Transgender Plan B?

A Bright Idea from Diego PH
on UnSplash

In life, did you ever have to come up with a new plan if the one you were working on didn't work?

In my life, I had many "Plan B's" because I didn't think things out before I did them. A prime example was when I was engaging in all the cross dressing I was doing in front of the mirror when I was very young. If the truth be known, I didn't know what I would do if I was caught. Except to lie and promise to never do it again. Plus, what if I was caught shopping for makeup in a downtown department store close to where my Dad worked. In the vacuum I lived in, I just plowed blindly ahead, hoping for the best and expecting the worst never happened. Which it never did.

I suppose I always thought there was a "Plan B" somewhere if I was discovered. Somehow I would magically give up on my dream and keep marching ahead in a male world. In reality or not, I always thought there had to be some sort of back up if I failed at anything. There was always going to be another chance to put on a dress and apply makeup if I was careful. 

The first time I encountered a situation where the only back up plan was applying myself in the system was when I enlisted in the Army during the Vietnam War to evade the draft. When I went through the human machine called basic training, the threat of failure was real. The drill sergeants made it clear if you failed at something you could be recycled back to the beginning and have to start all over again. No one wanted to face that "Plan B." The result of going through basic built my confidence in that if I was forced into a situation I certainly did not want to be, I could still survive. The main problem I had was I couldn't (of course) cross dress at all and had to put my gender issues aside. During the several years which occurred before I could indulge in cross dressing again, my back up plan was to do quite a lot of daydreaming about when I finished my military service and could resume my life as I had lived it before. 

When I did finish, I found myself needing a whole new set of "Plan B''s." What happened was, I started to go all out at Halloween parties dressed as a woman. Where I learned the basics of surviving in a new exciting world as I was slowly growing up as a novice transgender woman, which was my dream. Of course the problem was Halloween only came around once a year and what was I going to do the rest of the time about my gender dysphoria. What I decided to do was sneak out of the house and into the world as my new transgender self. When I did it, I needed plenty of "Plan B's" if I was caught. My rule of thumb was to be as careful as I could and deny anything which happened if I was caught by my second wife. Not the best plan. 

As my femininization presentation improved, I found I needed a whole new plan to survive in the world as my authentic self. Primarily I needed a way to communicate with women I was meeting who were curious why I was in their world. Initially, I tried to mimic who I was talking to as far as using their vocal pitch and then even moved on to taking voice lessons to sound more like a woman. Finally, I moved to a point where I was half way comfortable with the way I sounded and I did the best I could.

I am biased of course but I feel the back up plans we transgender women or trans men face are far more impactful than those of the average person. We trans folk often face the possibility of losing almost everything as the "Plan B" we have when we enter the world. All too often, I read the sad, tragic stories of trans women losing their entire families, jobs and even friends when they made their way out of the closet. 

Hopefully, in the future, society will come around and we won't have to rely on severe "Plan B's" to survive.

Life's Little Nudges

Image from James Lee
on UnSplash

In an extension of yesterday's post, there were many times when I needed a little push to keep going towards my dream of living a life as a transgender woman. 

Perhaps the first push I needed was I had to know if I could exist in the public's eye as a novice cross dresser (or whatever label you want to put on me) at all. It seemed everytime I left my closet, I was being laughed at or at the minimum stared at. It was during those dark days I waited on any rationalization to come along to justify what I was doing to myself was right. The light I saw at the end of the tunnel certainly seemed to be the train back then. 

Somehow, I kept dodging the train and relied on the least bit of gender euphoria I felt on occasion to propel me forward. One example was the short, flirty tennis style outfit I came up with to wear to the mall. I managed enough pizazz to generate admiring looks from many of the old men who were in the mall walking at the time. Back in those days, I didn't really understand what a true validation as a woman meant to me. I was still obsessed with appearance only.

