All I Ever Wanted

 If you would have asked me when I was young what I really wanted to be when I grew up, the honest answer would have been to be a woman. That's right. When all the other boys my age wanted to be sports stars, corporate presidents or whatever, my goal was so simple yet so difficult. Somehow I needed to lead a feminine lifestyle. 

Photo Courtesy
Jessie Hart

How to arrive there was the problem. The first hassle I ran into was my impending date with the Vietnam war military draft. I tried to outrun the draft as long as I could by attending and graduating college but was finally caught when my draft lottery number came up to 23. Which meant my fate was sealed. I immediately began looking for the military branch which offered a job classification as close as possible to the job I was doing when I went to college. I worked at a local small radio station which was owned by a fairly powerful congressman. Through his influence, I was able to secure a spot in the Army's Defense Information School which in turn enabled me to be eligible to work in the American Forces Radio and Television system. This was very fortunate of course but none of it served to help me to achieve my goal of being a transgender woman. 

After the Army I was able to resume my journey in earnest. This was my time to explore living a feminine lifestyle out of the mirror by sneaking out of the house when I could all the way to the exciting Halloween parties I went to. Over this period of time I learned many lessons the hard way but on the other hand I was learning leading a feminine life in a women's world was indeed possible. 

Ironically,  the more I learned, the more I needed to learn. The life I so desperately wanted to pursue still was far away. An example is when I learned how walking in heels was fine, looking other women in the eye when I communicated with them wasn't as easy. Plus, surely wearing a frilly nightgown or lingerie was wonderful but it ultimately didn't help me in the regular world where other woman were wearing jeans and sweaters. Somehow I needed to temper what I thought would happen when I jumped out of my gender closet to what was really happening. 

Another problem is I have a mind which I really have to push to stay on a topic or goal. It's the primary reason most of my posts don't go over three minutes in length. I have this problem which ended up serving me well when I was making all my early cross dressing mistakes. After the countless times I was laughed at and came home crying, I was able to fairly quickly go back to my feminine drawing board and try again. The major problem I discovered was when I learned to stop my expectations of how men viewed me and begin to focus how the women viewed me. Once I began to focus on women, I began to present easier and I could concentrate on letting my long suffering feminine inner person out and into the world. 

From that point forward when my wife Liz said it best to me, when she asked what type of woman would I want to become. Would I bounce out of bed every morning and do my makeup and hair with heels and hose or would I rely on casual jeans, T-shirts and tennis shoes for everyday non public wear. Since I always have a difficult time waking up in the morning, I chose to settle in to the casual feminine lifestyle. Hormone replacement therapy has helped me also with adopting a casual lifestyle since I have my own long hair, soft skin, breasts and developing hips to reassure my femininity. I know who I am now the world needs to accept me also. 

All I ever wanted was to lead a feminine life and I finally made it but it was a long struggle. My life was certainly a marathon not a race. 

Your Help is Needed

We are yet in another crisis for transgender youth here in Ohio. Predictably Republican state representatives are pushing severe anti LGBTQ agendas. One in particular is coming up to a vote soon.

Here is something you can do to help with a simple phone call to this number:

 614-466-6344

“Rep Manchester, my name is _______, I’m a resident of _______ county, and I’m calling today to ask you to vote NO on HB454, the trans youth medical ban.”

If you don't live in Ohio, make certain you add the passage of this bill will add to the reasons you will never visit here/there.

Thanks for your help!

Mirror Mirror

I have been fortunate in that I have lived a fairly long life of seventy three years. Over the years I have had many acquaintances, friends, family and even spouses come and go. Not long ago I realized I missed an inanimate object which I deal with daily, which on occasion ranks above all the people I wrote about above in importance.

Mirror Photo courtesy 
Jessie Hart

I am referring to my mirror. Of course I have encountered and lived through many mirrors during my years. Very early in my life, a full length mirror in our long hallway became my best friend.  In fact, during the precious moments I found myself alone in, the mirror became my only friend. I loved it when I could get cross dressed as a girl and was able to walk slowly up and down the hallway thinking all along what a pretty girl I made. The mirror was of no help and added it it's positive affirmations regardless of how bad I really looked. In other words, the mirror was lying to me.

Of course my infatuation with the mirror continued. As I began to explore the world as my feminine self, many times I would push the envelope and try to dress too sexy which became too trashy. One example was when I had a platinum blond wig which was actually too short to cover dark hair on my back. Even though I knew it was happening, the mirror told me I looked so sexy I would certainly present well. Needless to say, I didn't and received way too much negative attention in a bar I went to. I was lucky to make it home without incident and the blond wig was forgotten forever.   

Unfortunately I am a slow learner and my mirror continued to lie to me. I persisted in trying to dress as a teenaged girl in a man's body. I wore my skirts too short as well as my shorts trying to show off my legs which was fine except by doing just that I ignored the fact I had shoulders and a torso which were decidedly un-feminine. The mirror never told me to change my thinking and dress for the overall look and began to blend in responsibly with the rest of the feminine population. It was around this time when I began to separate my self from my mirror and establish new standards. Plus I was increasingly faced with having to meet the public one on one. So essentially all of them became my new mirrors. 

For the longest time, my mirror obsession declined to a point where I had to dread seeing myself in the mirror the first thing in the morning. Some days I looked and saw a vaguely feminine person looking back at me but other days the image screamed same old male and my gender dysphoria would kick in again. I would be in despair thinking even with hormone replacement therapy, I was wasting my time. Then the gender pendulum would swing back again as I rationalized I probably landed somewhere in the middle of my appearance expectations. 

Regardless I wondered why I was so vain anyway. I suppose the vanity goes all the way back to my earliest days of wanting to be and fit in with all the girls. Never stopping to think of any of the negatives involved. Most certainly the girls I so intensely admired had their own issues to deal with.

So even though my mirror has been my life long companion, in reality it has never been my lifelong friend. Often telling me just what I wanted to hear. No matter where they happened to be from my hallway at home to mirrors in mall clothing stores all the way to mirrors behind the bars I frequented, it seems I always needed a mirror as a crutch. To reassure me I was always the feminine person I always wanted to be. Put what label you want on it, cross dresser or novice transgender person I needed the help to exist. These days, except for the occasional dysphoric episode. life with my mirror has settled in a daily small makeup and skin care routine.