Gender Anxieties or Paradise

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During my gender transition, all the way to today, I have experienced my share of anxieties.

Early examples revolved basically around the way I looked when I was cross dressed in my very limited feminine wardrobe. I kept telling myself I was OK when I with my cross dressing and I was for a couple of days before my gender anxiety returned. Making me difficult to live with. Paradise was fleeting and hard to find. 

Much later on in life, when I began to try out the public's perception of me, the whole process was anxiety ridden. When I used to shop till I dropped in clothing stores, my feminine life was easy because everyone was just interested in selling me something. Or I was in thrift stores where the clerks barely looked at me at all. Maybe because they were used to waiting on cross dressers? Very soon I came away with feeling no anxiety at all when I shopped so I felt I needed to challenge myself further. I needed to see if it would ever be possible to live my dream of being a full-time transgender woman. It was close to this time also when I began to seriously challenge the world as a woman at various Halloween parties I went to. Most of them happened when I was married to my first wife who knew I was a crossdresser  when I married her, so there were no surprises when she saw the "costume" I settled on. 

Even at Halloween, I experienced growth with my gender issues. When I dressed trashy, early on, I was treated the same way but when I decided to see if I could present as a business woman at the party, I was treated with more respect and even surprise at my true gender. Little did I know at the time when I dressed as a woman, I was presenting as my true gender. Very quickly I learned, Halloween was never enough and I needed to express my authentic self as a woman more than once a year. When I did, I began to do more of the household grocery shopping as a novice transgender woman as well as haunting the antique malls and bookstores for the perfect gift for my wife. Anything to take me out of my male comfort zone. When I was successful I was in paradise and when I failed, of course the opposite occurred and  I was sent back to my gender drawing board to re-think my plans. Could I ever make it to my dream the way I was heading. 

Spoiler alert, I could and did make it. Somehow and through the help of therapy I was able to work my way through a large amount of my gender anxiety. My therapist helped me to realize there was absolutely nothing wrong with my transgender desires. Which was as close as she could come to telling me I should proceed with my dreams. Paradise was reachable if I wanted to pursue it farther and I had already accomplished most of the hard work. I had established myself a foothold in the world as a transgender woman and it felt so good and natural, so what was I waiting for.

The answer to what was I waiting for was the outside chance my male self would finally get on board with my decision. He didn't and hung on to the bitter end. In fact he tried to ruin my transition all the way to when I was medically approved to begin gender affirming hormones or HRT. What happened was, the HRT changes were so dramatic, even my male self needed to finally give up and go away. He finally did, leaving most all of my gender anxiety behind and replacing it with a lifetime of feeling freedom such as I had never felt before. 

I had paid my dues and it was time to move on.

Mental versus Physical

Archive Image
Ohio River in
background.

Is presenting as a woman when you are born male more of a mental or a physical effort?

I think, in my case, I started out with a more physical experience and then moved on to a more mental one. Possibly, it is because it took me so long to grasp the idea I was more of a transgender person in the making and not a cross dresser. I have nothing against cross dressing but it just was not for me. I wanted to go past just looking feminine to being feminine. Sadly, because of the lack of information and other excuses, it took me decades to understand myself. During those times I tried anything I could to resolve my gender pain I was feeling. 

What I did not understand was the amount of pain I was feeling was due to the transition from being a physical appearing woman to a mental operating one. Walking the walk and talking the talk with the public as a novice transgender woman certainly took a toll on me mentally. Finally I was coming closer and closer to solving all the public gender issues I was feeling. Walking and moving as a woman started to feel more natural but communicating with the world as a trans woman was much more problematic. I was very self conscious about the tone of my voice among other things. 

Another concept I did not consider was for the longest time I tried to fool the public into thinking I was a cis-woman. Instead of just resulting to being my natural feminine self. When the public interacted with the real physical person who was me, women in particular were intrigued with me and wanted to know what I was doing in their world. When they learned, I was not up to no good, the response was for  the most part positive. At that point, the mental aspect had to kick in with being transgender. I needed to work on what I was going to do with my old unwanted male self and decide what sort of a life I was going to build for an exciting future.

