Re-Connections

 

Image from Priscilla Du Preez on
UnSplash 

Often in life we are capable of living out full circles during our time on earth, if we live that long. 

My lifelong journey to find and live with my authentic feminine gender gave me the opportunity to go full circle several times and then reconnect with myself. My biggest issue was to finally establish myself as a transgender woman. To do accomplish my reconnection,  it seemed I had to live my way through being a cross dresser (on two stages) or a transvestite if you prefer that term. I say cross dressing on two stages because for the longest time I considered myself cross dressing as a woman while I was primarily living as a man. When in truth, I was just doing the opposite, cross dressing as a man when I was primarily a woman inside. 

Along the way, I experienced several confidence building experiences to help me along. Sadly, most all of the character building changes occurred to my male self and it took many years for my inner female to catch up. Examples included my successes in career fields as well as being able to influence how my daughter was being raised. Both came back to aid me later in my gender reconnection but at the time didn't seem so positive. The salary I earned at my jobs helped me to earn enough and accept an early retirement which helped me clear a path to transition. And, as far as my daughter went, later on in life she has gone on to be one of my staunchest gender allies. I don't know how my life would have been without her. 

The problems with re-connections if you have ever done any plumbing work, you have to make sure the connection is secure before you move on. I experienced many problems with my gender transition as I tried to move on. I stubbornly refused to dress my age and to blend in with other women around me when I first tried to leave my closet. The entire process caused me deep grief until I began to learn the basics of getting by when it came to my presentation.  When I finally developed the confidence to try harder to secure my initial connection, it seemed something else would appear and get in the way. It turned out, moving and communicating as a woman presented a much more difficult problem for me than the appearance part.

After a while, when I was extremely self destructive to the point of suicide,  it turned out I was going to live long enough to go full circle with my gender in my life. I was fortunate to find and keep a small group of women friends who helped me secure and adjust to the societal demands I  was going to have to face in my new life as a transgender woman. 

By this time I had gone full circle and put my male past behind me. My re-connections were secure and I had a lot of life to look forward to. 

   

Life Comes Fast

Image from Suraj Kardile 
on UnSplash

It seems like one moment you are a kid in a rural Ohio neighborhood and the next you are a senior citizen transgender woman. 

Life comes at you very fast. Sometimes extra fast if you are attempting to learn to live as your authentic self. Sometimes it seems the more you do to further your gender goals. A prime example would be when you have achieved a spot where you can present as a trans woman who can blend in, then you have to rapidly learn to put your appearance successes into motion. After all, if the public expected you to be feminine, you needed to do your best to do something about it. The whole process came on me fast when other women unexpectedly wanted to talk to me. I think most of them were just curious as they started conversations revolving simple things such as what I was wearing.

Through it all, I needed to quickly learn basic communication skills when I was intensely shy concerning my female voice. I just didn't foresee anyone wanting to talk to me. It turned out this was only the first of many ways life was coming at me fast.

Of course, there was my stint in the military which ended up coming up very fast after I went through years of trying to outlast the trauma of the Vietnam War. The war followed me through high school and then through college. At that point I was smacked down by Army basic training which I thought at the time would derail any dreams I had of ever becoming a woman. Amazingly, the opposite happened. Basic taught me to be more resilient and I was able to make some sort of future plans after I was honorably discharged three years later. Very directly, the Army sped up my life when I met my first wife in Germany where we both served. A couple of years after that, life came even faster when I learned I was going to be a parent of who turned out to be my only child. I secretly didn't desire any children because of the self doubts I carried with me because of my gender dysphoria. I was so wrong.

From my discharge forward, I relied on nothing much more than a series of Halloween parties to keep my life on some sort of a status quo. For the most part, life would come at me quickly again when I was successful in presenting as a woman at several parties. Years later I would wonder why more people didn't foresee my future coming out as transgender because of all the work I did to look good for the parties. But my macho male disguise was so convincing they never did and many were surprised when I let them in to my authentic self. 

More than likely, the fastest my life was ever sped up was when I started hormone replacement therapy or HRT. I just didn't expect the changes to my body to occur so fast and I needed to move up my time table of when I was planning to jump into a fulltime life as a transgender woman. It all worked out for the best because I was tired of my old male life anyhow and was ready for a change. Once I did make the change, my life slowed down and I was able to enjoy it again. 

  

The Gender Buck Stops Here

 

Image from the Jessie
Hart Collection

It took me over fifty years of cross dressing as a woman to decide I had enough and I finally decided to come out full time as a transgender woman.

At that point, I either threw out my old male clothes or donated most of them to a local thrift store which was the demarcation point of when I flipped the script and stopped cross dressing as a man. For awhile it was difficult deciding what I would wear everyday as a trans woman. I knew I desperately wanted to blend in with the other women around me but knew I had to put in considerably more effort than they did to do it. Plus the effects of the hormone replacement therapy I was on was beginning to drastically change my old male appearance. So a change was needed. My skin was softening, along with the lines of my face, so I was beginning to appear quite androgynous. 

With all these changes taking place, I finally had a one on one talking with myself and decided enough was enough. The gender buck stopped there and then. It was time to take advantage of a lifetime of preparation and cross the gender border and live as a transgender woman. All those years of admiring my self in the mirror and attending transvestite mixers in Columbus, Ohio would be put to the test. During the mixers I was able to see and meet many different types of cross dressers all the way to transsexuals to determine just where I fit in. It was about that time when the term "transgender" was being publicized and I immediately thought the term fit me. It turned out it actually did and my life would never be the same again.

When the buck stopped with me and I began to take complete responsibility for my gender questions, my life suddenly became easier. Even though I was still facing questions in the harsh light of the public's eye. I needed to learn being a successful transgender woman took so much more than just taking care of my appearance. Surely appearances were the path to opening doors but what happened after the door was opened became very stressful. How could I handle actually communicating with a man or another woman when I was so new at doing it. Possibly the most frustrating part of the whole communication process was how much it changed with each person I encountered. The process was not unlike playing tennis and waiting for the other person to serve. Finally I began to relax and make the best of a situation I never knew where it was going.

It turned out relaxation was another key to my new ability to exist in the world as a trans woman. I learned for the most part men left me alone and women were just curious as to why I wanted into their world at all. I valued my communication with other women because I was learning so much about playing in the girl's sandbox.  My confidence was high and I thought I had as much business as other women did in the sandbox. From there, I made the most of it. 

It is also important to note, when I determined the gender buck did end with me, there would be no turning back. I became so involved in learning my new feminine life and it felt so natural, I would actually take the gender buck and spend it.