Growing into the Problem

Image from Karla Hernandez 
on UnSplash.

 Back in the day when I was growing up as a young gender dysphoric person, I felt I had been able to hide my femininization efforts from the rest of the family.

For years and years, I lived under the impression I was successful. After all, I was doing my best to compete in all the basics I needed to fit with a demanding, unwanted male world. I was born into an extended male dominated family, so there was considerable pressure to conform as one of the oldest sons of three competitive uncles. 

Along the way, my main goal was to properly hide my small but growing collection of feminine clothes and makeup. I used every cent of my allowance money plus money I earned from delivering the local newspaper to rural neighbors. I thought I was successful because I was never confronted by primarily my Mom about what was going on with me. Remember also, this all occurred during the late 1950's and early 60's. Information on gender issues was for the most part non existent and was considered to be a mental illness which was even worse. 

I think now, if indeed I was ever "discovered" as a truthful cross dresser, my Mom who essentially took on the major role of raising my brother and I, just decided I would just grow out of it. Plus, she may have thought I had some sort of fetish for woman's clothes rather than the deeper issue of wanting to be a girl. It could be described as kicking the rock or can down the road just hoping it would go away.

Instead of going away for me, I grew into the problem but it took me years of wasted time and effort to take advantage of my gender growth spurts. I say "spurts" because of the time I took fighting my transgender issues at all. Keep in mind too, I am referring to at over a half century of my life. Quite a bit of time to consider mistakes and successes when it came to accepting and then growing into my considerable gender dysphoria. For me, gender dysphoria could be described as looking in the mirror one day and seeing a feminine face then the next seeing a masculine one. The whole process just destroyed my fragile mental health. At the point, I sought out therapy to help me. Which provided me with various amounts of relief. 

I had one male therapist who told me to ignore the problem, all the way to a gender therapist who told me the truth. I needed to learn to live with being transgender because it wasn't going away. Easier said than done for me because I was too stubborn to listen to the advice I was paying for. 

True gender growth for me didn't really begin until I started to escape my dark closet and began to explore the feminine world. Of major importance was the fact I finally outgrew what I call my cross dressing fashion adolescence. In other words, I stopped trying to dress as a teenager who was able to wear revealing or even sexy fashions. On the other hand, I just looked ridiculous or even trashy. Once I learned to dress for my age and body style, my presentation as a novice transgender woman improved and my new public life improved dramatically. I was growing into my so-called gender problem. I grew so fast, plus with the help of others, I discovered I didn't have a problem at all. 

Once I grew into my "problem" I discovered a wonderful world I had only dreamed of. I was even able to bring a substantial amount of my old male life with me and carefully weave it into a new existence previously dominated by my old male self but then taken over by my new feminine one. She quickly proved to me, she knew what she wanted in life and had learned from all those years of  rejection. She was like I told you so. 

Now I am not sure all the time and effort I took to grow into the problem was worth it. Many times I wish I wasn't so stubborn and had taken the time to listen to my feminine reality and just went ahead and transitioned into a transgender world.  

As always, thank you for following along with all my experiences here on the blog! I appreciate your time!  

My Second Gender Transition

Liz on Left. Image from a Banquet we 
attended. From the Archives. 

 I am a firm believer,  I went through more than one major transition when it came to building a new life as a transgender woman. Many transitions were helped along by friends and others I accomplished on my own. 

One of the biggest I did all by myself was one I mention quite often. It was the night I went to TGIF Fridays close to me. Just going was not so amazing, in fact, I had been to the venue many times as my male self. When I was there, I often was very jealous of all the other women I saw there, many of which were dressed in fashion I could only dream of. 

All of a sudden, I decided to make my dreams a reality and one night I set out on an adventure which I would never forget and would change my life forever. I can't really tell you why but something clicked deep inside me and I decided it was time for me to move away from being a cross dresser and explore my possible existence in a transgender world. The whole possibility terrified me more than anything else I had ever tried before in my life. Possibly because I knew if I was successful there would be no turning back. 

To begin with, I had the wardrobe I needed to wear to blend into the feminine environment I was headed. I knew the Friday's venue I was going to had a very woman based clientele which came every night at approximately the same time from a large mall which was nearby. I knew exactly, who I was trying to blend in with when I chose what I was going to wear. I chose my dressy black pantsuit, black flats, sensible makeup along with my shoulder length honey blonde wig. I felt I looked presentable enough to accomplish my goal of moving into the transgender world I was just beginning to explore. 

