Who Knew it Would be So Big

 More years ago than I would care to admit, I "borrowed" a pair of my Mom's hose and slowly slid them up my legs. Little did I know how from those humble beginnings I would finally grow into the feminine person I have become today. It all resulted in a life long gender journey which resulted in it's share of bumps and bruises. I think many transgender "outsiders" don't consider the real path we go through just to find and nourish our most inner gender needs. They think the process we go through is just a matter of wearing the clothes of the opposite gender we were born from. In other words, being transgender is just a phase. For me at least, I did go through a series of phases, mainly from going from confirmed crossdresser to out and proud transgender woman. 

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives

It certainly was not all a combination of kicks and giggles on my journey. First I needed to discover who I was and it was s scary experience. Letting go of all my ingrained male responses was as hard as it was to acquire them in the first place. I never wanted to be a boy and have all the experiences of youth which were forced on me. My parents came from the WWII/great depression era. They were great providers but sadly came up short in the emotional needs department.  I was expected to hide my emotions and move forward. I still can't imagine coming out at all to my Dad. I did briefly mention being a transvestite to my Mom after I was out of the Army and she shut me down by recommending electro-shock therapy. My "problem" was never mentioned again.

Years went past before gender knowledge began to catch up with the world and I began to have some sort of realization of who I really was. Terms such as "gender fluid" made sense to me as did the explanations that very few humans fell into a strict male/female gender binary standard. I remember how exciting and euphoric it was to realize again I wasn't so alone in the world. If they admitted it or not, most people just didn't fit into the gender binary we were all taught to think was the only way to be. Boys did not have to be boys and girls did not have to be girls. The two could mix. What a radical idea!

Through it all, I learned my gender issues were a big deal. I went through tons of pain and suffering to arrive at the other end of the gender tunnel which I described in a recent post. The light I found was not the train but a bright new world where I could be myself. I was finally past all the people who wanted to laugh at me behind my back or to my face. 

I wonder now if I ever had the choice to go back to those early cross dressing days, would I do anything different. Trying to hide dressing like a girl for the most part, led me down a life long road of sneaking behind the back of others. Some of which I cared deeply about. On the positive side of life, being transgender provided me with a unique look at both sides of the binary gender fence. I know of course I never really had a choice for whatever reason. I just never imagined the process would prove to be so big.  

The Second Supportive Circle

Recently I wrote a post or two concerning the individuals who helped me cross the gender frontier to live a life as a full time transgender woman. As much as I learned and appreciated their input, there was another group of cis women who accepted me plus helped me move even further into the feminine world. 

From the Jessie Hart Archives:
Min on left with myself and Kathy

More precisely, these women helped me to build upon my initial gender change results and took me to levels I never thought I could achieve so fast. Once I discovered the basics of communication, there were women such as Min and Kathy who started to invite me to girls nights out for special events such as birthday parties. Through it all, I was scared or terrified I would make a fool of myself but on the other hand, I wanted to desperately learn what all went on behind the feminine curtain. After all, I had waited my entire life to arrive at a point where I could be accepted as one of the girls on their special evening.  What I discovered was there was not much of a secret to be told. The women I were around were predictably more family orientated than men and of course didn't operate with the same amount of bravado. Looking back also, one of my biggest challenges also was to dress to blend with the women I was going with. 

Along with Min and Kathy, there were several more women who accepted me and helped me transition more than they ever knew. The Kim's, Jen's and Debra's (to name a few) made me feel at home in their worlds. During this period of my new life, I compared my gender learning curve to building a new house. Once I had established a firm foundation, I could enable my strong inner feminine self to do the rest. All of a sudden just getting out on Halloween parties became a thing of the past although I still went to them. 

Then there was the spiritual side to my existence. When I moved in with Liz, I followed her Wiccan path. In Debra's circle I was accepted by people such as Trish and Ed, who in turn introduced me to their friends and acquaintances. Very few people were even stand offish to me as I continued to build a circle of people who had never known my old male side at all. 

The second supportive circle even extended to the Pride celebration in Cincinnati where I helped yearly before Covid with a booth of information. Today as I look back I can't say enough good concerning all the people who accepted me as my new authentic self. Of course they knew I was transgender but none of that mattered. I was so fortunate.

The Long Dark Transgender Tunnel

Image Courtesy Snowcat
on Unsplash

 Recently I was thinking of how I actually transitioned twice in my gender life. For over fifty years I considered myself a cross dresser. In fact, for the longest time I considered dressing as a woman to be a harmless hobby. Obviously the longer I went along, the more I discovered it was anything but a hobby and far from harmless. All the time I spent agonizing over my gender issues proved to be very self destructive. In other words, I spent countless hours wondering what gender I was becoming and what I would do the next time I had a chance to dress in my secret feminine attire and admire myself. This stage of my life essentially lasted from when I was ten-ish until I was sixty and finally decided to begin my second serious gender transition. Although I can safely say I knew I was experiencing gender issues way before the age of ten. 

Of course I am aware no one can reclaim time but I do try to learn from all of my positive and negative experiences. Initially, I was able to install lights in my transgender tunnel which would allow me to learn the basics of makeup and how to dress myself. I stumbled when I went through my girlish high school years when I was in my thirties. Those were the days I committed the usual cross dresser sins such as trying to dress too sexy which turned out to be a trashy attempt to disguise my testosterone poisoned male body in clothes designed for an attractive teen girl. Needless to say, those were difficult days for me in my tunnel when the light at the end always seemed to be the train.

Fifty years is a long time and still I persisted and more importantly learned what I needed to do to better prepare my feminine self to go public. I can compare the process to enabling my strong inner female to take control of the process. Approximately it was this time I went into what I called my business professional period of my life. An example was when I would dress up as my best impression of an executive woman and shop all of the upscale malls back in the day when many of them flourished and so did I. Rarely did I experience any issues as I shopped. One of my favorite outfits I acquired was a pale, pastel green suit with a short skirt which I paired with pastel green opaque panty hose and kitten heels. I topped it all with my shoulder length blond wig and was ready to explore the world as a woman. What a relief it was when my feminine life was starting to come together. But the biggest problem became, now what? I knew the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't the train but something different. However, the closer I became to the light at the end of the tunnel, I knew I felt too natural to ever return to my unwanted male existence. He was fading away.

As I said, I ended up following the light in my transgender tunnel and decided to transition for a second time. This time I decided to never look back and begin hormone replacement therapy. From that point forward I was going to not only leave my long tunnel behind but I was going to allow my inner feminine self to find her way in the world. A possibility I am sure she never thought was going to happen. Once I did relinquish control, my feminine self made certain I knew it was her providing the light in my transgender tunnel. The light was very dim in the beginning but became brighter the farther I went.

The big question I have now is why was I so stubborn in hanging on to what was left of my male ways.  Even though all of my male life wasn't miserable, I think after my daughter was born I could have left the remainder of him in the past. I could have said then I was a cross dresser for twenty years instead of fifty. 

For any number of reasons none of it happened and I continued down my long dark transgender tunnel much longer than I should have.