Writing Euphoria

Image from the Jessie Hart
Archives

Every now and then I receive a comment which brings all the effort I put into writing a daily transgender blog into focus. 

When I started writing this blog over ten years ago, I set out to hopefully help anyone else with gender issues similar to mine. Back in those days, when I revisited my old blog posts, I mainly see an over riding interest with my feminine appearance and not much else. Of course when I transitioned into a fulltime life as a transgender woman, I discovered all the other challenges I was going to face. It was all much different than my life as a casual cross dresser. 

This is where the writer's euphoria comes in. I recently received this comment from Jennifer " Thank you for publishing your thoughts and experiences. I am an older, but not that wiser, transgender woman just starting out on the road to femininity. Your blog helps me much to understand the hurtles I am about to encounter. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and opening up to your experiences.

Thank you, Jennifer" You are welcome Jennifer and thanks for sharing such a wonderful comment. 

Somehow, along the way, the blog made it's own transition into looking at my life as a senior transgender woman. I found, being "more mature" in many ways had it's advantages. Primarily when it came to beginning gender affirming hormones. Because at my age, my testosterone level was already in a decline, the rush of new estrogen in my system seemed to be more natural. On the other hand of course, I needed to go through the medical screening process to determine if I was healthy enough to proceed on the program I was prescribed. 

As far as being "older but not wiser", I think I faced that aspect of my life also more than I could ever write about. For better or for worse, I had already went past and missed my formative feminine years and needed to master the mysteries of makeup and fashion on my own. There were no teen girls to critique my look and for me to return the favor. Plus, I spent way to much time alone with no girlfriends to shop at the mall with. 

I discovered too, there was a small niche of older transgender women who had lived through the dark and lonely pre-internet years. I am amazed how many readers still remember fondly the "Transvestia" publication along with Virginia Prince. But then again, it was all we had to provide any sort of light in our gender closets. 

These days, I am still committed to attempting to provide any guidance I can to anyone like Jennifer who needs it. After all, our gender journeys through life on one hand are so similar but on the other not so much. Each of us needs to navigate how we are going to shed a life of living male and begin all over again. And just when we think we have it made, we need to face the reality of being trans in retirement communities and/or assisted living. Regardless of all the negative publicity we receive from politicians, I still believe more people such as the "Alzheimer's Association" are researching ways to be more inclusive to the LGBTQ community. So, there is hope. 

Thanks again Jennifer, Jen (another reader) and all the others of you who join in with me here on the blog. You give me writers euphoria and improve my mental health.

Gender Euphoria

My wife Liz on the left
From the Jessie Hart archives.

Sadly, gender euphoria is too rare for most transgender women and trans men.

For too many of us (including me) gender dysphoria rules the life.  Throughout my life when I get up in the morning to begin my day, a quick look in the mirror tells me I am living my external gender as yet another day as a guy and my gender dysphoria sets in. I describe my gender dysphoria as being a deep seated issue caused by my desire to live as my authentic feminine self. From then on my day is set on how it will go.

However, every now and then something comes along to reassure me I am doing the right thing with my life. It could be as little as my wife Liz referring to me as "she" all the way to a server calling Liz and I "ladies" at dinner when we eat out. Whatever the case, gender euphoria is brief and dysphoria is always lurking in the background. 

I think part of the problem is all the difficulty I experienced as I followed the path to living my transgender dream. In the days when I just considered appearance as my number one feminine dream, of course there were always plenty of other women (trans or cis) to compete with because they were far more attractive than me. My impossible dream was to do the best I could to survive in a sometimes brutal world as a novice cross dresser or transgender woman. Initially, I made the mistake of attempting to dress sexily to validate myself in the world. All too often, my attempts came off as trashy or even clownish. Plus, one night my wife had to rescue me from a huge man at a party who had pinned me against a wall in a narrow hallway. In no way was there any gender euphoria or feminine validation involved that night. Just my wife reprimanding me for not taking better care of myself ahead of time. Not to mention, she hated what I wore. In my mind, I was trying to keep up with the beautiful transsexual women who were there also.

