Gender Hack

 

Photo by Nahel Abdul Hadi on Unsplash

Since I have spent the majority of my morning fixing my bank account following a hackers damage, I thought perhaps a post would be relevant. The more I worked on stopping the damage it seemed the more I discovered I had to do.

Not unlike when I made the slow decision I was gender dysphoric. One of the big problems was the word I think had not even been invented or if it was I didn't have access to it during the pre-internet era. I can only remember vividly something was terribly wrong and why was I one of the few boys in the world who wanted to be a girl. I barely knew what a transvestite or cross dresser was. 

One of the problems I had was I  mistakenly thought girls had it so much easier than boys. They were the gender who were allowed to wear the pretty clothes and seemingly didn't have the pressure to compete for things like grades and sports. The entire idea was cruel and unusual punishment as I had to sneak behind my families back to wear my small collection of female clothes. Why couldn't I just be like all the other boys in the neighborhood and forget about the insanity of wanting to be a girl. 

It wasn't to be and my gender was hacked. I was hopelessly locked in to desiring to be the other gender. Why couldn't I be the young girl with all the dark hair I saw on vacation one year or be the girl I always sat across from in study hall or home room. 

Perhaps the worst part of the hack was how difficult it was to negotiate getting rid of it. Sadly, it wasn't until much later in life when I finally learned I couldn't get rid of it. Somehow, someway the hack was installed at birth and I didn't have a choice. In fact, the hack turned out to be just the opposite of what I always grew up thinking it was. All the time I was looking in the mirror dreaming to be feminine, I spent more time in public struggling to be masculine. 

I was fortunate in the fact I found a whole new set of friends who didn't believe I was hacked at all and was just living my gender truth as a transgender woman. I have mentioned several of them in recent posts. Essentially they saw through the gender maze I was attempting to negotiate and helped to bring me out the other side. 

I found out the hard way that women do not have it easier than men and lead very complex and layered lives. So much more than being able to have pretty clothes and spend hours on your makeup. Even though on occasion it is fun to do. 

One thing being transgender teaches you is to roll with the punches. So I'm sure I will continue to exist until the next pain in the rear comes along. After all what can they do? Laugh at me or make fun of me behind my back? Been there, done it. 

Hopefully I won't have to be hacked again to realize how good I really have it.

A Plan?

 

Photo Courtesy 
Jessie Hart

As you followed the long and winding path towards living as your authentic self, did you have a plan? Looking back, I think my plan was relying on luck more than anything else. 

Having said that, I did at one point a plan to try to visit different places when I was cross dressed as a woman. For example, when malls and clothing stores became too easy, I began to choose other places such as stopping to eat all the way to seeing how I presented at the big male dominated home improvement stores. 

What I didn't plan on happening was how fast the public remembered me if I saw them more than a couple times. I didn't plan on becoming that close to anyone that I happened to start to know. All of those life events destroyed any possible idea of a detailed orderly plan during my transition.

Along the way, any idea of having a plan went out the window. Changes came fast and furious. So fast I had a difficult time keeping up. Times became so rough, I think the hardest years of my life came when I was trying to live part time in both of the binary genders, male and female. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Life became so complicated, I had to make a conscious decision on which gender I would be that day. How I walked, how I talked and the rest. An example of the difficult time I was having was the evening I went to see the amazing Christmas lights at nearby Clifton Mills, an event I could leave the car in my boots, leggings and sweater and mingle with the public. Even stopping to order a hot chocolate. A first at the time, actually stepping up and dealing with the public one on one. The best part was no one gave me a second glance.

What made it worse, I was still married to a disproving wife who was due home at anytime and the next morning I had to be back at work crossdressing as a man. The stress became nearly unbearable and I had no plan to deal with it. 

Finally the universe came together and I was able to fully transition to my authentic feminine self. Then I had to make the most dramatic plans at all, to live my life full time as a transgender woman and begin hormone replacement therapy. Following those decisions, I had to plan how to legally change my name and gender on all the documents I could. Including the Veterans Administration which handles my health care.

Now of course, we are planning a very low key but legal wedding in October. We are going downtown to the courthouse next week to get the paperwork filed. We have the shelter house reserved in a nearby park as well as the officiant for the ceremony. So plans are coming together. 

A Vacuum?

 

Photo by Lukas ter Poorten on Unsplash

Nothing happens in a vacuum. No matter how hard you try, there are always outside influences which effect the outcome of what we want to happen. 

This is especially true for transgender women and trans men. During our gender transitions we rely on others on occasion to show us the way. Recently, I have mentioned cis women such as Liz, Kim, my daughter and Min who provided guidance or even a shove to get me moving in the right direction. Liz in particular told me she didn't see any male in me at all, my daughter took me to her hair salon and Kim took me to a professional football game. All were totally instrumental in me becoming a full time out transgender woman.

Ironically, early in my transition I didn't believe in needing a cis woman to assist in furthering my own gender trip across the frontier. I went back to my much anticipated visit with my fiancé when she would completely dress me head to toe as a woman. Even though it was a thrilling day, deep down I wasn't impressed that much with the results. As far as the makeup went, by that time I had plenty of time to practice on my own over the years. Her improvement just wasn't that noticeable. As far as the clothes went, I picked out the outfit myself. I should have known she wouldn't do that good because she is the one who wanted me to say I was gay to dodge the draft. When I wouldn't she dumped me which turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me in my life. Nothing happens in a vacuum for sure.

Vacuums however are funny creatures. Without the women I mentioned above, there would have been no way I would have developed the confidence to go public and learn how to communicate with other women. I consider communication the most important hurdle I had to cross when I MtF gender transitioned. I say that because appearance wise I had reached a point where I didn't have much of a problem with the public but building a new life as my feminine self was something totally different. I needed to build a new person from the ground up plus I was in a vacuum on how to do it. 

Slowly but surely and again with the help of friends, I managed to find a place in the girls sandbox and after a few mishaps, survive. I made the mistake of trusting smiling faces who were holding knives behind their backs. I think when I surrounded myself with cis women friends, negative people couldn't get to me. Expanding on the vacuum theme a bit, essentially I expanded my vacuum to survive and thrive as a new person.  

I may be age biased but I believe older transgender women have a more difficult time coming out of their vacuums. Many lose family and friends and find it difficult to restart their lives. Many are content to let their lives play out as I was until Liz came along and changed everything. She found me in an on line dating group. Proving once again how wrong a vacuum can be.