The Power of being Impatient

 I don't see myself as a patient person, even though I am mellowing with age and understand many things happen if you are patient enough to wait. An example I can use is the time I spent in the Army. Looking back on the entire experience, it only took three years out of my life and in return I was able to see three continents. Most importantly I can thank my Army contacts for my beloved daughter. Who is my only child. 

Looking back I can remember how I counted the days until I "served" my time and was honorably discharged. Through it all in the back of my mind were my noticeable (to me) gender issues. I can safely say my issues dominated my thinking. The problem back in those days in the 1970's there was precious little information concerning transgender issues at all. Even the term "transgender" was new. According to Wikipedia transgender became a umbrella term in the mid 1970's.  Regardless, I was desperate to learn more about my gender issues. My impatience caused me to try to outrun my issues. Leading to moving my wife and I several times along me changing jobs numerous times. Due to self destructive behavior impatience caused me to flirt with alcoholism. 

Photo Courtesy Jessie Hart

During the years I was able to redirect my gender frustrations into being able to carve a nice career in the commercial food management business. On the other hand I wish I could reclaim the energy I lost to wanting to become a transgender woman and manage to do it on a full time basis. No such luck and along the way again I overcompensated as a macho male. Heavily into sports and drinking. It worked too well. Except on a few occasions when I was cross dressed as a man and someone would refer to me as a "she" I passed as a guy well. Testosterone over the years had served me well...against my deepest wishes.

I found for me, the most effective way to overcome the effects of testosterone on my body was to begin hormone replacement therapy when I was in my early sixties. As I began the therapy, I was aware a few of the changes would occur over a short term of time but overall, I would have to be patient and wait for other changes. Also age and health was a factor in my medical decision to begin HRT. Fortunately I was cleared medically and I was able (as I saw it) to begin my gender transition from cross dresser to transgender woman. Later on I came to realize switching my hormone balance to the feminine side would aid in my exterior presentation to the world but no matter what I still was transgender. No amount of patience or hormones could change that. In other words, I was correct in assuming mentally I was a girl. 

Having written all of that, I am still extremely impatient when it comes to my hormone replacement therapy. I finally was able to find out my estradiol levels this week, so it is possible I may be in for a slight increase in dosage. On the other hand, I am aware breast size is determined not so much by the amount of hormones but by hereditary history. Also, since all of the sudden I am experiencing growth in my hips, I probably will stay on the Estradiol dosage I am on and not risk any negative health situations.

For once I am going to have to put my impatience behind me.       

A Musical Expert

 When I asked for more input on other transgender or cross dresser related music, I forgot to think about Connie who in many ways is our musical expert around here. 

Here are her additions to our trans musical list:

"Not counting the 50+ trans-themed parodies I've written and performed, there are two Beatles songs

Photo Courtesy Connie Malone

that come to mind. There is speculation whether or not either of them was purposely trans related, but their lyrics certainly grabbed the ear of this trans girl. The song, "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," has that mixed-up verse where Desmond does his pretty face, and at night she is a singer with the band (instead of it being Molly, as in an earlier verse). Did John really just mess up the lyrics there, or was he saying that Desmond was trans or a female impersonator? Since I have done just exactly that many times, it's the only way I picture it, myself. In "Get Back" there is that talk of Sweet Loretta, who was a man who thought she was a woman. There are all sorts of theories about that song, but, of course, my interpretation has always been influenced by my own gender identity.

I've also been subjected to the "cleverness" of an idiot who laughed with his buddies after putting "Dude Looks Like a Lady" on the jukebox. I don't get it, cuz I've never been anything like a "dude." :-) Then, there was the a-hole at karaoke who arranged, privately, to sing "Lola" and then asked me to go up with him for "support." People often ask me to help them, so it didn't bother me until I was on the stage and the intro to the song started playing. I walked right off the stage, and later gave the karaoke host the what-for - to which she replied that it hadn't even occurred to her that it might have been a joke at my expense. We can't help but be sensitive to these things, but they are usually not worthy of anything more than an eye-roll. As Amy Schneider, the recent Jeopardy! champion, said of the negative comments she was receiving, nobody could ever come up with anything she hadn't thought about herself countless times over her lifetime"

Thanks for the extra input! Amy Schneider was certainly correct in that no one could say anything more negative about ourselves than we have ever thought. I know with me, "Dude Looks Like a Lady" still resonates when I look in the mirror on certain mornings. On those occasions anymore, I remember the number of times in the past when the mirror has lied to me and simply move on with my life. 

I just wish I was musically inclined enough to write my own retort to "Dude". 

The Soundtrack of my Life

 Recently I saw a post which asked which song the readers liked better, specifically Lola by the Kinks or Take a Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed. Those for the most part were main stream tunes and of course there were others. Such as in 2006 when Jayne Country sang Man Enough to be a Woman. I don't know if my

Jane County

wife's musical tastes went farther than I thought but she told me nearly the same thing one day when we were having a huge fight caused by my cross dressing when I was rapidly thinking of if I could make it as a full time transgender woman. She (my wife) accepted me as a cross dresser but never accepted any thoughts of being a transgender woman. 

Before I ended up in the commercial food service business, I was a disk jockey in college and in the Army. I also pursued it for awhile following my stint in the military until my daughter came along and I ended up buying my own pub/pizza parlor with a friend. Lola was actually released in 1970, two years before I was drafted. During the one radio show I was running at night while I was still in college, I had a guy who positively loved the Kinks.

One night he called me up in a panic and asked if Lola was really about what he had heard and thought it was. In other words was Lola  really a man. I couldn't hold back and told him yes, in reality Lola was really a man. He hung up in a panic and I never heard back if his beloved Kinks maintained their spot as his number one group.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side was released by Lou Reed in 1972. as a tribute to Andy Warhol's glamorous transgender ladies from his famous Factory days. In those days, I was taking my own walk on the wild side by taking on Army basic training. 

As I said, due primarily financial reasons, I left the radio business and stayed in the food service business after my pub closed. Perhaps I am missing other strong transgender and/or cross dressing music but the next I remember was Dude Looks Like a Lady which was released in 1987. Ironically the song was about Vince Neil of Motley Crue when it was released by Aerosmith.  It turned out the song wasn't meant to describe actual cross dressers or transgender women at all. Even though, it was the music which caused me the most amount of pain.

The more I began to sneak out in my medium sized town as a novice transgender woman, the more I would encounter the occasional person who would recognize me. I will never forget the night my wife and I attended a party of my store employee's and as soon as I got there the DJ played "Dude Looks Like a Lady."  I just ignored it and my wife didn't seem to notice it, so all turned out without a problem.

The problems with the Aerosmith music came a couple years later when I was out trying to live my new life in a feminine world. As I was sitting at the bar enjoying a drink with a transgender woman friend of mine, these guys decided it was cute to play the "Dude" song five times in a row. It got so bad we were asked to leave by a spineless manager. 

It all turned out in my favor nearly a month later when the manager was fired and the crew found me in a close neighboring venue where I was welcome. They invited me back, which I took advantage of. 

I'm sure you all my be aware of other cross dressing or transgender music I possibly missed. If so, please let me know.