Making It

Photo Courtesy
Jessie Hart Archives

 In many ways this post is an extension of yesterdays which mentioned the feelings you had when you saw your true self for the first time. In this post, I am going to look at the point you when you figured you had achieved a portion of your gender goals. My example is looking back to when I started to break out of my gender closet and explore the world as my feminine self. 

It all happened when I got past dressing as a trashy teen girl in a male body and learned more or less what I could wear to fit in and blend in with the public at large. Without attracting undo attention to myself.  The hard way I learned the meaning of fashion styles such as business professional and boho to name a few. If I wanted to blend in with other professional well dressed women at an upscale mall, I would dress in my best business professional outfit. I was able to purchase on sale a beautiful black pants suit I loved which I paired with black heels or flats and my shoulder length blond wig and never had a problem when I went to an upscale venue. To this day, I wish I had a picture but I don't. 

On the other hand I had several "Boho" influenced outfits I wore frequently to the other venues I went to such as sports bars. The fashion influence came as close as I could come to my late college, pre Army days when I yearned to be influenced by the hippie style of the women I admired. The true success to both of the fashion styles I was attempting was I was all of the sudden "making it" in the public's eye. When I did, I found I could then concentrate on the finer challenges of being a woman. Which up till then, I thought was an impossible goal. In other words, I could concentrate on moving more femininely as well as the most important challenge of all...communicating one on one with other women. Initially I was caught off guard with how many women wanted to start a conversation with me. Looking back, I am sure the great majority of them were just curious of why a former male person would want to join their world. Conversation starters such as I love your earrings were common. When it happened I was scared even more because then I had to rely upon my challenged vocal skills to get by. 

Ironically, making it on occasion brought more challenges than benefits. Every time I made it to one goal such as basic communication, it all felt so natural I needed to move forward to another equally as distant goal. Such as maintaining my feminine self longer and longer before I needed to go back to my unwanted old male self. The longer I waited to go back, the more distant his memory became and the only real hold he had on me was the love I felt for my wife of twenty five years who was adamantly against my final trnasition to a all feminine lifestyle. When she tragically passed away from a heart attack at the age of fifty, my path was suddenly open to change my gender lifestyle to be a full time transgender woman. 

Finally, when all the expected and unexpected effects of hormone replacement therapy set in, I knew I had all the help I needed to never turn back. I most certainly had reached the true point of making it.

Meeting Yourself the First Time

 

Cell Phone Picture from the 
Jessie Hart Collection

Perhaps you remember when you glanced in the mirror and saw your true, authentic self looking back. I know I do. It was such a long time ago, I wondered if I thought this is great but what do I do next. What I ended up doing was going on a lifelong search to discover the feeling of meeting myself again. For the most part the process led me to an often ill fated worship of mirrors. The only other outlet available to me was the invention of disposable camera's. I took the pictures to a drive thru kiosk to be processed. Which led me to an embarrassing moment when I turned in a roll of film which turned out to be less than flattering and then having it developed by someone I knew. From the look on his face when I picked my pictures up, I knew he had a fairly good idea I was a cross dresser. 

The only other alternative available to me was the Polaroid camera when it was invented and coming into it's own commercially. As I remember, the pictures were very expensive to make up for a do it yourself photo experience. Even though I managed to buy a camera finding someone to take a picture became the real problem. I had considered the fact I thought I looked fairly good as a cross dresser in the mirror but how did it all relate to how I appeared in a picture. Which is as far as I could sneak out of my gender closet at the time. Plus, I had just started to receive my cherished editions of "Transvestia" magazine, so I was eager to compare myself to all the featured transvestites I saw there.  Somehow, someway I convinced my wife to take a few pictures of the real me so I could look. 

As I try to remember all those years ago, I still can't say I was seeing any more than the occasional sight of my true self. I was probably teased enough to think I was but all in all I was still missing the mark. I was so desperate to open the door of my gender closet anything I tried looked good by comparison to my old, boring unwanted male self. 

