More Conversation

Joanna S sent in this very relevant comment on yesterday's post concerning the conversation I had with my son in law on Thanksgiving. It primary revolved around his family's acceptance of me as an out transgender woman. I mentioned also this was somehow the first conversation I had initiated with him in over a decade. To this, Joanna replied:

"It is very difficult sometimes to have open conversations especially with people who knew us in different wrapping. Here we can be our own worst enemies and assume we know what they are thinking so we clam up. It's an ongoing process of being kind to ourselves as well as others."

Thanks for the comment! I know I have two of the issues Joanna S mentioned. The first is early in my days of coming out of my gender closet I automatically and sometimes completely unfairly formed ideas of what others were thinking of me. It wasn't until the confidence in my feminine self grew that I was doing the right thing transitioning that I began to not care as much or little ( if at all) care what others think of me. It worked because I literally learned not everything in the world revolved around me as a transgender woman. Most of the world just didn't care. Plus, being kind to myself was something else I carried with me from my previous male self. I was very self destructive and it took many years and my wife Liz to relearn how I could actually be kind to myself. 

On any level, obviously any conversation is good when it comes to the LGBTQ community and especially the transgender tribe. Can you imagine how beneficial it could be for all these politicians writing all these harmful anti transgender bills  for once  sit down and get to know a transgender person.  It goes too for all of us within the transgender community. Those who want to put themselves up on pedestals for so many reasons, Examples are being more transgender than you are because of the surgeries they have gone through or they are a better trans person because they transitioned earlier in life. It's difficult on occasion to even have a conversation between ourselves, let alone others who have no understanding at all. 

In fact, it was primarily an often terse discussion with people we called "Trans Nazi's" which led to essentially my conversations with Connie which then led to me to begin to write this blog. By "Trans Nazi's" I mean those who did battle with us on claiming we were transgender at all since we had not gone through any gender surgeries. Seemingly the Nazi's had carried over their old male ego's into their new feminine lives. At the time we all were enjoying the benefits of being able to hide behind our keyboards with our comments. Most likely if we were meeting face to face, our comments may have been more affable. Leading all of us to be kind to others. 

My pedestal is non existent for any of this. It took me years and most likely quite a bit of age and estrogen to mellow out. My partial proof is the fact it took me a decade to have any sort of a quality conversation with my son in law. In todays divided country conversation seems a far away possibility. Plus all sorts of issues such as gender privilege and mistrust get in the way. Not long ago I wrote a post

Photo Courtesy Paula

called why "Men Don't Trust Me" to which Paula replied:

" Two thoughts come to mind, one is " I have nothing against masculinity, indeed I rather like, just not in me!" the other is a phrase that I find I keep using in all sorts of situations, "Nothing makes you understand privilege like giving up" Well said!

One of the reasons I so hurt myself was tied into Paula's comments. I still on occasion liked the male life I had worked so hard to maintain and didn't want to give up.  Trying to live my everyday life in both binary genders nearly tore me to pieces. I was fortunate in that I was able to establish conversations with cis women to learn from and then reestablish myself as a transgender woman. At that point my inner feminine soul took over and life became so much better.

The Conversation

My daughter has been married many years to a man I always considered an acquired taste. She met him all the way back in her college days at the University of Toledo. (Ohio) Over the years we have never talked much about anything. For some reason, all of that changed on Thanksgiving. All of sudden he came out to the living room to join me as I rested my back on a soft surface. The conversation began the way it normally does with him being the know it all on how to try to tune in one of the pro football games on his Mom's television. I tried to tell him how to do it but was quickly ignored so I thought here we go again. About the time I was thinking we would have the usual silence between us, he surprised me by asking about my brother.

Photo Courtesy
Jessie Hart

I said I haven't head anything from him since he turned me down on coming as my authentic self to his house for the Thanksgiving family dinner. In essence he chose his redneck religious in laws over me and that was it for our relationship. To keep the conversation going, I took the chance to tell him how much I appreciated his family accepting me Their support certainly softened the blow of losing any support I expected from my brother. 

