Hot Flashes?

 I have been on hormone replacement therapy for quite a while now. In fact, as far I can determine, I have been on HRT for nearly nine years now. All I remember from starting the hormonal trip is I started with my wife Liz at a LGBT night club in Dayton, Ohio. To make the whole affair more dramatic, I decided to wait to start on New Years Eve. 

As I said, it was a long time ago as HRT experiences go (maybe). It wasn't so long following the evening when I began to experience fairly dramatic changes on a fairly quick basis. I started to feel sensitivity in my breasts as well as noticeable growth. Very quickly I arrived at a point where I had to be very careful which shirt I was going to wear. All in all, my new and exciting feminine transition appeared to be going smoothly as I was under a doctors care. My hair was growing quickly, my skin smoothed out and my face lost some of it's masculine angles. I'm sure it helped because I was already in my sixties when I started HRT so my natural testosterone levels were already decreasing. Most likely, my biggest surprises came on my internal feelings. For the first time in my life I could cry. 

Another surprise in my new feminine puberty came when I experienced my first major hot flash. I remember sitting at a venue enjoying a drink when all of a sudden I felt as if I was burning up from the inside out. I was so self conscious at that point, I felt everybody was going to be staring at me. Even more so since I was already ultra aware of my surroundings since I was the only single woman at the bar. In a relatively short period of time, my hot flash went away and I returned to my state of normal. Whatever that was. The longer I was on hormones my body settled in on my new puberty my body adjusted and my hot flashes more or less went away. Until this morning it seems.

I have been on a twice a week patch dosage of Estradiol for years now. The only change comes when the brand name of the patches differs because of pharmacy availability. The only other constant I have is how well the patches stick on to my skin. At certain times of the year I have more trouble than others getting them to stick because of temperature and humidity. Through it all, every now and then I do notice more fullness in my breasts and even more so my more sudden development  in my hips. I really have a small feminine hips now.

The reason for this blog post however is wondering why I had a major hot flash this morning. All I know is either I did an extra good job of attaching my patches yesterday or somehow I attached patches which had a slightly higher dosage. As I said, I apply my patches twice a week, so I will have plenty of time to monitor future results. It makes more sense now why some mornings I have a red face when I get up and look at myself in the mirror. Just not as major as this morning. 

I never thought my feminine puberty journey would resume again at my age. My endocrinologist visit is coming up in three months so if the hot flashes continue I might mention them to her. Whatever the case, I really don't want to have my hormone dosages decreased because I enjoy the results so much. 

Benefits of Crossing the Transgender Divide

Quite often it seems our journey across the gender divide is perceived  as only being a negative experience. Equally as often, our early coming out experiences add to our overall thoughts about breaking out of our dark gender closets. Every time we are completely rejected by the public, it reinforces the negative ideas we may have had which led to the many purges we went through of all of our feminine possessions. 

Jessie Hart in the Ohio State
Student Union

Still we endured as we walked down a lonely path to gender discovery. So much frustration and even tears led us to risk much if not all of our lives. For the fortunate ones, we were blessed with enough gender euphoria to move forward. For each time we were rejected and belittled for showing off our feminine selves, there was another time we were embraced by someone else in the public's eye. The best part was, gender euphoria felt so natural. So much so if I could sing, I would have since I felt that good. 

Looking back, I think the first time I felt the benefits of spending time on both sides of the binary gender fence was when cis women began to ask me for advice on how to understand their husbands, Even though I did my best to help them, I still had to explain (regardless what they thought) most all men were not all alike. The majority of their problems came from communication. It wasn't so much that men didn't listen, it was more as if the men just didn't comprehend what women were saying. An important part of my learning process came when I realized women did communicate vastly different than men. I learned the hard way to look for non verbal cues when talking with another woman.  Before I was allowed to play in the woman's sandbox I suffered many claw marks and back wounds before I learned how to play. 

All in all, my gender wounds were worth it because once I gained access to the sandbox, I didn't ever want to go back. I see the process now as a real benefit in my life. How many other humans can say they experienced such a deep process as living a life experiencing both sides of the gender divide. A recent experience which could have caused me to be mis-gendered at the VA may have been caused by how I answered a question by one of the nurses. She asked me who my driver was after my colonoscopy . I said my wife when maybe a better term to use would have been partner or spouse. I am a believer in how the smallest details can help me get along in the world. 

Even though I had to give up so much of a male life I never really wanted, the work of learning the feminine gender was a work of pleasure because mainly I felt so natural. The topic for an entire other blog post. 

Now I am happy to say I have made it to a place of gender understanding. However, I think I am far from knowing it all. I don't think I will ever know why I was chosen for this gender journey. Hopefully when I pass on, I will find out the answer. 

The First to Know

Do you remember the first person you told you were transgender? Chances are you do because it was such a traumatic experience. I had some sort of experience in the process because back in the day I came out to a group of close friends as a transvestite. The difference being was I was coming out to them as a relatively harmless desire to dress in women's clothes versus the more permanent drive to actually becoming a full fledged transgender woman. The whole process brings to mind the old joke "What's the difference between a cross dresser and a trans woman...approximately three years." Of course you can change the years to fit your own situation. 

Image from Sai de Silva on
UnSplash

The first person I actually came out to as a transgender woman was my daughter. Needless to say I was very nervous. I called her up and scheduled a breakfast with her. After exchanging pleasantries I finally gathered enough courage to blurt out I was transgender. To my amazement, she paused a second and said why was she the last to know. When actually she was the first to know. Of course she mentioned her Mom and I told her Mom knew of my crossdressing desires but never knew I was trans. In all fairness to her Mother, I didn't really know of the depth of my gender dysphoria until later in my life. Also, for some reason, I don't remember any questions concerning my second wife or my daughter's step mom. 

It didn't take long to find out her response was a positive one. In fact, over the years, she has turned out to be a staunch LGBTQ ally and is now dealing with one of her three children coming out as transgender. I guess in many ways I was just a ground breaker in providing her with new gender information. She even went further by offering to take me shopping for women's clothes which I politely turned down because I was doing quite well on my own and was beginning to feel secure in my fashion choices, finally. On the other hand, what I did take her up on was an invitation to have my hair done at her hair salon. The first time I went I was positively scared to death but came out of it knowing I had just gone through one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The estrogen in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. 

Sadly the experience of coming out to my daughter was not going to be the norm. In reality because I had waited so long to come out of my gender closet, most of the people close to me (including family) had passed on. Out of the very few remaining was my only slightly younger brother. Deep down I knew coming out to him would not be easy because of his redneck right wing in laws. Would he chose the easy way out and terminate our relationship. The answer was predicable and swift and came around the Thanksgiving holiday. 

When I came out to him, I told him I would respect his wishes if he didn't want me to come to the family holiday dinner as my authentic feminine self. In no time at all, he said no I would not be welcomed. It happened over a decade now ago and we have not spoken sense. If he couldn't look past his in laws and accept me for what I am, I had other options to fall back on. I know as the transgender community as a whole goes, I was very fortunate to have those options and moved on. 

I am sure all of you have your own often dramatic coming out stories. I hope your experiences tend to go towards my daughters acceptance and not my brothers rejection.