The Glare

 

Image from Derek Story
on UnSplash

Last night for the first time in a very long time, I encountered the "Glare."

My wife Liz and I stopped at a fast food place to pick up hamburger sliders to take to her son's apartment for supper. As it turned out, the place was very busy and we needed to wait. Since the majority of the restaurant's business comes from the drive thru and we were ordering a large amount of food, we decided to go inside and order so we wouldn't hold up the drive thru line.

We soon found out coming inside didn't help us get our food any faster and we waited, waited and waited. Since my career was in the restaurant business and partially in fast food, I could see the crew was not loafing and trying their best to turn the orders out. So while the manager was being abused by others who called ahead, we waited patiently. 

While we waited, we did fill up our drink glasses from the self serve soft drink machine. Maybe I should have mentioned, I did not dress up at all for the occasion. wearing only leggings and a t-shirt with my hair pulled back and no makeup. So my expectations were low I would happen upon no one who would matter to me and I did not think I would be out of the car for any length of time anyhow. All was good until I turned around from the drink machine was confronted head on by the "Glare." All I saw across the mainly deserted dining room was this woman glaring at me. I met her glare and stared right back until she looked away. She never looked back, so I guess I won the battle of her wondering who I was at all. 

Then I began to think maybe her life was miserable to start with and here she was spending date night with her husband at a slider palace. Perhaps she was giving me that look because we were blocking her access to the drink machine. Whatever the case, we went on our separate ways. As I said, I hoped her evening would improve her disposition. However I knew the area of the county we were in and there are many many right winged rednecks, so I am always on my best behavior.

The sliders went to a good home at Liz's son's house and we watched a movie .

In other more positive news, I am awaiting news on my upcoming interview with a monthly state wide LGBTQ Ohio publication. It was set up by the Alzheimer's Association after they learned of my passion for quality elderly care especially when it comes to transgender patients. The interview went so well, the interviewer wanted to possibly interview my daughter also concerning her experiences with a transgender child. Since she is very private, I doubt if she follows through but we will see.

I also learned the date of the first LGBTQ support group meeting, it is August sixteenth and will be interesting how well attended it is. Sadly, previous meetings have been dominated by less than quiet transgender individuals. More than a few of them seemed to have mental issues which chased away some of the other gay or lesbian attendees. I am far from a trans elitist but I know when enough is enough when it comes to pointless conversation.  Or, at the least, the meetings exposed the differences in the so called close LGBTQ community when in fact we have little in common. You may ask why do I go?  I go to the support group meetings mainly out of curiosity to see if anything has changed, so again we shall see. Hope springs eternal. 

In the meantime, back to reality. Maybe someday my hope will spring eternal and I can go out into the public's eye without being but it is like my ex-sister in law who refused to leave the house without makeup. I should have learned from her and perhaps I wouldn't have to face the "Glare."

Legacy?

Messy Office, Messy Mind?

As I see it, leaving a legacy is mostly a male topic.

Little did I know, being a transgender woman was probably the only legacy I could leave with my only child (daughter) and my three grand-kids. As it turned out, I did not have much else to offer. Especially not the usual male attributes such as wealth, possessions etc. A prime example was my Dad who was a self made man. Building his own house and rising to the position of bank president, mainly with just a high school education. 

Along the way, I was surprised to learn one of my grand-kids is transgender, so all of a sudden I became a role model. A role I never thought I would have during all the years of struggle I went through as I transitioned from my old unwanted male life. It turned out in many ways, I proved to my grand-kids anything was possible if they wanted it bad enough. And I was fortunate in that my daughter accepted me the way she did and wanted to share my new self with the kids. So I could not run away and hide. 

I was so successful, I made it to heights I never asked for or ever thought I could achieve. Without a doubt the biggest one when two years ago I received my first Mother's Day card and gift. The card brought me to tears because it was something I never asked for. It meant to me I made it to the pinnacle of my gender transgender transition. 