Looking back at all the years we never had any sort of a conversation I felt somewhat ashamed it took so long to happen. On top of all of the vocal feedback he mentioned he raised his family as well as ran his scout troops to include diversity in everything they did. Which is all good since one of his three offspring turned out to be transgender. Before the conversation with him, I had basically given all the credit for their incredible family diversity to my daughter. 

Perhaps my entire problem on starting potentially difficult conversations goes back to the fact essentially I am a shy person. When I came out as transgender made it that much more difficult. Plus, the fact my son in law knew me many years as my male macho self made the whole conversation very difficult too. 

As I have written, the Thanksgiving experience was wonderful except for the dining room chairs which give my back fits. My transgender grandchild couldn't make it so I hated to miss them but they couldn't get off work as a novice fire ranger. 

At least now I can speak to my son in law in the future after we established some sort of bond following all of these years. The conversation was better than any of the wonderful desserts we were able to go home with. It's my fault I didn't press the issue sooner. I have with his parents but never with him. How could I miss he had to be a wonderful LGBTQ ally also? I don't know but I am certainly glad we had the conversation. 

My First Black Friday

Prior to finally getting out of the closet and beginning to explore the world as my true feminine self, I always considered The Black Friday estrogen filled shopping experience as one I would never be able to explore.

Image Courtesy Marcus Spiske
on UnSplash

As luck would have it, my time to make it out with the largely feminine masses who frequent the Black Friday shopping experience was about  to happen. For those of you who may be across the pond and not know, Black Friday comes on the day after Thanksgiving and normally offers all sorts of sales to entice shoppers to spend their money. My second wife was a big fan (until she found herself in a retail job) and rarely missed a chance to shop very early. Often with a couple of her best women friends. Leaving me to be quite envious.

Finally since my wife was working the day shift at the bookstore she managed,  I saw my opening to be free to explore my first Black Friday shopping experience with many other women. Back in those days it took me longer to get ready and femininize myself so I sat my alarm to go off approximately the time I knew my wife would be leaving. Following making sure she had safely departed I climbed out of bed, knocked down a cup of coffee and proceeded to shave my legs and face. New pamty hose followed  by my bra, false breasts and padded hips. The excitement was building as I carefully applied my makeup and reached for my fuzzy oversized warm sweater which I wore with a knee length skirt, flats for comfortable mall walking and my blond shoulder length wig. Once I was satisfied with the way I looked, off I went to meet the great unknown, as a woman. 

Predictably, parking spaces were at a premium but I was able to park fairly close to the side entrance I always used. Once I was inside the mall, I was used to where I should try to go to pick up an extra gift or two and I was not surprised to see the crowd was at least two thirds women. All of which made it easier for me to blend in. As the morning progressed, I made my way through the mall with no problems what so ever since everyone else was in their own worlds and on a shopping mission. Giving them very little time to notice a stray transgender woman in their midst. 

Back in those days also I had sort of a cross dressing "bucket list" of new feminine experiences I just had to try to see if I could accomplish them. Braving the crowds of Black Friday shopping was on the list to conquer. Once I did make it through the experience I wondered what all the fuss was about. Similar to my women's restroom experiences. So called "sacred spaces" reserved for cis women just weren't that special to me. 

On the plus side, I was able to buy several gifts for my shopping list which were much more fun to shop for as a woman rather than my old male self. Once I accomplished going through a real live Black Friday experience successfully. I was finished with the thrill and actually have never done it again. I replaced it with trips to antique malls to search for vintage gifts for my wife who was really into gardening. 

All in all, discovering the vintage garden gifts made for better gifts anyhow and was more fun to do. So I was able to accomplish two priorities at once  The problem was when I had to return home with my treasures and have to return to my male cross dressed life. I couldn't wait until I could shed my old male clothes and sneak out the door as my feminized self again. When I was able to buy my wife a gift at the same time, it made it all so worthwhile.