Transition within Transition

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives

Along the way down my gender path, I often considered each change to be the final transition I would ever need to suffer through. I was wrong and it turned out a few of my transitions were pleasant, some not so much.

Perhaps I should refer to my many changes more than just transitions within my gender issues. The prime examples I could use are when I needed to break all my home ties out of high school and enroll at an university one hundred miles away or the time I was forced to go away to Ft. Knox to fulfill my military obligations during the Vietnam War. Two major life changing transitions to be sure for my male self. Then there was the human transition I went through when I became a parent for the first time. I remember it as one of the profoundly life changing experiences ever. 

Before you think the only major transitions I went through were on my old male side of life, you would be wrong. I have always considered crossing the binary gender border, is one of the most difficult journeys a human can undertake. My feminine transitions include when early in life I determined I wanted  to do more than just wanting to admire myself in the mirror as a girl, somehow in my dreams I wanted to be a girl. In order to do so, my path ahead became very difficult. Initially, the mirror was very kind to me and the world much more scary to negotiate. 

Plus, there was always the question of how my strongly entrenched male self would react to all the gender changes I wanted to go through. In many ways, he was allied with my wife against the survival of my inner feminine self. Both of them strongly wanted him to survive not her. Secretly, she won out as she continued to transition herself when she took advantage of the times she had to be in the public's eye. It wasn't so long after she started her public explorations, she decided she wasn't a cross dresser at all but fit into the newly adopted and publicized transgender category. Her long standing dream of living a feminine life as a trans woman was coming closer. At the same time, my true self was exploring the world's reaction to her by meeting new people at parties and mixers and learning how to communicate with them mostly woman to woman because very few men would have anything to do with me. Forcing me to develop myself more completely as a new person at least on the feminine side. I still had plenty of questions to answer. Was I gay? Was I a trans-lesbian? So much to learn.  

In the midst of all this new life skill I was learning, it seemed at times, enough was enough and I had achieved most of my goal. Of course I learned enough was never enough and there were always new discoveries in life to make. It at times was not easy when I was bounced out of restrooms or even entire venues for simply being trans. Ironically, one of the managers who made me leave his venue one night got fired and the crew found me in a neighboring venue and invited me back. I had my revenge. The manager was wrong because all I was doing was minding my own business, spending good money and tipping well.

Looking ahead, which I do quite a bit at my advanced age, I see many more transitions ahead. Some are as big as they come. Transitions such as elderly life care and even my final transition (death) are now real possibilities. 

When it all comes, it will just be another transition within a transition. I have managed to survive to this point and at times had a good time doing it.

   

Gender Euphoria

Image from the 
Jessie Hart Archives

When I consider the balance of my gender life , I sometimes try to break down the amount of time I felt dealing with my gender dysphoria versus the rarer moments of gender euphoria. In my down times of dealing with my gender issues, euphoria for whatever reason kept me going. 

Similar to so many of you, I experienced many nights of dread, not knowing where my life was heading as well as wondering why me and should I just give up and try the impossible, to purge all my feminine clothes and makeup then give up on my feminine self. Following the first couple of rather expensive purges I went through I gave up on the useless practice. Mainly because I felt so natural when I was exploring my true self. Even though I started out in the mirror being my only friend fortunately my life's destiny was directing me the correct way. 

The path I chose was very bumpy along the way and involved many wrong turns. There were many decisions to be made such as what to do about my family, friends and finances not to mention one big one...my sexuality. Did I follow the main thought pattern of the day and transition then disappear and start a new life with a man? I followed my instincts and allowed my new life to play out complete with all the effects of gender dysphoria and euphoria. 

Mainly, since I was far from what I called a "natural" when it came to presenting well as a woman. To say the process was intimidating was a big understatement.  Finally, with quite a bit of work and attention to detail, I acquired the confidence to go out and succeed in public. I stress confidence because even though I thought I passed well as a woman, I was still a transgender woman attempting a public life. I'm sure many times, my acceptance was just because people (mainly women) were just being nice to me. Or were just curious why I would want to change my gender. In the meantime, my inner battle between dysphoria and euphoria continued unabated. Some mornings when I first looked in the mirror I saw a vaguely feminine person and was satisfied but on others, the masculine image I saw sent my gender depression soaring. 

