What If?

Picnic picture from the 
Jessie Hart Collection. Liz on right.

Often I think about what my life would had been like if my wife had been transgender and I was the one trying to deal with it.

What if she wanted to become a he and started to date other women? Of course the easiest answer would be I would be the accepting one but would I have been if I had never been trans. Then I think of the amazing spouses which have come to acceptance of their former husbands new gender. The wives who come to understand the internal self is the important part of the total person are so special and in so many instances so rare.

My second wife, as well as my current spouse are prime examples. My first wife was a very much go with the flow person and I often thought if I told her I would be gone for a few months to complete gender reassignment surgery, she would have not missed me. Second wife was very much against me being a transgender woman at all and Liz, my current wife encouraged me to follow my gender dreams. I guess you could say I covered almost all the aspects of being married when all my spouses knew I was at the least a cross dresser or transvestite from the very beginning of our relationships. The only feeling I hid was the fact I was so much more than just a relatively harmless cross dresser just pursuing a hobby. My excuse is the whole time I was hiding the truth from myself as I tried my best to live a lie as a male person.

Looking back at my second wife a little deeper, I think she was suffered from a little paranoia of her own sexuality. We were members of a very active civic organization which did an incredible amount of good in the community. Within the group were several women whom I considered to be lesbians as well as a couple gay guys. All were in the closet and nothing was ever said, I think. What I wonder is if my wife ever was attracted to those other women and was in fact some sort of an embedded lesbian. It is all speculation on my part because she passed away in 2007.  Sometimes I think she protested my gender dysphoria too much.

 The exact opposite happened with Liz, my current wife. When we met, I was still trying to live a life which straddled both of the two main gender binaries. Within a very short period of time, she told me I should shed what was left of my male self and live entirely as my feminine self. As it turned out, she was the final push I needed to come out of my closet and live as my authentic self.

For all of you who are fortunate and have an accepting spouse, you have an understanding of what I am attempting to say. Gender is such a basic need and to change it is such a big deal. Often the road to acceptance for wives takes years. If you have the power to do it, try to understand all the dynamics which are going on. Plus, if you can do it, try to put the shoe on the other foot and what if your spouse was considering changing their lifestyle in such a dramatic way. 

What if you could change or not. 

It's Complicated

 

Transgender Image 
from UnSsplash

As I transitioned, my overall life process became so much more complicated.

Fortunately during most of the time I did not receive many questions concerning my gender. It's not that I would have not answered most of the questions, even if anyone asked. It turned out the most sensitive question I do dislike is have I had any surgeries "down there". In fact, I reported a rude nurse during a mammogram I had asking the exact same question. It was certainly none of her business.

What also became very complicated was my life as a whole. The more I found I could live a life as a transgender woman, the more I wanted to pursue it. When I did, I ran head on into several major problems. The first of which was my second wife. As I write about often, she and I were married for twenty five years before she passed away. In addition she knew from the beginning I was a transvestite or cross dresser and my cross dressing initially had no bearing on our marriage. When I wanted to take my life a huge step forward and begin hormone replacement therapy, she drew the line. In no way did she want to live with another woman. As I began to be that other woman, our life together became very complicated and many huge fights happened.

The second main issue I faced was with my male self. He was rapidly seeing his life fade away and wanted to hang on as long as he could. Sooner more than later, the scales tipped and when I was still in my male role, I felt as if I was cross dressing as a man. At this point I was in an extra complicated relationship with the two most important people in my life...my wife and myself. In other words, two women fighting for my life. I was under intense pressure to make a decision on what I was going to do. I ended up attempting to live separately between the two major binary genders. I was torn completely on what my final decision would be.

At this point is when destiny stepped in and helped to make my decision for me.  When my wife passed away, there was really no one to tell me not to transition. From then on,  I had to begin to rely upon myself to make the final decisions on what I would live my life as. Continue as a man or explore the possibility of living as a transgender woman. It turned out I was soon helped along by a new set of accepting cis-woman friends I encountered along the way when I was out trying to enjoy myself. Through my powers of observation, I was able to sit back and learn more of what it meant to live a feminine life. We went to all kinds of places from LGBTQA Pride celebrations to lesbian mixers to women's roller derby matches. I had a good time and learned so much. Mainly that I did not need a man to validate myself as a transgender woman.

Very quickly when I decided to leave my male life behind, I knew very quickly I had made the right decision. It seemed as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. From that point forward to the present day, my life has been remarkably uncomplicated once I faced my gender issues.  

Stages

Image from the
Jessie Hart Collection.

 Our topic today in my Veterans Administration group concerns the trials and tribulations of coming out, or letting others in to our authentic selves.

When I think back to my process of letting others in to me, I have a tendency to just zero in on two people, my daughter (only child) and my only sibling, a brother. To make a long story short, my daughter was very accepting and my brother was the opposite. In fact, I have not talked to him to this day. Sad but true. Overall, the real staging process came way before I came out or let some one in. 

In truth, I came out in stages when I experimented with testing the public as my novice feminine self. Thinking back, my first attempts at "showing off" came during Halloween parties. I started, predictably enough, with trying to dress as sexy as I could and telling everyone my "costume" was a prostitute. Over the years of trying, I slowly evolved into just trying to present well enough at the parties for others to think I was a cis-woman. As even that worked for me, it was time to consider my next move or stage I was going to.

What I decided on was I couldn't stand to wait another year to be in the public's eye as whatever label you wanted to attach to me. Cross dresser, transvestite, or even novice transgender woman were all possibilities What really mattered was I was finally beginning to adjust to living in a new gender world I had only dreamed of. Once I made it to one stage, I always thought I could make it to another. I was successful in doing the grocery shopping all the way for shopping for the Christmas gifts I was going to give away. As my new self. It was as scary as it was exciting.

It turned out the more stages I was successful on, the more I needed to be. Which led me on a collision course with my old worn out male life. Even though I was fairly successful living as a man, he could tell his time on my stage was coming to an end and did not appreciate it. It was around this time also when I hit the darkest time of my life. In the several years when my second wife passed away, I also lost nearly all of my very few male friends I had to death also. I was extremely lonely and turned to my feminine self to fill the void. I would cross dress to blend and go out to treat myself to a drink in one of the venues I had become a regular in. Since I really wasn't seeking companionship, I guess you could say I was going out to be alone.

Through it all, this stage of my life proved to me I could live as a transgender woman. All the other stages of my life all of a sudden became clear and I knew all the years of living on a male stage had been mostly a waste of time. The main thing that wasn't was the birth of my very supportive daughter. Which I would never have achieved if I wasn't on the male stage. 

Today, I won't have a very long time to explain the slow route I took to letting others into my true self.  Hopefully, writing about the process ahead of time makes it clearer to others.