Coming Out to Employees?

 

Halloween Witches Ball Image
Liz on Right 

As we rapidly approach Halloween and my wife Liz's operation coming up, I thought it was time  for another Halloween experience while I still had time. 

This one happened when I was managing a fast food restaurant just outside of the New York City  metro area. More precisely, very close to the Bronx. As Halloween rolled around, once again  I was stressing out about what I was going to wear. The pressure was on since it was nearly impossible for me to leave the house we lived in dressed as my feminine self. I was back in the mode of waiting another year to escape from my mirror until the next Halloween rolled around.

As I faced the pressure head on, I decided to go all out as I decided what my "costume" was going to be. I put together what I thought would be a potentially a sexy look without crossing the line into being trashy. I pulled out my shortest dress, along with my highest heels. Most certainly, my wife's most hated outfit on me. In this case, I used her motivation of me to spur me on. For once, since she wasn't going anyhow, I decided she would have to get over it. I would have to put up with her displeasure with me for the next several weeks but it was worth it for me to pursue my dreams.

As I said, my outfit was going to be short and sexy as I to the best of my ability fool the world to what my true gender was all about. Little did I know, I would be able to find a situation where I was able to blend right in. 

As it turned out, one of my assistant (woman) managers was going out to one of her local taverns to celebrate Halloween with her friends and she invited me along. After I dressed, did my makeup and hair and was ready to go. When I arrived at my manager's house, it turned out the friends she was going with turned out to all be tall and beautiful . As it turned out, by pure accident, At least in the height department., I fit right in. When I first saw all of them, as the room grew silent, you could have heard a pin drop. Time seemed to stop for me as they examined me from head to toe. Of course I could only guess what they were thinking as we left for the short walk to the venue where we were going. Thank goodness for me (in my heels) it was not a long walk.

As we arrived, I learned a valuable lesson about being with other single women who were attractive. The first thing the women did was essentially split and worked the room. They left me on my own which was an experience in itself. After I bought a drink and found a seat at a small table, I settled in to try to enjoy my evening in the world as a novice transgender woman or even a transvestite. And it turned out, the night was far from over. As I tried to sit by myself, I attracted attention from an older guy who kept bugging me to dance. Which I refused although deep down I was flattered. Finally, the night was over, the group of women broke up and headed their own ways. 

I ended up back at my restaurant which I knew was closed by then. What I didn't count on was, the closing crew would just be getting done and they would see me in my "costume." Surprisingly to me, the response was positive even to the point of one of the guys saying I had good legs. 

More importantly, the backlash from me dressing as a woman for Halloween was a non starter for most of my crew and life went on. The only variable was my assistant manager who I think couldn't wait to tell my boss who smiled at me differently for awhile. However it was New York and there were bigger issues to deal with than me dressing as a woman for Halloween. Which was one of the reasons I wanted to move there from our native Ohio to begin with. 

As far as my second wife went, she finally made me pay my dues as only a woman knows how to do. I learned from it and moved on. Knowing I had been able to experience a truly wonderful evening to think about and remember forever. 

Pre-Political Meetup

Image from the 
Jessie Hart Archives...

 Long ago, following a few of my Halloween adventures when I did my best to stay away from looking trashy on Halloween. I was determined to do my best this night to be mistaken for a cis-woman. 

I decided to attend a party I was invited to as a professional business woman. The get-together was being held at a restored Victorian mansion which was owned by a casual friend I knew. A wide range of people were invited. I worked at a radio station in town at the time and since my first wife never really was into Halloween, I was left on my own to find someone else to accompany me. It turned out one of the news reporter women at the radio station had an invitation also, so we agreed to go together.

In no time at all, it was time to put together my "costume." I started with shaving my legs and putting on a brand new pair of panty hose. From there, it was very easy to choose an outfit from my growing feminine wardrobe. The years have clouded my memory so I do not exactly remember what I wore except it included heels and my red wig which I loved so much. Of course when my "date" saw me she was amazed and amused I would go to such lengths to be noticed on Halloween. Plus she was more than impressed when I was able to do such a good job walking in heels "for the first time." 

When we arrived, the hosts had done a wonderful job of decorating their old mansion. Even including a vintage glass topped coffin with a real skeleton. Most importantly, I was able to relax and enjoy being out of my gender closet for the first time in a year in public. I was truly a novice transgender woman just exploring the possibility for the first time if I could be accepted in the feminine world. 

