It Has Never Been a Sprint

 

Image from Marcus
Spiske on UnSplash

A transgender life is never a sprint, it is a marathon. 

From the first time we slide on the hose and view ourselves in a mirror, we never believe the gender journey we have started would last as long as it did. Initially for me, I was on a very short term program when I would cross dress as a girl one day and live off the proverbial buzz until I could follow my dream and cross dress again. 

I wonder now if I had known the journey I followed would have so many bumps in the road and would have lasted so long would I have still done it. On the other hand, I was never a sprinter and a marathon was a closer match to my personality. Plus, there were milestones along the way which kept me going. Very early on, I knew I needed much more than just the feel of women's clothes to propel me forward. There just had to be more than just looking like a girl, I wanted to do more and be a girl. I knew the journey would be difficult and maybe impossible but I needed to keep trying. 

First of all, I needed to learn the basics of feminine appearance so I could safely explore the world as my new exciting self. With no help and very little money, I haunted the thrift stores trying different wardrobe items which were very inexpensive until I finally began to see improvement. My sprint during the time in my life when I was experimenting more and more was exhausting. The one thing which was evident to me was I was on my own. To win or lose was my passion but first I needed to see away around surviving a stint in the military where I could not express my feminine self. Fortunately, I could fall back on what my male self had taught me about internalizing my feelings. During my three years of military service, I managed to survive without cross dressing except for one notable Halloween party which led to me coming out to a few friends of mine as a transvestite. Included in the group of three was a woman who was to become my first wife and the mother of my only child. This brief sprint set the stage for me coming out to others in the future. 

For awhile, I was over confident about others accepting my authentic self until a conversation with my Mom brought me back down to earth. She soundly rejected me and I was off I pursuing my gender marathon again. Even with the set back, I had plenty of energy to move forward. Move forward I did, regardless of living with an unapproving wife. I needed to hide nearly all of what I was doing as I ran my next sprint. 

By this time, my sprints were becoming more defined as  I was increasingly discovering my dream of living a fulltime life as a transgender woman just could be a reality. Next up on my sprint were gender affirming hormones and making the decision to never look back where I had come from as a male and plan ahead a life as a transgender woman. 

The only constant I found on my gender marathon was change. Every time I thought I had it made in the process, something came along to disrupt my thinking. It could be as minor as being mis-gendered in the world or so much more now as I reach the twi-light of my life. Now making it to the finish line of my gender marathon in the best shape possible is my main goal.

Transgender Expectations

 

Picnic Image. My wife Liz on the right.

When I began the long and very difficult transgender journey I decided to take, I had many expectations.

At the time, I was still entranced with wearing all the pretty clothes a woman had access to. I could not wait to have my own wardrobe which would match any occasion from casual to formal. I was very naïve back in those days and thought a woman's life was all about how she looked. I was so wrong as I discovered as I explored more and more of a transgender woman's life. In addition to the layers cis-women went through in their lives, trans women face all of those and more. To begin with, we don't have the benefit of growing up around other girls and learning from them. Making our own way was difficult when the only input was coming from the mirror. 

Loneliness ruled my feminine side all the time my male side was trying his best to survive in the world he never really felt comfortable in. As I observed all the girls around me, my expectations of what their life was all about just increased. The problem was I had a distorted view of everything feminine. One example was I was shy and never liked having to ask a girl out on a date. I thought the whole process was so unfair just like worrying about serving in the military and getting shipped off to Vietnam. 

What I did not realize was the gender grass was not always greener on the feminine side. Was it easier to be the one asking someone out, or waiting for someone to ask you out. As far as the military went, there was nothing I could do about it, so I tried to hide my resentment and move on. 

As I did move on, I discovered many other expectations I never planned on. Communication was one of the major hurdles I needed to overcome before I could learn to live a quality life as a transgender woman. I was blindsided quickly when the public wanted to talk to me faster than I was ready to respond. Initially, before I went through vocal lessons, I tried to just talk in a soft background voice and hope for the best. Trying to match the voice to my appearance was not an expectation I planned on but it happened. It was just all a part of moving out of the mirror and into the world. 

As I matured as a trans woman and started to communicate with other women, I learned the grass was certainly not greener on the feminine side of gender. As I thought back to the Christmas envy I had because of my two girl cousins who were dressed in their new dresses and white tights. Liz ruined my illusions of pleasure when she told me stories of getting in trouble for getting her tights ruined by playing with the boys. 

Even though I found the grass was not greener on the other gender side, the more I learned of the gender differences I faced, the more I wanted to continue my journey. It seemed the more I experienced, I more I felt I had paid my dues as a transgender woman. More or less, as a rite of passage such as a mammogram. 

Since females are not born women but rather socialized into womanhood, transgender women have to go through the same process. By following all those expectations all those years, I finally arrived. The path I followed was difficult but in many ways the same as other women, transgender or not. 

Living in Your Own Prison

 

Image from Engin Akyurt
on UnSplash

When someone says living a life as a transgender woman or trans man is a choice I get a huge chuckle. 

I wish the people who think my life was a choice, needed to live a small time in my shoes and  then they could truly decide my life was never a choice. I was living in my gender prison. In many ways, I could describe my confines to a bigger version of what was called my personal closet. Either way, I was stuck in a very dark and isolated space where I was all alone. Especially in the pre-internet days when I was living.

When the internet came along with social media, I was able to locate a few others who were cross dressers or transgender women , which made life a little easier in my prison. My biggest problem then became hiding my new on-line contacts from my wife who was more tech savvy than I was. Let's just say I needed to learn the hard way when my wife found a discussion I was having with a person in nearby Indiana and I had to become much too comfortable with.

Looking back, I could call the few, brief times when I tried to purge my feminine wardrobe and be a full time man as being out of my prison on parole. The problem was deep down I knew what I was doing was wrong and the pressure would build to build a new feminine wardrobe and try again in front of the mirror. I could almost predict when I would go back to my gender prison. 

Yet another casualty of me serving time in my closet was one I always mention, my mental health. Since it was already fragile and I was going to therapy for help, I didn't need any extra problems to push me closer to the edge.  I was becoming a hot mess as I took more and more chances when I left the house as my novice transgender self and explored the world. The problem became, I was feeling more and more natural when I escaped my prison. Even still, the process was not easy and involved too much scary trial experiences when I first went out. 

The entire process became all I thought about and when I was in my my male mode I caught myself thinking too much of the next time I was going to be able to experience life as a transgender woman. Plus, at the least I was busy studying the mannerisms of all the cis-women around me. I was locked in to one thing only and it was being a woman myself. It was a good thing I had my therapist to talk out my exploding feelings about my gender. 

I guess the only frustrating part of trying to explain to the outside world what it means to be transgender is there was no choice. If I would have continued in my self destructive male ways, I would have killed myself and become yet another statistic. Fortunately, destiny had other ideas for me when I escaped my gender prison and started to live an authentic life as a trans woman. Similar to so many others in the transgender community I was a survivor and thrived when I was free to do so.