It's Complicated

 

Photo from the 
Jessie Hart Collection

Often I wonder why I chose such a difficult path in life. It all would have been so much easier if I had only followed the male journey which was set out for me. In other words, if I had been content to be the square peg fitting into the square hole would I have been happier.  Here I was stuck in a white world in a middle class family with all the expectations laid on me of a first born son. 

The problem was, for some unknown reason to me, I never had a choice. From the earliest age forward I always suffered from gender dysphoria. I just couldn't shake the fact I wanted so badly to be feminine. How much easier life would have been if I had accepted the male role I was thrown into without the uncertainty I faced if I had the courage to accept my true gender and build a new life. Compounding the problem was nothing changed when I became older, in fact things just became worse. The more I explored when I snuck out of my dark gender closet, the more I wanted to explore. The world just felt so much more natural when I was living as my feminine or transgender self. The more I explored and had to return to my increasingly unwanted male world, the more frustrated with life I became. Why was this happening to me.

What did happen was, when the pressure built to the point I couldn't handle it, I escaped to my secret feminine world which embraced me. The more I was embraced, of course the more I did not want to go back. The whole process caused me to dwell on the next time I could run to and escape the male world as a woman. When I was in what I call the "hell" times, I became mean and nasty and very difficult to live with. It became so bad, I even lost a job one time when I was being nasty to my crew. I often wish I had the time back when I was obsessing about being a woman as I was trying desperately to go forth and be a man.  How much farther could I have gone?

Again and again I am humored when I read someone who says all along I had a choice to be transgender and live with all the hell I lived with as I followed my path. I was driven hard to be a successful man as a father and a provider and gave it all up when I transitioned. The whole process was unbelievably complicated and stressful. Perhaps the worst part was I didn't completely understand what I was going through. The only thing which was obvious, come hell or high water, I needed to go through it. All I know is when I gave up all my hard earned male privileges to live a full time life as a transgender woman, I did the right thing. The ripping and tearing of my two genders fighting for supremacy just destroyed whatever life I was still trying to live. 

What I didn't understand was how complicated life would be as a transgender woman. I needed to look the part first, then learn all the nuances of a gender which is certainly the most complex of the two binary genders. Male and female. Just communicating with other women as an equal took me a long time to learn. Plus playing in a world built around passive aggression left me scarred on many occasions before I began to understand exactly where the claws were coming from. It was complicated but I was able to learn as it didn't take long for my long hidden female self to gain total control. 

It was my favorite time of my life. As I love to put it, I gained my right to play in the girls' sandbox. 

Transgender Bruising

Photo from
the Jessie Hart
Collection

As we all have experienced, the path we have chosen for ourselves to find and live as our authentic selves is often filled with walls, curves and potholes. Once we think we have conquered one obstacle, another pops up to bruise us. 

Even after all these decades, I still carry the mental bruises when I didn't pass and was stared at or even laughed at in public. Worse yet were the times I was told to leave a venue after a group of guys insisted on playing "Dude Looks Like a Lady" time after time on the juke box. Following my refusal to leave after all of that, I was asked to by a manager. Ironically, I had my revenge not long after that when a group of employees found me in a nearby venue and asked me to return. Telling me the manager who asked me to leave was fired for drug use. Even still, it took awhile for my gender bruising to go away. 

Little did I know I was at a new point in my life as a novice transgender woman when I was just getting started. Only one aspect of my life remained the same and that was change. I had always been a person by nature to push the boundaries and I still did as I climbed my gender path out of my closet. Even though I was excited and at the same time terrified when I was exploring the feminine world, I took my bruises and moved on. Not knowing what the next experience would be. Amazingly, I was able to forget the nights I came home in tears and made myself ready to try again. The learning curve would vary from deep bruises all the way to small hits to the ego. 

Through it all, I was for the most part, learning on my own with no one to guide me. It seemed the path I was on had very few street lights or signs to help. During this period of my life, the internet was just getting established and I was in the middle of a twenty five year relationship with my second wife  who disapproved completely when I suggested in any way I was transgender. Two major obstacles I needed to work around if I was ever able to advance up my gender path without sustaining any other major bruising. Somehow I managed to keep moving forward until sadly my wife suddenly passed away and I had choices to make on my future.

On my path ahead I had already seen plenty of signs promoting HRT or hormone replacement therapy. As I considered the huge consequences of such a move, I thought maybe a increased dosage of estradiol in my system would make up for some of the bruising I had experienced in my past. I figured at the least, the hormone therapy would help to feminize my exterior self which was exposed to the public. Plus the process would help me sync up my inner woman with my exterior man. As I went up the gender path this time, at least I had HRT to help me. Plus, while I am on the subject of help, I always need to pause and thank all the women I met on the path after I started hormones. Without all the women I met, the bruising would have continued longer. My path was telling me I still had a long way to go to truly learn and embrace the layered feminine lifestyle I so desperately wanted. 

To make a long story short, my friends embraced me, healed my  gender bruises and helped shorten my pathway to living my dream life...a full time transgender woman. 

Maybe I was fortunate in that all of my bruises were mental. Not psychical like so many women trans or not have to go through. However mental bruises are hard enough to heal.  

  

My Own Worst Enemy

Image Courtesy Hisu Lee
on UnSplash

I don't know exactly why but during my gender transition from a dark and lonely closet, I was my own worst enemy. What I mean is everytime I made a considerable stride towards my goal of learning if I could really live a feminine life, somehow I would make a mistake in my presentation (or something) which would want to make me head back towards my closet. I even purged most all of my women's clothes, wigs and makeup several times. A "purge" is a term used by cross dressers and/or transvestites when they throw out or giveaway all their precious belongings and reassure themselves they would never journey to the woman side of life again.

In my case, I think I was mostly on the positive side when it came to purges. Or, as I remember, I received more gifts from transvestite friends than I threw away. In particular, one time I was gifted with a very nice set of silicone breast forms which I desperately needed. Especially if you remember the time my ill fated attempt at creating breasts from water balloons failed spectacularly in a venue I was a regular in. I just couldn't convince anyone I was pregnant and my water broke when it happened. 

Sadly, the water balloon instance was not the only time I attempted something I knew deep down was not the smartest thing to do.  Another example was when I had this short platinum blond wig which the mirror told me I looked great in but then discovered too late the wig was not long enough to cover my dark hair which showed in the back. Stunts like that, including poor fashion choices, led me to many set backs as time and time again I was my own worst enemy. Perhaps it was my own male self helping to set me up for failure. He in no way wanted me to succeed as a woman. For the longest time I was frustrated with the smallest of examples of how I was struggling to present convincingly as a woman. It seemed that once I conquered the artform of makeup, hair and clothes, I would destroy my feminine image with still walking like a guy or worse yet, talking like one.

Again and again I was my own worse enemy in my MtF gender transition. Even though I never really enjoyed the struggle to live a male life I went through, the privileges I had gained through hard work were difficult to just let go. The whole give and take gender process between the two main binary genders was very stressful to endure and affected my entire mental health at the time. I was attempting to live approximately three days as a woman and three plus as a man as well as still maintain my well paying male job. As I said, it was an exhausting process trying to remember which gender I was attempting to live in on which day and my lifestyle led me to a very serious suicide attempt. Finally I needed to accept my male self was just throwing any sort of obstacle he could just to hang on as long as he could. On the other hand, everytime I was successful in living my dream life as a transgender woman it felt so natural and I did not want to go back to part time living as a man.

Once I did make the final determination to leave what was left of my old male self behind, it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My mental health improved along with my life and I could live again.