Destiny as a Transgender Person

 

Image from Abbas Tehrani 

Throughout our lives transgender women as well as trans men suffer from everything from intense anxiety to full out gender dysphoria. 

Along the way we never consider none of being transgender was ever our fault. We were destined to be this way. Also, history tells us transgender people have been around since the beginning of time, so no whatever pressures society in some areas put upon us will not work. The transgender tribe will find a way to survive. How is the question for many of us locked in our dark and very lonely gender closets. If you are similar to me, I started by hiding my cross dressing from the world and then slowly expanding out into the world. Slowly but surely I was leaving my old boring male life behind as I was following my life's destinies. 

I can't say much of the process was ever easy because I was so entrenched in attempting to live a macho male life. Through it all, I kept trying to refine my femininity until I finally was able to blend in and exist in the world as a transgender woman. 

What I never factored in my life I was facing was I never had a choice to begin with. Every now and then, I write about the possibility of my Mom being on the "DES"" medication which was routinely prescribed to mothers who had the problem of poor pregnancies' which often resulted in mis-carriages and still births. My Mom suffered through three still births before I came along.  My research into "DES" says it was a synthetic form of estrogen which was later banned because it caused cancer in young girls and women. In addition, the medication was prescribed between 1940 and 1971 and I was born in 1949.  So, the question remains for transgender women is was the extra estrogen prescribed to our mothers while we were in her womb contribute to our gender issues later in life.   

As my life went by, I was fortunate in that I was able to barely satisfy my desires to explore the world as a transgender woman . Even when I reached the suicidal depths I suffered, a little voice kept telling me to keep trying and learning because everything was going to be alright. And it was. 

All of a sudden, the years of gender rejection turned around. Often for all the worst reasons. Within a couple years time nearly all of my small group of friends passed away including my second wife of twenty five years. By this time, I was mostly alone in the world as I was faced with rebuilding my life. The negative was I had to do it at all but the positive was I could do it as my long neglected feminine self. She seized the opportunity and never looked back.  In addition, she was helped along by the new acceptance of VA (Veterans Administration) of transgender veterans. All of a sudden I had access to relatively inexpensive care for my hormone replacement therapy. 

It seemed all the long closed gender doors were opening for me. Destiny was calling and all I needed to do was seize the opportunity. I couldn't believe it was all finally happening.  

Boundaries

Photo from the
Jessie Hart
Archive

 Throughout the journey I undertook to live as a fulltime transgender woman I faced living with many boundaries. 

The earliest boundary I faced was learning how to dress and makeup myself to present well as my feminine self. As most of us know, just learning the art of makeup is daunting enough. Not to mention the time effort and money it takes to acquire and wear a new women's wardrobe. Believe me, the process involved more error than trial until I finally began to get the process right. Problems included not dressing for my age and body shape. In other words, I certainly wasn't the teenaged girl I was trying to look like. Predictably my early experimentations did not work because of my testosterone ravaged body and I just ended up subjecting myself to ridicule by the public. Learning my boundaries of how to present as a woman were difficult to learn but I did become fairly proficient in the ways of dressing to flatter my body style (the best I could) as well as learning through practice better makeup routines. 

Along the way, my personality entered in when I considered the boundaries I faced when I was a serious cross dresser or transvestite. By nature, I always had pushed the boundaries of any thing I attempted. Once I thought I could do something above average, it was never good enough and I had to try to make it better. My whole attitude came from my parents pushing me along in life. I learned the hard way, nothing was ever good enough. 

The whole process pushed me into going places I shouldn't have attempted as a novice transgender woman. Once I rejected going to the so-called "safe" gay venues, any other venue became fair game. Even though many times I was just going there to just see if I was presenting well enough to do it. The process led me to my well publicized times when I was formally asked to leave venues I shouldn't have tried to be in-in the first place. Once I learned what my venue boundaries were, most of my problems went away. Once I was able to dress the part and knew where to go, I was able for once to enjoy the process of living as a transgender woman away from the mirror in the world. 

Just about the time I was becoming a little too satisfied with my progress in the world as my authentic self, I began to meet and gain friends. By doing so, I was able to progress farther and faster as a woman than I ever thought possible. I was able to watch and learn from them and just happened to have a wonderful time doing it. At the same time my friends were in essence were shielding me from potentially negative gender responses from the public, at the same time they were providing me a platform to learn and exist as a feminine person. I was enjoying the best of both worlds as I had the finest on the job training I could find.

By the time I had completed my on the job training as a transgender woman, I was ready to cast my boundaries aside and live my dream.  

More Hormonal Results

 

Image from Kareya Saleh
on UnSplash 

As I look back on my most recent posts, I discovered I left out one of my major changes when I started hormone replacement therapy.

The other major difference I left out was how the world around me started to appear. All around me, everything seemed to suddenly soften. All of it occurred at the same time the angles in my face were beginning to soften also, so perhaps the whole picture was a part of a bigger outcome. And the larger outcome was clear, the minimal (at that time) dosages of estradiol were working and I indeed was becoming more feminine. So quickly in fact, I was forced to change my timetable to when I planned on coming out to the world as a transgender woman. 

The in between step which unexpectedly took place was how quickly my overall appearance began to change. I went from a macho guy to androgynous person faster than I ever imagined. When I did, I began to consider when I was going to tell what was left of my family about my plans to complete a MtF gender transition. Since my parents had long since passed on, as well as other key individuals in my life, my "to tell" list was relatively small. 

I started with my daughter which turned out to be easy as well as a huge success. Her only comment was why was she the last to know. In fact, she was close to being the first to know since her Mother only knew me as a cross dresser or transvestite and her Step-Mother fought me every inch when and if I ever suggested I was transgender. So the topic was rarely if not ever brought up. My daughter's ultimate reaction was she wanted to take me out shopping which I declined since I already had a growing feminine wardrobe or treat me to a visit to her upscale hair spa for a makeover when my hair became long enough. Which turned out to fit perfectly in for me as a birthday gift. 

Just when I thought everything was going to be easy with my transgender coming out process, here comes my brother (only) and his family to ruin everything. After telling him I was trans, my invitation to the family Thanksgiving dinner was revoked. It especially hurt because my second wife used to single handily feed an increasingly large family for years on her own and here I was being shut out for wanting to live as my authentic self on the holiday. Since that time, now over ten years ago, we haven't spoken since. Even still, I was fortunate in that my daughter's family (including in laws) and my wife Liz's family have filled the void. I did not need or ever miss my brother's support anyway.

My body seemingly took to hormone replacement therapy as if it should have been on the new hormones all along. Destiny was on my side. It was a shame I needed to wait all the years I did to finally go through the gender change. Since all the time I used up as a male wasn't all bad, I was able to experience much in life while at the same time I obsessed on experiencing everything a hormonal change could do for me. The whole process helped usher me into a softer gentler more beautiful inner world.