All I Ever Wanted

 
Back when I was young I always struggled with which gender I would wake up to be. Of course and sadly the answer was always the same. I never changed and yet again I would have to face the day battling the male gender I never wanted to be a part of. Regardless I learned the rules on how to be a boy and grudgingly survived in the world. 

Photo Courtesy 
Jessie Hart

Against my deep seated desires to be a girl, I learned and played on athletic teams throughout school up to the end of high school. The example I always give is how I yearned to be a girls' cheerleader when I was playing defensive end on the football team. Again, all the yearning in the world couldn't help me jump the huge gender divide I was looking at. The only thing sports did was keep the bullies off my doorstep. It was all so frustrating. 

Also very frustrating was knowing I probably would have my life as I knew it interrupted for several years by military service. No longer could I use my small collection of  shoes, clothes and makeup to relieve the gender stresses I felt. Somehow I made it through Army basic training and was fortunate when my request to be accepted into the Defense Information School was accepted. The next two and a half years of my life turned out to be the most interesting of my life but still didn't bring me to my ultimate goal of living a feminine life. I'm always careful to say a "feminine life" because deep down I knew I was a woman but just couldn't live it to the fullest for obvious reasons. On the rare occasions I was discussing my entire gender situation with transphobes or TERF's, I was always careful to explain females were born but women are socialized. Plus the age old argument that that only women can birth children is not true because of the number of women who can't forever what reason bear children. Others try to make the whole process more complex but I just gave you my simplified approach. 

Along the way, I learned I could and did get socialized as a woman. It meant giving up all of my hard earned male privileges as a beginning and then learning to communicate with the world as a woman. Which meant, as I am fond of saying, I earned my chance to play in the girls sandbox. I was laughed at, threatened and stabbed in the back many times before I finally learned my hard earned lessons. 

Through it all, my journey never waivered. All I ever really wanted was to be a woman. The whole process made me to difficult to live with, I don't understand how my first two wives put up with me. Here is an example.  My second wife and I often used to try to out-run the late summer Ohio heat by vacationing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. On one such trip, when I had a good job, a loving wife and seemingly all the positives my life could offer I was still miserable. My wife sensed it of course and kept pushing me for what my problem was. I never did tell her my issue was a wanted to be making the trip as a woman. 

Giving up all the hard earned male privilege's I earned was in a word "difficult" but so worth it. With the help of hormone replacement therapy I have been able to feminize my external body to match my feminine soul as well as add more emotional awareness to my life. I never thought I would make it this far and the whole journey was so worth it. It's all I ever wanted.  

Now I am a Mrs..

 

Beaded Hair Clip by
Liz T Designs

Yesterday our wedding day turned out to be a beautiful fall day here in Southwest Ohio. We hosted the ceremony under the tree's and had reserved a nearby shelter house for a small celebration. The temperature under blue skies did not disappoint and turned out to be near 70 (F) with a slight breeze. It was good to see my daughter and her family and Liz's son. In addition, Josh, the Officiant did a wonderful job handling the ceremony itself and the vows. We exchanged rings and became wife and wife. I will have pictures after they are sent to me by my daughter. Liz did cut back my hair somewhat which had almost found it's way to my waist and painted my fingernails. I wore the rest of my hair up with a beaded transgender clip hand made by Liz. 

Afterwards we went to our favorite local Cajun restaurant to enjoy dinner together.  

A day later I don't believe it has all sunk in yet. Liz did call me her beautiful wife just before we settled in to sleep and I wondered what could have been if I had asked her to marry me sooner.  Looking back, my excuse was early on I was still so insecure about my gender transition, I needed extra time to "mature" into the whole process of being a new person. Plus I still had extra financial baggage I was still carrying from my old life I needed to take care of. Anyway you cut it, I still had a long way to go before I could commit to something as serious as marriage vows. 

I found out yesterday too how fortunate I am to be able to be healthy enough to do all of this. At seventy three I am easily the senior person in the extended family. I used to use patriarch now matriarch. As I was saying I learned the person closet to me in age just suffered a bad fall and is bed ridden and has to be fed through a tube or port. Plus my first wife's husband also was recently hospitalized due to reasons I am not sure of. Hopefully not another stroke. The news once again reinforced in me how precious health is to all of us.

As far as my health is concerned, I was checking my recent blood lab work on a Veterans' Administration on line site (thanks Michelle) and to me most of my results seemed to be within the normal prescribed ranges. Except for the estrogen/testosterone check which always takes longer to come back. I have until the 27th before my endo visit, so I have time. 

What I don't have time for in my life is another serious relationship and/or marriage. I plan on making this one my last. In the meantime, I can't wait for the next time I have to choose which gender marker I want. It is now a resounding Mrs. Hart. 

   

The Million Dollar Girl

Image from UnSplash

Anyway you cut it, being transgender is an expensive situation. Most of us don't have a problem looking back, or currently are going through, changing gender wardrobes. I remember vividly trying to hide small amounts of money from my wife to add to my feminine wardrobe. Changing how you look externally can be expensive if you are a transgender woman or a transgender man. 

As it turns out, clothes are just the beginning as then the need for makeup came along. Again I remember sneaking out with my paper route money and buying lipstick and eye shadow. It was all so intimidating and managed to consume my meager funds, in a hurry. Even faster than I was trying to buy my treasures and get out of the store. Plus, don't get me started on the amount of money I spent on panty hose. Get them home and have them run on me almost immediately. 

Of course, the older I became, the need for and the resources for the best wigs I could find became a priority. The better clothes I could afford, the better I could look and blend in with my desired niche in society. For years I was mainly into business woman mode with heels and hose. I wouldn't leave home with out it. Finally I shifted gears and entered my boho fashion mode which was fun and natural as it brought back many of my fond memories of hippie girls during my days in the Army. 

As transgender became a term and surgeries became more mainstream, the cost of medical care was amazingly expensive. Years and battles would have to go by before various insurances began to help cover costs. Which to this day still is an issue. Surgeries became more frequent as well as complex, adding to the already expensive processes. All of a sudden, breast augmentation surgery became increasingly popular with cis and trans women alike. And, on the other side, transgender men were going through their own form of top surgery to remove unwanted breasts. 

After all of that, many decide to go through facial femininization surgery to permanently change the way they appear to the world. Naturally, it is very expensive and often painful too. When you add it all up, it is incredibly expensive to go through these major operations which are becoming more common with the people I know.

Myself, I decided long ago not to go with any surgery. The world would just have to adjust to who I was and I was secure in who I was. 

All in all, the entire process is yet another proof being transgender is not a phase or a choice. It takes a lot to be the million dollar girl...or man.