Through it all, I managed to have enough moments of pure gender euphoria to keep my gender dreams alive. Very early on all the visits to mall and women's clothing stores provided me with positive one and one feedbacks with the clerks to think I was doing everything right as a novice feminine cross dresser. It took me many years to realize, the clerks were mostly nice to me because of my money. Years later, after I came out to my daughter, she told me of her days working at Victoria's Secret when the occasional man would come in shopping for lingerie in his size. Other clerks would refuse to wait on him but my daughter did and pocketed the commission. I could have been green and most of the clerks would have still liked me.

My mall days continued my gender euphoria to an extent I never thought possible. I used to go to the up-scale malls in the area in my very best business professional fashions. Including a very stylish black jumpsuit I loved with my black heels and blond wig. It seemed I never had any problems and my euphoria soared along with my confidence. Sadly, I normally found a way to push the so called envelope too far and get rejected in the world and my gender dysphoria would set in again.

It wasn't until I began gender affirming hormones did I reach the point of no return in my male to female gender transition. Regardless of what happened to me, negative or positive, I needed to attempt to move forward towards my dream. Happily, the feminine hormones improved my exterior image. My skin softened, my hair grew and my facial angles softened which made my whole presentation easier to do, since I needed to do it every day. 

Even with all the help. I still have the dysphoria/euphoria battle with the mirror every morning. Sometimes I win the battle, sometimes I lose but most importantly, I have learned neither aspect of my appearance should rule my day. Nothing is as good or bad as it seems.

Thanks to all of you who join me for my experiences! I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and even comment. It all means the world to me.

It Was Never Easy

Image from Alexander Grey
on UnSplash

 Two things amaze me when people bring up to me when they learn I am transgender. The first is when someone thinks I had a choice and the second is the entire process was at all easy. 

Since I was never a so-called natural feminine person to begin with, I needed to struggle completely to reach my goals of surviving in the public's eye at all as a woman...trans or not. The best description of my passing struggles came when my transgender friend Racquel told me I passed out of sheer will power. I knew what she was trying to say. I wasn't the best looking woman in the room but I was going to force the issue anyhow. 

Early on, I had only the mirror to do my gender battles with. I finally learned too late the mirror often lied to me. Night after night, I would think I looked great only to be immediately stared at or even laughed at in public. It was difficult learning how to try to dress myself so my feminine fashion helped me to live a life I had only dreamed of, not hurt it. At the same time, I tried to lose as much weight as I could and take care of my skin so I could wear less foundation. None of it was easy. But it was worth it.

In order to accomplish all I wanted to do on my difficult gender journey, I needed to learn something new and different. I had to learn to be my own best friend. I never liked my old male self and was just learning all the new possibilities of my feminine inner soul. She had many problems to face as she fought for acceptance from my male self who fought completely for all of his rights. At times, it was an ugly, bloody battle I never want to go through again. It was anything but easy and never a choice to go through as I was to find out later. 

I ended up suffering so much, I almost ended my life several times from various reckless self harm attempts all the way to an attempted death by pills which failed before I decided enough was enough. In order to survive I had to make a choice, so yes I guess I did have a choice and it was a very desperate one. Self survival meant I needed to pursue what measures I could and change my life forever. The final determination was deep down I felt more natural as a transgender woman and needed to find out where I would need to end up in the new pack of women in society. It was then I learned how deeply layered a woman's life could be and perhaps even more so as a trans woman. I had all the extra baggage of my previous life as a man which I carried with me to the other gender side. I knew the male gender expectations men had of women which made me extra shy of the entire gender dance between men and women. Primarily I learned why both genders often have a difficult time communicating in their relationships and wished often I could go back and do my life different. Maybe then, my second wife would have never said I made a terrible woman. Which I did and thought it only had to do with how I looked.

The final example for this post I will use was the amount of time it took me to finally face reality and come out fully as a transgender woman. Adding up the years, I struggled with my ultimate gender issues for nearly a half century. It was certainly difficult to break out of my old male chains and live the life of my dreams. I realized I never had a choice.