These days, cell phones and their advanced cameras are everywhere and it is difficult to remember when they weren't. I remember vividly of trying to talk my wife into buying me a new cell phone with a camera so I could sneak around and take pictures of myself. Sadly she had passed away before I attempted to become proficient at taking pictures of myself on a cell phone. Now, with all the photo apps available to nearly everyone, you have to take most pictures you see with a grain of salt. Many are out and out fakes. Regardless, it is still a luxury to me to be able to have such a convenient portable device with me which can help me document my true self.

Amazingly, meeting myself for the fist time still happens over and over again when I get up and look at myself in the mirror. Some days I am pleasantly surprised when I see a feminine person looking back at me. On other days, the opposite happens and I am depressed when I see my old masculine self still peeking back at me. Anymore I am used to the process and just move on before my gender dysphoria can return in full force and depress me. One thing is for sure, the ability to meet yourself for the first time is never boring.    

Looking for Love

 

My "Sad Eyes" Photo
from the Jessie
Hart Archives

Perhaps I should say looking for love in all the wrong places. Maybe you remember the country song from the "Urban Cowboy" movie. Sadly due to extreme loneliness many transgender women and trans men experience, we sometimes look for love in all the wrong places. Back a decade or so ago, on line dating was just becoming a thing and due to my extreme loneliness I thought I would give it a try. Due to a lack of finances and overall knowledge I attempted to find dates on three of the free dating sights.  My biggest success turned out to be a real bonanza. 

On one of the sights I had a response when I was on a "woman seeking woman" page. To be clear, I was always up front about being a trans woman which wiped out much if not all of my responses.  Ironically, I had a response from my current wife Liz eleven years ago when she said I had sad eyes in my profile picture. Since she only lived a manageable distance from where I did, we decided to correspond in writing. The "writing" phase of our relationship started eleven years ago and we are still going strong. It took awhile though for me to feel secure enough with my voice to talk to her on the phone but when I survived the test I decided to gather the courage to ask her out on a date. She was a Wiccan lesbian and sad eyes or not I was fascinated,  The first date was a drag show and all went well, even when I followed her into the women's room on our way to the gay bar which was putting on the show. She didn't flinch much and our first date was fun and successful. 

At the same time, I was still frequenting the big sports and social venues where I had become a regular as a single transgender woman. The only problem with all of that was, the usual stigma attached to a single woman drinking by herself in a bar. For the longest time I was unsuccessful in locating any companionship in any way. Outside of a few dates I had with men who actually bothered to show up as they had promised. The brief encounters I had with men were strangely exciting but not to the point I could ever feel comfortable. Especially with the men who seemingly wanted to just wear my panties. As close as I came to really ever getting around to knowing a man I met was the one I ended up meeting briefly at a TGIF Fridays Grille and Bar I was a regular. He was a big sweet heart who drove a classic motorcycle and had just gone through a very messy and brief marriage with a part time exotic dancer he had just met. I was able to lend a sympathetic ear and in a short time we became friendly but not to the point I ever got the chance to ride on his bike before he was transferred out of town for a new job.  As I bid him farewell, little did I know he would be the last man I would be interested in and women were to be my future as I was looking for love or at the least, companionship. 

By pure accident I was able to meet two other women who happened to be lesbians. One was the Mother of a bartender I knew The other indirectly introduced herself one night to me in venue where I was drinking. Together, the three of us formed a bond and we had good times partying.  Topped off by the experience of going to lesbian mixers and being introduced to the culture. It seemed destiny was paying me back for all the recent hard times I had suffered by providing me with a group of friends who provided fun and companionship including one other transgender woman who sometimes joined in and partied with us.

Call it luck or not but somehow I was able to sort through the junk and locate quality friends who helped fill my void of not having any friends. It took awhile and effort but I did find love by looking in all the wrong places. I found good people and to this day I am still married to one of them.