You Win Some - You Lose Some

Very early in my gender transition I felt I was successful if I "fooled" another person into thinking I was actually a woman. Little did I know how wrong I was. An example was I would recoil at the mention I "made" a good looking woman. I felt I wasn't making anything, I was just becoming my natural self. Perhaps I was being hard on myself because in reality I was working very hard to perfect my feminine new transgender appearance. By doing so I was encourage myself I could actually survive in the world as a woman.

At the Park
Photo by Jessie Hart

When I first began to notice I was succeeding in my feminine quest was when I was shunned by male friends I knew when I dressed as a woman for a Halloween party. My "costume" was way too serious to be mistaken as a casual excursion into the feminine gender. Maybe among all the other clues, shaving my legs for the evening gave me away. 

It wasn't until years later I realized I had witnessed the first vestiges of losing my male privilege. In other words when I was successful at presenting as a woman, I was kicked out of the boys club I had worked so hard to be accepted in. I was naïve in thinking I could to try to live part time in each binary gender. The entire process nearly cost me the ultimate loss when I tried suicide in addition to a very self destructive existence.

As I transitioned into a fulltime life as a transgender woman, I began to understand exactly what I was winning and what I was losing. Naturally what I was winning was a life as my feminine authentic self when I finally let her out of our gender closet. On the other hand, I was out of the boys club forever and needed to adjust my thinking. I learned the hard way, I had become in essence a second class citizen in the world of men. Long gone were the days when my opinion actually mattered in a group of men. Even though I knew more about the subject than they did. It was humorous to me when I was "mansplained" about a sporting comment. I lost the battle in society but won the war personally. 

I also learned the hard way how losing my male privilege could be dangerous. I write often how I was cornered at a party by a much larger man and suddenly found how vulnerable women could feel. To make matters worse I needed to be rescued by my wife. Yet another instance when losing my male privilege nearly led me to harm occurred during a late night excursion to a gay bar in downtown Dayton, Ohio. When I left the relative safety of the bar and headed down the dark sidewalk to my car I was suddenly stopped by two men. Luckily I was able to escape with no harm when I gave them my last five dollars. Never again did I walk that sidewalk alone. 

Even though there is no way I would give up my feminine privilege which included my new cis woman friends, it still is amazing to me the white male privilege so many men take for granted. 

I certainly won more than I lost.       

Gender Euphoria's Backlash

This is an extension of yesterdays post which went into detail of one of the highly successful Halloween parties I went to. In recap, the evening turned out to be so successful gender euphoria ruled my life for several days following. 

Halloween with Kathy
Photo Jessie Hart

By the time this happened, I should have been able to predict it would occur again almost down to the day. Essentially the pressure of being unable to explore my feminine self became so great I nearly could not stand the pressure. The more pressure I felt, the harder to live or work with became. I was so jealous of any cis woman who I perceived was so fortunate to be born female and having the chance to grow into a woman. It was all a throw back to when I was young and woke up in the morning wanting to be a girl. 

Later I learned my all too brief trips into cross dressing as a woman just wouldn't last. My gender backlash would soon be back to haunt me. I also found out, the more intensely pleasurable the cross dressing experience was, the stronger the need to repeat the process. As knowledge of gender became more well known, what I was going through was gender euphoria versus gender dysphoria. In scientific terms, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  

In the case of the Halloween party I wrote about, the euphoria I felt from feeling I was able to compete appearance wise with the other women I was with was intense. In the days following my adventure, it didn't take long for my gender dysphoria to set in. When it did set in, it did it with a passion. I couldn't stand to look at my male face in the mirror in the morning and my day automatically started on the wrong foot. Once again I was stuck wondering why I couldn't live a feminine life more often. My inner self who was feminine in nature was screaming to get out. 

My entire reason in writing this post was my desire to point out no matter how pleasurable to finally burst out of my gender closet it was during these Halloween adventures, finally learning I had a deeper need to be a transgender woman was slowly but surely ripping me apart. When I say was nasty coming down off my gender euphoria I mean it. I was fired from one job for how I treated my employees and almost lost several others. Finally I had to tell my bosses I was undergoing anger management training when in fact I was going to a gender psychologist. It saved my job and helped somewhat with my dysphoria. 

Halloween was such a learning experience for me, I craved the euphoria when I achieved it which was not always the case. Some Halloweens were more special than others and if I knew then what I know now, I would have recognized the true depth of all my gender issues. Putting on the feminine clothes was all well and good but it turned out the clothes were just the tip of the gender iceberg.  One thing is for sure, I would have understood the negative aspects of  backlash better.

Party Time

 My Halloween posts this month will not be in chronological order. This evening happened while I was living with my wife in an apartment in the NYC metro area. In the early to mid 1980's. 

At the time I was managing a Wendy's near the Bronx and knew few people outside of my fellow managers and workers.  So when Halloween rolled around I thought I would be left out of a party again that year. Since in those days, Halloween was basically the only day of the year I could break out of my gender closet and explore the feminine world. As it turned out that year I was "rescued" by a fellow cis woman manager who took pity on me and invited me to a party she and her friends were going to at a nearby venue to her.

Needless to say I was excited and found out where I had to go to meet up with her and her friends. Then I had to stress out on what I would wear and what would my wife say. I knew for certain she would not approve of what I was planning to wear. In fact, she was so against my outfit she refused to even tag along. Leaving me on my own, which is normally not a good idea.

First of all I chose my outfit which attempted to be sexy as well as realistic. In other words, the same way many other cis women try to dress for Halloween. I chose a short mini dress, hose and heels along with my favorite wig for the evening. Since I couldn't sneak out without my wife seeing me, I had to put up with her disapproving stares and or glares. Once I left the apartment I was in heaven. I loved the feel of the cool autumn air on my freshly shaven legs and the sound of my heels as I walked down the sidewalk. Even still, the anxiety mounted as I followed my directions to where I was to meet the others going to the party. 

Once I made it and knocked on the door, I was amazed to find and pleasantly surprised to learn all the other people going were women. In addition they were all tall and beautiful and dressed like me. It was funny when I entered the room all conversation stopped as the other women looked me over. Only this time I was not met with the same disapproval I received from my wife. After brief introductions, we went out the door and made the short (thankfully) walk to the small tavern where the party was taking place. One memory I will never forget was when we all had to cross the street together and here I was holding my own with other women.  My heels didn't even bother me. It was as if I was walking on air. 

Once we arrived in the venue, the women scattered to meet other friends and I was left on my own to see what happened. Along the way, I managed to locate a vacant table until an older man came along and joined me. Of course I didn't know if he knew my true gender so I resisted any of his attempts to buy me a drink or more importantly dance with him. Before I knew it the evening was over and it was time to leave. 

What I didn't recognize until much later in life was the night was actually my first girls night out. I hadn't learned yet that so called girlfriends come in second place when it comes around being around men and essentially everyone is one their own.

Finally, amazingly to me, I received very little feedback at work concerning my so called "costume". Perhaps living in a more liberal world helped. One way or another it turned out to be an evening I will never forget. I wish I had pictures but I don't. This all happened way before the "selfie" days and cell phones.