How I appeared to the world as my physical feminine self was still important and I am not saying it still is not. It just that is much of my appearance became easier to approach because I was all of a sudden I was just dressing to blend in with the rest of the feminine population. An example was this morning when I did not have to put on a fresh face of makeup and a dress to make the short trip to the street curb to pick up the trash cans and bring them back to the house. I could do what the neighbor lady does and just pull her hair back, throw on a pair of jeans and get the cans. This is an extreme example I know but a realistic one when the mental part of being transgender meets the physical part. 

When the two aspects did come together, my life improved dramatically also. There was less stress on my mental health primarily when my feminine inner self took over. It was as if she was saying what took so long. The main reason I took so long to transition was I ran from the gender truth I was feeling for all those years. I should have realized I was born to be a girl/woman long before I did. I did not and paid the price.

I also do not feel good about convincing people like my first two wives to come along through my turmoil. I convinced them I was just a casual cross dresser at the beginning and I was trying not to go further into a transgender world. It was unfair to all of us, Since  I was the driving force in both relationships, it was up to me to do better. Instead, I decided to take the lonely gender path for most of my life. Until I could put the mental and physical aspects of being a transgender woman together and discovered I could settle in and live a good life.      

A Trangender Happy Place?

 

Picnic Image from the Archives. 
Liz on right. 

Is there really ever a "happy place" to be considered if you are a transgender woman or a transgender man.

During our lives, we go through so much turmoil and change, we have very little chance to be happy with our choices. Primarily because we enter our interactions with others in a dramatic way. A prime example is the swapping of gender privileges. I remember vividly the night I lost a portion of my intelligence when I attempted to talk about a topic I knew quite a bit about with a man, It was the opposite of the intimidation a trans man friend I know told me about his new communication skills with other men, including rest room visits. Up to the point of me thinking initially the only privilege I was gaining was having men open the door for me. Later I learned I was wrong, there were other more substantial privileges to be gained by joining the world of women. They were just hidden from me and I needed to earn it. 

All the gender privileges in the world I found could not make me happy. Of course I could trace my search of the illusive happiness back to my up bringing. Being happy was not a priority in our family and I did not know how to be happy. So it took me years to at the least be satisfied with my gender transition process but not happy. I just had to be willing to take the walk. Since the walk included many ups and downs, my happy place still was difficult to find. Also, per norm, I was doing my transition different than many others. 

Examples are how I found other women who accepted me for who I was. I did it by going out repeatedly as a single transgender woman and risking the inherent danger in doing so. I was lucky and escaped several potential risks to my personal safety when I did it. The small circle of friends I found and I consumed way too much alcohol and drove all too frequently. Something I do not recommend to anyone. Another chance I took was going on line dating sites to try to find a partner since I was so lonely. Predictably, I was hammered by trash and less than stable responses. Plus, when I refused to meet up with the occasional local person who responded to me, unless we met first in a public spot, I was met with no shows or some squirrely guy who wanted to wear my panties. Not to mention the guys who were married. One of which I had a fabulous date night with but I knew there was no future. 

Through it all, I was still thinking I could find happiness. Somehow, I knew happiness could be around the next corner of the path I was on and was I blaming I could not be happy because I was transgender. Quoting "Jelly Roll" there was a very dark hallway between my ears. I needed to give up any ideas of impostor syndrome when I was successful in the world of women. I could not be happy until I gave up all of the guilt. After all, I was not doing anything wrong when I just was attempting to leave my old male self behind and live as my authentic self. 

All of this leads me to the question, am I happy now and does a transgender happy place really exist. While I am satisfied with my life as it exists now, I still work at being happy. For me happiness will be a learned response I can blame my parents for and not a result of being transgender. In fact, more than a few of the moments I call gender euphoria (or happiness) came because of my gender journey. 

The problem with envisioning a life of not having gender issues is impossible for me because I have always lived with it and it was never a choice. So I am biased that a happy transgender place has been very difficult for me, I have partially lit the dark place between my ears and am constantly searching for more.