Interruptions

 

Image from the
Jessie Hart archives. 

As I was seriously pursuing a life as a fulltime transgender woman the interruptions I went through made life very difficult.  

What happened was I was still attempting to live life as a man and a woman, I found I favored one gender over the other. The gender I favored of course was my feminine side. When I was out in the public's eye, I felt so natural and so alive. As I continued down my path, I became obsessed with improving my presentation as a woman. I had so far to go to try to perfect moving as a woman, not to mention any new communication skills I would need to get by. I was able to work on all of my gender issues approximately three days a week before I needed to revert to my old relatively macho male self. 

The problem immediately arose when I was forced to go back to my ingrained male ways or all the male type walking and talking guys do to survive. In order to be successful again as a guy, my path to femininity was interrupted and I felt as if sometimes I needed to begin all over again when I switched back to my newly preferred gender. When I did, I had to work harder to maintain what I had earned previously. Working harder allows me to explain more in depth a recent post I wrote here in Cyrsti's Condo called  "Trying too Hard." From the post I received several comments (thanks!) alluding to the fact I somehow mentioned working too hard to be a presentable transgender woman was not something we all go through as trans women. What I really believe is we have to work much harder than the average cisgender woman to earn our way in the world. Among other things, we trans women didn't benefit from growing up feminine. With no feedback on how we looked or how we acted. 

Of course too, all the interruptions I experienced on my gender journey just became worse the more I attempted to do to follow my path. It was so frustrating when I was mentally celebrating the evenings when I felt I looked and was able to act correctly as the person I increasingly wanted to be. Those were the evenings I felt my entire image worked. My makeup, hair, clothes all were on point and I was able to walk in my heels without falling or looking like a linebacker. Sadly, the next morning I would need to make sure I had removed all my makeup and had gone back to walking as a man. It was tough on my fragile mental health as I felt like a juggler trying to keep all my balls in the air. (No pun intended). 

Somehow, someway, I made it through this toxic time of my life. Ultimately, I used all the internal frustrations I was experiencing as motivation to move on. 

Moving on became a theme in my life for once I didn't use the theme to escape, I used it to move myself forward into a new gender world I had only dreamed of. Finally free of all interruptions.

She Wouldn't Share

 

Photo from the
Jessie Hart Archives

As I was progressing down my increasingly exciting gender path it became clear to me I was heading straight to a crossroad which would require tons of thought and effort.

The main problem I had was my two binary genders (male and female) were constantly fighting with each other for dominance. I attempted to satisfy both of them, plus keep my unaccepting second wife away and maintain my sanity. What I was trying to do was live three days a week as a woman and maintain my male dominated job as well as convince my wife I wasn't doing more than we agreed to when I was a cross dresser. To make it clear, my wife never wanted me to progress any further in my life into a feminine lifestyle.

The problem became evident when I became more and more successful in most all of my feminine pursuits as it became clearer and clearer to me indeed I was transgender. In the process, I wasn't doing myself any favors as the gender ripping and tearing I was experiencing made life unbearable for me. I just couldn't easily shift gears when I needed to switch from feminine to masculine in a days notice. I caught myself doing feminine things when I was supposed to be a macho guy and vice versa. When I was trying my best to be a convincing woman I needed to not walk like a man or wear a male scowl on my face. As you can understand, the pressure I was experiencing was tremendous and it dominated all of my thought when I wasn't out attempting to see if I could indeed succeed in my dream to be a woman. Trans or not. 

As it turned out, my feminine self did not want to share me with my old male person. Plus, she was ready to do battle with my equally as strong willed second wife. The overall battle was no fun and I would wish the gigantic hassle on anyone. What should have been a more enjoyable time of discovery in my life was turned into a contest for my very being. The end result was a suicide attempt on my part which was fortunately unsuccessful. From there my wife won the struggle and I decided to "purge" for the final time in my life, grow a beard and reject completely my feminine self. Through it all, she went back into her closet but wasn't at all happy about what had happened. Sadly. she didn't have to stay in her closet long because within a year, my wife passed away from a massive heart attack. 

Very quickly after the death, it was clear to me which way I would turn. My inner female reasserted herself and brought joy to me during the darkest moment of my life when I didn't know what I would do. From then on, she didn't have to share me with anyone. It took awhile for her to accept my wife Liz but once she did, she went all in. It took her over a decade of interacting with Liz before she decided to get married. 

Over time, again and again the true dominant gender I was dealing with won out. Mostly by biding her time. When she did have her chance to live, it was amazing to me how fast and easily she took to her new life in the world. All the times I was facing the gender unknowns in the world, she would step in to help me.

She proved not sharing me ultimately was the correct move to make.   

Procrastination

Image from Brett Jordan
on UnSplash

For as long as I can remember I have been a procrastinator. Unless I was really pressed, it was always easier for me to put off until tomorrow what I should have done today. 

Later in life, being a procrastinator in my gender life came back to haunt me. As I continually gained ground in learning if I could exist in a feminine world, the more the pressure on me increased to decide what I was going to do with my life. Primarily effecting my already fragile mental condition. I had previously been diagnosed as Bi-Polar along with having elevated anxiety so I already had plenty to deal with mentally. So, I was not in any position to improve my mental condition by procrastinating over my transgender issues. Still I persisted and my problems only escalated. 

I was frustrated when every success I found as a transgender woman, seemingly just led me to the ultimate decision I was having a problem facing. Was I ever going to be follow my dream and live as a woman. Plus, all my procrastination led me to was an increasing reliance on alcohol to limit the mental pain I was suffering. What happened was, the effects of alcohol gave me courage to explore further if I could make it in a feminine world as a full time trans woman. Was I gay, was I trans? I needed to know.

Finally,  rational thinking took place and I could take it no longer. My gender truth was slowly but surely killing me. One night I sat down by myself and made the biggest decision of my life. As soon as possible, I decided I would seek a doctor's approval to begin gender affirming hormones and never look back on an old male life which was always a struggle to maintain. What a relief it was to finally face my truth and move on as my authentic self. It was time to put all my procrastination behind me and my life immediately began to improve. 

Still I was not up on any pedestal. As I always mention, I could have never have accomplished what I did without the help from several key cis-women friends and family. In essence my friends pushed me over the cliff into a world I had only ever dreamed of. Perhaps, not so surprising, my reliance on alcohol started to decline as at the same time my overall mental health began to improve. 

Ironically, my only problem became that I procrastinated coming out as a transgender woman as long as I did. I would have loved to have the years back when I anguished over which of the binary genders I would live as. In other words. sometimes I think I wasted too many years to claim a life as my feminine self I just kept putting off. The only excuse I had was, during my procrastination years, the world around me was changing. In the pre-internet years, there was a definite lack of information and contact. Our dark lonely LGBTQ+ closets were difficult to escape. 

The fact remained I still grew up putting off the most important aspects of my life and it continued until I finally decided enough was enough and it was way past time for me to live as a transgender woman fulltime.