Gender Walls

 

Image from Marcus Loke
on UnSplash

One of the reasons I waited so long to transition into a fulltime feminine world was when I tried to escape the walls which were forever threatening to close in around me.

Little did I know, each successful move I made came back to haunt me. Ironically, success just showed me perhaps I could live my dream as a transgender woman. Before I arrived at my final conclusion, I needed to seemingly transition more and more on my gender journey. My prime example has always been the time I decided I needed to change my mind set when I went out into the world cross dressed as a woman. Somehow it occurred to me I needed to reverse my thinking and decide I was going out as my authentic self  and all this time in my life I had been crossdressing not as a woman but as a man. When I realized my gender truth, I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable in the male world I worked my entire life to be successful in.

Very quickly when I went down this new path, deep down I knew I could never go back. I was suddenly sliding down a very slippery slope to a new life. A life I felt very natural and excited to be a part of. I had no idea if the outside world perceived me as being any different and I may have just been playing with semantics but as I said, the feelings were much different for me. I had crossed the line in my mind from being a cross dresser all the way to being a transgender woman. The first night I tried to change and was successful was when I went all out to dress to blend in with a group of professional women who always gathered after work at a nearby "Fridays" venue for an after work drink. Even though I was scared to death, I was able to relax and enjoy myself to the best of my ability. The best part was, no one gave me a second look. The bartenders were nice to me and I knew I was changing forever. 

Following all of the excitement and gender euphoria, ironically the walls began to close in on me again. What would I do with all my new found freedom to cross the gender border. I still had a wife I loved of twenty-five years, friends and family plus a very good job to consider losing. The pressure was intense. With the pressure I began to do all the wrong things. Primarily when I began to emotionally cheat on my wife by going out as my feminine self as much as I could. Of course, I was caught on numerous occasions which led us into massive relationship straining fights. While I never cheated on her physically, the emotional cheating was bad enough to put extra strain on me which I didn't need. All the pressure eventually led me to another self harm (suicide) attempt and my wife finally telling me why I wasn't man enough to be a woman. She passed away before she was able to see how prophetic her words finally became.

The end result of all her criticism became, I re-committed myself  to learning more and more what my life would mean to me if I took the final steps to living as a fulltime transgender woman. My steps included being cleared by doctors to begin HRT or hormone replacement therapy. At that point I knew there could never be any turning back as eventually I changed my legal name and settled into a new life with my wife Liz. 

Of course my final wall to overcome will be if and when I need to face what will happen to me when I have to go into assisted living or face being mis-gendered by part of my family when I die. It seems there are always walls to face when you are transgender. 

Fashion Trends and Circles

 

Image from Jonathan Borba
on Unsplash

Following thinking more and more about yesterday's post, I finally figured out I left out too many details of me supposedly not wanting to wear skirts. 

The post was called "Skirting the Issue" and basically zeroed in on the negative feedback I received when I first entered the world with other cross dressers. I was told, if I wanted to wear pants (or slacks) I should just stay dressed in my male clothes. I rejected the comment and proceeded to follow my own path as a novice transvestite in the world. 

Where the experiences changed were when much later I again started to go out in the public's eye. Overall, my first experiences with another person were with my second wife who was very conservative in her dressing styles. In order to try to gain favor with her, I attempted to dress the same way. Mostly relying on jeans or slacks on the rare occasions she went out with me. It didn't seem to matter as she never seemed to like or relate to my emerging feminine self. Ironically, I was many times on the opposite end of the cross dressing spectrum when she wasn't around to judge me.

What happened was, during my earlies Halloween experiments, I dressed as prostitutes in very short dresses or skirts. I always made sure to shave my legs and threw caution to the wind when it came to friends and strangers reacting to me doing just a little (or a lot) to look like a woman. Deep down I was so flattered when I received compliments on how good my legs looked. At that point, I did become obsessed with showing off what I perceived to be my most feminine asset which of course were my legs. It took me forever it seemed to figure out stuffing my male torso and big shoulders into a mini skirt just didn't work. I was just taking the easy way out and cross dressing for the mirror in front of me and not the world.

Over the years I was still able to take advantage of certain fashion trends which came and went. A couple in particular stay in my mind as being beneficial to showing off my legs and still be fashionable. The first was in the 80's I believe when many women where I lived were wearing oversized sweaters with undersized mini skirts. I was able to acquire both fashion items and be positively received in the world because I was able to blend in and not be trashy in my appearance. Plus, I was thrilled to be able to feel the cool air on my freshly shaved legs.

The second fashion trend I was able to take advantage of was when professional women were wearing business suits along with short skirts. Many times they wore colored opaque panty hose and kitten heels to round out their outfits. I was able to find a pale green suit with a short skirt which fit me well and even matched it up with opaque hose that matched. I already had my blond wig and kitten heels so I was ready to go to the upscale malls where I lived and shop for as long as I wanted with no incidents.

I guess where I began to fixate on wearing jeans or pants sometimes again came when I began to be able to find the "Boho" fashions which took me back to my youth. I wore out my jean skirts and tattered bell-bottomed jeans until they had to be discarded. 

Finally I went full circle to the days of trying to appease my wife when I was able to be accepted by a small group of lesbian friends. Most certainly, I wanted to blend with them. Especially when we went to lesbian mixers. It was a challenge to go back but I did because I wanted so desperately to blend in.

I learned through fashion, life is nothing but a circle if you can live long enough to experience it. Living my life as a transgender woman just made the point more evident. 

Skirting the Issue

Image from Vladimir 
Yelizarov on 
UnSplash

Many years ago, I ran into the sting of being criticized for not wearing a skirt or a dress when I attended my first transvestite mixers. 

Many times I wore a nice pair of women's slacks long with foam hip pads to give me a slimming feminine appearance. Needless to say, it did not take me long to notice I was the only one not wearing a skirt or a dress to the mixer. Plus it did not take long for someone to mention to me why I would choose to dress the way I was. If I wanted to wear pants, I should have just come to the party as my male self. While my answer should have been why do not you mind your own business, instead I said something to the effect of I didn't need a dress to express my inner self.

Years later and armed with much more gender knowledge I knew I was correct on how I answered the person in question. The reason was, except for a brief love of denim mini skirts, I mainly never lost my fondness for wearing women's jeans and/or leggings. Personally, I found pants to be more comfortable as I blended in better with the close circle of cis-women friends I had bonded with. I guess I was fortunate also when women as a whole where I lived began to wear dresses and skirts less and less when they went out. During our recent visit I wrote about to our favorite restaurant which is huge in size, I never saw another woman in a skirt or dress. 

I will say, being a transgender woman who lives fulltime in a woman's world, I still value the flexibility to dress how I want. During the summer month's, if I wanted to wear one of my long and silky maxi dresses, I would. The whole process is part of female privilege and is what I signed up for. If I was getting bored with the same old drab male fashions, I could change my look up anytime I wanted. So skirting the issue was just another benefit. 

Another factor in say wearing leggings is they are warmer in the fall and winter months and benefit the changes hormone replacement therapy has had on my body. One of the first changes I felt under the new hormones was I was much more apt to feel the cool. No longer did I feel the women I felt were making up being cold all the time, were faking it. Along with them, suddenly I was cold also. Ironically, one of the last changes coming along would help me in my decision to acquire and wear leggings from my wardrobe. Slowly but surely after many years on HRT I started to develop my own hips. Leggings helped me to finally accentuate the fact I had a feminine body, not the testosterone damaged one I had to live with for so many years. 

These days, with fall finally setting in, I love my cozy sweaters and leggings. I paid my dues to blend into society and am happy to skirt the issue.