It's in the DNA

The last time I was asked when I knew I was transgender was by my daughter who correctly said "You always knew right?" She was asking primarily because of her own trans child and how to understand them. (They/them are their preferred pronouns.)  I told her I knew to an extent I have always known something was wrong with how I perceived gender. 

Photo from the Jessie Hart
Archives 

In my own personal gender research, I have read of the hormonal effects of the "DES" medication which was given to pregnant women in the time of my birth. If you are not aware, the medication "flooded" the wombs of women known to have problem births. By definition, "DES" is a synthetic form of the female estrogen hormone. The end result was it enabled the women to go full term and deliver healthy babies. My parents were on the verge of giving up and adopting a baby after a series of three still births until "DES" and I came along. As I researched the medication, the more I felt it could have a connection to my gender dysphoria. It could be why, all along I felt so natural anytime I attempted to research my inner feminine side. Perhaps the feeling had been always with me, including the time before I could even express it. 

The entire hormonal aspect of my life came full circle when I started on my own version of "DES" when I started more synthetic estrogen to my system through hormone replacement therapy. It seemed my body took to the hormonal process similar to how a duck takes to water. Changes to my body came fast and furious. An example was when I needed quickly to find looser shirts to wear because my breasts began to grow faster than even I imagined. I can not stress enough how natural the new gender process felt. I feel most people want to zero in on all the physical changes of HRT when in reality, the internal changes were just as big. Just as quickly, my new hormones calmed me down and enabled me to see the world in a whole different light.  In a word, my existence was "softer." 

The more I held my new world in wonderment, the more I wondered why the process happened at all and why it took so long to happen.  The more I questioned the more I came to realize I didn't have a gender choice at all. I was never meant to try to live a male life. Cross dressing as a man, as well as the rest of the lifestyle, probably took years off my life. 

Finally, as I was able to trace my existence at birth (or before in the womb) was because of my exposure to a synthetic estrogen, it all started to make sense. I never had a chance. No matter how hard I tried to please my family and friends, I was always a girl. It was in my DNA.

Exotic yet Obtainable Transgender Women

 

Photo Courtesy Jessie Hart
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One of the prime reasons (initially) when I wanted to check out the feminine world, was I wanted the chance to dress in all the varied colorful wardrobes of other women. Little did I know the journey my desires would take me on. 

Similar to so many of you, I began by raiding my Mother's clothes and makeup. Right away I knew deep down I was doing the right thing for supposedly all the wrong reasons. I always use the "natural" word to describe my feminine needs. As my needs progressed with my age, I found I could attempt to cross several boundaries. Unfortunately one of the boundaries I needed to cross escaped me for years. I write about it often...the need to attempt to dress extremely tacky or trashy to feel more feminine. All it turned out to do was create too much unwanted attention. Once I survived this portion of my life, I could move on to another fun yet challenging phase of my life as a cross dresser. 

Becoming too serious about how I looked in public at times took the fun out of the process. Worry, worry, worry was all I did. Rather than being able to feel how an outfit looked on me, I was seriously zeroed in on if I was accepted as a woman. An example is the early evening when I went to a downtown street fair in nearby Dayton, Ohio. Before it became too dark, I took advantage of being able to wear my sunglasses to see if I was getting any unwanted attention. Once I found out I wasn't, I was able to relax and enjoy the overall experience. Just to feel the air on my bare arms was wonderful.

The more I learned of course the more I wanted to learn concerning my new found freedom as a transgender woman. Specifically when I did manage to set up a few dates with men who seemed to be interesting to me. I stressed on what to wear as I wanted to be more than the normal exotic transgender woman all the way to being subtlety obtainable. In other words, I knew I was already exotic to the men because they knew I was trans, I did not want to be perceived as some sort of a sex object like a trans porn video. Aside from being transgender, I was probably walking the same fine line as any other cis-woman. In case you are wondering, the dates never went past the first or second date, so I guess I was somehow a failure. Then again, I never labored under the opinion I would the woman the men would take home to meet their families. I knew I was some sort of a fling, I just wanted to be treated with respect. Which I was.

I can only say the world we decided to enter as women is a true art form. Walking all the various paths from being a saint or a sinner. Including being able to present well enough in the world to blend in with society at large.  As women today seem to be pulling away from the finer points of dressing up, it is more and more difficult to be exotic yet obtainable. 

Neat Little Boxes

These days it seems, everyday a different term or even an alphabet letter comes forward to describe a different facet of the transgender or LGBT community. In fact the latest LGBT acronym has been expanded to LGBTQIA + to include Queer, Intersex and Asexual persons also. Often when I write the original four letters (to me) I feel remiss in leaving out the other groups but for the sake of simplicity, I leave it alone.

Image Courtesy Christine
Jorgensen 

I wonder also why we need such a selection of neat little boxes to identify with. Perhaps it is because we are learning gender has so many different variations to discuss. Again I will throw up my age as an excuse to be mesmerized by the newer facets added to the old school thought that there were just boys and girls growing up. Then we slowly became aware of people such as Christine Jorgensen  was the first to be widely known for undergoing sex change surgery  To put it into perspective Jorgensen changed gender in 1952 when I was three years old. As I grew up, the only vague terms I ever heard or read to describe at all what my gender feelings were transsexual or transvestite. 

The next main person I remember in my gender dysphoric life was Virginia Prince who I started to follow in the 1970's when I subscribed to her "Transvestia Magazine". Some publications give her credit for coining the transgender term but others don't. It doesn't really matter because in the seventies the transgender term became popular anyhow. I viewed it at the time for ideally describing me. I wasn't ready for any life changing gender surgery but on the other hand I knew my cross dressing was more than an innocent hobby. 

It was during this time I progressed into what I called a very serious crossdresser, even to the point of imagining if I could really be a novice transgender woman. I was trying to fit into two of the neat little boxes and I was having a difficult time doing it. My old male self was fighting back as I slid down the slippery slope to living my gender truth. To cloud my judgement too, this was becoming the time more terminology was being added to the system I was identifying with. Terms such as "gender queer" and "gender fluid" became popular subjects in support groups I was attending. "Gender Fluid" I felt could have really gone a long way describing how I felt when I was younger and totally confused. Just when I thought I had the box thing figured out, two of the biggest, most challenging box choices were still to come as I began to seriously pursue a gender transition. 

The biggest of them all came when I made the ill-fated attempt to live a life in both binary genders. To put it very simply, my feet ended up not fitting in either box and the process came close to killing me. The second was when I had to determine my future sexuality as a transgender woman. During my life I had never been remotely attracted sexually to another man so I wondered if I ever could. What happened was after a couple brief flings with men which resulted in no sex, I was able to settle back in with women friends. So I viewed myself as a transgender lesbian which I see more and more of in social media circles.

It took awhile but I finally figured out which of the neat little boxes I fit into. Until someone comes up with another.