As my transgender explorations continued, so did my reliance on gender euphoria to get me by in my life. Probably, the biggest impact occurred when I decided to begin my journey on gender affirming hormones. Formerly known as HRT. In the absence of any surgeries I was not planning to aid my development in my brave new world, I decided on hormones to aid in presenting better as a transgender woman. When I did, I was able to experience more gender euphoria than I ever thought possible. My body softened, I grew breasts and extra hair and I had many unexpected internal benefits also. To simplify the process, I call it when my world began to soften. My old testosterone edge went away and a new better life began. There is one disclaimer to the hormonal process. The entire medical hormone procedure should never be attempted without medical supervision because the process can be harmful. I was just one of the many who tolerated the hormonal changes well.

My biggest example of gender euphoria happened recently when I was visibly prepping my body for a medical procedure I have to go through (colonoscopy). Most of my body hair has long since disappeared but there were a few stray hairs which needed to go away. As I was examining my naked body from the neck down, all I saw was a feminine body, complete with breasts and hips. Of course I stopped at the waist. It was enough to feel good about the changes the hormones have caused over the years. 

My euphoria later in life has seen most of the old dark gender days shrink far into my past. With just the most severe memories coming back to haunt me I am good to go. Plus, it took me awhile to recognize there is a middle ground to how I feel about dysphoria. It is never as good or as bad as it seems. The key for me was to use my dysphoria as a powerful motivator and learn to appreciate the all too brief moments of euphoria which kept me moving forward towards my impossible dream of being able to live a life as a trans woman.

Men are From Where?

 As we attempt to cross the gender border from one side to the other, we certainly suffer from a lack of much training at all.  We had no understanding of which planet we trans folk came from to begin with. 

Partially because most of us didn't have the benefit of having an understanding mother or sister who participated in our progression into the feminine world. We never were able to indulge in girls only sleepovers where clothes, makeup and other girls activities were discussed and acted upon. Thus, when we actually began to have the chance to live in the world we always dreamed of, we had no idea of how to do it. The only ideas we had were from the outside looking in. 

The whole void we stepped into all of a sudden left us (as novice transgender or cross dresser persons) in a spot which was difficult to conquer. Many of us, including me, went through my feminine teen years which I never experienced in the public's eye. When I did stuff my overweight male body into tight female clothes designed for teen agers, many times I was laughed at when I attempted to go out in public. I found out the hard way my mirror only told me what I wanted to see and the mirror only reflected what my old male self thought was appropriate to present well in public. I was very stubborn in my approach so it took me awhile to realize to survive as a transgender woman in the world, I needed to be able to communicate with all other women. As I did it, I keenly felt the problem I had having no previous training growing up as a girl. Naturally, all the time and effort I put into surviving in a male world were a waste of time.

Perhaps, the biggest hurdle I faced when I transitioned from male to female came when I tried to communicate with other women. Quickly I learned the value of non verbal communication. Which is one of the reasons men and women sometimes misunderstand each other. Ironically, it was much later in my transition when I was finally was invited behind the gender curtain to truly experience how women communicate. I was warned by my wife one time when we had a fight, she told me I made a terrible woman and it had nothing to do with just appearing as one. So I set out to learn what she meant.

It took awhile but lessons were learned. An example was when I knew I had arrived as a trans woman when I was approached by a man in a venue. Instead of looking at him, I looked at the bartender (woman) who was looking back at me in essence to leave the guy alone. It was the first of many communication lessons I learned when it came for me to communicate with other women.

Other painful lessons came when I was involved with other women who I thought accepted me. They smiled and were overall nice to me until when I turned around and they had their claws in my back. Learning the new world of passive aggressiveness would prove to be difficult for me to adjust to. Of course I was used to the more forward aggression men deal with when engaging each other. I had no training in any of this public interaction as a transgender woman so I had so much to learn. 

Perhaps you remember the book "Men are from Mars-Women are from Venus". In my gender explorations I found the book to be true on many levels. Starting with and including communication. As a trans woman, I brought a totally different outlook to the binary gender standoff. I was flattered when women friends of mine asked me to explain what their men were thinking. 

At that point I wondered if the binary genders had a planet, why didn't we transgender people because we occupy such an unique position. Many ancient societies used to recognize us as special. We need to find our way back there again. We just have to be trained to do it.