Unhappiness

 

Image from Abigail Keenan
on UnSplash 

When someone asks me why I ever would give up the male privilege I reluctantly earned to pursue a life as a transgender woman, it's easy to answer.. The entire process required me to jump into an existence I didn't know really much about. Regardless of spending a lifetime of closely observing almost every girl/woman I saw. 

One of the simplest responses I could ever come up with, as well as one which was easiest to understand, was I just unhappy with who I was. 

In many ways the whole process started when I was very young when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always answered without fail and didn't tell the truth. Instead of the usual doctor or lawyer answer everyone wanted to hear, all I could keep thinking was I wanted to be a woman when I grew up.  Imagine the shock I would have received if I had ever told the truth. So I did the natural, for me, and held my ever increasing gender dysphoria to myself. I built a very dark and lonely gender closet while I was very unhappy. Even when I achieved some success in my male dominated world. It was difficult enough to achieve happiness in my family to begin with but nearly impossible when I added in anything to do with my gender dysphoria. Keep in mind, all of this occurred back in the days when being a transvestite or transsexual was considered to be a mental health issue.

Even still, I knew I wasn't crazy, all I wanted was to be was feminine. As I went through a life which included graduating with two college degrees along with surviving a stint in the Army, I never lost my desire to be a woman. In fact, the more I explored my chances to live as a transgender woman, the more natural I felt. When I was successful in my explorations I did feel so natural and yes, even happy. Since happiness was an emotion I had never felt in my life, I knew I was on the right path. The problem was, I was so used to existing with an underlying unhappiness in my life, I didn't know how to live without it. Or, in some ways, I thought it was just the normal way of living. Plus most of all the other transgender or transvestites around me seemed to be unhappy also. Even when they were supposedly going down a gender path which made them happy. 

The problem which became evident also was how much baggage could I bring with me from my old male life into my new feminine one. Since I had spent so much time acquiring all the life's knowledge I had, I didn't want to lose it all. Mainly because not all of the experiences I acquired as a guy were unpleasant and I wanted to remember them. I found rather quickly I couldn't bring much of my knowledge with me because society didn't dictate women didn't know (or shouldn't know) about subjects such as sports or politics. By joining the feminine gender, I literally lost a portion of my intelligence. I knew it was going to be a reality when I transitioned to being a transgender woman but even still I was shocked in how fast it happened. 

By this point in my transition I needed to decide what was more important to me, my male privileges or my happiness in life. For once I had the chance to throw away all of the privilege and choose my happiness.. I finally had the chance to live my childhood dream of living as a woman.    

Keeping Secrets

 

Image from the
Jessie Hart Collection

These days as my memory tries to fade in situations I want to remember, I struggle to understand how I ever was able to pursue a life as a novice cross dresser. 

The only thing I do know is somehow I became a very skilled person in hiding my small wardrobe of clothes and when I could wear them. Very early I was able to combine my meager allowance I earned from working around the house with money I earned from delivering newspapers. I was fortunate in that my Grandma lived in town within walking distance of several of the old five and dime stores which sold makeup as well as a small selection of women's clothes. It was scary and exciting when I could visit her, sneak away, go downtown, and try to shop for my own feminine accessories. My memory has not failed me when I remember how terrified and confused I was when I made my own tentative steps to purchase items. First I needed to figure out what I was going to try to buy and then buy it. I was certain the clerk who checked me out would stop and ask me what I was doing with all my selections but of course she never did. 

Another problem I had when I went downtown was my Dad worked nearby the stores I was going to. I certainly did not want to meet up with him with purchases such as lipstick or panty hose. Happily, I never did. Then, once I returned to Grandma's, I needed to hide my treasures from her and begin to figure out how I was going to sneak them into the house past the two most inquisitive members of my family. My slightly younger brother and my Mom. I can't imagine now how I did it but somehow I managed. Slowly but surely I was able to end my reliance with trying to wear my Mom's clothes and use her makeup. Except for using her electric razor to shave my legs. How did I ever get away with that? You would think someone in my family would notice my hairless legs but no one ever did as I was hooked on the electric sensation when I put on panty hose with freshly shaved legs. 

I know one of the ways I found a semblance of privacy to cross dress as a girl came when I had acquired enough clothes in my wardrobe to hide a second small "stash" in an old hallowed out tree in the woods next door to our house. After school, I was able to slip away from my brother before my parents came home from work and visit my "wardrobe" in the woods. The entire process was far from ideal but I was able to feel the sensations of the clothes and it was enough to get me by.

I suppose the whole process of growing up with gender dysphoria taught me how to be a better sneak. Which I was never proud of. I was so sad I needed to keep such an important part of my life so hidden from the rest of the world. It turned out to be the beginning of a gender process which continued as I finally went through the process of transitioning into a transgender woman. Several of my least favorite memories which are still vivid (sadly) are when I tried and failed to sneak around on my second wife. Even though she had bent over backwards to help me as well as she could with my cross dressing, I still had to try to sneak around and do more as a novice transgender woman learning the world. Of course she would find out on occasion and all hell would break out. 

Keeping secrets was certainly no fun and with my straight forward personality, I don't know how I was able to keep up my all male  appearances but I did. Perhaps not remembering all that I went through is just a case of selective gender memory.    

Living Your Transgender Truth

Image from Brett Jordan on Unsplash

To live your truth as a transgender person, you first have to figure out what your truth is. 

In many cases, accomplishing knowing your truth when in comes to gender is very difficult. Even though I had realized from a very early age I wanted to be a girl and strongly admired everything feminine, it was still a difficult journey until I could actually live my truth. I believe the earliest  remembrances I had of being transgender was when I discovered just dressing up as a member of the feminine gender just wasn't enough. I actually wanted more. I wanted to actually be a girl/woman. Sadly, when I was discovering all of this, there was no internet or social media so I still felt isolated from the world. It wasn't until years later when I heard the term transgender for the first time. 

As the years rolled by and I learned more and more concerning what a transgender person actually was, I increasingly felt the term described me. Primarily because I felt just cross dressing as a woman was just never going to describe me. Plus, I had for the first time encountered other persons who identified as trans and I just knew I wanted to learn more about their lives. It turned out to be the right move since two of the people in my circle made their journey's all the way to living full time as women.  Right or wrong, they both became role models. Through it all, I wondered if I could ever follow in their footsteps and live an impossible dream as a transgender woman. 

One of the main differences was neither of them were involved in a serious long term relationship with a strong woman who did not approve of a gender transition. Also employment wise there were major differences such as one of the women I knew was a fire-person and had served out her initial twenty years so she had a good pension coming. And, the other woman was a very successful electrical engineer. She knew she was in demand employment wise and would have no problems with securing employment. Also, to make matters worse for me (or better for them) they were both gorgeous. Here I was just doing my best to look the best I could while all the time knowing I would certainly lose my job and my wife if I transitioned. Living my truth during that time in my life turned out to be rather murky. I was considering following in my acquaintances footsteps but couldn't quite figure out how it was possible. 

Through it all, I took my usual male sides approach and tried to hide my truth. Predictably, the entire process was ill advised and finally led me to a very serious self harm (suicide) attempt. To save myself and live my truth, it took a series of events in my life to do do it. Sadly, the biggest was when my second wife of twenty five years passed away when she was just fifty. Her passing, along with the fact I was quickly approaching retirement age led me down the path to being able to attempt a gender trnasition. It was during this time when I began hormone replacement therapy or HRT. The hormonal change propelled me even further to learning my truth...I always should have been a woman. My body just screamed for the changes it went through and it all felt so natural.

I realized in my early sixties, destiny was on my side and finally I would be able to live my transgender truth.