Did I Get it Right?

Out to eat with my wife Liz on left. 

I make no secret of the amount of major moves I needed to make to how I arrived to live my life as a transgender woman. Now at my advanced age of seventy four, I wonder if did I get it right.

Of course like most of you, I needed to give up much more than my unusual white male privileges to transition. Along the way, there were marriages/ spouses, friends, family and job losses to deal with. In other words, many sacrifices to make to follow my gender path. In other ways, destiny and years enabled me to transition to a feminine life. My one big deterrent was my relationship with my second wife who in no uncertain terms was telling me she did not want to live with another woman. In fact she made it abundantly clear she didn't like my woman self at all. Except when she needed help with her make up. What could I say? She was correct when she said she didn't sign up for all the gender issues she was now dealing with in our marriage. 

Most of you know she died suddenly from a massive heart attack. The tragedy freed me up to do my own thing. My own thing turned out to be I quickly turned to my own woman for comfort. I discovered almost immediately, I got it right as I was having the time of my life as I explored a new world as an out transgender woman. 

I also found I got it right when I discovered other women in the world who would accept me without having any knowledge of my old male past. When I did, I was able to really begin to live a new life of my dreams. I also did it right on how I was able to raise my daughter who ended up being one of my biggest supporters to this day. However, I didn't get it right with my brother and his in-laws who roundly rejected me. Sadly, by this time, most all of my very few real friends had passed away so coming out to many people was not a problem. 

So, by waiting so long to complete my male to female gender transition worked out right to me plus, even though I was not enjoying my old male life anymore, I still took advantage of the male privileges I would lose. It finally got to the point it was ridiculous to continue a life anymore split between the two major binary genders. The stress and tension became too much for my mental health to sustain and I tried alcohol to solve my gender problems.

I did it right and stopped drinking as much as I did before I permanently injured my body and when I moved to Cincinnati to live with my future wife Liz. Liz encouraged me to permanently leave my male life behind and live fulltime as a woman with her when she told me she never had seen any male in me at all. Even when I was trying to be.

Finally, I really did it right when I was medically cleared to begin taking gender affirming hormones. My body accepted the changes easily and I loved them. So all in all, I did it right when I decided to transition into a full time transgender woman. Destiny was leading the way the whole time and the only mistake I made was when I tried to get in it's way.

  

 

Then I Went and Did It!

 

Trans Girl image from
Alexander Grey on 
UnSplash.

I played around for nearly a half a century being a very serious cross dresser. Sounds like a long time, doesn't it!

It was while I was doing it but now it seems like it was a blur. Most of it started with all the problems of sneaking around my home when I was growing up. I needed to use a ton of creativity to hide my cross dressing itself and not to mention the clothes I had accumulated. Somehow, I managed to do it all. Who knows, maybe it all made me a better person? I doubt it but at the least, the process helped me to be more creative with my life.

As I progressed slowly with my makeup art and improving my women's fashion choices by going to thrift stores, I found out I could do more. Then I went and did it by going out and testing the public's reaction to me as a novice transgender woman or at the least a skilled cross dresser. I found, the more I did it, the more successful I was and I felt so natural. To me, feeling natural was the best way I knew I was on the correct gender path and I wanted to keep going. Plus, feeling natural, gave me the confidence I needed to always push my gender envelope and try to do more and more. I even changed the way I viewed my Halloween costumes I was choosing. I started to go away from my trashy woman's look and then tried for a more realistic approach. I searched my brain for ideas which allowed me to try to present as a cis-woman at a Halloween party. Again, I went and did it when I succeeded at two parties where I was actually mistaken for a woman. Which in fact I was just learning I was.

By this time, it was too late to turn back and ignore my gender dreams. I was having so much success building a new life as a transgender woman, I just couldn't turn back. Even my sexuality was not a problem when I began to attract more attention from cis-women than I ever had as a man. I was validating myself as my own type of woman through my years of femininization and it felt so right. Then, I went and did it and jumped into the girl's sandbox and after a few bruises was successful. The claw marks I received on my back I felt were all learning experiences and I stayed and eventually held my own. 

