Empty Houses

Photo from the Jessie Hart
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 As I grew up in a male world, I naturally adopted many male dominated activities and hobbies which I stored away in my house I had to build as a guy. 

Mainly because I was frantically chasing
my desire to be feminine, I sometimes jumped from activity to activity rapidly. Plus none of this was accounting for the traditional male things I was doing such as building a family and trying my best to provide as good of a house I could. As far as actual house goes, I was trying to follow in my Dad's shadow and come as close as I could to either remodel or build my own house. He built his own house while I worked hard to renovate an 1860's era brick tavern in the town I was from. I came close but I don't think he understood why I did it. 

Bu it wasn't easy. I needed to teach myself the basic's of plumbing and electricity among other important things associated with remodeling an old structure. The end result was my second wife and I were able to live comfortably there in the years before her death. Then, I was all alone with a couple dogs and a cat in this huge empty house. At that point, I needed to decide which direction my life would take physically and mentally. What I mean was, was I going to continue to try to live in the house I remodeled with all it's memories or try to move on. With all the animals of course. What I decided to do was make the house even emptier by selling all my wife and I's vintage collections on line and using the money to augment my Social Security money I was making. In doing so, I managed to keep the house going for awhile as I sought out the possibility of taking an early retirement. Eventually, years later, I was able to move us all in with my current wife Liz in nearby Cincinnati, Ohio. 

As it turned out, the physical aspect of having an empty house was much easier than the mental part. Since during my life, even though I started out shy, I became a rather social person with deep ties to my home town. Sadly, those ties had nothing to do with my increasingly dominant feminine self. With no one to stand in my way, I was actually able to pursue if I was indeed transgender or not. Or just a serious crossdresser who wanted to their best to look like a woman. Since I had the options and inspirations to discover my true self further, I finally gave in to my inner female and set out to attempt to build a new life.   

Surprisingly, leaving behind my old male life was easier than I anticipated. Destiny (and effort) led me to meeting a new group of cis-gendered women friends I could be social with and learn about a new house at the same time. Plus, all the years I dreamed about decorating a new empty gender house came to pass as I adopted relatively easy to my new gender affirming hormones and life as a fulltime transgender woman. Then my relationship with Liz, who I met on line flourished, and we were married years later after my daughter suggested we finally do it. She made sense, we married and moved on to a new chapter of building my feminine house and making it much less empty.

I am sure, when one discusses genders, not many humans get the chance to empty one house and start all over again in a new one. It is a scary yet exciting journey. 
 

Scaring the Public

Image from Raphael Renter
on UnSplash 

Often when we transgender folk encounter the public, sometimes we scare them. 

Sadly, we have been demonized by all the politicians in the country with all their ignorant bills in state legislatures. Seeing as how the majority of the public hasn't had the chance to ever meet a trans person up close and personal, they have nothing to work with. I ran into it the other day when I was at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Cincinnati. I was waiting for my wife Liz to park the car, I was leaning against the wall and most of the people just ignored me, except one. I guess these days, I pass easily as being old because she was insisting on finding me a wheelchair. As I talked her out of it, I saw the smallest pause in her demeanor and I thought, here it comes. She noticed I was transgender and there was something wrong with the picture I was presenting. My excuse was I was wearing no makeup at all because after all I was headed for a colonoscopy. Somehow, I didn't care how I would look for the procedure since they would be up close and personal with me anyhow and would know my gender truth. 

It is sad we scare the public so much seeing as how we are just trying to live as normal life as possible as the next so called hetero-gender straight persons. Another reason we scare the public so much I think  is because we have had the opportunities to see and learn what goes on behind the curtains of the opposite genders. The entire process gives us an unique perspective on society as a whole. When I was seriously involved in my gender transition, I had women friends several times ask me what their men were really thinking when they couldn't understand them. Since I had been on both sides of the gender border when I was suddenly shut out of conversations between men and I. So I had an idea of what the women were going through.

Fortunately I didn't have to explain to very many men why I would want to give up all the hard earned male privileges I had worked for. Most of all my close male friends had passed away by then and the remaining close women friends I had who first were surprised by my decision to transition into their world and then supported me. Their support of course meant the world to me and more than made up for the loss of contact with my only sibling, a younger brother and his right wing in laws who refused to support me. Since we transgender folks have been so demonized by the politicians, I hate to think what the relatives would think of me now. So I put them out of my mind. 

Hopefully, the younger generation will be able to erase all the potential damage to future generations of trans youth. What the politicians don't understand is we have been around forever and cannot be erased by laws. We may have to temporarily go slightly underground in some areas of the country but we will always continue to exist. 

As pockets of diversity continue to exist, transgender allies will continue to exist too. Perhaps by then, the average public will not be scared of us. All we want is acceptance and equal rights. 

Supporting Casts

 Recently I wrote a post concerning (among other things) the power of having cis-gender women friends to help your transgender transition along at key times. If you are similar to me, you started your gender journey in the mirror and dreamed of the day when I could enlist another more experienced woman's aid with my wardrobe and makeup. 

In response, I received this comment from "Anonymous" : " It’s nice to see the positive side, the genuine sense of joy in transition. I know I have felt euphoria as I have gained the confidence to comfortably present myself authentically to the outside world. It’s interesting that you mention feeling more comfortable in the company of women. That has been my experience. I am not attracted to men physically. Frankly, I prefer women as friends or if given the opportunity, as intimate partners." 

Thanks for the comment! 

For some reason, during my life I have always felt more comfortable around women, even though there were very few girls in the neighborhood I grew up in. In order to survive, I needed to develop strong masculine tendencies to basically keep the bullies away. Even though I was successful, I still for whatever reason, never really had many close male friends Maybe, it was a result of my inner feminine self. Or an overreaction to thinking I maybe gay. My own inner form of homophobia. In later years I wondered if the fear of my own sexuality would carry over into my own inner transphobia. Essentially when I feared what would happen if I went too far into living as a fulltime transgender woman. 

In passing the other day, I mentioned certain early cross dressers or transvestites' who were seemingly using cigars to back up their reliance on so called male stereotypes. to which I received this partial comment from Georgette who happens to still smoke cigars, even though she has transitioned:

" Why do so many people break everything down to a Masculine or Feminine thing, I get a laugh or no response from many part-time CD/TV that will say that they still enjoy all those "Manly" things, I started smoking cigars in my teen years and still do. It is a world of difference from smoking in general."

Thanks to you Georgette  for the comment!  I think too many people over-simplify the masculine and feminine thing. Including me. Sometimes I get lazy when I write and get ahead of myself. On the other hand, describing the differences between the two main binary genders becomes very tedious for me. As far as cigars go, they were part of my life when I needed to out macho another man, or at least connect with him. Before I transitioned and grew away from them, a good cigar was a priority of me so I understand where Georgette is coming from in her comment. 

As far as comments go, I always invite any of you to participate in the blog by commenting and I will try to add in your input when I can, Sometimes it is applicable, sometimes not. The same way I felt I couldn't use the makeup advice I was given very early on when I was a novice crossdresser. If the truth be known, I probably had more experience with makeup than some of the women I was with. Later on was when I discovered how much I could learn from the women around me about really being women. As Georgette said going much farther than simply breaking down life to a masculine versus feminine existence. 

It took me awhile to finally learn my second wife was trying to tell me the same thing when she said I made a terrible woman. Perhaps my problem was I was making a terrible person to begin with. It took the emergence of my inner female to recognize the difference with the help of a strong supporting cast.