Slowly I was nudged off my appearance pedestal by comments from my second wife such as I did not have any idea of what being a woman was all about. Since I had spent nearly all of my life to that point studying the women around me, I resented the fact she said it at all but even still, I set out to find out what she meant. Sadly, most of what I learned from her comments did not come until after she passed away. At that point, gender doors began to open for me and I was nudged through them. Finally, I paid enough dues to be allowed to play in the girls' sandbox. Where the real learning started. Slowly I survived having my sandcastles destroyed and sand kicked in my face by the mean girls and I moved on.

As my world widened and I actually learned I could make it in a transgender world, it seemed each night was a bigger and bigger push in the right direction. Destiny showed me a path and I took it. My small group of lesbian friends showed me how to validate myself without a man and secured once and for all my sexuality. I was living my dream and decided to take it a step forward by beginning gender affirming hormones. After all, at the age of sixty, if I was healthy enough, what was holding me back. It turned out nothing was except for a surprising reaction to the new femininizing hormones in my body. It was much more than a nudge when my breasts developed to a point where they were easily visible under all my old male shirts. All along, I thought the process would take longer but it didn't and it was time to come out to what was left of my family. 

The coming out process showed me both sides of coming out as a transgender woman in a male dominated family where I was supposed to be the patriarch. Because I was the oldest surviving man. My brother rejected me and my daughter accepted me is the short and sweet version I relate to so much here in the blog. 

Even though it was at times a very difficult and rough gender journey I went down, life's little nudges made my life anything but boring. In fact, it tended to be on the terrifying/exciting side.   

Trans Crisis Management

 

Image from the Jessie
Hart archives. From the Ohio 
State Student Union. 

Over the years as I went through the process of living my life as a transgender woman, I encountered many instances of crisis management. 

Some of the encounters were funny, some were anything but funny. Several come to mind as I write this post. Probably the most humorous account came at the ill fated expense of a water balloon I used as a breast form one night when I was going out to my regular venues I loved the feel of the balloons. They provided a realistic bounce and even matched my body temperature if I filled them with water of a certain temperature. Of course, as I was doing all of this, I knew how fragile my fake breasts would be. And, a night I remember well, it happened, one of my beloved water balloons broke sending water down my clothes. I was lucky in that I was headed from my seat at the bar to the rest room and had just made it to the safety of the women's room, if it was empty at the time. It was empty and it saved me from any rushed explanations of the water which I caused. The only crisis management statement I could come up with was I was pregnant and my water broke. What really happened was, I gathered my one breast self together and left the venue like nothing happened, then headed home determined to find another form of realistic breasts. 

The next  profound crisis management encounter I remember was one of the worst I ever have had. It happened in another venue I went to regularly. After consuming my usual amount of beer, I naturally needed to innocently use the women's room. When I did, I didn't notice the woman who came in after me and I should have. I saw her and an older woman  I perceived to be her Mom come in the door and pass nearby me at the bar. The older woman wasn't shy about glaring at me but kept on going, minding her own business. I should have known my relaxation would come back to haunt me because when I came out of one of the stalls in the restroom, I was confronted by the daughter. Out of the clear blue sky, she started screaming at me and began her tirade by calling me a pervert. 

At first, my fight or flight mechanisms kicked in and my first inclination was to vacate the rest room. Instead, my inner female kicked in and faced the red faced screaming woman. Somehow during her rant, I was able to learn she ran her own hair dresser salon. When she slowed down, I asked her for a business card so I could pass it along to a very influential local LGBTQ organization and naturally tell them about my negative experience with her. It worked because she abruptly stopped and left the rest room while I not so calmly washed my hands, checked my makeup and returned to my seat. The whole experience taught me to always be aware of my surroundings and other potential problem people in it. 

Of course, these two examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dealing with our own brand of trans crisis management. From makeup and fashion  struggles when we first come out of the closet, all the way to unwanted government discrimination, we face it all. I am sure all of you have faced your own crises over the years. Maybe going back all the way to being caught cross dressing in your Mom's or sister's clothes when you were growing up. Surviving it all was the challenge while preserving our mental health. Sadly, with the extremely high rates of suicide in the transgender community, too many don't make it. In fact, we just had a local trans musician commit self harm and die last week. 

Crisis management with all of us just needs to be a priority.