Upping your Game

 

Image from Brian Kyed on
UnSplash

As I followed my winding gender path towards living a life as a fulltime transgender woman, there were many times when I needed to up my game if I wanted to keep going.

Along the way, there were simply too many blind curves and dead ends to count. For some reason, I hitched up my new big girl panties and proceeded forward. Sometimes it was just a touch of gender euphoria I experienced which kept me going. For some reason, one of the euphoric experiences I felt was one of the nights I went to a diverse private gender party in nearby Columbus, Ohio. For the evening I decided to match up my black tights with my black shorts, loose black net sweater and red wig, I was aiming for an upscale casual look and was confident I achieved it. What escapes me now is what my wife was doing that evening because I am sure she would have disapproved. No matter what outfit I put together to wear. I just know for whatever reason, she was not there. Leaving me free to explore and explore I did.  

At the party, I was always used to upping my game because often there were the prettiest of the pretty people attending. I knew I couldn't out do them but just did not want to embarrass myself either. It turned out I didn't at the party which turned out to be a look into the future for me when it came to my sexuality. During the evening I met and got along with a lesbian who was attending for the first time. In fact, we got along so well, we decided to leave the party and go downtown to a well known lesbian venue I had been to many times. Nothing really happened between us and we returned to the party. The importance of the meeting was I proved to myself I could conceivably live a life as a transgender lesbian if I upped my game enough. If I did, I wouldn't have to ever worry about attracting a standoffish man again. Who, for the most part ignored me or treated me as some sort of a fetish object.  

As it turned out, just when I thought I had reached a successful stopping point to rest in my gender journey, something else came along and again and again I needed to up my game. I didn't realize until much later I was building a whole new person and needed all the help I could get. I found I was doing so much more than just doing my best to appear as a woman, I needed to communicate with the entire world as one also. On occasion, the only clarity I had was I knew I needed to keep going and some day I might be able to live my lifelong dream of living a feminine life. 

Ironically, I was able to find my way thanks to a close group of lesbian friends I found and was accepted by. In addition to my other life lessons I learned the basics of being a woman who did not need the validation of a man to thrive in the world. Thanks to them, I was able to keep upping my game and progressing along my gender path as I was losing all of my male privilege. 

Perhaps, most importantly, I didn't have to worry about my sexuality anymore and was able to eventually marry my wife Liz who identified as a lesbian also. She really helped me to up my game and succeed in life as a trans woman. 

Pockets of Insecurity

Girls Night Out, I am Bottom Left
Image from the Jessie Hart Archives.

 Where I live in suburban Cincinnati, it has been rare in the past decade when I have ever been harassed for being transgender. In fact, I think the only time it happened was when I first moved down here approximately ten years ago.

However, if I travel a few more miles east into a neighboring county, I always find myself in a decidedly redneck or MAGA areas. One of the most memorable occasions took place two times when the Wiccan group I was part of had garage sales in a small village in the middle of the area I am referring to. Here we were on a Sunday morning and afternoon set up just outside of a big box store selling crafts and baked goods to interested people. Yes I was scared!

I thought, how the heck did a transgender Wiccan trans woman end up in an heavily redneck area on a Sunday? One in a million I thought. Then I was wrong, there was another trans woman trying her best to come out in a hostile world who owned a house not far from where I was. We have kept track of each other over the years through social media and recently has said she has had more than her share of problems from her world. She has been subjected to everything from old ladies shaking their fingers at her at the grocery store, all the way to men yelling derogatory things from their cars. Gender bigots everywhere it seems for my poor friend. 

The frustrating part is she presents well except for the usual problems with her height and voice. Naturally, she has expressed her frustration with living in the entire Cincinnati area. Several others, including me, mentioned it wasn't the entire metro area, just where she lived. 

Sadly, in many ways, my friend is stuck in a small way in the same problems all transgender women and trans men have living in Ohio. Even though, the metropolitan areas of the state are inviting, diverse and liberal. the redneck Republican politicians are now trying their best to erase all of the gains and rights trans Ohioan's have gained over the years. Now including even the rights to gaining healthcare for gender affirming hormones and beyond. In doing so, the state is threatening to come after the very clinics which work with the trans population. If it happens, it will be scary to see if the states' intrusion into my life will reach all the way to my Veteran's Administration health care. Which, for me has been overwhelming positive when it came to my gender affirming care.

The moral to the story is, no matter where you are or how far along you are in your transition, you better be aware of what your future could hold. Even though you are deep in your closet, you need to vote accordingly for your future. 

As far as my friend goes, I hope she finds away around all the gender bigots and discovers a way to live an authentic life. 

Passing Privilege?

 

"Cheap Sun Glasses"
from the Jessie Hart
Archives

As we make it through the various stages of our gender journeys, often we are overly concerned with our appearance.

Very early on I learned my looks, or lack of them, were referred to how I presented as a feminine person. If I was a success, I "passed" and if I failed the term I most often heard from within the cross dressing community was I was "clocked" as a man in a dress. So I began to become more and more obsessed with "passing" as a woman in public. The problem was, I thought I was achieving success when I was admiring myself in the mirror and then failed miserably when I tried my best to pass in public. The process all led to my well documented years of thinking (or confusing) sexy with trashiness when I cross dressed. What maybe looked good on a teenaged girl, most certainly didn't look good on me. Undeterred, still I persisted. Finally I made it through my so called teen aged girl years and into womanhood and started to work on blending in with the other women around me. 

All of a sudden, I found I could discover just a small amount of passing privilege. In my case, it meant not being stared at to the point of even being laughed at. I could concentrate on the brief gender euphoria I was feeling by just being in the world as my feminine self.  One of the tricks I used to judge the world's reaction to me was to wear sunglasses. When I did so, I could see how others were looking at me without being obvious. My "cheap sunglasses" worked well from a fashion standpoint as well as a tool to see if I had gained any passing privilege. 

It took me years longer to discover what any sort of a woman's gender privilege was going to mean to me anyhow. When I first began to become successful as a novice transgender woman, the only privilege I could notice was when a man would stop and hold a door open for me. The more I experimented in the world, the more I learned how wrong I was about the passing privilege and/or feminine privilege's I was gaining. Nothing really happened until I was able to hold my head up in the world and quit being so shy about myself. After all, I was doing nothing wrong and if someone else had a problem with me, it was their problem. Not mine to solve or run from. 

When I first was able to be prescribed gender affirming hormones for the first time, I suddenly learned more of what feminine privilege was all about. As my initial dosage increased, I found I had a different view of the world. As my senses became more in tune of what was going on around me, my world just grew softer. I could not believe the changes. 

I think my final bout of passing privilege also came with the external femininizing results from the hormones. Since I had never been a "natural" when it came to trying a male to female gender transition, I needed all the help I could get. Most certainly hormones aren't for everyone, but they sure were for me.

These days, I mostly just present as old. I have a natural passing privilege.