Holiday Errands

It is time to venture out into the world at large and run several errands with my wife Liz. 

Since she is

Photo from Jack Dylag
on Unsplash

now on her near to end of year vacation from work she has something close to eleven days off. As Liz is used to doing, she normally uses the time to push together everything we need to do.

The one thing I don't think she ever understands is how the simplest of errands can affect me. On occasion, just thinking of facing the public can set off my gender dysphoria. Even though it probably has been over a decade since I have been confronted concerning my gender, I still have flashbacks to the days when I was laughed at or questioned. My fear is with the current trend of anti-LGBTQ feelings I may be centered out for negative attention. 

Our first stop will be to a big box store which happens to have the best prices on the cat food our feline critters eat. I imagine they will be fairly crowded with holiday shoppers too involved in their own shopping to worry about me. Also, since my handicapped placard has not arrived back from the state of Ohio yet, the amount of walking I hope doesn't bother me much. Perhaps if I am quick about it, I can sneak a peek at the stores selection of holiday sweaters. 

From there it is off to the grocery store where I have never had a problem before. So I don't anticipate any issues this time. Certainly nothing exciting, except shopping for munchie ideas for the holidays. New Years Eve is out this year because this year the semi final national football playoffs are scheduled and The Ohio State Buckeyes are playing the Georgia Bulldogs in the late game. We are huge fans and will be in front of the television. 

Along the way today also, I may talk Liz into stopping for a light lunch depending what time and how hectic the day becomes because we most likely will make another stop at the pharmacy also.  

As far as what I am going to wear, I already have chosen my charcoal gray cable knit sweater for warmth and I am pairing it with my navy blue leggings and faux fur boots. The outfit should be warm enough for comfort along with showing off my developing hips. Plus at the same time be comfortable and not attract attention. From that point forward, an application of light makeup and brushing out my hair and I should be as ready as I ever will be to face the world. 

I just don't understand why after all these years I still have to put up with all my gender dysphoric doubts. I keep telling myself all the success I have had as my feminine self in the world after all theses should mean something. It does until I look in the mirror and all the old doubts come rushing in.  

Transgender Life

Often I am amused when less than knowledgeable individuals or transphobes say we transgender women or trans men had a choice of transitioning our gender. Those of us who are in the middle of traveling a gender transition path know our decision was never a choice. Many times the whole process is a matter of life and death as is proven by the extremely high suicide rate in the transgender community.  

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives

Using my own gender path as an example, I can easily highlight the highs and lows of the journey. Highs included the times I tried and succeeded in breaking out of my own very dark gender closet. Early on, I was excited when I was accepted and even helped by clerks in clothing stores. Soon I learned most of the clerks were just doing their jobs and went out of their way to sell me something. From there I went on to seeing if I could present well enough as a woman to easily be able to prowl the malls around me looking for the occasional bargain. When the malls started to become mundane and boring, I decided to step up my journey by stopping different places to eat lunch. What I didn't realize was, how going face to face with servers and hostesses would expand my need to establish a real live feminine personality. As I climbed my gender affirmation staircase, for the most part I had more successes than failures when I learned how to dress to blend with the rest of the women around me. The less attention I created the better. 

When I was successful, there was nothing better in my transgender life. Even before I really knew what the term transgender was all about and how it fit in with me. On the other hand, when the lows set in, they were really low. I still remember vividly the nights I was laughed at and literally went home crying. Slowly but surely I recovered and re-committed myself to the goal of being able to present as a woman to the public without being stared at and ridiculed. Once I went through going back to the drawing board as many times as I did, I finally made it to a point where I had the confidence to go out as a transgender woman and exist in my own little world. Little did I know, my own little world would not stay little very long. My new and improved transgender life proved to provide the force to propel me forward. Sadly, the force was sending me straight on a collision course with my life as a man. 

Predictably as I was trying desperately to live parts of my life as a man and then as a woman, something would have to give. That something was my own mental health as I stepped up my attempts to sneak out behind my wife's back as the woman she disliked so much. The more I was successful doing it, ironically the more depressed I became. Leading me to a suicide attempt following a fight in which I was caught out in public by my wife. As with any other suicide attempt, I saw no other way out. 

Luckily I wasn't any good at self harm and the bottle of pills I took wouldn't have killed me anyway I found out later. Life is but a circle and if we are fortunate enough to live long enough to find out the bad times can reverse and become the good times. Most certainly a transgender life can be fulfilling if we are given a fair shot of being able to live it.     

More Gender Travel

 This is an extension of yesterdays post concerning many of the moves I had to make during my college and military days. As it turned out, these moves were not the only ones I was destined to take. As the years went by after I became a civilian again I ended up back on the road several times. 

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives

Before I did, in my hometown I founded and owned a small bar/pizza parlor for several years with a couple of friends. Until I lost it due to various factors such as an economic depression and in house theft. I just didn't know what I was doing. Seemingly the only real advancements I was making were my crossdressing strides. Finally given the opportunity to pursue feminine opportunities drove me further into an alcoholic driven desire to do more to look like a woman. Somehow I managed to hold onto reality, have a daughter and pursue a career in the commercial food business in the cut throat world of fast food management when chains were going on mega expansion binges. 

Following losing my tavern, I fell in love with and eventually married my second wife whom I was destined to spend twenty five years of my life with until she passed away at the age of fifty. Somehow I managed to talk her into getting married and moving with me from our native small city Ohio to the major metropolitan area of NYC. (New York City) I received a handsome raise for taking the job, rented a moving truck and off to a new world we went. Of course I managed to pack and bring along my feminine wardrobe, wig, shoes and makeup with us. I always mention she knew about my cross dressing before we were married.  Plus I was looking forward to moving to a decidedly more liberal environment so I could possibly expand my feminine pursuits. Along the way in New York my plan did work as I had a couple of occasions to attend transvestite mixers as we were called in those days. One in particular was successful when I presented so well as a woman I had to show my male I.D. to be admitted. I managed to survive NYC for nearly two years before I got the moving urge again and we moved back to our native Ohio. In order to do it, I had to promise to restore our old two story brick tavern into a loft style house While I was doing the work, it was very difficult to dress as a woman at all. So somehow I had to control my urges. 

Once we moved back, I managed to stay at a couple jobs locally so moving was not an option. Plus another option cropped up which tried to curtail my progression towards becoming my feminine dream. At the time I joined a local service organization and rose through the ranks as president. It was all good until I realized the more recognizable I became in the community, the more pressure I felt not to be discovered as a cross dresser. What did I do then? Decided to try to talk my wife into moving again. This time to rural Southern Ohio along the Ohio River. Again I was driven by the obsession to succeed as a man and push my feminine desires to the background. Once we settled into our new house out in the woods, it didn't take long for the old gender desires to creep back in and before long I progressed to doing shopping trips to the grocery store and shopping center dressed as a woman. The problem was I was becoming successful doing it and everytime I was, I needed more. 

The answer again was another move. This time back to a more metropolitan area around Columbus, Ohio where I knew there was an active transgender or cross dressing community. By this time it was difficult to tell exactly what was driving my frenetic urge to change jobs more...my gender dysphoria or the desire to improve my employment and finances. I managed to do both until after my wife passed away and I lost nearly everything I had worked for as a man but gained a life as a full time transgender woman.

Hopefully, my final move was made when I moved in years ago with my wife Liz in Cincinnati, Ohio. I always had enjoyed my trips to Cincinnati in my past and felt the move would do me good and was my destiny in many ways. Perhaps my lifelong obsessions will lead to a positive senior life and I won't have to do any more gender travel.