants to keep their mouth shut around my wife Liz...