All of this led me to my next transgender step of researching the possibility of beginning gender affirming hormones. Then I went and finally did by making my first appointment with a doctor who I heard would prescribe the hormones if a person was healthy. Thank the Goddess I was and the fun started. Like so many others, I needed to begin my hormonal journey on minimal dose of medication until my doctor and I could see how my body reacted. As it turned out, my body took to the new feminization hormones the way I hoped it would. It was like a big I told you so as my body changed. Inside and out. I needed all the help I could get in the appearance department and I was overjoyed when my facial angles softened and my hair quickly grew to a point where wigs became a part of my past. Luckily, my family history had no male pattern baldness for me to deal with. 

Since my overall appearance was becoming highly androgynous, I was loving it, I decided to give up on what was left of my old male life. I was to the point where none of my male shirts fit my breasts anymore, so rather than buy new bigger ones, I decided to go and do it. Give away what was left of my male clothes and live fulltime as a woman, transgender or not I was ready for the world. 

Since I had taken my time to make certain my gender decision was the correct one, I had no problems of never looking back. Many times now, I wish I had the courage to do it sooner and not have to worry about so many then I went and did its. 

Gender Puzzles

Image from Norbu Gyachaung 
on UnSplash

At what age can we act as if we understand our gender issues or dysphoria? Or will it forever be a big gender puzzle.

I suppose I can say, I never really understood exactly why something clicked with me the first time I tried on my Mom's clothes. The whole process caused me to finally understand I put so much into a process of dreaming of a feminine life which turned out to be so big, yet so small. The big view of course was having the success to go forth and conquer a sometimes negative world who was not used to gender explorers. The small view was thinking of all the pieces of the puzzle which allowed me to break out and break free in the world as a transgender woman. Just trying to remember all the facets of living as I do right now sometimes is very intimidating to me. 

Often, I just have to go back to pieces of the gender puzzle I was able to piece together so I could get a glimpse of how the final picture may look like.  I should have saved my energy since I am still putting together the puzzle. Since I don't have the patience for puzzles anyhow, it never mattered to me.  Through it all, the key word was outrageous since I never knew exactly what I was ever doing as I blindly followed my gender dreams. First I had to learn to not be outrageous in my dress and fashion and dress to blend with other women in the public's eye. Not what I thought I looked good as. I could also not be overstated or outrageous in how I acted. Again not to invite unwanted attention to myself. As a male I never liked crowds, so I had to learn all over how to conquer all my fears when I was out in the world with all my male/white privileges stripped away from me. So, outrageous to me at that time in my life was knowing I could indeed make it in the public's eye as a transgender woman.

Then I was back to the damn puzzle. It seemed when I was successful at piecing together one piece of the gender puzzle, I just could not figure out the next piece. Just when I thought I had made it, I was rudely awakened by a gender bigot telling me how much farther I had to go. My biggest example was the night when my wife Liz and I were at an lesbian Valentines Party. At one point, Liz left me alone for a couple of minutes to go get something to eat and in that brief time a lesbian TERF attacked me. She rudely asked me what my "real name" was and was extremely hard to dissuade from attacking me any further until Liz came back to save me. It taught me how far I still had to go in life since I essentially "raised" around accepting lesbians and was naïve when I was confronted.  I found in my new life I was young again and never too experienced to learn.

I was fortunate to finally having the basic resources to piece my life's puzzle together. I learned I could step into the feminine universe briefly then make my way into the larger universe of women eventually. All the nights with friends at the diverse mixer/parties I went to in Columbus, Ohio helped me to see and interact with all levels of the transgender and LGBTQ communities. By doing so, I learned where I belonged with my ongoing puzzle issues. I just knew I was excited often with how my journey was progressing. The problem I was soon experiencing was one which many other of you trans women have. What to do concerning  an unaccepting spouse. Sadly, too many marriages reach the end of the line when the gender rock meets the hard place with a trans spouse when the pressure becomes unbearable.

For the first time in my life, I had to have the patience and resilience to put my gender puzzle together. Now I am down to the final pieces as I reach the final stages of my life. All I can hope for is to pass on to the other side as painless as possible and I hope you are as successful with your gender puzzle as I managed to be.