Staying in my Own Lane

Image from Mathew Henry
on UnSplash 

When I first began to leave the dark lonely confines of my gender closet, in a small amount of time I learned the difficult way the amount of work it would take to bring my presentation standards up to a new level.

In other words, I needed to grow out of my teen dressing ideas and proceed on with my life as a novice transvestite or cross dresser. At the same time I found myself in a position to actually present well enough in the public's eye to get by. Believe me, there was much more error than trial when I first started my journey to being a transgender woman. 

During that time also, I was receiving strong messages from my inner male to stay in the lane I was born into. Why give up all the work I had put into being a success in a life I struggled to accept for a frivolous pursuit such as wanting to be feminine. The problem was the entire process wasn't frivolous at all and I discovered later I was dead serious when I veered out of my gender lane. When I tried to change lanes, the whole process was at once terrifying but at the same time so satisfying as I was driving to a new destination and leaving the old one in my rear view mirror. 

Once I began to arrive more and more in my exciting new world, the more my old male self began to fight the move. Mainly because I had so much to give up, such as family, friends and employment. The pressure was on and increased to an unbearable point in my life. When it did, I began to attempt more self harm to myself in a number of different ways. I began to leave the house cross dressed during the day in a medium sized town I was relatively well known in. I convinced myself that no one would recognize the feminine version of my male self. Plus, the going out went against every agreement my second wife and I had ever put together. She wasn't bothered so much by my cross dressing but was really paranoid about anyone seeing and recognizing me. 

It turned out the going out was the least of my problems when it came to the life's pressures I was trying to deal with. Every time I was discovered going out by my wife there were tremendous resulting fights. After one in particular I tried taking my own life with a mixture of anti-depression meds and alcohol. Bottom line was I felt so bad, I just wanted my life to end. Luckily, I was not successful and my life did turn around for the best when I was able to change lanes and live my dream as a fulltime transgender woman.

Staying in my own lane turned out to be impossible for me. Life finally showed me when I pulled out to pass, it worked. When I pulled back into my new lane, I never wanted to go back.    

Trans Girl and the Biker

Image from Gijs Coolen
on UnSplash

Several times during my life I have encountered key experiences which involved a motorcycle.

The first was in Cleveland, Ohio and involved my second wife. At the time I was a very novice transvestite or cross dresser out for one of my first ventures in public. Since my wife and I had some time to waste, we decided to find a venue to have a drink in during the afternoon. Before the mixer began. as we sat at the bar a loud motorcycle rolled up almost completely in front of the door. His "bike" was impossible to miss. 

As it turned out, he and my wife began talking. It was the first time I really had ever noticed her flirting with another man when I had been around. Naturally, this time, dressed the way I was head to toe as a woman, I couldn't do anything about it anyhow. The worst part to me was, she seemed to enjoy watching my reaction. For the first time in my life, I was competing with another woman for the attention of the motorcycle guy. Her conversation went to the point when and if he offered her a ride and I wondered if she was going to accept. After keeping me in limbo for what seemed like forever, he did and she turned him down and stayed with her husband/girlfriend. She had made her point and moved on as I was left to wonder what could have happened had she left with him. Since she has long since passed away, I will never know.

The second experience came years later in a suburb of nearby Dayton, Ohio. In a certain venue I had become a regular in, I had been accepted into a small group of rather diverse acquaintances. One lesbian and four or five straight folks. One of them was a big bear of guy who rode a classic motorcycle and ran the lumber section of a nearby large home improvement store. Another of the "regulars" was an exotic beautiful hair dresser who danced on the side. It turned out within a fairly short amount of time, she decided to marry the big guy. I thought at the time, she wasn't the marrying type and I was right. It turned out their marriage lasted  approximately one week and it was over. To make matters worse, everyone in the group except for me seemed to not care about his feelings. Slowly but surely, we began to chat and formed a small bond.

As we did, the rest of the group as well as some others in the venue began to notice. I just felt he was hurt and needed a shoulder to lean on and it almost worked out to taking a ride on the back of his motorcycle. Which would have been my first ever. I would have/should have pursued it more except back in those days I was wearing a wig and all I could imagine was my wig flying off when I was riding. The ride never came and shortly there after, he was transferred out of town to another store. Leaving me with another "what if" moment. He was one of the few men I had ever formed a bond with and I missed him.

Whatever the case, he left and life moved on as it always does. The only other encounter with a cycle man came at a highway waffle place when I suddenly encountered a real life outlaw biker type eating his breakfast. He paid me no real attention as I tried not to notice him and nothing happened. 

To this day, this trans girl has never even been on a motorcycle at all. It's OK though, I have enough other habits to keep me occupied.

Her World...Her Rules

Wedding Picture. My daughter on left, Liz
beside me on right with her son.
From the Jessie Hart
Collection

As I gender transitioned into a whole new feminine world, I discovered many more rules than I ever thought possible.

When I first started, I thought if I concentrated on how I looked, the majority of my work would be behind me. After all, I could immediately pad my body with falsie breasts and hips, then throw on a wig and have the process of looking like a woman very much behind me. All I had to do then was perfect my makeup and wardrobe then hit the world as my new self. Immediately, the problem I ran into was taking my mirror or photo image and putting it into motion. At that point I learned I had accomplished the easy part of her rules and she was laughing at me. Along with my second wife, who in no uncertain terms tried to tell me I had so far to go. 

I did the best I could as I took every opportunity when I was alone to walk femininely and most importantly attempted to remember to exchange the old male scowl on my face with a more pleasant expression. I wanted to try to make myself more accessible to other women and not scare them away by having them think there was something wrong with me. 

No matter how hard I tried (and still do), I still had to concentrate on her rules for me. No matter how much I didn't like it, there was still a double standard in the world for women. The better I presented in the world, the more I encountered it. It seemed my feminine inner person was saying welcome to her world. As my explorations into the world at large increased dramatically, the more male privileges' I lost. Especially in the area of personal safety. After a while though, I was able to discover and be accepted by a small circle of friends who provided me with a natural safety net as well as with other feminine needs.

Finally I had enough and I decided to enter her world full time and play by all of her rules. And, I still do to this day. An example was this morning when I went with my wife Liz to her Doctor's appointment. Before I went I had to make sure I was freshly shaved and had applied a small amount of makeup. After I tied back my hair, the easy part was done. Once we arrived at the office, I needed to do my best to move the right way and smile to other women along the way. Nothing out of the ordinary happened so I must have been successful.

Perhaps learning communication skills with other women was the most important rule I ever learned. At the least, it was the scariest and time consuming rule to undertake. It was certainly worth the effort.