Confidence is your Greatest Accessory

Image from Alysha Rosly 
on UnSplash

In my post from yesterday about Ohio's vote, I didn't mention how much I appreciate being able to vote with my driver's license state ID which is gender marked with a "F". For female of course which I worked very long and hard to secure.

I am always proud to be able to vote and also proud to vote as my authentic self.  Yesterday when I voted. I proudly walked up to the first available poll worker and handed him my drivers license. I was surprised when I saw he was a younger person. Normally the workers seem to be my age or above. I was even more pleased when the man was very nice to me. It's been a long time since I have ran into a man who seemed at the least bit happy to see me. 

The reasons could be many. I automatically assume the men have read me as transgender and in some way think I am less attractive. Or some men just treat women as lesser citizens anyhow and they aren't treating me any different than they would any other woman. One way or another I try to approach situations with the public with as much confidence as I can muster. 

Confidence of course for a transgender woman comes as we progress from a novice cross dresser-transvestite all the way to living full time as your authentic self. If you are lucky (as I wasn't )  you will be spared the public humiliation of being stared at all the way to outright laughter. It is nearly impossible to build any confidence at all when you have to suffer through that. However, if you stick with the process you can slowly learn to apply artful makeup and dress yourself to begin to blend in with society. When any or all of the process begins to happen, confidence does also. 

Perhaps most importantly, confidence allows you to face the world eye to eye. Human's are like sharks and they can sense when something is wrong.  It took me years of trying before I gathered enough confidence to look at others with the idea something was wrong with them, not me. I also needed to learn the difference in dealing with other women or men. Women proved to be much more of a challenge to me as they were/are more discerning than men. Going back to the poll worker who was so nice to me, I wondered if he was somehow attracted to my appearance or was he in his own closet and his trans-dar was going off. Whatever the case, I am sure I relieved the boredom for him as he checked in people to vote.

Confidence is also a chicken or the egg type story. Did the perfect outfit (along with makeup) come before the confidence or was it vice versa when you achieved your goal of existing in society as a transgender woman...or what ever label you want to attach to yourself. One thing is for certain, you never know until you try to make your exit from the mirror and head into the world. 

You go girl!    

 

Mama Didn't Raise no Fool

Liz on Left. New Years Eve
from the Jessie Hart
Collection

 Before I get into this post, I need to mention how happy I was when the State of Ohio overwhelmingly rejected a power grab move by the political party not called Democrat. The move now clears the way for a November vote on the amendment to insure women in Ohio are protected against restrictive abortion bills. It's a huge start in the right direction for women's rights in Ohio.

The whole failed ballot initiative proved for once many parents didn't raise fools here in Ohio. 

When I was growing up, politics were basically a private topic in our house. My Dad (a banker) never talked about his politics although I always suspected he was always leaning to the right. On the other hand, I thought my Mom (who was a teacher) would have been a Democrat, She almost went as far as mentioning I dodge the Vietnam War draft by heading to Canada. Which of course I never did.

By now you are most likely thinking what does any of this have to do with being a transgender woman. One of the main things is my Mom and I never really had the chance to discuss how I really felt about my gender. I only brought up to her that I was a transvestite or cross dresser one time and it was after I was discharged from the Army. As suspected, she soundly rejected the possibility of me being feminine at all. In fact she offered to pay for a therapist because back in those days, we were still in the dark ages when any gender dysphoria was considered a mental illness. Plus, she was firmly rooted in the "greatest generation" mentality. The WWII/Great Depression group who were long on providing and short on emotion. Looking back now, I wish I would have brought it up to my Mom again before she passed to see if she would have at the least changed part of her thinking.

My Mom and I were much alike, I favored her in actions and in appearance. I even added her first name as my middle name when I had it legally changed years ago. Mainly because I feel she would have finally came to some sort of a begrudgingly acceptance of my authentic self over time. 

Most importantly, Mom taught me to think for myself  and to be as free as possible. In other words, not to be a fool. Ironically, she raised me so well to do it that it came back to haunt her when I finally had the courage to come out to her, or completely let her into my life. When she rejected me, that was it and we never talked about my gender dysphoria again before she passed away. I feel in many ways I was the fool for not pressing the transgender issue with her when the information began to become available. My excuse is life got in the way and I didn't. 

As far as my Dad goes, he was a wonderful provider and distant father. Coming out or letting him in to myself was never an option. Most likely similar to many of you. 

As I said, perhaps the biggest fool I faced was myself because I took so long to embrace who I really was in my life. 

Destruction

Image from Mika Baumeister
on UnSplash

At various stages of my life I survived being so very self destructive to everything around me. 

Of course being gender dysphoric as well as bi-polar didn't help. Before I was diagnosed and received medications it seemed all I did was go from being very depressed to being very mean and nasty. I am surprised my wife was able to stay around as I tried to tear down everything I attempted to build. Often I would change jobs at a frenetic pace just to see if I could. During the process I uprooted and moved my wife and I from our native Ohio, to New York City, then back again to West Virginia. She didn't like the moves but came along anyway.

It took me awhile but finally I came to the conclusion I was trying to out run my gender issues by all the moving we were doing. Since my inner feminine self didn't respect all of the work was male self was doing to be a success, she did her part to resist and tear all the work down. Very self destructive to say the least. 

One of the biggest pillars of my life which was left was my marriage to my second wife which I write about often since it lasted twenty five years. She knew I was a cross dresser or transvestite from the very beginning so in many ways dressing like a woman for me was a non starter with her. She didn't really care and/or put up with it. The deciding factor came when I began to feel the urge to see if I could actually live as a transgender woman. I can still hear her words echoing in my head, I never signed up to live with another woman. After tremendous gender focused battles and me essentially cheating on her by leaving the house behind her back, I finally gave in and tried to purge most all of my feminine belongings before she passed away. I view the whole experience now as a fight between two strong willed women, my wife and my female self.

After I began the MtF gender transition to living life as a transgender woman, I needed to go through a relearning process of sorts to not be so self destructive. Among other things, I needed to dress more conservatively to blend in to where I wanted to go and I needed to be much more wiser when I did it. I almost learned the hard way about being in the wrong place at the wrong time as a trans woman. My male safety privileges were stripped from me when I crossed the gender border and I needed to learn the new rules of being a woman...fast. 

As it turned out, my new feminine self was much less self destructive than my old male self. Once she had finally got her way, she wanted to keep it and build a much more pleasant life.