Going Back?

Photo Courtesy 
Jessie Hart

 Every now and then I read a post about some transgender person who is considering reversing courses and going back to their original gender. Often I think how easy it would be to do just that. Then I realize how I could never de-transition myself. For several reasons.

One of which and perhaps the most important is the fact once I arrived at my goal of being a full time out transgender woman, I felt so natural. In other words, for the first time in my life, my internal feminine soul was able to be freed from its dark closet and take over my former masculine exterior. This all led to me never wanting to give up and return to my previous life as a white privileged male. 

The struggle however was real. I was deeply involved in my sometimes toxic male existence. It involved stages of growth as I learned the true meaning of what I was attempting to do. It was an all encompassing path I found myself on as I traveled a route to be a transgender woman. 

Regardless, I understand others who struggle with the urge to go back to the safe gender life they led before. Many had to battle unaccepting family and friends and made the decision so much more difficult. Even still, easy is not the best course in many cases. Especially when it comes to deciding who your authentic self is then trying to live the life you were always meant to live.

When I think of all the moments in my life when I was trying so hard to find my true gender self, I wish I could have the chance to reclaim just a portion of the time and energy I spent. I took it so far with my nasty mood swings when I couldn't cross dress myself to relief, I nearly lost jobs. . Even further, was the guilt I felt when I was essentially cheating on my wife with another person who turned out to be myself. All of the transgender ripping and tearing I was feeling led me to many self destructive experiences and eventually a suicide attempt. Sadly she (my wife) passed away before we could come up with the final solution to my gender issues. She held her line at never wanting to live with another woman. On the other hand, I went through my only attempt ever to seriously de-transition. I went as far as to grow a beard. Naturally I was miserable.

From the moment she passed on I knew I was free to live my life as I pleased, in whatever gender I chose. Once I did, soon I flourished as my authentic feminine self. 

From that point forward I knew I had found my true gender home, the one deep down I was always knew I was meant to live. From then on, I knew I was never going back to my cross dressing male self. I went as far as I could with hormone replacement therapy to help femininize what the public saw. The HRT really worked with external as well as internal changes such as emotions. I cried more in the first six months as the result of sadness and happiness than I had in my entire life. 

I especially don't understand how a transgender person who has gone as far as HRT could ever go back to another gender universe but in a world where anything can happen I'm sure I will read about someone de-transitioning again. The current anti LGBTQ atmosphere in more than a few area's doesn't help those who want to gender transition into their authentic selves. It's a difficult path to follow.  

The Basics

Yesterday, I wrote a post concerning using the basics of using the women's room. Of course, as you transition genders from male to female or female to male, there are giant gender stereotypes you have to conquer. 

Examples are many, such as cis women have this sacred place to go (literally) when they use the restroom. Another would be women don't follow sports or drink beer as much as their male counterparts. Along the way I was able to put those stereotypes behind me as my cis when friends were every ounce the fan I was and could drink me under the table. 

If you look around at other women, they are as diverse as the rainbow some of them reject. The only major impact in society I see from women as a whole is they have moved away from dressing up as much as they used to. A disappointment to many cross dressers and or novice transgender women as they journey from their closets only to find in order to blend into the feminine population as a whole they had to change the idea of what they were wearing. Unless they were prepared to face added scrutiny. 

Other novice transgender women of a later age had to face the fact they were not a teenaged girl when they transitioned and no matter what couldn't dress like one. I fell into that trap and turned many A-Ha moments into Connie's Ha-Ha moments when I was laughed out of places I should have been accepted in. When the laughing stopped, I went back to my transgender drawing board, hitched up my big girl panties and went back in. Deep down I knew to be successful in my goal of presenting as a woman was going to take more work than I thought. 

I wonder now what I was thinking as I began to build a brand new person as my authentic feminine self. After all, she had waited years to get out of the dark and live. I don't think I grasped in the moment what I was asking. Perhaps I was too immersed in shedding the remnants of my old male life. Whatever the case, I don't believe I was totally ready for what happened to me.  One example is how suddenly I was able to find women who accepted me. I looked for and received more attention as a transgender woman than I ever did as a man. Maybe because the women sensed I had given up on the perceived masculine toxicity I had to live with.

The biggest challenge was building a good person others could relate to and I could interact with, learn from and develop as the woman I always knew I had been. At that point, the basics revolved around how I communicated with the new world I was facing. I couldn't believe the gender euphoria I felt when I began to communicate one on one with other women. 

As it turned out, the period of gender adjustment was not so different to the adjustments I had to make when I went through Army infantry basic training so many years before. Both transitions were intense and required an incredible amount of work to accomplish. Of course the gender basic was much more pleasurable than the Army one and I gained an incredible amount of respect for my new self. 

Restroom Etiquette

Early women's room photo
Jessie Hart

Every now and then I feel the need to share my learning time using the women's restroom. 

Even though I had exactly no experience of using the "room" as a novice transgender woman, I had plenty of experience with women being totally inappropriate when using the women's room. I can't tell you how many times I cleaned up messes, tried to repair broken stalls and even had to remove feminine hygiene products from toilets. All of this occurred when I was a restaurant manager so you can probably imagine the problems I encountered.

So before I even started to have to use the "room" on my way to playing in the girl's sandbox, a couple of preconceived ideas I had about others (women) who used it were destroyed. Women were definitely not always the cleaner or well behaved gender when it came to rest room usage. An example was how quickly I learned to check the toilet seat before I sat down.

Many other "rules" were self explanatory such as sitting down when you pee. Other not so evident rules include trying to direct your pee stream into the bowl to mimic the sound a cis woman makes in the next stall over. I even went as far as carrying a tampon or pad in my purse if I was asked to provide one by another woman. 

Truthfully the one thing I had to get used to was being greeted eye to eye in the rest room by other women. Of course I was so used to the exact opposite in macho men's rooms I sued to frequent. Early on I became used to it and often tried to speak first. 

Another hard and fast rule I couldn't forget (no matter how quickly I was trying to finish and leave) was to always, always, always stop to wash my hands which was a great time to check my makeup and hair. Another surprise was I rarely heard any of the super secret conversations I thought women were supposed to have when they head off together to use the restroom. So called girl talk became boring quickly. 

Even though it has been years since I have been challenged about using the rest room of my choice, back in the day when I was first coming out of my gender closet that wasn't the case. One night I had the police called on me for just having to pee, all the way to some cis woman calling me a pervert. To this day I still carry the scars of those long ago encounters, 

I am sure you all may have your own restroom etiquette experiences such as never putting your purse on the floor. Plus some of you are lucky enough to live in a state where it is legal to use the restroom of your choice. Sadly we have to go through all of this to do what should come naturally. You shouldn't have to hold it in all day just because narrow gender minded people still exist. Just don't forget to follow a few simple rules in the room to help yourself along.