In It to Win...A Transgender Life

 

Self Photo from the Jessie
Hart Collection

Once I seriously started to go down the gender path to a total transgender transition, I just had to be in it to win it. 

The question remained what the process would be to win it. Along the way, I had already suffered from (and conquered) a deep sense of feeling selfish. Once I did I made it to the level of impostor syndrome. First, let's deal with all the selfishness I felt as I transitioned. Many of my feelings came from knowing I was nearly single handling wrecking a male life I didn't want anymore. Most importantly it meant destroying a twenty five year relationship I had with a woman I deeply loved but she was completely against living with another woman. I was stuck between the rock and the hard place with no where to go. Life became hell. 

Perhaps the worst part was knowing I was being selfish. Every time I withdrew into my feminine self to escape the world was time I could have spent to make the relationship stronger. Finally, I needed to realize my pursuit to my version of womanhood was selfish and had to be if I was ever going to be successful. Also I needed to define success and what it meant to me. Increasingly, what success meant to me was to feel so natural as a woman. Deep down inside, I knew I was doing the right thing, no matter how selfish it was to do it. I was certainly in it to win it.  But winning it turned out to be far from easy. To be successful, I chose what I referred to as the "stair-step" method of gender transition. Or once I had conquered one step, I could try another. The first example would be when I began to just have confidence in my appearance when I left the house. From there, my basic confidence increased and I advanced to the point where I could navigate the world fairly easily as a transgender woman. 

It was about this time when "impostor syndrome" set in for me. Here I was out in the world and all of a sudden the feeling I was some sort of a secret invader came along to ruin everything for me. To be in it to win it, something else was coming along just to be another obstacle. Finally I was able to conquer impostor syndrome by accepting the woman I was becoming was a part of me all along. I had just become a woman by taking a different path than most cis-women I knew.   Most importantly I learned I could be a winner and achieve my goal.

Ironically, all our transgender lives are so similar yet so unique. Sadly most of us go through  similar bouts of selfishness and/or impostor syndrome and we transition into our authentic gender selves. We all have to succeed in our own ways to be survivors in an ever increasing challenging world.

Creating a New Person

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash

In the past I was flattered when someone told me I "made" a good woman. Of course, when I began to think about it, I didn't make anything. 

All I did do was finally allow my inner feminine soul the freedom to show herself to the outside world away from the mirror. Plus, I found she needed the time to learn the art of clothing and makeup to initially make it in the world. It wasn't easy but later, more than sooner she made it. At least according to the persons who were telling me I "made" a good woman. Then I found an entirely different spin to the "compliment". What the persons didn't add was I "made" a good looking woman...for a man. Which meant I needed to work even harder to cross the gender border. 

I discovered also I needed to keep my male self as far away as possible from the process. The primary example was how I was dressing. I found out the hard way when I dressed to please my male self in clothing which was too short or too tight to blend in with public expectations. When my woman took over, she dressed us in the more proper ways to dress and blend in with other women and my life began to change for the better. 

Little did I know the depth I would need to experience for the creation of a total feminine person to take place. The more we progressed socially, the more I found I needed to learn to adjust to this new wonderful lifestyle I was just beginning to experience. As I already suspected, cis-women operate on a much more layered existence than a man. From birthing and raising a family, all the way to being with men and holding down a job, women have much more to do in life. Of course, birthing a child was out for me but much of the remaining options were still open for me to learn. The example I write about the most was the process I needed to go through to learn one on one communication with other women. The whole process was difficult for me because I needed to essentially back off and see where the other woman was coming from. No more frontal assaults with my ideas. 

As it turned out, my dealings with men were much more limited. Very quickly I learned the new person I played a part in creating faced a whole different world when it came to men. For any number of reasons, I didn't date many men and I was for the most part terribly uneasy. I knew many of the man-centric topics they followed but didn't want to appear too well versed on subjects such as sports. I'm sure now I appeared too reticent to be a good date, so I didn't try. Fortunately, I was able to locate a group of women to socialize with. As with the rest of my life, I had always been more comfortable in the company of women anyhow. So this was just an extension of the process.

All in all, creating a new person, had very little to do with my old unwanted male self. The more I progressed in my new feminine life, the more I realized my new chosen path was the way to go. In fact, I should have chosen it sooner. Once my inner female gained control, the rest of me was able to sit back and enjoy the ride. 

Jumping Trans Barriers

Image from Shalomi Platzman 
on UnSplash 

 First of all, I never have participated in any sort of track and field events at all. So jumping anything, especially at my age is impossible. In my life, however, I have faced many invisible barriers when it came to being a transgender woman. 

The first barriers were self imposed as were many later in life. The main self imposed barrier I faced was my struggle to free myself from my mirrors who were the only way for me to reinforce my femininity. Sadly, the mirrors had a way of lying to me. No matter how I really looked, the mirror told me I was attractive. When I started to explore the world as my true gender self, I was greeted with many rude awakenings on my true appearance. Trashy, even clownish came to mind when I went out in the world. Fortunately, the negative feedback I received helped me to resolve to do better with my appearance. Slowly but surely I was able to build a small wardrobe of feminine clothes which helped to flatter what I possessed in the body department and led me to jump the barrier of being able to present properly. 

Along the way too, I developed more ways to see if I could truly overcome the barriers I was facing. One of the biggest ways I found was to go to Halloween parties in a "costume" as a woman. By doing this, I achieved a level of understanding of how I presented. Over several years of trying, I was able to make it to a level of being passable as a "professional" woman just getting off of work and attending the party. From there I was able to build a fragile confidence I could survive in the real world if I ever could pursue my dream of living fulltime as a transgender woman. Then, my fragile confidence would help me to jump more of my barriers. 

Also, there were the barriers which were all fake. I found out many existed only in my mind and I was making my own life so much more difficult. I likened it to running an obstacle course in the Army when you had to make split second decisions on real or fake targets. False obstacles included me judging the acceptance or non acceptance from strangers. Those were the times I thought I had acceptance only to have a passive aggressive person stab me in the back. It was all the more difficult because I wanted so badly to be accepted in the world as a  woman when in reality all I should have been looking for was to be accepted as me. Again confidence and a new circle of women friends helped me to get over this major barrier. 

Another point I needed to consider was my choice to pursue hormone replacement therapy or HRT. In many ways, my choice was the point of no return on my journey. Once I sought out a doctor to administer the new medications (and was accepted) the changes began nearly immediately and helped me to conquer more completely the external appearance barrier. As I changed, I learned also how much the hormones would effect my overall being for the better. 

Now, at my age, I am tired of jumping  trans barriers but now have to face the number of new anti-transgender laws in the legislature. In fact, Ohio where I live is trying currently to pass a restrictive rest room bill in the state. All in all, I have resolved myself to doing the best I can and trying to always be sure I am voting for politicians who support me.  It's the least I can do.