Making it all Effortless

Image from the Jessie Hart Archives

When I decided to go all out and attempt to go public as a novice transgender woman, I found I had plenty to do before I go conquer the world as my authentic self. 

Reversing all I had learned to try to fit in to an unwanted male world proved very difficult to accomplish. Even more so when I learned I needed to make the gender transition seamless and effortless if I was to survive. The first problem I had to beat was getting myself out of my mirror. Just posing in my spare time cross dressed as a woman wasn't getting it anymore. Deep down, I knew I needed more if I was going to survive in my scary new world.

As I attempted to put my new feminine self into focus in the real world, I knew I needed to put away all my deeply ingrained male mechanisms. The prime example was doing away with my permanent leave me alone scowl on my face. I needed to replace it with a softer, kinder gentler look. I needed constant reassurance from myself to make it happen. Primarily because I didn't want anyone approaching me. I found out the hard way my methods were completely unfeminine and I was coming off as a bitch or worse yet, a miserable mean human being. I even was called a big mean woman in a clothing store one day by a little girl, so I knew I needed an immediate change.

The second most profound change I needed to make was how I moved as a transgender woman. Of course, it is no big secret women move differently than men and even though any added dimensions to my hips and butt were due to foam padding, I still had to practice overtime to accentuate my new figure. What I resorted to was trying to practice every second when I thought I was alone trying to walk like a woman. The problem I always encountered was everytime I thought I had put the total package together of makeup, hair and fashion and put the movement with them, I needed to go back to my male world and try to forget the whole thing. Through it all, I became very frustrated. I was having real problems making my whole feminine image effortless. 

Even still, I continued to make it a priority and finally began to see improvement in how I was perceived in the world as a transgender woman. I know, athletes call it "muscle memory" when they repeat a motion over and over again until they get it right and that is exactly what I needed to do. I started to look the public in the eye when I communicated with them and paid attention to what they were saying to me. By doing it, I was able to more precisely tell is someone was reacting negatively to me because I was trans and then what could I do next time to improve my presentation. 

Making it all effortless, did take a great amount of work but it was what I needed to do to accomplish my goal of leading a life as a transgender woman. Plus, I could not have done it without closely observing all of the women around me and the many ways they reacted to the world.    

What is Holding you Back?

My Hair. Beaded Trans Hair Clip
by Liz T Designs on Etsy

If you are still in your gender closet, tentatively looking out, what is holding you back is a big question. 

By now you are thinking there are very many big variables holding you back from leaving your closet behind and living as your authentic self. Examples include the possibility of losing spouses and or family, jobs and finances and even your home. Any way you cut it all the chances are major losses which can become lifetime setbacks. Been there, done it. 

The worry concerning all of the variables I mentioned kept me in the closet for over a half a century so I am no stranger to having one foot in my closet for years. It is the one big regret in life I have is I spent so much time and energy on my gender issues. In addition to losing portions of my life I could never get back, the whole time I was engaged in a terrible struggle with my mental health which I attempted to resolve with medication and therapy. Not to mention the time and money I spent trying to over medicate myself with alcohol. Many times when I was drinking, I felt over confident with how I was appearing to the public when I flipped my cross dressing script (in reality I was a woman cross dressing as a man) and went out in public thinking I was a man cross dressed as a woman. It took me years to figure it all out.

My excuse was I was still experiencing some sort of benefits from keeping one foot planted firmly in my male life. I had a good marriage, a loving daughter and a job with increased potential. In other words, I was living a very good example of the ideal male dream. The problem was becoming the more I gained, the less I liked the idea of what I was doing. But, even still, it was enough to hold me back as I dreamed of the possibility of someday living a life as a fulltime transgender woman. 

As with any thing else, success often comes with pressure and I was feeling it from several different sources. At the time my second wife was against any idea of me beginning a transgender path on gender affirming hormones, my job was adding pressure to do better continually and make the company more money. At the time, the pressure became so much I couldn't take it anymore and I tried the suicide I write so much about. I tried to take an overdose of my bi-polar medication and it luckily didn't work. 

From there I tried to retreat and live again totally as a man and bought my own restaurant. Both ideas turned out to be a total failure as my close friends and my spouse all died around me. All of a sudden, with nothing to lose, I found myself with nothing holding me back from my transgender dreams. I had reached the age of sixty and really was at a crossroads again in my life. I could go on living an unhappy male existence or begin a life I always wanted. 

For once I took the right path and started hormones so there would be no turning back in my decision. Plus, I wasn't getting any younger, so the time was right for me to make the jump off my gender cliff and see what happened. It turned out, the only thing holding me back was myself and the fear I head of rebuilding a new life as a transgender woman. Even though I thought I had completely thought out all the possibilities of such a move, it turned out there were many I didn't consider which is a topic for another post I will be writing soon.   

 

Sexuality .The Great Divide

Image from Jack Lucas Smith
on UnSplash

 It is no big secret men are more insecure in their sexuality than women. Many to the point of being toxic in their approach. I think the toxicity is the reason for the uptick in violence against all women, transgender or not. 

When I transitioned out of my old unwanted male world into a new scary exciting feminine universe, I wondered if my sexuality would or have to change. For me, it meant giving up on my long held belief I was NOT a gay male. God forbid if I wasn't . Somehow I never the connection of dressing up as a girl with wanting to be with a man sexually. Even to the point when I finally understood I wanted to do more than just look like a woman, I wanted to be one. To be honest, the sexuality scared me more than anything else about my MtF gender transition. Could I have been wrong my entire life about my attraction to women? 

Very early in my transition I was "coached" by friends such as Amy on how to practice being with a man by using a banana. While I appreciated the advice, I never really decided to think about a banana the same way again. Plus, since I was living a whole new lifestyle, who was to say I needed to live it a certain way. After all, there were many lesbians I knew who would disagree with me or anyone about  needing a man to validate their existence. Since so many had told me I shouldn't or couldn't change my gender, what was one more idea to shatter. 

Still, I wasn't sure on how to proceed when I decided to leave the fragile world of men who were secretly struggling with their own sexuality and build a new one for myself. It meant entering a time of experimentation for myself. First I searched high and low on dating sites for a man who happened to live close by and wanted to try to date me. To put it mildly, I failed miserably when I was completely upfront about being transgender. Almost all of them saw me as only a fetish sexual object. They wanted to skip the dating aspect of meeting me in a public venue and go straight to a motel room. When I refused, most all of them would have nothing to do with me.

On the other hand I discovered women did not feel the same way about me. Curiosity I believe led most of the women I met to find out more about me when I went out to many different venues. It all made my life fun and exciting again. Of all people, I found many accepting lesbians who I could socialize with. As I always say, they taught me so much about being a woman who could stand on her own. Once again, my sexuality became secure again without having to make any drastic changes.  No bananas for me except to add to my ice cream sundaes. When I was with my close knit group of lesbian friends, I could watch the fragile world of men from afar as I relied on my  previous experience as a guy to let me in on what they were feeling. Which was probably the biggest reason men didn't trust me. I knew too much. 

By living a transgender lifestyle, I was able to observe the sexuality of both of the primary binary genders. I came away knowing I made the right decision. Destiny led me the right direction. I obviously nothing against the male gay community but it just wasn't for me. I was correct in believing women were the most secure gender when it came to accepting any variations in their sexuality and men are the most fragile.