Staying in Your Gender Lane

Image from Robert V, Roggiero on
UnSplash

Seemingly, gender differences are one of the earliest things we learn in life. By learn I mean we come to realize there are differences in gender. To simplify the matter, I should use the differences between boys and girls. For the fortunate ones, they never question their biological sex matching up with their mental gender. At that point, if we have questions, staying in our gender lane becomes a huge issue which can linger for life. 

I mention often I grew up around very few girls and I was in a boy's world. There was only one time I can remember an incident which could be called I will show you mine if you show me yours. It came up innocently enough between the only girl and the boys. All it did was reinforce the differences we had as separate genders. Years later all I really remember about the encounter is that it happened. There was no blinding realization I wanted what the girl had between her legs. To this day, I have had no strong desire to undergo any gender realignment surgeries of any kind as I feel my gender has already been aligned by the way I live. Finding a spot in my gender lane was far from easy and took me years of learning. 

Sometimes I believe children are born gender free and early in life are forced into stereotypical boys and girls roles. In my case, I never was afforded the chance to look around the world and determine which gender I wanted to be because my sex was biologically set at birth. I am often asked when I knew something was different about me and now I reply I always knew I was different. I just didn't know how. It took me years to define my gender was different than my assigned sex and I would have a lifetime of issues because of it. Perhaps my gender issues began in my Mother's womb when she was prescribed a hormonal drug to prevent miscarriages but of course I have no way of really knowing. Plus, blaming the medication (D.E.S) would just be an unnecessary crutch anyhow. 

The older I became and the more proficient I became in expressing my feminine side, the more difficult it was for me to stay in my original male gender lane. Especially when it came to the time when I began to understand my gender was completely between my ears and my sex was between my legs and my problems stemmed from syncing up my life. It all added up to severe issues when I at first attempted to change lanes from the male to the female side of the road. As "Stana" from the Femulate blog always says, she turned on her turn signals and used her horn when she entered the passing lane. If you are familiar with her blog, you know she does well in the passing lane.  For the majority of novice transgender women, men or cross dressers we are not naturals and using a new gender lane takes a lot of effort. 

One of the main problems is the gender lanes are crowded and have very different rules to obey. It often takes years of practice to learn the new basics of gender life you are trying to live, Then you have to face the potentially other hostile inhabitants in your lane. Anymore with the number of new anti-transgender bills in quite a few states, our gender lane as trans people seems to be tilted against us. It's bad enough if you have to face an insecure hostile man  but sometimes it is just as bad when a hostile cis woman or TERF does not want you in her lane. 

The good part is, once you make it into the new gender lane you are seeking, no one can force you back,  You have passed into your authentic life and have every right to  enjoy the respect you  deserve. 

Time Grew Short

Ohio River Pride from the
Jessie Hart Collection

I was just passing the age of sixty when I finally decided to retire my long unwanted male life and start anew as a transgender woman. Of course one of the main factors I faced when I decided a transition was the best and only way I go in life was my age. I wasn't getting younger. Since, all of the sudden, I was facing my mortality I felt it was time to make a decision on my gender issues.

Even still, with time catching up to me, I still had many decisions to consider when I looked at attempting a  major gender transition. Examples are the usual ones such as what was I going to tell my family and what was left of my friends all the way to what was I going to do about my finances and a job. On the other hand, I did have several benefits stemming from the life I had lived up to being sixty.

One of the main benefits I had was the fact I had spent nearly fifty years being a serious transvestite or cross dresser. During that time, I had plenty of occasions to leave my gender closet and experiment in a women's world. By the time I decided to completely transition (at least to living full time) I had managed to go through my second puberty clothing wise and began to dress to blend in with the world. Backtracking a bit, I don't think any transgender person ever gets a chance to transition completely until  passing away. Then their family must follow the trans person's wishes to be buried (or what ever) with the transgender person's chosen gender. Always a guessing game, sadly. Thinking of what was left of my future totally pushed me into getting started. I had no time to waste.

