Fake it Till you Make It

 

photo courtesy Jazmin Guaynor
on UuSplash

I heard this comment from an unknown cis woman on a television show I was watching last night and it brought back so many memories. Some were pleasant, some not so pleasant. Similar to so many of you, I share many days and even years of living in the mirror as a young cross dressing girl. During these formative gender years I worked diligently on my makeup. While my other male friends became proficient at painting model cars, I increasingly became better at applying my own makeup. Even to the point of being able to buy my own makeup supplies with my meager allowance and earnings from delivering newspapers. Even though I did become fairly good at applying my own makeup, I still thought I was a pretender until my second wife began to ask me for help with her own cosmetic usage. 

The problem I had was, or one of many, I still didn't realize I had the entire gender situation backwards. All along I thought I was a cross dressing male but in reality I was a girl cross dressing as a guy. Not realizing this basic fact cost me decades of torment as I struggled to find my way out of a very dark and lonely gender closet. The only good which was coming out of the entire process was, the better and more I faked it, the more I slowly began to make it. 

The making it came in stages. I needed to grow out of my girlish adolescence and be able to dress my male body the best I could so I could make it better in the public's eye. Once I was able to accomplish this difficult task with little or no feedback, I was able to begin to sync up my overall feminine appearance and be successful. Or so I thought. I thought if I applied the lessons I learned the hard way in the public's eye and didn't get too outlandish, I could present fairly well as a woman. I did so well on a couple of occasions in New York when I was mistaken for a cis-woman at transvestite mixers, I went on a giant gender ego trip. I was so excited with my results making it a woman, I couldn't wait to do it again and again. It was all good until my wife stepped in and interrupted my ideas of further expanding my feminine pursuits and we began to have massive fights. One in particular which I have mentioned in my previous writings was when she told me I made a terrible woman. 

Of course I finally told her I wasn't trying to make anything but I still didn't have the courage to tell her what I really thought. I loved it when I could try new things as a woman. As it turned out, after she calmed down, she told me her comment didn't have a thing to do with how I looked. It was how I acted and the comment changed the trajectory of my life forever. What could I ever do to understand exactly what she was telling me. I was finally making it on appearance but still faking it as far as feeling good as a woman. It didn't come over night but after many years of trying I finally came to understand what she was talking about. In fact it took the presence of estrogen in my hormone replacement therapy for me to learn the effects of both male and female hormones. Sadly my wife passed away before she ever had the chance to see the complete transgender woman I had become. I don't labor under any ideas we could have stayed together but maybe we could have remained friends.

Age played a role in me being able to fake it until I made it as a transgender woman. I had enough time to make all the gender mistakes I made and still learn and survive. I most certainly faked my gender as a guy until I made it as a woman.  

Interesting Questions

Civil War Veterans Cemetery
Jessie Hart Archives 

Most of what I see and react to on  my social media has to do with politics or the occasional reference to the chicken chain I refer to as "Bigot Chicken." (Chick-fil-A) Last night though I received one of the more interesting questions I have seen in a long time. It came from a guy who was new to me and I immediately thought it was one of those leading posts wanting me to send them a friend request or worse. Of course I never respond to those comments. Surprisingly,  this comment was much different.

It turned he didn't care at all I was transgender. He cared because I mentioned I was transgender so prominently in my profile. He went on to say he hoped I understood he wasn't being negative but on the other hand it seemed these days everyone is trying to push their feelings on to everyone else. He used vegetarians as an example. I thanked him for the comment and said I would probably make a blog post from it. I also told him my opinion was people are so picky in promoting their preferences  is because our country is so divided these days. And the divides lead us to wanting to support a certain lifestyle. Especially when it is being threatened to be taken away.  

Then I began to think about what he said. Years ago, my ideal would have been just to live my life as a woman. Without the transgender part added on to it at all. I would have been flattered if I could have been able to go "stealth." as a woman in my life. I would have arrived at my goal of being in the same category as many of the other impossibly feminine transsexuals I had encountered in my life up to that time. What would be the harm in removing the transgender portion of my on line profile and see what happens. After all, for all intents and purposes, I have led a stealth gender life for years now in the public eye, so why not do it on line also?

Suddenly it dawned on me, going stealth about my transgender status would be repeating the same exact mistakes many of the trans generation did before me. Perhaps you remember the days when anyone who went the distance and underwent a sex change surgery (as it was known in those days) was expected to move to another town where nobody knew them. There they would to all intents and purposes disappear and never be heard from again. Which left very few "gender educators" for the rest of us to follow. When I started writing this blog approximately a decade ago, I did it with the hope I could help others who were questioning their gender also. In that sense, nothing has changed. I still hope others receive help from what I write. Even the guy who wondered why I pushed my transgender profile so hard.

I thought I would mention again briefly how important it is to stand up against the gender bigots who want to destroy us and suddenly going stealth on line would certainly not help the cause. So in the meantime, I feel I will leave my profiles alone. I am proud  of being a veteran as well as being transgender and hope I can carry it forward the best I can.   

"Trippin" Trans Style

Photo from Eduardo Soares
on UnSplash

To escape the Sunday shopping crowd at our local super sized grocery store, my wife Liz and I decided to get an early start. For the occasion I decided to just pull my long hair back, get a close shave, add some moisturizer, eye makeup and lipstick and went for it. Jeans, tennis shoes and a fleece finished off my shopping outfit. 

I suppose it is a good thing when I can be so mundane and seemingly invisible in public as a transgender woman. No one gave me an extra glance, not even the woman who took our order for  coffee in the in store coffee shop. I was allowed to push the cart which serves as sort of a walker so I could survive the long walk around the store. All due to my sore back. So it was good to relax the best I could while Liz did the serious shopping. 

For a short time at least, all the worry of being harassed because I am a transgender woman faded into the background and I was just living my life just like any other human being. The threat of not being able to do so is becoming very real because right across the river, the state of Kentucky is on the verge of passing another very strict anti transgender bill. I have several transgender friends on social media from Northern Kentucky who are rightfully ultra concerned. Once the LGBT dominoes start to fall, who will step up to stop them. 

Perhaps now, more than even before it is up to we transgender women and trans men to strive even more to blend in with the remainder of society. I also am of the opinion now is the time for anyone, even cross dressers in the closet, should be ultra aware who they are voting for. Because in the future, you could be the one who needs to go "trippin" trans style. Rest assured if the Republicans are making drag queens an issue, you could be next. Closets are destined to become darker and darker unless we unite to fight for our rights. 

These days, I don't get out much anymore and mainly when I do, I run into a sour lady at the pharmacy who glares at me everytime she sees me. I can never tell if she is reacting negatively to me or the world at large because she is miserable. Because as I was told years ago by my second wife, it wasn't all about me. We all know though during our times as novice transgender women or cross dressers, it is all about us. As we try to navigate the new gender path we have chosen on the road to our authentic selves the entire process is very intense. 

Now that we are starting here at home to actually go the grocery again away from having groceries delivered. Which just became too expensive, I can look forward to getting out another day each week. More "trippin" for this transgender woman is in my future.