Becoming Involved Through Isolation

 

Photo from
the Jessie Hart
Collection

When I first decided to leave my dark lonely gender closet and attempt to live as a transgender woman, I was extremely lonely and more than a little confused. 

During that time I had lost nearly everything which was dear to me. My wife had just died, along with many of the close friends I had managed to know and on top of all of that, it was becoming more and more evident I was going to lose my restaurant which I had invested so much time and money in. During this time of extreme duress, one of my only releases from the pain was resorting to my feminine self to help me.

In order to figure out where I was going to go, I had to consider several important points. The main one of course was which venue I should go to. Previously I was taking the easy way out by going to the safer gay venues I had heard of. In some ways, they were safer but surprisingly acceptance for transgender women such as me just wasn't evident. Most of the time I was considered to be just another drag queen, which of course I wasn't. Plus, if I ended up looking similar to a drag queen, all it proved was I had a lot of work to do on my feminine presentation. Another point I failed to consider was, the vast majority of men in the male gay venues I was going to didn't want anything to do with a woman anyhow. So I was left out again. 

Since I really didn't care for the overall atmosphere, I needed to find other places to live my new reality. Finally I decided to attempt to go to places I previously enjoyed as my male self, upscale sports bars with cold draft beer and many big screen televisions to watch my favorite sporting events. The best of both worlds for me if I could find acceptance as my feminine self. 

Other than a few notable rejections when I was asked to leave a couple venues I shouldn't have been in to start with, I did find acceptance. Even to the point of gaining women's room privilege's. I was still alone in a spot where single women don't go, I still was able to be considered a regular by the bartenders who even came to my rescue when I needed it due to unwanted attention from overly drunk men. To dissuade the men even further I used my cell phone as a prop. Once I sat down and began to get settled, I then would pull out my phone and acted as if I was waiting for someone to join me. Often all of my act was wishful thinking because again I was very lonely. I was stressed because on one hand I wanted to find a friend as a woman but on the other hand, I was very troubled about the how's and why's of how  it could ever happen. Those were the days I was very confused about how my gender transition would effect my sexuality. Which turned out to be a non issue which is a topic for a whole other blog post.

Speaking of other blog posts, it was through my being alone to find someone, paid off very well for me. Through the process, I ended up finding cis-women friends who were very instrumental in my navigation of the MtF transition process. They taught me more than they ever knew. 

Possibly the route I took to my transition success is not the path others should take but becoming involved through isolation worked for me.   

Losing. A Transgender Privilege?

 

Front Cover of Book by
Jan and Dianne DeLap

Is losing a privilege of being transgender? Without a doubt yes. Right now I am reading a book by "Jan and Dianne DeLap" called Living and Loving a Transgender Life Together. Briefly, Dianne is approximately the same age I am (74) and has shared many of the same experiences. Including losses.

Included in her experiences was losing her wife of many years who had transitioned with her and all the trials and tribulations of changing careers to earn a living. In other words, she writes about how much she had to lose to finally live a life as a transgender woman she always wanted. If you would like more information on Dianne's book contact me at Cyrstih@yahoo.com. Or her book is available on Amazon.

Very definitely, it didn't take reading Dianne's book for me to realize when you are transgender you have to realize you may lose some or all of the major facets of your life. Such as losing family, spouses, employment and even housing. You regulars know I write about all the possible losses you may experience from changing your gender often. I use the losses as a way of describing what we do in our lives is in no way a choice. We needed to complete a transition to live. 

As we become more and more involved in a gender transition as a transgender woman, we find out quickly we are kicked out of the "boys club" as we lose our male privileges. It's no secret just one of the main privilege's we lose concerns personal safety. Cis-women grow up with the knowledge of trying to insure their personal safety by not finding themselves in questionable situations. Such as not being alone at night in the dark,  in isolated situations or trying to sense which men may be toxic and dangerous. Transgender woman face the task of catching up to what cis women are taught at an young age to be careful of. I was lucky when I learned the hard way, danger as a trans woman could come my direction also. I wasn't injured but could have been.

One aspect of transitioning I don't write about enough is when we win as transgender women. Many times we win just because we have achieved living a life as our authentic selves. Referring back to Dianne, her life (similar to mine) revolved learning all the aspects of who we were as we continued to slowly understand our true selves. Slowly but surely the realization came to me if I didn't transition I would die. I needed to make the choice before living any life as my old unwanted male self precluded me living at all. At that point, I realized I needed to trade in all my male privilege to simply earn myself a way to continue to live.   

When I finally did summon the courage to follow my ultimate dream of living fulltime as a transgender woman, I began to reap the benefits.  Primarily, my long diagnosed Bi-Polar depression began to  decrease in it's intensity and on occasion, I was even able to locate and enjoy brief moments of happiness which had been noticeably absent in my life. 

So there are ways to recoup the losses I sustained in life when I transitioned. Although I do think my ultimate gender transition will not happen until I pass away. Because I am still living and learning. Most certainly losing is but one aspect of our lives as transgender women and trans men but gaining our lives is worth it. 

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.