Since I had nearly completed the difficult task of learning the feminine arts of makeup and clothing, my biggest challenge was beginning to build a whole new person who could interact in the world as a transgender woman. As I worked on the process, I needed to learn to multi task. In other words, I needed to learn how to react to those casual observers of mine who may have initially thought I was a cis-woman. Then, there were all the others who knew I was transgender and may have reacted differently when they got to know me. The entire process was intimidating but exciting at the same time. My lack of male friends when I was sixty is well documented. I didn't have many to be concerned with because by that time of my life, they had nearly all passed away. So I was starting from scratch in the friend department. 

As time grew short, I found I needed more and more to relax and enjoy how my inner feminine person was reacting to her time to live.  She learned quickly how to react to other people and decide if she wanted to be friends or not. I also found a new level of respect I never felt as a man, probably because most other women knew I was being my authentic self and respected me for it. I was fortunate I had ultra supportive women such as my daughter and other very supportive women who helped me along when I started hormone replacement therapy in my early sixties.

Through it all I was humored when someone attempted to say they were more trans than I because I waited so long to transition. Even though I often think I should have crossed the gender frontier earlier in life, there were times in my male life I wouldn't give up for anything. The birth of my daughter is the primary example.  The rest of the time, I prefer to think I was just trying to make the best of an unfortunate gender situation. Finally, the pressure of attempting to live as two genders proved to be too much for me to handle. After much thought, I took the correct way out and chose to live as a fulltime transgender woman. I had put reality off long enough.   

Gender Escapism

Image from UnSplash and Let's go Together

 For most of the earlier years of my MtF gender transition I literally and figuratively tried to hide behind my skirts. As I was attempting to make my way through an unpleasant male existence, when nearly anything happened to me which I considered unpleasant, I resorted to thinking if I was feminine I could escape my problems. Little did I know, or consider at the time, girls/women had their own set of problems to deal with. 

Let's take dating for example. As I was very shy to begin with, asking any girl out was a huge problem for me. From that point forward I would have rather been the pursued not the pursuer and have someone ask me out instead. Of course it never happened. Another example was when I didn't make the cut for the junior varsity football team at the very small school I attended. When it happened I immediately wanted to go back home and try on my feminine clothes in front of the mirror. In addition, my top fantasy was how it would be to be one of the school's ultra pretty and popular cheerleaders. While at the same time not taking into the amount of work the girls would have to put in to do it.

It wasn't until years later when I realized how much my escapism hurt my life. Every time I ran to hide behind my skirts turned out to be a time when I had to learn to stand on my own two feet. Once I did, I finally began to build the courage to leave my male existence behind and begin a new life as a full time transgender woman. Essentially I was following through on what my second wife told me to do. Be man enough to be a woman. Sadly I wasn't able to accomplish what she told me until after she passed away and she was never able to meet the new woman I was destined to become. Since through much of our marriage I was intensely unhappy with my gender, I believe she would be happy I made it to a point where I could be satisfied with life. 

When I did "make it" to the other side of the gender border or frontier I discovered also the many faceted problems a woman has to go through to live. Cis-women are certainly born into the high maintenance gender. From everything such as child carrying and birthing all the way to just dealing with everyday appearances and emotions, women have to shoulder the burden of life.  It's no wonder cis-men say they don't understand women (or don't want to) because on a day to day basis they don't have to deal with lives often as difficult as women have to deal with. Which brings me to the point I make over and over again. Why would any man in their right mind leave an easier gender existence and attempt to live as a transgender woman. The answer is, and always will be is because we had to. We had no choice and needed to change how we lived our lives. Most certainly, the new gender grass was not always greener but we needed to try it out anyway because it all felt so natural.  Plus, the change just had to work to save our life. 

Gender escapism didn't work for me. Finally life caught up with me and taught me to stand up for my true self and live full time as a transgender woman.