Once I came up with a time I could sneak out for a trip into the unknown when my wife was working late, I began the transformative femininization process. Once I thought I looked fairly presentable, I left for the twenty minute trip to the venue. Through it all, I was scared but not as scared as I would be when I arrived at the Fridays. When I pulled into the parking lot, I ended up waiting over a half a hour as I adjusted my hair and makeup in my car's rearview mirror. Once I came to the point where I could barely breathe, I opened the car door and gathered myself the best as possible. After all, I had improved from the point of not being to breathe at all to being able to walk in the front doors. 

Since I managed a similar casual dining venue to a Fridays I knew the setup, Essentially, once I made it past the hostess stand, all I had to hope for was being able to find a vacant seat at the bar. I was lucky I arrived shortly before the rush and there were several seats available. The Fridays I was going to had not remodeled yet so it had two big supports on either end of the bar. I was so scared and so lucky, I was able to get a seat next to one of these supports. I got as close as I could and tried to hide until I was approached by a friendly bartender and order a drink. From that point forward, I knew my life had changed forever. Just existing as a woman among other women in a public setting had removed any idea's of being a casual cross dresser ever again. 

In a moment, my second gender transition had taken place. My first came years previous in my youth when I viewed myself as a girl in the hallway mirror. Plus, deep down I knew the next transition I would undertake would be if I could ever undertake gender affirming hormones or HRT as it was known as back in those days. My visit to Fridays that night jump started my gender future. My problem then became how I would ever be able be able to co-exist with my un-approving wife ever again. She was certainly against being with another woman. Especially if the woman was me. So my second transition was heaven for my inner woman and hell for my wife and my marriage.  

Of course, I was able to transition even further with hormonal therapy and go on to lead a comforting transgender life. Going through the process was always not the easiest and I will always remember how I felt that night at Fridays from trying to hide behind a post all the way to how my panty hosed feet felt in my flats. It was quite the evening.

Transgender Lables

 

Hunter Schaefer at the Oscars.

Spoiler alert, this post contains unfortunate stereotypes. 

The subject I am attempting to write about is about what actress Hunter Shafer said recently. I paraphrase but essentially she said she had turned down many transgender acting roles because she did not want to be stereotyped as a transgender actress in the future. She wants to be known as a woman only. 

In the first place, we all should be as fortunate as Shafer is to possess as much passing privilege as she has. I am sure in any situation, no one is saying "Hey! That's a guy," 

Now, that is the easy part of the post. Secondly, does she have any responsibility to the rest of the transgender world to keep the trans part of her name?  No she doesn't but the whole idea of exactly who is a woman was brought up again in the public's eye. In my case, I have always thought achieving the title of woman is a matter of socialization in life. Just being born female doesn't guarantee a person will ever make it into womanhood. The same goes for birthing children. My second wife never gave birth but in itself, that did not make her less of a woman. To be fair, many males never grow into being men either. Often becoming the toxic males we read so much about.

Then, there is the subject of gender surgeries. It used to be, some transsexual women looked down on all of us who did not have any surgeries at all. Viewing any and all transgender women as little more than glorified cross dressers or transvestites. At the time, as I was exploring what I wanted to do with my gender life, I saw no problem with fitting into their stereotype, even though I resented it and thought it was wrong. As the years went by, I resisted giving up all my male privilege I worked so hard to obtain and had no gender related surgeries at all. If it makes me less of a transgender woman in some people's eyes, so be it. I was still able to navigate the world as a feminine person, or, as my trans friend Racquel said I passed out of sheer willpower.

Of course I don't know Hunter Shafer but I respect her opinion to be referred to as only a woman, not as a transgender woman. After all, who would not want the same privilege after waking up in the morning and looking like her? On the other hand, there are zillions of women who don't have the same passing privilege's as she does and Hunter has been able to bring into some sort of focus what being a woman is all about. 

As we all walk our gender journeys, we have to come to our own conclusions concerning womanhood or manhood if you are a trans man. It is certainly more than how we look or what restroom we use. It involves life itself. For the sake of discussion, I hope Hunter Schafer's next acting role is of a so called cis-woman, she has paid her dues. 

Sadly being transgender will always be a weight we all will have to carry throughout our lives no matter how we look or how many surgeries we have undertaken. Personally, I don't need an actress to inspire me to be a woman instead of a transgender woman. I have made the decision for myself. I am just me. Looks don't make a transgender person. Your soul does.