Adding to my legacy is a year long project my daughter gifted me this Mother's Day from a company who takes questions about me from the family for the duration and then combines them all into a book. When it is completed, I will have had the chance to write about myself and maybe equally as important, is the fact the kids will have the chance to learn about their great grandparents who they did not know anything about. It is important for me to be some sort of a bridge from the "Greatest Generation" my parents were part of to the kids of today. The entire gift is quite the chance to explain my legacy to my daughter and grand-kids. Since I have a degree in history from college, the entire process is important to me.

Legacy was something I had given up on when I left my male life behind. I thought no one would care. When it turned out they did, I was impressed and needed to change my attitude completely. In a way, all of a sudden having family care about my life made me proud of my gender accomplishments.  I indeed would have a legacy as a transgender woman past just someone who changed their name in the family bibles. 

Years ago, a friend of mine did a deep dive family tree research on my families, mother and father and found we had a revolutionary war relative. Perhaps now in the future, after I am gone, some other person with gender issues will read my story and understand they are not the first, not alone and can be successful living the life they want to live. 

  

Transgender Confidence

From the Archives, banquet image.
My wife Liz on left.

One of the most important accessories we can chase as a transgender woman or trans man is confidence. Especially when success is never guaranteed. 

Finding confidence is often very difficult when you are crossing the gender border. You can succeed in the public's eye for awhile, only to crash and burn in a moment of weakness.  It turned out there were so many points to consider when you are transitioning. It's always one thing to appear as a woman and another to walk and talk as one. If you are familiar with the term "muscle memory", very simply means keep doing something until you get it right and it describes perfectly the process of entering the sacred spaces of a gender you only dreamed of. In my case, there were plenty of girl's nights out and rest room visits to provide me the confidence to keep moving forward and challenging myself. Another problem of sorts I had was experiencing too much gender euphoria. Many times, I forgot where I was and resorted back to my old male self without thinking of it. 

When I did fall back into my old male ways, I often thought the whole gender transition process I was in was never going to make it. Had I spent too many years working hard to make it in a male world to ever change. Another problem I had was I was still living part time as a man so everytime I had mastered any aspect of being feminine, I lost most of it when I went back to being a man. It was similar to a child in school who forgets most anything they learned during a summer break. It was very frustrating for me to keep starting from the beginning again and again which was shattering my confidence.

Finally I tipped the balance in my gender world where I was living more feminine than masculine. I could make real progress in what I really wanted to do which was follow my dream to live as a fulltime transgender woman.  Most importantly, I was feeling natural when I did it and the increased confidence followed. When I was invited into the so-called sacred women only spaces, I discovered why they were or weren't sacred at all. First of all, I knew women didn't always keep their restroom as pristine as men thought they did from all my years running restaurants/bars but, on the other hand was totally unprepared to have to look other women in the eye and speak when I was in the women's room. For the most part I was very successful except for the notable occasion when I had the police called on me. Naturally, my confidence was shattered for quite a while after that. On the other hand, there was no way I was going to go back to using the men's room when I was dressed as my authentic self.

When someone asks me how I developed the confidence to progress in my gender transition, the easiest thing I can say is, I had a single minded desire to keep trying until I made it. Sure the gender affirming hormones helped but I needed to go through therapy to earn them from the Veteran's Administration health care system. Which proved to be a positive experience for me. As I pointed out in yesterday's post, I kept working towards my dream until destiny showed me the way to success. Plus, I can never forget to point out, I had a small group of women around me who showed me the way. Even to the point of believing in me when I was faltering. They refused to believe I ever was the old male person I was desperately trying to leave behind. I guess you could say I had a tremendous peer group. 

It always took quite the effort to put him behind me and tears were shed along the way. To be on this journey you sometimes have to be selfish and one sided to make it but that is just the nature of the beast. When you do arrive, sometimes you are fortunate enough to forget the selfish days and pay your life's knowledge forward. 

It takes all the confidence you can muster to correct a gender situation you never asked for into a positive. With a little, or lot of willpower you can make it to your dream.