As the night progressed, guests came and went and the alcohol flowed. Also I was receiving plenty of positive feedback on my "costume." I had made the correct choice to dress as a professional woman for the party. Most of the other guests assumed I was just arriving late from work and didn.t have a chance to dress up. Which was exactly my goal. 

The most flattering happening came when this couple approached me and said how impressed they were with my "look." They were totally fooled into thinking I was a woman. Through it all, I recognized the man and his wife as a newly elected politician on his way to Washington, DC. Plus they wanted me to tag along with them to another party they were going to,. Since I didn't know where they were going and was with someone else, I had to politely decline the invitation. Leaving me to forever wonder what would have happened if I had decided to go along with them. 

Who knows? Perhaps my political career was ended before it even had a chance to begin. At any rate, the evening turned out to be a blast and my "date" never mentioned how I looked again. It wasn't too long when she landed another news job and moved away anyhow. 

As far as the politician goes, he turned out to be re-elected several times to congress. I lost track of him also when his political career was over. I stayed friends with the owners of the mansion over the years until I moved away and they divorced. Maybe deep down inside I was disappointed no one brought up how I looked on Halloween that night so long ago. I was probably desperately trying to out myself and no one cared. Or I was so good at hiding my feminine side with my intense male self, no one could see my true self. 

It wasn't to be until years later, my feminine self finally took control and Halloween "costumes" became a thing of the past for me.

Secure Beginnings

 

1966 Transvestia Cartoon

This morning I read a post by a transgender man I follow on another writing format. 

The number one fact I took away from his post was how accepting his grandparent was when he was growing up. In fact, the grandparent took him to get his hair cut and purchased him clothes to match his authentic gender. After I read the post I responded by saying how good it must have been to have a supporting person in their life. 

Sadly, I was never able to take advantage of having anyone even knowing about or having any inkling about my gender issues. I knew without any shadow of a doubt, I was expected to be a boy in all aspects of my life. My parents were of the "Greatest Generation" which was the WWII and Great Depression generation. As a child growing up in the 50's, I was expected to fit neatly into a square male hole and survive the best I could. in a world I did not embrace.

The entire experience of being totally alone in the world as a boy who wanted to be a girl led me quickly to extreme cases of gender dysphoria. It wasn't until many years later when I learned of Virginia Prince and her "Transvestia" publication did I discover there actually other transvestites as they called themselves back then. Thinking back, I am fairly sure the publication was mailed out every two months and I couldn't wait until the next one arrived. Thanks to "Transvestia", I was able to learn about actual mixers which were close enough for me to go meet  other cross dressers or transvestites. As I began to see others in those mixers up close and personal, I learned how many levels of difference there were in a community which I imagined to be so similar. For example, the idea of the mixer being for only heterosexual transvestites only was quickly dispelled when too many of the participants disappeared behind  their hotel room doors too quickly.

Ironically, through it all, I still didn't feel as if I had found any sort of a home with others who supposedly were supposed to feel similar to me. Looking back, I think it was because the concept of being transgender had not been widely publicized at the time. I knew I did not belong with the cross dressers trying to deny their male selves or the transsexuals in the group considering radical gender realignment surgery. In those days, anyone who went down the surgical path was recommended to move away and begin a totally new life. As severe as my gender dysphoria was at the time. I couldn't imagine myself doing all of that.

It took awhile but I eventually stopped blaming my parents for ignoring my gender issues. Part of it was my fault for never attempting to tell them what was really bothering me, so I took the traditional male approach and just bottled it all up. I hid it all so well until the night after I returned home from the Army. I came home late from drinking my share of beer and found my Mom waiting up for me. We started to talk and along the way, I tried to come out to her. She followed her instincts and offered to pay for mental health counselling and I followed mine and never brought it up to her again. She has long since passed away so the best I could do to honor her anyhow was to change my new legal middle name to hers nearly five years ago. 

I needed to realize the "Greatest Generation" was good at providing and not so good at emotional support,  at least in my family. Once I accepted the facts of my upbringing, I really needed to work hard to not repeat the cycle of my upbringing. Once I began to feel secure in my transgender life, I was able to  do it.